September, 1991

Chapter 2: September, 1991

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It’s a nice day to start again.

—Billy Idol, “White Wedding”

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Draco waited dolefully for Narcissa to stop fussing with his collar. The humiliation of the ordeal was somewhat made up for by the fact that across the platform, countless eleven-year-olds suffered the same fate with equally dour expressions. Over by the luggage carts, Goyle’s mother was festooning his cheeks with kisses, and the idea of Narcissa doing this to him in public turned his stomach so violently that he felt a rush of appreciation for his mother, who was after all a woman of great dignity and poise, and knew better than to disgrace them both with such fretting.

It was September first. He was eleven years old. He carried a trunk of dragonhide leather with silver finishing, and a cage for Ulysses, which he had covered with his cloak, both to quiet the owl and let him sleep on the train. He wore his robes and dress trousers, his uniform pressed, unwrinkled, and perfect. In his pocket was his wand: ten inches, hawthorn wood and unicorn hair, as-yet unused.

The scarlet steam engine howled and belched smoke, which gave him an excuse to extract himself.

“Mother, please. I don’t want to miss the train.”

“You won’t miss it, my love. They’ll hardly leave with all these people still on the platform.”

“That’s the second bell, and the engine’s making all that steam, I really don’t want to take chances—”

She laughed and wiped a (wholly imaginary! He had checked the mirror, thrice) smudge from his cheek. She stage-whispered, “Alas, I think you’re right. Look! It’s starting to move! Hurry!”

He spun around, even though some part of him knew he was being made fun of, because — well, one didn’t like to take chances. His reflection in the shining and motionless side of the traincar stared back at him: irritated and embarrassed.

Narcissa’s laugh sounded behind him like a passel of silver bells. She reached out to fidget with his robes again, and he stepped out of her reach.

“Unsporting of me,” she admitted. “But you really needn’t worry. If you do miss it, we can always Floo you in through Snape’s office.”

“But I don’t want to go in through Snape’s office. I want to go in on the boats like everyone else.”

“Then you shall have your boats, darling.”

“And I don’t want to be late.”

“Very wise of you. A prudent wizard is punctual.” She bent and kissed the air above his right cheek, and then presented her cheek for the same honor, which he obediently gave. With a short sharp breath, she straightened. “All right. I won’t make you stand here squirming any longer.”

Overwhelmed by a sudden wave of affection, commingled with fear, Draco seized her hand. She wrapped it in both of her own, lifted it to her mouth, and kissed each of his knuckles, including the one where the signet ring sat, though it was far too large for his small finger. Then she dropped it and said, in a voice full of iron and dignity, “Goodbye, Draco,” which was his way of knowing that he was dismissed; other people had heard her.

He hauled his trunk down the narrow alley between compartments, ignoring the bustle and clamor around him. He passed a round-faced boy who was moaning about his toad, and a glance at the recipient of this moaning clocked her as Augusta Longbottom. He nodded to her and kept moving, hoping that she wouldn’t recognize him. The Longbottoms were good stock, but word had it the boy was a squib. The pureblood community had been broadly surprised to hear he’d received a Hogwarts letter at all, but rumor had it Augusta bullied his way in with a strongly worded letter to Albus Dumbledore.

A pair of boys with bright red hair were languishing by the doorway to another compartment, helping first years with their luggage. “Come on up! One at a time! There you go, mate, hop on. I’ve got it, leggo. All right. That’ll be twelve galleons. What, you’ve never heard of tips? Stingy, aren’t we? Oh, never mind, I’m only joking. You’re fine. Welcome to Hogwarts, I’m Fred.”

As Draco approached, the other boy stepped into his way. “Hullo, Ickle Firstie,” he chirped. “Help you with your trunk?”

“No, thank you.”

“You sure? You’re none too big, my friend, and that trolley’s heavier than you are.” The redhead paused and gave him a studious look. “Oi. Do I know you from somewhere?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You sure? You never been in the papers or nothing? I swear I’ve seen that face before.” The boy squinted at him, and his expression cleared. “Oh! I know you! Fred, c’mere, look! It’s the Malfoy brat.”

“No way,” said Fred, craning his neck. The twins leaned against the wall with identical and somewhat uncanny poses. “Looks just like his Dad, dun’ee?”

“I thought so. Got a face I’d seen in the papers.”

“Didn’t realize he was in Ron’s year.”

“Small for his age, now you mention it.”

“Don’t his house elves feed him enough?”

“Seems not.”

“Don’t say much, does he?”

“No. Strong and silent type.”

“Knowing his father, maybe that’s for the best.”

Draco cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” he said, as calmly as he could. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to sit down.”

He half expected them to refuse, but to his relief, they let him pass. “Hey,” called Fred, sounding almost apologetic. “Do you want help with that trunk? Seriously, it’s no charge.”

“No, thank you.”

“I’m Fred,” he called. “That’s George. If you need anything, you can holler for us — or our brother, Percy. He’s the Gryffindor prefect, can’t miss him, just look for the big freckly git with a ‘P’ on his chest.”

“I said no thank you, Weasley, is there something wrong with your ears?” he snapped. Fred and George exchanged a balking glance.

After a moment, hearing his mother’s voice nagging in his ear, he swallowed and said coldly, “Please accept my apologies.”

Then he hauled his trunk past them and — finally landing upon an empty compartment — he wrestled his trunk inside, slammed the door, and shut the blinds.

The train gave a great bellow and began to move. Draco sat by the window and watched the houses flash past, first at a crawl, then at a sprint, and finally flying so quickly that they bled together and turned into a ruddy smear of brick and stone and fog, the colors of London in its brute industrial glory.

Watching the landscape fly away, a cold wave of loneliness crested over his head. The panic and paranoia of one’s first solitary venture away from home seized him, as it always does, at the very moment it becomes impossible to turn back, and it occurred to Draco that for the first time in his life, he was going to a place where not one person loved him, because he was leaving behind the only person in the world who already did.

A tap came on the door of the compartment. He ignored it. He wasn’t in the mood to be disturbed.

The tap came again. Then, to his alarm, the door slid open, revealing a girl with crooked teeth and absolutely astonishing amounts of hair.

