Why Am I So Bad At This?

"Why am I so bad at this?"

By Luna

In the moonbathed light of Malfoy Manor grounds, Draco Malfoy looked doubtfully down at his new broom. It was a Pheonixwings900 and came out shortly after the Firebolt, not costing half as much but the shopkeeper sweared it was just as good a racing broom, even without the all the Firebolt's special features.

He continued scowling. What rubbish.

The young boy's eyes darted around cautiously as he walked farther away from the manor, and he actually looked like a basilisk, watching slyly for its victims with its death glare. But the boy was small, thin, pale, and even looked weak to some people, especially his father, the Death Eater in Voldemort's inner circle. He tried time and time again to please him; to make his father proud of him- but knew he had to try harder. Lucius Malfoy had always provided financially for everything Draco asked for up to the start of third year.

Lucius had bought the whole Slytherin team the most expensive brooms of the time, and still his son never won in a match against Gryffindor, which of course mattered most to Draco because his grades (for all classes except Potions) were already awfully low. He had never even helped get his house to be nearer to receiving the cup because Gryffindor would beat them to it, leaving them hopelessly in the dust. It was Unfair.

Draco gripped his broomstick tighter, and took off into the night. Now that he was in the very edge of the shadowy plain surrounding the manor grounds, no one could stop him from leaving. Onlookers, had there been any, would have thought he was running away from home. He wasn't.

Going back to his thoughts full of a bitter jealousy and hate, Draco nearly crashed into a tree branch that appeared out of nowhere, blocking his path in the air. He almost lost control of the broom, but pulled it up in the nick of time to avoid being hit. Then, almost afterwards, another branch popping out forced him to do a ballet-concert-worthy twirl in midair and ended up ripping his robes, getting caught just when he thought he was safely out of reach.

For a minute he was almost sure he was stuck hanging in the tree, then he moved and was freed from its grip, but ended up ruining even more of his already damaged clothing.

He was still a very good flyer, he told himself furiously, partly regaining his dignity and continuing on his way. His now severely ripped designer robes only added to his humiliation.

Acting as if nothing embarrassing at all had happened in the last few minutes, he stubbornly started to think about Potter again, just to prove how much better he was than him, ignoring how badly he had acted in the air.

That stupid Potter always kept winning and showing off, no matter what happened to him. His parents are murdered, and he starts looking helpless so everyone would feel sorry for him. He wears dreadfully bad styling and choice of clothes that are filthy and look at least thirty years old, his highly unfashionable glasses are held together by Muggle tape (Draco had always wondered where the hell he had found them), and his hair was always so messy that Draco thought he'd look better bald. Draco, the hot, malicious and proud Slytherin everyone mooned over or hated to bloody little scraps, was both stylish and cool in his opinion of himself.

He didn't dare think about his torn robes just now. It was better to ignore it forever than to criticize himself, because no matter what should happen, he would never do that.

He was ten times better than Potter was; he was perfect, even though he resembled the pretty boy who sneered all the time in many people's minds. He only envied two things that Potter had: his fantastic broomstick (NO, not the other ridiculous meaning) and his talent (though he would never admit he was worse at it) at flying so damn perfectly.

The idiot didn't deserve the skills, Draco thought for the hundredth time. He thought that at least Weasley would never be able to afford even a piece of some decent broom, and would never have a chance to prove with the attention he craved so much just how good at flying he was.

Chuckling to himself and overloading himself with self-flatteries, Draco nearly slid off his broom and started glowering again. It was going to be a long night.

***

Ginny fell drowsily out of her bed, her body heavy from sleep, and landed rather noisily on the wooden floor. Instantly she was awake. She had been tossing and turning all night, having a very bad dream. Ginny groaned lightly from her uncomfortable journey to the floor, but was relieved that what had happened in her nightmare was at least not real. She slowly pulled herself up in a sitting position, clinging to the bed.

Her shoulders drooped, she sat quietly on the softness of the covers, wrapping her blankets around herself for warmth and to ease the shock of the dream she had.

Ginny shuddered openly as she remembered.

They were in the chamber again, but the scenery was drastically different from what she remembered. The grimy walls were decorated with bright pink flowers and heart shaped bubbles that were invisible until they each exploded with a loud 'POP'ping noise were floating all around her. From where she stood, she actually saw retro-style furniture in every previously bare corner, and the large serpent statues were replaced by large, horrible Barbie figures who kept putting on loads of makeup and patting their hair, or flirting casually to the 'Ken' oversized dolls on the other side of the aisle.

She saw the sinister Tom Riddle, but realized with a start that he was real this time- not transparent at all from what she could see. His expression, however, was not at all the type of evil that she remembered. He had a big goofy grin on his face and was currently turning cartwheels around the chamber, happy and freakish as it was possible to get. The expression alarmed her. He looked like an evil clown this time. It was even worse.

Harry was there too. He was chatting with the Basilisk (who was making a very strange sort of grunting sound, and doing a type of dance, so Ginny guessed they were speaking troll). Harry's gaze was unfocused and he looked brainwashed, grunting at random moments and gaping like a cretin the rest of the time.

All of a sudden the scary decorations vanished and were replaced with... was that sand?! Beach balls that bounced endlessly around the room now appeared, and she ducked as one nearly knocked her head off her shoulders, spinning away.

Looking up again when she was sure the beach ball was gone, she let out an audible gasp of surprise. Her eyes widened dramatically and she was suddenly sure that she had quite literally entered hell.

If Tom had seemed freakish before, it was nothing compared to now. His long, billowing, Slytherin robes (that Ginny had unsurprisingly thought made him look extremely sexy) had been replaced by a bright-orange-with-horribly-clashing-lime-polka-dot styled bikini, and he was building a sand castle, the goofy grin back in place...

***

To be continued...