The Hardships of Being Draco Malfoy

Disclaimer: Don't own any of the characters originally penned by J K Rawlings, don't even own the computer this is being typed on. But a girl can wish can't she?

Pairings: Not yet but will be Draco/Harry eventually

Warnings: Whiny Draco ahead, not to mention some probable OOC-ness to be had by all. But what can I say, first time Harry Potter writer.

Authors note: This is it, the first chapter that Harry Potter appears in! Somebody brake out the party favors! Also, I am quite sorry that the rating keeps going up, but I find that Draco gets umm, Quite interesting in the choices of expletives he uses when he gets stressed or really pissed, and no we haven't really seen either of those yet.

The Lady Wolfshead - Now, now, what you picture when you think of Harry, groveling at Malfoy's feet, can't be any worse (or it is that better?) then what I see, we will have to assume then that Pansy's image was more along the 'crushing enemies under my boot heel in a non-sexual way' type of thing, and had nothing to do with what you or I might think up. Thanks!

Part 6

Draco Malfoy was positive that everyone in the Great Hall was talking about him.

Upon arriving at Hogwarts, he had hidden out in the boy's lavatory, waiting until the sorting had taken place before making his entrance. He had debated while hiding, what type of entrance would work best. He could throw the doors of the great hall open and storm in, all the while glaring at the people who would be looking at him out of curiosity, as he strode to his table. Unfortunately that would send the wrong type of message to his mother, he wanted whoever was spying on him to send back reports that seem to say, 'He's doing his best to follow your instructions, and not make a target of himself.' Besides Draco just new that he would be garnering too much attention with this one to work with his plan.

Another option was to crack open the doors a little, slink in quietly and go to sit at the house table meekly, with his shoulders hunched forward, as if he were curling in on himself. Draco had been disgusted at the very idea of this entrance, and immediately dismissed it as a no go. He wanted his mother to think he was obeying, not a broken shell. Oh well there was nothing to do then but something mid way between the two ideas. He wouldn't intentionally draw notice, nor would he go out of his way to avoid it.

Having made his decision, Draco left the lavatory and stood outside the doors to the great hall, listening intently to the muffled sound of Dumbledore's voice, waiting for the feast to begin. He waited a few moments longer after the Headmaster's voice couldn't be heard to softly push open the doors and walk proudly to sit at his house table, neither looking right nor left, but focusing on the spot where he was going to be sitting. That in it-self was a stroke of brilliance. Draco had gown up knowing his own importance, and one of the first basic rules he had learned as a boy was you never sat with your back to a room, and Draco had taken that lesson to heart. The only exception he made was in Professor Snape's classroom, but he knew that Snape would never allow anyone to hurt his favorite student, so he felt safe there.

Now he was deliberately sitting in a place he should never be sitting, with his back to a room full of people, most of whom didn't like him. Obstinately he filled his plate with food that he merely pushed around on his plate, his stomach rolling far too much to even contemplate eating.

And they were talking about him, how he wasn't sitting near any of his 'friends', how he was as far away from everyone as one could get while still sitting at his house table. In his head he could just hear those Hufflepuffs he had sat with on the train gleefully retelling the tail of the ride here.

As a matter of fact there was a subdued whispering going on all over the great hall, and while he couldn't make out what was being said, it had to be about him. Who else could it be? Draco was quite happy that he had chosen this spot to sit in, if he had sat on the other side of the table, he would have had to actually see all of the faces staring at him in curiosity, and while that wasn't a bad thing, after a few moments he would have been hard pressed not to stand and start hitting people with curses, hexes, or insults for not knowing when to look away.

He wanted so badly to know what was being said! The curiosity was practically eating him alive, and he couldn't ask anyone at his table. Draco glanced down the table at his housemates, it would be pointless to try and eavesdrop here, and no one ever accidentally overheard something from a Slytherin. Key word being accidental. But the Hufflepuff table was right behind him, maybe if he sat really far back in his seat, leaned back a little and listened really hard...

"Yeah, I hear that he didn't even sit with them on the train," said a nameless male Hufflepuff. Then again Draco didn't think it would be worthwhile to even know a Hufflepuff's name.

"I don't believe it!" replied a girl who sounded outraged. "Where did he sit? Did he say anything to the people he sat with about it?"

Mentally Draco was doing a little happy dance. Oh, to have everyone notice how strangely he was acting already, and to have them take such interest. It was more then he had hopped for.

"No he never said a thing, I talked to one of the Ravenclaw's that was sitting in the same compartment, and she said that all he did was sit there reading his Charms book."

Draco rolled his eyes at this, apparently the story was taking on a life of it's own already. Reading a charms book, him, As if! But one should have known that Hufflepuffs would have screwed up the story. Even though it happened to people in their own house, probably just down the table.

"Something terrible must have happened to him over the summer hols. Poor Harry, sitting all alone at the end of his table, I wonder what is going through his mind?"

Draco smirked to himself happily. Of course everyone wanted to know what was going... through...his...

Suddenly a certain word they said hit him, they were talking about Potter! Slowly Draco turned in his seat and looked at the other tables. No one, not a single fucking person, was paying any attention to him. Their glances were all reserved for a lone figure at one end of the Gryffindor table.

A person who sat as far away from the rest of his housemates as possible, while still sitting a the same table. Someone who had their back to the rest of the great hall. Someone who was pushing the food around on his plate, as though he couldn't eat because of the rolling of his stomach. Draco turned back around in his seat, and sat staring at his plate for a few moments fighting for control of himself.

He couldn't upend the Slytherin table in a fit of rage, couldn't yell at everyone to pay attention to him, not that fucking scar-head. Couldn't throw his table knife at Potter's back, hoping to do serious damage. He couldn't even angrily storm out of the hall, because that would not be productive to cultivating the image he wanted, whomever it was spying on him, to report back to his mother.

If nothing else, then at the end of this phase his mother was going through, he had better get some sort of reward for his fucking restraint. After all, that fucking bastard Potter had upstaged him, again! Draco gritted his teeth and seethed inwardly, all the while maintaining a clam exterior.

Stupid Potter!