Author's Note: Okay, so I'm not confident at all in this chapter. It's kind of the turning point in Draco's character in regards to my story and if you think it needs work or changed, I would really love and appreciate the input. I don't have a beta or anyone to read it and discuss it with, so I leave it to you, my reader's, to please help me improve my story. Thanks so much!

The first month of lessons passed more quickly than Draco could have imagined. Slytherin, like he'd predicted, was the perfect fit for him and he found that not only did the students in his own year revere him as the heir to one of the richest and most powerful old wizarding families in Britain, but so did some of the older years (as they should). Therefore it was with the confidence gained by the knowledge that he had a firm standing in Hogwarts that allowed Draco to begin walking the halls as the Prince he was.

He would be lying if he said that none of his observations while strutting through the corridors had to do with the famous scar-headed boy, Harry Potter. It had been almost a month since classes had begun and though Draco had potions with the Gryffindor's and frequently saw Potter walking the corridors and eating in the Great Hall, he'd yet to speak a single word to the boy.

Typically, this would have made the spoilt wizard very impatient, but he could not forget the words of the small brunette girl whom he'd befriended on the train, and as he observed the boy-who-lived he realized her words were truer than he could have imagined.

On the very first day of classes, Draco had watched and listened as a gaggle of nosy students of all years had swarmed around the dark haired boy with the round glasses. They stood on tiptoes and doubled back to get a better look at him, whispering to one another, "Did you see his face," or "Did you see his scar?"

Normally Draco, who knew himself well enough to admit that he loved attention, would have simply assumed that Harry Potter loved it as well. But Draco had the benefit of watching unbiased from afar. He saw how the boy kept his head down and scurried away quickly from gawkers. His cheeks sometimes grew red, his feet sometimes twitched with a repressed need to make a run from the attention. So Draco saw what few others cared to notice: Harry Potter was humble.

This realization only instilled an ever growing desire to meet the boy-who-lived in the boy-who-had-everything; for Draco's eleven year old logic had made an all-important connection between Potter, and his only friend Leola. Both were humble, and both were kind. And Draco, who had never had any friends before meeting the muggle born Leola, now saw in Harry the potential for a second friend—and he yearned for it.

Now, one month into his first school year, Draco was staring at a notice pinned up on the common room board: flying lessons began this Thursday with the Gryffindor's.

Too any of his housemates, Draco would have appeared the epitome of a pureblood gentleman, straight-backed and blank-faced as he read; inwardly he was a jumble of excited thoughts. He could spend the whole hour outside with Leola. He could finally meet Harry Potter. He could show off his flying lessons to Madame Hooch, who could help him make his house team.

It was that Thursday morning that Draco made a grave error. Later in his life, he and Leola would be sitting in the Hogwarts library studying for their OWL's, and would reflect on this very moment, and how a mistake can somehow become the best thing that can ever happen to a person—if, like Draco had done, you choose to swallow your pride and learn from your errors. Fortunately for fifth year Draco Malfoy, who knew from experience he was inclined to bouts of prideful and sometimes spiteful behavior he had a group of friends who called him out of such tendencies and a best friend to soften him throughout the years. He doesn't like to think of what he may have become otherwise.

Unfortunately, first year Draco had not long been friends with Leola, and was still heavily under the control of his father, while at the same time trying to prove his dominance to his followers. Because of this, he had begun to pick on some of the other students, one of them being Neville Longbottom.

It was the morning of the first year's first flying lessons, and Draco was outrageously excited! But, being a well-bred pureblood of good manners, he could not properly expend his energy. This led to a very high strung first year.

Across the Great Hall, Draco watched as Neville proudly displayed a gift of some sort from home to all of his house mates, who appeared to be showing polite interest, if not genuine. Draco shot out of his seat, his two shadows reluctantly dropping their food and immediately following.

He grabbed the object out of Longbottom's hand and began to inspect it, unsure what it was. Harry sat on watching with a confused look on his face; Ron, who knew of the Malfoy family, was frowning disapprovingly at Draco; Leola, who had never seen Malfoy act cruelly or spoilt, stood up with her palms flat on the table before her, prepared to reprimand him for his actions.

Thankfully for Draco, before any words could even be said, McGonagall had appeared before them as if she'd apparated.

"What's going on," Minerva McGonagall demanded.

Neville hesitated. "Malfoy's got my Remembrall, Professor," he eventually said.

"Just looking," told her before gently passing it back off to Neville.

Unluckily for Draco, when he looked back Leola's steady gaze was still on him. He gulped. She, unlike everyone else at the table, had not been fooled.

Unlike when he'd woken up this morning, Draco now found that he was beginning to dread the thought of flying lessons—specifically, of seeing Leola and the disappointed expression that was sure to be on her face. Therefore it was with a glum expression that Leola found him at three-thirty that afternoon. She sidled up to him and at first he stiffened, awaiting her censure. She said nothing, however, and he began to believe that he had escaped her wrath.

They spoke of easy and unimportant topics until the flying instructor, Madam Hooch arrived.

"Well, what are you all waiting for? Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up," she commanded.

Reluctantly, Draco left Leola's side and went to stand near his broom, in between Crabbe and Goyle. He looked down at the broom distastefully and thought it was a disgrace. He must convince his father to speak with the Board of Governor's about acquiring new school brooms.

Soon everyone was trying to get their brooms into their awaiting hands. Draco, Ron, and most of the other Slytherin's who had all had practice flying before, had no trouble whatsoever in commanding their brooms into their hands. Harry watched the others before he tried himself, but his broom was also immediately obedient.

