Second Impressions (Harry/Draco)
Harry Potter | Harry/Draco-ish kidfic | 18,000 words | 2 Parts | G
Summary: Sometimes you make friends in an instant. Keeping them is a lot harder.
Disclaimer: The world and characters belong to Rowling. No money is being made from this fic.
Dedication: For frankkincense.
Acknowledgements: A thousand thanks to scrtkpr, who was crazy-busy but beta'd this anyway, and deserves cookies forever.
A/N: This is a remix of the Slytherin!Harry If from The If Sieve. It's not actually set in the same universe/multiverse, and you don't need to have read the one to understand the other. But if you have, you'll probably care more.
Second Impressions
The shop bell sounded with a clear, soft chime. Draco looked around, shifting on his stool, and the robemaker kneeling at his feet hissed and grabbed at a pin to keep it from jabbing into his calf.
"Hold still, dear," she murmured, voice muffled around the three other pins held between her lips.
A boy had eased the shop door open. He was holding it in one hand, hesitating on the threshold. He was dressed in Muggle clothes: a shirt that was too big for him and blue trousers with tatty hems that trailed over his shoes. Draco hadn't seen Muggle clothes very often, but these were definitely the most raggedy ones he'd come across. He was fascinated by the idea that you could go out in clothes like that, which Narcissa wouldn't even have let Draco climb trees in.
Not that Draco climbed trees any more, obviously. That was something kids did.
Madam Malkin had been doing something at the counter, but she bustled forwards now, smiling.
"Er," the new boy said. He blinked at her from under a messy black fringe.
"Hogwarts, dear?"
Draco bet that he was another first year. He bet they'd be in classes together. Maybe they'd be Sorted into the same house. (Slytherin; it had to be Slytherin.)
Madam Malkin told the new boy that there was "another young man being fitted up just now," and Draco inspected his trailing unpinned sleeve, pretending he hadn't been looking.
The boy followed Madam Malkin down to the back of the shop, where she set up another stool next to Draco's. The boy looked uncertain, but also determined. Draco had been brought in by his mother, and she was coming back to collect him after she'd talked to Gringotts, but this boy was obviously quite used to doing things on his own.
Draco looked at the uncaring messy hair and the straight line of his back, and wanted badly to impress him.
Madam Malkin dropped a malformed black robe over the new boy's head - one as enormous and flapping as Draco's own.
"Hullo," Draco said as soon as the boy was visible again. "Hogwarts too?" He made his voice a drawl.
"Yes," the boy said shortly.
Draco wanted to keep up the drawl, but he was too excited. He changed tack, deciding to make the boy laugh instead.
"Don't you feel like a Dementor or something, in these robes?" Draco asked. He waved one arm with its acres of black sleeve and made a low, creepy Whoooh sound.
The other boy looked a bit confused, but he laughed anyway. Draco was encouraged.
He waved his arms again, both of them this time, causing the witch pinning his hem to tell him to keep still again. He ignored her in favour of putting on a sepulchral voice that he'd been practising on Vince and Gregory. "Come closer, child. Your soul will be tasty. Come and let me kiss you to death."
The boy choked on startled laughter. "Did you say kiss?"
"Didn't you know that Dementors kiss you?" Draco asked. He'd only learned about it a few months ago from Phoebe Goyle, who'd been trying to scare him and Gregory (which was ridiculous, they were practically at school, they weren't going to be scared by stories). Draco leaned closer, relishing his role of more knowledgeable one. "Kissing is how they suck out your soul." He drew out the final word, enjoying it.
The other boy's eyes had widened. "They do?"
Draco nodded. He didn't actually know much more, but he was willing to make it up. "They put a shrivelled dead hand on your shoulder, then when you turn around they suck out your soul and crunch. And then they pick bits of soul out of their teeth, and anyone who sees them knows that you don't have a soul any more, and you just dribble and stuff."
The new boy had leaned forward too far while he listened. Madam Malkin steadied him as he wobbled on his stool. He leaned back again, looking abashed. "Do they suck out people's souls a lot?" he asked, obviously unable to leave this topic alone. He looked wary, and Draco wondered if he imagined Dementors might ever come near him. That would be cool, but you never met Dementors, everybody knew that. They all stayed at Azkaban.
"They only do it to convicted criminals," Draco admitted. "And my father says that only fools and villains get convicted of anything by the Wizengamot."
The boy frowned. "What do you need to do to get - to have that happen?"
Draco shrugged. "I suppose kill someone." His eyes caught movement outside the window, and he raised his eyebrows. "I say, look at that man!"
The boy turned to see where he was looking, at the enormous hulk of a man who was blocking out the light from the street. He had two hugely piled ice cream cones in his hands, and he was grinning and mugging furiously.
"That's Hagrid," the other boy said, sounding pleased. "He works at Hogwarts."
"Oh, right," Draco said. He'd heard about Hagrid. They said he was practically a Squib and about as bright as a candle and you could do anything and he couldn't do anything about it.
"He gave my cousin Dudley a tail," the boy added, satisfaction lacing his tone.
Draco blinked, and revised his opinion of Hagrid. A tail wasn't all that scary, but it was pretty embarrassing. "Do you think ... will he give the students tails, do you think?"
"Only the awful ones, I imagine," the boy said.
"Oh good." Draco relaxed, but determined that Hagrid was going to like him. It was clearly dangerous for you if he didn't. "Well, I suppose your cousin deserved it," he added, fairly.
The boy scowled, his hair falling into his eyes as he ducked his head. "He did," he said fiercely. "He's horrible. The only person in the world who's more horrible is my Uncle Vernon."
Draco blinked again. "... I have an aunt who's mad," he offered, feeling inadequate.
Madam Malkin finished up and got to her feet, lifting the robe off the new boy. "That's you done, my dear," she said, smiling at him.
"Oh! Um, thank you," the boy said, hopping down off the stool.
"What's your name?" Draco asked as he started to turn away.
The boy turned back around, flattening his fringe against his forehead. "Er, Harry," he said. "Harry Potter."
Draco felt his mouth drop open. He dragged his eyes over the tatty Muggle clothes and the straight back and the messy hair. Then he smiled because he couldn't help it, huge and beaming. "I'm Draco Malfoy," he said. "I'll see you at Hogwarts, I expect."
*
The weeks before term started felt like the longest in Draco's life. His robes arrived, and he put them on and wore them all afternoon, but there was no one there to see him except Mother and Father and the house-elves. He read some of his Potions textbook, because Father said that Professor Snape was an old associate and Draco thought that might mean Draco ought to impress him. And he imagined meeting up with Harry Potter again at school. Mother offered to invite Vince or Gregory over to stay, but they weren't a very interesting prospect compared to Harry Potter.
Draco almost wrote him a letter once, because the shopkeeper had said that his new owl would be able to find anyone in Britain, with just their name. He thought he might open the letter with that:
Hey, Potter,
So the shopkeeper says this owl of mine can find anybody - but who knows if you can trust tradesmen's boasts, right?
He thought that struck the right airy note, but then he couldn't think of what he'd write afterwards. So he thought he wouldn't write at all.
He was up before dawn on the first day of term. He told the sleepy house-elf who answered his clap that no, he didn't want to wear the blue robes, he'd be wearing his school robes this morning, thank you.
Soffy picked up the robes and burst into tears. "Master Draco is so grown up!" she cried.
Draco was a bit embarrassed, but mostly pleased.
"Be quiet, Soffy." He thought about adding, "And punish yourself for this shameful display," because that was what Father would have said, but then he was in too good a mood to actually do it.
Mother yawned when he went to find her, and told him that it was far too early and the train wouldn't leave until eleven o'clock. She and Father took so long getting ready that Draco was convinced they were going to miss the train anyway.
On the platform, Narcissa fussed with Draco's collar while he tried to see over people's heads without actually going up on his toes - which would be childish.
"Can you see Harry Potter?"
"I don't know what he looks like, dear," Narcissa said. "Do you have your wand?"
"Obviously," Draco said, distracted. Then, "He should be here."
There were students in black robes with luggage and groups of harried-looking parents milling all around them. Most of the students were older than Draco, but some were obviously first years too. Draco spotted a few kids he'd seen at Ministry functions and things, but not the one he was looking for.
"I'm pleased that you've made a friend of the Potter boy," Lucius said, putting his hand on Draco's shoulder. "He may prove to be a powerful ally to you at Hogwarts." Draco twisted to look up at him. "But make sure that you do not let him lead too much," Lucius added. "I wouldn't like to think that my son was a follower at school."
Draco squared his shoulders. "He didn't seem to know very much," he said. "I can teach him about things, sir."
Lucius smiled. "Yes, I think that would be desirable."
Now Father approved of him. This was going to be the best year ever.
Draco spotted Vince and Gregory and waved them over. They ploughed a path through the other students, looking relieved to see him.
"Hullo, Crabbe, Goyle," Draco said.
They looked confused. "Um, Draco?" Vince asked, shifting his feet.
"Malfoy," Draco said. "We're at school now," he explained. "You're supposed to call each other by your surnames at school. Only people with no class still use first names like little kids."
"Okay, Malfoy," Gregory said. Draco beamed at him.
Then he saw the boy who'd just come onto the platform through the Muggle barrier. He was still wearing Muggle clothes, but he was towing a suitcase with a large owl cage atop it. It didn't look as though anyone had put a lightening spell on the suitcase - he was puffing as he stopped and stood next to it, looking around the platform. He looked a bit overwhelmed.
Draco left his suitcase with his parents.
"Potter!" he called, when he got close. He put his hands in the pockets of his black robes, lounging and cool.
Harry looked up, his face brightening.
"I was hoping I'd see you here," he said gruffly. Draco beamed at him and gave up on looking cool.
"I said you would," he said.
Harry nodded, biting his lip. "I didn't even know how to get onto the platform," he confided. "I had to ask this wizard family how."
He nodded awkwardly at someone over Draco's shoulder. Draco twisted around, and saw a red-headed boy looking back. Draco thought he was the youngest Weasley - the one that wasn't a girl. Weasley tilted his head and gave Harry a half smile, and for a moment it looked as though he was going to come over. Draco gave him a flat stare until he changed his mind.
