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: Yes I know I built up the fact that Potter was in this last chapter, and then nothing, not even a very good description of how Draco sees him, just a little blurb at the end saying look here he is! And I almost feel kinda bad for it, but not really. Logic had dictated to me that a spoiled, whiny, pissed off Draco wouldn't have looked at Harry and thought 'Gosh Harry looks (insert descriptive term here) today.' Props to those that can make something like that work, but I couldn't. Anyway more info on Harry coming up and he might even say something to Draco in today's chapter!

esrinthly - Thanks so much for the review! Hope that you continue enjoying! Sorry about the dramatics in this part, but had to slip them in somewhere.

The Lady Wolfshead - Now, now, I don't expect you to tell me you love it every time you review, just the fact that you review tells me you're enjoying it, (or in other words, you don't have to say loved it every time. Just keep reviewing. PLEASE, keep reviewing!) besides I have absolutely no clue as to how long this is going to be. Heck I didn't even realize that Ron was going to show up this time until -Poof- there he was.

Oh and by the way, Weasley shows up and Hermione gets a mention, at the rate I am going I might actually have her show up in this fic, I wasn't planning on it, but I might. By the way I think I can still get away with PG-13 for this, but I am not sure. What do you think? Anyone?

Part 7

Draco's first two weeks back at Hogwarts were Hell.

Not only were his housemates ignoring him, but so was everyone else in the school. The only people who even talked to Draco were the teachers and that was just asking questions pertaining to class, or making idle comments about the quality of his homework that had been handed in. It was really starting to annoy him.

No, that isn't quite accurate, he was really pissed off. He was being so good, following his mother's dictates not to offend anyone on either side, and keeping to himself. As of yet he had not bullied any of the younger years, had tried not to even notice if he was in the presence of a mudblood, He hadn't even talked to anyone in his age group since the day at the platform. He was even being good in his classes. Not one disparaging comment had been made from his corner about the half giant's lamentable teaching skills, or penchant for putting young students with potentially lethal creatures. Not once did he make a wise crack about having something silver on his person in the werewolf's class, who had come back to teach them more about DADA, or cracks about it getting close to 'that time of the month'.

He hadn't verbalized an insult in so long that he was beginning to worry about how much this was going to dull his considerable skills. In fact he was starting to worry that maybe he would get so rusty he would sound like Potter used to when he would try to defend himself from Draco's razor tongue with a less then decent comeback. He shuddered to think of it as a real possibility.

For fuck's sake, he hadn't even snorted condescendingly in a Weasley's direction, any Weasley's direction, and no one noticed or seem to care. Draco was ready to chuck this stupid plan in the trash and go back to being his old self, his mother's wishes be damned, but that would involve telling the other Slytherin's that he had failed. Even worse, he would have to tell them that the plan he had talked up so much on the platform, he didn't even get started on, because he couldn't handle it. The mere thought of the humiliation that would cause was reason enough for Draco to force himself on with it.

It didn't help that his housemates were better at pretending Draco was now an outcast then even he had hoped for, and it was really starting to bother him. When he walked into the Slytherin's common an icy silence washed over the room and he was stared at until he was safely behind his year's dormitory door. Then even in this room Draco was treated with a type of callousness usually reserved for possible deserters or traitors. They had yet to actually hurt him physically, but Draco could feel the intent and knew that it was just a matter of time.

The worst part was that Draco had asked them to do it, and he realized that now. To make the other Slytherins accept that Draco was not welcome, was in fact an outsider now, they would have to get more vicious with every prank or stunt pulled. So far his cloths had been thrown onto the front lawn while Draco was showering, his bed was permanently short sheeted, and all of his hair care products had been replaced with various bodily fluids. The blood in the Shampoo bottle had been unexpected, the urine was a little easier to spot, just by the smell coming off his conditioner bottle, but the one that had impressed him, had been the new Twenty-four ounce bottle of spray gel that had been replaced by saliva, disgusting yes, but none the less impressive. On the down side Draco was no longer able to wear his hair like he always had, and was forced to put up with it loose and flopping into his face.