“Hello,” she said breathlessly. “I’m Hermione Granger. Is anyone sitting here?”

He stared. He didn’t know her, which meant she wasn’t from Society. She wore her Hogwarts robes, sans tie, which meant she was a First Year, like him. The name Granger was British, though it could’ve been French, which didn’t rule out any of the noble bloodlines. Frankly, she could have been anybody, except that she had the tone of someone very much used to getting her own way, either by hook or ingenious crook. Draco knew this tone well, because it also happened to be his.

She waited for him to speak, and when he didn’t, she bit her lip. “I’m sorry to bother,” she said, “but it’s packed full everywhere else and I’ve been walking around for ages and I don’t want to sit in a car full of strangers. I thought this was empty when I found it. If you’d rather not be disturbed that’s fine, I don’t even hardly want to talk, I just want somewhere to sit and read my book.”

She held up a worn and threadbare copy of Hogwarts: A History. It was so beat-up that Draco could barely read the title, and something appeared to have taken a bite out of the spine.

Unable to think of a reason to refuse her, he shrugged. “Fine.” He waved rudely at the seat across from him and turned back to the window.

“Thank you,” she said fervently, and hopped onto the seat. He heard her rustling around, arranging herself, and then the rustling of pages.

She cleared her throat a little, and gave an actual happy sigh of contentment, like the mere act of opening a book gave her so much joy she couldn’t contain herself.

He snuck a glance at her and found her already engrossed in the volume. She was cross-legged, with the book splayed open in her lap, and with one finger she scanned each line, her eyes flying across the pages with remarkable speed. A strand of hair drifted into her face (with that much hair, it was surely impossible for some of it not to end up there) and absentmindedly, she ran it between her lips. Draco found this gross, ill-bred, and excellent evidence as to why he should refrain from the charitable impulse to share his compartment in the future.

Still, she was already here, so it wasn’t like he could very well remove her. He leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes, hoping that he could escape the girl’s various irritations with a nap.

This was not to be, however. Not two minutes had passed before the girl lifted her head and said, “Excuse me?”

He breathed deeply, pretending to be asleep.

“Excuse me?” She could not (or chose not to) take the hint. “Sorry. Um… you, there?”

Without opening his eyes, he muttered: “Yes?”

“Are you… I mean, not are you, but does your family…” She tapped her finger on her mouth, frowning. “Are your parents wizards?”

He lifted his head and stared at her.

“Sorry if that’s a rude question,” she said hastily. “I don’t know. I’m sort of new to all this. I just —”

“Yes,” he said slowly, wondering if she had been raised these eleven years under the surface of an actual rock, or was perhaps merely deranged. “I come from a… large… wizarding family.”

“Oh, good!” She beamed. “Then can I ask you a question?”

“You haven’t seemed to need my permission so far.”

“Could you tell me what this word means?” She flipped the book around and held it out to him, pointing to a line on the browned and moth-eaten page. “I have a copy of Metaxia’s Marvelous Magical Dictionary in my luggage, but it’s buried under my robes. It’s funny, reading this is sort of like reading Latin. I need a lexicon to work through it.”

“Most of it is Latin,” he said, and without meaning to, he glanced down at the word her finger indicated. “You might as well get a lexicon, it’ll help. Move your finger, I can’t read the word.”

“Oh, sorry.” She shifted her grip, revealing that she had indicated the word ‘quidditch.’

“Quidditch?” he repeated. “You don’t know what quidditch is?”

She bristled. “There’s no need to take that tone,” she said. “I’ve never been to Hogwarts before, and the book doesn’t explain what it is.”

“I’ve never been there either, but — you’ve never heard of quidditch? Really? The biggest sport in the world?” At her uncomprehending gaze, he continued, “It’s on brooms? With balls? And hoops? Honestly, didn’t your parents ever take you to a game?”

“I doubt I’d have liked it if they did,” she said haughtily. “I hate sports.”

He ignored this toothless riposte for the diversion it was. “So does my mum. But she knows what quidditch is.”

“And now I do, too.” She cleared her throat to disguise her obvious embarrassment. “Thank you. I appreciate your enlightening me, Mister…” She trailed off meaningfully.

“Malfoy,” he sighed. “Draco Malfoy.”

“Thank you, Draco,” she said, in a tone so full of superiority and cool, inscrutable primness that it would have had Narcissa clapping in approval.

He rolled his eyes and turned back to the window. She gave a short huff and returned to her book.

Five minutes later, she cleared her throat again. He suppressed a sigh.

“Yes?”

She was pointing at another word, now, although he noticed she’d moved through a remarkable number of pages in the time since their last exchange. “I really am sorry to bother,” she said, though she sounded less sorry than she’d been the first time. “But do you know what a ‘remem-brall’ is? I’ve looked in the appendix, and it doesn’t explain anything.”

At least that one made sense. A remembrall was relatively advanced magic, and Draco wouldn’t have known what it was, either, if his grandmother hadn’t used to wear one in a pouch around her neck. “It’s a magical item,” he explained. “It’s this little glass ball full of fog. You rub it, and it turns red when you’ve forgotten something.”

Her brow furrowed. “Oh,” she said. “But that’s not very useful, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, does it tell you what you’ve forgotten?”

“I — well — no,” he said, slightly aggrieved. “I imagine once you know you’ve forgotten, you’re more likely to remember.”

“Yes, but, if the rembrall—”

“Remembrall.”

“—if the rememberall—”

“Remembrall.”

“If the object,” the girl said forcefully, “can already tell that you’ve forgotten something, then presumably it knows what thing you’ve forgotten, right? So why can’t it just show you a picture of the thing you’ve forgot?”

He rubbed his chin, puzzling.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t read much about them.”

“Oh. I see. Well, thanks, anyway.”

This time he did not bother to try for sleep. He put his head against the window and waited, brooding, as he felt (rather than saw) her curiosity mount. It manifested in physical signs: her knee bounced. Her fingers fidgeted with the corner of the page. She gave long sighs that were probably meant to make him ask what she wanted.

But Draco had trained in passive aggression at the feet of Narcissa Malfoy, and he would not be outdone by anyone less than that master herself.

“Okay, one more question and that’s all I promise—”

“Granger.”

