Preliminary note: The first thing you read was the Prologue; no plot and no important facts but to understand what's happening in Draco's head. Now the first chapter comes.



'Speaking the Devil'
By She-Who-Is-Not-To-Be-Psycho!


Chapter1: Silver and Green

So far as we are human, what we do must be either evil or good: so far as we do evil or good, we are human: and it is better, in a paradoxical way, to do evil than to do nothing: at least we exist.
- T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), introduction to The Intimate Journals of Charles Baudelaire, tr. Christopher Isherwood (1930)


It surprises him how things changed from that day on. It scared him and made him stumble on someone in his way to Transfiguration. It was infuriating that those, once there to protect him, were now bothering, for all the wrong reasons. Draco Malfoy didn't even have the time to be confused; he shoved Harry Potter aside and out of the way and returned to his track. Anxiety and exhaustion weren't things a sixteen-year-old should suffer.

But if it wasn't it then why were his hands shaking?

Those two seconds in front of an even more confused Harry Potter made tense every muscle, made every hair on his skin stand on end; it arise the hot- licking sensation on his stomach within the years of hatred, and for a minute it shoved the worries out of his head only to return with full force to his brain. Those only two steps behind, following him, were there again, and that notion kept Malfoy's heart running.


"Of course I accept," said Draco Malfoy sitting lazily on the black leather couch in the Slytherin Common Room. Crabbe and Goyle had just made him bet the most ridiculous thing: To take care of Potter.

"Because, you know," started Goyle again with what seemed like a hint of doubt in Draco's words, "you always tell that you are going to get Potter but you never –"

"Goyle, what would you know about subtlety? No work can be done without the necessary measures." Draco took a sip of juice he made Crabbe go fetch for him, "Of course I need the time; no playing around, I need something definitive. I need a plan... But I don't think you will help me with those, will you?"

That time was before the match against Gryffindor, which Draco told to every ear to be the perfect opportunity. Crabbe and Goyle cheered along with Pansy though in a more menacing way; Draco always told himself they weren't very good in articulating and showing the expression matching with their thoughts... if there were thoughts in the first place.

Sure Draco tells every time he is heeding Potter, he and him only. It was one of the ways Draco Malfoy draw lines for others not to cross; to make everyone understand which were his property and his rights and Draco pretended to keep it like that. So taking care of the request wasn't more than a formal speech. But if Draco Malfoy was honest with himself something bothered him:

This time even Draco would tell there was something different about the inquiry, like Crabbe and Goyle were demanding something. Of course he had lost respect for them quite a while ago, not to mention the current situation then after knowing about Father's intrusion... But Draco won't think about that.

At least until that moment it was a game: 'I, Draco Malfoy, formally accept that it's my duty to get Potter once and for all.'


Harry Potter was quickening in speed. Downer – to the right – up again... Draco feared it; he couldn't keep pace... THUD! The Bludger came just in time. Draco turned right to see Crabbe coming his way, Draco smiled proudly.

Potter looked pissed so Draco has happy. He returned to the game in no time, winded but there, and then Draco got notion of Crabbe passing by; he whispered something to Draco.

When it's gonna happen?

And then Draco remembered he was supposed not to win the game, at least not second to his bet. And Draco was no coward to step out but somehow the idea didn't sound that tempting to winning the match. Mafoy rise in highs and looked for the snitch, still more concerned about the cup: What were such stupid promises to seeing Potter's defeated expression when he made him bit the dust?

And so Draco continued as if nothing have happened, just before that bludger that almost got his ear –

Draco tightened his grip on his broom feeling himself go down. When he turned expecting to see a Gryffindor beater instead, just behind, were Crabbe and Goyle both: none with the slight impression of trying to repel that bludger. Draco frowned at them, thinking that somehow they seem to go thicker, with one hand still clutching his head. They just stared back and Draco felt the need to turn the other way.

Just seconds later a golden sparkle shine some foots down and Draco dived for it with a new excitement growing but almost immediately Goyle was there – just in front, blocking his way and Draco gave a dramatic jolt – just inches from crashing into the bloke. "What are you doing you idiot!" he called at Goyle but the last looked unbothered by it and just flew upwards again, while Crabbe committed a fault on Potter.

