Chapter Text
‘Granger, what the fuck are you doing?’
It was his first word on the grounds of Hogwarts after the end of the war, when Draco arrived at the crack of dawn that morning.
In July, Thestral-buses were set to run between Hogsmeade and Hogwarts every half hour for the convenience of arriving volunteers and builders, engineers, and enchanters who had been invited to take part in the restoration of the war-battered castle.
So naturally, Draco had taken the earliest run available, even if the hour was, by any measure, ungodly.
Naturally, given that the paperwork for his release had taken longer than it should have, and the Grand Hogwarts Restoration had officially been underway for days. Which meant he was already late, and most of the bleeding-heart volunteers, deeply concerned for the fate of Hogwarts, had already arrived and were probably already dancing barefoot in circles celebrating the end of the war, weaving flowers into each other's hair. Gross.
Which was precisely why he had decided to arrive early — to avoid running first thing into a crowd of righteous and good-hearted people who would be pretty much happy to rebuild Hogwarts with his pathetic Death Eater body buried somewhere in the foundations, beneath one of the castle's standing stones.
And it would really do no one any good if he were to die at such an early stage, after all that he had already managed to go through. Besides, Mother would cry. So no, thank you — an early death on the tines of a righteous pitchfork was out of the question for now. Sorry, gents.
And everything was going as he had planned — he had said goodbye to his mother, he had promised to write and Apparated to Hogsmeade at around 6 in the morning to catch the first Thestral-bus. The Thestrals looked just as revolting as ever, their very visibility a blunt reminder of the deaths he had been forced to witness. An interesting choice of transport for those who had survived the war.
In any case, everything had been going according to plan for about half an hour, until Hermione Granger, for the umpteenth time in his life, ruined everything without so much effort as merely existing.
Damn her. Really.
He came down from the hill on the path from Hogsmeade that ran along the Black Lake shore. And there she was, spreading out a large plaid blanket on the sandy-pebble shore, with a big bag lying nearby, from the top of which a fluffy and presumably enormous towel was making an appearance. She bent over spreading out said blanket, wearing nothing except some parody of clothing, something like very provocative underwear, a skin-tight black barely-there thing. Like she was setting the scene for some homemade porn. Which was ridiculous, because it was Granger, for fuck's sake, and it was Hogwarts, at the start of what seemed to be a disgustingly bright and sunny day.
So, naturally, his question was justified — and actually very polite, all things considered.
‘Granger, what the fuck are you doing?’
She looked at him without stopping her bending at first, but then straightened up, putting her hand on her hip, eyeing him intimidatingly, as if she wasn't the one who was almost naked here.
‘Me? What are you doing here?’
Always cordial and welcoming, the Granger.
‘Me?’ he mimicked her phrase and expression. ‘I was on my humble and noble way back to Hogwarts, when I came across some very — even aggressively so — indecent Granger.’
She quickly looked down at her bare feet, as if suddenly remembering what state of undress she was in, and her cheeks tinted pink a little, but of course she refused to back down. With irritation she raised her head, tsked, and rolled her eyes.
The audacity.
‘It's called a swimsuit, you dimwit,’ answered she, high and mighty, as if that made perfect sense.
It doesn't.
‘I know what a swimsuit is, thank you very much. Do you realise the word “suit” is there for a reason, right? What I see here is not even clothing but more like some Muggle porn prop.’
Her face colored a little more.
Good.
Which only led, of course, to powering up her defence-turning-offence state.
‘You are the porn prop, if anything! Hmph! And this — is a perfectly sensible swimsuit, you prudish joke of a wizard!’ she continued, hurling insults while somehow remaining on the defensive. ‘What the hell do you want from me, anyway?’
She gotta be kidding him.
‘As I told you before, I was on my way to dear Hogwarts... But it looks like if Muggle porn is being set up here in broad daylight then Hogwarts is probably beyond the point of restoration and I should just head home now.’
That made her stop, the new information, which she hadn't known and hadn't expected, fueling her constantly running mind and distracting her from the previous topic.
‘You came for the reconstruction? Why?’ always demanding, as if all the answers should be presented to her at her first wish.
‘Why indeed would people come to the reconstruction, Granger.’ Sarcasm. He loves sarcasm.
‘What, are you going to help?’ She tilted her head, somewhere between confused and doubtful, forgetting that maybe she needed to mask those feelings.
‘What, aren't you the one who should be advocating salvation and redemption for any being? Is this so hard to believe?’
