Authors note: Got nothing. Enjoy you animals.
By the time the morning of the first task arrived, Harry felt the familiar knot of anxiety twisting in his stomach. He stood at the mirror in the dormitory, staring at his pale reflection. His face looked thinner, the circles under his eyes darker than they had been just days before.
"You ready?" Ron asked as he entered the room, his voice breaking the silence. He looked nervous, though he was doing his best to hide it.
Harry forced a smile. "As ready as I'll ever be."
They left the dormitory together, meeting Hermione in the common room. She gave Harry a quick once-over, clearly still concerned, but said nothing. The three of them made their way down the staircases, heading toward the Great Hall for breakfast.
As they approached the doors, Harry's heart began to pound in his chest. Today was the day. The first task. Whatever was waiting for him out there, he would have to face it. He tried to focus on the noise of the castle waking up around them, on the bustling students making their way to the Great Hall—but the shadow of uncertainty loomed large in his mind.
With a deep breath, Harry stepped toward the entrance, the weight of the day settling heavily on his shoulders.
The day of the task, the lessons were scheduled to end at midday, in order to give all the students time to get down to where the first task was supposed to take place. The unrest at not knowing what the first task entailed had somewhat dissipated in Harry, though every now and then a jolt of panic would shoot through him, as his imagination would run wild in the back of his mind. The worst his mind had conjured thus far had been to be led in front of one of Aragog's spawn. Fighting a spider the size of a car definitely seemed on brand for a Tri Wizard Tournament. The mere thought had kept him sleepless most of the night before.
At breakfast, Harry was firmly stuck in a haze of nerves and bad premonitions.
"It's strange" Hermione began,
"Yeah." Ron agreed, distracted by some other part of the great hall, likely the French delegation at the Ravenclaw table.
Hermione gave him an annoyed sideways glance before continuing.
"It's strange, there was a fourth note that came out of the cup after you left. Dumbledore took it but didn't read aloud what it said."
Harry shrugged over his bowl of cereal. This could impossibly help him overcome the first task. He shrugged morosely.
"So what?"
"So, the goblet only produces names of champions. There are only three of you. But there is a fourth, that remained unannounced."
Harry glanced at the Ravenclaw table where Fleur Delacour gracefully ate breakfast surrounded by a court of students. She showed no signs of nervousness. He looked over at the Slytherin table, where Krum sat equally unphazed. Harry caught Krums eyes for a moment, Krum frowned at him, before Harry again continued to stare down at his uneaten toast.
"That can't be right. Im fourteen and it's not like I wasn't allowed to be chosen. Who can be less eligible than me?"
"Colin Creevey?", Ron said helpfully.
Hermione shot him a stern glare.
"What about Goyle? He would be terrible.", Ron said with a laugh.
Harry found himself smiling despite himself.
"He would be terrible."
Hermione continued,
"All im saying, is that there might be a fourth champion, so just, be prepared for that eventuality."
"What? A secret champion? Who would that be? Mad-eye?"
Harry felt oddly isolated even walking through the crowds wishing him good luck. He walked in a daze through the throngs of students stopping around him. He was making his way to lunch when Professor McGonagall hurried over to him in the Great Hall.
"Potter, the champions are to gather on the grounds. You have to get ready for the first task."
Relieved in truth that he would miss lunch, for risk of just puking it all out momentarily, he simply turned in the door to the great hall, but only after catching Rons eye and giving him a silent nod, which was returned by a white-faced Ron.
He walked out of the entrance hall with Professor McGonagall. She struck him as more anxious even than he himself felt. She put her hand on his shoulder. Her movements were twitchy, her face grey.
"What ever you do, don't panic," she said, "just don't.. panic.
There are wizards on the sidelines ready to step in if anything would go amiss. Just ... Do your best, and nobody will think any less of you..."
"Thank you, professor," Harry said mechanically.
Harry was being led towards the forest, and as they turned a corner, he saw that there was a large tent he was being led into.
"This is you, along with the other champions," said Professor McGonagall. Her voice was shaky, "you wait your turn, Potter, and.. Bagman will be.. Good luck."
Harry went inside.
Fleur was sitting in a corner. She looked unphased, as collected, and perfect as any day. This somehow made Harry even more nervous. Viktor Krum looked even more so. He looked focused, but ready. This must be nothing to an international quidditch star. Harry wished he looked on the outside as collected as the other two champions.
