“Weasley, Ginevra.”

Draco lifted his chin defiantly as Professor McGonagall called her name. He had noticed her right away, of course. With her frayed, too-short robes and her flaming red hair she stood out immediately. He had also noticed that Potter and Weasley were conspicuously missing. Maybe they had finally gotten expelled. Unfortunately, Granger was sitting there as bushy-haired as always.

But Draco remembered the youngest Weasley from his visit to Flourish and Blott’s with his father.

“Leave him alone, he didn’t want all that!” she had yelled when Draco had pointed out Potter’s unquenchable thirst for attention. Of course he wanted it. And he doesn’t need a little puppy like you following him around, either.

The littlest Weasel perched herself on top of the stool and set the hat gingerly on her head. Before half of her head disappeared into the hat, Draco noticed how bright her brown eyes were. Like the soft milk chocolate that his mother would only allow him when he was sick.

As if he needed another reason to despise the Weasleys, but he had always hated red hair. No matter how focused he was and no matter what he was doing, it always caught his eye. Distracting, that’s what it was.

The hat barely had to touch her distractingly red head before it yelled out, “Gryffindor!” The hall broke into polite applause, and Draco didn’t bother to hide his look of disgust.

They’re all the same. I don’t understand why the all need individual names. All Weasleys play Quidditch, are rubbish at school, get sorted into Gryffindor, and have ugly, distracting red hair. They should all just go by “Weasley.” Draco felt his lips curl into a sneer as he considered the thought.

Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore suddenly excused themselves from the high table. Draco had also noticed that Snape was absent, and he had an inkling that it had something to do with Potter and Weasley. It always does.

As he picked at the beef that he had served himself, he looked up to see the little Weasel talking with Granger. Weaselette, he decided. The named suited her. He couldn’t go on calling her the little Weasel.

Draco sighed as he turned the page of his Potions book. The reading was tedious, and he couldn’t shake the desire to go flying in the harsh cold. Hot weather made him feel sluggish and lazy, but he always felt alert and competent in the cold. It was his element.

As he returned to his book, a flash of red caught his eye. He looked up to see Weaselette sitting on the floor with her back against a bookshelf. Her knees were brought up to her stomach and her head was brought down as close as possible to her book. She looked like she wanted to be as small as possible.

She sniffed loudly, and Draco could tell that she had been crying. He smirked cruelly and called out, “Hey! Keep it down, Weaselette.”

She looked up from her book. Those brown eyes that had been so light and bright at the start of term were completely different. They were murky and lifeless. Her freckles stood out sharply against her sickly, pale skin, and her eyes had large bags beneath them.

If Draco had been a person who could feel something like remorse, he might have been sorry. But he wasn’t and he didn’t. He noticed that she was clutching a small, ragged-looking black book that looked vaguely familiar, although he couldn’t quite place it.

She made a scared noise, like a whimper, and rushed out of the library. Draco sneered after her and returned to his book. Who said he needed to go outside to be cold?

Draco detested Valentine’s Day. What a pointless holiday. As he shoved his way through a thick crowd, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle, he heard a loud ripping noise. The mass of students slowed and stopped moving all together, and Draco sighed impatiently.

“What going on here?” he asked impatiently to no one in particular.

That berk, Percy Weasley, came striding through the crowd and demanded, “What’s all this commotion?”

Draco noticed two things simultaneously. Potter was scrambling around the corridor floor, trying desperately to get away from one of those ugly, valentine-bearing dwarfs, and Ginny Weasley was watching him intently from where she was pressed against the wall.

“Right,” the dwarf said, balancing himself on Potter’s ankles. “Here is your singing valentine: “His eyes are as green and a fresh pickled toad, His hair is as dark as a blackboard. I wish he was mine, he’s really divine, The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.”

In between his howling laughs, Draco stooped down and grabbed one of the books that had fallen out of Potter’s ripped bag. He turned it over in his hand and noticed immediately that it was a diary. He sneered and showed it to Crabbe and Goyle, who guffawed stupidly. Draco rolled his eyes and made to pocket it.

“Give that back,” Potter said threateningly.

“Wonder what Potter’s written in this,” Draco sniggered, holding up the diary. He was surprised to see that Ginny Weasley was looking at him with a look of utter terror on her face, and suddenly Draco remembered that the book was the one that she had had with her that day in the library. What’s Potter doing with Weaselette’s diary?

