.. Favorable Encounters ..
Draco, dressed in a pair of soft, tailored grey pants and a red silk shirt with wide lapels, would usually have made a game of walking to breakfast this morning, slipping silently in his warm, quiet socks over the slick marble floors, trying to sneak up behind this house-elf, or that painting; but today, as the golden morning sunlight smiled down upon his corn silk hair, illuminating his luminous pale blue eyes, he strolled past the sweeping banks of windows with an uncharacteristic cheer and spring in his step.
As he passed his father's study, Draco was hailed inside by Lucius, who was reclining in his great winged leather armchair. Behind his magnificently polished desk and the powerful bookshelves on either side of him, Lucius made quite a picture, his shining blond hair clipped short, like a Roman soldier in the days of Augustus, pale eyes glinting proudly down at Draco, who leaned casually against the wide frame of the study door.
"I see you're in a decent mood, boy," he said, not unkindly. "Have a go with the Thomas boy, eh? Well, perhaps you could have done better." He looked Draco up and down appraisingly, his thin lip jutting out just so as he did. "The silk was a good choice today, Draco, very flattering to our complexion and build."
"Yes, indeed," said Draco, holding out an arm for his own benefit, studying the watery creases in the delicately cold fabric. "Is my mother down for breakfast?"
Lucius began to busy himself with paperwork on his desk, appearing for a moment as though he had decided to ignore Draco's question; but he hadn't, and he said, "I haven't the slightest. I've been in here, you see, since the sun rose - and she's had a bit of a lie-in. See for yourself, if you would.You've got two legs, haven't you?"
"Yes, Father, indeed I have. And look, both are the same length, as well, clad in a pair of fine trousers provided by your healthy paycheck."
"Hold your tongue; you're a borderline blasphemer." Lucius looked down his nose at his son and spoke quietly. "If there was one thing the Dark Lord prided himself on, it what providing for his most loyal." He seemed immediately rushed, distracted. "Now, please, get yourself out of my study. There is work to be done, and I haven't time to carry on with you all morning."
Draco rolled away from the door languidly, like some sort of primal cat whose velvet skin is stretched over miles of sinew and taut muscle. He buried his hands in the pockets of his soft trousers, shaking his fringe away from his eyes, and dawdled toward the grand front staircase of the Manor, an elegant structure with a sturdy marble banister curling around with the wall until it met the floor below. Fixed steadily to the rotunda ceiling above, a chandelier peered down at the entry like some omniscient eye made of silver and fire and glass.
Draco loved the Manor. He loved the wealth and splendor which surrounded him on every side, above and below, drowning him in a flurry of marble and silver and silk. He loved its rich solitude, the priceless paintings which did not move for their old, old age, like some ancient stone vampire from one of his Anne Rice novels, which were cleverly hidden away from his parents' knowledge in the false floor of his closet. He loved the scurry of little house-elves' feet as they scrambled to stay out of sight, just a little noise in the grand silence of the Manor, which Draco loved.
He stopped short at the foot of the stairs, his pale eyes narrowing severely at the trunks which stood in a corner of the entry. His school trunks, freshly washed and polished, packed and waiting for the day when Draco would order some house-elf to hoist them onto the train. The trunks seemed to be watching him in the echoing silence, and Draco shrank away from them, fearful that they should leap forward at once and maul him like a wild beast from Hagrid's dreadful, unpredictable lessons.
And then it leapt into the foreground of his memory; he would be returning to Hogwarts soon, return to the monotony of classes and the same miserable, simpering Slytherins with whom he had spent the past six years, and he would be dreadfully bored with the professors and homework and that wretched smell of rotting tea and frigid shades of witches who once had been.
Draco sighed, and forced himself to resume his jaunty stroll on his way into the breakfast room, where he brooded moodily into a steaming plate of egg yolks and sausages and toast.
Sirius burned the eggs that morning. Harry woke with the smell of charred yolks in his nose, the thick smoke from his godfather's culinary disaster hanging in curtains through the room. Harry pushed his hair from his forehead, and he sighed.
