5:30 AM.
The Slytherin first-year dormitory was submerged in a watery green darkness. The only sound was the thunderous snoring of Vincent Crabbe, who slept with his mouth open like a defective gargoyle, and Goyle's wheezing breath.
Draco's eyes snapped open.
There was no drowsiness. There was no moment of morning confusion. His mind turned on with the precision of a military switch.
He sat up in silence, pushing aside the silk sheets. His feet touched the cold carpet. While his dorm-mates slept the sleep of the ignorant, Draco sat in a lotus position on the floor, facing the reinforced window that looked out into the depths of the Black Lake.
He closed his eyes.
[SYSTEM: MORNING ROUTINE INITIATED][Protocol: Occlumency Active / Core Purification rising.]
Draco visualized his mind not as a library (too cliché), but as an impenetrable bank vault. He sorted through residual dreams, filed away the useless emotions of the previous night, and reinforced the perimeter walls.
Then, he moved to his magical core. He felt it beating in his chest, dense and dark. He breathed, forcing the magic to circulate through his limbs, waking every nerve, preparing to channel power without resistance.
Thirty minutes later, he stood up. His body felt light, charged with static energy.
[Daily Quest: "The Temple" COMPLETED][Reward: +1 Mana Recovery / Mental Clarity +5%.]
He dressed with ritual slowness. The starched white shirt. The knot of the green and silver tie, geometrically perfect. The robes, without a single wrinkle. He applied a cosmetic cleaning charm to his teeth and hair, ensuring his appearance was immaculate.
"Wake up," he said aloud, without shouting.
The dry sound of his voice cut through the air. Crabbe and Goyle startled, waking with confused grunts. Blaise Zabini, in the adjacent bed, opened one eye lazily.
"It's the crack of dawn, Draco..." Zabini complained.
"It is the hour of conquest, Blaise," Draco replied, adjusting his cufflinks in the mirror. "Those who sleep late end up working for those who rise early. I'll see you at breakfast. Do not be late."
—[
The Great Hall was nearly empty when Draco entered, followed by a Pansy Parkinson who, though sporting dark circles under her eyes, had ensured she was perfectly groomed to walk by his side.
"Good morning, Draco," she said, suppressing a yawn.
"Hair up suits you, Pansy," he commented without looking at her, taking a seat at the center of the empty table. "It shows your neck. Suggests vulnerability and elegance at the same time. Keep it."
Pansy flushed with pleasure, instinctively touching the back of her neck. Draco's validation was her new drug.
Shortly after, the mail arrived in a rain of owls.
A majestic eagle owl landed in front of Draco, extending a leg with a letter sealed in green wax and a small package.
Draco opened the letter with a silver knife. Narcissa's handwriting was angular and elegant.
My Dragon,
The house is quiet, although the peacocks in the garden are unusually agitated and noisy, shrieking at all hours. Your father is considering "re-educating" them, though he knows he cannot get rid of them without damaging the aesthetic of the garden.
I am sending you sweets from Honeydukes. Do not eat them all at once. Share with your allies.
With love, Mother.
Draco smiled faintly. Translation: Lucius is still furious ("noisy peacocks"), but he knows he cannot touch me without damaging the family reputation ("aesthetic of the garden").
He set the letter aside and picked up The Daily Prophet another owl had dropped.
The headline screamed in black letters: ATTEMPTED ROBBERY AT GRINGOTTS!
Draco read the article while sipping black tea. "...believed to be unknown dark wizards or witches... nothing was stolen, as the vault had been emptied that very same day..."
Draco laid the newspaper on the table, smoothing it with his palm.
"Quirrell is late," he muttered to himself.
"Did you say something?" asked Theodore Nott, who had just sat down opposite him, skimming a textbook.
"I said bank security is overrated if you trust blind goblins," Draco replied, just as the doors of the Great Hall banged open.
It was 8:00 AM. Rush hour.
Harry Potter and Ron Weasley came running in. Their ties were crooked, shirts untucked, and Harry's hair looked like it had been attacked by a blender. Ron was trying to eat a piece of toast as he sprinted toward the Gryffindor table.
"We made it! Almost missed breakfast!" Ron was heard shouting.
Draco didn't mock them. He didn't make a derogatory comment loud enough for the lions to hear. Instead, he tapped the table gently with his index finger to get the attention of his inner circle: Nott, Zabini, Pansy, and Greengrass.
"Observe," Draco said, nodding discreetly toward the panting Gryffindor duo. "That is the 'Savior of the Wizarding World'."
Daphne Greengrass wrinkled her nose. "He looks like he slept in a stable."
"It is chaos personified," Draco declared, his voice cold and didactic. "They cannot control their own schedule, nor their own clothing. How do they expect to control magic?"
