Ever since he was a toddler, Scorpius' mother would read him bedside stories. He would always eagerly snuggle in and watch her face as she wove tales, because her voice and her expressions always enlivened the words, turning boring tales into exciting adventures that left him in almost despair when they finally ended. No matter how many times she read a story, he was always eager to hear it again and again, and Asteria Malfoy could hardly resist indulging her son in something so simple, particularly those nights when Draco would watch from the doorway, freshly home from the Ministry. In the early days, that was one of the few minutes of peace for Scorpius' father, what with how hard he had to work.

But after a few years, that hard work seemed to drain a little something out of Draco. He grew distant, frustrated by the way nothing he did ever seemed to make everything better. Ever since the war it had been that way, and it was utterly foreign. At least Asteria, the pleasanter though slightly less pretty of the Greengrass sisters, was used to not getting everything she wanted. Draco was not. And the lack of that experience made the already difficult times worse.

Even Scorpius could sense the gradual change in his father, and as a kid he first began to fear, then resent it. He still looked up to his father, but he sometimes reminded him of the main character in the story "The Warlock's Hairy Heart," a rather gruesome tale about a man who used Dark Arts to remove his own heart. Draco still took the time to be with his family, to teach Scorpius to fly or to take him to a game, but in the end he would drift away again, become distracted and cold, more like Grandfather Malfoy than he probably ever realized or wanted to seem.

Scorpius, on the other hand, always imagined himself to be Sir Luckless, of his favorite story, "The Fountain of Fair Fortune." Though he certainly always had enough money and attention from family, he had always harbored a feeling that he lacked…something. Not that he would ever tell his parents that, no matter how many times his mother read the story to him; his rusted armor felt too personal, and in any case, he didn't want to tell his parents that he related to a character with no magic—he was unsure of how they'd react.

He was certainly luckless on his first day at Hogwarts. Scorpius had assumed the Sorting Ceremony would be the most stressful part of his beginning at Hogwarts, but he had been most definitely wrong. The Sorting had gone, at least for him, quite quickly, sending him to the Slytherin house, where his parents had gone before him. He wasn't exactly greeted with open arms, but at least there was a spare seat for him to sink into. After that, he'd been too tired to interact with any of his classmates.

Now, as he made his way to his second class of the day, he was about to meet some of them. The first warning was the clamoring of adolescent voices, and the dull thud of something hitting the wall. Frowning, he hastened his pace slightly before emerging into the next corridor and taking in the scene.

"Leave it, Eric. It's not worth it," advised a bored-sounding girl with long, dark hair. She was examining her nails as a brutish boy glared forebodingly at his intended target, a much smaller boy whose back was to the wall. Scorpius didn't recognize the first two, but the would-be victim (if he was not mistaken) had been Sorted shortly after he had. While the lad's name escaped him, he did remember the odd murmur that had rippled across the hall after the Hat had shouted, "SLYTHERIN!"

"Who says?" the hulking boy grunted. "We don't need his kind in our house." He jerked his thumb towards the younger kid, whose jaw was clenched. Scorpius wasn't sure if the boy was afraid, angry, or both.

"Speaking of…" the girl said softly, turning a discerning eye on Scorpius, who felt himself pale slightly. Her dark blue gaze narrowed and the large boy (Eric was it?) swiveled on his heel to look at Scorpius.

Merlin's beard! Bloody hell! Scorpius hadn't even decided yet if he had wanted to get involved, but apparently he wasn't about to get a choice. All three fellow students were looking at him, from the girl's silent evaluation to the bullying boy's hostile glower to the smaller boy's bemusement. You've really stepped right in it now, haven't you, Sir Luckless? he noted grimly as Bully Boy took a threatening step towards him.

"A Potter and a Malfoy," the older boy said in disgust, looking at him as if he were something pickled, floating in a potion jar. Scorpius bristled considerably. No one spoke of Malfoys that way! They were an old, wealthy pureblood family, and Scorpius had been taught that meant respect. Certainly it in no way prompted repugnance.

"And what are you, exactly?" Scorpius asked, striving for that cold, detached tone his father used sometimes towards people he didn't like. Scorpius had never realized how hard that was to maintain when he'd like little better than to throttle the boy.

"A Vaisey," the boy shot back proudly, puffing himself up. The girl looked bored again, as if she'd heard this a few too many times. "Which is much better than a filthy traitor, or a tainted Muggle-lover."

Scorpius opened his mouth to protest—though to be honest, he wasn't sure which of the two the boy so erroneously seemed to think a Malfoy was—when the temporarily forgotten boy, apparently named Potter, commented under his breath, "Better that than a boulder-headed git."

