Draco Malfoy

Father had been irritated for a large amount of the Christmas break. Draco tried to understand why his father was irritated and it all seemed to stem from his failure to befriend Potter and Potter's blonde friend. Father seemed convinced that despite the two ending up in Gryffindor, they were still the next Lord Voldemort and Aunt Bellatrix, with Potter being the Aunt in this case. Getting close to them was going to be difficult with the way things were, but hopefully the bribes, or tokens of humble esteem as Father would call them, would get his foot in the door.

"Something wrong?" Vincent asked.

"Hm? No," Draco said, shaking his head. "Just thinking."

Vincent grunted before pulling out a deck of exploding snap cards. "Want to play?"

"No, you two have fun." Draco turned to watch the countryside pass by. The fields white with the occasional tree standing proud. Empty of the cattle or crops that would make the land they passed home during warmer months, all put away into warmer hiding places.

There was no telling how things would go once he was back at school. Becoming friendly with Gryffindors would be putting Draco's neck on the line socially within Slytherin House, but Potter's social status was not fully known currently. Everyone wanted to know the Boy-Who-Lived better and few were able to.

Draco had wanted to offer a hand of friendship to Potter before school had started, but no one knew which cabin he had been hiding in and when they arrived at the school and had a moment to try to find him, everyone was distracted by speculating how they would be sorted.

There was a rumor that Degurechaff said the hat was willing to put her into any of the houses. Draco was sorted into Slytherin right away, as was only right, but he did remember that she took a while to be sorted. Harry also took some time to be sorted as well. Even that Granger girl was a hat staller. Could it be that all of them could go into any of the houses?

Draco bit his thumb as he thought about this. Slytherin was the house of Noble Purebloods, but that wasn't the only thing the sorting looked for. It was cunning and ambitious. Degurechaff was certainly very cunning in how she got Professor Snape to become the Theater Club advisor. Potter hadn't shown any particular cunning outside of staying close to Degurechaff, but he might be ambitious and have plans on how to use his fame.

And their pet mudblood, she was clearly very intelligent and could have obviously been sorted into Ravenclaw. Probably should have been sorted there. Maybe that was her game, she convinced the hat to put her into Gryffindor for some reason that would further whatever her ambition was. Draco scowled around his thumb as he realized he was going to have to spend time around a mudblood if he was going to do as his Father wanted. Hopefully he wouldn't catch anything from her.

An announcement came over the speakers, letting the passengers know that they would be arriving in five minutes to Hogwarts. Draco straightened himself up to keep his presentation of a respectable Pureblood while Vincent and Gregory finished up their game.

After pulling into the station, Draco led the way off the train with Crabbe and Goyle flanking his sides. As soon as he stepped off the train, he spotted Degurechaff being assaulted by the energetic Moon girl. Draco was about to walk away, unsure of how to approach the Lions when he was spotted and Degurechaff managed to break away from Moon.

Draco braced himself mentally for what was about to happen. Degurechaff approached with a smile. Why did she smile with so many teeth? It was not a nice smile and a shiver of fear ran down Malfoy's spine. A shiver he hid knowing he had two big strong boys at his side and for all of the rumors around her, Degurechaff was still just a little girl.

"Malfoy, thank you for the gift, and your apology is accepted." Draco could feel Vincent and Gregory looking at him, not knowing what they should do.

"Good. I'm glad you got it and liked it," Draco said, hiding how he was feeling with a polite smile of his own that was met with an outstretched hand.

"I am willing to accept your attempt at friendship at face value, but we will need to work on how you make new friends," Degurechaff explained before looking at Draco's companions. "I understand it might be difficult to make new friends if you already have a long established friend group."

Draco reached out slowly and clasped his hands with Degurechaff. "Uh, yeah. That, uh, sounds good."

This bribing thing was easier than Father made it out to be. Draco was already achieving the closeness he needed.

"As we are going to be on friendly terms, feel free to call me Tanya." Degurechaff held her hand out towards Crabbe and Goyle. "You may as well."

"And you can call me Draco." Draco gave his companions a look and nod.

"Uh, Gregory." "Vincent."

With the fresh introductions out of the way, Tanya nodded as though satisfied with how things went.

"I will talk with you later," she said. "Lily seems interested in telling me all about her Christmas and it is better to let her get it out now."

With that, Tanya turned and left, leaving the three Slytherin boys awkwardly standing on the station before they began shuffling off towards the castle.

"What gift did you get her?" Gregory asked after a few moments.

"Some coffee set."

—-

Lily Moon.

Lily was happy to be back at Hogwarts with her friends and professors and the ghosts and pictures and that one statue of a bird on a wall that asks really smart questions that Lily hasn't been able to answer any of yet. Christmas break was a lot of fun! And Lily had so many things to tell her friends and the bird statue and the nicer portraits that actually talked to her. Like how her family went skiing and they saw a guy run into a tree, the ramp jump she did that made her belly feel like she was in the flying class or yummy hot cocoa with peppermint marshmallows. There are marshmallows with extra candy in them!

