Hogwarts, A New History

Harry Potter Fanfiction-draft one, chapter one

The night was biting cold against his bare, pale skin. Some hooligan in Hogsmeade had stolen his cloak right off his back and ran off. Two minutes later it began to rain, then hail. He made his way to a bench on the edge of the narrow path and wrapped his arms around his body for warmth. When would he show up? Did he have to spend his whole night in this cold village, when there was a burning fire in the Slytherin common room? And hot soup in the great hall? How he despised his father for making him wait, not even informing him on what it was he wanted.

A particularly large hailstone zoomed down and hit Draco in between the eyes. He put his fingertips to his face. When he withdrew them there was dark blood on his gloves. "That won't look pretty tomorrow," he told himself with a sigh. The sky had turned a steely gray in the midst of such weather conditions, even though by now the sun would have lowered from the horizon. Draco gazed into the heavens, searching for a broom, a sign of his father.

A sound from behind him made his head turn, and Lucius Malfoy approached him with a slick broomstick in his hand.

"Father," Draco started, rising from the wet bench," I have been waiting for some time. You said you would arrive a half hour ago."

Lucius glared down at his son. "Don't begin to get smart with me, boy. The weather has come from the north, so I've been traveling with it." He too looked into the sky, the dense clouds reflected in his eyes and resentment towards them. "Bloody rain. Anyway, down to business, my son."

"Fill me in quickly, father, I'm positively freezing."

"Quiet! It won't kill you to stand here a moment longer." Swiftly he withdrew something from the folds of his dark cloak. It was a tiny vile containing a clear, thick substance. Draco recognized the fluid to be Veritaserum, a highly concentrated truth potion guaranteed to work on even the most powerful of wizards with one drop.

"That's-"

"You know what it is, let me tell you what I want you to do with it." He leaned down to his son's ear, and slowly a smile spread about Draco's face, but diminished quickly into a solemn look.

"But father-how can I possibly-"

"I just want you to keep it! For now, until I figure out the rest of this plan. But you will do it? Won't you?" His fathers' eyes bored into his, scanning for any sense of reluctance. Draco Malfoy froze up. He knew that no matter how he reacted on the outside, it would not reveal how he felt on the inside. Inside, a battle raged. Fear consumed his father's request, one that was above all other ones he'd ever been given. What if he were caught?

Lucius bent down and grabbed Draco's shoulder. "Don't let any feeling of respect or admiration get in your way Draco, do you hear me? I need this done! And quickly, as quickly as I can fill in the details. It is important."

"If it's so important, why do you call on me, one who isn't experienced in these matters, instead of yourself, who is?"

Instantly he knew he had said the wrong thing His father's look of urgency hardened into one of deep hate. "I knew it. You are not yet ready for such a task...because you are weak and simple-minded."

"You are the one who taught me everything I know, father. If I am weak, then it's your fault." Draco glared back at his father. "Besides you know what the muggles say, father - the apple never falls far from the tree."

Lucius stood up straight and looked down at his son as if he were nothing more than an ant. "Maybe you didn't pay enough attention to my teachings." He turned on his heel.

"Do you hate me, father?" Draco inquired, calling to his father's back. Lucius stopped in his tracks to stare at his son.

"To hate...is to fear, father." Draco turned and walked along the path back to Hogwarts.

********************

Warmth filled the Great Hall as dinner finished at the tables. Mincemeat pies, porkchops, green beans, corn, baked potatoes, rolls, soup and caesar salad stocked the Gryffindor table, and most of it ended up on the tablecloth instead of the plates.

"Ron, you're eating like a pig!" Hermione said disgustedly. "There are such things as a knife and fork!"

"Hey I'm hungry!" he replied indignantly. "Being on the Quidditch team is really tough, I don't know how I do it!" Ron had just been accepted onto the house team as the start of their fifth year, and couldn't be boasting more about it.

"Harry has managed to do it for five years without acting like some deranged farm animal!" Hermione stated plaintively. "Right Harry?

"Well, I just want the food to get to my stomach faster," said Ron, "and a knife and fork just won't do. It's easier to rip and tear with your teeth." He took his pork chop in his hand and ripped off a slab of meat.

Hermione sighed. "The joys of being friends with you are endless, Ron." She continued to read her Arithmancy book with complete concentration.

"Do you ever put that thing down?" Ron asked. " Anytime I see you you're head is always buried in that book. I'm beginning to wonder if you're hiding some hideous new scar."

"Like you'd ever even look at me," she muttered without looking up.

What was that?" Ron leaned over the table. "Hermione, do I go around with my head turned to everyone, no! Do I Harry? No!" He got no reply, Hermione only flipped another page. "Hey, I'm talking to you."

Silence. Ron reached over and swiftly took the book out of her hands. "Hey, Ron!" Hermione yelled, getting up to chase him down the hall. "Give it back, it's mine!"

