The Noble Emotions; Ch. 5
Title:The Noble Emotions (5/13)
Rating: R
Pairing(s): Draco/Harry, Draco/Blaise Zabini, and (briefly) Draco/Pansy
Timeline: Sixth year, HBP set
Summary: All his life, Draco has been taught to display only two emotions: distate, and scorn. Hatred, according to his father, is too close to love, and the line between them could easily be crossed. Draco is about to find out just how easy it is to cross it.
Style: Angst, but with a touch of sarcastic humor and irony that allows for relief from the constant pain of Draco's agony.
Warning: While the fic itself is slash, there is a scene of het sex between Pansy and Draco. This scene, however, is used to reinforce the slash that comes later, and will be justified tenfold in chapters to come.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or settings of this fic, in any chapters. Slash is secondary to the plot, but is the consistent theme pushing Draco towards a reinvention of everything he once wished to be.
Reviews are accepted and appreciated.
Reinvention of oneself is not as easy as it looks, Draco would eventually decide. It requires persistence of will, and someone to fall back on when you can't do any more on your own.
When Draco began his own reinvention process, however, he knew known of these things. He set up a plan to see him through the few weeks he assumed it would take, and the utter simplicity of the steps he'd anticipated would later astound him. The first of these was to stop using, either in thought or speech, the word "mudblood." It seemed to Draco, however, that no matter how hard he tried, the dreaded word would crop up, usually in reference to Granger. By the third day of his new beginning, he ceased speaking the word, and if it happened to appear in his thoughts it could not be helped.
He then focused his energies on making real friends. Most of the students in his House, however, grew fearful of this newly friendly Draco. Even Crabbe and Goyle were confused. . .more than usual, that is. And as Draco would tell no one of his plan to become a better person, no viable excuse could be given for his actions.
Pansy approached him about it one evening. "Are you sure you're all right?" she had asked. Her facial expression suggested she was working with a dangerous, untamable animal.
Draco had smiled - really smiled - at her. "Yes, of course," he replied. "In fact, I'm feeling better than I have in years."
While she seemed at first reluctant to ask, she eventually came out with a, "Why?"
Seriously, studying her face, Draco explained, "I understand what I am now. And I'm trying to make what I am what I was."
Without any type of reply, Pansy had wandered back to her corner of the common room.
Yes, Draco understood what he was. He was the embodiment of everything Lucius Malfoy stood for. Draco had blindly followed his father's every missive. As he considered the second step of his reinvention, it brought to mind a faraway discussion between father and son as they approached King's Cross station, sending Draco to Hogwarts for the first time.
"Be careful of who you talk to, Draco," Lucius advised his son. "Not everyone attending a wizarding school belongs there."
As he dug further into the memory, Draco recalled being very faintly annoyed that his father thought he had to say this. "Father, I know all about mudbloods. I can tell them from the purebloods."
The annoyance traded hands, and Lucius' countenance was creased with its presence. "That's not what I meant, Draco. There are so-called purebloods who have made a mockery of their ancestry, who deserve to be wizard less than mudbloods. Mudbloods, at least, don't know any better." And Lucius proceeded to list several family names he was to avoid. Some were obvious, like the Weasleys, but some puzzled young Draco. The name that stuck in his mind for the longest time and most interested him was Zabini, particularly after he met Blaise Zabini. The boy was Slytherin through and through, if a little rough around the edges. He had a sort of quiet confidence that stemmed not from a sense of family pride but from an acute knowledge of his own self-worth.
Of course, "met" is a very loose and perhaps inappropriate term. Because of Lucius' instruction, Draco had never spoken to Zabini, showing the dark-skinned Slytherin open scorn. Their circles spun in entirely different directions, and though they shared a dormitory their paths almost never crossed. But Draco had never stopped being curious about his roommate, even if he'd never had the courage to go against his father's rules.
Yet it dawned on Draco as he embarked on the reinvention process that he'd been breaking Lucius' cardinal commandment for nearly six years. Would it really matter if he broke a much more trivial missive? After deliberating the matter obsessively in his mind for several days, he decided that reaching out to Zabini would be worth it.
Saying it, however, is much different than actually doing it. Draco hadn't had to speak to anyone but Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy for an extended period of time in years. While he understood the concept of reaching out to someone, he didn't have any idea how to go about it.
