Chapter Text
Tap, tap, tap.
The eagle owl, Ventus, in the cage above the window cocked his head at Draco.
Tap tap tap, went one long, crooked finger at the door to his bedroom.
The soft scratching of his long quill on the parchment went uninterrupted.
Taptaptaptaptap.
Draco took a deep breath of air that smelled like damp stone.
Taptaptap-
With a sharp exhale and the scraping of chair legs against the uncarpeted floorboards, he stood and crossed the room in several long, quick strides. Draco twisted the doorknob and gritted his teeth at the creaking hinges as he opened the door just enough to peer outside.
"Copsey."
The house-elf on the other side of the door bobbed a nervous curtsy and then looked up at him with wide, pleading brown eyes. "Master Draco, Copsey wondered if you-"
"Didn't I tell you, explicitly, not to disturb me?" Draco snapped, drawing his wand from a pocket in his emerald robes.
"Yes you did, Master Draco, but-"
A voice that made Draco flinch despite himself roared from somewhere nearby, "COPSEY, YOU LITTLE WRETCH! I GAVE YOU AN ORDER!"
Copsey began to shake, fidgeting with the rag she wore; it may once have been a pillowcase, but it was so threadbare and filthy that Draco couldn't tell. "B-b-but M-master Lucius is not taking k-kindly to Copsey's presence, and Copsey came to ask if M-master Draco had any tasks for Copsey..."
He exhaled through his nose, pulled the door open further, gripped the house-elf by her stick-thin arm and dragged her into his room before shutting it once more and turning the lock. "While you're here, you can finish this horrid Transfiguration essay for me," Draco said, waving a hand at the heavy mahogany desk under the window at which he'd been sitting.
"Of course, Master Draco," Copsey said gratefully, hurrying to hoist her small, knee-high frame on to the chair and taking up the quill. Through the tears in her rag, Draco caught sight of the dark burn scars that crisscrossed her back, courtesy of his father.
All of the house-elves bore those scars. Draco himself had received no insignificant number of injuries by Lucius' hand - or rather, his wand - but the Malfoy patriarch's viciousness toward his house-elves was another realm entirely. Unfortunately, Draco's family owned two of the poor creatures; Copsey and her father Norby. Dobby, the one they'd lost to Potter, was Copsey's brother. He'd since learned that while Dobby had a passion for freedom, Copsey had one for writing and reading; he'd once found her in a corner, reading his textbooks aloud to herself with frantic speed, as if the knowledge would fly away before she captured it.
Draco, of course, despised Potter for the theft of one of the Malfoys' symbols of wealth... but he also rather admired the Boy Who Lived for his sheer stupid bravery. And he hoped that Dobby was somewhere safe, where he wouldn't be beaten for existing like he had been here in Malfoy Manor; he was quite sure Dobby despised him. He'd only begun trying to protect Copsey and Norby - as much as he could without incurring Lucius' wrath - after Dobby had been freed. Before that he'd sat up here, listened to the screams for mercy, and thanked God his father was taking it out on the servants instead of on him.
Draco stowed his wand and dropped to sit on his four-poster bed, clenching his fists against the bottle-green sheets until his fingernails dug painfully into his palms.
He waited as the quill's scratching filled the room again, accompanied by Copsey's soft mumblings to herself. He waited as Ventus preened his shining feathers.
And then; "Draco Lucius Malfoy, open this door right now."
This time, his father's voice was low and deadly. Deceptively calm. Steeling himself, Draco pushed himself to his feet and pulled the door open. Lucius stood straight-backed with a chilled, regal glare on his high-boned face, one hand resting on the silver snake head of his black cane. His warmthless grey eyes appraised first Draco, whose spine had gone rigid, and then Copsey, whose only acknowledgement of his presence was the slight quivering of her bat-like ears as she carefully penned the essay.
Draco lowered his own eyes, so like his father's, and dared not speak before spoken to.
"Copsey," Lucius said coldly, "Get downstairs this minute."
Copsey continued to write, though her long fingers trembled slightly. "Master Draco told Copsey to write his essay. Copsey is writing the essay. Copsey is following orders," she said in her high-pitched chatter.
"Can you not do your own homework, boy?" Lucius sneered.
Draco tipped his head back to meet his father's gaze. "That's what the house-elves are here for, isn't it? To make our lives easier," he countered, the picture of an entitled, rich brat. His pulse thudded loudly in his ears, every muscle rife with tension.
