Chapter 1

The Beginning

She was so close to him that her warm breath fanned across his cheek and he could see the clump of black mascara that glued her middle eyelashes together. She was not the prettiest girl to look at whether up close or far away. He found nothing remotely attractive about her and he didn't mind showing it when she annoyed him.

There had been a time when he was polite about it, when he had dropped hints that he was not interested in her in any way. He used to hint that blondes were more his type, they matched his own completion, they fitted in with the rest of his family. He liked blue eyes, they went well with his own grey eyes. He liked smaller girls, he was quite tall, his shoulders pretty broad and muscular from all his Quidditch training, she was only a few inches short than him, that did not qualify as smaller so far as he was concerned.

But she hadn't listened, she hadn't taken his comments on board.

Then he had been forced to become blunt about it. He had actually told her she annoyed him, he had told her that she wasn't his type, that he wasn't attracted to her. For some unfathomable reason she never seemed to take anything in.

She giggled, a shrill sound that grated on his nerves, she lay a hand on his shoulder as she leant closer to him to continue her story.

Draco sighed heavily and rolled his eyes to indicate that she was boring him, annoying him to the point where he wanted to hex her. As usual she didn't take a blind bit of notice of him. For someone who usually got his own way with most things it was extremely irritating that Pansy Parkinson blatantly ignored him.

"And guess what happened then, Draco?"

"I woke up to find this entire one sided conversation was really nothing than a horrible nightmare?" He guess dryly.

She giggled, "No silly…."

"Then I'd better get away from it before I'm bored to death hadn't I?" He cut her off quickly and rose from his lounging position on the sofa. More like the corner of the sofa he noticed now that he had risen, Pansy had managed to poke him into the corner where escape looked less likely for him.

Leaving her sitting there gaping after him Draco stalked from the Slytherin common room. The dungeons outside of the room were dark and cool, the summer weather was beginning to break down, pretty soon the nights would be unbearable.

Taking the stairs from the dungeons two at a time Draco wandered down the deserted corridors. It was after curfew he knew that much, but he never went to bed until late. Sometimes he would go to his dormitory to escape Pansy's attentions and the return to the common room a little while later after she had retired to bed.

At first he hadn't minded the attention, had found it quite nice to have someone like him so much as to lavish him with attention and sympathy whenever he wanted it. Draco had been careful though, he didn't fancy Pansy at all, and had been very careful as to what he had said to her in order that she couldn't interpret it to mean that he wanted any form of relationship with her.

Pansy Parkinson, Draco snorted. Why she would think he would want her was beyond him. So she was a pureblood and a Slytherin, so what? She still didn't appeal to him. He didn't date outside of Slytherin himself, mainly because he wouldn't be caught dead with a Gryffindor, Hufflepuffs were very rarely purebloods and Ravenclaw girls, like the girls in the other houses, tended to give him and his friends a very wide berth.

He was popular at Hogwarts and he knew it. Everyone knew who he was and he ran Slytherin House with absolutely no problems now that he was in his seventh and final year. Of course his Dark Mark helped him no end. His alliance with the Dark Lord, the fact that he had sat in the Dark Lord's presence, the fact that the Dark Lord used his home, Malfoy Manor as a base gave him a credibility that no-one could match. The Dark Lord himself had given him his mission last year, and even though he hadn't completed all of it, he had single-handedly brought the Death Eaters into Hogwarts.

No-one, in Slytherin or any other student argued with him. No-one dared challenge him or question him. He had more power now that the Carrows were at school and Snape was headmaster than he had even under Umbridge.

Power was something Draco enjoyed having and he didn't feel so out of his depth here in school. Bossing people of his own age and younger was something he was able to handle. Besides, no-one at school needed to know that he was terrified of the Dark Lord and couldn't even look at him did they?

Draco walked purposefully towards the front door of the castle, a nice stroll around the grounds to clear his head and give Pansy a chance to go to bed was just what he needed.

He smirked to himself, who was going to stop him? Who was going to shout because he was out after curfew? No-one, because he was still a prefect and he always had been Snape's favourite.

"Ahh, Mr Malfoy, just the person I wanted to see."

Draco turned at the low voice of Snape. "Headmaster." He greeted him with a slight smirk.

Snape smirked back, "Draco, I have some news for you. Come with me to my office." Snape told him as he moved from the shadows into the dim light of the corridor.

Draco followed Snape down the corridor to the statue of the Gargoyle that guarded the headmasters room. He hadn't been in this office since Dumbledore's days and a slight chill swept his body. He glanced at Snape, wondering how he stood coming here everyday knowing he had killed the man who used it before him.

Settling himself behind the desk Snape gestured for Draco to take a seat. "I have decided to reinstate the tradition of Head Boy and Head Girl, for my own reasons of course. You will take the position of Head Boy."

Draco had to struggle to keep the delighted smile off his face. "Will the Head Girl be from Slytherin as well?" He couldn't see the rest of the students liking that idea very much, and if it was going to be Pansy Parkinson he wasn't going to like the idea either.

"No," Snape shook his head. "I have another idea for Head Girl. This time I will bestow the honour upon someone younger, she does not have leadership qualities, but she is in a neutral house. A Gryffindor and a Slytherin together does not spell a success for me."

"No, I don't see that it will." Draco agreed stretching his legs out.

"She is in Ravenclaw, a pureblood, to keep with the values for which the Dark Lord is fighting. And she has one other little thing going for her," He paused to survey Draco for a few minutes, "She fights for Harry Potter."

Draco blinked, "Who?"

"Luna Lovegood."

"What the hell do you want to make her Head Girl for?" Draco demanded before he could stop himself.

"Because she will be in your vicinity for most of the time, you will hear things your not supposed to hear, you will learn to understand her, the Weasley girl and all those from the ridiculous DA who think themselves above the Dark Lord. It is your mission for this year Draco, to keep close to Luna Lovegood, earn her trust, Draco and she will confide in you."

"I'm a Slytherin, I wear the Dark Mark. I've always been on the opposite side to Potter and she knows it. She'll never trust me to tell me anything about Potter, that's if she even knows anything. Personally, I don't think that she does." He added.

Snape smiled calmly. "I haven't totally ruled out the fact that Potter may keep in touch with her because no-one would really suspect it. I don't really believe that he will, what with her father supporting him the way that he does, it could be dangerous, and we know Potter is selfless don't we?" He sneered earning a chuckle from Draco. "However, just to be on the safe side, keep your ears open, Draco, especially when Weasley's sister and Longbottom are around."

Draco nodded, "Yeah sure. If I hear anything I'll let you know. When do I get to move in to the Head's Common room?"

"Anxious to remove yourself from Miss Parkinson are you?" Snape drawled eyeing him with a faint trace of amusement which annoyed Draco. "Tomorrow morning at breakfast the news will be delivered, you may move as soon as you like. Good night, Draco."

Draco blinked in surprise at this quick dismissal but rose anyway and nodded to the new Headmaster who looked very comfortable behind his new desk.

He grinned as he almost skipped down the stairs. Prefect, Head Boy, own common room, escape from Pansy, power over all the prefects. Everything was going his way.

Lovegood may be in Ravenclaw, she may be smart, but she wasn't sneaky, she was devious, scheming or manipulative was she? He was, if there was anything to be found out from Lovegood then he, Draco Malfoy would find out and rescue his family name from the shame that currently washed over them.

It was all down to him now, Draco Malfoy. It had been down to him once before and he had come through, he had survived when everyone thought he would die. Draco smirked, he wasn't sorted into Slytherin for any old reason. He could do anything once he set his mind to it and he intended to prove that once again.