lomonaaeren

“You remember what I told you, Draco.”

“Of course, Father. I have every intention of getting into Slytherin and making you proud.”

Lucius looked calmly and carefully down into his son’s eyes. Draco was almost vibrating with excitement, but he nodded and stood straight when he saw how Lucius was looking at him. He rolled his shoulders back, too, and gave a smile that was a little stiff but would do for outsiders.

“You know what to do with Harry.”

“Yes, Father. Keep him away from undue influences and make sure that he goes into Slytherin.”

Lucius squeezed Draco’s shoulder once. “You do me proud, Draco,” he said. It was beneath him to dispense praise often, but he did like to see the way that Draco glowed as if he were lit from within. “Now, go and teach Hogwarts what it means to have a properly raised Malfoy attending. And to have that Malfoy responsible for the Boy-Who-Lived.”

Draco was responsible for less than he thought, of course, but he still nodded earnestly, shook Lucius’s hand, gave Narcissa a hug, and walked towards the train. Potter, meanwhile, was lingering and looking at Narcissa.

Lucius gave him a sharp glance that he was careful to keep on the right side of disgusted. Did the boy really think that Narcissa would break character for him? Here in public?

But to his utter astonishment, Narcissa stepped forwards and bent down to touch the boy’s cheek, then kiss it. “Be well, Harry.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Malfoy. You, too.” Potter’s eyes were bright and his cheeks flushed as he ran towards the train, where Draco was already impatiently calling for him. Lucius made a mental note to try and curb that impatience in a letter even as he stared at his wife.

“When did that start?”

“When did what start?”

“Your deciding to treat him like that in public,” Lucius said, although he lowered his voice a little. More than one wizard or witch was gaping at them for showing up at the train platform with Harry Potter. That had been part of escorting him to the platform, of course. But having an argument in public wasn’t.

“Not here,” Narcissa murmured, through lips set in a tight little smile.

And of course she was right. Some of what they’d done with Potter would be undone if they seemed to be ensconced in their own little world right after their “foster son” got on the train. So they stood and waved until the Express pulled away in a blast of steam and noise. Lucius was sure that one arm waving frantically back at them from the train was Potter’s. Fortunately, Draco had more decorum than to indulge in such nonsense.

When they were back through the fire, Lucius turned to Narcissa and raised his eyebrows. She gave him the faintest of sighs. “Darling, what do you think people like Dumbledore will be looking for in Potter when he shows up at school?”

“Looking for?”

“Indulge me, Lucius.”

Lucius swallowed air and the arguments he wanted to make. Narcissa would have a reason for this. Admittedly, he wished she’d shared that reason, but one was there, and she was looking at him as if he were stupid for not figuring it out. He lowered his eyes to the floor and contemplated the matter for a long minute.

“They’ll be looking to see if he survived the summer with us,” he finally murmured. Of course Dumbledore would be, after whatever machinations he might have used to get Potter away from their family had failed.

“And?”

“And if we’ve corrupted him, as they would name it. If we’ve used or mistreated him. They’ll probably test him with innocuous conversations that attempt to prove what kind of beliefs he has about the Dark Lord and purebloods and Mudbloods.”

“Yes. So the last thing we need to do is give power to those conversations by treating him coldly in public. You might not have thought so, but I assure you, that distant nod you gave to the boy was noticed.”

Lucius grimaced. “I understand. I’ll endeavor to treat Potter better in the future. As long as we’re in public,” he had to add. “And as long as he’d properly deferring to Draco at the time.”

Narcissa studied him for a long moment as if assessing his commitment to the promise. Then she smiled and moved into his arms. “Good. And we’ve got an hour or so before I need to visit Alianora Greengrass, so let’s spend the time doing more pleasant things.”

Lucius laughed and bent to kiss her.

