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Draco stares daggers at me, jaw clenched tightly, a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead. I flip his wand back to him, never taking my eyes off of him. With a look of mild surprise, he snatches it out of the air and looks closely at it.
Then he spins and stalks off the way he was headed, robes billowing behind him.
"Draco!" Pansy yells, then follows with a dirty glare my way. Crabbe, Goyle, Millicent, and a girl with glasses I don't recognize chase after their departing Housemates.
Daphne, Tracey, and Blaise remain behind, staring at me with varying expressions.
"That was very foolish of you, Gryffindor," Daphne says after a moment.
I smirk. "Was it? Trading someone else's private information for throwing my 'enemies' into disarray, planting seeds of doubt to encourage defection? At most I enlarged the target that is already on my back for being a Muggleborn friend of Harry Potter. Quite a bargain, I think."
Tracey gasps and Blaise's eyes darken. Daphne shakes her head, then chuckles. "Just winging it again, aren't you?"
I grin. "You know me too well."
"You are ridiculous."
"I'm not smart enough for ridicule to work on me," I say. "Must be the mud in my blood."
"Why do you do that?" Tracey blurts. "Call yourself a mudblood, I mean."
I look at her in surprise. "You saw, Ms. Davis. I deny Draco his goal when I use the name for myself. He's used to Harry and his friends taking offense to that, and by doing so they give him exactly what he wants. He wanted me to be scared, and then he wanted me to be angry, and then he wanted to hit me with a spell. He lost every time."
"What if he ordered us all to attack you?" Daphne asks.
I shrug. "He might have 'won' then, if you can consider that a victory."
"Might have?" Daphne asks, eyebrow raised.
"I don't use my wand, Daphne," I pull it out and toss it to her. "You tell me what that might mean. The spell to check the previous—" Suddenly that thought makes my blood run cold. "—actually on second thought, maybe that's not such a good idea." I reach for my wand but she holds it away, out of my reach.
"Oh, what's this?" Daphne asks, ice-blue eyes alight, lips turned up in a devious smile. "Suddenly worried about what we'll find?"
"Yes, actually. Considering I have never used it and I only obtained it this summer—"
"Prior Incantato!"
I cringe, waiting for something horrendous to happen, but after several seconds of tense silence, I let out a heavy breath.
"You really don't use it!" Blaise blurts out, breaking his usually collected and stern facade.
"How...how is that possible?" Tracey asks.
"As an ignorant mudblood, I wouldn't know."
"No, William, you don't understand," Daphne says. I see Blaise's eyes darken in anger and Tracey's eyes widen when she uses my first name, but Daphne doesn't notice. "There's no way for a wand to show nothing at all. It had to have been tested at some point, and prior incantato does not erase the previous spell."
I shrug. "Maybe somebody figured out how to erase the previous spell. Or maybe I wandlessly blocked your spell just to trick you."
Her eyes snap to mine. "Did you?"
"No, but I might have tried if I had thought of it in time."
"What does this mean?" Daphne asks rhetorically.
The four of us are silent for some time.
"Daph, we better go," Blaise says finally.
She takes a long breath, then brushes a lock of long, straight, raven-black hair out of her face with one hand while she uses the other to return my wand. Then she studies my face for a moment. "My father wishes to meet with you."
"What?" I realize after I say it that I wasn't the only one.
"Can you make it to the Three Broomsticks at one in the afternoon, this Saturday?"
"Uh..." My mind goes blank. What the hell am I supposed to do?
She chuckles. "You face down an entire group of hostile Slytherins without fear, and now you're scared to meet my father?"
Well, I wouldn't say it without fear. So I don't. "Yes."
"Oh." Apparently she did not expect that answer.
"Will you be there?"
"Yes."
I consider that for a short time. Obviously a lot of things could go wrong, but this might be a chance to make more allies as well.
Assuming Daphne was telling the truth, he doesn't seem the type to set up some kind of ambush since there obviously won't be any profit involved in kidnapping or threatening me.
I suppose I can always 'get caught' if Harry or Hermione think of a reason I need to get out of it.
"Well usually I prefer to go on more dates before I meet my girlfriend's parents, but it's a date."
"I'm not your girlfriend and it is not a date."
"If you say so," I say, smiling. "See you then, Daphne. Mr. Zabini, Ms. Davis."
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"I don't like it," Hermione says at breakfast the next morning, predictably.
"I didn't think you would," I say. "So that means you and Harry will come with me, right?"
Hermione's lips pressed together. "I'd rather none of us go at all."
"It would be nice to get out of the castle, Hermione, and we'll be in public so it'll be safe," Harry says.
"Like it was at the Quidditch World Cup?" she asks hotly.
"That was at night and it was a planned attack," he points out. "Nobody would expect us in Hogsmeade in the middle of the day. We'll be in and out in a half hour, tops."
She digs her heels in. "How do you know it isn't planned? It's well-known that you're friends with William, and that you might go with him. It's an unnecessary risk."
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Hey guys if u like the fanfic and want to read ahead by 27+ chapters or just want to support take a visit on my patreon.
(P).(A).(T).(R).(E).(O).(N)
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