Please just leave, please be too busy to punish either of us-
But Lucius strode into the room, looking over everything from the silvery-grey drapings that hung over the bed to where Ventus was now watching him from his cage, the owl's round, glossy eyes following Lucius' every step. He stopped to look over the essay that Copsey was so diligently working on, which Professor McGonagall had assigned the day before the summer holidays had begun; something about the psychological effects of Transfiguring an animal into a different species. Draco found the subject rather interesting, but he'd sat down to write the essay and suddenly been tired to the bone.
"What drivel," Lucious scoffed quietly and turned back to Draco, who felt adrenaline slam his heart even harder against his ribs. "The school that has fostered generations of wizarding families, centuries of pure-blooded magic, and they're teaching about how a mouse feels when you turn it into a weasel?"
Draco stayed silent.
"That Dumbledore. What a crackpot."
That, he could agree with, at least to some extent. Draco found Hogwarts' Headmaster to be eccentric, untrustworthy, and exceedingly irritating; there was something about him that was just bloody annoying. Then again, perhaps it was only the result of Draco having spent years hearing his father's rants about Dumbledore.
Lucius' grey eyes narrowed, and Draco stilled under the scrutiny. One wrong move, one glance in the wrong direction, and there would be an hours-long shouting session if not a wack with the cane for him, and likely worse for Copsey.
But finally, apparently coming to the conclusion that the essay was ridiculous enough for Draco not to write himself, Lucius swept out of the room. The green crystal eyes of the snake head on his cane glinted at Draco just before the door slammed shut.
Silence simmered in his wake.
Copsey paused in her task. "Thank you, Master Draco," she said gently, before continuing to write.
~~~~~~~
Hours later, when the house-elf had completed the essay and left him alone in his room, Draco sat with his legs crossed atop the surface of his desk and stared out the open window before him. Above, Ventus had fallen asleep, upright with his eyes shut as he faced the door. A gentle breeze carried the balmy, living scent of the summer night into Draco's room. Stars were just beginning to appear, bruising the sky dusk-purple.
There were five stories between him and the ground. A fall he wouldn't survive.
He was supposed to go to school tomorrow.
Draco wondered what would happen if he happened to slip and splatter on the gravel drive beneath the window. His parents would remain stoic - his father likely wouldn't even grieve in private. No one would miss him at Hogwarts; Crabbe and Goyle would be glad to be rid of him. They only obeyed him because their families deferred to his.
Potter would shout his joy from the rooftops if he didn't show up, which was Draco's fault in the first place for adopting his father's role as bullying prick.
And if he didn't fall? Then, Draco would marry some girl from a pureblood family - probably Pansy Parkinson, who he'd been dating since the Yule Ball last year after his parents' request that he accept when she invited him. It was likely the Malfoys and Parkinsons had been exchanging owls about how the match would mutually benefit their status, wealth, blah blah blah who cares what our children actually want.
He'd have pure-blood children and continue the Malfoy name. He'd inherit the manor and own house-elves and look down his nose at anyone not worth his precious time. He would be initiated as a Death Eater, and serve the Dark Lord without choice, in constant fear for his life.
Only the thought of Copsey and her father, likely shivering in the dank stone dungeon where Lucius kept them with the Dark Lord's prisoners, kept him from taking the single way out of that path.
That morning, when Norby came to wake him and help pack for his fifth year at Hogwarts, Draco was still staring out that window. Absentmindedly, and with much coaxing from the elderly house-elf, Draco pulled on his black school robes and slicked back his pale hair. He almost forgot to put on the green-and-silver Prefect badge that had arrived by owl over the summer, but Norby pinned it to his chest at the last minute before Draco pushed his shoulders back, schooled his expression into haughtiness becoming of a Malfoy, and went to meet his parents for breakfast.
The moment he stepped into the dining room, his father fixed him with a polite smile that glimmered like ice, examining him from head to toe. Draco had only made the mistake of becoming visible to his father with his hair messy or robes rumpled once - and had paid dearly for it. Now, Lucius caught sight of the Prefect badge pinned over his heart and gave Draco a nod, a fleeting gleam of pride in his eyes. Despite himself, Draco felt a flash of elation at the approval.
Sitting across from Lucius, Draco's mother lifted a cup of tea to her lips. Only once it had returned to its porcelain saucer did she greet him. "Good morning, Draco."