Now let's push the offended feelings' card. Well, it's not like he needed to pretend to be offended, anyway. He knew perfectly well that this should be hard to believe — and that he would be constantly reminded of that by any living soul, funnily enough from both sides of the war. Yet it stung the same, the same as when he told it to himself, when distractedly musing over his lunch at the Manor and then suddenly remembering the shitty situation he's in.
Not like it was something new, but still.
His tactic worked on her, at least.
‘...Uhm... Why, no, not at all,’ she mumbled, backing up.
Terribly unconvincing little liar.
‘Don't bother, I would not expect you to. Anyway, I'm heading to the headmistress's office now and I hope she gave you permission to perform this shameless act of exhibitionism,’ he shot his brows up expectantly. ‘And if not I would be delighted to watch her come to personally cover your vulgarly exposed arse up.’
He was smirking. He had the upper hand in this conversation and now was the right time to end it and walk off as a winner.
And he did exactly that, turning to face the path again and taking his steps toward the castle. Leaving Granger in a mixed tangle of embarrassment from her displayed doubts toward him and anger at him for making fun of her, all the while she was confused and felt guilty out of her sense of righteousness, yes.
Ah.
What a start of a day.
He hadn't gone far before he heard a muttered ‘...such a prick’ whispered at his back, and his smirk turned absolutely smug.
He almost felt like he had a pair of wings carrying him through the fresh morning air — the feeling of winning a verbal fight is always such a blessing, so intoxicating. Even the fear of facing the hatred for the month ahead didn't seem so strong now.
Maybe it would all go better than he expected.
In stunned disbelief, Hermione stared at his retreating back, which somehow managed to look extraordinarily pleased with itself.
‘Such a prick,’ she muttered under her breath — and his walk seemed to become even more insufferably self-satisfied in response.
Unbelievable.
What the hell is he doing here? Like, yes, she had asked already and he had already given her an answer — but still. What does it mean. Why. For what reasons. Are there some catches, double meanings, ulterior motives? There should be — that's Malfoy we are talking about, after all.
Does it make her suddenly wary? Maybe.
And she didn't like the feeling. At all. She had come to her second home. Her only home now — though she wouldn't think that thought right now, no. But she had at least begun to feel safe again, finally, and in her right place. And for what? So that after only a few days her hard-won and carefully kept scrap of peace would be threatened by that tall, lanky, walking shadow of the war? What the hell?
No, she absolutely didn't like this.
She wasn't going to lose her peace of mind because of him. To lose anything again because of him. No, thank you.
He could kindly go to hell.
She had come to restore Hogwarts and to restore herself — not to be in constant tension waiting for the worst.
And if she were to be completely honest... She feels like she is really too tired. Tired of the war, and the espionage, and the Constant Vigilance — sorry, Alastor, but really. She's so tired of any type of the shit she was pulled into in the previous years. Well, yes, half the time she was the one who initiated it, very much willingly so — and yes, every one of their little adventures was a horrible, catastrophically death-edging experience, starting right from the first year. But no one back then thought it would end in a real, gruesome, full-scale war. Of course that's not the thing you want to think about and not the thing to be dreaming about as a teenager. Really not a surprise that they hadn't thought about it.
And now? It's over. Finally. Sometimes it's almost strange to even think about it, still. They were under such constant tension and such pressure that now the time of peace feels unreal. It's peace now, right? It's not someone's cruel joke? She really hoped the peace wasn't simply an illusion waiting to collapse just to reveal that Voldemort and Bellatrix and Dolohov and Greyback and all the others were still alive.
Okay, now. It's not the time to revisit your nightmares.
Even if one person from her nightmares had only minutes ago walked in here, onto the territory of her safety, or so she had thought. And as usual, as if he owned the place.
That bastard.
But he's not the most frequent guest in her dreams anyway, so it really wasn't so bad. And, as has been said, she's really tired. She probably doesn't even want to think about it. To suspect, to try to uncover the plotting, to try to catch someone red-handed. No, really, she had done enough, hadn't she? Clearly she had. Even now she was there, helping to rebuild, to renew. Of course that was what she wanted herself, her deepest desire from the bottom of her heart. Hogwarts is their home. They had lost so much, they needed to revive what was left.
So, she had decided that was her job for now. Not to fight some hypothetical evil plans, but simply to work quietly and peacefully on their own plans.
Specifically the plans to restore the ancient magical place that was battered by the war, but stayed standing.
