Harry Potter Oneshots I Wrote Instead Of Doing More Important Things

Why am I like this- Draco Malfoy

The castle was so much bigger than I'd anticipated. Those cracked stairs climbed so high that my little eleven year old legs could barely keep up. We gathered like a flock of sheep on the landing, and that's when I heard the mutters.

"Is that Harry?"

"Harry Potter?"

"The boy who lived?"

I stepped forward, smirking with the ambition of a fatally naive child, extended my hand and introduced myself. He looked at me like there was something in me worth looking at. That was, until my lips spoke callously of his newfound ginger friend, and from that moment, any chance of friendship had dissipated like smoke for the wind to carry across the hills.

Sworn enemies was how he thought it. Although I played the part, it was never that for me.

I didn't want to hate him.

I couldn't bring myself to. It was a foreign feeling. An imaginable one to process at such a young age. As I grew up, this turned to wanting to mock him. To always be around him. Even if his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes filled with a flood of hatred, was that better than no recognition at all? He was the boy who lived in a sea of students who doted on him. They all wanted his autograph, befriended him for his notoriety. 

I provided him with something different. Something new. And even if he'd never admit it, I think he enjoyed the fierce arguments. He was always so firey when we fought. His pupils dilated with passion as he defended whatever it was I was attacking. I loved this about us, even if he did flinch away when I stepped too close.

I remember fourth year, when his name leapt from the ashes of the Goblet of Fire. I felt, for the first time in my life, the welling of my anxiety deep in the pit of my stomach.

His eyes widened, his mouth agape with trepidation.

The entire Great Hall watched, rooted to their benches uselessly as a fourteen year old stumbled down the aisle.

"He must take part in the Triwizard Tournament." said Dumbledore.

As I watched on, as Harry's enemy, my heart burned. It smouldered and spat flames. It pumped with anger and rage that left me grounded, unable to move.

It became easier to make stupid mocking badges than face the truth of the matter.

He was too young. At this time, there was still an air of innocence to him. It lingered in his eyes, his smile. The boyish way he would stammer around that crush of his. His drink pouring from his mouth as he attempted to smile back at her from across the hall. I could never quite figure out why it enraged me to see him like that.

Why was I harsher? Why did I make more badges? I cared. It wrecked my entire being, but it was true.

But fourteen was still too young to acknowledge why.

The grief I blamed on something I ate and excused myself to go to bed early. That year was probably the worst of it. I was a spectator.

I watched on, nails digging into my palms as a spray of fire bellowed from the jaws of the Hungarian Horntail. 

I clutched my pocket watch with sweat-slicken fingers as we all stared into the depths of the Great Lake.

This isn't normal.

This isn't the way normal people should live. 

If we had the luxury to call ourselves that of all things.

He almost died for our entertainment.

I can't quite describe how I feel, but it's not quite right. And it leaves me cold.