A/N: I love Jo and think she's an amazing writer but I truly think that she didn't do Malfoy's character justice. This story is focused on Draco and the treatment of Slytherins just because of the reputation of some (okay, many) and the effect it had on people like Malfoy. Philosophy is aspect of Harry Potter that I loved and thought there wasn't enough expansion on. This is not a slash. This is a story about prejudice, morality and friendship and if that becomes something more... it will be subtle and clean. I value constructive criticism more than sugar-coated mistruths but please be gentle as it is my first fanfic! :)

Chapter One

When Harry Met Draco

Draco peered out of the shop window through a slit in the curtains onto the cobbled street. Goyle had mentioned that he and the Crabbes would be in Diagon Alley today but there was no sight of their bulky figures among the herds of keen first-years.

The first shopping trip to Diagon Alley was a chance to socialize with first-years before the sorting. Draco, admittedly, was quite nervous. He'd imagined himself strolling in and instantly have a crowd of admiring first-years ready to do his bidding but as soon as he and his family entered the crowded street, he had made a beeline for Madam Malkin's. He didn't even really need a new robe for school. He had bought his robes several weeks before his Hogwarts letter had arrived.

Draco's father had been determined to enroll him to the Durmstrang Institute up north. Durmstrang, unlike Hogwarts, held views more in line with the Malfoys' ideals; that magic should be kept within pure-blood families. Hogwarts was ran by a silly old muggle-loving fool. Consequently the school was crawling with mudbloods and blood traitors. Blood traitors were the worst of the lot.

However, his father's plans were foiled by Draco's mother who wasn't so eager for her only son to live so far from home and insisted he go somewhere nearby. For that, Draco was secretly grateful. Durmstrang was an elite magic school with elite students from all over the world. At least at Hogwarts, his pure-blood heritage will be appreciated and he can take advantage of his family's rank and prestige in the wizarding world.

The boy was snapped out of his reverie when he saw a redheaded, freckled boy whiz past the window. He grimaced. A Weasley, no doubt. Known for their red hair, pale skin and spouting more blood traitors than they can afford to keep. Even if they were pure-blood, they were tainted by their love of muggles. The father worked at the ministry with his father, who on several occasions complaining about the blood traitor. He'd be sure to teach these so-called pure-bloods a lesson or two in the future.

Draco looked into the mirror that hung on the wall. A handsome eleven year old boy with pale skin and sleek white-blonde hair stared back. There was no doubt of his importance. He eyed the mousy witch working on the hem of his robe. 'Be sure not to make it too long. If I get a sprained ankle the first day at Hogwarts, you will be sure to hear from my father.' The witch immediately hitched up the hem an inch. Authority seeped through the Malfoy heir. The boy in the mirror smirked and stone grey eyes met, their faces a picture of smug satisfaction.

The door to the robe shop opened. He heard Madam Malkin ask 'Hogwarts, dear?'

The squat witch dressed all in mauve ushered a nervous boy through the curtains. The small boy had a thin face, untidy jet-black hair and emerald-green eyes that were framed by round glasses which looked worn and were held together with what looked like plastic of some sort. Draco couldn't make out his figure under the heaps of fabric coating him. That shirt must have been at least four times the boy's size.

Madam Malkin placed him on a stool next to Draco, slipped a long robe over his head and began to pin the right length.

He glanced at the boy. 'Hello. Hogwarts too?'

'Yes' said the boy meekly.

This was the first fellow Hogwarts student he was meeting. He grasped at something to say that would convey both importance and wit.

'My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands,' Draco cringed inwardly but in spite of his mortification, he maintained his disinterested drawl that he'd practiced all summer and diverted the conversation to 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.'

Had he actually been talking about his parents? He glanced at the boy to see if he was paying attention. He was just watching the witch measure his arms. 'Have you got your own broom?

'No,' the boy replied.

Draco was frustrated. The boy's indifference seemed so effortless compared to him. 'Play Quidditch at all?'

'No,' he said again.

Draco was persistent. 'I do - Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree.' He hesitated; he could be trying to converse with a Gryffindor, 'know what house you'll be in yet?'