*

Harry was quiet as they got off the train and walked up the path to the boats that would take them to the castle. Draco had explained all about that, and unlike some other things, Harry had no reason to distrust him on this. And Draco had kept him in their train compartment, sending away the people who came to try and talk to them.

Well, except for two large boys named Crabbe and Goyle, who walked behind them now. Draco had explained that their fathers had arrangements with Mr. Malfoy, which meant that they wouldn’t gossip about Harry’s presence.

Harry had thought they wouldn’t gossip because they were too stupid to do it, but he kept that to himself. It was the sort of thing that would make lots of people upset if he said it.

And Harry knew that he was depending right now on the goodwill of all the Malfoys. Things could get very bad if he upset Draco.

“It’s magnificent, isn’t it?”

Harry looked up. He’d been quiet in the boat that he and Draco and Crabbe and Goyle got into, too. Draco was talking, and he liked to do it, and he didn’t like it when someone interrupted him.

But now he was looking up at the castle, which sparkled under the stars. Harry caught his breath, and then hoped that he didn’t sound too stupid. But Draco was giving him a tolerant smile, so he was probably all right.

“It’s beautiful,” Harry agreed quietly, and wrapped the silence tighter around himself as f they floated towards the castle and a little dock where Hagrid got out and led them inside.

Hagrid had been looking around as they walked towards the boats. Harry knew that the big man was probably looking for him, and part of him felt bad about hiding and walking with his head down for as long as he could.

He wanted to stay with the Malfoys. Not because they were the kindest people in the world—he knew Hagrid was kinder—but because he got a bedroom and a brother, well, sort of a brother, and a wand, and a familiar, and magic.

Anyone who would take him away from that was someone he wanted to avoid.

The stern professor Hagrid had delivered them to gave a little speech Harry didn’t listen to. He knew already which House he had to be in. Draco had talked endlessly about it on the train, both before and after Crabbe and Goyle had joined them. Slytherin was the best House, the only House a Malfoy would ever consider Sorting in.

And the only House for Harry, because it had to be.

“The Sorting will begin shortly.”

The stern-faced professor swept away. Harry stood quietly at Draco’s side, and saw more than one person in front of them turn around, sometimes bouncing on their toes, as if looking for someone.

Looking for me.

Harry pressed closer to Draco’s side. Draco looked down and gave him the sort of smile that Mr. Malfoy used on Harry all the time.

“It’s all right,” he whispered. “I know that you don’t know anything about what’s going on, but just stay here, and I’ll protect you.”

Harry barely nodded. He could see a pale, sandy-haired boy who might be Neville Longbottom doing some of the looking, and a red-haired boy Draco had already talked about during the summer. Ron Weasley. They were the sort of people who would think that Dumbledore and Hagrid had the right to make all the decisions about Harry’s life.

It was horrible.

So he stayed quiet, and when they finally escorted them into the Great Hall and Harry saw the sparkling stars and dark clouds of the ceiling, his gasp was lost in the gasps of all the rest of the new firsties.

The Slytherin table was off to the side, and it was the one that Harry studied intently, not paying much attention to the other Sortings. There were people in robes edged with green and silver there, and lots of snake designs. Harry bit his lip. He had wondered a lot during the summer if he should have talked about the way that he could sometimes speak to snakes in the paintings and carvings in Malfoy Manor.

But he had decided that he shouldn’t say anything. It might be the kind of magic that the Malfoys, who were proud of being represented by snakes, might think wasn’t appropriate for a half-blood to have.

(Harry really didn’t understand the whole focus on bloody purity. Everyone alive today had had families who lasted down to the present, right? So why were some so much more important or pure than others? But that was a question that he knew would get him branded as stupid or a troublemaker. So he didn’t ask).

“Malfoy, Draco!”

Draco clapped Harry on the shoulder and strode forwards. Harry had to muffle a snort. Draco was strutting exactly like a lot of the peacocks on the Malfoy estate had during the summer.

