The Bliss of Nightshade










Everyone is given the chance to make their own life, to build their surroundings and the way their world perceives them. I'll admit it, I made a mess of mine.

All my life I have been lost, with no source of light to guide me. I guess a person might argue that I am naturally evil, or perhaps wicked. I may be lumbered with such a hideous affliction. Who knows? From my view, I am just some poor lost soul in a sea of sinners.

I guess that my troubles all started at a pretty young age. I was a normal child, at least by my standards. My family was always well off. Father owned dozens of properties scattered throughout both wizard and muggle Britain. I, however, spent almost my entire childhood at Malfoy Manner.

Malfoy Manner is located on top of a hill right outside of Ottery St. Mary. The town itself is particularly notable for only two reasons. Firstly: the town was located on the Otter River; where I spent a large amount of my childhood. Lastly: the town always smelt of tar, the smell was due to the Flaming Tar Barrel event which took place annually every November 5th.

The village of Ottery St. Mary also housed a magnificent medieval church that was built as a replica of cathedral in Exeter. That was characteristic of the townspeople. They always tried to impersonate one thing or another.

The town was mostly muggle, with a wizard family here and there. Despite the moderately high number of wizard families in the area, I was only allowed to associate with one: the Coleridges.

The Coleridge family had settled in Ottery St. Mary a few centuries earlier. The family was rather well known, being decedents of the famous poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. There house quickly became my second home while growing up.

I knew Mrs. Coleridge by only one name: mummy. This was the only name that I was ever asked to call her by. My mother didn't mind, she was always taking snuff or nightshade. Mr. Coleridge had disappeared mysteriously a year before I was born, I did hear someone say in the village that he had run away with a woman though. The Coleridge's had had 3 boys before his untimely disappearance. The oldest, Peter Coleridge, was living in Sweden with his fiancé. I was friends with Edward Coleridge, who was my age. He was called Edward by his mother, and Eddy by everyone else. I also associated with his younger brother, Oliver Coleridge. Oliver was better known simply as Olly.

The town did not have a village school, which was unfortunate. I had to portkey 3 times a week to a village school in Sidmouth instead.

The school was small, and old. He shared the experience with a most unsavory crowd. The school was filled with the offspring, and in some cases the spawn, of poor wizards and witches. My last comment was especially applicable to the Weasleys.

The Weasleys were poor, and dirty children that lived in a mess-of-a-house in Ottery St. Catchpole. At least, that was what father had told me. They were the spawn of mudblood-lovers. 'That is why they are so poor,' he said. 'There is a lesson to be learnt here, Draco.'

The Weasleys had not began at the Sidmouth school. It was when I turned 7 years old that they came to the school. They were taught by their mother for several years, you see. This, is what made them so inferior, so substandard–in a word: common.

When I was about 5 or 6 years old, a strange man began appearing at the manor. He was waiting for my father. I don't know much about this man, except that he had a tatu on his left forearm. I was naive back then. My parents became afraid, living as reclusive as possible. My mother and father began to stay inside the manor all day, never leaving. Father conducted his business entirely through owl post. I would sneak out, they never knew about my escapades.

When I would sneak out, I would find myself running to my second home: the Coleridge house. It was there that I would recruit Eddy and Olly for a new adventure. We would go swimming in the shallows of the Otter River, play at the old church, or we might sneak into the market and try to steal an apple or two.

It was at the market that I first heard the talk of my family. To a degree I despised it, yet I found myself craving to have more people gossiping about me. I became addicted to the attention. Everything said there was fueled by the secluded lives my parents had started to live. Soon, I became hopelessly addicted to eavesdropping on the gossiping ladies and shopkeepers. My friendship with Eddy and Olly did not suffer however, we still had our adventures.

My parents took their first steps outside of the manor in months on Christmas day. It was family tradition to go the Christmas mass. They looked around hesitantly at first, but with coaxing, hastily made their way down the hill to the church.

I made a scene in church. I yelled when it came time to sing. I loved the attention I was getting from the people in the row in front of me. An old muggle woman kept turning around in her seat.

It was when I was about 6 that my life changed forever. I remember the day well. Eddy, Olly, and I were walking to the portkey point in the village. It was chilly that day. We had just crossed the market when the man that had visited my father, so long ago, appeared. I remember him yelling something, and then I saw a bright explosion.

The next day I woke up in my bedroom at the manor. My mother was the one to tell me what happened.

