Chapter 2: Wendalin Holmes

These jeans were riding up my leg, I had no idea why they were so skinny. That blasted muggle at the store had assured me that this was the most popular wear. I couldn't even begin to imagine the need for all this stupid plaid. I strode through Kings Cross, my hands in my pocket, and slipped right through into 9 and 3/4. I could almost feel the magic filling the pores of my skin. I almost wished I could have cherished this moment, one of the few good ones in these past years, but some bloody woman stood in my way.

"Draco Malfoy?" she asked.

"You're a muggle," I said. I tried not to show her my surprise. I've heard of some muggles who knew about the wizarding world. But I had never met one, much less expecting one here.

She looked taken aback by my comment but quickly regained her composure, "Mr. Malfoy, my name is Wendalin Holmes, the ministry has sent me here to guide you towards Hogwarts."

The indignity! I couldn't. Those pompous buffoons at the ministry. A muggle to guide me to Hogwarts? I knew about. I'm a pure-blood. Since I could remember every child in our. Hogwarts? Hogwarts? How could she even. This must be that Weasley's idea of a stupid joke! Once I gained back my family's prestige, that mangy, straight lipped ginger would. Oh yah, he would. I mean, would he, oh he would, would real good.

"Mr. Malfoy?"

"What makes you think that you can speak to me, muggle?"

She flicked her wrist without so much as a word, and my arms were bound together behind me. Great. A mudblood who found some magic along the way. I gave her another glance over, and it still wasn't a face I recognized, but she must have been close to my age.

"Now I can float you onto the train, or you could walk aboard. Either way, it's fine with me."

I gave her the slightest nod. She wasn't worth an ounce of magic. Father always said not to kill the messenger. And I had more important battles to fight.

"Good. And now that we understand one another. We shall board the train, there will be no fuss. I will choose where to sit. And then, if you're well behaved. I'll tell you what is going to happen."

She jabbed the end of her wand in my back. I could have snapped it in half. It was within reach, and I doubt she'd be able to react quickly enough. She seemed still green around the edges. But where would that have gotten me? And a part of me, also couldn't do it. Not to a wand. Not now. Losing a wand is like losing an arm or a leg. There's just a part of you missing. So I boarded the train and sat where she told me, then watched her open up a briefcase. She pulled out three rolled up parchments. And I think what looked to be a flat sheet of paper with lines. A pen. An eraser. Whiteout. Why was she such a muggle?

"I don't remember seeing you before," I said. "Not many faces I don't know. My family is well connected." It's the speech I had prepared since childhood. Back then, I thought I'd do it every year to scare the First Years on the Hogwarts Express. I had simpler goals then.

"Your family was, was, well connected."

"So you did know who I am?"

"Just from your file, but of you, or your family? No. Not a clue."

I leaned closer towards her, "So who was it then? Your mother or your father?"

"What?"

"Who was magical? I suppose it was your father? Magic changes a witch. But every once in awhile, you'll hear about a wizard who wants to play god in your little world. No. Don't tell me. You aren't. I mean." I snickered, "Could it be that neither of your parents were magical? I once knew someone like that, and she..." I don't know what made me corner myself. The words were right on my tongue but I couldn't say them. Even though my present company would have no idea what I was talking about.

"She what?" Wendalin asked.

"Nothing." I leaned back in my seat and gave her a look of indifference. Propping my legs on her suitcase on the floor, "Well? Are you going to get on with it?"

She pushed my feet off her suitcase, "It's going to be a long train ride..."

"Spit it out woman. I don't have all day to play your silly little games."

She looked at me for just a moment, a hint of something in her eyes reminded me of myself. Her fingers must be itching to wrap themselves around her wand. Or from what I learned of muggle-borns, they preferred punching. But I was ready, and she would be good practice. I watched her shoulders. But they never moved. Not that they'd ever land a blow anyways.

"You are to report to the Headmaster of Hogwarts upon our arrival. There she will inform you about your task. If you do not complete your tasks then you shall, without trial, be carted off to Azkaban until further notice."

I nodded and waited for her to continue. But when she didn't, I looked at her incredulously, "Well? What's the rest of it?"

"I told you it was going to be a long train ride."

"So they got a muggle to babysit me. What did they think I was going to do? Blow up the train?"

"Did you have plans to blow up this train Mr. Malfoy?"

"What?"

"Or any train?" she asked me with seriousness.

Here I was, being treated like some riff raff. But for the fifth time in my life I was completely unable to think of anything clever to say. It was to expected after all, being that the Malfoy's were always handled with care, even if this was of a different kind. I attributed it to our wealth and power. And as father always said, "Fear is power, and if the seeds are strong, if you can sow them in early, Doubt will make Fear, king."

I loosely fingered the rings on my hand, "Did you not use your wand to check me for any magical items I may have snuck aboard? It's what any ministry dog would do first. But I suppose, even if you did, you'd have missed it. I did once sneak hundreds of men into the world's most magically fortified castle."

She paused for a moment, a hint of uncertainty. But it came as quickly as it went. Hmph, I suppose there was some class among muggles. I looked her over again. She was nicely kept, proper, but not with forced rigidity. It was decades of blood that made her different.

"I don't believe you'd jeopardize your return to Hogwarts," she concluded.