Bumping into the dresser at the foot of his bed, Harry somehow managed to stumble into the hall of the tiny flat he and Sirius shared above a Muggle bakery in London near the Leaky Cauldron. His godfather was franticly waving a soiled dishtowel to clear the air around the sink, into which the smoking frying pan had been abandoned; the window had been open, and through this narrow opening he was trying to coax the stained air, flapping this little strip of terrycloth at it with all the enthusiasm he could muster.
"Oi, Sirius, what the hell do you think you're doing?" yelped Harry, seizing the cloth and casting it aside. From the counter, he grabbed an empty pickle jar, into which he poured much water before dumping the entire thing onto the pan in the sink; a tiny flame had started there, adding to the suffocating smell and horrid thick smoke.
"I was just trying to get you some decent breakfast before you leave for the castle this morning." He looked at Harry with soft brown eyes, the innocence of which offset his creased, unshaven features. He defended himself defiantly, "Anyway, I don't see you jumping at the chance to eat something yourself, and you're the one who needs to eat around here!"
"Indeed," muttered Harry darkly, shrugging the wide collar of Dudley's old t-shirt back onto his shoulder.
Eventually, the kitchen cleared out, and, using a fresh pan from the cupboard, scrambled several eggs with a bit of cheese and ham leftover from the supper they had shared with Mundungus Fletcher, an old friend of Sirius'.
The breakfast was quite delicious - Harry had picked up a knack for cooking while living with the Dursleys, who had always made him fix their breakfast for them - but also quite unremarkable in its silence.
When Harry got up from the little table to take his plate to the sink, Sirius said, "Best get dressed now, son. We'll need to get down to the station before noon if you're to catch your train."
"Alright."
"Are you meeting Ron at the station this year?"
"No," said Harry in a tight, clipped voice. "Why would I be?"
Sirius eyed him curiously as Harry ran water over the dishes in the sink, his mug of coffee raised halfway to his lips. "You've been best friends with Weasley for the past seven years. You've always met the whole family at the station." Harry's lips were pursed, thin and grimly white. "What's happened? Had a row with Ron?"
"No."
"Oh.I see. Well, in any case.you should get into some clothes and make sure you're all packed for the term, eh?"
Harry mumbled something unintelligible and stalked through the flat to his bedroom. As Sirius finished his coffee, he sighed.
"James, I've been trying." He looked down the corridor to the closed door that was Harry's. "I just don't want to disappoint you."
"There he is!" Ginny's shrill shout rattled Hermione's nerves as the younger girl leapt from her seat on her ratty-edged trunks. Ginny pointed excitedly as Hermione's dark eyes swept the crowded, noisy platform nervously. Beside them, Ron was leaning against the sturdy brick wall, picking through a box of Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans.
"Where?"
"There, there!" cried Ginny, stifling her urge to point suddenly and jamming her small hands into the pockets of her thin cotton jumper. "He's right there; can't you see him?"
"Where?" Hermione's heart began to pump faster, franticly, desperately, as she strained to pierce the crowd with her determined gaze. "Where, Ginny? I don't see him!"
"He's right in front of you!" she squealed, collapsing back onto her trunk as the crowds parted. There, dressed in his school trousers and a clean white shirt, was Harry, looking coolly about him as he pushed a cart through the throng of wizards and their parents.
"Harry!" called Ron, finally looking up. "Oi, Harry - over here, mate, come on!"
Harry seemed to pause for just a moment, looking from Ron to Hermione and finally to little Ginny, who sat twitching on her trunks, wringing her hands desperately; and then he smiled, pushing forward past a group of third years and their trunks.
"What's taken you so long?" asked Hermione, grasping at his shirt sleeve desperately. "Why didn't you meet us at the station?"
"Didn't you get our owls?"
"Yes," said Harry, "Of course I did - but - I - Sirius, that is - "
"Oh, never mind," broke in Hermione, smiling anxiously. "It doesn't matter, really, does it?"
"Of course not," said Ron, his Every Flavor Beans forgotten on the end of his upturned trunk. "What matters is that we're off to our seventh year - we rule the castle this year! We can do anything."
"We've already done everything," chided Hermione. Harry smiled, and she poked a threatening finger under his nose. "Don't even think about getting any foolish ideas this year, Harry - I refuse to allow any more damage to be done to my permanent record!"
"Whatever you say, Hermione," said Harry, who was winked at by Ron as the two shared a conspiritually wicked grin.
