Chapter Text
Draco sighed as he walked to yet another double- care of magical creatures class, or, as many of his friends would say, “sit in the hut” class. Near Big Oaf’s hut, you could see the remains of those disgusting blast ended skrewts, who left several explosions across the ground and the surrounding trees. Beside him, several Slytherins in his gang whined, with Crabbe and Goyle grunting in agreement. He could not help but feel irritated in the two’s presence. Of course, they were annoying, but so was everything recently, ever since that stupid chamber of secrets appeared and that stupid diary. He should never have followed Potter and Weasely. He would never have heard the truth about his family’s master. He would never have questioned his entire reality. And we would have stayed hating Potter a great, reasonable amount. Barfing Boggarts.
His ears flushed bright red as he remembered grabbing the snake’s neck and being flailed around like a muggle on a bull, groping blindly at the snake's nostrils to stop its sense of smell while Potter darted around aimlessly with the sword. Stupid Potter. Potter’s weird.
He stooped into the hut, the smell of the fireplace pleasant, even though he would never admit it. Pansy Parkingson reached up high to lean her arm on his shoulder, for Draco had grown spindly and taller over the summer. Sighing, he looked out the heavily smudged window at the few Gryffindors out there running to catch the horrendous creatures like a flock of tiny birds. But honestly, was it worse than being here with these losers? All that pure blood shit they drone on about, even their great saviour is a hypocrite. Despite what everyone says, Draco is wondering if muggle-borns are even the problem. Shaking both anger and confusion out of his head, he refocused to their pointless fluttering. It almost looked enticing.
Time droned on and on until a buzzing stop, Big Oaf’s voice jolting Draco from a mind-numbing daze. “About time, the smoke was getting in my ears, " laughed Draco. His peers chortled along. He used to love their mindless agreement but now it seems rather stupid. Little sheep. He looked over to Big Oaf and his little Gryffindor minions. The poor one, the know-it-all, and the Potter boy. At least they had opinions they dared to tell.
They walked down the cobblestone pathway to the dark arts classroom, greeted with a disfigured, eerie man, Professor Moody. Draco walked to the back with stern awareness of Moody’s blue mechanical eye following him to his seat. “Now, has anyone heard of Caelum’s law of Counters?” He barked as everyone settled in their seats. Hermione’s hand shot up. Fwoom! “Caelum’s law of Counters is the belief that strong curses must be met with countercurses of equal or greater power. Of course, it is a guideline, since it does not apply to every single curse, but the majority o-”Yes, thank you miss Granger.” growled Moody.
“Strong curses such as the Incredibly dangerous, " he continued. FiendFyre, known as cursed or ravenous fire has but the single known countercurse Brachium flovios. It summons large bodies of water embodied by a fragment of the powerful oceanic deity’s soul. Of which is insanely unstable and gut-wrenchingly difficult to control!” he added aggressively.
He stood there silently, as if he was trying to see into their thoughts and find something to get angry about. Draco slumped his head onto his desk, too tired for this awkward silence. “Some strong curses that do not follow the rulebook are more noticeable than you think”, his words slowing down. Such as at the Quidditch world cup… Malfoy!” he snapped. Draco jolted into his seat, his head flying off the wood desk. “Yes sir?” “Can you think what curse the Deatheaters used to bolt and flounder those muggles into the air?”
“N-no sir, " he replied. Images of that day were rapturing into his head, foggy and painful.”Well, there was levitating I guess.”
“Not just levitating, Malfoy!” He said loudly. “This curse was levosocurus, which clouds the mind and sight of the victim while lifting them into the reachable atmosphere against their will. Although broken by an easy countercurse, it is also barely known and not taught to many wizards. Now.. that is what we shall be learning today!”
Great, Draco thought. Now he can be prepared if his father mistakes him as a muggle. Fucking wonderful. Draco paired up despondently with Goyle. “I will curse one of you and the other gets them down,” said Moody. The class murmured. Putting a dark curse on teenagers?.. And suddenly Draco flew into the air. His brain flooded with black smoke swirling in his head in furious circles. What.. the .. fuck?! All he could see was smoke. All he could smell was smoke. Every breath he took was raspy and congested with the smoke. He wanted to claw it out of his brain but his hands wouldn’t move and it just kept spinning and then, all of it was gone. He flew back to the ground with a loud slam. His vision returned. His eyes were watery and his head ached. Goyle stood next to him, his mouth ajar. “Now that is how to stop this curse.” said Moody with his wand in the air. Draco looked up at him, speechless. The ring of the bell echoed through the silent classroom. “Well, until next time.” Draco got up slowly, still in shock, and walked to the door with his stuff. What the literal hell. Why had he singled him out like that? What was his problem? Never had Draco had wanted to flip off a teacher so much. The rest of the day was a blur. He was angry and incredibly tired at the same time.
Finally, after an ear-splittingly boring lesson with Professor Binns, he trudged into the Slytherin common room, up the stairs of the boy’s dormitory, and flung himself onto his bed. Looking up drowsily, he saw a stag beetle on his ceiling. It was shiny black but had a green tint from the rays of light from his window. It was beautiful, yet it reminded him of his house, where they crowded around his lamp, in which the room he fought with his father about his pathetic things he did at the quidditch cup, the anger in his voice and the fear in his mother’s eyes and that he dared to defy the Dark Lord’s teachings. And the black eye he was given by his lovely father. He would not be like him. He swore to it, like the sentences were watchmen to his heart. Anger rose in his stomach. No fucking way. Draco turned away from the beetle and stuffed his face into his pillow, trying to sleep, trying to not replay those memories. And the green light faded away and he fell into a deep sleep.