Mal peered around platform nine and three-quarters anxiously, hoping he looked like he was sizing up his fellow students and trying to figure out which of them he could safely toady up to and which he should avoid altogether. In reality, he was looking for two particular people, one of whom he hoped he'd see and the other he hoped he wouldn't.
Father'll break his twigs if he sees Tonks here. But she knows that. She wrote last night and wished me good luck, and that's all I need.
He set his cousin aside for the moment and resumed looking for the person he knew should be there. Hope Harry's relatives didn't decide last-minute he couldn't go after all...
"Know who he is?" a voice from a few people down caught his ear. The speaker was clearly a Weasley, and Mal frowned as he ran through the litany Tonks had recited to him almost a year before.
Bill the curse-breaker, Charlie the Quidditch star, Percy the prat, and then come Fred'n'George the twins. That's got to be one of them.
"Who?" asked Mrs. Weasley, holding her daughter Ginny's hand.
"Harry Potter!"
That answers that question. Mal grinned inwardly and tuned out the rest of the conversation. I'll find him once we leave. Which will be— He looked up at the clock. Any minute now. I should get on board...
"Good morning, Lucius."
"Ah, good morning, Simon." Mal's father shook hands with Mr. Nott. "How is Theodore? Excited for Hogwarts?"
"Decidedly." Mr. Nott bowed to Mother, who inclined her head in return. "And Draco?"
"A bit overwhelmed by it all, but well enough."
"I'm sorry to hear that." Mal ducked his head to avoid making eye contact as Mr. Nott gave him a fish-eyed stare. "Shall I show him where Theodore is sitting? He might enjoy the company of the right sort of people on the ride."
"How kind of you, Simon," Mother said. "Draco, come here."
"I don't want company," muttered Mal when Mother bent down to kiss him. "Not that kind."
"Then make your excuses and leave. You know how it is done." Mother cupped the side of his face in her cool hand, making him shiver. "And I know what you are planning. All I ask is that you give us no reason to be truly ashamed of you."
"I won't." Mal pressed his mother's hand between his shoulder and cheek, then let it go. "See you at Christmas."
"I expect good reports," Father said, waving a playfully chiding finger near Mal's nose. "In all ways."
"Yes, sir," Mal mumbled, lowering his head again.
"Hurry up, boy!" Mr. Nott urged as a whistle sounded from the engine. "You don't want to be left behind!"
If it means I don't have to sit with your cleverer-than-thou brat all the way to Hogwarts, maybe I do.
But Mal ran for the train anyway, and accepted Mr. Nott's hand up the stairs, leaning out once he was safely at the top to wave one last time to Mother before he ducked inside.
Father can fool himself I was waving to him too if he likes. I wasn't.
He turned around and stifled a squawk of surprise.
"You didn't think I was going to let you go off to Hogwarts without saying a proper goodbye, did you?" said the grinning person wearing Mr. Nott's robes.
Mal grinned back and threw his arms around Tonks, squeezing as hard as he could. "Oof," she protested, poking him in the ribs. "No killing me when I just got away with tricking your parents!"
"How did you know you could?" Mal asked, releasing his cousin enough that he could look up at her.
"Watched him." Tonks made back-and-forth motions with a finger. "Saw him show up, saw him bung his brat on the train, saw him leave before you got here. Fixed my robes to look like his, put his looks on, and got to say goodbye in person after all." She rubbed the top of his head. "How's your face?"
"Don't do that," protested Mal, ducking away. "It's fine. Barely hurts at all anymore."
"Did you remember that cleansing potion? Going to be hard to explain infections if you get them."
"In my trunk."
"Good." Tonks sighed. "I wish we could've had a year together, but maybe it's better like this. You don't want to get known as my tagalong."
"No, I'm trying for that with Harry." Mal hunched his shoulders, shuffled his feet, and glanced up through his lashes at Tonks. "This look scared enough?"
She flicked him on the ear. "Don't overdo it. I'd better get back, I have afternoon duty today. Have a good time."
"Not a problem."
One more hug, and Mal stepped back to give Tonks room to Disapparate. She winked at him before spinning in place and vanishing with a soft pop.
The boy who had just come through the door at the other end of the train car stopped dead. "Who was that?" he asked, staring at the place where Tonks had been.
Mal was about to give a dismissive answer when he noticed the boy's height, and the red hair which the dimness of the car had hidden from his first glance. "Friend of mine," he said, coming forward a few steps. "You're..." He counted on his fingers, passing the point where he'd stopped earlier. "Ron, right? Ron Weasley?"
Ron gaped at him. "How'd you know?"
"Your face made the Weasley bit obvious, and my cousin used to date one of your brothers. Or she's still dating him, I forget which. That was her, by the way." Mal nodded over his shoulder. "My parents don't like her, think she's the wrong sort for me to go around with, so she had to sneak onto the train to say goodbye."
"What's-her-name Tonks, with the..." Ron waved a hand above his head. "The hair?"
"That's her."
"Then you're Mal." Ron held out his hand. "She's mentioned you once or twice."
"A minute," Mal finished, shaking the offered hand. "Every time she visits."
Ron grimaced. "You heard them, then."
"What, your brothers? I think the whole platform heard them." Mal reconsidered this. "But they can't have, because if they had they'd all be down here looking for—"
"I know," Ron cut him off. "I can't believe he's really here! In our year, even!"
"He can't believe he's here either."
"You know him?"
"We met at Diagon Alley. Been writing all month."
"Wow." Ron peered through the window of a compartment. "And he's right in there, and everywhere else is full..." He turned an imploring look back on Mal. "Do you think he'd mind?"