"Morning, Mother," said Draco, taking a seat at the table and a bite of the buttered toast that was waiting for him. It was like sandpaper in his mouth, but he managed to finish it and then reached for the tea himself, knowing he'd be exhausted on the train after his sleepless night unless he consumed some caffeine quickly.
The tea sparked some energy into him, but he still may as well have been a walking corpse - after all, he didn't need to be anything else. It was, in fact, preferable that he remain a mere vessel for the Malfoy name, do what he was told and what was expected of him without having a single original thought.
His father rose with ghostly silence, looking down his nose at Draco with just his fingertips resting on the table. "You are packed for school?"
"Yes, Father," he replied carefully, glancing down to find that Copsey had placed his neatly organized trunk just beside his chair.
Thankfully, Lucius didn't choose to pursue an argument this morning; instead, he held out one hand. Bracing himself, Draco rose, picked up the trunk, and took his father's hand.
What followed was the experience he hated most in the world. The world bent and shrunk around him, darkness spotting his vision and then growing to fill it as his ribs constricted; there was pressure on his skull and on his chest and he was trapped-
Coughing, Draco lost his balance and barely caught himself against the side of an arch made of bricks the color of ancient parchment, ears suddenly full of the chatter and clatter and bustle of Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. Cats yowled, owls hooted nervously, parents hugged their eleven-year-olds and wiped tears from their faces. Lucius watched him with cold, detached disgust as Draco leaned against the arch, sucking air into his lungs.
"It is not seemly to be debilitated every time you Apparate," he sneered. "Stand on your own, boy, and act like a wizard instead of a toad."
Draco let himself shut his eyes for half a second. Then, he shoved himself off of the wall and straightened his back, wiping every trace of emotion - fear, anger, exhaustion - from his face. He lifted his trunk from where he'd dropped it nearby.
"I'll see you in June, Father," he said flatly.
"I do hope you'll be a real Malfoy by then."
Lucius turned with a swish of Castleton-green robes and Apparated, there one moment and gone the next.
Draco stared at the place where he'd stood for several heartbeats, folding each new coil of hatred for his father and shame at his words into a manageable package somewhere in his chest, which he would then ignore for the rest of the school year and, in the unlikely case that his luck held out, for the rest of his life.
"Nice dog, Harry!" shouted a voice he vaguely recalled was that of Lee Jordan, a Gryffindor who was for some reason allowed to commentate school Quidditch matches, despite the consistent reprimands he received from Professor McGonagall.
Draco looked up - and sure enough, Harry Potter stood just near the wrought-iron arch that led to the platform from the Muggle train station, hair tousled in the light breeze, green eyes bright and alive behind his round glasses. The Dark Lord's greatest enemy looked around with wonder, as if he was a first-year again. His lighting-bolt scar was stark white in the sunlight, the sight sending a shiver through Draco. A large black dog, tail wagging enthusiastically, was at Potter's side; he stood, obviously waiting for someone, with a stressed-looking redhead that must have been Molly Weasley and an elderly woman in a bold purple porkpie hat, who Draco didn't recognize.
As Draco watched, a swiftly moving porter, with his hat pulled low over one eye, delivered some luggage to Potter and the two women; soon after, Molly's equally stressed-looking husband appeared through the wrought-iron entrance, along with Ron Weasley - their son - and Hermione Granger.
Draco found Granger almost as unsettling as he found Potter; though a Mudblood, she was nothing like the uncivilized animals that her kind had always been described to him as. Potter, too, he'd been told, had filthy Muggle blood in his veins and therefore could only be seen as a worthless abomination; but Draco looked at them both and saw only people. People that disgusted him, certainly, because only a disgrace to the pure-blooded Malfoy line wouldn't be revolted by half-bloods and Muggle-borns, but still people.
As for the Weasleys, if half of the things his father said about them were true, the family may as well have been Muggles for all their worth. Lucius had even said that Arthur was known to have had an affair with a Muggle. Draco wondered if that made Potter as low as them by association, watching the youngest Weasley daughter stepped on to the platform with the troublemaking twins who must have now been in seventh year. Those three were followed, to his surprise, by a familiar face - Remus Lupin, who Draco hadn't seen or thought of since third year, when the werewolf had taught Defence Against the Dark Arts.
If Potter was on good terms with Lupin, the Boy Who Lived really was keeping regrettable company - Muggle-lovers, Mudbloods, and werewolves?
