A/N: Hi, sorry for the break readers I've been swamped with work (both part-time and academically) but I've had the idea (and most of these chapters) in my files for ages! I'm planning on publishing one chapter per week leading up to the New Year. As always, I welcome feedback and I hope you enjoy :)
There were seven things he stole from me. I hadn't noticed until it was too late, until all I had left were the memories of spectral otherworldly eyes and that sly smirk that dimpled his left cheek and crinkled his aristocratic nose. He was a thief who'd bit by bit, year by year, broken down the walls I'd built around myself. The bubble of naivety which separated my optimistic ideology from the harsh reality of the grey shadowing my black-and-white world. For he lived within these shadows, the moral ambiguity where your own values were brought into question. And he'd inadvertently led me by the hand to peer through the shadows, stuck between both darkness and light. Wrong and right.
The first thing he stole was innocuous. A simple tool. Something meaningless, small and infantile.
He stole my quill.
I had been sitting in classroom the first day of school at the Hogwarts Academy for Wizards and Witches. Excitement bubbled like the champagne I'd glimpsed through my mother's flutes in my stomach. At last! The time had come for my intellect and eidetic memory to be put to good use. I would prove the bullies in my primary school yard wrong. Show them up by becoming the brightest witch of my generation, competing with the others until no one cared about how stuck-out my two front teeth were nor how bushy my frizzy hair became. I craved the admiration of my peers and the respect which came in hand-in-hand with being a powerful young witch. At Hogwarts Tommy Brown could no longer sneer at my appearance and shove the books from my hands. No longer would I be forced to endure his taunts of me being 'weird' and 'ugly'. No longer would I feel like the silly little girl next door. An outcast. A freak.
The excitement coiled with my anxiety, churning in the pit of my gut. Hogwarts was absolutely magnificent. The arching ceilings were sculpted to perfection, the magical stone stairs and the funny-looking robes which wizardkind wore were all charming to the eye. Yet even in a school so vast and accepting, there were still issues of prejudice spread into the minds of the upperclassmen and 'Purebloods'. It was a ridiculous notion that blood could be pure or tainted through magical dilution. As backwards as the antiquated beliefs of dark-skinned people being inferior to white muggles in non-magical history. Or how women had once been treated (and still sometimes were) second-class citizens. It was stupid and ignorant to believe that something like parent's capacity of magic would affect a magical child. The rude awakening that stupid and ignorant bullies existed in the Wizarding World as well was something which motivated me even more to achieve greatness. Yet when I met him my naivety began to shatter even more.
He looked like a fairytale prince. His hair was snow white and slicked back as though he would be attending a formal event and his icy blue eyes were like glaciers. His robes were crisp, finely pressed and expensive I'd gathered from the fawning Slytherins who often complimented his branded attire. They flocked to his side since the moment the dirty leather hat had bellowed out "SLYTHERIN". His popularity, I then learned, was partially due to the quick response of the Sorting Hat yet mostly due to the Power of his Pureblood last-name and his father's work in the Ministry. My illusion of him being some sort of Fairytale Prince shattered the day I encountered him in class.
My pretty new quill was stolen from in front of me, whipped away by a small pale hand, dangled tauntingly between his finger and thumb. "Hey!" I cried out, reaching for my quill to snatch it back. He moved it quickly out of reach. "Must you screech like that. Your voice grates on my nerves." His voice was cool, frosty as a bitter wind in a winter storm. I frowned at the delicate-looking boy, disliking the sneer which curled on his lips. "It's my quill." I point out, matter-of-factly. "Therefore you should keep your hands off of what isn't yours." I flip my hand palm upwards to gesture for the return of my stationary. He seems genuinely confused by my refusal. I wonder briefly whether the boy has ever heard the word 'no' before now.
He holds the quill up to the light and the sneer melts from his features as he studies it. It's not an expensive quill since it was plucked from a common Barn Owl. Yet the chestnut and mahogany hues glint gold when the angle of light hits the feather just so. The boy somehow finds the secret angle and I pinpoint the exact moment he glimpses gold by the greed that sparks in his icy blue eyes.
"I want it." he states, ignoring the fact that our interaction is drawing an audience. The teacher could walk in at any time and I don't want my first Potions' lesson to be tainted by arguing with a fellow classmate. Worry clenches at my stomach swallowing my excitement with hungry jaws.
"You can't have it." I repeat, quietly now, conscientious that the teacher has still to arrive.
In a moment I often question what really happened in the following years, as his wall of cool indifference drops and a dazzling smile transforms his pretty face into something truly beautiful. In a blink of an eye the smile is gone and I'm left dazed and uncertain. I hate feeling uncertain, uncertainty does not fit well with my penchant for logic and facts. At least Tommy Brown was consistent in his hatred of me.
The wall has slammed down and he's as immovable as a slab of white marble. "Don't you know who my father is?" he sneers.
"No." I reply. A pug-faced girl titters under her breath next to me. Crabbe and Goyle look up from their desks to watch in reverence as to how their leader will react. To his credit, the blonde doesn't so much as blink in surprise at my vocal admittance of my ignorance.
"My father is Lucius Malfoy, one of the sacred twenty-eight of Purebloods, but of course you wouldn't know what that is now, would you?" His tone is patronising, his smirk as sharp as glass.
"Actually I do know what the Sacred Twenty Eight are. They're a bunch of PureBlooded bigots under the impression that inbreeding is necessary to keep their precious bloodlines 'pure'. It's absolute rubbish if you ask me." A few kids gasp in shock. Slytherin holds its breath as a collective, all except a dark-skinned boy whose black eyes sparkle with amusement and the pug-faced girl who bristles in rage. I turn my attention to the spoilt blonde who I was beginning to think was a real-life sociopath. I'd read about those once in a book. Sociopaths had limited emotions.
Ever so slowly the boy bends closer to my desk. I begin to wish I'd waited for Neville to finish his lunch so that he would be here to support me. After the train journey Neville did't strike me as the bravest of my year group but he was polite and kind-natured when he asked me if I could look for his toad Trevor with him. Usually it was a rare occurrence for me to feel threatened, especially here where the Tommy Brown's of this world wore shiny dragon-hide boots instead of scuffed Adidas trainers and boasted green-striped ties instead of dirt-encrusted nails, as they bossed around whomever they saw as their 'lessers'.
But under the spotlight of this beautiful yet cruel boy, I knew that having his undivided attention was a very dangerous position to be. I breathed a French curse word I'd picked up from my cousins over the Summer Holidays under my breath. The boy hears it from the twitching of his lip. Whether he was resisting a sneer or a smirk I'd never know.
Suddenly the door slams open and a tall man with greasy black hair, a hooked nose and billowing black robes stalks in imperiously. The young Malfoy departs swiftly from my presence and only when the Potions Professor is chastising the late arrivals (namely Neville, Harry and Ron who'd hurried in after him) in front of the entire class am I able to breathe a sigh of relief. It became quite obviously clear that this so-called prince I'd imagined was nothing but a spoilt 'pure blooded' prat who was unused to people not caving to his demands. I feel a burst of satisfaction at holding my will and righteousness in the face of such a sociopathic opponent. My smile died a swift death when I glanced over at my aforementioned opponent.
His face is turned towards the front, outwardly playing the part of the attentive young scholar, jotting down notes on a cream sheet of parchment. It's not his appearance (as pretty as he may be) which throws me off. No. It's what he clutches in his right hand which makes my face tighten in anger.
For there, between his long elegant fingers, is a mahogany and chestnut dappled quill which glints gold in the weak strain of sunlight.