Roll and fall in green

by Dontthrowsticksatme

Draco Malfoy starts Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with high hopes. Then he discovers he's in the same year as the biggest celebrity in the country: The Boy Who Lived. (This is basically the Harry Potter series from Draco's point of view, with a Drarry-twist. It is also my other fic Crimson and Clover from Draco's point of view.)

4. Chapter 4-1: Love's keen sting

Chapter 4: Love's keen sting

(part 1 of 3)

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Author's notes:

I will be cutting up each of the last four books into multiple chapters. This is chapter 1 of 3 of Goblet of Fire.

Update 30-01-2020: I added some ghosts to Malfoy Manor. Especially Uncle Barney is a recurring figure. You can find all scenes about them by doing a search of the word 'ghost'.

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Father could not be silenced about the Hippogriff that summer.

'I cannot believe we failed! Lost from a mere simpleton!'

'At least the monster's gone,' said Draco, dreamily stirring his tea.

'Is it?' snapped his father. 'There is no justice! You could have been maimed for life! And the threat is not properly dealt with to this day! We failed to deliver as parents, Draconius.'

Draco sighed, smiling. ''Twas a nice gesture.'

The room fell oddly silent. Draco – whose thoughts had been with drawings and snitches, inky hands and lashes – resurfaced to the physical realm to meet two pairs of fiery eyes.

'Go clean your mouth with soap!' boomed his father.

Draco blinked in utter confusion.

'Purebloods do not shorten their verbs, Draconius,' snarled his mother. 'You know this. If at all possible we would lengthen them.'

Draco flushed. The strict rules at the Manor had slipped his mind. For a second, he considered saying "'Twasn't on purpose,' but that would probably not fare well.

'My thoughts were elsewhere,' he declared. 'It is probably the horrible influence of that filthy Mudblood's constant presence in our dorm room.'

They all stuck up their noses in disgust; bonding over their hatred always worked wonders to solve quarrels.

To lighten the mood, Mother asked Draco to play them something nice on the violin, so Draco jumped up to get it.

He cranked out the song he'd been obsessed with for weeks now. 'Under neon loneliness,' he sang as he played, 'motorcycle emptiness…'

The Riff – as Muggles called the heavy guitar part – made Draco feel homesick for something he never experienced. It made him feel alive. His Magical Enhancing charm improved greatly since first year, and as the last notes lingered under the high ceiling of the parlour, he saw his own emotions reflected on the faces of his parents.

His mother beckoned him closer, then kissed him on the cheek. 'Magnifique.'

Draco swelled with pride.

. . .

'Happy birthday!' shrieked Pansy as she handed him a present, a cranky Nimbostratus clutched in her arms.

Without even looking at her, he ripped the wrapping paper off, and Pansy burst out into laughter as he read the title of the book she got him: 'Magic For The Hopelessly Romantic.'

'Hope you like it!' she jeered.

He shot her a look and threw it aside. 'Where's the other present?' he demanded.

'Here.' She pressed a violent kiss on his cheek. The cat's fur tickled his chin.

That was it.

Draco huffed. 'I will treasure it forever.'

'Aw, don't mention it.'

When he got home, he jumped on his bed to flip through the book, and found it wasn't half bad. There were several love potions in there, ranging in strength and what nasty stuff it would make the victim want to do, but there was also a chapter about creative ways to make a gift out of a memory. For instance: turning it into a Patronus-like projection, or keeping it in a locket around one's neck. There was a chapter about tattoos that almost made Draco jump up to force his parents to give him permission.

But the chapter that truly made Draco's heart do a backflip was the one about jewellery. He loved magical jewellery. His parents' wedding rings were filled to the brim with it, he didn't even know half of the things they could do, and he'd always been envious about it.

There was a Potion to make a set of mood rings, so one could always know what the other person was experiencing. It came with over a hundred barely distinguishable shades of colours though, to match each highly specific human emotion. It seemed rather tiresome to figure out to Draco.

Another Potion could not be pried from Draco's mind: immerse any object in it and it would mimic your loved ones heartbeat in real-time. If they got scared, excited or active, you'd feel their raised heartbeat through the object. You'd feel it slow down when they fell asleep.

Draco wanted it – so bad. He needed to feel Harry J. Potter's heartbeat against his skin; such a constant reminder of his existence seemed like the most beautiful thing he could ever own.

Realising he truly was a horribly hopeless romantic, he sighed, and quickly scribbled a thank you-note to Pansy, that he threw away immediately.

He took the book to his parents' Potions cabinet, but scanning the ingredients, his heart sank. There was stuff on the list he'd never even heard of before – and even if his parents had them, the potion still also required "a part of the other individual's body", like a nail clipping or a hair.

Scratching his head, Draco pondered how he would ever discretely get a part of Potter's body. He would never be able to get that close.

Disappointed, he threw the book in his trunk with his other birthday gifts and tried to forget about it.

. . .

'Twas a long summer, that summer of '94. Draco tried to spend as much time as possible with the Crabbes, the Goyles and the Parkinsons, but there were still days and days on which he had to fend all by himself.

He played so much violin he developed neck pain. He practiced his drumming until he had blisters on his fingers. He tried to get more athletic; ever since he saw the Parkinson-sisters doing circus acts on the huge lawn behind their villa, he would like to be as flexible as them. Growing up with the four Parkinson sisters, he knew how to do cartwheels and summersaults and how to fly a broom while standing, but there was always room for improvement.

This summer his goal was to learn falling on his hands and feet, looking like a bridge, then throwing his legs in the air one by one and falling on his feet again on the other side to get up and start all over. Pansy's little sister Poppy could flip-flop her way through the entire garden like that. It was just another way to walk for her, and Draco thought it looked amazing.

'Doesn't she know there's another way to move?' he drawled, watching the two youngest Parkinsons while sitting on the porch of the Parkinsons' villa with Pansy and Nimbostratus.

'She drives me positively bonkers,' Pansy replied in a monotone.

While slurping up milkshake after milkshake, they watched Poppy as she played with her sister Periwinkle, for hours on end.

Poppy and Periwinkle were born only a year apart and everyone always asked if they were twins. It made them furious. To be fair, almost everything made those two furious. The only moments they were happy were when they could practice gymnastics in the yard. Slightly two-dimensional, if you asked Draco, but they were not yet ten. There was still hope.

The fourth Parkinson-sister, Primrose, was off to see the world. She was on her way to be famous, she'd said before she left them, and no one doubted it: she looked like a Veela and spent almost every free hour of her life doing ballet or other kinds of dancing. She was a handful though, always running off with boys or begging her parents to keep the stray creatures she found as pets. One time she took a baby centaur from the forest on their property and it almost started a war.

Their brother Penstemon, the eldest of the lot, was happily married in Stoke-on-Trent. He resembled their father, Mr. Parkinson: slow, gentle and quiet with a dumb sense of humour. He just wished for a bit of peace to carve his wood. He was a wand-making apprentice; he could stare at trees for minutes on end, sometimes knocking the bark or stroking the trunk, muttering under his breath about swish or flex or hold.

Draco missed the two eldest Parkinsons. They left a big hole in the chaotic barrel of monkeys that was the Parkinson family. There was no need to mention this though; they all missed them. The Parkinson Property felt empty without the Primrose's scandalous boyfriends and the way they tried to exploit her all the time, or the piles and piles of wood Penstemon liked to collect for you-never-knew-when.

'Written him yet?' drawled Pansy in between sips of her milkshake.

'Who?' said Draco. He knew perfectly well who.

She smiled maliciously. 'The Boy Who's Yours.'

'Oh, him… He meant the Snitch.' Draco felt like a Cassette on repeat. 'And I don't know what to say.'

'Does it matter? He will drool all over you anyway. I've seen him do it.'

'Filthy liar… Besides, I don't know his address.'

'That is a load of dung and you know it. Owls don't need addresses.'

Draco heaved a dramatic sigh. 'Don't tell me you never read The Boy Who Lived: A Biography Of Harry Potter? His house is warded in every possible way. There's some sort of Fidelius Charm on it, so you can only send owls if you tell the owl the address.'

Pansy huffed, clearly stunned for a second. 'Well… then… Just ask your father.'

'I can't ask my father! He'll ask questions!'

'Mine then.' Pansy shrugged, then got to her feet, slapping the grass off her skirt and making Nimbostratus meow loudly in protest. 'Daddy?! DADDY!'

Her father - a balding man with a moustache, a cheerful face and a round belly - strolled leisurely out on the porch. 'Don't shout, daughtermine. Think of the neighbours.'

Their neighbours were miles and miles away, not counting the forest creatures. It was a running joke of the Parkinsons; one that no one ever really laughed at.

'Daddy-dear, Draco's in love –'

Draco gasped. 'Pansy, shut up!'

Mister Parkinson didn't hear Draco. 'Oh, to be young and feel love's keen sting!' he simpered.

Draco beat Pansy's arm repeatedly, without holding back. 'Die, Pansy, die!'

'Alright, alright! Hush! Daddy, for no reason at all, except maybe… philosophical? Do you think you can get us Harry J. Potter's address?'

'No can do, darling!' her father cheerily called. 'It is the best kept secret in the Ministry. Only Dumbledore knows.'

Pansy scoffed. 'As if!'

It took her a solid fifteen minutes, but then Pansy had succeeded in wheedling Potter's home address from her father.

'Remember, you are not supposed to have this,' he said weakly after her, as she ran off with it. 'It is top secret information. I did not give you this!'

Pansy's eyes glimmered tauntingly at Draco. 'Let us write, my darling.'

Draco ran after her as she got up to her room to get out a quill and ink. He tried grabbing the note with Harry's address on it from her, but she kept moving it away and switching it from one hand to the other.

Draco wished he could just Accio it and cursed the rotten Trace that forbade underage wizards to use magic outside of school. He was not desperate enough to lose his dignity over a piece of parchment though, so after failing to grab it, he straightened his back. 'Go off then, ruin this for me. You will regret it until your dying day.'

He slammed the door.

. . .

Draco's Eagle Owl Ulysses arrived an hour after Draco returned at the Manor. Attached to its claw was the parchment with Harry's address, and a note from Pansy telling Draco he was a dramatic dung-brain.

Tell me something I don't know, Draco thought.

The next day the weather was so hot Draco could hardly move an inch without needing to drink a gallon of water – and he was bored out of his mind. He'd already written to Pansy, Vincent and Gregory, but they hadn't replied yet. His parents were both away to visit important friends, and Draco was going absolutely mental with boredom.

Sitting alone on the Grand Staircase in the Manor's entrance hall, he longed for his friend Potter. He imagined him arriving at their gates: probably watching the Manor with those big starry eyes – looking, as always, like he'd just got back from a treasure hunt; covered in blood and dirt from head to toe. Draco would probably run at him as fast as he could, unable to control himself any longer. He'd haul them both to the ground in sheer excitement, making Harry laugh.

Draco wondered if they would kiss. If Potter truly meant it the way Pansy thought –

But he didn't, Draco reminded himself. He couldn't. It didn't make sense. Potter could snog a different admirer every day for an entire year if he wanted to – what was he talking about, if? There was no question, in Draco's mind: Potter already did that, no doubt about it. If a pretty girl flung herself at a boy, the boy obliged. Right?

Anyhow, there was no way Harry J. Potter would go all in for loud and scrawny Malfoy, who was not only the wrong gender to even be considered, but also Potter's worst enemy.

Draco hid his head under his arms, pressing his face on his knees. 'Putain de merde…'

He wished Harry was here. He wished he could just ask him what the note meant; if he liked Draco, even at all.

Draco doubted that he existed in Harry's memory as long as he wasn't physically in his primary field of vision at real-time. Potter'd screwed him over on the Quidditch field. Would one do that to someone one liked?

He groaned. 'C'est ridicule!'

Enraged with his own weakness, he stomped up the stairs to his bedroom, tore off some parchment, scrawled Harry's address on it and wrote the truth: 'Potter, I'm bored.'

If Potter didn't like Draco, he would never reply to this, but it wouldn't matter, because Draco only wrote it because he was bored. It was brilliant. Such strategy!

He signed it with Harry's nickname for him: Dra. It was an awful nickname, Draco hated it. He would never allow anyone to call him that – but there was something in the way Harry said it. He pronounced it so…

So… heavenly…

Draco sighed, resisting the temptation to draw little hearts around Potter's name or to profess his undying love as a postscript. Instead, he clipped the message to Ulysses claw and sent him away.

