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After Draco stalked back from the Gryffindor table, the Slytherins immediately huddled together to strategise - or in other words, to plot the Gryffindors' ignominious downfall.
"Potter really has a Firebolt?" Pucey said, with a hint of wistful envy in his voice. Then he blinked when he noticed the very stern looks everyone gave him and cleared his throat, discomfited. "Think he bought it himself? It's not like he has sponsors."
"If he did, he would've had to spend half his vault on it," Draco drawled coolly. His father had made him memorise all the notable wizarding families and their assets when he'd been young; Draco knew exactly how much wealth the Potters had left for their son.
It would serve Potter right if he'd squandered it all on a stupid broom like the big-headed show off he was. When he was going to starve to death in the streets, Draco would laugh a lot.
"It's not just the Firebolt that's the problem," said Higgs, who was the vice-captain and the reserve Seeker and helped Draco with practice. "The Gryffindors got their morale back thanks to it."
He nodded subtly towards the Gryffindor table, and Draco glanced over his shoulder; another gaggle of halfwits had gathered around Potter to ogle the Firebolt. As if they suddenly knew anything about brooms, let alone good brooms.
He narrowed his eyes balefully at Potter's stupid, smug face. He suddenly recalled the story of Achilles, who'd been made invulnerable when his mother had dipped him in the River Styx, and wondered if Potter's mother had dipped him in a cauldron of Felix Felicis. Draco didn't know what else could have explained the perverse way Potter seemed to warp the entire universe in his favour.
Draco might have found this morbidly humorous if the universe didn't also go out of its way to make a fool of him at the same time.
"Our best bet to win the Cup is if Gryffindor loses this match against Ravenclaw. Any ideas?" Flint said, then they all looked at Draco expectantly.
Shifting his gaze slowly towards the Ravenclaw table, Draco said, "As a matter of fact, I do have one."
He asked his friend in Ravenclaw, Moon, who promised to pass on the request to Cho Chang.
She was the exact kind of girl Draco couldn't stand, even if he did rather appreciate her cunning affectation and self-sufficiency. She was one of those girls who knew she was pretty and knew how to use it to her advantage while ruthlessly pretending to be innocent and helpless. But she was the Ravenclaw Seeker and thus integral to Draco's plans to take down Potter. And hopefully humiliate him while he was at it.
Currently, she was giving Draco a look of affected anxiety, her dark eyes wide and limpid. "Moon said you wanted to talk to me about something."
"You have a Comet Two Sixty, right?" Draco started conversationally. "They're reliable, standard brooms, but they're no match for a Firebolt, don't you think?"
Chang looked momentarily surprised, then she tittered. "Are you worried we'll lose the match? We do have a plan for that, you know."
"What a coincidence," drawled Draco, his voice completely bland. "So do I. And I need a bit of your cooperation to make it work. When you and Potter are racing for the Snitch, all you need to do is draw his attention elsewhere and grab it before him."
He knew exactly how to distract Potter. He, Crabbe, Goyle, and Flint were going to dress up as Dementors. They might not get Potter to fall off his broom again - and what was with Potter and his need to fall off his broom every year, the histrionic git - but Draco was hoping for a slip at least. A big enough slip that even Chang would manage to win against Potter.
For a moment, Chang was quiet, regarding him with a nervous look that didn't quite hide the speculation underneath it. "I don't know," she hedged, "that kind of sounds like cheating."
"Oh, please. Slytherins never cheat," Draco denied shamelessly, and Chang's eyebrows quirked upwards because everyone knew Slytherins cheated like fiends when it suited them. And he might have cheated in their match together last year. But eh, details. No one cared about those.
Her thin eyebrows furrowed, Chang tapped her elbow and looked around the empty corridor. They were just outside the Great Hall, and a stream of students passed by them on their way to the stairs, the front doors or the dungeons, the murmur of their voices indistinct. When she went on, almost distractedly as if she was talking aloud to herself, "Well... it would be hard to win against a Firebolt," Draco had to suppress the vicious surge of triumph in his chest. He had her. "I guess anyone would be surprised if they saw something unexpected, right?"
Her mouth quirked in a small grin, and Draco gave her his most charming smile back. She looked momentarily flustered and bewildered. "Look forward to it."