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In this ancient, decaying castle, every secret carried weight—and Draco Malfoy was exceptionally good at calculating exactly how heavy they were.
But before he left the common room, a conversation gave him pause.
He was standing in front of the mirror, fastening the last clasp on his robes. The perpetual damp chill of the dungeons clung to everything; even the serpent-shaped pin at his collar felt slick with condensation.
"…I'd advise you to cool it, Graham."
A seventh-year prefect was leaning against the sofa arm, lecturing a nervous first-year.
"Professor Snape was in a rage in his office yesterday. Said he's had enough of students running to him with half-baked gossip.
Unless you have solid, irrefutable proof—
the kind that would leave even McGonagall speechless—
you'd better not test his patience right now.
Our Head of House is far more interested in locking up the rumor-mongering idiots for a full year than in docking Gryffindor points."
Draco examined the pin in the mirror and thought to himself:
Proof? Patience was the one thing he had in abundance. The fools who ran to Snape with scraps of hearsay deserved every bit of the dressing-down they got.
A true Slytherin didn't rely on eavesdropping and whispers.
He demanded overwhelming power—and evidence that could not be denied.
That inherited Malfoy sharpness of smell had caught something off about the Gryffindor lions weeks ago.
Not just Weasley's nauseating poverty-stink.
Something tied to that grubby half-giant they kept company with.
And most importantly: though he was only a first-year, he was not some knowledge-starved Mudblood who learned everything from books.
Family heritage wasn't only in vaults.
It lived in dinner-table conversation.
"My father once said dragon smuggling…"
The thought sent a thrill through him. Full of confidence, he set off toward Hagrid's hut.
…
Draco hated this wretched muddy grass.
April night wind carried wet, bone-chilling cold straight down his collar. His expensive dragon-hide boots squelched unpleasantly through the soft, rotting leaves at the forest's edge.
"If you splash one more drop of mud on my trousers, Potter, I'll make you pay…"
He hissed the threat into the empty dark, as if cursing the night itself could erase the humiliation of skulking like a common thief.
A Malfoy should never have to creep around at midnight like some sneak-thief. If not for the leverage that could send Harry Potter packing for good, he would never have left the warm Slytherin common room in weather like this.
All thanks to that brainless redheaded weasel Weasley.
This afternoon in the library, Draco had hidden behind the towering shelf on Eighteenth-Century Goblin Rebellions and watched—crystal clear—while they carried off those books.
Dragon Breeds of Great Britain and Ireland.
From Egg to Inferno.
His pulse had quickened. Back in the Malfoy Manor library he had spent countless hours staring at the dragon illustrations.
Dragons were symbols of power and prestige, the pinnacle of magical creatures—fit only for true ancient nobility.
And now that filthy half-giant dared profane such a magnificent being in his ramshackle wooden shack?
Draco held his breath and crept closer to the crude little hut.
Heat poured through the windows, making him faintly feverish.
Thick smoke from the chimney carried a strange scent—like scorched feathers.
The curtains were drawn tight, but a narrow gap remained in the rough fabric.
Draco eased forward. The malice in his eyes had given way to something closer to fevered obsession and hunger.
He saw.
On the massive table, surrounded by the cluster of idiot heads, something moved.
A freshly hatched monster—wrinkled, pitch-black, with a row of hooked spines along its back. Though its body looked like crumpled charcoal, the spiked wings caught the firelight and shimmered with mesmerizing iridescence.
Draco's heart slammed against his ribs. He forgot to breathe.
Even now—small, ugly, newborn—it was unmistakably a dragon. The Malfoy crest had never borne one, yet its wild, lethal beauty outshone their pampered peacocks a thousandfold.
"Merlin above…" he breathed, silently devouring the sight of the tiny creature gnawing Hagrid's finger.
A soul-deep tremor of beauty.
Followed by an ecstatic surge of destructive glee.
This was ironclad proof.
Imagine McGonagall's face when she saw this banned creature hidden with Potter.
Imagine the Ministry confiscating it—perhaps even his father acquiring it—while Potter was stripped of his wand and cast out.
He had intended to slip away and fetch a teacher.
But he stopped.
Something almost Gryffindor-like stirred in him.
Firelight danced inside.
Through the hazy condensation, the dragon's silhouette twisted and stretched in Draco's vision—becoming pure temptation.
He needed a clearer view.
He needed to personally rip away the lions' last shred of luck.
A mere report was for lesser men.
A true Malfoy would step onto the stage at the climax.
He would be both judge and executioner of this Savior farce.
He wanted to see Potter's foolish excitement curdle into despair. Wanted these idiots to spend every second before discovery drowning in terror.
Nothing pleased him more than the death-rattle of prey.
He didn't even consider whether anyone might be watching from the shadows.
If he had known Lucian was observing, he might have restrained himself.
But right now Draco Malfoy felt like the master of the darkness.
He drew his wand from his robes. Obsession with the dragon and hatred for Potter fused into sick exhilaration.
He stepped from the shadows and pressed his face to the grimy, oil-smeared glass of Hagrid's window.
He wanted to see every scale up close, every nascent hook, and—most of all—the moment these stupid lions realized they were finished.
In the pitch-black spring night, he whispered the spell.
His verdict.
"Lumos Maxima!"
Blinding white light erupted from his wand-tip.
In that instant it flooded the room—illuminating every pair of stunned, frozen eyes, illuminating the beautiful, damned Norwegian Ridgeback still clamped on Hagrid's finger, and illuminating Draco Malfoy's face outside the window—twisted with triumphant cruelty and blasphemous joy.
In this moment he was the judge.
Or so he believed.