Chapter One
He Who Must Not Be Named
The fire crackled almost merrily, almost oblivious to how ice cold and dark the white marble room was. I could hear their thoughts, I could hear about the cold they felt and that the fire was doing nothing to warm their chilled fingers. Most believed the cool temperature was because of my aggravated mood although Lucius and his family were all of the opinion that the room had always been cool, for all the centuries their family had inhabited this snow white manor. It was not the way of wizards to study the properties of marble and the effects of thermodynamics, to wizards, it was seen as a luxurious stone to build a grand manor from as the Malfoy family had were aware of the application of concepts such as the muggle physics to our superior wizard magic. Worms, all of them. Spineless and simple creatures.
I knew, as Dumbledore knew, that magic was based in the smallest essence of things. If one could understand the basics of the material in an object, then one could gain power over that object. Ordinary wizards simply assumed that waving a stick and uttering a few magical words of power could bring about their will...it was not to their knowledge of how such a thing could come to be. They did not care about the processes of how such a thing worked. It simply was.
This whole time I had proven myself to be as blind as the rest of them. For years I had assumed I knew Potter. I knew nothing, hence I had been failing in every attempt to end his life. I had been foolish, for all of this time. To destroy Potter, I had to unravel his very essence. What made Potter? I snorted in derision as I pictured Dumbledore telling me that it was love. That what made someone human was love.
People could not be made out of love. What a pathetic thought! Wizards were cells, particles, matter. Love was not a physical thing, was not an object of matter. To cast a spell of death meant altering matter, to change living cells to expired ones. To kill Potter, I simply had to cast such a spell and cause his body to cease living, yet every time I tried this, it had failed me. What made Potter so different? He was not physically made out of anything different, I was sure of this. To assume he was made out of love...how would that change my approach? Whilst Dumbledore was a fool, he did understand the nature of magic as I did. What did he know that I did not? Love...
I needed to know more about Potter, clearly. I needed to understand my adversary to the utmost in order to understand how to destroy him. Could I use this love against him? Could I possibly manipulate the people around him? I needed to know more. I needed to study this piece of dirt and discover what made him powerful enough to defeat me. How could I go about doing such a thing? Could I kidnap one of his beloved friends and interrogate them? No...it would be too obvious to Dumbledore. I could not touch the boy whilst he was in the walls of that school. I needed to observe him, to understand him...somehow...I needed eyes in the castle to observe for me. I had asked too much of Severus already, who would be too noticeable and suspicious to everyone if he were to take any further interest in the boy.
I looked at the mantel piece, up at the large portrait that graced the wall that was a part of the cathedral sized room. A portrait of my hosts, Lucius and his wife Narcissa...and between them, nestled so innocently there...Draco...His pale alabaster skin reminded me vividly of a white dove of hope. I allowed a small smile to grace my lips. Perhaps this would be my way of finding out the secret to destroying Harry Potter.
Harry
Sitting on the Hogwarts Express after a long summer was the best feeling. I couldn't keep the happy grin off my face as I sat in a compartment with Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville and Luna. I'd spent two dreary weeks with the Dursley's and hadn't hesitated to spend the rest of my holiday at the Burrow with my favourite family in the world. There was nothing I wouldn't give to be a part of that family and I was so lucky they treated me like I really was a member of the Weasley family. Mrs and Mrs Weasley had even given me a hand on their family clock, showing where I was at all times like the rest of their children. It had been pretty hard to restrain the tears from pricking my eyes when they revealed it.
Luna sat reading the latest issue of The Quibbler as Neville, Ginny and Hermione talked about their theories on who the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher would be. Ron was asleep, with his head against the window, drooling just a little bit. He'd been up most of the night writing a fan letter to the Chudley Cannons, reading it out loud a few hundred times, crossing out things and rewriting parts, worried that his letter would be bad. The team wasn't having a very successful season which was nothing unusual and so Ron felt that he needed to get onto the bandwagon and help raise their self esteem by professing his status as Number One Fan.
My scar prickled uncomfortably as I listened to my friends talk. It had been irritating me for a few days now, growing stronger the closer it came to the end of the holidays. I gave it a stubborn rub, wishing there was some way to remove it, even though sometimes I kind of liked the way it looked. Suddenly, it gave a stomach wrenching throb, searing as if a white hot iron were being pressed to my forehead. I couldn't hold back a small cry of surprise at the sudden pain.
"Are you okay, Harry?" Hermione asked quickly, her brown eyes watching me closely. She never missed a thing.
"Yeah, just my scar hurting a little bit," I grimaced, flushing red at having been caught out. "I'm used to it. It's only been happening most of my life."
"Is it You-Know-Who?" Neville squeaked, staring at me in fear. I shook my head and stood up.
"No. I dunno. I guess, maybe," I mumbled, embarrassed. I didn't like getting attention like this. "I'm just gonna go splash some water on my face." I could feel their eyes burning into my back as hot as my pulsating scar as I left the compartment and headed to the bathroom.
