Draco, she privately suspected — had changed the lettering on his Head Boy badge so that instead of reading 'Ron Weasley, Head Boy' it read
'Ron Weasley, Smug Bastard.' Ron had not been amused, despite the fact that years ago, when Fred and George had done much the same thing to Percy, he had thought it was hilarious.
Perhaps, she mused, Harry hadn't been at all thick to turn down the Head Boy job after all.
The roof of the Prefects' Hall disappeared into raftered darkness overhead. The round table that sat in the middle of the room, around which generations of school prefects had sat, was scarred with the marks of years — the incisions of quills, sliced initials, stains of spilled ink. In the center of the table was a slightly raised silver ring, about ten inches in diameter.
The north wall of the room held two stained-glass windows, one gold, one blue; the south wall's windows were green and scarlet. Ron stood at the head of the table, his back to the east wall. There was a long white finger of clear window behind him, mazed with frost, and through it, more whiteness was visible — snow, caught in the bare branches of trees, the colorless spark of sunlight off icicles. In front of all the whiteness, Ron's bright hair and scarlet jumper stood out like burning banners.
'This meeting will come to order.' He rapped on the table with a hand, and grinned. 'All right, everybody, sit down.' He jerked his chin towards Draco, who was still standing by the door. 'Malfoy, get over here and sit down. You're late.'
The other prefects — each house was granted two prefects a year, from fifth year on up, making twenty- four in total — turned and looked at him.
Pansy Parkinson, the other Slytherin prefect, rolled her eyes and pushed the chair next to her out so that he could sit down.
The back of each of the Slytherin prefects' chairs was embossed with a curling silver snake. 'Sit,' she said.
He didn't. His eyes scanned up and down the table and came to rest on Ron. 'Where's Hermione?'
Ron looked irritable. 'She couldn't make it. This is going to be a short meeting and she's empowered me to act on both our behalves.'
'Really.' Draco came around the table slowly and flopped into the chair next to Pansy. This put him directly on Ron's left side. He pitched his voice low, 'You don't know where she is, do you?'
Ron, shuffling parchments, pretended to ignore him.
'She wouldn't just miss a meeting for no reason. She loves meetings even more than she loves me.'
'She loves syphilis more than she loves you, Malfoy,' hissed Ron.
Justin Finch-Fletchley, sitting farther down the table, raised an eyebrow.
'Did someone say something about syphilis?'
'I was just telling Ron that with a little ointment, his symptoms should clear right up,' said Draco blandly.
'I hardly think syphilis is an appropriate topic for a prefects' meeting,' said Pansy, shaking her head so that her earrings jangled.
'That's true,' said Draco. 'I think we should discuss more important issues, like this conspiracy of silence that pretends that the Astronomy Tower is actually used for astronomy, when we all really know that people only ever go up there to snog each other senseless.'
'I have used the Astronomy Tower for astronomy,' said Justin irritably.
'Yes, well, you're just a sad no-hoper, aren't you, Finch-Fletchley?'
'Congratulations, Malfoy,' said Ron loudly, speaking over the chorus of irritated whispers that had followed Draco's last remark. 'Five minutes into the meeting, and you're already disruptive. And you wonder why everyone takes an instant dislike to you.'
'I just figured it saved time,' said Draco, but he raised his hands up, and shrugged, smiling peaceably. It was a polite, bland smile that didn't reach his eyes. 'I'm ready to talk business.'
'No, you're ready to shut up and listen. Say one more thing and it's twenty points from Slytherin.' Ron raised his wand, and waved it towards the center of the table, where the Hogwarts emblem was emblazoned inside an etched silver circle. 'Ascensus orbis,' he said, and the silver circle detached itself and rose into the air, spinning lazily. Ron watched it until it hung, spinning, about a foot above the table. Then he spoke. 'This meeting is now in progress. All right then, first order of business….
Motion to have all school prefects engage in search for Trevor the Toad — unanimous vote of nay. Sorry, Neville.'
Neville, who was not a prefect but had been allowed to sit in on the meeting to hear the result of his request, looked resigned.
'All right, then, the Seventh Year Pub Crawl,' said Ron, shuffling more papers. 'Last year it was a disaster, with at least six underclassmen having taken Aging Potions to try to fool the security barriers, and two sixth-years drinking an entire bottle of Giant wine and hexing each other. One of them still has vestigial antennae sticking out of his head. We can't allow this kind of thing to happen again this year.'
'Well, what can we do about it?' asked Padma Patil. As she spoke, the spinning circle turned blue for Ravenclaw.
'I think we need some more specific rules,' said Justin, and the sphere turned gold. 'Like, that Fizzy Lifting Drinks can only be consumed inside.'
Everyone chuckled. Nobody at the table had been at the previous year's Pub Crawl, but they'd all been told about Eric Sorenson, the seventh-year who had floated almost to the height of the Hogsmeade church spire and had to be retrieved by townspeople on broomsticks.
'Well, which establishments are involved this year?' asked Padma.
'Fred and George are turning Weasley's Wizard Wheezes into a winery…'
said Ron.
'Weasley's Wizard Winery?' asked Draco as the sphere turned green.
'Uh-huh,' said Ron shortly. 'The Three Broomsticks, of course, the Hog's Head and the Shifty Lemur, plus Florean Fortescue is bringing his ice cream cart up with Butterbeer sorbet, Honeyduke's will be providing free candy, the Book Nook will have herbal teas for those who wish to enjoy the event in an unintoxicated manner — '
'Wimps,' commented Draco quietly.
'— and the chip shop will be open as well. Now, it's really a pretty simple event. Everyone gets a parchment as they leave, explaining when each establishment will be offering refreshments, and of course the events will be staggered. Who wants to hand out the parchments?'
Everyone looked shifty, but eventually Pansy volunteered, mostly, Draco suspected, because she didn't have a date for the event.
'All right, now the main question is keeping the younger students from trying to sneak along. Sixth years especially think they're too old for the Yule Ball,' he added, shooting a look at the sixth-year prefects, who grumbled quietly. 'Now, in terms of solving that problem…'
Ron's voice slowly faded from Draco's consciousness as the exhaustion of not having slept much the night before had begun to press in on him. He was having a difficult time keeping his eyelids from drooping. Shading his eyes with his hands, Draco looked down at the table, hoping it would seem as if he was lost in thought, and shut his eyes. The sound of the other voices in the room receded like a wave drawing back, and the darkness of sleep gathered him in.
'Where is my servant?'
