The Leaky Cauldron was still as gloomy as it had been when they walked through it earlier that day, but Lizzie still liked it. She looked around and saw Draco waving frantically at her.

"They're over there," she said, pointing the Malfoys out.

They walked over to the table Narcissa had claimed, Lizzie noticing that Lucius had left but decided not to point it out. Ernie however had less tact, "where's Mr Malfoy?"

No tact.

Narcissa smiled gently though, "he had some business to take care of so he had to go home."

Ernie nodded, but Lizzie looked towards Draco, who didn't seem to be overly happy about it. She made a mental note to ask him about it all.

"Mrs Zabini and Blaise should be here soon. I thought that us mothers would leave you children to yourselves and sit at another table?" She looked to Sophia for confirmation on whether or not it was a good idea, who nodded. "That's what we'll do when they get here." The children nodded and sat silently, letting their mother's talk about topics they didn't understand.

Blaise and Mrs Zabini arrived a few minutes later, Narcissa and Sophia standing to greet them before seating Blaise at the same table as the children and moving to one about 10 feet away.

Draco started talking animatedly to Blaise, leaving Lizzie and Ernie sat awkwardly.

"How have you been?"

"I've been good, mother's been meeting with another suitor (A/N wasn't sure if this was the right word to use but felt right)."

"What's he like?"

"This one's much like the others, wealthy and good looking."

"At least you know your mother has a type." That made Lizzie roll her eyes, he had no tact whatsoever.

Blaise scowled slightly at that. 'See,' Lizzie thought, 'no tact.'

Wanting to put an end to Blaise's suffering, Lizzie kicked Draco under the table and sent him a look that quite clearly said 'remember other people exist'. Draco smirked but did introduce them.

"Blaise, this is my friend Elizabeth Macmillan," Blaise sent Lizzie a warm smile, "and this is her brother Ernest Macmillan." Draco sounded extremely bored at having to introduce Ernie and Lizzie knew they still weren't on the best of terms, Ernie glared at Draco for calling him Ernest, and Blaise gave Ernie a curt nod. Lizzie rolled her eyes again, this was going to be interesting.

"It's nice to make your acquaintance, Blaise." Why did Ernie have to sound so very pompous and formal? Lizzie saw Draco and Blaise meet one another's eyes and smirk and decided to opt for a small smile rather than saying anything.

"Any idea what house you'll be in at Hogwarts?" Blaise asked, getting straight onto the topic of school.

Draco practically glowed at this point, "Slytherin for sure, you know that, Blaise."

Blaise laughed, "I know, I will be too. I was asking Lizzie." Lizzie noticed how he left Ernie out of the conversation.

Ernie appeared to completely ignore this and decided to force his way into the conversation. "I, personally, don't know which house we'll be in. I don't know whether we'll even be in the same house."

Blaise nodded, "good to know, Lizzie, what do you think?"

Lizzie jolted, realising she had been daydreaming for a second, "oh, I'm not really sure, we've never spoken about what houses our family have been in."

Blaise and Draco both looked shocked.

"You've never spoken about it?" Draco spluttered.

Lizzie glanced at Ernie, "well no… it's never come up."

"Not ever?" Blaise asked, sounding equally confused.

Ernie cut in again, "it hasn't ever come up. We've never given it much thought."

Lizzie rolled her eyes at their reactions; it wasn't the most important thing in the world, why were they acting like it was?

"Why are you acting like this is the end of the world?" she questioned, they were ridiculous.

"Because it's our Hogwarts house! It's important!" Draco squeaked, he actually squeaked.

Blaise, Lizzie, and Ernie laughed, causing Draco to glare at them all. Their laugher continued for a few minutes before Blaise eventually calmed down enough to talk again.

"Which house would you want to be in?"

Lizzie opened her mouth to reply but Ernie got ahead of her, "they're all good, they each have their own qualities to them."

Draco snorted, "except Hufflepuff."

Ernie stared at him, dumbfounded, "Hufflepuff's are loyal and honest."

"Hufflepuff's are a bunch of duffers."

Lizzie could see Ernie was slowly getting angry and decided to change the subject before things got too heated, "so Blaise, have you done much this summer?"

