Gregory Goyle was alone in his room as usual. His face contorted into that of a person that was thinking a lot about a situation. It was a given that he was thinking so much. Last evening his father had called both him and his younger brother to his study.
The imposing man looked tired that evening, his eyes deep into his sockets and dark bags due to lack of sleep under his eyes.
"I have made a mistake," The old man had confessed to them, his voice gravelly from emotion "I have reconnected with my old acquaintance, Lord Malfoy." The man seemed to sink deeper into his chair when he said the name. "Lord Malfoy has ordered me that our family has sunken too deep into debt with him."
Gregory watched has his father breathed out in frustration and he shuddered lightly, the severity of the situation dawning upon him, if Lord Malfoy decided that they needed to pay up, then it could mean that the Goyle Manor would be sold and they would they status as Lords as well.
The Goyle family had fallen into debt with the Malfoy family in the first wizarding war, the Dark Lord had ordered his Death Eaters to finance his campaign in recruiting wizards and witches, needing the money for armaments and food. Lord Goyle had stripped almost everything from the Manor and sold it, keen to gain favor from the Dark Lord. Unfortunately the Dark Lord had disappeared and his father suddenly did not have any Galleons anymore to pay for the bills.
Desperate, his father had gone to Lord Malfoy and pleaded for a loan, after all, they were Death Eaters, they were alike. It was a given that they would help each other out. Unfortunately Lord Malfoy had had enough of financing the Goyle family and had demanded something from them as repayment.
Goyle saw his brother shiver besides him, his eyes wide and trained upon their father.
"He has demanded that when his son, Draco Malfoy, enters Hogwarts that the Goyle family helps their young heir with everything during his stay." Lord Goyle stared at him with cold eyes. "Goyle, you are the oldest son and my heir. You need to do this, to follow Draco Malfoy and make sure that you do his very bidding."
Goyles breath quickened, a mindless follower? He, Gregory Goyle, was going to follow Draco Malfoy? Gregory knew Malfoy very well, he knew that Malfoy was not kind, he knew that he would need to put up with a lot of insults and abuse, on a daily basis.
"Father," He began, falling silent at the look of Lord Goyle. He licked his lips nervously and tried again. "Father, is there no another option we can take? You saw how he has treated us during the feasts and the balls." He took an intake of breath and flicked his eyes to the floor, thinking for a few seconds. "He- he was not treating our family well, even though we are a Pureblood family, and i-if he knows that I must do what he says-" He abruptly stopped and saw his father rise from his chair, placing his hands onto his desk while he leaned forward to stare at him.
"Gregory," His fathers calm, emotionless voice filled him with cold dread. He clenched his fists and met the gaze of Lord Goyle. His father looked murderous, which was a scary combination with his calm voice. "Make no mistakes," His father continued, "Lord Malfoy has graciously offered us the ability to pay all our debts with this request, even going as far as to supply our family with extra money to help finance your younger brother when he goes to Hogwarts. Just like you are going this year. You will do as I say or we will lose our status as Noble House of Goyle." His father paused and stared at him for a few seconds. "Are you saying that you are worth more than our status?" The question hung between them as a dark cloud for a few more seconds before Goyle swallowed nervously as he bit back tears. "No sir." He said loudly, "I know what our status means for our house, I know where my place is." Gregory added the last bit, hoping for his father to drop the subject as quickly as he could. He knew that his father was right.
The title, 'Noble', was the hard work of many generations prior to him. He knew what it meant to lose that title. He had seen several families that lost their Noble status slowly dying out. No title meant the imminent end of their lives.
"Good," Lord Goyle spoke softly while sitting down slowly. Still staring at him coldly. "Then you know what you need to do. You are dismissed now." Gregory bowed to his father and turned on his heels. The walk to his room seemingly over in seconds, he now found himself on his chair. His head in his hands and seemingly staring into nothing. His face contorted in pain.
His situation did not look good. He knew that his ambitions would be placed after Malfoy's ambitions. He knew that he would probably make no friends at the school and that he would need to keep up appearances, whatever appearance the Malfoy heir wanted.
After a few minutes Gregory could think a little bit more clearly. He breathed out calmly, he was a Pureblood, he had to stay calm and think rationally. Knowing Malfoy, he would need to be his muscle, seeing as the Malfoy heir was more proficient than him in magic, yet his physical strength was way more than Malfoy. The Noble House of Goyle prided themselves in being quite well-versed in physical strength. Unfortunately that made a lot of other Purebloods think that that was all they were. Pure muscle and no magic. Gregory balled his fists, he would need to gain a head start in magic, to show Malfoy that he was not some mindless follower!
Gregory stood up and stretched himself out, earning a few little pops from his joints. He had been seated for quite some time now already.
Gregory looked around his room for a brief moment, his bed, study bureau all were in an okay state. He did not ask for much after all. He'd gotten magical weights from his father for his tenth birthday, but he'd left them in the corner of his room for some months. Maybe it was now time to start training and gain at least an edge over other Purebloods at school? He looked down at himself, spotting a slight belly and sighed. His magic sped up his metabolism, but it seemed that he loved sweets a little bit too much. Pumpkin pie seemed to be the bad guy here.
