Chapter Text
In the following weeks, their mutual declaration of rivalry has not amounted to much. Aside from a headline about Gringotts getting broken into, the news was tepid. Transmutation with McGonagall, Potions with Snape–Herself and Potter now forcibly seated on opposite ends of the classroom while Neville and Finnegan wore goggles and clothes over their faces–vampire–centric lessons in Defense Against the Dark Arts with the stuttering Quirell, and of course her best subject, charms with Professor Flitwick, the half-goblin-of-a-teacher. Only Flitwick's class drew her attention whenever the subject of jinxes came up. While Crabbe and Goyle were as dull as ever, and of course Pansy loved potions. If only she could go one DADA class without informing everyone of how much better Lockhart would be as a teacher.
That wasn't to say she and her posse didn't have chances to snipe at Potter, but mealtimes at the Great Hall were hardly sufficient, and she was always the one approaching him, never him approaching her. It was infuriating.
She maintained herself with dignity. Unlike a certain half-blood who strutted around campus like he was some sort of prince, Darka had received private flying before even setting foot on Hogwarts ground. Unless Dumbledore was smart enough to get him lessons, which she didn't think the old coot was.
Although the boy was strangely out-of-touch with the wizarding world, probably raised by a Squib. Crabbe and Goyle had their own theory, or rather, they just agreed with the rumor of Harry being raised by his mother's Muggle relatives. Utterly laughable. While Pansy just didn't give Harry any of her thoughts, making rude comments about the Granger girl while swooning over pictures of Lockhart was more her speed.
This continued until, finally, it came time for Flying class with Madam Pomfrey. Her most anticipated subject, although she was no racer or Quidditch player; to her, nothing compared to the feeling of weightlessness a broom brought. Of course, this also came with the knowledge that they would be taking flying classes with the Gryffindors. Instantly she decided this would be the next chance for revenge; she'd upstage Potter with her experience, show him how it's done.
Although the anticipation made most of the day feel like it was taking forever, Draka and her cronies arrived on cue.
Madam Hooch took slightly too long to arrive, but the class started adequately; she and Potter both summoned their brooms on their first try while the others struggled as expected. The real standout was Longbottom, who pitifully did not live up to his family name or his pureblood status: he was poor at charms, transfiguration, deadly at potions but only to himself, defense against the dark arts, and now flight. About the only subjects he was competent at were their Muggle subjects like maths. Not to mention he was short, rounded like a barrel–especially compared to their mutual relatives, the Longbottom–Blacks– really, she couldn't think of anyone more pitiful.
Except maybe ugly Granger with her shrill voice and buck teeth.
It was then in her contemplation that Neville finally managed to summon his broom to him, only for the boy to immediately press up off the ground and shoot several dozen feet into the air. The spectacle was met with 'oohs' and 'aahs', but before Madam Hooch could get him down, gravity did the work for her with a resounding thud and a crack that caused everyone to wince as Longbottom appeared in a pile.
Madam Hooch collected him, telling the rest of the class to stay put as she took Neville to the nurse and his rogue broomstick fled to the forbidden forest.
The two groups of students dissolved into smaller cliques filled with low chuckling, the shaking of heads, and 'tut tut tuts' of pity. Potter himself formed a loose group with Weasley, Granger, Finnegan, and Parvati. While Draka had her usual two of Crabbe and Goyle plus Pansy, who seemed to think Longbottom's fall was the funniest thing she had seen all week.
That was when she noticed a silvery glow from the glass near where Longbottom had made a crater. She walked over, picking an odd silvery orb out of the grass, and a second later she recognized what it was.
"Longbottom's rememberall?" She and her trio had seen it during lunch, letting the odd knick-knack go uncommented on as they passed by. Really, how useful could it be when it didn't even remind you of what you were missing? She laughed and Pansy, then Crabbe and Goyle followed.
That was when Potter sought to introduce himself. "Give that here, Malfoy."
