Undefined

Chapter 1

The Boy who Became

It began, Draco realized, the moment he'd turned seven and sat at the dinner table with his mother and father. It was a vast room with high vaulted windows reaching the ceiling. It was dark out, just past dusk. Large tapestries of velvet and satin adorned the walls, as did a portrait of Grindelwald, the sorcerer defeated in times Draco couldn't fathom. His mother Narcissa wore a dress the color of parchment and his father Lucius wore a pin in the shape of a serpent with two small ruby eyes. Looking at in the candlelight of his birthday cake, Draco thought those eyes resembled specks of blood. For reasons he didn't understand, Draco wanted nothing more than to grab the pin from his father's lapel and crush it in his fist, wondering if the eyes would bleed onto his hand. His father cleared his throat and Draco turned to look at his mother, who sat staring ahead still as a statue. His parents would often sit like this during dinner, usually after a row, and Draco faintly wondered what the cause of the silence was this time around, but the flames dancing atop the candles on his cake reminded him why they were sitting at the dinner table; it was his birthday.

"Blow out your candles darling," his mother said finally, her expression not changing. Draco looked to his father who sat with an air every way indicative of his regal bearing; he nodded his head slightly and Draco smiled broadly.

"Wait!" Draco said suddenly. "You're supposed to sing to me!"

"Do as your mother says," Lucius said silkily, with a hint of warning in his voice.

"I want..." Draco steeled himself for one of his effective temper tantrums. The sting on his cheek from his father's hand silenced him immediately. He almost cried, but stopped himself, remembering lectures from his father on the dangers of weakness of in the Malfoy family.

"Do as you're told!" Lucius said barely above a whisper. It was worse than screaming. So many times Draco wished his father would yell, or scream, or show some display of anger, but he never did. When Draco was much older, he understood why his father never lost his temper, to do so displayed weakness.

"Any one who cannot control their emotions is not capable of control. Control is power, Draco, and power is everything. Never forget that." His father had told him this a thousand times in his youth until it became an unarticulated truth; much like a mantra to a religion that no one sees but accepts.

Blinking, Draco blew out the candles and watched as seven streams of smoke rose and curled in the misty darkness like snakes preparing to sleep. His cheek still stung, but its effect had been immediate. It was then Draco realized the power of force in exacting desired actions.

Following his seventh birthday, Draco implemented and refined his use of force on various playmates his father allowed in the house. The only room that was off limits was his father's study, which was full of mysterious nooks and crannies full of things Draco was not even allowed to imagine. Two of his favorite friends, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, were introduced to Draco before he could remember, but they quickly became his favorite playmates. They laughed when they were supposed to, let Draco win at all the games, and agreed with everything he said. Best of all, they were bigger than Draco and he knew they would prove useful in a fight.

Sometime during his ninth year, Draco shared an eventful game of catch the Muggle with Timothy Burke, whose father Lucius worked with at the Ministry. Draco had won several rounds, mainly from his speed and agility, and his propensity to cheat, and they both sat side by side in the lawn of the Malfoy Manor.

"You cheated!" Timothy said picking at the grass.

"I did not!" Draco snapped. "You're just too slow."

"Still, I'd like to catch a real Muggle," Timothy said. "My father's told me about them; how they really don't believe in our world and how stupid they are to everything that's been going on."

"They're disgusting," Draco said viciously. "My father thinks the world should be ridded of the lot of them."

"So does mine!" Timothy said. "Although..."

"What?" Draco said looking at Timothy suspiciously.

"There's this girl I see in town sometimes, she's a muggle, but she's really pretty," Timothy said shyly.

Draco said nothing for a moment, staring at Timothy and remembering a girl he'd seen on the street as he and his mother walked to the Ministry to meet his father. She was a slight thing, with curly dark hair and large eyes. Draco remembered those eyes; how they captivated him and how he never wanted to look away. He noticed that she'd smiled at him, and just as he was about to smile back, he suddenly heard his father's voice.

"The moment you find a soft spot for those blemishes on society"--as he called Muggles-- "is the moment your become subhuman."

Instantly, Draco's smile faltered and he sneered at the girl, looking away, feeling a slight pang in his chest as he did so. He wanted to turn and look into those beautiful eyes again, but his conditioned loathing prevented it.

"That's disgusting," Draco finally said looking at Timothy as though he were mental.

"I'm not saying I fancy her or anything!" Timothy said at once.

"Sounds like it to me," Draco said spreading languidly on the ground. "I think you fancy to kiss her or something. A filthy Muggle!"

"I don't!"

"That's disgusting. Does your father know?"

"NO!" Timothy said at once. "No..."

"Perhaps he should! He should know what tastes you have. I bet when you're grown you'll marry a filthy Muggle like her!"

Timothy continued to protest but Draco demanded that he leave at once. He smiled as Timothy stalked off, still thinking of the dark haired girl's eyes he'd seen so long ago.