'No,' the boy replied again, much to Draco's annoyance.

'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 mousy witch, who'd been fiddling with the bulb of the flickering lamp, opened the curtains to let sunlight in and at the window stood a large oaf of a man. His face was completely hidden by a long, shabby mane of hair and Draco could only make out the eyes which glinted like black beetles under all the hair. He held two ice creams in his hand.

'I say, look at the man!' said Draco to the boy, nodding towards the window. The boy glanced up and the man was grinning widely and pointing at the ice creams.

'That's Hagrid,' the boy said, looking pleased. Draco was pleased too. Finally he got more than a syllable out of the small boy. 'He works at Hogwarts.'

'Oh.' Draco vaguely remembered the name. Some sort of drunk buffoon of sorts his father warned him about. The man tapped on the window while a scoop of ice cream fell out of the cone in his other hand. The idiot must be drunk again! Draco grimaced in distaste. 'I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?'

'He's the gamekeeper.'

'Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of savage - 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.'

'I think he's brilliant,' the boy said with a cold undertone. Draco looked at the boy again, who was frowning at him. He began to get suspicious.

'Do you?' said Draco, slightly sneering. He could very well be talking to a mudblood. After all, the boy did not have much to say about Quidditch or Hogwarts. 'Why is he with you? Where are your parents?'

'They're dead,' the boys said shortly, seeming reluctant to say anything more. Not that Draco wanted to know more. He was not the type to comfort others.

'Oh, sorry,' he said in his signature drawl. 'But they were our kind, weren't they?'

'They were a witch and wizard, if that's what you mean.'

Satisfied, Draco smiled and continued, 'I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? They're just not the same, they've never been bought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families.' He became increasingly aware of how much like his father he sounded. 'What's your surname anyway?'

Before the boy could answer Madam Malkin dismissed him and the boy hopped down from the footstool.

'Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose.' He watched the small boy leave and join the giant man. The obvious contrast between the two was laughable. They could be a comedy duo. The man handed him one of the ice creams and he saw the boy smile for the first time. He looked away, sighing in boredom.

Draco frowned. The witch was still working on his hemline. He glared at her, 'what could possibly be taking so long!? I was here before that boy and he's already done!'

'Sorry, Mister Malfoy. You have more specifications than Mister Potter,' her hands visibly working faster.

Draco spluttered and looked at the place the boy had just been standing with the large oaf in disbelief. Could the first first-year he'd met have been the Harry Potter?

Narcissa Malfoy observed her son silently at the breakfast table. Lucius reached the end of another long lecture about the importance that Draco not mingle with mudbloods. '...at least there is one sane house there. You stick with your fellow Slytherins. There will be no excuse for interacting with mudbloods if you follow my orders...' Draco's eyebrows furrowed. Narcissa was more than aware of what was racing through the troubled boy's mind. It was the same way she'd felt when she was on her way to Hogwarts and her older sister, Bella, had been taunting her with the idea that she may not become a Slytherin and have to sit with the weak-willed Hufflepuffs. Bella had even gone to hefty lengths to trick her into believing she hadn't gotten into Hogwarts including owling a forged letter from Hogwarts rejecting her on the premise of being a snotty-faced brat.

Lucius was under the impression that it made him stronger in the view of enemies. She made it her duty to fully trust him but couldn't help but wonder what enemies Lucius had in mind. Who would her young Draco have to defend himself from?

The hired car pulled up outside King's Cross Station shy of ten to eleven. Narcissa helped Draco out of the car. Their butler, a house-elf in glamor, stacked the trunks onto two separate trolleys. Narcissa shook her head, 'You didn't have this many trunks last night.'

Draco rolled his eyes. 'Mother, I am packing for the entire year. Be grateful you didn't need to drive hear in a van.'

'Your father would chide you for such rudeness.' She counted the trunks.

Draco huffed and muttered under his breath, 'well, father isn't here.'

