Chapter Text
Listen Draco wasn’t homesick, he really wasn’t. He just couldn't fall asleep, that was all. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that he was in Hogwarts and not back in his own home with his parents right next door.
He lay awake in his dorm for the fifth time this week. Everyone else was out cold, but then again all of them seemed to think Hogwarts was the best thing to happen to them since Merlin.
Normally, if he couldn’t fall asleep he would take a stroll out in the grounds of the manor but of course Hogwarts just had to have stupid rules. He really shouldn’t have tried so hard to convince his parents to enroll him in Hogwarts just so that he could be with his friends.
He couldn’t even bother any of said friends who were doing the sensible thing and sleeping. He briefly wondered if it would be worth it to sneak into the girls dormitory to scare Pansy but she would probably wake up screaming bloody murder. He dismissed the thought. There was a reason he wasn’t in Gryffindor anyway.
He stared at the green ceiling for a while more before giving up on trying to fall asleep. He figured he might as well do something productive. He took his books and went to the common room. It was mercifully empty, it seemed even the fifth and seventh years were spared from work during the first week of school.
He sat down and started reading his advanced charms book. He knew he should try to read the first year books so that he could stay at the top of his class but the spells just weren’t as intriguing. Even his love for charms didn’t help him right now. It wasn’t long before he was back with the thought of sneaking out for a peaceful walk near the lake.
If he hypothetically went out of his dorm, it would be unlikely that he was caught right? Surely, students have been out of bed before without getting caught. He was a Slytherin, he could hide somewhere at the first sign of footsteps right?
With that resolve he went back to his dorm to change his clothes. He might not be getting caught but there was no way he would casually walk around with his pajamas and white blond hair which would be a dead giveaway. Speaking of which, he should probably change the colour of his hair as well.
He grabbed his wand before quickly murmuring the incantation to change the colour of his hair to jet black. He was finally grateful for Pansy’s obsession with dying her hair which worked in his favour right now. He wore his favourite hoodie and sweatpants which he had to beg his father to let him buy cause it wasn’t ‘befitting a Malfoy’.
He managed to get away with it only thanks to his mother who stepped in with the promise that he would only wear it at his home. Maybe that was why he had secretly brought it along with him to Hogwarts, not that he would ever admit to it.
Sufficiently satisfied that he wasn’t recognisable upon sight, he tucked his wand in his pocket before exiting the common room. He was greeted with a dark corridor, which was surprisingly well lit from the torches near the basement. He scoffed, his fears were such a joke, the whole corridor looked completely empty.
He made his way up, still careful to hide his face and keep his footsteps silent, but he didn’t meet anyone along the way. He went to one of the back doors that would bring him near the herbology room.
Before long he’s able to walk around the black lake, near the forbidden forest and feels more like himself than he had the past week. He felt himself relax, surrounded by the open field, away from the mayhem that was in every bit of Hogwarts.
~
When he finally felt the tiredness creeping up on him, he walked back to Hogwarts, looking forward to sleeping for once.
“What do we have here? Ickle firstie out without permission?”
Draco felt his blood freeze at the voice and he let loose a string of curses in french. He really should have expected this, everything was going too well for him.
Peeves cackled as he floated around him and Draco felt sick. He couldn’t lose anymore points, the stupid rememberball had already made his housemates hate him.
Well he knew he was screwed;there was no way a poltergeist would pass up the chance to cause chaos. Wait, that's it. He just needed to cause enough chaos that Peeves would leave him alone.
“Trying to find the kitchens to pull a prank,” Draco replied in a (hopefully) calm manner. His mind was already running through various pranks, dismissing them just as quickly as they came.
“Oh? Hm, what could a firstie like you pull off?” Peeves asked, but his eyes were alight with the thought of mischief and he didn't seem to be running to Filch anytime soon which counted as a win in Draco’s book.
The prank needed to be memorable, something Peeves couldn’t do, and easy enough that he could get away with. He blamed his current dyed hair for the idea but the next words out of his mouth were “I’m going to dye Snape’s hair red”.
Peeves paused, and Draco wondered if he would call Filch after all before he replied, “Third floor, tickle the pear in the painting near the hufflepuff dorm”.
“Yeah cause I’m clearly a hufflepuff,” Draco muttered, rolling his eyes.
Peeves cackled again before saying, “You’re lucky no one’s dared to prank Snape before. Just follow me and be quiet, don't want to get caught now do we?”
Great. Now he was stuck with a trigger happy poltergeist and a prank he needed to pull off before 6am. Just bloody fantastic.
~
“You want me to tickle the pear?” Draco asked again for the third time. He thought Peeves was stringing him along for a ride but now he was in front of a painting which he supposedly had to tickle.
Peeves smirked widely before running off down the corridor screaming for Filch while wrecking havoc with a couple of stones.
Great, maybe this was his master plan after all. Make him look like he was off his rocker while Filch came hunting him down. At this point he had nothing to lose so he squared his shoulders and tickled the pear, not really expecting anything.
Just when he heard footsteps and was starting to panic, the painting moved to the left, revealing a bloody hidden corridor that was surprisingly well lit. With the ever louder footsteps approaching behind him Draco went running through the portrait like his life depended on it.
For once things went right for him that day and the portrait merifully closed behind him, thank Merlin.
He walked through the corridor, finally approaching the kitchen. As he stepped in he saw dozens of house elves working. He knew the school was run on house elves but this was just ridiculous.
As he was examining the kitchen, a house elf approached him, timidly asking “Is anything I can do for sir?”
Draco knew the sensible thing would be to say no and leave but he didn’t want to risk Peeves realising he lied. House points were one thing but an angry poltergeist out for revenge was quite another.
