In the
little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up,
there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. It may
be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is
small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high,
according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter.
CHARLES DICKENS - Great Expectations
The bottom line of it all was that Lucius had to spend half a
million galleons on some Muggle painting, and Draco was in for the first really
bitter disappointment of his whole life, fortunately unwitting how many more
would follow in the next years, always from the same source.
Harry Potter was made a Gryffindor, but at that point, Draco
already didn’t care anymore. How high his hopes had been! Harry Potter!
The Boy Who Lived! Pah! It turned out that this boy he had met in Diagon Alley
in summer was indeed The famous Harry Potter, but that was as far as
Draco’s satisfaction would go. Together with Greg and Vince, he went looking
for the celebrity in the Hogwarts Express, finding him in an almost empty
compartment together with another First Year. Draco needn’t guess for long who
that other boy was; he was lanky and red-haired, with loads of freckles and
sleazy, hand-me-down robes, a mangy rat (how pathetic could a pet be,
honestly!) and black soot on his podgy nose. A Weasley, if there ever was one –
and there were scores of that lot, mind you!
And Weasley had wreaked the havoc with Potter already as
well, he realised soon enough. Draco introduced his friends and himself, making
Weasley giggle. That git! Draco retaliated with the same coin by making fun of
Weasley, too, before turning back to Potter, his intentions sanguine and his
hand outstretched, offering him help and support to meet the right people.
“I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself.
Thanks.”
Draco had never been slapped in all his life – although his
grandfather occasionally threatened to do so – but he was sure that a slap must
feel exactly like that. Potter ignored the outstretched hand, and Draco
bore in mind what his mother always said – ‘Magni animi est iniurias despicere’* – and replied as coolly
as he could, “I’d be careful if I were you, Potter. Unless you’re a bit
politer, you’ll go the same way as your parents. They didn’t know what was good
for them either. You hang around with riffraff like the Weasleys and that
Hagrid and it’ll rub off on you.”
They had a bit of a brawl next, ending with Greg being bitten
by Redhead’s pet rat, who was surely rabid as well. Well, what would you expect
of a Weasley, right?! They escaped before the beast could bite Draco or Vince
too, and bumped into some girl with buckteeth in the corridor, who shot them
all a fierce scowl that was worthy of Mrs Crabbe.
Hogwarts, too, turned out a little less fantastic than he had
imagined. The castle was vast and old, but that was almost the best one could
say about it because it was also cold and damp and forbidding. He was made a
Slytherin – thank Merlin, he was glad that he needn’t put his reserve plan in
action – and moved into his dorm. The accounts his parents had given of
these dorms had been contradictory. His dad had sworn that he’d have the
time of his life, surrounded by his mates. His mum had groaned that she’d
rather not think of ‘the worst years of my entire life, incarcerated
underneath the surface of the earth without as much as a window to look out,
but with a whole bunch of highly insipid strangers instead.’
Draco realised that the truth was somewhere in the middle.
Yes, he’d have liked to have a window all right. This room was indeed rather
depressing. On the bright side – he shared the place with Greg and Vince, which
was like the prospect of a constant sleep-over at one of his buddy’s houses and
promised to be lots of fun. There was yet another boy that Draco already knew
by sight; his name was Blaise Zabini and his father was dead, but that was as
much sympathy as Draco could muster. Zabini, whose dead dad seemed to have been
a famous musician sometime before Draco had even been born, was conceited and
not very nice, but Draco thought it didn’t matter, as long as he had Crabbe and
Goyle there as well.
Right after unpacking his trunk, Draco sat down to write home
and report with unveiled pride that he had honoured the family tradition and
been made a Slytherin. He also mentioned that he had met famous Harry Potter,
what an idiot this one was and that he had been sorted accordingly to
Gryffindor. He even acknowledged that his attempt to befriend the useless git
(for his mum’s sake, he had chosen his words more articulate) had failed before
it had properly begun, and professed that he couldn’t care less.
He had meant to take their family cat Emma to school, but his
parents hadn’t let him, and he had got an owl instead – Muninn, he had named
him – so he could send the letter home immediately. His mum’s answer arrived
directly in the next morning at breakfast, dear Mum!
