Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or his world. I just play with them sometimes, but I always put them back where I found them.

A/N: This is a new fic I'm working on. I'm not quite sure how it'll go, but I fully expect it to be both a lot steamier and a lot darker than One Kiss From You.

This is a companion piece to One Kiss From You, a H/Hr fic. Please start there, as I will be posting the stories chronologically, not necessarily one at a time!

Also, please add an Author Alert for me, so that you can know when either story is updated!

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I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. Job 30:29

Draco Malfoy had a habit of assuming himself superior to all others. His life experience had shown him that this was the correct assumption, as every day of his first eleven years had been filled with the doting of his mother. At social events, he had observed the snide comments of his ice-cold father and the delicate wrinkle of the nose his mother had perfected throughout her life at the top of the wizarding world. From their position at the top, it was only too easy for the affluent Malfoys to look down upon everyone in their path.

Before Draco's birth, his family had had good reason to drape themselves in superiority like an expensive cloak; as a member of the Dark Lord's inner circle, Lucius Malfoy commanded an unspoken sense of terror to those around him. In the years of the Dark Lord's rise to power, the most powerful Death Eaters grew brave and began to flaunt their dark connections, though it was still considered a social faux pas to openly acknowledge a fellow witch or wizard as a Death Eater. This implicit power fueled the Malfoys' quick rise through the ranks of wizarding society, so that by the time their only son was born, what had been an old, established, yet only moderately wealthy family had become one of the most powerful in the world. Though he could never claim to be the wizard that his master was, Lucius Malfoy had more social capital than the Dark Lord could ever dream, and it was for this reason, coupled with his lust for gold and power, that he had been chosen as a member of the inner circle.

In his first ten years, the Dark Lord rose quickly to power, and the Malfoys rode that wave along with him. When their son was born, Lucius and Narcissa quickly shared the news with their lord and master, immediately pledging that he would one day bring great honor and power to the Dark Lord's new world order. He was given the name Draco, Latin for "great serpent," in honor of his inherited sovereign, and from the moment of his birth, no child had ever been so pampered as Draco Malfoy.

Nor had any child been so instilled with hate.

Before he had learned to talk, Draco had listened daily to his parents as they recalled their day to one another, heeding with interest the malicious descriptions of the Muggles, Mudbloods and blood traitors they ran across in their daily lives. As his magic began to surface in the form of levitating rattles and transforming vegetables, Lucius and Narcissa discussed the possibility of sending Draco to Bulgaria to attend Durmstrang under the watchful eye of Karkarov. He was an old family friend—another benefit of Lucius' Death Eater connections—where he would be able to receive a proper education in Dark magic during his formative years as a student. It would certainly be an improvement over the Muggle-loving Dumbledore who had had the run of Hogwarts for decades, they reasoned. The old man showed no signs of looming death, and had not been nearly as cooperative as other well-placed wizards in the wizarding world had to Lucius' attempts at bribery. He had also proven irritatingly resistant to assassination over the years, as multiple reported attempts had failed. Lucius had never personally placed a price on the old man's head, but had heard from others that assassins would sometimes return insane, driven mad by the power wielded by the ancient wizard. Sometimes, they just didn't return.

Draco was barely a year old when the end of the Dark Lord's reign finally came, and it was so sudden and without warning that Lucius had had to cling to his fortune, tooth and nail. The only way he was able to protect his personal wealth, power, and his family's good name was to openly denounce the Dark Lord, claiming bewitchment, torture, and total innocence. Though he had been as open as was safe at the time about his affiliations, there was little solid proof of his dark treachery, and those who were willing to produce such evidence to the Ministry of Magic were easily silenced.

Ironically, it was Lucius Malfoy's eagerness to forsake the Dark Lord in the wake of his downfall that preserved the power he had so tirelessly built for the Malfoy name. Any man who would so fearlessly cross the Dark Lord was a truly unscrupulous man indeed, and one who would likely go to any lengths to further his own ends. Draco's father remained a powerful influence in the wizarding world, whispering into the ear of the Minister herself, and yet his social capital withered by the week as word spread of his traitorous nature. Though he spoke otherwise among former Death Eaters with whom he was still in contact, Lucius Malfoy never expected the Dark Lord to rise back to power, and so he spent little energy in protecting the social connections that had made him so valuable a Death Eater in the first place, and none at all in combing the depths of society for the blackmailable tidbits which had been so crucial in protecting the Dark Lord in his weaker early days. He spent his time in the upper classes, gathering information that would be more personally useful.

