“loathing”
Harry didn’t pay much attention to the sorting other than when it was his friends’ turns. Hermione’s sorting took a little while, the hat was trying to decide between Ravenclaw and Gryfindor for a good five minutes before finally deciding on Gryffindor, Hermione seemed pleased with her placement and happily waltzed over to the Gryffindor table. Then came Ron’s sorting which took almost no time at all, it seemed that before the hat was even placed on Ron’s head it had decided on Gryffindor and Ron happily took his seat beside Hermione.
After Hermione and Ron were sorted the tall boy who had threatened Harry in the hall was up. Draco sat in the stool confidently as the hat yelled out Slytherin. ‘Of course he’s a Slytherin. His father had warned him about people like Draco’ Harry thought to himself. Than finally it was Harry’s turn, though he wasn’t opposed to being a Slytherin he still caught himself hoping to be put in Gryffindor, there was nothing worse Harry could think of than being forced to spend the next seven years with Draco, but despite his best efforts when the time came the hat bellowed out ‘Slytherin’ and his fate was sealed. Harry took the last seat available at the Slytherin table across from Draco and ate in silence for a while.
After dinner the house prefect led them to the dorms in the dungeons. Harry didn’t really have many hopes for who he’d have to room with, he simply wanted to be put with people nice enough that he’d be willing to spend the next seven years sharing a room with them. Regulus had mentioned that when he’d gone to Hogwarts they were able to pick their dorm mates but in recent years they had begun assigning rooms.
Harry ended up assigned to a smaller dorm at the end of the hall. Harry walked into the room to find only two beds whereas the rest of the dorms had four. Harry stood with a puzzled expression on his face before walking over to the bed on the left and placing his things down. Just as Harry began to unpack he heard the door swoosh open and someone walk into the room, Harry looked up to make the acquaintance of his new roommate only to find that it was none other than Draco.
Harry’s look of excitement turned to disgust as the silver haired boy walked into the room and placed his stuff next to the bed on the right. Despite Harry’s longing to simply ignore Draco his curiosity got the better of him. “Why do you reckon they’ve only got the two of us in here when there are four people in the other rooms?” Harry asked, trying to move past the first few interactions he’d had with Draco so far. “Isn’t it obvious? They didn’t have a number of first years that was divisible by four, my father specially requested to have me put in a dorm with less people and he requested to have me put with someone from a respectable family but I guess you can’t always have your way.” Draco said snarkily as he looked Harry up and down
“I’ll have you know I am from a ‘respectable family’ as you put it. Not that it matters though, no matter how ‘pure’ your blood is you can’t hide the fact that you're still a massive twat.” Harry said, stepping closer to Draco. “Oh, you little prick!” Draco said angrily as he pulled his wand out and walked closer to Harry. When Draco was about a foot away from Harry, Harry grabbed the hand that Draco was holding his wand in and twisted it, forcing Draco to let go of his wand. Draco fell to the ground with a seething look on his face and Harry bent down to meet his gaze. Harry reached out and grabbed Draco by the chin, turning Draco’s head to look up at him. “Awe, look at that, just goes to show that no matter how threatening you seem you’re still just a weak little dog.” Harry said, squeezing Draco’s face before letting go and heading into the bathroom to get ready for bed.
As Harry stood in the bathroom brushing his teeth he began to wonder if he’d taken it a bit too far, and then he remembered the words that had sparked his hatred for Draco in the first place. In that moment Harry decided that he no longer cared about ‘taking the high road’ or being better than his enemies, at that moment Harry decided that when Draco would go low he would go lower.
After Harry was ready for bed he sat down at his desk and wrote out a letter to his father to tell him about his first day a Hogwarts, it read:
Papa,
My first day at Hogwarts started off good but quickly went sour. I quickly made two friends on the train; a brown haired girl named Hermione and a red haired boy named Ron, but once we made it to Hogwarts I ran into this dreadful boy named Draco and I’m not proud of it but we may have gotten into a fight. Then to make things even worse my friends were both placed in Gryffindor and I was placed in Slytherin with Draco and me and Draco have to share a room together by ourselves. I wish I could say that I was happy to be in Slytherin but honestly I’m not.
J’taime, Harry
At the same time Draco was writing a letter of his own to his parents:
Dear Father,
I have settled in well to my dorm and been placed in Slytherin as you requested, however there is one small grip I have with this arrangement. It seems that though you specifically requested I have a pure blooded wizard as my roommate I was placed with a blood traitor. I’m not exactly sure what family he is from but his name is Harry and I already can’t stand him. I hope that you can find some way to rectify this situation.
Sincerely,
Draco
At once both boys stood up and walked to the window next to Harry’s bed to mail their letters. Harry sent Hedwig (his owl) off quickly but just as he turned to return to his bed he saw Draco only a few inches away from him. The two boys stood in silence for a moment, their hearts beating out of their chests and the breath perfectly in sync. “Get out of the way, can’t you see I’m trying to send this.” Draco said, snapping the two boys from their trance. Harry rolled his eyes and walked to his bed rolling away from the window and begging to drift off to sleep. After sending off his letter Draco lingered by Harry’s bed for a moment, though he knew with every fiber of his brain that he should hate Harry, he couldn’t help but find himself longing to have a connection with him, perhaps a friendship… perhaps… Draco snapped himself out of his trance and quickly shut the window and walked back to his own bed but something inside him couldn’t shake that feeling…