At one point Draco didn’t want to be here . Would it all stop soon ? He thought . There was a glistening of ghosts rushing past as Hogwarts gloomed into view .
‘Have you decided to be mean this year ? ‘ A Hufflepuff called out .
I don’t know really , he thinks . It feels like he probably shouldn’t have tripped that guy up but Draco has never really shied away from pointless cruelty . It all felt like it had a point somewhere down the line .
The points of his life scattered in a precarious equilibrium came to a headlong battle with reality as he looked at the almost eviscerated castle and then headed down to the mostly unblemished cave system of Salazar .
As he drew tattered curtains around his four-poster securing the holdalls in a corner , he sat on his trunk and listened to the infernal vibrations that rocked this part of the castle . It felt less like the lair of the diabolical machinery of the magical world and more like a grave . You were very well under ground , it changed how you viewed things .
Not a Malfoy grave . He remembered as a young kid when he had been to his grandfather Abraxas’ rite of downing and had decided even then that he preferred the Malfoy ritual of air cemeterization much better than what he had heard the other folks did within ground . A part of it had to do with the need for maintaining the conspicuosity of sacred family burial grounds but he wondered whether the generations of Slytherins before him had just collectively decided that they had spent just enough time with the flobberworms .
But now having been to Aunt Bellatrix’s , he felt like the black family ones were exotic as hell . Zabini of course concurred that I only found it that way because it was batshit crazy and I was feeling a little brown of late.
Filiology and Genealogy were subjects essential to most Slytherins , but while most people were happy with Seven Track Blood Purification records and I had spent considerable time memorizing mine too , eventually the farce gives way , and if you are lucky your families manage to explain it on time that in the time scheme of houses like the Sacred Twenty Eight or the Onerous Forty Three , blood supremacy is more like a passing fashion of barista hats that we may time to time curtesy nods to but really at heart we cling to our crocodile skin brooch bags . So as my ignorance began to fade , it became more and more onerous to remember not to know what crocodiles were , and sometimes you were so washed in the blood of the now that you forgot you knew .
As I began to withdraw more and more into my Un-Malfoyish grave , the eighth year began , it wasn’t really an academic year , it was more like menial labor occasionally interspersed with the philosophy of Reconstruction and Preservation , the stacks from McGonagall for me to reflect in my time of sickness absenteeism and suggestions to go back to the manor grew to the extent that Pansy was kind enough to kindle the common room hearth with the envelopes . Until she appeared in person .
‘What would bring you here headmistress ? ‘
‘Mr Malfoy , I thought I might personally come here to congratulate your appointment to First year Ferry Patrol Operations , to Hogsmeade or wherever besides the castle grounds that the D.M.L.E. clears . ‘
I decided against saying nothing for the moment . ‘Why aren’t we allowed ? ‘
‘Oh , stop sulking , you .‘
Why McGonagall always seemed fated to be placed asymmetrical to my prevalent motivations at the time was a question for another day .
I was placed in partnership with the toshiest hot pocket that Ravenclaw had to offer in our year , Michael Corner . The first year , precious sods , owing to lessened curriculum had been given more interdisiciplinary field trips for the year . I just thought it set a bad example . Consider the poor Mudbloods who now just had an additional bunch of disciplines to attend to .
Everyone who was so enthusiastic about giving them a comprehensive trek through our modern history when I had first arrived had seemed to almost give up by the time I lumbered aboard like some Knockturn Alley bus conductor onto the Multi-star Warty Fairy . I even once heard Granger , explain to a shaggy Griffindor that the Battle of Hogwarts was just a ruse to arouse the Dicey Plumplings that Sprout was trying to grow to mate in captivity with the Mandrakes – the acoustic feat would have been simply impossible for us mere mortals without all that ruckus .
She smiled apologetically when she caught me side-eyeing her from my seat at the front and one of my facial muscles twitched in response before she realized who it was and leaned a lot farther back .