And that was when it happened. It was almost too fast for me to realize what I saw from the corner of my eyes. A plume of blazing smoke trailing alongside the train. I saw a flash of blue fill the window. It bounced off the magical barrier. An onslaught of red, blue, and greens would soon follow - each shaking the window. A hatch in the walkway must have opened, because it was then that I heard boots hitting the ground. There was also someone on the train. I could hear the conductor pulling the cord as it whistled loudly ahead. Another blast of green filled the window, a crack appeared in the center. I looked at the muggle, her face was concentrated beyond our door. Her wand hand ready to shoot the first thing that came through it. The cloud of smoke outside the train stopped shooting spells, it came closer to inspect the crack, and that was when I saw it. The white bones of the murdered, its jaw torn from the hinges before death, the last test before becoming a full fledged Death Eater. The mask, it stared eerily into our cabin before backing away. I gripped at my wand emptily, and a feeling of dread overtook me. I was helpless here. In that moment, the door to our compartment burst open, and a large burly man filled the hole left behind. I saw Wendalin shoot a spell at the man's chest, they bounced off the garb around his neck. But there was no time for me to worry about them, the Death Eater outside the train shot two more red orbs at the window. The first one shattered the glass, sending shards everywhere. The second followed, it was aimed right at Wendalin. In a moment before I could think, I curled my fist and gave it a strong left hand. The blow sent the spell into the next compartment and launched me harshly into the air. My head hit the roof and that was the last thing I remembered before everything went dark.

I came to upon the cold ground. I don't know how much time had passed but the sun had set and only a small fire from a portion of the upturned train shed light on the carnage. The train itself must have continued on towards Hogwarts, leaving behind the wreckage as it sped away. I could see where spells scorched the wallpaper. A duel must have ensued after I blacked out. I fumbled around in the dark to feel for my legs. One was broken, but the rest of me seemed fine besides some burns and cuts. I propped a sore shoulder against a piece of wreckage. A shadowy figure rose from the rubble, pushing aside an old bench. I could see the wand's shadow flickering on the ground from the ebbing flame. I looked at my hand, two of the three family rings had cracked, undoubtedly from ricocheting the spell. It would have be enough to kill her, to kill me, if not for the rings. It was one of the few possessions of Father's that I managed to hold onto. Forged by goblins and passed down through our lineage for generations. Gone, to save a mudblood. I leaned back, and groaned. Just kill me now.

"Malfoy?" a voice called out. "Malfoy!"

It was Wendalin. "I'm right here!" I shouted. I breathed in a sigh of relief. "I'm right here." I wasn't yet ready to go.

She came towards me, clutching her arm. Blood oozed from a gash above her eye, "Are you alright?"

"It's just my leg. Once you heal it, I'll be fine."

Wendalin gave me a look, and that's when I knew, "You don't know how do you? And I don't suppose you're going to give me your wand so I can do it. Great. Just great. Even after I saved your life."

"Why'd you do it," she blurted.

Her first real loss of composure. I turned away, annoyed at the way she looked at me, "You were the only one with a wand. If I didn't save you, I'd have been as good as dead."

She stared at the ground, "Of course."

I tried sitting up, but the pain in my leg was too much.

"Let me help you," she began.

I waved my arm, "I got it." I managed to pull myself proper against a piece of scrap metal that had embedded itself into the hillside. "What kind of witch are you anyway? You don't seem to know anything. I mean, didn't you learn anything at Hogwarts?"

"I never went," she replied quietly.

"What do you mean you never went? Of course you went. You know how to do magic don't you?"

She sat down next to me, "I developed late."

"What does that even mean?"

"You really don't know, do you Mr. Magic-born."

"Know what?" I asked. My curiosity overcame my irritation.

"Not everyone develops magic before becoming a First Year. Some people don't learn that they are magical at all until much later. I'm one of those people. I didn't learn that I could do magic until two years ago. And they don't just stick 16 year olds into Hogwarts and expect them to catch up. Instead we get trained by the Ministry. Learning the ins and outs of each department, figuring out what kind of magic we like, becoming slowly integrated into the magical world."

"I always wondered what they did with squibs."

"I'm not a squib!"

"I meant squibs that develop some magic later. You always hear about a few pure-blood family's here and there whose son or daughter suddenly disappears only to emerge again a few years later. But no one's ever taken a class with them, or remembered them. Not that anyone really cares."

"How can you be like this? Still? After everything you've been through?" she asked. There was a rise in her step and I wasn't in the mood to be some stone, especially not to some mudblood.

"You think you know me? Me? What I've been through?" I don't know when I stood but now I was staring down at her. Even with my wounded leg she was still a head shorter than I was. "You think because you've read some files, heard some rumors. You think you know what he was like? He was a monster. And what he did to my family? I will never forgive. But don't think for a second that I wouldn't have done the same with all his power. Don't think that I wouldn't wipe your kind off the face of this planet. You think you know me? You don't know anything, witch."

"You're right. I don't know you. And I was naive in thinking I knew the boy that refused to kill Albus Dumbledore to save himself. The one who risked his own skin for a friend in the room of requirements. Or the son who risked everything to protect his parents. You're not him. Who could have ever mistaken him for Draco Malfoy." She stood back as if to hide her face in the shadow, raising her good hand to the sky, and sending out a yellow spark into the clouds. The burst of magic rose into the air before splintering into the night.

"You don't know me," I muttered under my breath. "None of you do."