Narcissa let it go. Lucius wasn't there to see his only son off to boarding school because of a meeting with an 'old friend'. She knew what 'old friend' meant. He just couldn't let the the past go. She turned her attention back to the trolleys. 'Draco, show me what you have in this one.' She fixed her gaze on an older black one which stuck out in the pile of the new bottle green trunks she'd bought him the week before.

Draco hesitantly opened it. His mother sighed, 'you heard your father, Draco. You cannot take your broom to school. Lucius will not be pleased if you land yourself in trouble in the first term of school.'

Draco didn't even fight it. He gave up the broom instantly. Why did Draco bother?

They followed the struggling house-elf into King's Cross Station. Narcissa and Draco grimaced as they passed hoards of muggles boarding trains on platforms nine and ten. Within seconds the platform cleared and Narcissa's face became expressionless again apart from the tightness of her lips which had become permanent. The stood in front of a large pillar halfway between the two platforms which the butler had just disappeared through. Draco's breathing became uneven. He began to approach the pillar when Narcissa grabbed his arm. Draco froze and then turned to face her. She looked into the confused grey eyes of the boy, silently pleading. So vulnerable and weak. Lucius was right. She let go of his arm and straightened up. 'Don't disappoint us, Draco.'

Draco's eyes stared back at her. 'I won't,' was the young boy's monotonous response. She nodded curtly and he turned and disappeared through the pillar. She stood still for a minute then stormed through the pillar herself. She was just in time to catch a glimpse of the white-blonde hair slip through a carriage door accompanied by his friends, Gregory and the Crabbe boy. Parents waved as their children filed onto the rumbling train. The train finally was full and hurtled away. Only tearful parents and siblings remained. Weak, Narcissa thought, that's difference between them and us.

An hour passed by and Draco sat stiffly in his seat facing Crabbe and Goyle, whose bodies filled the entire side. He was still perplexed by his mother's behavior. The compartment - Crabbe only had to glare at the first-years for it to empty - was silent. A lady with a trolley came by to sell snacks. Crabbe and Goyle were disgruntled when the lady told them that there was only a handful of liquorice wands left but still bought it all. She beamed at her empty trolley, 'Sorry, kids. If I'd known Harry Potter would clear me out, I'd have surely stocked up!'

Draco's head snapped up. 'What?'

'Harry Potter is going to be a student at Hogwarts! I don't know why it's such a shock because his parents were but I guess it's been a long time and barely anyone's seen him since, you know, that night. Oh, the poor child. What he's been through! I actually did hear from a friend of that he was passing through The Leaky Cauldron a few days ago...'The entire carriage had tuned in by now, '...even showed them his scar. I caught a peek at it but I didn't want to intrude. This is probably overwhelming. Hmm, I wonder if he even knew he was a...' the woman babbled on, excitement resonating from her.

Within minutes, the entire train knew that Harry Potter was among them. Draco listened to the idle gossip floating through the corridors. Some of the stories were ridiculous and others semi-plausible. He actually heard someone say that he was raised by wolves. Another theory was that he was kidnapped by death eaters and Dumbledore rescued him on a flying motorcycle, which was so ridiculous an image that Draco couldn't contain a snort. Crabbe and Goyle furrowed their brows at him. Draco shook his head and stood. They did the same. It was about time that he met this Potter boy.

Or perhaps, he already had. After that encounter at Madam Malkin's, he became curious about Harry Potter. The witch that had attended him refused to enclose any more information about the elusive Mister Potter, leaving Draco to his own resources. What Draco did know about Potter is that he would be about his age by now but couldn't be sure if he would be in the year below. His father was extremely tight-lipped about those days and extremely unhelpful, saying that Harry was rumored to have been adopted by muggles after that fatal night and so he had no idea if Harry had black hair or green eyes and Malfoy had no business asking. By now, Malfoy was positive that it was Harry Potter he'd met in Diagon Alley.

Draco purposefully walked down the corridor, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle who seemed to have appointed themselves his bodyguards as they pushed people out of the way. He'd heard a girl say that she saw Potter on the other side of the train. He strode past a bunch of gossiping Ravenclaws when he was confronted by a bushy-haired girl with large front teeth like a rabbit. She already had her robes on. The girl put her hands on her hips and panted like she'd been running. A round-faced boy stopped behind her, also panting. 'Did you- see- which way the- toad went?'

