Hello, all! Just a quick message from the author.. This entire fanfic contains spoilers for all of the Harry Potter books. Also, in order for things to all fit together nicely for the plot I have in mind, I have made one significant change in the Epilogue of Deathly Hallows.. Specifically, Draco Mafloy's son is now his daughter. Also, this is the first fanfiction that I've written in a really, really long time, so go easy on me!

Disclaimer: I sadly do not own any of the Harry Potter world, characters, etc. If they were, Harry and Draco's relationship would have turned out very differently, and it's likely none of the next-generation kids would be around. Anyway, Harry Potter and all things affiliated with it belong to J.K. Rowling, WB, etc.

Part One :: Chapter One

James helped Albus and Rose shove their trunks into the luggage compartment, then, with an air of grand self-importance, led them down the corridor of the train carriage to the passenger compartments.

Albus and Rose trailed a little ways behind him, their eyes wide and hungry. Ever since Albus could remember, his parents had told him grand tales of Hogwarts. He'd been infinitely jealous when James had gotten to go, writing home letters bursting with excitement, while he was stuck at home counting down the days until his eleventh birthday. It had seemed impossible, a time so far away that there was no hope of it ever arriving. And yet here he was, on the Hogwarts Express. This was a day he'd been pining after for years, and he wanted to drink it all in.

As they walked, Albus spotted Victoire Weasley-Delacour – or at least, her lower half, as she was dangling precariously out of a window to wave a final goodbye to Teddy as the train rounded the corner. She was entering her seventh year, while Teddy, who was practically an adopted fourth Potter child, had graduated last year with much pomp and circumstance.

Albus had once overheard his father discussing with Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione concerns he had about Teddy. Dad had expressed worry about Teddy's mounting depression and his lack of interest in girls, and had begun to say something about wondering if he might be "that way" when Aunt Hermione had flown into a tizzy and began a lecture on acceptance and support. Albus had abandoned all hope of understanding the conversation at that point, and had left to watch James and Fred race their new brooms, cheering them on from below alongside Uncle George.

The pleased look on Dad's face and the crooked grin he'd directed at Teddy upon his reappearance – looking a bit disheveled, face flushed pink and eye color flickering from green to yellow and back again, as it was wont to do when he was strung high emotionally – had expressed eloquently enough his relief that Teddy was getting friendly with a girl. Albus didn't get what the fuss was all about, but as long as Teddy was happy, he supposed it was alright with him if he wanted to go on snogging Victoire.

As the trio passed Victoire, heading towards a compartment they'd seen Fred and Jamila enter a moment before, Chloé – the middle child of the Weasley-Delacour girls, who was going into fourth year – had appeared and had yanked Victoire forcibly back into the train, shrilling that the train was rounding the bend, and did she want to end up like Nearly Headless Nick?

They left the girls to their argument, a blur of English and French they found impossible to decipher, and filed into their carriage, settling with the ease of familiarity among their cousins.

Rose Weasley and Jamila Weasley-Delacour – both first-years, like Albus – sat on one side of the compartment, heads bowed in towards each other as they chattered rapidly, comparing rumors they'd heard about Hogwarts and theories on where they'd be sorted. On the other side, James – who was in his third year – and Fred – entering his second – sat together. Albus became wedged between James and the wall. Their conversation immediately turned to Quidditch. James followed in his father's footsteps and was the Seeker for the Gryffindor team. George was keen on trying out for a position as Beater this year, now that he was finally eligible and had his own broom.

After a while of trying to follow the conversation, Albus drifted off a bit. He gazed out the window as the scenery blurred past, and thought back to his father's words back on Platform 9 ¾.

"What if I'm in Slytherin?"

"It doesn't matter to us, Al. But if it matter to you, you'll be able to choose Gryffindor over Slytherin. The Sorting Hat takes your choice into account."

"Really?"

"It did for me"

Would it come down to that? Albus hoped he wouldn't have to make such a decision.

---

"Marianna Nott."

"Slytherin!"

"Charles Hector Mackeroy."

"Hufflepuff!"

"Cassiopeia Layali Malfoy."

Malfoy? Albus turned as a girl made her way through the thinning crowd of first years, towards the Sorting Hat. It was. The Malfoy girl from Platform 9 ¾.

Her dark hair fell pin-straight to her shoulder blades, were it was cut in a severe, straight line that matched the cut of her bangs, cut to the level of her eyebrows. Yet despite the difference in hair, she seemed to match every description he'd ever heard of the Malfoys. She walked with a certain conscious grace, her chin lifted slightly in a proud affectation. Her skin was a pale alabaster, contrasting dramatically against the black of her hair.