Which means: no espionage, no plotting, no dark corners.
She had come here, to the lake. It's morning, it's July. In a few hours the hard as well as meaningful work will continue, and for now she has some time for herself. To just swim in the transparent waters, to lie on her back and look at the sky, to hear the sounds of the waking world. She has it for herself.
And if some devious, sinister, evil Malfoy so much unafraid of Azkaban that he dares to be planning anything, then...
Oh, come on.
She really hoped he wasn't.
Minerva McGonagall was drinking her morning tea with milk, sitting in the headmaster's study. In her study. Was it strange, sitting in this chair now, being the 3rd person in the headmaster's seat in 3 years? You could most surely say so. Yes, rather.
The portraits of the two predecessors, two of her friends, hung on the wall not far from her. Snape looking gloomy and reserved, as always, Dumbledore smiling slyly from behind his half-moon spectacles. It was quite remarkable how deceptive both of these images were, how shallow. The portraits of her old friends, who had way too many secrets — and she would have truly wished they had revealed those secrets to her sooner.
Perhaps then some of the losses could have been avoided. Though history has no subjunctive mood. Even Time-Turners could only take you back a short while, correcting only the most recent past. Though there are no Time-Turners left now either — destroyed at the very beginning, in the Ministry's Department of Mysteries. In the end that had proved to be a good thing — had the Time-Turners remained in a Ministry seized by Death Eaters... how catastrophic that would have been does not bear imagining.
But the war had gone as it had gone, and they had won. At the cost of enormous losses, of the lives of many young people who had so much life ahead of them. How many times had she seen this? As with the first Order, she had watched the young, yesterday's children, give their lives. And she had watched it again — and this time they had literally been children, her students, wrenched from their lives and thrust into the centre of a war. She hoped that this time they had won for certain. One can only witness so many wars in a lifetime.
And now she had to continue doing everything so that it would not have been in vain. The restoration after the war — not simply the restoration of the old life, but an attempt to build a new one in such a way as not to repeat the mistakes of the past — was no less complex and noble a task than fighting in the war. It was not as loud as battles, and the acts of heroism were not as obvious — and yet they were there. It was daily work, it was constant small battles. Less visible, but no less important.
They had to restore Hogwarts.
She had announced an open call for volunteers, so that only those who truly cared about Hogwarts would be involved in this. Hogwarts is a living organism, and you could not simply patch up the holes in the walls to revitalize it. Its restoration is its people and their magic, only that way would it work. But she had wanted it to be an entirely voluntary endeavour. Everyone had been exhausted after the war and she was not about to force anyone into it, couldn't bring herself to ask for it — however heavily the necessity of reconstruction hung over them.
And yet people had responded. Those who had already poured everything they had into fighting the war came forward once more, but now in peacetime. The same children who had fought were now coming to rebuild these walls and bring new life. It was most likely therapeutic, of course, they needed it for themselves too. And yet she could not help but feel a wave of gratitude. They had not been obliged to, and they were here nonetheless. She had not dared to expect how many owls with responses would fly into her office, and only the wakeful portrait of Snape had been witness to the few sentimental tears that rolled down one of her cheeks. Severus had said nothing, as usual — but his ever so slightly warmed gaze showed that he understood her mix of feelings.
A knock at the door announced the expected arrival of one of those young people who had thrown their youth into the furnace of the war.
One of the very complicated young people.
‘Professor McGonagall?’
‘Do come in,’ she answered, lifting her head and turning her gaze away from the desk, where lay the objects she very much did not want to use.
Young Draco Malfoy entered the study, looking calm, composed and polite. Her experienced eye had seen enough students to make it easy to notice that his composure was very carefully maintained, and his body language betrayed that he was considerably tense.
Well, she quite understood all the reasons for that. The case of Draco Malfoy was complicated.
But Minerva McGonagall had never been one to shrink from complications.
And of course she was furious. She was hollowed out by rage at Voldemort, who had ruined the lives of so many people. At all the fanatics who had robbed people of their lives, their health, their families. At his lackeys, who had believed in him and helped bring it all about. She hated how unjustly and senselessly those lives had been destroyed.
Angry at Lucius Malfoy too, for that matter — for having actively drawn his family into all of this. Angry that young Draco Malfoy now bore the Dark Mark and would carry it like a brand for the rest of his life. Voldemort had fallen, and yet even so he continued to ruin lives.
