Professor Draco Malfoy

Professor Draco Malfoy

Chapter Two: Malfoy as a teacher

Ginny stared up at the high table, not able to believe it. This was the worst possible thing that ever could have happened to her. She had thought that this year was going to be perfect, but slime ball Malfoy had to go and ruin her life once again. She knew that she should probably feel bad for him, as his father had been killed along with many other Death Eaters when Harry had defeated Voldemort, but she didn't. She knew that he was considered somewhat of a hero in the wizarding world as he had turned traitor to the dark side at the last second and had given Dumbledore the secret to destroying the Dark Lord, but she still thought of him as a self-centered ass, and the perfect Slytherin image.

Ginny turned to look at Meg, who was sitting across the table from her, and supposed that the horrified expression prominent on her friend's face was probably equally evident on her own. Dumbledore, deciding that the newest member of his staff should be spared from the obvious dislike radiating from all corners of the room... except for one, took this opportunity to clap his hands, causing the food to appear on the table.

Although she was still in shock, Ginny helped herself to tons of food, and dug in. She, Meg, Debby, Colin, and Bobby talked amongst themselves of different ways to get back at Malfoy if he tried to take advantage of his teacher status, which they knew he undoubtedly would. "There is no way," began Ginny, glaring at the back of Malfoy's head, "that he is going to get away with treating us horribly just because he somehow managed to become a teacher and he is able to take points away from Gryffindor plus give us detentions. I mean, he is less than a year older than some of us!"

The rest of them agreed, but they had little time to say anything else, as Ginny, who had recently been elected Head Girl, had to lead the first years up to their dormitories. "First years," she began, yawning as she spoke, "follow me please," and she led them up through the castle until they arrived at the Fat Lady. "Jelly Bean," she said, and the portrait swung open.

"Welcome to Hogwarts, dears" the Fat Lady murmured to the first years, half asleep. Ginny lead them inside the common room, at the sight of which some of them gasped in amazement. Ginny smiled and led them up to the rooms that had, just the year before, belonged to Harry, Ron, Neville, Dean, Seamus, Hermione, Lavender, and Parvati. She sighed, knowing that this year was going to be different, with no Harry for people to gawk at, no Neville to make all possible mistakes ever heard of, no Hermione to help her with homework, and no Ron to, well... be her brother.

Once the first years went into their dormitories and gasped with surprise at the rooms and the fact that their trunks were already there, Ginny headed to her own room, flopped down onto her bed, and immediately fell asleep.

The next day Ginny woke up only to have fifteen minutes to get dressed, get downstairs, eat breakfast, get her schedule, and get to class. Throwing on her robes, Ginny quickly ran a brush through her hair, grabbed her bag, and raced downstairs. She kept running until she got to the Great Hall, where she slowed down. As head girl, she was supposed to an example for the other students. Looking around the room, she spotted Bobby and Meg sitting together, stuffing food down their throats and comparing schedules. As Ginny went down to sit with them, an owl soared through the window and dropped a piece of paper into her outstretched hands. Looking down at it, she saw that it was her schedule. She checked to see what she had that day, and groaned. Just my luck, she thought, Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts in the same day. "Hey Meg, Aren't we lucky?" she said sarcastically, looking across the table at her friend, "both Slytherin Classes today!"

"I know," Meg replied rolling her eyes. "Oh... shit... speaking of which, we need to go now or Malfoy'll kill us."

"Yeah, I guess so," Ginny muttered, making a face at the schedule that she was still clutching in her hand, "At least I managed to bring my DADA books! Otherwise he'd probably take like one hundred points from Gryffindor."

"Yeah," Bobby said, looking up from the bacon he had been shovelling into his mouth, "We'd better go." So Ginny and her friends approached their DADA classroom with the same amount of energy and enthusiasm as they had in anticipation of Potions class.

"You three are late," Malfoy sneered, looking up as the three of them entered the room exactly when their schedule said that the class started, "Five points from Gryffindor... each."

Ginny opened her mouth to say something, but Malfoy cut her off, smirking: "Miss Weasley, you know that any comment you have about how I treat my class is something that I am just dying to hear, but please consider how much dear Gryffindor house means to you, and how much my taking points from it will hurt it... and therefore hurt you. You really don't want that to happen now, do you?"

Ginny glared at him, but didn't say anything. She followed her friends to the back of the class and waited for Malfoy to begin the class. "Now," he began, surveying the class with obvious dislike, "I know most of you pretty well, much more than I would like in fact, and therefore I know that you are a very slow class. We will start by talking about the recent defeat of Lord Voldemort." The class shuddered at the sound of the name, but didn't dare say anything. Malfoy continued: "As most of you know, I was once a Death Eater, I pledged my allegiance to the Dark Lord during my sixth year..., but after suffering through over a year of false promises and torment, I realized that the Dark Lord was not the person to whom I wanted to devote my entire life, and that if I continued to follow him, I would undoubtedly die much earlier than I would otherwise."

He surveyed the room, the inhabitants of which were staring at him with a mixture of fear and amazement, and lifted the sleeve of his robes to show them his dark mark. "Yes," he continued, smirking, "The dark mark. The ever-present reminder of the stupid mistake I made all those years ago. But I was allowed a chance for redemption by Dum- err, Professor Dumbledore. He knew that I had become a death eater, yet he listened to me when I told him the secret to defeating the Dark Lord. He told me that he would shelter me from the wrath of the Death Eaters if I agreed to teach at the school the next year -now this one-, and teach the students how to protect themselves against the curses and dark creatures that I had had so much exposure to and personal experience with. And I agreed, so that is why I am now lowering myself to the level of having to teach you lowly beings who probably have had no first hand exposure to the dark arts. And how can you expect to learn to protect yourself from what you have never experienced? Do you think that in the long run leading a sheltered life is a good thing? Well, I'll tell you: it's not." His cold green eyes surveyed the classroom, looking each pupil square in the face, before he smirked at them.