Talking to Zabini in the common room was out of the question. Blaise was bound to be suspicious of Draco, and he didn't think he could handle any social humiliation. Their seats at lunch were in entirely separate areas of the table, and Draco wasn't about to upset the delicate hierarchy in place. Classes were also not an option; whatever Zabini was planning on going into, it kept him out of most of Draco's. The only way Draco could think of to talk to him was to meet up with him in their dorm.
For three nights, he sat up as long as he possibly could and waited for Zabini to wander in. After a third sleepless night, it dawned on Draco that Zabini was probably avoiding him, though for the life of him Draco had no idea why. So, on the fourth night, Draco went into the dorm immediately after dinner and didn't emerge for anything. He resolved to stay awake as long as it took.
By two o'clock in the morning, Draco was lying across his bed fully-robed and staring at the door intently. He'd been staring at the door for so long that he felt its image was permanently ingrained in his mind's eye. Every other thought that popped into his head (and by this time hardly any thoughts occurred to him at all) was punctuated with "the door."
So when the door finally opened and Zabini finally came in for the night, Draco was rather inclined to believe that neither the door nor Zabini existed. Zabini's existence, at least, was proven when he spoke. "What are you doing awake?" he asked, looking vaguely trapped.
"I can't sleep," Draco lied smoothly. "What are you doing awake?" Rebounding Zabini's question back on himself seemed like a reasonable way to start a conversation.
Much to Draco's surprise, however, Zabini seemed mildly annoyed and positively defensive once Draco had spoken. "That's not really any of your business, is it?" he veritably snapped.
Draco was floundering. This was definitely not going well. He was bad at this sort of thing. "No, it's not," he agreed. Silence reigned high for several seconds while Draco considered his strategy. "I was trying to make conversation," he eventually admitted.
This seemed to dig the hole Draco was in even deeper. Zabini's defensive mask hardened. "Why are you trying to make conversation with me?" he asked bluntly.
Now Draco was the one feeling frustrated and annoyed. He was trying to be a good person and Zabini suspected him of foul play. If he hadn't been so dreadfully tired, he may have realized the irony of the situation. As it was, however, he was running out of things to say and was reconsidering the importance of real friends. "Why shouldn't I try to make conversation with you?" Even in his head the sentence hadn't made much sense, yet it still somehow managed to leak out of his mouth.
"You haven't said two words to me the entire time we've been at Hogwarts," Zabini explained, his tone distant and faintly bitter. "Forgive me for being a little suspicious."
"Do you blame that entirely on me?" Draco snapped, the words flying out of his mouth before he could stop them. "Did it ever occur to you to be hospitable when someone speaks to you?"
Zabini laughed, though the sound contained absolutely no mirth. "Hospitable?" he asked, an incredulous note in his voice. "Malfoy, you are the last person to be preaching on how to be hospitable."
"Maybe I've changed," Draco replied. "Maybe I'm a better person than I used to be, and that's why I'm talking to you in the first place."
"Maybe you're jealous that I'm in the Slug Club and you're not," Zabini shot back. "Maybe you're trying to find a way to bring me down now that I've finally made something of myself."
Draco was in complete awe of the bitterness he heard in Zabini's voice. This wasn't the anger built up by the things Draco had said wrong in a single conversation; it was the kind that brews for years, warping the mind obsessively. The kind of hatred Draco had for Potter. He might as well acknowledge his quest for friendship as a lost cause. "You really don't like me, do you?" he said quietly, losing the frustrated, annoyed quality to his voice.
Zabini sighed, and faced Draco honestly. Draco hadn't realized until he did it that he'd been avoiding it. "No, not really."
"Can I ask why?" Draco had devoted far too much attention to befriending Zabini to just give up.
Evenly, though still with a trace of ire, Zabini replied, "It's probably not the best idea, Malfoy." Without another word, Zabini pulled the bed curtains from around his four-poster and crawled in.
Long after Zabini's gentle snores filled the dorm, Draco lay awake in his bed, remembering all the things he'd done and hadn't done. It struck a melancholy chord in him that every choice he'd made had molded him in his father's image. He also wondered why he could only seem to think clearly right before he fell asleep.
Whatever the reason, the fact was that his thoughts were clear and objective, and he could finally understand that his rebirth would take more than a few weeks worth of sucking up to his classmates. It would be slow and arduous, and he would probably have more than a few lapses into his less than commendable habits. He had to find a way to prove himself, to show that he really was trying.