"Oh," Malfoy turned to him, a half-clever scheme already brewing as she held up the memorable to catch the sun, "You want this, Potter? I was just going to head after Neville and return it, isn't that right, Pansy?" Of course he wouldn't believe that, but that was what she wanted.
"Of course, Malfoy, after all that little piggy can't follow instructions; he has to have people looking after him." Crabbe and Goyle laughed along.
He took another step forward. "Give it back, Malfoy."
Draka had to stop herself from stepping back; Potter was stronger than her, and she didn't have her wand drawn. He took another step forward, and in a split second she remembered which of her minions was better on a broom. "Crabbe!"
Tall with gorilla arms compared to the short and fat goyle, he caught the rememberall with ease while she went for her broom. It was slightly too slow and unsteady beneath her, likely in use for decades unlike the one she had at home, but it was fast enough, and she was airborne in moments.
Potter followed the remembrall while she mounted it; he and Weasley jumped at Crabbe as he held it in the air, barely out of reach of Weasley but easily surpassing the smaller Potter.
"Up here!" The ignorant below her had enough sense to toss it diagonally and away from Weasley. She hugged her broom, one arm flaring out to grab the remembrall. As she righted herself again, she looked back to see Potter going for a broom as well.
His form was near perfect, hugging the broom tightly as he ducked down and spun, using the momentum to push himself forward, already closing the distance between them despite the shaking school broom, despite his lack of experience and what would have been slower acceleration.
"Sod off, Potter!" She couldn't believe how good he was on a broom; this was supposed to be his first time flying, wasn't it?
The two danced in the air, Malfoy barely keeping the lead as Potter made more and more ground, always appearing closer when he re-emerged from behind a tower or in the corner of her vision. She was in the final stretch when she took a last-minute turn around a tower, dipping low in a maneuver that she knew Harry couldn't replicate on a school broom.
She grazed just beneath a tangle of tree branches and, to her relief, Harry didn't even try, turning slower and out of sight around a tower.
All she had to do was get to the hospital wing, give the pitiful Neville his Rememberall, and Harry would look the villain, forcing her to flee and attacking her in her quest to help a fellow student. Just as she chuckled to herself, she passed underneath a bridge and turned up, breaking as hard as she could and turning up in a wide arc. She just had to be able to make this one turn, then she'd duck in through a window, intercepting Neville and Madam Pomfrey.
That was when she saw Potter, emerging over a roof, his broom shaking beneath him. It wasn't a moment later that they realized they were on a collision course.
She and Potter both tried to pull up, but physics plotted against them. The school brooms, although relatively slow, were also 'sticky' and finicky, turning slowly at large angles, existing at the whims of momentum. Their only boon was that they weren't flying faster brooms that would have an even harder time turning and slammed the two into each other with greater force.
Despite being smaller and lighter, Potter had grabbed the more durable broom on pure happenstance, and so he won their 'encounter'
Draka's broom exploded in a shower of splinters, sending her tumbling up into the air as Potter spun. She hit the apex of her arc as Potter was recovering, and then time seemed to slow as panic and gravity made her sink like a rock.
In her blind panic, all she could do was flail her broom as Potter reached out and–
Grabbed her hand, letting the rememberall fall to the roof below.
"POTTER!"
Before it could shatter on the ground, a sphere of slowed time surrounded her and Potter. It was a moment too late to stop her from falling, but just in time to catch her if Potter had failed. She and Potter realized that McGonagall and Snape were the ones who had called out for them, the latter almost seeming to fly across the floor as he stormed to them.
Draka blinked, as in what seemed like an instant she and Potter found themselves whisked past a Gargoyle, up a moving, spiraling staircase, and into what was apparently Dumbledore's office. It was certainly strange, noisy compared to the comforting silence in her father's office, warm compared to the dim cold that she had grown to associate with her father's gentle voice. The entire way there, Professor McGonagall and Snape had been arguing, with both her and Potter's attempts to clarify the situation shut down by the combined glare of their respective House Heads.
