Disclaimer: Hmm, still don't own them.
Author's Note: Thank you soooooo much to all you guys who reviewed! I was so excitied to hear from you all! I'm glad you all like my story and that you think my characterizations of all the people were good (I was worried about that because I usually tend to write kind of OOC). I hope you all read the reformatted one (I was having, erm, difficulties). Two things I wanted to clear up, though:
To koashura: Yes, I'm sorry, you're right. Draco would have graduated. I had made them all sixth-years, but then I wasn't sure if Hermione and Harry could be Head Girl and a prefect. Sorry if I confused anybody!
To Isadora Angel: I'm sorry if I confused you. I changed the cup to the snitch so that the Hogwarts gang would have never met any of the folks from Durmstrang. I changed the whole Triwizard Tournament to a very, very big snitch tournament with the final match between the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs. Hope that clears things up.
Sorry about the very long note; onto the story!
CHAPTER 2
Harry, Hermione, and Ron went about their day as usual. It was the last of the Yule holidays and all the students who had gone home were coming back.
Hermione got the other two to go to the library for some extra studying. After about an hour and a half, the boys finally snuck off and went flying. When they returned back to the common room, they found Hermione curled up with a book, reading. Harry and Ron opted not to bother and, instead, played a game of chess. While Harry was slowly improving, he wasn't losing as fast as he used to, he was still losing every single time. They only played one game before realizing how hungry they were.
After coaxing Hermione away from her book, the three Gryffindors all went down to the Great Hall for lunch. After lunch, the three friends went back up to the common room. They were playing their third game of Exploding Snap when the first of their friends started to arrive. Seamus and Dean had gone to Ireland together with Seamus' family; Ginny had gone to America with a friend; the Creevy brothers had gone to France. Immediately the two brothers brought out their pictures of the trip.
By the time they had gone through all six rolls of film, all of the Gryffindor house was crowded into the common. It was then that Harry decided to tell them the news.
"Hey, everybody," Harry caught everybody's attention by standing on a chair and waving his hands, smiling nervously.
"Hi, Harry!" they all chorused back, smiling and laughing.
"Yesterday Professor Dumbledore had an announcement and all the House prefects are supposed to spread the message," Harry paused, unsure as how to say this.
His pause lengthened as his hesitation grew.
Suddenly a voice yelled out, "Just spit it out, Harry. The suspense is killing us!"
There was laughter and some eye-rolling at Seamus' dramatics, but they were all as eager to know what Dumbledore had said.
Harry decided to take Seamus' advice, "Alright, then...there's a new student coming today at dinner."
Immediately there were whispers throughtout the room.
"A new student?"
"But can they-"
"Transfer?"
"In the middle of-"
"I thought that-"
Harry cleared his throat, attracting their attention once more. "That's not all. The new student is the son of Lucius Malfoy."
This time there were no whispers. Just a shocked silence before cries of outrage filled the room.
As Harry's attempts to calm the pandemonium proved to be futile, Hermione took his place on the chair.
"Hey! Quiet!" Hermione shouted above the din.
You could have heard a pin drop. Hermione was a girl to be feared.
"Thank you," she cleared her throat primly before continuing.
"Now there's no good reason for everybody to get in such an uproar."
As some of the Gryffindors began to protest that there was a good reason to 'get in such an uproar', they were immediately silenced as Hermione turned a stern glare on them.
She continued, "As I was saying, there's no good reason for you all to act like this. Yes, he's Lucius Malfoy's son. But there's nothing we can do about it. Besides, we all trust Dumbledore with our lives, right? Right?"
She waited until they had all murmured out an agreement.
"Right," she nodded decisively, "And therefore we should trust him about this. Now, it's time for dinner, so I suggest," she meant order, "that we all go down to the Great Hall, eat dinner, and wait until he arrives."
They all agreed, not out of deference to Hermione's wishes as she thought, but to the thought of food and the anticipation of the new student's arrival.
With Harry, Hermione, and Ron leading the procession, the entire house made their way to the Great Hall. All the other houses were already seated, waiting for the Gryffindors to arrive. The Hufflepuffs gave them a smile, the Ravenclaws nodded their heads toward them, and the Slytherins sneered at them.
