Runcorn for All — Lionheart

Chapter 9: Runcorn for All

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

And when you’ve taken down your guard

If I could change your mind

I’d really love to break your heart

—Tears for Fears, “Shout”

Dear Draco,

I knew you’d like it! It’s my favorite album, too. My mum says that if I keep my grades up, she’ll take me to see them for my birthday in September. My cousin Nicole loves them too, and since she’s staying with us, I get to share her cassettes. (You must keep this a secret, but I have to tell someone: She has such a crush on Michael Dempsey, and keeps a picture of him in her underwear drawer.)

It does feel sort of odd to be home. I love them, of course, but whenever my aunt or uncle asks what I want to do when I grow up, I have to lie and say I’m studying to be a barrister or a chemist or something. And sometimes, Nicole and Jason will be talking about something they’ve learned in school, like History or Maths, and I have to keep quiet because they never taught us that at Hogwarts, and if I ask what it is, I’ll sound stupid. But it’s even worse when it’s the other way around! Yesterday I had to sit through a whole conversation about Thracian history, saying nothing, though I was just dying to tell them that the sea-peoples of the Bronze Age were marauding hags!

Even my parents do their best, but they don’t really “get” some things, like why we use owls, or why phones don’t work on Hogwarts grounds. And I obviously can’t tell them about things like the three-headed dog and the Vault, or they’d never let me go back. Do you tell your mum everything, or are there some things you hide from her, too?

Ron invited me to go to the Burrow at the end of the summer, but I don’t think we’ll get back from Mallorca in time. Also, my parents aren’t too keen on me staying over at a boy’s house, even though Ron has six siblings, so there’ll be loads of people around. I told them they were being puritanical and old-fashioned, and Mum gave me a quid for using “puritanical” correctly but said I still couldn’t go.

Also, have you heard from Harry? It’s been a while, and between you and me, I don’t trust his relatives as far as I can throw them.

I hope you’re having a wonderful summer.

Your friend,

Hermione Granger

Dear Granger,

Don’t get too excited. I didn’t say it was better than Beethoven, I just said that if you wanted to send me some more cassette decks, I’d be happy to reimburse you. I don’t know how much they cost, but I’m sure it’s no object. They can’t be more than a symphony membership, and for some reason Mother insists we keep several of those.

I will say you’re onto something with The Cure, though. I liked “Boys Don’t Cry” and the one about Friday. It’s good flying music.

I am sorry that your muggles have barred you from achieving your full potential as a know-it-all. Rest assured that when you return to civilization, your big head will be fully obvious to anyone who matters. Moreover, I’m not sure why your mother and father can’t wrap their heads around the concept of owls. According to Binns, at one point muggles used pigeons to carry messages, so I don’t know what’s not clicking for them.

No, I don’t tell my mother everything that happens at Hogwarts. I don’t know anyone who tells their mum everything, wizard or not. In some ways, muggles have it easier — all sorts of baggage comes with being part of a pureblood family, and it doesn’t always bring you closer together. Do you have any aunts you’re not allowed to talk about? Or names you’re not allowed to say?

In any case, I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m told that angsting over the fact your parents don’t understand you is a customary part of adolescence.

I haven’t heard from Potter, either. If you’re worried they’re withholding his mail, I can try sending Ulysses; he’s fierce as a lion, and more than a match for any muggle. I’d like to see the Dursleys try to stop him from getting through Potter’s window. And I mean that sincerely, I would very much like to see it.

Write soon; do remember about the cassettes.

Yours etc.,

Draco Malfoy

Dear Malfoy,

Hello!! Thanks very much for the letter! Sorry if your owl is missing a few feathers when he comes back — Dudley took a swing at it with a flyswatter, and then it sort of tried to kill him I think? Aunt Petunia insisted on taking him to the hospital for the scratches, even though they were pretty tiny and probably didn’t even hurt. Uncle Vernon threatened to call animal control but I told him if he did that you’d sue, and that you came from a super-posh rich family with lots of solicitors. That got him good and scared.

My summer’s been pretty boring. The Dursleys locked all my school stuff in the cupboard. Wand, books, Invisibility Cloak, all of it. The wand’s not so bad because I couldn’t do magic anyway, but I wish I had my Cloak. My neighbor Mrs. Fig is pretty nice, and I used to sneak over to watch TV with her in the afternoons. Now I just have to sit in my room all day between meals.

Anyway, sorry for all the complaining. I really do appreciate your letter. I haven’t gotten any from Ron or Hermione because Dudley always scares the owls off with his BB gun. Hedwig is really happy to have the company, too, I think she’s been lonely.

Hope your summer’s been great. Can’t wait to be back at Hogwarts.

Best,

Harry

Dear Potter,

What you describe is intolerable and outrageous. The hell do you mean they won’t let you out of the house. Did you permit them to confiscate your wand? Do they know who you are?

I knew your summer accommodations were suboptimal, but I had no idea it was this bad. If you need rescuing, say so at once.

If I do not receive a reply to this letter, I will assume that you have been imprisoned by a pack of deranged muggles, and I will entreat the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to intervene accordingly. I do not know what sort of creature a Dudley is, but I assure you that scratches will be the least of its worries then.