Hogwarts looked so pretty covered in snow, the castle all sparkly and shiny with icicles hanging off of the overhanging bits and the carriages from the train station with a dusting of snow were so pretty. Daddy would probably say something more descriptive that would match the prettiness of everything.

"Hey Tanya, watcha lookin' at?" Lily asked her super serious friend who was looking in front of the carriages at nothing.

"These pegasuses… pegasi?" Tanya said, indicating the air in front of them before beginning to climb into the carriages herself. "I had heard of winged horses like these, but I was under the impression that the wings would be feathered, not bat-like."

Lily gave her friend a confused look. "Is this a game? I don't see any pegasooses."

"You don't see the pegasus that is pulling our carriage?"

"No. Don't the carriages get pulled by magic?"

"Hmm." Tanya leaned back into her seat as she got a thinking look to her. "Maybe we should ask Mr. Hagrid about it. He is supposed to take care of the grounds, right? He should know how these carriages work."

"Ok!" Lily excitedly said. "Did you have a good Christmas?"

Tanya nodded her head as the carriage rattled into motion. "Yes. I was surprised at all the gifts I received and the Christmas feast was delicious. How about you?"

"It was great! We went skiing and there was a goat…"

The two passed the time in the carriage with Lily regaling Tanya of all the things that happened while Tanya stayed mostly silent, only speaking up to prompt Lily to talk more.

The first half of the year was so much fun and the second half was looking to be great too.

—-

Tanya Degurechaff

Inviting Draco to the Gryffindor table for breakfast the first day of the spring semester was met with resistance from several individuals. Ron was placated with a reminder that if he wanted to be Head Boy he would be representing the whole school and working with all the houses, not just Gryffindor. Draco was reminded that he was attempting to join an established friend group and it would be wise not to antagonize others before really getting to know them and where the lines were. The girls kept their own conversations going while Harry sat there looking uncomfortable, but he at least tried being friendly by starting up a discussion about quidditch.

That seemed to break the ice enough for Seamus and Dean to get involved in the conversation, while I tuned out of that and focused on Hermione's thoughts about the upcoming lesson plans and the study group.

"We should meet up in one of the empty classrooms. That should give us enough space with Draco, Gregory, and Vincent joining us." I turned towards the three boys in question. "Speaking of which, bring your midterm tests with you too, let's go with one of the empty classrooms on the second floor. On the left side. Same with the rest of you. That should give us a good direction of where to help you all with your school work."

With plans made, it was time to enjoy the school day as intended, learning valuable lessons that will be important for our future endeavors.

—-

Severus Snape

Returning to the droll and drudgery of teaching with yet another semester spent in Hogwarts after an enjoyable month of being able to lock himself away in his lab for most of each day left Professor Snape in an annoyed mood as he focused on his food. Snape usually sat himself by Flitwick in the hopes of even a hint of intellectual conversation, but upon being bothered by the diminutive teacher, Snape's annoyance came to the forefront as his gaze was directed out into the milling mass of children.

Out in the sea of dunderheads and sniveling fools sat his godson, not at the table of the House of Snakes, but with the first year Gryffindors. Sitting and talking and looking like he wasn't in need of having his head extracted from his bottom as placed by his fill of a father.

"Isn't that nice, students crossing House lines to eat together," Flitwick said with an over excited clap and his voice high pitched from the joy.

"Yes, absolutely wonderful," Snape snarled out, attempting to focus on the porridge in front of him.

"Oh, don't be like that. It's good to see them actually have interactions before they try dating."

Snape leveled a glare at Flitwick, being reminded rather harshly of his own failed attempt at dating someone not in Slytherin while he was in school.

The smile slowly fell off of Flitwick's face. "Still? I know it hurts. She was such a gifted student, but it has been ten years. I doubt she would want to see her childhood friend mourning her this long."

Snape did not respond, turning his glower towards his porridge and attacking it, ignoring the sigh and head shake Flitwick gave.

—-

Hermione Granger

Looking over the midterm tests returned showed Hermione, Tanya, and Draco were the top three students across the board among the study group and Vincent, Gregory, and Lily barely passing. Or, Hermione should correct herself looking at Lily's Charms test, Vincent and Gregory were barely passing.

Looking up, Hermione joined the other Gryffindors in concern about the furious look on Tanya's face.

"Hermione, Draco, as the two with the best results, you are in charge of the study group." Standing up, Tanya seemed to tower over everyone with her presence. "Vincent, Lily, Gregory. You three with me, now."

Lily stood up slowly, her eyes wide as she swallowed heavily. Vincent and Gregory looked towards each other before looking to Draco.

