Draco and Blaise exited from their Ancient Runes class and made for the North Tower. Another day of learning that Granger couldn't not keep her arm in air. It wasn't until after Divination was over that Draco realized something.

"Blaise?"

"What?"

"Granger's in our Ancient Runes class."

Blaise frowned. "Yeah, you know that."

"She's in our Divination class."

"Yeah. Where are you going with this?"

"Ancient Runes is at the same time as Divination."

"Right...Oh!" Blaise finally understood. "Are you saying that-"

"-she's got a time turner too."

"Well, I guess you really do learn something everyday."

Draco stared at Blaise with a blank look.

"Okay," Blaise said, "I had no other clever things to say to that."

"You say 'other' like what you said was clever, too."

"It was."

"Maybe Hogwarts should have a common sense class...for idiots like you."

Blaise shoved Draco in the shoulder. "If you walk that slow, we'll both be late."

"Watch out!"

Blaise halted in the middle of the hallway and saw what Draco had stopped him from crashing into. It was an orange-ish lionlike cat-Kneazle...with a piece of parchment in its mouth. Draco recognized this as the cat that was with Sirius the day of the first Hogsmeade trip.

Before Blaise could, Draco took the parchment and read it to himself:

Arctos,

I hope this has fallen into the right hands. Crookshanks has managed to retrieve me equipment to write with and on. I write to say that we must wait until after winter break officially starts. Until then, keep reading.

Padfoot

Someone shoved into Draco, and he stumbled forward a bit. He turned around saying, "Watch it!" and found Granger picking up her books and other school materials.

"Sorry," she said. "By the way, I seem to be missing one of my quills and ink bottles, and some parchment has been torn from my Transfiguration essay. You wouldn't happen to see it, would you?"

So that was where Crookshanks the cat got the materials for Sirius. He must've been Granger's cat. "No," Draco stated, "we're not thieves, you know. But maybe you don't know, being prejudiced against Slytherins and all that."

Granger almost started to apologize, but then she glowered and said, "YOU want to talk about prejudice? That's rich. I was just wondering if you'd seen my things lying around somewhere and now I'm starting to think you really do know where they are." She shoved everything into her bag and headed to her next class.

"Oi, Granger!" Draco called. She turned around. "Is that your cat?" Hermione directed her eyes toward the half-Kneazle. How did he know?

"How did you know?"

Nice going, Draco, Draco thought to himself.

"I was just going to ask anyone that came by. You happened to be the first." Draco almost sighed in relief after he came up with the excuse just in time.

"Oh. Well, I can't take him back to the rooms now, or I'll be late for class."

"Then don't. He's safe in the castle, and he'll turn up sometime later." Granger probably thought he was being inconsiderate but she didn't know that Draco knew how up and about Crookshanks had been lately.

On the contrary, Hermione was relieved to hear the confidence in Malfoy's voice. Though she didn't know how he could be so sure, for some reason it made her feel better. "I suppose," she said.

Draco and Blaise exchanged confused glances before Granger turned around and walked away.

"Blaise?"

"Yeah?"

"We have Care of Magical Creatures next."

"Yeah."

"Granger's in that class."

"Yeah."

"Let's go."

The two boys caught up to the girl and started walking on either side of her. She looked perplexedly at them.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Walking," Both boys simultaneously answered. They walked in silence until they reached Hagrid's hut. Draco and Blaise walked over to Theo and Adrian while Hermione walked over to Harry and Ron.

Ron looked furious. "Why did you just walk here with Malfoy and Blaise?"

Hermione had no reason to lie, but Ron had no reason to be angry with her so she quickly made something else up. "Malfoy made me angry so I hexed him. Blaise came along and saved him. Since we were going to the same class, we ended up walking together. Not really together, just close to each other."

Thankfully, both Gryffindors accepted her answer, but both of the Slytherins in question had also heard the answer.

"Not a bad liar for a Gryffindor try-hard know-it-all," Blaise said. Draco's nicknaming" was really getting to him.

"Yeah," Draco said, glaring. "We found that out in first year."

Blaise groaned. "Here we go again."

__________________________________________________

It was Draco's first Hogsmeade trip, and his three best friends made it a point to show him around the whole village.

As in the whole village.

The six boys (yes, Crabbe and Goyle had come along with them after the other fours' last stop in Honeydukes) approached the outlook by the Shrieking Shack. But they weren't alone.

Granger and Weasley were there, looking out at the building. This was a perfect opportunity to torment Weasley and to get Granger to hate Draco after he'd accidentally helped her with her cat.

Draco marched right up to them. "How romantic. Are you two shopping for your new dream home? Big, grand view, isn't it, Weaselbee? Doesn't your family sleep in, uh, one room?"

"Shut up, Malfoy," Weasley said.

"Ooh, not very friendly. Boys, I think it's time we taught Weaselbee how to respect his superiors."

"Hope you don't mean yourself!" Granger said, stepping in front of the redhead.

"How dare you talk to me!" Draco said. "You filthy, little Mudblood."

SMACK!

A snowball hit him on the side of his head.

"Who was that?" he said. Another snowball hit him directly in the face. Alright, head count. Annoying redhead Gryffindor equal of Crabbe and Goyle? Check. Insufferable squib-born know-it-all? Check. Boy who just can't die? Missing. No check. Didn't Blaise mention two years ago that Potter had an invisibility cloak? Of course.

Instead of retaliating, Draco called to the boys, "Let's get out of here."

As they walked to back to the Three Broomsticks, Draco heard Potter (who'd probably come out from under his cloak) telling his friends about the Marauders' Map. Supposedly he'd gotten from the Weasel twins. Draco excused himself to go to the bathroom.

He crept out of the building through the back door by the bathroom. "Expecto Patronum!" he said. A shimmering wolf appeared.

"Padfoot, Potter has the Marauders' Map. Don't know how." Draco concentrated hard on Sirius and sent the message to him. Then he quickly went back inside.

A/N: I encourage you all to share this book with your friends, comment, vote, and keep on reading! Thank you all so much!