“I promise! I’m very sorry to bother you, but honestly I’ve already read the book twice through and I’ve been wondering about these things for ages only there’s been nobody to ask—”

“And you happen to be on a train to the best wizarding school in the world, so why don’t you, I don’t know, ask a teacher?”

“You’re very sour about this for someone who wasn’t even doing anything. I mean it’d be one thing if you were reading or talking to friends or what-have-you,” she said matter-of-factly, “but you’re just sitting here alone.”

“I was trying to sleep,” muttered Draco.

She sniffed and withdrew further into her corner of the compartment, cradling the book like an injured pet. “You sleep with your eyes open?” she muttered. “That’s remarkable. Wish I could do that, then I could read and sleep at the same time.”

Draco folded his arms and crossed his legs, feigning indifference, though his irritation was mounting and it was taking an increasing amount of effort not to snap at her. His mother had told him to be polite to everybody, but it seemed to him that Narcissa failed to take into account just how annoying ‘everybody’ could be.

From Granger’s side of the compartment there came a small, short sigh. It sounded slightly hurt.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and massaged it with deep, swift strokes. “Listen,” he said. “You’re obviously not from around here—”

“I’m from Hampstead Garden.”

“Yes, the middle of nowhere, like I said. Anyway, even though your parents decided not to raise you in Society, for whatever idiotic reason, you’re obviously trying to make up for it, and I respect that you’re trying. Annoying as it is. It’s not very easy, cutting your way in from the outside.” He regretted this as soon as he said it. He regretted it not least because she swelled up with pride and pleasure and all sorts of horrible saccharine emotions that probably made her think she should keep talking to him.

“Thank you, Draco,” she said. Then, possibly as a reward for having paid her a compliment, she fell quiet and returned to her book.

While they had been talking, the train had carried them out of London. Now they were speeding past full-bodied swells of grass and sheep, split here and there by low stone walls and dilapidated fences. Silence reigned for a while, Granger engrossed in Bagshot’s magnum opus and Draco in the landscape outside. Aside from the occasional flutter of a turning page, she kept her promise of being unobtrusive, and after a while he ceased to find it bothersome. In fact (though he would rather snog a grindylow than admit it), it was somewhat nice to have another presence in the compartment, another set of breaths, the occasional movement to remind him that he was not the only First Year on the train.

At half past twelve, there was a clattering in the corridor, and a plump, matronly woman slid back their door. “Anything off the cart, dears?” she inquired.

Draco, who had a packed lunch from Dobby in his satchel, shook his head. But Granger’s head snapped up, and with childish delight, she said, “Do you have any chocolates?”

“Plenty, love,” said the trolley woman cheerfully. “What’ll you have? Chocolate Frogs? Cauldron Cakes? Fudge Flies?”

“Oh, er… do you have Cadbury?”

Draco frowned. He wondered if that was one of those foreign sweets that his mother imported. It would explain a lot if the girl grew up abroad. There was a junior boarding school in Switzerland, as he recalled, with a good reputation; the Greengrasses sent their girls there.

The trolley woman shook her head. “Don’t think so, m’afraid.”

“That’s all right. I’ll try the, er… chocolate frogs, then.”

“Good choice, m’love, those are a crowd-pleaser. You might try some Cauldron Cakes, too, if you’re new to them. Bit easier to get down.” She winked.

“I’ll take two.” Granger pulled out a beaded coinpurse and poked around for change. “Do you want anything?” she asked Draco.

His lip curled. “I’m perfectly capable of buying my own candy.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t,” she exclaimed. “I just thought I’d offer. My mum always told me to share my candy with my friends.”

He suddenly felt silly for snapping. Sulking, he folded his arms and leaned further into the window. “I have my own lunch, thank you.”

“Suit yourself,” she said, after a moment, and turned back to the trolley. “That’ll be all, then.”

“Very good, dearie. Four sickles and seven knuts.”

There was a long pause.

“Sickles?”

“Yes, four sickles, seven knuts, please and thank you.”

There was a jingle of coins. Granger said doubtfully, “And — and how many quid is that, exactly?”

“Quid, dearie?”

“Quid? As in, pounds sterling?” A beat passed. “The national currency of Britain?”

Incapable of bearing any more excruciation, Draco stood up. “Good Lord,” he snapped. “Here.” Shouldering Granger out of the way, he dug into his pocket and pulled out a handful of sickles, which he emptied into the trolley woman’s waiting palm without counting them. “Take it and leave us alone,” he said.

“Heavens,” said the trolley woman mildly. “Have it your way. Meant no offense.” She trundled off, mumbling something about uppity children under her breath.

Granger said, “Draco—”

He rounded on her. “Are you really that much of a twit, or have you never heard of money before?”

The guilt and gratitude melted out of her eyes with remarkable speed. “I know what money is, thank you,” she snapped. “My parents gave me five pounds to get lunch on the train, and I was trying to pay her.”

“Pounds of what?”

“‘Pounds of what’? Are you having me on?”

“I was going to ask you the same question.”

She thrust out her coinpurse, her hand trembling slightly in indignation. “Look,” she said hotly. “I know that I’m not very good at all this yet, and I have a lot to learn, and that you just did something nice for me even though I’ve been in here bothering and pestering you all afternoon and you probably wish I’d sat somewhere else. But I do want to learn and I do want to pay you back and I don’t want you to have to pay just because I didn’t know something and happened to sit with you, that’s not fair and that’s not right. So why don’t you just take however many pence the candy cost out of my purse, and we’ll call it even.”

Draco wrinkled his nose at the proffered purse. “It was four sickles,” he said, in the same way he might have said, It was four pieces of lint. “You don’t have to pay that back.”

“I don’t care how much it was. Just take it.” She shook the bag and added, “Please.”

He sighed, and in the hopes that it would get her to drop the subject, he reached into the coinpurse. What he withdrew were coins like none he’d ever seen before in his life: silver and heptagonal, engraved with the profile of some random old bint in a crown. The lettering on top read ‘ELIZABETH II / D.G. REG F.D. / 1987,’ which might as well have been Ancient Runes for all the good it did him.

“Who’s Elizabeth the Second?” he asked.

Her jaw dropped.

