challenge: Be Grateful for your Friends

author: Dee from Hogwarts, Slytherin

points: 10

prompts: (character) Draco Malfoy and (word) undying loyalty.

word count:

a/n: i love all of my friends to the ends of the earth - you are all beautiful, wonderful people, and i am blessed to have all of you in my life. you know who you are. thank you for making me a better person. when i started writing on ff, so many years ago (two, but i'm trying to be emotional), i never thought i'd gain some semblance of success as an author. all of you people have inspired me to keep on writing. if i ever write a real, published book, it will be dedicated to all of you. that includes the readers. thank you.

this fic was supposed to be five hundred words but i was procrastinating on homework and got carried away a tiny bit. it's also kinda random and weird and i apologize for what you're about to read. i say that every time, but it's true.

Draco Malfoy went through his years at Hogwarts without ever having friends - there were his minions, of course, but they definitely didn't qualify as anything but servants, and there were Blaise, Daphne, Theo and Pansy, but they were less friends and more allies he was forced to make through his father and his last name. Malfoys, he had always been told, do not have weaknesses, and that destroyed the whole purposes of friendships in the first place - they are, after all, for all intents and purposes, simply sharing your weaknesses with someone else. One can argue that this could be good for a person, not having to carry all of their faults by themselves, but Lucius Malfoy did not think the point was up for debate and Draco never argued with his father.

Then came the war, when friendships, he was reminded, would destroy you - because in war, weaknesses are meant to be hidden. So Draco strengthened his allies and made sure not to become attached to anyone emotionally. All of the people he would visit, and make small talk with, and be calculatedly nice to - they thought he was their friend, that they could trust him, and that was their downfall.

Like father, like son. Lucius felt no emotions towards anyone (excluding his undying loyalty to Lord Voldemort; something that could not be compared to friendship at all), and Draco, grown up with his father's morals, was doomed to do the same. So when the war ended, and Lucius was thrown into Azkaban, and Narcissa locked herself up in a room crying, and Draco was shunned by society as a Death Eater, he didn't know how to make friends, how to feel things, how to be something besides aristocratic and selfish and calculated.

Throw in, here, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter. Two people who really did not know how to leave him alone and who seemed hell-bent on talking to him. Two people who were friends, and apparently wanted to be friends with him as well. It was a hard pill to swallow.

"Granger," he muttered after she barged into his office for the third time that week, "what do you want? If it's another offer to get me lunch, no thank you, I can afford my own meals. I'm not like the Weasel."

She raised her eyebrows at him, slumped in his office chair. "Even for you, that was a bad one."

He groaned. "I have a lot of work to do. If you have something useful to tell me, say it in the next ten seconds."

"You're eating dinner with me and Harry tonight."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are. Seven at the Leaky Cauldron. If you're late I'll castrate you."

She left before he could say another word.

He didn't go, of course. Miss Hermione Granger could not tell him what to do. While he was expecting her to show up at his office and scold him the next day, he was definitely not ready to see her there at eleven at night (he worked late; it wasn't as if he had anything else to do), Harry Potter right behind her looking slightly terrified.

"You," she raged, "are an ugly, despicable human being!"

"Already know that, darling," he drawled.

"Ugh - you - you - " she reached out for him but Potter held her back by the back of her red dress.

"You can't actually kill him, you know."

"I can bloody well try."

"Hermione - "

"Fine. Let me go. I can restrain myself."

Harry did so, edging away slowly and sending him a glance that screamed pity. "Good luck, mate."

"I'm not your 'mate', Potter."

"Why do you have to be so insufferable?" Granger asked, looking livid.

"I'm not - "

"Shush, that was a rhetorical question. Malfoy, all we wanted was to have dinner. A nice, peaceful dinner, where maybe we could get to see that you weren't still the brat you once were."

"Well, I am," he sighed, "you must be disappointed. You can leave now."

"No," she said, "you're not, even if you want to be."

"Don't pretend that you know me, Granger."

"We don't," Harry interjected, "but we're willing to find out."

"Stop being so righteous. That isn't going to get you anywhere."

"Look, Malfoy, I know pretty well that the whole world treats you terribly. You work all the time because you don't like interacting with people. We may have had a bad relationship in school, but nobody deserves to be treated like you do."

"I'm a Death Eater, Potter, remember? I - I deserve everything," he was bitter as he spoke, cracking a little bit.

"No, you don't," Granger stepped in. "You were a child."

"That might have worked in court, but it isn't true. I made a choice. It was a wrong choice. Now I'm paying for my actions. Why are you still here?"

Potter looked at him for a few seconds.

"Dinner. Tomorrow. Same place, same time."

"I don't - "

"It's not up for negotiation, Malfoy," Granger interrupted. Then she grabbed Potter's hand and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind her, leaving Draco to stare at the it with his head spinning.

Maybe he'd go tomorrow. Maybe.