"Come on," Draco said, turning back to Harry, "let's go get a carriage. All the good ones will be gone, otherwise."
*
Draco was too excited to sit still on the way to Hogwarts. Potter bought so much food from the tray that Draco had to buy just as much to compete, and their compartment ended up practically flooded with Chocolate Frogs and pumpkin pasties and other things. Vince and Gregory could eat anything, though, so it wasn't like any of it went to waste.
Draco did impersonations of people Potter didn't know, and Potter laughed anyway - Gregory laughed so much he choked on his drink and nearly threw up, but Draco had always been able to make Gregory laugh, so that was less impressive. People kept stopping at their compartment door and then hanging around the outside, and Draco wasn't sure whether it was because they were laughing at Draco's impressions or because they wanted Harry to show them his scar, but it hardly mattered. Between them they were going to rule the school.
By the time they got to Hogwarts, the only thing that was still a nervous knot in Draco's stomach was the thought that he might not get into Slytherin.
Malfoys were always in Slytherin. Every Malfoy ever had been in Slytherin, and if they hadn't then they were never mentioned by their descendants, and Draco didn't want to be the Malfoy nobody ever mentioned.
He also didn't want to imagine Lucius's expression if he was put into Hufflepuff or something.
Potter asked about how the Sorting worked while they were waiting in the little entrance hall for Professor McGonagall to call them through.
"It's a ... test of some kind, I think," Draco said. "To see what sort of person you are." He lifted his chin. "I'll be in Slytherin, of course. That's the house for people who are going to be influential: ambitious, intelligent people who know how to network and know what's important."
Harry fiddled with the hem of his sleeve. "Hagrid said that Slytherin..." He glanced at Draco, changing his mind. "Er, never mind. He probably didn't mean it like I thought. But what if there's no house for you? If you don't fit in any of them?"
Draco scoffed. "They just put you in Hufflepuff if they can't find anywhere else for you; everybody knows that."
A girl with a long, pale braid turned to look at him over her shoulder. "That's not true," she said calmly. "Hufflepuffs are Sorted because they understand loyalty and hard work. That's what Helga Hufflepuff wanted from her students: true worth."
"No, Malfoy's right," another boy butted in - a dark-skinned, handsome boy Draco remembered seeing with his mother at a few functions. They'd never spoken, but Draco was pleased that the other boy had remembered his name. "The Sorting Hat's song has said in the past that Hufflepuff's for people who don't fit anywhere else, and just get dumped." He gave the girl with the pale braid an amused, supercilious look. "Your ancestral house is the official Misfit Dumping Ground, Bones."
Draco frowned. This boy knew everybody's name, then, and he was clearly not expecting to be in Hufflepuff. Draco would have to keep an eye on him - he could be difficult to keep in check.
Draco glanced back at Potter, who was frowning more steadily now, and gazing at the supercilious boy - Zabali? Something like that, Draco thought - with dislike. Draco was sort of pleased.
"Don't worry," Draco hissed. "Seriously, there's no way they'd put you in Hufflepuff."
Potter nodded, and flashed him a quick smile. He was in school robes, now, like the rest of them, and they suited him more than the scrappy Muggle clothes he'd been wearing. His hair was still messy, but that sort of suited him too, in a way that Draco could never have got away with. Draco tucked his hands into his pockets and nudged Harry's shoulder, feeling obscurely less anxious now that he'd reassured Harry.
The house debate was broken up when a host of castle ghosts floated through the wall, and after that McGonagall called them through.
There was a hat on a chair. It sang - very badly, and Draco wanted to giggle - and apparently they were supposed to try it on.
It seemed to take forever to get to the M's. Draco thought they could have called them in a better order than alphabetically. Youngest to oldest, maybe. Except no, Draco didn't especially want the fact that he was one of the youngest in the class called to everyone's attention. Some other way, then.
They got there eventually, and the hat had barely touched Draco's head before it was shouting "SLYTHERIN!"
Draco's legs were shaky with relief as he got up and made his way over to the Slytherin table. Vince and Gregory had saved him a seat; obviously they hadn't had any doubts. Draco gave them a bright, wobbly grin and dropped onto the bench next to Vince.
The next five students were all Sorted into other houses, and then a girl called Pansy Parkinson was made another Slytherin. Then a girl called Patil, and then another girl called Patil who looked exactly like the first one, so that Draco began to think they were going to go on forever and they'd never get to Potter.
Then McGonagall called "Potter, Harry!" and the entire hall broke out in whispers.
Draco leaned forward, fixing his eyes on the other boy. If Harry was nervous now, he wasn't showing it. Draco felt a burst of smug pride at how determined he looked as he walked up to the stool and sat down.
They waited, and they waited, and the whispering broke out again. Finally the hat shouted out "SLYTHERIN."
"Yes!" Draco cried, the shout lost in the rest of the cheering erupting from their table. Draco shook his fist in the air and turned to punch Vince in the shoulder. Vince was still blinking and shell-shocked with relief at having been Sorted right himself, but Gregory was grinning from ear to ear with excitement.
McGonagall, Draco noticed, looked rather shell-shocked herself. She took the hat back from Potter with a very blank face, and glanced towards Professor Dumbledore at the Staff Table as though she couldn't help herself.
Dumbledore just twinkled at her, the way he always did on Chocolate Frog cards.
Harry dropped onto the bench beside Draco, grinning sheepishly under all the shouts and pats on the back he was getting.
"Why did it take so long?" Draco hissed.
Harry shrugged. "It was ... I don't know, it was making up its mind," he said. "It sounded like it wanted to put me everywhere at once." He fiddled with his sleeve and looked at Draco, then away again, smiling and then colouring as he said, "But, uh, it said Slytherin could be good for me, and I knew you were here, so..."
Draco felt as though all his veins were fizzing with happiness. He leaned back, folding his arms behind his head. "Slytherin's the best house," he said. "You'll see."
There were two other new Slytherin boys: the dark-skinned boy with the lip curl - who was actually called Zabini, Draco had found out during the Sorting - and another boy called Nott. They gathered into a group around Draco and the others as the Feast went on, talking loudly over the racket in the hall and trading stories about getting ready for school. They were still trading them when the feast ended and they tramped down to the Slytherin common room (so cool, like a dungeon or something) and then down the shorter flight of stairs that the spiky-haired prefect pointed them to.
Potter was in the middle of telling them about Hagrid bringing him his Hogwarts letter at a shack in the middle of the ocean when they crowded through the door into the dorm.
"That was seriously how you got your letter?" Zabini asked.
"Wicked," Nott said.
Potter grinned, turning around on the spot to look at their dorm. Draco put his hands behind his head and strolled over to the bed with his suitcase at its foot. The heavy brocaded green curtains were a bit over the top, but it looked like you could bunch them back up to the bed head if you wanted to be able to talk to people from your bed. It looked comfortable, if not as private as he was used to. But that could be cool - they could talk to each other at night.
Harry was gazing at the landscape paintings around the walls. Draco wasn't sure what he saw that was special - it was just clouds floating about and some mermaids flipping their tails off in the distance, in the one he was looking at - but Harry sounded happy and distracted as he replied to Zabini, "Yeah, my aunt and uncle didn't want me to get it." He shrugged, turning around again, and sat down on his own bed. He smoothed the coverlets. "I thought they'd be happy to get rid of me, but they don't like magic much."
Draco sat on the end of his own bed and leaned against the bed post, drawing his knees up. "That doesn't make any sense," he objected. "Why wouldn't they like magic? It was probably something else."
Harry tucked his legs beneath him. He looked doubtful. "I think they just really didn't like it. Uncle Vernon thought it was freakish."
Draco blinked. A Muggle thought magic was freakish? With their weird dangerous appliances and their strange clothes and their squallor? "That's weird," he said, frowning.
"The owls must have tried to deliver your letter, though," Nott said. He'd flopped onto his stomach on his bed, his chin in his hands.
Harry grinned. "They tried," he said. "The house was covered in owls, there were about two hundred of them, but my aunt and uncle had all the doors and windows barred. Once a whole pile came down the chimney, but they wouldn't let me catch one of them. They wouldn't even let Dudley see one - he sulked all day."
Gregory's eyes were wide. "You got hundreds of letters?" he asked.
Draco kicked him in the leg. "They all said the same thing, you idiot. It's not like you need to envy him."
Potter shrugged, unfolding his legs and flopping back against the headboard. "They might have," he said, a curl of a smile in his voice. "I don't know, do I? They might have all been - I don't know, spells or ... or nursery rhymes or something."
Draco snickered. "I bet Dumbledore would do that." He moved to sit sideways, miming writing at a desk, and copied Dumbledore's voice. "Dear Harry Potter. I thought it important to let you know that Minnie Malter was a Squib, and Matthew Muggle broke her rib. Minnie's brother wasn't pleased, so Matthew left without his knees."
Zabini laughed with the others, but threw his pillow at Draco and asked if he could still recite all his nursery rhymes like a good boy.
"Are there lots of Wizard nursery rhymes about Muggles?" Potter asked, his voice curious.
Draco put his head to the side. "Do you really not know anything about Wizard life? Not even nursery rhymes?"
Harry shrugged, picking at his coverlets. "How would I? I didn't know wizards existed until this summer. I..." He looked up, biting his lip. "Everyone's already going to know everything, aren't they? Even that girl Hermione on the train - she said her parents were Muggles, but she'd already read all our textbooks and she knew all this stuff, and she'd done spells that worked. I'm going to be the only one who doesn't know anything."
Zabini shrugged. "Nah, I think there are always a few Muggle-born kids every year. Didn't one of the new Slytherin girls say she was?"
Draco looked at his fingernails. "They shouldn't let any in at all," he said. "That's what Father says. He says that they're diluting our culture with their ignorance." At the last moment he heard what he was saying, and his eyes flew to Harry. "Er, I mean - there are probably quite a few. Father says it's a disgrace, so there must be. And anyway, we'll teach you!" He smiled wide. "You won't be ignorant, because we'll tell you everything. You'll know loads more than that priggish Muggle girl."
