#procidensdraco

[ Draco Malfoy | Situation, Action, Outcome ]

A reading for @procidensdraco. Card interpretations are from the Golden Thread Tarot app.

[ Situation | Page of Pentacles, reversed ] Daydreams, Impracticality, Laziness. With this card reversed, your enthusiasm in starting your new venture has perhaps tapered off. You find yourself lost amongst the clouds in daydreaming, and not coming to any practical action.  

[ Action | Five of Pentacles, reversed ] Recovery, Isolation. The scarcity that is normally marked by this card is beginning to fade away. There is a sense that you are just beginning to recover from what you feel like you were lacking. You are seeing the chances around you that can use.  

[ Outcome | The Hanged Man, reversed ] Stalling, Needless Sacrifice, Fear of Sacrifice. To move forwards, one must sometimes take two steps back. You understand this, but there is a sense of hesitation here, you do not want to let go of all that you have achieved. On the other hand, perhaps your sacrifice has already occurred, and you are feeling that it didn’t produce that results you thought it would.

Her feet dragged along the marble floors, her body threatened to collapse, and her limbs twitched. Lavender tried blinking rapidly to make sure she was still awake; the last thing she wanted was to fall face first into whatever potion Slughorn had them brewing – though that was more preferable than sitting another class with the Carrows. Besides, she should be used to burns; sometimes they got particularly creative with their punishments.

It wasn’t the first time Lavender had followed Malfoy in this direction, though this time she felt a lot heavier, and this time it was because she was under the impression that potions was combined with Gryffindors and Slytherins today. Her thought process consisted of right, I have potions today and shit, I need to give Seamus his homework back….

Her face collided with his back while she was in thought about when she was supposed to have done that assignment. She didn’t bother stifling her yawn as she stepped back after realizing what had just happened. Had it been anyone else, she would have giggled and said a quiet little oops to excuse herself. But she was just so damn tired to the point where she forgot that there were consequences for rudeness. “What the hell, Malfoy? You’re in my way.”

Four Headcanons for @carriesdeath:

The first person who told Tracey Davis about Harry Potter was Draco Malfoy – not deliberately, but he was complaining and she was listening; it wasn’t hard, because he complained about Harry Potter a lot, and often loudly. It is perhaps no wonder, then, that Tracey’s initial impression of Potter was less than favorable; the fact that the first time the Boy Who Lived had a direct impact on Tracey’s life was when he ruined her very first flying lesson did nothing to improve her opinion. The absolute travesty of the Leaving Feast at the end of the year – when Tracey and the other Slytherins walked in giddy and gleeful, eager to celebrate their eight year of winning the House Cup (important even to the first years, who had been explicitly cautioned not to do anything to ruin Slytherin’s chances), only to have Professor Dumbledore deliberately (it had to be deliberate; no accident could have resulted in him giving precisely enough points to change the results!) take the Cup from right under their noses and award it to the Gryffindors instead, due entirely to Harry Potter and his friends – left Tracey absolutely devastated, and in completely agreement with Draco: Harry Potter was horrible.

Second year things go worse. The Chamber of Secrets was opened by their Heir of Slytherin and, while many of Daphne’s housemates seemed to find this event more fascinating than fearsome, Tracey was terrified. She was a Muggle-born herself, after all, even if no one at Hogwarts knew it – but would that keep her safe from the Heir? She did her best to hide her fear but it bubbled over before long; fortunately the first to be attacked had been Mr. Filch’s cat, and Tracey had been able to pass her fear off as resulting from the fact that she was descended from Squibs and she worried that the Heir would consider her a fair target, too. No one seemed to suspect anything odd about that explanation, but keeping her secret intact didn’t mean Tracey felt any safer. When Harry Potter was revealed to be the Heir during their first attempt at dueling club, Tracey had gone back to her dormitory and cried for three hours, certain she was going to die. It didn’t matter how much Draco complained that Potter couldn’t be the Heir; Tracey didn’t believe him. Even if she had, so what? Someone was hunting down Muggle-borns, which meant they were hunting her. The rest of that year was a blur; she could barely shake-off her terror enough to focus in class and her grades took a significant dip from her first year. When everything was finally over, and Harry Potter exonerated in front of the school (and awarded another obnoxious round of points), Tracey didn’t feel much different towards him; he had been involved in all the nastiness somehow and Dumbledore had not given much in the way of explanation. Once again, Tracey decided Draco had the right of it.