"Go. We'll talk about this later," Draco said with a lot less confidence than he normally showed.

Once the four were out of the room, Lavender let out a long low whistle.

"Glad that isn't me," Parvati said with a shiver.

Harry and Ron breathed out a sigh of relief and nodded their heads in agreement.

"What's she going to do with them?" Draco asked, looking around at the Gryffindors, false bravado returning to his voice.

"We don't know," Hermione answered after a moment. "We've never seen her angry before. We should probably get started though."

"So, how does this work?" Draco asked, looking around the group.

"We start by picking a subject. We then go over the assignment and all work on it at the same time and if anyone has any confusion over something, they can ask aloud and we discuss it."

"But we don't have any assignments yet."

Hermione felt a sly smile come to her face. "Sure we do. We just don't have any work to do on it. Just discussing it." Hermione held up her own perfect copy of the charms test. "Let's start with Charms today as everyone scored the highest there."

Getting down to work, the students went question by question. If everyone got it right, they would see if anyone wanted to say anything about it before moving on. If someone did get an answer wrong, they would see where the answer was wrong and go over the correct answer and how to remember it for the future.

After some time, the results of the tests were finished being examined with the questions multiple people had issues with noted down by Hermione to be gone over again at a later time. From there, discussions drifted onto other topics with Draco being pulled into a game of chess against Ron. A game that Ron was having more difficulty winning than usual by Hermione's guess.

After finally trapping Malfoy's king into a checkmate, Ron noticed how late it was getting. "What's taking Tanya so long?"

Malfoy was scowling at the board while the Gryffindors looked at each other nervously.

"Maybe we shou-" Harry stated before the classroom door opened and a trio of dead eyed students stumbled into the room, slow shuffles as they groaned at others, followed by a short stern looking blonde.

"We will continue tomorrow," Tanya told Crabbe and Goyle. She then turned her attention to Malfoy. "I hope you had a good time with the study group."

"Yes, it was not unpleasant." Malfoy shrugged as he gathered his things and stood up. "I should probably head back."

With the Slytherins leaving, everyone turned to look at the seemingly exhausted form of Lily, flopped over a desk and groaning.

"Whatcha do to her?" Ron asked, looking at Tanya.

"She helpfully explained that during the test she got nervous and forgot everything she learned. I simply was helping ensure she wouldn't forget it next time and won't be nervous during the next test."

A long groan came from the sprawled form of Lily, causing Ron, Neville, and Parvati to nervously shift in their seats.

"We should probably get back to the Common Room before curfew hits," Hermione said, going to help Lily up.

"No more brain slugs mommy," Lily mumbled out as she was escorted back.

—-

Tanya Degurechaff

Quidditch practice began swiftly in the spring semester with the Gryffindor/Hufflepuff game being within weeks of the semester starting. A good excuse to get on my broom and fly around for a bit, though I would prefer to do that without having to deal with all the balls and the open skies above a sports pitch. Racing through trees and obstacles was far more exhilarating, tight corners and narrowly dodging branches to get through tight spaces being a much more rewarding challenge than noticing a heavy ball was coming towards you and rolling out of the way.

At least the practice was a good way to help my housemates. Speaking of, "Ron! Quidditch practice."

Ron was playing chess with Neville, not paying attention to the time at all.

"Huh? But I'm not on the team," Ron was frowning as he replied to me.

"You want to be the quidditch captain, right? Well you need to be at practice to get the experience. Now come on. I'm sure you two can finish that later."

"It's fine." Neville knocked his king over, surrendering the game. "I'm sure I was going to lose anyways."

Neville's self confidence was something that would need to be addressed. Gryffindor House was the home of the brave and bold and a shrinking violet would not give off the right impression. For now though, it was Ron's time for improvement. Oliver was sure to be happy to ensure the future of Gryffindor's quidditch success was in good hands.

"So, uh, do you know what you will be working on?" Ron asked as we headed down to the pitch.

"No. That is for the captain to know and to tell us. What do you think we should work on?"

I would not know if Ron's suggestions were the most ideal, but utilizing the Socratic Method seemed ideal in this situation to get Ron thinking like a captain.

"Uh, what do I-? Uh, well the next match is against Hufflepuff, right?"

"Yes. Is that relevant?" Knowing the enemy was important. Ensuring Ron recognized that consciously would be good for him.

"Possibly?" Ron did not sound sure of himself as he shrunk in on himself. I could feel myself frown at his lack of confidence.

"You don't sound sure of yourself. Think about it. Is knowing who we play in a few weeks relevant to how we train today?"

"Uh, yes. Yes."

"Why?"

"Because they are who we are facing next and they don't play like the Slytherins did."

"How do they differ and why does that matter?"