Draco would have flinched at the warning whistle of the Hogwarts Express, if he wasn't carefully aware of every move he made. As other students rushed toward the train that screeched into place at the platform, Draco opted for a dignified stride, keeping his chin high.
As soon as he entered the train, he was accosted by Pansy Parkinson. She took his arm, immediately beginning to chatter about something or other - Draco couldn't hear her, even if he wanted to, over his pounding pulse as Potter stepped into the hallway accompanied by Ron Weasley and Granger. "...go and find a compartment, then?" Potter was asking, as Pansy said something about her pet Kneazle.
Those green eyes were far too close for comfort. If they landed on Draco, he knew they would fill with hatred and something akin to suspicion.
Just like his father's grey.
Quickly, Draco removed himself from Pansy's hold. "I should be in the prefect carriage," he cut her off, eager to get somewhere - anywhere - else.
"That's where I'm going, too, silly," she said, gesturing at her robes - where, indeed, a prefect pin identical to his own was fastened. She reattached herself to his arm with confidence that told him her parents had informed her their families had some sort of deal.
More than his parents bothered to tell him; he'd merely been ordered to go out with her, no explanation provided.
Draco reluctantly allowed Pansy to lead him in the direction of the prefect carriage, feeling slightly sick to his stomach. Yes, being at Hogwarts meant he was away from Lucius himself, but it seemed Draco would never be free of his father's influence; it was Lucius who dictated what social circles Draco was permitted to move in, Lucius who would be scathing and suspicious if he stopped getting reports of Draco's 'attitude' toward anyone not a pure-blood, Lucius who kept those reports from getting him expelled.
Lucius, who made it evident he despised Draco's very existence, and yet controlled his life regardless of where he was.
~~~~~~~
"Crucio!" Ashton Parkinson, Pansy's older brother and a seventh-year prefect, pointed his wand at a Chocolate Frog and smiled with cruel delight as it began to writhe silently in place. He had the thing confined in an inescapable maze of various sweets from the food trolley, and had been cheerfully experimenting on it for forty minutes now, since Draco and Pansy had arrived.
Shuddering, the Frog lay limply when Ashton moved the wand away, only to begin torturing it again with yet more zeal. "Crucio! Crucio!"
Draco tasted acrid bile in his mouth. He knew exactly what it felt like to be under the Cruciatus Curse, courtesy of his father's more potent bouts of white-hot anger; the way the enchanted sweet twisted frantically in apparent agony made his stomach turn over.
Pansy crossed her arms, seated next to the seventh-year and directly across from Draco. "Stop that, will you? It's an Unforgivable Curse, for God's sake," she hissed.
Ashton rolled his eyes. "It's a piece of chocolate, Panz."
His sister glanced around the room, but the prefects of Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff didn't appear to have witnessed Ashton's crime. Smiling cruelly, he tipped his wandpoint toward the Frog again. "Crucio."
Draco swallowed back a stinging mouthful of vomit, and stood up. "I'm off to patrol," he declared, voice unshaken, and strode toward the compartment doors before either of the Parkinsons could reply - or volunteer to come with him.
He wandered from carriage to carriage until he saw two familiar faces dozing in one of the compartments populated by Slytherin students. He slid the door open, walked right up to stand in front of them, and waited.
Crabbe woke up first, found Draco's cold gaze fixed on him, and nearly fell out of his seat. "Malfoy! Er- are - shouldn't you be in the prefect carriage?" he prodded Goyle next to him until he woke up and mirrored his terrified expression.
Malfoy used his blankest expression, learned from Lucius, as a shield and a wall. "I'm on patrol," he said shortly. "Up. Now."
Both boys rose swiftly, stumbling with residual sleep. Stony-faced, Draco whirled around and paced out of the compartment with clipped, sharp strides.
He hated himself for it, but it was comforting to have Crabbe and Goyle at his back. Comforting to know he had their intimidation at his disposal. Comforting that they were loyal, even if that loyalty was unearned and really directed toward his father - because both of their parents, too, were Death Eaters.
And just like them, Draco would be expected to receive the Dark Mark in a year. Pledge himself to the Dark Lord, who would order him to murder and torture, all in the pursuit of the death of Harry Potter.
Harry Potter, who was in the compartment directly to his left.
Harry Potter, who was handing some sort of newspaper to Luna Lovegood.
