Disclaimer: As much as I would love too, I do not own anything that has been previously mentioned in The Harry Potter Books, which is very unfortunate for me.
The Tale of a Dragon
Ch10: It's Not If You Win Or Lose, It's How You Play The Game
It was the last day of October; Ron had booked the Quidditch pitch for the few hours of the morning that were before the match, by using his 'Weasley charm' (that's what he called it anyway) to convince Hooch to let him do some last minute training. Harry couldn't see the point of tiring himself out before the actual game, so he just hovered above the others.
Draco watched from the stands. He was hidden, so he wasn't going to be accused of spying, even though that was exactly what he was doing.
He was watching Harry, as he had done every other time the Read and Gold team had trained. There was something about Harry that got him thinking. The boy had been in so many dangerous situations, had so much put on his shoulders and been given so many opportunities to give up on everything, but somehow he still kept on fighting for what's good.
The dark howler had left Draco thinking about the war, though he didn't really have a choice in what he would do, since his father seemed to make all of the important ones for him. It was like being a dog (or ferret) on a leash; only being allowed to go so far before being yanked painfully back a few steps.
What would the dark side say if he refused the mark right to Voldemort's face? What would the light side think if he got the mark, even though it wasn't what he wanted?
It was to confusing. Draco felt like he didn't belong on either side. To evil for the light side, to good for the dark, and it was getting really lonely standing in between as the mutual party.
Draco sighed and headed down the stand steps, it was going to be a long day.
Then there were the instructions to become friends with Hermione. What was that about? He would find out soon, there had been a note on his bedside table that he found when he regained consciousness. It had said 'Await further instructions. We'll contact you soon'
His muscles were tense and sore due to the upcoming full moon, which was one night from then, and he was dragging his feet as he walked into the castle. He lost control of his senses as he approached the Great Hall. The smell of breakfast tickled his nose and begged him to go in and eat.
The sound was almost defining, but with his head held high and stubborn look in his silvery-blue eyes he walked over to the Gryffindor table and sat down. Almost immediately he reached for the bacon, ignoring the feeling that it would taste better raw and dripping with blood.
Harry, Ron and the rest of the team came in and swarmed over to the table, breaking off as they sat with different groups. Harry and Ron joined Hermione halfway up the table. Draco continued to eat his meat.
A few minutes later Harry and Hermione came up and sat opposite him, as did Ron, much to his surprise.
"Hi?"
"We thought we'd join you Draco." Said Hermione. It brought the memory of the dark howler to his mind again and he started to worry about the muggle-born sitting diagonally to him. Why would the Deatheaters want his to make friends with her?
He ignored the urge to warn her. He raised an eyebrow. "We?"
"They forced me here." Ron snapped at both Draco and the world at large.
"Oh, how heroic of you to come, weasel." He replied, with no feeling what so ever. It earned a scowl from Ron and an eye-roll from Hermione. Harry was just watching. Draco noticed he wasn't eating. "Aren't you going to eat, Potter?"
Harry flinched slightly at his last name. "I'm not hungry. So that's a no, Malfoy."
Draco scowled at his surname, but hid the scowl's reason by making a snide remark. "I know that was a 'no'. Just because I'm sitting at this table doesn't mean I'm as slow as everyone else that sits here."
"You do realize," piped up Hermione, "That the quicker you get along with us, the quicker you can go back with the rest of the snakes."
"I don't have to get along with you. It just has to look like I a..." He was cut off as he felt his nose twitch. He hastily grabbed a napkin and used it to cover his nose as the smell of the food (and what was left of his cold) became too much, and triggered a series of rather powerful sneezes. He blew his nose afterwards and cursed softly.
Harry lent over the table and brushed back the platinum blonde hair that had fallen in front of Draco's face before sitting back down. Draco liked what that felt like, despite his surprise.
"Bless you." Said Harry, his green eyes sparkling.
Hermione looked at Draco, then at Harry, then back at Draco before saying, "Gesundheit", with confusion showingin her voice.
