The relative hush of Draco’s classroom is disturbed by an irritatingly familiar crackling sound and he looks up from the stack of fourth-year essays he has been marking. For a moment, he regards the group of Ravenclaw and Gryffindor students, all of whom are supposed to be engaged in a simple theory exercise. Most of them are scratching away with their quills or frowning at their textbooks or biting their nails, and though the latter makes Draco’s nose wrinkle, he knows that they are, at least, attempting to understand the fundamentals of organic-to-non-organic Transfiguration. Which is, as usual, more than can be said for Jasper Bracknell and his little band of followers.

Jasper, one of the many banes of Draco’s existence, is leaning back in his chair and obnoxiously popping bubbles of acid green exploding gum as he conducts a muttered conversation with his friend in the row behind him—a conversation which Draco is certain has nothing to do with Transfiguration, organic or otherwise. The thing about Jaspers, Draco thinks, pinching the bridge of his nose as another series of crack-crack-bangs issues from his student’s mouth, is that there is one in every class. And they are almost all Gryffindors. Not that he’s biased. No, if he’s honest, he finds nearly all of his pupils completely maddening.

Crackle-pop-bang, goes Jasper’s bubblegum, and now all the students within a two-chair radius of him are looking up from their work and murmuring gently. Draco sighs.

“Mr. Bracknell,” he says quietly, taking some satisfaction in the fact that the classroom falls immediately silent.

Jasper continues to lean back in his chair but his impudent blue eyes swivel to meet Draco’s. “Yes, sir?”

“Tell me you are not eating that disgusting green gunge in my class again,” he demands, covering his weariness with severity.

Jasper blinks. Shrugs. Grins. “Okay. I’m not,” he says, and his friends titter appreciatively.

Draco grimaces, feeling a headache blooming behind one eye. “Be grateful for the fact that your friends find you so hilarious, Mr. Bracknell, because you are unlikely to amount to much without your Transfiguration OWL, which you are highly unlikely to achieve without an understanding of Lockheed’s Law.” He pauses, relishing the puzzled expression twisting the usually smug face. “If you could apply yourself to your textbook for a moment or so, you might find it illuminating. In the meantime, I think that’s five points from Gryffindor.”

“Sir, that’s not fair! It’s always...” Jasper falls silent, mouth twitching.

“What is it?”

“Oh... nothing. I think I’ll just have a look at the old... Lockheed... erm... sorry, sir,” Jasper mumbles, frowning and pulling his textbook towards him.

Instantly suspicious, Draco looks around. Nothing seems amiss, but he is unsettled as he returns to his marking, and the next few essays in the pile are subject to a more savage application of red ink than usual. When the giggling starts, his uneasiness turns to alarm.

Gripping his quill hard, he looks around at his class.

“Settle down,” he says sharply, drawing down his eyebrows and shooting them his tried and tested silencing look. Inexplicably, this only makes them giggle harder. Every single person in the room seems to find him an object of amusement. Even the quiet, generally well-behaved Ravenclaw girls at the front are watching him with bright eyes and ill-concealed grins. Equal parts cross and anxious, he stares wildly around at his students. They’re laughing at him. He has no idea what to do with that. After ten years of teaching, he’s used to be feared, disliked, and occasionally respected, but this is something completely new, and he doesn’t like it one bit. Desperately, he turns to Jasper, who is smirking heartily and making a show of staring at his textbook.

Draco throws down his quill and presses his hands against the familiar grain of his desk. It’s reassuringly solid and takes the weight he rests on it without complaint. Or giggling. When the bell rings some minutes later and the classroom empties of students and their strange amusement, Draco waits only seconds before locking the door behind them and stalking around the classroom, searching for clues to the unwelcome hilarity. Finding nothing beyond a nothing-out-of-the-ordinary unflattering drawing of himself, he heads for his rooms. A giggle or two along the way only fuels the suspicion that something is very wrong, and when he arrives in front of his bathroom mirror, that suspicion is quickly confirmed.

His eyebrows have been turned red. Bright red. Gryffindor red, in fact, he realises as he stands there and seethes at his own reflection. He looks ridiculous, and he knows exactly who is to blame.

Furious, he storms out of his quarters and through corridors packed with students looking for mischief with which to occupy their afternoon breaks. He knows exactly where he is going, and despite the whispers and glances, he doesn’t think to correct his eyebrows until he is already halfway across the lawn, and by then, he’s built up far too much momentum to stop and think of a spell to reverse such a ridiculous curse. The grass is springy and damp under his feet as he approaches his target, and he can already feel the wet hem of his cloak slapping heavily against his legs but he doesn’t care—he can see Potter now, and, more importantly, Potter has not yet seen him.