When she reached the stool at the front of the Great Hall, she spun on the balls of her feet and sat upon it elegantly, as though it were a throne, somehow managing this despite the fact that she had to hop slightly to reach it.

She stared coolly out at the crowd watching her as the Hat grumbled to itself for a few long moments. Finally, it exclaimed, "Slytherin!"

Little surprise there. Albus had heard enough of the Malfoys from his parents and aunts and uncles to know they were notoriously proud of their pureblood Slytherin heritage. On the day when the marriage of Draco Malfoy and Hakata Sanura had been announced in the Daily Prophet, Mum had snorted and said dryly, "Well, it seems the git managed to hunt down the only other pureblood left in the world. Typical." She'd gone on to tell him that 'git' was not a nice word, and that he wasn't to repeat it. Therefore, he memorized it and stored it carefully in the cache of 'not nice words' he'd already gathered from James and Fred.

Cassiopeia Malfoy glided proudly over to the Slytherin table, a pleased smile on her face.

"Albus Severus Potter!"

Oh, no.

Albus swallowed hard, and with great effort forced his legs to move. The stool loomed closer and closer. Slytherin or Gryffindor? Gryffindor or Slytherin? What would his fate be? Was Slytherin really that bad now that the Death Eaters had been disbanded for years? Would he ever be able to live it down if he didn't get sorted into Gryffindor?

Though he trembled slightly, he managed to hook his heels onto the rungs of the stool and perch on the seat. An aging Professor McGonagall, the hair pulled back into a severe bun and tucked under her pointed witch's hat almost entirely gray now, lowered the time-battered Hat onto his head. It slipped halfway down his forehead, and then a ponderous, wizened voice spoke in his head.

"Hmm, Potter, eh? Not so many decades since I sorted your father. Had quite a time of it, oh, yes. He was a tricky one to place. But you – I think I know where you belong."

Well that's good, I'm glad someone has some faith in me, Albus thought to himself. This Slytherin-Gryffindor thing has really been very bothersome. James just wouldn't shut up about it. It's nice to turn it over into someone else's hands.

"Slytherin!"

Wait. What?!

The Hat was being lifted away, and nausea swept through Albus as he fought the urge to wrench the Hat away from McGonagall and slam it back down on his head. Wait just a tick! He hadn't even gotten a word in edgewise! Surely he had some sort of veto? Now that it had actually happened, he wanted to rescind any thoughts he'd had about Slytherin maybe not being too bad.

The Slytherins were clapping; they were all looking at him. Somehow he was standing, where a moment before he'd been sitting on the stool still. Albus stood rooted to the spot, green eyes wide. Then he felt McGonagall give him a small shove of encouragement, and he found himself slowly plodding for the long table all bedecked in green and silver. His feet felt like lead, and every step was a struggle. Could he beg an audience from the Headmistress after the feast? Ask for a- a re-Sorting?

As he reached the table – which felt like years later, though it had only been seconds – he heard another name being called behind him. Someone Ralph.

Yes, I think I will, Albus thought vaguely, inanely.

A prefect adorned in Slytherin robes set a hand on his shoulder and gently yet firmly pushed him down to a seat at one of the benches placed in close quarters surrounding the table.

He stared blankly at the plate before him. How very weird, too, that silverware and platters and specialized serving dishes were all set out on the table, and not a scrap of food in them.

"Potter, eh?"

Albus started at the sound of his name, and looked to his left. Somehow he'd found his way to a seat beside the Malfoy girl – what was her name, Cassie-something-rather?

"Ah, yes?" He replied, his unsure tone making it a question.

She tilted her head slightly to the side, and appeared to be scrutinizing him, her eyes – which were gray, he could see now – searching his face, though for what he had no idea. Finally, coming to some inner conclusion, she smiled swiftly and fleetingly, then turned her attention away from him and back to the other first years being sorted.

He felt baffled, confusion warring with his uneasiness, and finally he gave up altogether and looked back to the remaining new students as well. As he watched, trying not to think about this twist of fate, Jamila Weasley-Delacour was sorted into Gryffindor and Rose Weasley into Ravenclaw. His heart sank further, about level with his toes by now. He didn't even have any of his cousins in the same house to share his misery.

He suddenly felt very, very alone.

---

"…and as always, the Forbidden Forest is utterly forbidden. So without further ado, let me be the first to welcome you to – or back to – Hogwarts! Let the feast begin!"

Albus's attention was immediately dragged away from Professor Mubblycrumpet – the Headmistress of Hogwarts who had taken over after Professor McGonagall stepped down, getting on in her years too much to handle being Headmistress as well as teaching Transfiguration – and to the food that had materialized before him. Oh. Well, alright, the empty serving dishes made sense now.

