A Story Told

Well, I guess it started when I was five. My father had just bought me my first racing broom and I had been chasing the house elves mercilessly, when for some reason, my mother decided I had become a nuisance. To this day I can't figure her reasoning. I mean, really, a Ming vase is just a vase right? So, she shipped me off to a pre-prepubescent training prep daycare for boisterous young wizards. Sure I was going there any way, but she sent me there a little early. If she hadn't I don't think that I'd have ever fallen in love with her. Yeah, so her ruddy cheeks had crusty snot on them, and her tomato red hair was completely infested with tangles, but she had those beautiful brown eyes, and a smile that made me feel like I'd just had twelve Elva Riff's Pixie Sniffs. I'd fallen as hard as a five-year-old could for a squeaky voiced little midget, who was quite adamant about tagging along with her mother while she dropped off those two freaks of nature commonly known as Fred and George Weasley. She was Ginny Weasley, and she was mine.

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It started innocently enough. She had a raggedy little cloth doll with her, which she swiped at her older brothers when they teased her. Her mother was too busy begging the principal to accept the twins to notice that Fred and George had taken away Ginny's little doll, and started to toss it to each other over Ginny's head. She was furious! Her face had turned the color of black cherries and she looked like she was about to cry. Whether it was because she was so angry or just that she wanted her doll, I didn't know. However, I did know that you weren't mean to your siblings, especially if your parents were around. I never had any brothers or sisters, but I'd heard enough about family pride, and I was sure that they weren't showing their family respect. Besides, I thought the girl was pretty, and I'd be dammed before an object of my interest was damaged before I could make a good evaluation of its quality. So, being the chivalrous, caring, and brave youth that I was, I wandered over to the inequitable miscreants and fiercely demanded that the young lady's toy be returned.

"Oy! You two beet haired monkeys! Down here! Give that back before I tell my father!"

"Ha!" one of them exclaimed, "The little blond baby's going to tell his daddy if we don't give Ginny's dolly back to her! I bet your daddy couldn't stop a flobberworm from rampaging out of control!"

I was struck by two thoughts at once. One, the girls name was Ginny, and two, that freak just called my father weaker than a flobberworm! Just as I was processing this, the other abnormality chimed in.

"Yeah! Besides, Ginny's our sister, and we can do anything we want with her, so bugger off you pasty little bogie factory!"

At this point the color of Ginny's face had gone down, and instead of being angry, she looked like she was going to die if she held in her laughter any longer. I, however, was irate.

"You! I! My father! Oh, you'll pay!"

At this, those infidels had the temerity to laugh. All three of them! Of cores, at the time, I had no idea how my ginger princess would react to my sudden display of heroics, but I certainly had not thought she would laugh at me.

My scowl went deeper and I said to them, "My father is Lucius Malfoy, and he'll make sure you'll never laugh at me or anyone else again!"

Once they heard my fathers' name, the laughter died instantly, and my sweet one looked on the edge of tears once more. At this, the complacent smirk that I had just been starting to develop made its first appearance outside my bedroom. However, my victory was short-lived, as Molly Weasley, the creator of both beauty and beasts, shuffled over to our direction once she heard my fathers' name being use explicitly as a threat against her children. Though, even at the time, I doubt you could have called those uncouth swine children. As if the were human, and all that.

She used her heavy-set body to tower over me to a great effect. "Oh, so you'll be being little Draco Malfoy. Well, I'm sure you'll have no need to tell your father of your troubles with Fred and George, because they most certainly won't be staying here, and Fred, if you don't give Ginny back her doll right this second -"

"I will, mum...", and he gave back my lovely's' tattered rag doll with an insolent huff.

Mrs. Weasley responded to this with a death glare worthy of Lucius, and picked Ginny up off the floor to leave. She and the loathsome duo turned their backs to me as they exited, and it gave me a perfect view of Ginny's' angelically grubby face. For one split-second it still had the look of some one who had just gone thorough a rather bad scare, but when she saw me it vanished and was replaced by a threatening narrowing of her eyes. It was too cute to be a genuine glare, but it did have the effect of evaporating the smile I had sent her completely off my face. I was impressed. Even her shoddy attempts at glaring were like sunshine.

As the door closed, and they had left, I was left to my own devices for the rest of the afternoon. I was in a petulant mood and set about braking in half every one of the 348 crayons in the "Magical Colors!" box individually. I had almost finished, when the carriage had arrived to pick me up, so before I left, I made sure to trod on them as I walked out the door.