Innocence of Youth

Draco Aside

The boy looked up at the dank ceiling above his oversized four poster bed. The thick, dark green velvet hangings were open, letting the dull, submerged green lights reflect bluntly off of the silver of the fastenings and the muted black of the wood. His silvery hair lay in a soft spray around his head and a few strands wisped across his icy, nearly blind-grey eyes.

"There's nothing up there you know, Draco," Blaise's lazy voice sloped its way across the dark room to him.

"Aren't you the sharpest wand in Ollivander's, Blaise?" Draco sneered in the other boy's direction. "As it happens, I'm staring into space in a handsomely moody pout and the ceiling just happens to be in the way of said pouting look."

"Ah, right, well, we are teenage boys I suppose..." Blaise trailed off as he realized his mistake. The problem wasn't even so much that he had been right or wrong, but he supposed he knew much better than to correct, or by implication, insult Draco Malfoy. He just hoped that Draco wouldn't mention it to his father, Lucius.

But Draco was already back to his moody pout and he wouldn't have cared in the slightest what Blaise thought anyway. The other Slytherins knew where they fell in the pecking order and as one of the oldest, and certainly one of the richest, families in wizarding Britain, Draco was used to doing all of the ordering and none of the pecking.

He idly ran his long fingers through his snowy hair and gently released a Byronic sigh. He'd been in a state for most of the first term. He had pretended, even to himself, not to know why, but lately Draco was having a harder and harder time blocking out the truth that was hovering right in front of him like a snitch, hanging motionless in spite of the soft susurrations of its feathery wings, just ahead of his outstretched fingers. There were, to be fair, only so many things that forced a normally arrogant, happily spoilt teenage boy into a hopeless moping sulk, and the most common reason was definitely unrequited love. And being Draco Malfoy, not getting what he wanted was particularly galling. When had he ever not gotten what he wanted?

He let his mind roll back to first year and he smirked in self-derision, remembering another time he had stretched out his fingers to catch an unmoving, or so he had thought, target: In an expectant handshake offer to the famous Harry Potter. He knew he could steer that boy in the right direction with ease. Even at eleven Draco was self possessed enough to know that he had everything that Potter didn't: He had money, connections, a powerful family and he knew exactly who to stay away from. Draco could never have imagined Potter choosing that poor excuse for a wizard, Weasley - he even sneered the name in his thoughts - over him until he saw it actually happen right in front of his narrowed silvery grey eyes. If things had gone just slightly differently, Potter would probably be a Slytherin now and Draco would have all of the benefits that went along with being the best friend of the most famous wizard in Britain.

But that ungrateful, little orphaned scar head had no sense of the destiny, propriety or plain old popularity to choose Draco instead of that red haired, freckled moron. It was true that for a long time Draco's constant taunts and pranks against Potter and his two sycophantic fans were driven by his anger over being snubbed when he knew he had been right. But over time something had changed.

Maybe it was that Draco had begun to realize at some point that, at least at school, he wasn't much of a rival to Potter. Draco wasn't normally all that introspective but even he had to admit there was a little something off in the way he treated Potter. The black haired boy shouldn't really bother him that much one way or another. He was poor, practically muggle born and didn't even have a girlfriend. Not, Draco stabbed out the thought almost immediately, that he wanted Potter to have one. But it was plain to see that Draco had never beaten Potter to the snitch, had never outdone him in a duel and hadn't even overtaken him on the number of O.W.L.s he received. It was pathetic really.

Draco bit his tongue suddenly and very sharply, letting his eyes narrow at the pain in his mouth followed by the copper taste of his own blood pooling over the length of his tongue. He wouldn't give any of the other boys the slightest sign indicating that he was anything other than indolent, but he couldn't get his whirligig thoughts back into the dragon pen he was trying to construct to contain them.

The truth was not just that his feelings had changed. It went deeper than that. He certainly didn't like that insufferably self righteous Gryffindor, but he couldn't help the other feelings that were trying to shoulder aside his hatred of Potter. His resentment ran deep. He knew he was a better person, a more distinguished person, a Malfoy. He knew that in the end blood would tell. But somehow his envy belied those facts. Harry was well liked, not just feared. And when Harry was around him in the halls, in classes, in the Great Hall, Draco could barely maintain his icy demeanor, his famously, well, Malfoyian control, self discipline even, to just look haughtily down his narrow nose at Potter.

Somehow the boy who probably shouldn't even have lived always brought out the worst, most immature, bratty comments and feelings in Draco. His father had punished him verbally and physically on more than one occasion for his inability to avoid the impolitic when it came to everyone's favorite boy wizard.