"Great. Just as soon as I think the mischief's left with the twins, you two grin like that and worry me just as much, if not more. May you receive Howlers for all your rotten efforts!"
"Oh, come on, then," said Ron, taking her hand. "Whatever adventures we've got in mind will have nothing to do with you, alright?"
"What?" said Hermione, mock horror shining in her eyes. "And let you boys have all the fun?" She grinned. "Not on your life."
The train seemed to Draco much more worn now than it had in the past, less grand and special. The seats seemed to have faded marginally, the flooring just enough more scuffed to notice the difference, and from all around him, the voices of the other students seemed to be closer in his ear.
And there, through the finger-printed window, Harry Potter seemed happier than he had ever been coming onto the platform with his cart of luggage. Draco watched with narrowed eyes as Potter was greeted boisterously by Weasley and the Mudblood, as Weasley clapped him on the back and the Mudblood, Granger, rose on tiptoe to plant a chaste kiss on Potter's cheek. Potter, ever the noble hero, blushed pink and hugged her close, one of his thin, powerful arms wrapped close around her waist.
Yet - Potter seemed tragically unhappy, as well; Draco could see it in the way he responded to them. When Weasley clapped him again on the back, there, the light in Potter's eyes flickered. Granger's slender hand flattened on Potter's chest, tickling slightly the way a girl's are apt to tease a boy, and Potter shied away just so. Was this the manner in which the Golden Boy of Hogwarts had always responded to his best friends? Draco wasn't sure.
He looked back out the window, eyeing Potter with malevolence, when he caught sight of a young boy who must have been a first year, with he scrambling gait and wide, fearful brown eyes.
The child was small and light of frame, his skin pale and creamy white, his eyes long-lashed and deeply golden brown. His hair was honey-brown in color; or rather, parts of it were. The thick shock of it seemed laced with threads of red and brown and gold, paler in some parts than in others, yet all over lovely and soft-looking. His hands, clasped around the handle of his shiny new trunk, were small and dexterous, fingering the fine leather nervously as he looked around the platform for a friendly face. There was none, and he pressed on, drowning out of sight into the swell of jabbering students.
Draco shook himself as is from a trance. The boy had been beautiful, even more so than the redhead his father had attempted to couple him with at his start-of-term party at the Manor; but in an entirely different, newly intriguing sort of way.
Draco wanted him, he decided, and he closed his eyes, allowing the image of the boy to melt into his eyelids.
William Fitz was a small boy, painfully thin and pale, who had thick yellow- blond hair and a small mouth. He was eleven years old, had no brothers or sisters, and lived with his parents, both of whom were Muggles, and his dog, Arnold, who was a cocker spaniel with red, curly fur.
William Fitz was presently trapped in his seat in the corner of a compartment, the very thick wand of a very thick boy pointed straight at his very small nose, the grunting laughter of another thick boy, this one with a face like a gorilla's, suffocating his rational thought process.
"Well, what in the name of the Dark Lord do you clods of soddy earth think you're doing?" The voice materialized from somewhere on the other side of these mountainous boys; it was thin, pale, and sharp with authority, and at once William's tormentors seemed to forget about the very small boy cowering into the corner of the seat.
"We were only fooling," said the thick boy closest to William, still pointing his wand dangerously close to William's nose.
"Yeah," said the gorilla-faced one, "and we were just about to let him go, too."
"I'm sure." The thick boys moved aside suddenly, and William found himself looking into the pale eyes of a thin boy wearing rich robes and a small silver badge which said 'Prefect' in perfect, glistering letters. His hair shone in the light which fell at a slant through the window, and his eyes seemed so unnaturally pale that they were almost transparent. This pale and perfect boy studied William for a moment, his thin lip curled up slightly in a mean sneer, the rest of his face impassive.
Then he said, "Goyle, give me your wand." The thick boy obeyed readily, though his gaze darkened dully. The wand was slipped into the pale boy's robes, disappearing delicately into the sweeping folds of fabric. "Now, both of you, get out of here." The thick boys paused; his gaze narrowed and he said in a most dangerously soft tone of voice, "Before I have to do something I might not regret later in the afternoon."
William Fitz nearly wet himself with relief as the thick boys clumbered out of his compartment, arguing between themselves in low, rumbling mumbles.
