A/N: Draco has every right to be proud, or so he thinks. Will a dose of humility from Hermione cure him? AU. Thank you Lucy for helping think out the plot for this one, from one chaser to another. This is the freakiest fairytale I've ever heard. RxR. FxF. I do not own Harry Potter.
Submission for:
The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition: Round 12 - Red Shoes. Prompts: (word) sore, (restriction) no letter 'j', (quote) "God doesn't need to punish us. He grants us a long enough life to punish ourselves."
The "As Many As You Want" Competition: notebook, mission, nightmare, repair, grimace, in the library, 'Tell me something I don't already know'
Hogwarts Fair 2014 Challenge/Competition: Dunk a Death Eater - Draco Malfoy
Draco felt like he had a lot to be proud of. He was a Malfoy, a pureblood, a male in a male-dominated society, a Slytherin and rich, definitely rich. There was nothing his money could not buy, affording him the luxurious lifestyle he was so accustomed to. He strutted through the halls of Hogwarts in his new, custom made black suit, his glittering Malfoy house ring next to his Slytherin ring, and his well polished dragon hide shoes. And it was, this pride that allowed him to delude himself into thinking that all the girls wanted him and all the guys wanted to be him.
All except Hermione Granger. She watched as the boy walked around with that shit-eating grin of his. To Hermione Granger, he was mean, obnoxious and too conceited for his good. She felt it was up to her to take him down a peg. From across the corridor, she pointed her wand at the blonde-haired ferret. Her aim was true as she cast the spell before stowing her wand and walking away.
Draco Malfoy entered the Great Hall with only breakfast on his mind. There was a tingling feeling in the soles of his feet but he thought nothing of it. His shoes were new and his feet were probably still unaccustomed to them. He greeted his friends already sitting at the table before sitting down.
"Oi!" he cried as he shot up from the bench. A little piercing feeling shot through his bum but he saw nothing on his seat that could have caused it. Blaise and Theo looked at him strangely but he glared at them and they turned back to their plates. He sat down slowly this time, the sharp pain now feeling like a dull throb. He could live with that.
He reached out for a cup of tea and then there was a shock running through his ring and middle fingers. He dropped the cup in surprise, causing Pansy to lean away from the steaming liquid. She asked angrily, "What is wrong with you this morning?"
Draco was holding his hand to his chest as the shocks subsided. He couldn't give her a good answer even if he wanted to.
The rest of Draco's day was filled with more pain and shocks. Everywhere he walked sent shocks through his legs, which were now sore from the constant stimulation. His clothes rubbed against him uncomfortably and he was sure his skin was turning red underneath from the irritation. He couldn't touch or hold anything with his right hand else he get another painful shock, each one increasing in intensity.
Which led him to believe it had something to do with his clothes. The pain in his feet came from his shoes, his torso, legs and arms from his suit, and his hand from his rings. He had tried pulling off the rings and his shoes but they wouldn't budge. They seemed to be glued to his body, as if by magic.
That train of thought then led to another. He tried every spell he could think of, sending more shocks through his body but persistent in finding a solution. But it was no use. No spell could get the clothes off his body.
At the end of the day, he fell into the couch by the fire in the Slytherin common room, his body almost numb to the shocks but preventing him from really feeling comfortable. Blaise looked at him, taking in his moody disposition before saying, "You look like crap, Malfoy."
He groaned and closed his eyes, "Tell me something I don't already know. Did you want something, Blaise?"
"What's got your knickers in a twist?" Blaise said while clapping Draco's knee. Draco grimaced at the pain, and Blaise asked, "Are you hurt?"
Draco rolled his eyes and said, "What gave it away?"
"Stop acting like a git, will you?" Blaise said exasperatedly. He was tired of Malfoy's drama queen act.
Draco sighed, "Someone hexed me good today. Everywhere I walked, everything I hold with my right hand, sends shocks through my body. I think it's linked to my clothes somehow, because my suit is making my skin red and maybe even bloody. I've tried taking them off but they're stuck pretty well."
Blaise was serious for a good two seconds before he burst out laughing. Draco scowled and shouted, "It's not funny, Blaise. This is serious."
Blaise calmed down a bit and said, "Maybe you wronged someone in a past life, maybe even a current life," then he walked away from the brooding blonde still laughing to himself. But maybe Blaise was on to something. Maybe he had wronged someone.