‘My precious,’ she wrote, ‘let
me begin with congratulating you to have gone to Slytherin. Your father and I
are excessively proud of you, and also relieved to know you in such good hands
as Professor Snape’s. Be a good boy and listen to him by all means – your
father just asked me to add that, IF you’re disobedient, you want to make sure
that you’re not found out at least. Oh well, I trust you to know how you must
behave, my love.
I’m pleased to hear that
you’re together with Gregory and Vincent, and if they’re snoring too badly, I
hope you remember the spell I have shown to you – easy on the wrist, dear – to
fade out their noises.
As for Harry Potter – don’t
aggravate yourself, my love. It’s not worth it. You will find better friends.
If he is as unbearable as you say, you should consider yourself glad that he
has been made a Gryffindor so you see less of him. Your dad wants me to mention
how very glad I am because Harry Potter has just got me the wonderful painting
we’ve seen in Amsterdam last June and that the boy owes him already. Be that as
it may, I’m very proud that you have given your best to be nice to the boy,
even if your efforts were futile in the end. The same is true for your
schoolwork. Don’t be disappointed if something doesn’t work out the way you
want straightaway, trust me, it will be fine eventually if you always give your
best. I know that for a fact, my precious darling, because I know how clever my
son is, and that you can achieve anything you set your heart on. Study
diligently for my sake, do not neglect your piano practise and your language
exercises – ingenii dotes corporis adde bonis, litteratura omnium virtutum
maxima est!*
I love you, mon trésor, your
father sends his love, too, and so does your grandfather. We think of you a
lot, and cross fingers for your first day, may all your wishes come true. – All
my love, your mum always –
PS: I miss you very much
already, my little prince! ’
He bothered for some morsels of her good advise more than for
others, and ignored some bits altogether. His piano exercises, for example,
were out of question, of course. Theodore Nott had brought his violin case and
Blaise Zabini had brought a guitar, and Draco had heard how some older
Slytherins had made fun of them for this, so he had well hidden his own violin,
alongside all the music. He had also tried to put Theo on his guard, but this
one had merely shrugged and claimed that he didn’t mind what some other
students might think of him or not. What a weirdo!
Neither did he put only half as much effort into his studies
as his mother appeared to expect. In his first week, he had realised how simple
this stuff was – he already knew all these spells and things – only to notice
with slight uneasiness that he hardly knew what his teachers were talking about
four weeks later, but since he was beating Vince and Greg in style still, he
wasn’t too worried.
As for Potter… Everybody was oh-so-delighted with Potter. The
Boy Who Lived. Golden Boy. Holy Potter. He was a modern saint, even though
Draco couldn’t see what was supposed to be so special about him, honestly! His
achievements were far from excellent, too, he wasn’t exceptionally bright, he
wasn’t exceptionally talented, the only thing singling him out was that stupid
scar on his forehead! But the true affront was to come still.
Because this little fool Potter had been caught in the act –
flying on his broomstick though Madam Hooch, their flight instructor, had
strictly forbidden them – and Draco had chuckled with heartfelt glee, thinking
that Potter would be expelled right in their first week, or severely punished,
at least. And what had happened? The usual! Regardless what Potter would do, he
always, always got away with it! In this particular case, McGonagall
hadn’t dressed him down like she ought to, but assigned him to the House Team
even and seen to it that he’d get a fabulous new broom! Draco turned green with
indignation, envy and anger whenever he thought of it!
First Years weren’t allowed to possess a broom and
play Quidditch! They were not allowed – this was the only reason why
Draco had given in to his mother after all and not taken his own broom to
school! His dad was a school governor, and not even he had
managed to make an exception of that adamant rule for his son, who was,
incidentally, a brilliant flyer and Quidditch player! No, Draco
wasn’t permitted to do as much as try out for a place on the team – even though
he would have deserved it! And Potter, who had never mounted a
broomstick in his entire life until coming to Hogwarts – who hadn’t known what
Quidditch was eight weeks ago, for goodness’ sake! – Potter was
made a Seeker at once, because he was Harry Potter, and because
everybody was just too happy to comply and make everything possible what The
Boy Who Lived wanted!