Once it became clear that the Dark Lord was indeed gone from the world, the weight that had been lain across the shoulders of the Malfoy family was removed; Draco's future was safe from service to the Dark Lord, and their fortune—already enormous before their allegiance to the dark side of the war—had grown to heights unimagined even by the ambitious Lucius Malfoy. Best of all, the shadow under which they had lived for so many years had vanished, leaving the young family feeling blissfully safe and blessed.

This did not, of course, change the social superiority they carried like a fine mink stole. If anything, it gave the Malfoy couple a newfound feeling of power. After all, if a family could rise to power on the cresting wave of the Dark Lord himself, and leap from the precipice before the crash against the shore, who could ever stand up to that family, or to the man who led it? The Malfoys themselves were not the only ones who took this view; other Purebloods began to look to them as their leaders, even those who had not been followers of the Dark Lord. One by one, officials of the Ministry of Magic found themselves dining with the Malfoys, found their personal causes backed by the wealth and power of the Malfoy name. And, one by one, those officials found themselves under the thumb of Lucius Malfoy.

The day that Draco's letter from Hogwarts arrived, Lucius had come home from a meeting with a nobody, a bumbling idiot in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes who was well-placed to become Lucius' favored candidate for the Minister of Magic. Dumbledore had, of course, been the public darling for the position, but had thankfully refused the position in favor of staying holed up in his castle. Lucius knew that Bartemius Crouch, Sr.—the next candidate to have been put forth—would hardly be a boon to the Malfoy family once placed in office, given his voracious hunt of all known Death Eaters. He had already shown an uncomfortable amount of interest in Lucius' business ventures, though he had thankfully never had the clout to fully support his suspicions. No, to have a man like that placed in the highest official position of power in the wizarding world would surely spell trouble for a man with such a dark and twisted path. Too many donations, too many favors, too many lies could be investigated with Barty Crouch in charge.

Many of Crouch's supporters harkened to his willingness to lock up even his own son for the practice of evil magic. They saw this as a sign that he would not allow himself to be corrupted by the power he wielded, even by his own family. Lucius Malfoy knew all too well how a single truth could be twisted in many different directions, and he had made sure that everyone remembered how heartlessly Crouch had condemned his own son. As a father, it had been almost too easy for Lucius to head a covert campaign against the older Crouch, questioning how ruthlessly Crouch might have controlled the Ministry, should anyone have given him a reason to doubt their loyalties. Indeed, he reasoned, directly into the ear of Rita Skeeter, would he resist in sending anyone to Azkaban? And would he stop at the traditional offenses to earn any witch or wizard a stay in the dreaded prison? Could, perhaps, speaking out against him once he was seated behind the Minister's desk be considered an offense worth such a severe punishment?

Enough public doubt was raised against Bartemius Crouch that he was not likely to be chosen as the next Minister of Magic, but Lucius had had to act quickly to find a suitable replacement, and had found his ideal candidate in the personage of one Cornelius Fudge. Fudge was favored among many of the wealthier Pureblood families as a man who was both fascinated and intimidated by the influence they possessed in the wizarding world. This was a potent combination, as any former Death Eater well knew, and if Fudge were selected for the position, an unspoken agreement had developed among the old Pureblood families that Lucius Malfoy would speak with him on their behalf in all matters political. His family had the most social weight, and the most effective financial position to make Fudge feel as though he constantly owed the Malfoys for their assistance. Yes, Lucius was confident that he would be a willing ear to the opinions and positions of the Malfoy family, so long as he had it worth the man's while to do so.

Knowing that this was a solution most easily solved with coin—of which he had plenty—the senior Malfoy strode through the door of his mansion, wearing his victorious sneer, which widened almost imperceptibly into his prideful sneer at the sight of the yellowed parchment in his son's hands, the vivid Slytherin-green ink and violet wax seal readily visible. Out of respect for his father, Draco and Narcissa had elected to wait for his return before opening the letter. That night, Dobby the House Elf had prepared an extravagant feast for the small family, preparing—on Narcissa's orders—a dozen times more food than could ever be eaten by the three Malfoys.

The summer before Draco started at Hogwarts saw him riding a brand-new Comet 260 broomstick, an unbroken black stallion, and spending copious amounts of his mother's allowance money on dress robes and suits he would not be able to wear to Hogwarts. At ten years old, Draco Malfoy felt himself on the top of the world, and his parents wildly encouraged that assumption.