He ran a hand through his hair, which probably looked a weird mess between blonde and black by now and asked, “Can you give me Severus Snape’s favourite food?”
The house elf looked confused but mercifully agreed without questioning. She came back with a pitcher of pumpkin juice. Draco snorted. Of course the Potions Master had a secret sweet tooth.
He briefly wondered if he should feel bad for pranking his head of house but the bastard hadn’t even bothered to welcome any of them to the house besides assigning him a week’s worth of detention for ‘losing house points”, so he felt sufficiently justified turning his hair red.
He brought out his want from his pocket and used the same charm he had on his hair. Since he was placing the charm on the juice, it required more concentration, but charms wasn’t his best subject for no reason.
After confirming that his spell was fine, he gave the pumpkin juice back to the house elf like nothing was wrong and stated, “ Ensure that Snape drinks this specific glass tomorrow morning during breakfast and don’t tell anyone else about this.” He immediately left before she could protest and hoped for the best.
He knew the house elf wasn’t legally bound to him and had no reason to agree with his demands but he figured the house elf won’t rat him out for the sole reason that it was unlikely any of the teachers would bother going down to the kitchens themselves.
With that reassurance he made his way back, mercifully without any more detours. He flopped back on his bed, barely changing his clothes before letting sleep overtake him.
~
Draco was trying very hard not to stare at Snape and he would like to think he was successful as he stared at his eggs and bacon like it was the sole cause of all his troubles. Unfortunately for him Blaise called him out on it, “Wow Draco who did the eggs murder?”
“Unfortunately, not you”, he replied, rolling his eyes and causing everyone to stifle a laugh as Blaise pretended to be mock hurt.
“How could you do this to me? I thought we had something special!” He drawled before dramatically sighing and leaning on Pansy who shoved him away with a “Get your greasy hair away from my clothes, dumbass”.
Draco stifled a laugh at the familiar antics, feeling himself relax. Just then conversations around the great hall came to a halt and everyone seemed to turn their eyes to the teachers table where Snape’s hair was a bright Weasley red.
This was way better than Draco had imagined and he barely managed to not choke on his own serving of pumpkin juice. The stillness seemed to break and everyone was laughing. Draco was pretty sure this moment made up for his shitty week.
He even saw some of the teachers trying not to crack a smile at the red hair. Snape had conjured a mirror before he aggressively stood up, the chair screeching behind him.
His hair was almost back to black again after a quick finite incantatum but the damage was already done.
Snape seemed to transform into the vampire he was as he surveyed the room with his cold eyes. As his eyes, swept over the Slytherin table, Draco tried not to react and was apparently successful as Snape’s eyes swept over him and went over to the Gryffindor table where some people seemed a little slow on the uptake and were still laughing.
Snape’s lip curled and Draco knew what was going to happen a second before it did.
“250 points from Gryffindor”. Snape barked out before he stalked out of the Great Hall. There was complete silence before some Griffindors started to argue over the ‘unfairness’ of it all.
It would have been believable if some of them weren’t still laughing and for the fact that the whole house hated Snape who hated them in turn.
As breakfast went back to normal, Draco hid a smile at the thought that he not only managed to get away but also ensured that Griffindor took last place instead of Slytherin.
~
Draco couldn’t sleep again. Honestly, he didn’t know what he was expecting. The adrenaline rush from pranking Snape earlier in the week had already faded and Draco was rapidly becoming bored from the routine of classes.
Honestly most of the spells were relatively easy as long as you knew latin and its purpose. You would think a school like Hogwarts would provide Latin classes to ensure everyone can actually pronounce the spells but apparently not.
Speaking of which, he had yet to look behind the intricacies of spell creating. He’d been waiting to do so after realising how quickly all his hard work had been undone by a simple ‘finite incantatem’.
He wondered if he should attempt to sneak into the library but figured he could wait till tomorrow. He felt tempted to go out for a walk again, maybe even test drive the broom he had snuck in.
He couldn’t believe freaking Potter got into the quidditch team for pulling a potentially life threatening stunt on his first time on the broom instead of freaking detention or something. Honestly, Hogwarts was such a scam.
He could have been in Beauxbatons now, happily speaking in french instead of being forced to speak english 24/7. Or maybe even Drumstrang which actually understood the importance of not forgoing the huge section of magical arts called Dark Arts.
He had wanted to sneak some of his dark arts books but even he was not stupid enough to risk expulsion if he were to get caught.
Sighing he got up, figuring a quick quidditch practice might take his mind off things, He grabbed his brook, sneaking clothes (as he’d taken to calling his hoodie and sweatpants) before dying his hair black again.
Before leaving, he muttered a quick sound muffling charm he’d seen in the Advanced Charms Book and practiced till he perfected it, figuring he still had a couple more late nights in his future.
~
Draco wasn’t interrupted during his impromptu flight session and it felt good to have the time alone with his thoughts. And yet, Draco found himself slightly disappointed that he wasn’t interrupted at the very least.
Draco - and he couldn't believe he was even entertaining the thought - wanted to pull more pranks. It allowed him to focus on something other than the almost suffocating feel of Hogwarts and the constant presence of other students unlike the more perpetually empty manor.
And if he cared enough to admit it, it was exhilarating to be acknowledged for the prank and not the person behind it. Plus it was a huge ‘screw you’ to Hogwarts and anyone else who hated Slytherins.
If nothing else, it ensured he wasn’t bored in school and actually managed to make him sufficiently tired enough to sleep.
With his mind already formulating the next prank, he fell asleep.