The Winterscapes

The Winterscapes - Chapter Seven

Draco lay on his bed, propped up on three pillows, and stared at the book on his night table. He had had to buy it so Granger wouldn't think he had went in Dervish and Banges for no good reason other than he wanted to irritate her and see if he could get a reaction out of her, which was exactly the truth. He hadn't elicited much of a reaction for his efforts, but he had come out of the whole ordeal with a rather appealing blank book. A journal. When he had returned from Hogsmeade that night he looked at it, shut it, and set it on his night table, and he hadn't touched it since. He remembered very clearly that its pages were clean and unmarked. It was so bare, and he wanted badly to fill it with his own words and thoughts, but he felt distinctly as though he shouldn't. Was keeping a journal too girly? Maybe not. His father wouldn't approve of him keeping a journal because it was a weakness. Anyone could find it and pick it up and read it, plus, one should be able to order one's own thoughts without writing them down on paper. But Draco wanted so badly to do it, maybe just because he knew his father, mother, housemates, and nearly anyone who had any power over him wouldn't like it. Besides, he could keep it with him at all times until he finished writing in it, so no one would find it laying around, and when he filled all its pages he could burn it.

He reached over and picked it up, thought for a moment, and then opened it and began writing:

Hello. I've never done anything like this before and I don't know where to start. Never mind, I'll just write what I did today.

Today is Saturday. There was a Quidditch match today, Slytherin vs. Gryffindor. We lost. Naturally, everyone is plotting revenge. Something about seducing one of the younger Gryffindor girls and finding out their password and leaving dungbombs in their common room. I told Blaise he ought to keep his mouth shut about it to me because if they really do that to the precious Gryffindors, Dumbledore will be out for blood, and I don't want him to question me about it. He can always tell when you're lying, and things would not go well for me if he demoted me from Head Boy. We all hate losing, especially to Gryffindors. I suppose there's no point to this if I am not honest with myself, so I should say that I really hate losing to Potter. It's like contributing to his perfect existence. Even Quidditch goes his way. Life is entirely unfair. After they won, all the rest of the Gryffindors came swarming out on the field like insects. I suppose they're having a party in their common room.

He shut the journal and took a deep breath. Then he opened it again.

I really hate Potter. And Weasley, both of them, and the whole rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and Granger, especially Granger for being a Mudblood and scoring higher on the Potions exam.

He thought for a minute.

And I hate Hufflepuffs. Some of the Ravenclaws would be OK except they're all dead boring. I pretty much hate everybody.

Then he shut the journal again. He almost felt out of breath. That felt really, really good. Exhilarating. Like breathing or running for the first time, or waking up well rested from a long night's sleep.

<><><><><>

History of Magic was still the most boring thing that ever happened in Draco's week. He was beginning to think that Binns recycled the same material and taught it over each year. They began the year with goblin uprisings, followed by the Giant Wars around Christmas, and ended the year with a long series of lectures on witches and wizards of small renown. Some years there was time after the witches and wizards lectures for more information about goblin uprisings to be expounded upon. Draco always thought that History of Magic had potential. They could study Ancient Magic, like the kinds of spells used by old Egyptian wizards to protect the pyramids, or the founding of Hogwarts, or the history of Dementors or House-Elves, or even the formation of their own Ministry of Magic, but Binns never talked about anything like that. In his first year, Draco decided that the best thing he could do was to study for his other classes during History of Magic and learn the interesting stuff from books in the Malfoy library at home on holidays.

History of Magic was Draco's last class on Thursdays. During class he made his final decision to ask Sara Brown to the Halloween festival. She was a fifth year. Draco had only talked to her few times in her five years at Hogwarts, but that was enough to learn several important things about her: she was a Slytherin pureblood; she seemed reasonably smart, at least she spoke in complete sentences and she didn't giggle a lot like some of the other younger girls did around him; and she was pretty. She was a head shorter than Draco and she had very shiny honey blonde hair. Her eyes even matched Draco's, though they were more blue than grey. Ian Baddock had snogged every pretty girl in Slytherin, and when Draco asked him what he thought about Sara, Ian said to go for it.

He knew she would say yes, of course. Any girl he asked would say yes because he was a Malfoy and he was Head Boy and he was smart and nice to look at. He just didn't want to ask her around her friends because he hated giggling and squealing and other things teenaged girls did around boys.

After dinner Draco waited outside the Slytherin Common Room. When Sara and a group of her friends approached the entrance, he took Sara by the elbow and said lowly and charmingly, "May I speak with you alone?"

Her friends giggled, predictably, and scrambled into the common room when Sara said, "Of course."

Sara leaned against the wall and waited for Draco to speak.

"Do you want to be my date to the Halloween festival?" Draco asked.

Sara considered for a moment, "Yes, I would love to be your date for the festival."

"Great," said Draco, and he leaned down and gave her a kiss on her very pink mouth.

<><><><><>

Defense Against the Dark Arts class the next day was held outside in front of the greenhouses. Professor Dagmar still wore toga-style robes; today's were bright robin's egg blue.

"Today we will begin learning basic self-defense," said Dagmar, smiling congenially.

Draco raised his eyebrows. What?

"For those of you not familiar with the phrase, self-defense is the art of physically defending yourself when attacked. That means without a wand, so you can all tuck your wands back into your robes..."

There was a lot of mumbling and exchanging of confused stares.

Dagmar continued, "The 'when attacked' part is very important. You are not to use what I teach you except to defend yourself. Defense class will become very boring if I hear about fistfights in the halls. Now, pair up. Try to find someone about the same size and weight as you to start."

Draco turned to Blaise. Though Blaise was a bit more solid, they were the same height. "Want to be partners?"

Blaise shrugged. "Sure. This is really strange."

Draco agreed. The weirdest thing we've ever done at school.

Once everyone had found a partner, Dagmar began speaking again, "Today we're going to learn how to get out of a few basic holds: from behind, an armlock, and a headlock. One of you must play the attacker, and the other will learn to successfully defend himself from the attack. We'll be switching back and forth, but why don't you decide who's going to play attacker first?"

"I want to be the attacker," Draco and Blaise said at the same time.

"I helped you with your Astronomy homework last night. You owe me," Draco said.

"Fine"

"Now, let me see. I need someone to help demonstrate," Dagmar looked at the class. "Mr. Crabbe, please come and help me, you're quite big." Draco thought that was a bit of an understatement, but maybe not so much for Dagmar who was humongous himself.

"Now, hold my arm like this," Dagmar twisted his arm back and nodded for Crabbe to grab it, "as tight as you can. Are you holding it as tight as you can?"

Crabbe nodded, though he looked a bit confused. As soon as he nodded, Dagmar flicked his arm back and Crabbe was on the ground.

"Are you OK there?" Dagmar asked.

Draco had never seen anyone throw Crabbe to the ground before. This is sort of interesting. And fun.

"We'll do it again in slow motion," Dagmar said.

After a while, the whole class was earnestly practicing. There was only one injury: Ian Baddock, being the odd man out among the Slytherin seventh year boys, was forced to partner with Neville Longbottom. His pride could not take being thrown down by Neville Longbottom, so cast a Furnunculus curse on Neville when his back was turned. Professor Dagmar sent Neville to the Hospital Wing.