Sincerely,

Draco L. Malfoy

Dear Potter,

It has been a week. I have not heard back from you. Are you dead? If not, indicate.

Perhaps you thought I was joking about the Ministry threat. I was not. I do not care one whit about your muggles and I will gladly bring the full might of magical law enforcement down upon them.

Sincerely,

Draco Malfoy

Dear Malfoy,

Thanks for the tip-off. Situation being handled. Harry’s here now. (‘Here’ is the Burrow). Gonna stay with us for the rest of the summer I reckon. When we go back Mum wants to ask Dumbledore if we can file for partial custody. She’s ripping mad because the twins and I stole Dad’s flying car which he wasn’t sposed to have in the first place, so I’m grounded until my wedding or something, but it was worth it.

Going to Diagon Alley for school supplies on the 17th. Hermione’s gonna meet us there. You can come too if you like.

_Fred & George say hello by the way. They came over while I was writing and _ poopy peepee big fat stinker BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS

Gotta go now.

Cheers,

Ron

FRED WAS HERE

GEORGE WAS ALSO HERE

Dear Weasley,

What?

Sincerely,

Draco Malfoy

Around ten o’clock, the midmorning sun cut through a bank of fog, and turned Diagon Alley into a landscape of aquatint. In the small cobbled space between shopfronts, gold-fringed tufts of mist floated here and there like living clouds, and wizards drifted through these in swells of colorful robes like a flock of birds of paradise. The rare glory of a warm day hung over the crowds, and tawny branches whirled and danced over the street, threatening in their flush the approach of fall. The stone storefronts, so old that they lilted against each other for strength, seemed to breathe with life.

Draco leaned against the wall of Gringotts and sipped tea from his carafe. He wore a new cloak of crushed green velvet over a suit, freshly tailored, with a golden pocket square. A fresh stack of galleons burned a hole in his pocket.

As the clock tower boomed ten, he checked his watch and lifted an eyebrow. If someone had stopped to look at him, they might have taken note of the exceptionally well-dressed and impatient twelve-year-old who appeared to be visiting Gringotts on his own.

“Draco! Draco, over here!”

Hermione stood atop the white flight of stairs to the bank, trailing a cumulonimbus of bushy hair. She raced down, taking the stairs two at a time, and he realized too late that she was not slowing down. He locked his knees just in time for her to launch off the last step.

“ Oof. ”

“Hello! How are you? It’s been ages! Were you waiting for us?”

“Hello, Granger,” he said, detaching her, and setting her straight on the pavement. “Nice to see you. You look well.”

It was true. She’d tanned several shades darker over the summer, and sunshine had laid caramel highlights in her hair. New freckles peppered her heart-shaped cheeks. But the biggest change was the glint of metal inside her mouth, and the way she smiled at him with her lips pressed firmly shut.

“What happened to your mouth?” he said, frowning.

“I got braces!” She peeled back her lips and set her jaw, revealing a grate of metal that ran like railroad tracks across both sets of teeth. “My parents say I have to keep them on for a year, and then I’ll have perfect teeth.”

“Are they painful?” He squinted at them.

“It hurts sometimes,” she admitted. “Especially when I got them tightened. And I have to wear these rubber bands to fix my overbite. But it’ll all be worth it, and I’m lucky I got them young. Some people have to wait until they’re teenagers.”

She smiled broadly, and even the metal bolts on her teeth couldn’t detract from the voltage of her grin. “Don’t they look perfectly horrid?”

He began to agree with her, but he’d made that mistake before, and saved himself at the last minute. “I hadn’t noticed,” he said loftily.

It was the right thing to say. Her smile widened.

“Hermione! Draco!”

Bounding up the crowded street came a veritable legion of redheads, all wearing the same scrappy robes and grin. Ron led them, followed by Fred, George, Percy, and a middle-aged man with Ron’s ears who must have been their father. Roped into the passel was a single dark-haired exception, hurrying alongside them, though his short legs had to step twice for each stride of Ron’s. His expression was of bemused bliss, as if he couldn’t believe his own luck.

“Harry! Ron!”

Hermione went flying at them, and battered them with hugs in turn. Fred and George swooped in and whisked her off the ground in a joint three-way embrace, eliciting a squeal of surprise, and then passed her off to Percy, who balked and gave her a crisp, firm handshake.

Then she pivoted to Ron’s father, stuck out her hand, and announced, “Hello! I’m Hermione Granger. I’m Ron’s friend. You must be his father, Mister Weasley. I’ve heard so many good things about you.”

Mr. Weasley was a spindly, balding man in glasses, whose height was vast but disproportionate to his muscle mass. Somewhat flabbergasted by Hermione — as he should be, as anyone should be, really — he shook her hand. “Arthur Weasley, and the pleasure is mine, Miss Granger. Ron’s gone on about you all summer.”

“Dad,” Ron groaned.

Draco snickered. Mr. Weasley turned to him, blinked, and extended his hand, too. “And you must be Draco Malfoy,” he said, with a quick once-over of Draco’s robes. “Ron’s told me about you, as well. I hear you helped to save his life.”

“Reports of my virtue have been greatly exaggerated,” said Draco. Not wanting to be rude, he shook hands, repressing a small twinge of discomfort: his mother would be shocked to see him shaking hands with Arthur Weasley. His father — he couldn’t even think.

