Disclaimer: i don't own anything!
Authors Note: thanx for your reviews, i was thinking of not continueing the story if nobody reviewed or anything... but yeah, now for the second chapter...
CHAPTER TWO
"Wow, you're Harry Potter, aren't you?"
Harry blinked back rain from his eyes. He had only just stepped out of the Thestral-drawn carriages, as though in a daze, and had been trying— in vain— to block out the sounds of Ron and Hermione's pointless bickering. He had been spacing out when the voice had spoken, and now he looked down, expecting a wide-eyed first year to be there. Instead, he saw a girl around his age.
His jaw nearly dropped in shock. Her hair fell about her face freely, deep, fiery red— her slanted eyes were a gleaming emerald color, so startlingly green, so like his own. He knew that hair. He knew those eyes. It was a girl that he had seen before— a girl he had seen in Snape's Pensieve, a girl that had been glaring fiercely at his father, defending Snape himself...
"Wh-what?" he stammered, realizing she had spoken to him as his mind got carried away. Of course it wasn't his mother, he thought, though this girl was the spitting image of her. His mother was dead, Harry reminded himself. Dead.
"I said," the girl repeated, exasperated, "It's nice to meet you. The famous Boy Who Lived, huh?"
Harry flinched. "Yeah, so who are you?" he asked, rather rudely, to the girl who reminded him so much of Lily Evans.
"Jenny, Jenny Fudge," she replied with a shrug. Her hair swayed in front of her eyes as she shrugged, and she tossed it back in a way that it seemed almost graceful. "I just came here, transferred from Beauxbatons. I'm going into my sixth year— like you, right?— though I expect I'll be sorted with the first years."
"Right," Harry agreed half-heartedly. Fudge. Her last name was Fudge.
Then Jenny lowered her voice, and went on in a rather gossipy tone, "Y'see, I didn't go to Hogwarts before 'cause Father didn't think it was a good idea. Y'know, he's the former Minister of Magic, though he's resigned and everything. Well, he never really liked Dumbledore, only his advice. Now he's depending on Dumbledore, now he knows that You-Know-Who's back and all."
Harry nodded absently, then suddenly froze. "Hold on— Fudge resigned?" he demanded, suddenly interested.
"Yeah, I thought it was in the Prophet—"
Just then, Ron and Hermione ceased their quarreling long enough to notice Jenny. Ron quickly moved over to Jenny, a rather foolish grin spreading across his face. "Hi," he introduced himself, "I'm Ron Weasley."
"Jenny Fudge," she replied briskly.
The grin slid from his face. "Meaning you're the Minister's daughter?" he asked nastily, shooting her a rather venomous look.
"Right..."
Harry's attention drifted off once more, and he ignored Ron, Hermione and Jenny as they compared Beauxbatons and Hogwarts, at the same time walking to the Hogwarts entrance. Harry could not help but gaze at the other groups of people walking towards the castle as well— his eyes lingered particularly long on Malfoy, in between Crabbe and Goyle, who were all ahead of Harry. Malfoy seemed to feel him staring, and turned to meet Harry's eyes for a brief second.
It was only a single moment, but it surprised Harry greatly. The look Malfoy gave him was not spiteful, but rather calculating, and Harry didn't know what to make of it. He shook himself, throwing Malfoy from his thoughts, and turned back to his friends.
Ron was saying, "Well, you don't look like him, at least," and Harry glanced back at him just in time to see Hermione elbow him, as though to punish him for his manners. Harry realized that they must have been discussing Fudge.
"Well, I suppose I am glad I didn't take after him," Jenny admitted shamelessly. She shook back her long dark hair once more, which caught the light of the gleaming, opalescent eyes of the Thestrals. "Oh, look at those horse-dragon things," she remarked vaguely.
"So who've you seen killed?" Ron asked rather bluntly, and Hermione glared at him for being so tactless.
"Killed?" Jenny asked, rather sharply. "I've never kil— never seen anyone killed."
"You must have, if you can see the Thestrals. You can only see them if you've witnessed someone dying," Hermione informed the redhead.
"I've never seen anyone killed, not ever, who would I have seen killed in the first place—?" Jenny insisted, stumbling over her words a bit.
"I could've been when you were really young, so you wouldn't remember it," Hermione suggested reassuringly. Jenny instantly seized upon the idea.
Meanwhile, Harry looked away again, and found his thoughts returning to Malfoy, even as they walked into the Great Hall. Harry, Ron and Hermione wandered over to the Gryffindor table, and watched Fudge's daughter walk after the first years.
