Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Draco was glad to study in Durmstrang. He honestly was. Regardless of the tantrum he threw at age eleven when his Hogwarts letter was ignored by Papa.
He is glad for it.
After all, Lucius Malfoy knew best.
Draco didn’t.
He had these delusions. That he will come to Hogwarts and be the Prince of Slytherin. Befriend Harry Potter, the most popular boy in all of wizarding Britain. Decipher the secrets left behind by his famous ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. And maybe, just maybe, his other parent will be proud. After all, he didn’t have any way to know. The Dark Lord was very dead.
Until he wasn’t.
Draco was long overdue a reality check. He didn’t think that Hogwarts was controlled by Albus Dumbledore. That at the slightest suspicion of a relation with the Dark Lord he would find a way to check. That Draco would never be safe at Hogwarts. It wouldn’t be his home. That he could be sent into the Forbidden Forest for punishment and never come back. That Harry Potter was a Light puppet, brainwashed into a Gryffindor point of view. That he wouldn’t be the pureblood heir James Potter was, that wasn’t above a friendship with a Black. That he was little better than a mudblood.
But regardless of the rumors flying about Hogwarts, about Cerberuses, Basilisks and Dementors. About the ‘Savior’ murdering and maiming teachers. Draco couldn’t believe them. They were too wild. They just couldn’t be true. Could they?
So when the Durmstrang delegation was chosen for the Triwizard tournament, Draco was among them.
But he wasn’t the naive eleven year-old he once was. He wouldn’t run into trouble. He would gather information before considering an approach.
And he was right.
Harry Potter turned out to be little more than a hoax. The other teen wore strange muggle rags that no sane wizard would ever wear. But maybe that was the fashion in the muggle world. Draco wouldn’t know. But he would hope not.
Harry Potter wore glasses. Real glasses. Not an artifact.
What kind of wizard wears ordinary glasses? When all sorts of potions and rituals can fix the slightest alignment? Maybe he was sentimental? But then again James Potter wore artifact glasses. Those that allowed him to see magical currents. Couldn’t he use those?
In Harry Potter’s world the word etiquette simply didn’t exist.
And more so, Harry Potter was stupid.
Or smart.
Who knows.
Because getting his name into the Goblet was something that required magical expertise. He should have been proud. But he wasn’t. He was in denial.
And if he truly didn’t put his name in, a single magical oath would have solved all his problems.
Idiot.
Or genius.
Either he doesn’t know how to get out of his new ‘adventure’ or he is faking distress. The second of which is much more believable.
And so Draco chose avoidance. He wanted nothing to do with the so-called savior. A boy that came running back to those that shunned and betrayed him as soon as they said ‘sorry’.
To Draco a sorry was never good enough. He would never trust his back to someone who had once betrayed him, because once a traitor, always a traitor. But Harry Potter chose to ignore that.
He was a lost cause.
And that was sad. Draco would have loved to have a serpent-speaking wizard for a friend.
In another life maybe…