He had learnt all his life at his father's knee that there were certain families, even among the Purebloods, with whom one simply did not socialize. He now learned about their children. Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle had been in and out of the Malfoy Manor throughout Draco's childhood, and he knew them to be large, mean, and intellectually stunted. His father told him of the assets to be gained by having such followers, and gave him all of the names in information he would need to compose himself as the leader of the Slytherin first years. As the years went on, his father told him, this careful positioning would give him the power of Prefect and Head Boy, experience that would carry on well into his adult life.

Though he was only a child, Draco hungered for the day he would please his father, and more regularly earn the loving sneer he often showed Narcissa, or perhaps even that rarest of smiles he had seen in their wedding photo once when he was young. Lucius Malfoy had learned long ago that emotion was a dangerous weapon in the hands of one's enemies, and believed himself to be utterly cold and unreadable. To most he encountered, this was true, but even he was not aware that his wife and son knew the difference in his expressions, knew when he was pleased with them and when he was not. If he had known this, he would have flown into a rage, and it would not have been the first time he had hexed or cursed his own son for making him look a fool. It was Lucius' firm belief that the true punishment of a wizard's child should be magic, and excelled at small tortures in his everyday life.

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The morning Draco left for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, his mother hugged him tearfully, straightening his coat over and over, and picking at lint that was not there. Lucius scolded his wife for openly showing such attachment, reminding her that it was a sign of weakness, one a true Malfoy should never show. Though they were in the front room of their grand estate where no one could see their private family moments, Narcissa moved away from Draco's side, and nodding apologetically to her husband, straightened her shoulders into her usual proud posture.

There was a small extension of the Floo network that operated in an abandoned section of the underground station directly beneath King's Cross. It was run by a man who maneuvered mostly outside the law, and was therefore only accessible to those willing and able to pay the exorbitant fees he charged. Much to Draco's chagrin, this was how the Malfoy family arrived. He would have preferred to arrive at the train on his new broomstick—he had thrown a tantrum when he learned that his father would not help him sneak a broomstick into Hogwarts—and shock his new classmates with his prowess at both flight and magic. Walking up the stairs from the filthy underground and having to push his trunk on a wheeled cart through the Muggle-crowded train station felt so beneath him as to be a silent humiliation. It seemed to force his obviously superior family onto the same level as every other piece of Muggle trash floating through the world.

His parents did not bother to acknowledge anyone around them, the unspoken reason being simply that they were all beneath the Malfoy family. They walked three astride, with Lucius in the middle and half a pace ahead, to show his position of power in the family. Draco stood to his right, his rightful place as the firstborn heir, and Narcissa to the left, in the wife or mistress' traditional place. Entering the station, Draco could see other wizarding familes; some he knew, and some he didn't. He could spot Crabbe's and Goyle's parents coming out, presumably having just dropped off their children. He was mildly surprised that they had not stayed to see them off, and then wondered if his parents would bother doing so. Pansy Parkinson, a girl who had long since been his intended life partner, stood with her mother and father several meters away, waiting for the barrier to be less crowded. She smiled broadly as Draco strode past, and he was struck as always with disgust at the pronounced yellow tone of her teeth. Knowing it was what was expected of him, however, he smiled back in a way that implied he was exceptionally pleased to see her.

Beyond this small recognition of Pansy's presence, Draco did not show any attention to anyone, knowing that his ability to keep a straight, proud mask on in the next minutes were the beginning of how he would be viewed by his peers at Hogwarts.

In the distance, past the Muggles rushing to make their trains, Draco could see the solid barrier between platforms nine and ten, through which he was expected to calmly walk. He felt a small bubble of instinctive, abject terror forming in the pit of his stomach. He had been stepping into fireplaces and announcing his destination since he could talk, but there was still something forbidding about trying to walk through a wall. It must have shown on his face.

"Are you frightened? It's quite alright; I've seen all my brothers do it before. You can go through with Percy, if you'd like." The young voice surprised him into turning toward a large group of red haired children, most of them older than him by several years. They had entered the train station at the same time as his family, but caught up in his concerns at what he soon had to do, Draco had not noticed them. His parents, he realized, as well as the older children and the mother of the little girl, had been pointedly ignoring one another until she had spoken to him.

He recognized this clan instantly from his parents' derisive descriptions of the Weasleys, blood traitors to the core, Muggle-lovers and supporters of Mudblood rights, though they had one of the finest Pureblood pedigrees in the wizarding world. It was an outrage, a disgust, a perversion of everything that it meant to be a Pureblood. Draco didn't fully understand these hateful feelings, but knew that they were right, and that they were the proper stand to take. They were his parents' feelings; they were right.

