Draco's Mudblood - Draco Malfoy Fan Fiction - *Year One*

Very, Very Wrong

To anyone else, Theodore Nott was the same old nervous and jittery boy as always. To Isobel, something was very, very wrong.

Theodore hadn't made a point to join Isobel in the library often, but when it came to Transfiguration and Charms homework, he always tagged along for the extra help. He ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner with Isobel every day. They worked on every assignment in class together, spent down-time together, everything. Wherever Isobel went, Theodore followed.

Not only was Theodore nowhere in sight today, but he'd been skipping dinner. He was late to breakfast every morning, and not even the dirt that naturally clung to him could hide the bags under his eyes.

And as mean as it may have been, but he was starting to smell. Bad.

"Have you noticed what's been going on with Theodore lately?" Isobel asked. Blaise Zambini looked up from his textbook, gave her a judgemental once over, and went back to reading.

Blaise had slowly started to implement himself into the Anderson-Nott duo for reasons unknown to either of them. Maybe the loneliness that comes with being a rude prick to everyone in sight was catching up to him, and he found Isobel and Theodore the least intolerable. That was the most logical explanation, but Isobel still struggled to see it. He seemed perpetually disgusted by her mere existence.

As if summoned by the mention of his name, Theodore came practically sprinting into the library. He talked quickly and frantically with Madam Pince, dropped a few books on the counter, and then began to pace.

Isobel nudged Blaise's foot under the table. He hissed in complaint before turning in his seat. If Isobel wasn't so focused on Theodore, she would have mistaken his reaction as that of a caring friend.

Theodore spotted the two of them after a moment and waved awkwardly. "He's hiding something," Isobel said behind her smile, gesturing for the boy to come sit with them.

Blaise only hummed in recognition before turning back to his book. So much for 'caring friend'...

"Hey Theodore! Where've you been?" Isobel's forced her voice to be bright and unnerved, so much so that the words were spit out between her clenched teeth.

Theodore squirmed. It looked as though he were trying to shake something out of his robes. "Oh, you know... Well, it's just that I... extra studying!"

Blaise finally looked back up from his book. "Extra studying?"

Theodore nodded very quickly. "Yes! Some of that Hogwarts History stuff Isobel is always talking about had me interested, so I figured I would check out some books!" He grabbed some parchment from his back pocket and threw those and the book under his arm onto the table. "See?" The book was an old, rotting collection of pages with a weeping leather cover.

It smelled almost as bad as he did.

Madam Pince waved down Theodore's attention. "That'll be the others, I'll be right back!" He said, rushing off to the angry librarian.

Blaise gave a heavy sigh. "He's perfectly fine, see? Just as wacko as always."

"Blaise, you saw him right? Like, you have eyes, don't you?" She glared at him over the table top. "I mean seriously, Blaise, look at him! He's all shaky and he's talking way too fast, and these papers are a bloody mess! Look here," she said, pointing to a page of the parchments Theodore had left. The edges splayed with minor rips and wrinkles, there was a large greenish stain on one, and the ink changed colours nearly every page, as though the writer had constantly run out of ink. Words were scribbled out every paragraph, small pictures were drawn hastily in the margins, and there were smudges where the ink hadn't dried and Theo's left hand had dragged the wet ink across the page.

"Here, see?" She pointed to the top of one page where, surrounded by circles, stars, and dozens of exclamation points was a line of script. "This isn't even in English!"

Blaise looked over at her, unamused. "So?"

"So Theodore doesn't know Latin. This must be Latin, look at it."

Blaise pushed the page back towards Isobel. "Look, I don't think there's anything wrong with him. So he doesn't know Latin? Maybe he's learning? Or maybe he's just-"

He stopped short. "What?" Isobel asked. "Maybe he's just what-"

"Shut up."

"Excuse-"

Blaise held up his hand and wrote fervently with the other. "Shut up."

Just as he put his quill down, Theodore came bounding back up to the table. He snatched the papers from Isobel. "Sorry, Theo, we just wanted to see what you were so interested in."

Theodore stacked the papers between some of his books, three new ones the size of his head now added to the collection, and shook his head. "It's fine," he said, very not fine. He turned to leave, and then stopped himself. "Did you, uh, have any thoughts on it?"

Isobel shrugged. Why was he just so short with her? "The top of that other page. The one you starred, it looks like Latin, but I'm not sure. It's not English, for sure."

Theodore nodded, gave a short "Bye," and zipped out of the library.

She whipped to Blaise. "You cannot tell me he's not losing it-"

"Oh my bloody hell, shut up for once, would you?" He turned his page towards her. "Notice anything?"

Blaise had rewritten the line of text from Theodore's notes: "erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi".

Isobel crossed her arms over her chest and mumbled. "Yeah, you're a rotten person."

He rolled his eyes. "It doesn't look like much, right? Well, that's cause you're looking at it wrong," he explained as he rewrote the sentence. As he did, Isobel's eyes slowly widened. "Not to mention, you were just wrong about the Latin thing. It is English."

At the top, now the bottom, of the page was a completely new sentence.

"I show not your face but your hearts desire".