Draco hoped that he would be able to call this whole thing off before the time his dorm mates got to the potentially lethal 'pranks' to be pulled. Strike that he had better be able to call this off before they got to that point. Otherwise his mother would be lamenting a husband in prison and a child under the ground.

Thankfully the pranks were restricted to just in house things and had yet to spill over into classes. Draco however wasn't taking any chances. In every class he took he procured a seat either behind everyone else's, or one that had at least one open space between himself and his classmates. All in all his classes weren't all that bad, save for one, potions.

After being his favorite class, hands down, since first year Draco was shocked to find that Professor Snape had replaced him as the favorite. Which wouldn't have been so bad, it was actually understandable with the way he was acting, but to have Pansy take his place was utterly and completely degrading. Anyone, and this was in the strictest sense of the word, anyone would have been better then Pansy, she was absolute crap when it came to potion making, and now to hear Snape practically fall all over himself to compliment her on the slightest thing she had done right (example: 'You measured that pint of frogs blood for you potion's base very well Miss Parkinson.') was like a knife being plunged into his body.

And still no one had said anything to Draco on his particular behavior, but Draco knew why this was. It was all the fault of that attention robbing, muggle loving, scar-head Harry - fucking - Potter. As much as he was loathed to admit it Potter was the only other person in this School who commanded more attention then Draco himself. To make matters worse, apparently the 'savior of the wizarding world' was playing the same game he was, and unfortunately Draco knew that the only way to turn heads away from the illustrious Potter, one had to be louder, brighter, and so annoying to others that they couldn't help but look your way.

Draco couldn't forget the first time that one of his year mates noticed him, or more precisely spoken to him. He was walking down the hallway to get to his last class of the day, Charms, when someone knocked him down, scattering his supplies. Thinking that it was probably one of the people from his house Draco almost yelled at them, as he had shoved his tangled blond locks out of his face, but was quite glad he had restrained himself. For there in front of him was Harry Potter, looking quite pale and while he appeared thinner then last he had last year, he seemed more, what was the word, toned, then before. His hair was hanging lifelessly, it was twice the length that Draco remembered from last year, but on the up side it looked clean, and he couldn't smell Potter from here so he was probably still showering. A vaguely concerned expression was on the boy who lived's drawn face, and Draco could swear that scar-head could carry all of his books in the bags under those green eyes. All in all Potter looked much worse then he did.

A smirk threatened to overcome Draco's face as he sat there on the ground staring up at his arch nemesis, who was holding out his hand in an offer to help Draco stand. For his part, Draco wondered if it would be feasible to slap that hand away, and still be in character, probably not. Draco 'calmly' gathered his parchments and books and stood on his own, ignoring the boy in front of him, or at least trying to ignore him, and biting his tongue so as not to say anything he might regret.

"Are you okay Malfoy?" He heard the boy who should have died ask.

Draco closed his eyes, gathered his wits, shoved his hair which had fallen forward back out of his face and finally managed to grit out through his teeth "Sorry for bumping into you Potter," before moving to walk on to class. He didn't get very far because Potter had grabbed the sleeve of his robe.

Draco glared at the offending hand touching his cloths, and was about to demand to be let go, turning his head to look up at Potter. 'Bastard,' Draco thought bitterly noticing that the other boy was a few centimeters taller then himself. Then Potter spoke to him again. "No Malfoy, are you okay?" As if it was supposed to make perfect sense now that he said it for a second time.

Briskly he pulled his sleeve from Potter's grasp and stepped away from him. "I'm fine Potter, no harm no foul, now if you will excuse me I have to get to class." Then proceeded to walk the rest of the way to the charms door, his body trembling the entire way from suppressing the urges he had to go back and slam Potter's head into a wall, to yell and scream and hit, and maybe to hex into oblivion, but he was quite proud of the fact that he didn't do any of these things.

Looking back down the hall before entering the room Draco was surprised to see that Potter was still standing where he left him. For the first time in along while, Draco actually felt that things might turn out like he had planned. Once again he found himself fighting a smirk that was threatening to take over his face.

