A/N: This is the first chapter of a Harry Potter story I'm starting. Please excuse any spelling or grammar mistakes as I don't have a beta reader.
Hope you enjoy :)
It was a day just like any other, except for one thing; Thomas Malfoy was going to Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry for the first time. He and his brother, Draco, had just finished checking their trunks to make sure that everything was in order when their mother called from downstairs.
"Boys, we're leaving now!". Thomas looked at his trunk and sighed. If it was as heavy as it looked, he was going to need help getting it down the stairs.
"Draco, can you help me with the trunk?", Thomas asked while pulling on the handle to no avail.
All Draco did was to sneer at him and, with a bit of effort, dragged his own trunk out of the room and down the stairs. Thomas sighed again and heaved himself against the trunk to try to move it.
"You look like you could need some help". Thomas looked up and saw his father, Lucius, in the doorway. He looked a little disappointed.
"Yes, please", Thomas said and avoided his father's gaze. He stepped aside and let him carry the trunk by using magic.
"I can't wait until I can do that", he smiled. His father smiled back at him.
"Study hard, Tom, and you will be able to do much more", he said.
A while later the two boys were on the train, waving goodbye to their parents before finding a compartment. Finally they found a compartment where Draco's friends Gregory and Vincent were seated.
"Have you heard?", Vincent asked Draco while chewing on a sandwich.
"Heard what, Crabbe?", Draco asked with a hint of disgust in his voice.
"Pansy Parkinson said she heard that Harry Potter is on the train", Crabbe said with wide eyes, hoping that Draco would find the information interesting. He certainly did.
"Harry Potter?", Draco jumped up from his seat and all but sprinted towards the door. Then he turned around.
"Crabbe, Goyle, Tom, come on now!", he said with impatience. Crabbe and Goyle quickly stood up to follow him, but Tom remained seated.
"Tom, what are you doing?", Draco all but whined.
"Go and see Harry Potter yourself, I'm staying here", Tom said and picked up a copy of the Daily Prophet.
"Bugger off", Draco swore and headed out with Crabbe and Goyle in tow.
Tom had never been like Draco. Draco had always been bigger, meaner, and very sure of himself. Tom always felt like Draco was the son their parents really wanted to have, and he himself were just an extra unnecessary idiot in the Draco-Tom-twin-deal. He didn't even look like Draco in the slightest, but they were fraternal twins, their parents had explained. The thing was that Tom didn't look like any of his parents; they both had blond hair and blue eyes, while Tom's hair was a very dark brown and he had dark green eyes. 'It's the typical look of the house of Black', his mother used to say whenever he asked. Draco and his minions chose that moment to walk through the door. Goyle looked like he was in pain, clutching his hand as if it was about to fall off.
"Get a grip, Goyle! It was only a rat", Draco hissed at him. Then he turned to Tom.
"That idiot Potter is sitting with Weasly, and Weasly's rat attacked Goyle", he muttered.
"Why did you want to talk to Harry Potter in the first place? Aren't we supposed to dislike him?", Tom asked, referring to the fact that their father had been a Death Eater. Draco shot him a furious look and grabbed the front of his shirt hard, almost choking him. Then he leaned in and whispered:
"Do not speak of that ever again! You-know-who is dead and if you keep reminding everyone what our father was then our family will be regarded as rubbish!".
Tom looked at him with wide eyes and quietly promised that he would never speak of it again, despite the fact that Crabbe and Goyle probably didn't care. Their fathers had been Death Eaters too.
All the students, including Tom, watched Hogwarts with wonder as they took the small boats over the lake. When they finally got inside, Tom realized how nervous he was about the sorting. His parents had been sure that he would be sorted into Slytherin, but what if he wasn't? They would surely kill him, or worse. It wasn't like he actually wanted to be in Slytherin that much, he would be just as happy with being sorted into Ravenclaw. All of the other Malfoys, on the other hand, would not be happy if he were sorted into anything else than Slytherin. So when Professor McGonagall finally put the sorting hat on his head, he was very happy when it almost instantly shouted "Slytherin" for all to hear. When he walked over to the Slytherin table, his knees were shaking violently from the aftermath of the extreme nervousness he had felt. The other Slytherin students didn't notice that and cheered deafeningly when both Malfoy brothers were sorted into their house.
Then they proceeded to watch the rest of the sorting, their stomachs growling for the food that would soon appear on the tables. When Harry Potter was sorted into Gryffindor, the roar from the Gryffindor table was almost enough to knock Tom down from the bench he was sitting on. The two Weasly twins stood up and shouted "We got Potter! We got Potter", and all the other Gryffindor students seemed to want to give Potter a congratulatory hug.
"That was probably for the best", Draco said in his ear. "He seems like a useless prat".
Later, when they had finished eating dinner and pudding, they were off to bed. Tom desperately tried to keep up with his brother as all the other students from all the other houses shoved and hustled to get to their dormitories first. Tom quickly lost sight of the other Slytherin students. He grunted as he was pushed hard into another student.
"Sorry, are you okay?", the student asked him. Tom turned around and found himself standing eye to eye with no other than Harry Potter. Harry regarded him with a concerned look.
"Yes, I'm fine", Tom mumbled and Harry smiled in relief. In only mere minutes the Great Hall had been emptied of students and they were almost the only ones left.
"Slytherin, huh?", Harry said, almost with sympathy. Tom frowned at him.
"We Malfoys have always been in Slytherin", he said, straitening up a little.