They had all just started eating when they heard the doors creak open. It was a quiet noise, but everyone in the Hall heard and they all turned their heads towards the doors.
~*~*~*~
As Draco slipped through the doors, he found himself facing hundreds of strangers, their eyes all fixated on him. He didn't bat an eyelash, although his heart was secretly pounding away in his chest, but just moved aside so that Snape could follow him in, and walked to the end of Slytherin table and sat down.
Snape strode to the professor's table and nodded almost imperceptibly to Dumbledore.
The headmaster stood up and all the heads swiveled from the back of the Hall to the front.
"Ah, yes," as usual, the Headmaster's eyes were twinkling brightly. "It appears our new student has arrived. As I expect your house prefects have already told you, his name is Draco Malfoy and he's just transferred here from...Durmstrang, is it?"
Draco nodded, his face a serene lake, knowing perfectly well that the headmaster knew what his previous school had been.
"Good. We all hope you get settled in nicely and have a wonderful rest of a year here at Hogwarts," he toasted, raising his goblet of pumpkin juice in the air.
All the students and professors followed suit.
After Dumbledore sat down, an uneasy silence followed.
Draco, of course, knew this was because of his presence. He ignored the rest of the student body and finished his dinner at his pace. Despite his facade of nonchalance, their conspicuous staring was starting to annoy him, but he was determined not to let them dictate the speed at which he ate. In fact, in his effort to not appear to rush through his meal, he began to eat unusually slow.
However, he did not have much food on his plate to begin with, so his plate was cleared off in a few minutes. He stood up and walked back out the doors, his robes swirling and his shoes clicking off the stone floor. All the students watched his departure silently.
The moment the door shut behind him, the Hall erupted in noise.
~*~*~*~
"So that's the Malfoy spawn," Ron sneered.
For once Hermione didn't bother to scold him, "I guess so."
"He's just what I expected, maybe even worse. I mean, did you see him? All stuck up with his nose in the air. Interrupting our dinner and not even acknowledging it! Strutting in here like he owns the place. And sitting with those Slytherins like he belongs there. Then-"
"Um, Ron? He is in the Slytherin house," Hermione interjected. "Did you think he'd be in any other house? Where else would a Malfoy go? Hufflepuff?"
Harry and Ron both snorted in laughter at the thought.
"Besides, we were all staring it him. It must have been uncomfortable."
Ron's laughter disappeared, "Hermione! Why are you defending him?"
"Ron, sweetie, you shouldn't prejudge people. All I'm saying is that we don't really know him, so until then, we shouldn't treat him like dirt."
Ron muttered his breath, "Yeah, until then."
Hermione ignored him, "I mean it, Ron. You and I both know what it's like to be judged based on what others say. The Slytherins call me Mudblood and they're always picking on you because your family's poor.
Ron started to protest, but Harry interjected.
"Come on, you guys, let's not fight over a Malfoy," Harry was used to playing peacemaker between his two friends. Since the two had officially begun dating halfway through their fifth year, the two continued to bicker just as much as they always had, if not more.
"Yeah, sure, fine," Ron rolled his eyes, but then smiled and kissed his girlfriend on the cheek to let her know he wasn't really angry.
Hermione simply smiled at him and took a sip from her pumpkin juice.
With the argument dissolved, the three friends began to listen to what their housemates thought about this new student.
The first through third years were already positively petrified. Malfoy hadn't even said anything really, but they knew he was trouble and they were dreafully anticipating the horrors he would enact upon them.
The fourth through seventh years were not taking Hermione's advice and had gotten a head start insulting the Slytherin. Some, like Ron, were incredulous at Dumbledore's decision to allow the Malfoy to attend Hogwarts.
Dean and Seamus, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind that the new student was a Malfoy. They had more important things on their minds.
"So is Malfoy going to play quidditch?"
Dean shrugged, "I don't know. Probably. You know, Viktor Krum was from Durmstrang. Graduated from there four years ago, I think."
