(minor rewording, September 2013)

Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter. As far as I know I do not derive any reward from writing these things other than the thrill of a nice review or of seeing from the 'Traffic Stats' figures that apparently people are reading these things.

Note: The following is a brief glimpse into an alternate universe where, as of the first of September, 1991, all of Ron Weasley's older siblings have sorted into Slytherin. It's from the perspective of Draco Malfoy, who has just encountered Ron Weasley on the Hogwarts Express, and been rather perturbed by the encounter. For clarification, 'Vincent' and 'Gregory' are Vincent (Crabbe) and Gregory (Goyle).

This story is a one-shot.

Draco Malfoy was troubled.

He'd discovered Harry Potter on the train, and that he was the boy he'd been so foolish as to only half pay attention to in Madam Malkin's that day in Diagon Alley, but when he'd found Potter he was in the company of the latest of the Weasley brood to attend Hogwarts – and every Weasley thus far to attend Hogwarts in this generation had sorted Slytherin. This year Percy had made fifth year boys' prefect for the house, and the twins who would be in their third year were acquiring reputations as vicious pranksters whom one did not cross, irrespective of one's house.

So when Draco had run into Harry Potter in the same compartment as Ronald Weasley, Draco's initial thought was that in a stroke of typical Weasley cunning, Ronald had identified The-Boy-Who-Lived ahead of him, and firmly attached himself to him, to get into his good graces.

The Weasleys had a nominal reputation as blood-traitors and muggle-lovers, but that had got them into Dumbledore's good books, hadn't it, and the fact remained that they were an old pure-blood family who had dominated Slytherin house for at least the past half dozen years. Draco's father suspected that the Weasleys were in fact biding their time. The seemingly bumbling, good-natured patriarch of the Weasleys, Arthur, was in a superficially trivial Ministry of Magic department to do with muggles – in a job so apparently insignificant that it had to be cover for something altogether decidedly more nefarious. It drove Draco's father round the bend at times, trying to work out just what Arthur Weasley's agenda and long-term goals might be? A decade ago he would have dismissed Arthur Weasley as insignificant, but then the first of the Weasley children had sorted into Slytherin, and broken the family's cover in doing so, and with each additional proof being sorted into Slytherin of just how underhanded, ambitious, and outright devious the Weasleys were, it had seemed more and more likely to Draco's father that Arthur Weasley was the ultimate Slytherin – the one who had somehow conned or blackmailed his way into being placed in any other Hogwarts house, to establish a long-term cover. And Draco's father had noticed (once he started paying attention to Arthur Weasley) that the Weasley patriarch was a highly sneaky operator when it came to drafting legislation, leaving subtle loopholes which he clearly intended to exploit towards some agenda of his own at an as yet indeterminate point in the future.

So, when Draco had come upon Potter in the company of the latest Weasley to head out to Hogwarts, despite Draco's being accompanied by Vincent and Gregory, Draco had immediately felt exposed and highly vulnerable. He'd double-checked behind him, just to be sure that the twins weren't lurking somewhere, but they weren't visible. That didn't mean that they weren't present, though…

And Draco had been highly polite, apologised to Potter for the way that he'd not paid him the attention that he was due in Madam Malkin's, and speedily departed.

If Ronald Weasley had managed to get his hands on The-Boy-Who-Lived, the Weasleys were going to be pretty much unassailable in their position in Slytherin this year, whether Harry himself sorted there or not.

Draco needed a plan. Whether he had Vincent and Gregory's aid or not, it was unlikely he could take on the Weasley family on what was now firmly established as Weasley turf.

Author Notes:

Just a brief crazy idea which hit me. Bill and Charlie Weasley ended up in Slytherin somehow (ambition to enrich themselves? desire to make mum and dad proud?) and then it sort of became natural for the next few Weasleys (Percy, Fred and George) to sort there too...

Obviously Arthur and Molly's children differ from canon in terms of different Hogwarts house placement, but a lot of what Draco is thinking are the results of overly active (and paranoid) Malfoy imaginations, which are seeing things which aren't (currently) there. The fact that Bill (having achieved astonishing exam results) now works in a bank, and that Charlie is a dragon handler suggests all sorts of further possibilities for the vast and far-reaching Weasley 'conspiracy' to the Malfoys. Obviously the Weasleys are getting themselves into position in the world of finance, and acquiring options for use of brute force if they ever need it...

This story is a one-shot, written between ongoing compilation of background notes for Saint Potter.