As mentioned in the foreword, Draco Malfoy does indeed suffer with the delusion that the world is black or white, and it has taken many 'serious chats' and late nights in my office to attempt to convince him otherwise. I know that he beats himself up too much, and - typical of Slytherins - is rather defensive and aggressive when acting in his defense.
He and I both know very well that he is only in this predicament because of his parents, and while I encourage him to think for himself, I also have to convince him not to start a rebellion. I know the Malfoys well enough that if something doesn't agree with them, they will bite, and young Draco bites like a fish on a hook whenever Potter provokes him.
I suppose, while attempting to protect Harry, I gave up on trying to 'tame' him - I will honour Lily's wishes until my last breath, but that boy is arrogant and snarky as all hell. He is all the pride and cunning of Slytherin, will all the ballsy extroversion of Gryffindor. He is difficult to work with, and entirely bull-headed. Once Potter gets something into his brain, he is absolutely going to follow through with it. While I admire his determination and value his ambition, it is rather annoying. Even more so when you're attempting to support him, protect him from Albus Dumbledore's reckless 'let's-make-Potter-fight-the-most-vicious-dragon-on-the-planet' schemes, and prevent him from killing himself in crazed attempts to live up to the 'saviour' expectations placed upon him, while he mocks you behind your back.
Often times, I have thought about throwing the spanner in the works and telling him to fend utterly for himself - might I add that he'd have died in his first year from a broken neck, had I not attempted to counter Quirrell's attempt to throw the boy from his broom - but looking at him and seeing Lily in those eyes stops me from even shouting something obscene at him, let alone abandoning him.
One of the more exciting things I've done for him was throwing myself in front of a childhood bully in werewolf form. Perhaps I'd have been granted the honour of a quick and witless death, but clearly life still fucks me. Life seems to be the only thing interested in that particular interaction with me.
Not that I would subject myself to that situation in the first place; I can't stand the sight of myself with less than my bindings on, let alone having someone else have to endure that mess. If I was approached in a pub by a man or woman who was interested in sex with me, I would laugh at them and bid them good luck with their hangover in the morning.
That was a lie.
I'd probably just ignore them, actually, and quietly suggest to them that they leave me in peace. Sexuality is a touchy subject, for me, and it is still very unexplored, hence why if the situation arose, I would be too anxious to come up with a quick and snappy response.
All in all, I find the prospect of sex to be absolutely horrifying. There would be nothing in this world I would hate more than another person taking off my clothes and seeing... that.
The situation might have gone a little something like this, in my head, when I was younger and marginally more attractive;
I would be taken back to their home, or them to mine. I would be suitably drunk, and they would remove my shirt, only to see two small lumps bound viciously by bandages. If female, she would demand to know just what I believed I was playing at, and if male... I hadn't even considered what may happen if a male were to undress me. I suppose that if he were gay, he'd say something along the line of 'oh, I thought you were a man', and if he were straight, 'I love dominant girls' or something absurd and humiliating, like that. Alternatively, I might have been attacked.
I might still be attacked, if the opportunity arose.
I know what you're thinking; have you had it done? On the top, yes. On the bottom? No.
My appointments at St Mungo's hospital have been extremely low profile and highly confidential, and I have been what a muggle may call 'stealth' for at least ten years, since that awful incident when I was a student at Hogwarts.
You will not be particularly surprised to hear that I was bullied at school. You also may not be surprised to hear that I was bullied by James Potter and Co; Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew (I almost broke my code of not killing anybody unless absolutely necessary when that little worm suddenly appeared in Malfoy Manor one evening). Utterly humiliating and highly undignified, the moment that made me wish that the ground would open up beneath me and swallow me whole was the day they decided to follow me while I was on my way to brush up on my knowledge of herbology, making more of my subtle little changes to Advanced Potion Making. They followed me, spouted more horrible shit at me, then hung me upside down on a tree. It was either a choice of holding down my shirt or holding up my trousers, then, when , to my absolute horror, they tried to undress me.
Having not binded myself that day, I chose to hold down my shirt. Consequently, they whipped down my trousers, and started laughing due to the lack of bulge in my underwear, making jokes about small endowments. However I dug my own grave when I let go of my shirt in a panic to pull up my trousers again, and all was revealed.
Needless to say, they put me down rather promptly, and legged it back to the castle.
After that, the rumours spread like wildfire. Daily, who I once thought were my Slytherin 'allies' turned a blind eye to me. Hufflepuffs would have their silent whispers. Ravenclaws would try to 'educate' me... and Gryffindors? They were by far the worst.
Comments ranged from calling me a 'tranny' to asking me to show them my 'tits'... and one day, I just snapped. And I snapped at Lily Evans, as my ill-luck would have it.
Still, those comments are the reason I dress so modestly to this day, with collars up to my chin, floor length robes and sleeves that never rise above the wrists, even in summer. They used to hide my chest - which thankfully no longer troubles me - but now they only serve to hide the scars that litter my whole body. I would never dream of getting my arms out. Nor my legs. Students make fun of me enough, I needn't give them another reason to talk. There's not much else I hate more than being the centre of attention.
But of all people that I hoped would come to my aid, Narcissa Black and Bellatrix Lestrange were certainly not who I had in mind. When Narcissa approached me, I was expecting to hear about how much of a disappointment I was to the wizarding world. What I heard, instead, was that she admired my ability to hold my head high through everything that everyone was saying about me, despite my urges to curl in on myself and never come out of the dormitories. She said that he couldn't argue with me, since the stairs to the boys' dormitories would have rejected me in my attempt to ascend them, if my body was representative of my mind. Admittedly, I judged her according to her relativity to Andromeda Black, and her very conservative attitude.
Ever since then, Narcissa was surprisingly protective of me, and Bellatrix stepped up for me, too, with her infamous 'fuck the rules' attitude.
Eventually, the other boys were starting to have their growth spurts and deepening voices, and I was no longer able to pass as well as I did before. The worst night, for all of us, was the night one of the older girls, Myrtle, made fun of me in the great hall. Admittedly, this was my lowest point, and I felt that I couldn't take any more. So I did what I thought was the right thing to do, and I invaded the potions cabinet, ingesting at least four different types of poison, including mandrake, deadly nightshade, hemlock and wormwood.
It was the late Professor Slughorn, who revived me with a bezoar after Bellatrix and Narcissa found me unconscious, before sending me to the hospital wing. I haven't a single bad thing to say about either of them. Not after that.
I never thought I would be talking about this experience. I never thought I'd get over it enough to relive it - the memory still haunts me whenever I have to dip into the potions cabinet for ingredients, and the old bottles still taunt me from their shelves. I often burden my students with the task of looking into the cabinet for me, to save me becoming even more irritable and jittery for the remainder of my lessons. It earns me the title of a tyrant, but at least not a 'nervous wreck'.