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For Earth is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky

by Pata
 
 

Chapter 3
He Who Lies Down With Dogs...
 

I was sweating. All their eyes were on me. My mouth was dry, my palms moist. "My… my
tutoring sessions with Hermi – Granger – became more incessant because I became addicted
to learning," I concluded.

Ginny looked at me; she didn’t seem entirely satisfied, but it was enough to quell her inquiries for
the moment. However, the head judge was another story. His formerly warm brown eyes were
cold, cutting. I had clearly lost his support, for the time being, anyway.

"‘Addicted’, Mr. Malfoy?" He raised a dark eyebrow questioningly.

I nodded, swallowing the lump that had materialized in my throat. I wasn’t one to lose my cool
under pressure, but I was coming damn close. "Yes," I said, "addicted. I wanted to learn so
much, in so sort a time. I was…eager, Justice. Very eager."

I stole a glance at Hermione. So nodded, approving of my fabricated falsities. Encouraged, I
continued on, more boldly now: "I urged Granger to help me more, spend more time teaching me
things. I became somewhat overly ambitious. I wanted to be the smartest kid in Hogwarts.
Smarter than my father had been, smarter than my fellow Slytherins, smarter than Granger herself…"

*

They say, Justice, that he who lies down with dogs gets up with fleas. And I had lain down with
Hermione, and been bitten by a certain learning flea. A never-ending thirst, an itch for knowledge,
never quite quenched but only repressed. I longed for education; I was like a balloon, filled only
halfway with helium, though it could only fly when filled to the brim.

One Friday, after spending an hour in the library studying Ancient Runes, I begged of Granger,
"Please? Please help me again on Saturday; I need to work on Astronomy."

She looked at me. "Astronomy? But that can only be done outside, at night."

"Then meet me on the rock by the lake, at nine-thirty. We’ll study the stars. I need help," I implored,
putting on my best puppy-dog face. "I need to work on my mapping, and which star is which, and
when they’re visible…"

She held a finger to my lips, silencing me. "I’ll meet you, Malfoy, don’t get your knickers all twisted up."

And then she left. I started packing up my books, shoving things hurriedly into my rucksack. I slung
the green, Slytherin-marked pack over one shoulder and went to leave when a book caught my eye.
Fahrenheit 451. A muggle book, which had somehow found its way into the Hogwarts library. It
looked intriguing somehow, a small black turtleback with red flames licking up the spine, the author’s
name printed in silver ink: Ray Bradbury.

I picked it up, flipping it over and reading the summary on the back. A story about a society in which
all books were burned…

Fahrenheit 451…is the temperature at which paper burns, I recalled from my recently acquired
stock of knowledge.

It sounded good, so I checked it out. The librarian clearly didn’t notice that it was muggle book; she
simply scanned it into her record book and allowed me to take it, but not without reminding me that
I owned three sickles for an overdue book. I remembered it well; Crabbe, big oaf that he was, had
thrown it into the lake where it had ultimately rotted away or been devoured by the waterbeasts some
months ago.

I extracted the change from my pocket and strode calmly out of the library. I walked back the
Slytherin common room, where I curled up a nice, comfy spot on the couch in front of the fire, which
I had turned a vibrant blue-green with a charm earlier that day just for a change, and opened my book.

*

At this, my father Lucius Malfoy interrupted angrily. "Draco!" he chastised me. "You were reading a
muggle book?"

I cowered back, reflexively bring my arms up to shield myself. "It looked engaging…"

"‘Engaging’? ‘Engaging,’ my ass!" His voice had risen to dangerously high levels. It was at this point,
had we been at home, that he would have reached the peak of his anger and inflicted wounds upon
me that he would later deny. But I had scars to prove it. He ranted on, "It was a muggle book, about
muggle values! Dragon - "

Crap, I thought, he only calls me that when he’s really, really angry…

" – haven’t I taught you never to associate with muggles or anything that comes of them?" At this
point, he stood up, and waggled a finger dramatically at Hermione. "She is a Mudblood, why were
you even being tutored by her in the first place?! Surely there were purebloods smarter than that
dumbass!"

Hermione, sensing that she was now in danger of feeling my father’s cold wrath, pleaded quietly to
the judge, "Justice, shouldn’t you make him stop?"

The Justice shook his head. "No, allow Lucius to make his point."

Through this, my father had not stopped raving. "Muggles are dirty, dirty creatures! Voldemort - "

A gasp from the courtroom, and a squeal from some of the more fragile ones, was brought on by
this, but Father paid no heed.

" – should’ve killed all of them; scumming up the Earth, they are! Some say Earth is only hollow,
but damn muggles are gonna overrun it, hollow or not! I don’t care if they have their own little
matrix, Dragon, but you don’t ever get mixed up with them and their twisted, upside-down view
of the world!"

Hermione looked at me. Our eyes locked. There were tears in hers; she’d known I was in bad
trouble with the law, but not that I was also being persecuted by my family.

He doesn’t know, I mouthed.

She gasped and I thought she was going to faint at the fate that awaited me.

My father kept steady in his lectures even as this went on. He was talking more to himself than
anyone else now, and a general hush had fallen over the assembled wizards and witches. Finally,
a calm voice broke Lucius’ spiel.

"Lucius Malfoy, stop it."

All eyes turned to the small, raven-haired boy who had spoken. Harry Potter was sticking up for
me. Against my own father!

Father looked at him. Anger blazed in his eyes; for Harry, who had been raised a muggle, had
not only given him an order, but had disrespected him by calling him by his full name.

"You little…"

"Lucius, desist," the head judge said, holding up a strong, callused hand. My father had no choice
but to obey. He sat back down, but out gazes met and he glared at me, which cemented my
suspicions that I was going to get a severe beating if I survived this trial. Which I probably wouldn’t
anyway.

"Mr. Malfoy, continue your tale," the judge said.

"Anyway," I said, my pressing my hands into my lap to keep them from shaking, "I became so
absorbed in my book that I read it straight until dinner. I would’ve forgotten to eat completely, had
it not been for Pansy, who ushered me down to the dining room graciously…"
 
 
 

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Chapter 4