“None of that. Ron has a great eye for friends. We owe you a great deal.”

He shoved his hands deep in his pockets. “Weasley, you dog,” he said coolly to Ron. “You didn’t tell me we were friends. I would have made a card.”

“Shuddup, you prat.”

“Language, Ron!”

Another pair of Weasleys came bustling into view, one a pear-shaped matronly woman with a handbag, the other a skinny girl clutching her hand. She was spindly and tall for her age, like all the Weasleys, with a smear of peanut-butter freckles over her nose and eyes of shock-bright blue.

“There’s more of you?” Draco muttered. Arthur Weasley clearly wasn’t shooting blanks.

“Oi,” said Ron, eyeing him.

“Draco, this is my wife, Molly Weasley,” said Arthur, taking her under his arm. “And my daughter, Ginny.”

“Draco Malfoy, oh, hello,” blustered Mrs. Weasley, wringing Draco’s hand. “I’m sorry we’ve met this way, I look such a mess. I usually never leave the house dressed like this.”

“Not at all,” said Draco smoothly. “Your father wouldn’t be a Prewett, by chance?”

“He would! He would! Agrippus Prewett, of the Cheshire Prewetts,” she said proudly.

“And do the Prewetts still reside at Capesthorne?”

Her obvious pleasure at the name commingled with a touch of sadness. “Oh, my dear, not for some time, I’m afraid,” she said. “It was shuttered during the war, and then after the war, well, there was no one to care for it, and it couldn’t be kept up, so we passed it off to a cousin of some means. It’s been in their hands ever since.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said politely, and he wasn’t lying; it was a tragedy for a Twenty-Eight family to lose its ancestral seat. He hadn’t known the Prewetts were extinct in the male line, either, but it sounded as if Molly were the only one left. “It was a great house.”

“Oh, yes, it was. Such a pretty place! I meant to take the children to see it, but they never seem to take an interest in family history.”

Fred stuck a finger in his open mouth. George mimed throttling himself. Percy hung on her every word.

“I find there is little like the majesty of an English country house,” said Draco, “to inspire an interest in one’s roots.”

George slumped against Fred, wracked by tremors of invisible vomit. Fred waved frantically for a medic.

“That’s perfectly right!” Molly’s eyes sparkled. She rounded on her children, a little wild-eyed, as if freshly conscious of their defects. “How’d you like to see where your grandfather lived?”

“I would!” Percy piped up.

“That’s the embarrassing part, you would , wouldn’t you, Perce,” Ron muttered. He glared at Draco. “Did you have to?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, smirking.

“Yeah, sure. Joke’s on you, she’ll be plotting to have you betrothed to Ginny before the day’s out. C’mon, Harry, let’s go before she starts trying to rebuild the dynasty.”

“I think we should split up,” Arthur said, distracting his wife from her stratagems. “Percy, you needed a new quill, didn’t you? And new books for you and the twins… Ron, you can use the twins’ hand-me-downs. And Ginny, you need one of everything, since it’s your first year…”

Draco turned to the youngest Weasley. “You’re going up?” he said, surprised. She was so small. He was certain he hadn’t been that small, last year.

She stared at him, wide-eyed, and nodded. Her knuckles strained white in her mother’s grip.

“She’s shy around strangers,” Ron explained, tweaking Ginny’s ear. “Hasn’t said three words at a time since Harry moved in. Just ‘yes, Harry,’ and ‘no, Harry,’ and ‘where’s Harry?’ Honestly.”

“Not true,” she said stubbornly, though this did not exactly prove Ron wrong.

“Where did you board?” Draco asked Ginny, trying to be courteous. She shook her head.

Ron pinked. “Nowhere. Mum homeschooled us,” he said. He added, somewhat snidely: “I bet you boarded at Scrimble’s or Hickinbottom, didn’t you? You could afford it.”

“Actually, my mother tutored me,” he drawled. “She preferred to have me home.”

“Oh. Well, that’s all right, then,” said Ron, suddenly chipper again. “Nothing wrong with it, we’re all still at Hogwarts anyway, aren’t we?”

They separated. Percy and his mother went in search of a quill, while Arthur took Fred and George out for breakfast with their friend, Lee Jordan (a handsome, smiling boy with dreadlocks, who Draco remembered having an uproarious argument with Seamus Finnigan over something about beetles and stones.) Mrs. Weasley hurried Ginny to a secondhand robe shop (“I want to go with Harry,” the girl protested) and Arthur announced they would all meet at Flourish and Blotts at noon.

Then Harry suggested dessert for breakfast, which horrified Draco and thrilled Hermione, so the four of them went to Fortescue’s. Inside the sweet-shop it was cool and the air smelled sticky-sweet, like sugar cones. The flavors ranged from Vanilla to Foie Gras, and he made a mental note to tell Dobby. (On second thought, perhaps he shouldn’t; the elf didn’t need the inspiration.) Harry bought two strawberry-and-peanut-butter cones for himself and Ron, and a mint-chocolate chip for Hermione, and then insisted on getting one for Draco, though he maintained that the whole affair was ill-mannered. More as a concession to Harry than anything, he tried a scoop of green tea in a cup, and they wandered up the alley, eating their sugar for breakfast.