Both Harry and Hermione looked at Ron, waiting for him to say something. Draco didn't expect him to, so he continued eating
"Whad?" Asked Ron, when he saw his friends looking at him, spraying food over the table as he spoke, forcing Hermione to scoff and look away in disgust, Harry to roll his eyes, and Draco to cringe. It seemed that even an important Quidditch event couldn't stop him stuffing his face. If Harry had an appetite he would have lost it watching Ron.
For some reason Draco didn't think anything would spoil his appetite that morning, so he kept eating his bacon, but in way that was definitely more refined then the way Ron was.
"Welcome to the first Quidditch match of the school year!" Shouted Colin Creevey. He had taken over the job of the announcer. Mainly because he was hyperactive enough to be able keep up with what was going on. "This will be a great match between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw! I hope those Quidditch robes are thick 'cause you can definitely tell winter's just around the corner!"
Draco flung one end of his loose scarf over his shoulder to fight the breeze.
He shivered 'Creevey's not kidding.' He thanked his lucky stars that it wasn't him out there on a broomstick.
After a while, the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw team cam out onto the pitch and Colin let out an excited shriek that almost deafened everyone close to him. Draco winced when his delicate werewolf hearing heard it. There was a faint ringing noise in his ears that would last for days after the match.
Ron and Cho shook hands in a very businesslike way and mounted their brooms. Madam Hooch went out in between the two teams and said her warnings. Play fair, I don't want any bloodshed, etc.
Then the whistle blew…
"And they're off! Gryffindor in possession!…"
The game went on for a while, Ravenclaw were winning near the start, but Gryffindor ended up winning, and not just because Harry caught the snitch. Gryffindor were seventy points up before that happened.
Afterwards (of course) the Gryffindors went off to their common room to celebrate, with what Draco suspected to be smuggled food, brought by Fred and George through a secret passage.
And, as usual, two other houses were invited. Slytherin was not one of them. Knowing what would happen if they showed up uninvited, they stayed in their common room while the girls gossiped about those at the party, the guys pondered why girls liked gossiping so much. The guys that weren't into talking much were arm-wrestling
Draco wasn't putting much into the conversation. He was wallowing in self-pity as well as feeling strangely isolated. He was brought out of his 'trance' by Blaise.
"Draco? Draco! Draco Don't-Make-Me-Use-Your-Middle-Name Malfoy?" Several people snicked.
"Huh?"
"Dude, are you ok?"
"Yeah, fine. Why?"
"You look like shit. And you're not sayin' anything."
"I'm just not feeling to well. I think I'll go for a walk." Draco rose from the couch and took two steps before Blaise grabbed the top of his arm to stop him. He spun around to see Blaise was standing too.
"You know you can talk to me about anything, right?"
"Yeah, of course." Draco gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Blaise sat down and muttered something to himself. It went ignored.
When Draco had got to the entrance/exit someone called out to him. "Hey, Draco. What is your middle name?"
"Amadelus." He shot over his shoulder as the wall slid back into place.
Draco wandered (as he was used to doing) through the castle. His stomach ended up leading him to the kitchens, where he ordered two really, really raw, large pieces of steak. He ate happily and went for seconds and thirds. He was half way through his sixth piece of steak when a strangely familiar house-elf came up and handed him a letter.
"He-Here. This came for you." He (or she) turned away and walked as fast as he (or she) could without causing suspicion. After the letter had been dumped on the table.
Draco suddenly remembered where he'd seen the elf from, so he called out to him. "Thanks Dobby" The house-elf turned around and looked at one of his former masters with a look of horror and surprise on his face. Draco smirked and picked up the letter. He vaguely remembered something about Dobby when he was working at the manor, but dismissed it as he unfolded the parchment.
It was written in his father writing
I need to know the town the mud-blood lives in. I can work out the rest of the address form there. I will know if you're lying and if you tell her we need it.That was it. No explanation why he wanted the address. Draco snarled in a very wolf-like way. No one ever told him anything. He ripped the parchment in half out of frustration. Dobby had appeared next to him and got his attention.
