The Canon in Draconis Major series:

1. Draco Malfoy and the Boy Who Lived
2. Draco Malfoy and the Bane of Slytherin
3. (in progress)
4. (in development)
5. (in development)
6. (in development)
7. (in development)
8. (in development)

A/N: Welcome, or more likely, welcome back! If you haven't read Draco Malfoy and the Boy Who Lived, you've just arrived at the sequel. It will cover Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets from Draco Malfoy's point of view.

All of my series notes in the first chapter of Draco Malfoy and the Boy Who Lived still apply here. The only thing really to add is that while I'm keeping this rated T, the language will be slightly stronger in this fic. Draco is a twelve-year-old boy at a boarding school, and plays on a sports team with older boys. He's going to be hearing (and picking up) some swears.

Chapter 1: Dobby's Loophole

A/N: Draco is not on his best behaviour in this chapter. Here's a content warning for some house-elf abuse.

Just like every other day so far of the summer holiday, Draco sulked in boredom.

He'd chosen the terrace to be where he did so today. His chamber was too warm to stay inside, and he didn't much care to ask his father about cooling it down for him. That would break the streak going on three days now where Draco hadn't spoken to him.

"Oh, here you are, darling."

Draco moodily glanced back at his mum from the daybed he sat on. Mum was still in the clothes she'd worn to the tea she went to at Crabbe's house. Draco's cheeks grew heavier as Mum carded her fingers through his hair.

"Are you still upset you couldn't come?" Mum asked. "You know, there's a fairly easy way to no longer be grounded."

Draco shrugged. He didn't want to apologize to Father.

Mum sighed. "Are you not talking to me either, now?"

"This isn't fair."

"You can't expect to disrespect your father and not see any consequences. How's that fair?"

Draco shrugged again, slumping further down with crossed arms.

"I wish you would just say you're sorry." Mum's voice softened. "I hate seeing you two not get along. Do you know how much I would give to be able to talk to my father?"

"He can't be nasty to you anymore, like Father's been to me."

Mum scoffed. "If you believe this is your father being nasty to you, then it is only so clear how good you have it, my little son."

"I have nothing to do but read my school books." Draco grew heated. "I have nowhere to go. I can't fly my broom. I can't have my wand."

"That is no one's fault but your own. You ought to have minded your tongue."

"It's not fair!" Draco snapped, standing up. "I don't need to study! I wouldn't have minded doing it if it made you and Father feel better, but why won't he let Higgs train me this summer before he goes off to try for professional teams?"

"There are more important things in life than Quidditch." His mum's voice remained even. "You had a year of training from Terence anyway, and you'll be back to it come September. That's the point of Quidditch practice, is it not? Or have things changed that drastically since I was at Hogwarts?"

Draco crossed his arms again, looking away from her with a scowl.

"Your father wants to see you, anyway." Mum sighed. "You really ought to just apologize, Draco. Even if you don't feel ready, it would make your father feel a lot better. He's under enough stress right now without being in a silly fight with you."

"I don't care."

That just made Mum look sad. "Your father's up in your grandfather's old chamber. Go see him."

She went inside. Draco waited a little while longer, just in case his stirred annoyance might wane. It still existed as a knot in his lower stomach when he headed up to the second floor.

At the top of the eastern staircase, he could hear his father thumping around through the wall. Draco leaned against the chamber door frame. His father went along one of the bookshelves, pulling books off one by one and flipping through them as though searching for something. Vega accompanied him here as well. Now a year old and having lived at Malfoy Manor for half his life, Vega had more confidence than curiosity to him as he poked his beak along the floor. Draco could almost hear his grandfather's roar of disgust, to know there was a peacock strutting about his old domain.

"Mum said you wanted to see me," Draco loudly said.

It served the purpose of startling his father. Draco suppressed a smirk with pinched cheeks when Father turned around.

Father's shoulders relaxed, although his expression remained stiff. "I do. Come in."

Draco stayed put. "What is it? I was busy reading up on Levitation Charms, you know. Apparently I'm very stupid."

"Nobody said—" Father closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I just need to ask you something."

"Go on, then."

"Have you taken anything out of this room?"

Draco's stomach dropped, but he hid his fleeting panic behind a furrowed brow. "It's been locked since Grandfather died."

"Well, perhaps recently you might have, now I've unlocked it to start going through his things." Father set the old tome he held on Grandfather's desk and came around to the front of it. "You haven't been in here at all?"

Draco shook his head, completely honest to that fact. "I haven't been in here since the last time I visited Grandfather."

Father nodded mindlessly, gaze wandering. He looked worried for a moment. Draco felt concerned about him before remembering that he was angry at his father right now.

"Why?" Draco asked. "What're you looking for?"

"Just a book."

Draco already suspected that, based on the fact he had taken something out of this room about a year ago. "What sort of book?"

Father raised an eyebrow at him.

"In case I see it around." Draco shrugged. "Is it something to do with the Ministry raids?"

"Partially, yes." Father idly straightened a flat and worn piece of parchment on Grandfather's old desk. "The Ministry has decided to insert itself into the matters of private homes. The amount of family history we're going to have to part with to avoid trouble. . ."

