"The Mudblood" One-Shots

Before the Yule Ball

Year: 3; December of 1994

Canonicity: Canon to The Mudblood, chapters 42 and 43

Point-of-view: third person limited, Draco Malfoy

Draco Malfoy had danced with a Mudblood.

Even worse than that—Draco Malfoy had enjoyed dancing with a Mudblood.

It hadn't been anything real; it had been a stupid little practice session to prepare for the Yule Ball. But clutching Fitzroy's waist, holding her hand, pressing his body against hers—none of it had felt nearly as unpleasant as he would have liked. Contact with a Mudblood should have been like touching a poisonous potion. Instead, it had evoked a...warmer sensation in his gut, one that he'd spent the last week convincing himself had just been the spark of nausea.

Perhaps she'd felt ill as well, because as soon as McGonagall had announced the practice was over, she'd hastily disentangled herself from him and hurried from the Great Hall. When he'd weaved through the crowd of obnoxiously giggly students to follow her, he'd discovered the true reason behind her rush: Fitzroy had been overly eager to chat with her preferred Weasley, one of the twins, whose name Draco didn't even care to think about.

She was eyeing Weasley with that classically clever smirk of hers, the one that Draco had once deluded himself into believing was reserved only for him. For a while the look had belonged only to Draco, but over the past few months, Fitzroy's infatuation with this Weasley had been growing, and with it her sarcastic, humorous expressions had increased in his presence—and in Diggory's as well.

Draco hated that he even noticed such inconsequential things, but it was impossible for him not to watch the way Fitzroy batted her eyelashes at other boys and wish...

No, he didn't wish anything. From day one, he'd ensured that Fitzroy would never look at him with anything more than loathing. Draco could never allow a Mudblood to fancy him—especially not a Mudblood whose sentiments he would hungrily return.

But...he was constantly replaying the scene that had unfolded in Moody's Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom earlier that year. The professor had had Fitzroy under the Imperius Curse, but it was still unclear to Draco exactly what Moody had commanded Fitzroy to do. People had assumed that Moody had forced Fitzroy to tell a lie, but...the mortification on her face had implied otherwise. She would have laughed it off if it had been a lie, but instead she'd looked...embarrassed—embarrassed to admit that she liked Draco.

There had been no shame on her face when she'd bantered with Weasley in the entrance hall after the dance practice, though. She liked him, and she wasn't afraid to show it. That was what Draco had been bitterly brooding about when Crabbe had bumbled up next to him.

"I...think I'm in love with Ashley Pucey," he'd said, provoking an eye roll from Draco. Pucey had been skipping over to Fitzroy at the time, along with all of those blasted little third years that Fitzroy hung around with. Greengrass's whining had been loud enough to echo through the hall. "D'you think she'd go to the Ball with me?"

Draco had snorted, of course, a million snide comments on his tongue. He'd been feeling so dejected himself that he'd selfishly wanted Crabbed to feel the same. But he hadn't had the energy for such cruelty, so all he'd said was, "Sure."

"Let's go—" Greengrass had been groaning as she tugged on Fitzroy's arm.

"I don't see why I need to look for a dress," Fitzroy had insisted. "I don't have a date, and I don't even plan on going—"