Draco was starting to feel a new pressure upon him: he turned left and right and always, just behind was Crabbe and Goyle. Draco dived making a last effort to take Crabbe and Goyle off him. They weren't playing, just following him around and waiting for something to happen.

"What are you doing?" Draco finally asked shouting it in the middle of the match and while a powerful wind pushed harder. Draco knew the answer and just a nod from Goyle's part confirmed it. Draco turned to sight Potter just some meters down, the wind blowing and reassuring. And Draco was scared, and Goyle and Crabbe noticed, and they approached him. Draco pushed his broom upwards feeling vertigo he was sure was unlikely in a wizard.

Draco glanced just briefly around to meet Crabbe and Goyle checking on him and that was it.

The spell hit Harry Potter square. He was falling unconscious to hard ground and Draco was seeing it like in slow motion – He was going to be expelled – He made to turn to the laughs to order them to catch the boy but he didn't make it to tear his mind and eyes from the limp figure falling – 30 foots – 15 foots – Draco charged downwards and next he crashed against something in mid air and stumble down to earth, painfully and escorted by an extra weight that he knew was another body. The scene faded to blankness; the last he remembered being his own heart beats running and pounding hard against his chest...


"Maybe he was making sure..."

Draco was dreading his return to the commons so he told Madame Pomfrey he wasn't feeling too good still. She wasn't eating it but she wasn't asking him to leave either. He didn't have news from Potter. He had been visited by Dumbledore on the other hand, still too winded he wasn't too sure what he responded or what he was asked for that matter. He was scared of it and needing reminding that he wasn't expelled from the nurse every now and then. Actually Draco himself didn't know why it mattered to him; after all he didn't have much to loose in Hogwarts... But the answers were more or less the same; Dumbledore trusted that I was trying to help Potter then, not finishing him off, and even though the issue would be discussed in the future he was not being expelled just yet.

Somehow it didn't make things that much better. Draco had been about to murder the Golden Boy, of course that the Headmaster won't let it pass like that! And later he, Draco, discovered he could have been as well trying to finish Potter off: the Headmaster and other teachers had put a spell immediately under Potter to make him fall as if pushed upwards by the wind, the same when in the first year. Really not that well thought plan, his. But it was improvised after all, he wasn't thinking to murder Potter when he mounted his broom earlier – Crabbe and Goyle were; they are to blame! They made Draco do it, made him feel pushed to do it! The moment Draco got out of there...

That was exactly was Draco was dreading. Never before but now he was scared, of them.



Everything shook within Draco. Everything in his world turned upside down, dizzying and hurting him. That was not the behavior for wizards. He could believe it in muggles, in places from far away from his reality, but not for pureblood wizards. Not in a pureblood wizard family – It isn't like Draco lived in a pink world; he knew about things... he thought to be ready to kill, but nothing prepared him for looking at his... his acquaintances in it. Draco felt so very sick. He shook, wrapped in clothes, afraid, not having to where to run to for support. He wished his Father and Mother to be there, as childish as it sounded. No places to hide, no place to end up; all the places he could've run to; no left place to go... And as he watched sickened for that split of second how their parents do that to their sons from the crack in the wall, to Crabbe and Goyle, for failing them, Draco feared once more about it all; disbelieved how were they able to do that to their sons...

That was not a behavior for wizards.

And that was when everything about their relationship changed. They were never close, they were never friends, but Draco wasn't expecting them to treat him that way, to do that to Draco Malfoy. All in all they weren't mad at Draco, they weren't changed. The situation did, and not because of what their parents made of them; actually it was as if it was a natural thing. And Draco for the first time tried to talk to them and received just the opposite reaction: the next thing Draco Malfoy knew was that he was being shoved to a wall, threatened and scared like never before of them. They stated the obvious: Malfoy had cowered up, fail them, neglected his words and was to make up for it. Business like, no resentment hid under those words, yet so powerful and scaring and hurting...

It shocked Malfoy because they have never talked to him like that; they have never talked as if Draco was worth no respect, as if they really didn't need him. He was the worm now, the one being watched, and he soon understood why.

Draco kept his way towards Transfiguration with two pair of eyes on him; two pairs of eyes which secretively were from no other than the Dark Lord's.

February 24th 2004