3.2 – Apart
Hagrid led the first years to the castle and soon they were in the Great Hall, waiting to be sorted into their houses. Draco stood with the rest of the new students in a line with Pansy and Blaise on his right and Crabbe and Goyle on his left. The first years looked around in amazement, at the thousands of candles floating in mid-air, at the glittering golden plates and goblets on the four long tables and at the enchanted ceiling. Professor McGonagall placed a dirty old pointed wizard hat on a four legged stool in front of them. Draco frowned in disgust. That thing is not going on my head. He thought, wrinkling his nose. Then the hat broke into a song.
"This is ridiculous." Draco muttered to Blaise who nodded in agreement.
The song finished and everyone else applauded.
Professor McGonagall started to call out names from a roll of parchment. Girls and boys went up to sit on the stool one by one in alphabetical order. The queue became shorter as time progressed and students were sorted into the four houses. There were about half of the original numbers left when "Malfoy, Draco." was called. Draco strolled towards the four-legged stool, brushing past Harry and gave him a smirk on his way. He put the dirty sorting hat on, cringing slightly as he did so. It didn't take long at all before the bewitched object made its decision. Draco heard a mumbled "definitely…" in his head then: "SLYTHERIN!" which was shouted out for the whole of the Great Hall to hear. Up at the High Table where the teachers sat, Snape clapped – for the first time this evening. Draco yanked the hat off of his head to get it away from his beautiful white blond hair as soon as possible and made his way towards the Slytherin table where Crabbe and Goyle were already waiting. Draco shook hands with the Slytherin prefect and greeted the other Slytherin students, almost all of them were pure-blood with one or two half-bloods. And since there weren't as much of pure-blood wizard family as there were of muggle borns and half-bloods which made up the majority of the wizard community, naturally there were less students in the Slytherin House than the other houses. Draco looked up at the High Table which was at the front of the Great Hall, and found his Godfather conversing with another nervous teacher who had a giant purple turban. Then his attention was turned away from them as Professor McGonagall called out: "Parkinson, Pansy." Draco shifted his gaze to his friend who was just putting the hat on her head.
"SLYTHERIN!" The hat shouted. Pansy grinned, jumped off the stool and came running to join them. The Slytherin table cheered.
Three more students were sorted and then: "Potter, Harry". Draco looked towards Harry and waited for the result.
"GRYFFINDOR!"
Draco sneered, "Of course, with the idiots." Then he returned to his conversation with the Prefect. Professor McGonagall continued with her list and finally the Sorting Ceremony ended with "Zabini, Blaise", who was of course sorted into Slytherin.
Dumbledore got to his feet and beamed at them all.
"Welcome! Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!
Thank you!" And he sat back down.
"Father is right. Dumbledore is crazy." Draco shook his head, "And I would have gone to Durmstrang instead if it wasn't a boy's school and Alice can't go with me." Just then the food appeared on the table and they began eating. Crabbe and Goyle stuffed the food down like there was no tomorrow. Draco shook his head again at the sight and picked up his own knife and fork and began eating with perfect table etiquette.
"Poor Alice, she must be so lonely by herself, with all of us at Hogwarts." Pansy frowned. She sincerely treated Alice as her friend.
Alice lay in her own bed that night. Draco was away, she had to sleep alone. She had been feeling lost all day. She hardly ate anything at dinner which worried Narcissa greatly and climbed in bed early as she really didn't feel like doing anything else. Draco hadn't even gone for one day and she already missed him. She had never felt like this during their occasional times spent apart before. Perhaps it was because she knew there were going to be many more nights ahead of this one that Draco were going to be absent in this time. This was just the first one. Tears crept up again, Alice wiped them away with annoyance. This is stupid. She thought. I cant cry everyday when Draco is not here.
But the tears kept coming as Alice thought about Draco, or the lack of Draco. She hugged her giant bunny rabbit tighter. She wondered if Draco lay awake too, unable to fall asleep. Did he miss home? Did he miss her? Draco wouldn't cry, Draco is brave. Although his eyes lose their sparkle when he is sad. Alice had noticed. Her mind wandered again. She suddenly realised that she had no other friends apart from Draco, Pansy and Blaise. This was going to be a lonely year. She sighed.
Miles away at Hogwarts, Draco was awake too. His new bed was comfortable, but it felt foreign. Because the Slytherin Dungeon was very spacy, they each had their own room. He missed his parents, he missed home but mostly he missed Alice. Was she crying again?
She must feel so lonely by herself. She won't have anyone to play with. Draco decided to write to her first thing in the morning. He's going to tell her all about Hogwarts.
The next morning Draco woke up early. He washed and dressed then acquired some parchment and a quill, he was going to write his first letters home. It's 'letters', plural, because he was writing two – one for his parents and one for Alice. For the next hour he concentrated hard, pausing now and then to think things through and put them down on the parchment in organised words. Draco finished his letters at about 8 o'clock and made his way to the Owlery. He found his eagle owl perched on an iron bar, already asleep.
"Adler, wake up. I need you to deliver some mails for me." Draco called, gently petting the handsome eagle owl who flapped his wings and eyed him angrily but held out a leg anyway. Draco tied the letters to the out stretched leg.
"To home, okay?" He stroked Alder's soft feathers one more time before the owl took off. Draco watched him soar through the morning sky, disappearing into the distance.
Draco joined his friends at breakfast. He had only taken one bite of his toast when the post arrived. About a hundred owls streamed into the Great Hall, bringing their owners letters and packages. Striegus, one of the family owls, circled Draco's head then dropped two letters onto his lap before flying out of the Great Hall again; probably to the Owlery to get some rest.
Draco opened the first letter, it was from Narcissa.
Dear Draco,
I hope you have enjoyed your first evening at Hogwarts. How was the journey?
The Sorting Ceremony went smoothly I assume? You must have been sorted into Slytherin, no doubt about that.
Have you made any new friends in your house? I suppose the children in Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad either…But stay clear of the ones in Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, they sure will be a bad influence.
Tell me when you finish the sweets, I shall send you some more.
Your father and Alice send their greetings too. Just to let you know, if you have not read hers first, that Alice wrote a letter to you herself.
Enjoy your time at school and work hard in the lessons. If there are any problems, go to Severus. We look forward to your reply.
Love,
Your mum
He had included most of the things in his letter already but he thought it would be better if he wrote another one. Draco proceeded eagerly to the second letter that was from Alice.
Dear Draco,
How is Hogwarts? Do you like it? Again, I wish I am there too. You must have met Harry again, how are things between you two? Tell me in detail the things that have happened.
I hope you got into Slytherin as you wished and Pany and Blaise are both in Slytherin too I assume. Harry is in Gryffindor, right? The food last night must have been very good, from what I know anyway. How is your dormitary? That, I have no information on. I asked mum to tell me about her time at Hogwarts but it's probably very different to how it is now.
I miss you already, write back soon.
P.S. I still don't like sleeping by myself.
Love,
Alice
Draco smiled at the letter and folded it up to put it back into the perfumed envelope. He was going to keep all of the letters from home, he had decided. But about Harry Potter…Draco looked towards the Gryffindor table where most of the noise came from and saw that Harry was talking happily to Ron. He had no post. Obviously. Draco smirked. Oh he had wrote all about Potter in his letter already.
The thing with number of students in Hogwarts. I've read some post around the web and I agree with the theory that there is about 40 students in each year, roughly 280 in the whole school. There are four houses so 10 first years added to each house. They have lessons with another house so about 20 students in each lesson which seems right.
Please review~ ^^