"Harry! Perfect!" said Bagman happily. "Come on in, make yourself at home!"
Bagman looked giddy with excitement. He was wearing his old quidditch robes, no doubt to honor the occasion. He looked like a giant fat hornet.
"Well, we're all there – the task then!" said Bagman beaming at all of them in turn. "When the audience has assembled, I'm going to be offering each of you this bag" – he held up a small silken bag – "from which you will each select a small model of whatever you are about to face! There are different – er – varieties, you see. And I have to tell you something else too .. your task is to collect the golden egg!"
Harry looked around at the other two champions. They still looked cool, calm, and collected. Perhaps they thought this was going to be nothing, just slay some beast and a party afterwards. Harry swallowed down a bout of nausea, grateful he didn't have lunch.
Around them footsteps could be heard, hundreds of them, as the audience gathered for the show. Harry found himself in one corner of the tent, his thoughts running a million miles an hour, when a squeaky voice shook him from his reverie. Ron's younger sister Ginny was gesturing for Harry from outside the opening of the tent. She looked pale and tiny, but her expression was urgent. Harry walked out of the tent and over to her.
"Here, Harry. You got this," Ginny whispered to Harry. She thrust a jumble of rolled up moth eaten cloth into his hands.
"Ginny, what-" Harry began, but Ginny cut over him.
"Just- shut up. Hagrid told me. You've taken on worse than this, so just- take this and do what you do."
She got on her toes and kissed him on the cheek before she turned and ran away from the tent to join the crowd heading towards where the task was supposed to take place. He looked down at what had been thrust into his hands, and realized he was holding the sorting hat. How had she come about the sorting hat? Hagrid told her what?
"Harry, here if you will," Bagman's voice called him back into the tent. Harry stuffed the hat into a pocket of his robes and walked back into the tent. For some reason, seeing Ginny, and being reminded of the events two years prior steeled him, but only somewhat. Harry didn't hear a word coming out of Bagman's mouth, but he saw that Fleur put a hand into the bag offered up by Bagman, only to withdraw a tiny, poison green, winged lizard. A dragon. The first task was dragons. What about dragons? Slay them?
Krum pulled out another miniature dragon. This one was bright red, and had a longer body, almost like a winged snake. He noticed that the miniatures had a collar with an attached number. Krums read the number two.
Bagman held the bag up to Harry now, and he pulled a miniature of a black dragon, with a long spiky tail. His miniature was markedly larger than the other two, about twice as large as theirs. It had the number three around its neck. The little dragon hissed at Harry as he studied it in his hand.
Harry studied the small angry creature in his hand. He was somewhat aware that Bagman was talking to the group again.
Harry found himself pulled out of the tent again, by Bagman this time. Harry realized he hadn't heard a single word of the instructions.
"You good, Harry?"
"What?" said Harry. "I'm fine."
"Got a plan?" said Bagman, in a low conspiratorial voice. "I wouldn't mind sharing a few pointers, I mean – Anything you need?"
"Kill the dragon, get the egg, right? Should be fine" said Harry with a nervous laugh.
Bagman blinked, thrown by what Harry had just said.
"No... Harry, I just told you–"
A whistle had blown somewhere, and Bagman reluctantly cut himself off mid-sentence.
He turned around with an exasperated expression
"Just, you don't have t– "
A distant voice shouted angrily, "Bagman, for heaven's sake"
He turned away from Harry and hurried off. Not even Bagman believed he could slay the dragon, the only adult wizard in this school who had seemed to genuinely root for him. Finally, even Bagman had realized just how hopelessly out of his depths Harry actually was. The look on Bagman's face when Harry told him what he had to do, he probably didn't even think Harry should walk out of the tent.
He felt very alone in this realization. At least Ginny believed in him...
Harry walked back to the tent only to see Fleur exiting the tent in an opening facing towards where he had heard the crowds gather previously.
He and Krum waited in silence as the roars of the crowd indicated that Fleur had begun facing her dragon. Harry didn't hear much of what was said, though he recognized Bagman's voice commentating. He toyed with the rolled-up piece of cloth stuffed inside his robes with his fingers, as he paced the tent. He knew what he would do. He suppressed a desperate urge to vomit.
