The Scrapbook of Draco Malfoy
By silvermisery
Disclaimer: Look, I'm just a scared teenager who really, really doesn't want to lose what little money she has to pompous old windbag lawyers, so if you could please not sue me, I would be very grateful not to have to kill you (blood is so hard to get out of carpets).
A/N: Just an idea that came to me. A lot of these vignettes are based on my own experiences.
Pansy lies next to him, legs waving idly in the air, her white summer dress billowing slightly around her. "What if life were a scrapbook?" she asks. "What would yours be like?" Silly question, Draco thinks. But despite himself, he begins to remember, and a small, green-bound book begins to take shape.
Draco is eleven, and he has just boarded the Hogwarts train express for the first time. It is rather different from what he expected, not as posh as his father's limousine, and he remembers what his father told him: "Long ago, we too used to come to Hogwarts by flying carriages as befitted the dignity of wizards." "What happened?" asked Draco, childishly longing to look out a window and see the massive sprawling castle below him. "The Muggle-loving fool Hufflepuff Sandeira Locell became Minister, and in an attempt to better wizard-Muggle relations, she made the express a train." Never mind that there are no wizard-Muggle relations.
Draco pouts. He would like to ride a flying carriage. Already he has decided that he Does Not Like trains. They are stupid and he thinks he might get sick, even though he loves sticking his head out of the car window when they are speeding along very fast. Besides, this is where he met stupid Potter, whom he has decided he Does Not Like either. Vince and Greg sit on either side of him and scare away all inquisitive others. Draco sticks a Chocolate Frog in his mouth and wishes the ride was over.
He turns this page in his scrapbook over quickly.
ooo
When Draco is twelve, the Chamber of the Secrets has been opened again. People are being petrified right and left, and Draco is—not scared, Malfoys aren't scared—not happy. When the stupid caretaker's cat was found glassy-eyed and staring at the ceiling, Draco laughed; it was funny, the idiot thing deserved to die, but now the thing, whatever it is, is taking people, and it is different. Harry Potter's pet Mudblood is petrified, and Draco goes to visit her in the Infirmary. She is lying on one of the row of beds stretching down the white corridor, face staring blankly at the ceiling. Her brown eyes are open and dumber than they ever were in real life. Strands of her hair are spread out across her pillow in a bushy fan, and Draco picks one of them up and twists it between his fingers. It feels staticky and unpleasant, not at all like his mother's gleaming waterfall of platinum, and he yanks it violently. No one is there to stop him, and even the Mudblood is silent, can't say a word in her whiny voice. He pulls down the sheets a little and wonders what it would be like to punch her in the face. Experimentally, he presses against the soft skin of her cheek. It gives, pliant, under his fingers, and he knows right then that he could. Could hit her and get away with it. His fingers clench into a fist, and he brushes her nose with it. A fine dusting of freckles cover it, and he reaches out and touches each one with a finger. His fingers clench again, and this time he draws his fist back, ready for a full swing. It hangs suspended there for long seconds before he shakes his head in disgust and walks away.
He is not proud of this picture.
ooo
In his third year at Hogwarts, Draco remembers huddling under Crabbe's old cloak, hit with an Engorging charm, with Adrian Pucey and Goyle, giggling almost hysterically. "Shut up!" hisses Pucey angrily, but Draco is unable to stop, shaking with nerves and excitement and a bit of reluctance—what if they get caught—and he stuffs his hands in his mouth to stop the high-pitched, awful noise, but he cannot stop trembling. Pucey mutters, "On the count of three, one, two, three," and they whip out from behind the stands into full view of the Quidditch match. Draco gets a brief glimpse of white faces in the Gryffindor stands, and the mass horror rising around him, and he feels a brief flash of exhilaration. "Oh, this should be good, Potter's turning puce," Pucey snickers, and Draco squirms around impatiently—
"Let me see, it was my idea!" and Draco twists and elbows Goyle in the stomach, hearing a grunt, to view through the tiny hole, and sees Potter's speccy face go white and his broom twist. He's going to fall, Draco thinks, and feels a sudden burst of guilt that makes him double over. He can't fall, Draco thinks, panicked, and twists around to drag off the hood, he'll die, but then a cloudy white thing comes at him and everything goes dark. When he comes to, Goyle and Pucey are in an awkward heap, and he is lying sprawled half over, half under them, with the cloak half obscuring his legs. Potter is glaring at them with his Gryffindor righteousness, and even Bumblebore's face is stern. Draco is very white.