Draco
"Crucio!" I spat out from behind my gritted teeth. I fell into the wall, feeling incredibly faint as the third year Ravenclaw twitched from the curse on the floor of the empty train passageway. I heaved for air, cold sweat trickling down the back of my neck. My arm felt like it was on fire, as if I had plunged it into a furnace. I couldn't help but shake as I cradled my left arm to my chest, biting down on my lip and almost drawing blood in an attempt not to scream. I wanted this stupid child on the ground to feel the same amount of pain that I did. It was his fault I was in this amount of pain. It was his own fault that I had cursed him like this. He deserved it. Who runs through the corridors and knocks into people? He had touched my arm, causing it to flare up and cause me this agony.
I couldn't stay like this for long in the chance that someone would walk by. I ended the curse and cleared his memory before stuffing him into an empty compartment, his eyes blank and mouth slightly open. He would be fine, though he would not remember getting on the train. I stalked up the corridor of the train, my stomach still churning. I gave a small shudder, sure I was going to be sick. I hurried my step, near running to the bathroom. Occupied! I banged the door with my fist, tasting bile in the back of my throat. The door swung open and I didn't give the student time to leave, I pushed past him and began to unceremoniously throw up the contents of my stomach into the toilet, falling to my knees. "Are you okay?" the person asked, incredulously. I tried to wave them off but I barely had the strength to wave them to get away from me. My legs trembled. "Here." The boy came closer and reached forward to brush my fringe back. My arm gave a painful throb as he touched me and he seemed to jump in surprise. I threw up some more from the pain.
"Go away," I finally managed. I turned my head to glare at him, and could have leapt out of my skin. "Potter!" Great! The one person I did not want to see, witnessing me in this state! Why him? Merlin!
"Here," Potter offered, conjuring up a goblet and filling it with water. I wanted to refuse but the taste of vomit was too strong in my mouth. I sullenly took the offered drink and rinsed out my mouth, grateful to get rid of the taste and finally flush away the mess I'd made.
"Thank you," I muttered, unable to look at him, shameful as I struggled back to my feet. He held out his hands to help but I pushed his hands away. "I'm fine. There's no need for you to help, Potter."
"Don't worry, I get motion sickness too, sometimes," he smiled, amused. I opened my mouth to protest, when I realised I couldn't explain the real reason for the sickness. I shut my mouth with a snap and used the sink to splash water on my face. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone." I jerked my head up to look at him in the mirror, surprised. "There's no use kicking a guy when he's down," Potter shrugged.
"Thank you," I said awkwardly, reaching for some paper towel to dry my face. "Noble of you."
"I'm not doing it to be noble," he grimaced. "Is it really that hard to be nice?"
"We have no reason to be nice to each other," I answered bluntly, pushing past him again to leave. "Thank you for your kindness then, Potter. I'll have to return the favour some day."
"Sure," he answered, that smug smile still on his pathetic face. I rolled my eyes and stormed away, annoyed.
Harry
I headed back to my compartment, still a little stunned that I'd seen Malfoy of all people in the bathroom with motion sickness. Who would've figured that a guy like him, all proper and up himself, would get train sick. Then again, I got Floo sickness most of the time. I got back to my compartment and saw that Ron was awake.
"Hey," I greeted him, taking the offered chocolate frog. "You won't believe who I just saw."
"Who?" Ginny asked, curious.
"Malfoy," I answered, biting off the head of the frog. "I think he must have hit his head on something because he was actually pretty nice to me...in a Malfoy kind of way." Ron gave me a questioning look, mouth full of chocolate. "He got a bit of motion sickness and I gave him a hand. He was in a pretty bad way."
"You gave Malfoy a hand?" Ron asked, swallowing. "Did you slip in his chunder and hit your head?"
"That was very decent of you, Harry," Hermione smiled, pleased. I suddenly wished I hadn't said anything. Now she was going to think I was 'noble', just like Malfoy said. Honestly, I was only being nice.
"I told him I wouldn't say anything, so none of you mention it," I warned them, uncomfortable. "He said he'd return the favour."
"As if Malfoy would take you up on that," Ginny scoffed. Ron nodded in agreement. "He'd sooner hex you than ever do anything nice."
"I think Draco Malfoy is a nice boy," Luna said dreamily, eyes drifting to the scenery outside the window. "I'm sure he only appears nasty because of his upbringing. Down inside, I'm sure he's a lovely boy."
Ron, Ginny and Neville gave each other a look, then burst into chuckles. Hermione and I sat there silently, impassive. I was annoyed with myself for even saying something.
A/N: Thank you for coming back loyal readers, and welcome all new readers! It had been nearly three years since I last wrote Death Note Dreaming, Death Note Chain and Code of Consolation (Code Geass). I always had plans in the works for a HarryxDraco fanfiction and I'm finally back to give you more. I plan to update with a new chapter every week, so stay tuned! Do be warned though, that if you're looking for hardcore sex which you got in my previous fics, this fic won't satisfy. It will have the usual humour and dark drama, but will be more concentrated on the developing relationship between Harry and Draco and the impact it has on those around them, so I hope you will still continue to read anyway! Let me know what you think so far and show me you're interested!
All my love, DBC44