The Power Play

He glanced from Nott's face to the box. He shrugged. The combination of bezoar and noble house ring negated most dangers… but still… he looked thoughtful. "Sure, why not? It would be a shame if the ambassador to the Gray had to miss his appointment because he got poisoned."

Nott stilled. He flourished his wand and carefully, and with great deliberation, cast the tempus spell. "Merlin!" he grabbed his bag and exited the compartment with as much dignity as a jogging pureblood could muster.

He sat down and made a point not to look smug.

Crabbe grabbed a cauldron cake and dug in, Pansy gossiped with Su Li and Millicent about 'you'll-never-guess-what-so-and-so-did', and Draco busied himself with several small slips of folded parchment, occasionally shooting glances at him, as though he were a particularly strange insect that kept flying by his window.

He leaned back and relaxed.

.....

In the middle compartment, Hermione Granger was confused and frustrated. Harry's betrothed made no sense. Daphne was the heiress of an ancient and noble house, and they were in public, so she'd naturally given the heiress the deference wizarding culture expected. But Daphne had rejected this status. So, she'd then decided to treat Daphne like an equal, but this only seemed to annoy the girl. She was sure the heiress didn't want to be treated like someone of lower status, so what did she want?

She silently hoped that Harry's other betrothed made a bit more sense and brought her focus back to the older Gryffindor witch who'd just presented Daphne with a box of muggle Belgian chocolates.

The Gryffindor glanced to her, saw the crest, saw the ring, and paled. "H-Heiress Slytherin? I-I'm sorry but I don't have anything for you, my parents didn't say anything-"

Oh hell. "-Please." She held up a hand and sighed. This was the second person to panic like this. "I am not Lord Slytherin's daughter. I am Lord Slytherin's vassal, and no-one knew I would be joining Hogwarts today as such."

"O-oh. Ah, okay then." The girl didn't look like this was much better, but did manage to finish her social ritual with Daphne and exit the compartment with only minor blushing.

Tracey giggled. "Maybe we should start a pool on how many times someone loses themselves when they see you, Hermione?"

She grumbled.

Blaze smirked. "I'll put a sickle on five times."

She made to look incredulous. "Oh, come on."

"No, really," Tracey continued. "Maybe we could get them to faint by telling them you're a muggleborn too?"

She paused. "Already did that with a pair of red-headed Gryffindor twins."

"The Weasley twins?" Tracey gasped. "No way!"

"Well, they didn't actually faint, but-"

" If we're quite finished," Daphne interrupted, "I'd like to bring it to your attention that the boy from the Dark is late."

She frowned and inspected a piece of parchment in front of her. She didn't strictly need a parchment record, but there were times when having to keep retrieving things from her mind-scape library was tiresome. "Well if he doesn't get here soon we're going to have to move Cooper up to the next slot and-"

*Knock* *Knock*

"-And never mind," she finished.

The door slid open to reveal a tall boy with slicked over mahogany hair, wearing closed silk robes and an expression of haughty indifference - an expression that was spoiled somewhat by the redness of his cheeks and the shortness of his breath. He wore the crest of the Noble House of Nott on his robes.

"Heiresses Greengrass and Davis and Heir Smith?" he half panted.

"Yes?"

"Yes?"

"Yes?"

The Nott heir straightened his robes, took a deep breath, and bowed. "I am Heir Theodore Nott of the Noble House of Nott. I believe we have met before, Heiress Greengrass. And what is that ?" He pointed to Freekey sitting on a pile of books on the small compartment table.

Daphne smiled. "She is Freekey, my familiar. And yes, I remember seeing you at last year's winter festival. Perhaps you would care to take a seat?" She motioned those of her bench to budge up, which they started to do. "You're looking a little winded."

"Ah, it's nothing, Heiress Greengrass." Nott muttered.

"Nonsense, I insist." Daphne's eyes glittered.

He sat.

"Besides, our ambassador to the Light is about to depart now anyway. Isn't that right, Hermione?"

....

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