Potter was giving him an odd look. Still, he nodded, slowly. "All right," he said.
Nott scrambled upright, interested. "What do you want to know?"
Potter hesitated. "Hagrid told me a bit about ... Voldemort," he said.
Draco blinked. Nott had scooted backwards, he noticed, and Zabini had straightened up so fast he banged his elbow on his bed post. Vince and Gregory were looking scared. Draco gave them a scathing look. People were being ridiculous. The Dark Lord wasn't dinner table conversation, but it was only peasants who were superstitiously frightened to mention him, Lucius had told Draco.
"You want to know about You Know Who," Nott said blankly. Potter looked between the five of them, finally settling on Draco (who wasn't being an idiot).
"Hagrid already told me a bit," Potter said. "But ... well, on the train everybody wanted me to show them my scar. They all knew about how Voldemort tried to kill me, and how it was this amazing thing that he couldn't. It just ... it feels stupid that everybody knows so much more about it than me. And ... and he killed my parents. I want to know."
Draco nodded, thinking. He propped his chin on his knee. "Well, he disappeared when I was one," he said. "Sometimes the Daily Prophet prints rubbish about how he's not truly gone, but Father says he definitely is. He was too powerful a wizard to ever hide away, so the only reason he'd disappear was if he was truly dead."
"I guess ... good, then," Harry said. "Hagrid talked about him as if he was Darth Vader or something." They looked at him. Harry looked around and amended that to, "Er, I mean, as if he was really evil. Totally evil."
Draco made a face. "He wasn't evil," he said. "Only the newspapers and people like Dumbledore say he was evil. That's what Father says. He says that the Dark Lord had some good ideas. He just took them too far, and that was why he failed."
Potter stared at him. Draco shifted on the bed.
"He killed my parents," Potter said slowly.
Draco hesitated. "Well, yes," he said. "Only ... Father says that he was working from sound principles." Potter was still staring at him, but Draco was more sure of himself now. "Father says that the Ministry has become dangerously liberal, and that the end of it will be the erosion of Wizarding society and its crumble in the face of Muggle debasement and violence. He says that the Dark Lord was one of the only people to recognise that and act to do something about it, before everything became completely contaminated."
Nott, who hadn't been talking very much, burst in now. He looked upset. "Well, my Father says that all the people who supported You Knew Who were young fools who should have known better, and nearly all of them regretted it!"
Draco gave him a dismissive look. "The ones who went to Azkaban did, I expect."
Potter's face twisted. "He killed my parents," he said again. "What does that have to do with ... with sound principles or ... or contamination? Or was it all right because my mother was Muggle-born?"
Draco hesitated. "My father says ... he says that the Dark Lord went too far, but it was in the right direction," he said. "He says that ... that to be respected, you have to be feared, and you can't afford to be squeamish about things."
Potter's cheeks had reddened with anger. "Oh?" he said. "Well, my father's dead, but if he was alive he'd say that yours was talking total crap, Draco."
Draco saw red. "Take that back."
Harry's expression was angry and steady. "Why?" he said. "You just said that Voldemort was right to try to murder me when I was a baby."
Draco stared at him. "I ... didn't," he said. Potter laughed, derisive. "But if I did, maybe it's true!" Draco said.
"Er," Nott said. Draco and Harry both ignored him.
"Sometimes you have to do things everybody else is afraid to do!" Draco said.
Harry's fists dug into the comforter beneath him. "I'm sorry I didn't die, then," he said. "I'm sure that would have made you happy!"
He stared at Draco for a moment longer. Draco stared back, angry and desperate and with no idea how they'd got here. Then Potter grabbed his curtains and drew them jerkily closed.
Draco couldn't bring himself to move. After a while the others began to quietly get ready for bed around him.
"This is going to be interesting," Zabini murmured to Nott, his voice amused.
Draco couldn't even look at him. He stared at his knees. Then Vince had turned out the lights and he stared at the darkness.
There was an awful, sick, tight feeling in his stomach. He couldn't make it go away.
*
Draco was woken by a pillow landing on his face.
"First class at eight thirty, Malfoy," Zabini drawled. "Breakfast starts at seven."
Draco scrubbed the back of one hand over eyes gummy with sleep. He wasn't sure why Zabini had appointed himself first year alarm clock. Dropping his hand and pushing onto his elbows, Draco focused on Zabini, and decided that the other boy was enjoying the role too much.
"Put a sock in it, Zabini," Nott's muffled voice came from a humped tangle of bedclothes. It was followed by a noise of protest as a pillow thumped onto his head.
Zabini had tugged back everybody's curtains before he woke them, because he clearly had a cat's respect for privacy.
Vince was already awake and dressed, sitting quietly against the headboard of his bed, but Gregory was as bad at waking up as Draco was. He was buried under his blankets, ignoring everything around him.
Potter was rubbing at his eyes, blinking at the light. His hair was sticking up in every direction, and falling into his eyes at the same time.
For a moment Draco wanted to smile at him. He almost made a joke about Potter's hair. Then the night before came back, like a chill creeping down his shoulders. Draco turned away, adjusting his pyjama top, which had got twisted around while he slept. When he turned back, Potter had found his glasses and was getting out of bed.
"Come on," Potter said to Zabini. "The showers are through here, aren't they?"
As they went by, Potter gave Draco one brief, unconcerned glance. Draco gave it back to him, raising his eyebrows a bit, the way Lucius did.
As soon as they were gone, Draco rolled onto his stomach. "I hate the world," he mumbled.
Vince padded over. "It's breakfast soon," he offered. He prodded Draco. "My dad says the breakfasts here are really good."
*
Draco didn't think breakfast was all that brilliant. They didn't have his favourite sourdough bread, and he didn't like pumpkin juice.
Potter was sitting with Nott and Zabini, further down the table. The three of them were huddled together, discussing something. As Draco watched, Nott said something and Potter looked up and grinned, shoving his shoulder. Nott grinned back, self-conscious, and stole one of Zabini's pieces of toast.
"My grandmother," a girl's voice at Draco's left observed, "says that staring at famous people is like wearing an enormous sign saying that you have no class at all."
Draco turned to look at her. She was a dark-haired girl he remembered vaguely from the Sorting. She had a funny squashed nose and an insolent tilt to her mouth.
"I suppose your grandmother would know?" Draco asked, as dismissively as he could.
The girl lowered her lashes over a smirk. "She would, actually," she said. "She was ever so famous. She was the first witch to be a war correspondent for the Prophet, over in Europe and places in the Grindelwald War."
Draco blinked at her. She raised her lashes again, looking at him. "You're Draco Malfoy, aren't you?" she said. "Why were you staring at Harry Potter?"
"His face annoys me," Draco said flatly. He struggled for a moment. "And it does not count if somebody's actually living in your dorm. That's not staring at famous people - and anyway, who are you?"
"Oh, it does count," she said. "Um. And I'm Pansy Parkinson." She traced a finger over the table cloth in front of her, and he realised, with a shock, that she might actually be a bit shy. "I was the first Slytherin to get Sorted after you, you know."
"Oh," Draco said. He paused. "What's the girls' dorm like?"
Pansy waved a hand, which Draco noticed had bright pink nail polish on it. "It's strange not having any windows," she said, "but the paintings are nice. There's one of a herd of unicorns on the steppes that..." She trailed off at Draco's smirk. "Oh, shut up." She coloured. "Unicorns are cool."
"Ours has a herd of Thestrals," Draco said. "They're tearing apart a stag. There's blood and guts shining on their teeth and everywhere."
Pansy looked fascinated and appalled at the same time. But she lifted her chin, recovering her cool. "You can't even see Thestrals, Malfoy."
Draco took a bite of eggs and toast, looking mysterious.
"I don't believe you," she said. She sounded uncertain, though.
Draco noticed that Harry was looking at him. There was a tight, miserable expression on his face that sort of made Draco want to go over there and ... and hit him, or something.
"I'm not sure what it means when famous people stare back at you," Pansy Parkinson said meditatively.
"He's not that famous," Draco said, turning back to his food. His throat hurt when he said it.
*
The first class for the day was Transfiguration, which was a little bit cool at first, when Professor McGonagall turned her desk into a goose, and then back again.
"It still looks a bit goosish," Pansy whispered next to Draco. "Don't you think? Around the feet?"
Draco coughed and walked his fingers over the desk behind the shelter of their textbooks, miming a desk waddling along. Pansy giggled. McGonagall gave them a flat look, and Draco concentrated virtuously on the match on the desk in front of him. "I think that my match has gone a bit silver, Professor," he offered, to Pansy's eye roll. "It looks a bit like a needle, now."
McGonagall came over and looked at it. "Practise the wand glide again, Mr Malfoy; you haven't quite got it," she said quellingly.
Potter gave him a brief, disgusted look, then went back to ignoring him.
Draco prodded at his match with his wand. It was a stupid exercise anyway.
After Transfiguration was Charms, which was even more stupid, since the Professor fell off his perch when he got to Harry's name on the register. Harry looked desperately embarrassed. Draco wanted to lean close to his ear and make a joke about Flitwick so that he laughed instead of flattening his fringe and trying to sink under his desk.
Instead Draco turned to Pansy and said, just loud enough for everyone to hear, "Oh, is that Harry Potter? I had no idea."
"Shut up, Malfoy," Potter said, curling his fists on his desk.
"Now, now," Professor Flitwick said, settling himself at the top of his pile of books once again. "We mustn't, that is to say, get excited about having a celebrity in our midst. All students are equal here, you know!"
Draco rolled his eyes. Potter was trying to hide behind his desk again. Zabini reached down and tugged him straight. "Greet your fans, Potter," he murmured, and Potter rolled his eyes and shoved him. "Are you offering to be my publicity manager?" he asked, his voice a threat.
"I'd love to," Zabini replied. Draco wished that Flitwick would shut them up, but the professor was busy trying to find his place in the text.
Potter stared at Zabini. Then he shook his head, grinning. "You are a ginormous git," he said quietly. "Don't you dare."
