The Failed Education of One Draco Malfoy

Quiet Beginnings and Dusty Shelves

You were perched on a pillow on the floor of the common room, the emerald flicker of evening flames illuminating the pages of some forgotten relic of a book that nobody had probably read in the last century. But you did.

Draco gulped, fingertips itching to grab the bundled stack of papers in his robe pocket, brittle sheets delicately wrapped in dragonhide.

He'd arrived late, curfew prowling for the Inquisitorial Squad always pushing him well past when his housemates had fallen asleep. Except for you, who appeared to spend the pre-weekend evening face first in some book or another.

That's how it always was with you, always a book.

Yet for some horrific reason he wanted to talk to you. And he was terrified you wouldn't want that.

How had he arrived at this juncture in his life? Sweating at the prospect of speaking to a girl he'd been attempting to understand for months? A girl who, by all intentions, probably wouldn't care about his conversation in the slightest? Like the great stories you read in dusty, leather bound books, it took time.

It began in First Year.

Most Slytherins possessed an appreciation for traditional things, but you were... different.

You were quiet and tended to keep to yourself. That wasn't particularly un-Slytherin of you, but it certainly didn't help people understand the rather bizarre interests that flighted your fancy. Namely, old literature.

Most of your housemates couldn't be bothered with you, something that appeared to bother neither you nor them. Well, mostly.

When Parkinson mentioned it at dinner a few weeks after the sorting ceremony, Draco hadn't thought much of it. "She reads all these strange books," she hissed, squinting down the table at you where you sat drinking pumpkin juice, nose tucked in a leather-bound book.

Draco shrugged. "What's the matter with it?"

Glaring at him, Pansy reached for her goblet, held it like a wine glass, mimicking the high-society women she'd studied, the ones she would one day become. "It's terrible. The first few weeks we're supposed to make friends. She surely hasn't made any."

"Are you offering?" Goyle asked, digging into a piece of pie.

She upturned her nose. "Hardly."

And that was that.

Until Fourth Year.

Parkinson had dropped into her seat for breakfast. It was the day after returning for the year, and Draco had hardly given himself time to think of what the year's woes would bring. Thankfully, she was able to clue him in.

"It's awful," she lamented, stabbing a strawberry with her fork. "I'm roomed with that horrid bookworm!"

"What's wrong with that?" Draco asked, glancing toward your spot at the far end of the table. Somehow you'd claimed it in First Year; nobody bothered to deny it to you since. "At least she's quiet."

She rolled her eyes. "She never leaves her room except for class! I'll never have any time to myself."

Crabbe chuckled. "Maybe it would do you good to stop shagging everyone in the girls' dormitory."

A huff. An irritated glare. Okay, maybe joking wasn't going to rectify Parkinson's issue.

"I'm sure you could ask her," Goyle offered. "She seems fine."

"She's probably a loon," she whispered, "Nose always in a book. Hardly talks to anyone."

"I've only seen her talk with Loony Lovegood." Crabbe bit into his toast, hoping confirming her opinions would shut Parkinson up.