Draco Malfoy was not scared.
He had no reason to be. It was just a boggart, after all. And if the whole thing was indeed too dangerous, Lupin wouldn't have been allowed to carry it out in class. Besides, no one was having too much trouble with their boggarts, not yet—even fumbling little Longbottom was able to stammer out the spell without too much difficulty. In fact, the lesson had probably been designed just to give the new students a bout of confidence that would help them face the oncoming year. Draco supposed that Lupin might have been right in that regard, as he watched student after student walk away from their encounter into a crowd of cheering peers, a proud grin lighting up their features. After all, each of them had just proven that they could conquer their greatest fear. If they could do that, then they were basically invincible, weren't they?
Then again, Draco felt there was hardly anything to be said about conquering the oh-so-great fear of spiders, or disembodied hands, or other, trivial things. He'd known that he was largely surrounded by idiots, even those who claimed higher intelligence in Ravenclaw; the petty, naïve fears of his peers only strengthened his conviction in that regard. It was like he was surrounded by a bunch of toddlers. The worst thing they could think of was bad grades, or a scary teacher. They were too young to know about better things—about obligation, about deceit, about the terrible things that sometimes one just had to do and about nights where his parents just wouldn't stop screaming at everything and anything, at each other, at him, at the world—
Draco Malfoy wasn't afraid, but the line of students was shrinking by the second—far too fast for his tastes. First there were twenty people in front of him. Then eighteen. Then eleven. Then nine. Then three. One more student, and then it would be his turn.
Maybe he should have pushed his way to the front of the line, rather than the back. All this waiting was likely just giving his mind more time to overthink matters. It might have been better to have just gotten it over with, like a particularly nasty shot.
Draco Malfoy was not scared, but he'd been relieved to have the timid little Gryffindor girl in front of him to buy him a few more seconds of time. He was expecting her to fumble everything from her wand to her words; maybe even bad enough that the rest of the lesson would be called off. He was not, however, expecting her to all but scream the spell almost as soon as the boggart formed its shape—a pool of black, glistening water. The water sizzled upon the enunciation of the incantation, rapidly evaporating into nothing. All smiles, the girl pocketed her wand and pranced happily away.
Draco Malfoy was not scared as he stepped up to the front of the line, because he was a Malfoy, and Malfoys weren't afraid of petty things like boggarts. He held his wand steadily out. If his hands were sweaty, that was only because the nervous attitude of his peers was contagious; if his arm shook as he faced the closet head-on, it was only because he hadn't eaten properly that day.
He avoided Lupin's gaze as the professor attempted to catch his eyes; he just wanted this whole thing to be over and done. A few moments of silence filled the room. He was regretting being the last person in line, now, because it meant everyone else was already done, that everyone else had nothing to do but stand there and stare.
He closed his eyes momentarily when the professor hauled back the door. The presence of the boggart lowered the temperature of the room by a few degrees, which was the only reason why his knees trembled, ever-so-slightly, and why his eyelids seemed to weigh a thousand pounds when he forced them open once more.
Riddikulus.
That's all he had to say, he reminded himself. The swirling, dark-grey fog was beginning to coalesce into something, something tall and imposing. His classmates stood on the other side of the room—the boggart a division between them and him, which made him want to laugh because the division was made up of so much more than a simple boggart—
Riddikulus.
He was ready. As soon as it took shape, he would speak the spell. He would speak clearly and proudly, so that everyone in the room would know how unafraid he was. Because he wasn't afraid—Malfoys didn't get scared, especially not of boggarts. Everyone knew that. He just had to wait for the boggart to take shape, and then he would say the spell, and everything would be fine and everyone would realize how fearless he was, because Draco Malfoy was not scared.
The fog was becoming clearer around the edges now. It wasn't just a shape, it was a figure, his boggart was a person and how could he be scared of a person? Never matter. The one thing father had wanted from him, the one thing that had been asked of him, was to maintain the Malfoy reputation. He could do that. It was just one, simple thing and his boggart was wearing black robes and shiny black shoes, and he knew those shoes, he knew he did, because he'd heard them nearly every day of his life.
He wished Lupin would've just let everyone else leave. It was bad enough being forced to do something this stupid, so stupid that his muscles were tensing and his throat was locking up and everything was freezing—
His boggart had arched eyebrows and long, pale, pale hair that was only kept long because he liked the way it made him look, regal and not-of-this-world. Draco thought several people might have made noise when the cane formed, only he knew it was just a way to hide the wand, so that he could always be ready—because that was what he had been taught, never trust anyone and always be ready to fight, but he wasn't ready and he couldn't fight when his own lips wouldn't even move.
Riddikulus.
And then Lucius Malfoy was standing in front of him, in the flesh, and Draco Malfoy realized that he was, in fact, scared.
He was dimly aware of his wand slipping from his hand, but everything was muddled—the mutters of the crowd interspersed with Lupin's shout and sudden movement from all sides and then father, his father was right there even though Hogwarts was supposed to be safe, he was never supposed to come here, he was supposed to stay far from here, stay away.
Draco Malfoy stood there, silently, as Lucius Malfoy opened his mouth to speak. He stood there as Lupin dashed in front of him, the professor's face contorted into the sort of fury that usually meant he had to hide, hide or run away, it didn't matter which as long as it got him away. Instincts, more than anything, spurred his legs to move, to carry him back towards the door, to flee—only someone caught him around the waist, someone was holding him back and he hadn't been able to get away, not this time, and his father was gone.
He blinked once, twice, at the full moon hovering over the closet, and then several more times at the professor, who banished the moon with a mutter before turning to look at him with the sort of grave, pinched expression that he'd learned to associate with sympathy. His peers—including Pansy and Blaise and Crabbe and Goyle, everyone—seemed speechless. They were staring, just like he was, not moving. He numbly looked back, and found that of all people, Potter was the one who came forward and trapped him.
He was torn between bursting into laughter and collapsing like a puppet cut from its strings, so he did both. Draco Malfoy spent so much time pretending not to be afraid that he didn't have the slightest inkling of how to deal with fear once it presented itself in a way that couldn't be ignored. Damn Lupin and his stupid boggart, damn all of the third-years with their wide eyes and he couldn't stop laughing. He didn't stop as Lupin dismissed the class and carefully guided him down the hallways to the infirmary. He was still chuckling hoarsely to himself as Severus Snape appeared, along with Albus Dumbledore, to stare at him with the same, pinched expressions. He didn't stop until Madame Pomfrey carefully sat herself down next to him, put her arm around him, and explained, slowly and clearly, that it was going to be all right.
And right there, right then, Draco Malfoy started to cry.