"Really? Viktor Krum? The Viktor Krum? As in the-Bulgarian-seeker-who-won- the-last-two-Quidditch-World-Cups Krum? As in the-youngest-seeker-ever-to- play-in-the-Quidditch-World-Cup Krum," both of Seamus' eyebrows were raised, attesting to his disbelief.
"Yes, that Krum," Dean's calm voice in complete opposite from his boyfriend's.
"Krum? He played during that game we saw during our fourth year, right?" Harry joined in.
"Yes, him," Dean repeated.
"Wait, Viktor Krum is from Durmstrang?" Ron jumped in, too.
"Yes, he is," Dean repeated, again.
"But what does that have to do with Malfoy?" Seamus had recovered from his surprise to get back to their original topic.
Dean shrugged, "I don't know. Maybe Malfoy had Krum train him."
"So you think Malfoy's a seeker, then?"
"Probably. He's too small to play Beater or Keeper or even Chaser."
Seamus grinned madly, "Great! Maybe then Gryffindor will finally have some competition. The only competition we ever had was C-"
Dean pinched his boyfriend hard on his thigh. Seamus whipped his head to the side to look at Dean while resentfully rubbing his thigh.
"Ow! What was that-oh. Oops," he looked properly chagrined and flicked his eyes toward Harry, who was sitting across from them, "Sorry, Harry."
Harry managed a weak smile, "It's okay, Seamus."
Seamus didn't have to finish the name, but they all knew who he meant. Cedric Diggory. The one seeker who had managed to catch the Snitch before Harry Potter.
"Well, we probably don't have to worry about Malfoy, anyway. His father probably bought him on to the team or something," Dean tried to cover Seamus' faux pas.
"Yeah, probably," Seamus agreed.
"So, how did you know Krum was from Durmstrang, Dean?" Ron asked, trying to salvage their conversation.
"Oh well, I was..." and Dean started into an elaborate story to explain this tidbit of knowledge.
The boys, including Harry after a moment, forgot about this strange new student and entered into a passionate conversation about quidditch. Hermione, put out, disdainfully muttered something about boys and quidditch while she stabbed at her dinner with her fork.
TBC
P.S. Anyone want to beta my story? If so, please email me.
Author's Note: Thank you soooooo much to all you guys who reviewed! I was so excitied to hear from you all! I'm glad you all like my story and that you think my characterizations of all the people were good (I was worried about that because I usually tend to write kind of OOC). I hope you all read the reformatted one (I was having, erm, difficulties). Two things I wanted to clear up, though:
To koashura: Yes, I'm sorry, you're right. Draco would have graduated. I had made them all sixth-years, but then I wasn't sure if Hermione and Harry could be Head Girl and a prefect. Sorry if I confused anybody!
To Isadora Angel: I'm sorry if I confused you. I changed the cup to the snitch so that the Hogwarts gang would have never met any of the folks from Durmstrang. I changed the whole Triwizard Tournament to a very, very big snitch tournament with the final match between the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs. Hope that clears things up.
Sorry about the very long note; onto the story!
CHAPTER 2
Harry, Hermione, and Ron went about their day as usual. It was the last of the Yule holidays and all the students who had gone home were coming back.
Hermione got the other two to go to the library for some extra studying. After about an hour and a half, the boys finally snuck off and went flying. When they returned back to the common room, they found Hermione curled up with a book, reading. Harry and Ron opted not to bother and, instead, played a game of chess. While Harry was slowly improving, he wasn't losing as fast as he used to, he was still losing every single time. They only played one game before realizing how hungry they were.
After coaxing Hermione away from her book, the three Gryffindors all went down to the Great Hall for lunch. After lunch, the three friends went back up to the common room. They were playing their third game of Exploding Snap when the first of their friends started to arrive. Seamus and Dean had gone to Ireland together with Seamus' family; Ginny had gone to America with a friend; the Creevy brothers had gone to France. Immediately the two brothers brought out their pictures of the trip.
By the time they had gone through all six rolls of film, all of the Gryffindor house was crowded into the common. It was then that Harry decided to tell them the news.
"Hey, everybody," Harry caught everybody's attention by standing on a chair and waving his hands, smiling nervously.
"Hi, Harry!" they all chorused back, smiling and laughing.