Immediately, he felt exhausted. Even within the thick, isolating walls of the Manor, the summer heat pressed on him like a heavy weight. The heatwave had lasted days and the warmth had slowly taken over the ancient building.

'What's poppin', son?'

'AUGH!'

Uncle Barney had flown up through the floor, almost giving Draco a heart attack.

'Don't do that,' Draco snarled.

'Heard you screaming on the Grand Staircase,' said Barney,

Draco collapsed on the bed, falling through the ghost. It gave him a chill he rather enjoyed in this heat, so he ordered Barney to do it again, and the ghost put his chilly hand on Draco's forehead. Draco groaned in relief.

'You looked like you could use a listening ear,' Barney said. 'Spill the beans, mec.'

'Yeah right, as if I can trust you with my secrets, Uncle Barnaby,' Draco drawled.

'Like heck you can,' said Barney; whatever that meant. 'Nobody ever listens to this old fool.'

Draco pushed himself up and sat cross-legged across from his ancestor. He smirked. 'Want to bet you will freak?'

'Freak? Moi? The last thing I freaked about was the invasion of this here Manor in 1614, my young lad, and I have taken the details of that event to my grave.'

'As if I don't know you were already in your grave back then, and I will get you to tell me about it one day.'

'Never! It was humiliating beyond belief. Your humiliation will pale in comparison!'

Draco waved his hand like he wanted to diffuse the ghost. 'I doubt it, Uncle Barnaby.' He fell backwards on the bed. 'But whatever, get a load of this secret, then: I – Draco Lucius Malfoy – last and only heir of the ancient house of Malfoy – am hopelessly smitten with a boy.'

'What boy?' said Uncle Barney.

Draco lifted his head to look at him. 'Are you joking?' he snarled. 'What do you mean "what boy?" Who cares what boy, it is a boy. A guy. A man. A son of Adam. I should never have even considered him.'

'A man? Say, petit, how old is this person?' Barney frowned. 'I thought we were talking about that spawn of the Potters you could never shut up about for years.'

Draco sighed. 'Oh, Merlin… Yeah, that's my guy… I want to marry him.'

Barney sniggered, and in that moment Draco decided to tell him everything: about the Quidditch match and the note, about the letter he just sent off, about Harry's defeat of the Basilisk – 'With a sword!' – about the way Potter smiled or the way he fell down and jumped right back up; Draco talked about everything he had locked so safely away in his heart for months, and it felt freeing.

Waving his hand through Draco's sweaty face, Barney concluded, 'Sounds like a decent chap.'

Draco closed his eyes. 'He is not just decent, dingo… He is absolutely perfect in every way.'

'So?' said Barney. 'What's the issue? Go have fun with him. Life is far too short to worry about what your silly parents would think, believe you me. Keep it secret, for all I care, but you would be surprised– Oh, your owl is back. I am out, bye.'

Another secret Uncle Barnaby would have preferred to take to his grave was how scared he was of birds. You wouldn't find him near the animals. Back in the 18th century, he'd protested profusely against the peacocks set loose in their garden, and there'd never been a more fervent opponent of the carrier owl than he was. To this day, he pleaded they should have stuck with the old system of using Muggle orphans as their messengers, saying they were multi-functional and also came in handy when one needed, for example, a footstool.

Draco forgot his uncle as soon as he saw the owl, jumping up to let him in. He didn't dare look at his claw though. Ulysses probably came back without a letter.

He looked anyway; it was impossible not to –

And there was a note! Tearing it off Ulysses' claw a little to forcefully, he got a jab from his beak. 'Ouch.'

Draco folded the note open. 'Potter, I'm bored,' he read.

His heart fell. Potter hadn't even read it! Was it the wrong address? 'Ulysses, what did you –'

As Draco dropped the note, he spotted it: there was something written on the back! That definitely wasn't there when Draco sent it! Written in thick, black, barely readable scrawls, it said: 'Don't you have a mansion with a quidditch field in the backyard?'

Draco smiled so broadly it hurt his face. Frantically, he got out his quill again:

'Potter, did you just write your letter on the back of mine? You're such a savage. And yes, I have a mansion and a quidditch field in the backyard. Your point?'

'Allez, allez, allez!' He spurred his owl on to deliver the message as fast as possible. 'Je t'aime!' he shouted after it. 'Very very much!' If he learned anything last year, it was that animals understood languages. There was no harm in trying to smarm up to his messenger a bit.

Then he took another bit of parchment to let Pansy know: 'I wrote him! He wrote back!'

Hopefully he could use one of his parents' owls to send it. At least it was a way to distract himself until he got Harry's reply. If he got another reply.

The owlery was on the edge of the meadow that bordered their garden. The meadow was officially Malfoy property as well, but they let Mother Nature run the place. Their real garden was designed by an architect and filled with fountains and little paths surrounded by roses and other flowers, and there were peacocks. It was inspired by the gardens of Versailles, the property of Louis XIV, and designed around the same time too. None of the Malfoys had ever changed it. It was tastefully done.

The Malfoys kept their owls in a small stone tower, no higher than two floors and only a few yards wide. There were small openings and alcoves all around the circular walls, allowing the owls to fly in and out, or to curl up and sleep.

The thick wood of the oaken door often splintered into Draco's skin, so he pushed it open with his foot. The floor was entirely covered in straw, owl droppings, and the regurgitated skeletons of mice and voles. Mother had put three pairs of boots at the door, next to a little bench where Draco sat down to put them on.

'Good morning, Agatha,' he told the ghost floating under the ceiling and cooing at the owls.

'Oh, oh, he-hello, mister Malfoy,' she mumbled, before getting back to her birdwatching. With her arms hidden in heavy, felt robes – giving her tall body an oval shape – Agatha Malfoy rather resembled an owl herself. 'We – we got another one... Ju-just flew in…' Agatha stammered a lot and never really looked anyone in the eye.

During her breathing years, she'd lived with her brother, who'd allowed her to take care of the owls and looked after her. When he passed on, she quickly followed, after spending weeks in the Owlery without ever coming out to eat. Her death didn't change much for her. She still refused to ever leave the owls.

'It's –' Agatha tried to speak, but the words got stuck in her throat. 'It's –'

'Count to ten, Auntie,' Draco drawled, as he got up from the bench to check out the owls. 'Picture the word in your mind.'

'It's…' She closed her eyes and after a second the word came out: 'B-brown, sir.'

Draco snorted. 'Well, isn't that good to know… Do you have any other important updates for me?'

'Er, yes, er… Agamemnon has – has a – a strange c-cough, sir.'

Draco bit back a smirk. He kept trying to come up with names for the owls that Agatha would struggle to pronounce, but her mind worked in mysterious ways: she took hours to finish a word like "brown," yet "Agamemnon" presented no problem.

'I will let my father know,' Draco assured her, before ordering her to fetch him an owl to send to the Parkinsons. Within seconds, a big barn owl landed on his arm. Draco gave it a treat as he bound Pansy's message to its claw, and ducked away when it spread its large wings to fly off.

Agatha watched with her mouth open as it flew out of the tower. 'Beautiful animals,' she whispered, like she was seeing the spectacle for the first time.

'Yeah, marvellous,' Draco drawled, kicking off his boots at the door.

On the way back to the Manor, he took a detour through the orangery to pick a peach and was once again held up by one of his demented ancestors.

'Is that you, little Abraxas?' called his Auntie Mabel Malfoy, who drank herself to death in the eleventh century down in the Malfoy's wine cellars, after her fifth and last child had moved out.

It had been a tough first few centuries for her, but a few decades ago, she'd started to surround herself with plants and insects, studying them in the Malfoy's orangery to keep her mind off the booze she couldn't drink anymore.

'No, Auntie Mabel,' Draco called back for what must have been the hundredth time. 'I am his grandson, Draco. Abraxas died thirty years ago, remember?'

Mabel popped out of a banana tree, wearing a distracted smile. 'Abraxas, darling, come look at the butterflies.'

Draco sighed. 'Zut alors, I just wanted –'

His voice trailed off when he rounded the banana tree and came eye-to-eye with a dozen cornflower-blue butterflies, every one of them as big as his hand.

'We never had so many before,' said Mabel, who was beaming and swirling her hands around them. 'Are they not the most gorgeous creatures you ever saw? They light up at night, you know, it is a wonderful sight.'

'Awesome,' Draco murmured.

'My mother always said: butterflies in our orangery means great fortunes in our lives. It will be good year for us, mon chou.' The butterflies flew straight through Aunt Mabel. It made her giggle. 'I haven't felt so alive since 1083…'

Draco smirked. 'That's nice, Auntie Mabel... Treasure the small things.'

Ignoring the rest of her swoons, he swaggered off to grab a peach.

When he finally made it back to his room without any further interruptions by his undead relatives, Ulysses had returned – with a fresh new note!

Or… not so fresh at all. It was a flimsy piece of paper, almost tearing when Draco took it off the owl's claw. In printed letters at the top it said "Chevron Gas Station" –

'A receipt!' Draco shouted in disgust. 'Written on a bloody receipt!'

On the back of the receipt, Harry had written:

'Dear Mister Malfoy,

Sorry for writing on the back of your letter. Is this better?

Love,
Potter'

'Oh,' Draco whispered, pressing the flimsy trash to his heart.

Love…

Carefully he put the letter between two pieces of parchment and pressed it flat in one of the thickest books in his bookcase. Then he tore off another piece of parchment:

'Potter, HOW DARE YOU. This is an AWARD WINNING Eagle Owl, and I am a MALFOY.'

Harry had to step up his game, Draco thought. This simply would not do.

When Draco held the letter out to Ulysses, the owl hopped away.

'Please, only this one, please.' Draco held a treat in front of him and kept begging until the owl gave in, but it was clear that Draco had to come up with a better way to talk to Potter. There were not enough owls in the world to message him continuously like this. There was also no way he could go and visit him with the Muggles, and Harry probably had no transportation to the Manor. Either they had to write long letters and wait forever for a reply or Draco had to figure something out.

Remembering their attic filled with magical heirlooms, Draco ran up the stairs, through the corridor, up another set of stairs and through yet another corridor. There he could climb the spiral staircase through the East Tower that lead to the attic of the Manor.

Panting, he leaned against the wall next to the attic door. This better be worth it, he thought, and he wondered why he even bothered trying so hard: Potter could forget about him and stop writing any moment. Then, he shook his head. He did this because he was bored, he reminded himself. There was nothing more to it than that, just plain, old, casual boredom.

Looking around at the shelves and shelves of heirlooms, he pondered where to start searching. Draco's mother and the house elves had ordered everything in the attic into labelled boxes, but there were still massive amounts of boxes, and under what label would he find something useful?

Peck peck peck.

Draco's heart skipped a beat – but no, he still had enough sense to know it couldn't be Potter's owl yet. Ulysses wasn't that fast.

Making his way around the filing cabinets to get a view of the window, Draco spotted the owl from the owlery sitting on the windowsill. He hurried to open the window and get Pansy's note.

'I'm coming over!' was all it said.

As he groaned, Draco bumped his head at the window frame. He estimated the chance of her guessing he was in the attic at approximately 0,034% There was nothing to it but to walk all the way back to the drawing room to collect her from the Grand Fireplace.

'Pansy!' he shouted as he ran downstairs again. 'PANSINGTON!'

'Draco?!' he faintly heard in reply.

'I'M AT THE ATTIC!' he shouted.

'What?!'

He ran and ran and finally arrived at the landing of the first floor. There he tried not to wheeze too much, holding onto the banister of the Grand Staircase. 'Do not say "what", darling,' he squeaked. 'Say "excuse me."'

'Shut up, you! Let me see the letter! Was it romantic?! Ooh, please, Draconius, what did he write?!'

'None of your business,' he snarled. 'Follow me. I have a task for you.'

'I am not here to fulfill your little chores, Malfoy!'

He turned around to look down on her from the steps of the Grand Staircase. 'May I remind you, Miss Parkinson,' he drawled, 'you are a guest here, and an uninvited one at that. This leaves you in no position to introduce conditions.'

Pansy snorted. 'You're in a mood. Alright, go on then, I'll follow.'

'I am not in a mood. This is my regular mood,' Draco insisted.

'Sure, babe, what did you write him?'