*
Draco was still pretending to himself that it would all come right, or that he didn't care, or both, when they got to the free period after lunch. He and Vince and Gregory had decided to try to get to the top of the Astronomy Tower - partly because they had a class there on Wednesday night and they needed to work out how to get there, but mostly because it was the tallest tower and they wanted to see how far you could see from the top.
The staircases seemed to get more temperamental the higher you got, though. Draco found himself pitying the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors who had to find their way down through all these floors every day.
"They need maps," Draco complained, leaning on Vince at the bottom of yet another staircase. "Or ropes or something, so that you can swing up to the landing if the staircase starts to move. My father's on the school board, I should bully him into suggesting it."
Gregory gave him an uncertain look, probably at the idea of Draco successfully bullying Lucius into doing anything at all. Draco ignored him, leaning on Vince some more. Vince was a solid, uncomplaining support.
"I think we need to go right some more," Vince said slowly.
They turned down the right hand corridor. This did look like the right direction, actually - there were tapestries of stargazing centaurs along the wall, for one.
"I think..." Draco started, then trailed off. He'd just noticed the three boys sitting with their legs sprawled into the walkway, near the other end of the corridor. They were leaning their backs against another tapestry, and they had what looked like about fifty chocolate frog cards spread out over the floor in front of them. There were no wrappers, so it must have been somebody's collection. By the way Nott was leaning forward, adjusting one crooked card, Draco assumed the collection was his.
"No, this one's Nimue," Nott was saying. "She's from the Merlin set, she's worth a mint, actually."
"Wait," Harry said, putting down the card he'd been looking at and picking up another. "I thought you said this one was Nimue?"
Zabini glanced over. "No, that's Neffrety," he said. "She's much more recent - she only died a few hundred years ago. She was an Arithmantic scholar - she discovered the Neffret Sequence."
"She has some value as a curiosity, but she's not worth as much," Nott said.
"Why's she carrying..." Harry started, lifting his head. Then he noticed Draco and the others. They'd been walking more and more slowly as they got closer.
"Potter," Draco said uncertainly. He nodded at Nott and Zabini, but didn't say anything to them.
"Malfoy," Harry said. He sounded unfriendly.
"What are you doing?" Draco asked.
"None of your business," Harry said. Then, more heatedly, "Nothing that will kill me, which I'm sure will disappoint you."
Draco could feel himself flushing. "That's ridiculous," he said. "You're being ridiculous."
Potter stood up, slowly. "I'm being ridiculous?" he demanded. "You said that Voldemort was right to try to murder me." He fixed his gaze on Draco. "Are you trying to apologise now, or are you just ...?"
"Malfoys don't apologise," Draco said automatically.
"Then you can get stuffed," Potter said, his expression vicious. His eyes were bright and strained. Draco felt trapped. Sorry, he thought. Sorry, sorry. He couldn't say it. He never had. And anyway, that would be saying that his father had been wrong, and he hadn't been, he wasn't.
"Come on," Potter said, looking back at Nott and Zabini. "Let's do this back in the common room."
"Don't bother," Draco said, stung. "We were just going."
He ploughed forward, stepping on the cards as he went. Nott cursed, his hand darting forward to rescue the Nimue card. Draco ignored him. Vince and Gregory stayed at Draco's side, and that was all that mattered.
*
Apparently Zabini and Nott were taking seriously the task of educating Potter in Wizarding life. Draco had seen them teaching Potter about Chocolate Frog Cards on Monday. On Wednesday he overheard the three of them making stealthy plans to sneak Potter out to learn flying.
"Only the Muggle-borns won't know how," Nott was saying in a low voice, while they all settled at their desks for Charms. "Plus, everybody falls off their first time on a broom."
"I'm not falling off in front of everybody," Harry said, just as low. "It's bad enough the way Snape keeps picking on me to answer things I obviously don't know - at least I can't actually fall on my bum in Potions."
Zabini slung an arm around Harry's shoulders. "That's why we're giving you lessons!" he said. "So you'll only look like a tool in front of us."
Harry grinned. "Wow," he said. "You make this lesson sound like so much fun."
Zabini shrugged. "I'm pretty bad, actually," he admitted, "so probably Theo will teach you." He grinned, a slow curl of his lips. "But at least I don't fall off."
"Draco?" Crabbe asked in a low voice. "When's our first flying lesson?"
"Thursday next week," Draco said, turning back to his own desk. He opened his textbook, then looked sideways at his friend. Vince was looking at his unopened textbook, a small frown on his forehead.
"You'll be fine," Draco said. "You haven't fallen off in ages."
Crabbe nodded. "Yeah," he said after a moment. "I guess."
Professor Flitwick found his page and looked up. Peering over his spectacles, he called for attention.
*
Draco could hear Harry and the others whispering that night, and he heard it when they decided the others were asleep and slipped out of bed, pulling their outdoor clothes on over their pyjamas. Goyle was snoring, a gentle burr, but Draco knew that Crabbe was awake too.
Draco lay in bed, listening to the soft giggles and curses as they stubbed their toes and stumbled over books, arguing in hissed whispers about the best way to get to the Quidditch shed, where the school brooms were stored. Eventually they slipped out, the door closing with a snick behind them.
Draco opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. It was too dark to see anything but the pale smudge of the ceiling and the walls of the room. He rolled over, punching his pillow.
"Malfoy?" Vince asked, his voice quiet.
Draco didn't answer.
*
At breakfast the next morning, Zabini and Nott were jubilant and excited. Potter was almost as much so, although he was self-conscious and kept ducking his head and telling them to shut up.
"... a complete natural," Nott was saying, his cheeks flushed. "Like he was born on a broomstick. When you did that twist over the lake, Harry - and remember that tree, Blaise? So awesome."
"I want to see everyone's faces," Zabini said, his smile a triumphant curl. "When we have our first flying lesson. Malfoy was going on about all the things he's done on a broom, but there's no way he's this good."
Draco couldn't even decide whether the ugly clawing of jealousy inside him was for Potter or for Nott and Zabini. He stabbed at his breakfast, silently vowing that he was going to fly so flawlessly next Thursday that everybody would be gasping. And Potter would watch him.
He wondered whether Potter could really have beeen as good as Nott and Zabini seemed to think, his first time on a broom.
"I hate flying," Pansy sighed, beside him. "It's so cold, even on sunny days, and my knees get cramped in position. And my hair gets all revolting. How many lessons do you think we'll have?" She leaned her head on Daphne Greengrass's shoulder.
"Maybe only one," Greengrass said comfortingly, leaning back.
Draco stretched. "Really," he said, "we should have flying as a regular lesson, instead of History of Magic. It's much more useful. I think I shall suggest my father mention it to the Board."
Pansy opened her eyes, wide and tragic. "I should die," she said.
Draco heard Harry giggle, the sound muffled. When Draco glanced down the table at him, Harry was back to pretending that he wasn't paying any attention to them.
*
The week seemed to stretch interminably. Classes that had been new and exciting were a drag, compared to the upcoming flying lesson. They were having it together with Gryffindor, apparently, which was rousing a competitive spirit even among the girls, who were united in their distaste for both flying and Quidditch. (Draco thought this had more to do with Pansy's unifying influence than with any actual dislike for flying on the part of Greengrass and Bulstrode.)
Pansy was particularly determined. "I happen to know that Parvati Patil doesn't fly any better than I do," she said at one point, "and Granger and Thomas are both Muggle-born, so that's them down." Then she sneered. "Not that I can imagine Granger having any grace in the air under any circumstances. She's as awkward as a stick."
Draco wasn't sure where Pansy's intense dislike of Hermione Granger had come from - he rather thought something must have happened on the train, but he wasn't sure. He hadn't paid much attention to any of the Gryffindors, really, except to sneer at them in a partisan sort of way in Potions.
It was Potter's flying he wanted to see.
They'd fallen into a routine in the dorm. Harry talked to Vince and Gregory in a polite, distant sort of way, and Draco was happy to trade insults with Zabini when the other boy woke them all up in the mornings. But Harry and Draco never exchanged a word. If they ran into each other in the hallway on the way to the showers, they moved around each other with the air of people avoiding an empty patch of space. Sometimes Draco caught Harry watching him, but when Draco looked, Harry would always look away and say something random to somebody else. Draco only looked at Harry when he was almost sure Harry was too absorbed to look around.
As far as Draco knew, Harry had never brought up Voldemort since that first night. Draco had never heard the three of them talking about him, anyway, or about the Death Eaters or the war or anything else like that.
Draco hadn't been talking about those things either, but that didn't mean he hadn't been thinking about them. He'd tried to write to his mother three times. He finally finished a letter on Tuesday afternoon, before dinner.
Vince and Gregory were busy looking for the entrance to the kitchens. Draco would usually have helped them, but today he'd slipped away. He was curled up against the worn velvet curtains of the window seat near the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, looking out over the lawns of the castle. They were already growing dusky. Draco's wand cast the light of a warm Lumos over his lap, and over the parchment balanced there.
He read the letter again.
Dear Mother,
I hope you and Father are well. I'm settling into school, you'll be glad to know. We have a flying lesson next week. I expect I'll be brilliant. Vince is a bit worried, but I gave him extra lessons over Summer, and he hasn't fallen off in ages.
I had a disagreement with somebody about the Dark Lord, and about that war War from when I was a baby. Father says that the Dark Lord had the right ideas. I don't want Wizarding Society to fall into chaos and decay. I know we have to protect our heritage.
But the Death Eaters killed people. They did, didn't they? Kids, even.
Your son,
Draco
He looked at it. He hadn't asked a question, not really. He couldn't ask a question. He already felt uncomfortable and prickly about the implied criticism of Lucius, he couldn't ...
Before he could second-guess himself, Draco whistled quietly. Mercury left off nibbling at the curtains by his left arm and hopped into the light, bird eyes bright and curious.
"Here," Draco said, rolling the parchment up and fastening it to the owl's leg. "It's for Mother. Don't ... it's just for Mother, okay? No one else."
Mercury tilted his head to the side, unimpressed. He hopped onto Draco's shoulder, wings fluttering. Then he extended them properly and launched himself into the corridor behind Draco, disappearing into the dimness.
Draco bit down on the first knuckle of his thumb, trying to relax. He hadn't questioned anything really. He hadn't betrayed anybody. His father. Anybody.