And all the teachers favoured him blatantly, too! Well, not all
of them, because Professor Snape was everything that Draco had anticipated. He
knew that his Head of House had been a close friend of his parents in school,
and they had remained loosely acquainted after that time still. Professor Snape
was a fantastic teacher, and he was the only one treating the Slytherins fairly.
The other teachers could never really dispel that look of – well, reserve,
perhaps – when dealing with Slytherin students, while warmly embracing complete
dunderheads like Neville Longbottom, or Potter, or such terrible swots like
that Hermione Granger, who tried to make up for her Muggle parents by
memorising every single school book they had!
Or the incident with the dragon! Right! A dragon! A
whelp, admittedly, but a real dragon nonetheless, and dragons weren’t permitted
anywhere in the school either, they weren’t permitted anywhere. Draco’s
dad was a Law School graduate, no one could fool him about laws! But
that big oaf Hagrid had probably never heard of this law, or couldn’t read it,
or for some other reason, fact was that he had hatched a dragon egg, and Holy
Potter was in league with him, as Draco had found out. He had even caught
Potter, Longbottom and that Granger girl in the act, and provided the Deputy
Headmistress with all necessary information, and what had happened?! Had Potter
been sent to Azkaban for dealing with a dragon? Course not! Had he been
expelled? No way! He had got detentions – laughable! And guess who else
had got detentions, apart from Granger and Longbottom? Draco had! Ph!
This injustice was so scandalous, he didn’t find the proper
words to express his justified outrage. In the end, he had to do detentions
with this idiot Hagrid, but what weighed much worse – in the Forbidden Forest!
Were these people mad?! These woods weren’t called ‘Forbidden Forest’
for no reason! Werewolves were supposed to live there… Draco shuddered. He had
a faint memory… But maybe it was only a bad dream, like his parents said. In
this memory, he was still very small, and a bunch of huge, howling dogs closed
in on him. He could see the drool dripping from their flews – he could see
their gleaming yellow eyes – he could still hear the ghastly sounds they had
made – and also his dad’s voice, loud, imperious, seething with hatred and
rage, and the dogs had dropped dead, or vanished in panic.
This unsettling nightmare came back to him when stepping into
the Forbidden Forest, but he drew comfort from the fact that he wasn’t the only
one scared. Next to him, Longbottom was badly quivering, and even Hagrid’s
large Great Dane was giving little whimpers, which reassured Draco that he was
the only of the three of them who still had his wits together. It turned out,
not quite unexpectedly, that Longbottom couldn’t take a bit of fun, neither did
Hagrid, and Draco ended up with Potter instead of Longbottom. This was getting
better by the minute, wasn’t it.
They were supposed to find some dead unicorn, but Draco
didn’t quite buy it. This was bound to be some made-up story to scare them and
keep them busy all night, because they had broken the school rules. It was a
widely known fact that unicorns were such powerful beasts that it was nigh
impossible to harm them. In all probability, Hagrid himself had painted the
shimmering traces of ‘blood’ here and there, but Potter in his incomparable
naïveté believed every word, of course.
“Look,” Potter whispered and held Draco back from going on.
He followed Potter’s pointed finger – yuck. This was disgusting!
The sticky, silvery substance was dripping down on the ground, forming a
crusty, glowing puddle; and then he saw where all the blood was coming from.
Because it was blood indeed, running out of the gaping wound of a dead unicorn
lying there sprawled… Draco tried to suspend the sickness mounting to his
throat, and then – his sanity abandoned him completely. Some creature, he couldn’t
say what it was, even in retrospection, and neither did he care the slightest
bit, some creature closed in on the dead unicorn, bowed over the carrion
and – his last scrap of common sense kicked in and made him run away,
screaming.
Perhaps it should be mentioned that – once again – Potter got
out of this tight spot without a bruise. They all did. After a couple of days,
Draco began to think that he had only imagined things, that there hadn’t been
anyone, that the hooded thing he had seen had been nothing but a shadow, that
he hadn’t heard a slurping sound, but merely the wind rattling the trees…
Still, he thought that this fidget of his imagination had got what it’d take to
replace that other nightmare of his, or run for a very tight second place at least!
