Draco Malfoy and the Boy Who Lived

the slug club

Draco made his way to King's Cross with the accompaniment of his mother, though she left him at the entrance, and he passed through the doorway onto Platform 9 and ¾ alone. He quickly found Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle in a compartment empty but for themselves, into which they hoisted his luggage and caged owl for him and shoved it in the overhead rack. He had indeed been granted prefect once again this year, but he had not pinned the badge to his robes. Without the added duties of school prefect, he would have plenty to worry about with his current task, and instead settled down in the compartment. Goyle went on about what he had done over the holiday and Crabbe took out a comic from his trunk and sat down and began to read. Draco sprawled himself across two seats, lying down and starring up at the ceiling.

It wasn't long before Pansy Parkinson found them, as well, and jumped at the opportunity at sitting with Draco's head in her lap, and the minute he conceded, she began to play gently with his hair. It had a very relaxing effect on Draco, and he found his eyes slowly drifting shut when Blaise Zabini, a high-cheekboned black boy with slanted eyes from their year sat down opposite Draco. They had roomed together for quite some time and were a somewhat friendly rivalry for top Slytherin student. Draco was winning.

"Morning, Zabini. Have a nice holiday?"

"Yeah, my mum got married again. You?"

Draco put on a smirk and replied, "Oh yes. Very eventful."

They continued to chat numbly as more students arrived and got onto the train - no more, joining their compartment - until the train whistled and rumbled into life. Draco briefly got up and looked out the window to see, of all people, Potter run onto the train and the rest of the Weasleys waving to him as he got on. (Git, he thought to himself.) The woman ran to keep up with the train shouting something until it had rounded a corner. Draco's stomach did an unpleasant lurch as he saw Potter disappear through the window and retreat back into his own secluded compartment, probably on the other end of the train, and he shifted in his seat and reached up to his trunk. He rummaged around until his hands grabbed a hold of a piece of parchment, a quill and ink.

"What's that for?" asked Pansy, looking inquiringly at what he was pulling from his trunk.

"I need to ask a favour from an old friend."

"Can I do anything?" she asked, sounding annoyingly neglected.

Draco looked at her and raised a thin eyebrow, with a mischievous smirk creeping along half of his shapely lips. He smoothed out the parchment against his knees and began to write a letter to Fenrir Greyback.

There was a small moment of silence when Crabbe put down his comic book and pulled out what looked like a shrunken head from his pocket. "Check out what my dad got me before I left this year!" he said. Pansy gave a shudder of disgust and cried, "What is that think?"

"It's a head!" he said gleefully, his face illuminated with a great stupid smile as he looked down at the object with absolute reverence.

"It's revolting," said Zabini, who looked as if it was everything he could do not to reach over and slap the stupid thing out of Crabbe's hand.

"Get rid of it. Draco, look how gross!" Pansy pulled on Draco's sleeve and he just managed to keep his quill from drawing a great long line of ink across his letter.

"Will you just!" he said to her, a bit more upsetly than what was called for. He looked back down at the parchment and cleared his throat. "I mean... yes, Pansy, darling, it's terribly disgusting."

"What are you talking about," said Goyle, leaning in to better observe the head in Crabbe's hands. "It's awesome! What does it do?"

Draco, who had not actually taken the time to look at the object that was causing all this commotion, drew his eyes level with the shrunken and shriveled head being held out before him and curled his lip in repugnance. "Ugh! Get it away from my face!" He leaned back further into the seat and Crabbe hurriedly pulled it closer to him.

"It's a paperweight," said Crabbe in a somewhat neglected voice, trying as hard as he could to defend his newfound treasure. "Dad said that when I'm a grown man and have a nice study like his, it'll come in really handy."

Goyle had not taken his hungry eyes off it and just nodded, but when Draco looked at him and cleared his throat demandingly, Goyle tore his eyes away from it and just shook his head vehemently.

The train rolled lazily through misty hills and a weak sun barely shone through the window. A while had passed before another disturbance. By the time he had finished his letter, asking Greyback to check in on Borgin every once in a while to give him a good scare and make sure the Cabinet was still there, the prefects had finished with their briefing at the front of the train, because a mediocre storm of students with gleaming badges on their chests were passing by the compartment door and Draco looked up, curious to see who was now a prefect. No one he knew, no one interesting.

"Didn't you get your prefect badge?" asked Pansy, looking over at Draco in the most seductive voice she could muster, which still amounted to nothing.

Draco nodded. "I don't need that this year, though. Being a prefect doesn't mean anything except being a slave the rules."

Pansy gave a small cry of laughter and watched as Draco sent his owl through the window on the train, his letter to Greyback attached safely to Morgana's leg when, with disgust, he recognized two Gryffindors, a certain red head and another Mudblood who happened to walk by outside their compartment, and made a rude hand gesture at them before putting his parchment, quill and ink away, and laying back down on Pansy's lap, a satisfied sneer on his face. Pansy had found this extremely funny and gave another shriek of laughter.