But he was also someone who belonged in this world, someone who had a family who loved him. Harry would have given anything for that. He would have given anything to make the Malfoys love him the way they did Draco.

He didn’t think they would. But he had to stay quiet, and watch, and see.

Draco barely got to sit on the stool. The Sorting Hat screamed, “SLYTHERIN!”, and Draco jumped up, dumped the Hat back on the stool, winked at Harry, and strutted—there was really no other word for it—over to the Slytherin table.

People were clapping for him, but it was cold and reserved clapping. Harry swallowed. Was that the kind of House he really wanted to be in?

But think of the bedroom they gave you.

“Potter, Harry!”

Harry noticed more than one dropped jaw as he walked forwards. He didn’t know if it was because they hadn’t spotted him before or if he was wearing the wrong robes or something. Or maybe just finer robes than they’d expected him to have.

He hurried forwards and jammed the Hat on his head.

There was a whisper in his mind, a breeze through his thoughts. Harry shuddered and cringed away from it, but it was there, and he couldn’t push it out.

Such a brave one. You would grace the House of Gryffindor with your courage. You could go there.

I don’t want to, Harry said, shoving the thought forwards and hoping it would be heard. He had no idea how to do this. He had no idea how to do so much. I want to be with Draco, and I want to have the Malfoys accept me, and I never want to see the Dursleys again.

There was silence, and Harry heard some mutters from the people all around him. He winced. No matter where they thought he should be Sorted, apparently they’d thought it would be a lot quicker than this.

You can go to Slytherin, the Hat said at last, slowly. But you will be a very different person if you do that than if you were in Gryffindor. You could be happier, in the end, but only in the end. A long way in the future.

I want that.

At the cost of present happiness?

Harry shook his head a little. He hadn’t been happy very often in the present. And he knew that the Malfoys would give him a lot of things if he asked, but he didn’t think happiness was something they could do. He would have to make his own road.

Now that, the Hat murmured, with a sound like hunger in the back of its voice, is a true and deep ambition.

“SLYTHERIN!”

Harry took a short breath and removed the Hat from his head. There was a lot of silence, but Draco was smiling at him and clapping for him, and so were Crabbe and Goyle. That was the most he could expect, he thought. Everyone else thought he was some person he wasn’t, he didn’t want to be. The Boy-Who-Lived.

He wanted to be himself.

By the time he got to the Slytherin table, at least the Sorting had started again behind him, and more of the Slytherins were clapping. They didn’t look as if they knew why. But Harry thought that was all right. He would make them know, in the end.

He sat down next to Draco and smiled at him, then watched as a few more students were Sorted into Slytherin. He clapped for each one. People at the other tables kept giving him confused stares. He ignored them.

He did jump a little when the food popped onto the plates. It was never that sudden in Malfoy Manor. But he served himself and used the manners that Narcissa and Lucius had taught him, which mainly consisted of moving like he had a stick up his butt.

Harry winced at the thought. That was the kind of thing he never wanted to say in front of the Malfoys.

“So, why are you here?”

Harry leaned around Draco to see the speaker. It was a tall girl with dark hair and a frozen expression that looked half-broken when she sneered. Harry thought she was probably Pansy Parkinson, the one of their soon-to-be classmates Draco had talked about the most.

“Because the Hat Sorted me here.”

A few people around him sucked in harsh breaths, as if they thought that baiting Parkinson was a mistake. Parkinson herself seemed to think so. She tried to screw up her face into a harder expression.

In truth, she reminded Harry of nothing so much as Dudley trying to look tough in front of Piers and his gang. Harry had to bite his lip not to laugh.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Pansy Parkinson, right?”

Parkinson paused, then turned and addressed Draco instead of Harry. “You told him about me? Is that where you were the whole train ride, Draco? Busy trying to work yourself into the good graces of the Boy-Who-Lived?”