Draco sighed. 'J'ai simplement écrit: "Je m'ennuie."'

'In English, you prat!'

Pansy never appreciated Draco's talents.

'Non.'

The long way up to the attic, Pansy refused to say anything, but this could only be considered a blessing to Draco.

'I need a quicker way to talk to him than owls,' he explained in the lovely silence. 'It has to be something he can use without attracting the attention of the Muggles.'

'What Muggles?'

'You know nothing?' he scoffed. 'Harry Potter lives with Muggles.'

'Oh, horrid fate!' she replied, suitably affected. 'Explains a lot, though, doesn't it?'

'His aunt and uncle adopted him and they are horrible Muggles. We all know Muggles are boring, which is bad enough, but these Muggles actually tortured him. You'd think the bar was low…'

Pansy frowned. No doubt she was imagining little Potter getting hurt by dull looking Muggles. Draco knew that not only was she a visual thinker, but she detested abuse of power. He gave her a moment to process her rage.

'Let's find something useful. Where do you think we should look?' he asked her.

She thought for a while. 'Postal stuff? Mail?'

'Right, you look at the P-section, I look at the M-section.'

And so they did – but alas, none of the boxes were labelled 'mail' nor 'postal stuff'.

'Letters,' Pansy thought out loud as she strolled to the L-section.

'Communication!' Draco rushed to the C-section.

'Lots of letters!' yelled Pansy. 'Not what you're looking for, I reckon. Some are… spicy, though. Oooh, mmm! Draco, come look at this!'

But Draco had found a box marked 'Communication'. It was filled to the brim with magical heirlooms. 'Nom d'une pipe… Come help me, Parky.'

They put the box on the floor and took out every item one by one. Most of the stuff didn't make any sense to either of them.

'I think this is a bell,' Pansy pondered, as she held a heavy iron bell.

'I ought to pay you for this,' drawled Draco, and she clunked him on the head with it, almost giving him a concussion. 'Ouch!'

She threw it back in the box and folded her arms. 'I am not touching any more of this. Malfoy stuff always has the most horrible curses.'

'With good reason,' snarled Draco. The only way people could know about their curses was by crossing multiple, well-established boundaries. 'Go check "Stationary."'

She scowled at him and only reluctantly got up when Draco pushed her a few times. As she strolled off, Draco burrowed through the box and took out something soft. It was a human ear.

'AAUGH!'

Pansy laughed her head off.

'Who saves this?!' Draco's voice cracked in fright, and Pansy took charge by putting the box back on the shelf. 'Told you so. Let's look at Stationary and then were done. We can ask your mumsy tonight.'

Tonight, Draco thought miserably, that was ages away. Potter would have forgotten all about him by then.

'We'll say it's for us two.' Pansy grinned, and Draco smirked.

'You know, she still thinks we are engaged.'

'But you are Potter's,' Pansy swooned.

Draco felt himself smiling and swaying slightly on his feet. He ran his finger along the shelves as they walked from the C-section to the S-section.

He was Potter's. And Potter was his.

'Bit of a nasty shock when she finds out,' he mumbled. 'They really do not like him, my parents. Apparently, he has somehow lost us our House Elf, but that can't be all. I think they're keeping something from me. Something he did to them.'

'Like,' Pansy smirked as they found the Stationary-box, 'defeating the Dark Lord?'

Draco frowned. 'That's ancient history. That can't be it.'

'Look at this,' she said, pulling out a bundle of postcards from the Stationary-box, tied together with brown string. 'It feels Magical. Here, feel it.'

It did feel Magical, but it didn't look it. They were plain, vintage postcards.

'What do they do?'

Pansy looked through the bundle. 'There's two of each. Oh, these ones have addresses on them!'

Draco snatched them from her. 'Septimus Malfoy, Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire, England,' he read. 'Rosalie Rosier, Palais de Rosier, Toulouse, France.'

The text on both postcards was exactly the same, in the same handwriting on the exact same place. 'À bientôt, mon coeur.'

Pansy took a quill out of the box and drew a skull on one of the postcards. The letters vanished and the skull appeared on the other postcard as well. The two of them gasped. Draco felt like shrieking and kissing Pansy, but swallowed the urge.

'That will do,' he drawled instead, taking the bundle from Pansy.

When they got back to his bedroom, a white owl sat on his windowsill. Draco caught his breath. 'That's Potter's owl! Where's Ulysses?'

'It's pretty,' said Pansy, stroking the owl's feathers. It nuzzled into Pansy's hand at once.

On the pet's claw was a golden piece of paper. Smiling already, Draco took it and read:

'Do you like the gold, Dra? This is the best I can do for now, but I'll try to buy proper Malfoy-worthy paper if I can.

X

P.S. We exhausted your Award Winning Eagle Owl, so I sent Hedwig. I'll send yours back after dark.'

Draco petted the owl. 'Hedwig,' he mumbled. It was a fairly nice name.

He'd let his guard down and was punished for it when Pansy grabbed the note from his hands. 'A chocolate wrapper!' she yelled. 'Affronting!'

'Be quiet,' Draco said, failing to grab the letter back.

'"Do you like the gold, Dra?"' she read aloud at top volume. 'I hate that he calls you Dra!'

Draco beamed. 'Me too…'

'"I'll try to buy proper Malfoy-worthy paper if I can." Oh, he'd better!'

'It doesn't matter, we're sending him these.'

As he said it, he was already writing Harry's address on one of the cards and his own address on the other. He'd chosen the Greetings from London cards, because they lived in England. Rosalie Rosier had used the Bisous de Paris-card, and the other options were 'Groetjes uit Amsterdam' and 'Baci da Roma'.

'An X!' Pansy shrieked, startling Draco. 'He wrote an X! That means a kiss!'

'It's not a kiss, dweeb, it's just short for "Cheers! Your buddy Harry J. Potter." People write X's instead of their name all the time, have done for ages. Look it up.'

'Only when they can't write.'

'Well, Potter can hardly write,' Draco scoffed.

Pansy snorted. 'True.'

The message accompanying the postcard was as short as possible. Draco didn't want to reveal how hard he was trying.

'I… love… you…' Pansy whispered. Draco looked up. She had another quill in her hand and was writing on one of the cards. 'Most… ardently.'

With a terrified shriek, Draco pushed Pansy away from the postcards. 'NO!'

The cards were still blank. Pansy was rolling on the floor laughing.

'Hilarious,' Draco drawled, still panting from shock. 'Zut alors. You cost me years of my life.'

It only fuelled Pansy's laughing fit.

Quickly, Draco finished his message and sent it with the Postcard back to Harry. He couldn't wait to see if they worked.

'Let's get something to eat,' said Pansy.

Draco took his postcard with him. He took it with him for the rest of that summer, actually, everywhere he went.

. . .

'DRACO!'

Draco bolted upright in his bed in the dark, gasping in shock. 'What? What –'

'Drakey-snakey, remember Cousin Ferdinand?'

Draco blinked in the dark and could vaguely spot the see-through outline of his Uncle Barney. He groaned, pulling his pillow over his head. 'Va-t'en, Uncle Barnaby. I am sleeping.'

'I have been searching for days. Your mother should stop tidying up, you know, the whole system is messed up.'

'Do not badmouth my mother,' Draco snarled.

'I love your mother,' said Barney emphatically. 'A lot... Now, get up, mec, I have to show you something. Up, up!'

Groaning like an old man, Draco rolled out of bed and put on slippers and a thick, velvet housecoat. 'I hate you.'

'You are going to love this,' Barney cheered. 'Allons-y.'

They made their way through the dark corridors of the Manor, where torches and chandeliers lit up and extinguished to light their path.

'Master Malfoy,' complained the portraits of his ancestors, squinting in the light, 'this is no hour for a walk!'

'I agree,' Draco snarled, casting his uncle a sour look.

'The lavatory is to the right, you know.'

'Why can't this wait 'til morning?' Draco drawled.

Barney laughed. 'Oh, best not to risk that, petit, trust me. Wait 'till you see it!'

Draco followed Barney all the way down to the library, where his uncle floated up to the ceiling to point out a thick, ancient book, all the while giggling excitedly.

Groggily, Draco pushed a ladder towards it and climbed up to get it. 'History of Botanica,' Draco read. 'Non, Oncle Barnaby! Pourquoi –'

'Get down, son, be careful,' said Barney. 'You would not believe how many a grandchild I have watched go cripple that way.'

Scowling, Draco did as he was told. With a heavy thud he put the book on a table and lifted it open. While Draco got a coughing fit from the dust, Barney launched into a laughing fit.

Inside the book someone had cut out a big square block from the pages, creating some sort of a secret compartment. They'd used the book to hide something.

Draco picked up some pieces of parchments hidden inside the compartment. They seemed to be works of art. Looking closer in the light of the library's chandeliers, he could make out pictures of men. Men in… unusual positions and… rather scarcely clad.

Draco closed the book with a slam. 'Uncle Barnaby,' he hissed, feeling his cheeks burn, 'no!'

While Draco wanted the floor to swallow him whole, Barney almost choked with laughter. 'Well? Will they work for you?'

Draco glared at him. 'Is this your way of showing support?'

Barney wiped away tears of laughter. 'Come on, you wuss, take a proper gander. What d'you reckon?' He used his chaotic ghost magic to throw the book open again.

Draco averted his eyes, and drawled, 'Why do you have this?'

'It's our old Cousin Ferdinand's secret stash! Oh, come now, little prude, feast your pretty eyes. I know you want to.'

'I am really uncomfortable. You do know I am fourteen, right?'

'Well then! So much for doing your favourite grandson a favour!' He laughed some more.

Draco shook his head in exasperation. 'If you don't mind, I will be going back to bed now.'

'Your choice, I suppose…' Barney sniggered. 'Well, at least you know where to find them now. For future reference! I will not judge, you know!'

'Yeah,' Draco drawled as he put the book back on the shelf. 'Thanks, Uncle Barnaby…'

Barney let out a barking laugh. 'Just remember, son: pornography sets unrealistic expectations. You should always use a good lu–'

'Please, stop talking.' Draco made his way back to his chambers with his fingers in his ears.

. . .

'Good morning,' Draco read as soon as he woke up and checked the postcard. Smiling, he wiped the sleep out of his eyes and picked up the quill on his nightstand. 'Good morning, Mister Potter. What did you dream about?'

'About you, actually.'

Draco cried out in triumph.

'We were playing Quidditch,' Harry wrote.

'Did I beat you?'

'That only happens in your dreams,' Harry replied smartly.

Draco did not feel like discussing getting beat by Potter at Quidditch. It was a slippery slope to a fight about fair play.

'Allow me to properly wake up before insulting me,' Draco wrote back, before getting dressed and descending the stairs to get some breakfast. The voice of his father floated through the open dining room door to the entrance hall.

'It has never been this clear, not since –'

His parents were standing by the large dining room window. Father had been holding his sleeve up to show Mother something, but before Draco could say 'good morning' his father had covered his arm again and Mother was pouring them all some tea.

Draco stopped in his tracks. 'What is it?'

'Weird mole,' said his father with a distracted frown.

'I can write my sister about it,' offered Draco's mother.

'Good idea,' said Father. 'I will ask Goyle. He knows about these things.'

'Maybe call the news too,' jeered Draco. 'Why not write the Daily Prophet right now? Is it the shape of old Merlin by any chance? We should think of a way to monetize this, you see.'

'Hush, Draconius,' his mother said in a sigh, but his father complimented his use of the word 'monetize'.

Draco sat up a little straighter. 'Why are we talking so much about a mole?'

'Do not worry your little head, Draconius.'

'I am not worried. I suspect you are lying. You see, I cannot accept that.'

'Chocolate bread or croissant?'

'Chocolate bread.' Taking a large bite out of it, he noticed new words appearing on the postcard.

'Sorry,' Harry wrote. 'What's your favourite colour? Gold?'

Licking his fingers, Draco picked up his quill. 'Gold is a chemical element, dung-brain, not a colour.'

'You're fun,' said Harry. 'What colour does gold have then?'

Draco frowned. It was legit a fair question. He asked his father, 'What colour is gold?'

It took him a second, then his father replied, 'Golden.'

'Golden,' wrote Draco to Harry, grinning broadly.

He could swear he heard Harry sighing all the way from Surrey.

'What's your favourite colour?' Harry repeated. 'GoldEN?'