When the Goblet of Fire spat out Harry Potter’s name, Tracey was hardly surprised. Of course that bloody boy would be in the tournament, never mind that the rules said it was impossible – when had rules ever mattered to him? Frankly she was offended that Dumbledore had had the gall to even act surprised; even if he hadn’t set this up for Potter (and she was rather convinced he had), he had been rewarding the boy for his rule breaking since day one. Of course Potter would find a way to get himself into the tournament – and of course Tracey and the rest of the Slytherins would do their best to make him miserable for it. Tracey had been thrilled to wear her “Potter Stinks” button (she had hardly ever bothered to switch it to “Support Cedric Diggory” unless a teacher was looking) and by the time the year ended – with Potter once again mucking everything up, this time resulting in someone else actually dying, never mind that Dumbledore refused to blame Potter of course – she had several extra buttons stashed in her trunk. The Triwizard Tournament was a one-year even, but Harry Potter? He would surely find a way to ruin things for everyone again next year. Tracey was sure the buttons would come in handy another time.

“But it must have been talking about Pansy Parkinson, right? She’s the one who saw -- my brother told me it was, and he heard it from a Hufflepuff prefect!”

Tracey didn’t know why the first years were bothering her. She told herself that it was just because she was less threatening than any of the other seventh year students, due to her having the lowest blood-status of the group (and yet still so much lower than any of them suspected) and not because they knew anything. Still, it made her nervous, being quizzed about the writing on the greenhouse windows -- why had she done that? She once again silently cursed the reckless rush of fear and anger that had made her think it was a good idea to cast that spell.

“I bet it was Peeves that did it!” the shortest of the little girls said, and a flare of annoyance shot through Tracey’s veins. It was one thing not to want to take credit for her handiwork (only an idiot would spread a rumor about Pansy Parkinson and then take credit) and quite another to have that credit given to Peeves the Poltergeist.

Tracey glared at the first year, then narrowed her eyes still further when a shock of white-blonde hair caught her gaze over the little girl’s head. She smirked. “If you really want to know,” she said loudly, making all the first years look at her again, “why don’t you ask Malfoy over there?” Tracey pointed, although she hardly needed to; all the first years had flinched and jerked to look over their shoulders toward where Draco sat curled in one of the tall-backed chairs farthest from the fire. It still caught Tracey off-guard, the sight of Draco Malfoy sitting by himself at the ends of the low-ceilinged dungeon room, rather than claiming a spot right in front of the fire with his burly buddies, but the first years weren’t startled by the fact that Draco wasn’t trying to be the center of everyone’s attention: it was Draco himself who made them nervous now, and they weren’t about to brave striking up a conversation to ask him anything about Pansy.

They fled, and Tracey grinned, until she realized that Malfoy was now staring at her. She suppressed a wince and swore at herself again. Why didn’t she think things through? Of course Draco would notice her saying his name, pointing at him; now what was she supposed to do?

Having no better option, Tracey made herself walk over to him as though she had planned on striking up a conversation all along. She tried to force a smile, but wasn’t sure she’d managed it very well. Still, her voice was light and cheerful at least when she said, “So were the brats right, Malfoy? Was it Parkinson who started all the kerfuffle Thursday night?” Before she could remind herself that poking at Draco Malfoy wasn’t necessarily a safe thing to do this year even when Crabbe and Goyle weren’t around to play bodyguard, she added brightly, “And if it was Potter, who are you more jealous of -- Parkinson, for knowing him at a glance the way the window said, or Potter for having someone paying that much attention to him who isn’t you?”

Four Headcanons for @procidensdraco:

Padma never disliked having playdates and tea parties with Draco Malfoy, for all that she and her sister determined he was horrendously spoiled at an early age. Did it matter that he threw a tantrum if he didn’t get to be the one to pour the tea, or insisted on having his pick of the dolls or broomsticks or animated plushes? They were used to sharing, and he wasn’t; there was no reason to mind if he got a bit bossy. He was funny, and he liked telling stories, and he always had something outlandish to talk about. And after a few hours he would go home again, and their life went back to normal and they could do whatever they wanted without worrying that they were going to upset Spoiled Little Draco. That wasn’t too high a price to pay for an entertaining afternoon, Padma thought.

He was a little less entertaining at school, acting like more of a bully than a spoiled brat – or maybe she’d just never seen him around someone who didn’t meet his standards or acquiesce to his demands, and he’d always been a bully at heart. That didn’t really matter either, because they saw less of each other at school than they had back when they had been children, only crossing paths in the hallways and sharing a few classes – and while Draco was a show-off in class, Padma didn’t think there was anything wrong with that. If anything she envied him, because she’d have liked to show-off more than she did but she was too shy to bring herself to do so when Parvati wasn’t around to lead the way. Certainly Draco could be annoying at times, but he was rarely cruel (not to her, at least) and he wasn’t stupid. There were worse things a person could be than boastful, to Padma’s mind.