Then, of course, there was the assignment. He would suffer death or worse if he failed the Dark Lord, and bitterly he wished he'd never chosen to receive the Mark. He wished none of the bad things in his life had happened, that he could go through school and get a job at the Ministry and never know any pain. He wished he wasn't such an ass to people who really didn't deserve it. He had such a nostalgic and hopeless sense of loss that Draco felt he would like nothing more than to step outside his skin, allowing his body to continue its self-destruction and keeping his mind out of it.
His thoughts and wishes were futile, though, and he knew it. It's impossible to will the past away, however long one keeps at it. There is always a ghost left that you've forgotten to exorcise, one skeleton taking up space in your closet.
It was with the dismal, cynical image of Harry Potter's skeleton crowded into his bedroom closet that Draco finally fell asleep.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
"Malfoy, stay a moment," McGonagall requested after a particularly confusing class period. "I need to have a word with you."
A now-familiar sense of foreboding filled like lead in Draco's stomach. Nevertheless, he approached McGonagall's desk and evenly asked, "Yes, Professor?"
She eyed Draco with an expression most grave and informed him, "Your marks are slipping, Mr. Malfoy. You barely passed the last practical exam. Given the career path you've chosen for yourself, you really cannot afford to fail this class."
"How do you know about my career choice? That's between Professor Snape and me," Draco asked, partially curious and partially avoiding the rest of the discussion.
"While you are in Professor Snape's house, Malfoy, I find it well within my right to know what students in my classes plan to do with their lives." Her tone made it perfectly clear that she had no desire to discuss it further. "Now, as I was saying, you are struggling in a class that was once a stronger subject for you. This can only lead me to two conclusions. Either you're not studying, or the subject matter has become too difficult for you. Perhaps both."
The leaden foreboding crept up to his throat. Draco had a very bad feeling that he knew exactly what she wanted to do to remedy his situation.
"I'm going to assign you a tutor," she announced.
Draco's very bad feeling was correct. Damn it, he couldn't have a tutor! And yet, a part of him hoped for the opportunity to spend time with someone who wasn't Pansy, Crabbe, or Goyle. He wondered who it would be, and voiced his curiosity. "Have you got anyone in mind?"
"Several students come to mind, actually. When I inform them of their position, I'll have them contact you." McGonagall gave him a stern, severe glare. "I do not want to have this conversation again, Malfoy."
Neither did he. "Of course not, Professor."
"That will be all, Malfoy. Get to your next class."
Chapter Four
Chapter Six
Rating: R
Pairing(s): Draco/Harry, Draco/Blaise Zabini, and (briefly) Draco/Pansy
Timeline: Sixth year, HBP set
Summary: All his life, Draco has been taught to display only two emotions: distate, and scorn. Hatred, according to his father, is too close to love, and the line between them could easily be crossed. Draco is about to find out just how easy it is to cross it.
Style: Angst, but with a touch of sarcastic humor and irony that allows for relief from the constant pain of Draco's agony.
Warning: While the fic itself is slash, there is a scene of het sex between Pansy and Draco. This scene, however, is used to reinforce the slash that comes later, and will be justified tenfold in chapters to come.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or settings of this fic, in any chapters. Slash is secondary to the plot, but is the consistent theme pushing Draco towards a reinvention of everything he once wished to be.
Reviews are accepted and appreciated.
Reinvention of oneself is not as easy as it looks, Draco would eventually decide. It requires persistence of will, and someone to fall back on when you can't do any more on your own.
When Draco began his own reinvention process, however, he knew known of these things. He set up a plan to see him through the few weeks he assumed it would take, and the utter simplicity of the steps he'd anticipated would later astound him. The first of these was to stop using, either in thought or speech, the word "mudblood." It seemed to Draco, however, that no matter how hard he tried, the dreaded word would crop up, usually in reference to Granger. By the third day of his new beginning, he ceased speaking the word, and if it happened to appear in his thoughts it could not be helped.
He then focused his energies on making real friends. Most of the students in his House, however, grew fearful of this newly friendly Draco. Even Crabbe and Goyle were confused. . .more than usual, that is. And as Draco would tell no one of his plan to become a better person, no viable excuse could be given for his actions.
Pansy approached him about it one evening. "Are you sure you're all right?" she had asked. Her facial expression suggested she was working with a dangerous, untamable animal.
Draco had smiled - really smiled - at her. "Yes, of course," he replied. "In fact, I'm feeling better than I have in years."
While she seemed at first reluctant to ask, she eventually came out with a, "Why?"
Seriously, studying her face, Draco explained, "I understand what I am now. And I'm trying to make what I am what I was."
Without any type of reply, Pansy had wandered back to her corner of the common room.
