Draco Malfoy was a bad person.
He knew it.
He believed it.
He reveled in it.
He cherished it.
He prided himself no it.
He guarded his cruelty.
He was born in a pureblood family. A family where there were already volumes of books filled with wizards and witches renowned for being bad. He looked up at his father. He looked towards himself becoming as bad as him. He knew the world. He knew that out there his name was all he had. After all a name is all anybody has. His name was how he was recognized and respected or feared.
After all Potter only had the name. He did not have the personality like Draco Malfoy did. Weasley had a name that described his blood traitor family. Granger had a name. Greengrass had a name. Zabini had a name. Dumbledore had a name. Snape had a name. And Voldemort had a name.
Draco Malfoy was essentially what he had seen around me since he was born. He was the essence of the purebloods. Cruel, arrogant, vain, derisive and superior. He only wished to excel in that. He wished to excel anybody and everybody before him. He knew the realities. Oh, how he knew them and he faced them. Even though sometimes he did not understand them. For example he could bring himself to understand how someone as famous as Potter could bear to hang around the riff raff as Weasley and Granger. Surely he must have better standard then that.
Draco Malfoy was not one of the crazy people who worshipped the savior. He knew better than that. He knew that they both were passengers of different boats. Their paths collided again and again because they represented two different strata of the wizarding world. Potter was the champion of the muggles and mugleborns and blood traitors, while he himself represented the aristocracy. Why?
Draco Malfoy looked down upon anyone and everyone other than himself. Because he was superior then them. He had a right to look down upon them. This is what he had learned when he was 2 years old.
Wizards were superior to muggles and Malfoy were superior to wizards.
He lived by that rule. He made the rule his entire life. He was a Malfoy and thus a Slytherin and the combination made him greater in intellect, blood status, looks, and position than everybody else. But damn Potter, who had to shamble along and change the hierarchy.
He met him first time in Madam Malkin's. a scrawny little boy with over sized clothes and brilliant green eyes, that shot out waves of curiosity. Draco could not help but talk to him and he found that the boy-with-eyes-like-saucers did not know much about their world. Where had he been living? Under a rock?
And then he found out it was the famous Harry Potter. He, Draco Malfoy, extended his hand towards him. And Potter had the nerve to refuse!
That is when Draco Malfoy became confuse. Why? He was a Malfoy, who in their right mind would turn down an offer of friendship from a Malfoy?
The boy's attitude questioned everything Malfoy believed in. he defied him again and again. He became Draco Malfoy's worst enemy and his worst nightmare. Malfoy's each attempt to get Potter thrown out of Hogwarts kept rebounding. Why? Malfoy must be the school's favorite not Potter. But denying did not change the fact that Potter was the favorite and not Malfoy. The raven-haired Gryffindor was a thorn in Malfoy side. His life was becoming miserable. He was good the way he was, even if it meant being bad. Then he knew where he stood. And then Potter shook all foundations.
Yes Draco Malfoy was cruel, vile, despicable. But he was good at it.
This is what he was.
He knew what he was.
This is what he was supposed to be.
This is what was demanded of him.
And this is how life had been for him.
Always.
But then he saw Potter walking around the school sitting with blood traitors, chatting with mudbloods, laughing at the Slytherins, and loved all around. What did this mean? Draco Malfoy questioned himself. Why did potter do this? Was it some cunning way to earn everybody's love?
But then Malfoy would look at Potter's face and know that those sheepish smiles, and those guffaws could not be forgery. And he looked around at his own table. At his friends. At Crabbe and Goyle. At Zabini and Parkinson. At Bulstrode and Greengrass. Distant, secretive and cold.
Was this being a pureblood meant? High and superior than everybody else. He looked back at the Gryffindors. Laughing, playing pranks, beaming faces. If what Malfoy was doing was right, why did it feel so wrong?
In his third year he did his best to get Hagrid sacked. He provoked Buckbeak, sustained an injury became the cause of execution of an innocent animal, all for what, he thought? He saw the fury in Granger's eyes when she smacked him in the face. Why, if she was a mudblood, a lower being, would she be furious for an injustice? Why, if she was supposed to be a schmuck, did she secure the highest marks in the whole school? Why, if she was supposed to be of dirty blood with no magic, could she perform spells Draco, with his entire noble ancestry couldn't?
Why, if Weasley was a blood traitor, did he stand by Potter's side so staunchly? Why, when he was obviously ignored by the attention Potter got, would he still support him? Malfoy knew for a fact that if it had been him instead of Weasley he would have long left Potter to his antics, and his limelight.
And most of all why did Potter behave as he did. All courtesy and modesty with everyone. Well, at least those who did not provoke him. Trying to tell the people again and again that Voldemort was back, and saving their arse when they did not even believe him. He stood up for his friends when no one stood up for Malfoy.
