The Inquisitor

Goddamn, Harry was glad to get out of Slughorn’s stupid little party. The strange and somehow pompous air of the compartment damn near choked him to death, so when he was finally given an out, he was immediately striding down the aisle of the train with as hurried a strut as he could muster. When his exasperated gaze met Blaise Zabini ducking into a compartment occupied by Malfoy’s little clique, his eyebrows perked up. If anything could get him out of his sour mood, it would be finding out something he could blackmail Malfoy with. Before Neville could pull him toward his friends, Harry threw on his invisibility cloak and darted after the Slytherin, making sure to get into the compartment before the door shut behind Zabini.

He flung himself up into the luggage rack before the occupants of the room could realize they had an uninvited guest. It was the usual cast of unpleasant slytherins: Crabbe, Goyle, and Zabini were all lined up on the bench opposite Malfoy, who was laying down with his head in Parkinson’s lap. Though, there was one addition he’d never seen before. A towheaded teenager was sprawled across the floor with his back leaning up against the wall, apparently having his spot taken by Malfoy, who was stretching his legs across two seats. In most areas, the teen looked quite unlike Malfoy, with a warm tan, long untamed hair, and strong, somewhat battered features that made him look like an avid rugby player. Though, despite their differences, he couldn’t help but see him as a brother to his enemy; their matching surly expressions made them seem far more similar than they were. Towhead and Malfoy bickered with each other as if they’d known each other for years, but throughout their jabbering, the unnamed one never raised his head from the rather thick book in his lap.

As he saw Zabini come in, Malfoy launched into a rant about how Slughorn had no taste; obviously he of all people should’ve been chosen for “sticking out” and “having a promising future.” Zabini assured him that it wasn’t an insult to his pride to not be invited, as it was probably just because Malfoy Sr. got arrested recently, and Parkinson stroked his hair to calm him down. These factors were nullified, apparently, by Towhead snickering at Malfoy’s bad attitude. His jeer reignited Malfoy’s annoyance and earned him a well-polished dress shoe to the head. 

“As if you could say anything about accomplishments or status, Elric,” Malfoy huffed indignantly. “You’re a fresh mudblood, for god’s sake.” Harry nearly fell off the rack in shock. Draco Malfoy was hanging out with a mudblood? He could barely believe his ears. He didn’t feel like he could say it was character development, as he still used the term as a scathing insult, but associating with one whatsoever was definitely something he wasn’t expecting from Malfoy. He peered at Towhead—wait, no, Elric— with a newfound curiosity. What could be different about him? 

“That doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to laugh at you when you’re being a bitch,” Elric retorted with a heavy German accent, hauling Malfoy’s leg off of him. He took his head off of Pansy’s lap momentarily to stare daggers at Elric before kicking him one last time. 

“Come on, ladies,” Zabini jabbed at the two. “Stop bickering.” Elric pursed his lips in disappointment from his fun being cut short as Malfoy settled back down into Pansy’s lap with a dramatic huff.

“I don’t care what you might ‘have in common’ with Him,” Malfoy added, apparently needing to have the last jab in the quarrel, “but it won’t help you when He’s taken over. You’re lower than all of us by both blood and creed; you’ll be the first to be tossed out like a rag.” The temperature of the room seemed to immediately drop 10 degrees. Crabbe and Goyle plastered snide smirks on their faces, but he could tell they were shocked by Malfoy’s comment. “He” couldn’t possibly be referring to…

“We had better change,” Malfoy decided, cutting off Harry’s train of thought along with Pansy, who’d opened her mouth to ask about that comment. “I can see Hogwarts.” Shit. That meant they’d be reaching for the luggage he was perched on. Before he could react, Goyle grabbed his luggage and swung it down, hitting Harry upside the head and pulling a gasp from his throat. He clasped his hand over his mouth and looked over the rack at the people below him, but it didn’t seem like anyone noticed, thank god. 

The compartment rustled as its occupants changed, and he wondered how his little excursion would affect his schedule, considering he couldn’t change until the whole crew left the compartment. He couldn’t be late to the opening ceremony; Snape would kill him.  Thankfully, the group started to filter out of the compartment soon, with their robes fluttering behind them as they pushed and punched their way through the hall of the train. Soon, the only one left was Malfoy. He’d adorned his robes, and his luggage was packed, so there shouldn’t have been a reason he was sticking behind. His heart dropped to his stomach when Malfoy looked Harry directly in the eyes. With a flick of his wand and a shout of a spell, Harry was tumbling out of the luggage rack, unable to move, or even simply get out of the ridiculous curled position he put himself in while spying. 

