Draco Malfoy and the Boy Who Lived

missing class

Draco woke up on the first day of classes, starving and completely drained of energy as if he had been working all night, and his thighs were aching. He lay in bed for a long time trying to remember what could have possibly made him feel so spent. He closed his eyes and let his mind wander to the dreams that had haunted and graced his subconscious the previous night, when the image of ruffled black hair and a lightning bolt scar caused him to sit straight upright in bed, his emerald sheets falling off him, eyes wide open.

He pulled the covers off himself and made his way wearily to the bathroom, walking somewhat hunched over. The cool white tiles were awakening to his senses, and sent a shiver running through his spine. What he needed, he thought to himself, was a look at himself in the mirror. Leaning against the sink, he gazed back into his own morning eyes. He did not look as bad as he had back at the Malfoy Manor. He had regained some of the weight he'd lost over the summer as well as some colour. His hair was starting to fall back into it's natural platinum sheen, and his grey eyes did not look so dark or washed out, but had that familiar beguiling twinkle he liked so much about them. Draco splashed some icy water from the faucets on his face and let droplets of water run from his bangs down his features as he continued to stare at his reflection. It gave him the eerie look of crying, yet the rest of his face was emotionless, neutral. Any onlooker would have only seen a boy with a wet face...

Hastily, he pulled a green towel with the word "Draco" embroidered on the bottom in silver (he'd be damned if any of the other buffoons he shared a dorm with used his towel) and dried his face and hair. By the time he had finished cleaning up and made his way back into the room, the other four occupants had woken up, and Zabini was already dressed.

"'Morning, you're up early," he said to Draco as he emerged from the bathroom.

There was no need for a response other than a casual shrug of the shoulders as Draco made his way back to his own bed and pulled out his uniform from his trunk.

"I'll see you all down at breakfast, then. Catch up with you in class." And Zabini left the room, closing the door behind him with a quiet click.

Draco slipped out of his robe and delicately removed his pajamas, relieved that the problem which had plagued him during the nighttime had now subsided, thanks in great part to the cold water. It felt somehow comforting to find himself once again in his Hogwarts uniform. He always thought the green and silver complimented his natural complexion, and the embroidered Slytherin patch over his heart radiated a prideful heat that often - to the discomfort and irritation of students from other houses - emanated a kind of cockiness and hauteur in much of his behaviour.

By the time Draco was done getting dressed, Nott had already gone down to the Great Hall to rejoin Zabini, and Crabbe and Goyle were waiting dutifully next to the door for Draco to lead the way.

The first breakfast for sixth years was a much more complicated ordeal than normal. Snape was walking up and down the table checking O.W.L. grades and what classes each student would be able to continue to N.E.W.T. level. Crabbe had passed very few of those which Draco had qualified for, as had Goyle. Both of them were signed up for Charms, Herbology, Defense Against the Dark Arts and Care of Magical Creatures. Neither had gotten a passing grade for Potions. Zabini was given the same schedule as Draco, having passed everything they signed up for ("I see you received an O in Defense Against the Dark Arts and in Potions, Draco. I'll certainly look forward to not only having you in my class but to see you carry on with my old subject. I'll be sure to inform Professor Slughorn of your exceeding skill in that subject"). After they had finished eating and their time tables had been cleared, Nott went off to Ancient Runes, while the other four boys headed down to the common room for a free period.

Luckily, Draco had not had to spend much time with Pansy, as she had Divination as her first class, but he grudgingly promised to sit with her when they met up for Defense an hour later, and after a well-rested lounge in the cold, underwater common room, the four of them haltingly made their way to class.

There was already a line to enter the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom when they arrived, and Draco saw with an uncomfortable jolt that Potter and his friends were only a few people ahead of them, but the image of the slender boy was pushed forcefully and immediately out of his brain when a warm hand slipped into his own.

"Guess who!" said a very excited Pansy, and Draco jumped when he felt her free hand slip into his pocket.

He grabbed her wrist and pulled it away, spinning around to face her with a strained smile. "Good morning, darling," he said through a fake, toothy grin. After a few thankfully short-lived moments, the doors to the classroom opened and Professor Snape stepped out and silence enveloped the hallway.

"Inside."

When Draco had entered the classroom, it was as though he had walked into Snape's old dungeons. The curtains were drawn and the room was lit by candles. Gruesome pictures lined the walls of people, all of whom were in pain or else donning strange injuries Draco rather didn't want to know about. The room was nearly silent as everyone took their seats, Pansy pushing herself closed to Draco and never letting go of his hand. It was starting to sweat.