He looked at his followers, his grey eyes drilling into each of them.
"In Slytherin, excellence is not an act; it is a habit. If any of you walk through that door looking like that, I will hex you myself before you sit down. Understood?"
The first-years nodded, a mixture of fear and respect on their faces. Seeing Potter spill pumpkin juice down his own robes a few seconds later, the lesson was branded into their minds: They are chaos. We are order.
"Good." Draco stood up, his robes falling perfectly straight. "Let's go to Transfiguration. I am curious to see if Miss Granger can do more than recite books like a trained parrot."
—[
Professor McGonagall was not a woman who tolerated stupidity. Her gaze swept the classroom like a surveillance beacon, pausing briefly on Draco, who returned a look of polite but relaxed attention.
"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she said, her voice cutting. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."
With a sharp flick of her wand, she turned her desk into a pig and then back to its original form. The class erupted in impressed murmurs. Draco barely arched a brow. Parlor tricks, he thought. Useful for impressing children, but true transformation isn't changing the shape; it's rewriting the essence.
"Your task today is simple," McGonagall announced, levitating a matchstick in front of each student. "Turn this into a needle."
The class began. The air filled with mispronounced incantations and wands waving like windmills.
Draco didn't move.
He sat at his desk, back straight, the ebony wand resting inert on the wood. Beside him, Pansy was desperately trying to change the color of her match, frowning in frustration.
In the next row, Hermione Granger was a storm of activity.
"Acus Verto!" she hissed, waving her wand with millimeter precision. "Acus Verto!"
Draco watched her. The System analyzed her magical flow.
[TARGET ANALYSIS: HERMIONE GRANGER][Technique: Textbook perfect.][Flow: Rigid. Excessive reliance on verbal pronunciation.][Flaw: Lack of creative visualization. She is trying to "obey" the spell instead of "commanding" the matter.]
Thirty minutes passed. No one had succeeded. Ron Weasley had only managed to make his match smell like sulfur. Harry Potter looked at his match as if expecting it to transform out of pity.
Finally, Hermione let out a squeak of triumph.
"Professor! Look!"
McGonagall approached, picked up the silver needle from Hermione's desk, and examined it under the light.
"Excellent, Miss Granger," she said, offering a rare smile. "Silver, sharp... Ten points to Gryffindor."
Hermione beamed, looking around with a smug smile that screamed "I'm the best." Her gaze crossed with Draco's.
"Problem, Malfoy?" she whispered, emboldened by her success. "I see your match is still wood."
Draco turned his head slowly toward her.
"I was waiting for the noise to cease, Granger. It is difficult to work the art when there is so much... static interference around me."
Hermione huffed.
"Magic isn't art; it's science. And you haven't done anything."
Draco smiled. He picked up his ebony wand. He didn't wave it frantically. He made a fluid, short, almost lazy movement.
He didn't speak a word.
His mind projected the image not of a generic needle, but of a relic. He imposed his will upon the wood, ordering the atoms to reconfigure under the law of his lineage.
The match didn't just change; it evolved.
In a blink, the wood vanished. In its place, resting on Draco's desk, was a needle. But it wasn't a common sewing needle. It was pure platinum. The eye of the needle was formed by two tiny coiled snakes, with microscopic scales perfectly detailed. The point was so fine it seemed to disappear into the air.
Silence spread outward from his desk. Pansy gasped.
McGonagall, who was walking away, stopped dead. She turned, her cat-like eyes widening in disbelief. She walked to Draco's desk and picked up the needle with delicate fingers, as if fearing it might be an illusion.
"Mr. Malfoy..." she whispered, bringing the needle close to her eyes. "This is... the detail is exquisite. Platinum? And engraved?"
"The matchstick wood had grain, Professor," Draco said indifferently. "I found it boring to ignore it, so I turned it into scales. Transformation should improve the object, not just change it."
McGonagall looked at him, stunned.
"Non-verbal spell. And artistic transfiguration on the first attempt." She straightened up, visibly impressed. "Twenty points to Slytherin. This is the most refined work I have seen from a first-year in decades."
Draco inclined his head slightly. Then, he turned to Hermione.
The Gryffindor girl's smile had vanished. She looked at the platinum needle in the professor's hand and then at her own simple silver needle. The difference was abysmal. One was a functional object; the other was a jewel.
Draco leaned toward her, invading her auditory space with a soft whisper.
"Your needle is for sewing buttons, Granger. Mine is for embroidering destinies." He looked her in the eye, enjoying how her intellectual security cracked. "That is the difference between reading the manual and understanding magic."
Hermione opened her mouth to retort, to quote some book, but nothing came out. She stood staring at her "perfect" needle, which suddenly seemed terribly vulgar.