“Elizabeth Windsor?” she said, in the same way he’d said ‘quidditch.’ “Queen Elizabeth?”

He paused. “Right, the muggle queen,” he said slowly. “But I’m assuming this is someone different.”

“Why would it be? It’s muggle money.”

He almost dropped the coinpurse, fingering it as if it burned him. “Why are you carrying muggle money?” he spat, shoving it back at her.

“I didn’t think it’d be a problem! The shops in Diagon Alley all took it!”

“That’s because they can trade it in at Gringotts,” he said, “and because Diagon Alley’s gone to the dogs, the only classy shops left are up Knockturn Alley. Where’d you even get muggle money?”

“I told you, my parents gave it to me.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Your parents.”

“Yes.”

“Who are… wizards.”

“No, normal people,” she said automatically.

“You’re a mudblood!” His voice cracked in dismay.

She cocked her head to one side, utterly untouched by the insult. Of course she wouldn’t be, she didn’t know what it meant. And he shouldn’t have been so loud. His mother would have been upset with him. Not in public, she would have scolded. Give them no reason to suspect you. Be polite; feign whatever creeds you must in order to access to the storerooms of power.

“What’s that?” asked Granger.

He chose each word as if he might someday have to repeat it on record. “It means your parents are muggles,” he said. “That’s what some people call it.”

“Oh. Yes. Then I’m a mudblood.”

He winced. “No, n–not exactly.”

“What do you mean? It’s like you said. A mudblood is a person whose parents are muggles, and my parents are muggles. Therefore—”

“Yes, but that’s not the word for it.”

“Why?” Her head tipped even further to one side, like an inquisitive bird. Her tongue probed the inside of her cheek, and suddenly, understanding ignited behind her eyes. “Is it a mean word for it?”

“Yes.”

“But you used it on me.”

“Yes. It slipped out. I’m sorry.”

“Why? Is it a word you use often?”

“I try not to.”

“Because it’s mean?”

“Yes, because it’s mean,” he lied.

“Oh. Well, if you’re trying,” she said, matter-of-factly, “then I’m not going to be angry at you for slipping up. And you did buy me candy, so.” She mulled over this balancing of the moral scale, and judged it in his favor. “I won’t yell at you for it, I suppose. But mind, if you do it again, I will yell at you. And Mum says I’m quite terrible when I yell.”

“Noted.”

She looked down at the coinpurse in his hand. “I don’t suppose you have any use for the money, then,” she said.

“No, not really.”

“That’s a shame. I did want to pay you back. Maybe you could have some candy? That way I wouldn’t feel like you weren’t getting anything out of it.”

He returned her coinpurse, pinched distastefully between two fingers. “I don’t really care. It’s four sickles. You’ve hardly bankrupted me.”

“But it matters to me,” she said, and to his surprise, she sounded like she meant it. “Fair is fair.”

It occurred to him that he and this girl did not understand each other on any number of levels, one of them financial, most of them moral, and at least three of them spiritual.

“All right. How’s this? You give me one of those Cauldron Cakes, and keep the other two, as compensatory damages for emotional injury.”

“You mean, for calling me a mudblood.”

“Yes. That. So we’ll be square. And —” He hesitated. “And you’ll promise not to tell any teachers about it.”

She considered this and deemed it acceptable. “Very well,” she said crisply, and handed over her side of the settlement. “Deal.”

He set the Cauldron Cake on the seat next to him and, deciding that he should eat something substantive before his sweets, dug out his lunch.

Dobby had outdone himself: in one compartment of the lunch tin sat a gridded diamond of sandwiches, with layers of grilled ham, gouda, arugula, and caramelized onions stacked between generous slices of country bread. Beside that another compartment was filled with potato wedges, baked to crisp golden brown and encrusted with salt, and roasted carrots glazed with a balsamic vinaigrette, and for dessert, a bowl of fresh blackberries, crowned with a single dollop of thick whipped cream.

In the center of the box there was a card. It read: wishng master Draco a very gud first day and hopping the ellvs at hogwarts well be feeding him rightly. but not too rightly so he remembers to com home once in every whiles. love dobby.

There was a hotness behind his eyes. He blinked furiously and tried not to think of home, or the warm brassy kitchens of Malfoy Manor, or the single place setting Dobby would be laying out tonight for his mother’s supper.

Granger snapped him out of his moping with a mighty yelp. She had ripped open the Chocolate Frog, and the creature — an unusually spry member of its species, to her misfortune — had made a desperate bid for its freedom, landing in her hair.

“It’s alive!” she shrieked. “Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!”

Draco let out a wheezing guffaw before he could stop himself. “Merlin,” he said, “it’s a Chocolate Frog, what did you expect?”

“Nothing, obviously! I come from the muggle world! Our chocolate isn’t alive! It doesn’t move! Most things we eat aren’t still moving when we eat them! Oh, oh, oh, it’s in my hair —”

“Calm down, would you, it’s just a bit of chocolate.”

“I can feel it wriggling around!” She swatted frantically at her hair, trying to claw it out. The frog, tiring of the volatile environment around it, made a leap for the window. Draco moved quickly and caught it. Once in his grip, it froze and became inert, as they all did.

“That was horrible,” she whined. He offered it back to her, and she shook her head vehemently. “No. I’m never touching one of those again. That’s a foul trick to play on somebody who just wanted some chocolate.”

“It’s candy. It’s not going to hurt you.”

“I can’t stand creepy-crawlies,” she said passionately. “Bugs and rats and newts and toads. I don’t like them.”

It occurred to him that she was going to loathe Care of Magical Creatures. Then again, she wasn’t alone in that. Draco had never cared for animal handling. If he ever found himself in a situation where his life depended on being liked by a beast, he had already made too many mistakes to be worth saving.

Granger had discovered the Chocolate Frog card. She held it away from her face, as if suspicious that it might try to jump her, too. “Oh, I recognize these. They’re like the cards you can get for baseball players. Let’s see who I’ve got. ‘Bartemius Crouch’? Well, gosh. He’s not a very friendly-looking fellow.”

Draco swallowed hard around a bit of sandwich, and it settled unpleasantly in his stomach.