And of course he hasn’t, because at a time when all other students have gleefully abandoned their professors for more diverting company, Potter’s class of first-years are still gathered around him, eager faces turned up to their favourite teacher as he clutches a stack of school brooms and chats away to them as though he hasn’t a care in the world. Perhaps he hasn’t, Draco thinks irritably, as he draws close enough to the group to hear a Hufflepuff boy cry, “That’s so cool, Professor Potter!”

Potter laughs, lifting a hand to scrub at his ridiculous hair as the fresh autumn wind catches and pulls at it, making him look like an over-eager scarecrow. No wonder he’s happy, the lazy bugger. No lesson plans, no marking; nothing to do, in fact, besides supervising first-years on broomsticks. No wonder he has time to cook up juvenile eyebrow-reddening schemes.

“Professor Potter,” Draco snaps, just about managing to remember his manners in front of the students. As Potter turns, the wind whirls savagely across the lawn and flips Draco’s sodden cloak over his head. Growling inwardly, he yanks it down and wipes his damp forehead, noting with resignation that the few students who weren’t already laughing at his impromptu Dementor impression are now giggling at the sight of his eyebrows.

“Hello, Professor Malfoy,” Potter says, blinking his ridiculous green eyes innocently. “Is something the matter?”

Draco grits his teeth, feeling multiple sets of expectant eyes all over him. “Could I speak to you alone for a moment?” he manages. “The bell has gone for afternoon break, you know.”

“Yeah, I know, we were just getting to know each other a bit,” Potter says mildly, glancing at the first-years, who are now following the exchange in pin-drop silence. Realising that Draco isn’t going anywhere, he sighs and turns to dismiss them. “Off you go, then. I’ll see you next time.”

Amid some grumbling and disappointment, the group disperses and Draco watches them meander across the lawn for a moment before he turns back to Potter, who is now grinning. Draco drags in a breath of cold, woodsmoke-scented air and refocuses. Fuck, he hates Potter. Well, perhaps hate is a very strong word, but there’s no denying that Potter is the most infuriating and idiotic person Draco has ever known, and he has known plenty of contenders in his thirty-two years on this earth.

“What do you want, Malfoy? I’ve got stuff to do.”

Draco snorts. “Like what? Counting broomsticks? Checking which way is up? Making sure... actually, that’s all I can think of. What is it you do, exactly?” he snipes, temper compounded by the wind blowing his hair across his forehead and his wet cloak and the mud on his shoes and the fact that Potter seems to be experiencing the same with no concern at all.

“I don’t think you came storming over here to tell me what you think of my job,” Potter sighs, adjusting the broomsticks in his arms. “For one thing, I already know how low an opinion you have of me, and for another, I can’t see you getting your feet wet just to snipe at me.”

“No,” Draco grinds out, hating that Potter has him bang to rights for once. “Perhaps I’d just like to know what the hell you think you’re playing at?” he says softly and with venom, lifting one scarlet eyebrow in inquiry.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Draco fumes. “What—did—you—do—to—my—eyebrows?” he demands.

Potter’s mouth twitches slightly at one side but he shrugs. “Nothing. It’s a good colour on you, though.”

Irritation raging through his veins, Draco clenches both fists at his side and inhales sharply with the effort of keeping the worst of his feelings—the humiliation, the frustration, the sense of being bested—inside and away from Potter.

“I know it was you, Potter.”

“I don’t think you do.”

“So it’s merely coincidence, you’re suggesting, that the very day after our... discussion about certain people’s bias in removing house-points, I take points—quite rightfully so—from a student from your House and I am immediately rewarded with this?” Draco snaps, indicating his eyebrows and then folding his arms, waiting for Potter’s response.

“It wasn’t me,” Potter says evenly.

“Oh, really?”

“Really.” Potter takes a better grip of his broomsticks and turns to leave. “Like I said, I have things to do.”

“I know it was you, Potter, and I’m not going to forget it,” Draco calls after him, infuriated.

He watches the retreating figure until it stops, halfway across the grass towards the castle, and turns.

“Hey, Malfoy?”

Draco sighs. “Yes?”

“You do take too many points from Gryffindor.”