At some point Krum was called out of the tent by the blow of a whistle, leaving Harry alone. Harry paced the tent for an unknown time, until another blow of a whistle indicated to him that it was his turn next.
Harry walked through the entrance of the tent, oddly calm. He walked through a gap in a fence, that no doubt encircled the enclosure in which the first task would take place.
He saw everything around him as If separated from his body. Several hundred spectators lined a sort of natural arena. It was a vast space in the middle of probably three hundred feet across. The ground was blackened, with only a few lonesome shrubberies unburnt where the dragons of the previous tasks had been fought. In the middle of the blackened no-mans-land stood a giant, pitch-black winged lizard Harry knew to be the dragon he was faced with. It was hard to judge size from hundreds of yards away, but it must have easily stood at least 40 feet tall. The dragon had her evil, yellow eyes upon him the second he exited the tent. Vaguely, Harry was aware that Bagman's voice was shouting excitedly somewhere in the distance.
Harry exhaled a shaky breath and began slowly walking towards the dragon. Air seemed to struggle to enter his lungs. His hand fingered the ball of cloth in his robes idly, probing the opening in the hat. The giant black lizard was fettered to the ground by an enormous iron chain, it rattled loudly as the scaly monster thrashed violently.
Upon seeing its adversary, the dragon let out a roar that physically shook Harry's chest and shot a bust of flames towards him that easily covered two thirds of the way to him. His vision of the dragon was obscured completely by hot, bright flames. For a moment all he could see of the enclosure was an inferno of fire, but as quickly as the violent flames had appeared, they rose, and turned into heavy black smoke that clung to the air. Hot air washed over him, the last remains of the dragon's breath of flames, Harry's nostrils filled with the suffocating smell of sulfur, it stung the back of his throat, he suppressed the urge to cough violently.
Harry tried to inhale a calming breath, though it felt like all the fresh air that only moments ago had surrounded him had been consumed by the dragonfire. His throat constricted from the smoke and his eyes watered.
Another burst of flame shot out towards him. This time the flames got so close to him he actually had to turn away, because the radiating heat on his face was unbearable. As the heat struck him again, he felt his fingers find metal inside his robes. His fingers gripped closely what he knew to be a ruby encrusted hilt that had appeared in the opening of the bundle of cloth.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he told himself he would buy Ginny Weasley the most extravagant Christmas present she's ever had, seen or imagined.
From his robes he produced the sword and held it along his side. A calm came over him. He walked slowly towards the raging dragon. Through his tunnel vision, he felt the audience draw a collective breath, he heard Bagman's tone shift from excited to uncertain.
"The Hogwarts champion has elected to... fence - the dragon, it seems..."
This was a terrible plan.
As Harry made his way forward, the yellow eyes of the black dragon followed him closely. She hunched lower over her clutch of eggs and let out another burst of flames toward him.
This time, Harry was close enough to where he thought the flames might actually reach him, and quickly sidestepped the enormous fireball. The dragon had aimed its outburst straight towards Harry, and its field of flames was wide, way wider than he should have been able to sidestep, but looked sideways to see the flames shoot past him, until the heat from the inferno struck him full force and forced him to turn away. The heat seemed less severe this time though.
Again, the flames disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, and the dragon scanned the field quickly to find its quarry. Its neck caused the large chain to snap violently as it again trained its head towards him. Another furious barrage of flames shot towards him.
Harry found himself collapsing sideways this time to avoid the violent flames. Heat poured over his body from above, and he sought refuge in the cold mud. He dug his face and hands into the mud as deep as he could. The heat above him was unbearable. But again, as soon as it started, the flames subsided, and he poked his head up to take stock of the situation.
The dragon's head was sweeping from side to side, evidently looking for him. The chain rattled with every single movement. The grounds around him were smoking. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was vaguely aware of the noise of the crowd, but he had only eyes for the beast in front of him. The dragon's head swerved violently, turning away from Harry.
Harry launched himself upright and ran for it. The beast was turned completely away from him, and he managed to close about a third of the distance towards it before it let out an ear-splitting roar. He froze instinctually and entered a low posture, ready to drop to the ground again.