But this innocent voice broke through all of these preconceived notions. This tiny wisp of a child, who didn't know any better had asked him a question, had reassured him. A small part of him did feel better, knowing that these older children had already passed through the magical barrier and had clearly come out alive. She was small, perhaps nine or ten

There was a moment of shocked silence, as Draco watched his father's shocked sneer slide onto his face. No one else noticed these small changes in his father's facial expressions, but that was because no one, no one in the world worshipped Lucius Malfoy as much as his son and wife did. The tallest red-head, who must be Percy, looked highly affronted at the idea of leading Draco Malfoy through the hidden portal. The Weasley mother, whose name Draco did not know, looked down at her daughter in astonishment. It was such a simple misunderstanding, for the little girl not to know that she oughtn't to speak to one of the Malfoys, but his father responded with not a little bit of outrage.

"Control your offspring, Molly," he spat out venomously, not bothering to use her more formal title. "You ought to teach them not to speak to their betters."

The red-haired woman looked on in shock and hurt. She drew the young girl, who looked confused at the anger directed at her and her mother, into her arms, glaring at Draco's father.

"If there were any betters around, Lucius Malfoy," she replied with equal acidity, "I would certainly do so. All I see are snakes in the grass."

"The natural predator of the weasel family, I believe?" his mother added delicately, arching one perfectly shaped eyebrow in cruel implication.

Lucius glanced down at his son with his angry sneer. "Come, Draco." He placed his hand on Draco's shoulder, steering him forward toward the stone barrier between platforms nine and ten.

There was an informal queue of wizarding families around the hidden platform entrance, made up of families standing around casually, waiting for the area to clear somewhat of Muggles. Led by his father, Draco saw that they were going to ignore this succession of turns and be the next people through. A group of Muggle children about Draco's age walked past, and one had the audacity to point and mock them when he saw how strangely his family was dressed. He heard his mother's wand moving beneath her robes, though she spoke no spell, and watched in amusement as the offending boy's trousers split cleanly down the back.`

"Excuse me," came a timid voice from the place where they had left the Weasleys. Draco turned to see a small, pale boy with black hair looking at Mrs. Weasley with not a little trepidation. It was the same boy who had been at Madam Malkin's with the enormous gamekeeper. Draco didn't see any parents with him, and remembered his parents were dead, though he had said they were wizarding folk, at least.

"That boy is in my year at school," he muttered, not looking at his father, though he knew that he had heard him. "He's got no family. The groundskeeper took him to Diagon Alley."

"A Muggle-born?" his father hissed back.

"No," Draco replied, still keeping his voice low. "Our kind. I don't know anything else about him, though. He's standing with the Weasels."

Lucius turned back once to see who Draco was talking about about, and his eyes feel upon the boy with his sneer of dawning realization. "That," he whispered to his son, "is the famous Harry Potter. Hero of the light side, and he will doubtless make a powerful ally, or a powerful enemy. It is said that after his parents were killed, he was sent to live among the Muggles, so he may be ignorant of our ways. Draco," He paused, smiling a cold, ruthless smile. "Befriend him, if you can. He will grow to be a powerful force in the wizarding world."

"How will I do that?"

"You're a smart boy. I've taught you well, you'll manage. Now, hush, they're coming this way."

They turned back to the barrier as though nothing had happened, and Draco felt his worry return. Although he knew the secret behind Platform 9¾, he still felt the trepidation that came naturally to one who is preparing to run headlong into what appears to be a solid brick wall. He stood proudly between his mother and father, and strode forward with his rolling trolley, hiding the worry he felt with the iron mask he had been taught to perfect throughout his life. His mother carried the large gold cage in which slept his unnamed eagle owl. His father, as was his wont and privilege, carried nothing but his ebony cane, which he only carried in public. Though many wizards carried such canes to stylishly conceal their wands, Draco knew his father's elm and dragon heartstring wand was tucked delicately into the inside folds of his robes. The cane was a deliberate ruse, in case they were attacked.

"Never show the world how powerful you are, Draco," Lucius had told his son once in his childhood, when Draco had been discovered boasting to the son of a business partner. "Let them believe you are weaker than you are, so that anyone who moves against you can be made an example to others who might try. There is nothing quite so frightening to a man who wishes to overthrow you as realizing that he has been preparing to battle less than what you are."

Lucius Malfoy lived by this example, walking with a cane that was not only superfluous in its splendor, but in its function as well. Draco knew as well as Lucius that, if they were attacked, his father's first move would be to smite down the attacker with a swing of his cane. In the moments the attacker's attention was drawn away from them, his father would reach into his robes for his wand and be crouched into a dueling position before the attacker could make another move. Draco knew this because he had watched his father practice the motion endless times in one of the lesser ballrooms of their manor home. Knowing how Lucius adored his secrets, Draco had hidden behind a door; terrified of his father's anger should he be discovered, yet mesmerized at the same time by the fluidity before him as Lucius practiced the sweeping motions over and over again.