Professor Snape loomed large over Potter, looking every bit a dementor as he glared down at Potter. "As I said to Professor Mc Gongagall earlier, Potter should be expelled immediately
"Headmaster. Potter shows a great skill on a broom; I wouldn't have done nearly that well in that situation if I was his age; no one here would have." Draka didn't see how that last point was relevant; none of them were racers or professional Quidditch players. Some people were just born good at certain things, and Potter, apparently, was born to ride a broom. "I won't say that he should go unpunished, but it is both our job to guide students and help them express their talents. He is clearly skilled; both of them are."
"Potter could have killed a student, and you're thinking of Quidditch? House Points? And people accuse me of favouritism." He scoffed, almost laughing. "You just want to make him an exception and get him on Gryffindor's Quidditch team. If it were up to me, he would have been expelled on the spot."
Both she and Potter shuddered. She hadn't thought of that. Had she overestimated Snape's protectiveness? Although she never knew him well, he was a close friend of her father–a bastion of sanity while he was under the imperious curse and serving the Dark Lord–a familiar guest she had seen at parties whenever her parents' friends and remaining family came together.
"How about we have these two explaining themselves first, Miss Malfoy?"
"I was attempting to return Longbottom's rememberall when Potter started chasing me. I took to my broom to escape him, but he followed after and ran into me."
Dumbledore's sparkling eyes met hers, utterly inscrutable compared to the rancor behind Snape's or the annoyance behind McGonagall. "I see, now, Harry?"
"She and her friends were making fun of Neville, and I wanted to return his remembrall." Potter was scared stiff, almost shaking in his seat as he kept his eyes on the floor.
Draka glanced up at Dumbledore, meeting his eyes as he looked down his nose at both of them. She didn't want Potter to get expelled, but he was the one who had started it; she didn't actually know what she would have done with the Remembrall, likely just kept it. "I see. Now. Minerva, we will not be making an exception for Harry; if he wishes to join the Quidditch team, he will have to wait until next year. Severus, we will not be expelling him, although, mistaken, Harry's actions had the best of intentions. Now, Harry, you should do well to learn how to control your temper. And Miss Malfoy, you would do well not to provoke your fellow student as much. If you two have a problem, talk to your house heads first."
Malfoy blinked; Dumbledore had called Potter by his first name twice. Were they close? Either way, she didn't do anything wrong; it was all Potter's fault. "But–"
"Filch is always in need of assistance." Somehow that felt almost as bad as Potter getting expelled.
Muddy halls, flooded bathrooms, and Filch's current 'big project', the Trophy Room, took up their detention time. Countless shining housing awards and accolades gifted from students, starting at the first ever class of Hogwarts, to a T. M. Riddle for outstanding service fifty years ago, to P. Weasely's more recent mundane academic awards. Although among those trophies the two noticed no small amount of familiar names: Blacks, Weasleys, Potters and Malfoys.
Of course Filch had other duties and would periodically leave the two, only accompanied by his unusually smart cat, Mrs Noris–Malfoy swore that she was a half-kneazle. It was during one of those absences the school's resident poltergeist, Peeves, made himself known. He started off his assault by spooking Mrs Noris, sending the cat flying across the room, sending several trophies flying in the process before picking one out of the air. The two exploded into motion, running after the ghost, and up a flight of stairs, just in time to see Peeves duck into a corridor with the trophy in hand.
Taller, with longer legs, and with eleven years of good health, she wrenched open the door. Lying smack dab in the middle of the third-floor corridor was a massive, three-headed dog, curled up on the floor and snoozing the day away.
Opposite the pair, they saw Peeves lifting the large trophy above his head, smiling like a devil.
Malfoy slammed the door, the sound of it slamming shut overlapping with the clatter of the trophy hitting the floor, and the thump thump thump of the three-headed dog as it awoke with a start. She and Potter sprinted away, but didn't return to the Trophy Room fast enough to avoid Flich's return. The man muttered something about Hagrid before sending them on their way.
Unknown to Malfoy, Harry was reminded of a little package that had been stored in Gringotts seven-hundred-and-thirteen.