Draco stifled his laughter. 'No. Green.' He considered drawing a little eye, but didn't dare.

'Slytherin to the bone,' said Harry.

'Who are you writing with, Draco dear?' asked Draco's mother.

'Pansy,' Draco lied smoothly, not looking up from the card to write, 'How are the Muggles treating you today?'

As he took another bite of the chocolate bread, Harry's words appeared. 'They mostly ignore me. It's fine.'

Draco wiped his mouth and quickly scribbled. 'You wouldn't have this problem if you'd let the basilisk get on with it.'

'You know I don't like those jokes.'

'Not a joke! Your Muggle family deserves a gruesome death even more than any other Muggles.'

Chewing and chewing, Draco stared at the card, but nothing happened. Harry stopped replying.

'Merde,' Draco mumbled. His father shouted his name and he jumped. 'Je m'excuse – flute,' he corrected.

'That is not better,' said his mother.

Ignoring the both of them, Draco took a second chocolate bread to go, and made his way to check on the owlery, where Ulysses had returned with a letter from Pansy.

She asked if Draco liked to come over to let Poppy dye his hair. This was no question.

After strolling back to his parents to let them know where he was going, he jumped into the Grand Fireplace to Floo to the Parkinson Property. 'Pansington!' he shouted into their drawing room, filled with a disproportionally large, golden chandelier and a faux-vintage sofa with purple velour upholstery and golden buttons. 'Parky Parky Pansington!'

Nimbostratus ran at him, nuzzling his ankles. He bent down to pet it behind his ears.

'Draconius?'

Pansy sounded far away, but footsteps were running towards him from nearby. They belonged to Poppy, who was cheering and jumping in excitement. 'What colour, Draco, what colour?'

'Let me consult my future husband,' Draco answered while taking out the postcard with a flourish.

'What's your favourite colour?' he asked Potter.

'Dunno,' wrote Harry, still sounding sulky.

'Decide, Potter. I'm getting my hair dyed and I need to choose a colour.'

'Hot pink,' Potter replied.

'Hot pink,' Draco answered Poppy's question.

Pansy was laughing scathingly, somewhere in the background.

That morning and much of the afternoon were spent on the enormous, marble-and-golden fountain on the Parkinsons' driveway, while Nimbostratus purred loudly on Pansy's lap and Poppy worked on Draco's hair. The fountain's water was magically clean and the perfect temperature for washing your hair on a summer's day. It had about twelve different nozzles, each spraying a different amount of water. At night it lit up, flashing different colours every second.

'Ask him how he will be heroic this year,' said Pansy, motioning at the postcard.

'Will you be a hero again this year?' Draco wrote.

'Shut up,' replied Potter, 'I never asked for it.'

'Oh come on, stud, you love it,' Draco wrote.

It took a while before he got a reply to that. First, a little smiley appeared, followed a few seconds later by, 'You know I don't. I just want a normal year. That is all I wish for.'

Pansy let out a hollow laugh. 'Oh, I bet that's not all he wishes for…'

'Hush, you trollop.'

'OOH!' yelled Pansy and Poppy.

'How did you find the Chamber of Secrets?' Draco wrote next.

'Got lucky I suppose,' said Harry.

'I'm dying to know,' wrote Draco, underlining the word 'dying' three times.

Harry wrote terribly slowly. 'Hermione found out the monster was a basilisk and that it moved through the pipes in the walls. Ron and I figured it had come out in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. I'd never have found it by myself.'

Draco's mouth fell open. Quickly he scribbled, 'The Chamber of Secrets is in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom?!'

'The entrance, yeah. The Basilisk killed Myrtle there.'

Draco gasped. He never knew!

'Isn't he amazing?' Draco hissed at Pansy, who'd been reading over his shoulder.

'It is fairly spectacular,' she reluctantly drawled.

'Is it true you killed the monster with a sword?' Draco wrote, messing up his handwriting in his eagerness.

'Yes. It sounds cooler than it was though. I got lucky.'

'He's so sweet,' Draco whispered, before writing, 'How do you know how to fight with a sword?'

For a few seconds, Harry didn't reply. Then his scrawls started appearing again. 'All Muggles know,' he wrote. 'It's taught in primary school.'

Pansy squinted. 'Is he joking?'

Draco scratched his head. 'I'm not sure…' He decided to change the subject, just to be safe. 'What are you up to?'

'Writing with you.'

Pansy took the quill from Draco with force and drew a little heart.

Draco gasped. 'No! Pansy!'

'He's blind as a bat, he won't notice.'

'He has glasses! They were invented so people like Potter can see! Read – a – book!' He slapped her head until she was shrieking with laughter.

Holding his head in blind panic, Draco watched the heart melt away. A tiny drawing of a happy face appeared. Round spectacles were added to it. Then, as a cherry on top, Harry drew a heart too, with a little line attaching it to the smiling Potter-face.

Draco's heart simply stopped. He flung the postcard away from him, groaning, 'He is killing me.'

. . .

Draco's new, hot pink hairdo did not fare well at the Malfoy Manor. There was no shouting, or words in any form for that matter, but when Draco swaggered into the parlour that evening, his parents simply rose from their seats. With looks of utter terror on their faces, they gazed down upon their son, and with one flick of her wand, Mother turned his hair back to normal.

Poppy's two-hour labour gone in a second; Draco decided to retreat to his chambers.

'Draco,' his father called after him. 'We have a surprise for you.'

He was not in the mood. 'Am I getting a brother or sister?' he snarled.

'Sit.'

'Why?'

'Because I say so,' said his father. 'Do not make me raise my voice.'

Scowling, he did as he was told, and in return received an expensive looking envelope. It was blue with a pattern of golden snitches.

Father gestured, 'Open up!'

Draco folded it open and took out three pieces of thick paper –

They were tickets. In big black letters they read: Quidditch World Cup; Top box, second row.

Draco screamed deafeningly. 'Top box seats! The World Cup! Best! Gift! Ever!'

He ran upstairs to tell Vincent, Gregory, Pansy and Harry, and they were all green with envy!

Draco screamed until his voice gave up. He was going to the World Cup!

. . .

No matter how Draco called for their House Elves, neither of them appeared. Grumpy, he went down to the kitchen to make them pay.

'He's at a terribly difficult age,' Draco overheard his mother saying as he strolled past the drawing room. 'You will not believe what he did to his hair the other day.'

Draco remembered his parents saying they were having tea with friends, who – coincidentally – also happened to be important ministry people. That may have been what the House Elves were busy with too, he reckoned.

'There is no telling anymore what he will like.'

He stopped to listen at the door. Were they talking about him?

'Oh, ours is exactly the same!' doted a woman. 'Completely in her own world!'

'This event will do them good,' said a low voice. 'Sports conciliate.'

'Well said!' said Father.

'The game element of this Tournament will keep the attention of even the most difficult youngster, I assure you that. And meeting new people, exchanging cultures, that is always good for morale. Fresh blood.'

'Who knows what might come off it!' shrieked the woman. 'Ooh, I wish I would have had this opportunity as a teen. How thrilling to meet someone from Durmstrang or Beauxbatons…'

'We were over the moon when Fudge told us the plans, were we not, Narcissa?' said Father.

Draco tried to understand what he heard. They were talking about him, Draco; about a game, a Tournament; and about meeting people from different schools. Was there some sort of plan for next schoolyear? An exchange program of sorts?

As soon as his parents closed the door behind their Important Friends, Draco stepped out of the library, where he had been lurking and writing with Harry about Quidditch and what they would like to be when they grew up. Potter had no clue yet, the silly little nincompoop, so Draco tried to convince him to become a firefighter, because it was one of his favourite fantasies to be saved from a burning Manor by Firefighter Harry Potter. That last bit he had kept to himself.

'Father?' Draco said, following his parents into the parlour. 'Is something special going to happen next year?'

His father's eyes started gleaming. 'Aha, little sneak! We are not allowed to tell you.'

'I can keep a secret.'

Father glanced at his wife. 'There might be something special happening.'

'A Tournament?' Draco asked. 'Are we going to Durmstrang? Or Beauxbatons?'

His father looked proud. 'Where did you learn to be such a good spy, Dragon-child?'

'Answer me,' said Draco.

'You will stay at Hogwarts… but perhaps –'

'Oh Lucius, do not spoil the surprise.'

Father pretended to lock his lips and throw away the key. Both of Draco's parents laughed.

'Who wants apple pie?' said Mother. 'To celebrate!'

Apple pie was Draco's favourite. He allowed himself to be distracted.

. . .

One morning at the end of August, Draco woke up late to a message of Harry with a sore lack of interpunction.

'Dra you'll never guess I'm going too! The Weasley's pick me up tomorrow have to pack'

A heart was added to ease the pain, but the fact remained that Harry did not respond anymore to any of Draco's questions.

Thankfully, Draco's pain only lasted a day. Because the next morning…

'QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP' he bellowed, throwing all the pots and pans they owned down the Grand Staircase. 'LET'S GO! GO! RIGHT! NOW!' he screamed at the top of his lungs.

His parents always locked their bedroom door, only because he'd once – once! – jumped on their bed on Sunday morning to wake them up. This happened seven years ago, but they'd locked their door every night ever since. Which meant that Draco couldn't simply walk in to wake them up on that exciting day of the World Cup, and he'd seen no other option than to ask their new House Elf – Whatshisname, Dobby-Two – for their noisiest kitchenware.

It worked like a charm: in no time at all his parents were up and running… running after Draco.

Laughing tauntingly, he led them outside, into the sunny rose garden his mother loved so much, where Tinsel and Dobby-Two had set up breakfast.

They slowed down when they spotted it and their anger melted. 'Oh Draco! Did you arrange this?' said his mother.

He preened smugly from his seat at the table. She planted a kiss on his hair and joined him, but Father was less easily appeased. 'Get up,' he snapped.

'Oh, Lucius…' said Mother, but Draco's father seemed livid.

Draco threw down his napkin with the heaviest sigh he could heave and got up with theatrical difficulty to emphasize his inconvenience.

'This is unacceptable behaviour!' Father boomed. 'How will the Malfoy family ever appear organised, a well-rested unity, when our own heir cannot be controlled? We have been over this, Draco, you do not disturb our rest. You do not make such noise. You will never again make us notice you in any way or form, do you understand me?'

Draco sulkily crossed his arms.

His father used a more heavy-duty slapping charm than Harry always used, and Draco reached for his head. 'Ow!'

'Do you understand me?!'

'Yes, father,' Draco said through gritted teeth, cheeks flushed in embarrassment.

'I forbid you to ever talk to the House Elves again. I will deal with them later. After our lovely family breakfast.' He pulled back the chair next to Draco's mother and gestured at Draco's seat. 'Sit!'

Draco sat down again, quietly fuming.

The birds whistled their summer tunes and the peacocks screamed, but the Malfoy family sat in silence. Only the clinging of their cutlery against their cups and plates could be heard.

'Now, isn't this nice?' Draco's mother tried to restore the mood. 'Do you want a muffin, darling?

'No,' Draco and his father said at the same time. They looked up and when Mother started giggling they couldn't contain a smile either. 'You are both my darlings,' she simpered. 'The loves of my life.'

'I do want one, actually,' mumbled Draco.

'I think you did a wonderful job, Draco. This is a lovely family breakfast,' said Mother, filling her husband's plate and pouring them all tea, while Father flipped through the Daily Prophet and Draco hoarded the jam like it could be taken from him any second.

Father read a piece about the World Cup for them and Draco forgot about his anger. They were going to have so much fun tonight!

After breakfast, the Malfoys sang their favourite songs while they packed and left for their private Portkey. They had never been the sort of family for a quiet walk. Ever since Draco was born, his parents had been singing with him, and stimulated him to express himself musically, even if they only showed their skill to a few trusted friends and family members.

Sometimes, when they were a little tipsy on their way home from the Parkinsons, Draco's parents would sing Hole in my Bucket together, but today they stuck to non-silly songs like Land of the Silver Birch (Mother's favourite) or The Song That Never Ends (Draco's favourite). Father always chose the more militaristic ones, like Maverick Moone.

'Maverick Moone was a man – yes, a big, magical man!' they would ring over the moors of Wiltshire. 'And he fought for all wizards, to make all of us wizards live free!'

'I can't hear you!' called Father at Draco walking behind his parents, who was trying very hard to pretend he didn't know them.

