Even though Draco was glad that Theodore stopped him before he did something irrational, he still wanted to know why Theodore did it."You were losing yourself again, weren"t you?" Theodore said, "The slap was a shot in the dark, I didn"t really know it would work. So you"re going to tell me what happened right?"
"I don"t know." Draco said, "The Veela blood in me has been causing some trouble, I guess."
"That could be it but you had the problem even before remember." Theodore said, "The time when you nearly blew Weasleys head off, so I don"t really think that"s the problem of the blood and again, I have known you for a couple of years and I have never seen you act like that before we got into Hogwarts."
Draco shrugged his shoulders, "Well I don"t know."
Draco trusted Theodore but he didn"t want to drag him into this mess. Draco, of course, knew that his original wand was the problem but he didn"t know what was wrong with it. Not unless he meets with Ryan of course.
Theodore wanted to ask him something further but they were suddenly interrupted by Daphne and Pansy running behind them.
"So you burned the book as well?" Draco said looking a bit surprised.
"Of course." Pansy said walking in front, "But will this be okay?"
"Don"t worry about that." Draco said, "So who else left the cla.s.s, since they all followed me, I at least need to take a bit of responsibility."
"Responsibility? you?" Theodore snickered, "Those words sound weird coming out of your mouth especially when you can"t even control yourself."
"Oh! shut up."
All of them reached the common room and soon the Slytherin students who left with Draco started coming in as well. All of them sat around the place wondering what was going on, as Theodore and Daphne told them to stay. Soon Draco came out of his room with a couple of papers in his hands.
"First of all, I want to thank all of you for following me out here." Draco said, "I know its a risky decision, which we don"t know the outcome to but seeing your trust in me, I am really pleased."
All the students seemed happy, they all have been trying to gain the attention of Draco since last year and finally finding what they reached for felt very pleasing. No one really paid too much attention to what they did back at the cla.s.sroom since it didn"t matter that much as they could just use Draco as a shield. As long as Draco was in front of them, they knew no one can push them around so standing behind him was the safest place in the whole school right now.
"I don"t want you to worry about what happened back in the cla.s.sroom since Lockhart"s a fraud anyway." Draco said, the students started gossiping around suddenly after the revelation but Draco stopped them, "You might be wondering what proof do I have or why am I making such claims-- Simple! I hate his guts. As for the proof--time will tell and unless you"re braindead you will be able to recognize that he is phony."
The murmur died down and the group of Slytherin students were looking at him carefully.
"So now that"s all done, I"ll get to the point." Draco said pa.s.sing the doc.u.ments to the Slytherins, "This past month, I"ve been thinking of opening a club for people who would be loyal to me... I know, sounds far-fetched but to those people in the club, I"ll be teaching them everything that I know, every knowledge that I"ve ever gathered whether its potions or spell. I"ll teach them all to you guys in exchange for one thing... Loyalty. That"s all I ask of you. And since its a good time and a good place, I"ll be opening the club from here on out."
"But is the school going to agree?" One of the girls asked.
"Tracey right?" Draco said, to which the girl nodded enthusiastically, "I"ve already talked to Dumbledore about this and I am sure he will be fine. Since he is a busy man as long as he doesn"t say no, we can take it as a yes. The club activities will take place instead of the Defense against the dark cla.s.s, where I will personally teach you some things as for the most part... you practicing the spell will be the thing that will really matter."
The girls and the boys nodded agreeing to what Draco said, "Since you"ll be the first members of my club, I won"t ask you to show me your talents nor will I ask you show me something special. I just want you guys to be the foundation and the core members of the club. As I said, I value loyalty more than anything so as long as you"re willing to follow me, you"re welcome to the club but if not please go back to Lockhart"s cla.s.s as I will have no use for you."
The words might"ve sounded harsh to some people but for the Slytherins, that was the sign of power. Respect belongs to the one who"s strong enough to fight for it and Draco being the strongest of all, there wasn"t any further explanation required.
"So if you"re willing please raise your hand."
One by one the students raised their hands, people including Theodore, Pansy, and Daphne who were smiling looking at him.
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It was night time and without anyone noticing Lockhart snuck out of the castle as he ran towards the forbidden forest without anyone noticing.
"That little filthy garbage, how dare he--" Lockhart snarled punching a nearby tree in anger only to jump from the pain of hitting it.
"Fool, have you done what I"ve asked of you." Suddenly a voice called out of nowhere.
Lockhart a bit surprised from the voice jumped again but he seemed calm and not afraid, "Yes master." Lockhart quickly kneeled on the ground facing towards the direction of the voice.
"Has your memories regained completely?"
"Yes, Master. I got it back just an hour ago." Lockhart said again, "But I still can"t remember who was the one who kidnapped me and tried to mess with my memories."
"That doesn"t matter." The voice called out, "Since you have your memories back, you know your purpose, don"t you?"
"Yes, Master." Lockhart said quickly as if he was afraid the man would kill him immediately if he hesitated. "I need time to work on it but I guarantee you that the ma.s.sacre would start soon."
"Better not take long." The voice said, "If not--you know what will happen to you, don"t you?"
"Yes, Master. I swear I"ll be good."
"Good." The voice said, suddenly an old diary fell out of nowhere, "Take this, this is all it will take to make you strong and invincible, and you can finally get revenge for the humiliation that you"ve suffered."
Lockhart picked up the diary as he nodded his head as quickly as he could.
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The next day, nothing happened. There were no calls from Dumbledore and other than McGonagall looking at them a bit different, things moved the same as it always did. Snape didn"t have any problem with the boycott, instead, he seemed more than happy to finally get his house away from Lockhart and as for Lockhart himself, there weren"t any signs of him in the hall, or anywhere for that matter.
Draco woke up in the morning a bit late today, all of his friends were already down the hall, so he slowly dressed up and walked out of his room only to find Ginny heading out as well.
"Good morning!" Draco said.
Ginny for some reason looked a bit nervous but still responded, "Good morning!"