'Depends.' Draco drawled, gazing down at his nails.

The girl narrowed her eyes, 'It depends? You're ability to see depends?'

'Can you tell me where Harry Potter is?'

'Why? What do you want with Harry?'

It was Draco's turn to narrow his eyes. First-name basis already? The round-faced boy moaned impatiently and the girl sighed, 'He's in the next carriage. But he won't appreciate everyone hounding him! Now which way did the toad go?'

Draco smirked and looked at Crabbe and Goyle who both shrugged and pointed in opposite directions. The girl glared at Draco and then stormed past them, the round-faced boy at her heels, and he could've sworn he heard her mutter 'Slytherins' in disdain. He grinned. She had a fiery personality. Maybe they would get along.

He passed compartments full of fifth-years and sixth-years and stopped in front of a compartment with two boys sitting opposite each other, one a redhead and the other, undoubtedly the boy from Madam Malkin's. The redhead was speaking animatedly while the smaller boy listened contentedly. So this was the famous Harry Potter? He didn't really look impressive for someone who had survived the killing curse. He was quite ordinary.

The conversation stopped when he slid the compartment door open. The two boys looked up at them as they entered. Draco focused his gaze on the dark-haired boy. 'Is it true? Their saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?'

'Yes.' Another monosyllable. The boys expression was not unfriendly. His eyes settled on Crabbe, the larger of his two friends.

'Oh, this is Crabbe and Goyle' he said, winning back the boy's attention. 'And my name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy.' He was satisfied with himself. Making friends with Harry Potter would definitely be beneficial.

The redhead coughed abruptly, covering up a snigger. Draco scowled at him. 'Think my name's funny, do you?' He recognized the boy from Diagon Alley. The one that ran past the robe shop. The boy had dirt on his nose. Definitely a Weasley. How dare the blood traitor snigger at him? 'No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles and more children than they can afford.'

Crabbe and Goyle snickered behind him and the flame-haired boy looked away. He turned to face Harry. 'You'll find that some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there.'

He extended his hand out to Harry. Things were going his way. But the boy didn't take it and stared at Draco coolly, 'I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks.'

Draco felt his cheeks redden. The boy had actually slighted him, a Malfoy. He recovered from the humiliation and sneered at Harry. 'I'd be careful if I were you, Potter' he said slowly, 'unless you're a bit politer you'll go the same as your parents. They didn't know what was good for them, either. You hang around with riff-raff like the Weasleys and that Hagrid and it'll rub off on you.'

Both boys stood up. The Weasley's face blended in with his hair. 'Say that again,' dared the scowling boy. Finally, Draco had more than mild disinterest directed at him.

'Oh, you're going to fight us, are you?' he sneered at them.

Harry Potter spoke angrily, 'unless you get out now.'

'But we don't feel like leaving, do we, boys?' Crabbe and Goyle smirked. 'We've eaten all our food and you still seem to have some.' Draco gestured to the pile of sweets that the trolley lady must have been referring to.

Goyle reached for the Chocolate Frogs and Weasley leaped forward but before he even touched Goyle, Goyle yelled out in pain.

A rat was hanging off his finger. Where had the rat come from? Probably a Weasley pet. Draco winced as he saw sharp little teeth sink deep into Goyle's knuckle. Goyle swung the rat round and round howling. Draco and Crabbe backed away slowly. He panicked when he heard approaching footsteps and when the rat finally flew off Goyle's hand and into the window, Draco grabbed Goyle by the collar and dragged him away.

Draco was seething when they reached his compartment. Not only had Potter flat-out rejected him but he pretty much confirmed his loyalty to the Weasel and his rat. Draco had just lost his first friend to a freckled blood-traitor with a dirty face. He couldn't call it that because to lose something you need to have it first. The boy had not ever shown any interest in Draco. The conflict which had just passed was the most feelings he'd elicited from the boy. And honestly, it felt better to be hated than to be forgotten.

End of Chapter