They only shared one dance together at the Yule Ball, but it was one of the nicest dances Padma had that night (no thanks to stupid Ron Weasley), maybe the nicest she had with any of the boys she danced with -- not only because Draco didn’t step on her toes but because he actually managed to compliment her dress robes without mentioning her sister. Padma still isn’t sure if he was being sincere or if he was just following his mother’s instructions, but she appreciated it – and after all, say what you like about Draco’s attitude in general, there was no denying that he could spot bad fashion a mile away. The laugh the two of them shared over the horrible maroon robes Ron was wearing made Padma feel even better than the compliment he gave hers.

There are always derby’s in Ireland but Mckinnon Flying Horse derby is one of a kind and marvelous. Seamus has gone at least four times, once when he was five and very nearly got banned after the frilliest wizard kid he had ever seen tried to follow him up on a perch and fell into mud (or we better hope that’s mud). Seamus laughed. He hasn’t realized that that was Draco.

Seamus is never going to tell Draco the hat suggested Slytherin when it was on his head for a full minute. Absolutely not. Seamus has his pride, thank you.

If asked, Seamus would say he is not friends with Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy would probably insult his da (though, honest, his da might have earned it sometimes)  and his ma and probably his great grandmother to boot. Nonetheless, Prefect Draco has... been. Around. A lot. If there’s a particularly bad detention, Draco’s letting the Carrow’s know there is something they need to look at right now. Sometimes he even s the student waiting to let them out. Its...odd. And Seamus does’t think they’re friends--but there have been times, tricks of a moment maybe, where it was almost like it. 

@procidensdraco

Padma had come to hate her prefect duties over the last four months. Even looking out for the younger Ravenclaws had developed an unpleasant aspect since Snape and the Carrows had taken control of Hogwarts: now instead of helping with homework or soothing homesickness, Padma was helping to heal minor wounds and offering useless words of comfort to the recently-crucioed. She wasn’t sure what was worse: that feeling of helplessness in the face of fear and tears or the fact that her responsibilities to serve the school now included having to answer to the enemy. It included being pulled from her bed, hair sloppily braided and robes haphazardly laced, so she could be dispatched to search the school for the source of tonight’s alarm.

As near as she could tell, it had been almost an hour since the alarm had been raised -- but Professor Snape thought that whoever had breached the walls of Hogwarts might still be here, so the prefects had been summoned to help the teachers search for them...whether they wanted to assist their murderous new headmaster or not.

She wasn’t the only member of the D.A. in such an uncomfortable position -- indeed, several of her fellow prefects had joined Dumbledore’s Army; perhaps being willing to break the rules for the greater good of education and student fellowship was a trait that their Heads of House had valued, even if only subconsciously -- and most of them agreed with Neville’s assertion that keeping their positions was worth shutting-up and swallowing unwelcome orders now and again. They could do more good for the students where they were, both in helping to mitigate the evils dealt-out by their new teachers and in acquiring information on behalf of the D.A....not to mention bending the rules on their fellows’ behalf, now and again.

But Padma didn’t like it. She didn’t like having to nod obediently when Professor Carrow told them to pair-up and search the grounds; didn’t like not knowing exactly what they were looking for and thus whether or not she ought to be honest if she found it -- was the school genuinely in danger? Or was it just Snape and Carrows who were threatened? Padma wished that she had some way to check in with her fellow D.A. members, to see if any of them were responsible for the night’s chaos -- but the coin in her pocket could only tell her so much. It was good for scheduling meetings, good for calling for help. It was not very useful for transmitting detailed messages. Uncomfortable though the idea was, Padma suspected that her best source of information at the moment was the boy walking next to her: Draco Malfoy.

Padma was more at ease in Draco’s presence than most of her fellow D.A. members, having several shared childhood memories to fall back on -- but she still felt awkward around him, as she did so many of her old friends and acquaintances; awkward, guilty, almost disloyal. She felt like she should defend them more -- or distance herself from them more. She wasn’t sure which was the right course of action; maybe both, maybe neither. For the moment she forced herself to put aside her discomfort as they climbed the stairs to the third floor and their appointed search-area, and asked, “Do you know anything about what we’re really meant to be looking for? Or who, I suppose?” Padma’s eyes darted nervously down the cross-hallways, looking for any sign of the ostensible intruder or intruders. “I mean, I heard what Professor Carrow said about someone breaking into Hogwarts but...that’s not really possible, is it? Whoever raised the alarm had to be mistaken -- right?”