Later, Draco would be incredibly disappointed with himself for not recognising the black-haired boy. As it was, he wasn't impressed the first time he came face to face with him: a scrawny, underfed child, eyes like the emeralds that adorned half the objects around the Manor. The robe Madam Malkin draped over the other child seemed several sizes too big, making him look like a child dressing up in his fathers' clothes. Draco almost felt bad for him, but he knew the stranger wouldn't starve at Hogwarts. If that is where he's going. "Hullo. Hogwarts, too?"
"Yes." His voice was unimpressive, timid, one of confusion. It was actually very similar to the tone Narcissa sometimes adopted when Lucius lost his temper.
"My father's next door buying my books," not that he wants to be. His father hadn't wanted much to do with him in years, ever since the marriage law was created in 1988. "And mother's up the street looking at wands." That part was something Draco was really looking forward to: vine? walnut? unicorn tail hair or phoenix feather? "Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first-years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father," mother, "into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow. Have you got your own broom?"
"No." This boy was turning out to be incredibly dull and rather clueless. Raised as a muggle, Draco guessed. Poor boy.
"Play Quidditch at all?"
"No." Definitely raised as a muggle.
"I do. Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree." That was a lie; Lucius Malfoy hadn't said anything complimentary to his son for years. "Know what house you'll be in yet?"
"No."
While Draco knew that it was cruel to remind the other boy that he was unfamiliar with the world he was about to enter. But his foot was already in his mouth; there wasn't really anything he could say to fix it. He could see in the boys eyes that he didn't know what to think, and still, Draco pushed the subject. "Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I already know I'll be in Slytherin. All my family has been - but imagine being in Hufflepuff! I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"
"Mmm."
"I say, look at that man!"
"Oh," blurted the other child, "That's Hagrid. He works at Hogwarts."
"Oh, I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?" He was picturing the gardener who cared for the extensive Malfoy gardens, with a beard almost as messy as this 'Hagrid' fellows'.
"He's the gamekeeper."
"Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of oddity - lives in a hut in the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic and ends up setting fire to his bed." Something his mother told stories about, when she was alone with her son and not being watched by outsiders. Narcissa loved to laugh, and repeating the silly gossip from the rubbish reports Lucius sometimes read often allowed her to do so.
"I think he's brilliant."
"Do you? Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"
"They're dead."
"Oh. Sorry." Draco couldn't imagine not having his parents, or at least the idea of them being readily accessible. That was why he didn't sound at all apologetic; because he couldn't sympathise. "They were like us, weren't they?"
"They were a witch and wizard, if that's what you mean."
"No, I mean an arranged marriage. Imagine not having that, it must be awful, all that misery like in those muggle books, pining after someone who is chasing someone else. And starting Hogwarts with no idea what it is, imagine. It's cruel to let in anyone who doesn't know, isn't it?"
The other boy never answered, his gaping cut off when the stout witch patted his arm. "That's you done, my dear."
"Well," Draco drawled, not certain of how he could make it any better or any worse, "I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose." From a distance.
"Arranged marriage?" he thought he heard the black haired boy repeat as he left. He must have been completely oblivious.
A very significant distance.
Characters: Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter
Word count: 719
A/N: This is not an outtake per se, more a scene I didn't think about until after the timespot it'd slot into had already been written. The thing about the marriage law AU is, it isn't a big deal to Draco. He was 8 years old when it first came up, and it wasn't a big deal at the time - it was just a way out of spending time with Pansy. He wouldn't be much different, except Narcissa would've stopped exposing him to anti-muggleborn sentiments, instead trying to enforce the idea that a marriage that isn't arranged is bizarre. Anyway, this would be between o1: become one and o2: energy of sun.