"Losers"

The first quidditch match of the year was brutal. Slytherin was playing Gryffindor which resulted in tension between Circi and Leslie. While the boy cared very little for the sport, he still held a great amount of pride for his house and strongly believed that friendships came second. And the girl, she wanted nothing more than to cheer for her best friend.

In the bleachers, they stood side by side, squinting against the cold, foggy air. Leslie's scarf was waving around in the wind, smacking Circi in the face occasionally as she leaned against the railing. Batting it away as the players entered the pitch, she scowled at him.

"Stop it," she looked back at the pitch as the players took to the air. Immediately she noticed something off. To begin with, Draco wasn't there. In his place was their substitute seeker Harper, and their new captain and chaser, Vaisey, was missing as well. Sighing, Circi looked between the Slytherin beaters, Draco's allocated goons Crabbe and Goyle, and the Gryffindor beaters, both new third-years, Jimmy Peakes and Mica. Smiling at the set look of determination on Mica's face, Circi forgot any concern for her brother or annoyance for Leslie. That is, until the scarf once again hit her face and obscured her vision. This time the hindrance was intentional and Leslie laughed as he waved it in front of her.

"I'd hate to obstruct your view." Rolling her eyes as he laughed at her, she gave him a playful shrug and quickly glanced over her shoulder.

As the game progressed, despite the slytherin team being designed of substitutes, the Slytherin chasers were quick to take the quaffle and try for a goal. But the new Gryffindor keeper, Ron Weasley, a name Circi congratulated herself for remembering, proved to be much better at his role than the disaster of the tryouts earlier in the year. The game continued like this for a while, Slytherin taking charge and ultimately losing on the goal.

One of the chasers flew too low to the ground and tumbled from their broom, Crabbe targeted a bludger in Mica's direction and for a moment the whole stadium held their breath because she was lining up to bat away the other bludger Goyle had targeted her with. Circi held a hand over her mouth as she watched both bludgers threaten her friend and, as Mica hit one away the other Gryffindor beater flew up behind her and knocked the other across the pitch. The other three houses cheered as Mica gave Peaks a high five and flew off.

So far, the golden snitch hadn't been spotted and Circi could vaguely hear Leslie mumbling about how Draco would have spotted it before and the game would actually be interesting considering his established rivalry with Harry Potter.

The two remaining Slytherin chasers collided with a goal post after losing momentum under Ron Weasley's defence. The crowd elicited a series of 'ooh's and 'ouch' as the two players drifted to the ground. Circi hissed through her teeth and watched as a bludger dodged Mica and broke the tail of a Gryffindor chaser's broom and they too landed with a thud on the sand below.

For a moment, the remaining two Gryffindor chasers focussed on scoring a goal before a battle broke out between the beaters no that Slytherin was dependent on their seeker to win.

But not five minutes later, Harry Potter caught the snitch and the Slytherins wandered back to their common room, deflated and embarrassed.

"I still don't like quidditch," Leslie sighed as they moved through the dungeons, "but that was the most interesting game I've ever seen."

"I wonder how many of those players were hurt." Circi played with the sleeves of her robes and glanced over her shoulder as Crabbe and Goyle pushed through the crowd. It was then she fully registered Draco's absence and spun around to face the two boys. "Where's Draco?" She crossed her arms, glaring at them with the limited patience she held for them. Draco may tolerate them only as boys who will work for him and respect him as their superior, but Circi didn't want their respect or friendship, just the recognition that she was equal with Draco and therefore far superior to their dim-witted minds. They looked at her dully with open mouths. "Well?" The shorter one opened his mouth a little more. She didn't them individually, only collectively as 'Crabbe and Goyle'.

"He's sick." His blunt tone wasn't out of any sort of dislike, it was testament that he really knew nothing else.

Without another word, Circi circled around them and headed back upstairs. There was no point being around with a crowd of disheartened and entitled teenagers. She navigated the corridors and the celebrating students mixing houses to talk to their friends. She spotted the back of Mica's head as she skipped down the corridor in her beater uniform beside Jimmy Peaks. They were a little behind a group of Gryffindors turning the corner to the stairs that leads to their common room. The two of them laughed loudly, arms linked, and as they rounded the corner Mica looked back and spotted Circi. She smiled widely before rushing after her celebrating peers.

Scowling, Circi sped past the staircase towards the hospital wing and cursed Jimmy Peaks under her breath.

She barged into the hospital wing, marching past the beds holding the fallen chasers and Vaisey, who was still nursing his injuries from the practise before their first match. Feeling the collective anger her house held for their new captain swell in her chest, she shook her head as they momentarily locked eyes. Reaching the end of the room, Draco was no to be found in any bed. Madame Pomfrey entered from the store cupboard and barely had time to greet the student.

"Where is Draco?" Circi demanded, marching back up the room, a fire in her eyes. Madame Pomfrey shook her head.