_______
Part II
Summary: Sometimes you make friends in an instant. Keeping them is a lot harder.
Disclaimer: The world and characters belong to Rowling. No money is being made from this fic.
Dedication: For frankkincense.
Acknowledgements: A thousand thanks to scrtkpr, who was crazy-busy but beta'd this anyway, and deserves cookies forever.
A/N: This is a remix of the Slytherin!Harry If from The If Sieve. It's not actually set in the same universe/multiverse, and you don't need to have read the one to understand the other. But if you have, you'll probably care more.
Second Impressions
The shop bell sounded with a clear, soft chime. Draco looked around, shifting on his stool, and the robemaker kneeling at his feet hissed and grabbed at a pin to keep it from jabbing into his calf.
"Hold still, dear," she murmured, voice muffled around the three other pins held between her lips.
A boy had eased the shop door open. He was holding it in one hand, hesitating on the threshold. He was dressed in Muggle clothes: a shirt that was too big for him and blue trousers with tatty hems that trailed over his shoes. Draco hadn't seen Muggle clothes very often, but these were definitely the most raggedy ones he'd come across. He was fascinated by the idea that you could go out in clothes like that, which Narcissa wouldn't even have let Draco climb trees in.
Not that Draco climbed trees any more, obviously. That was something kids did.
Madam Malkin had been doing something at the counter, but she bustled forwards now, smiling.
"Er," the new boy said. He blinked at her from under a messy black fringe.
"Hogwarts, dear?"
Draco bet that he was another first year. He bet they'd be in classes together. Maybe they'd be Sorted into the same house. (Slytherin; it had to be Slytherin.)
Madam Malkin told the new boy that there was "another young man being fitted up just now," and Draco inspected his trailing unpinned sleeve, pretending he hadn't been looking.
The boy followed Madam Malkin down to the back of the shop, where she set up another stool next to Draco's. The boy looked uncertain, but also determined. Draco had been brought in by his mother, and she was coming back to collect him after she'd talked to Gringotts, but this boy was obviously quite used to doing things on his own.
Draco looked at the uncaring messy hair and the straight line of his back, and wanted badly to impress him.
Madam Malkin dropped a malformed black robe over the new boy's head - one as enormous and flapping as Draco's own.
"Hullo," Draco said as soon as the boy was visible again. "Hogwarts too?" He made his voice a drawl.
"Yes," the boy said shortly.
Draco wanted to keep up the drawl, but he was too excited. He changed tack, deciding to make the boy laugh instead.
"Don't you feel like a Dementor or something, in these robes?" Draco asked. He waved one arm with its acres of black sleeve and made a low, creepy Whoooh sound.
The other boy looked a bit confused, but he laughed anyway. Draco was encouraged.
He waved his arms again, both of them this time, causing the witch pinning his hem to tell him to keep still again. He ignored her in favour of putting on a sepulchral voice that he'd been practising on Vince and Gregory. "Come closer, child. Your soul will be tasty. Come and let me kiss you to death."
The boy choked on startled laughter. "Did you say kiss?"
"Didn't you know that Dementors kiss you?" Draco asked. He'd only learned about it a few months ago from Phoebe Goyle, who'd been trying to scare him and Gregory (which was ridiculous, they were practically at school, they weren't going to be scared by stories). Draco leaned closer, relishing his role of more knowledgeable one. "Kissing is how they suck out your soul." He drew out the final word, enjoying it.
The other boy's eyes had widened. "They do?"
Draco nodded. He didn't actually know much more, but he was willing to make it up. "They put a shrivelled dead hand on your shoulder, then when you turn around they suck out your soul and crunch. And then they pick bits of soul out of their teeth, and anyone who sees them knows that you don't have a soul any more, and you just dribble and stuff."
The new boy had leaned forward too far while he listened. Madam Malkin steadied him as he wobbled on his stool. He leaned back again, looking abashed. "Do they suck out people's souls a lot?" he asked, obviously unable to leave this topic alone. He looked wary, and Draco wondered if he imagined Dementors might ever come near him. That would be cool, but you never met Dementors, everybody knew that. They all stayed at Azkaban.
"They only do it to convicted criminals," Draco admitted. "And my father says that only fools and villains get convicted of anything by the Wizengamot."
The boy frowned. "What do you need to do to get - to have that happen?"
Draco shrugged. "I suppose kill someone." His eyes caught movement outside the window, and he raised his eyebrows. "I say, look at that man!"
The boy turned to see where he was looking, at the enormous hulk of a man who was blocking out the light from the street. He had two hugely piled ice cream cones in his hands, and he was grinning and mugging furiously.
"That's Hagrid," the other boy said, sounding pleased. "He works at Hogwarts."
"Oh, right," Draco said. He'd heard about Hagrid. They said he was practically a Squib and about as bright as a candle and you could do anything and he couldn't do anything about it.
"He gave my cousin Dudley a tail," the boy added, satisfaction lacing his tone.
Draco blinked, and revised his opinion of Hagrid. A tail wasn't all that scary, but it was pretty embarrassing. "Do you think ... will he give the students tails, do you think?"
"Only the awful ones, I imagine," the boy said.
"Oh good." Draco relaxed, but determined that Hagrid was going to like him. It was clearly dangerous for you if he didn't. "Well, I suppose your cousin deserved it," he added, fairly.
The boy scowled, his hair falling into his eyes as he ducked his head. "He did," he said fiercely. "He's horrible. The only person in the world who's more horrible is my Uncle Vernon."
Draco blinked again. "... I have an aunt who's mad," he offered, feeling inadequate.
Madam Malkin finished up and got to her feet, lifting the robe off the new boy. "That's you done, my dear," she said, smiling at him.
"Oh! Um, thank you," the boy said, hopping down off the stool.
"What's your name?" Draco asked as he started to turn away.
The boy turned back around, flattening his fringe against his forehead. "Er, Harry," he said. "Harry Potter."
Draco felt his mouth drop open. He dragged his eyes over the tatty Muggle clothes and the straight back and the messy hair. Then he smiled because he couldn't help it, huge and beaming. "I'm Draco Malfoy," he said. "I'll see you at Hogwarts, I expect."
*
The weeks before term started felt like the longest in Draco's life. His robes arrived, and he put them on and wore them all afternoon, but there was no one there to see him except Mother and Father and the house-elves. He read some of his Potions textbook, because Father said that Professor Snape was an old associate and Draco thought that might mean Draco ought to impress him. And he imagined meeting up with Harry Potter again at school. Mother offered to invite Vince or Gregory over to stay, but they weren't a very interesting prospect compared to Harry Potter.
Draco almost wrote him a letter once, because the shopkeeper had said that his new owl would be able to find anyone in Britain, with just their name. He thought he might open the letter with that:
Hey, Potter,
So the shopkeeper says this owl of mine can find anybody - but who knows if you can trust tradesmen's boasts, right?
He thought that struck the right airy note, but then he couldn't think of what he'd write afterwards. So he thought he wouldn't write at all.
He was up before dawn on the first day of term. He told the sleepy house-elf who answered his clap that no, he didn't want to wear the blue robes, he'd be wearing his school robes this morning, thank you.
Soffy picked up the robes and burst into tears. "Master Draco is so grown up!" she cried.
Draco was a bit embarrassed, but mostly pleased.
"Be quiet, Soffy." He thought about adding, "And punish yourself for this shameful display," because that was what Father would have said, but then he was in too good a mood to actually do it.
Mother yawned when he went to find her, and told him that it was far too early and the train wouldn't leave until eleven o'clock. She and Father took so long getting ready that Draco was convinced they were going to miss the train anyway.
On the platform, Narcissa fussed with Draco's collar while he tried to see over people's heads without actually going up on his toes - which would be childish.
"Can you see Harry Potter?"
"I don't know what he looks like, dear," Narcissa said. "Do you have your wand?"
"Obviously," Draco said, distracted. Then, "He should be here."
There were students in black robes with luggage and groups of harried-looking parents milling all around them. Most of the students were older than Draco, but some were obviously first years too. Draco spotted a few kids he'd seen at Ministry functions and things, but not the one he was looking for.
"I'm pleased that you've made a friend of the Potter boy," Lucius said, putting his hand on Draco's shoulder. "He may prove to be a powerful ally to you at Hogwarts." Draco twisted to look up at him. "But make sure that you do not let him lead too much," Lucius added. "I wouldn't like to think that my son was a follower at school."
Draco squared his shoulders. "He didn't seem to know very much," he said. "I can teach him about things, sir."
Lucius smiled. "Yes, I think that would be desirable."
Now Father approved of him. This was going to be the best year ever.
Draco spotted Vince and Gregory and waved them over. They ploughed a path through the other students, looking relieved to see him.
"Hullo, Crabbe, Goyle," Draco said.
They looked confused. "Um, Draco?" Vince asked, shifting his feet.
"Malfoy," Draco said. "We're at school now," he explained. "You're supposed to call each other by your surnames at school. Only people with no class still use first names like little kids."
"Okay, Malfoy," Gregory said. Draco beamed at him.
Then he saw the boy who'd just come onto the platform through the Muggle barrier. He was still wearing Muggle clothes, but he was towing a suitcase with a large owl cage atop it. It didn't look as though anyone had put a lightening spell on the suitcase - he was puffing as he stopped and stood next to it, looking around the platform. He looked a bit overwhelmed.
Draco left his suitcase with his parents.
"Potter!" he called, when he got close. He put his hands in the pockets of his black robes, lounging and cool.
Harry looked up, his face brightening.
"I was hoping I'd see you here," he said gruffly. Draco beamed at him and gave up on looking cool.
"I said you would," he said.
Harry nodded, biting his lip. "I didn't even know how to get onto the platform," he confided. "I had to ask this wizard family how."
He nodded awkwardly at someone over Draco's shoulder. Draco twisted around, and saw a red-headed boy looking back. Draco thought he was the youngest Weasley - the one that wasn't a girl. Weasley tilted his head and gave Harry a half smile, and for a moment it looked as though he was going to come over. Draco gave him a flat stare until he changed his mind.
