The Noble and Most Ancient House of Malfoy
Draco's birth had been nothing short of a miracle, his mother liked to remind him.
In the years that the First Wizarding War lasted, Narcissa had had a total of two miscarriages and birthed one stillborn. It was at the forth and final attempt that a baby boy was a born, whom —much to his fathers relief— could have been mistaken by nothing but a proper Malfoy. White hair and violet eyes were the norm and though his face wasn’t quite as pointy as the ones that he saw in old portraits, or his eyes were more of a faded grayish tone, his appearance was still over all very adequate.
There had been much talk in pureblood social circles, about how the House of Malfoy was in the verge of fading. How it would only take one generation more for the traditional looks and ‘talents’ to disappear entirely. His father dreaded those kinds of conversations, and anyone wise would be sure to never start them in his presence.
Alas, Draco supposed there was some truth in all of that.
His family had been reduced to three people, a mere shadow of the greatness of ancient days, when the first Malfoys arrived to Britain along with the Normans. Back then, owning dragons wasn’t illegal yet, and it showed in the great number of dragon-related artifacts and trinkets displayed across the manor: dragon-hide gloves of species that had long since ceased to exist, teeth, horns, spikes and scales as small as a nail or bigger than his head, many kinds of venoms and dragon-fire that had been carefully preserved in bottles… It all served as a bitter reminder of their past connection to dragons, that and the look of utter dejection with which his father regarded this items.
It was with this sentiment that his father now held towards him a wand, his face solemn. Draco was eleven, his letter of admission to Hogwarts had arrived a few days prior, which could only mean that what he had anticipated for the entire summer was about to happen.
Draco sat in front of his father, a desk between them. They were in his father’s study, and he was as nervous as could be expected of someone his age about to receive his very own wand.
“This one belonged to your grandfather, Abraxas Septimus Malfoy” his father said, his face serious. “Served him loyally throughout his entire life. He specifically requested it be handed to his grandson after his passing. It should do the job nicely”
Draco nodded, barely containing his excitement as he took it (with a bit of resistance) from his fathers hands. He didn’t wave it, or try to cast a spell though, instead he waited for further instructions as he had been taught.
Lucius waved his hand impatiently. “Go ahead, cast a simple Lumos, let us see if you are compatible”
“Yes, father”
He held the wand carefully, adjusting his grip on the handle. “Lumos”
The tip lit up slightly and Draco felt a pleasant tingle in his fingertips. The wand seemed to pulse in his hand and he knew as he tried to suppress a grin that they were compatible.
His father wasn’t so sure.
“Looks a bit dim.”
Draco’s face fell slightly. “It’s the first time I have ever cast this spell, father.”
That was a lie, as his mother had lend him her wand several times that same week in preparation for this moment, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Very well” his father rose up from his seat, Draco was quick to follow. “Regardless, you will go with your mother to have it checked at Ollivanders. Make sure he changes nothing about it, that wand’s more perfect than anything that old lunatic could ever hope to make.”
Draco nodded once more, though his eyes didn’t stray from the wand in his hands. His wand.
The moment he looked up he found his father staring at him from above, the corner of his mouth slightly raised in a half smile, though it faded just as he tried to return it.
“Well? Move along then, go and tell your mother” his father said with a shooing motion, going back to sit at his desk.
Later that day, his mother examined the wand herself, with something akin to pride in her pale blue eyes. They were just outside Gringotts, having taken out some money from the vaults, in order to buy all the school material. Draco held the long list in his hand, bouncing a bit with impatience and glancing at the black wand in her mothers pale and manicured fingers.
“Come on, mother!” He whined as he tugged on her hand. This was something he would have never dared to do with his father, but his mother was usually more lenient with his childish behaviors. “You’ll have all the time to look after we have it checked!”
Narcissa sighed patiently, putting the gorgeous wand back in his greedy hands, and starting to follow him to the store. “Slow down, Draco. Your mother isn’t as young as she used to be.”
Draco turned to look at her skeptically. Narcissa was easily the prettiest witch in sight, making heads turn only to turn back sharply after realizing who she was. Plus she was also barely 36. His mother seemed to sense his thoughts, as she smiled softly and moved to match his pace. Then she repeated the same question he’d been hearing all week.
“How are your friends, Draco?” She asked. “Weren’t you going to meet them here today?”
He absolutely wasn’t.