"I haven't seen him, dear."

"But he's sick." Circi's eyebrows lowered, confused and unusually desperate to see him. The matron tutted, shaking her head at the student's antics and resumed tending to the students who needed her attention most. For a moment, she fell silent, thinking where he could be. If he wasn't sick, why had he avoided the game? He didn't even watch.

Back in the main entrance corridor, she glanced around for someone who may have seen him. But, by some misfortune, they all seemed to be so preoccupied in the match that it was unlikely they would pay attention to a boy whose only concern was himself. That's truly how it felt to Circi, she huffed and climbed the main staircase, intending to search the entire castle if she must and give him a piece of her mind. On the second floor, as she passed by the staircase to the astronomy tower a painting called out to her, addressing her as 'Malfoy'.

She didn't recognise the painting but the man inside seemed to be a shepherd of sorts, he was a miserable looking man but he gruffly directed her up the tower stairs. Testing the door, she found it unlocked and began to climb the spiral staircase. Through the narrow windows that lined the tower walls she could see rain now falling freely outside and she could only imagine how cold her bed would be when she finally returned to the common room.

Entering the classroom, she looked up through the grating at the edge of the raised platform holding the large telescope pointed towards the terrace and spotted a figure leaning against the railing. Slowly, she ascending the metal staircase onto the platform and crossed her arms as she approached him.

Her temper had calmed on the climb up the tower.

"We lost," he glanced over his shoulder briefly and hung his head when she came to stand next to him, leaning her back against the railing and tilting her head back to feel the rain on her face, "not that you care." They stood in silence. She wanted him to speak but after a few moments it seemed fruitless. "Look," lifting her head, she turned to him, "you're right, I have no idea what you're going through. But I just spent half an hour walking around this castle trying to find you. Crabbe (or Goyle, I don't know which is which) said you were sick."

"Did that worry you?" The corner of his mouth twitched, mocking her.

"Should it?" He stopped any attempt at a smile and for once in his life he felt as though she wasn't open at all to any sort of banter. Finally looking up from the lake that stretched over the horizon ahead of him, he found that she wasn't just angry, she was confused and scared and unable to hide anything.

"I'm okay, Circ."

"Why weren't you at the match?"

"I have more important matters to worry about. Quidditch is a distraction I can't afford anymore." He looked away from her again and she stood straighter, feeling as though she had her heart in her throat.

"What is that supposed to mean?" He was silent, looking down at the grassy courtyard below the tower. Circi was searching for any comforting sign, in reality, she wasn't sure what she needed to see in him but there was this strange feeling that he was slipping away and becoming someone she no longer recognised. "Draco!" She snapped her fingers and he blinked, as though awaking from a deep thought. Sighing, she spoke in a low voice, "I don't want to know everything, just tell me what is so important that you'll throw your life away? Let me in."

For so long, before Hogwarts, it had been just the two of them. They weren't just siblings, they were best friends and each other's confidants. While Lucius and Narcissa did everything in their power to give Draco all he wanted and preach their superiority, he was robbed of freely speaking any thought that opposed their ideology. Circi did so often and each comment she made was disregarded as 'foolish' and 'juvenile', she was constantly reminded by her father that she was not only a Malfoy, but a Rier, that the power he mother's family had was nearly on par with the ancestry of the House of Black. For a while, Draco thought their father was forming some kind of rivalry for point out these differences but in the end it only drew them closer to each other. And even when Crabbe and Goyle succumbed to Draco's demands for respect, he still stooped to Circi's level when they were alone.

Draco sighed and stood up straight, he nodded at the sky as though a deal had been made before turning to Circi.

"Do you know what a vanishing cabinet is?" He waited, she shook her head slowly. "Well, it's a cabinet that can make objects disappear and they reappear in their sister cabinet. My job is to fix the one here so that it can be used... in the future..."

This information lingered in the air briefly and Circi tried to swallow the intentions the Dark Lord must have with such an object. Her throat was dry and she stared at the empty space between her and her brother.

"So... you're You-know-who's carpenter?" When she looked up, she tried to laugh at her own joke and Draco cracked a weak smile but the implications of his job were terrifying. And Draco had yet to tell her the worse of it but he couldn't. "Where is the cabinet?"

"I'll show you tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow night?" She scowled, as a third year there was no way she would be allowed to roam the castle at night even with her prefect brother. "We'll get in trouble."

"Slughorn's throwing a party for his elite group that he excluded us from because of father," they both spoke the accusation against Lucius, Draco with less vehemence than Circi, "students from all years will be out late, dress presentably and we can use the excuse that we're going there if we get caught."

"It sounds like you've had this plan for a while." She crossed her arms again as he smiled wistfully.

"I was going tomorrow night anyway."

Y/N this chapter is another two-parter for your ease of consumption, enjoy lovelies!