The girl, surprisingly, chuckled at this, but Vaisey turned a particularly unappealing shade of plum. Scorpius had to admit he was fighting a snicker, and his estimation of the boy shot up considerably. It wasn't a very wise thing to say, but it showed he was funny and either very brave or harboring a death wish. "My father told me all about your family—!" Vaisey began to hiss, but was cut off by a shout from down the hall.

"Oi!" hollered a stout black boy (no doubt at least a third year), closely followed by a girl Scorpius' age, with light brown hair and large blue doe eyes. The boy looked rather exasperated, and the girl was nibbling so hard at her lip she was probably in danger of bleeding. "What's going on here, eh?"

"Nothing, Freddy," Potter muttered darkly, looking at Vaisey.

"Nothing?" Scorpius almost sputtered, but the other boy shot him a quelling look. Though his mind was still filled with a yearning for retaliation, casting a cursory glance over Vaisey and the girl convinced him that perhaps it would be against better judgment to start making enemies on his first day at school. So instead of hashing out the details of the argument, Scorpius simply shrugged, though his gaze towards Vaisey was stony. "We were talking family trees."

He could have sworn the older black boy muttered under his breath, "Slytherins," before making shooing gestures at the other two Slytherins. The girl turned on her heel easy as you please, with a coolness that both annoyed Scorpius and made him admire her a bit, but Vaisey couldn't help but shoot one last spiteful glance before reluctantly leaving as well.

"Well, if that's all settled," the older boy concluded cheerfully. "Al, I hope you can actually make it through a day without causing some sort of ruckus, or you're going to give Grandmother a heart attack. And that's James' and my job. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a bar of frogspawn soap that needs to be dropped in the lake at the first opportunity." With a grin, he strolled off, without a care in the world.

Grandmother? Scorpius frowned slightly in confusion. Were they related then? That seemed about the right conclusion as the girl threw her arms around Potter's neck. "Al, I haven't seen you since the train! You wouldn't believe—well, I guess you would, since you were just talking to her—and oh, Slytherin! How did you—?" she began to babble, but stopped short to blink at Scorpius, who had just been edging to go.

He wasn't sure what he expected her to say, but somehow it wasn't what she did, while untangling herself from Potter, who looked mildly relieved (and slightly blue from lack of air). "Oh! I'm being rude. I'm Rose, Rose Weasley. That's my cousin Al." She smiled, guilelessly and warmly, which made Scorpius feel a tad less uncomfortable. The girl had a way about her that he found enchanting as much as eccentric, though that last name—rather like Potter's—seemed oddly familiar. Maybe their dads worked with his. Or maybe there was something infamous about their families that prompted Vaisey's reaction.

While his parents would have probably warned him away from them, if that were the case, Scorpius didn't really find it necessary. After all, they seemed less unpleasant than the other two.

"Scorpius Malfoy," he said, remembering the manners his mother had strictly taught him. She was a lot easier-going than his father, but she had always sworn that her son would be raised to be a perfect gentleman. His father found this amusing for some reason, but at that point had been married long enough to know when to keep his own council.

"Oh, I know," Rose said brightly. Scorpius blinked. She knew who he was…? Well blimey, perhaps his family did have a bad reputation he hadn't been told about. He began to mentally dig through what his father had said to him in preparation of boarding the train.

"Be careful who you choose as friends," the elder Malfoy had said after a pause. "You'd be surprised the impact that will have on the next seven years. And treat teachers with respect—"

"At least while they're around," his mother had chimed in, glancing at her husband knowingly, who gave her a tart look in return.

"Treat teachers with respect," his father continued with emphasis, "both because it's helpful to have one on your side, and because I don't want to receive any owls about you getting a detention, do you understand?" At his father's stern look, Scorpius had ducked his head quickly, and Draco's expression thawed. "You'll do fine, son. You're a Malfoy, after all." But as Scorpius had been absorbing this, his father glanced across the platform, the oddest expression taking over his face. It was filled with…what? Respect, shame, dislike? Scorpius really couldn't have been sure, but his father nodded at whatever or whoever he had seen, and went back to maneuvering his son's trunk.

Potter interrupted Scorpius' reverie to say to his cousin, "I'm fine, Rosie, before you start worrying. This wasn't the first time I had a bit of a run-in with my new housemates." He brushed off his robes, trying to look disinterested, but Scorpius had a feeling it hadn't been pleasant. "Congratulations on Gryffindor, though. Looks like Uncle Ron won't have to disown you."

