Smoke, Leather and Blood

Smoke, Leather and Blood

By Shecka

Chapter One - Evil Is Bad

As Draco Malfoy headed to his first lesson of the semester he felt relatively happy. He wasn't too worried about who his seventh (and final) Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher would be. He'd heard the rumors, but only because they where being whispered wherever he went.

"I heard Dumbledore wasn't too happy about employing him..."

"He was late in arriving. I heard that he didn't even reach the grounds until after nightfall."

"He wasn't at the welcoming feast."

"I saw him this morning... blonde hair, really pale skin, wears a lot of black..."

It was unavoidable. Everyone was curious about who the next teacher would be. Well, Draco wasn't.

Not really, anyway.

But he had to admit, the guy seemed like one of the better teachers. The blonde hair, pale skin and black attire sounded particularly interesting. Everyone in the Malfoy family looked like that. Blonde hair was almost a trademark. The new professor obviously had Malfoy taste.

Draco rounded the corner and up ahead saw his two cronies, Crabbe and Goyle, standing in the middle of the hallway engaged in what looked like a staring competition. In order to get past them, students were trying to duck around them or slip between their legs, creating an absolute mess.

Shrugging, he walked over to them and gave them both a poke in the arm.

They looked away from one another at exactly the same time.

"What was that for?" asked Goyle, rubbing his arm defensively.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Because you two looked like complete morons and you're clogging up the path."

Crabbe blinked.

"Oh," said Goyle.

"And," continued Draco, "since you haven't moved, you're still clogging up the path."

Crabbe blinked again.

"Oh," said Goyle.

Draco sighed. Crabbe and Goyle were always the same. Between them they didn't even have two brain cells to rub together. Luckily, they had him. Draco was the intelligent, creative, attractive, well-dressed, wealthy, cunning, resourceful and conscientious one.

Steering them down the hall Draco asked, "What were you doing anyway?"

"Staring competition," replied Crabbe.

"I gathered that," said Draco. "Why?"

"Whoever lost has to make up both of our beds for a week," said Goyle.

Draco was impressed. This was surprisingly logical... for Crabbe and Goyle.

"Gentlemen, I wouldn't worry about making beds if I were you. In case you haven't noticed, either our beds are charmed to make themselves in our absence or house elves make them. Either way, you haven't needed to make a bed since before you were first years."

"Oh," said both Crabbe and Goyle in unison.

"Was there any particular reason why you felt the need to have a staring competition in the middle of the hall right before class?"

Draco allowed six seconds of waiting time before he gave up on getting a response from either Crabbe or Goyle.

Luckily, Blaise Zabini joined their group at that moment and Crabbe and Goyle dutifully fell into step behind Blaise and Draco.

"What a relief," said Draco. "I was about to catch stupidness."

Blaise grinned. "About to catch stupidness? Gee, it must be a day that ends in "y.""

Draco laughed. "Honestly," he said, "I think those two are getting worse."

Blaise smirked. "No, what's getting worse are those stupid Defense classes. I've started referring to it as DADA. You know, like a mnemonic?"

Draco grinned. "That's pretty neat."

"Yeah, well, I think if you call the class Defense Against the Dark Arts it sort of implies that you have respect for the course as a whole. It's so long-winded and that. But if you call it DADA, it sounds more..."

"Flippant?" supplied Draco.

"Exactly," replied Blaise.

Draco turned to look behind him at Crabbe and Goyle. "You two," he said to them. "From now on we call Defense against the Dark Arts DADA, okay?"

They both nodded dumbly and Draco turned back to Blaise "The boycott has officially begun," he said.

And then they both laughed evilly because... well just because they were Slytherins.

**

Ten minutes later Draco, Blaise, Crabbe and Goyle reached the dungeons and wandered into their class. The King of All Which is Righteous and his two cronies, She with the Bad Hair and He Who Has No Money were already there.

Draco led his group to the back of the class and once seated, they began a noisy discussion about how pointless DADA was.

"My father," he began, "only wants me in this class so that I can be more familiar with the Black Arts. He says its pointless learning all of this, but at least we learn a bit about dark magic, even if it isn't how to perform the spells."

Blaise grinned, taking a sidelong glance at Harry, who had stiffened slightly in his seat, before replying, "Well, why would we want to defend ourselves from the Dark Arts if we could harness them instead?"

"Well, exactly," replied Draco. "You see--" But at that moment Ron Weasley butted in.

"Some of us," he said acidly, "don't think that being evil is the right path. As long as there are DUM people like you, Draco Ulbrech Malfoy, we need all the protection we can ge..."

Draco was surprised at the length of time it took for Hermione and Harry to shut him up. Once they had their hands securely over his mouth to prevent further insult and were whispering furiously at him to be quiet Draco had thought of the perfect reply.