[SYSTEM: ACADEMIC RIVALRY ESTABLISHED][Hermione Granger: Status -> Intellectual Insecurity (Severe).][Domination Progress: She now needs to know HOW you did it.]
Draco returned to his relaxed posture, ignoring Ron's hateful glares and Harry's confusion. The first lesson had been taught.
—[
The Potions classroom was a sanctuary to the preservation of death. Jars with creatures floating in formaldehyde lined the walls, and the dungeon chill was intense enough to see the breath of the Gryffindor students, who rubbed their arms for warmth.
Draco wasn't cold. The System regulated his body temperature with a biological efficiency that cost him 2 mana points per hour. A negligible investment to maintain composure.
He sat in the front row. Pansy placed herself beside him, organizing her ingredients with a meticulousness that mimicked—though did not match—Draco's.
The door banged open and Severus Snape entered like a giant bat, his black cloak billowing with a dramatic flair Draco found strangely nostalgic.
"There will be no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations in this class," Snape began, his voice barely a whisper that nonetheless reached every corner of the room.
Draco listened to the opening speech with his eyes closed, mentally reciting the words in unison with his Head of House. "Bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death..."
Snape stopped in front of Harry Potter.
"Potter!" he barked suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
Hermione's hand shot toward the ceiling. Harry looked at Ron in panic.
"I don't know, sir."
In the original timeline, Draco would have laughed. He would have sneered.
Now, Draco simply weighed his dried nettles on a brass scale, ignoring the interrogation. Asphodel and wormwood. The Draught of Living Death. Snape is using the language of Victorian flowers to say he regrets Lily's death. How... sentimental.
The System marked Snape:
[TARGET: SEVERUS SNAPE][Loyalty: Dumbledore (Guilt) / Lily Potter (Love).][Status: Emotionally Compromised.][Strategy: Silent Excellence.]
Snape continued to humiliate Potter a bit longer before setting them to work on a simple Cure for Boils.
The room filled with the sound of knives chopping roots and cauldrons bubbling.
Draco worked with the precision of a veteran alchemist.
"Pansy, crush the snake fangs, don't pulverize them," he instructed quietly, without looking. "If you turn them to dust, the reaction will be too fast and we'll lose potency."
"Yes, Draco," she murmured, correcting her technique instantly.
A few tables away, disaster was brewing.
Neville Longbottom was sweating profusely. His potion, which should be bright blue, was a swampy green and smoking dangerously. Seamus Finnigan looked at him, unsure what to do.
"I have to... I have to add the porcupine quills," Neville stammered, grabbing a handful of quills.
The cauldron was still on the fire.
Draco, from his table, felt the disturbance in the ambient magic before it happened. The System flashed a red alert.
[SECURITY ALERT: IMMINENT EXOTHERMIC REACTION][Cause: Quills + Fire.][Consequence: Corrosive acid explosion. Radius: 3 meters.][Impact: Your dragon-hide boots will get stained.]
Draco didn't sigh. He didn't shout.
He simply twirled his ebony wand under the table.
"Finite Incantatem. Glacius minora."
It was an inaudible whisper, an almost imperceptible flick of the wrist.
A beam of pale blue light hit the base of Neville's cauldron just as the quills touched the liquid.
Instead of melting the cauldron and spraying acid over Neville's legs, the potion hissed violently, turned solid grey, and froze into a harmless block of ice. The cauldron vibrated, but did not explode.
Neville let out a squeak and covered his face, expecting pain.
Nothing happened.
He opened his eyes. His potion was a giant mud popsicle.
Silence fell in the dungeon. Snape, who was criticizing Weasley, turned slowly. He walked to Neville's table, inspecting the frozen disaster.
"Longbottom..." Snape hissed. "You were going to add the quills with the fire on, weren't you?"
Neville trembled.
"Y-yes, sir."
Snape looked at the cauldron, then looked at the residual magical trace. His black eyes drifted toward the Slytherin table. Toward Draco.
Draco was slicing his horned slugs with indifference, as if he had nothing to do with it.
Snape approached Draco's table. He looked inside his cauldron. The potion was perfect: a bright cerulean blue, emitting the exact pink smoke described in the book.
"The potion is perfect, Malfoy," Snape said, softly. "And I see you have... unusual control over your environment."
He leaned in slightly, lowering his voice so the Gryffindors wouldn't hear.
"Preventing an incompetent from melting my dungeon floor shows foresight. Although I hope next time you let Longbottom learn his lesson through pain."
"The acid would have splashed my boots, Professor," Draco replied, not stopping his cutting. "And they are new. Longbottom's pain is not worth the price of my footwear."
Snape curled his lips into a crooked half-smile.