"Yesterday Professor Dumbledore had an announcement and all the House prefects are supposed to spread the message," Harry paused, unsure as how to say this.
His pause lengthened as his hesitation grew.
Suddenly a voice yelled out, "Just spit it out, Harry. The suspense is killing us!"
There was laughter and some eye-rolling at Seamus' dramatics, but they were all as eager to know what Dumbledore had said.
Harry decided to take Seamus' advice, "Alright, then...there's a new student coming today at dinner."
Immediately there were whispers throughtout the room.
"A new student?"
"But can they-"
"Transfer?"
"In the middle of-"
"I thought that-"
Harry cleared his throat, attracting their attention once more. "That's not all. The new student is the son of Lucius Malfoy."
This time there were no whispers. Just a shocked silence before cries of outrage filled the room.
As Harry's attempts to calm the pandemonium proved to be futile, Hermione took his place on the chair.
"Hey! Quiet!" Hermione shouted above the din.
You could have heard a pin drop. Hermione was a girl to be feared.
"Thank you," she cleared her throat primly before continuing.
"Now there's no good reason for everybody to get in such an uproar."
As some of the Gryffindors began to protest that there was a good reason to 'get in such an uproar', they were immediately silenced as Hermione turned a stern glare on them.
She continued, "As I was saying, there's no good reason for you all to act like this. Yes, he's Lucius Malfoy's son. But there's nothing we can do about it. Besides, we all trust Dumbledore with our lives, right? Right?"
She waited until they had all murmured out an agreement.
"Right," she nodded decisively, "And therefore we should trust him about this. Now, it's time for dinner, so I suggest," she meant order, "that we all go down to the Great Hall, eat dinner, and wait until he arrives."
They all agreed, not out of deference to Hermione's wishes as she thought, but to the thought of food and the anticipation of the new student's arrival.
With Harry, Hermione, and Ron leading the procession, the entire house made their way to the Great Hall. All the other houses were already seated, waiting for the Gryffindors to arrive. The Hufflepuffs gave them a smile, the Ravenclaws nodded their heads toward them, and the Slytherins sneered at them.
They had all just started eating when they heard the doors creak open. It was a quiet noise, but everyone in the Hall heard and they all turned their heads towards the doors.
~*~*~*~
As Draco slipped through the doors, he found himself facing hundreds of strangers, their eyes all fixated on him. He didn't bat an eyelash, although his heart was secretly pounding away in his chest, but just moved aside so that Snape could follow him in, and walked to the end of Slytherin table and sat down.
Snape strode to the professor's table and nodded almost imperceptibly to Dumbledore.
The headmaster stood up and all the heads swiveled from the back of the Hall to the front.
"Ah, yes," as usual, the Headmaster's eyes were twinkling brightly. "It appears our new student has arrived. As I expect your house prefects have already told you, his name is Draco Malfoy and he's just transferred here from...Durmstrang, is it?"
Draco nodded, his face a serene lake, knowing perfectly well that the headmaster knew what his previous school had been.
"Good. We all hope you get settled in nicely and have a wonderful rest of a year here at Hogwarts," he toasted, raising his goblet of pumpkin juice in the air.
All the students and professors followed suit.
After Dumbledore sat down, an uneasy silence followed.
Draco, of course, knew this was because of his presence. He ignored the rest of the student body and finished his dinner at his pace. Despite his facade of nonchalance, their conspicuous staring was starting to annoy him, but he was determined not to let them dictate the speed at which he ate. In fact, in his effort to not appear to rush through his meal, he began to eat unusually slow.
However, he did not have much food on his plate to begin with, so his plate was cleared off in a few minutes. He stood up and walked back out the doors, his robes swirling and his shoes clicking off the stone floor. All the students watched his departure silently.
The moment the door shut behind him, the Hall erupted in noise.
~*~*~*~
"So that's the Malfoy spawn," Ron sneered.
For once Hermione didn't bother to scold him, "I guess so."