In front of Quality Quidditch Supplies, a crowd had gathered for the unveiling of the Nimbus 2002, and Ron spent some time with his cheek plastered mournfully to the glass.

“A two-thousand series… just imagine…”

“At least you have a broomstick,” sighed Harry.

“You’ll need one this year,” Draco remarked. “Unless you intend to fly a school broom for quidditch, which is suicide.”

“Fred and George fly school brooms,” Ron objected. “So does half the Gryffindor team.”

“Yes, and have you noticed the Gryffindor team gets thrashed every time we play Slytherin?”

“I hope you’re wrong,” Harry said glumly, “because I haven’t got one.”

Draco gave Harry an odd look. “Why don’t you just buy one?”

“What do you mean?” said Harry.

“You’ve got full access to your inheritance, haven’t you? It’s not tied up with an executor?” He nodded at the Nimbus 2002. “Go in there and get one.”

Harry elbowed Draco and nodded at Ron. The ginger had stepped apart from the other three, and was silently walking the rack of secondhand Cleansweeps, his hands deep in his pockets.

“It’d be stupid anyway,” said Harry loudly, “buying a broomstick before I’m on the team.”

They passed Percy and Mr. Weasley outside a junk shop, perusing shelves laden with rusted cauldrons, split-feather quills, and splintering brooms. Percy was reading a biography of Leonard Spencer-Moon, who, if Draco recalled, had been in Slytherin the same year as his grandfather. He pointed out the odd choice of subject to Ron.

“Oh, that’s Perce for you,” he grumbled. “He’s been plotting to get Prefect since first year. He wants to be Minister one day.”

Draco hummed in interest. “Which party?” he inquired, though he had a guess.

“Any party that’ll have him. But Mum and Dad are Pops, and he couldn’t bear to disappoint them, so he’ll probably stick to the left.”

Hermione and Harry exchanged a look that said: Shall you ask, or shall I?

“What’s a Pop?” said Harry.

And Draco and Ron exchanged a look that said: Shall you explain, or shall I?

“Wizard politics,” said Ron, relieving Draco of the burden. “‘Pop’ stands for the Populares Party, they’re the left-wing of the Wizengamot. Main rival on the right is the Ops, short for Optimates. Course, there’s all sorts of smaller parties mixed in, Greens and Liblabs and Cavs and what-have you, but those are the main coalitions.” He gestured to Draco. “His dad was huge in the Cavaliers, for example. My dad came home complaining about him all the time.”

“My Uncle Vernon’s a Tory,” said Harry. “He complains about the government giving all his money to poor people. Are the Cavs sort of like that?”

Draco did not want his father lumped into any group of which Vernon Dursley was a part. “It doesn’t map to muggle politics,” he said sulkily. “It’s a different thing.”

In Gambol and Japes’ Wizarding Joke Shop, they met Fred, George, and Lee Jordan. Neither Draco nor Hermione had much interest in that store, so they cut out early for Flourish and Blott’s, but were stymied at the door by a large crowd of wizards queuing for autographs with Gilderoy Lockhart.

Across from Flourish and Blott’s, the buildings parted, and a dark, winnowing side-street branched off from Diagon Alley proper. Low-guttering candles lit the uneven black cobble, and shabby-looking wizards with hoods drawn high scurried in and out, darting suspicious glances over their shoulder. A gnarled wooden archway over the sidestreet proclaimed its name.

Draco brightened. “Hey, Granger,” he said, tugging her away from the bookstore. “You ever been to Knockturn Alley?”

“No, what’s that?”

“Diagon Alley’s better-bred cousin. Put your hood up, you don’t want too much attention down here.”

He led her under the archway and they slipped into the shade. Immediately, the light dimmed, and the fog seemed to thicken. The largest shop, Borgin and Burkes, had a great glass storefront displaying the skeleton of some winged reptile, and opposite that, Noggin and Bonce sported a rich collection of shrunken heads, dangling from cords in a smoky window display. Two doors down, a rat the size of a dog shrieked and rattled the bars of its cage, advertising the wares of Mtaw’s Menagerie. Two shabby-looking wizards watched them from the shadow of a doorway as they walked by. A vendor selling poisonous candles crooned to them, and Draco put his arm around Hermione, hurrying her past.

“This is all prohibited,” Hermione hissed, as they passed another vendor selling what appeared to be fried troll fingers. “I’ve counted seven different kinds of contraband in three storefronts, and I’m pretty sure that’s an endangered species…”

“I know! Isn’t it great?”

“No!” She was shrill. “The Ministry ought to close down everyone here!”

“Ah, they can’t do that. Then where’d they buy all their contraband? You’ll like it when you see the really fun stuff. Come on.”

He led her further, and the fog sealed behind them, blotting out the light from Diagon Alley. In the window of a jeweler’s store, Hermione stopped to look at a magnificent choker of silver and rubies, sparkling on a black pillow. A matching tiara glittered on the plinth above it.

“You don’t want that,” Draco assured her. “See the card?” It read: CURSED! Do not touch. SOLD TOGETHER – ʛ10,000.

“Why would anyone buy jewelry that’s cursed?”

“Not to wear it, obviously,” he said. “You’d buy it for someone you really hate.”