And that my friend is how Draco Malfoy became to think and to understand the theory of right and wrong. He began to contemplate and later in his fifth year almost got it. But then he had to go back to the manor. Where dread awaited him. Now when he had finally figured out how to be the right person, Voldemort had to include him in the ranks of his followers and assign him the most arduous task that he himself had never accomplished.
Killing Albus Dumbledore.
Something told Draco Malfoy that standing up to the dark lord would not be a good option. After all he was a slytherin. And Slytherins were known for their self-preservation. Giving in was the only option he had. And unlike the idiot Gryffindor his parents were alive and very much threatened by the dark lord. He simply had to accomplish this task.
He had to.
But how was he to do that. How was he, a boy of sixteen to kill the most accomplished wizard of the century was beyond him. He tried and failed and tried and failed and tried and failed. He almost killed Katie Bell and Ronald Weasley but Dumbledore remained safe. He was torn. He did not want to kill the headmaster.
Yes he was a Malfoy
Yes he was a slytherin.
Yes he was cruel and vain.
No he was not a murderer.
He wanted to switch sides.
For once he felt what it must like be to be in Potter's shoes. The stress, the threat, feeling that he could trust no one, with bloody Potter following him around. Gryffindors glared at him, Slytherins kept an eye on him; Hufflepuffs watched his every move and Ravenclaws looked at him shrewdly as if they could read his mind.
He wanted to scream
He was not a murderer.
He failed to kill Dumbledore. And yet he ran from the castle in the dark of the night like he was a murderer. He heard Potter screaming behind him, bellowing curses at them. He risked a glance back and saw him doubled over and the he looked up, his eyes harder than emeralds. And he roared at him at Snape. Why? Again Draco thought. What did the headmaster mean to the-boy-who-lived? And then he apparated and cruciatus awaited him.
There was no way out of the monstrosity that being a pureblood was inflicted on him. He had no one to talk to. No one understood it. He was the prince of slytherin house. He was the heir to Lucius Malfoy, the dark lord's right hand. Many things were was expected of him. Pity not one of them. He had been under Potter's influence long enough to realize that these people around him were evil. Pure evil. They killed people for the fun of it. They disgusted Draco to no end. And yet he stayed on with them. Because the world had no place for him. A pureblood like he with a reputation like his would not be welcomed anywhere no one would believe him. And he would be stranded on his own till either of the parties found and killed him.
And then again Potter made an appearance, trust him to be in the right place at the right time. His face was swollen. And he was again the scrawny little boy Draco had seen and felt attracted to at madam Malkin's. His green eyes looked up pleadingly from under his fringe. Draco trembled. Why? Why was this idiot Gryffindor trying to save himself to be sacrificed later? Why was he doing that for the people who did not even believe him?
And for once Draco yielded to his request. He lied. He almost wished he could hold Potter's hand and apparate where he did. But no, if Potter could play noble, he could do that too. He stayed with the monsters, praying Potter lived, praying he survived as only he could overthrow the dark lord and thus free Draco.
He smirked. Draco Malfoy praying.
For the-boy-who-wont-die.
That he may live.
How . . . . un-Malfoy of me, thought Draco.
And then Potter did something he could not understand least of all forgive. He saved Draco Malfoy's life. He saved his life risking his own. He never understood the scar headed freak anyway. Running around, playing hero. Weasley was not in a good mood though. Punched him the face. But Malfoy did not mind. He felt good, alive. He deserved it. Crabbe had payed for what he had started. Being the dark lord's new minions he and Goyle did the most evil thing expected of them: killed.
I could not do that. Ever. Always was bit of a coward really. Draco thought as Weasley stunned a death eater who had decide that he wanted to kill a wandless Draco.
And then in the final battle Potter did something that Malfoy could not believe, he gave in to Voldemort voluntarily. Malfoy swallowed his screams. How could he? How could he just walking into the hands of death. All those months thinking about him, praying he had lived, clinging to the hope that he was out there looking for a curse to kill Voldemort and this is the solution he came up with? Suicide? Surrender?
He had taught Draco to never surrender to fight back till his last breath and now when finally Draco was ready to help him had he to go and die at the mad man's hands! He had run. The only thing that came to his mind. He kept running and running until his father and mother caught him in their arms like a lost treasure. He squirmed unwilling to be hugged into oblivion when all he wanted to do was to run. Run until his breath hitched and his lungs gave way. He wanted to be free of their snakelike arms.
He couldn't.
And the he saw it.
Both if then, circling each other, attentive predatory, tensed. How Potter was alive he couldn't fathom it. But the fact that he was and quite on the verge of a dual with madman enough to calm him down.
He watched as he killed him. And like the seeker that he was, snatched the wand in the air. The great hall erupted. Everybody ran to touch him. They wanted to hug him, congratulate him, and cry on his shoulder. And I watched from a corner with envy.
Why, if I was a Malfoy and a superior to that boy, was I alone and he the life of the whole wizarding world?
Why?