The students in the Great Hall had burst into conversation upon the arrival of food, as though waiting for that cue before an explosion of summer stories and gossip were released. Looking around himself, Albus saw everyone digging into the food haphazardly. He may as well. He hadn't eaten much on the train.

He took a bit of this and that from various dishes, whatever looked good. He was going to have to hit James when he saw him again. His brother had teased him about how horrible the food at Hogwarts was. "Unrecognizable pig slop" he'd described it as. Of course it was just more of James's usual antics. The food was fantastic – much better than Mum's cooking, though he would never dare mention it to her. She practically spat fire whenever anyone criticized her cooking. His father had once looked morosely at what she was cooking up for dinner and had asked, with what he'd obviously thought was a casual tone, when they were going to Gran Weasley's for dinner again. Mum hadn't spoken to him for the rest of the night.

"…have a very distinguished lineage. Not a single relative on my father's side has ever been in anything but Slytherin."

Snatches of conversation drifted to Albus's ears, and he looked over to where the Malfoy girl was chatting to another first year on her other side.

"He's the Potions professor, my father. And the Head of Slytherin House. Did you know?"

This Albus had heard before. Dad had been furious when he'd found out about the decision, and had rounded all the children up to give them a lecture about Professor Malfoy. After telling them to keep an eye out for favoritism and to tell him the instant the professor gave them any trouble, he'd lamely finished with a few mutterings about how they should respect all their teachers, though.

Hesitantly, Albus ventured a comment. "Most of my family's been in Gryffindor, for generations. None have ever been Slytherin before me."

The Malfoy girl turned to look at him with what seemed deep pity. "Yes, my father's mentioned," she said, in a tone that implied it was being in Gryffindor that was shameful, instead of Slytherin. She then flicked her hair over her shoulder and returned to her conversation with the girl on her left.

---

Albus thought he'd seek an audience with the Headmistress after the feast, but then he got swept along in the tide of Slytherins going to their dormitories, the first years guided by prefects. He soon found himself bunked with three other Slytherin boys, and when they arrived in their dorm he discovered his trunk already at the foot of one of the beds.

One of the prefects reminded them that curfew was little more than an hour away, then swept out of the room to oversee things elsewhere.

The other three boys quickly argued over who got to use the small adjoining bathroom first, and Albus, who remained silent, found himself going last.

There wasn't much he could do besides obediently shower and get into his pajamas, then climb onto his cot and shut the dark green bed curtains around himself. He'd find the Head tomorrow, and see about a re-Sorting then. For now.. He was exhausted.

He fell asleep shortly, and dreamt he was being constricted by a python.

---

The next morning, Albus again got the last shift in the showers, then, still bleary-eyed, trudged after his dorm mates up from the dungeons – which was the most ridiculously dank place in the world to put dormitories – and to the Great Hall for breakfast. Once there, he surveyed the room until he spotted James, and was actually glad to see his rambunctious older brother.

James and Fred were eating at the Gryffindor table, talking to some third-year Gryffindor girls, when he approached.

"James," he said, with a faint, embarrassing squeak of distress, "can I talk to you?"

"Why, it's ickle Alby!" Fred quipped with an impish grin. "Poor lad already smells like snakes and mildew."

James frowned at his best friend and said tersely, "Come off it, Fred. Can't you see ickle Alby's all ready to have an anxiety attack?" He took one last bite of his omelet then stood, moving to stand next to Albus. He clapped a hand heavily onto his little brother's shoulder and said with a wink at the third year girls, "If you'll excuse me, ladies, I must impart some caring brotherly advice upon the poor, ailing soul."

The girls giggled as James steered Albus away from the table, taking a long circuit around the edge of the Great Hall, in the vague direction of the Slytherin tables. "What's put a bee in your bonnet, Al?" He asked, the lack of an audience banishing the theatrical cadence his voice normally held.

Albus stared up at him. "Do you even need to ask?! I'm in Slytherin, James!"

James nodded and said, "So you are, and I'll admit I wouldn't want to trade places with you for the world. But you don't need to get your knickers in a wad about it. I mean, sure, you'll get crushed in every Quidditch game, but you've never had a knack for sports anyway, have you?"

"Is there any way I can go to Professor Mubblycrumpet and.. try the Hat on again? Ask it to reconsider?"

James snorted. "You're Sorted once and once only, little bro. Can't go back once the Hat places you. Sorry, kid. Look, Slytherin and Gryffindor has a lot of classes together, so you're bound to meet some decent folk from Gryffindor, at least. Now--" he pushed Albus into a seat at the Slytherin table, in much the same manner he'd been manhandled last night, "eat something, or I'll write Mum that you've gone anorexic on us. Buck up and hang in there. Only a few months until we go home for Christmas break."

With that not-so-encouraging sentiment, James made a beeline back to the Gryffindor table.