"Control your emotions and your body, Draco," Lucius had hissed at him, his silver eyes slitted and his thin lips pursed in a decidedly unthoughtful fashion as Draco stood frozen under the weight of his father's stare and Petrificus Totalis spell. "You can not be a Malfoy if you have no self control." Here his father always sneered.

Lucius, as Draco thought of him in the privacy of his own thoughts, didn't think Draco knew as much as he did. "See Lucius, I can control myself perfectly." But Draco suspected that his father knew that he hated him. Respected and feared him to be sure, but hated him all the same. Can I love him and hate him at the same time? "After all," Draco thought, "he has generally given me whatever I wanted all of my life..." But there Draco let the thought drift swiftly away. He wasn't particularly enamored of thinking about the spoilt child he was and rarely acknowledged the fact.

"Where was I?" He focused on Potter again. Every line of the green eyed boy's skinny frame and often haggard face was limned in Draco's hate. That ridiculous, hideous scar glowed in Draco's eyes against the inky dusk of the sixth year Slytherin boys' dormitory ceiling. Draco let his mind pause to watch Potter push his glasses up on his nose against the bottom of the lightening bolt scar whilst sticking the disgustingly chewed end of his eagle feather quill back between his teeth, green eyes squinting over some text that Draco was sure he would know more about than Potter did.

Draco let one hand finger his prefect badge. Well there was one thing Potter couldn't have. Lucius had actually looked caught between pride and arrogant expectation when Draco's letter came to the Manor announcing he was one of the Slytherin prefects. He sneered thinking of how Potter hadn't even been able to play quidditch the previous year, let alone deduct house points and give out detentions. He'd certainly shown Potter a thing or two about discipline. Draco's lips curled up ever so slightly at the pleasure he had derived from punishing Potter last year. Now if he could just win a quidditch match against Potter. For Merlin's sake, he couldn't even manage to beat Ginny bloody Weasley last year. The faint choruses of his own cruel "Weasley is our King," twisted against its very meaning, came to his inner ear. He silenced the annoyance with a squeeze of his delicate eyelids and lifted one knee so that his stocking foot lay flat on top of his luxuriant Yeti fur spread; it's black, green and silver patterns detailing the Malfoy family crest beneath his back.

Finally Draco decided to go up to the Great Hall for the evening meal. He certainly wasn't going to let his annoyance with Potter and all things Gryffindor make him miss his supper. He slowly rolled over and stood up, his cat like grace making even this simple action charming. He threw his thick black robes over his sweater and closed the silver dragon clasp at his throat to a murmured pant of approval from his crystal and silver mirror. Making his way through the common room, he lifted a brow to the ever larger Crabbe and Goyle, his less than equal partners in crime, and sneered as they lumbered over to him.

"Oh, Draco, are you going to supper?" Pansy Parkinson, his one time Yule Ball date and usually insufferable groupie, rushed over to the three of them looking up at Draco with a nervous smile, biting her bottom lip. "I'll come with you!" she pronounced loudly, but the quaver in her voice made it a nervous question instead of the warm exclamation she had intended.

"If you insist," Draco drawled, even as he turned to the blank wall that marked the entrance to Slytherin house. The group of four was large enough to attract other hangers on and soon Nott, Bulstrode and others were making their way behind Draco, as he went up from the dungeons, through the entrance hall and into the Great Hall. Draco let his eyes shoot up in a barely discernable attempt to see if Potter and his flunkies were coming down the steps from where he knew, in general, that Gryffindor Tower lay.

But even as he entered the Great Hall, sweeping his cape behind him in what he was sure was an imperious gesture, he saw Potter and the rest of the Gryffindors already seated at their house table, laughing like common muggles and stuffing their greedy gullets full of whatever slop those sub standard house elves had prepared today. Draco sloped over to the Slytherin table, his hands clasped lightly behind his back, leading with his delicate brow. The group behind him trailed along, talking their nonsense talk, intruding on his thoughts of Harry bloody Potter far too often to let him sneer in peace.

Draco dropped into his place on the bench and leaned back a bit to narrow his gaze on Potter. The floating candles were glinting off of Potter's glasses and his scar seemed to catch the light as well. Draco could even make out the brilliant, emerald green of the other boy's almond shaped eyes from across the room. Suddenly Harry looked up and seeing the pale ice of Draco's eyes narrowed at him, he scowled at Draco and nudged Weasley, nodding in the direction of the Slytherin table. Draco saw Potter's lips moving and then Weasley responding with a completely undignified guffaw. Draco couldn't help but feel that a refined Gryffindor had probably yet to grace the halls of Hogwarts.