“Not sure who that is, though I’m sure you know. Oh, there’s an inscription. ‘Former head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Crouch is well-known and widely well-regarded for his efforts in the capture and prosecution of Death Eaters after the end of the Wizarding War.’ I read about that! It came up in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts. You’d have to be pretty impressive to show up in two different books, if you ask me. ‘Crouch’s unorthodox style of interrogation and relentless commitment to the cause earned him a reputation as one of the finest and most ruthless Aurors of his generation. A hero of the Wizarding War, he was awarded the Order of Merlin, Second Class. Alongside Albus Dumbledore and Cornelius Fudge, he may be considered one of the most politically significant wizards alive.’ Would you agree with that?”

He felt vaguely sick. He nodded.

“Draco?” She looked up. “I said, do you think he’s—”

“I heard you. He is.”

“Really? Because I’ve read a lot of books about the Wizarding War and Harry Potter and everything, and he didn’t come up once.”

“He wouldn’t,” he said. He pushed aside his lunch tin, appetite gone. “His career collapsed after a scandal. Or so I’ve heard.”

“Oh, wow. They don’t mention that at all here. Which I guess they wouldn’t. It’s a trading card, not a tabloid. Oh, but there’s a note here, at the bottom. ‘Coming in slightly below Alastor ‘Mad-Eye’ Moody’ — do all wizards have such funny names? I used to think ‘Hermione’ was bad, honestly — ‘Bartemius Crouch holds the second-place record for largest number of Death Eaters killed in or out of wartime.’ Hm. I’m not sure that’s the sort of appetizing information you ought to put on a trading card.”

“It’s true,” mumbled Draco.

“Even so. Death Eaters were horrible murderous people and I suppose I’m very glad that once upon a time this man was out there killing them like mad, but that doesn’t exactly make him the kind of man I’d like to have dinner with.”

Draco shrugged. He wished Granger would drop the subject.

She flipped the card over. “He’s gone!”

“Of course he is. He’s hardly going to sit there all day.”

“Your pictures move?”

“Don’t yours?”

“No. Well, except for movies. But those aren’t really pictures, they’re special moving pictures. That’s we we call them movies. Because—”

“I get the idea.”

She flipped the card over once or twice more, experimentally, to see if Crouch returned. Then she stuck it between the pages of Hogwarts: A History, to use as a bookmark.

The countryside beyond the windowpane contorted and darkened, as did the sky, for late afternoon had come and gone, leaving behind it a dusky and overcast evening. The sheep-studded hills had given way to coarse thickets and emerald fens, rivers that snaked back and forth along ravines, where the train thundered across great bridges made of mossy stone.

Granger (who did better with her Cauldron Cake than she did with the Chocolate Frog) scooted to sit across from Draco so she could see out the window. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “I suppose you’re used to it, though.”

He ignored her.

Having failed to bait him, she tried a more direct approach. “Did your parents go to Hogwarts?”

“Yes. All British wizards do.”

“So you know all about it, then.”

He shrugged.

“What houses were they in? Your parents.”

“Slytherin,” he said flatly.

Her eyes widened. “Oh,” she said.

He hated how her voice changed. As if she knew anything about it. As if a mudblood could possibly understand.

She said, “That’s the house…” But she did not finish.

“The house that what?” he said coldly, enjoying how she flinched. “What did you read about it? Did it come up in your little books?”

“It said that most Death Eaters came from Slytherin,” she said quietly.

“That’s true.”

“And Voldemort,” she said.

“Oh, yes. And Grindelwald, don’t forget him.”

“Right,” she said, trailing off. Then: “I expect you want to end up there, because of your parents, then.”

He shrugged.

“I mean, I would. If my parents went to Hogwarts, I’d want to go where they did. And I’m sure not all Slytherins are bad. You hear about the bad ones because they do bad things, and people like to write about bad things. But I think most Slytherins are probably quite normal, wouldn’t you agree? I mean you were raised by Slytherins, and you don’t seem like,” she swallowed, “an evil human being.”

“Cheers.”

She sniffed. “All the same, I don’t think I’d want to be in Slytherin. I hope I’m in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it. But I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn’t be too bad.”

“You’ll be in Ravenclaw,” he said, without even having to think about it.

“Really? You think so? I thought so too, but then I worried because it sounded like a lot of bookish folk, which would be ever so much fun but it seems like it churns out a lot of scholars and teachers, thinkers instead of doers. I intend to be a thinker and a doer, you know. I’d like to make some positive change in the world.”

“That’s beautiful. They’ll put that on your trading card.”

“Are you being sarcastic? You are.”

“What tipped you off?”

“Well, your mouth was moving, for one,” she said primly, and he gave a short chirp of laughter which he concealed by turning into a cough.

The compartment door slid open, and two thickset boys shouldered inside. The taller had a buzzcut and a rather furry-looking mole perched on the point of his chin, while the shorter was wider by far and had a stain of something yellow on his robes. Both had the habitual scowl of the bad-tempered, but Draco happened to know they were simply in a state of perpetual indigestion.

“There you are, Malfoy,” said Goyle. “Been looking for you all day. Why ain’t you sitting with us?”

“Aren’t,” said Draco.

“I knows you aren’t, that’s what I’m askin’.”

Granger giggled. This brought her to the attention of the boys, who appeared not to have realized she existed. Draco frankly did not think they were capable of sustaining attention to more than one proper noun at a time.

“Who’re you?” Crabbe said rudely.

She stood up, smiled bracingly, and stuck out her hand. “I’m Hermione Granger. Nice to meet you.”

“Vince Crabbe.” He enveloped her tiny fingers in his fist and pumped it. Draco briefly worried that he might tear her arm off.

“Greg Goyle,” said Goyle, doing the same.

“Pleasure. Are you friends of Draco’s?”

“Yeah, could say so,” said Goyle, eyeing Draco furtively, as if to say: Do we like this one? “Our dads worked together.”

“Part of the same social movement,” said Crabbe, and snickered. Granger frowned, not understanding.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Your families know each other?”

“A long time ago,” Draco said curtly.

“Long,” said Goyle, offended. “It was four years ago, mate. You came over for New Years’ when we was seven.”

“Were.”