"He was joking," the girl asserted, though her azure eyes seemed wide and slightly unsure. "You know how Dad and Uncle George are. I'm sure no one will mind that, you know, you're in…well, Slytherin."

"What's wrong with Slytherin?" Scorpius asked before he could think better of it.

Thankfully, Rose didn't seem to take offense—in fact, she looked horribly apologetic. "Oh! Nothing!" she quickly assured him. "Are you a…? It's just—well—I—James said—"

"James said what?" Al asked, straightening his robes, which Vaisey had mussed with his manhandling and Rose with her hugging. His dark hair, however, seemed rather hopelessly messy.

"He and Freddy were probably joking," she continued nervously, pressing her fingers against the barrette in her cinnamon brown hair. It matches her eyes, Scorpius found himself noting. A pretty sky blue. Once he noted that, however, he blinked, a bit surprised at himself. Where did that come from? "But they said that only evil wizards come out of Slytherin."

"James likes a laugh," Al replied, sighing a bit. "He'd been teasing me that I'd be in Slytherin—I guess he was right. But you don't think I'm evil, do you, Rosie?"

"Of course not," Rose insisted earnestly. "And Scorpius, you seem nice, too, despite what Dad said."

Scorpius was utterly befuddled, blinking. "Despite what?"

Rose patted down her hair nervously. For such a young girl, she seemed to have a lot of nervous gestures. "Oh, well, my Dad—he jokes a lot—he said I had to beat you in every test."

Scorpius was completely and utterly befuddled. "Why is that?"

"Oh, I don't know," Rose replied with a dismissive wave. "You know adults. All they talk about is insane rubbish. Or things they're not interested in at all. Like discussing the weather with someone they don't like." She shrugged. "Anyway, you two prove that Slytherins aren't that bad, or not all of them, anyway."

"Other than Vaisey, yeah," Potter grumbled darkly. "If this is the way they welcome people, maybe I would have been better off with you in Gryffindor, or with Dominique in Ravenclaw."

Scorpius was having a hard time keeping track of all these people they seemed to know. He was fairly certain they were first years like him, and he only recognized a few people, mostly children whose parents knew his, and them he barely could remember the names of. Or his cousin, Aimon, but the two boys hadn't really spent much time with each other since they were eight years old.

"Don't be silly!" Rose admonished, starting to gently take the boys by their elbows and lead them down the hall. They allowed this without protest, Al because he was used to it, and Scorpius because he was too busy trying to follow all that was being said. He hadn't come from a particularly large or talkative family, so he had a harder time following such easy chatter. "This gives you a chance to show that Slytherins aren't bad, and maybe better those that are. Like that boy you mentioned, or that horrid Nott girl."

"Who?" Al asked, nonplussed.

"That girl who was here," Rose explained, nose wrinkling in an oddly charming fashion. Scorpius found a lot about her oddly charming, actually, though also as confusing a person as he'd ever met. "Megaera Nott. We shared a boat together since you and I got separated. I started talking to this girl, Beth—she's a Hufflepuff, so I'm hoping to see her later in Defense Against the Dark Arts, which Gryffindor shares with them—and Nott was rather snide about Beth's family." She frowned deeper. "I'm not sure if it was more a history of Hufflepuff or being half Muggle that bothered her."

"That's awful," Al agreed, looking troubled. Scorpius himself felt rather uneasy, partly because he remembered his parents' acquaintances saying rather deriding things about Muggles in passing, and him having never really questioned it much. All in all, in fact, he wasn't exactly sure why they didn't like them, just that they didn't. His father would usually shrug or agree mildly, while his mother would get rather tightlipped and shoot her husband glances.

"But you see, you can change that," Rose said brightly as they tromped down the stairs. "And won't it be great having people from the family in all of the houses? You in Slytherin, Dominique in Ravenclaw, Molly in Hufflepuff, the rest of us in Gryffindor…"

"All of those people are related to you?" Scorpius asked, a little dumbfounded.

"Of course," Rose replied. "So's Freddy—the boy who got rid of Vaisey and Nott? Actually, he was walking me to find Al so we could go to Herbology together. The boys in our family," she added with a distinct air of resentment, "are very overprotective. Apparently Teddy used to walk Molly, Dominique, and Victoire places in their first few years so they wouldn't get hassled like a lot of other younger students, so now Freddy and James have taken it upon themselves to do the same, starting with me and later with Lily, Lucy, and Roxanne once they get to Hogwarts."

Scorpius actually thought that was rather thoughtful, seeing as he'd just seen Potter almost smashed into a pulp, but apparently Rose saw this as a bit of an affront. He wouldn't mind a large family looking out for him. In fact, it seemed rather nice.