Disclaimer: i don't own Harry Potter or anyof its characters, please take a moment to recover from the shock of this.
Summery:Draco Malfoy had always wanted power, something unique, something that made him special...this was not what he had in mind. AU sixth year, (no HBP)
AN:my first HP fic, it may seem a little random and/or fast paced at first but all will make sense in time, now as for the plot, I didn't want to make this one of those stories where the main character gets super powers and suddenly becomes a different person, although Draco will be making some non-slytherin friends(yes one is a gryffindor), rest assured, there won't be any Draco/golden trio(and Ginny) friendship, thats not to say they won't be in the story just that they're not going to bond over Draco's change or anything. Oh and theres no OC's so don't worry about possible Mary-sues:)
Draco Malfoy was not suited for care of magical creatures.
It probably had something to do with the fact that he just didn't care about magical creatures.
He didn't want to know why bowtruckles were hyper active in the spring, it never occurred to him to pick up a book and find out how unicorns reacted to alcohol and despite what his name may imply he had no inclination whatsoever to know whether or not dragons really were allergic to mayonnaise.
It just didn't seem important.
From his experience, bowtruckles were always nutters, regardless of the season, he had never really intended to get smashed with a bunch of magical horses and should he find him self in a situation where he was confronted with a dragon he highly doubted his first instinct would be to hurl any kind of sandwich spread at it.
His complete lack of fascination with this particular subject ment that he would often find himself standing to the back of the class silently setting blades of grass on fire.
His little boredom killer had been working fine for the first few weeks of term, Hagrid had just been happy he wasn't wreaking to much havoc and the other students were far to enthralled with the lesson to notice.
After hearing the word vomit used for the 6th time that lesson Draco really wondered how it could be possible for this many people to pay so much attention to something that apparently had no control over its digestive system, yet there they all stood, eagerly listening to Hagrid raving about how cute the little heaving mass of fur was.
He rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to the blade of grass he was in the process of incinerating. The wind was blowing rather ferociously and the little flame kept extinguishing before the blade burnt fully. After lighting the blade for the 5th time and successfully destroying the it he found himself idly comparing the process to a cremation, he had been there when they'd cremated his grandfather, Abraxis, his mother had wanted to just burry him but Luscious had insisted he be cremated, something about dark spells using 'bones of the father'. As he had watched his the coffin enter the incinerator he had had the insane desire to pull it back out, as if just by that he could save him from the flames and he wouldn't be dead anymore, he'd hated the feeling he'd had afterwards, like he'd just seen his grandfather burnt alive, and all he'd done was stood and watched.
Draco felt a sudden irrational sympathy for the other blades of grass that had just seen there brother so brutally murdered, this was followed but the barley suppressed urge to smack himself in the forehead.
He was feeling sorry…
For the grass!
But try as he might he couldn't help the small spread of guilt for the foliage nor could he avoid more random sympathies for it.
All anyone ever does is walk on it, and what do I go and do? Sit down turn my attentions to it, giving it a false sense of security and the BAM, up in flames it goes! And all the other blades, its FAMILY, have no choice but to watch and wonder if they'll be next or if the have until next lesson, after all this is what happens to all blades of grass, there are no other options! Just like me!
"Okay" thought Draco, trying to quell his crazed inner voice "I have to stop relating to the greenery."
Unfortunately all this served to do was send his mind into another tirade.
Oh Merlin, as if it hasn't got enough problems without having mine dumped on top of it, all its doing is minding its own business being grass and suddenly here I am sucking it into my emotional turmoil!
The rational part of him tried to argue logically that it was grass and therefore could to be sucked into any emotional problems, but it seemed to be shocked into submission by this random burst of uncontrollable plant-empathy.
After a few minutes of silently arguing with himself over whether or not the grass had feelings, his new-found-inner-hippie-monologue somehow managed to sway him its way of thinking for a split second, but that was all it needed.
His mind jumped into action thinking furiously of a way to make it up to the grass (and trying rather valiantly to ignore the fact that the word 'projectile' had entered Hagrid' s repertoire since he'd last tuned in). Deciding on the appropriate course of action, he moved to sit on the step up to Hagrid's hut and muttered a quick charm.