Had young Malfoy committed quite a number of harmful acts? Yes, and she was fully aware of every one of them — she had been at his hearing at the Wizengamot. But for that same reason she also knew of everything he had been made to do and had not done. He had had no choice and yet he had made one regardless. Some would call it simple cowardice and weakness of character — however Minerva was inclined to see in it quite the opposite: a great deal of resolve, a profound desire not to be what the Dark Mark obliged him to be. Even if he himself was not conscious of it and would not have named it as such.
Voldemort had taken so many lives, and if Minerva could do anything now, it was not to allow him to take yet another life even from beyond the grave.
Especially when that person had himself declared that he was not going to allow Voldemort to take from him what little he had left.
To stand against Voldemort, even a dead one — that took courage, though perhaps few would call it great bravery. And yet here Draco Malfoy stood in the middle of her study, though he was under no obligation to be, and the Sorting Hat, resting on one of the shelves, raised the folds of its brows and chewed thoughtfully at the cut of its mouth, as if reconsidering the decision it had once made.
Minerva had been pleasantly surprised to receive a letter from Malfoy Manor. The hearing on Draco Malfoy's case had concluded a few days prior, finding him guilty on a number of charges but with mitigating circumstances, and handing him a suspended sentence and house arrest for a year and a half. In those days an enormous number of hearings and cases were taking place simultaneously, and she might well have forgotten about it — but then the letter arrived.
In it young Draco Malfoy had written no pleasantries and offered no thanks for her testimony at the trial — instead he had asked directly and immediately whether there was any possibility of him helping in some way. That is to say, he had practically asked her for help — asked her to let him help, to do something of use in this enormous process of post-war restoration. He had not apologised or asked for forgiveness, but simply asked whether there was anything that he — a former Death Eater, sentenced by the Wizengamot — could do for the new age, in contrast to what had been done by him in the old.
The portrait of Dumbledore, who had not been asleep in the study at the time, gleamed over his spectacles, nodded approvingly and stroked his beard.
‘I am very glad to see you, Mr Malfoy. However, before we get to the pressing matters at hand, there is something we will need to do first.’
Minerva frowned and turned her gaze back to her desk, where in a neat official box bearing the seal of the Ministry of Magic lay two small objects and a scroll. Minerva pressed her lips together and for a brief moment it might have seemed as though she was prepared to hurl the box out of the window from the height of one of Hogwarts' tallest towers. Then she turned her displeased gaze to Draco.
‘I want you to know, Mr Malfoy, that I am absolutely not pleased about what I am going to have to do presently.’ She sighed and then rose from behind her desk. ‘First of all I will need your wand.’
‘Of course, Professor.’
Strangely, Draco showed no emotion whatsoever regarding what was about to happen. Severus had taught him Occlumency too well, thought Minerva. She was good at reading body language, but against Occlumency that had wiped all emotion from his face... Even she could not see past it.
McGonagall levitated his wand so that it hung suspended in the air between them, recited several lines of incantations, performed complex wand movements, and a sphere of grey-blue light enveloped Malfoy's wand. She took the scroll from the box and began reading aloud a list of spells one by one, sealing each item with a movement of her own wand. All of these were curses and spells from the categories of duelling and combat, immobilising and stunning. At the end she was obliged to recite the words of the three Unforgivable Curses in a dry voice, at which her eyes grew quite furious and displeased.
‘Mr Malfoy, it is your turn now, you will need to read this list as well,’ she handed him the scroll. His face betrayed a fraction of the emotions hidden within: lips pressed together, brows drawn.
‘Professor, there is no Protego here?’
‘Of course not. It is a protective spell, not an offensive one.’
‘But using it one could cause a ricochet that would hit another person.’
‘Mr Malfoy, I have no intention of writing to the Wizengamot proposing to strip your magic to the bone, and I have no desire to leave you any more vulnerable...’ than you already are, she did not finish, but it was plain enough without saying. ‘So if you have no other objections, we shall continue.’
Malfoy said nothing more, and obediently repeated every spell from the list one by one, finishing with the Unforgivables. His voice did not change as he spoke them, yet it was plain to see how rigid his posture had become. When he had finished, McGonagall levitated from the box a small rounded silver collar with runes engraved on its surface. The collar flew into the sphere of light and, rotating, expanded around the handle of Malfoy's wand. With McGonagall's final words of the incantation it lit up red and snapped shut abruptly, clasping the handle of Malfoy's wand in a ring. The colour returned to silver, the runes flashed red one last time and the collar fixed itself firmly in place, biting into the wood of the wand.
