Chapter 16

There was only a half hour to go before dinner when Malfoy remembered the note, the crumpling sound in his pocket reminding him when he sat down on a couch in the Slytherin common room. The note had been handed to him in the halls between classes by Hannah Abbot, which explained why he had forgotten it — he took no notice at all of the Hufflepuff prefect, and he assumed that a message from her could not be of any importance. He'd shoved it into his pocket and thought nothing more of it until he was in the comfort of his own common room. Comfort, only because after five years he was used to it, but the Sltyherin common room was an ugly place. Green and silver did very well for banners and uniforms, but in the low-ceilinged common room they were damn depressing.

As he pulled the note from his pocket, he looked up and saw Pansy Parkinson sitting across from him, and the sight cheered him, her pale, pretty face managing to shine even in the low light. The almost unnatural blue of her eyes was her most startling feature, and Malfoy felt her gaze focus on him.

"Who's the note from, Draco?" she asked, again stifling the same stab of jealously that had arisen when she'd seen that cow Hannah pass Draco the note. As she spoke, she slipped out from under her school robe, smiling as she caught Draco admiring her figure — if he kept looking at her like that, she had nothing to worry about.

"That stupid Abbot girl handed it to me," he replied. "Maybe it's a love note — why don't you read it first?" Pansy was not as good at concealing her jealousy as she thought, and Draco hoped she would feel more secure if he let her read the note first. And he was right, of course — he was usually right in such things. Malfoy was a close observer of everyone around him, and read them right more often than not. He could be quite pleasing to others when he chose to be — his mother and father had trained him very well. The Gryffindors thought he lacked manners, but they were mistaken — his manners were impeccable. But they were reserved for those who mattered, and there were very few people at Hogwarts outside Slytherin that mattered. When he was rude, it was deliberately so, unlike ill-mannered people, who are rude by accident. Alone with him, or in the common room, Pansy saw the best of Malfoy, the part of him that was capable of kindness and attention.

"There's to be a prefects' meeting after dinner tonight. That's odd — we weren't due for one 'till next week." She passed the note back to Draco, enjoying the way their hands briefly touched. He smiled at her, and then smirked as he unfolded the note and saw the silly Hufflepuff letterhead. If he'd been sorted into Hufflepuff, his father would have taken that with as much grace as if his son were a squib. He read the note lazily, and then tossed it onto the coffee table.

"I hope it won't be a long meeting. MacMillan bores me. Abbot bores me. Goldstein and Patil bore me."

"What about Weasley and Granger?"

"I keep from being bored by imagining what their lives will be like after school's done, living in marital bliss in the attic at 'The Burrow', praying that they are too insignificant for the Dark Lord to take notice of them."

"Do you really think they'll marry?" asked Pansy. To hear Draco talk of marriage, even if it concerned others, was pleasing to her.

"If one of them isn't dead before school ends, yes. It's pretty obvious how they feel about each other. And they'll raise a clutch of buck-toothed, bushy-haired, red-headed mudbloods."

Pansy laughed as she always did at anything Draco said that was intended to be funny.

The prefects met in their office down the hall from the prefects' bathroom. Other than for meetings, it wasn't used much, except by Hermione when she wanted a quiet, private place to study. In it were a few study desks and shelves filled with very out of date and heavily annotated reference books. A small adjoining room contained a small but serviceable potions area. The prefects were in a larger connecting room, seated at a table that would comfortably seat ten, for meetings that required all the prefects and the head boy and head girl. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw had arrived first, and were seated on the same side of the table, forcing the Gryffindors (who arrived last) to sit next to the Slytherins. Thus when Ernie MacMillan began to speak, he was at one end of the table, and Malfoy at the other, opposite end.

Hermione had handled Ernie very well, manipulating him in a way that would have made any Slytherin proud. By the time she had finished talking with him earlier that day, Ernie was quite convinced that it was his idea that the students should stay out of Umbridge's office and seek no permission to re-form clubs and teams

Ernie's bright red hair would have made him a candidate for honourary membership in the Weasley family, except that the resemblance ended there, for he had none of the ease of manner associated with Ron and his siblings (excepting Percy, of course, who appeared to be on a mission to win the Prat of the Year award). The Weasleys were comfortable in any company, and had the ability to put others at their ease. Ernie on the other hand inadvertently threw others off balance with his manner. He had no intuitive sense of the right way to behave in any situation unfamiliar to him, and so he almost invariably reverted to an oddly pompous way of speaking unless absolutely sure of himself. He was at his best in one-on-one situations, where he could be normal enough. But as soon as he was in a group, he felt off balance. This was the fourth prefects' meeting he'd attended, but he had no feeling for the dynamics of the group, and struggled to speak at first.