It turned out to be a wise decision, for the next moment, the dragon lowered its head, and let out a violent burst of flame as it turned around simultaneously. Had he been running, there is no way he would have had time to drop to the ground quick enough to dodge the wide sweep of hellfire that occupied the very space he had just evacuated. Again, he found himself pushing himself as deep as he could into the freezing November mud. He felt the hilt of the sword heat in his hand, like a cast iron pan left on the stove, but he only gripped it tighter.
Again, as soon as it had begun, the heat was gone. He peeked up from the mud and saw only a mass of black spikes moving towards him. The head was still sweeping back and forth, looking for him, but it had only to glance slightly downward to find him lying there, an easy target.
Harry steeled himself, gripped the burning hilt harder in his hand and raised himself up. The stadium was dead quiet, save for the violent clanks from the chain fettering the dragon.
If he could only close the distance, maybe 60 feet at most, then maybe he stood a chance here. And then maybe he could bury this sword in the skull of this dragon just like he had done to the basilisk. He leaned into a sprint towards the enormous beast as he idly wondered if a dragon also had venomous teeth. As he sprinted harder than he had in all his life, he mused that being bitten by teeth several feet long any potential venom would make very little difference.
He had closed the distance quicker than he could have hoped for and raised the sword to strike. The dragon whipped down as it noticed its tiny foe mere feet from it. It snapped its massive head towards him, jaws open and baring sharp yellow teeth the size of table legs.
Harry gripped the sword with both his hands, readying himself for what was now inevitable. The dragon would snap at him, attempting to tear his body to pieces. It was as if time slowed down. He studied the evil eyes of the great dragon. They were fixed on him, a deadpan gaze. It reared, readying for the charge that was coming now any second.
From the corner of his eye, a great black studded tail was crashing towards him, and he again dropped to the ground. The tail passed over his head, and before the dragon had fixed its evil eyes on him again, he was back on his feet, sword held ready. The head crashed forward; jaws open wide. Harry had been awaiting it, still experiencing the moment as if artificially slowed down. He stepped out of the immediate path of the giant jaws and swiped at the head as it passed.
The blade buried itself deep in the neck of the great beast, and the effect was immediate. The blade was not long enough to slice through the full thickness of the beasts neck, but it slid through the flesh that it found as if it weren't there. A gash large enough to fit Harry several times over appeared in the scaly side of the black neck. Blood sprayed from the wound with such velocity that it pelted him painfully with droplets the size of apples that pounded him. He slashed a second time, and a third, a fourth, and over and over, until the head separated from the massive body completely.
The body of the dragon rolled over, pulling the neck away from the body, revealing a dark hole that leaked bright red blood in such quantities that it would surely fill bathtubs with every pulse. Steam was rising in the cold air from the enormous pools of scarlet blood that covered everything around him.
Adrenaline washed over him in waves as he stood next to the slain monster, catching his breath slowly. It was like a radio had tuned in the world around him again, as he heard distantly the announcement of Bagman yelling, though he could not tune in to what he was actually saying, the pounding of the adrenaline in his ears was still too great. Another violent urge to vomit was fought down with some difficulties. The strong smell of wet blood did not help in suppressing the urge to throw up.
Harry saw the dragon keepers walking towards him, though in no particular hurry. They all wore expressions of shock on their faces. Harry passed them and caught one of them saying something to the other, who hummed in stunned agreement. At the entrance to the enclosure, McGonagall and Professor Moody was waving him to them. He started walking over to them, before catching himself, turning back to the nest of eggs, and heaving the golden one up and walked over to his professors on shaky legs.
"You... You..." Professor McGonagall struggled.
"That was excellent, boy." Moody grunted, "Excellent."
McGonagall nodded a white face in agreement. She pointed him towards a second tent with a red cross on it.
"You'll need to see Madam Pomfrey, Potter..." McGonagall's voice was shaky.
Harry let himself be led into the second tent, where Madam Pomfrey stood waiting. Her white garb was covered in blood and soot, rather like she herself had fought a dragon, Harry thought.
When she saw him she let out a shrill scream. Harry looked at himself, and realized he was completely bathed in dragon blood.
"It's not mine!"
She stared at him for a moment, waving her wand over him.
"Dragons!" she said, "at least it's you and not that beast this time..." Pomfrey muttered angrily. She pulled Harry towards seclusion. The tent was divided into several such cubicles, in one of which he glanced a body lying on a bed covered head to foot in bandages. Several of them were dark red.