Blaise threw her a look that showed he knew exactly what she had done, but answered her anyway to help relieve some of the tension growing at the table, "I went to the Malfoys summer ball, same as you, other than that I've only really been owling Draco."

Lizzie nodded in response, she wasn't really sure what else to say.

"How about you?" she felt relieved when he made an effort to continue the conversation.

"Same as you, I've been doing a bit of reading as well though."

"What have you been reading?"

"Lizzie's a big reader; she spends most of her time in her room reading actually. When we're not eating meals she's either there or in the library." Ernie had joined the conversation.

"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them', I'm an animal fan," Lizzie ignored Ernie's comment and said with a smile.

"I didn't know that?" Draco had also joined the conversation.

Lizzie turned to face him, "you've never asked me about my interests."

Draco let out a small "oh" and looked down at his hands.

Blaise was smirking at him, "he's not the best conversationalist is he?"

Lizzie let out a laugh, "he is when the subject revolves around him," and they all fell about laughing again, Draco included this time albeit a tad reluctantly.

"Boys and Elizabeth," Narcissa had come over to their table, "do you want any food or drinks?"

"Pumpkin juice," Draco and Blaise chorused.

"Oh, umm same for me, please," Lizzie said.

"And me, please," echoed Ernie.

Narcissa nodded, "four pumpkin juices, any food?"

The children all looked at one another before Draco turned to face his mother, "no food."

"But thank you for the offer," Ernie added, and apparently that simple statement was enough to cause another glaring match between him and Draco.

Lizzie rolled her eyes and caught Blaise's stare. "Are they always like this?" he asked, using his eyes to gesture towards the pair having a glaring match.

"Basically, yes."

"How long have they known each other?"

"They met for the second time today, and that was when I properly introduced them."

"So you're closer to Draco than your brother is?"

Lizzie looked towards the boys who were still glaring at each other, "no," the sarcasm in her voice was evident, "they're best friends."

That broke the boys out of their staring contest, "we're what?" Ernie asked, seeming genuinely confused. Blaise and Lizzie laughed in response, neither of them able to take the other two seriously enough to answer.

When the pair finally calmed down enough to give coherent answers Blaise answered Ernie, "Lizzie was just saying how you two are obviously best friends."

The look of matching disgust on both boys' faces sent Blaise and Lizzie into fits of laughter again.

At this point Narcissa returned with their pumpkin juices and set them down on the table, providing a sufficient distraction from Draco and Ernie's dislike of one another. Lizzie took a small sip, trying to think of a way to continue the conversation but make both Draco and Ernie feel included, without causing a spat between them both. Anything to do with Hogwarts was out given Draco's strong view on the houses and Ernie's distaste for Slytherin (although she wasn't entirely sure why he disliked it so much, she made a mental note to ask him about it later).

Blaise seemed to have a similar feeling towards Ernie as Draco did, as he tried to engage Lizzie in conversation again, leaving Ernie to sit quietly beside him.

"What do you like reading? Other than 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them', I mean."

"Anything that means I can learn something new. I enjoy history and stuff but Ernie's better at that than I am. He prefers learning about our family's history and the history of different places, I assume you've already done all the reading you can about Hogwarts?" she asked, turning to him in an attempt to include him in the conversation.

"What?" he looked confused at the question, "oh, yes but we don't have very much on it in our library. Any history books we have our mostly on our family."

"Then why don't you know what house you might be in?" Draco asked with a smirk.

Lizzie glared at him but Ernie answered the question in quite a calm manner, "our family never felt something as trivial at their Hogwarts house would be crucial to understanding our actions in the past."

Lizzie felt some small sense of smug satisfaction as Draco spluttered to find a response.

"How much do you know about your family's history, Blaise?" Ernie asked, and Lizzie felt proud of her twin for not backing down against the boys.

"I know a bit, but not much," Blaise admitted.

"And how about you, Draco?"

"I know all I need to." Lizzie rolled her eyes, that meant practically nothing.

Ernie obviously worked that out too as he simply nodded as a way of replying.

A silence enveloped the group and nobody attempted to break it. It seemed they had all worked out that there was no way to have a conversation with the entire group without Draco, Ernie, and Blaise ending up fighting in some way (even if that way was just glares). Lizzie wished that they could maybe just get over their differences but she knew some people just couldn't get on. No matter what happened she knew she could talk to any of the boys, but she knew that Ernie could only talk to her. It made her want to face palm, and to roll her eyes, and to do anything else that could convey the irritation she felt at them.