“I don’t think I could ever hate anybody that much,” she said, balking at the price.

“I don’t know,” he lied, spinning his signet ring on his third finger. It fit a little better than it had last year, but it still slipped around fairly often. “Perhaps I can. I wouldn’t waste money on a necklace, though, not if I’ve got a perfectly good wand and a right hand to use it with.”

“You wouldn’t do anything awful, though, would you?” she insisted, frowning at him.

“I don’t know. It depends on what they did. Do you have a point? …Oh, look!” He pointed. “Mulpepper’s Apothecary! Snape told me they sell the only hagraven claws you can find in Britain…”

“Draco!” He’d been tugging rather insistently on her arm, but at her cry, he let go. “What are we doing here?” she hissed.

“Just looking,” he said, “unless you see something you want. Isn’t it cool?”

“No! It’s horrible!” She wrapped her arms around herself and cast a fretful look over her shoulders. “All of this is Dark magic.”

“Oh, c’mon, not all of it. Most of this stuff isn’t even magic, it’s just bits and bobs—”

“Which can be used for Dark magic.”

“So what? That doesn’t make it Dark. And even if it does, you have to admit it’s interesting.”

She hugged herself tighter. “Professor McGonagall says Dark magic is a dangerous path,” she whispered.

“And McGonagall’s not a Dark witch, so what would she know about it?” he said, annoyed. “My family’s been patronizing Knockturn Alley ever since it opened, and I’m not a Dark wizard.”

Hermione opened her mouth to object, but the conversation had started to annoy him, and he decided to move on. “Look, here’s something normal,” he said patiently, drawing her across the street. “It’s a pub. Nothing Dark about a pub, is there, Granger? Unless you count the ales.”

Her argument deflated, she made an exasperated sound in the back of her throat, which might have been a thwarted laugh. “That was terrible.”

“No worse than Weasley, I’m sure.”

Beside the door of the White Wyvern, the brick was plastered with posters, advertisements, and community announcements; one baleful flier pleaded for word of a lost cat. The largest poster by far was a black-and-white portrait of an aged, square-faced man in a suit, whose queerly colored eyes stared so intensely at the viewer they appeared to lift their sockets out of his face. Streaks of gray veined his dark, oily hair, which coiled in spirals on his shoulders, and a thick beard swathed his mouth and jaw in smoky curls. The burly mantle of his brow gave him a haunted, hooded expression.

Above his head, it read in big, square lettering: RUNCORN FOR ALL!

Hermione saw him reading it. “Who’s that?” she said.

“Albert Runcorn,” said Draco. “Leader of the Opposition, in the Wizengamot. Interesting, I didn’t think he’d run this year.”

“For the Minister of Magic, you mean?”

“Yeah. He’s this sort of political darling for the Ops, you see. Came up through the Auror program, Director of Magical Law Enforcement, then elected to the Wizengamot, chaired Economic Affairs for three terms, and he’s still pretty young — relatively speaking. Everyone thought he’d try for Minister next, but they assumed he’d wait for Fudge to serve a third term.”

“Because he likes Fudge?”

“Merlin, no. He hates him. But a Minister can’t serve more than three terms, and the sitting Minister usually wins reelection. So it would’ve been typical to wait.”

“Your prime minister has term limits?”

“Of course he does. You don’t want some dopey codger hoarding the seat for twenty years, do you?”

The door to the White Wyvern swung open, and a pair of wizards stepped out. The first was a wiry boy with a mop of mousy brown hair, just shorter than Draco, and dull, smoky blue eyes. The second was a short, pug-nosed girl with greasy black hair pulled into scalp-straining pigtails. They both pulled up short at the sight of him.

“Why, hello,” purred Theodore Nott.

Draco jerked his chin, a cross between a greeting and a warning-off gesture. “Nott.”

“Malfoy.” Theodore hopped down from the stoop, robes swirling. He had a lazy, oily kind of grace; he moved like his bones were made of something viscous and syrupy. “Long time, no see.”

“Almost a year, isn’t it,” Draco agreed.

“I confess I felt somewhat abandoned. I thought we were going to be the best of chums at school.” He polished his fingernails on his robe and sighed, mournful.

“Yes, I wonder why that didn’t happen.”

“I sincerely do. You could have visited us, you know,” said Theodore, verging closer to sincerity. “I mean, some people would raise a fuss, but who cares? There’s not a law against sitting at other House tables.”

“I didn’t see you at mine, either.”

“You can’t expect me to sit with Gryffindors, come on, now.”

The pug-nosed girl, having heretofore held her tongue, broke out in a tinselly soprano. “What, that’s him?” she demanded, running her eyes up and down the length of him in obvious disgruntlement. “That’s Draco Malfoy? Lucius Malfoy’s son?”

“Told you I knew him, didn’t I?”

“But he can’t possibly be a Gryffindor,” said the girl shrilly. “His family’s been in Slytherin for centuries.”

“Sorry,” said Draco icily. “I wouldn’t interrupt, but my ears are burning, and I don’t know who you are.”

The girl stuck up her chin and gave him a short, formal curtsy. He blinked. That sort of gesture wasn’t typical anywhere outside a formal meeting between houses in the Sacred Twenty-Eight, and even then, it was a decidedly old-school move. Draco’s own mother didn’t make him bow to anyone except at balls and business meetings, and Narcissa Malfoy was almost as old-school as it went.

