Draco wished he could be like Mother, all calm and poised. She never felt afraid or intimidated. And she definitely never felt afraid of going to a new place. He apprehensively eyed the manor they were approaching.
Mrs. Hengistson turned out to be a short witch in some kind of floaty robes the color of dying grass. She wore the same glamoury smile a lot of people had when around Mother and Father. And the fawning tone she used when saying hello was definitely familiar. Mother's cool voice was the one she used when around those purebloods who weren't at her social level.
He tuned them out in favor of listening to the echoey voices of the other children imprisoned somewhere in the building. So many. He hoped they wouldn't be like Pansy, who treated him like he was a mudblood. Or Vincent, who took all his toys and shoved him around. Draco shivered.
Mother frowned down at him and he tilted his chin up like she was always telling him to. Then the slightly shrill tones of Melissa Welshire rescued him. "Narcissa! How lovely to see you here! My goodness, is this Draco? He's certainly grown since last Christmas. Do you remember little Kerri? She's starting her second year today. My, you should hear what she has to say about Mr. Wrinkle…her teacher. I'm sure Draco will love it here."
Draco shifted from one foot to another as the conversation drug on. Mrs. Hengiston glanced unobtrusively at her pocket-watch and seemed to come to a decision. "Mrs. Malfoy, Mrs. Welshire? I apologize for interrupting, but perhaps you would like me to escort young Draco and Kerri to their classrooms?"
Mother waved a dismissive hand. Mrs. Welshire didn't even do that. Draco tried to resist the impulse to look over his shoulder as Mrs. Hengistson led him and Kerri away.
The room she left him at a minute later had walls painted all kinds of bright colors and pictures of black markings here and there. It had several tables, each with three chairs before it. There were two extra chairs next to Vincent, but Draco immediately shied away from that side of the room. The only other seat was an empty next to two children with hair kind of the color of a carrot. He studied them for a minute. They seemed a little unsure about the other children as well. Besides, they were so busy whispering to each other that he didn't think they'd pay any attention to him. He made up his mind and snuck into the chair.
In front of him was a sheet of parchment, a lot of brightly colored quills, and some fat, colored sticks. The orange-hairs were using the quills to make all kinds of marks on their parchments. A voice next to him made him jump. "You must be Draco."
He looked up at a short woman with hair the same color as the two children he was next to. She seemed a little angry. He shrunk into himself and hoped that she'd go away.
Instead, she blinked and seemed a little taken aback. When she spoke again, her voice was much gentler. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you. I'm Mrs. Weasley and I'm your teacher. Did you want to draw a picture with the rest of the children? Ginny, just a minute."
He glanced around for support. "Draw a picture?"
She stared at him. "You've never drawn before?" An odd look crossed her face, then she got down on one knee next to him. "You've seen quills before, right?"
He nodded.
"Good. Now, what's your favorite color?" By this time, both of the children next to him were watching closely. Seeing his uncertainty, Mrs. Weasley went on. "Umm, let's try it this way. Which one of these quills do you like the best?"
He looked them over before picking out a brightly colored one. "This one. It looks happy."
"That one red," put in the girl.
The woman smiled proudly. "That's right, Ginny. Now, Draco; think of something that you want to be red…this color."
He looked tentatively up at her. "A house?"
"That's fine. It's going to be a very cheerful house, I think. Can you use the quill to draw a house on the parchment?"
Feeling a little more confident, he nodded. She smiled at him for the first time. "All right, then. Just draw whatever kind of house you want. And it doesn't have to be just red, either; you can use any of the quills you want."
"An' then you color it wif the crayons," the other boy said eagerly. "See, I made my tree blue!"
Almost before he knew it, Draco's parchment was filled with different pictures and he was having more fun than he'd ever had before. He was actually sorry when Mrs. Weasley called for everyone's attention.
"All right, you lot! I think we've all had fun with the coloring. Now it's time to start learning the alphabet!" She flicked her wand and summoned one of the pictures from the wall on the other side of the room. Another wave, and it suddenly grew a lot larger. "Now, this is the letter 'A'. It has two different sounds: short a, pronounced ahh, and long A, pronounced Ayy. Can you all say the short a? That's very good. Now let's try the looong A…"
Ron stared in shock at the pale boy who'd been sitting next to him and Ginny all day. "You don' know what a food fight is? What d'ya do for fun?"
Draco hunched in on himself again and shrugged. "P'ay with Seeker, watch Mother and Father, talk with Silke."
Ron shook his head and fished a piece of broccoli off his plate. He flicked his wrist and the green stuff hit Draco smack in the face. Draco yelped, "Hey!" He looked down at the stuff and added, "We supposed to eat that."
Ginny made a yucky face. "That boccli! You don' eat dat!" She threw a piece of carrot at Draco.
He looked at them for a minute, then scooped up the broccoli and cradled it in his palm. All of a sudden, his hand shot out and he squished it against Ron's shoulder. Ron shouted and retaliated.
Things were just getting interesting when a burly hand shoved Draco off his seat and grabbed his cookie from the table. Draco looked up at the boy and instantly looked back down at the floor. Ginny, on the other hand, shot to her feet.
"Give dat back!"
Ron glared at the boy, who smirked and shoved the cookie in his mouth. Or tried to. Ron could be pretty strong when he wanted to be and he didn't want that boy eating Draco's cookie. It didn't hurt that Ginny was helping by trying to pry the boy's hand open. Draco was staring in what looked like utter shock. Then…
"What is going on here?" Mum had her hands on her hips and was glaring at the scene. Ron was suddenly conscious of the vegetables in his hair and all over his clothes. But all she did was take the cookie, now rather the worse for wear, and hold it up. "Whose is this?"
