Disclaimer: Potterverse belongs to JK Rowling, of course. I only own the plot.
quidditch glitch
The cheers that erupted from the stadium at Madame Hooch's whistle were tremendous, voluptuosly supporting their chosen team in unison. Flashes of red, gold, silver and green shimmered from the audience, banners, scarves and hair furling and unfurling in the wind. The bright sun-drenched sky amidst gentle winds made silent promises for an enjoyably good and thorough Quidditch match between the Gryffindors and Slytherins. The expectations and moods were high as Seamus Finnigan, who had taken over Lee Jordan, cheerfully began commentating the game.
Draco, who had only moments before shook hands with Potter as was tradition for the captains of both teams before starting the game, hovered in the air. Bludgers whizzed past him, narrowly missing him as he cleverly dodged them, his eyes keenly searching the surroundings for the Snitch while keeping watch on the game score. Slytherin were down by two hundred points to Gryffindor and he needed to make sure his team manages to score at least sixty points if they wanted to win the match.
An explosion of cheers and jeers forced him out of his calculations to realise that Slytherin had nailed the first ten points. He allowed himself a small smile, slightly pleased that they had scored less than five minutes into the game. However, it takes only a moment for things to happen and things indeed happened very fast. A bludger that Draco failed to notice, rushed madly at him, beaten by Crabbe who had been aiming for Potter who was flying by just behind Draco at that moment. The scarred boy however, was quick and sped off before the bludger could do him any damage and just as luck would have it, Draco had unknowingly moved into the oncoming bludger's path.
"NO, MALFOY MOVE, BLUDGER!"
Draco turned at Crabbe's cry, just in time to feel the heavy object ram hard into his left shoulder, losing him his balance. He swaggered and fell off the broom, spiralling downwards some thirty feet. He had barely time to register the scream in his head came from his mouth when his vision clouded over and everything went black.
His eyes were closed when he roused from his stupor. Slowly, his hand reached out to gingerly touch his injured shoulder. This mere movement caused him to blink open his eyes, a look of surprise on his face. Where a huge bruise and undoubtedly horrific pain should have been, his shoulder felt completely normal. In fact, he did not feel hurt anywhere on his physical body as far as he could tell. He frowned as his eyes continued staring up at the sky. 'The sky?' Draco sat up, looking around him. He was still in the middle of the Quidditch field where he had fallen off his broom and yet there seemed to be not a single soul in sight.
'Why am I not in the hospital wing already if everyon's gone?' Draco paused, a new worrying thought crossing his mind. 'Oh God ... did I die? Is that why no one's around?' Still, as soon as he thought that, Draco scoffed at his own thoughts. Him, dying from a fall just seemed perfectly absurd. 'Whoever heard of anyone falling from a broomstick onto soft ground and dying?'
Draco got up on his feet, squinting his eyes as he slowly looked around once more. The light seemed unnaturally bright and it hurt to stare at any one spot for too long. 'Damn this light ... I'm starting to see things ... or am I?' He squinted even harder, one hand over his eyes shutting out some of the glaring light. Somewhere to his distant right, something or someone seemed to be moving, although whether it was towards him, he could not tell. He turned and with his free hand, gave a tentative wave towards it.
"Hey.. HEY! Is anyone there? HEY, OVER HERE!"
The thing, whatever it was, picked up on Draco's cry and came towards him with unearthly speed. The light was just too bright, blurring his vision greatly but yet Draco could make out the slight outline of a man in robes although just barely. The man stopped suddenly just a few feet away from Draco, who now beheld an expression of pure confusion. There wasn't a single staff in Hogwarts that Draco had yet to see or meet and yet this man who looked a little over forty years was not anyone Draco had ever seen. Yet, there was something strangely familiar about him, something intricately ... similar.
"Draco Angelus Malfoy ... I've been looking forward to meeting you."
The blond teenage boy gasped lightly. How did he know his name, his full name nonetheless? He was sure nobody knew of his middle name save for his parents and some of the teachers of Hogwarts. Surely, this man must have known either of them to know his full name.
"Who are you?"
"Who am I, indeed? Why, Draco. Have you so readily forgotten your own ancestry? Then again, you did not care that your parents are dead..." The man trailed off, casually bringing his hands up and pressing his palms together.
He was outraged. "That's not true, how dare you make that assumption!"