"I have not asked you to take out your books," said Snape as he closed the door and made his way to his desk, where he spun around and faced them all. Draco saw Granger from the corner of his eye as she dropped her copy of Confronting the Faceless into her bag. "I wish to speak to you, and I want your fullest attention."

As his eyes roamed the room, Draco could not help but notice that they rested for a split second longer on Potter's than anyone else's.

"You have had five teachers in this subject so far, I believe. Naturally, these teachers will all have had their own methods and priorities. Given this confusion I am surprised so many of you scraped an O.W.L. in this subject. I shall be even more surprised if all of you manage to keep up with the N.E.W.T. work, which will be much more advanced."

Snape began to walk around the room, lowering his voice.

"The Dark Arts," he continued, "are many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible."

Draco's lips curled into a hungry smile. Finally, he thought to himself, a teacher who knows what he's talking about.

Professor Snape raised his voice slightly and continued, "Your defenses must therefore be as flexible and inventive as the arts you seek to undo. These pictures," he billowed around the classroom, indicating pictures as he passed, "give a fair representation of what happens to those who suffer, for instance, the Cruciatus Curse" (a picture of a witch screaming in seemingly indescribable pain) "feel the Dementor's Kiss" (a blank-eyed wizard huddling against a wall) "or provoke the aggression of the Inferius" (a bloody pulp).

Some Gryffindor squeaked, "Has an Inferius been seen, then? Is it definite, is he using them?"

Draco bit his tongue.

"The Dark Lord has used Inferi in the past, which means you would be well-advised to assume he might use them again. Now..." Snape continued making his way across to the other end of the classroom to his desk once again. No one spoke a word.

"...you are, I believe, complete novices in the use of nonverbal spells. What is the advantage of a nonverbal spell?"

Granger's hand was of course the first and only in the air. Draco smirked as Snape took his time in calling on the impatient know-it-all before saying, "Very well - Miss Granger?"

She took no time at all before delving into the answer. "Your adversary has no warning about what kind of magic you're about to perform which gives you a split-second advantage."

"An answer copied almost word for word from The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Six," said Professor Snape, unimpressed. Draco sniggered admiringly. "But correct in essentials." The smile fell off Draco's face. "Yes, those who progress to using magic without shouting incantations gain an element of surprise in their spell-casting. Not all wizards can do this, of course; if it is a question of concentration and mind power which some," he turned his attention to Potter, and Draco followed his gaze, "lack," he finished.

But when Snape turned his attention once again to the rest of the class, Draco's eyes never moved from the glowering boy.

"You will now divide into pairs"-- Pansy squeezed Draco's hand and looked around defensively, making sure that no one else was trying to steel her partner --"One partner will attempt to jinx the other without speaking. The other will attempt to repel the jinx in equal silence. Carry on."

Draco, however, had other plans on his mind.

"I'll talk to you later," he said half-heartedly to Pansy.

"But--" she started, but he cut her off by pecking her on the lips, and slipping out of the classroom, unnoticed through all the chaos that was ensuing around them.

The door clicked quietly shut behind him and he peered around. The hall was very quiet. Everyone was in class, and on the first day of school, no one but someone like Draco would ditch, and there was only one Draco. He did not, however, have an hour of relaxation leading up to his next class in mind.

Draco had work to do.

Over the summer during his correspondence with Montague, Draco learned of a secret room on the seventh floor of Hogwarts, sometimes called the Come and Go Room or the Room of Requirement. He knew where it was because of his encounter in his fifth year there when he had caught Potter and his band of DA members trying frantically to escape from it. Their Defense teacher that year, Professor Umbridge, had then led him and the rest of the Inquisitorial Squad inside the room where they found overwhelming evidence of an illegal school organization. Draco grinned at the memory of Potter's face when he was caught...

He made his way up several flights of stairs from the Defense classroom until he came to a long blank stretch of wall framed by a window on one end, and a man-sized vase on the other. Taking a deep breath, Draco closed his eyes and remembered how they had entered the room the previous year. Then, his mind racing with the thought, I need the wardrobe, he walked back and forth before the stretch of wall and on his third detour, a door appeared which had not been there before.

Draco's face twisted into a greedy smile and he took a few purposeful steps forward and pushed the door open. At the sight of what the room held, Draco's breath caught in his throat. He let the door close behind him as he gaped at the enormous room before him. Light filled majestically, almost religiously into the room from the high windows, and walls were built out of random objects of incredibly differing variety. He imagined that these must be objects hidden by the Hogwarts student body over the course of hundreds of generations, and here he stood before them, like a spectator of history. The amount of worthless, yet meaningful manifestations that had accumulated was breathtaking.

