Chapter 34

                                    

                                          
Stanley is running amok. He has once again managed to get into the tea cupboard during lesson time and has chomped down half a bag of mint leaves, resulting in boundless energy and an even greater enthusiasm than usual for knocking over Draco's possessions. Draco watches him during a rare lull between Open House visitors, shaking his head as Stanley thunders across the coffee table and sends several of Harry's folders skittering to the floor.
                          
"It's not as though you were starving, is it?" he says with an air of futility.
                          
Tack-tack-tack-tack, Stanley clicks merrily, leaping down from the table and rolling over several times on the hearthrug. Shaking his head, Draco leans down and turns him the right way up. He really must remember to lock that cupboard, he thinks, rising at the sound of knocking and going to open the door. The person on the other side of it is not someone he ever expected to come here. In fact, he doesn't think the two of them have ever spoken outside of lessons and house-point deductions.
                          
"Good evening, Jasper," he says, forcing himself to keep his face neutral. "Have a seat."
                          
"I'd rather not," Jasper says sulkily. "I won't be here long."
                          
"Well, I'm afraid it wasn't really an invitation," Draco admits. "Whatever discussion we're about to have is not going to take place in the doorway."
                          
When he indicates the chair for a second time, Jasper traipses across the floor and slumps into it, hands in pockets. He looks weary, Draco notices as he takes his own seat, and smaller, less ebullient than usual.
                          
"Would you like a cup of tea?" he offers, surprising himself.
                          
"No thanks," Jasper says, giving him an odd look from under his messy fringe. "I just want to..." Trailing into silence, he watches Stanley pelt out from under the coffee table, perform a circuit around Draco's chair, and scuttle into the bedroom. "Erm... it's about this stuff with the first-years. It was one thing when they were asking us for help with the parchment spell, but now it's all kinds of stuff... and they just keep asking... and the others won't help any more, they just keep sending them all to me, and I just can't keep doing it," Jasper says miserably.
                          
Draco nods, resisting the temptation to jump in before he absolutely needs to.
                          
With a deep breath, Jasper meets Draco's eyes and continues. "I know what you're doing and it's because of what I did... what we did to you. I don't know how you knew it was us, but I get it and I'm sorry and if you could call them off now, that'd be great."
                          
"I see," Draco says, taking a moment to digest the words and the wonderfully unexpected implication that he may just have succeeded in teaching Jasper a lesson. "And what would you say you have learned from this, exactly?"
                          
Jasper shrugs and looks at his shoes. "Not to mess with you, I suppose, sir."
                          
Draco hides a smile. "Well, that's a start. Perhaps a little bit of respect for your teachers, whether you like them or not?" he suggests.
                          
Jasper nods moodily. "Yes, sir."
                          
"And while we're on the subject of respect, how about a little bit for your fellow students, not to mention your own housemates? You probably made a lot of those first-years feel very silly and disappointed with your rumours, and believe me, picking on people younger and less experienced than you doesn't make you big or impressive."
                          
Jasper looks up, expression torn somewhere between offence and guilt. "We never meant to pick on anybody," he insists. "It was just..."
                          
"A way to get at me," Draco puts in evenly. "I know. I also know what you think about me, and it's not true. You don't have to believe me, Jasper, and perhaps you and I will never be one another's favourite people, but we can do better than this, don't you agree?"
                          
Jasper sighs. "I suppose so. Like I said, I'm sorry, sir."
                          
"Apology accepted," Draco says, and though he suspects that what Jasper is sorriest about is getting caught, he thinks there's a grudging sort of respect in him that wasn't there before. "I appreciate you coming to talk to me, but I can't help wondering where your friends are."
                          
"In the common room, probably, why?"
                          
Draco tries very hard not to roll his eyes. "Because while you might have been the instigator of the prank, if that's what you want to call it, they were involved in it, too. Don't you think they should have come with you to apologise?"
                          
"I don't know. They're not really talking to me at the moment," Jasper admits, inspecting his shoes once again. "As far as they're concerned, it's my fault that we're getting mobbed by first-years all the time, which it is, I suppose. They won't come if I tell them to, that's for sure."
                          
"Perhaps they aren't very good friends, then, if they turn their backs on you the moment something goes wrong," Draco suggests, and the look Jasper gives him tells him everything he needs to know-namely, that he should not try to understand the world of teenage friendships, much less attempt to meddle in them. Draco has seen that look before, many times, and the sight of it on Jasper's face is actually rather reassuring. He has not, as he had momentarily feared, broken the boy's spirit.
                          
"I shall speak to them myself," he says, watching the relief flood Jasper's drawn face. "It wasn't all bad, was it? Helping those first-years?"
                          
"It was alright," Jasper says cagily. "It got a bit much when they wanted help every five minutes, though."
                          
"I can imagine," Draco says with a serene smile, "but have you any idea how much your work has improved since you've been helping them?"
                          
Jasper frowns. "No, sir."
                          
Draco leans over to the sideboard and searches for the relevant class folder, eventually finding it on the floor along with several other things that Stanley apparently thinks he should keep there. He flips to the section in which he keeps a log of homework and class grades, and finds Jasper's page.
                          
"There," he says, turning the folder around so he can see. "I think you'll agree that these results show a definite upward trend."
                          
"That's... weird," Jasper says, leaning forward to stare at the page. "I actually thought I was doing worse in Transfiguration because I was so sick of doing it every night with those kids. That and the fact that I've had to stay up late to get all my homework done because of it."
                          
"Practice is one of the most important things in Transfiguration," Draco says, taking the folder back and regarding Jasper wearily. "I must have told you that six or seven hundred times already. And perhaps your class grades are better because you're not messing around with your friends and you're too tired to wind me up."
                          
Jasper gives him a dirty look and stands up. "I'd better go and get some sleep then, sir."
                          
Draco spells the door open for him without getting up from his chair. "You do that," he says, yawning and stretching. "For tomorrow, we start again."
                          
He flicks his wand to close the door behind him and the slam is followed by a loud thump from the bedroom. Reluctantly, he rises and goes to investigate. If he's lucky, Jasper Bracknell will be the last student of the night, but he thinks Stanley might have it in him to be troublesome until the sun comes up.