𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘 𝐅𝐄𝐒𝐓 2008

Scenes from the Beginning to the End

Author: crimson_stained
Title: Scenes from the Beginning to the End
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco
Rating: PG13
Summary: Nobody expected Draco Malfoy to take on the tutoring of Harry Potter at the start of a new year in Hogwarts, but he does anyway… and he swears that it has nothing to do with Potter’s green eyes. Not everything can stay strictly business.
Total word count: 7,272

Out of the corner of his eye, Draco Malfoy can see three pairs of eyes boring into him. Slightly unnerved, he feels a slow, rolling prickle down his spine. Not that intense, spiteful glares are out of the ordinary or anything.

He turns his head slightly and briefly catches the expressions on the faces of the gawking, unmistakable trio—a combination of three consisting of a red-haired tower of freckles, a frizzy mass of hair, and Harry Potter (Draco can find no good, succinct phrase to describe Harry Potter).

Weasley (that’s the lanky ginger one) looks enraged and suspicious. Granger (that’s the one with the hair) looks confused and suspicious. Potter (that’s Harry) looks resigned and suspicious.

Three very different expressions, yet all the variations of their contorted faces involve staring at Draco.

He shoves his hands into his pockets and sighs. He looks up at the ceiling and counts to three very quickly and very quietly. Then, he turns about ninety degrees and walk towards the company of three.

“Weasley. Granger,” he acknowledges politely. “Potter,” he leans forward just a little bit, “I look forward to working with you this year.”

They don’t say anything (maybe Potter was about to), so he just nods and then walks away. He still has that same unnerving, rolling prickle, because he knows without even turning around that they are still staring. He clenches a fist and just deals with it.

-------------

Despite the seemingly irreparable damage done during the final battle of the war at Hogwarts, the school still re-opened its doors. All students were invited back, including Draco, who had been startled but pleasantly surprised to receive the familiar looking letter bearing the Hogwarts emblem.

Students were to repeat their previous year, logic that Draco understood, but was still annoyed by. It was depressing to know that while some of his peers knew how to cast the Killing Curse, some of them didn’t know how to manage basic day-to-day spells. They were all too busy fighting a war to learn magic that would help them live normal, everyday lives. Or, he recollected, most of his peers had also been refused entry into Hogwarts the previous year.
That thought was also depressing.

It hadn’t occurred to him to be upset about such things a year ago.

Draco’s letter had mentioned that those who had been able to attend Hogwarts during the war were to help and tutor those who were behind.

At first, he was excited that he might be of use to his student peers. That he wouldn’t have to return to the wasteland that would be Slytherin House to cower behind books avoiding his classmates. That he could go back to Hogwarts and still be someone people needed.

The value of a person is dependent on what they can give to other people. At the end of the war, Draco Malfoy had nothing to give to anyone, including himself.

When September 1 rolled around, Draco had been both excited and reluctant to leave the Manor. With Father imprisoned, he didn’t want to leave his Mother alone. He thought of her by herself in that big old house with no one but the house-elves to talk to and felt a lurch of sickness.