“I thought I had heard Goyle’s luggage hitting something,” Malfoy huffed, plastering an insufferable smirk on his pallid face. “You didn’t hear anything I care about, Potter, but while I’ve got you here…” He slipped his wand into his cloak pocket before raising a perfectly polished dress shoe and slamming it down on Harry’s face. He couldn’t even flinch. All he could do was hear a crack and feel a worrying amount of blood drip down his cheek. 

“That’s for my father,” he said with a bitter edge to his voice. He snatched up the invisibility cloak that had flittered to the ground and threw it over Harry’s unmoving body. “I don’t reckon they’ll find you until the train’s back in London.” He decided, sounding frustratingly pleased with the idea. “See you around Potter… or not.” 

The heel of his shoe cracked over Harry’s fingers as he glided out of the compartment without another word. 

Shit.

That was the only word his brain could conjure. He knew that spying on Malfoy could always end in disaster, but this was a new level of catastrophe that he’d never predicted. This excursion was affecting whether or not he could attend Hogwarts for the year. He couldn’t tell how fast time was passing because his mind was rushing with regretful thoughts and curses to his horrible luck. He didn’t know how long he’d been waiting before the compartment door reopened. 

With his face pinned to the ground in his unfortunate position, he couldn’t see anything about the figure except a pair of muddy combat boots. A flash of red light made him squint, but the fact that he could squint made him jump. He could move. He immediately rushed his hands to his face to feel for whatever injury Malfoy had inflicted on him. Broken nose. Fuck. That would be hard to get rid of. The invisibility cloak was flung off him by Combat Boots and a gloved hand was extended towards him. He grabbed it and it hauled him onto his feet, and dizzy as he felt from the sudden change in position and blood loss, he muttered out a thank you. 

When he regained a normal state of mind, he was quite surprised to realize that the strong arm that slung him onto his feet with ease belonged to someone nearly a foot shorter than him. He was equally surprised to recognize the figure. 

“You’re… that Elric guy?” Harry demanded an answer from the strange teen, who was eloquently ignoring him and picking up a book that was left on the floor after the compartment was evacuated. When the towhead turned around to face Harry again, he cringed upon the sight of his injured face. Oh god, he was not going to enjoy showing up to the banquet hall with a face that could make people react like that. Elric sighed and flicked his wand at Harry with the muttering of a spell, and a shot of light flew at him. His hands jumped to his face and felt around in surprise. His nose wasn’t lopsided anymore. Elric furrowed his brow and lowered his head a little, taking a handkerchief out of his robes and handing it to him.

“Sorry…” he muttered almost sheepishly, devoid of the arrogant demeanor he’d demonstrated just a bit ago. “M’not very good at healing spells yet, so it’s not perfect.” Harry took the handkerchief and stared at the teen in bewilderment, noticing that the towhead’s robes weren’t pertaining to a specific house. They looked like those the first-years wore. Elric walked by him, tucking the book under his arm and plastering his surly expression back onto his face. “Wipe the blood off your face and… do forgive him. Or at least, just— don’t report him.” 

As Elric slipped out of the room, Harry stared at him, baffled by his sheer gall. Forgive Malfoy? After he fucking broke his nose? Who cares if he sent his little lackey to clean up his mess, that guy was getting his ass kicked. He bundled up his invisibility cloak, tucked it under his arm, and slammed open the door, chasing after that ridiculous bastard. He stormed down the hall and out the train, swiveling his head around to find the short towhead, but he couldn’t find him in the swaths of students getting into the carriages. He huffed in anger and decided that he could find Elric later and give him a piece of his mind. Finding Ron and Hermione was more important right then. 

He trailed along the line of carriages, each tied to their grotesque thestrals, until he spotted a familiar cloud of curly brown hair floating around the shoulders of a student. Hermione. He ran over to her to find her in a heated debate with Ron over god-knows-what at this point. Once they noticed him, a barrage of questions assaulted him while he sat down in a carriage with an exhausted huff. 

“What took you so long?” Ron shouted. “Ginny said you got out with the rest of Slughorn’s party almost an hour ago!” 

“And your face has some blood on it!” Hermione noted. “Did you get into a fight?”

Harry sighed and waved off his friend’s concerns. “No, no, everything is…” his voice trailed off. No, everything very clearly wasn’t fine if Malfoy was actually talking about Voldemort taking over and putting mudbloods in their places. He coughed and recorrected his sentence. “I didn’t throw any punches, if that’s what you’re asking, so don’t worry about Gryffindor losing points right out of the gate.” Ron cackled at the idea and Hermione huffed in exasperation at his nonexistent explanation. The carriages started to move toward the towering building on the hill in the distance, and Harry looked around at the other students as a question weighed heavy on his tongue. 

