Dragon

I apologize if there are both British and American spellings of words in this. I'm an American, but most of the books (and fanfic) I read use British versions of everything, so I've gotten used to spelling 'color' with a 'u', and so on. I'm trying to break the habit, as I'm starting high school in the fall, and know my teachers will be all, "Dude, she's from Maryland, y'know, here in the US of A, not the UK, right?"

Well, without the 'dude'. And 'y'know'. Probably not 'US of A', either. I have the weirdest word habits, I swear.

Er, anyway. Enjoy Draco Malfoy being a pureblooded prat, I suppose.


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He despises dragons. Because of this, he's always found it rather ironic that his parents named him Draco. He does not even look like a dragon, unless dragons have Black-grey eyes and Malfoy-blonde hair.

"Draco," Draco silently recites, "means 'dragon' in Latin. Draco is also a constellation, which someone thought looked like a dragon, so they named it that, though its appearance is more of a bullemic serpent with a comically large head."

Draco does not know which he was named for, the Latin or the dragon-snake star formation, though he knows it is probably the latter, due to the Black- his mother's family- tradition of naming people after stars and constellations. His mother, Narcissa, he remembers, is the only exception to that rule. As is that half-breed cousin of his, Nymphadora.

He is not to speak of his metamorphmagus freak of a cousin, or of her parents. Andromeda was proclaimed dead to the family long before he was born, after thoroughly shocking everyone by marrying that muggleborn. Draco's mother occasionally forgets this and speaks fondly of her days at Hogwarts and of the three Black sisters, Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa, the princesses of Slytherin.

No longer are there any Blacks, or, at least, any living with the surname Black.

Nor are there are Slytherin princes or princesses, neither queens nor kings, these days. The serpent house's golden days are over for now, and there are only 'Those Who Support the Dark Lord' and 'Those Who Do Not and Thus Should Be Shunned, Perhaps With a Good Dose of Unforgivables On the Side, But Only When We Are Out of School and Can Practice Magic Legally'. In the green and silver section of Hogwarts, there is no grey area, only the blackest black and the whitest white. No one is sure of which color is assigned to which group, but all in Slytherin know that if your feelings are not blindingly white or purely black, you can eat your meals, take your courses and sleep somewhere else. Preferably in the shade of the Whomping Willow.

There are subsections of each group, of course, based on what year you are in. Draco leads the supporters in his year, though he knows, and hates, that he, Vincent and Gregory are the only true supporters in their group, and the last two only because they are too stupid to consider any other possibilities. Pansy is not really a supporter, though he is fairly sure she will be by Christmas. He's spent too much time convincing her for her to not be. He takes up more time doing so than Pansy's friend, that disgusting Tracey Davis, does attempting to change her opinions her of non-purebloods by telling Pansy of how muggles, muggleborns and half-bloods are A Good Thing.

Davis is not a pureblood. Nor is she a muggleborn, or, obviously, a Squib or muggle. But she is not quite a half-blood, either, and that is why she and her family are despicable. She is a puzzle that Draco cannot solve, and as he is supposed to be superior in intelligence to everyone, or, at least, to all of the Slytherins due to his Black-Malfoy blood, this is troublesome.

Davis' father is a muggle, her mother a half-blood, her mother's parents a muggleborn and Squib, the Squib's parents a half-blood and pureblood. Beyond that generation, Draco does not know anything. He only knows the heritages of the recent generations because of Davis constantly repeating these facts, trying to sell the 'elitist blood freaks', as she calls them, the idea of non-purebloods not being horrible monstrous creatures.

Most scoff at the idea and go back to doing what they were doing, but what worries Draco is that as of late, less are truly ignoring her. Some Slytherins laugh at Davis' absurd ideas, but as they continue doing their work, playing games or eating, they listen. They attempt to cover this by mocking her, but Draco, despite what many Gryffindors think, is neither stupid or blind, and so he sees it all.

Unfortunately, Davis does, too, and is encouraged.

If the Slytherins listening to her were all half-bloods or muggleborns, Draco wouldn't care. But he sees that many of Davis' followers are from old wizarding families. Very old.

Blaise Zabini listens. His family has been pureblooded since fifteen-hundred B.C.

Pansy occasionally listens, but thanks to Draco, only very little, while interrupting with rude comments.

Draco's greatest achievement against Tracey Davis thus far is convincing another Slytherin half-blood, Millicent Bulstrode, of the greatness of the so-called 'dark' side. Bulstrode has now been rightly worshipping the Malfoy heir since third year.

But the one Draco is most concerned about is Theodore Nott. It is no secret, now that Draco has Pansy on his side, that Davis has fancied Nott since third year. Now that he has stopped ignoring her rants, they have been spending a great deal of time together lately. This, seeing how the Notts' magical lineage is one of the oldest in the world, is a horrible thing, close to being a Pureblooded Armageddon.

What's worse is that the Notts have almost always been supporters of the 'Pureblood is Superior' belief. If Theodore marries and, Morganna be merciful, breeds with that Davis girl, the Malfoy world will be one step closer to stopping at a dead halt, collapsing and then dying painfully.

Draco quickly changes his train of thought, not wanting to linger on that horrible idea.

Toujours pur. The Black family motto. Always pure. That never seems to be the case anymore. He can not spit at Hogwarts without his salivia hitting a muggleborn, half-blood or blood-traitor. There is Granger, there is Potter, there are the Weasleys, and these are only the filth he loathes the most. All mudbloods in the broadest sense of the word, all loathsome, all disgraces to the wizarding world.

They are mud, for mud is a dirty thing, and while dung would work better, dungblood doesn't sound half as bad as mudblood.

Purebloods are diamonds. Pure, beautiful, hard to break. And expensive.

It is obvious that the purebloods are dying out. The true purebloods, that is, not those who can trace their magical ancestors back to the nineteenth century. In a few hundred years, or less, Salazar Slytherin's dream will be dead. The Dark Lord is the last of His line and there is more mud in the magical world than diamonds.

If He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named does win this war, the changes that would take place would be, at the very best, temporary.

There is no hope for everything Draco believes in, but his Malfoy pride and Black heart will not let him change. He knows this is stupid, but he also knows that he must- and will- not ever give up hope, for he is walking on the parchment-thin side of a blade; he cannot turn back, or else he will fall. He must continue on, and so he will have everything or nothing, he will be a God or... he must not, can not, think of an alternative.

He must not go to Potter's side, he must not join the unpure, he will not become a mud-dweller, as he knows he will never be accepted by either side if he tries to. He has to be toujours pur, he has to continue the Malfoy and Black legacies. He must fight for his beliefs, for his identity.

After Potter is defeated (as he must, and will be), Draco will make his ancestors proud, and he will be Malfoy-powerful and Black-cunning. He will truly become a dragon.

Draco stands up from the stone bench, his legs half-asleep from sitting down for so long and, still absorbed in his thoughts, goes inside, the wind whipping at his hair before he steps into the hallway, where he taunted Weasley and made enemies with Potter on his first night here. He will go to the Slytherin common room, perhaps, and warm himself by the fireplace and finish his History of Magic essay.

He will not feel the cut in his leg, where the skin caught on the sharp edge of the bench, until hours later, when Pansy bumps into it as she trips over a stack of books Millicent left on the floor.

He will not see his blood staining the bench, next to another stain, where Granger fell against that same bench's edge last year, cutting her arm.

Draco does not notice, when he returns to the bench the next day, that when his blood has dried, it is the same color as the muggleborn's.

A rich, pure rust-brown. The color of mud.