The pale boy looked at William with an amused, carefully guarded expression. "Don't expect another favor like that of me again. It won't bloody likely happen," he said, and he followed the thick boys out of the compartment.
"The children," said Professor McGonagall, "will be arriving shortly, Albus." She set her round teacup in its round saucer, and set both of these on the round, glass-topped table in the headmaster's round office.
"Back for another year," Albus replied softly, merrily, sipping his own tea contently in the dusty silence of the room.
McGonagall regarded him with a sad little smile. "What will you tell them?"
"Well," he said, putting down his cup and saucer, "I suppose I will tell them what I would expect you to tell them, Minerva, and what they deserve to know." She raised a withered eyebrow, and he smiled knowingly. "The truth, Minerva. They may be young, yes, and perhaps not as knowledgeable about such things as they will be one day, but they are indeed deserving of knowing the truth."
"They won't be happy about this, you know."
Albus reached over the arm of his overstuffed armchair and took her hand gently. "Neither are you, but soon you - and the students, of course - will discover that something like this does not mark the end of the world." His pale eyes glittered with a sheen of excitement, contentment, and melancholy. "It marks only another beginning."
The castle loomed, large and foreboding, over the lake as the gentle rolling waters glistened in the thin veil of moonlight. The moon itself, just a thin slice of quicksilver suspended in the sky, was covered in part by a barely visible cobweb of watery cloud, and beyond it, stars winked and twinkled on their velvet backdrop of shadowy night sky.
As the students trudged over the still soft, warm lawns, swaddled in the secure cloak of evening grey, staring down at their feet as they made their way toward the open, welcoming front doors of the ancient stone building, Harry Potter stopped walking quite suddenly. He gazed up in unfaltering awe of the place, so beautiful in its stillness, and breathed in the thick, sultry August air, feeling the moisture collect on his skin as a light breeze yawned over him. His heart swelled, content and he pressed onward with his fellow students toward the pillar of hope that was Hogwarts, thinking but one thought as he did so.
Harry Potter was home.
[this will, eventually, have a plot, as I've promised before. I just love keeping y'all in suspense. Teehee.] ..
Draco, dressed in a pair of soft, tailored grey pants and a red silk shirt with wide lapels, would usually have made a game of walking to breakfast this morning, slipping silently in his warm, quiet socks over the slick marble floors, trying to sneak up behind this house-elf, or that painting; but today, as the golden morning sunlight smiled down upon his corn silk hair, illuminating his luminous pale blue eyes, he strolled past the sweeping banks of windows with an uncharacteristic cheer and spring in his step.
As he passed his father's study, Draco was hailed inside by Lucius, who was reclining in his great winged leather armchair. Behind his magnificently polished desk and the powerful bookshelves on either side of him, Lucius made quite a picture, his shining blond hair clipped short, like a Roman soldier in the days of Augustus, pale eyes glinting proudly down at Draco, who leaned casually against the wide frame of the study door.
"I see you're in a decent mood, boy," he said, not unkindly. "Have a go with the Thomas boy, eh? Well, perhaps you could have done better." He looked Draco up and down appraisingly, his thin lip jutting out just so as he did. "The silk was a good choice today, Draco, very flattering to our complexion and build."
"Yes, indeed," said Draco, holding out an arm for his own benefit, studying the watery creases in the delicately cold fabric. "Is my mother down for breakfast?"
Lucius began to busy himself with paperwork on his desk, appearing for a moment as though he had decided to ignore Draco's question; but he hadn't, and he said, "I haven't the slightest. I've been in here, you see, since the sun rose - and she's had a bit of a lie-in. See for yourself, if you would.You've got two legs, haven't you?"
"Yes, Father, indeed I have. And look, both are the same length, as well, clad in a pair of fine trousers provided by your healthy paycheck."
"Hold your tongue; you're a borderline blasphemer." Lucius looked down his nose at his son and spoke quietly. "If there was one thing the Dark Lord prided himself on, it what providing for his most loyal." He seemed immediately rushed, distracted. "Now, please, get yourself out of my study. There is work to be done, and I haven't time to carry on with you all morning."