Goyle ignored him. “I dunno what happened. We was friends. Then your mum up and vanishes off the face of the earth—”

“Oi, lay off him,” Crabbe grunted. “Ain’t his fault his mum went nutters when his dad died.”

Granger gave a sharp inhale.

Draco stood up and slipped his right hand into his pocket. “Say that again,” he said. He felt very cold. He knew, in some part of his mind, that this was a bad idea, and that he should politely disengage without offending them. He also knew with every part of his mind that he did not give a single solitary damn.

“Hey, now,” Goyle said. “He don’t mean it in the rude way, Malfoy. He only means that it ain’t your fault your mum wasn’t right in the head — I mean everyone says so, even the Ministry—”

“Why, don’t be rude,” Granger exclaimed.

Crabbe and Goyle both goggled at her. “What?”

“I said, don’t be rude.” She stood up, which put her shoulder-to-shoulder with Draco, as they were about the same height. “That’s a terrible thing to say about someone’s mother, even if you do think it’s true, and you should speak more sensitively when someone’s had a death in the family.”

“Hark at her, telling me what to do,” Crabbe leered. “Little snaggle-toothed brat, aren’t you? I bet we could toss you out that window.”

Goyle said, “Might do, too, if it wasn’t wrong to hit a girl.”

“Weren’t,” said Granger, remarkably unintimidated by this very credible threat of physical violence. “And don’t make me laugh. I know types like you. You’re all bark and no bite. You’ll bluster and cuss and spit at people, but really I expect you’ve never had a real fight in his life.”

Draco could have corrected her — Crabbe in particular had been expelled from three preparatory schools for violence against a fellow student — but he was too busy trying to remember what it felt like to see colors other than red.

“Bet on it, wouldja?” sneered Crabbe.

“I could. I’m not afraid of you.”

“Crabbe,” Draco said tightly. “Goyle. You should leave.”

“We don’t feel like leaving, maybe,” said Crabbe, flicking the lock on the door behind him. “Maybe we want to catch up with our friend. Maybe we’ve been missing you, Malfoy.”

Goyle rolled back his sleeve. Crabbe moved forward, forcing Draco to step back, and his shoulders collided with the window. He felt the rattling side of the carriage under his back.

“Maybe you’re the one who wants to leave,” Crabbe said, and he reached forward for the hem of Draco’s robe.

And in a blink, he found himself staggering back, as the point of Draco’s wand drove into the soft flesh of his neck. Goyle leapt back with a cry, and Granger, who had been watching in mixed horror and confusion, cried out: “No, Draco, don’t, you’ll get in trouble!”

“Sod off, Granger, this doesn’t concern you.”

“You will! You’re not supposed to do magic off school grounds, and it’s not safe—”

“You’re bluffing,” blurted Goyle, though he had retreated back to the compartment door. “You don’t know any spells. We ain’t even been to school yet. You don’t know how to use that thing.”

Draco jabbed the point of his wand even further into Crabbe’s neck, and felt a surge of satisfaction in how Crabbe whimpered. “Don’t I? Say another word about my mother, you’ll find out.”

“Don’t you dare! I’ll tell!” shrilled Granger. “I’ll get a prefect! I’ll go find Percy Weasley, and he’ll sort all three of you out.”

The invocation of a prefect had a chilling effect on tensions in the compartment. Draco’s grip on his wand slackened slightly, and it gave Crabbe enough leeway to wriggle out from it. Goyle followed him, and though they were fleeing, they stood in the hallway for a moment, as if waiting for Draco to make the last move.

He flicked his wand between them. “Keep my mother’s name out of your mouths,” he said coldly. “Or next time, I’ll let Granger and Weasley deal with what’s left of you.”

The boys fled, and the compartment door slid closed with a final snap.

Granger gave a long exhale, smoothing down her hair. “That was very dramatic,” she said finally. “They’re certainly a pair of unpleasant characters. Was that serious, by the way? Do you actually know how to use any spells?”

He snorted, slipping his wand back into his pocket. “No. Of course not.”

“You were bluffing?”

“Obviously. You?”

“Me? Bluffing about what?”

“Telling the prefect.”

She paused to think about it. “No,” she said. “I would have gone to get Percy, if there was a fight.”

“Tattle-tale, are you?”

“If there’s trouble, of course. But I mightn’t have — told him all the facts.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You’d have lied to him?”

“I wouldn’t have lied. I’d say something like, ‘Come at once, these two big bullies are scrapping with Draco.’ Which would be true.”

“Even if I started it.”

“You didn’t start it,” she said, lifting her nose disdainfully. “They came into our compartment and tried to make a commotion. And they said very rude things about your mother and father, and they weren’t too nice to me, either. So I wouldn’t go out of my way to get you in trouble for it, no.” She paused. “I can’t stand bullies.”

He said, “So it seems.”

A tinny voice echoed through the train. “We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes’ time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately.”

Draco took a steadying breath. He glanced out the window and saw that it was nearly night, and the woods flashing past the carriage were shrouded in darkness. He straightened his robes and followed Granger into the crowd thronging the corridor.

The train slowed to a halt. On the platform, Draco found himself sandwiched next to Granger, a position which left much to be desired, since it meant he was frequently swatted by a cloud of bushy hair. Granger did not seem to notice, and kept standing up on her tiptoes to try and see over the crowd. “What’s up front?” she demanded anxiously. “Where are we going? What’s happening? Draco, can you see?”

“I can’t see anything through your dreadful hair.”

“Rude! Oh, where’s a prefect when you need one? They could tell us what to do.”

“Lord. We’re disembarking from a train. You don’t need an instruction manual.”

“In the wizarding world,” she said decisively, “everything should come with an instruction manual.”

A lamp bobbed over the heads of the students, dangling from a dizzying height, and a deep voice boomed above the din. “Firs’ years! Firs’ years over here!”

“Who’s that?” said Granger, yanking on Draco’s sleeve. He wrenched it free of her.

“I don’t know! I can’t see him, either! Why are you asking me?”

“He’s a giant! I mean, have you ever seen a man that tall in your life!”

“I can’t see anything now,” he said irritably. “Refer to, again, the hair.”