Ron stopped on the other side of the Ravenclaw table. "Come and get it, if you're so clever! Come on then!" He waved it over his head tauntingly and Hermione zoomed up next to him and jumped for it.

"Catch me if you can!" Ron yelled over his shoulder as he left the Great Hall for the staircase.

"Ron, you're evil!" Hermione whined, hiking up the steps. "I have to study, I have a test on Monday!"

Ron raced around the corner and up another staircase, down the familiar corridor to the common room. "Monkey fever, monkey fever!" Ron panted to the fat lady, watching Hermione racing up to him from behind. He made a desperate dive through the portrait hole and got to his feet before Hermione came in.

"Ron, give it back!"

He laughed. "Come get it, then." Hermione threw herself at Ron and knocked him onto his back. She grabbed a hold of the book with both hands and tried to wrestle it away from his grasp.

"Ron, I'm serious, give it." In that moment Ron let go of the book and pulled Hermione close to him. He kissed her for a second before she pulled away.

"Ron no. We can't."

His cheeks flushed. "And why not? Tell me!"

She sighed heavily. "Firstly, I am obviously too busy to keep up a relationship. Second, I don't-"

"-feel the same way that I do about you, right?" He sat up all the way now and stared at the floor. "Why do you do this to me, Hermione? I thought we- I thought that you felt something for me."

"It is love, but I'm not in love with you. That's all."

He chuckled lightly. "The classic excuse used by women. Why can't we just try? For a little while? You know it is my birthday soon, and this would definitely be a perfect present."

Even Hermione laughed. "I bet it would." She bit her lip in thought and Ron held his breath. Oh-all right! I guess if it will make you happy- we can try it for a week. Ok? One week, and if it doesn't work out we're through."

"Oh, I knew you would have to give in!" He leaned in to kiss her again.

"Hold on, Ron. First I want you to sign a contract."

"His face contorted into a look of confusion. "Why?"

She took a sheet of parchment from one of the tables and a quill. "I just don't trust you. You'll try to cheat. Therefore we sign into a written agreement."

He laughed aloud. "That has to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard, but OK"

".........sign right there."

He scrawled his name onto the parchment. "I'm lucky this doesn't involve living circumstances. I suppose after one week you'd kick me right back out, right?" Hermione signed her name smoothly next to his. "And so it is done."

She rolled up the contract. "Now you'll just have to watch what you do. If you want a longer relationship you have to be good." Looking to the floor, she picked up her textbook and walked toward a chair.

"Do you have to study? It's Friday night, can't we have some fun?" Ron asked, grabbing her by the waist from behind.

"I'd hate to think what your idea of fun is." She sat and opened her book again.

"I thought girls like romantic stuff? Like big strong men, being desperately in love with them?"

Hermione looked up at him, amused. "And are you a big strong man?"

Ron looked down at himself and back up at Hermione. "Hey, times have changed. For this day and age I'm a regular Fabio! This is the best you're going to get!"

Hermione chuckled. "I'm sure."

"You know what, this relationship isn't working out at all. You don't understand me, I'm about ready to kick you to the curb."

Hermione didn't laugh. "Alright with me."

He sat next to her. "Hey I was only kidding. I wonder where Harry is, dinner should be over by now."

"Maybe they're holding it up just or you."

He laughed. "What so I have time to do something incredibly and daringly romantic and manly?"

"Whatever you like."

"OK, fine then." He took the book from her again and threw it over his shoulder.

"Hey, didn't I say I need to study!"

"You can study tomorrow." Ron bent over and picked her up in his arms, but almost dropping her because he was scrawny.

"What do you think you're doing, Ron Weasley! Put me down!"

"Don't worry, I'm only doing something romantic and Fabio-like."

"You're going to drop me! I'm serious, stop."

Ron hiked up the stairs to the boys dormitory, nearly dropping her again when he opened the door. He threw her onto a bed.

Hermione grimaced. "Ron, we are not doing this."

"And why not?"

She looked at him in disbelief. "We're fifteen years old! And you don't even know what you're doing, you're just being an idiot."

He guffawed, rather unattractively. "Of course I'm an idiot, but I thought that's what you liked about me."

She stood up and walked over to him, leaning in and kissing his cheek. "I'm going to study in the dormitory, where you can't bother me."

**********************

What happened to your face, Draco?" Pansy Parkinson asked him the next morning on the way to the Great Hall. "Are you badly hurt?"

"I'm fine, I just fell." This was an odd excuse, seeing as Crabbe and Goyle were always on either side that they would prevent him from falling. This morning his two friends shared identical expressions, both staring off into nothing with their mouths open. "Get a grip, you two," he said punching them both in the arm.

