Dragons and Drugs
Draco Malfoy had a terrible stomachache.
Or, at least, that’s what everyone thought. He had made up this excuse to explain why he had missed his classes for the past two days. As far as everyone knew, he had woken up with a gut-twisting, heart-shuttering stomach ache, but he didn’t need Madam Pomfrey, because he was just that brave.
However, it wasn't long before the lie became not so much of a lie anymore. Ever since Harry Potter had told him about the dragons for some reason the only thing he could think about was his own brutal, painful death. And this thought made his stomach turn with anxiety.
He didn’t know how to beat a dragon! Yes, his name did mean dragon, but he doubted the dragon would care! For the first time since knocking out Cedric and locking him in his trunk, Draco started to think that maybe he didn’t want to be in the Triwizard Tournament.
He wanted the eternal glory, of course. And he wanted to beat Harry Potter. But he didn’t think he could do either of those things very well while being digested by a dragon.
He sat at the Hufflepuff table numbly that morning, unable to eat for fear. Maybe it wasn’t too late to get out of this…but how could he live with the embarrassment of chickening out? He would have to change his name, and move to a new country. This idea had struck him the night before, and it felt as brilliant as the sun’s rays. He would just have to move to Luxembourg, and change his name to… Draach. (That means dragon in Luxembourgish.)
Draco hummed softly to himself, enjoying his fantasy, when a table away, he accidentally caught Harry Potter’s eye. Potter looked nervous, but his expression changed the moment he saw Draco, turning into that same suspicion he wore last night.
Draco wasn’t sure if Harry had caught on to the exact details of his plan, but he knew he was at least very close to figuring them out. Draco had no idea what to do about this. He had entertained the thought of chucking Potter in the trunk alongside Cedric, but after some debating he found that he didn’t like that idea very much. On one hand, yes it would be highly satisfying to imprison Harry Potter in a trunk, but on the other, if Harry is out of the picture, then who would he even be competing against? Draco found that if Harry wasn’t in the Tournament the glory of winning wouldn’t be nearly as great. More than half of his plan revolved on the joy of beating Potter, so it was pretty important that Potter remained involved.
Draco did worry that Potter would tell someone about his suspicions and ruin the whole thing. But then again, who would they believe? Troubled, weird Harry Potter or the perfect Cedric Diggory?
So long as Harry Potter was the only one suspicious of him, Draco thought things would be fine. And, maybe, a piece of him even liked Potter knowing. Beating Harry Potter as Cedric was one thing, but beating Harry Potter while Harry Potter is well aware of his true identity...well, that's even better.
But none of this will matter if he gets eaten by a dragon today. Draco groaned into his hands.
At the very least, he hoped that Potter gets eaten by the dragon too. Right now, that’s his best case scenario.
***
Before he knew it, the bell rang, signalling the last class of the day, which meant it was dragon time. He walked through the corridor, finalizing the decision on whether he’d leave to Luxembourg or not, when he stopped in his path, distracted by the voice of Hermione Granger around the corner.
“Harry, you have bigger things to worry about right now, this is not the time-”
“Yeah, I know. That’s why you have to promise to finish this for me in case I die today.”
“That’s not funny!”
“I’m not trying to be funny! I know I’m right about this, Hermione. Why else wouldn’t Malfoy be going to his classes?”
At his name, Draco’s stomach turned unpleasantly. He knew Potter had his suspicions about him, but blabbing to Granger about it? That was low.
“Maybe he’s just sick!” Hermione said.
“No way,” Harry said. “I mean, he’s definitely sick, but not that kind. Come on, what are the odds Cedric’s acting weird and Malfoy’s not around?”
“Very high!” Hermione exclaimed shrilly. “In fact those two things have absolutely no correlation! Cedric’s probably acting weird because he’s nervous about the First Task, which is the same thing you should be worrying about.”
“You don’t believe Malfoy’s actually sick, do you?”
“That’s not the point-”
“He’s faking it. He has to be.”
“Actually-” Draco turned the corner, unable to handle listening to them talk about him anymore. “I hear it’s pretty serious, but he’s been really brave about it.”
Hermione and Harry looked baffled. Finally, Hermione gathered her wits enough to say, “See Harry, even Cedric agrees.”
“What are you still doing here?” Professor McGonagall appeared out of seemingly nowhere, rounding the corner and looking at Harry and him sternly. “It’s time for the task!”
She ushered them away before Draco could say “Luxembourg.”