The crowded mess that was King's Cross station every first of September was hardly a risk for attack, but the Malfoy's had not survived as long as they had by assuming their own safety in any situation.

There was a momentary lull in the Muggle traffic in the area, and Lucius nudged his son forward. Draco had not quite taken a step when his father took the owl from his mother and handed it to him. He took this to understand that they would not be accompanying him beyond the barrier, and allowed his gaze to flash once between them. Narcissa looked about to say something, but her husband nodded sharply and said only, "Go."

Not wanting his father to find him weak, Draco nodded back and turned to stride purposefully through the invisible doorway leading to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. The sight before him was incredible. The massive locomotive was directly in front of him, a blazing crimson, like freshly spilled blood, belching white steam into the air. Not wanting to cause a jam as others came through, Draco moved forward through the shadowy crowd. He quickly found the large, hulking shapes of Crabbe and Goyle, and knew that now was his moment to begin building the following and reputation his father had prepared him for.

"You there," he called to them from a few paces away. "Crabbe, Goyle, help me with my trunk."

They didn't even pause to wonder why he should expect them to do as he bid; they simply did it. This thrilled Draco to no end, and he knew with two over-sized morons as his henchmen at school, it was only the beginning of the followers he would collect over time.

The three of them took over a compartment on the train, and were soon joined by Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini. Draco had hoped that their parents' arrangements for their life together would have been as appalling to Parkinson as they were to him. Unfortunately, however, she seemed to take it in stride that they would be a couple all through Hogwarts and continue happily to their life together. She sat down beside him uncomfortably close, and simpered at him, how long it had been, how they really needed to see more of one another. It was disgusting, but was a necessary evil of the life his parents had struck for him, and as their rightful son and heir to the Malfoy name and all it implied, he knew that he had to maintain an air of dignity, even in a situation that made him want to be physically ill.

Pansy draped herself across him to wave good-bye to her mother, who was standing teary-eyed on the platform outside. Draco scoffed silently at the asinine emotions the two women were showing. His own parents had wished him well and sent him off, as was proper. They were being sent away to school, where there would be no parents, no bedtimes or reminders to do homework. It was fitting that their parents treat them, not as babies being pulled from the crib, but as soft clay, ready to be returned to them as molded, fired adults.

Turning away from the unpleasant angle of Pansy's face, Draco's eyes fell on the portly red-headed woman and her little girl. He knew the woman's name to be Molly Weasley, but hadn't been able to catch the little girl's. She had tried to help him, and though it had been a pathetic attempt, she was so small that he couldn't help feeling a small jab of tenderness at how adorable she had been. It was a strange feeling, as he didn't particularly enjoy the obnoxious, rowdy antics of children, but he supposed that, as a growing man, he would soon be apt to feel the stirrings of adult urges, which would understandably include a new appreciation of children and offspring. Glancing up at Pansy, he shuddered, hoping he would never feel such an adult urge for her. He had a vague knowledge of the mechanics behind conception and birth, but certainly knew enough to know that it would require a certain amount of feeling and proximity to a girl of his choosing.

He tried hard not to think about it, and as the train began chugging down the railway, he saw the little girl waving up at the moving train. For a brief moment, he thought she was waving at him, then realized it must be her brothers in a nearby carriage. The last thing he saw before the train rounded the corner was her running down the platform, tears streaming down her face. Again, he was struck with tenderness for the small child, and hoped that someone would wipe her tears away soon, for she should not be so sad.

This strange amount of emotion was still surprising to him. He wondered if the ambient magic in the air was affecting him. Surely there were centuries of longing, excitement, and bitter-sweetness built up in the very floorboards of the entire station, and he quickly pushed the thoughts of the little girl out of his mind. Throughout the train ride, however, whenever the conversation lulled or he felt himself nodding off to sleep, the image of the little red-headed girl would pop into his mind.

And so it came to pass that Draco Malfoy arrived at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, already burnt by the fire of Ginny Weasley.

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A/N: Well, here ya go! Let me know what you think! The first few chapters will be a bit of a slow-going, as I've got a lot of stuff I need to patchwork together, without maiming the timeline.

Don't forget to add an Author Alert, so you can get updates for Brother to Dragons and One Kiss From You! If you haven't read my H/Hr companion piece, please do so as well!

Rock on, keep reading, and as always, review!

cj596