Draco rolled away from the door languidly, like some sort of primal cat whose velvet skin is stretched over miles of sinew and taut muscle. He buried his hands in the pockets of his soft trousers, shaking his fringe away from his eyes, and dawdled toward the grand front staircase of the Manor, an elegant structure with a sturdy marble banister curling around with the wall until it met the floor below. Fixed steadily to the rotunda ceiling above, a chandelier peered down at the entry like some omniscient eye made of silver and fire and glass.
Draco loved the Manor. He loved the wealth and splendor which surrounded him on every side, above and below, drowning him in a flurry of marble and silver and silk. He loved its rich solitude, the priceless paintings which did not move for their old, old age, like some ancient stone vampire from one of his Anne Rice novels, which were cleverly hidden away from his parents' knowledge in the false floor of his closet. He loved the scurry of little house-elves' feet as they scrambled to stay out of sight, just a little noise in the grand silence of the Manor, which Draco loved.
He stopped short at the foot of the stairs, his pale eyes narrowing severely at the trunks which stood in a corner of the entry. His school trunks, freshly washed and polished, packed and waiting for the day when Draco would order some house-elf to hoist them onto the train. The trunks seemed to be watching him in the echoing silence, and Draco shrank away from them, fearful that they should leap forward at once and maul him like a wild beast from Hagrid's dreadful, unpredictable lessons.
And then it leapt into the foreground of his memory; he would be returning to Hogwarts soon, return to the monotony of classes and the same miserable, simpering Slytherins with whom he had spent the past six years, and he would be dreadfully bored with the professors and homework and that wretched smell of rotting tea and frigid shades of witches who once had been.
Draco sighed, and forced himself to resume his jaunty stroll on his way into the breakfast room, where he brooded moodily into a steaming plate of egg yolks and sausages and toast.
Sirius burned the eggs that morning. Harry woke with the smell of charred yolks in his nose, the thick smoke from his godfather's culinary disaster hanging in curtains through the room. Harry pushed his hair from his forehead, and he sighed.
Bumping into the dresser at the foot of his bed, Harry somehow managed to stumble into the hall of the tiny flat he and Sirius shared above a Muggle bakery in London near the Leaky Cauldron. His godfather was franticly waving a soiled dishtowel to clear the air around the sink, into which the smoking frying pan had been abandoned; the window had been open, and through this narrow opening he was trying to coax the stained air, flapping this little strip of terrycloth at it with all the enthusiasm he could muster.
"Oi, Sirius, what the hell do you think you're doing?" yelped Harry, seizing the cloth and casting it aside. From the counter, he grabbed an empty pickle jar, into which he poured much water before dumping the entire thing onto the pan in the sink; a tiny flame had started there, adding to the suffocating smell and horrid thick smoke.
"I was just trying to get you some decent breakfast before you leave for the castle this morning." He looked at Harry with soft brown eyes, the innocence of which offset his creased, unshaven features. He defended himself defiantly, "Anyway, I don't see you jumping at the chance to eat something yourself, and you're the one who needs to eat around here!"
"Indeed," muttered Harry darkly, shrugging the wide collar of Dudley's old t-shirt back onto his shoulder.
Eventually, the kitchen cleared out, and, using a fresh pan from the cupboard, scrambled several eggs with a bit of cheese and ham leftover from the supper they had shared with Mundungus Fletcher, an old friend of Sirius'.
The breakfast was quite delicious - Harry had picked up a knack for cooking while living with the Dursleys, who had always made him fix their breakfast for them - but also quite unremarkable in its silence.
When Harry got up from the little table to take his plate to the sink, Sirius said, "Best get dressed now, son. We'll need to get down to the station before noon if you're to catch your train."
"Alright."
"Are you meeting Ron at the station this year?"
"No," said Harry in a tight, clipped voice. "Why would I be?"
Sirius eyed him curiously as Harry ran water over the dishes in the sink, his mug of coffee raised halfway to his lips. "You've been best friends with Weasley for the past seven years. You've always met the whole family at the station." Harry's lips were pursed, thin and grimly white. "What's happened? Had a row with Ron?"
"No."
"Oh.I see. Well, in any case.you should get into some clothes and make sure you're all packed for the term, eh?"
Harry mumbled something unintelligible and stalked through the flat to his bedroom. As Sirius finished his coffee, he sighed.