A man--the man that had waiting for my father had come. She said that he was a very, very naughty man. She told me of what had happened to my friends. Olly was suffering from head injuries and recovering at his grandmother's home. Eddy had not been as lucky. Eddy, being slightly overweight, had taken the brunt of the curse and shielded Draco and Olly.

At this point, my father retracted me from school. He claimed that he could give me a safer, better education at my house. I, of course, was worried that I might become inferior to other wizards. He assured me I would be nothing less than superior. It was then that I became stuck in irregular, but grueling sessions of mathematics, literature, wizard heritage, and numerous other subjects.

With no friends, I lost interest in all my activities. I spent the next few years working hard with my father, or sitting with my mother. As time passed, my father began leaving the manor again. My mother left from time to time also. I had switched places with my parents and had began living the reclusive, secluded life. Secretly, I was looking for an excuse to leave the manor.

When I turned 11 years old, I got my wish. My Hogwarts letter was my salvation.

Father was the first to take me out of the house. He took me straight to Diagon Alley. It was there, at Diagon Alley, that I first learnt of how influential my father and family were outside of Ottery St. Mary. I was amazed at the people who came up to greet my father. The head of the Aurors, Sean Micheals, as father bought me tailored robes. The Minister of Magic as father bought me my wand. That's what I was most excited about. My wand meant everything to me.

The following week my mother, rather than my father, took me to King's Cross Station to get onto the Hogwarts Express. She waved goodbye, tears in her eyes. She wasn't watching her son leave to Hogwarts, she was watching a friend that had kept her company in a lonely manor house on top of a hill.

I found a compartment relatively easy. There were two boys and two girls already in the compartment. I boldly introduced myself, and in turn, each of the quartet mentioned their names to me. I recognized the two boys immediately. Crabbe and Goyle. Their fathers had come to visit my father and mother several times over the past 3 or 4 years. One girl's mother, my mother knew well. She said that her name was Millicent Bulstrode. She seemed alright. The fourth girl, Pansy Parkinson, I did not know at all.

Not long into the ride I discovered the two boys, Crabbe and Goyle, had very little brains. However, both were rather muscular. Millicent seemed to be average, in all aspects, for the most part. The last girl, Pansy Parkinson, was the one that worried him. She stayed silent, calculating everyone in the compartment.

I remember paying a few visits during the ride, but I won't go into them.

My first 4 years at Hogwarts went by quickly. Everything I did was outshone by that moron, Potter.

Potter, that attention grabbing heap of dragon dung, always took the cake. Every time father came to watch a game of Quidditch, Potter beat me. Of course, Potter always cheated. Even when I got a better broom, Potter had to one up me, and get a greater broom!

To be honest, Potter would have done well to ally himself with me. He didn't consort with the right crowds though. Everyone knew the Potters are purebloods. Even if his mother was filthy, one could always overlook it.

Granger wasn't all that bad. She was brilliant. Brainy beyond words. I wish I could of traded her with one of my baboons. Perhaps, Millicent. Granger was brilliant, powerful and bloody beautiful. However, she was as good as a muggle. No matter how clean she seemed, her blood was as filthy as a rat.

Weasley is the true degenerate of that group. He isn't charming, brilliant, or powerful. He is a pureblood, very pure at that, but poor as dirt. His sister could carry her own though. His sister is pretty, in a one-nighter kind of way. If I was Weasley, I would of been doing something very illegal.

It was early in my fifth year that finally someone competent, other than Professor Snape, came to Hogwarts. A friend of father's, Professor Umbridge, took over Hogwarts. I did odd jobs for her. First, she had me simply spying on students and teachers, but gradually, she called upon my services more and more.

It was later in the year when she called me to her office. I still remember it clearly. Umbridge told me that Potter had yet to enter his tower. She explained to me that the portraits were keeping tabs on everyone.

Slowly, she told me of what she needed, and how best I could achieve it. An invisibility charm she said would work. She asked me to go through his things, to check to she if he was in correspondence with that fool, Dumbledore.

I used an invisibility charm father had shown me. Halfway to the Gryffindor, via the directions Umbridge provided, I cast a silencing charm on myself. I made it through the common room easy enough, however, I remember that I went up the wrong staircase. Halfway up, the stairs turned into a slide and I slid all the way down. Quickly, I dodged to Potter's staircase.

Soon, I was using this method to do personal missions. It was this way that I began to punish the mudblood-lovers in Slytherin. It didn't take long for the smart Slytherins to figure out who was doing it.

It was Pansy Parkinson that first confronted me. I got the distinct impression that she was attempting to challenge me for my role in Slytherin. I believe this was where the trouble truly began.