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Chapter Four: In which Mr. Malfoy lacks discretion

Obviously Draco had been plotting his revenge all day. Obviously. And that revenge got more and more fevered as the news got worse. It was just one goddamned thing after another.

Shortly after Granger had stormed from the dormitory, two of the Academy instructors arrived to investigate just what the hell had caused the racket. It seemed that a few of their classmates had reported a disturbance. Virgil Wallop, the Defensive Charms instructor, and the Academy Headmistress, Phryne Hash, had not found their story amusing or sympathetic in the least. Hash eyed both young men with distain while she interrogated them.

After using her training as a former Healer to determine that Draco was not "seriously damaged" (which he felt was a matter of opinion—his nose was broken for fuck's sake!), she decreed that the Academy Healer was not to use magic to aid his recovery. It was all to heal naturally as a punishment for "Muggle Dueling" (God willing, that terminology would never reach his parents). Draco had to grind his teeth to keep silence, and thank Merlin his wand was still across the room. He was so livid he might have done something rash.

Hash also casually announced that the newly minted "wanker" scar on his palm was probably permanent (to which that self-righteous shit Weasley just shrugged without appearing the least bit abashed).

As angry as he was, Draco had to admit that Weasley did get the worst of it. There would be a disciplinary hearing for him, and just the thought was delicious. He could be expelled, for attacking a classmate and for letting his freeloading girlfriend squat in their dormitory. Also, apparently they weren't supposed to have alcohol on the premises, so there was a citation to be issued for Weasley's precious bottle of Firewhiskey as well.

All of this made Draco smugly giddy, a figurative balm to his wounds. But after the instructors left, after Weasley stormed out moments later, Draco remembered that his bloody nose was still bloody bleeding. That his jaw was so sore he wouldn't be able to chew properly for a week. That his bed was still soaked in Granger-wine-whiskey-Mudblood-vomit. That his right hand was now forever emblazoned with a proclamation that would make his mother faint.

No disciplinary hearing could make up for all that. Even if they expelled Weasley and then turned him into a goat.

Well, Draco was just going to have to make sure those scales ended up even. He sure as sodding hell was not attending classes today, but he did manage to crawl to his wand and heave himself to his feet.

First thing's first: he needed to burn his bedding.

The only good thing Draco could say about his broken nose was that his airways were so clogged with blood that he could not smell anything. That was indeed a blessing, for when he braved his bedroom, just the sight of his bed was enough to turn the stomach. Worse, Granger had thrown his fine, monogrammed robe on top of her crusty puddle or regurgitated slop when she had finished with it. Which was just cruel.

But it was no matter. It wasn't as though he would ever be able to wear that robe again anyway. He strode to the window and threw it open. He used his wand to levitate his soiled bedding, his robe, and Granger's nightdress out said window. Then, while the material hung suspended, he set it aflame. This was the only solution really; at this point a purging fire was the only thing to set right his life.

After he had watched the four hundred Galleon goose down turn to cinders, he had inspected his mattress. Following some soul-searching, he admitted to himself that he didn't trust its clean appearance, and that he would never be able to bring himself to sleep upon it regardless. So he negotiated it out the window and set it on fire too. While it burned, he did a quick tour of every cleaning spell he knew on his room.

Which was…none.

He had to look it up. It was three spellbooks before he found some basic ones and he'd never felt so common in his life as when he cast them. Perhaps his mother would loan him a House Elf if he told her a Muggle had been set loose in his room and had touched Merlin knew what.

The worst taken care of, Draco finally availed himself of the shower. He used a gentle hand. Even so, he couldn't help yelling out in pain once or twice as he washed his face.

Wearing a towel about his waist and his hair slicked back with water, Draco studied his reflection in the cloudy mirror after he was finished. The entire left side of his face was swelling and purpling, both his eyes were black, two teeth were loose, and his nose was still trickling a stream of shocking red down his upper lip.

Using the rudimentary and far from complete training he had already received on combat first aid, Draco did the best he could to set his nose to heal straight. He screamed when he did this, but it was unlikely anyone heard him. They were all in class by this point after all. After that, he used a spell to stop his bleeding. He didn't dare do anything more, lest he draw the displeasure of the Headmistress.

He could not afford to be expelled. That road led back to his parents' home, tail between his legs. Frankly, he'd sooner die.