Draco had nothing against Lovegood; she was odd, but couldn't have possibly deserved the things he'd heard Pansy say about her. And he wasn't obligated by his father to target her, or by his name to be disgusted by her, because she was a pure-blood; it was the same with Neville Longbottom. Everyone else in that compartment, however... Granger - Mudblood. Ron and Ginny Weasley - Muggle-lovers, disgraces to their own blood. Potter - the son of a Mudblood, and of course the Dark Lord's most hated adversary.
With a short exhale, Draco pushed open the door.
Potter looked up and immediately gave him an expression of deepest loathing, which he tried and failed to let bounce off. "What?" the Boy Who Lived snapped.
Draco smirked. "Manners, Potter," he drawled, "or I'll have to give you detention." the absence of a badge on Potter's robes was surprising, to say the least - especially when both Granger and Ron Weasley wore a red version of Draco's own. "You see I, unlike you, have been made a prefect - which means that I, unlike you, have the power to hand out punishments."
He felt a glimmer of satisfaction at the flicker in Potter's green eyes; that had hit a nerve.
"Yeah," said Potter. "But you, unlike me, are a git, so get out and leave us alone."
The flat chill in his voice was so different from his usual angry, heated reaction that Draco felt as if he'd been punched. For the first time, Potter didn't appear to care. The other four that Potter was sitting with all laughed.
Draco narrowed his eyes. "Tell me," he countered. "How does it feel to be second-best to Weasley, Potter?"
Granger's smile faded. "Shut up, Malfoy," she said sharply.
Draco managed to hoist the smirk back on to his face. "I seem to have touched a nerve. Well, just watch yourself, Potter, because I'll be dogging your footsteps in case you step out of line."
At the word dogging, Potter's face drained of color. He looked more stricken than Draco had intended - and he wasn't stupid enough to think it was all him. Was it something to do with the black dog on the platform? Whatever the reason, it unsettled him.
Trying to shake it off, Draco shot Potter a falsely smug look and then strode out of the compartment, hearing it slam shut behind Crabbe and Goyle. A mixture of additional nausea and anger sliced through him - he'd gone looking for a fight to clear his head, and had only wound up feeling more sick than ever. He dismissed Crabbe and Goyle, who walked off together, and then stood staring out a window in the hallway, unwilling to go back and watch Ashton's sadistic antics and too drained to muster a scathing drawl for anyone else.
I'll be dogging your footsteps in case you step out of line. Except that Draco seemed incapable of staying away from Potter, prefect or not - every year, he all but sought out the Boy Who Lived for no discernable reason. He told his father, and tried to tell himself, that he was punishing Potter for what he'd done to the Dark Lord, as was his duty as the son of two devoted Death Eaters. And perhaps, partially, he was, but there was also something magnetic about Potter. Something in those eyes and those words, which had quickly grown from indifferent toward Draco to outright hateful, that he couldn't help but return to just so he could look at Potter for a few minutes and hear him express some kind of emotion toward him.
It was ridiculous, it was traitorous, and it was despicable. It didn't make sense.
And yet.
As the sky darkened beyond the window, his reflection became visible; he looked every bit his father's son, no trace of his exhaustion visible, a cold ghost superimposed on the countryside rushing by.
Abruptly, Draco whirled away from the glass and stalked down the hallway, not stopping until he found an empty compartment several carriages away from the one where Potter was no doubt still laughing with his new friends.
You, unlike me, are a git.
He slammed the door behind him, dropped on to one of the plush seats, and tucked his knees to his chest. The silence swelled with his own ragged breathing and the clatter of the wheels beneath him; he pressed the back of one hand to his mouth, beating down the nausea until it was manageable again.
Draco had hoped, foolishly, that Potter would stop... affecting him, with age. Over the summers, he all but forgot about the way he felt when they were in a room together - the feelings faded, leaving only the hatred and disgust that Draco should have for Potter, and did direct at him nevertheless.
But every fucking time, everything came rushing back the moment Harry Potter spoke a word to him. Every time, Draco was mesmerized by those bloody green eyes and the sound of his laughter and the holier-than-thou act.
And he could not, for the life of him, figure out why.
But whatever was causing this, it was a disgrace to the Malfoy name, a betrayal to his pure blood, a sneer from his mother and the sharp crack of his father's cane. Draco tilted his head back and stared up at the wood-paneled ceiling and its small brass chandelier, swaying ever so slightly with a soft clacking as the train hurtled toward Hogwarts.
He closed his eyes, and tried not to think.