“I’m Pansy Parkinson,” said the girl. That made sense, now that he’d heard it: Parkinson was one of the Twenty-Eight, though not quite as grand as the Malfoys or the Blacks. He could see why she’d opt for the more formal play to assert herself. “My mum heard the Malfoys had a son at Hogwarts this year, and wanted me to find you, so I could deliver our family’s regards.” She stepped closer and lowered her voice. “Tell me honestly. Are you really in Gryffindor? Or is Teddy playing a joke on me?”

Draco took a bracing breath. “No,” he said. “He’s telling the truth.”

“Oh!” She clearly didn’t know what to do with this. “Oh, that’s… that’s… I mean, I don’t want to be insulting, but…”

“But you’ll soldier on, anyway,” said Theodore amusedly.

“But that’s simply silly!” She rounded on Theodore, as if he bore full responsibility for the misfortune. “You should be with your own kind—”

“And what’s ‘his own kind’?” said Hermione Granger, in tones that could have started an ice age.

Pansy paused, and her eyes did a quick elevator trip down-and-up. They settled on Hermione’s teeth. She smirked.

“Well, for starters—”

“I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure,” Theodore interrupted, pushing off the wall. “Draco, be a lamb and introduce us.”

Draco, who would rather have gnawed glass than be referred to as a ‘lamb’ ever again, shot him a dark look. “This exceptionally charming individual is Theodore Nott,” he said. “Nott, Hermione Granger.”

Theodore held out his hand. Hermione grasped it, and quicker than she could withdraw, he darted it to his lips and kissed the air above her knuckles.

“ Enchenté.”

“Oh,” she said, looking rather less charmed than alarmed. “I didn’t think you were French. Your accent—”

“He’s not,” Draco said shortly.

He chuckled airily. “It’s true. I’m a sham. I just like the gesture, I think it’s dashing.”

“I see. Does it impress a lot of people?”

“Enough for me to keep doing it. Why? Did it work?”

“I don’t know if ‘impressed’ is the word I would use,” she said doubtfully, rubbing her hand. Draco smirked.

“You never do that to me, ” muttered Pansy, elbowing him.

“And you never give me those kinds of curtsies. One day, Pans, you will be nice to me, and you will learn on that day how perfectly lovely I can be.”

“When kelpies fly.”

“Stranger things. Let me see: Granger, Granger, Granger. Why do I remember that? Do you know the Dagworth-Grangers?”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Hermione.

“No? Worth a shot.” He snapped his fingers. “I know. You were first-ranked in Transfiguration last year.”

Any other student might have taken this compliment with blushing and denials, but not Hermione. She replied, with an astounding measure of indignation: “Not just Transfiguration.”

“A thousand pardons,” he said, with an amused glance at Draco. Pansy scoffed.

“But yes, that was me. I’m surprised you remember.”

“I remember because I wanted to kill you,” he said casually. Draco startled. “I worked myself to the bone for that class, and I thought I was a shoo-in for top marks. Then I see the posting, and who is it instead, but this jammy kid, Granger, who nobody in my circle seems to know, with a name such that I can’t even tell if it’s a boy or girl.”

“I’m very sorry to have disappointed you.”

“Don’t be. McGonagall showed me your paper. You’re either brilliant, or you’re the best cheater I’ve ever met, and either way, I’d like to get to know you.” He spoke with such arch tones it made it almost impossible to tell his sincerity from sarcasm. “Friends like you tend to come in handy.”

Hermione gave a small, polite smile. Draco could tell she’d loathed the reference to cheating; there was a twitch in her cheek. “In that case,” she said, “you might come sit with me and Draco, sometime. Unless it’s really too hard for you — being around all those Gryffindors.”

Draco snickered. Theodore, however, didn’t take offense, but sighed and shook his head ruefully. “Just my luck,” he says. “Why are the interesting ones never respectable? Oh, well. Come along, Pans. I must soothe my shame by spending money.”

He shook Hermione’s hand — properly, this time — and Draco’s. As they made to leave, he noticed the Runcorn poster. “See that, did you?” he asked Draco. “My dad’s giving a small fortune to his campaign. You and your mother might consider doing the same, if you’re interested in stepping back into politics.”

“I appreciate the advice, but my mother and I will choose our own investments.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said, and both he and his pigtailed sidekick strode off into the gloom.

Once they were out of earshot, Hermione said, “I hope you won’t be cross with me for saying so, but if that’s who you’d have ended up like, it’s lucky for you that you didn’t end up in Slytherin.”

“Shows what you know,” he said grimly. “That’s about as nice as it gets.”

Draco very nearly did not make it to his second year at Hogwarts. After delays on the train from Wiltshire to London, he scrambled onto the Hogwarts Express just as the engine groaned to life, and were it not for the quick eye and quicker hands of George Weasley, he might have toppled out of the moving car.

“There you are, mate,” said George kindly. “We were worrying about you.”

“Ta,” he said brusquely, straightening his tie. “Got held up. Where’s Fred?”

The twin’s erstwhile partner was nowhere to be seen.