***
Before he knew it, Draco was sitting in a tent with Harry Potter, Fleur Delacour, and Viktor Krum. They each looked terrified, but not as terrified as Draco because they at least had some semblance of a plan, while Draco had stupidly put all his energy into learning Luxembourgish. He wrapped his arms around himself to prevent them from shaking, as he racked his brains for dragon-killing spells. Avada Kedavra would probably work, but he thought that might get him disqualified. Or arrested.
His mind spun wildly as the rules were explained to him. He had to steal a golden egg from the dragon, not kill it as Potter had thought, though this slight change didn't make the task any easier.
Bagman held out a purple sack, gesturing for Draco to reach inside. "Take one from the bag, man," he said.
Inhaling deeply, Draco stuck his hand in the bag and pulled out his miniature dragon. He held the blueish-grey Swedish Short-Snout in his palm, cursing the number one it wore around its neck.
Bagman gave him a small smile as he noticed the impending doom on Draco’s face.
“Don’t worry,” he said, patting Draco on the back. “You’ve got this in the bag, man.”
Why, oh why did he have to go first? Now, if he dies he won’t even get to watch Potter die first!
He didn’t have much time to mourn, however, because just moments later, he entered the arena.
The crowd went wild with noise as soon as he appeared, and if not for the giant killer dragon in front of him, Draco might’ve liked the attention.
The Swedish Short-Snout stared him down, and in her big, yellow eyes shone the clear desire to kill. Her mouth parted into a snarl, showing off her many pointed teeth, and Draco knew he was done for. His legs trembled, and he felt his wand hang uselessly at his side.
The dragon took a step forward, and out her snout came a threatening puff of smoke, resembling a bull ready to charge.
Draco didn’t think. He just did what he did best in a life threatening situation. He dropped to his knees and began begging.
“Please!” Draco cried, dropping his wand to the ground and looking to the dragon for mercy. “Don’t hurt me, I’m- I’m on your side!”
His words fell on deaf dragon’s ears. Clearly she didn’t speak English. The dragon licked her lips with a forked tongue and continued towards Draco, slowly, like a predator stalking its prey.
“Ëmbrénge mech net!” Draco cried, desperately hoping that the Swedish dragon spoke Luxembourgish. She of course did not, and continued on.
Draco cursed to himself silently. He was all out of languages he knew. Or…was he?
In the way a forgotten memory sometimes pops up unexpectedly, it was a subconscious action that Draco threw his hands in front of him and began to sign.
The reason Draco Malfoy was fluent in sign language - American sign language, to be precise - was not important, because it was much too ridiculous and unbelievable to explain. It involved a con in which, as a child, Draco had pretended to be hard of hearing so that strangers would feel sorry for him and give him things. It happened so long ago that Draco had forgotten all about it. Luckily, in the face of death, Draco's most useful skill came to his attention.
The moment Draco started signing pleas to the dragon, she halted. She blinked slowly as if she could not believe her large, yellow eyes, and to Draco’s astonishment she began to sign back.
For such a large, scary-looking beast, the Short-Snout signed elegantly. “You know ASL?”
“Yes,” Draco signed. “Please do not kill me. I only want your egg.”
The dragon roared, and Draco ducked to avoid the flames. “How dare you?” she signed angrily. “You cannot order me around, and expect me not to kill you!”
Draco scrambled backwards as the dragon advanced forwards.
“No!” Draco signed frantically. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“Give me a reason, human! Give me one reason why I shouldn’t rip your throat out?”
“Because…” Draco paused, searching for something, anything. “Because I never got to tell you how much I… admire you?”
It was the first thing that popped into this head. Flattery sometimes saved lives.
The dragon did a double take, and pointed to herself as if to ask, “Me?”
“Yes you,” Draco went on. “You’re so…powerful and- and dangerous.”
The Swedish Short-Snout blushed a deep red. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
“Oh.” The dragon looked thrilled, her yellow eyes glimmering. “Oh I like you.”
The dragon brought her head back, and inhaled deeply, taking in Draco’s scent. “You smell so good. Like sweet, sweet fear.” Tail wagging slowly like an excited dog, the dragon continued, “You know what? For being such a gentlemen, I’ll let you keep one egg.”
Draco’s heart soared.
“But I get to pick which one.”
Draco’s heart sank. He meant to specify that he wanted the golden one, but the dragon already turned her back to him and went to her nest.
“You can have this one. Because this one’s not a real egg anyways.”
To Draco’s amazement, she had plopped the golden one in front of him!
“Thanks,” he signed, picking up the egg.
The crowd remained silent for a single beat, not having a single clue what had just happened, before bursting into cheers.