________________________________________

By the time Draco makes it back to his rooms and locks the door behind him, his fury has simmered down to a more manageable level of prickly irritation, and he feels almost calm as he stands in front of his bathroom mirror and carefully strips every last trace of red from his eyebrows.

“That’s better,” he murmurs to his bedraggled reflection. He attempts to spell his hair back into place and sighs, letting it flop damply against his forehead as his own eyes stare morosely back at him. “That may have to be given up as a bad job.”

Tack-tack-tack, comes a familiar clicking sound from the corner of the bathroom. In spite of himself, Draco almost smiles as he turns to regard the oversized beetle that is currently trying to climb out of his basket of clean towels.

“I’m very tempted to let you struggle, Stanley,” Draco says, even as he strides over to the flailing creature and bends to pick it up. “I don’t know how many times we’ve been through this—you may be able to climb in but you cannot climb out.”

Tack-tack, clicks Stanley, pressing his six little feet against the front of Draco’s robes and waving his antennae in the air. His willow patterned shell, the result of a first-year’s botched attempt to turn a simple mint leaf beetle into a cup, glows beautifully in the low light of Draco’s quarters, and he appears to be in good spirits after a good nap in the towel basket.

Letting out a tiny, reluctant smile, Draco carries the beetle, now the size of a small cat, through to his living room, enjoying the familiar weight and the rhythm of contented soft clicking noises. It’s been almost four years since he rescued Stanley (or Stanley Seaton’s Screw-up, to give him his full title) from his human namesake and he has never regretted it. The daft beetle makes for surprisingly satisfying company, and Draco has lived with far more irritating habits than extreme clumsiness and a penchant for hiding mint leaves in unusual places.

“Here,” he says, setting the beetle down in an armchair and absently patting his shell. The temptation to sink into the other chair and light the fire pulls at him like the tendrils of a persuasive plant, but the sound of the bell echoing through the corridors beyond his little sanctuary puts paid to any such idea. He’s going to be late for his own class, and, more importantly, he has a counter-strike to plan.

Having made it just in time and set his students to work on some advanced cross-species spells, Draco picks up his quill and begins to scribble, aimlessly at first, noting down ideas and dismissing them, drawing little beetles and Potters down the sides of his parchment. Evil little Potters and ferocious, man-eating beetles. He does, however, count himself lucky that Stanley is not a carnivore, like many of the varieties of beetle used in school. He chose the mint leaf variety merely because it was, with its shiny green shell, a little more stylish, but these days he is grateful that gathering food for his pet only involves scavenging around the grounds for garden mint, rather than hunting for insects and grubs and such.

As for Potter... well. If pressed, he thinks he would admit to extreme pettiness and immaturity, but no-one is asking, so that’s fine. The unpleasantness of the past is far behind them—at least, he thinks it is. On the surface, it is—but it’s not as though they have ever discussed it, nor have they ever discussed the fact that they just do not get along. Because it suits Draco just fine. Gryffindor and Slytherin have always had a contentious time of it, and there isn’t much more Gryffindor than the head of Gryffindor. Draco doesn’t expect to get near the head of Slytherin position until Slughorn carks it, and probably not even then. Which is fine, because such a position can only mean more time with the students, more time with the other teachers, and many other things he’d rather not think about.

He’s a teacher. He’s a good teacher, he thinks; he knows how to impart knowledge, how to make it stick in young brains; he knows how to keep order and how to mete out discipline (though, he thinks, instinctively touching his eyebrow, he might just lay off taking house-points for a little while). It’s just people, if he’s honest. People are difficult and messy and he doesn’t much care for the way they look at him. Including Potter. Especially Potter.

So he schemes, because he has reasons. Not that anyone will ask what they are.

“Oh, Magnus... no,” protests Ivy Baron, a tiny red-haired sixth-year, addressing her neighbour without looking away from her work. Draco continues to write, keeping one eye on them.

“What? Do you think she’s weird as well?” Magnus whispers, letting his attention drift until his rat grows so long that it begins to slide off the desk. He rescues it just in time and Draco bites his tongue hard, thinking of his eyebrows. Magnus is a Hufflepuff, but Draco just isn’t risking it.

Ivy grins. “Seriously. I’ve heard things.”

Magnus clamps down a hand to prevent his elongated rat from clambering onto Ivy’s desk and ruining her work. “Like what?”

Ivy casts a nifty little freezing charm on her snake-in-progress and turns to look at her friend. Impressed, Draco continues to watch, attempting to ignore the small explosion that has just issued from the back of the room.