"Draco, you should go see Madam Pomfrey, you're hurt," Pansy pleaded coming up next to him.

"Go away, Pansy." Draco, Crabbe and Goyle sat down on the side of the Slytherin table that faced the Gryffindors, all the better to spy on Potter to get material.

"Hey, Potter!" he called. "You know that you've never gotten an owl package from your family in all this time? Did they finally disown you or what?" A smile spread across his face as he saw Harry turn pink in anger.

"Malfoy, what was with that?" Pansy asked him while he chuckled away. "I know you like to insult Potter, I don't blame you, but that wasn't funny."

"What?" Draco asked defensively. "I- I'm just tired, that's all."

The Ravenclaw table was full of scattered laughter and several of them were pointing at Draco. "Malfoy, you're losing it!" one of them called. Draco's face burned with embarrassment.

"Hey, you guys thought it was funny, right?" he asked Crabbe and Goyle. They turned to him, chewing with their mouths open. Goyle scratched his huge head slowly. "Gods, do you two ever pay attention to anything?!" he scorned, sticking his knife violently into his sausage. He chewed thoughtfully, looking off into the distance. "Maybe I am losing it. Maybe it's all getting old."

The Great Hall echoed with the usual noises of forks and knives clanging, glasses being set onto the tabletop, and chatter of a hundred different things, twenty of which were the first Quidditch match. At the end, chairs could be heard scraping against the floor, the talking taking new directions.

"Go without me, guys," Draco said to Crabbe and Goyle. He made his way across the hall towards Harry, Ron and Hermione, who were at the bottom of the staircase. "Potter," he started when he reached them. "Can I have a word alone?" He eyed Hermione and Ron, who were looking daggers at him for asking such a request. Harry crossed his arms stubbornly, but followed Draco.

"What is this about, Malfoy?" Harry said crossly as they made their way down a deserted corridor. Draco tapped on a door and, decided ushered Harry in and closed it behind him.

"Potter.....I don't know how to say this-"

"What! Just spit it out, I have better things to do than spend my time with you!"

Draco fidgeted nervously. "I- I can't make fun of you anymore- on my own."

"What?" Harry asked, surprised. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting. "You're burnt out? Ha!"

"Hey, just shut up!" Draco scanned the floor, his face turning red with shame.

"But if I can't crack jokes about you, I don't know what the other Slytherins will say. They might think I've become soft, or something." He looked up at Harry to see if he understood

Harry grinned maliciously. "And I care because? I'm better off if I don't have someone putting me down all the time, don't you think?"

"Please, Harry!" Draco asked almost pleadingly. "At least give me some material I can use, you're pretty funny when you try."

Harry laughed in his face. "Why don't you just grab the hem of my robes and start crying like a little child, you're acting nearly as pitiful. Come to think of it, that's the first time you've called me by my first name, isn't it?"

"But- what will I do? My cracks about you is my personality, I don't know how I could lose it!"

"Maybe this is the time for you to just- turn over a new leaf?"

Draco glared at him in confusion. "Is it just me, or is this plot going to the dogs?"

"SHH!" Harry said, grabbing his arm. "If you don't make a scene, maybe the readers won't have to know. Anyway," he cleared his throat, "maybe since you can't make fun of me anymore, you'll learn that there's more to me than a horrible family life." With that said, Harry stormed out of the room before Draco could catch him.

"Harry, wait! I need your help!" But Harry was nowhere to be seen in the hall. "I can't believe this is happening to me," he told himself, slumping against the wall. He buried his face in his arms. He probably would have started to cry if he didn't have such a lack of emotion.

"Harry's right, young Malfoy," came a voice next to him.

Startled, Draco looked up into the twinkling eyes of Dumbledore. "What do you do, just go searching the halls for chances to interfere with students' lives?"

The corner of Dumbledore's mouth curved up. It was the first time he had ever smiled at Draco. "I don't like to think of it as interfering, merely helping." He sat down next to Draco. "Now- you have a problem because you feel that you've lost your ability to make fun of Harry. You feel like you've lost a part of yourself?" Draco nodded. "Could that mean, though, that making fun of Harry was never 'you' in the first place? Maybe it was just anger against something else."

Draco shook his head. "No, I hate him."

Dumbledore chuckled. "What would you do with you're time if Harry weren't around to make fun of? Wouldn't it be worse if Harry weren't here, then? How could you hate him if he's such a critical part of your life?"

Draco didn't know what to say to that. He sat with his arms on his legs, staring at the opposite wall but not really looking at it. How could that be, if for so long Draco had been content to ruin Harry's life without any problem?

"Maybe you should do it anyway. The Slytherins don't seem to find you funny anymore." Dumbledore got up, towering over Draco. "If you need anything else, feel free to come to my office. You can ask Professor McGonagall for the password."

