The Pale Boy's Secret
by Asleep
NOTE: I don't own any of the characters that Miss Rowling owns, but if any new ones turn up, they belong to me. Also, if anything here conflicts with what happens in the book, it is most likely due to my absentmindedness (but let me know anyway so that I might fix it). This is only the first chapter, mind you--next, I'll do Narcissa.
Enjoy, and please review! I need suggestions and knowledge of what people think.
Love, Sophia (Asleep)
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Chapter One: Draco - Sleep
The pale fifth year boy woke up in an armchair in the Slytherin common room extremely unrested. His incomplete homework lay on a table in front of him, exactly the way it had been when he had fallen asleep. Shivering, he noticed with annoyance that the fire had gone out since the night before.
He hadn't slept well at all. Besides the fact that it had been past midnight before he had dozed off, he had woken up every half an hour or so, disoriented, before drifting back into his light slumber. The dream hadn't helped much, either. The boy tugged at a tuft of his fair hair, struggling to remember it. It had been more of a nightmare, he now recalled. And he'd had it over and over again...
As memories of the dream slid blurrily in and out of focus, he realized, puzzled, that his mother had been in the dream (he never dreamed of her normally), sitting in a small and brightly lit chamber. She had not been her usual unpleasant self. No, she had been quite different, smiling and laughing, her eyes shining. The boy could not remember ever seeing her act like that.
Then, all of a sudden, a shadow had moved over her, darkening the chamber and putting out the light in her eyes. She had stopped laughing and was backing into a corner of the room, terrified. He could not remember what had happened next--only a vision of his mother lying unconcious, so silent and still that she might have been in a photograph. What had happened to her? What had made her smile fade? And why, he thought, feeling a pang of longing, was she never this happy in front of him?
"Aargh!" The boy snarled sleepily in frustration. It was no use. It was as if the more he tried to grasp the dream, the more it slipped through his fingers. He gave up trying to remember and instead focused his attention on finding the most comfortable position he could in the armchair (which was rather difficult as the chair was uncomfortable by nature), yawning drowsily.
Drifting once again into a fitful sleep, Draco Malfoy did not notice the figure in black that was moving noiselessly toward him. He was having the dream again before the figure reached the chair in which he sat, before it lifted a wand and whispered these words:
"Stupefy."
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By lunch the next day, it was common knowledge among all of the houses at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry that Draco Malfoy was missing.
The Slytherin table was the only house table in the room at which anyone greatly concerned could be found. (In fact, it seemed that a phenomenon had taken place--for the first time since anyone could remember, Crabbe and Goyle, Draco's closest friends, had not gobbled down their food as if it were their last meal.) At all of the other house tables, students either were indifferent or chattered excitedly about the matter. Most of the people at the Gryffindor house table belonged to the latter group.
Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, neither of whom liked Draco much (to put it lightly), were joking about the various things that could have happened to him, enjoying letting their imaginations run wild. Their friend, Hermione Granger, was not joining them, but looking on in mild exasperation. She could not help laughing with them in spite of herself, however, for although she did not approve of making light of a such a seemingly grave situation, Hermione had recieved her share of nastiness from the Slytherin boy.
At the moment, Ron was in the middle of a very imaginative theory indeed.
"--So after dealing with that band of angry trolls," he was saying, "Malfoy makes his way (with some difficulty, owing the the fact that he hasn't got legs anymore) off to the lake and falls in. The water revives him and he sort of paddles with his arms towards the shore. But if he thinks the trolls and the falling boulders are the worst part, he's dead wrong, 'cause right then...erm..."
Harry took over.
"A hippogriff swoops down, picks the git up, roughs him up a bit, and then drops him on top of the Whomping Willow?" he offered.
"Dat's bri'yant, 'Arry," said Ron through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. Turning to Hermione, he swallowed and said, "What happens next, 'Mione?"
Though Hermione had chuckled at the story, she now said, while helping herself to more turkey, "I'd like nothing more than for Malfoy to get what he deserves, but what if something really did happen to him? Wouldn't you feel awful if you'd been joking about tons of horrible things happening to him, and he actually was in danger?"
"Oh, we're only joking, Hermione," said Harry. Remembering the times he had come into contact with the Whomping Willow, he added, grimacing, "Besides--I wouldn't wish the Whomping Willow on anyone. Not even Malfoy."
"Yeah," Ron said. "Anyway, maybe he's not in any trouble at all. He probably just ran away or something."
Although the three friends agreed that this might be the case, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were very wrong. Draco Malfoy hadn't run away. While the students at Hogwarts ate lunch, the pale Slytherin boy sat on a cold, stone floor, struggling to free his hands from the ropes that bound them.
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That's it for now. Please review and let me know what you think!