She ignored this, and whirled on him, eyes glowing like little brown lanterns. “Isn’t this exciting?” she whispered. “We’re going to magic school!”

He rolled his eyes. Undeterred by his lack of enthusiasm, she hurried after Hagrid, practically skipping with every step.

The First Years trickled down a steep, narrow path between walls of trees. The crowd thinned into a line, since the pathway only permitted two or three at a time to descend safely, without falling off the trail. Passing around the bend, they came upon a wide lake, and perched atop a mountain across the other side was the castle, its windows blazing gold against the night, its spires breaching the clouds. It dwarfed the mountain beneath it, with so many turrets and towers that it ought to have defied the laws of physical space.

A fleet of boats waited on the beaches. Draco lost track of Granger in the hubbub as students scrambled into the dinghies, which, Draco was dismayed to learn, were cramped, wet, and carried a thin layer of lakewater at the bottom. The scummy water splashed on his shoes and lapped at his cuffs as he clambered into the first available boat and sat, hunched and miserable, as far away from the other occupants as was possible.

Across the beach, he caught sight of Granger again — it was easy to pick out the mop of hair — and saw that she had found her way into a boat. She was sitting next to a scrawny boy with black hair and a tall redhead whose gangly limbs and freckles marked his allegiance to the same clan as the Gryffindor prefect. When she caught his eye, she smiled and waved. He nodded back at her reluctantly.

The fleet of boats moved off all at once from shore, gliding across the lake in a motion as smooth and seamless as flying. The other children in Draco’s boat starting whispering at once, clutching each other and pointing at the castle as it loomed before them.

“…oldest manmade structure in the Wizarding World, older than Durmstrang, twice as old as Ilvermorny…”

“…made as a fortress, people say it’s impregnable, it’s never been taken, not once… More secure than Gringotts…”

“… hear about Gringotts? It’s been all over the Daily Prophet, someone tried to rob a high security vault.”

Draco turned his head. “What did you say?”

The student who’d spoken, a mousy-haired boy with a square face and a brogue you couldn’t cut with a cleaver, grinned with satisfaction at the curiosity in Draco’s voice. “Someone broke into Gringotts,” he said. “My dad got a call because of the security breach. They still don’t know who it was.”

“And what did they take?” said Draco. He was alarmed on his own behalf, since the Malfoys had several vaults of considerable value, but he would have known already if anything of theirs had been taken.

“Nothing. That’s the plot twist. The goblins did a full inventory, and I mean a full, put-it-in-lockdown, nobody-leaves-for-a-fortnight kind of inventory, but nothing was taken. People say it must have been a powerful Dark wizard, but my dad says that’s fearmongering nonsense.”

“And why’s that?” drawled Draco.

“He says there hasn’t been a Dark wizard strong enough to crack Gringotts in ten years.”

“Ten?”

The boy smirked. “Eleven, to be precise,” he said. Then, ostensibly at random, he said, “Did you know Harry Potter’s in our year? Wish I could get a look at him. They say he’s still got the scar. Love to ask him what he’s been doing all these years. My dad says he’s been hiding out with Dumbledore, getting private lessons in magic.”

“Your dad seems to know an awful lot about all this.”

The boy shrugged. “He likes to talk, my dad does. ‘Specially when he gets some drinks in him.”

“Most do, I suppose.”

The boy stuck out his hand. “Name’s Theodore,” he said.

Draco glanced at it, and resigned himself to what was about to happen.

“Draco Malfoy.”

Recognition flashed across the boy’s face — but nothing more; there was no instinctive sneer, no apprehension, no leer of knowing or disdain. It was simply recognition; that was all. “Ah,” he said. “Yeah. My dad mentioned your dad once or twice.”

Draco set his jaw. “Did he,” he said. “Anything of note?”

“Yeah,” said Theodore. “Said he was filthy brilliant at Transfiguration and couldn’t dance for shite. And it shocked everybody when he pulled your mum.”

The corner of Draco’s mouth tugged up. He flattened it sternly.

“And that he was sorry to hear he’d died,” added Theodore belatedly, in a more somber tone.

Draco dipped his head in acknowledgement. The silence in the boat stretched on for a while as they drifted into a small cove beneath the cliff face, and the moonlight retreated, leaving them only the small lantern in the front of the boat to see by.

“You’re Theodore Nott, aren’t you?” he said. His voice echoed against wet rock.

“Aye.”

“I thought so. Your mother…”

Theodore gave a jagged little smile. “Yes,” he said.

“My sympathies,” said Draco. Theodore’s expression turned brittle and sour and painstakingly polite in a way that Draco recognized perfectly.

“Let’s make a deal, you and I, Malfoy, seeing as we’re trapped in this wretched boat together,” said Theodore. “I won’t say anything about your terribly tragic super-young dead daddy, and you won’t say anything about my terribly tragic super-young murdered mummy. And that way, you and I will turn out to be thick as thieves.”

Draco stuck out his hand. Theodore shook it.

They sailed the rest of the way in complete, but not uncomfortable, silence.

The boats dredged up on a pebble beach, and the First Years clambered up a passageway of smooth, wet rock, guided by the bobbing flare of the giant’s lamp. Draco and Theodore ended up towards the back of the line, since they refused to partake in the full-body crush of overeager Firsties who salivated at the chance to get a glimpse of the castle. At the end of the passageway, they emerged onto a grassy lawn, and passed through a pair of vast oaken doors into the Great Hall.

He had seen it described before in books — Granger was not, in fact, the only First Year to have read Hogwarts: A History — but nevertheless, it knocked some of the breath from Draco’s lungs to see the glistening folds of stars and moon-dusted clouds rising over the four long tables. A chorus of gasps erupted from the other first years, and he found himself falling begrudgingly victim to a sense of wonderment.

The faculty sat at the high table, and Draco scanned this to see if there were any surprises. Since his mother had given away his father’s Board seat, they didn’t get news about faculty appointments any more, and so it was somewhat intriguing to see the reedy man in a purple turban perched in the D.A.D.A professor’s seat. Next to him sat Snape, sneering regally at the babbling crowds. As his eyes swept over the flock, they landed on Draco.

His expression softened slightly, and he inclined his head a fraction of an inch.