"James, I've been trying." He looked down the corridor to the closed door that was Harry's. "I just don't want to disappoint you."
"There he is!" Ginny's shrill shout rattled Hermione's nerves as the younger girl leapt from her seat on her ratty-edged trunks. Ginny pointed excitedly as Hermione's dark eyes swept the crowded, noisy platform nervously. Beside them, Ron was leaning against the sturdy brick wall, picking through a box of Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans.
"Where?"
"There, there!" cried Ginny, stifling her urge to point suddenly and jamming her small hands into the pockets of her thin cotton jumper. "He's right there; can't you see him?"
"Where?" Hermione's heart began to pump faster, franticly, desperately, as she strained to pierce the crowd with her determined gaze. "Where, Ginny? I don't see him!"
"He's right in front of you!" she squealed, collapsing back onto her trunk as the crowds parted. There, dressed in his school trousers and a clean white shirt, was Harry, looking coolly about him as he pushed a cart through the throng of wizards and their parents.
"Harry!" called Ron, finally looking up. "Oi, Harry - over here, mate, come on!"
Harry seemed to pause for just a moment, looking from Ron to Hermione and finally to little Ginny, who sat twitching on her trunks, wringing her hands desperately; and then he smiled, pushing forward past a group of third years and their trunks.
"What's taken you so long?" asked Hermione, grasping at his shirt sleeve desperately. "Why didn't you meet us at the station?"
"Didn't you get our owls?"
"Yes," said Harry, "Of course I did - but - I - Sirius, that is - "
"Oh, never mind," broke in Hermione, smiling anxiously. "It doesn't matter, really, does it?"
"Of course not," said Ron, his Every Flavor Beans forgotten on the end of his upturned trunk. "What matters is that we're off to our seventh year - we rule the castle this year! We can do anything."
"We've already done everything," chided Hermione. Harry smiled, and she poked a threatening finger under his nose. "Don't even think about getting any foolish ideas this year, Harry - I refuse to allow any more damage to be done to my permanent record!"
"Whatever you say, Hermione," said Harry, who was winked at by Ron as the two shared a conspiritually wicked grin.
"Great. Just as soon as I think the mischief's left with the twins, you two grin like that and worry me just as much, if not more. May you receive Howlers for all your rotten efforts!"
"Oh, come on, then," said Ron, taking her hand. "Whatever adventures we've got in mind will have nothing to do with you, alright?"
"What?" said Hermione, mock horror shining in her eyes. "And let you boys have all the fun?" She grinned. "Not on your life."
The train seemed to Draco much more worn now than it had in the past, less grand and special. The seats seemed to have faded marginally, the flooring just enough more scuffed to notice the difference, and from all around him, the voices of the other students seemed to be closer in his ear.
And there, through the finger-printed window, Harry Potter seemed happier than he had ever been coming onto the platform with his cart of luggage. Draco watched with narrowed eyes as Potter was greeted boisterously by Weasley and the Mudblood, as Weasley clapped him on the back and the Mudblood, Granger, rose on tiptoe to plant a chaste kiss on Potter's cheek. Potter, ever the noble hero, blushed pink and hugged her close, one of his thin, powerful arms wrapped close around her waist.
Yet - Potter seemed tragically unhappy, as well; Draco could see it in the way he responded to them. When Weasley clapped him again on the back, there, the light in Potter's eyes flickered. Granger's slender hand flattened on Potter's chest, tickling slightly the way a girl's are apt to tease a boy, and Potter shied away just so. Was this the manner in which the Golden Boy of Hogwarts had always responded to his best friends? Draco wasn't sure.
He looked back out the window, eyeing Potter with malevolence, when he caught sight of a young boy who must have been a first year, with he scrambling gait and wide, fearful brown eyes.
The child was small and light of frame, his skin pale and creamy white, his eyes long-lashed and deeply golden brown. His hair was honey-brown in color; or rather, parts of it were. The thick shock of it seemed laced with threads of red and brown and gold, paler in some parts than in others, yet all over lovely and soft-looking. His hands, clasped around the handle of his shiny new trunk, were small and dexterous, fingering the fine leather nervously as he looked around the platform for a friendly face. There was none, and he pressed on, drowning out of sight into the swell of jabbering students.