Yes, Draco understood what he was. He was the embodiment of everything Lucius Malfoy stood for. Draco had blindly followed his father's every missive. As he considered the second step of his reinvention, it brought to mind a faraway discussion between father and son as they approached King's Cross station, sending Draco to Hogwarts for the first time.
"Be careful of who you talk to, Draco," Lucius advised his son. "Not everyone attending a wizarding school belongs there."
As he dug further into the memory, Draco recalled being very faintly annoyed that his father thought he had to say this. "Father, I know all about mudbloods. I can tell them from the purebloods."
The annoyance traded hands, and Lucius' countenance was creased with its presence. "That's not what I meant, Draco. There are so-called purebloods who have made a mockery of their ancestry, who deserve to be wizard less than mudbloods. Mudbloods, at least, don't know any better." And Lucius proceeded to list several family names he was to avoid. Some were obvious, like the Weasleys, but some puzzled young Draco. The name that stuck in his mind for the longest time and most interested him was Zabini, particularly after he met Blaise Zabini. The boy was Slytherin through and through, if a little rough around the edges. He had a sort of quiet confidence that stemmed not from a sense of family pride but from an acute knowledge of his own self-worth.
Of course, "met" is a very loose and perhaps inappropriate term. Because of Lucius' instruction, Draco had never spoken to Zabini, showing the dark-skinned Slytherin open scorn. Their circles spun in entirely different directions, and though they shared a dormitory their paths almost never crossed. But Draco had never stopped being curious about his roommate, even if he'd never had the courage to go against his father's rules.
Yet it dawned on Draco as he embarked on the reinvention process that he'd been breaking Lucius' cardinal commandment for nearly six years. Would it really matter if he broke a much more trivial missive? After deliberating the matter obsessively in his mind for several days, he decided that reaching out to Zabini would be worth it.
Saying it, however, is much different than actually doing it. Draco hadn't had to speak to anyone but Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy for an extended period of time in years. While he understood the concept of reaching out to someone, he didn't have any idea how to go about it.
Talking to Zabini in the common room was out of the question. Blaise was bound to be suspicious of Draco, and he didn't think he could handle any social humiliation. Their seats at lunch were in entirely separate areas of the table, and Draco wasn't about to upset the delicate hierarchy in place. Classes were also not an option; whatever Zabini was planning on going into, it kept him out of most of Draco's. The only way Draco could think of to talk to him was to meet up with him in their dorm.
For three nights, he sat up as long as he possibly could and waited for Zabini to wander in. After a third sleepless night, it dawned on Draco that Zabini was probably avoiding him, though for the life of him Draco had no idea why. So, on the fourth night, Draco went into the dorm immediately after dinner and didn't emerge for anything. He resolved to stay awake as long as it took.
By two o'clock in the morning, Draco was lying across his bed fully-robed and staring at the door intently. He'd been staring at the door for so long that he felt its image was permanently ingrained in his mind's eye. Every other thought that popped into his head (and by this time hardly any thoughts occurred to him at all) was punctuated with "the door."
So when the door finally opened and Zabini finally came in for the night, Draco was rather inclined to believe that neither the door nor Zabini existed. Zabini's existence, at least, was proven when he spoke. "What are you doing awake?" he asked, looking vaguely trapped.
"I can't sleep," Draco lied smoothly. "What are you doing awake?" Rebounding Zabini's question back on himself seemed like a reasonable way to start a conversation.
Much to Draco's surprise, however, Zabini seemed mildly annoyed and positively defensive once Draco had spoken. "That's not really any of your business, is it?" he veritably snapped.
Draco was floundering. This was definitely not going well. He was bad at this sort of thing. "No, it's not," he agreed. Silence reigned high for several seconds while Draco considered his strategy. "I was trying to make conversation," he eventually admitted.
This seemed to dig the hole Draco was in even deeper. Zabini's defensive mask hardened. "Why are you trying to make conversation with me?" he asked bluntly.
Now Draco was the one feeling frustrated and annoyed. He was trying to be a good person and Zabini suspected him of foul play. If he hadn't been so dreadfully tired, he may have realized the irony of the situation. As it was, however, he was running out of things to say and was reconsidering the importance of real friends. "Why shouldn't I try to make conversation with you?" Even in his head the sentence hadn't made much sense, yet it still somehow managed to leak out of his mouth.
"You haven't said two words to me the entire time we've been at Hogwarts," Zabini explained, his tone distant and faintly bitter. "Forgive me for being a little suspicious."