"Stupid Mudbloods and blood traitors. They shouldn't allow their kind in the school," said Draco. Pansy nodded sympathetically and Zabini looked up from a book he was reading on the Dark Arts.

"It's an insult to the rest of us," he agreed, "letting such filth learn in the same classrooms as us. It's barbaric, is what it is."

Pansy nodded again. "As long as we have a Muggle-lover like Dumbledore as Headmaster, though, nothing will get done."

"We might not for long," said Draco with an overconfident smirk. Everyone's head snapped to look at him. Pleased with the attention, he put on an obviously false innocent face and said, "What with the war, and everything. The Dark Lord won't want him around. Him and St Potter. They'll both have to go, and I'd wager my wand that at least one of them will bite it within this year."

Pansy gazed at Draco admiringly following this statement, who continued to preach.

"Honestly, I'm surprised no Death Eaters killed them before, but now that the Dark Lord has risen once again to power, neither one of them will last long. Potter had his precious Mudblood mother the first time around, but no one will be there to protect him when the Dark Lord finally has his chance to finish him off. Especially once the old man is--"

He was interrupted when a small third-year came shyly into the compartment. She was carrying a few scrolls, one of which she held out to Zabini, her head down. "I'm supposed to deliver this to Blaise Zabini."

The minute he took his scroll neatly tied with purple ribbon, she dashed out of the compartment. Draco frowned and sat up, curious to see what it was.

"What is it?" asked Pansy, hoping that the answer would return Draco to her lap.

"An invitation," said Zabini as his eyes scanned the parchment. "The new Professor, he's asking me down to his compartment for lunch."

"Who's the teacher?" said Draco, taking the invitation and reading it in turn.

"Slughorn? Ever heard of him?"

"Didn't he used to be the Head of Slytherin House? He knew my grandfather. Father said he retired a while ago, I wonder what he's doing back at Hogwarts?"

Zabini shrugged and said, "Well, I'll see you when I get back, then."

*

The sun had already begun to set and the lamps had already been lit for a while when Zabini made his way back into the compartment, looking somewhat tired, yet otherwise unfazed by the lunch with Slughorn. He turned to shut the door to the compartment, but for some inexplicable reason, it stopped a few inches from the door with a slamming noise.

"What's wrong with this thing?" an angry Zabini said as he repeatedly tried closing the door, before it was flung wide open and Zabini was sent flying onto Goyle's lap.

Draco was frowning as Zabini and Goyle continued to glare at each other, wondering what had happened. As Goyle got up and closed the door, something white caught Draco's eye and he looked across the compartment and swore he saw something that resembled a shoe fly up into the luggage rack. He couldn't help but let a smile cross his face, and he began to snigger slightly.

Zabini was pushed back into his seat, looking somewhat ruffled, Goyle sat back down, and Crabbe returned to reading his comic book. Draco lay back down and rested his head back on Pansy's lap and she continued once again to contently stroke his blonde hair.

"So Zabini, what did Slughorn want?" said Draco.

Still glowering at Goyle, Zabini said, "Just trying to make up to well-connected people. Not that he managed to find many."

Draco's face burned. Why had he not been invited? Somewhat upset, he said, perhaps a little more forcefully than normal, "Who else had he invited?"

"McLaggen from Gryffindor."

"Oh yeah, his uncle's big in the Ministry," said Draco.

"--someone else called Belby, from Ravenclaw--"

"Not him, he's a prat!" said Pansy, perhaps trying to please Draco.

"--and Longbottom, Potter and that Weasley girl," finished Zabini.

Draco suddenly sat up in his seat, irritated and disbelieving, whacking Pansy's hand away from his hair.

"He invited Longbottom?"

"Well," said Zabini, indifferently. "I assume so, as Longbottom was there."

"What's Longbottom got to interest Slughorn?"

Zabini shrugged.

"Potter, precious Potter, obviously he wanted a look at 'the Chosen One,'" sneered Draco, hoping to convince himself that the hate in his voice was genuine, though recurring dreams were making it harder and harder to do so, "but that Weasley girl! What's so special about her?"

Pansy's eyes flitted to Draco's face as subtly as she could, but Draco had not missed it. "A lot of boys like her. Even you think she's good-looking, don't you, Blaise, and we all know how hard you are to please!" It was common knowledge among the Slytherins that back in their fourth year, after Draco and Pansy had had a fight after the Yule Ball, she had tried to use Zabini to get back at Draco, but he had proved un-wooable.

"I wouldn't touch a filthy little blood traitor like her whatever she looked like." Despite Zabini's cold response, Pansy's smile widened and she looked very pleased with herself. Draco leaned back into her lap and she spared no time in returning to stroking his hair.

