Prologue:

Ring around the rosy,

As twilight creeps in earlier then the day before, a child goes skipping down a pebbled road between two lanes of houses. She swings her arms back and forth while whistling quietly to herself.

Pocket full of posies,

She turns a corner and looks both ways before crossing the empty street. She never feels the silver orbs that followed her as she happily kicks a loose pebble on the ground and continues home.

Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down!

She jumps forward and throws her arms in the air as she finishes her song. She hears a whisper of laughter and quickly looks around. It was common to hear a groan or a moan here and there ever since the Battle of Hogwarts back in May. Billy, her younger brother, swore that he saw a real ghost once and she could not wait to see one for herself.

She cranes her neck back and forth but the only thing she sees dead or alive is a huge white dog, almost like a wolf, curled by the side of the road staring at her. As she slowly moves closer, she sees that its eyes are silver instead of normal black one might expect. It stands up suddenly as if noticing her for the first time, though with the racket she was making it was improbable. The child turns around dejectedly, as the object of her scrutiny looks as if he was leaving, and continues to trudge back home. She turns around once to see the dog/wolf following her. She smiles and is surprised when the dog smiles in return, showing her his impressive canines.

"Wow. What big teeth you have..." she whispers to herself.

Nearby a door opens and a woman sticks her head out to yell:

"Hope, get your butt in here please. The boys want to finish the Little Red Riding Hood story but for some unexplainable reason they won't start without you!"

Hope turns to look at her new white friend. He looks like he is smirking, if wolfs or dogs could smirk, at the irony of their situation.

"Why must she use such big words with me? I'm only five you know." She huffs to him. "Oh and wipe that smile of your face. It is not my fault that my brothers chose that fairy tale for story time tonight!"

He gives another one of those whispery chuckles in response as she spins around to go in. He watches as the door shuts behind her and turns to start the long run back to the castle.

Things might get interesting this year, he thinks. His famous smirk crosses his face. And koodose to the kid for having the balls to say to him what many have wanted but failed to do in the past. Reaching his destination, he transforms into his human form before walking up the steps of the castle. He ignores the dirty looks that many send his way as he calmly strolls down the hallway to the Head Dormitories. He gives the password to the portrait and walks in. Looking around the silver and gold decorations of his common room he smiles. It was a small smile and fleeting but it was still there. Yep, Draco-Ferret-and-Newly-Discovered-Veela-Malfoy was back where he belonged and let someone try and say something different about it.