“Now, won't a fine gentlemen like you help me make some more eggs?” the dragon signed with a wink. Draco shuddered internally.
“Oh, stop,” he signed, somewhat uncomfortably. The dragon winked again, gathered the rest of her real eggs, and, taking advantage of the distracted audience, simply flew away.
Draco craned his neck to watch as the dragon flew higher and higher in the sky until it disappeared from view. After a long moment Bagman said, “Yes, I suppose we should have anticipated that the dragons would do that.”
***
Draco got the highest score out of all the Champions. Though the judges thought his methods were, “really weird,” they couldn't deny that he was the only champion to get the egg without even the slightest injury.
Stupid Harry Potter, regrettably, did not die and came in second place, but only because he showed off with his Firebolt. Draco was still pleased to hear that his dragon gave him a burn on his arm.
When Draco walked into the Hufflepuff common room he was greeted by a large banner that read, “Cedric is not Deadric!” as well as a giant beachball with Cedric’s face on it that they passed back and forth. The Hufflepuffs all gathered around in a loud, energetic crowd, looking ready for a party
While Draco enjoyed parties as much as the next guy, he had a sinking feeling Hufflepuff parties would not be his idea of fun.
Just as Draco began searching for an excuse to leave early, when S.G pulled out a little plastic bag from his pocket.
Inside the bag rested a strange, green, leafy thing that Draco didn’t quite recognize.
“What’s that?” he asked.
S.G chuckled. “What’s that, he says!”
The surrounding Hufflepuffs laughed, and Draco looked around to saw most of them had some of that green stuff as well.
“It’s gillyweed Cedric,” Plain Ugly said. “Duh!”
“Yeah,” Plain Ugly’s bucktooth friend said. “You’re the one who hooked us up with it!”
Was he? Draco stopped the many questions from leaving his lips. While he wanted to know exactly what gillyweed was, he couldn’t risk exposing himself if Cedric was apparently the expert on the subject.
“Don’t you want some?” Shortnfat asked.
“Uh, sure,” Draco said. Though he didn’t know exactly what it was, he deduced it was some kind of drug. Who knew the Hufflepuffs were all a bunch of addicts. Though, he supposed it did explain their calm, easy-going nature. Though Draco didn't typically do drugs, he also wasn't one to pass up an opportunity if they were offering.
“Here,” Bucktooth tossed Draco a bag, which he caught, not due to Draco's catching ability but to Bucktooth's throwing ability. Draco felt hot and uncomfortable under their stares, as he tried to figure out what to do with the odd substance.
“Well, you guys go first,” Draco said, gesturing to Plain Ugly.
“It’s your party!” she declined with a bright grin.
Fine. Draco would just have to take a guess. He took the gillyweed out of the bag and put it near his mouth.
The Hufflepuffs, absurdly, started laughing. “Good one Cedric!” Shortnfat said.
“You’re so silly!” Acne giggled. “Everyone knows you can’t eat gillyweed, unless you wanna turn into a weird fish man thing!”
“Uh yeah,” Draco said, becoming more bewildered by the moment. “Obviously. I knew that. I was just seeing if you guys knew that.”
“Are you gonna do it, or not?” S.G asked, tapping his foot.
“I am,” Draco said. But by this point he ran out of ideas. If you eat it and turn into a fish, who knows what you turn into if you do other things to it! The Hufflepuffs were growing impatient now, all murmuring their desire for Draco to hurry up.
With no better ideas coming to mind, Draco decided to snort it. As he lifted it to his nose, the Hufflepuffs shot him looks of approval, so he knew he must be doing something right.
He put the gillyweed right under his nose and sniffed hard. Instantly, the stuff shot up his nostrils. Draco startled at the sensation. It burned and made his eyes water, but as quickly as it started it stopped.
The Hufflepuffs cheered but they sounded far away. Draco never did drugs before, and especially not any Muggle drugs, but he heard that magic drugs work under a completely different logic than Muggle drugs. And if someone were to judge magic drugs as "unrealistic" due to the way they work, then they would be wasting their time because they aren’t supposed to work the way Muggle drugs work, okay?
With all that in mind, Draco began to feel like he was floating. The colors around him were bright and lively and he was floating in the middle of the Hufflepuff common room. Draco thought Hufflepuff was a weird word. Not as weird as how it felt to float though.
“Cedric,” a concerned voice said, and for a moment Draco thought it was God, but then he remembered he was a wizard and didn’t believe in God. The voice actually came from Shortnfat. “Are you okay?”
“I feel funny,” Draco told him.
“You’d think it was his first time,” someone said. “Maybe we ought to take him to Madam Pomfrey.”
