If the morning air was cool and crisp, that was nothing to what it was like at a hundred miles an hour. The cold wind in his face, Draco dodged and weaved through the trees, rolled over limbs, and dived to race along the gully that ran through the forest as fast as he could. Straight ahead stood an ancient yew tree - gnarled, wide, and foreboding. With a grin he raced straight for it, pushing the broom for even more speed. At the last possible second he swerved and started to climb, rolling on his broom as he dashed through the surrounding tree's leaves and broke through the canopy into the bright morning light.
Blinking at the sudden change, Draco slowed and came to a halt, hovering a good hundred feet in the air as he turned to take in his home. The gently rolling hills of Wiltshire spread out before him, showing but a small part of what would someday be his; it was a testament to the greatness of his bloodline. For nearly a thousand years the Malfoys had owned this land, only the greatest of them truly making the land their own.
The well-manicured lawns were rich and green, useful for annual gatherings of the who's who of wizarding society: ranking members of the Old Families, Ministry officials, foreign dignitaries, and wealthy businessmen seeking the influence his father had. This was his father's vision; him and his mother's. Everything from the mansion of a manor house with its gardens and white peacocks to the gazebo by the lake, even the little boathouse with its tiny ships shaped like swans, all of it was new, built within his lifetime or shortly before, though they liked to claim it was older.
While growing up his mother had told him this was what the entire world would be like once the purebloods took their proper place and ruled free of muggle filth, but now he saw it for what it was, a waste. It was nothing more than useless frills to impress people they shouldn't even be bothering with. What did it matter what the morons in the Ministry thought? The only thing that mattered was what the Malfoys told them to think. Anyone who defied them deserved to be punished - painfully, personally, and publicly. That would teach the rest to fall in line.
And what did they need a Ministry for anyway? Such a stupid way to run things; it should just be one person giving commands and having them be obeyed like it was under the Dark Lord. They didn't need clumsy clerks and bumbling bureaucrats, they needed soldiers, ones just smart enough to do what they were told but not smart enough to think for themselves - like Crabbe and Goyle. That was the one thing muggles had actually done right in their world, from what he'd been told. One man raised above others as a king, in some places revered as a god, with the power of life and death over everyone, their very word being law. That's what they should have; it's what he should have.
As the sunlight warmed the chill from his body Draco couldn't keep his smirk from growing, not that he cared to. He would have it all one day; it was what he was born for. With the whole of wizarding Britain in his grip, the Dark Lord was soon to look to the continent to expand his power. That would require someone to remain behind to keep order at home, and the Malfoys had the bloodlines, the power, and the inheritances to put themselves forward as the new ruling power in Britain. It was to be their reward for their steadfast dedication and loyalty to the cause.
With the Dark Lord dead and gone all of it had fallen away, but the confusion that followed had let many of his supporters slip away unnoticed, at least according to his mother. The ones who could lie well enough or had the means to wriggled free, like his father, while others sold out supporters they knew to save themselves or went overseas, while still others slunk back into a life of crime. The Dark Lord had taken all kinds, even werewolves; the subhuman monsters deserved to be hunted down like the dogs they were once they no longer had a use.
But all of them would be back, he knew, once another man stepped forward with the guts to do what it took to put the mudbloods in their place and put fear back into the rest of the population. For a time, some - like his mother - had thought it would be Potter. The Perfect Poncy Prince Potter; how could anyone think he'd be the new Dark Lord? Draco had known he'd never measure up the moment he'd seen him on the train, but he still lowered himself to extend his hand because it's what his parents wanted - only then to be passed over for a Mudblood, a Blood Traitor, and an oafish wild man who lived in a hut and smelled like wet dog!
'"Only a more powerful Dark Lord could defeat the Dark Lord, '" he mentally mocked in his mother's voice. '"The Dark Lord will want him as one of ours when he returns from Beyond the Grave" indeed, ' Draco rolled his eyes.
His mother was an idiot and his father was a fool. Make friends with Potter, they said; get in good with Potter, they said. Show him the right people to know, steer him down the proper path, and get him involved with a proper Pureblood girl. How was he supposed to do all that when he showed up wearing baggy muggle clothes like some house-elf and didn't know anything about anything - and then chose to spit on his offer to look past all that?
Draco had only done what his father would've done - if he couldn't be made into an ally to be stabbed in the back later on he'd marked him as a Blood Traitor to be crushed under his shoe. He had no call to be mad at him for that, none! It's what he'd been trained to do. If Potter had spit in his father's face he wouldn't have turned around and offered to kiss the boy's arse; that's not what Malfoys do.
Malfoys get even; they find out what you're doing and tell it to those who'll get you in trouble. They drag you down into the dirt and bury you; that's all he'd been doing. It wasn't his fault McGonagall and Dumbledore thought Potter's shite smelled like roses and tasted like chocolate, but his father didn't want to hear it. Somehow he'd learned about the spat with Potter last year and blamed him for making it so public saying, "changes were going to have to be made."
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