After a few minutes he decided that he should do something about it, instead of blaming the pumpkin pie. He huffed softly under his breath and walked to his weights, picking them up. Immediately he felt the connection to his magic. There was a soft burning feeling in his body now, a slight burn went to his legs. He slowly rose the weights and felt that there was a growing burning feeling in his arms that slowly rose up the higher he put them up. When he had his arms all the way up he felt drained. Unconsciously he had closed his eyes and he felt a sudden rush of nausea upcoming. Hurriedly he decided to drop the weights and began to hyperventilate while stumbling to his bed.
—-===#Time-Skip#===—-
He had an headache. Gregory groaned and massaged his temples with his fingers. A heavy one. "Pipsy." He called out loudly, cringing at hearing his own voice in the silent room. With a loud 'crack' the elf appeared bowed down with its nose to the floor. Gregory felt nausea coming up again as the loud crack had increased his headache. "Elf," He rasped, still feeling immensely tired. "Get me an Invigoration draught, quickly." The elf bowed, and with three short 'cracks' there was an Invigoration draught on the ground in front of him. Trembling slightly, he picked up the vial and downed it quickly, shuddering at the terrible taste. He threw the empty vial towards one of the corners of his room and walked to his window that looked over the gardens.
"That was not particularly a pleasant experience." He muttered while squinting his eyes against the sunlight. Gregory still felt the burn of his magic in the veins of his arms. It seemed that there was something that happened to the weights with his magic. Well... they were magic weights after all, so was that not something that seemed natural? He turned around quickly, could it be that the magic had increased and/or aided him in raising something heavy? Maybe he had pumped his magic in the weights making them heavier?
Thanks to the invigoration draught he felt sharp and alert, with a slight bounce in his step he walked to his weights that he had left abandoned on the floor. He carefully squatted down and placed a finger on the handle of one of the weights. Immediately he felt the pull on his magic and lifted his finger slightly to disconnect the connection. Frowning he looked around his room, looking for one of his books. Swiftly spotting one he stood up and picked it up, returning to his earlier position with nervous movements.
Gregory never thought that looking at something that used magic was this interesting. Granted he had gotten his first lessons with some other Pureblood heirs from a private tutor, but it always seemed that his magic was never responding to what he wanted it to do. Briefly reminiscing about the time he had wildly swung his arms around in an attempt to make the feather in front of him do something. Of course nothing had happened and he had earned himself a stern reprimand from the tutor.
He shook his head sharply from the memory and concentrated on the task at hand. Softly nudging the weight with his book his eyes opened wide when he met no resistance. The weight seemed to mock him as it easily rolled a few centimeters away from him. Gregory narrowed his eyes at the object and flung the book to his side. Determined he hooked one finger under the weight and tried to lift the weight to no avail. He clenched his jaw as he tried to raise the weight with as much power as he could.
As soon as he had gone all-out with the lifting of the weight, there was a familiar burn in his finger. Slowly, ever so slowly the weight was lifted centimeter by centimeter off of the ground. Letting out a short laugh Gregory quickly felt the burn slipping from his finger and the weight seemed to increase it's weight tenfold. He grunted when he pulled back his finger quickly, the weight giving a dull thud when it landed on the floor. There was something going on with his magic, something that did not happen whenever he had used spells. This was way more interesting than using his wand. The stupid piece of wood just did not seem to work for him. He glared at his wand that laid uselessly onto his desk.
It seemed that his magic did work with infusing certain items. Gregory remembered that his father had warned him about the use of potions briefly, that the more he used them, the lesser the effects would be. He licked his lips nervously, feeling very excited since the first time in his ten years. He could do magic! Gregory suddenly felt lightheaded and had to grab onto his chair for support. The amount of adrenaline was coursing through his veins made his knees wobbly. He found something that interested him!
Thinking back on his earlier revelations he tapped his fingers excitedly onto his chair. There was something interesting about the weights, they refused to grow heavier whenever his used an item that was non-conductive. He thought. He did not know for sure, but it seemed to be the case. He remembered that on his seventh birthday one of the elves had come by and delivered a present from his father, he had been so excited that he immediately lifted up the bag. Only to see these two weights inside of it. He remembered how angry and how sad he had felt back then. Back then he had thought that the items were nothing. Useless, because of the lack of weight, how easily he had picked it up. He had flung the bag into a corner and refused to touch it for three years in a row.
Quickly he formulated a plan in his head, fueled by the adrenaline that had no sign of stopping. "Pipsy!" He called out loudly. With a loud 'crack' the elf appeared and croaked softly, "What does young master wants?" Gregory placed his hands behind his back and intertwined his fingers like he had seen his father do multiple times whenever they had guests over. "Pipsy, this has to stay between us, understood?" The elf seemed to place his forehead on the ground as fast as it could, "Of course master." It rasped. Nodding he went over the mental checklist in his mind. "Get me one of the trunks with an expansion charm on it and fill it up with Invigoration draughts, how many do we have left in the storage room for the potions?" The elf stayed silent for a few seconds before answering, "Around 300 or more young master." Gregory nodded and waved at the elf. The elf understood it and left with a crack. He knew what he was doing was not something that his father would approve of, but he was interested in the results.
After some time a trunk appeared next to his bed with a crack and he grinned. If he used around one potion per day and take it with small sips to not get a sudden overload of the potion then it might be possible to do it for a month or so! Excitedly he hopped over to the trunk and opened it. Immediately he fell silent and stared at the huge amounts of invigoration draught. It seemed that father had not used any. With a slightly shaking he tried to count the vials of draught but dismissed it when he had counted above ten. If his father figured this out he would get punished severally. But the elf had obeyed, so all would be good. He hoped.