"Professor Dumbledore has given me permission to inflict curses upon you students so you can learn to deflect them. Now... he told me to start with simple, barely harmful hexes that are easy to counter. However, as you are seventh years, I will test what you have learned in the past years you have been at the school. Most of your teachers have been less than satisfactory, so I expect that you will not be able to prevent the curses from hitting you." He smiled coldly at the nervous faces of his students.

"Professor Malfoy," Ginny said, sarcastically emphasizing the professor part, "you're not going to put an unforgivable curse on us, are you? Because I am sure that Dumbledore did not give you permission to use one of those."

"Miss Weasley, I was not aware that you were given the right to challenge my intentions. Of course I would not use an unforgivable curse on any of my classes. That's against the rules, you know," he said in an infuriating tone, as though he were talking to a three year old child. "However, I will be inflicting a curse on you similar to the Cruciatus Curse, although not as severe. And Weasley, since you spoke out of turn, how about I not only take twenty points from Gryffindor, but you go first?" He looked at her with a look that clearly said ha ha, I'm in charge; you have to do what I say.

At this, Ginny turned white. Her friends stared at her as Malfoy motioned for her to come forward. She stayed in her seat, not moving a muscle. "Weasley, ten more points from Gryffindor for not doing what I told you to. If you don't get up here right now I will make it fifty!" Shaking with barely suppressed rage and fear Ginny slowly walked to the front of the room, where Malfoy began instructing her in what to do. "Weasley, once I put the curse on you, you will feel immense pain. However, you need to fight it off before it gets too strong, or you will be lost to the pain until the one who inflicted it upon you chooses to remove it. Now, to rid yourself of the pain, you need to think of something happy; some memory that will make your entire body tingle with excitement and happiness. Perhaps for you this would be an imaginary instance; perhaps where you were Potter's girlfriend." Malfoy said this last part with an evil grin, and smirked as Ginny and the rest of the class glared at him. "Now Weasley, if you keep plotting ways to kill me inside of your head there is no way that you will be able to fight off the curse. Oh," he said, as if he had just remembered some significant detail that had been left out before, "Before I forget. Thinking of a happy thought is only the beginning of the long process of breaking curses. I will still have to remove it from you; you will only be stalling it." He pointed his wand at Ginny and said, loud and clear, "Mortuus Glires!"

Ginny felt immediate pain at once, and a voice in the back of her head was saying Ginny, you have felt pain worse than this, but someone else had to help you stop it. You're not going to be able to prevent this pain either. Just forget it. Ginny ignored this, and tried desperately to think of a happy thought to block out the thought of pain, while Malfoy explained the history of the curse to the rest of the class, seeming to have forgotten that she was suffering under it.

"You see, this used to be the spell that was used to kill mice, but once it was tried on a human, and the offending party learned that although it did not kill his opponent, it caused him great pain. Over time more people learned about this alternate use for the dead mouse curse, and therefore it became one of the more commonly used pain curses. Ah..." he said, glancing at Ginny, "Miss Weasley looks as though she isn't doing so well with this curse. I suppose I had better lift it off of her." He sighed, and, pointing his wand at her, muttered "porcus," at which Ginny collapsed on the floor.

Lifting her head, Ginny saw the faces of her classmates standing around her, looking concernedly into her face. "Are you ok Gin?" Colin asked, looking at her with a worried expression on his face. The rest of the class, seeing that she was okay, turned around to glare at Malfoy who was watching their concern with amusement.

"I don't remember telling any of you that you could stand up," he said, leering at the rest of the class. "Three points from Gryffindor for each of you."

"Malfoy, were you trying to kill me or something?" Ginny gasped, leaning against the desk to support her weight, as she was still dizzy from the curse, while her classmates glared at Malfoy even more fiercely than they had been before.

"I assure you, Miss Weasley that I was trying to do no such thing. However, you mustn't forget that I am the teacher here. To you, I am Professor Malfoy, not just Malfoy. If you have a problem with that may I suggest that you take it up with the headmaster? I really do not have the time to argue with you. And for your disrespect I will be forced to take ten points from Gryffindor." He said all this with the same smirk on his face, his cold eyes staring into hers.

"Fine, Professor Malfoy, I will go talk to the headmaster. However, not on the topic of your name, but rather in reference to the certain curse that you placed upon me today. I am sure that he will have something to say about it," Ginny challenged, glaring at her teacher as the rest of her class nodded in agreement.

Looking at her with an eyebrow raised, Malfoy said "Weasley, you do as you please. However, remember that the headmaster is more inclined to believe the teacher than the student. Oh, and since you don't seem to be learning a lesson from the points I keep taking from you, I believe I will have to keep taking them away until you do. Five points from Gryffindor!"

Ginny was still glaring daggers into the back of his head as he went to let in the next class: The Slytherins of her same year, but didn't dare say anything more as losing more points for her house would get her in deep trouble with the rest of the Gryffindors. At the sight of his next class Malfoy smiled and started talking happily with them, although never losing his cool. Ginny followed her friends past the Slytherins, who tried, unsuccessfully, to trip her up as they passed, and out of the DADA classroom, and towards the dungeons for their next two hours of torture.