'I'm not a kid anymore,' he snarled.

'Oh come on, Draconius, no one will hear,' said his mother, running a hand through his hair.

He ducked away from her. 'I will hear!'

'Frooom theeee…' started Father. He and Draco's mother were both looking expectantly at Draco now. They looked so cheerful, Draco had trouble hiding a smirk.

He sighed. 'From the dragon-skin hat –'

' – on the top of old Moone!' his parents immediately backed up. 'To the tip of his mighty wand; the rippin'est, roarin'est, fightin'est man the frontier ever knew! What a boon, what a do-er, what a dream come-a true-er was he!'

Draco sang a lot softer than his parents, even if he quite liked to sing the song. He couldn't bear the idea that someone might see them like this.

'Maverick Moone was a man – Yes, a big, magical man! With a dream of a country that would always forever be free.'

Draco's father sighed. 'They do not make songs like that anymore. Remember when we sang it with old Regulus Senior, my lady?'

Locking arms, Draco's mother nodded. 'Those were the days, were they not?'

When they finally reached the stadium, the Malfoys had to keep climbing the stairs to the top box – climbing and climbing and climbing forever and -ever – until finally they reached the top of the staircase, where they found themselves in a small box, set at the highest point of the stadium and situated exactly halfway between the golden goal posts. About twenty purple-and-gilt chairs stood in two rows –

And a long line of red heads filled the front row seats.

'You've got to be joking,' snarled Draco's father.

'Are our seats worse than the Weasleys?' snapped Draco. 'Ç'est des conneries!'

'Draco!' hissed Mother. 'French is not to be used as a way to utter profanity!'

'Give me the tickets.' He snatched them from his mother and indeed, Draco and his parents were at the second row, not the first. Draco had assumed the first row was reserved for the most important ministry officials – he had definitely not expected any Weasley scum.

'Boys!' Draco's mother used her Medusa-look on them to get their attention, then straightened her back, looking equally disgusted and dignified. 'Let them have it. We are here to have a good time, and those poor people have nothing else besides this. Let us take pity on the less fortunate.'

Draco and his father snorted in unison.

There was no other option for them but to start making their way to their seats on the second row.

While doing so, Draco's eye fell on something that made him falter: the boy he had been writing with all summer was sitting on the first row as well, in between Weasley and Granger.

Was this what Harry had meant with "I'm going too"? Draco's heart fell; it would have been so much fun to talk about it together. Why hadn't Harry responded?

'Ah, and here's Lucius!' Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, announced their arrival.

At once, Potter, Weasley and the Mudblood all turned around. Staring was rude, Draco'd been taught, and now he knew why. Their stares made him feel on edge.

'Ah, Fudge,' said Draco's father, holding out his hand as he reached the Minister of Magic. 'How are you? I don't think you've met my wife, Narcissa? Or our son, Draco?'

'How do you do, how do you do?' said Fudge, smiling and bowing to Draco's mother.

Draco shook the minister's hand, trying his best to smile. As he did, he heard his father softly talk to Mr. Weasley. 'Good lord, Arthur, what did you have to sell to get seats in the Top Box? Surely your house wouldn't have fetched this much?'

Draco bit his lip to stop himself from sniggering.

Fudge, who wasn't listening, turned to Mr. Weasley as well. 'Lucius has just given a very generous contribution to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Arthur. He's here as my guest.'

Smirking, Father looked aside at Draco, who started to feel like a zoo animal under the continued stares of Potter, Weasley and Granger. Almost unnoticeably, Father tapped underneath his own chin. Draco swiftly straightened his back.

'How – how nice,' said Mr. Weasley, with a very strained smile.

Draco's father nodded sneeringly and they continued down the line to their seats. Draco lost his temper and glared at Weasley and Granger until they finally looked away.

Settling himself safely between his mother and father, Draco felt suddenly glad for their second row seats. At least he didn't have to feel everyone's eyes in his neck. He was going to have a great time, he solemnly resolved.

. . .

Loud noises outside their tent woke him up. It was dark, but his parents were hastily getting dressed.

'What's going on?' asked Draco sleepily.

'Nothing, dear,' said his mother, pulling the blanket over Draco again. 'Your father and I are going to take a walk.'

'Why?'

'I cannot sleep,' said Father cheerfully. 'No need to worry, Dragonchild, we will be back – before morning, probably.'

His mother shot him a look that Draco did not miss, and his father smirked.

'What is that noise?' He tried climbing out of bed, but his father put a stern hand on his shoulder to guide him back in. 'Fireworks. They are having a party.'

Draco's eyes lit up, so Mother quickly added, 'Muggle fireworks. We have Protection spells on the tent, now go back to sleep. Adults need fresh air; children need sleep.'

'We do night walks all the time,' his father claimed.

Draco knew perfectly well that they were lying. He did not care for it, but he also knew from experience they would never tell him if they hadn't already by now – so he climbed back in bed and pretended to be a good lad.

'Good lad,' said his father. 'What do you say we bake banana pancakes tomorrow morning?'

'I would say I want ten,' said Draco. He pretended to yawn, turning his back to them and pulling the blanket over his chin. 'Good night…'

His parents left. Draco waited and listened. The noises outside were certainly not Muggle fireworks. He heard people shouting; it sounded – frightened? He wondered if that was possible.

No, it couldn't, he told himself. His parents would never leave him alone in harm's way.

He heard footsteps – running footsteps, and lots of them. Maybe his parents were assessing the situation. They would come back in a second to take Draco somewhere safer.

His curiosity won over. Quietly getting out of bed, he listened closely if he heard his parents come back. At the opening of the tent he raised his ears.

'We're going to help the Ministry!' someone shouted. A lot of what was said after it got muffled by more bangs and shouts in the distance, but he thought he heard someone say, 'get into the woods, stick together.'

This was definitely not fireworks, and clearly not a situation that called for a casual stroll. Where did his parents run off to?

He decided to get dressed. If his parents got back for him, he reckoned he'd better be prepared to leave.

Sitting on his bed, fully dressed, Draco lost his patience. His parents were not coming to get him out of there, but he had every right to know what was going on.

'Mince,' Draco cursed; they hadn't packed his wand. He had to get out there completely unprotected. Tant pis, he thought, and feeling naked without it, he stepped outside to see what was going on.

People were running away into the woods, fleeing something that was moving across the field toward them, something that was emitting odd flashes of light, and noises like gunfire. Loud jeering, roars of laughter, and drunken yells were drifting toward him.

A crowd of wizards wearing awesome masks, tightly packed and moving together with wands pointing straight upward, was marching slowly across the field. High above them, floating along in midair, four struggling figures were being contorted into grotesque shapes. It was as though the masked wizards on the ground were puppeteers, and the people above them were marionettes operated by invisible strings that rose from the wands into the air.

Draco sniggered. It looked like something aunty Bel might do. Mother was always talking about the ways her sister tried to make everyone laugh with the things she did to take revenge on those horrible Muggles. She'd clearly been a very creative person, before she got send to Azkaban by the current regime.

One summer, Pansy and Draco had done a puppeteer-marionette act that looked exactly like what was happening with these Muggles now. Draco had been the marionette and made everyone laugh. It had been great fun.

More wizards were joining the marching group, laughing and pointing up at the floating bodies. Draco saw the marchers blast tents out of their way with their wands. Several caught fire, so Draco ran towards it. He enjoyed a good fire as much as the next person.

One of the marchers below flipped the Muggle woman upside down with his wand; her night dress fell down to reveal voluminous drawers and she struggled to cover herself up as the crowd below her screeched and hooted with glee. Draco cried from laughing: that was the ugliest underwear he had ever seen.

As the wizards marched past, a hand grabbed his shoulder. 'What did we tell you!' his father boomed.

'You cannot stop me from looking,' Draco snapped back defiantly.

'Mind your mother and stay in the tent!'

'I will only sneak out again. Just go back to your little party. I won't bother you if you don't bother me.

'You cannot be seen here,' his father shouted over the roar of the crowd. 'Get into the forest. Watch from there if you must, but do not let people see you!'

His father pushed him along, away from the march, and sulking, Draco took off.

He wondered where his mother was. Maybe she was walking with the masked wizards and witches. His father had not worn a mask, but he might have taken it off before Draco noticed them.

Draco wished he had a mask too. If he had, he could have joined the fun without being seen. Maybe he could ask one for his birthday.

The coloured lanterns lighting the path to the stadium had been extinguished. Dark figures were stumbling through the trees; children were crying; anxious shouts and panicked voices were reverberating around him in the cold night air. Draco felt himself being pushed hither and thither and quickly grew tired of it, so he strayed off the path and found a shortcut in the dark. Maybe it was because of his light grey eyes, but he never had trouble seeing in the dark.

He arranged himself between the trees, away from the crowd, enabling him to watch the show at the campsite in peace. After a while, the relative quiet was disturbed by noisy footsteps and a low, slow voice he recognized out of thousands. 'Hermione?'

Draco turned and saw the golden trio blundering about. They had strayed from the path too.

He stifled his laughter when Weasley tripped over an absolutely blatant tree root. 'What happened?' said the Mudblood, stopping so abruptly that Harry Potter walked into her. 'Ron, where are you?' she cried helplessly.

Draco had a hard time not to laugh. He leaned against a tree to watch them clown.

'Oh this is stupid – lumos!' said the Mudblood. She illuminated her wand and directed its narrow beam across the path. Weasley was lying sprawled on the ground.

'Tripped over a tree root,' he said angrily, getting to his feet again.

Draco could not contain himself: 'Well, with feet that size, hard not to.'

Granger pointed her wand at him, but it still took them literal seconds to recognize him in the dark. Then, Weasley told him to do something that Draco would never have gotten away with saying at the Manor.

'Language, Weasley,' said Draco. 'Hadn't you better be hurrying along, now? You wouldn't like her spotted, would you?' He nodded at Granger, and at the same moment, a blast like a bomb sounded from the campsite, and a flash of green light momentarily lit the trees around them.

'What's that supposed to mean?' said the Mudblood defiantly; stupidly.

'Granger, they're after Muggles,' said Draco, feeling like a kindergarten teacher. 'Do you want to be showing off your knickers in midair? Because if you do, hang around… they're moving this way, and it would give us all a laugh.'

'Hermione's a witch.'

It was Harry who'd said that. Before Draco could stop himself, he was looking at him. Harry seemed puzzled. It might have been Draco's favourite Potter-look: desperate for Draco's knowledge.

Draco had to force himself not to smile when he said, 'Have it your own way, Potter. If you think they can't spot a Mudblood, stay where you are.'

'You watch your mouth!' shouted the Weasel.

'Never mind, Ron,' said Granger quickly, seizing Weasley's arm to restrain him as he took a step toward Draco.

There came a bang from the other side of the trees. Several people nearby screamed and Draco chuckled softly. 'Scare easily, don't they?' he said lazily.

That bang was Gregory's father's go-to spell to impress people. Draco remembers him and his friends sitting on the Goyle's patio, fingers in their ears, to watch Gregory's father point his wand at random objects to make them fly in the air with unnecessarily ground shaking bangs. It had been the best days of summer.

'Look who's talking,' said Harry.

Draco refused to meet his eye. As if Potter knew anything about what scared Draco.

Watching Ron with his stupid large feet, Draco wondered where the other gingers of the pack had gone. They were such goody two-shoes though, Draco could easily guess the answer. 'I suppose your daddy told you all to hide? What's he up to – trying to rescue the Muggles?'

'Where're your parents?' asked Potter – vulgarly loud. 'Are they out there wearing masks?'

Draco hated the judgement in his voice. As if the Potters, during their sweet, short lives, never enjoyed themselves with something slightly illegal. As if this march was a personal insult to him somehow. Loud bangs, fireworks and cheap, poorly protected tents getting blazed in marvellous bonfires – it was all just ordinary summer fun to Draco. But then The Boy Who Lived came along to spoil it. He hadn't grown up with wizardry; how could he even know how much fun Wizard parties were? They were one hundred percent worth the fines, and outsiders really shouldn't be allowed to have opinions on them anyway, Draco thought. Mother had always told him about the jealousy of the uninvited masses: they snitched.

Reluctantly, Draco turned to face the boy. 'Well… if they were,' he drawled. 'I wouldn't be likely to tell you, would I, Potter?'