“Locking Crabbe in the loo, I think,” he said easily, checking his watch. “Should be back soon. Thought we were joined at the hip, didja?”

“You do everything together.”

“Life’s easier with four hands instead of two,” he said, shrugging. “But a little time apart does Freddie and me some good, now and then. Lets me hear myself think. Give me that trunk, Blondie, it’s still bigger than you are.”

He hauled open the nearest compartment door and vaulted Draco’s trunk into the luggage rack. “Oi, Perce, Gin. Look who made it.”

“Why, it’s about time,” said Percy. “We were quite worried when you didn’t show on the platform. Weren’t we, Ginevra?”

Ginny glanced up through her hair. She had changed into her robes, which were too big for her, being obviously second-hand; she had rolled them up at the cuffs. “Hullo, Malfoy,” she said. He nodded.

“I’m giving Ginevra some advice for her first year,” said Percy, reclining in his seat with the poise of a French king. “As I was saying, you’ll want to focus on Potions and Transfiguration. Those are the respectable subjects, and they’re the hardest to make the N.E.W.T. History of Magic is essential, but your grade in it is not; the worst is Herbology, and second to it, Charms…”

The train went over a loud portion of track that blissfully obscured whatever Percy had to say. Draco eyed the door. George, who was leaning on it, grinned at him.

“Treat your head of house as your superior officer, not your parent. You’ll spend your second year getting rid of all the friends you made in the first, so don’t worry about socializing in the first year, just focus on your studies. But if you do make friends, try to associate with the right kinds of family — you know, people with reputations.”

It was so similar to Narcissa’s advice that Draco could have laughed. He pressed his lips together and looked out the window.

By and by, Percy broke off to use the loo, with a promise to continue upon his return. In the ensuing silence, all three of the remaining inhabitants took a moment to savor it.

“Malfoy?” said Ginny, quietly.

“Weasley?”

“Did you ask for Slytherin?” She darted her eyes at him, then away. “When you were Sorted?”

He set his jaw. “Is there a reason you’d like to know?”

“Not in particular,” she said, and fell silent.

It wasn’t hard to see that she was lying, or why.

“Yes,” he said, after a moment. “I asked for Slytherin.”

“Did it… did it make any difference, do you think?”

“Does it look like it made a difference?”

“But did you really — I mean, when you asked, did you actually say—”

“Gin,” broke in George, in a kind voice. “You know nobody will think less of you—”

“She was talking to me, Weasley,” Draco interrupted coolly. George lifted his hands. “As for you, Weasley — She-Weasley, that is — yes, I asked, and yes, I was clear about it. But I was a special case. Your family is up six on the House front. You’ll be fine.”

“But everyone thought you’d be in Slytherin, and you—”

“Believe me when I say our situations are not alike,” he said. “And, in the unlikely event that they are, and you do end up — it’s Slytherin you’re worried about, I’m assuming? Yes? — if you do end up there, you’ll find yourself in the company of people with a great deal more dignity and sense than those you’ve been brought up with. If I were you, I’d enjoy it.” He paused. “And the green will go with your hair. If you’ve seen your brothers’ quidditch uniforms, I really needn’t say more. It should be illegal for gingers to wear red.”

She cracked a grin.

“Do you enjoy it?” she asked curiously.

“Enjoy what?”

“Your House.”

Before he submitted to the harrowing ordeal of answering that question, Percy returned. It was the only combination of circumstances which could have possibly made this cause for relief.

“Have you seen today’s Prophet?” he exclaimed, brandishing the aforementioned article. “The Magical Security Act is moving to debate in October. Weeks ahead of schedule!”

George yawned. “My God, what have they done,” he said. “Can I get the Sports section, Perce?”

“And let me have it, after you,” said Ginny.

But Draco paid attention to the prefect, because for once, he’d said something of interest. “Really? Fudge moved it up?”

Percy, obviously grateful to have someone upon whom to impress the significance of his knowledge, showed him the headline. It bore a picture of Fudge (looking rather gloomy, Draco thought) speaking from behind a podium, while flashbulbs fired madly in his face. The headline read: FUDGE FREES THE DOCKET: LANDMARK LEGISLATION GOING TO VOTE BEFORE WINTER RECESS.

“Cannons are down two in the prelims,” said George.

Ginny said, “Well, what can you expect, their draft was pish.”

Draco flipped a page. “Bet he wants to get it out before the election, then.”

“Do you think Fudge is that worried?” said Percy with interest. “I wouldn’t be.”

“What’s this that Fudge is doing?” said George. “Outlawing beards longer than eight inches? Bureaucratizing the trolls?”

“The Magical Securities Act is seminal, ” said Percy, in scandalized tones. “It would imbue the Department of Magical Law Enforcement with legislatively vested executive authority—”

“And defenestrate the flibbertigibbets?” George agreed, nodding, while Ginny covered a giggle. “Absquatulate the bibbles? Impignorate the aglets, surely.”

“This is no joking matter! It would let them put the Trace on people convicted of a crime.”

“Charged,” Draco corrected, absently.

“It’d be a great thing for the Ministry. Dad thinks it’s not a half-bad idea, since it’d let Bones finally nail a whole lot of former Death Eaters. He thinks loads of them are still up to anti-muggle activity, we just can’t catch them… No offense, Malfoy,” he added thoughtfully.

