Today was going to be special. The how or why was unknown, but Draco Malfoy could just feel it. So when he gracefully stood up from the bed upon which he slept, he put on his finest clothing. Draco had to restrain himself from running down the stairs, for running was improper, but he took them two at a time nonetheless.
A full breakfast awaited him at the kitchen table. Draco's mother prepared it today, and she sat at the table waiting for him.
"Don't you look nice today," Narcissa remarked, watching as Draco sat down.
"Yes, mother," Draco replied. The meal passed with them chattering sparsely. When Draco's father arrived, they stopped talking altogether. Lucius sat down with a cuppa to read the Daily Prophet. From what Draco could see, it was just another boring day in the wizarding world.
How wrong he was.
When they Apparated to Diagon Alley (As Apparating is the only proper way to travel), Draco was amazed at how different it felt being there now that they were shopping for his school supplies. Everything looked new and fanciful because he could have it all. After first stopping to get a wand (Hawthorn 10", unicorn hair), the small family split up.
"Draco," his mother told him. "Mummy and Daddy are going to go buy some things. You just go into Madame Malkin's and tell her we'll be there in a bit, okay?"
"Don't patronise him, Narcissa," Draco's father said. "Run along, now, Draco." With that, they left, leaving Draco to his own devises. Not wanting to upset Mother and Father, he made his way to the shop.
Instead of being attended to immediately, he was rudely told to sit down. Draco mused over how his father would react to him having to wait while he sat. Then a witch called him to stand up on a footstool.
The measurements began as another boy walked in. On the inside, Draco was jumping for joy. This boy looked about his age; that mean he was going to be Draco's classmate, right? On the outside, however, he remained his calm, cool, Malfoy self.
"Hello," Draco said, forcing himself not to smile at the stranger. "Hogwarts, too?"
"Yes," the boy replied from the stool next to Draco. Suddenly, the young Malfoy had the urge to impress this random boy. Who knew; he might be important someday.
"My father's next door buying my books, and my mother's up the street looking at wands," Draco lied. It would have been highly improper to tell him where they really were. "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 into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."
The other boy was looking at anywhere but Draco. He had to catch his attention somehow. "Have you got your own broom?" Draco blurted out.
"No," said the boy.
"Play Quidditch?" Perhaps before the summer was over, he could invite this boy over to play. It would be nice to have someone his own age around the manor.
"No," said the boy again.
"I do," Draco boasted. "Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree." Then a thought occurred to him. "Know what house you'll be in yet?"
"No," said the boy once more. Good, Draco thought. You'll be in Slytherin with me.
"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been‒ imagine, being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"
The boy hummed in what Draco supposed was agreement. He was so close to making a new friend.
That's when a very large man ‒ could it have been a giant? ‒ walked by the window. "I say!" Draco nodded his head toward where the man was. "Look at that man!" He had to have been the largest man Draco had ever seen!
"That's Hagrid. He works at Hogwarts."
"Oh, I've heard of him. He's sort of a servant, isn't he?" Servant wasn't the right word, but Draco didn't know what was.
"He's the gamekeeper," the boy said, giving Draco the oddest of looks. It was like he was stating the obvious.
"Yes," Draco said, keeping the nervousness out of his voice. "Exactly. I heard he's sort of a savage ‒ lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then, he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed."
Draco was hoping to get a bit of a laugh out of the boy, but instead, he replied coldly, "I think he's brilliant." This puzzled Draco.
"Do you?" he asked with confusion and disgust. "Why is he with you? Where are your parents?" Draco was too curious for his own good. That's what Father said.
"They're dead." Oops. Looks like he had gone too far again.
"Oh, sorry. But they were our kind, weren't they?" If they weren't, Draco didn't know whether to be sorry or not.
"They were a witch and a wizard, if that's what you mean.
Now, Draco knew he had to say what he thought his father would have wanted him to say. "I really don't think they should let in the other sort, do you? They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get their letter, imagine,. I think they should keep I in the old wizarding families. What's your surname, anyway?"
Madame Malkin then announced that the other boy was done. He seemed in a hurry to get somewhere, so Draco simply said "Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose." He was rather disappointed that he didn't get the boy's name. Now he couldn't invite him over to play Quidditch.
Mother and Father came soon after to get him. They bought a few more supplies before they headed back home to the Malfoy Manor.
It turned out that today wasn't so special after all. But as Draco laid in bed later that night, he imagined seeing a lighting bolt-shaped scar on the forehead of the boy he met at Madam Malkin's.