Draco Malfoy Promises To Be A Good Boy This Year

Part Four

Outcast

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I sat at the Slytherin table, wishing I was a Gryffindor. Draco Malfoy, wishing he was a Gryffindor? Had I gone insane? I think maybe I had.

When I hopped off the train, I admit I looked as if I had been fraternizing with the enemy. My robe was all crooked and Ginny's hair was standing on end. She had gotten a bit frisky once it got dark, and who was I to complain? I noticed Pansy whispering to a group of the Slytherins, but I smiled. They would never listen to her. Half of them were probably as annoyed by her as I was.

But for some reason they did listen to her. A 6th year girl eyed me. "Been through the wringer, Malfoy? Tumbling with the Gryffindors?"

I flushed and straightened my robes. "None of your business, there!" I grumbled and looked around for Crabbe and Goyle. Ginny had gone off with Hermione and the boys in their carriage, so I was left with my old friends. It was just as well, since Ginny had to sit with Harry and the others at the feast anyway. Crabbe and Goyle were happy enough to see me, if they were ever that happy. They always looked fairly sullen, unless of course someone fell on his head in the mud or something such as that. We shook hands like gentlemen, though, and boarded a carriage.

I sat across from them and stared out the window. "I wonder how you get to the Gryffindor common room…?" Goyle made some kind of a grunt. I turned to look at him. "What? Why aren't you saying anything? Why are you both staring at me like that?"

Goyle answered. "The Slytherins think you're a traitor."

I glared. "I am not a traitor. You are, if you listen to them."

Crabbe looked like he was trying to sort this all out in his small brain. I was so bored with them and the year had just started. "Are you really with the youngest Weasel?"

My eyes flashed. "Shut up, you! If you want to keep your tongue inside your mouth, you'll hold it!" I slumped back against the carriage seat and looked out the window. It was starting to rain. And I was in trouble. When I lost my high standing in the eyes of the Slytherins I would have nowhere to go. I closed my eyes and imagined I was holding Nathaniel, Ginny dosing next to me. I was a Slytherin. It was all I was and all I knew how to be. I didn't know how to be a Gryffindor. Maybe I should just go back to The Burrow.

I spent most of the feast plotting how to somehow crawl across the Great Hall and under the Gryffindor house table without being seen so I could snuggle up against Ginny's legs. I had never felt so lonely, and I've always been lonely. All the members of my house insisted on ignoring me, and I had the distinct feeling that they were even laughing at me. But why? Was it all because of Ginny? Or was it because of Harry Potter? That had to be it. I had become friends with the Gryffindors, so I was no longer a Slytherin. It was as easy as that. The problem was, I wasn't exactly friendly with the Gryffindors in general.

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I received the first sign that I was oh so wanted when it was time to retire. Someone changed the password to get into the Slytherin common room, and conveniently didn't tell me. I stood out there, pounding on the stone wall and screaming obscenities until Professor Snape came by and let me inside. I stomped down to my dorm room to discover that someone had strewn the contents of my trunk all over, and there were snakes in my bed…just for fun, of course. I retaliated by blasting apart everyone's beds with my wand, with them in it. Crabbe and Goyle looked at me with great surprise as they floundered onto the floor in the ruins of their beds, their faces blackened, but I felt no sympathy. If they didn't actually do it, they could have prevented it. They were supposed to be my muscle.

Seething with anger, I said a quick spell and all of my things flew back into my trunk. I pulled on my cloak with the hood and shoved a pair of sunglasses over my eyes, not wanting to be recognized by anyone. I was going to get out of there. I couldn't stay in an environment where everyone was out to get me. It was too much like home. I would have to get them back, but I couldn't think about that at the moment. I was too fatigued. As my dorm-mates smirked, I pulled my trunk slowly across the floor, my face burning with embarrassment.

I yanked my heavy trunk all the way up from the dungeons and up numerous flights of stairs. It must have been about two in the morning by then. I kept hoping I would run into a Prefect who could direct me to the Gryffindor common room. Lucky for me, something interesting did happen. The only luck I had had since I left the Weasley house that morning.

Professor McGonagall was drifting along the hallway, right in front of a large portrait of a fat woman. What kind of a picture was that, anyway? Very suspicious. The old bird saw me, of course. I stopped in a dead panic and gawked at her. "Uhh…"'

She glared at me in the dimly lit hallway. "Finnegan, what are you doing out of bed? And with your trunk, no less!"

I froze. Was she off her bat?

She glowered at me. "Wearing those sunglasses again, in the middle of the night? Honestly. Get to bed!" So this wasn't that odd? Gryffindor must be a rowdy house…

She thought I was Seamus Finnegan? Well, it was dark and late, plus I had my hood on which covered my whitish hair. I stood on my tiptoes to look taller. "Um, I forgot the password to get inside," I said in my best Irish accent.

She shook her head. "It's 'Whirligig'. Honestly, for a 5th year…" She trailed off, obviously tired and not in the mood to deal with me. "Hurry up and get inside. The Fat Lady is getting tired of being disturbed." She stalked off.

What incredible and bizarre luck! I dragged my trunk over to stand in front of the portrait. "Er…I'm Seamus Finnegan! In my sunglasses and…such. Um, Whirligig!"

The Fat Lady yawned and the portrait swung open, revealing a hole. Oh, I was so near to my friends! I shoved my trunk through the dark common room until I hit a staircase. "Uh oh…well…" I pushed the trunk under a large armchair for the night and took a guess on the staircase, since there were two of them. I went up the one and opened the door that read "4th Years". I pulled aside the curtains on the first four-poster I came to and ended up leaning over Colin Creevy. I jumped back and knocked into the bedpost with my head. "Owww!"

The kid opened his eyes and looked at me, blinking. It took him about thirty seconds to open his mouth and start to scream. But by then I was tearing down the staircase and running through the dim common room, hopping oddly shaped objects. I ran up the other staircase, praying that there would be girls on this side. I dove inside the 4th Year room and shut the door behind me, breathing like mad. The little creep would probably find some way to get me in trouble for this. Maybe they would think he dreamt it. I'm sure they didn't believe everything the little twerp said…

I started to pull the curtains aside on the beds and gazed down at several young girls. Young girls who didn't know me and didn't want to know me, especially in the middle of the night in their dorm room. Where was Ginny?

I finally tried the bed by the window and pulled the curtains aside. There was my girl, lying on her side, fast asleep. I knew I shouldn't be there, but the bed looked so warm and inviting.

I was hit with a terrible fatigue as I crawled in next to her, stripping off my robes. I curled up next to her under the covers and lay my head on the pillow next to hers. I was asleep almost immediately. The next day, I would be leaving there, and hopefully Ginny would go with me.

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