Harry heard his feet hitting the hard floor, going down the stairs to the front lawns, heard birds singing in the trees and the crunch of grass and gravel as he walked without looking. He heard everything around him, but didn't listen to it. His head was pounding, his face in a solid look of frustration. His hands were gripped to the inside of his pockets and his head bent down from sunlight.

Why did Draco always have to bother him? Even now when he wasn't being tormented, he was still disturbed by Draco's odd behavior. Or could it all just be another big joke? He stopped on the path and looked up to the clear sky, the sun reflected off his glasses. Absentmindedly he removed them and cleaned them on his robes, still thinking.

The look of fear in Draco's eyes.....Harry had never seen that in him before. In his mind's eye besides Draco being an evil git, he had always thought of Draco as strong and immune to any emotion, especially fear. His eyes had grown wide the color drained from his face. It was sad to think that the Slytherin's respect meant that much to him. But would Draco confront him again? With the same desperate pleas? Harry didn't want to think about it. He was afraid of the thought that Draco could be so frightened. Then again, he was the one who told Draco to turn over a new leaf.

Harry looked up just in time to realize he was at the edge of the lake. Angrily he kicked a stone into the water, which skipped three times and sank in. Coming to the conclusion that this was getting him nowhere, Harry turned around to head back to the castle.

"Harry?" Hermione's voice traveled down one of the hills to Harry. "I'm glad I found you," she panted, coming down to meet him. "I needed to tell-

"-Let me guess. Draco's been looking for me again, right?"

"Actually, yes." She said. "He's acting rather peculiar, don't you think? What did he want to talk to you about?"

Harry laughed hollowly. "I don't even want to talk about it."

"Oh- sorry I asked."

He sighed deeply. "It's okay. It's just- bothering me, that's all". He paused for a while, staring at the lake. "He- said he'd lost his ability to make fun of me. He can't do it anymore. So he wanted me to help him because he's afraid of losing the respect of the Slytherins."

"Hm. I think the only reason he cares about losing their respect is because- he has to put up with them all the time," Hermione replied.

"Put up with them?" Harry yelled angrily. "He loves them! Are you taking his side?"

Hermione sighed deeply and got up from where she'd been sitting. "You're obviously too upset to talk things out. I'll just leave you alone then." Harry didn't stop her from walking back up the path to the school.

"Fine then. Abandon me," he muttered when she was beyond hearing range. "I'll just deal with it on my own."

Hermione stopped to rest by a staircase on the second floor. She wiped sweat off her brow with a fingertip. For late September it was still extremely hot. She took several deep breaths before messing with her sweaty hair and putting her hand on the railing-

"Hey," came a voice from the shadows of the staircase. Draco Malfoy came into view. "Did you find him?"

Hermione put her hands on her hips. "Why don't you just leave him alone, Malfoy? What is wrong with you, anyway?"

"It's all over," he said in response, coming closer. "The house thinks I'm losing my touch and they won't want to bother with me anymore. I'll lose all their respect, even Pansy's."

Hermione laughed mockingly. "I thought you didn't like Pansy?"

He shrugged in reply. "Sometimes it's nice to have someone following you like a puppy." He smirked. "I'm sure you know how that feels."

She stepped back in shock. "What does the whole Slytherin house know?"

"No. I'm the only one that knows about your affairs with Weasley. You didn't even tell Harry, did you?"

"She resumed her angry stance. "What would he even care? He likes Cho Chang, everyone knows that."

He smiled even wider and stepped closer. "Yes, but you like him, don't you? I know it."

Hermione was forced to step back up the stairs to get away from Draco. "No I don't, I like Ron."

"Why are you lying?"

"Why are you asking me all this?"

He laughed. "Because I'm bored, and your life is so much more interesting than mine, Hermione."

She snorted. "And since when do you call me by my first name?"

"Since I do this." Draco swiftly grabbed her around the waist with one arm and pulled her to him with another. His lips fell on hers and he kissed her fiercely. Hermione didn't pull away, mostly because she was in such deep shock that her knees gave out on her. He held her up easily and continued to betray her contract to Ron. Finally he pulled away from her, still clutching her in one arm.

"Bet you didn't see that, did you Granger?" He laughed as she stared at him with a look of utter disbelief.

"B-but- you're a Slytherin! You can't do that to me!"

He laughed again. "Why not?"

Hermione gasped. "Because you're screwing up the plot! You're ruining it!"

"Screw the plot!" Draco retorted.

"Exactly!"

"Hermione, you have to admit that I'm ten times better than Weasley." Draco chuckled. "I mean look at me. Weasley looks like a tootsiepop, big head but nothing else!"

"Hmph. At least Ron's not a jerk."

"Ohh, that hurt."

She threw her arms up and turned away. "I don't even want to know why you did it."

"But you want me to do it again."