"What?" he snarled.
Dobby cowered. "Your eyes have gone yellow Young Master Malfoy, sir." He whimpered, and then ran off.
Draco sighed exasperatedly. "Sorry Dobby." Dobby froze. He didn't need to turn around for Draco to know he had the same look of surprise/horror as before. Draco chuckled momentarily forgetting his anger.
In order to get back to the Head Boy room, Draco needed to walk past Snape's private quarters. Normally the door would be shut, locked, bolted and have several spells placed over it, but tonight it was ajar and Draco could recognize two of his Professor's voices.
"Just hurry up Sev."
"Stop complaining, this is for your own good you know."
"It's a bit late to be fixing it now."
"Well, Catherine, It wouldn't have been late if you had shown me before."
"I didn't want to worry you." Fable laughed, "You have to admit, you have a habit of overreacting when it comes to this type of thing."
"I only overreact when it happens to you." There was a silence.
Draco approached the slight opening and moved a bit to the side to try and see what was going on.
Fable was sitting sideways on the couch facing, away from the door with her legs crossed and her top off. Her back was covered in bruises and Snape was gently rubbing a thick blue potion on them. The thing that surprised Draco the most was the blush that had made it's way onto Snapes face.
Draco turned and ran, out of fear that he wouldn't be able to control his laughter for much longer. He decided it was a moment he would treasure for a long time. After all, how often was it that Professor Severus Snape's face was a red as a tomato? No one would believe him.
Those bruises on Fable's back looked pretty bad though. 'I wonder how she got them'.
He ended up coming across another open door, but this time it was his.
"Hey! What's going on?"
Dumbledore turned around to face Draco. "Oh, Mr Malfoy. I did send an owl as to why we would be here. Did you get it? No? Yes, I thought not, it's still on your desk unopened." He spoke as if he were talking about the weather, which angered Draco further.
"Why. Are. You. And. Boot. In. My. Room." He said through gritted teeth.
Terry Boot narrowed his eyes at Draco. "It's my room now, Malfoy."
"But this has been my room since fifth year. My father paid for me to stay here."
"We need this room for Terry. You don't mind if you move back into the Slytherin dormitories do you." It wasn't a question.
"Why now though?" asked Draco. "It's been days since he became head boy"
"Ah, yes. Well I've have to arrange to get money transferred from my account to your fathers." Dumbledore indicated the three large trunks that were now full of Draco's possessions. "If you don't mind levitating these up to your dorm as soon as possible. Thank you."
Draco felt a muscle in his face twitch and he covered it up by snarling and he pulled out his wand.
"Wingardium Leviosa." The three trunks floated up and Draco followed them out, doing his best not to turn around and curse Terry into oblivion with every curse he knew. It was probably not the best thing that wolves were territorial.
"Hey, Malfoy." Terry called after him. "Don't feel bad about loosing your room, the better man won in the end. Just be glad you don't have to go to the Gryffindor dormitories."
Draco let his trunks fall to the ground and he spun around pointing his wand at the Ravenclaw boy, who had come out of the room. "Do you want to say that again?" He had never heard his voice go like that. It was in between a growl and a hiss. He didn't think it was possible, and he was slightly unnerved by it.
Terry raised an eyebrow and smiled innocently before walking back into the room. Draco followed him in, ignoring Dumbledore as he did. Terry was leaning against the bed in a very territorial way.
Draco pointed his wand at the eagle on his robes, throwing all reason out the window as his inhuman instincts kicked in. "Cruci…"
"Expelliarmus." Dumbledore's spell knocked Draco's wand out of his hand before the unforgivable could be completed. "Draco Amadelus Malfoy, go to my office now." The sparkle in his eyes had gone and was replaced with a dangerously grave look.
Draco noticed his hands were shaking. He had lost control and almost tortured someone. Once again he could see himself becoming his father. He crossed his arms to hide his shaking. "Yes, sir." He said in a tense voice and he turned and left.
A/N: Sorry if this chap's not very good. I got writers block
