(A/N – My round 1 entry for the Quidditch league FanFiction competition! I am my team's keeper and so my job is to write well to deduct points from the enemy team. This is my round 1 entry, the round's theme is relationships and keepers have been given the job of a friendship. Please enjoy and wish my team luck!)

The quidditch league FanFiction competition round 1 (relationships)

Category – friendship/Angst

Character 1 – Draco Malfoy

Character 2 – Vincent Crabbe

DISCLAMIER - I do not own Harry Potter, it is owned by J.K Rowling.

A friendship in flames

As the blonde death eater watched his fellow Slytherin and long-time friend fall to his death, specific moments of him and the other person's friendship flashed before his eyes.

The first time they met had been in the year of 1991. They were both eleven years old and had not made good first impressions to other students as many stayed away from them... for a good reason. You see, many of the other students (new and old) tended to keep their distance from them as it was rumoured that their families were powerful and that if you stepped a toe out of line with either of them, you and your family would pay the price. Because of this, the blonde had had almost no choice but to take the boy and the other one who they later met at his side but honestly, he didn't care much. He thought it would've been good to have some cronies.

The first time he had actually seen the other human being was on the Hogwarts express. The blonde boy had come along, walking with pride and his head held high when he saw the other young man sitting alone in a train compartment. He was large and very fat, with a thick neck. He had gorilla-like arms, a flat nose and had a pudding bowl-style haircut; he was already wearing his robes though they were minus a respective house colour for he had yet to be sorted into a house. The blonde had opened the door after noticing the other young man and when the fat boy had turned his head at the sound of the compartment door opening, he was met with the form of an eleven-year old Draco Malfoy.

From that moment onwards, Draco had taken the wide boy under his pure-blooded wing. He hadn't spoken much when Draco had tried to spike up a conversation to find stuff out about him apart from a couple mutterings of 'yeah' and 'alright'. At some point in the 'conversation' the two boys had, they had come to the topic of their fathers, who apparently knew each other at school. Draco had used their father's bond as an excuse to have one with the boy in front of him and because he was quite stupid, the boy had agreed. From then on forward, they were 'friends' (as the boy put it) but Draco would go as far as to call him a bodyguard.

Roughly two years later after their first meeting, Draco's arm found itself within a cast due to being attacked by the 'great, ugly brute' the gamekeeper Hagrid called Buckbeak. Of course, Lucius Malfoy, the father of the Slytherin prince, was furious about the attack on his son but this left Draco slightly saddened as he knew that Lucius was angry for all the wrong reasons; he didn't care that his son's arm had been heavily damaged, he was angry about the creature making his son look like a mockery of the family name and embarrassing them all. This had led Draco to spend more time with his friends than usual as if he was trying to seek comfort with them.

And of course, he would be there within the group of Slytherins that was Draco Malfoy's gang. The first 'friend' Draco had made at Hogwarts who would make up for his stupidity in public with brute strength if physical fighting wasn't looked down on as something associated with muggles. Even though Draco had still seen him as more of a crony than a friend in this time period, the blonde had to admit that he found more happiness being with this Slytherin that the other one they had met on the first day, the one known as Gregory Goyle who had also become attached to the blonde pure-blood. Because of this, Draco spent nearly the rest of his whole year within his protective group of fellow students, with his two 'bodyguards' following him like lost puppies.

However, three years later when they were in their sixth year at the Wizarding School, that's when things began to... change. All of Draco's friends noticed that something was wrong with him, that he was tenser and always seemed to be watching for someone over his shoulder. Little did they all know that the youngest Malfoy had a reason for all this, he had been given the task of assassinating Albus Dumbledore, the greatest wizard in the world by the Dark lord himself. Throughout the year, Draco's condition would worsen in some manner each and every day let it be his grades, his appearance or his attitude towards anyone around him as his time limit for causing the headmaster's death would decrease. All of his friends had notice the deterioration of his condition but it seemed no one would dare bring it up to him due to fear of his reaction. If it weren't for those first two people he ever spoke to on the Hogwarts express coming to at least talk to him daily, Draco feared that he would've gone as low as to hang out with the likes of Lovegood and Longbottom.

But it seemed now that all those things his friend had done for him had been a waste of time. Being his crony, his closest companion during third year, the one who always agreed with the blonde and the one who had even gone as far to protect him whilst Draco plotted the death of Dumbledore in the room of requirement, it had all been a waste for it was all about to end. You see, fire doesn't ever destroy something completely. The inferno will engulf and destroy its insides, its very being thus leaving it as an empty object of nothing but pain and bad memories.

Draco didn't want his friendship to be like that.

And so as he watched his friend fall, he helplessly reached a hand out down to him with horror present in his eyes.

"NO!" he screamed. "VINCENT!"

Before anything else could be done, the human being that was Vincent Crabbe disappeared within the flames of his own fiendfyre and Draco, with Goyle at his side, was forced to leave his friend behind to burn as both Slytherins continued to climb the junk tower within the room of requirement that was being burnt to a crisp.

Draco Malfoy's friendship with Vincent Crabbe was nothing good now, it was nothing but pain and bad memories of the good times they had once had. The fiendfyre had taken their friendship, done its job and spat it back at the pathetic excuse for a death eater.

Their friendship had gone up in flames.