"Who is that?" Harry said, as Pomfrey was sitting him down and tearing his robes off him.
"The Durmstrang boy. Dragon fire. Stupid contest." Pomfrey muttered angrily. "Healers from Mungo's will be here momentarily to pick him up..."
"Can you let go of this stupid sword please, so I can tend to your hand?" Pomfrey said angrily, but Harry found that he couldn't. He looked down towards his hand and saw that it was horribly burnt. He tried again to let go of the hilt, but his fingers were fused to the sword.
"Okay then. This is going to be very painful," said Pomfrey before waving her wand, and severing his hand from the hilt, along with a sizeable portion of the skin of his palm. To his amazement, Harry felt nothing.
"That pain you aren't feeling," said Pomfrey sardonically, "is either Adrenaline, or you've got full thickness burns to your hand, and if that is the case, you aren't using your hand for the rest of the week, let me tell you that boy. Oh, and the blood you are absolutely drenched in, you're gonna have to scrub that yourself, can't scourgify something that magically potent. I wouldn't sleep on that either, boy, dragon's blood has a ton of magical properties, some of them good, but we don't know too much about the effects of subcutaneous diffusion from dragon's blood." Her tone was dry as paper.
"Got it, blood maybe bad, have a bath at earliest convenience.", Harry responded idly.
Madame Pomfrey proceeded to slather up most of his back, the back of both his hands, and some of his left shoulder with a strongly smelling purple ointment. She ordered him to sit at least a few minutes before she returned to see to the mummified Viktor Krum.
Even though he had been ordered by Madame Pomfrey to sit for a few minutes before leaving the tent, Harry found himself far too wound up to merely sit on a hospital bed at the moment. Before he reached the exit of the tent, however, he was intercepted by two people – Hermione, and Ron.
"Harry, that was bloody incredible!" Ron said in an awestruck voice. "Absolutely no contest, the best one by far"
But Harry looked at Ron with a doubtful expression, not entirely believing the praise to be truthful.
"Harry, mate, you were the only champion to actually finish the task. Krum was burnt to a crisp, and had to be carried off, and that French chick ate a fireball too, though she at least managed to abort the task herself!"
Harry glanced over to Hermione, who had been oddly quiet. There were fingernail marks across her face where she had been clutching it in fear. "You were amazing, Harry," she said in a squeaky voice.
"I'm sorry for being so harsh on you. I should have dropped it."
Harry shrugged his shoulders.
"It's fine, it was stupid of me to enter. I've got no business competing against these people" said Harry with a small smile. Hermione flung herself around his shoulders in a bone crushing hug. He could feel the burns on his backside sear dully under her arms. When she released him, she was covered in black grime and blood. Harry apologized for covering her in filth.
"No business? Mate, hear these words, CRUSHED it. Like I can't tell you how insane that was." Ron said loudly.
Harry picked up his egg with one arm and led a crying Hermione towards the judges table with the other. Ron was regaling Harry's bout against the dragon back to him in excruciating detail, as if Harry hadn't just been the one to have performed it only moments ago. Upon prodding he told the story of how Krum had ended up in that hospital bed, though apparently it was a story much less interesting than the one of Harry slaying the dragon. Krum had attempted a conjunctivitis curse in the eye, which hit it, but only served to infuriate the beast, who quickly recovered and fried him with a very nasty fireball.
"So the dragon gathers itself almost immediately, but Krum must have thought he would have more time, because he is caught in the middle of nowhere, and when the dragon blasts him he just kind of stood there frozen, he ate a fireball just head on. When the fire subsided, he was still standing there, frozen-like, but all black and smoking. That's when the dragon handlers stepped in, but honestly, I can't see how anyone survives something like that. When they carried him off on a stretcher, his body was all rigid, and before they blew the whistle to call you out you could hear screams coming from the healing tent and all..."
Ron stopped talking just as they reached the edge of the enclosure again. The body of the dragon was still heaped in the middle, a black convoluted mess of wings and scaly limbs. A pool of scarlet surrounded the unmoving beast. At the other end of the enclosure, Harry could see where the judges were sitting, on a gilded podium.
Madame Maxime raised her wand, and the number nine formed itself high above her.