Morosely, Albus took a plate and dropped two pieces of toast onto it. He was spreading vegemite onto his toast when someone plopped into the seat across from his. He looked up, and there was the Malfoy girl again.

She tilted her head, in that peculiar manner of hers, and said abruptly, as though continuing a conversation he wasn't aware they'd been having, "What was your name again? Your given name, I already know your last name's Potter."

He blinked. "Er- Albus- Albus Severus Potter."

The girl wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Albus Severus? Is that what your family calls you?"

"Well, sometimes they call me Al.."

"No, that won't do, that won't do at all. Let me see.." She appeared to be deep in thought as she shoveled large amounts of food onto her own plate. Finally, she brightened and said, "Got it! You'll be 'Asp'."

"Asp?"

"Albus Severus Potter – the initials spell A-S-P. So your new name is 'Asp'."

"What's wrong with Al?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, are you a thirty year old drunkard garbage man?"

Albus felt utterly bewildered. Was it customary to be assailed and given a new name upon starting at Hogwarts? "Well.. Well, what about you, then? What's your name? Cassie or something?"

The girl rolled her eyes. "Oh, please, don't be vulgar. 'Cassie' is such a muggle name. My full name is Cassiopeia Layali Malfoy, but I'll be going by 'Layali'."

"Erm. Well. Pleasure to meet you?" Albus said, questioning his own words. He was vaguely overwhelmed by this odd girl.

"Yes, it is, isn't it?" Layali said brightly, digging into her breakfast.

And so it went that Albus had made his first friend at Hogwarts. He was never sure though if he'd ever had any choice in the matter.

---

Their first lesson was Charms, a joint class of first-year Gryffindors and Ravenclaws. Flitwick had been getting on in his years, and had retired from the position of Charms Professor and Head of Ravenclaw House. Sinistra, the Astronomy Professor, had taken up the mantle as Head of Ravenclaw, while a new professor had been recruited for the Hogwarts faculty as the Charms teacher.

Professor Maguire bore an almost frightening resemblance to Tumnus the Faun of Narnia fame to the muggleborns, sans hooves and horns, though they couldn't be sure about a tail. This would be his second year teaching at Hogwarts, and though he had a nasally, unknown foreign accent that was hard to decipher at times, he was generally well-received by the students. This was likely due to his leniency on homework.

As everyone filed into the classroom, Layali found herself a seat at the front of the classroom, dragging Albus into the seat to her left. He watched the other students enter, and quickly began to feel intimidated. There were so many, and he knew none of them..

Finally, a relief – there came his cousin Jamila, the one recognizable face among the bunch – all but hers seemed featureless and indistinguishable in his hazy panic. Her strawberry blonde hair was swept elegantly out of her face in a ponytail, in order to show off the angular yet artfully molded bone structure. Her face was a bit gawky and open, like a startled deer, but the promise of beauty when she grew into her face was there, her Veela heritage shining through.

She saw Albus and hesitated. The two Gryffindor girls flanking her followed her gaze, then whispered urgently to her, tugging her towards the other side of the room, away from him and Layali. She frowned, though, and said something to them as she squared her shoulders and walked over towards them. Jamila took the seat to Albus's left, and the two girls reluctantly trailed after her, falling into place on her other side.

Layali narrowed her eyes at their approach, then leaned over to Albus and hissed, "Do you know those Gryffindors, or are they just being presumptuous social climbers?"

She spoke rather too loudly, and the other girls stiffened.

"Erm, this is my cousin, Jamila Weasley-Delacour. Jamila.. Layali Malfoy."

Jamila looked across Albus at Layali with chilly blue eyes, and then said in clipped, formal tones, "This is Roberta and Aimee." The two girls at her side murmured faintly in greeting.

Layali was clearly not listening, though. She had paused to lift her chin haughtily as her name was mentioned, then had turned and begun to rifle through her bag, drawing out parchment, a couple eagle-feather quills, and an expensive brand of ink. She was now busily arranging it all in an aesthetically pleasing manner on her desk.

Albus's cousin took the opportunity of being ignored to lean over to him and whisper, "Making friends with Malfoys? Really, Albus? You know what Granddad Weasley will say to that."

Arthur Weasley did have a rather notorious hostility towards the Malfoy family. He would certainly not be pleased about this new development – and neither, for that matter, would Dad and Uncle Ron.

Albus chewed the end of his quill thoughtfully as he tried to come up with some response that may mollify her, but he was saved from having to answer by Professor Maguire beginning to speak at the head of the room, officially starting class.

His cousin shot him a 'this-isn't-over-yet' look, and then turned her attention to the professor. Albus gratefully followed in suit.

Chapter Two is coming soon! I love to hear from my readers, so please do review!