"Come on," Draco said, turning back to Harry, "let's go get a carriage. All the good ones will be gone, otherwise."
*
Draco was too excited to sit still on the way to Hogwarts. Potter bought so much food from the tray that Draco had to buy just as much to compete, and their compartment ended up practically flooded with Chocolate Frogs and pumpkin pasties and other things. Vince and Gregory could eat anything, though, so it wasn't like any of it went to waste.
Draco did impersonations of people Potter didn't know, and Potter laughed anyway - Gregory laughed so much he choked on his drink and nearly threw up, but Draco had always been able to make Gregory laugh, so that was less impressive. People kept stopping at their compartment door and then hanging around the outside, and Draco wasn't sure whether it was because they were laughing at Draco's impressions or because they wanted Harry to show them his scar, but it hardly mattered. Between them they were going to rule the school.
By the time they got to Hogwarts, the only thing that was still a nervous knot in Draco's stomach was the thought that he might not get into Slytherin.
Malfoys were always in Slytherin. Every Malfoy ever had been in Slytherin, and if they hadn't then they were never mentioned by their descendants, and Draco didn't want to be the Malfoy nobody ever mentioned.
He also didn't want to imagine Lucius's expression if he was put into Hufflepuff or something.
Potter asked about how the Sorting worked while they were waiting in the little entrance hall for Professor McGonagall to call them through.
"It's a ... test of some kind, I think," Draco said. "To see what sort of person you are." He lifted his chin. "I'll be in Slytherin, of course. That's the house for people who are going to be influential: ambitious, intelligent people who know how to network and know what's important."
Harry fiddled with the hem of his sleeve. "Hagrid said that Slytherin..." He glanced at Draco, changing his mind. "Er, never mind. He probably didn't mean it like I thought. But what if there's no house for you? If you don't fit in any of them?"
Draco scoffed. "They just put you in Hufflepuff if they can't find anywhere else for you; everybody knows that."
A girl with a long, pale braid turned to look at him over her shoulder. "That's not true," she said calmly. "Hufflepuffs are Sorted because they understand loyalty and hard work. That's what Helga Hufflepuff wanted from her students: true worth."
"No, Malfoy's right," another boy butted in - a dark-skinned, handsome boy Draco remembered seeing with his mother at a few functions. They'd never spoken, but Draco was pleased that the other boy had remembered his name. "The Sorting Hat's song has said in the past that Hufflepuff's for people who don't fit anywhere else, and just get dumped." He gave the girl with the pale braid an amused, supercilious look. "Your ancestral house is the official Misfit Dumping Ground, Bones."
Draco frowned. This boy knew everybody's name, then, and he was clearly not expecting to be in Hufflepuff. Draco would have to keep an eye on him - he could be difficult to keep in check.
Draco glanced back at Potter, who was frowning more steadily now, and gazing at the supercilious boy - Zabali? Something like that, Draco thought - with dislike. Draco was sort of pleased.
"Don't worry," Draco hissed. "Seriously, there's no way they'd put you in Hufflepuff."
Potter nodded, and flashed him a quick smile. He was in school robes, now, like the rest of them, and they suited him more than the scrappy Muggle clothes he'd been wearing. His hair was still messy, but that sort of suited him too, in a way that Draco could never have got away with. Draco tucked his hands into his pockets and nudged Harry's shoulder, feeling obscurely less anxious now that he'd reassured Harry.
The house debate was broken up when a host of castle ghosts floated through the wall, and after that McGonagall called them through.
There was a hat on a chair. It sang - very badly, and Draco wanted to giggle - and apparently they were supposed to try it on.
It seemed to take forever to get to the M's. Draco thought they could have called them in a better order than alphabetically. Youngest to oldest, maybe. Except no, Draco didn't especially want the fact that he was one of the youngest in the class called to everyone's attention. Some other way, then.
They got there eventually, and the hat had barely touched Draco's head before it was shouting "SLYTHERIN!"
Draco's legs were shaky with relief as he got up and made his way over to the Slytherin table. Vince and Gregory had saved him a seat; obviously they hadn't had any doubts. Draco gave them a bright, wobbly grin and dropped onto the bench next to Vince.
The next five students were all Sorted into other houses, and then a girl called Pansy Parkinson was made another Slytherin. Then a girl called Patil, and then another girl called Patil who looked exactly like the first one, so that Draco began to think they were going to go on forever and they'd never get to Potter.
Then McGonagall called "Potter, Harry!" and the entire hall broke out in whispers.
Draco leaned forward, fixing his eyes on the other boy. If Harry was nervous now, he wasn't showing it. Draco felt a burst of smug pride at how determined he looked as he walked up to the stool and sat down.
They waited, and they waited, and the whispering broke out again. Finally the hat shouted out "SLYTHERIN."
"Yes!" Draco cried, the shout lost in the rest of the cheering erupting from their table. Draco shook his fist in the air and turned to punch Vince in the shoulder. Vince was still blinking and shell-shocked with relief at having been Sorted right himself, but Gregory was grinning from ear to ear with excitement.
McGonagall, Draco noticed, looked rather shell-shocked herself. She took the hat back from Potter with a very blank face, and glanced towards Professor Dumbledore at the Staff Table as though she couldn't help herself.
Dumbledore just twinkled at her, the way he always did on Chocolate Frog cards.
Harry dropped onto the bench beside Draco, grinning sheepishly under all the shouts and pats on the back he was getting.
"Why did it take so long?" Draco hissed.
Harry shrugged. "It was ... I don't know, it was making up its mind," he said. "It sounded like it wanted to put me everywhere at once." He fiddled with his sleeve and looked at Draco, then away again, smiling and then colouring as he said, "But, uh, it said Slytherin could be good for me, and I knew you were here, so..."
Draco felt as though all his veins were fizzing with happiness. He leaned back, folding his arms behind his head. "Slytherin's the best house," he said. "You'll see."
There were two other new Slytherin boys: the dark-skinned boy with the lip curl - who was actually called Zabini, Draco had found out during the Sorting - and another boy called Nott. They gathered into a group around Draco and the others as the Feast went on, talking loudly over the racket in the hall and trading stories about getting ready for school. They were still trading them when the feast ended and they tramped down to the Slytherin common room (so cool, like a dungeon or something) and then down the shorter flight of stairs that the spiky-haired prefect pointed them to.
Potter was in the middle of telling them about Hagrid bringing him his Hogwarts letter at a shack in the middle of the ocean when they crowded through the door into the dorm.
"That was seriously how you got your letter?" Zabini asked.
"Wicked," Nott said.
Potter grinned, turning around on the spot to look at their dorm. Draco put his hands behind his head and strolled over to the bed with his suitcase at its foot. The heavy brocaded green curtains were a bit over the top, but it looked like you could bunch them back up to the bed head if you wanted to be able to talk to people from your bed. It looked comfortable, if not as private as he was used to. But that could be cool - they could talk to each other at night.
Harry was gazing at the landscape paintings around the walls. Draco wasn't sure what he saw that was special - it was just clouds floating about and some mermaids flipping their tails off in the distance, in the one he was looking at - but Harry sounded happy and distracted as he replied to Zabini, "Yeah, my aunt and uncle didn't want me to get it." He shrugged, turning around again, and sat down on his own bed. He smoothed the coverlets. "I thought they'd be happy to get rid of me, but they don't like magic much."
Draco sat on the end of his own bed and leaned against the bed post, drawing his knees up. "That doesn't make any sense," he objected. "Why wouldn't they like magic? It was probably something else."
Harry tucked his legs beneath him. He looked doubtful. "I think they just really didn't like it. Uncle Vernon thought it was freakish."
Draco blinked. A Muggle thought magic was freakish? With their weird dangerous appliances and their strange clothes and their squallor? "That's weird," he said, frowning.
"The owls must have tried to deliver your letter, though," Nott said. He'd flopped onto his stomach on his bed, his chin in his hands.
Harry grinned. "They tried," he said. "The house was covered in owls, there were about two hundred of them, but my aunt and uncle had all the doors and windows barred. Once a whole pile came down the chimney, but they wouldn't let me catch one of them. They wouldn't even let Dudley see one - he sulked all day."
Gregory's eyes were wide. "You got hundreds of letters?" he asked.
Draco kicked him in the leg. "They all said the same thing, you idiot. It's not like you need to envy him."
Potter shrugged, unfolding his legs and flopping back against the headboard. "They might have," he said, a curl of a smile in his voice. "I don't know, do I? They might have all been - I don't know, spells or ... or nursery rhymes or something."
Draco snickered. "I bet Dumbledore would do that." He moved to sit sideways, miming writing at a desk, and copied Dumbledore's voice. "Dear Harry Potter. I thought it important to let you know that Minnie Malter was a Squib, and Matthew Muggle broke her rib. Minnie's brother wasn't pleased, so Matthew left without his knees."
Zabini laughed with the others, but threw his pillow at Draco and asked if he could still recite all his nursery rhymes like a good boy.
"Are there lots of Wizard nursery rhymes about Muggles?" Potter asked, his voice curious.
Draco put his head to the side. "Do you really not know anything about Wizard life? Not even nursery rhymes?"
Harry shrugged, picking at his coverlets. "How would I? I didn't know wizards existed until this summer. I..." He looked up, biting his lip. "Everyone's already going to know everything, aren't they? Even that girl Hermione on the train - she said her parents were Muggles, but she'd already read all our textbooks and she knew all this stuff, and she'd done spells that worked. I'm going to be the only one who doesn't know anything."
Zabini shrugged. "Nah, I think there are always a few Muggle-born kids every year. Didn't one of the new Slytherin girls say she was?"
Draco looked at his fingernails. "They shouldn't let any in at all," he said. "That's what Father says. He says that they're diluting our culture with their ignorance." At the last moment he heard what he was saying, and his eyes flew to Harry. "Er, I mean - there are probably quite a few. Father says it's a disgrace, so there must be. And anyway, we'll teach you!" He smiled wide. "You won't be ignorant, because we'll tell you everything. You'll know loads more than that priggish Muggle girl."
Potter was giving him an odd look. Still, he nodded, slowly. "All right," he said.