McGonagall sighed wearily and levitated the wand back into Draco's hand. He took it without a word and with detached curiosity turned it over in his hands, examining the changes to the wand he had known for half his life — practically as a part of himself.
‘Now to the second point,’ said McGonagall, levitating the second collar from the Ministry box, larger this time, resembling a bracelet.
‘I must ask you to roll up one of your trouser legs, Mr Malfoy,’ her voice could have put out forest fires, it was that cold. Yet it was plain that her contempt was not directed at Malfoy specifically, but rather at the situation at large.
Draco silently rolled up his left trouser leg and the bracelet flew to his leg, glowing the same red light, expanded and closed around his ankle, the runes flashing red and going dark. McGonagall brought the incantation to a close with a final flourish, lowered her wand and with a heavy exhale rubbed the bridge of her nose, the gesture pushing her glasses awkwardly up from it.
Draco had seen her displeased often enough — more than enough — but this display of such profound distress was new to him.
She blinked several times, straightened her glasses and then looked at him with considerably more composure.
‘I must state that I consider all of these measures excessive. I am quite sure that you know no less than I do — and understand better than to use any of these spells.’ She shook her head. ‘As I described in my letter, your wand is now enchanted so as to prevent you from casting these spells. The bracelet on your ankle will not allow you to leave the grounds of Hogwarts. These restrictions will remain in effect until whoever placed them — in this case, myself — lifts the enchantments. Whenever you wish to leave the grounds of Hogwarts, you will notify me, and a Wizengamot escort will see you home. For my part I have to say that I swear not to use this power against you. At least not beyond what is already the case...Again, I consider this excessive, but... oh, I am so sorry, Mr Malfoy.’
She had ended the explanation in a voice slightly different from her usual one — more emotional, more alive. Her voice and gaze were genuinely full of regret, and the waves of Occlumency concealing Malfoy's emotions faltered, and this showed in the slight break in his voice when he answered.
‘It is quite all right, Professor. I understand.’
She only shook her head again.
But then she sighed with resolve, straightened her shoulders and crossed to her desk. Her gaze fell on the Ministry box and with a flash of vengeful irritation she did what she had long wanted to do — even if the hated contents were no longer inside it. With a sharp flick of her wand she set the box alight, and red flames leapt high around it, rapidly reducing the dense cardboard to ash. McGonagall watched the fire for a couple of seconds and seemed to arrive at some sort of understanding with the situation. Clearing the remains of the offending item from the desk with a casual flick, she sat down and turned to face him with her usual no-nonsense professorial manner.
‘So, now to the truly important matters. As you know, the work began on Monday, though a number of volunteers are still arriving, so you will fit in easily enough. As I understand it, you are rather good with charms?’ she asked, already knowing the answer.
‘I suppose I know a thing or two.’
‘There is no need for false modesty, Mr Malfoy — particularly as I know it is not something you suffer from. And as I understand it, you possess considerable ability in Charms.’
Draco did not object, argue or clarify that yes, he did indeed possess certain abilities. For instance, if one needed to restore a forgotten Dark Artefact from oblivion — then yes, by all means, you had found the right person. He was less certain about other matters though.
‘I hope my skills will prove sufficient.’
‘Excellent. Professor Flitwick will be leading the enchantment group, so you will be working largely under his supervision. Though of course there will be other tasks as well, and we will all find ourselves doing a variety of things and demonstrating a degree of versatility. Breakfast in the Great Hall at the usual time, work begins immediately afterwards, and you are welcome to start today — simply make yourself known to Professor Flitwick.’
‘Right, I understand,’ he was still as sparing with words as ever, and just as composed. Whether a consequence of Occlumency or simply his manner throughout their meeting.
‘That will be all, then, you are free to go. Thank you for expressing a wish to help.’
‘Thank you for giving me the opportunity,’ from Draco, either courtesy or sincerity, it was difficult to say which.
‘But of course. You know,’ Minerva glanced at the portrait of Snape, who was watching them with close attention. ‘I think Severus would have been proud of you.’
This seems to be the one thing that catches him off guard. His eyes widen and his lips curve slightly into a small, awkward and sincere smile — half smile, half smirk. He nods.
‘My Mother told me the same.’
At that Minerva smiled slightly in turn.
‘I sincerely wish you luck, Mr Malfoy.’