“I don’t need to,” Draco said, and smirked around the rim of his cup as he drank from it. Harry wished he knew how Draco did that, both the smirk and the drink. Pumpkin juice was way too sweet for Harry. “I was already there.”

Parkinson sat back and pouted. Crabbe was the one who summoned up the will to ask, “How?” around the huge piece of chocolate cake he was chewing.

“Do you want to tell them, Harry?”

He isn’t throwing you to the wolves—or whatever magical people call it. He’s giving you the chance to define yourself. Harry had started telling himself things like that over the summer. Whether or not it was true, it helped him be calmer about what the Malfoys were doing.

“Yes,” he said, with a faint smile. “Mr. Malfoy met me in Diagon Alley this summer, and he could tell right away that I was raised in the Muggle world and didn’t know enough about magic. He graciously offered to take me in and teach me so that I could learn things the school won’t necessarily teach.”

Now he had everyone’s attention. Harry concentrated on being calm and polite underneath it. This was the kind of thing that Mrs. Malfoy had told him he’d experience, and she’d taught him how to handle it. He wasn’t going to disgrace those lessons now.

“Raised in the Muggle world?” a blonde girl asked.

“He taught you?” asked a dark-skinned boy.

Harry nodded to both of them. “I grew up with my Muggle aunt and uncle,” he explained, “my mother’s relatives. They knew about magic, but they didn’t bother to tell me.” It was no effort at all to sound bitter, because he was. “Mr. Malfoy was a little appalled at that.”

“A lot appalled,” Draco said in a loud whisper.

Harry nodded again. “So he extended the offer to take me in. I’m incredibly grateful to him.”

“The Malfoys don’t do anything without a reason,” the blonde girl said, leaning forwards. “I hope that you’re smart enough to know that, Potter.”

“I was also told that Slytherins were the subtlest students in Hogwarts,” Harry murmured, and shook his head with a sad little sigh. “So far I haven’t found that to be true, but I suppose there’s always hope for the future.”

The girl flushed as the dark-skinned boy laughed. “He’s got you there, Greengrass,” the boy said, and held out his hand. “Blaise Zabini. So you can know the name of at least one other person besides Draco and the girl he’s going to marry someday.”

“Blaise! I am not!”

Harry shook Zabini’s hand and watched in silence as Draco squawked and Parkinson pouted and Zabini teased them both and Greengrass watched them. Crabbe and Goyle were too busy to pay attention to anything except their plates.

That left a tall girl with dark eyes and hair, and a thin boy with the palest face Harry had ever seen, as the other first-year Slytherins. Harry turned to them and cocked his head. The girl sighed a little. “Millicent Bulstrode.”

The boy raised his eyebrows. “Theodore Nott.”

Harry nodded to them both. “A pleasure.”

Draco had mentioned Nott sometimes, in tones of admiration, so Harry was prepared to go along and do whatever he needed to do to pamper the boy’s ego. (He was getting lots of practice with Draco). He hadn’t mentioned a Bulstrode one way or the other.

“Hmm.”

Nott was reserving judgment on him, it seemed. Harry shrugged a little and turned back to the pudding in front of him. It was delicious, but he was able to savor it slowly, the way he would have had trouble doing if someone had served it to him a month ago.

Now, he trusted there would be more food where that came from.

When people began to move and leave the Great Hall, the Slytherin prefects rose, introduced themselves, and gestured them towards the doors from the Hall. Harry started to rise, too, but then a looming presence behind him introduced itself.

“Mr. Potter. You will accompany me to the Headmaster’s office.”

Professor Snape. Mr. Malfoy had discussed him a little, and so had Draco. But while Draco was just full of awe for how the man brewed potions and dueled, Mr. Malfoy’s information had been more complex.

“Yes, sir,” Harry said quietly, and followed behind Snape as they left the Great Hall. He didn’t look back at Draco, because there were too many people who might try to see some kind of secret message in the look.

Including Albus Dumbledore.

So the show begins.