With ‘friends’, of course, she was talking about the group of pureblooded children his age that his father and mother had personally selected for him to mingle with from a young age. However, he’d been in enough play dates to know that (for reasons that eluded him) they didn’t particularly like him that much. Well, save from Crabbe and Goyle, who weren’t smart enough to be able to tell who they did or didn’t like.
To be fair, he wasn’t very fond of the lot either, so he often told himself that this obvious rejection didn’t affect him as much.
“No, mother” he said, picking at some lint on his clothes. “Turns out they’ve all already bought their things”
Narcissa frowned. “Have they? Oh, well”
And that was it.
They arrived at Ollivanders a couple of seconds after, and were met with an unkept store that was filled from floor to ceiling with boxes upon boxes of handcrafted wands, spiderwebs hanging from some of the upper boxes (much to his mothers distaste), which seemed to have been left untouched for a long time. Draco looked around curiously, scanning the store with wide eyes until they landed on the man behind the counter.
He was picking shards of ceramic from the floor, muttering something about accidental magic and phoenix cores or something like that.
His mother cleared her throat.
“Ah! Yes, yes, just a second, please” he said, finally discarding the shards in the bin next to him.
He turned around and Draco was surprised at the intensity with which two slightly crazed silver eyes regarded him and his mother.
“Mr Malfoy! Of course, yes, I’ve been waiting for you” the old man said to himself, rubbing his hands. “You’re here to have your wand checked, your father tells me. Correct?”
His mother pushed him closer to the man. “Er, yeah… yes, sir” he said, just a bit intimidated.
“Well, then, let’s see what we have here” the man responded unperturbed, extending his hand.
Draco looked at his mother, who nodded reassuringly, and he gave the wand to the man.
The old mans eyes seemed to lit up even more, if possible. He turned the wand around, swinging it around expertly and then bending it a few times, to which Draco made a slight noise of discomfort. Ollivander then raised his gaze and wordlessly gave it back.
“Ten inches long, hawthorn blood, reasonably springy” he said. “And, of course, dragon heartstrings core”
Draco nodded. His father had told him about the core, said it belonged to Vidar, one of the last dragons that were taken from his family and sent away after the prohibition.
“Very old and loyal wand, this one” Ollivander muttered to himself. “I believe it was your grandfather that brought it here before you, what great promise he showed as a dragon tamer. Though, of course, I was just a young lad back then…”
“Then, all is fine?” Narcissa interrupted from where she stood at the back of the store.
“It should be, yes” the old man answered, startled. “Could you cast a spell please, just to be sure?”
Draco focused again on the strange vibration, casting Lumos for the second time that day. This time it lit up considerably more than the first, and he just wished his father had been there to see it.
They exited the store shortly after, with Ollivander insisting he invested in a clean up and polishing kit for the wand (arguing that the wood was very old and was in desperate need of it). But recalling what his father had said about not modifying the wand and looking at the perfect state in which it was deterred him.
In the end, they spent the rest of the afternoon calmly buying all the things needed for the school year, ordering for them to be sent back to the manor. His mother bought him a chocolate ice cream at some point from Florean Fortescue’s, if only to drag him away from Magical Menagerie Pets & Familiars, where he had been not so subtly eyeing some snakes and lizards.
Finally, there were only a few things left to buy.
“Okay, Draco, it’s gotten a bit late” his mother said as she looked at the list in her hand and the darkening sky. “So how about you go to Madam Malkin’s to have your robes fitted while I get your books at Flourish and Blotts? I’ll fetch you after I’m done”
He agreed and they parted ways.
On the way to the store, Draco felt a familiar tension build up in the pit of his stomach at the thought of going alone, without his mother. But he pushed it down, walking faster and going past the purple doors to Madam Malkin’s with feigned confidence. It was improper of someone his age to feel this way about something so minimal, specially since he had already went to this store several times before, to get his clothes fitted. His father would think so too, he was sure of it. And his mother… well, she coddled him too much, so her opinion couldn’t be trusted with things like this.
“Hogwarts?” asked Madam Malkin, a squat witch in mauve clothing.
“Yes, ma’am” he answered politely.
The witch smiled and directed him towards the back of the shop and on top of a footstool, were another younger witch started pinning up long black robes. She must have been some kind of apprentice, because she accidentally pricked him a total of five times, though he was too embarrassed to mention it.
Just then, the bell announced the arrival of another customer.