The disappointment on Harry's face made Draco flinch. The guy had such great talent for making him feel bad.

'Oh come on,' said Granger with a disgusted look at Draco, 'let's go and find the others.'

'Keep that big bushy head down, Granger,' sneered Draco.

'Come on,' the Mudblood repeated, and she pulled Potter and Weasley up the path again.

Draco watched their backs until they were out of sight and couldn't help but feel resentment. Some part of him wished Harry had stayed with Draco to watch the march. Draco could have told him all about Wizard Parties.

'Bienvenue en Angleterre!'

Draco jumped. The French words sounded angry and sarcastic; Draco's kind of people!

He swaggered up to them, but they seemed distracted and confused, and apparently they didn't even know who was with their group and who wasn't, because they asked him at once if he'd seen someone named Madame Maxim. Laughing on the inside, Draco kept the illusion up and answered them in French. He told them he saw her at the campsite, watching the bonfire. She said it wasn't safe in the forest, Draco told them, and she sent him to lead them to her.

Striding away, he triumphantly noticed the group meekly following him, jabbering on and on about an exchange programme in the upcoming school year, where the best of their seventh-year students would get the chance to play in an adventurous Tournament, with death defying challenges. There was apparently a fortune to win with it too. It sounded exciting and Draco wished that lame bastard Dumbledore would ever organise something like that – or anything for that matter.

Suddenly, right in the middle of their conversation, people started to scream way worse than before. Someone pointed at the forest behind the group, and whirling around, they saw something vast, green and glittering erupting. It flew up over the tree tops and into the sky.

For a split second, Draco thought it was another leprechaun formation like they saw during the Quidditch game. Then he realized that it formed a colossal skull, comprised of what looked like emerald stars, with a serpent protruding from its mouth like a tongue. As they watched, it rose higher and higher, blazing in a haze of greenish smoke, etched against the black sky like a new constellation.

Draco recognized it at once – it was an exact copy of his father's tattoo. He blinked, entirely perplexed, at the sudden appearance of the skull, which had now risen high enough to illuminate the entire grounds like some grisly neon sign.

New sounds made Draco whirl around. The masked wizards were bolting, dropping the Muggles like dead weight. Within seconds the entire vibe had shifted from mischievous excitement to stone cold panic. The group of French students shuffled closer together, and so did Draco, none of them understanding the sudden terror on the campsite.

A voice pierced through the chaos: 'DRACO!'

'DAD!' Tripping over guy-lines and slipping on wet patches of grass, Draco'd started running before he realised.

'DRACO!'

It was like a game of Marco Polo, only with a vague, underlying threat.

'MUM?!'

He bumped into his father when they all turned the corner of a still-standing tent. Before he knew it, he was being suffocated in a smothering family hug. Then, with a faint POP, the noises died down.

Draco looked around, confused. 'What –'

They were back in Wiltshire. His father slammed open the gate to Malfoy Manor and his mother took Draco's hand to tow him along the garden path. 'Inside,' she breathed.

'Good evening, sir, my lady…' The pointed, androgynous face of their soldier ancestor appeared next to them out of the dark forecourt.

'Not now, Geralt,' said Draco's father tensely. He followed at Draco's heel, looking behind them with his fingers piercing into Draco's shoulders.

The bloodied ghost of Geralt Malfoy picked up on the new vibe at once. Snapping to attention, he drew his sword to guard the family's back as they made their way to the Manor.

Huddling at the doorstep, Draco's mother fumbled to unlock the door. Before getting inside, Draco's father told Geralt to report on any suspicious activity from now on.

His parents didn't pay Draco another mind as they started solemnly stepping around the entrance hall, performing spells Draco'd never heard before. They were chanting in a language that Draco didn't recognize. The magic they performed was not taught at Hogwarts or written in any of Draco's books.

In any other situation, Draco would have felt a great urge to make fun of their weird little dance. Now, he quietly sat down at the bench underneath their family portrait. He worried about Harry. All their luggage was still at the campsite, he realised, including the postcard.

Draco's parents stepped backwards until their shoulders touched. Their fingers intertwined and they closed their eyes. Draco watched in awe.

Taking a deep breath, they turned to Draco. 'A cup of tea,' his mother said breathlessly.

Father beckoned Draco and he followed them to the parlour, where Mother rang for tea.

As soon as they sat down, Draco burst out, 'Dad, what was your tattoo doing in the sky? Why did everyone run away from it? Was that what you were looking at when you said you had a weird mole? Why were you lying to me? I knew you were lying.'

Draco's parents exchanged a look. Then, Draco's father unbuttoned his sleeve and rolled it up. Draco got closer and gasped.

For as long as Draco remembered, his dad had a stale, greyish tattoo on his wrist. It had been hardly noticeable. Aunty Bel had the same one, and so had Vincent and Gregory's fathers. It was a matching tattoo they had gotten when they were young; that was at least what they had told their children. Everyone who had a tattoo like that was part of their friend group, a sort of secret club.

Now, the tattoo was not stale anymore. It looked beautiful: deep, shimmering black, and the snake was moving, circling in and out of the skull's mouth.

'It changed,' Draco whispered. 'How did that happen?'

'We do not know,' said his father. 'But it worries us.'

'Why?'

Father took a deep breath. 'Listen closely, Draco. What we are about to tell you is strictly confidential. Do you know what that means?'

'You cannot tell anyone what we are going to tell you,' said his mother. 'Not even Pansy or Vincent or Gregory. It is very important that you keep this a secret. Do you understand?'

Draco nodded. He felt intimidated, but proud. He was good with secrets. He could prove it.

'This tattoo is what we call "the Dark Mark". It is the symbol of the Dark Lord.'

His father paused to allow Draco to let that sink in. Draco didn't understand why. He knew his parents and their friends were big fans of the Dark Lord, so it made sense that their secret club choose his symbol for their tattoo.

'Me, Mr. Goyle, Mr. Crabbe, Aunt Bellatrix…' Father continued, 'we are Death Eaters.'

Death Eaters… Draco had heard the term before. Didn't he read about them in Harry J. Potter's biography?

'Do you know what that means, Draco?' asked his mother.

'They are the followers of the Dark Lord,' Draco remembered.

'They are not simply followers,' said his father, sounding a little offended. 'They are more like an extension of himself. They are his executives, confidants, his sounding board. They are his right arm and his left arm. His eyes, his mind, his tong–'

'Alright, Lucius,' Mother cut in. 'Remember who you are married to.'

Father showed an abashed smirk and took her hand. 'How can I ever forget… We told you about the things Muggles have done to us,' he continued to Draco. 'To us and to our ancestors. When I was young, this made me very angry. It still makes me very angry. In Hogwarts, me and my friends talked about it a lot. Your mother's older sister – your Aunty Bel – introduced us to the Dark Lord. He was capable of great things and we were all in awe of him. There was none so powerful, nor has there ever been anyone as powerful as the Dark Lord. They said he was immortal. They said he could read minds like no other.' Father's eyes lit up. 'I have seen him do it. He could use Legilimency to torture people. Remember, my lady?' He snorted. 'Old Dorky Meadowes? How he so marvellously –…'

Fondly, Draco's mother shook her head. 'Lucius…'

'Right,' his father said. 'I digress… Back when I was at Hogwarts, there was talk of a secret society, filled with people whose ideals aligned perfectly with those of me and my friends; other people who did not agree with the way Wizards are forced to hide away, who were organizing to set things right. Me and my friends all wanted to join, to help with the good cause, but Bellatrix was the first to succeed. When she showed us her Dark Mark we were all green with envy. Within weeks, she managed to get me and my friends accepted to join the Dark Lord's inner circle too. We all received the Dark Mark from him personally. We became Death Eaters.' His face glowed with pride and Draco's mother kissed his cheek.

Draco didn't understand. 'Then why are you so scared of it?'

'Let your father finish,' his mother said. She squeezed his father's hand.

'The Dark Lord's powers did not disappoint,' Father continued. 'He kept every promise he had made when we joined, it was unbelievable. Me and my friends got front row views of all the marvels he accomplished. To top it all off, he choose me to be his second in command, the greatest honour one could receive. It was the best time of my life. Like me, he was a strategist, and like me, he was not scared of getting what he wanted – what we all wanted – or to use any means necessary to get it. Him and me, we made a great team. Everything I know, I learnt from him. However…'

Wringing his hands, the pride on father's face faded into worry.

'The longer we joined him and the more power the Dark Lord gained, it became more and more clear that he did not care much for his followers. He could get very angry, and then he would torture people he had honoured only moments before. Even Bellatrix could not always escape his torture. It became clear that he deemed everyone in his inner circle replaceable, even Bellatrix – even me…'

Again, Draco's parents shared a look. Mother inched closer to father, who wrapped his arm around her waist and took a breath.

'Gradually, me and the other Death Eaters were merely fighting to survive. We kept our heads down and hoped for the best. We still believed in the cause – as we do to this day – and we kept fighting for it… but we avoided the Dark Lord as much as we could. In the end it became evident that his closest followers were no safer from him than his enemies. We were all equally terrified.'

'You have to understand, Draco,' Mother said, 'every time I got home, I would scan the sky, terrified to see the Dark Mark shining over our house. Your father could be killed by the Dark Lord for any reason, I might not even find out why. I would see the Dark Mark and know that – that my husband…'

Draco's father pressed a kiss on Mother's hand.

'The Dark Lord and the Death Eaters sent the Dark Mark into the air whenever they killed someone,' he explained. 'When you saw the Dark Mark, everyone knew what they would find underneath it.'

'The terror it inspired,' his mother's voice trembled. 'You have no idea, you are too young. Just picture coming home and finding the Dark Mark hovering over our Manor, and knowing what you are about to find inside…' Mother winced.

Father nodded. 'At the time, I had not noticed it so much. The fear grew gradually, silently, but the moment the news of his death arrived, it felt like a curtain was lifted, a light had switched on. The terror that gradually darkened our lives had vanished.'

'And that, Draconius, is why we got so scared tonight. Seeing the Dark Mark brought back all of these memories, and it – it reinforced our fear…'

'First my tattoo came back to life, now the Dark Mark appeared in the sky…' Father took a breath. 'We fear the Dark Lord has returned.'

Draco's mouth fell open.

'We want you to at least be prepared for the possibility,' said his mother.

'But he is dead. Harry Potter killed him. Three times.'

'They said he found a way to be immortal,' said Father.

'People have always been afraid he would come back,' said Mother. 'Aunty Bel certainly never lost hope.'

'And when he comes back,' said Father, 'he might not be so pleased with us. He might give us a – er – tricky time.'

'Why?' Draco asked.

'Oh, a combination of factors. For starters, after he vanished, we betrayed him. We told everyone that we did not voluntarily follow him; that we were under the influence of a spell and that he had forced us to do the things we did.'

'That is ridiculous,' Draco snarled. 'Everyone did that. What would he think you would do? Land yourself in Azkaban?'

'We do not think he cares about our reasons,' said Mother. 'He would rather have us in Azkaban than to have betrayed him.'

'And what is more,' his father continued, 'last year, I executed his plan to open the Chamber of Secret unauthorized. I was supposed to only do that when he ordered me to, but I did not believe in his immortality, and the Ministry was raiding our house for dark artefacts. We had to get rid of it somehow, and I did not trust he would return, so I planted it on the Weasley girl. The Dark Lord trusted only me with it, and I – I allowed your friend Harry J. Potter to destroy it.'

It took Draco a while to let this information sink in.

'This will make the Dark Lord very angry with us.'

Harry Potter had destroyed something that would make the Dark Lord very angry with Draco's family. This explained why Father had been so furious at Potter, Draco reckoned. He wondered why his father never told him anything about it. If he'd known about his father's plan during second year, it would have been way cooler. He could have helped.

Before he could ask, his father continued.

'The last reason we are scared of the Dark Lord's return is the most important one.' He took one of Draco's hands, and Draco's mother took the other. 'During the Golden Days we had only ourselves to care for, but receiving the miraculous gift of a fragile, new life changed us.' Father grabbed Draco's chin. 'You changed us, Dragon-child. We stopped caring as much as we did about the state of the world. We still want it to change, but not at all costs… To know that the Dark Lord will have power over you, frightens us to no end.'

Draco felt a little cold all of a sudden. He'd never seen his father scared about anything.

'We will get through this,' his mother promised.

'I will not allow you or your mother to get in harm's way.'

