Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in this story. This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J. K. Rowling. No money is being made.
Author's note July 3, 2004: This story was former known as Tamara Malfoy, but I decided to change the name since it was really annoying me. Plus, I changed just a little in the chapters but nothing relevant for the story. I simply re-read the first chapters and changed a bit in the language, maybe. Please notice that the two first chapters are more of an introduction to what she and her life are like; the real 'story' starts after that. Please don't read like one chapter and judge the story thereafter. It follows the books up to the fifth, since the sixth isn't out yet (not when I write this, at least) I made up my own plot from there.
Chapter 1 – My Life at Hogwarts
My name has always been like shadow over me. You see, I was a Malfoy, and I hated it. I never felt that I belonged at Malfoy Manor at all. Don't get me wrong now - I'm sure that you all think that my childhood was horrible, or something - but it wasn't. It's true that father never cared for me, but it didn't really bother me.
Mother used to bring me to tea parties at her lady friends' houses. I guess I was supposed to play with the other children, but I could early tell that we hadn't got anything in common. Instead I sat listening to the women's conversations, which gave me an early glimpse of what kind of life I was supposed to live.
Draco was a good big brother and not self-centered and arrogant that most of the people believed that he was. Inside, he could actually be a sympathetic boy. Father taught him a lot, knowledge that Draco later on passed on to me.
I missed him when he went for Hogwarts, and life at Malfoy Manor became undeniably very depressing. I looked forward to Christmas the whole autumn, and became very disappointed being told that he wasn't planning on coming home for Christmas. I felt it like he had let me down, because when he finally came home for summer holidays he was like another person. He had been a real Malfoy, and father was very proud of him.
My summer became long and unbearable, waiting for my Hogwarts letter. I worried about being a Squib, a non-magical born in a wizard family, but of course the letter finally arrived. September the 1st was coming closer, and it felt the day of my freedom. It was the day that I had waited for my whole life.
We met a couple of mum's lady friends' children at the train station. Mother and father left me off at the train in the same compartment as Alice Burbeaut, Janet von Schineidel and a couple of other girls, who were all in the same style that we Malfoy's at least were supposed to be in, sat. Draco had gone somewhere with his friends Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, and I felt totally left out by myself.
I barely said a word to the other girls at the whole trip. At the train station where we arrived Hagrid the half-giant, who showed the way to the first-years' traditional boat trip, met us. My stomach ached, because I know what was coming. This was what I had been thinking about the last few hours, and I was so scared: The Sorting.
Malfoy is in the middle of the alphabet, so I guess that about half of the students were sorted before me. When my name, Malfoy, Tamara finally was called, I was shaking so much that I barely could stand. I didn't even know which house I wanted to be in. I didn't belong in Slytherin, but I was a Malfoy, for Christ's sake! Where can you possibly put a Malfoy, but in Slytherin? I also guessed what everybody would react like is I wasn't put there.
Professor McConagall put the hat on my head. I looked towards to the Slytherin table, and caught Draco's eye. He was looking straight at me and I looked down into the floor, avoiding his demanding gaze.
"This is interesting," a thin voice said in my ear. "You would expect it to be Slytherin, of course, but something tells me that's not entirely correct. You do not belong there, and you know that. Guess if everybody will be surprised when I say GRYFFINDOR!"
Draco raised his eyebrows, looking like he couldn't believe what he had just heard. Every single thing that was going on in the great hall seemed to have stopped. Approximate three people applauded unenthusiastically. I stood up at my shaking legs and managed somehow to get down to the table and have a seat. I stared down into the table and try not to show that I knew that people was whispering and looking at me. I felt a great relief when finally the last student, Weasly, Ginny was put in Gryffindor, because then the empty plates were filled with food and people started eating, laughing and talking.
Life at Hogwarts was as lousy as life at home, maybe a little less uneventful. I had a hard time making friends. There were rumors that I had cheated my way into Gryffindor, that I was a spy from Slytherin, and stuff like that. Draco pretended that I didn't exist and the other people from Slytherin looked upon me like a traitor.
That guy Harry Potter and his two best friends didn't really make things easier. They started their own little investigation about something called the Chamber of Secrets. There were rumors that father had opened it twenty years ago, and now it was going to be opened again, by Draco, whom they believed to be the heir of Slytherin. I found it quite amusing, actually. Sure Draco wasn't directly the most popular guy in the school – except for among the Slytherins – but he's not evil, and definitively not the heir of Slytherin. I didn't really bother, until the rumours changed into me being the one who should open it.
But eventually the mystery was solved, of course that Harry Potter was the hero. I found him rather irritating, he was always going to be the hero.
My summer back at Malfoy Manor was... strange. I was scared of coming home. Mother and father hadn't spoken to me since they were told that I was in Gryffindor, and I was worried that they would pretend that I didn't exist, or something. And they kind of did. Father didn't spoke to me at all, mother was polite but I felt there was a kind of distance between us that hadn't been there before. I almost didn't see Draco at all. He spent most of the summer with his friends Goyle and Crabbe. Sometimes they were at Malfoy Manor, and then I made sure I was out of their way. Goyle and Crabbe really seemed to hate me, and I was kind of afraid of them.