"Twenty points to Slytherin. For flawless execution and for... maintaining order."
He turned to Gryffindor, cloak billowing.
"Longbottom! Zero for your work today. Clean up that mess."
Draco wiped his silver knife.
Hermione Granger, from her table, watched him with narrowed eyes, biting her lower lip. She had seen the blue flash. She knew he had done something advanced, something not in the first-year books.
Draco looked at her and gave her an icy smile.
Keep watching, Granger. Maybe you'll learn something.
—[
The Hogwarts Library at dusk was a labyrinth of elongated shadows and golden dust suspended in beams of orange light. It was the kingdom of silence, and until that moment, the sanctuary of Hermione Granger.
But Draco didn't come to pray; he came to hunt.
Draco found her in the farthest section of Transfiguration, hidden behind a defensive rampart built of heavy tomes.
Hermione was hunched over Advanced Transubstantial Theory, a fifth-year book that clearly exceeded her current comprehension. Her hair was a static cloud of frustration, and her ink-stained fingers turned the pages with a violence that threatened to tear the parchment.
"It's not there," Draco said.
Hermione jumped in her chair, dropping her quill. She spun around, eyes red from hours of forced reading. Seeing Draco leaning casually against a bookshelf, hands in pockets and wearing that expression of bored superiority, her surprise turned to defensive hostility.
"What do you want, Malfoy?" she snapped, slamming the book shut. "If you're here to mock me, I'm busy."
"I am watching a shipwreck," Draco replied, slowly approaching her table. He walked without making a sound, a predatory skill that put Hermione's nerves on edge. "You are looking for the spell I used today. You are looking for the formula for the 'platinum transfiguration'."
Hermione pressed her lips together.
"It doesn't exist," she said, her voice trembling with the indignation of someone who believes the rules have been violated. "I've checked all of McGonagall's records. What you did... that needle... wasn't a standard transformation. It was..."
"A trick? Dark Magic?" Draco suggested softly, stopping right beside her chair.
"Cheating!" she accused. "You changed the nature of the material to platinum, not just the shape. That violates Gamp's Law of..."
"Gamp's Law is for mediocrities who need limits to feel safe," Draco cut her off.
Before she could protest, Draco reached out and took Hermione's wand, which was resting on the table.
"Hey! Give that back!" Hermione tried to stand, but Draco stopped her with a look. It wasn't a threatening look, but an authoritative one. The kind of look a master gives an undisciplined student.
"Sit down," he ordered.
To her own horror, Hermione obeyed.
Draco held her vine wood wand (dragon heartstring core, he noted with approval; it had potential) and twirled it between his long, pale fingers.
"Your problem, Granger, is not that you don't read enough," Draco said, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper. "It is that you read too much. And you think too much."
He leaned over her, resting one hand on the back of her chair and the other returning the wand, but not letting go entirely. When she grasped the wood, he kept his fingers over hers, correcting her grip.
Hermione froze. The contact of his cold skin against hers sent an electric shock that left her breathless. He was too close. He smelled of expensive soap, old parchment, and something metallic, like ozone before a storm.
"You are tense," Draco murmured near her ear. Hermione felt the heat of his breath, and a shiver ran down her spine. "Look at you. Rigid shoulders. Locked wrist. You are strangling the wand as if it were a weapon about to go off on its own."
Draco adjusted her fingers, forcing her to relax her grip.
"Magic is not an equation solved with brute force, Granger. It is a fluid. You have to invite it out, not drag it."
"I... I got a 112% on the theory exam," she stammered, her logical mind collapsing in the face of physical proximity and technical correction.
"And you will fail in practice when you have one second to react and can't remember the exact page of the book," Draco sentenced.
He released her hand slowly, letting the sensation of emptiness hit her.
"What I did with the needle wasn't a different spell. It was intention. I didn't 'ask' the wood to become metal. I imposed my reality upon the wood. I visualized the platinum. I visualized the snakes. And my magic obeyed because I left it no other choice."
Draco straightened up, returning to his imposing height. He looked down at the disheveled girl watching him with parted lips, eyes filled with a confused mix of hatred, admiration, and shame.
The System flickered in his vision, satisfied.
[TARGET PROGRESS: HERMIONE GRANGER][Mental State: Foundations Cracked.][New Belief: "Books are not enough".][Protagonist Obsession: Level 1 (Intense Intellectual Curiosity).]
"Stop looking in fifth-year books, Granger," Draco said, turning to leave. "The answer isn't on the paper. It's in the blood. And until you understand that, you will always be... second-best."
He left her there, alone in the library's gloom, staring at her own wand as if it were a strange object she had just met for the first time. Hermione Granger didn't cry. But that afternoon, for the first time in her life, she closed a book without finishing it.
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