Title: The Fruit and the Tree oneshot
Series: Harry Potter
Characters: Draco Malfoy
Pairings: None
Rated: K
Summary: Things don't happen without a reason, including hate.
Author's Notes: This is a one-shot fic that takes a closer look into the character of Draco Malfoy. I love to play the devil's advocate and question the validity of a character's outward appearances and behaviors. In this case, I question the nature of Draco's enmity towards Harry.
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The Fruit and the Tree
there's a saying that goes...
After Draco had finished filling in Crabbe and Goyle on the latest news that he felt were pertinent to share, he excused himself to go to the Library to study.
How many times had he used that excuse to get away from them? From everyone?
Quite frankly, he didn't want to count.
As he packed his books to bring with him to the library, his hand came across an envelope he had been owled earlier that day. He grimaced and stuffed it into the bottom of the bag before he closed the bag and left the Common Room.
He passed by Hermione Granger on his way and he automatically sneered and looked away as he muttered something under his breath. Thankfully, she wasn't going in the same direction he was, and so he continued on his way to the Library uninterrupted.
When he arrived at the Library, he made a beeline for the very back of the room where it was mostly empty and the two Gryffindors who were chatting in the next table over immediately got up and moved to a different table.
He gave a wry smile as he set his satchel down and took a chair. He needed to think. A lot. As he started his musings, he pulled out his Potions textbook and leafed through it to the next day's lessons and left the book open in front of him.
Now he looked like he was studying (he actually already had studied that lesson yesterday, but no one would know that), he could now freely think without people interrupting him - not even Crabbe and Goyle who were notoriously "allergic" to the Library.
His eyes flitted to the piece of paper sticking out of his bag and he sighed. The letter. The letter from his father. He debated whether or not to open this letter then realized it might be something important since it had been owled on a typically non-mail day, so he picked it up as if it were dirty laundry and broke the seal. One glance was all it took and he grimaced, read the letter as quickly as he could, and crumpled it up and set it on fire with a spell.
"Bloody hell. Bloody, bloody hells." He muttered and sank into his chair, a sour look sweeping across his face and his lips settling into its customary sneer.
He was wrong. It was yet another one of those letters. One of the ones in which his father indirectly accused him of letting Potter beat him, of disgracing the Malfoy line, and of being too weak. At least it wasn't a letter saying that he was only half the wizard Potter was and half as smart as the muggle-born was. When he had received that letter, it had put him into an atrocious mood for weeks. He had been meaner than usual and ten times more spiteful.
"Potter." He spat the word out as if it tasted bad, yet somewhere inside of him, he felt a twinge of remorse.
He actually didn't hate Potter half as much as everyone (including Potter) thought or said he did, though admittedly, he did act that way. To be honest, he thought that the two of them shared more in common than anyone would guess. Potter was extremely intelligent (though also admittedly not as intelligent as the... muggle... Hermione... at least... not in the same way) and he took far more chances than a typical Gryffindor would and he cost his House as many points as he gained a lot of the times. He was daring and wasn't afraid to speak his mind, which Draco thought was a trait he usually didn't see too often. And he was a... Draco made a face as if he had just bitten into a vomit-flavoured Bertie Botts Bean.
And he was a good wizard.
"He's a bloody damned good wizard." He finally admitted out loud.
He cringed immediately afterwards as if his father would apparate at any moment to slap him or belittle him.
His father. He made another face, this one of anger and resentment.
HE was the reason him and Potter could never get along. Admittedly, there probably would have been rivalry regardless, but it would never have become what it finally came down to -- out and out war.
When he had first met Potter, he had wanted to friend him. Originally, he had thought that he could use the other boy to his advantage because even before meeting him, he had a deep resentment for him because his father was always comparing him to the "Boy Who Lived". However, once he met him, he knew that there was more Potter than most people thought, and he had genuinely wanted to friend him. Obviously, that never turned out and he wasn't about to try again. He was a Malfoy, first of all, and secondly, it was just... impossible.
His hate for the other boy grew porportionally to his father's exacting demands and condescending attitude. He didn't hate the other boy for the sake of hating; he hated Potter because he was the one who lived and the one whom his father fully expected him to best.
To be quite honest, he never particularly had many friends to begin with besides Crabbe and Goyle and for the most part, treated everyone with the same indifference. This was mostly owing to his aristocratic upbringing and admittedly snobbish attitude, which grew more out of a self-defense mechanism than anything else. But because he hated Potter, he hated anyone to do with Potter, including the Weasley boy and the muggle-born girl, Hermione.
He had always been his father's shadow and now, he was in the shadow of another person. He hated it. He loathed it. And now, he lived off of it. That loathing had made him who he was. The sneer, the contempt, the attitude, the darkness... they all made him stronger if for all the wrong reasons. It was with this hate that he would use as his shield and strength. The more hateful he became, the stronger he became and ironically, the better he did in classes.
But even he, for all the darkness he harbored, knew that it was for the wrong reasons and he dreaded the day that even his best and full potential would still leave him in the shadow of his nemesis and the mockery of his family.
Oh yes he hated.
Oh god, did he hate.
Because hating brought him strength.
Because hating brought him closer to his goal.
And...
Because hating was as close to being friends as he could get.
He hated himself for this.
But more than himself, he hated the people who said that:
The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.
- fine