to constantly check on them. Filch, for one, loved detentions with the junior students, often dishing out healthy servings of cleaning and polishing to his pale-faced charges.
From fifth year onwards, most detention-servers were too busy with assignments and study to waist an entire period being unruly. Teachers preferred taking these detentions themselves, allowing students time to do their homework in exchange for a few productive minutes of filing or sorting.
Not so fourth years. And the worst trouble makers were usually in fourth year. Case in point was the two Ravenclaw boys who had been caught fighting (with their fists, no less) in a classroom, and the girl, a Slytherin, who had instigated the entire thing.
Draco was seated at a teacher's desk in a second floor classroom with his feet up on the table, reading an ancient Muggle 'gentleman' s' magazine he had found stashed inside one of the student desks.
The two boys were occupied varnishing said desks, while the girl was busy removing old notices from the board at the back of the classroom. It was sweltering that afternoon, despite the cooling charms Draco had liberally cast.
"Singh, be a dear and throw open that window, would you?"
The boy looked up, scowling. He threw his oiled rag on the ground, muttered something borderline profane and went to do Draco's bidding.
"How long more do we have to do this?" whined the other boy. Draco couldn' t remember his name. Winston or Wimple. Or something.
"You'll work on those desks as long as I ask you to. If there's time, you'll do the cupboards too."
"You can't make us do that," said Singh, with what looked to be the start of mutiny. He stood up. "Professor Flitwick said we only needed to do the desks."
"I can do whatever I bloody want. Get back to work or I'll turn you into a toadstool."
Singh gave him an incredulous look at this unlikely threat, but it effectively quelled the rebellion, if only just.
Draco glanced to the back of the classroom. "Excellent job, Carmen. You can stop now."
The other boy piped up. "What? She's hardly done anything! And she turned up late for detention too!"
"I' m partial to girls, you' ll realise. Slytherin girls, especially. And the only reason she's serving detention with you two is because you were stupid enough to mention her name to Flitwick when you got caught."
"You know what? I reckon it'd be nice to know who she's going to choose to visit over the holidays. Singh or me? We've only been waiting months to find out. I have to tell my parents so we can plan the rest of the summer break!" whined Winston/Wimple.
Ah. So this was apparently the reason for the spat.
The boy had a point, Draco thought. "Very well. Carmen, which boy will you be visiting over the holidays?"
Carmen considered this at length. "Karpal," she said, giving Singh an approving leer.
Singh grinned widely at his surly looking housemate. Draco had a few more minutes of uninterrupted page-turning before Carmen came to sit on the table.
"What are you reading?" she asked, tilting her head to the side. She was sticking out her non-existent chest at him and batting her eyelashes vigorously enough to cause a mild breeze.
"Muggle smut, Carmen. Nothing you'd be interested in."
She nodded. Slytherin girls were impossible to shock. "My older brother used to have something like that. Mother said it was common and made him throw it out."
"Knowing your brother, I'd say he had much more stashed under his bed."
"It is true what they say?" Carmen continued, her voice lowering, "that you' ll inherit even though your father's still alive? I heard Millicent Bullstrode talking about it with Pansy Parkinson."
Draco had to admire her audacity. "Those two girls are terrible gossips. I wouldn' t believe half of what you overhear."
"You'll be needing a Lady of the Manor, regardless. To help you run things. There isn't a wizarding lord under thirty who hasn't already been married off. Well, unless you count Enrod Higgs." Carmen looked thoughtful now.
"He's"
"Fond of wearing paisley after five and has a standing appointment at Maurice' s salon in Diagon Alley every second Saturday?"
She giggled.
"The wife can wait, I think," Draco said, responding to Carmen's refreshing candor . "As for running the manor, hired help costs less in the end."
"And where will your father go when his sentence is over? I hear he' s a horrible tyrant to live with."
Draco's gaze lost some of its warmth. "You're very nosy, Carmen."
She shrugged, but had the