Blaise broke the silence by talking to her again, apparently deciding to broach the subject of Hogwarts again, "what are you most looking forward to about going to Hogwarts?"

She thought for a few seconds, "learning new things and how to fully control my magic, what about you?"

"Ruling the school as a Slytherin," he said, laughing as he nudged Draco in the side. Lizzie rolled her eyes and elbowed Ernie as he opened his mouth to respond; luckily he got the idea and shut up which allowed Lizzie to give her own response.

"Yes, because it's not like you're only a first year… obviously first years are going to be ruling the school this year."

'The idea was ridiculous of course', she thought, 'no seventh year is going to bow down to a first year'.

"Well I don't mean ruling the school as first years; I mean as Slytherins we'll be better than everyone else."

'Conceited much,' Lizzie thought. Don't get her wrong, she liked them both but she could see that quickly changing if they kept being this up themselves.

"You keep those thoughts in your head, Blaise. We'll see what happens when we get to Hogwarts."

Draco looked slightly shocked, "you mean you don't think you'll be in Slytherin?"

"I don't know, but it's only a 25% chance." Privately she didn't want to be in Slytherin if everyone acted like this.

"You're pureblood though, right?" Blaise asked.

For once that day Lizzie was glad Ernie spoke up, "being pureblood doesn't guarantee that you get into Slytherin."

"Well no," Blaise admitted, "but it helps."

"Probably yes," Ernie continued, "but it doesn't guarantee anything."

Blaise relented at this point and another silence stretched over the table.

This silence probably would have continued for much longer if Lizzie and Ernie's mother hadn't walked over, "Elizabeth, Ernest, say goodbye to Blaise and Draco, we need to go home."

"Does she have to go?" Draco whined.

Lizzie smiled at him, "we'll talk later."

Draco pouted and Blaise laughed, "is it okay if I owl you, Lizzie?"

That changed Draco's attitude, "what?"

Lizzie shot him a confused look but ignored him, "yes, Blaise, that's fine. Bye," she finished with a wave.

Ernie gave them both a half-hearted wave before following his mother and Lizzie.

"What are you doing? She's my friend, not yours," she heard Draco say Blaise as they walked out of the pub, but they were too far away for her to hear Blaise's response. She did glance back however, and caught Ernie's eye, showing her that he had heard what Draco said too.


Once they'd apparated home Lizzie had gone straight up to her room to begin reading one of her new books. There wasn't much point in doing this but she wanted to, just in case it helped her in the long run whilst at school and it wouldn't hurt to learn something new.

She'd been reading 'Magical Theory' by Adalbert Waffling for about 12 pages when there was a knock at her door.

"Who is it?" she called, not looking away from her book and continuing to read onto the next page whilst she waited for whoever it was to answer.

"It's me, Ernie, can I come in?" he sounded nervous.

Lizzie grabbed blindly on her bedside table for a bookmark, and upon finding one placed it in the book; that done she closed it and pushed herself up into a sitting position on her bed.

"Come in," she called, shuffling over to sit on the side of her bed closest to her desk chair.

Ernie walked in, almost dragging his feet, and went straight to her desk chair, sitting down and turning it to face Lizzie.

"What's wrong?" there was no point beating about the bush, obviously he wanted to speak to her about something.

"About today, in The Leaky Cauldron…" Ernie trailed off and hung his head.

"Ernie, I'm sorry you had to go through that."

Ernie raised his head slightly, "it's not your fault, you did your best."

Lizzie still felt ashamed, "I could have spoken to you more."

"You spoke to me as much as you could."

"I could have stood up for you."

"I'll admit, that you could have done."

"And I'm sorry I didn't."

"I forgive you, it's difficult with everything our parents are doing."

"I've been going against them enough already, I could have done it some more."

Ernie laughed at that, "probably not the best idea for you to do that."

Lizzie had to laugh too, "you're probably right but still, couldn't have hurt."

"I just don't understand how you could be friends with someone like that."

"I only met Blaise today, I would hardly class us as friends," Lizzie couldn't deny she was slightly confused but what Ernie was saying. However, she also knew that he was talking about Draco more than Blaise and she just didn't want to admit it.

