Poisoned

Chapter One

Where Draco ponders about his life, talks to Pansy, leaves a Weasley dumbfounded and feels quite proud of it

Draco kept staring at the girl in disbelief. Sure she didn't love him.

So why was she acting like it was the end of the world?

She should have known. Now that everything had changed he couldn't let anything interfere with his plans, and neither could she. She had her own plans, and being together would only get in the way of more important things.

He had explained her that, but she was still sobbing. "I can't believe," she had shrieked between sobs, "I just can't believe that you actually believe it."

Of course he believed it, and he made sure to tell her. "Our fathers have just left Azkaban, and you know they are not happy now they're home. They have a plan, and they want our full cooperation."

"It has nothing to do with us!" she was still sobbing and discussing loudly in a high-pitched voice. "They don't need us because the Dark Lord is back and-"

"And that's exactly why they need our cooperation. There's much to do." He sounded perfectly in control, not affected at all, and it was unnerving her more than anything he was saying. "And frankly, you've always known we wouldn't last."

"No, I didn't know that!" Unlike him, she seemed completely out of control, but after shouting that last sentence, took a deep breath and tried to reason, "Our fathers wanted us together."

"That was before." He sighed and stood on his feet, ready to leave the compartment. "Now there are other things more important, and we don't have to continue with this just to please them. You're free to date Nott, if you like." He smiled nastily, "I don't think he'll mind."

Nott had always seemed under a spell when around Pansy, and they both knew it. Pansy had always encouraged him, since she loved to be the centre of the attention, but never went further because she had always been busy trying to get Draco's attentions.

So now that she was free to try to get the attention of Hogwarts' entire male population, Draco couldn't understand why she seemed so affected by their break up. It's not like they had really been together. It's just that they had been obliged to spend more time together because of their prefect's duties, but he never took anything that happened between them seriously.

Too bad she had, but it wasn't his fault. He thought he had made everything very clear from the beginning. And now with this new school year, things would be too complicated for a relationship.

Things would be too complicated for anything. This was the down side of being the son of a rich and powerful Death Eater.

Draco smiled at this thought, while walking among the compartments of the train without paying attention. Last term he would have taken his time to deduct hundreds of points from other houses, but now everything was different.

That was the change he tried to explain to Parkinson, but she didn't realise that it wasn't about their fathers, their families, or the situation in the wizarding world. It was about him, and how much he would have to change if he wanted to survive those times.

It's not like his father hadn't tried to warn him before. "No one but you needs to know you dislike Potter or Dumbledore. Keep a low profile, Draco; don't go shouting how much you'd love to see them dead. At the end of the day, they could be alive, and you might need them. You should know better."

Yes, he should have known better, but it was too late now. He had already shouted - well, more like muttered and whined - how much he hated Potter, Dumbledore and every Gryffindor in Hogwarts. He kept making threats to all his enemies, and kept failing at every single one of them. And not just that, he finished the last school year with the promise of killing Potter, a threat he was not only sure he would fail at too, but that he just didn't care about anymore.

He should have been quieter; he should be more like his father - or maybe he should have been less like his father, and more like the Weasley girl who was now buying sweets from the trolley a few steps in front of him.

He stopped walking and stood there beside the trolley, studying her as she carried on choosing sweets, oblivious to him. He should have been more like her, he thought. After all, who could imagine that this little girl could knock him down with one simple hex?

He wasn't just any wizard - even though his grades were not as great as that Granger's were, he was good at many things. He knew how to prepare a potion, no matter how hard it was; his skills at Transfiguration were ahead of his years; not to mention he had a special talent for memorizing historical facts. He could be better at Charms, though. He had to put an enormous effort in to be good at it, and he hated hard work of any kind.

Anyway, it wasn't that easy to knock him down, but she had managed to do so. No one in the right mind would think that behind that joyful face could lie anything other than a naive, harmless witch.

Then she lifted her eyes and her good mood suddenly seemed to vanish. "You," she said with obvious disgust in her voice.

He shrugged and looked away from her, to the lady in control of the trolley. The old him would hate that Weasley, and would now be saying anything he thought could humiliate her.

However, the new him couldn't be bothered. He was too tired to feel anything, and he just wanted a pumpkin juice. But she didn't know about the new him, which explained why she kept a suspicious eye on him all the time he took to take his juice, pay for it and resume walking like nothing had happened.

As far as he was concerned, nothing had happened, but she would surely be confused by his behaviour now. He didn't even need to look behind him to see her big brown eyes staring at him in utter confusion, her face giving away that she was imagining what he was planning with that behaviour.

The truth was that he wasn't planning anything. He had been on that train for less than two hours and he had already put his friendship with Crabbe and Goyle in a downfall, broken a heart - considering Parkinson has a heart, of course - analysed his entire life and left a Weasley dumbfounded. Apparently, he could do much more harm when trying to cause none.

Some steps behind him, a door opened and Ron's face appeared looking for his sister. "Gin," he called after seeing her strange expression, "why are you taking so long? And what are you doing standing there?"

She shook her head and said, "You won't believe what just happened," and that was the last thing Draco heard before the door that separated the wagons closed, leaving him with an amused look on his face.