“Do you know anything about a guy named Elric?” He asked, deciding to go for it. His friends looked at him curiously. 

“No…” Hermione answered, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow. “Why do you ask? Was he involved in whatever happened on the train?” 

“He was a little involved,” Harry conceded, “but that’s not why I’m asking. He’s apparently muggle-born, but Malfoy was hanging out with him, which I found suspicious.” He decided to leave out the fact that he wanted to beat his ass. Hermione would probably bar information from him if he did. Ron looked like his eyes were about to bulge out of his head while Hermione just sighed and put her forehead in her palm. 

“Malfoy was hanging out with a muggle-born of his own will?” Ron shouted, absolutely baffled. “I can’t believe my ears! His dad going to jail really made him go wonky, huh?” Hermione decided to ignore the ginger.

“I can’t believe you were stalking Malfoy again,” she sighed, disappointed in him, apparently. “You need to just let the guy go. So what if he has a muggle-born friend now? Maybe he’s turned over a new leaf.” A lull in the conversation hung for a few seconds after that comment before Ron and Harry burst into laughter. Hermione groaned at their antics and put her head in her hands. 

The ride to Hogwarts was quick because of their animated conversation as he explained what had happened. Hermione was appropriately appalled by the violence, but Ron was just disappointed that Harry didn’t even get a swing at Malfoy. Harry grumbled about unfair treatment and how Ron wouldn’t be able to do any better as they reached the castle and scrambled into the great hall. 

As they found their seats at the Gryffindor table for the opening ceremony, they rubbernecked at Malfoy’s little clique across the great hall. Harry made eye contact with Malfoy, who furrowed his brows in confusion at seeing him there. He chuckled and, deciding to not think about what Malfoy’s confusion entailed, threw up a crude gesture that made the blonde turn away with a huff. One thing they all noticed, though, was that Elric wasn’t there. 

“Did you hallucinate it?” Ron hypothesized while he was preparing his napkin and silverware for the feast that wouldn’t happen for a good half-hour. “That would make a lot more sense than Malfoy actually tolerating the existence of a muggle-born.” That comment earned him a sigh from Hermione. 

“Well, maybe he’s in another house,” Hermione suggested, much more reasonable than the ginger across from her. Harry and Ron ignored her, though, and decided that coming up with outlandish theories on how Elric was a time traveling double-agent terrorist was much more exciting than being reasonable. She sighed and grumbled something about them filling the shoes of the twins until her attention was caught by a unique announcement in the middle of the sorting ceremony. She shook Harry’s shoulder and told both him and Ron to pay attention. Harry swiveled his head to face the front of the hall and saw a face that was becoming almost familiar now. 

“It’s a sixth year transfer!” Hermione whispered to them. “No one’s come into the school that late without coming directly from a magical school, but he hasn’t had any official magic education. I wonder if he’ll need a tutor for his N.E.W.T.s…” 

“Hermione, that isn’t the important thing about this,” Harry whispered back, not taking his eyes off the transfer now perching himself on the stool. “That’s the guy I was talking about! The weird muggle-born.” 

A quiet chorus of gasps erupted from the front of the room, and the trio craned their necks to see Elric ripping the hat off his head, eyes wide and looking like he was about to fall off the stool. He stumbled off the stool and shoved the hat into the hands of a flabbergasted McGonagall, pointing at it accusatively and scolding it. 

“Sticking your nonexistent nose where it doesn’t belong!” He shouted, jabbing a finger at the hat. “I can place myself in a house, thank you very much.” His hand snapped to his side, balled up into a fist, as he began to stomp towards the Slytherin table. After a strangely long pause, the hat finally decided to speak.

“Gryffindor!” It boomed with utmost certainty, to the utter surprise of the trio, and, apparently, Elric too. The hall erupted in whispers among the audience and a long string of shouts between Malfoy and Elric, which was so fast paced and scrambled that most people couldn’t even make out what they were saying. The transfer swiveled on his heel and stomped toward the Gryffindor table with a very angry flourish before settling down on the bench in an area that quickly vacated itself when he came close to it. 

Harry furrowed his brow and looked at him in confusion. If he was muggle-born, why would he care about being in Slytherin so much? Why did he take the hat off? Why was he on Malfoy’s side? Why was he such a bitch? So many questions he wanted to ask, but even among Gryffindors, there wasn’t a soul suicidally brave enough to talk to that walking land mine. The banquet continued without another hitch, but the atmosphere didn’t fully recover from the gossip-churning escapade that happened in the sorting ceremony between the strange transfer and the infamous Draco Malfoy. 

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