Chapter Two: Lack of Loss
(This chapter is from the point of view of Draco Malfoy)
I had to tell him. If he still didn't know, I had to tell him who I was. My desperate hope was that someone had told him, so he would just ignore me, and I could have a single day of being friends without mixing it up with the moment he realized why he would never be my friend.
I could see him on the platform from my seat on the train, being fussed over by his mother. I'd seen them together as I was leaving Diagon Alley, and had recognized her then as Lily Potter. Auror Lily Potter. Surely, she had told him who my father was, if she'd seen me with him. I was terrified that she hadn't, and I would have to watch Harry's open smile turn into something hateful.
I sat back in my seat, wrapping my arms around myself and staring at the empty seat across from me. The name Malfoy had become a curse after my father had died. The Death Eaters scorned us, because my father's folly had allowed Harry Potter to escape. And everyone else hated us for our undeniable affiliation with the Death Eaters.
After my father's death, my mother had fallen ill. I had a few vague memories of her before she'd died, and none of my father. After that, my father's brother, Uncle Silas, had moved in to take control of the Malfoy estate, as the heir to the fortune until I was of age.
Lost in thought, I hadn't seen Harry leave his mother's side and get on the train, so I wasn't expecting it when he appeared in the doorway to my otherwise empty train compartment. "Hey Draco," he said, dragging his trunk in after him and flopping into the seat beside me.
He was already dressed in his school robes, like I was; generally, only the students who had to pass through the Muggle part of London to get to the station ever needed to change into their robes. "I didn't think she was ever going to stop going over the school rules and actually let me leave," he laughed, and I felt myself growing pale. He didn't know. It was impossible for him to know and still be treating me like his friend.
"Harry, you…you should sit somewhere else," I whispered, and he frowned at me. "I…my name is Draco Malfoy." I said, looking down at my hands and hoping he would leave without shouting.
"I know," he replied, and I looked back up at him to see a small smile and a quirked eyebrow. "It was too late when Mum told me; I already liked you," he informed me, his emerald eyes bright and guileless. "So if you don't mind, I still want to be friends."
I stared at him, hardly daring to believe that he was sincere, that this wasn't a cruel joke. I found myself nodding slowly, an unimaginable happiness bursting open inside me, and I laughed. It was hysterical laughter, sounding high and insane before it dissolved into tears. "I guess that means okay," Harry murmured, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and leaning his head against mine.
I'd thought I was ready to be all alone at school, to move carefully through the students to avoid attention, to avoid the persecution that I knew would come from every side. But it would be so much easier to bear with Harry, but then how could I ask him to bear it with me? "You…can't," I hiccupped against his shoulder. "You won't have any other friends. It's not fair. Everyone should want to be your friend. It's not…it's not fair," I whispered.
"Don't worry about me. Those who matter won't mind, and those who mind don't matter," he said, giving my shoulders a final squeeze before he sat back. I felt the loss of his warmth keenly, and blushed when I looked up at him again. "I don't have many friends, anyway. I have a natural tendency to not like people," he joked, and I knew he must be lying to make me feel better. But I smiled anyway and let him.
"Anything from the cart, dears?" an elderly lady pushing a cart full of sweets asked us. I quickly wiped my face on my sleeve, looking away out the window. I didn't have any money, anyway.
"Yeah, I think we need some," Harry said, digging in the pockets of his robes. "What do you like, Draco?" he asked me, and I looked back at him in surprise.
"Uncle doesn't give me spending money," I replied quietly.
Harry just grinned, ruffling my hair, which I found a bit baffling in its simple affection. "I didn't ask if you had any money. Now what do you want from the cart?" he asked me. I remembered that he had bought ice-cream for me before, too, and felt myself blush with shame.
"Nothing," I said quietly, looking back out the window.
"Tell me or I'm buying you one of everything," he threatened with a grin.
"You-what-why would you…?" I sputtered, and then I saw the determined glint in his bright eyes. "Peppermint toads," I answered after just a moment, and Harry grinned in triumph.
"Alright, twenty peppermint toads," he said, and I stared in horror. "Twenty chocolate frogs. Two caldron cakes, two pumpkin pasties, two of the licorice wands, and…two bottles of butterbeer," he said rapidly, dumping a small handful of galleons into the hand of the lady and picking his chosen sweets off the cart.
"You're a sweet boy," she told Harry, giving him an extra caldron cake before she moved on.
"Come on, sit down here with me," he beckoned, sitting down cross-legged in the floor with his back to the closed sliding glass door and dumping the pile of sweets into the floor in front of him.
I sank slowly into the floor, hardly knowing what to do with myself as I watched him unwrap a licorice wand and begin to eat it. "Help yourself. I got it for both of us," he told me, and when he grinned, his teeth were black. I couldn't help laughing.
