True Loathings

I look at you across the room and you look back at me. Your face is burning, since Snape took five points off your house. I leer at you, and you and your best friend, your little sidekick, glare at me. I smile what is kind of a twisted, malicious grin. You only look back with even more hatred and get up and leave, since Potions is over. I lean over to Crabbe and say, "Don't you think Potter is a total fool, Crabbe?" loud enough so you can hear. You turn and look as if you were about to swear but you see Snape and you don't want to lose any more points. How touching, Potter.

Potter, do you know how all this hatred came about? Do you know what I really think about you?

The first time we met, Potter, in Diagon Alley, Father and I had just been in Knockturn Alley. Father had been looking for more Dark Art toys to add to our expansive collection beneath the drawing-room floor. I looked at you. You were ragged and poor-looking. My first impression of you was, What an inferior dunce. Of course, discovering later that you were the "Boy Who Lived", I had to, of course, extend a hand of friendship.

Utterly bored, waiting for the tape to stop measuring me, you walk in. Normally I don't bother with ragged, poor, charity students, but today I was exceptionally bored; so exasperated with the bumbling witch, Madam Malkin, that I decided to converse with you. "Hello. Hogwarts, too?"

"Yes," you reply.

How dull, I think. I decide to liven up the conversation by making you feel bad and telling you about how indulgent my parents are. Judging from your appearance, you might not have any parents at all.

"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands. Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow. Have you got your own broom?"

"No," you say. I thought not, I think, impressed with my brilliance.

"Play Quidditch at all?"

"No," you say. Secretly, inside, I am laughing at your pitifulness. No Quidditch? How pathetic.

"I do -- Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?" Oh, this is so much fun, I think, making him feel worse and worse.

"No," you reply.

Inside, I am choking with laughter. What an idiot!

I have a sudden urge to be nice. "Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been -- imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?" Now, I think, if he says, "Hufflepuff?" I'll know he's a Mudblood. If I've been talking to a Mudblood - I inwardly shake my head in disgust. Not a Mudblood!

"Mmm," you say.

Still not sure if you are Muggle-born or not, a big, burly, man peering in through the window distracts me. "I say, look at that man!" He is standing there with two cones of ice cream. How barbaric, I think.

"That's Hagrid," you remark, sounding pleased, "He works at Hogwarts."

Hagrid! What a hideous name! Well, if you know Hagrid, you're probably not a Mudblood, but I'm still not entirely sure. "Oh," I reply, "I've heard of him." I most certainly have, I shudder inwardly. "He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"

"He's the gamekeeper." You have a sort of distasteful look on your face.

Gamekeeper. How degrading! "Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of savage -- lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed."

"I think he's brilliant," you say, coldly. How could someone like that be brilliant?

"Do you," I inquire, sneering, "Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"

"They're dead," you say, shortly. Ah hah, I think, I thought so.

"Oh, sorry," I say. After all, I am a Malfoy and I've been raised to have manners. "But they were our kind, weren't they?" Now I'll find out if you're a Mudblood.

"They were a witch and a wizard, if that's what you mean." I breathe a sigh of relief. Now Father won't strike me again. He always knows if I've been talking to Mudbloods.

"I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? They're just not the same, they’ve never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families. What's your surname, anyway?" I rattle off my opinions, now that I know you're not Muggle-born. And once you tell me your surname, I'll know just how respectable you are.

But then Madame Malkin is done with you, and you leave, looking as if you were glad to go. I am mildly offended. "Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose." You say nothing. How rude, I think. I see you join "Hagrid" and you take an ice cream. Ugh, I inwardly shudder.

When you refused my train offer, I grew angry, from hurt pride and surprise. How could you prefer Muggle-lovers and Mudbloods over an ancient, age-old, respectable, pure-blood wizarding family? I thought, of course, it must have been since you lived with Muggles, but I had to put on a pretense of hating you. At first, I didn't seriously hate you. More like ... detested. Not much of a difference, but let's just say I was envious.

I, with the good looks and all the wealth, am stuck with a simpering, pathetic, fat, ugly Pansy Parkinson, while girls keep looking at you, with your despicable scar. I've heard of your family "fortune" that your parents left you, but that's like one-sixteenth of a Knut compared to our fortune.