"Well, I pity Slughorn's taste. Maybe he's going a bit senile. Shame, my father always said he was a good wizard in his day. My father used to be a bit of a favourite of his. Slughorn probably hasn't heard I'm on the train, or--"

"I wouldn't bank on an invitation," said Zabini, cutting Draco off. "He asked me about Nott's father when I first arrived. They used to be old friends, apparently, but when he heard he'd been caught at the Ministry he didn't look happy, and Nott didn't get an invitation, did he? I don't think Slughorn's interested in Death Eaters."

Draco's heart began to sear with anger. He forced out a humourless laugh. "Well, who cares what he's interested in? What is he, when you come down to it? Just some stupid teacher." Draco yawned. "I mean, I might not even be at Hogwarts next year, what's it matter to me if some fat old has-been likes me or not?" It was an offhand way of hiding his jealousy that he led them into the next conversation over which he would be the topic of interest, and possibly some well-earned admiration.

Pansy's hand immediately fell from Draco's hair. "What do you mean, you might not be at Hogwarts next year?"

"Well, you know," he said, fighting hard to hide a smirk. "I might have--er--moved on to bigger and better things."

He was pleased with the reaction this statement had earned. Besides Pansy's slow resuming of stroking his hair, both Crabbe and Goyle looked dumbfounded and Zabini had even allowed a look of curiosity to cross his conceited face.

"Do you mean--Him?"

Draco shrugged. "Mother wants me to complete my education, but personally, I don't see it as that important these days. I mean, think about it.... When the Dark Lord takes over, is he going to care how many O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s anyone's got? Of course he isn't.... It'll be all about the kind of service he received, the level of devotion he was shown." Even as he said the words, he knew he was only trying to convince himself.

"And you think you'll be able to do something for him?" Zabini certainly didn't look convinced. "Sixteen years old and not even fully qualified yet?"

"I've just said, haven't I? Maybe he doesn't care if I'm qualified. Maybe the job he wants me to do isn't something that you need to be qualified for." Draco said this in barely a whisper, hoping to lure them in with more than just volume. His audience didn't disappoint. Crabbe and Goyle were still staring open-mouthed, like a pair of gargoyles, and Pansy looked at him with a point of admiration she had never before reached. "I can see Hogwarts," said Draco, pointing out to the grounds from behind the blackened window. "We'd better get our robes on."

As Goyle reached up for his trunk, Draco could have sworn he heard something that very much resembled a bump and a gasp, and though he could see nothing as he looked up at the luggage rack for the sound, frowning, he resigned himself that his original notion was correct: Something - or rather someone - was hiding up in the luggage rack and had prevented Zabini from closing the door earlier, and he had a very strong suspicion of who it was. After all, how many students at Hogwarts had an Invisibility Cloak?

Hoping to throw the invisible person off, he pulled his school robes on, locked his trunk and pulled a thick brand new traveling cloak from Twilfitt and Tatting's on just as the train was slowing to an unsteady stop.

Goyle was the first to exit the compartment once the train had completely halted, followed by Crabbe and Zabini.

"You go on," said Draco to Pansy, who was standing in the doorway with her hand outstretched for him to take it. "I just want to check something."

Pansy left with a somewhat dejected look, but Draco could not care less. The train was almost empty as people continued to pass the door on their ways out to the platform. He moved over to the door, closed it and pulled down the blinds, so no one could see inside. He bent down over his trunk and reopened it, a fine distraction to whoever was hiding in the luggage rack above him. Draco was certain that whoever it was, was still up there, not having had a chance to escape just yet.

"Petrificus Totalus!" Draco's plan had worked flawlessly. Without warning, he had pointed his wand at the place where the invader was surely hidden in the luggage rack, and less than a second later, a great crash was heard and the floor of the compartment shook, leaving at Draco's feet, an uncovered Harry Potter, oddly frozen in the position of a fetus, his invisibility cloak trapped beneath him. Despite his strange appearance, the only thing Draco could think of were his lips, so very much like those of the Harry Potter in his last dream. To hide his discomfort at these thoughts, he gave a broad, victorious grin.

"I thought so," he said happily. "I heard Goyle's trunk hit you. And I thought I saw something white flash through the air after Zabini came back...."

Draco let his eyes wander down Potter's body, hungrily, and then linger for a split second longer on the childish, white trainers on Potter's feet.

"You didn't hear anything I care about, Potter." (He'd made sure of that.) "But while I've got you here..."

Without a moment's hesitation, before he changed his mind, and just to try to convince himself that he loathed the boy rather than dreamt of him, he brought his foot down on Potter's face, hard, and a satisfying crack told Draco that he had succeeded in breaking his nose. Blood was gushing everywhere, covering Potter's face.

"That's from my father. Now, let's see...."

Draco pulled the cloak out from under Potter's frozen body and threw it over him.

"I don't reckon they'll find you till the train's back in London," said Draco in what he hoped was a dangerous voice. "See you around, Potter ... or not." Making sure he stood on Potter's fingers as he left the train, Draco exited, carrying his trunk with him, and leaving behind a bleeding Harry Potter.