"I can't help it if the Dark Arts are so powerful that one must spend seven years learning to defend oneself from something that can be harnessed in less than six months, Weasley. Evil is just more powerful like that I guess. And if you want to make fun of my initials, you may want to check the dictionary first. It's spelt D-U-M-B, not D-U-M."

Ron's frustration at being unable to reply was obvious. He struggled against the arms of Ron and Hermione, obviously trying to get up and punch Draco in the face or something. Draco just smirked and acted cool, letting Crabbe and Goyle crack their knuckles behind him.

"How was that?" he whispered to Blaise.

"On the evilometer... I'd give it about a six. Not bad at all," was the reply.

Draco grinned. "All part of a day's work. Spreading the word of evil, annoying those who aren't, it's what I--"

But at that moment Blaise cut in. "Shhh. This is it."

Dumbledore, the headmaster, came into the classroom followed by what had to be their new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Draco was disappointed to see that his new teacher did not have trademark Malfoy hair. Sure, the colour was right, but instead of the hair being ear-length, it was cropped shorter. Draco had to admire his use of hair gel though. It looked as though he had spiked hair, but the spikes had been pushed back onto his head.

The new teacher was relatively attractive, carrying the same "look at me, I'm evil and I like to keep to the shadows" aura about him as what both Draco and Professor Snape, the potions teacher, had. The only problem was his clothing. Instead of wearing dark, billowing robes (Draco's personal favorite) he wore - for shame - muggle clothing!

Now, Draco knew very little about muggle clothes, but he knew the basics. The new teacher was wearing black pannts with a bellet and a black y-shirtte thing. He was also holding what appeared to be a black robe, but it wasn't made from any type of material Draco had ever seen before. It was shiny and a little like Dragon hide but without the scales.

Blaise elbowed Malfoy in the ribs and asked, "What's with the muggle look?"

"I have no idea. Maybe he's like Weasley's dad. Obsessed with muggles and stuff."

"... oh gods no."

But before Blaise could elaborate on how it would be the end of the world because they had a muggle-obsessed teacher, Dumbledore asked for quiet.

With that peculiar twinkle in his eyes that Draco had learned to despise, Dumbledore began.

"I know that your time at Hogwarts has heralded more Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers in a seven year block than there has been in over one hundred years. And I know all about how you're sick of all the changes that you've had to make in order to adjust to the different teaching styles of each. I know that you've probably had your favorites and your... not so favorites, but if I were you... I'd count myself lucky. Each teacher has had expertise in different areas of the course and each has taught what he or she knows best. Your last, but certainly not least teacher is this gentleman here. This is Morisius the Lancer, or as you will refer to him, Professor Roux."

Draco leaned over to Blaise. "Should we call him Professor Roux or Professor -The Lancer?"

Blaise snickered. "He doesn't look too comfortable, does he?"

Draco turned his attention from the twittering Dumbledore to Roux. He certainly didn't seem like he was used to teaching. He looked a little young for the position. Draco regarded him with a sort of detached interest, his mind cataloguing the professor's behavior:

Observes the class casually.

Looks at Dumbledore.

Checks out the ceiling and rafters.

Scratches his arm.

Shifts the robe-thing from one hand to the other.

Glances at Harry the Magnificent.

Doesn't seem too impressed.

Observes the class again.

Looks over and gives an amused smirk, which is identical to the one that the Malfoy family patented over 500 years ago.

No fair!

This guy was cheeky. There was no doubt about it. He may look almost like a Malfoy and dress almost like a muggle, but there was no arguing the fact that he had class.

"So," said Dumbledore, "from my understanding, Professor Roux will be picking up from where you left off last year, which is most of the way through your case study on basilisks. I would also like to inform you that Professor Roux will not be teaching you any practical work this year. For this purpose I have employed five Aurors from the Ministry of Magic to instruct you, and these practical lessons are on your timetables and will be held in the field next to the Whomping Willow."

Dumbledore smiled. "Have fun," he said, both to Roux and the class before leaving.

Blaise leaned over to Draco and muttered, "I bet a galleon that he's a Squib."

"Oh I hope not. Please no," replied Draco, sinking deeper into his seat.

"Well," said Roux, dropping his robe-thing onto the arm of the teacher's chair. "I'll be straight with you. I'm not really one for basilisks. Luckily, from what I can see, there's not much left to cover on them. So... today's just going to be tying up some loose ends and next lesson we're going to get onto something more interesting."

Roux leaned on his desk and jammed his hands into his poor-kets. "The basilisk can only be born if..." Roux paused.

"You should probably get out your quill-things and write this down," he said.