Draco watched with fond amusement as Leola stood diagonal from him and commanded her broom; "UP!" with increasing frustration, for it simply would not listen to her. Draco wanted very much to walk over and help her, but did not know whether Madam Hooch would appreciate this or not. Beside Leola was her friend Hermione, who was half-heartedly attempting to get her broom into her hand, but who looked frightened at the thought that she may actually succeed.

Eventually, everyone succeeded with their brooms and they had moved on to hovering. On his friend's other side, Neville was a pile of nerves, pushing off the ground before the whistle had even blown. He pushed off with far too much force and shot up in the air much too quickly for an untrained flyer.

Leola, who had seen what he was about to do just a millisecond before he'd done it, had thrown logic to the wind and in a display of that damnable Gryffindor courage, had reached out and grabbed his cloaks (as if a twig of a girl could stop a boy nearly twice her weight from shooting up into the sky by sheer force of will) while Hermione and Draco watched on in horror.

He thanked Merlin that she had managed to hold on to her broom, for when Neville had reached about twenty feet in the air, she'd lost her grip. Before she could fall to the ground she put her broomstick firmly between her thighs and somehow, incredibly managed to hover in mid-air with no prior experience. She then shot off after Neville, who was now sideways on his broom, and once again grabbed him by his cloak just before he would have fallen thirty feet to the ground. But as she lowered him slowly, his cloak ripped. After all of Leola's trouble and the useless lump had fallen anyway.

Madam Hooch, of course, had to escort Longbottom to the infirmary, and by this point Draco was certain that if she didn't, he'd somehow end up injuring himself even further. He was now frustrated that flying lessons had been stalled, and furious that Leola had almost been injured because of Longbottom's incompetence and her own Gryffindor attributes.

"Did you see his face, the great lump?" Draco said to his fellow Slytherin, who joined in his laughing.

"Shut up, Malfoy," said Leola, not liking the spite she heard in his voice and not caring for him like this one bit. Beside her, Pavarti Patil and Hermione Granger stood like her own personal Crabbe and Goyle, arms crossed and scowling.

But Draco was angry at Leola for endangering herself, and so allowed Pansy Parkinson, the bane of his existence, to tease his friend while he set his sights on the Remembrall Neville had let drop in the grass. "Look! It's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him."

"Give that here, Malfoy," Harry said quietly. Harry though he barely knew Malfoy, did not like bullies and thought right now Malfoy was acting like one.

Draco disliked being opposed and only lashed out more. He sneered at Leola, her friends, and at Harry. "I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find—how about—up a tree?"

"Give. It. Here!" Harry demanded, but Malfoy had already jumped astride his broomstick and flown into the air, to hover at the topmost branches of the nearest tree.

"Come and get it, Potter!" And he did. In an amazing feat of flying, Harry had straddled his own broom and saved Neville's Remembrall to the sound of many cheers and an the screech of an angry Professor McGonagall.

"HARRY POTTER!"

Only later, after Professor McGonagall had taken Harry from the lessons, sputtering incoherently because she was so enraged, did Malfoy regret allowing his anger to get the better of him. His saving grace, though he did not realize it, would be that as Harry was walking past the Slytherin, he caught sight of the other boys guilt-ridden face.

Draco did not want Harry to get in trouble. That had never his intention. What did he want? He realized he didn't even know. At the end of the lesson, Leola walked up to him and he dismissed his goons, not wanting them to witness the verbal lashing he was sure to receive.

He was surprised, when instead of yelling she looked at him sadly and said, "I don't understand. Why did you do that?"

He shook his head. "I don't know."

"Why do you bully the other students and Neville most especially?"

"He could have gotten you killed today!" Draco hissed, while inwardly cringing as he realized that he did not want her to know that he picked on the Hufflepuffs and the muggleborn Ravenclaws.

"No, I could have gotten myself killed today," she said in a voice that would not tolerate any further argument. "You know, I've heard what others say about you and the other Slytherins but I always ignored them because I'd never seen it. They say you think you're better than everyone else, you especially, because you're a Malfoy and you're rich and powerful so you look down on others. And that that's why the other Slytherin's follow you.

"I always ignored what Ron and the others said though. I said they follow you because you're charismatic. But today, Draco…

"They're right, aren't they? You do think you're better."

"No. I don't," he said immediately, but the lie was obvious.

"You're not, you know. You're no better than anyone just because you're rich or because of your family's name. I don't care about any of that and neither does anyone else." He wanted to argue. The Slytherin's do care, his father does care, but she didn't give him the chance. "Most people just care about what kind of a person you are. So be a better one. Grow up, Draco."

He looked down at his feet, ashamed of himself. How did she do that? Make him feel like he was a five year old being reprimanded by his mother for causing a scene in Diagon Alley because she wouldn't buy him a new toy broom.

His father would say that Leola was barely human, only fit to work alongside their house elves, and his father was always right, wasn't he?

He wanted to yell at her and tell her so, tell her that he didn't have to listen to her because he was better than her, but that didn't help the guilt (in fact, it would probably only make it worse, he reasoned. So he stayed quiet).

Then she held out her hand for him to take. He looked up at her, confused at first, until she gave him a soft smile which he took to mean, "It's okay; I haven't given up on you yet." He took her little hand in his bigger one and squeezed it tightly. Together they walked back to the castle.

Draco could admit to himself that he was wrong today, and possibly had been wrong most of his life. Maybe he wasn't better than anyone and if he was, he should act like it and not demean others. He would not apologize though. No, that was not in his nature. But he would be better from now on, he thought to himself. It was time for him to grow up.