The school year ended like it had begun – in gross injustice.
Even though Slytherin would have won the House Cup, fair and square,
Dumbledore manipulated the score until his own old house Gryffindor got it.
Draco didn’t care for the bloody Cup in itself too much, but this was a matter
of principle! His dad had been right
with everything he had ever said about ‘the old crackpot’! He had always said
that Dumbledore was an idiot, that he lacked the proper wizard pride, that he
had lost it the older he got (and he was very old already, even for
magic standards!), that he was incredibly naïve and silly, and that he was a
coward shrinking away from true greatness and favoured mediocrity and
commonness instead. Draco had reserved his judgement on his Headmaster, because
his mum claimed that Dumbledore was a magnificent wizard, and because Draco had
found him rather funny, but now the matter was settled. His father was right –
and Dumbledore was a wanker!
His mother blanched when hearing him profess this newly-gained
assurance. In fact, she blanched with a whole lot of things she heard him say
after going home for the holidays, because Draco had picked up a huge set of
new words in school, and she didn’t approve of the majority of them. ‘Wanker’,
‘jerk’, ‘prick’, ‘ass hole’, ‘Mudblood’, ‘bitch’, ‘shithead’, ‘fuck’ or
‘motherfucker’ – all were strictly banned from Malfoy Manor, as far as she was
concerned. His dad took things a whole lot easier, but urged his son
nevertheless to respect his mum’s wishes.
There was a brief disruption of homely felicity when Draco’s
first record arrived by owl – he had never seen his father throw a similar
tantrum before, but even though his mother was usually the one demanding
scholarly brilliance, she intervened for his sake and spared him to be grounded
for two weeks, like his father had threatened. He calmed down soon enough,
disregarding occasional gibes, and even came round to grant Draco’s greatest
wish. Draco wanted to play for the House Team, like his father and both grandfathers
before him, and had bugged Lucius to no end, until this one finally gave in.
“I’ve had lunch with Luther Flint today, son,” he began with
a grave expression, and Draco’s heart would sink. Luther Flint was the father
of Marcus Flint, who was in turn Captain of the Slytherin House Team, and
judging his dad’s face, prospects must be very bleak. “His son was there, too.
You know him?”
Draco nodded weakly, bracing himself for the worst. “Yeah…”
“I volunteered to treat the team to a set of new Nimbus 2000s
– needless to say that young Marcus was delighted. Still, we all agreed that
it’d be a gross breach of customs to have anyone buy a place on the
House Team. It’d be indecent, and also very much imprudent. Can you imagine how
the other players would look at you, knowing you were only on the pitch because
your father purchased you a place on the team? How they’d tear you to pieces
after a lost match?”
“Yeah,” Draco moaned, unable to look his dad in the face.
“Second Years hardly ever play anyway, because they’re
too small still. Usually, they’re not even allowed to the try-outs, because
it’s no use. However – I did praise your talent very warmly, Second Year or
not, you are a very good flyer, and in certain positions, your height
wouldn’t mater much either.” Draco’s heart made a leap; he plucked up courage
and raised his eyes from the floor, seeing his dad grin slyly. “Young Marcus,
his father and I also agreed that there’s no harm to have you meet up with
Marcus and the others next week to see what you can do, and if you’re any good,
he’ll be happy to welcome you for the official try-outs as well.”
Draco stormily hugged him, repeating over and over, “Thanks,
Dad! You’re the best! Thank you! Thank you! You’re great! Thanks! Oh, I’ll
prove them! I’ll show them how bloody good I am! You’ll be proud of me, Dad!
Thank you, thank you so much!”
Lucius chuckled, pushing him away at last. “Yes, yes, now hop
along. Thelonius Nott will come for tea, we’ve got more important matters to
discuss than your Quidditch career and I need to get some things sorted still…”
“Can we practise together after that?”
“Sure… Oh, and Draco? Don’t tell your mum that I – hm – put
in one or two good words for you… She won’t be too happy with you flying about
and risking your neck.”
* It shows
greatness to disregard offences.
* Add
cerebral to the physical gifts of nature, erudition is the highest virtue.
*****
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