“No she’ll try to put us all in rehab again.”
Draco felt really funny. So funny he began to giggle. He looked down at his hands and saw that his fingers were bending and curving in ways fingers should not bend or curve.
This made him laugh harder.
“I think he’s dying."
“He’s not dying, stupid. If he was dying he wouldn’t be laughing so much.”
This was the greatest feeling ever. Draco had to share it with someone. But who? Harry Potter? - No he hates that guy. Snape? - No, that’s a teacher.
Then it hit him; Crabbe and Goyle!
Draco stood up suddenly, and the room spun.
“Where are you going?” someone asked.
“Maybe he’s off to get us more drugs!” someone responded. “This is the last of it, afterall.”
“Bye!” Draco said, and left the Hufflepuffs to worry about him all alone.
Draco stumbled blindly through the corridors, his legs wobbling like they were made of jelly. People passed him, and some even congratulated him for his victory, but they all appeared to him as indistinguishable blobs of color. Eventually, after an inexplicable period of time passed, Draco somehow found Crabbe and Goyle.
“Draco?” Goyle asked when he saw him, still confused how to address him while in Cedric’s body. “I mean Cedric. I mean Draco. I mean-”
“Shh,” Draco said, too high for his friend’s stupidity to annoy him. “Goyle? Why’s there two of you. Oh, that’s just Crabbe, haha.”
“You’re acting weird,” Crabbe said slowly, tilting his head.
“Guess what I did? I took gillyweed!” Draco laughed. “I feel awesome! I feel great! I think I’m gonna die!”
Draco laughed some more as Crabbe and Goyle’s faces swam before him.
“Oh noo,” Draco said. “If I die then I’ll have to see Potter’s parents!”
And with that, everything turned to black and Draco crumpled to the floor.
***
When Draco woke up, he found himself lying in the Hospital Wing, Madam Pomfrey standing above him. He groaned, as his head gave a particularly painful throb. He felt awful.
“What happened?” he asked, and Madam Pomfrey tsked at him, crossing her arms.
“You ODed,” she said, plainly.
“First things first,” Madam Pomfrey said, and she threw a pamphlet into his lap. Draco glanced at it and read the words, "Give Fist Bumpies, Don’t Be a Junkie:Peer Pressure and the Art of Saying No.”
Underneath these words, Draco examined a drawing of a troll high out of his mind, while a unicorn held up a stop sign next to him. It was crudely drawn, almost as if Madam Pomfrey had made it herself. Draco flipped through the pages to find the pamphlet longer than even his Potions textbook!
“I expect you to read all of that,” Madam Pomfrey said, looking disapproving with her tight frown. “I am up to here with you Hufflepuffs and your gillyweed. Speaking of Hufflepuffs..."
It took a second for the severity of her statement to hit him.
He glanced down at himself to see his skin had turned back to its regular pale color. The Polyjuice had worn off. A sting of dread seeped into his stomach. Had it worn off before or after he was put in the Hospital Wing?
She turned her glare to the Hufflepuff tie Draco wore.
“You are not one,” she finished.
“Thankfully,” Draco agreed.
“Mr. Malfoy, can you explain to me why I started this evening treating Cedric Diggory, and halfway through he turned into you?”
Draco stared at her blankly unsure what to say.
“I’m not sure if you’re aware, Mr. Malfoy, but that is not usually what Narcan does.”
“No?” Draco asked innocently.
Madam Pomfrey sighed and left the room, while Draco’s mind raced to think of a reasonable excuse. Ultimately he decided on changing his name and moving to Luxembourg, but before he could figure out his means of transportation Madam Pomfrey wheeled in a cart with a strange looking box on it. The box looked Muggle, something Draco believed to be called a felevision. Madam Pomfrey clicked a remote, and the screen turned on to reveal a title that eerily represented the pamphlet from earlier. The title said “Say Nopehead Don’t be a Dopehead: Peer Pressure and the Art of Saying No.” The title screen quickly faded into footage of a hippogriff sitting behind a desk in a dimly lit room.
The hippogriff was strangely buff, with the words "Thug Life" tattooed across its chest, and an eyepatch covering his left eye.
“My name,” the hippogriff said, “is Fred Yamp Maome, but no one calls me that no more.”
The hippogriff sounded as if it had been smoking since before it could fly. “To the streets, I’m just Dopehead Fred." The hippogriff looked down solemnly. “Ya know, if I could go back in time and change just one thing, it’d probably be all the drugs. I’ve been with my gang for about ten years now, and it hasn’t made me happier. It hasn’t made me smarter.”