The big boy tried to say something, but Ron beat him to it. "That's Draco's. He stoled it!"
Mum nodded slightly. "I see. Vincent, what do you have to say for yourself?"
The boy glared at them and looked sulky. "He wasn' eating it. An' I was still hungry."
Mum glanced over at where the boy had been sitting. "Well, no wonder! You haven't even finished your potatoes yet, much less your vegetables! If you're still not full after that, let me know and I'll get you some more. But I don't allow stealing in this classroom. Is that understood?"
He shifted his feet and muttered something indistinct.
"Vincent?" There was a warning note in her voice.
"All right. I sorry." He glanced back over his shoulder as Mum led him away.
Draco was staring at him and Ginny. "You not scared of him?"
Ginny looked proud. "I not scared a anyfing! Ron either!"
Feeling embarrassed, Ron changed the subject. "You fly?"
Of all the friends for Ron and Ginny to choose, Molly had certainly never expected a Malfoy. But then, he didn't act a thing like his father. Malfoy Sr. was arrogant and cruel. Draco alternated between arrogance and timidity. On rare occasions, always when he was with Ron and Ginny, he even acted like a normal boy.
It made her wonder, sometimes, just what his home life was like. Not abused, she didn't think, but almost certainly neglected. Returning good for evil rarely made a impact in real life, but this was one of those occasions. It gave her a certain satisfaction to be practically rearing the son of the man who'd tried to destroy her husband.
Two weeks into September, Arthur almost floated into the Burrow, snatched up his wife, and started spinning her around; much to the shock of his family. Laughing breathlessly, Molly gave him a kiss, then tried to recompose herself. "What's happened?"
"I've got a job!" he almost sang. "Passed the final test today!"
Molly pressed a hand to her mouth, then shrieked and ran forward to kiss him once more. "I knew you'd do it! Where? And why didn't you tell us before?"
Arthur's grin was splitting his face. "I didn't want to disappoint you in case it didn't work out. But it did, and even my biggest doubters are convinced. You are now looking at the Junior Curse-Creator for Gringotts!"
Molly raised an eyebrow as best she could through laughter. "Curse-Creator? I've heard of Curse-Breaker, but never that one."
He threw himself onto the protesting sofa and pulled her down next to him. By this point, the kids, dog, and puffskein were all hovering around in excitement. Rover, in particular, was bounding around licking every face he could reach. Not that Arthur felt like discouraging the dog.
"It's for the high-security vaults. Mostly they can handle that sort of thing on their own, but sometimes they like a little added protection just in case something gets past the first few thousand curses."
He chuckled. "Number One requirement is creativity. They don't want any old spell that Ginny could break. No, what they want is someone who can come up with effective new enchantments. I've spent the last two weeks proving to them that I was up to it. And my…um, goodness! You should hear what the starting salary is! Half again what I was making at the Ministry. And it'll go up if they're happy with my work."
Molly let out a breathless laugh. "Half…half again…oh, Arthur!" She kissed him once more, much to the disgust of the watching children. Rover barked excitedly and soon children and dog were romping madly in the living room. For once, Molly chose not to break it up.
In the privacy of her quarters, Minerva firmly set three cups down on the tabletop. One, her own, held an Insomnia Potion. The other two were rather foul-smelling pain relievers. The twins took one look and got excited.
"We turn into werewolves tonight?" Terry eagerly enquired. Unfortunately, Minerva had just taken a sip out of her cup and, "Wow, Gran! That hit the bookcase!"
Minerva hastily put the teacup down before she broke it and wondered just how long it'd been since the boys had broken the compulsion Poppy'd put on them. Poppy had said that most children could throw one off around five years or so. This was one record Minerva rather wished the boys hadn't broken. Damage-control time.
"James, Terry, come here for a minute."
They looked up at her over their mugs, but obediently trotted over and flopped down at her feet. She pursed her lips and tried to figure out where to start.
"You two have probably noticed that I don't talk about werewolves, right?" Double nod. "Have you ever wondered why?"
Terry waved his hand in the air. "Because people scared of werewolves!"
She sat up in shock. "Well, I'm afraid that's very true, but where did you hear that?"
The twins glanced at each other and shifted uneasily.
"Was it Remus? Or Snape?"
Immediate shake of the heads, but neither seemed to want to give away their source. She groaned. "Please, I need to know. Who was it?"
Again they shared a glance, but this time James finally spoke up. "Argus," he muttered. "Didn' want us to tell."
Well, that was one mystery solved. Filch wasn't the type to want any of his secrets gossiped around the castle. Particularly if it had anything to do with a soft spot. She'd known since last Christmas that his feelings towards the boys were rather less than hostile, but this was encouraging, for more reasons than one.
"Let me guess, he asked you not to tell anyone, even me, that you and he talked occasionally, right? And this was before last Christmas?"
Both of them were obviously wondering where she was going with this, but they nodded. She leaned in conspiratorially. "Well, now it's my turn to ask you to keep a secret."
Two pairs of eyes lit up in excitement. "As you pointed out, some people are a little worried about werewolves, so we're going to make it our big secret and not tell 'em. Think we can do that?"
Eager nods. James made a zipping motion across his mouth, which Terry copied a second later.
She glanced up at the clock and quickly downed the Insomnia Potion. "All right, you two, let's get down to the shack and turn into werewolves."
"YEAH!"