It was later that Evening when Draco was having his usual after dinner walk around the castle, in an effort to avoid going back to the Slytherin dorms, that he was cornered by Ron Weasley. The redheaded git loomed over him, and then shoved him back into the wall. Draco pushed away from it and instinctively reached into his robe pocket to get out his wand and hex Weasley into next week, but when all he found was lint, he knew he was in deep shit.

He remembered briefly Pansy sideling up to him after Charms class and asking him how the plan was going. He of course told her to get the hell away from him, and if he needed anything he would ask. She had then merely smirked nastily and wandered away from him nonchalantly, and Draco had gone on his merry little way.

Draco couldn't believe that he was so out of practice in underhanded dealings that he hadn't realized the bitch had stolen his wand. He was going to kill her. As Draco was pushed roughly against the wall again, he realized that Weasley had asked him a question and apparently didn't like the fact that he had to now repeat himself. Oh yes Draco was going to kill Pansy, but that was only if this brutish Gryffindor didn't kill him first.

"What did do, or say to Harry, you little prat!" Weasley spat in Draco's face. Draco growled quietly in his throat, he was really going to have to do something about these growth issues he was having. Either that or start cutting peoples feet off, and maybe parts of their calves depending on how tall they were.

Draco gasped in surprise as Weasley lifted him by the front of his robes and slammed him back against the wall. "Get talking you bastard! Or I will make sure you don't get out of Hospital for quite some time."

"I haven't said anything to Potter this year," Draco said in an attempt at sounding calm, while trying to draw in some of the air that had been forced out of his lungs when he had hit the wall. He didn't think he was doing that badly since he also had to stop his legs from flailing about uselessly, and at the time multi tasking seemed an awfully hard concept.

"Don't lie to me." Weasley said shaking Draco whose hands had grabbed on to the arms holding him up in an attempt to get them to put him down. "I saw you talking to him outside Charms class, and Harry's been even more withdrawn since. Now what did you do?"

At this point, Draco quite happily broke one of his cardinal rules for living under the plan, and kicked the lanky redhead in the stomach as hard as he could. Both boys dropped to the ground, Draco's already sore rump met the cold hard stone floors of Hogwarts for the second time that day, but oh that had felt so good! Wincing he scooted back towards the wall and away from Weasley, who was curled up protecting his stomach, but it was a little late to be doing that.

Suddenly one of Weasley freckled hands shot out and grabbed Draco by the ankle, then yanked. Draco fell back, and cracked his head on the wall, crying out in pain. The blow muddled Draco's response time and prevented him from defending himself against the resulting punches that Ron landed on the Slytherins torso. He tried to curl into a protective ball but the larger Gryffindor forced him onto his stomach and yanked his arms behind his back, as he sat on Draco. "I'm only going to ask you one more time, Malfoy," Weasley hissed into Draco's ear. "What did you do or say to Harry."

Draco squirmed a bit trying to get away, but the muscles in his shoulders were screaming in pain, then he gritted out through clenched teeth, "I told you, nothing! He asked me if I was ok and I told him to fuck off, just like I am telling you. So Fuck Off Weasley!"

The larger boy abruptly stood, releasing Draco, and snorted down at the Slytherin who was curling into a ball on the ground. "You know Hermione had theorized that you had changed which is why you were not associating with any of the others losers in your house, but I know better then that, Malfoy. You will always be the stupid, prat son of a Deatheater."

Weasley made a move as if to kick Draco again, but then stopped as the boy on the floor winced. "You listen to me Malfoy, stay away from Harry, unless you want more of the same." And with that he turned and stalked down the hallway.

Draco remained motionless until his attacker had vanished from sight, then he tried moving. He groaned quietly, as muscles he didn't even know he had in places that had never hurt before, began complaining all at once. At least he now knew that someone was noticing him. He made to move his hair out of his face but stopped halfway though the motion hissing at the flares of pain in his shoulder. Oh he was so going to kill Pansy for this one.

Stupid Weasley!