Chapter 42:

Normalcy quickly returned to Rodrick and his friends; the months seemed to whiz by too fast. Not that anyone could complain, the year had been a complete roller coaster for them all.

Ever since he'd woken up, he'd found his relationship with his head of house improving greatly.

The professor more than likely knew his second name, Dumbledore had probably told him. Rodrick didn't exactly mind, the man while likely wary of him still seemed to like him, no doubt the house lead and of course the large number of Basilisk ingredients he'd managed to acquire for him might've had something to do with it. He had no intention of taking any of it back, but he had expressed some interest in perhaps working with some of it. Snape had been slightly comprehensive about that at first but had conceded when Rodrick told him about the possibility of reading the potions book in his vault. The man's thirst for knowledge was too high to ignore. The professor had questioned him quite eagerly on the kind of books there were but Rodrick for one, didn't know much about it, and two, he didn't want to exhaust all of his resources at once and so didn't say much.

It was his grandfather's idea to use the book as leverage for access to the ingredients.

His relationship with Daphne, as well as the rest of Greengrass in general, seemed to improve as well if the letters were anything to go by. Roxanne had been both more alert and somewhat smothering towards him. That was perhaps due to her husband finally acquiring Rodrick's future home; she was making more and more of a point of him not leaving with every letter, not that Rodrick had any intentions to, he simply didn't mention it. It was quite amusing. Daphne was closer to him, he knew she probably liked him, but something seemed to hold her off.

He didn't really mind what came out of it. As long as she knew what he was really like, it was fine either way.

...

He walked away from his last exam, Malfoy at his side. The rest had either gone on ahead or were still discussing their answers; he wasn't worried about them he'd studied most of the books during the summer thanks to Daphne. He was curious to see whether he'd finally beat Granger but doubted it, at least on some of the classes. He quickly remembered the final game happening between Slytherin and Ravenclaw coming up in a weeks time; his house was almost guaranteed to win, they'd manage to win every game so far. Without Potter, Gryffindor didn't have much of a chance. Not to talk badly about their skill, in fact, it was mostly due to the advantage the other houses had thanks to better brooms. Harry Potter tended to end games early, before said advantage could be put to use.

His thoughts trailed away from Quidditch to the more recent, more important, happenings. He had found out through Draco about Lucius Malfoy's removal from the school governors as well as, though this was far less noteworthy, their loss of a house elf. he'd expected Malfoy to be more upset about things but found the boy surprisingly indifferent to everything.

"You don't seem too upset about the sudden changes," Rodrick pointed out.

Malfoy was slightly surprised at that, he stopped walking towards the dungeon and stared curiously towards him. "What changes?"

Rodrick raised an eyebrow at that, "Regarding your father's removal; I figured you would be upset at that, your influence dropped from it didn't it?"

Malfoy was eyeing him strangely, "You really don't see what's going on?" he questioned, amused.

"See what?" Rodrick asked, confused.

"Rodrick, for some reason Dumbledore's been on edge ever since you woke up... My father had been furious earlier on when he'd lost that seat," Malfoy was about to continue before Rodrick cut in.

"Because he was responsible for the Basilisk's attack..."

Malfoy hitched a breath at that; he looked around warily before questioning him how he knew.

Rodrick looked amused if anything, "Just a guess," causing the boy to frown, he'd unwillingly confirmed it.

"You're not mad?" Malfoy questioned, surprised, "The Basilisk did attack you..."

Rodrick shook his head, "In all honesty, it was more help than trouble..." Looking down towards his arm he added on, "If anything the attack helped me sort a lot of my problems out."

Malfoy raised an eyebrow at that before he continued. "Any case he was angry, that is until you woke up... Telling the headmaster your second name set him on edge, the last time Dumbledore had been like that... Well, You-Know-Who was around. My father was quite pleased to see Dumbledore squirm like that, besides, as far as he's concerned with us two here his influence over the ministry's future hasn't dropped a bit."

Rodrick raised an eyebrow at that, "I figured your father would've been annoyed about me revealing my name when I sent that letter to him, that still doesn't exactly explain why you didn't really care all that much about it."

Malfoy spoke in a quieter voice at that, "It's simple. I didn't lose any influence in the first place, if anything I might've gained more"

Rodrick was slightly put off by that; he had a sinking feeling about it.

"That's a little surprising..."

"It shouldn't be, considering half of it comes from you, it goes both ways really, and you've gained a lot believe it or not,"

"Why would I-"

"You're about as Slytherin as anyone can get and believe me the upper years know that, it irks them considerably."

"I don't see how I am..."

Malfoy laughed at that, "Look at what you've done to Gryffindor this past year! They have never been so low in the rankings... Harry Bloody Potter saved a student's life and the only thing the castle is talking about is how a Slytherin killed a Basilisk or how Gryffindor had lost at literally every point of interest during the year. I swear, its almost as if they forgot that he killed the dark lord."

Rodrick felt uneasy at that.

"Did you know half the school is convinced Potter released the Basilisk? That he only took Dumbledore down to get rid of evidence! That after it died he did it to save his own hide?" There was an almost fanatical look on Malfoy's face.

Rodrick was a little taken back at that; he didn't remember the boy going with the headmaster in that vision.

"I had no idea it was put on him..."

"Slytherin is being looked on with more respect than Gryffindor, I am not even sure that's ever happened in History. Your little debacle with the Basilisk gave my father more influence over the Wizengamot. Dumbledore's dropped considerably after you got injured," Malfoy smirked

"My injury? Someone else was petrified... it was only a week ago they were released," Rodrick pointed out.

"Maybe. But he doesn't have a cursed arm to come from it."

Rodrick then understood what had happened. Malfoy had used him as almost conclusive proof that Dumbledore couldn't protect all the students. No one could deny it either... his arm was as obvious as it could get.

"Why was Malfoy then removed from the board?"

"It's not that relevant." Malfoy shrugged it off

Rodrick narrowed his eyes.

"What exactly is happening with Dumbledore that makes that not relevant?"

"The Wizengamot is considering removing him from his position as Chief Warlock, either that or Headmaster at Hogwarts! They think he should only focus on one seeing as two clearly is too much work!" He spoke with his gaze on Rodrick's arm."Just imagine... If you hadn't risked your life to take out the Basilisk for the good of the school, how much more damage could've been caused? Had it been Harry Potter that had saved the day... Perhaps my father wouldn't have set off on such a point but considering it's you... Well, there really was no reason not to," Malfoy smirked.

Rodrick was dumbfounded Malfoy managed to go that far... all because of a cursed arm.

"A lot of the chairs in the Wizengamot have students here. With you as a ward of one of the more influential ones, the fact you, a Slytherin, were attacked by a snake really set most of them off, no offense but none of them want their child to end up with an arm like that. Considering that a Slytherin was also responsible for taking out that monster made my father's case all the easier, that's not even the tip of it."

Rodrick looked up, curious as to what Malfoy was referring to.

"Potter tried to injure me remember, and not to mention last year's defense professor... The case against Dumbledore is unbelievable!"

Rodrick nodded, "He's going to lose the Wizengamot one isn't he?"

Malfoy smirk stayed in place.

The two stood in silence.

"Not my problem anyway." Rodrick shrugged.

Malfoy shook his head. The two continued on their way to the dungeon.