Draco Malfoy wanted something. And what Draco wanted, Draco got. That was the way the world worked.
Not this time, though.
"No", said Draco's father firmly.
"Yes!" yelled Draco.
"No", said Draco's father, his voice now sounding a little irritated.
"Yes!" screamed Draco. "Yes, yes, YES!"
"NO!" shouted his father, a note of absolutely finality now obvious in his voice.
"But why", whined Draco. "I want it, I want it! Why can't I have it?"
His father frowned at him. "Because you must learn, Draco. Your behaviour of late has been intolerable. Totally unbecoming to a Malfoy. You are six years old – old enough to know better. You will not have it until you learn, I say."
Draco scowled. Why did everyone always say he was intolerable? It wasn't Draco's fault that he liked to dig in the dirt next to the duck pond in the back of the garden. It wasn't his fault that the funny white peacock's tail feathers were so pretty that they couldn't possibly stay attached to a stupid bird. And it definitely wasn't his fault that he didn't like holding his fork the right way when his father told him to.
Draco pouted and folded his arms. His father rolled his eyes and turned back to his desk. Draco stomped his foot. His father did not look up from his work.
Draco stormed from the room.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
The next day, Draco made his father an 'I Love You' picture. He drew his father playing with him in the mud near the duck pond, though his father had never actually done that. He wrote 'I luv yoo' in big red inky letters at the bottom of the page. He went into his father's study and gave it to him.
"What is this, Draco?"
"An I Love You picture?" Draco's smile faltered at the look on his father's face.
"Draco, a Malfoy does not sully himself with mud. Nor does he spell both 'love' and 'you' wrong. Go and look them up in the dictionary, please." His father sounded annoyed.
"So… when I spell them right, does that mean I can have it?" asked Draco.
"No, Draco", his father growled.
Draco stomped from the room again.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
That evening, Draco threw himself on the floor of the drawing room and howled.
"I want it, I want it, I want it!" he screamed, beating his small, pale fists on the Axminster in front of the fire. His parents ignored him for fifteen minutes before they acted.
"DRACO MALFOY!" thundered his father. Draco stopped screaming and looked up to find his father standing over him, furious. "GET UP OFF THE FLOOR!"
Draco scrambled to his feet.
"You will behave like a respectable pureblood and not a filthy, floor-crawling Mudblood from now on! YOU WILL NOT GET IT UNTIL YOU CAN SHOW ME YOU ARE A MALFOY!"
A vein was throbbing in his father's forehead, and Draco was quite terrified. He nodded mutely.
"Children", his father grumbled as he sank back down next to Draco's mother on the couch. Draco retreated to his bedroom on shaking legs.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
The following evening, Draco held his fork properly and ate all his peas with it, instead of picking them up with his fingers. His father nodded in approval.
From then on, Draco Malfoy stopped doing all those things he loved. He stopped playing in the dirt near the duck pond. He left the funny white peacock's tail feathers where they were. And he always held his fork properly at dinner. Draco changed his behaviour, bit by bit, until he was doing everything his father asked.
Ten years later, sixteen year old Draco Malfoy stood shaking in Severus Snape's living room, having just Apparated away from Hogwarts after almost killing Albus Dumbledore. He thought about how he'd always done what his father told him, and wondered how he had gotten mixed up in all of this for a substandard Comet Two-Sixty.