Mal bit back a laugh. "I'm not his agent, you don't have to ask my permission. But I can tell you he doesn't bite."
"Thanks for the tip." Squaring his shoulders, Ron swallowed. "Here goes."
He slid the door open and entered.
Think I'll give them a minute to get acquainted. Mal leaned against the wall and sighed in contentment. Hogwarts, Hogwarts, really truly Hogwarts. And really truly friends to go with.
He'd made his first goal. There were plenty more to go before he could send his Seeker after the Snitch, but he knew he'd get there eventually.
In the meantime, I'll play the game for all I'm worth.
Because that's what the right sort of people do.
Lunchtime had come and gone, Chocolate Frog cards had been exhibited and swapped, and Harry was trying to make Scabbers eat the remainder of Ron's sprouts-flavored bean when the door of their compartment opened. "Have you seen a toad?" asked the brown-haired girl in Hogwarts robes on the other side.
"No," Mal said before either of the others could speak. "Have you seen a one-eyed snake?"
The girl frowned. "No."
Mal let his hand rest on the zipper of his trousers. "Want to?"
"That's disgusting," the girl snapped, and slammed the door shut again.
Harry dodged as Ron sprayed Cauldron Cake across the compartment laughing. Mal took a bow. "Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week."
"Wonder who that was," Harry said, looking after the girl.
"Don't know, but I bet she's Muggleborn." Mal fished another Pumpkin Pasty out of the pile. "She wears her robes like she's not used to them, and if she were half-blood she'd know toads always turn up again..."
He became aware that Harry and Ron were both looking at him oddly. "What?"
"I didn't know that," Ron said. "And I'm a pureblood."
"Ever keep toads?"
Ron shook his head.
"I have. One got loose in the house once for a whole year and eventually turned up in my bathtub. That's how I know."
"A toad got loose in your house and you didn't find it for a year?" Harry said skeptically.
"In a house the size of his, it's possible," said Ron.
"How do you know how big my house is?"
"It's got the word 'Manor' in its name. I don't need to be a genius to know it's big."
"And it is," Mal admitted. "We could play Quidditch in the ballroom if someone took out the chandelier first."
"What is Quidditch?" Harry asked over Ron's admiring sigh. "You said you'd explain on the train."
"You don't know Quidditch?" Ron blurted, then shook his head. "Right, Muggles, never mind. You want to start, Mal, or should I?"
"You go on, I'll chime in when I have something to say."
"Right." Ron shaped an oval with his hands. "So there's seven players on a side, three Chasers, one Keeper, two Beaters, and one Seeker..."
Mal tried to join in the Hall-wide laughter as Neville jogged back to Professor McGonagall to return the Sorting Hat, but his throat was too tight to let anything get out. What if the Hat only saw his name and his bloodline? What if it picked up on his desire to make something of himself and didn't notice how and why he wanted it? Would it put him in—
"SLYTHERIN!"
Mal's knees nearly went before he realized the Hat was announcing the Sorting of Morag MacDougal, a heavyset girl he knew slightly from parties. She nodded curtly to Professor McGonagall and went to her place.
"Malfoy, Draco!" McGonagall read off her list.
Harry flashed a quick thumbs-up. Ron punched his shoulder. Mal gave them both a smile, though he knew it looked more like a death grin, and turned to walk to the stool.
"Calm yourself," McGonagall murmured out the corner of her mouth when he was seated. "This won't hurt."
Must be obvious I'm scared. Well, it's good for the image anyway. Mal jerked his head in an acknowledging nod, and Professor McGonagall dropped the Sorting Hat onto it.
"A-ha," a small voice said into his ear. "Talent and cleverness, yes indeed, and quite a fair amount of brains to go with. What's that I see there at the back? Hoping to clean up a tarnished name, to prove yourself despite your origins? Most intriguing. One might almost say brave."
I'd really rather not Gryffindor, if you don't mind, Mal thought carefully. It'd be fun with my friends, even if we did have to avoid that Hermione Granger, but...
"Yes, I see, you have plans of your own. They all do, and none of them want to listen to the old Hat, no, they don't." The Hat sighed. "Well, you've obviously worked hard to get where you are, you'd fit in well enough where you want to be, and at least you were polite about it. You wouldn't believe the amount of shouting I have to put up with. All right, then. HUFFLEPUFF!"
Mal had to grab the edges of the stool to avoid falling off it in relief as the table on the far right burst into cheers. Professor McGonagall pulled the Hat off his head and looked at him searchingly. He gave her his cheekiest grin, slid to the floor, and took off at a run.
I did it. I'm in. I have to write to Tonks before I go to bed, she'll be over the moon without a broomstick...
As he squeezed in between a curly-haired boy who was staring awestruck at the floating candles and a girl with a long plait down her back, Mal noticed a blond third year staring fixedly at him from across the table. "Something for you?" he asked.
"What's a Malfoy doing here?" said the boy loudly, though his voice was slightly eclipsed by the Hat's "RAVENCLAW!" for Lillian Moon. "I thought your family considered us the wrong sort."
"You have the advantage of me," Mal said, letting a bit of his mother's favorite icy politeness seep into his tone.
"Smith, Amos Smith. If it's any of your business."
"We're Housemates now, so why wouldn't it be? As for the wrong sort..." Mal paused after the word and let his eyes drift back to the stool and Hat, now both in use by Theodore Nott. Several people laughed.
"Maybe my family will think it's wrong," Mal went on, smiling to himself as the Hat bellowed "SLYTHERIN!" and Nott gave up his place to Pansy Parkinson. "But for me, it's just right."