His mouth twists in a half-smile as he turns to the next page, half longing for that innocence again.
ooo
Draco remembers when he was fourteen and trembling in the Manor, waiting for his father to come home while his mother's house elves Twinky and Dinky scurry around setting the places for their late dinner. The door opens and his father walks through and right past Draco and his mother and sits down at the table, staring at nothing, and says, "He's back." There is no need to say who he is anymore than there is to reply; they know who is back and what this means for the family. Draco starts shaking because his father is back and he feels alone and Harry bloody Potter disappeared from his fucking school just like that and he sees blood running down the walls and the Dark Mark glowing green in the night air and his mother's hushed, frightened face as she tells him about the Reign of Terror and his father always coming in late, always weakened, bloody. He is fourteen and hasn't been held since he was a very small child, too young to know about Malfoy dignity and pureblooded pride, but his mother holds out her arms and he climbs trembling into them. He is almost as tall as she is now, but he wraps his arms around her and puts his long legs over her lap and buries his face into her shoulder. Her perfume, white roses and exotic spice and a hint of mint, which he has never smelled anywhere else, rises to envelop him in a sea of comfort. Her hair is soft and cool against his burning face, and he sits there for a long while, listening to the background noises of his father eating and the house elves clearing the dishes, clink, clink.
This is one of his favorite memories.
ooo
Umbridge is staring at him like he's seven and not fifteen, and he is looking at the floor like he's six, unable to answer. "I made you part of the Inquisitorial Squad for a reason, Draco," she says in her sugary sweet voice, and he wants to punch the bitch in the face. Potter wins, Potter always wins, and he cannot find what the hell they are doing in that damn room, what can he do? It's not his fault, the other's can't find it either. He knows and she knows that they hate each other; their relationship is built on mutual dislike and an ability to use each other perfectly. He knows she is using him, just like he is using her, but she has the reins, and if he doesn't let her use him a little more efficiently, she might ditch him, and then where would he be?
He leaves her office and stomps toward the common room, hoping to find a Hufflepuff first year to terrorize and take points off of. Instead he finds a Ravenclaw, and he draws himself to yell at her, never mind that he's older than she is. He is a Slytherin, and in these days, it means power. As it should. Then he realizes she is nervous, and her eyes—beady brown eyes he dislikes on sight, reminds him of Pettigrew's—are darting from side to side, and she is nervously twisting her hands like a wet dishrag. He grins, baring his teeth in a grin Blaise has once told him makes him look like a wolf. The description rather pleases him, and for the next few days he went on around trying that smile on everyone he saw. He does it now, and is gratified when she squeaks and jumps slightly.
"Malfoy?"
He raises one eyebrow and waits. This girl has something for him. He might want it, might now. Either way, it does no harm to listen.
"I can tell you what—" she breaks off. She's been crying; her eyes are puffy and red. He waits. After the silence stretches on, he interjects a cool,
"Well?"
"I can tell you what Potter's been doing in the Room of Requirement," she says in a rush, as if all the words needed to come out then or never.
Well, now. He grins again, a long, slow, feral grin, but inside, he is bubbling with joy, and he knows that tonight, he will have a celebration with Pans and Vince and Greg and Blaise and Theo. This is good; this is the jackpot. This, Father will be happy to hear.
"Come with me," he says, and never even realizes that behind him, little pustules of acne are popping up all over Marietta Edgecombe's forehead and face. And who cares anyway? She has what he wants.
He wishes he could tear this page out.
ooo
"Mr. Malfoy. I have been expecting you." How could he know, Draco thinks, then realizes, of course. He is the Headmaster, he is omniscient, he knows everything. Draco stares at the chip on the mahogany desk of Albus Dumbledore. Strange. In all his six years at Hogwarts, this is the first time he has noticed that chip.
"I came to join the Light." The chip is only a slight indentation, a flaw in the paint and the smooth carved, polished edge of the table. Draco wonders why Dumbledore doesn't get rid of it.