Eyes bright, she crosses her arms and smiles slyly. “I heard her say that she wants to tie you up so you can’t move and then have her way with you,” she says under her breath.

Draco muffles a cough with some difficulty.

“That’s... whoa. It’s... well. I suppose it could be weirder,” Magnus says, sounding unconvinced.

Ivy’s smile becomes a shark’s grin as she clearly prepares to deliver the coup de grace. Draco listens intently, all at once quietly loathing himself and dying to know what’s coming next.

“And then there’s the gravy,” Ivy says, and Magnus’ eyes grow dangerously wide.

“The gravy?” he whispers.

Draco closes his eyes, locates his professional pride, and fixes them both with a stern gaze.

“Miss Baron, Mr. Humphries,” he says loudly, and they both snap around to face him, “if you could keep your private lives out of my classroom, that would be just wonderful.”

It’s in the mumbling of sorry, sirs, the general air of surprise that no points have been lost, and the smell of burnt hair which now pervades the classroom that Draco has a wonderful idea.

“What are you doing, Zarenski?” he demands, getting up from his desk and going to investigate the disaster with a smile on his face.

________________________________________

Much of the evening is spent perfecting the tricky little curse he plans to use on Potter, and by the time Draco retires to bed, removes three slightly chewed mint leaves from under his pillow, and pulls his embroidered autumn quilt up to his chin, he is feeling rather serene

about the whole thing. The following night’s sleep is the best he’s had in a long time, and he is positively cheerful as he strides around his rooms the next morning, humming as he stands under the gargoyle in his bathroom and lets the hot water and steam envelop him and chatting away to Stanley as he sits on the edge of his bed and fastens up his boots.

“I suppose it’s quite a simple concept, but I am rather proud of the spellwork,” he says. “The Full Body-bind is such an underused curse, and it will drive Potter to absolute distraction. I’m setting it to release after a minute, but I think that’s long enough to teach him a lesson about taking points from Slytherin, don’t you?”

Tack-tack, offers Stanley, trundling along Draco’s sideboard and sending a comb, two books and a box of teabags clattering to the floor in his wake.

“Stanley, you are a menace to both the living and the dead,” Draco sighs, but he doesn’t bother to check his smile when the infernal beetle clicks ingratiatingly at him, because no one’s here to see it.

Stanley hops from side to side and flaps his (non-functioning—Draco has checked) wings in a well-worn entreaty to be picked up and carried around, but receives only a stern look in response.

“I don’t think so. I’m going to breakfast and you can’t come with me. You will be seen and I will be in trouble—or worse, everyone will want to be your friend and I will never see you again.”

Tacking gently, Stanley waves his antennae, sending a roll of parchment flying, and Draco raises his eyes to the ceiling. Relenting slightly, he picks up the beetle and sets him on the rug before he can do any more redecorating. He will, no doubt, climb back up onto the sideboard, but it will take him a good while to do it.

Some minutes later, Draco takes his seat near the end of the staff table in the Great Hall, distractedly chewing on a triangle of toast as he waits for Potter, who is always late. He is down to the last crust before he realises he has forgotten to butter it, but eats it anyway, washing it down with a gulp of mud-like coffee. Potter arrives, looking scrubbed and irritatingly healthy, just in time. He is literally pulling out his chair next to McGonagall when the sound of wingbeats announces the arrival of the post owls, and what better time to sneakily curse a colleague than when he and every other witness in the room is distracted? Draco hardly ever has any post—his mother prefers the occasional firecall these days, and his Potioneer’s Weekly always comes on a Friday. Today is no exception, and he seizes his opportunity as Potter is opening yet another intriguing-looking package.

He knocks his fork off the table, and, on the pretext of picking it up, bends and casually flicks his wand in Potter’s direction, mumbling the words to the curse as he gropes around on the cold floor for the dropped fork. Nothing happens, but he feels confident that it won’t be long. Straightening up, he smiles, inhales the deliciously savoury air, and politely asks Slughorn for the bacon platter. It may be a little bit premature, but he feels like celebrating.

________________________________________

There are few things more satisfying than being right, and barely two hours have passed before Draco is proved just so. As he steps out into a sunny courtyard for some fresh air between classes, he is greeted by a mob of furiously whispering students, and, when they part for him at his severe look, there is Potter, leaning against a wall, startled and blinking. The second he spots Draco, his puzzlement turns to rage and he beckons Draco over with a silent gesture. Amused but poker-faced, Draco crosses the cobbles towards him unhurriedly, heart racing with secret delight.