"The basilisk can only be born if you take a chicken's egg and stick it beneath a toad. The toad has to be alive though, or the egg's going to go cold. The hardest part about getting the toad to stay on the chicken's egg is that toads don't normally hatch eggs. It's against their nature. Now, you can try and tie the toad down onto the egg, but what generally happens if you do that is the toad struggles to get out of the bonds and ends up breaking apart the egg." Roux paused again.

"So," he said, "if you wanted to hatch a basilisk, how would you get the toad to stay on the egg?"

Draco automatically looked over to Hermione, but was surprised when she didn't have her hand in the air. Instead, she was looking completely confused and was hissing into Harry's ear, "This stuff isn't in the textbook!!"

Draco put up his hand.

"Yeah, who are you?" said Roux.

"Err, Draco Malfoy, Professor," replied Draco.

"Okay, shoot."

"But that's the thing Professor. Why would any of us want to hatch a basilisk anyway?" he drawled.

Roux smirked. "The creation of basilisks is illegal, Mr. Malfoy," he said. "Aside from the enjoyment of doing something illegal just because you can, basilisks can fetch a pretty good price on the black market. They're popular because when they're still young, they only measure a few inches and they're portable and handy. If you've got an enemy you want to get rid of, you just set it loose in their house and when they look into the basilisk's eyes they die instantly. Because there's no weapon or wand involved, it's hard for the crime to be traced, so you're one enemy down and no one's the wiser."

"Dude," muttered Blaise.

"So," said Roux, "How would you get the toad to stay on the egg?"

"Um," said Draco. "Err..."

"I guess not," replied Roux. "The best way is to get in touch with some muggle drug manufacturers and buy something called a sedative. A sedative will make your toad really sleepy, but not kill it. The toad has to be given doses of the sedative frequently so that the drug doesn't wear off. You can also use a stunning spell, but again, the spell can be traced back to your wand so it's not that safe".

Draco leaned over to Blaise. "Is it just me, or does it seem like Roux's in on the basilisk trade?"

"He knows his stuff, that's for sure. And its not just defense stuff. Its how to DO it."

"I like this guy."

Just as though Roux had heard what they were saying, his lecture suddenly switched focus.

"As far as defense from a basilisk goes, my advice is not to look at the thing in the eyes. If you think someone's planning to set one on you, the best thing to do is to go over to their house and take a look."

Roux shrugged. "Since the toad has to be watched at all times, they won't have left their house for a while and they'll probably be prepared for a visit from you or from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures."

Roux looked a little tense for a moment before saying, "All they really have to do is to take the toad off the chicken's egg and they're safe. But, if you want to find out for sure, search their entire house. Trash it if you want. If you find a sedated toad or a warm chicken's egg anywhere you've got your proof."

The rest of the lesson went on in much the same way as it had begun.

Instead of being indoctrinated about how bad and evil all dark magic was, Roux filled them in on what sort of people were likely to breed basilisks and how they control them.

Everything from how to get a basilisk from one place to another without risk to yourself to what to do if you think a basilisk is inside your house (and how to catch it and return it to your attacker) was taught to them.

Draco, who normally despised this class, found himself being drawn into the way Roux taught.

His almost tavern storytelling style of teaching was unlike any other teacher's. Even Professor Snape would never be able to just sit and tell you how to do something like this. Roux made everything seem personal.

By the end of the class, Draco was seriously considering hatching his own basilisk and setting it loose in the Gryffindor common room.

The only problem was where to hide the egg so that the house elves wouldn't find it. He was pretty sure he could check on the toad between classes...

When the bell sounded for the end of class Roux finished by saying, "Basilisks are hard work. They're dangerous and time consuming and if you're caught you're buggered. Don't say I didn't warn you. Evil is bad."

**

On their way to the next class, Draco and Blaise compared their theories about Roux.

"He only said that evil was bad at the very end," said Blaise.

"Remember Moody? He was all, "Evil is bad. This is this. Evil is bad. That is that. Evil is bad. Constant vigilance. Evil is Bad.""

Draco laughed. "I hated Moody more than you did. I heard a rumor that he had to stop working here because he finally fell apart. Poor sod."

"As in fell apart, like into little pieces?"

"Yeah. It looked like he was only held together by stitches and scars anyway."

They both laughed again. This was why Draco enjoyed talking with Blaise so much. Blaise was always willing to laugh at his jokes and Blaise was also very intelligent. A great change from the intoxicating idiocy of Crabbe and Goyle. Also, the fact that Blaise was a Slytherin and evil meant that their families were friendly and they could spend as much time as they wanted together in the Slytherin common room.

He also enjoyed playing practical jokes on Crabbe and Goyle sometimes and Blaise made a good partner in crime.

"Hey Blaise," began Draco carefully.