Draco looked up indignantly. “None was being taken, until that.”

Percy made an apologetic face, which happened to be congruent to a face of indigestion. At that point, Draco decided it was time to find a compartment with a better Weasley-to-non-Weasley ratio, and took his leave.

The second years rode up to the castle in horseless carriages. It was a calm, clear night, and the sky over the Great Hall glistened with the silver pepper of stars. The Sorting Hat sang a song about unity, which Draco thought was a bit rich for an object whose purpose was to Sort people, and then the ceremony began. His ears pricked up at the name “Lovegood,” though he didn’t remember why until Dean Thomas murmured, “Isn’t that the quack who runs The Quibbler? ”

The young Lovegood, a tiny blonde girl in a pillbox hat bedazzled to resemble a bumblebee (which she removed at McGonagall’s request), took the stool with an expression of perfect serenity. She sat there for ten subsequent minutes while the Hat’s silence became more and more tense, her legs kicking idly in the air, until finally it said, in a very unhappy tone: “Well then — I suppose — Ravenclaw,” and she skipped off to cheers that were more relieved than jubilant.

“Longest sort I’ve ever seen,” shouted Oliver Wood, applauding. “I should’ve timed it. I think she beat Katie’s record.”

“Hope nobody else tries, I’m starving,” said Ron.

A few more first years came and went, and then McGonagall called, “PARKINSON, PANSY!” and a familiar pug nose pressed its way out of the line. She stomped up to the stool like it was the electric chair and sat down, her jaw jutting out, arms folded.

The Hat never even touched her perfect pigtails.

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” murmured Hermione, as Pansy hurried (“sprinted” was a better word) to the Slytherin table. Draco saw Theodore Nott stand up and start to say something, laughingly, but he was interrupted by Pansy rocketing into his stomach with such force that he doubled over. Her arms went around his waist, and the Slytherin crowd swallowed them in cheers.

There were only three students left when McGonagall cried: “WEASLEY, GINEVRA.”

The whole redheaded clan woke up and stood at alert. Ginny tugged her skirt straight, squared her shoulders, and hopped onto the stage with a passable impression of someone not about to feint in fright.

“Last again,” said Percy anxiously. “We’re always next to last, every year. Why does it have to be alphabetical?”

“Attagirl, Ginny!” Fred shouted, and the whole Great Hall turned momentarily to scowl at him. “Attagirl! WHOO!”

Ginny shot him a quavering smile.

The Sorting Hat dropped neatly onto her head. She swallowed and stared resolutely at the opposite wall.

“GRYFFINDOR!”

It was like someone had been shot. Fred and George both leapt onto the table, seemingly buoyed by the sheer force of the air being expelled from their lungs. Ron roared his approval directly into Draco’s ear. Percy, overwhelmed by emotion, stood up and shouted: “THAT’S RIGHT!” after which he immediately blushed, shuddered, and sat back down again. Harry and Hermione leapt up and applauded vigorously, while the violent desiccation of Gryffindor’s meager supply of dignity continued all around them.

Ginny, grinning like mad, ripped the hat off her own head, tossed it to McGonagall, and flew to the Gryffindor table. It surged forth to receive her. Fred vaulted the table like a sprinter’s hurdle, snatched her up, and mounted her swiftly on his shoulders, and so situated, he paraded her down the table. It took McGonagall five minutes of persistent bellowing to calm them down.

“SILENCE! SILENCE! Your enthusiasm for Miss Weasley is admirable, but—”

She could not finish, because at the words “Miss Weasley,” George had banged his cup on the table and roared: “MISS WEASLEY!” and the table erupted again.

Miraculously, Draco caught Ginny’s eye. He rolled his eyes and mouthed, Told you.

She saw, and beamed. Then she dismounted her brother and shoved her way in at the table, wedging herself beside Draco.

“You were right,” she shouted.

“Could do without the tone of surprise, She-Weasley. Welcome, I suppose.”

“Thank you!” she said, and then — Draco gave a cry of horror — she flung one arm around his shoulder and squeezed. Then, unconscious or uncaring of his distress, she skipped off to join the other first years at the end of the table.

“What did you say to her?” Hermione asked, still clapping.

“That the Hat tries to give you what you want. If you ask.”

“Is that true?” she said. “I never thought so.”

He watched Ginny flop down beside a mousy lad named Creevey and pump his hand.

“Why not? It gave you what you wanted,” he said, doing his best not to sound sour.

“Yes, but not you,” she said. “And I mean, imagine what would’ve happened if you’d gotten what you wanted.”

He watched Theodore Nott and Vincent Crabbe toast Pansy with goblets of pumpkin juice. The Slytherins were talking boisterously among themselves, impervious to the resentment of those around them, totally insulated by their own self-regard.

“Yes,” he said bitterly. “I suppose the world would end.”

Hermione was quiet for a moment.

“I meant me,” she said, belatedly. “That we wouldn’t have been friends. That’s what I meant.”

“You wouldn’t have known me. There’d be nothing to miss.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not.” She pointed at the Slytherin table with her chin. “You don’t know them, and you miss them like mad.”

Welcome to Year Two!

Next chapter: 9/27/22.