Draco ignored the speeches and songs. They were useless and insipid, respectively, and he was far too busy trying to master his stomach, which had discovered a newfound passion for backflips. Before he had time to register that the song was over, however, he was being herded into a line near the center dais, and steely-haired, green-robed McGonagall was brandishing the ratty old hat in the air.

“Abbott, Hannah!”

“Alphabetically, figures,” muttered Theodore. “And they don’t let us sit down, I suppose. My feet are killing me already.”

Draco ignored him and tried to focus on pinning each face to the name McGonagall read out. It was important to start building an idea of who was who in their year. His family had been withdrawn from Society too long for him to know these names instinctively, as he otherwise might have, and he didn’t want to miss the chance to collect intelligence.

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

“Shocker,” said Theodore.

“Bones, Susan!”

The aforementioned Ms. Bones tried to smooth her hair and almost swept the hat off her head. Some people gave a titter.

“HUFFLEPUFF!” cried the disgruntled hat, once it had been righted.

“Double shocker,” said Theodore.

Thereafter, in quick succession, Terry Boot went to Ravenclaw (“Nerd,” said Theodore) Mandy Brocklehurst to Ravenclaw (“Shame, she’s quite pretty”) and Lavender Brown to Gryffindor, which was, predictably, greeted by obnoxious cheering from the left-most table (Draco and Theodore exchanged a look). Millicent Bulstrode became the first Slytherin (“There we go, about time”), the unfortunately surnamed Justin Finch-Fletchley joined Hufflepuff, and Seamus Finnigan (“You think his folks considered calling him ‘Irish McIrish’?”) gave Gryffindor its second full-throated roar of the night.

Then McGonagall, consulting her scroll, barked: “Granger, Hermione!”

Draco stood up straight and watched the girl skip, so hastily she tripped over her feet, to the stool. She sat with her ankles crossed and her hands clutched in her lap, beaming, while McGonagall lowered the hat onto her head.

He found himself thinking: Ravenclaw. Come on, you stupid old hat, give her Ravenclaw. You know she’d love it. Let her live happily ever after with all her little boffin pals.

“GRYFFINDOR!”

He exhaled through his nose. Granger whipped the hat off her head, her beam becoming impossibly wider, and she dashed down the stairs. The red-clad mob of brawny goons howled and hooted and beat thunderously on the table to welcome her. As well they should, Draco thought spitefully. She’d probably raised the house’s average I.Q. by twenty points. Nevertheless, he did feel sorry for her. She deserved a house that would have made better use of her talents — even when her chief talent, apparently, consisted in an utter inability to know when to leave well enough alone.

More names came and went. Conscious that they were getting closer to his own, Draco stopped paying attention to the comments Theodore made under his breath. Goyle joined Crabbe at the Slytherin table, which compensated in enthusiasm for the lack of support from the others.

“Malfoy, Draco!”

He startled. Theodore slapped him on the back. “See you at dinner,” he whispered, and gave him a helpful shove out of the crowd. Draco hadn’t even noticed the last of the L’s trickling by, and now he found himself tottering forth on numb legs, conscious of the curious stares from every table, the susurrus of whispers that erupted at the sound of his name. He kept his expression neutral. As he passed Professor McGonagall, he risked a glance at her, and found her expression devoid of either pity or warmth. She regarded him with the dispassionate curiosity of a scholar encountering a new and colorful kind of beetle.

He lowered himself slowly onto the stool, trying to prolong the time it took for the hat to descend.

Something soft and dense landed on his head. In an effort to remain calm, he closed his eyes and thought of his mother. He thought of her arranging flowers in the sitting-room and playing harp in the drawing room. He thought of her holding his head in his lap and reading to him while the rain came down like arrows on the glen.

“Interesting,” crooned a small, froggy voice in the back of his head. “Now there’s a face I haven’t seen in a while. Narcissa Black, isn’t it? Your mother? Very interesting… She begged, you know, for Slytherin.”

Draco opened his mouth and then snapped it closed. He’d forgotten that no one else could hear.

“Of course, she hardly needed to beg. They could have sorted that witch with a deerstalker, she would’ve ended up in the right place. Anyone could see it, same as your father. But you… what to do with you, Draco Malfoy?”

He swallowed and tried to make his mind blank.

“Now, you’ve got your father’s wit, which is and was a dangerous weapon… you’d excel in Ravenclaw, oh, yes. But what use is there in a scholar’s house for one so desperate to climb? No, you have Slytherin dreams, Slytherin longings… you want to carve your name in history. Am I wrong?”

Slytherin. Give me Slytherin, you shabby sack of felt.

“And you get your arrogance from Lucius,” said the hat, sounding delighted. “Such drama. Such righteousness. Almost not Slytherin at all.”

Draco opened his eyes. A sea of curious faces stared back at him.

Whatever you think, he thought tightly, think faster. I’m getting funny looks.

“Hubris, thy name is Malfoy. I will not be rushed. I could put you where you wanted, yes, but should I? Some would say I have cursed your family for generations by giving them altogether too much of their own way.”

There are worse things than tradition.

“There are also better things. Tell me this, Draco Malfoy, and I will send you to your dinner: of what, in your heart of hearts, do you dream?”

Draco swallowed hard. I want power, he thought. Money. Influence. I want people to obey me.

“Pah. Dull! Is that it?”

No, I want — I want people to like me — I want acclaim, respect—

“Respect? Love? Is that what you want?”

Yes — no — I want to be like my father — strong like he was, smart like he was—

“That’s it? The sum of your dreams? To live forever in the minds of men as Draco, son of Lucius?”

No — better — I want to be better than my father was, smarter, stronger, more powerful—

“Good. And why?”

I don’t — I don’t know, I just — I want it. I want it because I want it. There’s no other reason.

The hat was silent, emanating disapproval. Draco opened his eyes. Almost by accident, he caught sight of Granger at the Gryffindor table, staring at him with a hopeful expression. She gave a reassuring smile and some kind of hand gesture that involved making a fist with her thumb pointing at the ceiling. He didn’t know what it meant.

Glory, he thought. I want glory. I want to be the greatest Malfoy that ever was.

In his mind, the hat said, “Interesting.”

Then it roared: “GRYFFINDOR!”