Disclaimer: Harry Potter isn't mine.
A/N: My sister challenged me to write a short fic about the Slytherin of my choice containing a line from Shakespeare and a reference to snakes. Here's the result; I think it turned out rather well.
You know, I never really had a chance. I would have liked to be good, I really would have, but there's only so much you can do when your very name declares your malevolence to the world. By my own name, I was predestined to become evil. Really, would you trust someone whose name means 'Dragon of Bad Faith'? Hell, even I wouldn't, and I know that I'm trustworthy. At least, I was once, before I realized that no matter what, people's opinion of me would never change, and there was no absolutely use wasting my effort trying to be honorable.
There's a line, 'What's in a name? that which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet'. It's very pretty, but it's also absolute crap. If my name weren't Malfoy, people wouldn't have written me off as a bad job, and then, just maybe, I wouldn't have given up on people in return. If my name weren't Malfoy, maybe someone, somewhere, somehow, would have noticed that something was desperately wrong, and saved me from what I was forced to become. But it's too late now; the dice have been thrown, and they've come up snake eyes.