Nott scrambled upright, interested. "What do you want to know?"
Potter hesitated. "Hagrid told me a bit about ... Voldemort," he said.
Draco blinked. Nott had scooted backwards, he noticed, and Zabini had straightened up so fast he banged his elbow on his bed post. Vince and Gregory were looking scared. Draco gave them a scathing look. People were being ridiculous. The Dark Lord wasn't dinner table conversation, but it was only peasants who were superstitiously frightened to mention him, Lucius had told Draco.
"You want to know about You Know Who," Nott said blankly. Potter looked between the five of them, finally settling on Draco (who wasn't being an idiot).
"Hagrid already told me a bit," Potter said. "But ... well, on the train everybody wanted me to show them my scar. They all knew about how Voldemort tried to kill me, and how it was this amazing thing that he couldn't. It just ... it feels stupid that everybody knows so much more about it than me. And ... and he killed my parents. I want to know."
Draco nodded, thinking. He propped his chin on his knee. "Well, he disappeared when I was one," he said. "Sometimes the Daily Prophet prints rubbish about how he's not truly gone, but Father says he definitely is. He was too powerful a wizard to ever hide away, so the only reason he'd disappear was if he was truly dead."
"I guess ... good, then," Harry said. "Hagrid talked about him as if he was Darth Vader or something." They looked at him. Harry looked around and amended that to, "Er, I mean, as if he was really evil. Totally evil."
Draco made a face. "He wasn't evil," he said. "Only the newspapers and people like Dumbledore say he was evil. That's what Father says. He says that the Dark Lord had some good ideas. He just took them too far, and that was why he failed."
Potter stared at him. Draco shifted on the bed.
"He killed my parents," Potter said slowly.
Draco hesitated. "Well, yes," he said. "Only ... Father says that he was working from sound principles." Potter was still staring at him, but Draco was more sure of himself now. "Father says that the Ministry has become dangerously liberal, and that the end of it will be the erosion of Wizarding society and its crumble in the face of Muggle debasement and violence. He says that the Dark Lord was one of the only people to recognise that and act to do something about it, before everything became completely contaminated."
Nott, who hadn't been talking very much, burst in now. He looked upset. "Well, my Father says that all the people who supported You Knew Who were young fools who should have known better, and nearly all of them regretted it!"
Draco gave him a dismissive look. "The ones who went to Azkaban did, I expect."
Potter's face twisted. "He killed my parents," he said again. "What does that have to do with ... with sound principles or ... or contamination? Or was it all right because my mother was Muggle-born?"
Draco hesitated. "My father says ... he says that the Dark Lord went too far, but it was in the right direction," he said. "He says that ... that to be respected, you have to be feared, and you can't afford to be squeamish about things."
Potter's cheeks had reddened with anger. "Oh?" he said. "Well, my father's dead, but if he was alive he'd say that yours was talking total crap, Draco."
Draco saw red. "Take that back."
Harry's expression was angry and steady. "Why?" he said. "You just said that Voldemort was right to try to murder me when I was a baby."
Draco stared at him. "I ... didn't," he said. Potter laughed, derisive. "But if I did, maybe it's true!" Draco said.
"Er," Nott said. Draco and Harry both ignored him.
"Sometimes you have to do things everybody else is afraid to do!" Draco said.
Harry's fists dug into the comforter beneath him. "I'm sorry I didn't die, then," he said. "I'm sure that would have made you happy!"
He stared at Draco for a moment longer. Draco stared back, angry and desperate and with no idea how they'd got here. Then Potter grabbed his curtains and drew them jerkily closed.
Draco couldn't bring himself to move. After a while the others began to quietly get ready for bed around him.
"This is going to be interesting," Zabini murmured to Nott, his voice amused.
Draco couldn't even look at him. He stared at his knees. Then Vince had turned out the lights and he stared at the darkness.
There was an awful, sick, tight feeling in his stomach. He couldn't make it go away.
*
Draco was woken by a pillow landing on his face.
"First class at eight thirty, Malfoy," Zabini drawled. "Breakfast starts at seven."
Draco scrubbed the back of one hand over eyes gummy with sleep. He wasn't sure why Zabini had appointed himself first year alarm clock. Dropping his hand and pushing onto his elbows, Draco focused on Zabini, and decided that the other boy was enjoying the role too much.
"Put a sock in it, Zabini," Nott's muffled voice came from a humped tangle of bedclothes. It was followed by a noise of protest as a pillow thumped onto his head.
Zabini had tugged back everybody's curtains before he woke them, because he clearly had a cat's respect for privacy.
Vince was already awake and dressed, sitting quietly against the headboard of his bed, but Gregory was as bad at waking up as Draco was. He was buried under his blankets, ignoring everything around him.
Potter was rubbing at his eyes, blinking at the light. His hair was sticking up in every direction, and falling into his eyes at the same time.
For a moment Draco wanted to smile at him. He almost made a joke about Potter's hair. Then the night before came back, like a chill creeping down his shoulders. Draco turned away, adjusting his pyjama top, which had got twisted around while he slept. When he turned back, Potter had found his glasses and was getting out of bed.
"Come on," Potter said to Zabini. "The showers are through here, aren't they?"
As they went by, Potter gave Draco one brief, unconcerned glance. Draco gave it back to him, raising his eyebrows a bit, the way Lucius did.
As soon as they were gone, Draco rolled onto his stomach. "I hate the world," he mumbled.
Vince padded over. "It's breakfast soon," he offered. He prodded Draco. "My dad says the breakfasts here are really good."
*
Draco didn't think breakfast was all that brilliant. They didn't have his favourite sourdough bread, and he didn't like pumpkin juice.
Potter was sitting with Nott and Zabini, further down the table. The three of them were huddled together, discussing something. As Draco watched, Nott said something and Potter looked up and grinned, shoving his shoulder. Nott grinned back, self-conscious, and stole one of Zabini's pieces of toast.
"My grandmother," a girl's voice at Draco's left observed, "says that staring at famous people is like wearing an enormous sign saying that you have no class at all."
Draco turned to look at her. She was a dark-haired girl he remembered vaguely from the Sorting. She had a funny squashed nose and an insolent tilt to her mouth.
"I suppose your grandmother would know?" Draco asked, as dismissively as he could.
The girl lowered her lashes over a smirk. "She would, actually," she said. "She was ever so famous. She was the first witch to be a war correspondent for the Prophet, over in Europe and places in the Grindelwald War."
Draco blinked at her. She raised her lashes again, looking at him. "You're Draco Malfoy, aren't you?" she said. "Why were you staring at Harry Potter?"
"His face annoys me," Draco said flatly. He struggled for a moment. "And it does not count if somebody's actually living in your dorm. That's not staring at famous people - and anyway, who are you?"
"Oh, it does count," she said. "Um. And I'm Pansy Parkinson." She traced a finger over the table cloth in front of her, and he realised, with a shock, that she might actually be a bit shy. "I was the first Slytherin to get Sorted after you, you know."
"Oh," Draco said. He paused. "What's the girls' dorm like?"
Pansy waved a hand, which Draco noticed had bright pink nail polish on it. "It's strange not having any windows," she said, "but the paintings are nice. There's one of a herd of unicorns on the steppes that..." She trailed off at Draco's smirk. "Oh, shut up." She coloured. "Unicorns are cool."
"Ours has a herd of Thestrals," Draco said. "They're tearing apart a stag. There's blood and guts shining on their teeth and everywhere."
Pansy looked fascinated and appalled at the same time. But she lifted her chin, recovering her cool. "You can't even see Thestrals, Malfoy."
Draco took a bite of eggs and toast, looking mysterious.
"I don't believe you," she said. She sounded uncertain, though.
Draco noticed that Harry was looking at him. There was a tight, miserable expression on his face that sort of made Draco want to go over there and ... and hit him, or something.
"I'm not sure what it means when famous people stare back at you," Pansy Parkinson said meditatively.
"He's not that famous," Draco said, turning back to his food. His throat hurt when he said it.
*
The first class for the day was Transfiguration, which was a little bit cool at first, when Professor McGonagall turned her desk into a goose, and then back again.
"It still looks a bit goosish," Pansy whispered next to Draco. "Don't you think? Around the feet?"
Draco coughed and walked his fingers over the desk behind the shelter of their textbooks, miming a desk waddling along. Pansy giggled. McGonagall gave them a flat look, and Draco concentrated virtuously on the match on the desk in front of him. "I think that my match has gone a bit silver, Professor," he offered, to Pansy's eye roll. "It looks a bit like a needle, now."
McGonagall came over and looked at it. "Practise the wand glide again, Mr Malfoy; you haven't quite got it," she said quellingly.
Potter gave him a brief, disgusted look, then went back to ignoring him.
Draco prodded at his match with his wand. It was a stupid exercise anyway.
After Transfiguration was Charms, which was even more stupid, since the Professor fell off his perch when he got to Harry's name on the register. Harry looked desperately embarrassed. Draco wanted to lean close to his ear and make a joke about Flitwick so that he laughed instead of flattening his fringe and trying to sink under his desk.
Instead Draco turned to Pansy and said, just loud enough for everyone to hear, "Oh, is that Harry Potter? I had no idea."
"Shut up, Malfoy," Potter said, curling his fists on his desk.
"Now, now," Professor Flitwick said, settling himself at the top of his pile of books once again. "We mustn't, that is to say, get excited about having a celebrity in our midst. All students are equal here, you know!"
Draco rolled his eyes. Potter was trying to hide behind his desk again. Zabini reached down and tugged him straight. "Greet your fans, Potter," he murmured, and Potter rolled his eyes and shoved him. "Are you offering to be my publicity manager?" he asked, his voice a threat.
"I'd love to," Zabini replied. Draco wished that Flitwick would shut them up, but the professor was busy trying to find his place in the text.
Potter stared at Zabini. Then he shook his head, grinning. "You are a ginormous git," he said quietly. "Don't you dare."
*
Draco was still pretending to himself that it would all come right, or that he didn't care, or both, when they got to the free period after lunch. He and Vince and Gregory had decided to try to get to the top of the Astronomy Tower - partly because they had a class there on Wednesday night and they needed to work out how to get there, but mostly because it was the tallest tower and they wanted to see how far you could see from the top.
