A beautiful face.
"Merlin, seriously. If she weren't so pretty, I'd have smacked her by now."
A great house of pureblood.
"The Hogwarts Board of Governors, the Parents' Association, and, merlin's ballsack, there's one in Slytherin too! How does the Malfoy family manage to have their fingers in every pie when there are only four of them?"
Excellence in both scholarship and skill.
"Do something about Snape! The favoritism in Potions and Quidditch is completely out of hand! How on earth are the rest of us supposed to practice?!"
Always the most conspicuous presence in the room, always shining brightest, Carina Malfoy. One could call her the protagonist of Hogwarts.
Even the Gryffindors, who bared their teeth at the mere mention of Slytherin, tucked those teeth away the moment she appeared. When she smiled like an angel, even the most demanding professors stepped forward to accommodate her.
She never had to lift a finger. Hogwarts was full of fools who would have given anything just to brush her fingertips.
Devotees swarmed around her like leaves adorning a branch; lesser creatures hovered at the edges, hoping to catch even a trace of her scent. Tedious tasks were offloaded onto those lesser creatures; anything unpleasant was swept away by the leaves.
Save the smiles for the sun. Her smile was far too precious to waste on anything earthbound.
Yet even she, who might be called the protagonist of the world, had a rival. His name was Harry Potter. The Chosen One.
Malfoy had disliked Harry Potter from the very first moment she laid eyes on him.
Well—take off those glasses and he was passable enough, objectively speaking. She could admit that much. Without those wretched frames, he might even have been worth a second glance.
He too came from a pure-blood line and a great house; by some accounts, the Potter fortune rivaled the Malfoys' own. And yet his manner was utterly without refinement, which meant that girls who knew no better praised him for being "down-to-earth."
His marks were decent enough, and he was the youngest Quidditch Seeker in Hogwarts history. Strip away everything else and judge on "qualifications" alone, and he was nearly her equal—another candidate for the title of Hogwarts protagonist.
But Malfoy knew it was all just hype. The Chosen One.
On the night he was born, the Dark Lord had vanished. That single coincidence was why everyone looked at Harry Potter through rose-tinted glasses and treated him like something extraordinary.
In truth, without that scar on his forehead, his face was forgettable. Just another unremarkable boy.
Raised by Muggles, apparently, which explained the complete lack of decorum. That wasn't being down-to-earth. He just looks dirt-poor.
He spent every lesson distracted, and the only reason his marks held up was that wretched mudblood girl he dragged everywhere with him. As for Quidditch... well. Hype. Hype on the scale of a Bubble-Head Charm.
Malfoy had always privately considered herself the superior of the two. Which was precisely why it grated on her nerves, every single time he stepped into the spotlight and drew every eye in the room.
When Gryffindor had taken the House Cup, she'd bitten her nails down to nothing from the stress. Crabbe had stopped her before she did any real damage.
In any case. Hogwarts would have been so much better without him. This life of hers would have been so much more beautiful, so much more peaceful-
"Hey, Malfoy. Shut up and listen."
That life shattered into pieces over a single diary.
"You and your father. You're both in a very difficult position right now."
Malfoy stared at the diary with trembling eyes. The diary her father had meant to leave at Borgin and Burkes. The one said to contain Dark magic.
She had known something of her father's plan. Not everything, but enough. She hadn't imagined a monster like a Basilisk would appear, but since no one had actually died, she'd told herself it could be managed somehow.
Her father was a remarkable man. He wielded influence over the Ministry of Magic and held the Hogwarts Board of Governors in the palm of his hand. Brilliant and powerful, in every sense of the word.
And yet...
"This diary is one of Voldemort's Horcruxes. Which means it's a vessel for his soul, an artifact created to ensure his return. Your father exposed this Horcrux to destruction just to get Arthur Weasley into trouble."
The threat laid before her shattered the ground beneath Malfoy's feet. Her head swam. The earth she'd been standing on all her life felt suddenly like thin glass. Cracking with a slow, terrible sound, and then, in one instant, splintering apart. As though she might fall through it into an endless dark.
She forced herself to speak.
"D-do you have proof?"
"Think for a moment, you idiot. To produce proof, I'd have to hand this diary over to the Ministry. The moment I do that, every Death Eater who's burrowed inside the Ministry learns it's a Horcrux. Do you understand what that means?"
Harry Potter roughed his hair back with an irritated hand. The sharp eyes behind his glasses cut straight through her. Malfoy sucked in a shaky breath and trembled.
"Honestly, your father turning himself in for opening the Chamber of Secrets would be the better outcome. The worst the Ministry could do is lock him in Azkaban, and with his connections, even that might not stick."
"O-our father won't be locked up! He said he has people at the Ministry and influence in the Wizengamot!"
"Exactly. That's why it's the better option. Because if Voldemort returns and discovers that one of his souls has been destroyed, he won't waste time looking for evidence. He'll simply cast one more Killing Curse."
Voldemort. The Dark Lord. The one who had vanished the night Harry Potter was born, the old master of the Malfoy house.
Malfoy had always harbored a vague, instinctive reverence for the Dark Lord, as any Malfoy would, as any Slytherin would. Every time Harry Potter spoke that name so carelessly, something in her flinched. She'd always wanted to leap to her feet and snap at him to stop.
But the moment she looked at the diary pierced through by a basilisk fang, her mind went blank and her hands and feet began to shake.
Harry Potter looked down at her and spoke.
"That's why I'm warning you directly. Your father has destroyed one of Voldemort's seven lives. Your family needs to keep its head down. If that's not possible, then at least you do. Aiding the Death Eaters will bring your house nothing—when Voldemort returns, they'll be your greatest enemies."
The Malfoy family possessed vast wealth and maintained country estates scattered across the land. Those estates had occasionally sheltered Death Eaters with nowhere else to go. And Harry spoke as though he had seen through every last detail of it.
"This is a threat, Malfoy."
He said it with a coldness that had no business belonging to someone his age.
"If it comes out what this diary is—and how it was destroyed—your family is finished. The Ministry and the Death Eaters alike will turn against you. They'll come to the table with forks and knives, ready to carve up everything you have. If you want to keep this from becoming public knowledge... become our hostage."
"A—a hostage?"
"That's right. You probably don't know anything useful anyway. The only role I have in mind for you is hostage. Nothing more."
Malfoy pressed both hands to her chest and shook.
Those who wished for the Dark Lord's return. Those who sought to prevent it.
In truth, Malfoy had never cared which world came. Whether the Dark Lord returned or not, she would still be the protagonist of whatever world followed.
But now. Now that the diary had been destroyed beyond all repair—
"F-fine... if that's what it takes."
For herself, and for her family, Malfoy had no choice but to reach for the other rope her enemy was dangling before her.
"I'll do it! I'll—I'll join your side!"
"I'm glad you're smarter than you look, Malfoy. Though that's a very low bar."
Harry rose from his seat and extended his hand. That hand looked, to Malfoy, exactly like a serpent's fang.