At first he wasn't sure it had worked, the grass still looked exactly the same, but then slowly, one or two little blades seemed to wiggle upwards until they popped right out of the ground, sprouting little green feet in the process, the other blades soon followed suit, dislodging themselves from their 'dirt prisons'.
He scanned his eyes over the grounds to see that about half of the area seemed to have fallen under the enchantment. The other students had yet too notice but a few of them were giggling slightly, probably due to the grass under their feet wriggling around. A minute passed and there was a shriek from one of the girls who had undoubtedly just seen a little grass-man and the class was suddenly in an uproar. People were screaming and jumping up and down trying to avoid the creatures, Hagrid was staring around in shock, clearly at a loss as to what to do. The grass-men, had apparently decided to seize this opportunity to escape and were sprinting all out towards the forest, all them that is, but one. This particular grass-man, had just wormed its way out from under Ron Weasly's shoe, its right leg, had apparently been crushed under the weight of the Weasel King and it was half-heartedly attempting to kill said weasel by way of poking his ankle, a process that it seemed to believe was very effective judging by the way it kept stopping and hopping about with glee before returning to its task. Weasly, seemingly growing annoyed by its antics, kicked it off.
"Piss off grass arse!" he yelled, using what he clearly thought constituted as wit, before turning to help Hagrid calm the masses.
Draco glanced around before leaning down and scooping the little blade up and holding it carefully in his open palm, it turned what (judging but the direction its feet were facing) was probably its front towards him and seemed to study him for a second before giving what he could only assume was a nod and hopping unceremoniously into his pocket. He was about to pluck it back out again when a large shadow loomed over him.
He slowly brought his eyes up to have them met with the furious black gaze of Rubeus Hagrid.
"Think that's funny Malfoy?" he questioned angrily.
Draco was about to argue but stopped himself just in time, better for them to think it was a joke than the truth, which at this point he had decided was that he was completely off his rocker.
"Terribly" he replied coolly, smirk in place.
The half-giant launched into a lecture but Draco was hardly listening, it was taking all his will power to ignore the little voice which apparently wasn't done messing with him yet.
He has every right to be mad, I completely mucked up his class, and he is so insecure about his teaching skills and he's just a little bit curious as to how the grasspeole mate an-
He balled his hands into fists and forced his mind to latch on to something else.
"Never payin no attention, treating-"
True, true it's really disrespectful, that's got to be really- wait WHAT!
"-S'not like I don't try to teach ya, you jus-"
Think of something else, any thing else! Ummm...HISTORY! the battle of Liptess Acorus, over 500 dead, hey weren't 20 of those giants, wow heaps of wars have had giant casualties! Hagrid must feel so-
"WHAT THE HELL!"
Hagrid stopped speaking and looked at him strangely, he wasn't the only one, the few people who hadn't fled at the sight of the grass-men were staring at him like he'd grown another head.
"Uh" grunted Hagrid cautiously, "you feeling okay?"
"FINE!" shouted Draco, his voice several octaves higher than usual, even as said it he could feel 'the voice' starting up about how the half-giant would feel about being lied to.
He twitched.
"You're just looking kinda pale" he paused, "-er"
Although he hadn't meant it as a joke there were a few giggles from the crowd.
Anger bubbled up in the blond, this was getting out of hand, he closed his eyes and focused all his energy on suppressing the voice. Something clicked.
No voice.
His eyes popped open in surprise, that was easier than was expected.
His class-mates watched in horror as a smile bloomed on Draco's face, after all, anything that caused the self appointed king of the smirk to abandon his usual tactics could not be good.
Plus he had exceptionally nice smile, which is not something any non-Slytherin should express horror at thinking.
Hagrid actually took a step back "maybe you should lie down for a bit Malfoy."
Draco actually laughed at this, he smiles and people jump to the conclusion something's wrong, apparently this was the wrong course of action as it only seemed to back up the classes suspicions.
"Maybe we someone should get Madame Pomfrey." piped Lavender Brown.
Still slightly giddy from the voices retreat he turned to face the girl and tried his hardest to glare before his face his face went completely blank.
It was back.
I shouldn't glare, she's actually worried, and not just for her, for me! And just a little...hopeful! What! Why is she hopeful? Holy crap is that lust, LUST! Right now she is both worrying about me and contemplating jumping me! GAHH it's growing!
His shock must have shown because Hagrid was now waving a hand in front of his face.