“Hand it over, Malfoy,” Percy Weasley said.

“When I’ve had a look,” Draco replied snidely, waving the diary at Potter.

The prefect began to say something, but Potter waved his wand and reclaimed the diary. Draco glared at him, suddenly more curious than ever about what was in the diary. To goad the situation further, he turned to Ginny and called out, “I don’t think Potter liked your valentine much!”

She covered her face with her hands and Draco saw a silent sob shake her body. He sneered at Potter, and made his way through the corridor.

“Do you want a Chocolate Frog, Draco?” Pansy simpered as the train jerked unpleasantly.

“No, I do not want a Chocolate Frog, Pansy,” Draco sneered. He hated the train rides, although he didn’t know why. He didn’t get motion sickness on a broom or when his father forced him to Side-Along-Apparate.

Suddenly, the train screeched to a halt, and all of the lights went off.

“Oi!” Blaise exclaimed over Pansy’s shriek. They sat in the darkness for several minutes, the silence only being broken by a sniff from Pansy or a grunt from Crabbe or Goyle.

The air swiftly turned cold, and Draco’s breath hitched as he felt overwhelmed with despair. He looked around wildly, understanding immediately what was going on.

“I’ll be right back,” he said in a breathy whisper to the others. He threw open the door and began walking quickly through the corridor. Quickly, before his father’s voice began yelling in his head.

He slid open the door to a random compartment as he began to feel the cold again.

“Hey, who’s there?” cried a voice.

Draco’s eyed widened as he realized that he had unwittingly slipped into the Weasley twins’ compartment.

“Malfoy?” one of them asked as the lights flickered on again.

Draco didn’t bother replying as he slipped back into the corridor again. The Dementor, wherever it had been, was nowhere near now. He ran a hand over his hair before he entered his own compartment.

“Where’d you go, mate?” Blaise asked.

“Bathroom,” Draco muttered tersely. `

The last ten minutes of the ride was uneventful and no one said a word throughout the carriage ride, but as Draco climbed out of the coach, he noticed Longbottom shivering and looking terrified.

“What’s wrong, Longbottom?” he taunted. “Did the ickle Dementors frighten you?”

“No,” he whimpered defensively. “Harry fainted and was muttering in his sleep and he said-”

“You fainted, Potter? Is Longbottom telling the truth? You actually fainted?” Draco asked as he spotted Potter hopping out of his own carriage. He couldn’t help but feel a little pleased that he had managed to get away from the Dementor before he entered the shaky state that he always did and that Potter had fainted when he had come in contact with one of the beings.

“Shove off, Malfoy,” Weasley retorted.

“Did you faint as well, Weasley? Did the scary old Dementor frighten you, too, Weasley?” Draco sneered, raising his voice so that everyone gathered outside the castle could hear.

“Is there a problem?” a voice asked casually.

Draco turned to see a shabbily dressed man who was obviously a professor. “Oh, no – er – Professor,” he drew out the last word, letting his eyes sweep over the patches on the man’s robes. He smirked at Crabbe and Goyle, and turned to leave, but an unusually bright flash of something orange caught his eye. He turned to see a shaking and white Ginny Weasley walking up the steps to the castle. He sneered at her back, although she couldn’t see him, and it made him feel better. But no matter where he stared as he walked behind her up the steps, he was continually distracting by that flaming hair.

Draco put on his best grimace before he entered into the hospital wing, cradling his bandaged arm with his other.

“Sit there, Mr. Malfoy,” Madam Pomfrey instructed as Draco entered through the double doors. Draco obediently took his seat on one of the beds.

“There, now, drink this,” he heard Madam Pomfrey say soothingly to someone a few beds down. Draco didn’t give into his curiosity to look, but he saw the flash of red out of his eye, and knew that it was the Weaselette. “Lie down,” Madam Pomfrey said to her once she had drained the contents of a goblet.

“Here, Mr. Malfoy,” she said, business-like again. “Your arm should certainly be fine by now, but drink this to numb whatever pain you claim to have.

Draco drank the terrible tasting stuff at his own leisurely pace, stealing glances every once in a while at the Weaselette. She was pale except for her nose, which was a bright red color, and steam was beginning to come out of her ears. Pepper-up Potion, Draco thought. She must have a cold. But he caught himself suddenly, chastising his curiosity. It’s not like you care. And Draco smirked to himself, because he didn’t.