At dinner that night, his mother asked why Timothy had left without a word earlier that day.

"Because he's a filthy Muggle lover," Draco said looking at his father. He noticed Lucius smile.

"Good, Draco," his father said quietly. "We can't have that sort in our house."

Draco smiled, looking up once again at the portrait of Gridelwald, wondering why he found that face and those eyes so striking.

The decision for Draco to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry following his eleventh birthday did not come easily. Draco wanted to attend Durmstrang, but Lucius finally concluded that Hogwarts was the better choice.

"But I don't want to go school with that boy!" Draco said, referring to the mystical figure of Harry Potter.

Growing up, the Potter name was not often mentioned in the Malfoy Manor, but when it was it was in a sort of hushed malicious whisper that soon grew into simply that boy. Once, before Draco's seventh birthday, he asked his father if Potter was more powerful than the Dark Lord himself.

"Why do you think that?" Lucius said darkly.

"Well, he defeated him didn't he?" said Draco brightly. The thought of someone mightier than the Dark Lord sent an excited chill down his spine.

"That boy is nothing more than a filthy half blood no more powerful than I am against the Dark Lord. Don't you ever imply that anyone is more powerful!" Lucius grabbed Draco by the arm and shook him viciously. "If I ever hear you mutter that again I'll knock some real sense into you!"

Draco sat silent, rubbing his arm, his curiosity not squelched by his father's anger.

"Never mind Draco," Lucius said coolly reading over his Hogwarts letter. "I think it's important you remain within the walls of our enemies. When the Dark Lord returns your position within that school will make us more useful than ever."

"Very well," Draco muttered, crossing his arms.

"Good," Lucius said. "Get your trunk out of the attic, you need to pack tomorrow."

Draco called for their house-elf, Dobby, who he often made of sport of kicking about, and shoved him upstairs.

The following day, Draco ventured to Diagon Alley with his parents, meeting with the Crabbe and Goyle family afterwards for dinner.

"London is so disgusting," Narcissa was saying to Petrinella Goyle. "It's so uncivilized what with no proper place for the wizarding community to consort."

Lucius sat engrossed in a conversation with Cornelius Crabbe and Maxamillion Goyle. Draco sat lazily beside Crabbe and Goyle, remembering a boy he'd briefly met at the robe shop earlier that day. Draco had not caught his name, and he was nothing remarkable, being small in stature and very skinny. It was his eyes that had grabbed Draco's attention. Unable to hold it to himself any longer, Draco piped up.

"I met the strangest bloke in Madame Malkin's today," he said lazily. "He didn't seem to know of Quidditch and he's actually fond of that savage game keeper."

"What did he look like?" Lucius said quickly, turning away from his conversation.

"Nothing remarkable, glasses, dark hair, green eyes." Draco surprised himself with that last detail.

Lucius thought for a moment, but didn't say anymore about it. Draco let the matter drop, but still thought of those eyes.

"I don't know why father's making me go!" Draco said later that night. He was lying in bed and his mother sat beside of him. His trunk sat by the door, neatly packed.

"It's for the best darling," she said. "You'll have friends. Vincent and Gregory will be there."

"Mother," he said looking into her eyes. "Why are you so sad?"

"I'm not," she said smiling.

"You look sad."

"Shhh, go to sleep now." She kissed him on the forehead and left quietly, her footsteps silent on the floor.

Sometime during the night, shouts from across the hall woke Draco from his slumber. He sat up in bed on his elbows, listening as his father's voice bellowed at his mother's high pitched one. He jumped when he heard something crash to the floor. Draco crept out of bed and quietly opened his door. He could hear his mother's shrill screams as soon as he poked his out into the hallway.

"Don't you dare, Lucius!" Narcissa screamed. "Don't you dare get involved with that! What in the world would I do without you? What?"

"I don't have a choice!" Lucius yelled.

"Fine, go on then! Do it! When you get yourself killed..."

"I won't get killed! I have connections!" Lucius yelled exasperated.

"The day will come when you will and what will I do, Lucius? WHAT?"

Draco closed the door on his mother's sobs, the sounds of their fighting not uncommon during the night. What exactly his father's doings were Draco didn't know and he learned to never ask questions. Some days ago he had happened across a letter in the sitting room, and vaguely made out Gringotts bank before his mother snatched it from his sight.

Draco arose early the following morning and found his mother dressed elegantly and his father in a button down suit. They bore no signs of their argument the night before. Narcissa placed her arm tenderly in her husband's and pecked him on the cheek before they left.

His mother kissed Draco on each cheek before he boarded the train and his father nodded a goodbye. Draco didn't bother to wave farewell and immediately found a compartment with Crabbe and Goyle. By the time they reached Hogwarts, Draco had unsuccessfully attempted to forge a friendship with Harry Potter, but felt reassured at the instant enmity between them. Finally, he had a formidable opponent.