"Malfoy? You're related to that horrible bloke?", Harry asked and then threw his hands over his mouth as if he just then realized what he had said. "Sorry", he mumbled. "I didn't mean to insult your relative.
"My brother", Tom corrected him. "And it's okay, I guess. He can be pretty horrible", he continued, wondering what Draco could have said to Harry.
"So what's with his attitude?", Harry asked while they walked up the stairs.
"The attitude usually comes with being in a pure-blood family", Tom explained. "Pure-blood families are families with no muggles in their family tree".
"So how do pure-blood families regard witches or wizards who have muggles in the family?", Harry asked, sounding quite disgusted.
"The majority of pure-bloods regard muggle-borns and half-bloods with contempt", Tom said quietly, suddenly feeling very ashamed of his family.
"That's dreadful!", Harry exclaimed.
"I agree", Tom said, sighing when he thought about how his father would react if he knew how Tom felt about pure-bloods attitude. The two boys came to a crossroad where Harry needed to go up the stairs, and Tom needed to go down.
"I really should be going to bed now, I've got quite the headache", Harry said and stretched out his hand to Tom. "It's was nice meeting you, I don't think I caught your name".
"Tom Malfoy, nice meeting you too, Harry Potter", he said and shook Harry's hand.
When Tom finally stumbled into Slytherin's common room he was dead tired, but Draco waited for him, ready for an explanation.
"Where did you go?", he asked, angrily.
"I was just talking to Ha...someone", Tom said, his sleepy brain trying to remember that he wasn't supposed to tell Draco about his conversation with Harry.
"Right", Draco said, not looking convinced.
"I'm going to bed, if you don't mind", Tom gave Draco a look that announced that their short conversation was over and then he went into the dormitory.
The next day started with a loud crash. Tom woke with a start and opened his eyes to the green light of the Slytherin dormitory. The source of the crash was Crabbe. In his sleepy state he had managed to stumble into his trunk, proceeding to tip it over which has caused the loud crash.
"Crabbe!", Draco growled sleepily from his bed, causing Crabbe to yelp, frightened, and run out of the dormitory in his pajamas. Draco gave a little laugh and sat up in his bed.
"First class is defense against the dark arts", he told Tom as he got dressed.
"It's with Professor Quirrell, right?", Tom asked, remembering the nervous-looking man from the feast in the Great Hall. He had been sitting next to a man Tom knew was Professor Snape, head of Slytherin house. He was known for favouring Slytherin students, something all the other houses found incredibly unfair.
"Are you going with us for breakfast?", Draco asked when they were dressed.
"All right", said Tom, not knowing who else to go with. Unlike Draco he didn't have many other friends. Actually he didn't have any friends at all.
After breakfast Tom decided that it was better to eat alone rather than eating with his brother and his minions. Draco had been incredibly rude to every non-Slytherin student that had passed their table and he got told off by five different teachers. Draco's behaviour had even roused the attention of Professor Dubledore, and he kept a close eye on them for the rest of their breakfast.
"Is it really necessary to act like that?", Tom asked Draco while they were leaving for their first lesson.
"Like what?", Draco grinned and nodded to Theodore Nott who passed him in the corridor.
"...Never mind", Tom sighed and shook his head to himself. He knew he couldn't change Draco's behaviour just like that.
"Have you seen Professor Quirrell?", Draco asked Goyle. "He seems like such an idiot". Crabbe and Goyle nervously laughed to humour him.
"I'll bet you'll like him, Tom", Draco said, condescendingly. "His wimpy ways are just like your ways, aren't they?", he sneered at Tom, just as they walked into the classroom. Tom desperately wished he could get some friends of his own, because he didn't know how much more he could stand hanging around his brother.
Two days later, Tom still had to be around his brother and his friends, like some kind of appendage in tow after the rest of the loud group of Slytherin students. How he wished he had ended up in another house. His brother told him on an everyday basis how much he lacked the Slytherin spirit.
"Ugh, potions class with the Gryffindors", Draco said when he looked at their schedule. And sure enough, when they entered the potions classroom, some Gryffindor students were already seated. At least this time Tom felt confident; the books he had looked through the most were the ones about potions.
When everyone had taken their seats, Professor Snape entered the classroom. He spoke quietly but his voice still seemed to echo through the silent room. After about half an hour of him torturing Potter with complicated questions, they finally got to make their first potion. Tom looked over at Harry, who looked both devastated and angry at the same time.
After class, Tom all but ran to catch up to Harry.
"Are you okay?", he asked him, feeling bad that Snape had treated him so horribly. Harry's friend Ron stared at Tom with wide eyes. Even Harry himself looked a little bewildered, but he answered.
"Yes, thanks. I'm guessing Snape hates me", Harry laughed unhappily.
"I don't think he does, he's just angry about not being the defense against the dark arts teacher", Tom tried to cheer him up.
"Tom, what do you think you're doing?", Draco shouted from afar. Tom didn't dare to turn around and look at him.
"Aren't you going to stay with your brother?", Ron asked with quite a bit of contempt in his voice.
"No, I don't really like hanging with him and his friends anyways", Tom said and tried to sound overly friendly, to convince Ron that he wasn't like his brother.
"Right", Ron answered. "We're off to have lunch now so I guess you could sit with us if you'd like to. And if you're not afraid of the Slytherin students' rage".
"I'll be fine. I hope", Tom said and laughed anxiously.