"Well, the Slytherins are underhanded cheaters-"

"Ron!" I stopped and snapped at Ron, staring him down as he looked at me. "Remember, you want to be Head Boy as well. That means you will need to treat all the houses fairly. What the Slytherins do may be aggressive and likely to result in an increased number of penalty shots, they are not cheaters. They play with the same number of players as any other team and they do not engage in any behavior explicitly against the rules that would disqualify them if they were caught."

"Right."

I would need to keep an eye on Ron expressing his opinions on the other houses and make sure he knows when he steps out of line. The school would not allow someone into the position of Head Boy who openly mocked one of the houses.

"Again, what are the differences between the house teams and why do the differences matter?" I asked as I started back towards the pitch.

"Well, as you said, the Slytherins are, uh, aggressive in their tactics, going for a very offensive focus with a lot of play at getting control of the bludgers and attacking members of the other team. Hufflepuff has a more defensive approach. They focus more on control over the field instead of the power Slytherin uses."

"And how does that change how you would run tonight's practice?"

"I would focus more on a mixed approach to disrupt their field control and keep the quaffle out of their hands as much as possible."

"Why not a more focused approach?"

"Do you think we should be focusing our approach?"

I shrugged my shoulders. I didn't know one way or another what we should do. I was just on the team, not leading it. Let Ron and Wood focus on the tactics for this. "It does not matter what I think. What matters is you thinking about these things. So, what are the cons to focusing on defense or offense specifically that makes you believe we should mix up our focus?"

"Uh, well, our defense is already pretty good from the Slytherin match and the weakness of a defensive control strategy is that your team tends to be very reactionary. By using a mixed approach, we keep ourselves constantly moving in a manner that is difficult for the Puffs to predict and react to."

"That makes sense, but how does that work with how our team works?"

"Our team is in a good place to change up tactics with a focused practice. Fred and George are power beaters that have excellent ball control over the bludger when they do gain control and can easily pivot between offensive and defensive in how they use the bludger, Wood is a very solid keeper, and Harry is bloody quick on the broom. That leaves our chasers and you. All of you are capable of a speed style chaser which is most common in more offensively focused teams, but with some defensive focus in strategy you four could easily change up mid game to off balance the Puffs. And if we bring you in like in the Slytherin game, you are able to act as a sort of third beater with the way you handled the bludger in the Slytherin game."

"And if we were to focus specifically on a more offensive or defensive strategy, what would you suggest we do?"

Nearing the pitch I saw that the male members of the team were already waiting and that I seemed to be the first of the girls to arrive.

"Actually, hold that thought and think on it." I give a wave to the boys, getting waves in return.

"Hey Troll Crusher, what's little Ronnekins doing here?" One of the twins asked.

"Yeah, what is he doing here?" Wood asked, looking Ron over.

"Ron wants to be quidditch captain," I answered. "I thought the best way for him to get there was by working with the current captain and learning what to do."

"Oh, our baby brother wants to be quidditch captain?" One of the twins says, coming over and putting an arm around Ron.

"We better watch ourselves or he might be able to tell us what to do someday." The other twin put an arm around Ron while standing on the other side.

"Oh you are right. Maybe we should be nicer to him and not pull any pranks on him."

The two twins looked at each other for a moment before in unison deciding, "nah," with a laugh as they pushed Ron towards Wood.

A rather normal family interaction if I understood multi children families correctly. Not that I knew for sure, having been an only child three lifetimes in a row with the last two of them being an orphan on top of that as well.

"Hm, I suppose I can train you to replace me. What position do you think you would play?" Wood asked Ron.

"At home, I was always made to play keeper."

Wood barked out a laugh. "Great! I'll be sure to teach you all my tricks then. And there are the last of the team now. Gather around everyone. I got some bad news."

"Bad news?" one of the twins asked, hands to his cheeks.

"Oh no!" The other twin was copying the first twin.

"Could it be?"

"Possibly. It sounds terrible."

"What happened?"

"What did you do?"

"It surely wasn't us this time."

"No," Wood had a strained tone in his voice as he gathered us around. "Snape will be refereeing the next match. Madam Hooch apparently will not be on school grounds that weekend."

"Snape!" Several of the team cried out at once before they all started talking over each other. I didn't see what the big deal was. Snape has been mostly professional in his interactions as a professor. A bit dramatic, but that seems normal and expected of a theater teacher.

While everyone else was gossiping about what this could mean and what they should do about it, I got ready for practice, going to the locker room to change and tie up my hair. It was getting a bit long for my liking and I noticed that the wind caused it to get in my eyes, which would be a hindrance during a game.

It was probably time for a fresh haircut, though the school seemed to lack a barber. Were we supposed to cut our own hair? Or did I miss a memo about where to get one? Maybe I should ask Lavender if she knew, she seemed to take a lot of pride in her hair and probably knew the answer.