"Malfoy, Malfoy you alright?"
"I think this is over Pomfrey's head," said Seamus solemnly "we need Dumbledore."
That snapped him out of it, he quickly re-shut his eyes and forcibly tuned out the voice again. This time when opened his eyes it took only seconds to train his glare on the Irish boy.
"Really Finnegan, you think?" he spat, thankful his voice had returned to its normal pitch.
If he was expecting anger he was sorely displeased, there was a collective sigh of relief and a few mutters of 'oh thank Merlin' to which Draco rolled his eyes.
"Well" said Hagrid, also seeming quite pleased "class dismissed then."
As the people dispersed more than one of them shot looks in Draco's direction, he ignored them, right now all he wanted to do was go up to his dorms and pretend he did not just feel sorry for the oaf, sadly, not everyone was content to be ignored.
"Draco!", that was a familiar voice, Blaise, definitely, but he could avoid Blaise, at least for now, he wouldn't have to pay attention unless it was-
"DRACONIS MALFOY YOU WILL PAY ATTENTION TO US!"
-Pansy.
Pansy Parkinson, was used to getting what she wanted, information, clothes, test subjects for her potions and when what she wanted was denied, someone would pay dearly. In other words, she was exactly like Draco. For a while they had thought this would mean they would be good together but when 2 people who always get what they want disagree the chance of one of them losing a limb went way up, for this reason they had decided that perhaps it was better just to remain close friends… or as close as 2 narcissists can be without feeling as if the other is jelous and plotting their demise.
Cringing, he turned to face her as she and Blaise marched over.
"WHAT WAS THAT!" she screamed, throwing her hands around wildly
"Nothing, I'm just not feeling well" he lied, hoping to convert he anger into sympathy.
It worked, her expression softened considerably, "what's wrong? Are you sick? Did someone make you sick? Was it Potter? I bet it was the slimy little-" She, like Draco also had a certain talent for finding ways to blame everything bad on Potter, they made a game of it sometimes, he would comment on how Potter living with muggles meant he'd been driven around in cars allot which let off exhaust fumes and how therefore global warming was entirely his fault, she would fire back about how his last name was Potter which had the word 'pot' in it and since he was idolized by so many who wanted to be just like him, this of course meant that he was solely responsible for ALL drug abuse.
"- do-gooder, infecting poor Draco, he-"
"Too true Pans, too true," said Draco, cutting her off mid-rant, "I'm gonna go get Pomfrey to give me something kay?"
"You want us to come with you" she asked concerned.'
"Yeah" said Blaise, speaking up for the first time in a while, "make sure she doesn't slip you something?" Most people would think this was a joke but the truth of it as that Blaise was unbelievably paranoid, completely convinced that there were conspiracies everywhere and that everyone else but him (and possibly Pansy and Draco) were in on it, in fourth year he had refused to go to the Yule Ball because he thought the weird sisters put subliminal messages in their music and 2 years prior to that he was telling anyone who'd listen about how the Slytherin line had experimented with cross-breeding and the heir was actually a house elf who was petrifying the muggle-borns through their dinner, it had taken the sorting hat forever to place him because he had gotten it in his head that the hat was in fact going to scramble his brain if he didn't focus all his thoughts on cheese, all this served to do was make the hat try to calmly explain to Blaise that there was no specific house for people with a great love for cheese, which in turn prompted Blaise to protest that there should be a house for it, though he'd never given Draco the details of the argument, the blonde had long suspected the hat had placed Blaise into Slytherin because of his apparent great ambition to create a school house devoted entirely to cheese.
Draco shook his head "Nah I'll be right on my own" with a quick nod to them he turned on heel and made his way up to the castle.
But he didn't go to the hospital wing, Seamus had been right about one thing, this was over Pomfreys head, she'd probably just tell him he bonkers and cart him off to st Mungos, but if Finnegan thought for one second that he was going to go see that muggle-loving idiot, he had another thing coming! If he was going to tell anyone about this it would have to be someone who could help him but wouldn't actually care enough to tell any off the staff.
A triumphant smirk graced his lips and he quickly changed course.
What he needed was a Ravenclaw.
AN: just wanted to apologise if I got Draco's grandfather's name wrong as I have misplaced my copy of HBP, I'll fix it soon if it is, updates may be slow at first but they should speed up soon.