"This Umbridge woman's getting out of control," Ernie began. "Issuing decrees, becoming 'High Inquisitor', inspecting teachers, and now this latest nonsense — she wants all the students to grovel just to keep things the way they've always been. Now she wants us all to ask for permission just to be together. Who is this woman, anyways? I don't recognize her family name at all." Ernie's was an old pureblood wizarding family, and he had the streak of snobbishness that often came with his background.

"She's a nobody," Draco replied. "She's got some influence at the Ministry, and my father says she worked very hard to get where she is, but aside from Fudge and a few others high up, she has no family and no connections at all. If Fudge dropped her, she'd have nothing to fall back on. No money, no estate, no name — nothing at all."

"Now look here, Malfoy," said Hermione, her face scowling in pretended indignation, "this isn't about family or pure or mixed blood or anything like that. What's her background got to do with what she's doing? I don't approve of everything she's done, but she's just trying to run things the best she can, and —"

"Yes, I suppose you'd like her just fine," interrupted Pansy Parkinson. "To you, with no wizarding family at all, Umbridge looks like nobility. But believe me, she's only a step removed from a mudblood."

Hermione gave Ron a little kick under the table, and he spoke up.

"My family's as old as anyone's in this room, or in Hogwarts, for that matter. But I don't think we should be judging Umbridge by who she is. We should be judging her for —"

"—what she's done," said Ernie. "And what she's doing is interfering with the way things have been run for a thousand years. And that's I why I started off with talking about her background. She has no right at all to be changing the old ways. It's just ridiculous."

Malfoy and Parkinson nodded their heads in agreement. Malfoy observed with amusement Ron's stony face, and Hermione's lips pursed in disapproval. He looked over at the Ravenclaw prefects. He knew nothing about Padma's background, but he suspected that if she were not muggle-born, she was not far removed from it. Goldstein was different — his family was ancient. "Anthony, what do you think of what's going on — do you like what Umbridge is doing?" Malfoy enquired.

"I think Umbridge can go stuff it," said Goldstein bluntly. He had been well-briefed by Ron, and had immediately taken up his suggestion to speak to the Ravenclaw table at breakfast, instructing them that no one was to speak to Umbridge about forming a club until after the prefects met that evening. "I don't think she's all that secure at the Ministry, either." This got Malfoy's attention, for Goldstein's grandfather had at one time been the Minister, and the many of the Goldstein family held positions in the Ministry, a few holding very high office — Goldstein could be well-informed on such things.

"Yes," Goldstein continued, the lies coming very easily to him, "Umbridge was only sent here because the first two candidates declined to help the Ministry take over Hogwarts. Umbridge was a distant third choice for Fudge. If she runs into problems and has to be removed — well, I'd hate to be her." This was all nonsense, of course, but it was the kind of stuff that Goldstein knew Malfoy would lap up. Draco was very attracted to the idea of damaging or destroying people, thus his attempt in third year to get Hagrid removed. Malfoy liked the idea of Umbridge discrediting and sacking teachers, but the idea of Umbridge herself being removed appealed to him even more — provided of course it was done at no risk to Malfoy, in case things backfired.

"Well," said Malfoy to Ernie, "what do you propose we should do?"

Hannah now spoke for the first time. "Ernie and I think we should do nothing — nothing at all." In response to Parkinson's puzzled, contemptuous look, Hannah continued. "What I mean is this. I don't think we should break this rule. Instead, we should strictly obey it. No clubs, no teams, no meetings — nothing whatever. It will be like the entire school is being punished. And for what? A stupid whim? Umbridge will look like a fool."

Ron overrode Hannah angrily. "That's fine for you to say. You don't play quidditch. Umbridge's ban won't do a thing to you." Padma shook her head at this in defence of Hannah.

"That's not fair, Ron. To some of us it's true that quidditch doesn't matter, but other things do. Hannah and I are both in the potions club, and this week we were going to start on something really great — a potion that helps you learn languages really fast. I'm not so sure Umbridge will let any club re-form if it has the effect of making any of us more skilled. That's what she's afraid of. I like Hannah's idea."

"I do, too," said Malfoy, and Pansy next to him nodded her head automatically in agreement. "Padma, Anthony — what do you think?" The two Ravenclaws readily agreed.

"Well," said Malfoy, "that just leaves our two brave Gryffindors. Are you going to join the rest of us, or not?"

"It's not like we have a choice," said Hermione, stifling Ron with a gesture as he tried to speak. "If the rest of you aren't going to Umbridge for permission to re-form clubs and teams, there's no point the Gryffindors doing it alone — we can't have all the clubs and teams with just Gryffindor." At this Ron slumped in his chair, apparently defeated by Hermione's logic.

"Then it's settled," said Malfoy. "Let the minutes show that the prefects unanimously agree that we should help Umbridge by making sure the latest decree is strictly enforced. Each of us will be responsible for ensuring that no one attempts group activities on the grounds, in the common rooms or in the dormitories. That's what the minutes will show. But of course we'll speak to our respective houses, and tell them that under no circumstances is anyone to approach Umbridge on behalf of any team or any group or any club."