The first few times we met, I, of course, snarled. Envy, hurt pride, and family honor to uphold, all contributed to that. You, having humiliated me by refusing my offer, forced me to act like I loathed you. Pretty soon, it was quite real. Now, it's more like envy and fear. Fear of my father, not of you, you git. There is no reason for me to fear you, Harry Potter, you miserable scarred prat. If word got to my father that I was friends with you, what with you having beaten me in Quidditch and points, not to mention saving the world from the Dark Lord several times, he would kill me. My father is not a kind man, but he doesn't exactly beat me up. My mother is a bit nicer, but she irritates me and tells Father everything wrong I do and nothing right. Which, of course, leads to punishment.

Father never hit me hard enough to leave a true scar, but he always inflicted spells that lengthened the pain, long after the bruise faded.

Father enters the door. "Hello, Draco"

"Daddy! Daddy!"

A hard smack across my face and I, aged five, slam back into the wall, knocked out for a few moments. I revive, looking around dazedly until another hard smack wakes me up.

"How many times have I told you NOT TO CALL ME 'DADDY'? What does it take to get it through your insolent, thick, skull of yours that I am not, nor will ever be, 'DADDY'! It's 'Father', you know that, Draco!" Cold fury radiates from Father’s cruel grey eyes.

"Yes, Father," I say, now feeling no urge to call him anything but "Father". "I understand, Father," the words sounding strange coming from my five-year-old mouth.

"I have guests tonight, Draco. I can't have you looking like this," Father gestures towards my swollen, red face. For a wild moment I think that Father might heal me, or hug me. He taps my cheeks and the swelling and redness disappears. My hopes arise, and I sigh in momentary relief.

But the cold voice continues.

"Too many times you have forgotten, Draco. Perhaps a little reminder will do you good." Father once again taps my face with his wand and the pain returns, much worse before. "You will do well not to forget."

"Yes, Father."

The memory stings my eyes. Potter, the Dursleys probably treat you better than my father, and that's saying something.

As for Voldemort, well ... I know my father intends on my joining Voldemort as soon as possible. I'm all for killing Muggles, Muggle-lovers, and Mudbloods, though Granger, once she straightens her hair and grows a little, can be quite attractive. But, however, I do not want to actually join the Dark Lord. In very loose terms, you can say I would be his--using Muggle words, as much as I loathe them--cheerleader. Not truly part of the game, but egging it on. Not like I would be doing the splits, wearing short skirts, waving pompoms, doing cartwheels and chanting, "GIMME A V! GIMME AN O! GIMME A L! . . . GOO DEATH EATERS! GOO VOLDEMORT!" Father once brought me to a Muggle sports game in order to show me how absurd Muggles can get. That sport - football, is it? - is nothing compared to Quidditch. But you get the idea, don't you?

Pansy sidles up to me while I am thinking this. "Hello, Draco!" she squeaks, "Don't you just hate Harry Potter?"

"Oh, yes," I agree with her, "most definitely yes."

When you got that broomstick, Potter, I thought I would rip your eyes out and save them as ornaments for our Christmas tree back home. Especially when you said, "And it's thanks to Malfoy here that I've got it" or something like that. Don't expect me to remember your every comment, Potter. None of it would be worth remembering. I am just thinking of the finer points of our long history of hate.

The one time that I was embarrassed the most was when Mad-Eye Moody turned me into a ferret. Not entirely a pleasant experience, I daresay. But sometimes, Potter, when I'm all alone, stuck with stupid, fat, Crabbe and Goyle, snoring away, I wonder about what might have been. What might have happened, I wonder, if I was not in Slytherin, or you were in Slytherin? Or if my father was not a Death Eater, nor practiced the Dark Arts? Or if you were not so famous, and just a regular, unscarred boy, non-hero named Harry Potter? What if you were not an orphan and your family also old, respectable, pure-blooded and extremely wealthy? Would we be friends then? Because, Potter, I admit to you, having no one but simpering idiots and blubbering prats by your side the whole day, it makes you long for intellect. If you and I, Potter, switched for one day--you having to hang around Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle for a day and I being able to hang around a true intellectual being and a loyal, amusing fool--what would it be like?

I ask you, What would it be like?