Defiance

Chapter 8: Welcome Back

Today was the day I went back to Hogwarts after Christmas break. And let me tell you, I was extremely excited to finally be leaving Malfoy Manor since my father was still bent on ignoring me. The Christmas holidays, which only lasted a month, felt like an entire year and I was ready to get back to my authoritative figure at Hogwarts. My mother, however, did make it a point to send me off with a warm welcome, tears in her eyes, and a hug. Despite her sadness at me leaving her with my father, she made sure to remind me of the task he had assigned me a couple of weeks before. I nodded politely, indicating that I indeed, did remember what I had to do. I then raced towards the train and didn't look back. 

Over the train ride, the joy I felt at leaving Malfoy Manor quickly began to diminish. I was starting to feel a sense of doubt at the plan I had so meticulously thought of during those hours spent alone in my room. Maybe it was too mean, I mean the girl never did anything to humiliate or upset me. Why then should I make her regret the day she got accepted to Hogwarts? The day she probably felt so much joy in.

As the train drew closer and closer to Hogwarts, I pretty much decided that I would just go on normally with my life: Making Potter a sorrowful sight and finding out his "secrets" as my father called it while leaving Hermione alone.

However, my thinking changed pretty soon.

Throughout the rest of the term, Potter it seemed did basically everything he could to get on my nerves. And what's even worse, that Weasley kid and Hermione were practically now his best friends. I couldn't throw a single insult at Potter without them defending him. I thus tried to turn against them as well.

It was pretty simple to throw insults at Weasley: he was poor and a disgrace to the purebloods as my father said. I had no problem with doing that, it came as second nature to me. 

Now with Hermione, I often got the urge to insult her. She stuck up with Potter for absolutely no reason. Additionally, after the thought of mudblood filth being drilled in my brain for years, the fact that she was a mudblood infuriated me.

However, something stopped me from calling her a mudblood all throughout first year. Yes, I was mean to Potter and Weasley which made her mad. But I didn't do anything to hurt her directly so far.

Throughout the rest of the year, I found so many ways to get Potter in trouble. I mean he made it pretty easy for himself. He was on the Quidditch team which gave me plenty of chances to learn things about him as well as anger him and the Gryffindor team. I had no doubt that some of my top-quality snarkiness came out during that time. 

Additionally, Potter insisted on hanging out with Hagrid every chance he got. My father hated Hagrid as well so it was pretty easy for me to make fun of him at that. 

I mean, I always referred to what my father taught me before taking an action, even though I sometimes felt it was wrong. However, I couldn't anger him because I wanted him to trust me.

Towards, the end of the year, I finally found a way to get Potter in a lot of trouble. He was trying to get a dragon to one of the Weasleys who didn't attend Hogwarts. My plan almost worked perfectly, except I got in trouble with them as well. We, referring to me, Potter, Weasley, and Hermione, had to all go in the Forbidden Forest with Hagrid. That was one of the worst days of my life and it increased my anger and annoyance with Potter even more, if that was even possible.

It also made me more upset at Hermione because she was part of the reason I got in trouble as well. However, I still didn't want to be rude to her.

The last straw for me was at the end of first year. Slytherin had won the house cup. However, Dumbledore decided to give Potter, Hermione, the Weasley kid, and even Neville points at the last second for disobeying. I mean, how do they get points for disobeying, I will never know.

I had done everything my father had told me, I learned a lot about Potter that I couldn't wait to tell my father. However, I had also firmly decided that I didn't like Hermione at all. She annoyed me for no reason at this point.

Thus, I decided that I would feed off of my father's bitterness and wouldn't be so nice next year after all. Neither to Potter, Weasley, Neville, and even Hermione. 

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Author's Note: Well, that was an intense chapter. I basically summed up the events in the rest of the Sorcerer's Stone in this chapter. 

For the rest of the fanfic, I will be adding in new characters and altering the events that happened to fit in with the storyline.

As you can see, Draco blindly does everything his father had been doing or telling him despite doubting these actions. His father was clearly not a good influence on him (in this fanfic). But don't worry, he will understand the impact his actions have by the end, it might just take him a while.

-Lina