Dopehead Fred trailed off, close to tears. “It just made me regret all the things I could’ve done with my life, the things I should’ve done.” Dopehead paused and the tears began to fall. “My-my parents disowned me when I was only six. I was just a kid, I couldn’t fight! But you’s gots to when you're living on the streets like that. I didn’t have no one. That was…until I met my gang. They took me under their wings. Literally.” Fred stopped for a moment and smiled in remembrance. “They did everythin’ wrong raisin’ me, but their hearts was in the right place. That’s for sure. Kids,”
Draco tensed as Fred looked up into his soul.
“I’ve lied, I’ve stolen, I’ve cheated, I’ve killed, I’ve- I’ve even committed tax fraud. Please, please don’t be like me. I could’ve been anything I wanted. When I was a kid I wanted to be some sorta doctor when I was grown. And now I’m grown, and look at me!” Fred got on his hind legs to gesture to himself. “Do I look like a doctor to you?” Fred dropped back down on all fours. “Kids I don’t know your name, I don’t knows who you are, where ya been, or where yous is goin’ but please, please don’t end up like ol’ Freddie. Thank you.”
The screen faded to black and Draco closed his mouth as soon as he realized it had been agape. He looked up to Madam Pomfrey as she wiped her eyes on her sleeve, trying to hide the fact that she had been crying. When they made eye contact, she ducked her head with embarrassment and began walking away. Or attempting to. Instead of a smooth getaway, her hospital scrubs got snagged on the bed, and her clothes tore.
Draco blinked. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Madam Pomfrey was in the nude. Her body turned out to be much more jacked than those hospital scrubs let on. Draco’s mouth began to water. Even the tattoo across her chest looked hot. Draco couldn’t believe he was this aroused by a hippogriff
Wait - a hippogriff?
Draco did a double take. Madam Pomfrey WAS Dopehead Fred.
When her clothes got caught on the bed, and began to tear, her skin came off with them. Madam Pomfrey’s skin turned out to be a mere human suit, disguising her true, identity as a hippogriff. She stared at Draco for twenty three seconds before covering her lip with a finger in a shushing motion and receding back into her office momentarily.
Seizing the opportunity, Draco frantically began tearing off the wires checking his vitals. He whimpered at the burning sensation as he ripped each from his body, for Draco still cried when taking off a bandage. He ran out of the Hospital Wing faster than he has ever ran in his life. He can’t believe a hippogriff came that close to him. His father would hear about this. After deceiving Draco like that, she deserved to be executed.
Dopehead Fred caught up to him soon enough, yelling and throwing more pamphlets at him. Despite being the seeker on the Slytherin quidditch team, Dracoc couldn’t catch to save his life. Luckily, Fred threw one right in front of his face, causing him to fall on his floor. He could just make out the words, “Listen to me! Don’t steal someone’s identity!” before blacking out.
When Draco awoke, he found himself back in the Hospital Wing. He immediately tried to take off running like a coward and a racist, but found he couldn't get up. That bloody hippogriff had tied him to the cot.
“I thought you would try that,” Madam Pomfrey said, back to looking like herself. But, human suit or not, Draco saw right through her for the hippogriff she was.
Draco wanted to tell her to let him go before he told his father, but he was afraid that if he tried to speak all that would come out would be a blood-curdling scream.
"Now, I don't want any more trouble," said Madam Pomfrey. "So here's the deal. You don't tell anyone about what you saw today, and I won't tell anyone about your little...identity theft."
Draco licked his lips, nervously.
"Got that?" Madam Pomfrey raised her eyebrows.
Draco nodded furiously, wanting nothing more than to get out.
Madam Pomfrey squinted at him, as if to judge his honesty. After a moment, she accepted his response, untying him from the bed. As soon as he could, Draco jumped up, and scurried back trying to put as much space between them as possible.
"You may go, now," she said. "But remember our deal."
Draco, not trusting his own voice not to shake, simply nodded once more before sprinting out the door without looking back.
He continued to run for several minutes, until the Hospital Wing was far behind him. Finally, satisfied that Madam Pomfrey wasn't following him, he slowed down in an attempt to catch his breath.
Despite all he went through the past twenty four hours, with the dragon and the drugs and the unlikely hippogriff, Draco couldn't help but have an oddly light heart. After all, he had achieved first place, meaning he was well on his way to becoming the Hogwarts Champion. He smirked to himself, leaning against the wall. Harry Potter, while regrettably still alive, must be terrified now, because by the looks of it, Draco Malfoy might actually beat him in this Tournament.