Draco rose from his bed with a groan, having not really slept and wishing he could wake up from this living nightmare. Last night had been rough. The little shocks kept him up throughout the night and he hadn't been able to take his clothes off for a shower. Theo, Crabbe and Goyle wondered what the problem was, and Blaise's hardly restrained laughter wasn't helping.
He had to something about this. Draco compiled a list of all the people he could have wronged, which was not an easy feat. It consisted of most of the student body, a few of the professors and even his mother, though he doubted she could have hexed him from home. While trying to ignore the burning feeling in his fingers where his skin made contact with the paper, Draco set off with a mission towards the professors first.
He apologized to Flitwick, McGonagall, Sprout, even Hagrid and Trelawney, but on every try after the apology, the shocks continued to travel. He moved onto the student body, apologizing to the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws en masse, unsure which ones he would have personally offended but knowing he had a general problem with them as a whole. They looked at him hesitantly, expecting at any moment for them to laugh in their faces but he simply walked away. Again, there was no change.
He stood out among the Gryffindors, swallowed his pride and apologized to them at their table during lunch, even personally approaching Potter and Weasley. It was actually very disgusting to see the food fall out of the redhead's mouth, but Draco didn't stick around. He tried picking up a sandwich from the table, but still no improvement, and Draco could feel his muscles getting even sorer.
He found his own housemates and gave them each the most sincerest apology he could muster. Pansy threw her arms around him, placing slobbery kisses on his cheeks and her arms pressing onto his suit and stinging his back. Crabbe, Goyle and Theo simply shrugged before walking off disinterestedly and Blaise grinned at his misfortune.
When they were both alone in the common room, Draco said, "I apologized to everyone, Blaise, and nothing's changed. None of them cast the curse. I don't know what I'm going to do. I can't go on like this. I've lost all feeling in my toes and my right arm feels like a noodle."
"Did you miss someone, maybe?" Blaise suggested, now adopting a more serious tone.
Draco ran the names and faces through his head: the Professors, the Puffs and the Claws, the Gryffindors...
"I didn't say anything to Granger!" he shouted, leaping to his feet.
"Then go find her," Blaise said but Draco was already sprinting out of the dungeons.
Hermione was in the library reading another dusty tome with her notebook open before her. Draco burst around the corner of a tall bookshelf, throwing himself on his knees beside her chair saying, "I'm sorry for ever calling you a mudblood. I'm sorry I've been such an arse to you for the past few years. I actually admire your kindness and intelligence. Please forgive me."
Hermione blinked at him before smiling softly, "I forgive you, Malfoy."
He grinned and then stood up and grabbed her quill off the table. He dropped the feather as a shock ran through his arm up to his neck. Draco cursed before saying, "What gives? I did everything right. Why is God punishing me?!"
Hermione closed her book and said softly, "God doesn't need to punish us. He grants us a long enough life to punish ourselves."
Draco looked over at her with a confused expression, "I don't need your weird muggle-born wisdom, Granger."
Hermione sighed before saying, "What I mean is, we cause enough of our own demise through our actions, that someone else doesn't have to. You and your holier-than-thou attitude got you into this mess."
"But I made amends. I spoke to everyone, tried to repair the damage I'd done and it didn't work," he said.
"Did you honestly make amends with the people, or did you do it only to make the shocks stop?" Hermione asked with a raised eyebrow.
Draco looked down at his hands, "It started out like that, but as I went to apologize to more people, I realized how horrible I actually was to them."
Hermione shrugged and then said, "It's a start I guess, and your apology to me was more than I expected." She took out her wand and waved at him, "You're free to go, Malfoy."
He looked at her and then grabbed the quill again, surprised at the lack of sensations through his hand. Then he turned to her with realization evident on his face, "You were the one who did this?"
She said plainly, "You needed a lesson in humility. You're welcome," then she got up, grabbed her book and walked out of the library.
Draco stood there for awhile thinking. How dare she do something like him, the great Draco Malfoy? But this whole affair had taught him that he wasn't so great. He was practically a monster, preying on those weaker than him because of his pride. He learnt that maybe being a rich, pureblood, Slytherin, Malfoy male did not make you better than another person if you were still rotten on the inside. To her empty chair, he whispered, "Thank you."