Victor stepped to the front of the Room of Requirement, looking out at the tired faces on the floor.
"Well," he said, flat. "You all know I don't talk in a way that would inspire anyone. If anything, I'm sure it just makes you angry."
A wave of nods went through the crowd.
"I don't mind," Luna said mildly, blinking up at him.
"Thanks, Luna," Victor said, deadpan. "But the others do mind. And frankly, if I end up in Azkaban because one of you gossips too loudly in the Great Hall, I will personally track you down before the Ministry does."
Harry, Ron, and Hermione traded sideways glances.
"So, the announcement today," Victor continued, ignoring the nervous silence, "is that this is the last day of the DA. O.W.L. exams are coming. And Umbridge — that toad — is also suspicious. The risk is too high. So today is the last day of our activities."
He shoved his hands into his pockets and stepped back, offering nothing to soften it.
Neville raised his hand timidly. "But... we still have more to learn."
"You can learn it next year," Victor said flatly. "Because I will make sure Umbridge is kicked out of this school by the end of the term, and that she ends up in Azkaban."
A gasp rippled through the room.
"Azkaban?" Parvati muttered to Lavender. "That's a bit cruel, isn't it?"
Victor heard her. His expression didn't shift. "Yes. She will definitely enjoy sitting right next to the Dementors. After the way she has tortured students with those blood quills, I will personally make sure of it."
He stared out at the crowd, eyes dark and unblinking as black glass. A quiet, unsettling realization spread through the room: Victor Malfoy was creepy as hell.
Near the back, sitting stiffly on a cushion, was Draco — dragged into the DA weeks ago, largely to keep him out of Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad and under his older brother's watchful eye.
Seamus leaned away from Victor and glanced warily at him. "Hey, Malfoy. How do you even live with your brother? He's scary."
Draco looked at Seamus, then at Victor, still staring down Zacharias Smith without blinking, and let out a long, tired sigh. "Used to be terrifying. But you get used to it."
Before Victor could traumatize the younger students any further, Hermione marched forward, grabbed his arm, and shoved him out of the center of the room.
"Harry would like to say something now," she said, exasperated. "Let it go, Victor. And how many times have I told you not to make that face? It's scary."
"This is just my face."
"Well, stop aiming it at the third-years."
"Right," Harry said, stepping forward. He looked around at the rattled but attentive DA.
"Victor's right about laying low. With the O.W.L.s coming and the Inquisitorial Squad patrolling every corridor, it's too dangerous to keep meeting like this. If Umbridge catches a group this size, she won't just give us detention — she'll expel us."
A reluctant silence. No one argued.
"So this is our last official meeting," Harry continued.
"But that doesn't mean you stop. Practice when you want to. Review the spells in your common rooms or on your own. But above all — don't ever tell anyone about what we did here. Not a word to anyone outside this room."
He pulled the Marauder's Map from his pocket and tapped it. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
He scanned the ink lines across the seventh floor, watching the dots for Filch and Mrs. Norris move toward the stairs.
"All right, the corridor is clear," he said, folding the parchment. "We leave the same way we always do — staggered, in groups of two or three. Hufflepuffs first."
The room emptied until only six remained: Harry, Hermione, Ron, Draco, Luna, and Victor.
Victor sat comfortably on the floor, staring up at Ron and Draco, both glaring down at him — despite loathing each other, united in wanting to knock him down a peg.
"If you want to fight me, come on," Victor said, flat. "No need to hold back. I can see you two want to just straight-up beat me."
Ron and Draco looked eager to fight him, and neither could hide it at all.
Luna hummed and stepped out of the firing line, clutching her bag to her chest, clearly eager to watch.
Harry drew his wand. "Yeah, let's go."
In a rare moment of coordination, Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Draco all raised their wands together.
"Expelliarmus!"
"Stupefy!"
Four jets of red light shot across the room toward Victor.
He didn't draw his wand — just leaned onto his shoulder and rolled lazily sideways across the cushions. The spells scorched through the empty air where his chest had been and blasted the stone wall behind him.
He came to a stop on his side, propped his head on his hand, and let out a bored yawn.
They didn't stop. Hermione sent a Binding Curse at his legs while Draco and Harry fired twin Stunners.
Victor didn't roll this time. As the red light lit his face, the shadows beneath him swallowed him whole. He sank into the floor without a sound, the three spells blasting the cushions where he'd been sitting into a cloud of white feathers.
"Where did he go?" Draco snapped, spinning around.
A few yards away, the shadow cast by a tall bookshelf rippled. Victor stepped out of it, brushing a feather off his coat.
"There!" Ron yelled. "Impedimenta!"
Victor stepped back into the shadow of a training dummy just as the jinx hit the wood, then stepped out of the shadow cast by the doorway, unharmed.
Harry spun and fired a Disarming Charm, but Victor was already sinking into the darkness of the floorboards again, reappearing on the opposite side of the room, leaning against one of the tall mirrors.
"Stand in one place, damn it!" Ron shouted, chest heaving, lowering his wand.
Victor looked at him. "No."
*****
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