Father trailed off, jaw set. Draco bowed his head while his mind raced. Would the Ministry be interested in Tom's diary? Why? It wasn't dangerous. He was just a boy—and the only one in this house currently providing a sympathetic ear to Draco.

"Is the book family history, then?" Draco asked.

"Not particularly," Father said, and Draco wasn't sure he should be surprised that he lied. "Your grandfather told me last summer that he'd kept it under a false bottom in his desk drawer. Some sweets were in there. I thought perhaps you'd happened upon it while looking for those."

"A false bottom?" Draco feigned innocence.

"It says 1943 on the cover, anyway." Father cleared his throat. "I don't think it would harm you if you touched it, but perhaps you shouldn't, regardless. Just let me know if you happen to see it."

"Are you selling it?"

"It needs to be destroyed, actually."

Draco's eyes widened at that, but luckily Father happened to look down at Vega when he squawked imploringly for one of the pellets in his pocket.

"I'll tell you if I see it, then." Draco pushed off the door frame with his shoulder.

Heart rate elevated, Draco released a puff of air on his way along the gallery to his own chamber. He tried to reconcile what his father just said to what his own experience had been with Tom's diary over the last year. Father said it wasn't part of their family history. Maybe Father didn't lie—maybe he just didn't know the truth. Grandfather could have lied to him, but what would the point be? Father would know otherwise if he'd ever asked Tom himself.

Draco closed his chamber door and headed for his bedroom. He came to a stop in the doorway, along with his breath. While he stared inside, massive green eyes looked guiltily back at him.

"Dobby," Draco finally spoke once his shock wore off. "What are you doing?"

Draco's bedside table was open. Dobby stood beside it. Tom's diary was in his hands. Dobby shifted on his feet, and the chest of his pillowcase rapidly rose and fell.

"Dobby begs your forgiveness, Young Master," Dobby squeaked. "The Master has beens looking for this. It is a very dangerous artefacts, and he must be gettings rid of it."

"He will not get rid of it." Draco stomped across the room toward Dobby and put his hand out. "You give that to me right now."

Dobby's hands shook more than the rest of him. "You don'ts understand. It's very, very dangerous! Dobby overheards the Master and the Master talkings about it before the Master passed aways. This can nevers go to Hogwarts—"

"Give it to me, Dobby!" Draco hissed. "It's mine! Shame on you, you stupid elf, for even touching it! You're trying to steal from me!"

"Dobby is not stealing!" Dobby shook his head so hard that his ears flapped. "The Master wanteds Dobby to help find it!"

"Well, you didn't find it. Is that clear?" Draco snatched the diary out of Dobby's hands. "It doesn't belong to anybody but me. It's not dangerous. My father doesn't know what he's talking about."

Dobby's massive eyes welled with tears. He trembled so hard that it was a wonder he remained standing. "The Master knows best—"

A squeaking grunt left Dobby when Draco hit him across the head with the diary. Dobby fell to the floor onto his side.

"Grandfather knew best about some things too, I suppose," Draco said coolly. "He always said the best way to stop you blithering on was to give you a little bit of a smack."

"Y-yes, Young Master," Dobby choked out.

"I gave you a clear instruction last summer." Draco loomed over Dobby, who cowered away. "Remember? You aren't allowed to tell my mother or father anything that might get me into trouble."

"Yes, yes, Dobby remembers." Dobby nodded fervently. "No tellings the Master and Mistress, if—if Dobby can. . ." Dobby's eyes went strange, "if Dobby can fix it by himselfs."

"Exactly," Draco said. "Now go away."

Dobby still had a strangeness about him as he pondered Draco's final instruction.

"Yes," Dobby replied. "Of course, Young Master. Dobby will goes away now."

With a crack, Dobby disappeared. The anger and frustration that roiled about inside Draco lately cooled with his solitude. Draco held Tom's diary against him, seeking its familiar comfort. In a moment like this, it felt like drinking a glass of ice water on a hot day. Draco shuddered to think how the rest of summer would go if Tom, the only friend he had right now, was taken away from him.

A tense few minutes passed, where Draco waited for his father to pound on his chamber door and demand the diary. Dobby seemed to have sorted himself out though, for Draco's chamber remained peaceful. With a sigh of relief, Draco took the diary over to his desk and unstopped his ink.

Hello, he wrote as greeting.

Hello, Draco, Tom promptly replied. How are you today?

Not great. My parents are being annoying. So is my dumb house-elf.

Dobby?

Yes. I don't know why father doesn't just get rid of him. Dobby can't keep his nose out of anything. He nearly got me in trouble again. Did I tell you about last summer when he told my father I accidentally did magic? My wand was taken away.

Was it destructive magic?

No, Draco wrote with a terse flourish. I lit a drape on fire but Dobby only had to snap his fingers to make it stop. There was no reason for him to go to my father about it

It doesn't sound like it, Tom replied. Dobby has always been meddlesome for an elf. Like that time he nearly got me hexed by your great-grandfather.

You would think he'd learn his lesson by now. I've told him to do better. I know I'm not the only one who has. It's so annoying to have to keep repeating myself.

What did Dobby do this time?