‘Thank you, Professor.’
With that the waves of Occlumency seemed to recede somewhat further, and he left the study looking, it seemed, more at ease than when he had entered.
The visit to the headmistress's office was less unpleasant than he had thought. At least all the interactions, apart from the procedure of almost castrating him — and the charms and that disgusting band on his wand surely felt like being castrated. Forced impotency and humiliation, that's what it was. Oh, he also had this charming bracelet on his leg as well. Like the cute fucking prisoner he was. Lovely. Brilliant.
But he did know about this upcoming procedure of course, that was part of their deal. McGonagall's telling him that she was less than excited to do it seemed to be true, her sternness usually exclusively honest. So it really had been forced upon them both by the Ministry and the Wizengamot. Not that he was surprised — they never really looked like ambassadors of humanity, under the Dark Lord's rule or not. He was almost sure that his father's doings had actually done little to bring about the Ministry's fall. It was bound to fall and prostrate itself at the feet of the Dark Lord even without his father's constant corrupt dealings. So yeah, not surprised at all.
And this new image of themselves as a bastion of justice and humanity. "We hereby renounce the use of dementors on Azkaban prisoners!" Ah-ha. Yes, sure. It's because of humanism and not at all because they can't collect and control dementors after Voldemort's fall. Mm-hm. So dementors are just spreading across the territory of England now, slowly migrating across the Channel to the continent. Sweet hello to everyone who conveniently turned a blind eye to the island's war. Ah, isn't that lovely too.
Draco went down the still almost cold corridors and looked out of the high window. He had half an hour until breakfast and his second phase of torture for the day. For now he could stroll around the building, which felt strangely enormous and empty in the the summer.
So far his first encounter hadn't been an awful experience. He shouldn't lower his guard though. The headmistress is strict but possesses an imposing sense of justice and rationality. But not everyone he'd meet here would be so blessed with those qualities, he might say.
Through the window he could observe the grounds around Hogwarts from a bird's eye view — summer grounds, and summer fields and summer lake alike.
Ah, the lake.
Speaking of which, McGonagall hadn't been the first person he had met here, he realised. He tried to make out if there was still someone on the shore but even his Seeker's eyes weren't able to distinguish such distant details.
This morning's episode had been strange.
What was that? His first 10 minutes in Hogwarts and he was already having a banter with his least favourite Mudblood. It was so familiar that he almost forgot about his dark sullen mood and about all the tension of these days — that he had started his way here with a heavy heart. But Granger hadn't hexed him on the spot and hadn't given him even a proper cold shower — in a way it had been a hot shower, actually. And that was... suspiciously normal. Familiar.
Undeserved.
Not for him.
And yet... that was nice. And he didn't have it in him to refuse those feelings of normalcy — he couldn't strip himself of them if they just jumped up into his life. Undeserved. And welcomed.
Why was he so... content with this encounter? He honestly didn't know. It really had been pleasant. The weather was nice, the exchange of insults was nice, Granger's indecent form in this hilarious tiny piece of thing that she called a swimsuit was... unexpectedly nice too. Okay, that had been a pleasurable view — perhaps a little too forced on him, because he really hadn't given any consent to being subjected to this nearly pornographic view, but by any means he wouldn't refuse the show when it was right in front of him.
That thing was really small. And really clingy. And her legs had no business being this smooth and nice. And the curve of her arse and that crease where her thighs met her buttocks, which was... Well. She really shouldn't look like this. Minus 10 points to Gryffindor for such a blatant seduction attempt.
Why on earth was he thinking about Granger for ten minutes, now?
But actually.
He had always thought about Granger. Why would that change now. The feeling of normalcy it is.
About Potter too of course, and more often, obviously. But that was just because Pothead was such an unbelievable show-off every second of his life. That fucker.
If Granger was here then Potter was supposed to be here too, he would assume. They're inseparable, right? With the Weasel too, but he really didn't deserve to be thought of. Draco had made his peace with thinking about Potter and Granger but there should be a line, okay. And Weasel was clearly on the other side of it.
Granger in a swimsuit though... that was a different kind of species. Perhaps he should move her from the box in his mind labelled "insufferable annoying pricks" to some other.
He should also hope he wouldn't see Potter in Muggle swimsuit anywhere in the near future.
With those thoughts Draco finished his slow walk around the castle, stood before the doors to the Great Hall and prepared himself to face whatever nightmare was waiting for him at breakfast.