'At Hogwarts you will be perfectly safe,' said his mother with a brave smile.

'There is nothing to worry about, as long as you mind us. We are still Purebloods, we are still one of his most loyal followers –'

'And we have Aunty Bel to protect us. If there was anyone the Dark Lord listened to, it was her.'

'So do not worry, Draconius.'

'You are perfectly safe.'

Draco let himself be comforted. He believed his parents, and not just because he wanted to. He'd seen them perform that spell just now. They had found him at the campsite and pulled him away in seconds. They had gotten him into the Quidditch Team and almost killed a hippogriff for him.

Draco would be perfectly safe.

. . .

At the Hogwarts Express back to school, Draco told Vincent and Gregory all about what happened at the campsite. What was way more interesting though, was the things he'd heard the Beauxbatons students talking about. Vincent said he listened in on his father talking about Durmstrang students coming to Hogwarts.

'Father actually considered sending me to Durmstrang rather than Hogwarts, you know,' Draco told them. 'He knows the headmaster, you see. Well, you know his opinion of Dumbledore – the man's such a Mudblood-lover – and Durmstrang doesn't admit that sort of riffraff. But Mother didn't like the idea of me going to school so far away. Father says Durmstrang takes a far more sensible line than Hogwarts about the Dark Arts. Durmstrang students actually learn them, not just the defence rubbish we do.'

Vincent and Gregory nodded. After seeing the things Gregory's father could do, and seeing the magic Draco's parents performed, Draco's interest in the Dark Arts had only grown stronger. His father always told him that the Dark Arts were the most powerful form of Magic. Draco reckoned that if you're bothering to learn Magic, then why not at least learn the most powerful form?

'But how was the game?' asked Gregory breathlessly. 'I heard Krum did a backflip.'

Draco snorted, before starting off on a magnificently detailed account of the match. He had practiced this speech ever since he saw the match, and even while watching it. Vincent and Gregory were his favourite audience: they gasped at the right times, laughed easily and listened without any interruption.

'Then he did something like this, look at me –' Draco was standing up to re-enact the Bulgarians' fifth goal, when he heard a hoarse, low voice coming from the compartment next to them.

'Moran scored six times,' Harry Potter said. 'The third was amazing.'

Draco fell silent.

'Did you see Krum do a kickflip?' said Longbottom's dumb voice.

'Oh yeah, loads!' Draco heard Weasley boast. 'Look, Neville!'

Cutting his report short, Draco nudged his friends to follow him.

'We saw him right up close, as well,' said Ron. 'We were in the Top Box –'

'For the first and last time in your life, Weasley.'

Draco had slid open the compartment door, which Longbottom had left ajar. He took in the compartment; chaos reigned wherever the Weasleys went. As usual, Potter and Weasley had candy scattered on every surface, suitcases lying open on the couches, there was a live animal in a cage and –

'How nice of you to join us, Draco,' said Harry, but Draco hardly heard. 'Weasley… what is that?'

A sleeve with mouldy lace cuff was dangling from a cage with a hyperactive owl in it, swaying with the motion of the train. Weasley made to stuff the robes out of sight, but Draco already seized the sleeve and pulled.

'Look at this!' he yelled in ecstasy, holding up Weasley's robes and showing Crabbe and Goyle, 'Weasley, you weren't thinking of wearing these, were you? I mean – they were very fashionable in about eighteen-ninety…'

'Eat dung, Malfoy!' said Weasley, the same colour as the dress robes, as he snatched them back out of Draco's grip.

Draco and his friends had to hold on to each other from laughing. Wiping away tears of mirth, Draco breathed out and asked, 'So… going to enter, Weasley? Going to try and bring a bit of glory to the family name? There's money involved as well, you know… You'd be able to afford some decent robes if you won…'

'What are you talking about?' snapped Weasley.

'Are you going to enter?' Draco repeated slowly, suspecting that the Weasleys weren't important enough to be in the know of whatever exciting thing was going to happen this year at Hogwarts.

And indeed, Weasley looked angry, but confused.

Draco let his eyes wander over to Harry Potter, bracing himself to stay cool. 'I suppose you will, Potter? You never miss a chance to show off, do you?'

Harry's eyes started sparkling as if he was about to say something witty.

'Either explain what you're on about or go away, Draco,' interrupted the Mudblood over the top of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4.

A gleeful smile spread across Draco's pale face. 'Don't tell me you don't know?' he said delightedly. 'Weasley, you've got a father and brother at the Ministry and you don't even know? My God, my father told me about it ages ago… heard it from Cornelius Fudge. But then, Father's always associated with the top People at the Ministry… Maybe your father's too junior to know about it, Weasley… They probably don't talk about important stuff in front of him.'

Laughing once more, Draco beckoned to Vincent and Gregory, and the three of them disappeared.

Behind them, he heard the sliding compartment door slam shut so hard that the glass shattered. Draco shared a satisfied grin with his friends.

. . .

Before they knew it, the school year had started, and they got dragged down in the rut of things faster than you could say "mundane". The only thing breaking the cycle of lessons and homework, were friends and memories of writing with Boys Who Lived.

'Do you think he knows?' Draco draped himself over Pansy's lap.

She was painting her nails in one of the secluded alcoves along the Common Room window. 'Who knows what?'

'Potter,' Draco snarled, considering his next words carefully. 'About... my heart.'

Pansy snorted derisively. 'I do not think about him at all.'

She stroked Draco's face while blowing on her nail polish. If Draco could purr, he would.

'You do, don't lie… There is nothing else going on in your life.'

Painting the nails of her other hand, Pansy tried very hard not to smirk. 'Alright, fine… I don't think he knows. If he knows, he is even more of a jerk than I thought.'

Draco bolted upright. 'You're wrong, you know.'

She looked Draco straight in the eye. 'He dropped you the first chance he got. Out of sight, out of mind, you were. He likes Ron Weasley better than you, and you know it. We all know it.'

Gasping, Draco clutched his heart. 'Hey, could you watch where you put those knives.'

She just shrugged, carefully painting her nail.

Not wanting to hear her words couldn't deny the fact that Draco knew they were true. He told himself he was okay with it, that he had known this was going to happen when he started writing with Harry Potter, and that he had been totally prepared to be dropped like a stone. Sometimes he even fooled himself well enough to put his many emotions in check for a while.

This was not one of those moments. The next day they had Care of Magical Creatures, a class they shared with Gryffindor.

'I'm considering quitting school,' he pondered. 'My parents always preferred Beauxbatons or Durmstrang anyway.'

Pansy smirked. 'Or… you could just slip some arsenic in his morning tea.'

Draco considered it, but scowled. 'It will only turn that rotten ginger into a martyr.'

Pansy sighed. 'I meant Potter's tea, you oaf.'

Draco fell off the alcove. It took him a solid ten seconds to recover from shock.

'Hey,' said Pansy without looking up from her toe nails, 'this might be a radical notion, but… why don't you go up and talk to the guy? You talked all summer, why not now?'

Draco crossed his arms. 'I told you, he doesn't reply.'

'In real life, dumbass. You are in the same building now, there's no need for postcards.'

Draco looked away, muttering, 'Well, he could come to me.'

'That's the spirit.'

'Do mine,' Draco ordered from his position on the floor, sticking out his hand so Pansy could paint his nails a sparkly deep purple.

He leant his head on her knee like a lapdog and closed his eyes.

'Witches sisters, witches sisters,' Pansy whispered. Chanting this meant they would be friends forever. Thus far it worked.

. . .

The ever so honourable Gryffindors were all perfectly on time when the Slytherins swaggered up to Hagrid's hut the next day. At once, Draco's eyes were drawn to the messy black head standing between the bushy Mudblood and the ginger monkey. He looked away as soon as he caught himself doing it. Draco was cool, totally cool. Or he could try to be.

They arrived to several open wooden crates on the ground. 'Eurgh!' squealed Lavender Brown, jumping backward from one of them.

'Eurgh' just about summed up the Blast-Ended Skrewts, as Hagrid called the nasty creatures inside. They looked like deformed, shell-less lobsters, horribly pale and slimy-looking, with legs sticking out in very odd places and no visible heads. There were about a hundred of them in each crate, each about six inches long, crawling over one another, bumping blindly into the sides of the boxes. They were giving off a very powerful smell of rotting fish. Every now and then, sparks would fly out of the end of a skrewt, and with a small phut, it would be propelled forward several inches.

'On'y jus' hatched,' said Hagrid proudly, 'so yeh'll be able ter raise 'em yerselves! Thought we'd make a bit of a project of it!'

'And why would we want to raise them?' Draco asked coldly.

Vincent and Gregory were chuckling appreciatively at his words, as were some of his other classmates. Noting the meekness of the laughter, Draco concluded that Pansy was late today.

Hagrid looked stumped at his question.

'I mean, what do they do?' asked Draco impatiently. 'What is the point of them?'

Hagrid opened his mouth, apparently thinking hard, Draco could almost hear the gears in his mind screeching. Then he said roughly, 'Tha's next lesson, Draco. Yer jus' feedin' 'em today.'

Draco looked round at Crabbe and Goyle to roll his eyes. He wished the man had been sacked last year, it would have saved everyone a lot of misery.

'The females've got sorta sucker things on their bellies,' Hagrid went on. 'I think they might be ter suck blood.'

'Well, I can certainly see why we're trying to keep them alive,' said Draco. 'Who wouldn't want pets that can burn, sting, and bite all at once?'

So far, so good, Draco reckoned as he realised he hadn't even been thinking about The Boy Who Lived since class started. Maybe he should be grateful for those nasty creatures demanding all his attention. Maybe he actually could manage to go two hours in the presence of Harry Potter without even seeing him.

He was glad Harry mostly kept quiet during classes. If he hadn't, Draco probably would've had to put his fingers in his ears to block him out. There was no way he could hear Harry say things and ignore him.

. . .

Draco almost spat out his afternoon tea. 'Oh Merlin, look at this,' he jeered, showing Vincent and Gregory an article in the Evening Prophet about Weasley's father.

It said he had been running after garbage bins.

'Can you imagine that. Filthy scum...'

Next to the article was a photo of Mr. and Mrs. Weasley in front of their "house". It resembled a bunch of boxes stacked on top of each other by a half-witted giant. It appeared to come crashing down any second.

'Stupid Weasleys. Wait 'till he sees this,' Draco sneered.

They took the newspaper with them that night for dinner. The Entrance Hall was packed with people queuing for dinner, but Draco kept craning his neck to look over the crowd. Plenty of red heads, but none of them the right one.

'There,' said Vincent, nudging Draco so he almost toppled over.

Draco shared a grin with his friends before shouting, 'Weasley! Hey, Weasley!'

Weasley, Potter and Granger all turned as one, like a three headed monster.

'What?' said Weasley shortly.

'Your dad's in the paper, Weasley!' said Draco, brandishing the Daily Prophet and speaking very loudly, so that everyone in the packed Entrance Hall could hear. 'Listen to this!'

He started reading the article about Mr. Weasley, who had responded to a false emergency call made by their new Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, Moody.

'Arnold Weasley,' he read aloud, and he looked up. 'Imagine them not even getting his name right, Weasley. It's almost as though he's a complete nonentity, isn't it?'

Everyone in the Entrance Hall was listening now. Draco straightened the paper with a flourish and read on.

'Arnold Weasley, who was charged with possession of a flying car two years ago, was yesterday involved in a tussle,' Draco could hardly contain his laughter, 'with several Muggle law-keepers ("policemen") over a number of –' Draco laughed '– a number of –' He wiped away tears of laughter ' – highly aggressive dust bins!'

His friends were rolling on the floor laughing.

'And there's a picture, Weasley!' Draco crowed, flipping the paper over and holding it up. 'A picture of your parents outside their house – if you can call it a house! Your mother could do with losing a bit of weight, couldn't she?'

Everyone was staring at Weasley, who seemed to be shaking with anger. It felt incredibly gratifying to Draco how easy it was to push the boy's buttons.

Suddenly, Harry Potter stepped in front of his Weasel. 'Seriously, Draco, who hurt you?' he said. 'C'mon, Ron…'

Before he could think, Draco had jumped up. 'Oh yeah! You were staying with them this summer, weren't you, Potter?' he sneered. 'So tell me, is his mother really that porky, or is it just the picture?'

