"I still need to have the leaf in my mouth for another week," Adrian added informatively," The piping system is elaborate here- the wards will not detect you until you leave the pipes. There's plenty of water, and I'm sure you'll find food somehow. Try not to look at the Basilisk in the eye, will you?"
"I will wait for Adalonda!" Lutain added, excited and pleased to speak to the mighty serpent once more. Adrian nodded slightly, turning to walk away with a hop in his step.
"W-wait!" Wormtail shrieked behind him, making movements to follow, "Where- how. My wand?"
"You think I'm a moron?" Adrian looked at him incredulously, "Your wand is back at the manor, I'm not letting you get out of here and blow my cover. If you even try running, I'll have the basilisk hunt you down. Am I understood?"
Wormtail paused, jaw dropping in surprise and indignation at the threatening response. Something must have crossed his face, or some sort of epiphany struck the rat like a club over his head. Wormtail snapped his jaw shut; his nostrils flared and his eyes stared wide in something like anger.
"You're just a-" Wormtail's words were vicious, stewing and angry.
Lutain hissed threatening, sliding to the ground carefully and sending Wormtail reeling as if shocked.
Adrian watched the man carefully, feeling inexplicably unsettled, "...Lutain, keep watch."
Wormtail scowled and shifted into his rat with the noise of joints and bones snapping and wet skin squelching. With nary a sound, the man skittered off to the darkest corner he could find.
Draco Malfoy was a self-centered prick that neither understood his place, and knew his place in the wizarding world all too well.
Draco knew that in a standard fight, he would almost certainly lose. Despite that, the act of attacking or targeting Draco would result in swarms of masses then attacking the attacker for days if not weeks afterwards. You could win a fight against Draco, but you would never win in combat.
With that in mind, Draco was overconfident for his own wellbeing, too sure that his fans and other ambitious classmates would take a curse for him without a second thought. This made him both interesting, and aggravating at the same time. A princely child ready to throw a tantrum the moment a warm body disagreed with his ideas.
The fact that Adrian himself had withheld not only information, but relevant information was both impossible to comprehend and a grievous error in Draco's mind. Why would anyone fail to inform him that they were (distantly) related to him?
And in the unique self-centered way the Malfoy's possessed, Draco took it as a personal slight which only further caused tension both in and out of the common room.
Adrian slipped into the common room, carefully. He had full intentions of heading straight to his room to start on the first assignment of the year assigned to him by Hagrid for Care; he was exhausted, especially after dealing with Wormtail.
He made it only halfway to his room when he heard the first snide comment from Draco, aimed directly at him from the couches he always shared. Adrian should have ignored it- he should have. Lutain would have told him to keep walking, except Lutain was keeping watch in the Chamber to inform Adalonda of the situation.
There was nobody to tell him to not respond to Draco, and plenty of eyes watching, silently begging him to respond.
"Looking a bit peckish, Selwyn? Then again, you always looking a bit foul."
Against his better judgement he turned on his heel and looked directly at Draco, observing his tight jaw and flinty eyes.
"Not as foul as your temper, Malfoy." He found himself saying, already striding over to the couches where his other Slytherin yearmates were accommodating room, "What's wrong, Granger already show you up?"
Draco's jaw shifted, and his hand curled into a fist. Dozens of eyes were watching, too curious for their own good.
"You're the one hanging around Mudbloods," Draco's eyes narrowed pointedly, "What would mummy think with such filth?"
And there it was.
Daphne straightened slightly, drawing an ear to the conversation. Theo shifted unsure with how tense the atmosphere was.
"Draco…" Theo trailed off unsure, not liking where the conversation was escalating; he likely wasn't liking how chances were, he'd have to break up a fight very soon.
"I wouldn't care," Adrian hummed calmly, smiling something bordering on feral as something harshly raged how dare he. With one hand, Adrian tapped along his jaw right where he could feel a raised border of mutilated skin, "Mummy isn't very fond of me."
Draco's nostrils flared- ah, Adrian could see where the boy misinterpreted Adrian's careless retort as a slight against both Bellatrix and thus, Draco's family.
"I wouldn't be either, especially now that you associate with Blood Traitors and Potters, or were you simply living with them because nobody else wanted you?"
Adrian's yearmates inhaled sharply and shifted away from him. Draco looked victorious in the way his knuckles relaxed and his shoulders rolled slowly.
Control yourself. Control yourself.
Adrian exhaled slowly through his nose, "Careful, Draco. You're looking jealous."
The blonde flushed angrily but Adrian didn't stick around long enough to hear the rebuttal. He had a Care essay to work on, not to mention he had to find some sort of way to gather the shreds of his background story to try and twist this in his way.
(He chose to ignore the way how three students and Theo all had wands hidden under their books, pointed at his back.)
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