Chapter 2: The Respectful Slytherin
Author: Blodeuwedd
Beta: higginszoo
Scorpius Malfoy was sitting on the grass by the lake, his brow furrowed and his lips moving slightly as he read his Transfiguration essay for the third time. He had to be absolutely sure that no mistakes whatsoever had been made, and, no matter how many times he read it, he still didn't think it was good enough. He had a reputation to live by, after all. Sighing, he lifted his head to watch the other students, all enjoying the warmth of the Spring sun and postponing studying without second thoughts. Life was, after all, brief, and one should seize the day, as he had read once in an old Muggle Philosophy book (hidden from his father, obviously). The concept itself was quite simple, but really doing it was another thing entirely. Scorpius knew he was a bit uptight – hell, a lot uptight – but he could not help it. He liked rules and order and routines too much to loosen up. It made everything way much easier to deal with. He did not need to think about what to do next, or whether it would or wouldn't be proper, he didn't have to come up with ways to get himself out of situations nor did he have to pay detentions. Life was much simpler when one followed the rules. All right, so his life lacked a little fun, but who needed that? He snapped out of his reverie when he heard a loud laugh coming from a group of fourth years that seemed to be enjoying themselves with some explosive snaps. Ok, so maybe I do need that.
His major problem was – he thought, while he stood up – he had absolutely no friends. He hardly had acquaintances. He was a quiet person and had been so for all his life. Being an only child born from another only child was very lonely. He had only one cousin, who was almost ten years younger and lived in another country, so he didn't really count as a peer. When he was young, he had no one to play with, and started making himself imaginary friends who would play with him. His father had thought he was going crazy and prohibited him of talking to himself, which Scorpius obeyed, of course, like he always did. He would hate to make his parents angry at him – what if they stopped liking him? So he had always tried his best to be a good son, which he managed quite successfully, until he had been sent off to Hogwarts. There had been many more people to please then, and they all seemed to have different views of what was and what was not nice. Scorpius remembered when, still on his first trip at the Hogwart's Express, he had told a couple students that had turned a third one into a bird that that was wrong, and the ugly looks he had received – including from the bird. Adjusting to school had been somewhat hard on eleven-year-old Scorpius and he had soon discovered that he'd either be liked by his teachers or by his classmates. Considering his parents probably wanted the first to happen, he resumed (omit the to)obeying, only now the teachers substituted for the parents.
Another thing he had found out soon was that being a Slytherin was no piece of cake, especially for a Malfoy. The students from the other Houses didn't seem very amiable, specially the Gryffindors, who seemed to believe that every Slytherin was their lifelong enemy. Scorpius himself thought that was very prejudicial, since they obviously didn't know all Slytherins, but gave up trying to be friends with them when it was clear that he lacked the social ability to make new friends. He had, nonetheless, decided to be respectful with all the other students and had, therefore, gained the antipathy of his fellow House members, who thought a respectful Slytherin had to be punished. Luckily, Scorpius was intelligent enough to learn a few defensive spells, so they rarely got him – and the gods knew they had tried to jinx him more than once. And if that wasn't enough, he was a Malfoy, meaning the son and grandson of former Death Eaters, that is, followers of the deceased dark wizard Voldemort. For that, and that alone, many of the students and even some of the teachers were very cautious around Scorpius, as if he was a dark wizard himself. And the few students that agreed with Voldemort's pure blood theory disliked the Malfoys because they considered the family to be traitors to whom they called the Dark Lord.
Scorpius' thoughts were again interrupted when he overheard his name. He looked around and saw two Slytherin seventh years eyeing him and talking quietly. When they noticed him looking, they stared back, daring him to do something about it. Scorpius scowled and started to move away from them, but they put themselves in the middle of his way. The blond boy sighed, knowing what was about to come.
"Hey, Malfoy", said the first boy, with disdain, "running away so quickly?"
The second boy sneered. "That's obvious, typical Malfoy attitude, running away at the minimal sight of danger."
Scorpius glared at the pair. Those particular two boys had been nagging him since his first year. Really, when are they going to learn already? "I don't see any danger, minimal or otherwise. Now, if you'll both excuse me, I have somewhere I need to be." He tried to sound as polite and calm as possible, but listening to them speaking evil of his family always got to him. Not that he agreed with his father's and grandfather's past actions, but it had all happened a long time ago. His father and even his grandfather had changed, albeit not much, and Scorpius was very different from both of them. But nobody cared about that, nobody even knew that.
"No so fast, sissy." The first boy spoke again, lifting his wand, but before he could do anything with it, Malfoy had already raised his own and thought Expelliarmus, sending his opponent's wand flying in the air.
"Think you're great, don't you, Blondie? Think you're better than other people just because you're a fucking Prefect. Newsflash, Malfoy, you're nothing!" The second boy snarled. "Furnunculus!"
"Protego."
"Yeah, keep doing that, keep backing off you bloody coward! You're just like the rest of your family, a lot of bloody cowards, always hiding yourselves, the scum, the disgrace of all purebloods, filthy bastards, you deserve nothing more than shit!"
Levicorpus!
The boy flew into the air, his body hanging down only by one ankle, shaking his arms inefficiently.
"What's going on here?"
F#&.
Scorpius turned to see his Herbology professor coming down the hall. He gulped and looked around, contemplating the scene like he wasn't a part of it, like his soul had disattached from his body and was now floating in the air and looking down at himself. There were he, standing with his wand on his right hand, his classmate hanging in the air upside down and the other one looking astonished at the scene, half leaning on the way to get his wand back.
Double f#&.
Professor Longbottom looked down at him in disbelief. Despite his past grudges against Draco Malfoy, his son was one of his best and most well-behaved students. But the scene was quite clear and he had no other option. "Detention, Malfoy. Tomorrow, 2 p.m., my office. No excuses."
Scorpius' soul quickly settled back into his body.
Triple f#&!
While the Professor calmed down the other students, Scorpius dashed away, trying his best to avoid the stares that were coming his way. He felt ashamed of himself for using that spell, more so for what had caused him to use it. His head was throbbing and he could hardly see straight as he rushed to his dormitory. He couldn't even begin to imagine what his father was going to say about it.