Draco let his lips twist to one side, their rich red going glacier white with the movement as he looked away. He glanced over at Crabbe and Goyle having some sort of mindless competition, apparently to see who could best imitate primitive cave muggles, with their grunting. Oddly enough Millicent seemed to be making a late thrust toward first place as she grunted for them to pass her the chilled flagon of pumpkin juice. Sadly, he had to admit, at least Pansy had something reminiscent of a brain in her otherwise flighty skull. But, well, she had provided him an occasional diversion. The smirk suddenly left his face as he felt the sharp point of something like self-recrimination at the thought. It wasn't simply that he had nothing but contempt for Parkinson, or indeed for the majority of his housemates. It was a sibilant voice whispering from a back corner of his mind that Pansy was so far off from what he really wanted.

Draco didn't turn as he lifted an house elf made cauldron cake to his lips and gently nipped at the edges, seeing Potter's scar marred face again. His breath caught a bit as those loud, obnoxious Gryffindors loudly scraped their bench back and scattered like some frightened flock of flightless birds to the door of the Great Hall.

Draco garnered a general tittering of surprise from his table as he quickly stood.

"Draco," Pansy whined in a sing song, "Where are you going? We just got here."

"I just got here." Draco arched a silvery batwing brow, his long iron lashes casting spiky shadows across his lids and cheeks in the flickering candle light. "The rest of you just followed me. But I'm not hungry so you all enjoy your delicious," he sneered again, "deserts and I'm positive I'll have to see you later." And he padded off toward the entrance of the school.

As he brushed past the doorway, he saw Potter and his insufferable pair of twits standing, huddled in the center of the entrance hall. He threw his cape over one shoulder, straightened his head and started to glide past them toward the dungeons with his most dismissive gait.

"Malfoy!" Potter suddenly called out, "Are you following us?" Draco could see how tense the other boy was, his wand already in his white knuckled hand, his lips pressed white beneath his narrowed welsh green dragon coloured eyes..

"Me?" Draco spread the fingers of his left hand over his chest, palm in, "Following you? That's rich Potter. One would think that you would have learned not to step out of line last year, but I would be happy to give you detention for insubordination. If you insist." Draco let his cruelest smile spread, his pale face half in shadow.

"Insubordination? Why I-" Potter spluttered as Granger and Weasley put their hands on his arms.

"Insubordination, Malfoy? Sod off! He's standing with two prefects you prat. You'd be more likely to lose house points for provoking a student at this rate." Weasley attempted his best haughty glare but that elicited only a snicker from Draco.

"Weasley, you need a few galleons to rub together before you can be haughty, you ponce. I don't have time for this nonsense. Some of us actually passed our O.W.L.s, you pumpkin colored oaf, and plan to do the same for our N.E.W.T.s." Draco whirled, cape flaring, as he stalked off to the Slytherin common room.

"Now that's better," he thought to himself, running over the confrontation again. He had definitely gotten the last word in as Potter and Granger ended up restraining their giant red idiot of a friend whilst he couldn't formulate any sort of witty rejoinder. Draco also let his mind linger on the delicious look in Potter's widened eyes when Draco sidestepped his feeble attempt at an insult. Draco lowered his eyes and grimaced at the hurt in Potter's eyes. It was all too easy winding that boy up. No subtlety and his heart on his sleeve at all times. "Oh, well," thought Draco, "not my problem."

But that was the problem. These exchanges increasingly left Draco unsatisfied. He definitely hated Potter and he certainly didn't like anything about him...but...there was something...discomforting about taking advantage of Potter's vulnerability and Draco knew it was preposterous that he should feel the uncontrollable urge to follow and confront his fellow sixth year with such frequency

Draco balled his fists until his palms ached and barely stopped as he tossed, "blood of the heir" at the blank wall that hid the entrance to Slytherin's common room. When he got in, he saw that the room was still largely empty and he made his way to his favourite high backed, green dragon hide chair, throwing himself down and looking disconsolately at the purple flames someone had lit in the grate. He rested his delicately pointed chin on one slender fist, elbow on the arm of his chair. His eyes were glassed over with purple light as he took a deep breath. He pushed aside thoughts of Potter and his scarred face when he had thrown out that opening insult, but those basilisk coloured eyes glared at Draco even as the pale boy closed his silver eyes against the cold, purple flames.

"This is ridiculous! I have work to do." Draco punctuated his thoughts by slapping his hand down on the dragon hide chair and abruptly stood to get his books for Transfiguration and Advanced Charms and then went to the library.