"I know," Dumbledore says softly, his blue eyes with that damn twinkle peering at Draco as though he were a specimen under the microscope, a bug to be examined, dissected, and then put away in a file marked: D. Malfoy. Draco wants to squirm, but years of Malfoy training by his father hold him still, his dignity and composure saved. His fingers itch to grab his wand and whisper a spell to fix the chip in the desk. He doesn't know why it is bothering him so much. Other, more important questions would be at the front of his mind, like: will they feed me Veritaserum. Draco has secrets he wants to keep.
"Mr. Malfoy," the Headmaster says. "If you don't mind my asking, what precipitated this commendable decision of yours?" Screaming. A Muggle girl, staring up at him with dark dark eyes. "Kill her, Draco." A smooth, pale voice that he always adored. His wand uplifted and pointed at her, a smooth pale white length of wood, a wavering hand—"Do it, Draco," impatience creeps in his voice—Avada Kedavra! And a flash of green light.
"I do." His voice is curt and invites no further questioning, a hint of bared teeth as though he were a werewolf. That damn chip keeps bugging him, but he pushes it away in favor of glaring at the Headmaster and pretending that he is a disobedient House Elf with an abnormal growth on his chin. The Headmaster waits, calmly, patiently, serenely. He can afford to wait. Finally, he bursts out,
"I had to, didn't I? I couldn't—didn't have—" he breaks off. "No choice," he says brokenly, pleading for understanding, for absolution. "Couldn't help it. I—"
"We all of us have a choice, Mr. Malfoy," says Dumbledore quietly. "But sometimes, there is a thin line between what we should do and what would be foolish. And sometimes, we can make up for our previous ones."
"I—thank you," he says abruptly, shaken. The old man has no idea—he doesn't know why he just burst out like this, Father would be horrified: he laughs mirthlessly. Father is horrified. There is nothing further between him and Father. Father is disappointed in him. That is all there is to it. He gets up to leave, then turns back. "Reparo!" a jet of light shoots from his wand to the chip on the desk, which promptly repairs itself. "You had a chip," he says by way of explanation, then leaves.
ooo
"Regroup your men, Malfoy," says Remus Lupin, looking more tired than ever. His wrinkles look as if they have been etched into his face permanently with one of those cutting knives Bellatrix used to love.
Draco looks at him in bewilderment. "Regroup your men," Lupin says, louder. "This one, you were right. We shouldn't have attacked head on, but now we have to regroup and fall back."
His tone becomes louder as Draco still stands, unresponding, but Draco cannot move. "What men?" he asks, hating how childishly bewildered he sounds, like a small boy, not understanding why they cannot go on a picnic just because it is raining. "I have no men, Lupin." Lupin stands looking at him with those amber eyes that seem as though they look right through you. The men love Lupin, love him like a father even as they love Harry Potter like a son or a brother. To them, Harry is the symbol of the Light, of all that is good and hero and praiseworthy, and Lupin is the Father that safeguards them all.
But Draco hates him now, hates him with all the little heart he has left. "What men?" he asks again, helplessly: a broken record stuck on the same track, spinning aimlessly round and round. "Zabini is dead, and Boot is dead, and Lowell is dead, and I don't know where Finnegan is. My men are dead, Lupin. I have no men." And Lupin just stands there, looking at him with werewolf eyes, and Draco rushes him, grasping the front of his robes with his pale hands, shaking him, yelling at his unresponsive, calm face: "Where are my men? You killed my men, goddamnit! My men! Where are my men?" until Aurors come and take him away, frozen but still yelling inside: he killed my men. He killed my men. Lupin made the decision that killed my men.
And I gave the order. What does that make me?
This page he lingers over, remembering.
ooo
"What are you doing?" asks Pansy. She has rolled over, now, and is propped up against the wall: two friends enjoying a quiet summer evening.
"I don't know," says Draco.
She smiles, and takes his hand. "Then come on," she says. "There's a party at Granger's tonight, and I thought I saw a cute guy with her earlier this morning. He looked single."
"How can anyone look single?" he asks her, laughing.
They race off, hand in hand, to their respective flats, two old friends who have survived a lot together. Behind them, the scrapbook flutters aimlessly, its pages whipping and crackling in the wind, until it flaps over the edge of the balcony and disappears from sight.