Disclaimer: Anything you recognize belongs to J. K. Rowling. Any text from her books is italicized.
Draco's Curse
Chapter 1
Draco Malfoy sat on his bed in the Hospital Wing, playing up his injury from the Hippogriff for all he was worth. Pansy Parkinson, his slightly obsessed stalker, was practically crying over him. "Poor Draco... Does it hurt awfully?" She was a pureblood, after all, so he decided to turn up the drama.
"Uhhhh..." he moaned, clutching his arm. "It hurts, Pansy..."
She threw herself at him. "Oh Draco! How could they let that stupid oaf teach?" After a couple of minutes of this, however, he grew bored, and so he feigned sleep until he heard her tiptoe away. He sat up and rubbed the hurt arm. It did hurt, actually. Not so much as he made it out to, of course, but still... He lay down again. He was tired, but the dull ache in his arm was making it hard to sleep. He tossed and turned, and finally fell asleep around midnight.
He had a very strange dream. He was floating around in the dark, with nothing to hold onto or stand on. He heard, as though from a great distance, a voice speaking in desperation. "I've got to do it! He'll kill me! He'll kill my whole family!" The voice was oddly familiar, he thought lazily. Then a very different voice spoke inside his head.
"Well, well. You do need some help, don't you?"
The dream Draco jumped-or the equivalent when there is no gravity. "Who's there?" he asked, and his voice sounded weak and reedy in the emptiness. The voice chortled.
"Ah, Malfoy, Malfoy... What you need, my boy, is love. Someone who will provide the cool logic, the reasoning and compassion. Yes, yes, I have it! This girl-this girl will be the key." An image of a young girl floated in front of Draco's eyes. It took a few minutes for her identity to register, as her hair was sleek and shiny rather than bushy, and she was wearing a purple dress that was really quite flattering. Then he saw who it was.
"No," he said sluggishly. "Not the mudblood..." The voice laughed again, coldly this time.
"You'd better watch yourself, lad. I don't appreciate being contradicted, and by the time this day is over, you're never going to want to use that word again." The voice was fading.
"Wait, I don't understand," he whined. The voice did not respond, and he awoke with his heart pounding. Only a dream, he reminded himself. It was only a dream... Even so, he didn't sleep again that night.
Author's Note: If you don't know who the girl is, I'm not going to tell you. So, what do you think? This is still a very tentative idea, so tell me whether I should continue or just trash it.