"He's just what I expected, maybe even worse. I mean, did you see him? All stuck up with his nose in the air. Interrupting our dinner and not even acknowledging it! Strutting in here like he owns the place. And sitting with those Slytherins like he belongs there. Then-"
"Um, Ron? He is in the Slytherin house," Hermione interjected. "Did you think he'd be in any other house? Where else would a Malfoy go? Hufflepuff?"
Harry and Ron both snorted in laughter at the thought.
"Besides, we were all staring it him. It must have been uncomfortable."
Ron's laughter disappeared, "Hermione! Why are you defending him?"
"Ron, sweetie, you shouldn't prejudge people. All I'm saying is that we don't really know him, so until then, we shouldn't treat him like dirt."
Ron muttered his breath, "Yeah, until then."
Hermione ignored him, "I mean it, Ron. You and I both know what it's like to be judged based on what others say. The Slytherins call me Mudblood and they're always picking on you because your family's poor.
Ron started to protest, but Harry interjected.
"Come on, you guys, let's not fight over a Malfoy," Harry was used to playing peacemaker between his two friends. Since the two had officially begun dating halfway through their fifth year, the two continued to bicker just as much as they always had, if not more.
"Yeah, sure, fine," Ron rolled his eyes, but then smiled and kissed his girlfriend on the cheek to let her know he wasn't really angry.
Hermione simply smiled at him and took a sip from her pumpkin juice.
With the argument dissolved, the three friends began to listen to what their housemates thought about this new student.
The first through third years were already positively petrified. Malfoy hadn't even said anything really, but they knew he was trouble and they were dreafully anticipating the horrors he would enact upon them.
The fourth through seventh years were not taking Hermione's advice and had gotten a head start insulting the Slytherin. Some, like Ron, were incredulous at Dumbledore's decision to allow the Malfoy to attend Hogwarts.
Dean and Seamus, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind that the new student was a Malfoy. They had more important things on their minds.
"So is Malfoy going to play quidditch?"
Dean shrugged, "I don't know. Probably. You know, Viktor Krum was from Durmstrang. Graduated from there four years ago, I think."
"Really? Viktor Krum? The Viktor Krum? As in the-Bulgarian-seeker-who-won- the-last-two-Quidditch-World-Cups Krum? As in the-youngest-seeker-ever-to- play-in-the-Quidditch-World-Cup Krum," both of Seamus' eyebrows were raised, attesting to his disbelief.
"Yes, that Krum," Dean's calm voice in complete opposite from his boyfriend's.
"Krum? He played during that game we saw during our fourth year, right?" Harry joined in.
"Yes, him," Dean repeated.
"Wait, Viktor Krum is from Durmstrang?" Ron jumped in, too.
"Yes, he is," Dean repeated, again.
"But what does that have to do with Malfoy?" Seamus had recovered from his surprise to get back to their original topic.
Dean shrugged, "I don't know. Maybe Malfoy had Krum train him."
"So you think Malfoy's a seeker, then?"
"Probably. He's too small to play Beater or Keeper or even Chaser."
Seamus grinned madly, "Great! Maybe then Gryffindor will finally have some competition. The only competition we ever had was C-"
Dean pinched his boyfriend hard on his thigh. Seamus whipped his head to the side to look at Dean while resentfully rubbing his thigh.
"Ow! What was that-oh. Oops," he looked properly chagrined and flicked his eyes toward Harry, who was sitting across from them, "Sorry, Harry."
Harry managed a weak smile, "It's okay, Seamus."
Seamus didn't have to finish the name, but they all knew who he meant. Cedric Diggory. The one seeker who had managed to catch the Snitch before Harry Potter.
"Well, we probably don't have to worry about Malfoy, anyway. His father probably bought him on to the team or something," Dean tried to cover Seamus' faux pas.
"Yeah, probably," Seamus agreed.
"So, how did you know Krum was from Durmstrang, Dean?" Ron asked, trying to salvage their conversation.
"Oh well, I was..." and Dean started into an elaborate story to explain this tidbit of knowledge.
The boys, including Harry after a moment, forgot about this strange new student and entered into a passionate conversation about quidditch. Hermione, put out, disdainfully muttered something about boys and quidditch while she stabbed at her dinner with her fork.
TBC
P.S. Anyone want to beta my story? If so, please email me.