"Yes Draco?"

Draco bit his lip and pulled Blaise into an empty classroom. "I have a question for you."

"Draco I... What is it?"

"Do you think we know enough to make our own basilisk and keep it?"

"Probably, I mean once it got too big for us we'd be in trouble, but yeah."

"I was just thinking, we could make one ourselves and then use it on the Gryffindors. Think about it, we could kill Potter and Granger and the whole Weasley clan and no one would know it was us."

"Draco, don't be silly," said Blaise. "It would be obvious."

"Why? We could cover our tracks, we just need to get some seda-la-lata-tive things

and--"

"No," said Blaise. "Think about it. The only students in this whole school that have done a case study on basilisks are the ones in our class. We have a class full of Gryffindors and Slytherins. The Gryffindors wouldn't set a basilisk on themselves."

"Why not?"

"Oh come on Draco, you know as well as I do that the only house that's stupid enough to form a suicide pact is Hufflepuff. The Gryffindors are too self-righteous and enjoy suffering too much for that sort of thing."

"I guess."

"So it would be narrowed down to the Slytherins in our class. That's not many people really. And if it's mass murder we're talking about then the Ministry of Magic is going to spend whatever it takes. We'd end up being dosed with some sort of truth potion and questioned. They'd catch us in a second."

Blaise was really smart. Draco appreciated that now. I mean, he knew Blaise was smart but the common sense thing was very, very good to have around.

"And besides," added Blaise stiffly, "evil is bad."

This, Draco would not tolerate. "Evil is what?"

"Its... bad?"

"Blaise," Draco began, "are you not a member of the infamous Zabini family?"

"Yeah, I am."

"Does your family not span back over eighty generations?"

"Eighty two that we can count," said Blaise with only a hint of pride.

"And for that amount of time has your family not been one of the most wealthy, immoral, calculating and all-round evil families in the known wizarding world?"

"Well... sort of."

"Sort of? SORT OF? What on earth do you mean by that?"

"Well, some of them became herbalists... you know."

"Yes, yes, but the others."

"Yeah, the others were pretty evil."

"And you plan on turning away from those thousands of years of evilness at a single whim?"

"Well, no, not... oh I don't know Draco. Mass murder's just not my thing. Not yet at least."

"I'm just saying, as a Malfoy, family pride is just as important as self pride, intelligence, wealth... you get the idea. It's something you'll never be able to get away from. You know what happened to my uncle Rouminorf. He ended up as a vampire and he's still considered a Malfoy first and foremost."

"I know all that. I have family pride and whatnot. I just don't think that murder is my thing."

"Is evil your thing?"

"Come on Draco, look at me. I'm in Slytherin, I wear the black wristband of the Young Death Eaters Association with pride. My parents deal in Manticore venom. Of course evil is my thing."

"But you don't want to kill Harry Potter. He Who is Enemy of Us All. He Who Lived and just happens to be the one who brought down the Dark Lord. He who it is you're sworn enemy as a Young Death Eater!"

"Well, he's not that bad a guy really... and he smells... sort of good."

Draco blinked.

"Oh."

**

After Blaise successfully averted Draco's plans for the mass murder of the whole of Gryffindor, Draco felt somewhat... less cheerful than he had that morning.

He felt especially annoyed at the fact that homework was already piling up and he had only done one evil thing the whole day. And as far as evil goes, annoying Weasley wasn't too prestigious.

As he took off his robes for bed he realized that he hadn't seen Professor Roux at the teacher's table at dinner. When Goyle came into the dormitory he decided to find out for sure.

"Hey, Goyle."

"Mmm?"

"Did you see Professor Roux at dinner today?"

"Err... no."

"Did you see him at the teachers' table?"

"Nope."

"Wait a second... was there even a seat set for him?"

Goyle shrugged in reply and Draco couldn't help thinking that either Roux didn't eat at all, or he had an aversion to seeing people like Snape wolfing down chicken breast (which was fair enough really).

Draco shrugged off the thought. Thinking about Snape's eating habits always made him a little queasy. As he climbed into bed he couldn't help wondering what the "more interesting" something Roux was planning to teach them the next day was.

After that, Draco fell asleep and had all sorts of unusual dreams about Harry Potter applying cologne so that Blaise would compliment him on how he smelt. Draco always had very weird dreams on the first day back at school, but this was just a little too twisted.

References:

"Day that ends in "y"" - Buffy

"black pannts with a bellet and a black y-shirtte thing" - Actually I made this up myself, but have since found out many fanfic writers use the same technique. The only one I can think of that I've read myself is Maya.

"Glare O Death TM" - Heaps of people use this little line too. Maya and Arrmaitee are the two fic writers I've seen that have used it.