"Do you blame that entirely on me?" Draco snapped, the words flying out of his mouth before he could stop them. "Did it ever occur to you to be hospitable when someone speaks to you?"
Zabini laughed, though the sound contained absolutely no mirth. "Hospitable?" he asked, an incredulous note in his voice. "Malfoy, you are the last person to be preaching on how to be hospitable."
"Maybe I've changed," Draco replied. "Maybe I'm a better person than I used to be, and that's why I'm talking to you in the first place."
"Maybe you're jealous that I'm in the Slug Club and you're not," Zabini shot back. "Maybe you're trying to find a way to bring me down now that I've finally made something of myself."
Draco was in complete awe of the bitterness he heard in Zabini's voice. This wasn't the anger built up by the things Draco had said wrong in a single conversation; it was the kind that brews for years, warping the mind obsessively. The kind of hatred Draco had for Potter. He might as well acknowledge his quest for friendship as a lost cause. "You really don't like me, do you?" he said quietly, losing the frustrated, annoyed quality to his voice.
Zabini sighed, and faced Draco honestly. Draco hadn't realized until he did it that he'd been avoiding it. "No, not really."
"Can I ask why?" Draco had devoted far too much attention to befriending Zabini to just give up.
Evenly, though still with a trace of ire, Zabini replied, "It's probably not the best idea, Malfoy." Without another word, Zabini pulled the bed curtains from around his four-poster and crawled in.
Long after Zabini's gentle snores filled the dorm, Draco lay awake in his bed, remembering all the things he'd done and hadn't done. It struck a melancholy chord in him that every choice he'd made had molded him in his father's image. He also wondered why he could only seem to think clearly right before he fell asleep.
Whatever the reason, the fact was that his thoughts were clear and objective, and he could finally understand that his rebirth would take more than a few weeks worth of sucking up to his classmates. It would be slow and arduous, and he would probably have more than a few lapses into his less than commendable habits. He had to find a way to prove himself, to show that he really was trying.
Then, of course, there was the assignment. He would suffer death or worse if he failed the Dark Lord, and bitterly he wished he'd never chosen to receive the Mark. He wished none of the bad things in his life had happened, that he could go through school and get a job at the Ministry and never know any pain. He wished he wasn't such an ass to people who really didn't deserve it. He had such a nostalgic and hopeless sense of loss that Draco felt he would like nothing more than to step outside his skin, allowing his body to continue its self-destruction and keeping his mind out of it.
His thoughts and wishes were futile, though, and he knew it. It's impossible to will the past away, however long one keeps at it. There is always a ghost left that you've forgotten to exorcise, one skeleton taking up space in your closet.
It was with the dismal, cynical image of Harry Potter's skeleton crowded into his bedroom closet that Draco finally fell asleep.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
"Malfoy, stay a moment," McGonagall requested after a particularly confusing class period. "I need to have a word with you."
A now-familiar sense of foreboding filled like lead in Draco's stomach. Nevertheless, he approached McGonagall's desk and evenly asked, "Yes, Professor?"
She eyed Draco with an expression most grave and informed him, "Your marks are slipping, Mr. Malfoy. You barely passed the last practical exam. Given the career path you've chosen for yourself, you really cannot afford to fail this class."
"How do you know about my career choice? That's between Professor Snape and me," Draco asked, partially curious and partially avoiding the rest of the discussion.
"While you are in Professor Snape's house, Malfoy, I find it well within my right to know what students in my classes plan to do with their lives." Her tone made it perfectly clear that she had no desire to discuss it further. "Now, as I was saying, you are struggling in a class that was once a stronger subject for you. This can only lead me to two conclusions. Either you're not studying, or the subject matter has become too difficult for you. Perhaps both."
The leaden foreboding crept up to his throat. Draco had a very bad feeling that he knew exactly what she wanted to do to remedy his situation.
"I'm going to assign you a tutor," she announced.
Draco's very bad feeling was correct. Damn it, he couldn't have a tutor! And yet, a part of him hoped for the opportunity to spend time with someone who wasn't Pansy, Crabbe, or Goyle. He wondered who it would be, and voiced his curiosity. "Have you got anyone in mind?"
"Several students come to mind, actually. When I inform them of their position, I'll have them contact you." McGonagall gave him a stern, severe glare. "I do not want to have this conversation again, Malfoy."
Neither did he. "Of course not, Professor."
"That will be all, Malfoy. Get to your next class."
Chapter Four
Chapter Six