He dressed expeditiously in some of his most fashionable robes, and left his dormitory for Diagon Alley. He need to replace that which he had burned. Except Granger's nightdress; that wasn't his problem.

The shopkeeper of Hugat's Fine Linens stared at Draco's battered face as though he had never seen its like, but Draco did not give him the courtesy of acknowledging his discomfort or unasked questions.

His business in London concluded, Draco returned home to execute the revenge that had been simmering in his brain all day. It wasn't as elaborate, as creative, as poetic as he would like. The truth was, Draco was far less concerned with retaliation from Weasley than he was disciplinary action from the Academy.

Draco withdrew a book from a paper bag baring the name of Flourish and Blotts, and crouched with his wand outside Weasley's door. The Academy could only get so snippy about Draco making things even in the most literal way. An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, and "wanker" scar for "wanker" scar.

The bloody spellwork took almost two hours and Draco wasn't even certain it was successful. He sure as hell wasn't going to test it.

There was a loud and uncouth sort of knocking that pulled Draco from his lunch. Mistaking the intrusion for the delivery of his new mattress, he rushed to the door, only to find grim-looking fat woman with graying red hair and frayed robes standing on the other side.

It took a moment, but it did click into place that this woman was Weasley's mother.

She seemed just as alarmed to see him as he was to see her. They studied each for an uncomfortable moment, neither knowing exactly what to make of the other's presence.

Finally, the dumpy, train-wreck of a woman spoke. "I thought this was Ronald Weasley's dormitory."

"It is," Draco informed her in a clipped sort of voice.

She seemed to hesitate before finding her response to that. "Is he in?"

"No."

She didn't like his cheek, he could tell. Her spine straightened and her chin raised just a bit. "Well, then I'll just wait for him."

Draco didn't want to—sorely didn't want to—but he moved aside and allowed this woman of questionable cleanliness to enter the dormitory.

She stiffly, as though she trusted nothing in the room, settled herself on the sofa and place her purse on her lap. Her eyes fell to the empty bottle of Firewhiskey on the coffee table, and her gaze turned to him, judgmental primness lurking there.

Draco spread his palms. "Your son's, not mine."

She didn't look like she believed him.

Huffing indignantly, Draco snatched up the bottle and carried it over to the bin before someone else could accuse him of drinking it.

"Do you know when Ron will be returning?"

Draco shrugged as he returned to his lunch. He pointedly did not offer to give this woman any kind of refreshment in hospitality.

"It looks like Hermione left her work here by mistake." She seemed to have moved on to the other items on the coffee table, namely the pile of parchments Granger had abandoned there last night before stumbling into Draco's bedroom and ruining his life. "Is she here often?" Mrs. Weasley asked.

And there Draco stopped mid-painful-chew. That's right. She didn't know—that was the whole point, the whole argument that had led to this epically fucked up day. She didn't know that Ron and Hermione were living together, and Ron didn't want her to know.

A smirk of breathtakingly evil delight was set loose on Draco's face. This was almost better than any "wanker" scar. Almost—that shit was eternal and the eye for an eye was happening. But this…ah, this was just perfect.

"She is here a lot. In fact, you might say that she never leaves."

The woman blinked and knit her brows.

"She lives here. With your son."

Mrs. Weasley had a sharp intake of breath. She looked toward the hall as though trying to assess how many bedrooms were in this place, and Draco had to repress a cackle.

"Oh, she doesn't have a room of her own. She shares his—easier that way. Though, I'm surprised they haven't broken the bed in there yet. They're quite hard on it. I have to cast an Imperturbable Charm just to sleep—they're at it all night. You know kids these days, no respect for the proper order of things. Personally, I was brought up that marriage should come first, but I suppose you raised your son differently."

Regarding that last bit, of course no such nonsense was true. Draco hadn't been a virgin for years, and had no plans to marry for a good long while. But this particular embellishment rubbed salt in the wound; the expression on Mrs. Weasley's face said that she had just swallowed her tongue and might be sick.

Then, proof that the pendulum of fate was swinging back in the opposite direction, proof that Draco was no longer the universe's personal punching bag, the door opened and Hermione Granger walked through carrying a beaded coin purse.

It took her a moment to register the particular visitor they had. When she met eyes with Mrs. Weasley her jaw dropped and her face went white.

"Ah, there you are, Granger," Draco said amicably. "We were just talking about how you live here. I was telling Weasley's mother that you two make it impossible to get a good night's sleep with all the noisy sex you have."