Professor McGonagall pulled out a long roll of parchment, readjusted her thin silver glasses, and began to read names off it in alphabetical order. "Anderson, Kyle," she announced first, and a small, terrified sandy-haired first year walked up to the hat. The moment the hat touched his head, it shrieked, "HUFFLEPUFF!"
Sirius. Harry would never stop thinking about him. Now that he thought of it, he realized it was almost pointless to try avoiding the thoughts that invaded his mind. But— every time the name came to mind, dread filled his heart. Every time someone comforted him about Sirius, he felt he knew that they really blamed him for it— it was all his fault, all of his foolishness, his need to save people that had killed Sirius.
It was all his fault.
"Endes, Lila," was being sorted into "GRYFFINDOR!", and Harry snapped back to reality to applaud her dully. McGonagall consulted her list, and said, "Fudge, Jennifer!"
Harry watched Jenny flick back her hair and saunter up to the hat, jamming it on her head with an air of extreme indolence. She gazed haughtily around, and listened to the hat's muttering in her ear.
'Certainly not a Gryffindor, nor a Hufflepuff— Slytherin all the way, though also a few Ravenclaw qualities—'
"Ravenclaw, then," Jenny said aloud.
'No, no,' the hat insisted, 'your Slytherin qualities are much, much stronger... I'm afraid I'll have to put you in—'
"Ravenclaw!" Jenny said angrily. She could not be in Slytherin— not because it was a bad house. In fact, she would have loved to be in Slytherin any other time. But now... she had her reasons... and she could not be in Slytherin.
'Well, I suppose I have no choice but to place you in— RAVENCLAW!'
The last part the hat screeched out loud, and Jenny let out a sigh of relief. It would have been so much easier had she been sorted in Gryffindor, but Ravenclaw would do the job.
She meandered back down to the Ravenclaw table, and sat down between two girls. One was an annoyingly pretty dark-haired girl and the other a girl with short, curly hair.
"Hi." Jenny put on a falsely bright smile. "I'm Jenny."
"Cho Chang," the dark-haired one smiled back. Her hair was very glossy, pulled back in a ponytail. "So, you related to the Minister?"
"Wh— oh, right. I'm not anything like my Father, though, I assure you. Right now, I'm hoping that I'm adopted."
Cho seemed to accept this answer. "Adopted? I thought that Rita Skeeter woman wrote an article about all of Fudge's kids being adopted. She's known for making up rumors, of course, so I'm not sure."
"Well, I hope this one isn't a rumor," Jenny forced herself to laugh, though she found nothing remotely funny about it. Cho giggled at that, an extremely girlish giggle that made Jenny want to gag— but she had to make friends, she had her... reasons.
"So, this is Marietta. She's one of my best friends," Cho smiled. The girl with curly hair looked up coldly. "My parents used to work for your dad, but they think he's a fool," she told Jenny sharply, her voice edged with anger. Cho shot an apologetic look towards Jenny, then talked quietly with her friend. Jenny rolled her eyes to herself and got up to sit somewhere else at the Ravenclaw table.
Soon, she found herself sitting adjacent to a girl with straggly, dirty- blonde hair. Her wand was tucked behind her ear, and around her throat she had strung a necklace of butterbeer caps. "Er— hello," Jenny said uncertainly.
The girl seemed startled out of a sort of trance, and turned her pale eyes to Cassie. "Hello," she returned in a soft voice.
"Jenny Fudge," she introduced herself.
"Luna Lovegood. I don't think much of your father. Daddy says that he was going to ban the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. I'm glad he resigned."
"Oh. Well," Jenny bit her lip, to hold back uneasy laughter. Clearly, this girl was not in her right mind. Jenny decided she was not the right sort to befriend. "Is that really a — er—"
"Yes, the Crumple-Horned Snorkack!" Luna repeated impatiently, shaking back her waist-length hair.
"How does your father know?" Jenny asked, still on the verge of laughing.
"Daddy knows a lot. He's the editor of The Quibbler." Luna sounded very pleased with herself as she said this, and Jenny snorted.
"How— nice. Well, I'd better be going, becau—" Jenny was cut off as Luna happily shoved an edition of The Quibbler into her hand, ordering her to read it. Jenny's regrets of sitting next to the pale-eyed girl doubled. She skimmed through the strangest articles she had yet to see, featuring more of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack and the Blibbering Humdinger. Jenny sighed with relief when Dumbledore stood and announced that the Feast would begin.
Meanwhile, Ron and Hermione chatted cheerfully.
"I don't understand why Fudge would choose now, of all times, to send his daughter to Hogwarts." Hermione glanced at Ron, running her fingers through her sleek curls that she had managed to tame. Her eyes became very serious for a moment, and then brightened a little.
"Mafbe ee 'anted 'oo maf uf wid Dumfldor," Ron guessed through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. Hermione's eyebrows raised.