"Oh I dare indeed, young one, especially if it is true. Did you not renounce your own family name to your dead father's echo?" He waved away Draco's utter surprise with an impatient gesture of his hand, then placed a finger of the same hand to the corner of his mouth. "Who I am, is not important. What I'm about to tell you however, is very important, my boy. Especially if you want to live."
He waved his hand yet again. "Take a seat."
Draco raised an eyebrow and was about to make a snipey remark on where he was supposed to sit when he realised that chairs had materialized behind them and that the man had already occupied his seat quite comfortably. Draco sat down gingerly, thinking how crazy it must have looked to be sitting on an armchair in the middle of the stadium. The man nodded approvingly.
"That's better now, isn't it? Now. Listen carefully dear boy and you might wish you hadn't so clumsily decided to give up your duty as a Malfoy."
"In a time and place not so far from here and now, a young wizard as foolish as you might turn out to be, married a muggleborn witch. Oh she was beautiful, yes, exquisitely so. She was intelligent and witty and had an impeccable charm to her. Diana Sunev was her name, Diana Malfoy she became. The young wizard was ecstatic, having acquired such a witch for his wife. And they were happy for quite a spell, living out their married life to the fullest as one would say. Diana gave birth to six beautiful babies who each grew up to be just as enchanting.
"It was the perfect life a man or wizard could ever want. A beautiful loving wife, a lovely home and half a dozen children who had all grown up on familial trust and affections. Yes, it was a picture of perfection and this wizard could not have wanted anything more. He had everything in his life and needless to say, his family was the right playful envy of their social circle and quite possibly the wizarding community. You see, the wizard Malfoy, as it has always been, was an important figure in the wizarding world. Having inherited from his ancestors the wealth a Malfoy has always had was no secret."
The man paused, drawing a long, deep breath and even though Draco knew what was coming, he had fallen into silence, patiently waiting for the secrets of the ancient curse to be fully revealed to him.
"Now, all good things must come to an end. The wizard knew this and he was well prepared for it, except for the impact and how soon it all happened. His wife, his lovely Diana was murdered, brutally it seems, while out and about in the muggle world. His wife was taken away back to the muggle world from which she had come from. All she left behind were her six children with him. As I have mentioned before, this wizard was foolish. He might have led the perfect life for the twenty five years that he was married but he was still the same foolhardy boy he had grown up to be. It was a trait of his to make reckless plans irrationally and without Diana to talk him out of his mindless capers, Malfoy was once again his old self.
"A month of grieving over his wife and he finally realised she was never coming back. She would never again sit by his side in front of the fire on cold winter nights. He would never hear her angelic voice as she sings her hymns as she went about her work. His irrational side took over, the devil within deciding to put the blame on the entire muggle society. He hated how he had let himself fall so deeply for a muggleborn witch. He gathered his children before the fire one night and gave his manical warning.
"He warned his children against impure marriages, against love. Love which had been the fatal cause of it all. Love which had brought about all his misery. He warned his children to stay far away from muggleborn witches and wizards, telling them to build an empire of purebloods. He warned them to never let any mudblood get in the way of their lives if they did not want to suffer the same fate that he did. He told them to heed his warning as he would not be around to tell it to them much longer. The wizard then raised his wand, casting an immensely powerful dark curse upon his bloodline. He swore it for twelve generations, knowing for certain in his unreasonable mind that after twelve generations, Malfoys would still be making respectable pureblood marriages in his honor. He was sure of it.
"Then he died, his curse having affected him as well for his wife had after all, been muggleborn. His children, seeing the true impact of their father's words, had no reason to pay no heed to the curse. So it has been, for eleven generations of Malfoys now. An empire of purebloods. Until now."
The man stopped, raising his heavily-lidded eyes to stare piercingly at Draco, who swallowed thickly. There was no doubt in his mind now that this man sitting so casually in front of him was the crazed wizard in the story. Somehow, the man had found a way to preserve his memory to give this warning to him. He closed his eyes, his head suddenly throbbing. He placed a hand up on his temple and slowly opened his eyes yet all that greeted his sore eyes was the unflinching glare of the unnaturally bright light. He shut his eyes tight, the dull ache in his head growing bigger each moment. He was then aware that his whole body had begun to ache and hurt in different ways. A soft moan of pain wheezed through his lips and he curled himself up as tight as he could, bringing about a greater wave of pain.
Yet, amidst all his suffering at that moment, a name burst clearly into his mind. His middle name, in fact. Angelus. 'Yes. Angelus. It must have been his name...' Draco blacked out once again.