"She's a bloody cheat, that was a ten!" said Ron angrily as the crowd roared. "It's marks out of ten, she gave Fleur a five, but she didn't even–", but Hermione hushed him. Dumbledore had raised his wand. He put up a nine too. Harry noticed Ron did not hurl abuse at the Hogwarts headmaster, despite granting him an identical lower score than Maxime had ("He has to, he can't look partial!").
Ludo Bagman gave him another ten. Mr. Crouch gave him a ten. Karkaroff gave him an eight.
Ron bellowed a string of very bad words at the Bulgarian headmaster. Harry didn't care at all though. He had gotten forty-six points, despite having gone in completely unprepared. He figured this must have been decent. Harry didn't care though; he was just glad to be alive, and even more so to be on speaking terms with Hermione again.
After receiving his points, he was directed to meet Bagman in the tent again, before he would be dismissed for the day. Upon reentering the tent, the atmosphere was somewhat different from how it had been before the task. Fleur sat in one corner, angry tears streaming down her face, and heavy bandages strewn across her body. Viktor Krum was nowhere to be seen.
"Well done, champions" said Ludo Bagman, though he seemed to mostly be speaking to Harry. He looked incredibly pleased, as if one of the three champions hadn't just possibly died before the first task even had concluded.
"Now, just a few quick things before you are free to go enjoy your triumphs."
Fleur let out a huff. Bagman ignored this, still looking as happy as if he himself just tied a lead with Harry.
"Those golden eggs you're holding…" Bagman indicated to the one egg present in the room, the one in Harry's arms,
"Well, that one, it opens. Inside there is a clue for the second task. You need to solve the clue before February the twenty-fourth, that's when the next task takes place. So, in order to prepare, you need to solve the clue inside the egg. Oh- Also Durmstrang will be allowed to enter names anew from this afternoon, can't have a tri-wizard tournament with just two champions, now can we?"
"Excusez, I didn't get my egg, meester Bagman."
Ludo Bagman offered her a wide smile,
"Oh? Well, no do overs in this competition, im afraid. I'm sure you'll manage."
Fleur looked positively outraged.
And with that he turned on his heel and disappeared from the tent.
Harry glanced at Fleur. She ignored him, though he caught her stealing a glance at the golden egg he was holding before she too disappeared from the tent.
Harry eventually left the tent too, and rejoined Ron and Hermione.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione made to walk back to the school, when Hermione stopped in her tracks with a strange look,
"Wait. Is that the sword of Gryffindor?"
Harry gave her a smirk, he felt considerably better compared to an hour ago, he figured maybe his smile was even genuine this time.
Harry started to tell the story of how Ginny had given him the sorting hat moments before the first task, essentially saving him from certain death, but never got past Bagman's introduction for all the interruptions by other students congratulating Harry, or in other ways sought interaction with him. He had to decline a whole string of boys and girls asking if they could hold his sword, until Ron had enough and started hurling abuse at anyone who looked like they intended to interrupt them again. It didn't work very well for to salient reasons, the primary was that Ron didn't hold enough abuse in him to fend of a first year for the time being, and second of all, he very much enjoyed the attention himself too.
The days after Harrys success in the first task, the school took a turn for the weird, to Harry's taste. First of all, it seemed that half the school had joined the fencing club. The fencing club, who up until days ago had consisted mostly of ghosts and a number of first years too afraid of ghosts to decline their recruiting efforts, had exploded in numbers, and were now the largest student society in the castle.
Madame Pomfrey found herself treating cuts and slashes on tens of students each night, who it seemed refused to neither don protective gear, nor stop using swords with live edges. The fencing society was so delighted about this turn of events they renamed themselves 'The Thrashing Horntail' and started pestering Harry to come join their club every chance they got. It got so bad Harry started checking the map before heading down for breakfast to plot a route free of fencers on his way to classes or breakfast. Only issue was they seemed to multiply each night.
Another surprising effect of his display with the horntail was that it seemed a lot of girls in the castle had gained an interest in finding excuses to walk next to him. Mostly this was okay, although it annoyed Hermione very much when they wouldn't stop giggling at every word he said. Harry found himself longing for how things had been before the task, as annoying as people had been around him then.
Another thing Harry noted, was that despite Malfoys best efforts, he really struggled to mock Harry over much of anything at the moment, it seemed Malfoy was also very impressed, though he tried his best at digging that part of himself as deep as he possibly could. No doubt such feelings distressed Malfoy a lot.