Lazuli - Harry Potter Fan Fiction (Draco Malfoy)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

A detoxification potion is relatively easy, if you know how. It doesn't take very long to make or to work, but has been known to be notoriously trick whilst being brewed under pressure.

Draco shows me to a small room at the back of the kitchen with ingredients and potions equipment. I grab a cauldron and the necessary ingredients and begin working whilst Draco goes off to distract his father with a game of chess, something that he assures me will take a while.

Unsure of how much time I have I work quickly, tying back my hair and trying to remember the order in which you add ingredients. 2 drops of agrippa, 10 dandelion roots, a dash of Horklump juice and 3 cups of salamander blood. The potion begins to brew nicely and I leave it for 5 minutes over the fire that I had Nelly start. When it's done, I pour it into a small vial and bottle the rest in a larger jar, should Narcissa need it again. I place the jar in the ingredients cupboard and hide the vial in my jacket pocket, hidden from sight. Ensuring that all evidence has gone, I leave the kitchen through a back entrance that Draco showed me and proceed up a narrow and dark staircase.

Draco said that if I kept going straight down the corridor, took a left and then a right, his mother's room would be the fourth door on the left. I repeat this instructions to myself as I sneak through the giant house, trying to ignore the niggling feeling of danger in the back of my mind. I don't like walking around this place without Draco, despite the sense of security that his locket brings me. I grope the walls nervously, unable to see in the dark, windowless passage. This corridor doesn't look like it's used often, judging by the layers of dust on the floor and the wallpaper which has browned and is peeling at the top. It's completely different from the rest of Malfoy Manor, well-maintained and full of beautiful furniture. The only person who uses this must be Nelly, and occasionally Benson when he wants to get somewhere quickly and unnoticed.

I step on something and it rustles, making me jump backwards with fright. Looking down, I see that it's only a piece of paper that's been scrunched up into a ball and tossed into a corner. I pick it up and unfold it, smiling when I recognise the writing belonging to Draco. The date at the top reads '6th July 1991.' During the summer between our first and second year. It seems like a page torn from a diary. I read it carefully.

6th July, 1991

Mother and Father are arguing again. It's louder this time, I can hear the muffled shouting from inside Father's study, but I don't know what they're arguing about.

When they argue, it makes me angry. I don't like it, how uncomfortable everyone is when we're eating dinner. It's like the smallest thing could be said or done, and everyone goes crazy, screaming and shouting at each other.

My name's Draco Lucius Malfoy, I'm 12 years old and my birthday is the 5th of June, just over a month ago. For my birthday, I got a new broom (a Nimbus 2001), new clothes, a new horse and this diary from my parents. Crabbe and Goyle gave me a hideous scarf that I'll never wear, and I haven't even opened my present from Pansy.

I got loads of cards, some with a few sickles in, others empty. I don't need money, Malfoy's are filthy rich. I even got a card from her!

Juliet is a girl in my class, she's a Slytherin too and all of the boys fancy her, myself included. Considering how confident and popular I am, I don't know why I find it so difficult to talk to her, she's just a girl! But she's a beautiful girl and incredibly smart too, even smarter than Granger. The card wasn't just from her, it was from her friend Sophia and some of the other Slytherin girls too, but it was her handwriting and all of my friends were jealous, Juliet never gave them birthday cards.