"I meant Malfoy," Ernie snapped.

"I know, and I'm sorry I didn't get there quicker, but there is no need to snap at me, Ernie. I am your sister, I don't want anything bad to happen to you."

He did look ashamed of himself, "I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted, just remember it is my choice to be friends with Draco."

"Lizzie, he's horrible!"

It was her turn to look ashamed, "I know he is, but he can be nice." Ernie opened his mouth to say something but Lizzie ploughed on, "I know how that sounds, I do, but after today I'm going to say something to him. I'm not willing to be friends with someone who acts like that."

"Wait, so you don't want to be his friend anymore?"

"Not if he's going to act like that!" she screeched (she wasn't sure why she screeched but she screeched). "You are my brother and if he can't be at least civil to you then I don't want to be his friend."

"So I don't need to tell you the speech I worked out?"

"No, but I'm sure it was a lovely speech." Any tension between them dissolved at this point, and she knew everything was okay with Ernie again.

Ernie smiled, "it was a nice speech, and had a bit of emotional blackmail in it."

Lizzie leaned back to rest on her elbows, "emotional blackmail? You've been learning quite a bit from Draco apparently."

Ernie stuck his tongue out in disgust, "I doubt it."

"Then you must have learnt it from me," Lizzie said, laughing.

"I doubt that too, you're not that great to be an inspiration to me."

Lizzie gaped at that, unable to reply.

"See? What kind of inspiration can't think of a witty comeback?"

Her witty comeback this time was to throw a pillow at him. Her aim was spot on though and she hit him square in the face.

"Wow, Lizzie. Really mature that."

Lizzie smirked, "I am mature."

"Sure, whatever. Mature people definitely throw pillows as a solution."

He was hit by another one.

"Will you stop that?"

And another.

"Are you going to stop now?"

"I have no choice, I'm out of pillows."

"Really?"

"Don't you dare," she could see Ernie reaching for the pillows.

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Because I'm your sister and an inspiration."

"Not a good enough reason", all three were thrown in a matter of seconds, though his aim wasn't as good as hers so they didn't exactly hit her in the face.

"Great aim there."

"Shut up," but he was smiling.

A comfortable silence fell over the two of them, or at least there was one until there came another small knock on the door.

"Miss Lizzie, an owl and a letter have come for you."

Ernie met Lizzie's eyes, "guess that's Malfoy or Zabini."

"If it's Draco I promise I'll tell him not to be that mean or I won't be his friend anymore. If it's Blaise then I'll bring it up and show my dislike about how Draco and he acted today."

"You'd do that?"

"You're my brother, of course I would."

"Miss Lizzie, can Minky enter your room?"

She'd forgotten about Minky, "sorry, Minky, of course you can."

The door opened and Minky slowly walked in, Draco's owl on top of her head as usual.

"I'll leave you to your letter then, good luck." Ernie walked out, saying a quick hello to Minky as he did so.

"Minky, could we see about getting an perch for him or something? So he doesn't have to sit on my desk whenever he's here."

"Minky will look into it."

"Thank you," Minky gave her the letter and the owl moved to stand on her desk.

"Does Miss Lizzie need anything else?"

"No, Minky, but thank you."

"Goodbye, Miss" and with that she disappeared.

Lizzie walked over and sat on her desk, turning Draco's letter over in her hands. She wanted to read it, but she didn't want to in case he felt completely justified for how he had acted that day. No, she had to read his letter and see if he even decided to bring it up. Lizzie slowly opened the envelope and unfolded his letter.

Elizabeth,

I'm going to start by apologising for my behaviour towards your brother. No matter what my opinion is towards him I shouldn't have acted that way in front of you. In the future I will attempt to not do that again.

Reading between the lines, Lizzie noticed that he said he wouldn't do it in front of her rather than he wouldn't do it at all.

I do want to continue being your friend so if you can find it in your heart to forgive me then please let me know.

'What a drama queen,' Lizzie thought with a roll of her eyes.

Yours faithfully,

Draco Malfoy

'Short and to the point,' Lizzie noted. She leant back in her chair and covered her face with her hands, letting out a groan. First she would talk to Ernie and get his advice, but she wanted to make Draco sweat a bit. She would reply tomorrow.