I spent most of the time drawing. I had never been very interested in drawing, had never drawn very much at all. But one day, when I was sitting in my room, looking gloomily out on the rain through the window, I unconsciously started drawing Hogwarts from my memory. I became so devoured by the drawing that I continued drawing intensively the whole day, only with a break for dinner.
Later, I realized that drawing really wasn't very good. But I got inspired to draw more and practice makes you better, right? At the end of the summer I could draw pretty well. I had a drawer in my desk that became filled with drawings during the summer. I drew portraits of every person I knew, self – portraits, Hogwarts, Malfoy Manor, views, Diagon Alley filled with people from Hogwarts.
After what felt like ten years, instead of those couple of months that it really was, summer eventually came to its end, the letter from Hogwarts arrived and I started packing.
My second year wasn't much better than the first one. There was a new teacher in Defence against the Dark Arts, a Professor Lupin, since Professor Lockhart from last year had his memory almost completely removed. Lupin was much better than Lockhart, who had been pretty irritating.
The mass murder Sirius Black had escaped from Azkaban, and suddenly there were dementors in Hogwarts' Area. There were even dementors that stopped the Hogwarts Express in the middle of nowhere on its way to Hogwarts to search the train for Sirius Black. I didn't like them at all, actually. I felt so... unhappy when I faced them.
The only thing I liked with school was Professor Lupin's classes in Defence against the Dark Arts. It was also in his class that I had my first real conversation with another fellow student ever.
We were going to practice the disarm conjuration, and Lupin divided us into pairs. He put me together with Ginny Weasly. I became very happy when she didn't sigh or roll her eyes, like I knew that most of the other ones would do if they got me as their partner. The professor swung his wand and the room was cleared on all tables and chairs. Everyone faced each other. I and Ginny raised our wands and yelled in the same moment:
"Expelliarmus!"
My wand gave a strange little noise and there was some smoke. Ginny succeed better, though, and I was thrown backwards, landing on my back a couple of meters away. She laughed, stepped forward and stretched her hand towards me to help me up.
"I wasn't prepared, I muttered."
"Yeah, sure..."
And the next time it went better. The conjuration was shot out from our ands at exact the same moment, and collided in the air with a huge crack that echoed in the whole classroom. The blast wave sent me backwards, but I managed to keep my feet on the ground. Everything that was going on in the classroom stopped and everyone turned around.
"Well, well," Professor Lupin said, "I see we had two very strong disarm conjurations here. That's what it should look like, well done Miss Weasly and Miss Malfoy."
I didn't like him saying my name. God, what I hated it. I was really ashamed of my name. I felt that Ginny would remember who I really was and become cold like all the other students, but she wasn't. We continued practicing, and it went really well.
There was one class that I didn't enjoy at all. Potions, with Professor Snape. We had that class together with Slytherin. Snape was the head of the Slytherin House, and seemed to hate everyone from Gryffindor, especially me. He looked upon me as a traitor. We always got a lot of assignments to write. I did everything my best, but never got more than Average on them. I really did everything I could to write the best, but never managed to make Snape satisfied.
There was one thing that took major place in my mind. Professor Lupin was gone for a few days from time to time. Okay, that's not very strange indeed, everyone becomes ill sometimes, but he seemed to be sick after a schedule or something. I knew that Snape made potions for Lupin when he was ill, and for a while I suspected that Snape was poisoning Lupin or something, but soon I changed my mind. Since I hadn't got very many friends, I spent a lot of time in the library, reading stuff that seemed interesting. After a while I started reading astronomy and watch the stars. I noticed that every time it was full-moon Lupin became ill. In the beginning I didn't get a thing, but after a while a crazy explanation began to form inside my head. At this time, I was spending every minute of my free time in the library – and finally I got my proof. Lupin was a werewolf. Suddenly I understood everything. Snape made potions that were supposed to make Lupin less dangerous, or something. Dumbledore had to know about it, right? Yes, I was sure that he knew, so I never told anyone. And who could I have told, anyway?
Defence against the Dark Arts wasn't as much fun anymore. I realized that I expected Professor Lupin to turn into a werewolf and attack us all any second, but of course he never did.
Sirius Black was caught on Hogwarts Area. Scary, how did he get in? But in some kind of way, he managed to escape from the dementors – again. At the end of the year people knew everything about Lupin being a werewolf, and he had to leave the school at the end of the term.
This summer was almost worse than the last one. Strange stuff was to happening at Malfoy Manor. I could wake up in the middle of the night and here father talking to someone, whose voice I didn't recognize. I could come down into the kitchen in the middle of the day, and see a person suddenly transfer away. Mother and father could be talking about something and suddenly stop when I entered the room. So I spent most of the time in my room, drawing the whole days and longing back to Hogwarts. Relieved, I finally got my Hogwarts letter and September the 1st was coming closer.