He tried to steal your diary from my room.

Oh? Why?

Draco hesitated while dipping his quill in the inkwell. What he liked about Tom was that he had no source for information outside of Draco. As far as Tom was aware, there was no questioning the dragon that Draco had seen be born in Hagrid's hut back in April. Draco wasn't seeing things in the Forbidden Forest, when something came to drink from the dead unicorn. Harry Potter was a nobody—just an annoying boy in Draco's year that he definitely liked in no capacity whatsoever. Everything Draco wrote was objectively true.

I don't know, Draco wrote. He went on about how you shouldn't go to Hogwarts. But that's stupid. Draco realized something just as he wrote that out. I had you there all last year, and so what?

I'm at a loss too. You saved me, obviously?

Yes.

Well, thank you, regardless of whatever Dobby planned to do with my diary once he had it.

Draco felt better after he and Tom chatted for a little while. His rooms had turned so hot with the sun coming in through the skylights that sweat trickled down Draco's neck. He picked a new place to hide Tom's diary and headed back out to the shady, breezy terrace.

His rooms were still too hot come dinner time, even with a cross-breeze, for Draco to eat there. It was also too hot to care that going downstairs would mean sitting the meal with his parents.

The two of them were speaking in low tones when Draco stepped into the formal dining room. Intrigued, he slowed his step by the eastern fireplace, where double-doors opened into the family dining room.

"Have you thought anymore about going to Dumbledore?" Mum asked.

Father sighed. "With what, is the problem. I'm beginning to half-wonder if Father did something with it, forgot, and took that to his grave. It doesn't really matter if it's lost, unless the Ministry potentially finds it. Maybe I need to start going through everything under the drawing room."

"If you can't find it, perhaps that means the Ministry wouldn't either if the situation arises," Mum reassured him. "Dobby didn't know anything?"

"He didn't turn up with it. Maybe he's still looking. I haven't seen him all afternoon. I'll be at my wit's end with that bloody elf if he's gotten himself distracted."

"Perhaps we should begin considering putting him out to pasture." Cutlery clinked when Mum spoke. "He must be quite old now, yes?"

"Getting up there, I suppose. He's been around since at least. . ." Father paused, humming in thought. "Amyntas Malfoy, I think?"

"Goodness, that long?"

"Mind, I don't know how old Amyntas was when Dobby's service began. . ."

Father trailed off as Draco entered the room. Dobby wasn't anyone worth eavesdropping about.

"What're you doing here?" Father asked after Draco took a seat.

Draco gave him a dry look. "This is still where we eat, isn't it?"

Father's chewing grew mechanical as irritation wrinkled his nose into a light sneer. A plate appeared for Draco. Vega sat in his usual spot on Father's lap, with his head tucked under his arm. He emerged long enough to squawk at Draco, then tucked back in after being fed a slice of banana from his own plate.

"I'll think about Dobby more once this raiding business is behind us." Father carried on with the conversation he and Mum had been having. "I don't have the time right now, and I'll need to either do some research or consulting. I'm not of the opinion we breed Dobby."

"No?" Mum replied.

Father shook his head. "He's been more of a nuisance than benefit since at least the turn of the century. I remember my grandfather complaining at-length about him. It's not gotten any better since his passing, as far as I can tell."

Draco opened his mouth to say something about that, since Tom had told him plenty about what life in the manor house was like back when Nero Malfoy was the family patriarch. That wasn't anything that Draco should know, though. He didn't need his parents questioning where he'd heard it. Draco put a piece of roasted potato in his mouth instead, closing it again to chew.

"Do you think it's worth the risk with a wild one?" Mum wrinkled her nose. "Anything Dobby might produce, we at least would know what to expect. I suppose we could breed one of the others, but it might start them in-fighting."

Father just grunted with a slight shrug.

Draco pushed his greens around. "Are you going to kill Dobby?"

"Draco!" Mum said sharply.

"What?" Draco snapped. "You're talking about replacing him. I can't ask?"

"Don't be so crass about it, is all."

Father touched her hand, then looked at Draco. "There are guidelines provided by the Ministry on how to terminate a house-elf's position. Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures isn't particular on enforcing them, but it's not worth the negative attention to skirt them so boldly."

"How do you terminate him, then?" Draco asked.

"House-elves would rather be given death than clothes." Father cut into his chicken. "It's a great dishonour after serving so many generations to release them like that."

"So what then, does the Ministry give you permission to—" Draco met his mum's stern gaze across the table, "—deal with him?"

"They have sanctioned executioners. We would only need to mind any sort of ceremony we'd care to have, honouring Dobby's service."

"And then what about a new elf?"

"There's a ritual to draw in a wild one." With more a twitch of the lips than smile, Father raised his eyebrows at Draco. "Maybe you wouldn't mind helping?"

Draco dug his fist into his cheek and returned to his dinner. "No thanks."

Although he didn't look at his father, Draco could sense his disappointment. They'd gotten along well enough at times today, yes, but that didn't mean Draco wasn't still angry. It would serve his father to remember that one or two civil conversations did not erase the way he'd made Draco feel when he brushed off how his first year at Hogwarts had ended.