Draco shook himself as is from a trance. The boy had been beautiful, even more so than the redhead his father had attempted to couple him with at his start-of-term party at the Manor; but in an entirely different, newly intriguing sort of way.
Draco wanted him, he decided, and he closed his eyes, allowing the image of the boy to melt into his eyelids.
William Fitz was a small boy, painfully thin and pale, who had thick yellow- blond hair and a small mouth. He was eleven years old, had no brothers or sisters, and lived with his parents, both of whom were Muggles, and his dog, Arnold, who was a cocker spaniel with red, curly fur.
William Fitz was presently trapped in his seat in the corner of a compartment, the very thick wand of a very thick boy pointed straight at his very small nose, the grunting laughter of another thick boy, this one with a face like a gorilla's, suffocating his rational thought process.
"Well, what in the name of the Dark Lord do you clods of soddy earth think you're doing?" The voice materialized from somewhere on the other side of these mountainous boys; it was thin, pale, and sharp with authority, and at once William's tormentors seemed to forget about the very small boy cowering into the corner of the seat.
"We were only fooling," said the thick boy closest to William, still pointing his wand dangerously close to William's nose.
"Yeah," said the gorilla-faced one, "and we were just about to let him go, too."
"I'm sure." The thick boys moved aside suddenly, and William found himself looking into the pale eyes of a thin boy wearing rich robes and a small silver badge which said 'Prefect' in perfect, glistering letters. His hair shone in the light which fell at a slant through the window, and his eyes seemed so unnaturally pale that they were almost transparent. This pale and perfect boy studied William for a moment, his thin lip curled up slightly in a mean sneer, the rest of his face impassive.
Then he said, "Goyle, give me your wand." The thick boy obeyed readily, though his gaze darkened dully. The wand was slipped into the pale boy's robes, disappearing delicately into the sweeping folds of fabric. "Now, both of you, get out of here." The thick boys paused; his gaze narrowed and he said in a most dangerously soft tone of voice, "Before I have to do something I might not regret later in the afternoon."
William Fitz nearly wet himself with relief as the thick boys clumbered out of his compartment, arguing between themselves in low, rumbling mumbles.
The pale boy looked at William with an amused, carefully guarded expression. "Don't expect another favor like that of me again. It won't bloody likely happen," he said, and he followed the thick boys out of the compartment.
"The children," said Professor McGonagall, "will be arriving shortly, Albus." She set her round teacup in its round saucer, and set both of these on the round, glass-topped table in the headmaster's round office.
"Back for another year," Albus replied softly, merrily, sipping his own tea contently in the dusty silence of the room.
McGonagall regarded him with a sad little smile. "What will you tell them?"
"Well," he said, putting down his cup and saucer, "I suppose I will tell them what I would expect you to tell them, Minerva, and what they deserve to know." She raised a withered eyebrow, and he smiled knowingly. "The truth, Minerva. They may be young, yes, and perhaps not as knowledgeable about such things as they will be one day, but they are indeed deserving of knowing the truth."
"They won't be happy about this, you know."
Albus reached over the arm of his overstuffed armchair and took her hand gently. "Neither are you, but soon you - and the students, of course - will discover that something like this does not mark the end of the world." His pale eyes glittered with a sheen of excitement, contentment, and melancholy. "It marks only another beginning."
The castle loomed, large and foreboding, over the lake as the gentle rolling waters glistened in the thin veil of moonlight. The moon itself, just a thin slice of quicksilver suspended in the sky, was covered in part by a barely visible cobweb of watery cloud, and beyond it, stars winked and twinkled on their velvet backdrop of shadowy night sky.
As the students trudged over the still soft, warm lawns, swaddled in the secure cloak of evening grey, staring down at their feet as they made their way toward the open, welcoming front doors of the ancient stone building, Harry Potter stopped walking quite suddenly. He gazed up in unfaltering awe of the place, so beautiful in its stillness, and breathed in the thick, sultry August air, feeling the moisture collect on his skin as a light breeze yawned over him. His heart swelled, content and he pressed onward with his fellow students toward the pillar of hope that was Hogwarts, thinking but one thought as he did so.
Harry Potter was home.
[this will, eventually, have a plot, as I've promised before. I just love keeping y'all in suspense. Teehee.] ..