Harry stared at him, looking confused, but Weasley launched himself at Draco. As Crabbe and Goyle stepped forward, Potter and Granger grabbed the back of Weasley's robes.

A double dose of anger had replaced Harry's confusion. 'You know your mother, Malfoy?' he roared. 'That expression she's got, like she's got dung under her nose? Has she always looked like that, or was it just because you were with her?'

Draco felt a furious heat rise to his face. 'Don't you dare insult my mother, Potter.'

'Then for once keep your fat mouth shut,' said Harry, looking daggers.

As he turned away, a white hot feeling of frustration surged through Draco – and before he could think, he had fired a jinx at The Boy Who Abandoned Draco Malfoy To Be With A Bleeding Weasley.

BANG!

Several people screamed, and Draco flinched when his jinx scraped Harry's face. He wanted to bolt, but couldn't drag his eyes away.

Slowly, Harry turned around. The look on his face made the floor seem to crumble underneath Draco's feet. The boy looked utterly betrayed.

There was a second loud BANG and immediately a wild feeling of curtailment boiled under Draco's skin. Panicking, he noticed his body shrinking quickly. Within seconds, he was on all fours, on the tiles of the Entrance Hall, looking at the points of people's shoes. Terrified ,he tried to look at himself, but the only thing he saw was fur. FUR!

There was not time to even process this, as a roar echoed through the Entrance Hall. 'OH NO YOU DON'T, LADDIE!'

Professor Moody limped down the marble staircase. His wand was out and it was pointing right at Draco, shivering on the stone-flagged floor.

Draco looked up at his friends in helpless terror, but only saw his own fright and revolt mirrored on their faces.

Moody started to limp toward Draco, who gave a terrified squeak and took off, streaking toward the dungeons.

'I don't think so!' roared the professor.

Draco felt himself being lifted from the floor. Screaming in fear, his weird little limbs tried to clutch onto something, anything, but found only air. He had no control, finding himself flying through the Entrance Hall like a puppet on a string. When the spell broke, it left Draco to fall from ten feet high and land with a smack to the floor, only to be lifted into the air once more before he could even breathe.

'NO!' Someone screamed. 'Stop!' The voice broke. Harry's voice, Draco realised through a haze of panic.

Being bounced to the hard stone floor and back up in the air again, Draco heard himself squeal in terror, all the while still trying helplessly to regain some control.

'I don't like people who attack when their opponent's back's turned,' growled Moody. 'Stinking, cowardly, scummy thing to do…'

'Turn him back!'

Every inch of Draco's body hurt. His skin bruised, his bones snapped, his head hit the floor with a terrifying blow.

'There's no need for this!' Potter bellowed. 'Turn him back!'

'Never – do – that – again –' said Moody, speaking each word as Draco hit the stone floor and bounced upward again.

With each drop, Draco was convinced he'd die.

'EXPELLIARMUS!'

Draco fell to the floor once more, but this time he was allowed to remain there. For a few seconds, he closed his eyes to recover and regain consciousness.

'Professor Moody!' said a shocked voice.

Draco opened his eyes to see Professor McGonagall coming down the marble staircase with her arms full of books.

'Hello, Professor McGonagall,' said Moody calmly.

With Moody's back turned, Draco saw his chance and ran in the direction of the Dungeons. People jumped away from him, but before he knew it, he was pulled back again by a magical force.

'What – what are you doing?' said Professor McGonagall.

'Teaching,' said Moody.

'Teach– Moody, is that a student?' shrieked Professor McGonagall, the books spilling out of her arms.

'Yep,' said Moody.

'No!' cried Professor McGonagall.

As quickly as he had shrunk, Draco was growing again. Upwards he shot, until he was his own size again. The fur retreated, then vanished completely.

Everyone in the Entrance Hall – the entire school – was staring at him, as he lay in a heap on the floor.

Quickly, he got to his feet, wincing, but trying to straighten his back anyway. It hurt every inch of his body and black spots appeared before his eyes.

'Moody, we never use Transfiguration as a punishment!' said Professor McGonagall. 'Surely Professor Dumbledore told you that?'

'He might've mentioned it, yeah,' said Moody, 'but I thought a good sharp shock –'

'We give detentions, Moody! Or speak to the offender's Head of House!'

'I'll do that, then,' said Moody, staring at Draco with great dislike.

Hardly able to see through tears of pain and humiliation, Draco forced himself to look up at Moody malevolently. 'Wait until my father hears about this,' he muttered. It was hard to make himself heard while trying to hide the fact that he lost a tooth.

'Oh yeah?' said Moody quietly, limping forward a few steps, the dull clunk of his wooden leg echoing around the hall.

Draco refused to show fear and stood his ground.

'Well, I know your father of old, boy… You tell him Moody's keeping a close eye on his son… you tell him that from me… Now, your Head of House'll be Snape, will it?'

'Yes,' said Draco.

'Another old friend,' growled Moody. 'I've been looking forward to a chat with old Snape… Come on, you…'

As if Snape would choose Moody's side on this, Draco thought, feeling a little better as he imagined Snape's fury.

Professor Moody seized Draco's upper arm – pain seared through Draco's body – and marched him off toward the dungeons.

As soon as they were out of sight from the people in the Entrance Hall, Draco allowed himself to pass out.

. . .

When he woke up, he was in his own bed, surrounded by his three friends and Professor Snape. His head was throbbing, and so were most parts of his body. His eyes felt heavy; opening them took more effort than he thought was possible.

Snape was chanting a spell while slowly going over Draco's body with his wand.

Judging from Crabbe and Goyle's faces, Draco would not have been surprised to find out Moody got beaten to death the next morning. He hoped so.

Pansy shrieked when she saw him opening his eyes, but Snape put up his hand when she wanted to hug Draco. She looked like it physically pained her to restrain herself.

They were all awfully quiet. No shouting or crying from Pansy, no grunting and grumbling from Vincent and Gregory, no reprimanding snarls from Snape – it had to be really bad.

Draco felt incredibly tired, falling in and out of sleep every other second.

Snape's wand reached Draco's toes and with a last intricate wave he put it down on the nightstand, next to Harry and Draco's postcard, a basket of fruit from the house elves, and a little bottle, which Snape picked up now. He put a hand under Draco's neck. 'Drink.'

It tasted heavily of candy cotton, probably to unsuccessfully mask the foul taste underneath it. Draco thought he deserved a darn applause for drinking it all.

Within seconds he drifted off into a deep, deep sleep.

. . .

When he woke up, Pansy was wrapped around him. Draco's enormous yawn woke her up too.

'Are you alright?' she asked before even blinking. 'Snape said you had 28 fractures, a concussion and a cracked skull. Was it very scary? Did you dream about it? I did. You look very bad, Draconius. Did you have near-death experience? Almost all of your body was black and blue yesterday; you had bruises that were literally black. Bruises as big as my hand. I really thought you would die.'

'Malfoys do not die,' Draco breathed with effort. 'We pass on.'

She didn't even crack him a smile. '"Nobody dies of bruises", said Snape, but you know my opinion on him.'

Draco knew.

Pansy dropped her head on his chest. 'I hate people. I hate them so much. I hate everyone in this entire school. Every single one of them. Name one. I hate them.'

Draco had trouble breathing, but he had no trouble listening. 'Tell me.'

'I hate Weasley for being so uptight and overreacting; blowing this whole thing out of proportion. I hate all the Weasleys for being so incredibly bad at life: for owning such a revolting home and being poor and then being bitter about it, as if they didn't simply choose to live like that. You don't have to get a child every year; you don't have to keep the same sucky job; you don't have to be a stay-at-home mom. It's infuriating.' She growled and went on: 'I hate Harry Potter for hurting you all the time. I hate everyone who says I'm in love with you, only because I cried so much and stayed here for almost twenty-four hours. I hate Dumbledore for allowing Moody to keep teaching here after what he did to you. I hate Snape and your parents for being too scared to get him fired or to protest at least. They were down to kill for a single cut, but 28 fractures are not enough to fire Moody?' She sighed like she came up for air. 'Do you think I'm in love with you?'

'No,' he snarled.

Her tiny body felt like a ton of bricks on his painful skin. Still, it was nice.

'I might be,' she whispered.

He tried to look at her, but it hurt too much.

'I'm always thinking about you. When you're hurt, I'm hurt. I hate Potter, absolutely hate him, even before I had a proper reason.'

Draco did not know what to say to that.

Pansy sighed. 'But it feels weird to think about kissing you. I would prefer not to. Maybe I'm broken.'

Draco laughed. It hurt. He felt around for Pansy's hand. 'You're the least broken person I know, Pansington. Everyone else sucks.'

'Would it be okay?' she asked softly. 'If I was in love with you?'

Draco took a painful breath. 'Knock yourself out… I'm not into you though.'

'Oh.' She sat up. 'See? I don't mind!'

'Ssh…' Her shrieking voice resounded in his hurting head.

'I don't think I'm in love with you,' she whispered.

'Stupid girl… You let the bastards mess with your head.'

She sighed. 'Merlin, I hate people.'

For a long time, they were quiet.

'Except…' Pansy's voice trailed off.

Recognizing a secret when he heard one, Draco's ears pricked up. 'Except?'

'I… I saw a girl in the library, a bloody Ravenclaw, but I –' Pansy played with the button on Draco's shirt. 'She looked like there was never a single bad thought in her head, ever. Do you think that's possible?'

'Boring,' uttered Draco, and Pansy fell silent. He wanted to rip out his tongue: just as she was about to tell her a secret, he found it necessary to scoff at her!

'She said she liked my nose.' Pansy's voice sounded far away, as if her mind was elsewhere. 'Can you believe it?'

'I like your nose too.'

'No, you think it looks funny. This girl just liked it.'

Draco couldn't wrap his head around it. This girl saw Pansy in the library and told her she liked her nose? 'Tell me everything.'

Pansy rolled on her back to look at the ceiling, like Draco.

'I'd never seen her before,' she said. 'I found her at the Herbology section in the library. She wasn't wearing any shoes – and when she saw me looking, she smiled. Just… randomly smiled. She looked somehow… hazy, as if she didn't belong… here – in this world. Do you think she's half… something?'

'I bet her other half is something too,' Draco couldn't help but jeer, even though it drained all energy from his body and hurt every inch of his chest.

Pansy straight-up ignored it. 'I think she's part Fae; her hair was long and I swear, it looked literally golden –'

Sounded to Draco like someone had a crush. He knew better than to tell her though. He could still distinctly remember the last time someone tried to kill him, as if it were yesterday. Oh right; it was yesterday.

'I asked her why she smiled –'

'As one does,' Draco teased. He stopped laughing when a jet of pain shot through his body.

' – And that's when she said she liked my nose. I thought she was laughing at me, but then she said –' Draco could hear the smile in his friend's voice, ' – she thought it looks like a daisy. "An absolute daisy," she said.'

Draco started laughing, even the pain couldn't stop him this time. 'A – a nose like a d-daisy? How?'

'I have no idea…' Pansy sounded utterly mystified.

Draco desperately wanted to see this Fae-girl who had befuddled his friend, who went about smiling randomly at people and compared human features to vegetation.

'What time is it?' he demanded, trying to heave himself upright. 'Twenty-four hours, you said?'

'Snape said you could wake up after twelve hours, so I skipped classes to stay with you. It was nice, I could catch up on my sleep and I read your silly vampire books.'

'Not silly,' grumbled Draco.

It was a ordeal to get up. His bones seemed to be healed and he didn't spot any bruises, but he felt sore anyway. Sore and tired. His muscles ached as if he'd been exercising for hours on end.

At last he was sitting up, and he swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

'Draconius Malfonius, what do we think we are doing?'

He had to catch his breath. 'Did Potter –'

'No!' snapped Pansy. 'They all think you're perfectly fine after what Moody did to you. Scumbags, the lot of them!'

'Ssh… Potter saved me, you know. Did you see him? I bet he looked awfully impressive.'

Pansy made a disgruntled sound. It meant yes.

Draco squealed a bit, then took another breath. 'Did I miss dinner?'

'I can bring you dinner, darling.'

'I'm fine, Parky. Malf–' gasping for air, he clutched his ribs ' – ohh… Malfoys bounce back… Help me stand.' He wanted to see Potter, show him he was strong and resilient and perfectly fine. 'And point out the Fae.'

'Never. You'll ruin her.'

Draco laughed. No doubt he would.