“Hogwarts, dear? Got the lot here—another young man being fitted up just now, in fact.”
The other kid was stood in a stool right next to him. Out of the corner of his eye, Draco glimpsed a mass of dark black hair and tan skin. The boy was shorter than him by a few inches and he didn’t appear to be from any good family, if the rags he was wearing were anything to go by.
After a few tense seconds of silence, Draco realized that (unlike him) the boy was not so subtly staring at him. The heaviness in his stomach grew, so he forced himself to turn sharply and stare back at those green eyes. The boy startled at that.
“Hullo” said Draco, looking him up and down and noticing that apart from short he was also rather skinny. “Hogwarts too?”
“Yes” said the boy.
“My mother’s up the street buying my books” he answered in a drawling voice. “Then im going to drag her off to look at racing brooms” he added, which was something he hadn’t actually thought of doing, but which seemed like a good idea now that he said it. “I heard first-years aren’t allowed to have them yet, but I don’t see why. I think I’ll bully father into getting me one and I’ll smuggle it in somehow. Have you got your own broom?”
“No” the boy said. His face had pinched in a certain way that made Draco nervous, as though he had done something wrong already.
“Well, uh, play Quidditch at all?”
“No”
And this time he was sure he hadn’t imagined the annoyance in the other boy’s face. Draco looked down, feeling a little dejected. The skinny boy must have noticed it, because he was the one to ask a question this time.
“Er… are you excited about going to school?”
Draco turned to look at him, raising a pale eyebrow. “I guess so. I’m mostly nervous about the sorting ceremony though, wouldn’t want to end up in Hufflepuff. I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?”
The boy made a noise of agreement.
“But I’ll probably be in Slytherin, all my family have been” Draco said, more to himself than to the boy. “I mean, it would be ridiculous for me to be in anything other than Slytherin.”
“Mmm” said the boy.
Draco was going to keep talking if only to appease his nerves, when suddenly he noticed a giant man just outside the shop, holding two large ice creams and seemingly waving at someone within the shop. “I say look at that man!”
“That’s Hagrid” The boy perked. “He works at Hogwarts.”
“Oh” he said. “So like a servant?”
“He’s the gamekeeper” said the boy defensively.
Draco nodded, vaguely recalling something his father had once told him. “I heard he’s some kind of savage. He lives in a hut at the edge of the forest, gets drunk every once in a while and ends up setting his bed on fire.”
The skinny boy stared at him intently for a while. “I think he’s brilliant” he said coldly.
“Oh”
Draco felt his face grow hot, feeling chastised. What he had just said must be true, as it was his father who had told him so, but he realized now that it could have sounded quite insulting to someone that knew the man.
His mother certainly wouldn’t approve of him being rude.
“I’m sorry” Draco said softly, his face still red. “I shouldn’t have said that”
The boy unclenched his jaw, appearing surprised at the apology. He gazed back at the window briefly, before finally sighing.
“It’s alright” he said. “No worries”
Draco nodded, feeling a little relieved. He realized suddenly that he hadn’t even introduced himself to the boy. “Oh, by the way. I’m Malfoy. Draco Malfoy.”
“I’m Harry P—”
Just then, the bell interrupted the boy, and Draco’s mother entered the store with an armful of books.
“Draco, dear. Are you done yet? This books are quite heavy” said Narcissa, fixing a lock of blond hair behind her ear.
“Yes, Mrs Malfoy, he is ready to go” replied Madam Malkin from behind him. Before he knew it, his robes were pulled over his head, packed and he was standing beside his mother at the front of the shop.
He sent an apologetic look to the boy, who was still looking at him curiously with those sharp green eyes. “Hope to see you at Hogwarts, Harry!”
Harry nodded, smiling unsurely at Draco.
A while later and back in the manor during dinner, when questioned about who the boy was by his mother, he’d tell her about their short conversation and how he hadn’t quite caught his name. His father had looked suspicious, but hadn’t asked any further questions, for which Draco was silently grateful.
Whoever Harry was, he definitely couldn’t have been a pureblood. Everything about him, from his baggy muggle clothes to how the giant man had escorted him screamed of the boy being a mudblood. Someone (supposedly) inferior to him, someone his father would never want him to associate with.
But he hadn’t been mean to Draco and had actually listened to him talk, so maybe if he ended up in Slytherin they could be friends.
And with that dangerous thought, Draco didn’t mention the skinny boy again.