The staircases seemed to get more temperamental the higher you got, though. Draco found himself pitying the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors who had to find their way down through all these floors every day.
"They need maps," Draco complained, leaning on Vince at the bottom of yet another staircase. "Or ropes or something, so that you can swing up to the landing if the staircase starts to move. My father's on the school board, I should bully him into suggesting it."
Gregory gave him an uncertain look, probably at the idea of Draco successfully bullying Lucius into doing anything at all. Draco ignored him, leaning on Vince some more. Vince was a solid, uncomplaining support.
"I think we need to go right some more," Vince said slowly.
They turned down the right hand corridor. This did look like the right direction, actually - there were tapestries of stargazing centaurs along the wall, for one.
"I think..." Draco started, then trailed off. He'd just noticed the three boys sitting with their legs sprawled into the walkway, near the other end of the corridor. They were leaning their backs against another tapestry, and they had what looked like about fifty chocolate frog cards spread out over the floor in front of them. There were no wrappers, so it must have been somebody's collection. By the way Nott was leaning forward, adjusting one crooked card, Draco assumed the collection was his.
"No, this one's Nimue," Nott was saying. "She's from the Merlin set, she's worth a mint, actually."
"Wait," Harry said, putting down the card he'd been looking at and picking up another. "I thought you said this one was Nimue?"
Zabini glanced over. "No, that's Neffrety," he said. "She's much more recent - she only died a few hundred years ago. She was an Arithmantic scholar - she discovered the Neffret Sequence."
"She has some value as a curiosity, but she's not worth as much," Nott said.
"Why's she carrying..." Harry started, lifting his head. Then he noticed Draco and the others. They'd been walking more and more slowly as they got closer.
"Potter," Draco said uncertainly. He nodded at Nott and Zabini, but didn't say anything to them.
"Malfoy," Harry said. He sounded unfriendly.
"What are you doing?" Draco asked.
"None of your business," Harry said. Then, more heatedly, "Nothing that will kill me, which I'm sure will disappoint you."
Draco could feel himself flushing. "That's ridiculous," he said. "You're being ridiculous."
Potter stood up, slowly. "I'm being ridiculous?" he demanded. "You said that Voldemort was right to try to murder me." He fixed his gaze on Draco. "Are you trying to apologise now, or are you just ...?"
"Malfoys don't apologise," Draco said automatically.
"Then you can get stuffed," Potter said, his expression vicious. His eyes were bright and strained. Draco felt trapped. Sorry, he thought. Sorry, sorry. He couldn't say it. He never had. And anyway, that would be saying that his father had been wrong, and he hadn't been, he wasn't.
"Come on," Potter said, looking back at Nott and Zabini. "Let's do this back in the common room."
"Don't bother," Draco said, stung. "We were just going."
He ploughed forward, stepping on the cards as he went. Nott cursed, his hand darting forward to rescue the Nimue card. Draco ignored him. Vince and Gregory stayed at Draco's side, and that was all that mattered.
*
Apparently Zabini and Nott were taking seriously the task of educating Potter in Wizarding life. Draco had seen them teaching Potter about Chocolate Frog Cards on Monday. On Wednesday he overheard the three of them making stealthy plans to sneak Potter out to learn flying.
"Only the Muggle-borns won't know how," Nott was saying in a low voice, while they all settled at their desks for Charms. "Plus, everybody falls off their first time on a broom."
"I'm not falling off in front of everybody," Harry said, just as low. "It's bad enough the way Snape keeps picking on me to answer things I obviously don't know - at least I can't actually fall on my bum in Potions."
Zabini slung an arm around Harry's shoulders. "That's why we're giving you lessons!" he said. "So you'll only look like a tool in front of us."
Harry grinned. "Wow," he said. "You make this lesson sound like so much fun."
Zabini shrugged. "I'm pretty bad, actually," he admitted, "so probably Theo will teach you." He grinned, a slow curl of his lips. "But at least I don't fall off."
"Draco?" Crabbe asked in a low voice. "When's our first flying lesson?"
"Thursday next week," Draco said, turning back to his own desk. He opened his textbook, then looked sideways at his friend. Vince was looking at his unopened textbook, a small frown on his forehead.
"You'll be fine," Draco said. "You haven't fallen off in ages."
Crabbe nodded. "Yeah," he said after a moment. "I guess."
Professor Flitwick found his page and looked up. Peering over his spectacles, he called for attention.
*
Draco could hear Harry and the others whispering that night, and he heard it when they decided the others were asleep and slipped out of bed, pulling their outdoor clothes on over their pyjamas. Goyle was snoring, a gentle burr, but Draco knew that Crabbe was awake too.
Draco lay in bed, listening to the soft giggles and curses as they stubbed their toes and stumbled over books, arguing in hissed whispers about the best way to get to the Quidditch shed, where the school brooms were stored. Eventually they slipped out, the door closing with a snick behind them.
Draco opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. It was too dark to see anything but the pale smudge of the ceiling and the walls of the room. He rolled over, punching his pillow.
"Malfoy?" Vince asked, his voice quiet.
Draco didn't answer.
*
At breakfast the next morning, Zabini and Nott were jubilant and excited. Potter was almost as much so, although he was self-conscious and kept ducking his head and telling them to shut up.
"... a complete natural," Nott was saying, his cheeks flushed. "Like he was born on a broomstick. When you did that twist over the lake, Harry - and remember that tree, Blaise? So awesome."
"I want to see everyone's faces," Zabini said, his smile a triumphant curl. "When we have our first flying lesson. Malfoy was going on about all the things he's done on a broom, but there's no way he's this good."
Draco couldn't even decide whether the ugly clawing of jealousy inside him was for Potter or for Nott and Zabini. He stabbed at his breakfast, silently vowing that he was going to fly so flawlessly next Thursday that everybody would be gasping. And Potter would watch him.
He wondered whether Potter could really have beeen as good as Nott and Zabini seemed to think, his first time on a broom.
"I hate flying," Pansy sighed, beside him. "It's so cold, even on sunny days, and my knees get cramped in position. And my hair gets all revolting. How many lessons do you think we'll have?" She leaned her head on Daphne Greengrass's shoulder.
"Maybe only one," Greengrass said comfortingly, leaning back.
Draco stretched. "Really," he said, "we should have flying as a regular lesson, instead of History of Magic. It's much more useful. I think I shall suggest my father mention it to the Board."
Pansy opened her eyes, wide and tragic. "I should die," she said.
Draco heard Harry giggle, the sound muffled. When Draco glanced down the table at him, Harry was back to pretending that he wasn't paying any attention to them.
*
The week seemed to stretch interminably. Classes that had been new and exciting were a drag, compared to the upcoming flying lesson. They were having it together with Gryffindor, apparently, which was rousing a competitive spirit even among the girls, who were united in their distaste for both flying and Quidditch. (Draco thought this had more to do with Pansy's unifying influence than with any actual dislike for flying on the part of Greengrass and Bulstrode.)
Pansy was particularly determined. "I happen to know that Parvati Patil doesn't fly any better than I do," she said at one point, "and Granger and Thomas are both Muggle-born, so that's them down." Then she sneered. "Not that I can imagine Granger having any grace in the air under any circumstances. She's as awkward as a stick."
Draco wasn't sure where Pansy's intense dislike of Hermione Granger had come from - he rather thought something must have happened on the train, but he wasn't sure. He hadn't paid much attention to any of the Gryffindors, really, except to sneer at them in a partisan sort of way in Potions.
It was Potter's flying he wanted to see.
They'd fallen into a routine in the dorm. Harry talked to Vince and Gregory in a polite, distant sort of way, and Draco was happy to trade insults with Zabini when the other boy woke them all up in the mornings. But Harry and Draco never exchanged a word. If they ran into each other in the hallway on the way to the showers, they moved around each other with the air of people avoiding an empty patch of space. Sometimes Draco caught Harry watching him, but when Draco looked, Harry would always look away and say something random to somebody else. Draco only looked at Harry when he was almost sure Harry was too absorbed to look around.
As far as Draco knew, Harry had never brought up Voldemort since that first night. Draco had never heard the three of them talking about him, anyway, or about the Death Eaters or the war or anything else like that.
Draco hadn't been talking about those things either, but that didn't mean he hadn't been thinking about them. He'd tried to write to his mother three times. He finally finished a letter on Tuesday afternoon, before dinner.
Vince and Gregory were busy looking for the entrance to the kitchens. Draco would usually have helped them, but today he'd slipped away. He was curled up against the worn velvet curtains of the window seat near the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, looking out over the lawns of the castle. They were already growing dusky. Draco's wand cast the light of a warm Lumos over his lap, and over the parchment balanced there.
He read the letter again.
Dear Mother,
I hope you and Father are well. I'm settling into school, you'll be glad to know. We have a flying lesson next week. I expect I'll be brilliant. Vince is a bit worried, but I gave him extra lessons over Summer, and he hasn't fallen off in ages.
I had a disagreement with somebody about the Dark Lord, and about that war War from when I was a baby. Father says that the Dark Lord had the right ideas. I don't want Wizarding Society to fall into chaos and decay. I know we have to protect our heritage.
But the Death Eaters killed people. They did, didn't they? Kids, even.
Your son,
Draco
He looked at it. He hadn't asked a question, not really. He couldn't ask a question. He already felt uncomfortable and prickly about the implied criticism of Lucius, he couldn't ...
Before he could second-guess himself, Draco whistled quietly. Mercury left off nibbling at the curtains by his left arm and hopped into the light, bird eyes bright and curious.
"Here," Draco said, rolling the parchment up and fastening it to the owl's leg. "It's for Mother. Don't ... it's just for Mother, okay? No one else."
Mercury tilted his head to the side, unimpressed. He hopped onto Draco's shoulder, wings fluttering. Then he extended them properly and launched himself into the corridor behind Draco, disappearing into the dimness.
Draco bit down on the first knuckle of his thumb, trying to relax. He hadn't questioned anything really. He hadn't betrayed anybody. His father. Anybody.
_______
Part II