"Make up with Dumbledore? I'm not so sure. He certainly believes Dumbledore now, but that doesn't mean that he likes him. He was put in a very embarrassing position, having to admit finally that Dumbledore was right. I wonder if that's why he resigned..."
Ron shrugged, refilling his plate. Hermione reluctantly looked at the food that she decided interfered with her SPEW campaign, but took a small bit of chicken and nibbled on it tentatively.
"Oh, pleasant," Hermione suddenly said, sarcasm dripping from her voice. "Double Potions with the Slytherins, Transfiguration with the Ravenclaws, and then Double DADA with the Slytherins again."
Ron started to speak, decided against it, swallowed, and then said, "Well, who's the DADA teacher? No one new is here..."
"Ugh, don't you listen, Ron? That's because it's Trelawny!"
"What?!" Ron spat out a mouthful of pudding. "Trelawny, a teacher! What does she know about DADA?! Anyway, her and Snape in one day! And then, look, History after that— I can't stand Binns. Harry, isn't it awful?" Ron glanced over at his friend for the first time.
Harry blinked, looked up, and replied, "Oh— right, yeah. Awful," though he had only a vague idea of what Ron was talking about. Ron was about to say more when Hermione grabbed his arm.
"Ron, we're Prefects! We've got to show the first years the way to the Common Room and the dorms!"
The two of them hurried off to help the first years find their way. Harry stared after them, then followed. He passed Cho Chang and her giggling circle of friends, ignoring them as best as he could. This was, however, easier said than done. Cho went very red when she caught sight of him, but gave him a very small smile. He looked away, almost angrily. Everything that had been between he and Cho was over.
"Still gloating over having landed my father in Azkaban, Potter?" asked a mocking voice behind him. Harry grimaced, not even bothering to turn; he knew very well who it was. Pulling out his wand and turning in one fluid moment, he faced Draco Malfoy warily.
"What do you want, Malfoy?"
For what seemed like the very first time to Harry, Malfoy seemed at a loss for words. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then finally seemed to snap back to reality, and snarled, "Oh, just checking on you to see if you've been hallucinating lately— what, is daydreaming about your dead godfather taking up too much time?"
Harry's eyes burned with hatred, and in seconds, his wand was pointing straight at Malfoy's heart. Even so, he found he could not think of a curse deadly enough for Malfoy— his brain had froze, his loathing for that boy taking up all of his thoughts. His wand fell to the floor, clattering against the stone— he shoved Malfoy against the cold wall, and their faces were inches apart.
"Don't ever talk about Sirius that way," he hissed, his eyes still alive with anger, so dark they were more black then emerald.
"Are you going to kill me, Potter?" Malfoy whispered teasingly, uncomfortably aware of Harry's hot breath on his face, and his arms that touched his where he was pinning him to the wall. Harry bit his lip so hard he winced, in an attempt to not retort. His attempt failed.
"You're a disgusting excuse for a wizard, Malfoy— mocking Sirius's honor that way, you don't deserve to live."
Malfoy allowed a smirk to cross his face, and, without another word, he shot Harry a last, fleeting look, escaped from his grasp, and walked away.
(Harry Potter's POV)
It was that look again.
I stood there for a while, where Malfoy had just left, and leaned against the wall, deep in thought. I suppose I'm almost used to it by now, because it is the only one Malfoy has given me yet this school year. That scrutinizing, contemplating look— I don't understand it. Something about it gives me the excuse to think of my archenemy for hours at a time.
He is different. Still insulting, infuriating— but more mature, at the same time. As though the summer has changed him greatly. I honestly can't explain it. But not only in that way, of course— physically, also. His growing resemblance to his father is unnerving, and when I looked into his eyes only seconds ago, I half expected to see Lucius's eyes staring back at me, like they had through his Death Eater mask last summer. But it wasn't Lucius's eyes I saw. It was his.
And I realized then that, no matter how much Malfoy looked like his father, what with his hair, his skin, his body— his eyes would never be Lucius's. They would always be his own.
I shook myself from my thoughts, and looked around. It was dark already. Not exactly paying attention to where I was going, I wandered aimlessly down the hall, having a vague feeling that I'd make it to the Great Hall. Perhaps I could visit Hagrid, in his hut.
All students, of whatever year, were supposed to be in their house Common Rooms by then. I was fully aware that if a prefect or teacher found me, it would mean house point deductions, or even detention. I didn't care.
(End of Harry Potter's POV)
And, meanwhile, as Harry randomly strayed across the Hogwarts halls, Jennifer Fudge laughed to herself in the Ravenclaw sixth year dorms, with the feeling that everything was going according to plan so far.