"You shouldn't keep doing that," I said, fiddling with the packaging of an unopened peppermint toad. They were wonderful little sweets, white chocolate laced with red ribbons of peppermint flavor running through them, and they had the same enchantment on them as chocolate frogs, as well as an included wizard card.
"Doing what?" he asked innocently.
"Buying me things because I don't have any money," I said sullenly.
"Hey, you've got plenty of money. You just don't have access to it yet. You can pay me back when we're seventeen," he informed me, and I found it perfectly comforting.
"Don't think I won't; you're getting back every knut," I said, and he smiled. At ease now, knowing that it was only borrowed and not taken, I opened my peppermint toad and popped it into my mouth before it could escape. The charm broke when I bit down, and it turned back into regular candy. It was wonderful; I rarely got sweets.
"You got Saint Madigan Mungo," Harry said, picking up the card I had dropped in favor of the toad. "It says she founded St. Mungo's, and she was also Headmistress of Hogwarts at one point. And a senior member of the Wazingamot."
"Senior member? Aren't they all ancient?" I asked, and Harry laughed.
"Maybe she was a little more ancient than the rest of them," he suggested, opening one of the chocolate frogs. "I got Dumbledore," he announced, holding his frog by one of its feet as he read the card. "Order of Merlin First Class. Current Headmaster of Hogwarts. Seven uses of dragon blood. Oh, and it says he's also known for his work in alchemy with Nicholas Flamel. Did you know that?" he asked.
I nodded, recalling a book I'd read about Flamel. "He developed the Philosopher's Stone, which allows him to live for an indefinite amount of time. Him and his wife Perenelle live somewhere in France, I believe. The book mentioned his work with Dumbledore," I explained.
"We are going to ace History of Magic," he said in awe, and I felt suddenly proud of all the knowledge I'd gained from the endless hours of reading that my life had generally consisted of thus far.
"And every other class, of course," I sniffed, and he grinned happily. Just then, the leg of his chocolate frog broke off and the rest of it fell onto his knee, flailing for a couple of horrifying seconds before the charm broke and it went still.
"Well that was…unsettling," he said, picking it up. "I'm not sure I still want to eat it," he admitted, studying it carefully. It was frozen in the twisted pose of anguish it had been in when the charm broke. He looked up at me and shrugged, tossing it into his mouth. "Tastes fine," he said around a mouthful of chocolate, and the odd tension broke and we laughed.
We spent the remainder of the trip talking and picking through the pile of sweets, and it was the most perfect piece of time that I could remember. I felt apart from everything that scared me, that had come before now or might come after. It felt good to sit and talk to Harry and eat sweets-safe. Like he was the only one that I would ever have to face again. That wasn't true, of course. And I was forced to remember that when I heard the train breaks begin to screech as we pulled into the station in Hogsmead.
The platform was swarming with students, and I pressed close behind Harry as the crowd threatened to sweep us apart. I always felt smaller in crowds, which is saying something, since I really was smaller than nearly everyone else I knew. When I thought about it, Harry wasn't much bigger than I was. He was just about my height, and slender in build, but somehow, he still seemed to take up more space, plowing through the crowd where I would have been helpless. His energy made him bigger.
"Firs' years! Firs' years over here!" a voice boomed over the crowd. The man calling us was nearly twice the size of a normal man, and three times as wide. He had bushy black hair and beard, streaked with gray.
I stared in horror, but Harry waved and jumped up and down, trying to be seen through the crowd. "Hagrid!" he called jubilantly, pulling me along toward the giant of a man.
"All right there, Harry?" the giant called back, grinning down at us as we joined the other first years. I did my best not to look terrified. "Any more firs' years? C'mon, follow me, and mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"
Slipping and stumbling, we followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. Harry and I hung onto each other as we made our way down, as if we would be separated in the darkness if we let go.
"Yeh'll get yer first good sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid, called over his shoulder, "just round the bend here."
The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers. I gasped at the sight of the warm lights flickering in all the windows, lit up for the arrival of the students. The lights were reflected on the lake, so that in the darkness it looked like a sea of stars. "Wow," Harry whispered, glancing at me. The light from Hagrid's lantern glinted off his eyes, showing his excited smile.
"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. The two of us clambered into an empty boat and were followed by a girl with bushy brown hair and small cheekbones. Then a boy climbed in after her and I felt myself grow cold.
"Hey Harry! We lost you on the train. Where'd you get to?" the boy, who was obviously a Weasely, asked jovially. And oh God, he was friends with Harry. I couldn't breathe, casting a desperate look at Harry; I was surprised to see his eyebrows pull together in a frown directed at the Weasely boy.
"I sat with Draco," Harry replied lightly.
"My name's Hermione Granger," the bushy-haired girl inserted in the Weasely's stunned silence, holding out her hand to Harry, who grinned and shook it.