How on earth was he supposed to find a Vanishing Cabinet in here amongst everything else? He began to walk up and down aisles, careful to remember exactly where the door was so he would not be late to his next class, which happened to be Potions.

The amount of stuff which had been hidden in this room over the course of countless years was incredible. He found a pile of smelly and crusty gloves, yarn, broken quills, confiscated objects such as Fanged Frisbees, one of which had enough life in it still to hover around the room, snapping at the occasional mothball. Around a corner he found dusty rubber ducks, broken watches, a smashed desk which was still littered with parchment, the list went on and on. It was just when Draco was starting to feel a little anxious about finding the cabinet before class started, that he turned a corner near the front of the room and saw it leaning against a wall of discarded articles.

Filled with ecstasy at such a small victory, he rushed towards it, his face shining, a genuine smile creeping along his face as his eyes scanned the object that might bring him the glory he wanted from the Dark Lord. He slowly reached up and ran his hands all alongside it. It really was real, here was the solution, standing before him, so solid he could touch it... He could feel all its imperfections, knots in the wood and a few scratches here and there. The door, when he opened it squeaked slightly, and the inside was dark and musty. Draco looked around for something to throw inside and found a candle somewhere off to the right. He gently tossed it into the cabinet and heard it roll until it just disappeared.

"Lumos," he said, and his wand instantly lit up at the tip and he cast the light inside the wardrobe to see if he could find the candle, but it was gone. There was, however, definitely a back to the cabinet. "Scourgify!" he said, and the dust within the cupboard vanished almost instantly. It significantly darkened the inside somehow, but the light from his wand cast a greater glow against the now clean walls of the cabinet. Draco was hesitant to get inside, for fear of getting trapped in limbo similarly to Montague a few years back, but he did not know how else he was going to be able to fix it without getting a little dirty.

He looked around the room for something that could serve as rope, and found several dusty, old bed sheets. He tied the end of one a pillar which looked fairly sturdy, and tied the other end to another sheet. He continued tying sheets together until the line he had fabricated was long enough to reach the cabinet. He tied the end around his waist as securely as he could, hastily strengthened the sheets with a murmured spell to reassure himself, and took a step in the wardrobe. It was big inside, enough to fit several Death Eaters, if not at least just one of the broad ones. Draco placed a hand on the left wall and pushed; nothing happened. He put his hand on the right wall and gave another shove; again, nothing happened. He took a deep, shaky breath and took one more small step towards the back wall and stared at it for a few seconds.

After a moment, he raised his hand up towards the back and started to push, but where he was sure the back had been moments ago, was now thin air. Frigid emptiness. He started to panic and took several steps back, clutching the sheets that secured him to remind himself that he was safe. He closed his eyes and leaned against a wall of junk near the cabinet and took a few calming deep breaths.

"This is pathetic, Draco." He could almost hear his father's disapproving voice. "You're too frightened to walk to the back of a cupboard in order to serve your Master--it should be you in my place here in Azkaban--"

Draco's eyes snapped open with a frightening determination in them. He took a few deep breaths and suddenly, without warning, jumped into the cabinet and ran as far as he could, freezing wind rushing past him, until it felt like he was being suspended in midair, still running, but completely immobile.

He was not standing on anything, and there was nothing around him but cold. It felt as though he should have been falling, but he did not move at all. His heart was pounding a violent tattoo against his Adam's Apple as his body heat slowly started to evaporate in the emptiness. The sheet he had tied to himself stretched out into what seemed like infinity behind him and he gripped it and pulled himself along it, his fingers stiff from the cold. The sensation was absolutely absurd, if not at all discomforting: he was not standing on anything, and each step he took did not propel him at all. He had to rely completely on the sheet and as he pulled himself to what looked like a light looming in the distance, he silently thanked himself for having thought of the life-rope.

The only sound as he pulled was his fast, heavy breathing. The light was growing, and the air started to warm, though it still pierced his skin, penetrated his clothes. He could not feel his fingers, until finally, his feet started gaining ground, and finally he could somewhat push himself forward through walking. The process was slow.

He was out of breath by the time he thankfully crawled out of the wardrobe, shivering, his entire body prickling as the heat started to return to his finger tips and make their way up his arms. He wrapped his hands around his ears, but it just hurt, so he lay on the floor, letting the heat take over all parts of his body at last. How Montague had survived that much cold for so long, he would never understand.

Draco heavily lifted his wrist to look at his watch and his heart jumped; class began in ten minutes, and he needed to get all the way down to the dungeons.