"Harry Potter," he replied.
"I gather that you're Draco then," she addressed me, holding out her hand again. I stared at it for a long minute before I shook it. She must not have recognized my name, like Harry hadn't that day. But it was obvious that Weasely had. He was still staring between me and Harry with a look of horrified confusion on his face. "What's the matter with him?" Hermione Granger asked, tilting her head to the side. Then she reached out and poked him before quickly withdrawing her hand; it made me smile.
"What the hell?" the Weasely roared suddenly, making me and Hermione flinch. Harry just scowled.
"Ron, are you having some sort of episode? If you insist on doing so, I'm afraid you're going to have to finish it in the lake," Harry said quietly. Hermione looked around at the three of us, aware that she was missing something but knowing now was not the time to ask.
"Harry, don't you know who this is? He's Death Eater spawn! Are you trying to get yourself killed?" Ron Weasely cried, standing up so that the boat rocked wildly. "And you! What have you got planned, you little snake?" he growled at me, and I felt my breath catch with terror. He was going to kill me. Right here in this little boat, before I ever even got to Hogwarts.
"Ron, I'm warning you…leave Draco alone…" Harry said in the same calm, quiet voice from before.
"Stop sniveling and answer me, you slimy little-" and that's as far as he got before Harry's foot whipped into the side of his knee and one solid shove sent him tumbling into the lake with a mighty splash. My mouth fell open in the mirror image of the girl across from Harry, but he couldn't have looked calmer as he settled back into his seat.
Ron was pushed into Hagrid's boat by the giant squid, and spent the rest of the journey staring over at our boat with uncomprehending eyes. "I've always wanted to do that," Harry sighed happily.
"Why did you do that?" Hermione demanded in a shrill voice. I was still staring at Weasely.
"Well, he's always going to be a git. But I'm not going to tolerate anyone being mean to Draco," he said adamantly.
"Oh Merlin. Oh, Harry, you can't do that. You're going to get yourself killed," I said, my breath catching my throat, wheezing as I tried to take in air. I was hyperventilating. Weasely didn't even have to kill me-I was going to suffocate all on my own.
"Draco, calm down. Come on, breathe. It's okay. I know how to pick my fights, and I can handle Ron. I've been wanting to feed him to a lake monster since we were little kids," he said, rubbing soothing circles on my back. Slowly, I regained my ability to breathe. "Look at me," he said gently. I lifted my eyes to him and he bumped his head against mine. "Don't you believe I can handle anything yet? It won't take long."
"Well. It's perfectly obvious that I picked the most interesting boat on the lake," Hermione declared, and I looked back up at her; I'd forgotten she was there. "So. Um, does everyone hate you? Or just that little prat? Because it sounded like you're talking about everyone."
"Are you Muggleborn?" Harry asked, and she nodded. Which explained a lot. "Well, do you know what Death Eaters are?" he inquired.
"Yes, I've read all about the war. You don't look particularly evil, though," she commented, and I found myself smiling again. I hadn't even thought about the Muggleborns, who hadn't been raised with the prejudice of the wizarding world.
"Yeah, well, Draco's dad was a Death Eater," Harry began.
"I'm also being raised by one," I inserted numbly.
"Yes, that too," Harry agreed quickly. "And my mom is an Auror. My dad was one too, until him and Draco's dad killed each other in a duel when Voldemort was on his way to kill me because of some bizarre prophesy that highly doubtfully involves me-"
I flinched at the name, chilled by the objective way Harry explained our families' shared past. "He'd still really like to kill you," I inserted again.
"Yeah, that's true. But anyway, my mom got away with me. So all the Death Eaters were pissed, and hate his family. And everyone knows his dad was a Death Eater and that his uncle is one too, so he doesn't really have any ready friends. So I'm just going to beat everyone up," Harry finished with a wide smile.
"Oh Merlin," I murmured, burying my face in my hands.
"Good gracious," Hermione whispered. "Well aren't you two just the strangest boys I have ever met? I hope we're in the same House. I want to be friends with Harry, so he can beat up everyone who picks on me," she declared. Harry was the first to laugh, and the two of us quickly followed. It was so strange, how with Harry I could always find a way to laugh, to not be as scared.
And then the boat knocked against the shore. I looked around and saw that we were in some kind of underground harbor. We climbed out of the boats and onto rocks and pebbles. We followed Hagrid up a passageway in the rock after his lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle. We walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door.
"Everyone here? Good." Hagrid raised his gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.
(AN: yay for a longer chapter. I'm afraid it's going to sort of be like this a lot, since I really like writing in Draco's point of view. So his chapters may be longer than Harry's in general. But I do really love Harry. And I loved throwing Ron in the lake :) and I'm debating how important to make Hermione. Haven't decided yet. So review, and tell me what you think!)