Disclaimers always apply.

The doors to the Great Hall banged open with much distaste, and had not everyone been quiet due to the very obvious absence of Dumbledore, then it probably wouldn't have caused the snapping of heads and shocked gasps that it did cause.

The year was not supposed to start like this; it was supposed to be fluid, happy and a synonym of summer. That happy-go-lucky feeling had not been on anyone's agenda for many years, since the uprising of Voldemort, but now he had finally gone there was supposed to be happiness radiating from every pore of the world that surrounded Hogwarts and its inhabitants. However, when the students had poured in and noticed the absence of their headmaster every one seemed to conclude there was something rather wrong. Even the sorting of the first years had commenced and concluded without the watchful and knowing eyes of old Dumbledore, and that was most disturbing.

Hermione Granger sat in her seat at the Ravenclaw table with educated eyes, and looked upon the teachers with much interest. It seemed that they all were as confused and befuddled as the students, except Professor McGonagall who stood stoic and continued with tradition as she would whether Dumbledore decided to show up or not. Hermione was not fooled, there was something going on, and after watching the head of Gryffindor house for a while she concluded that even McGonagall was affected by the missing headmaster; there was a slight power that McGonagall never showed around authority.

Draco Malfoy decided to not be interested. He wasn't playing a game, instead he really didn't care that the headmaster was not there. In fact, he was really rather glad as he had come to verbal blows with the old man the school year before, over his position in war and the rights from his family home. Draco had had a lot of time to think his actions through the previous summer and did feel awful about the things he said. He was really rather glad he didn't have to look apologetic yet.

Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom argued the mystery behind the headmasters absence for a long while, coming up with terribly absurd ideas as to why he wasn't there, many of which ended with an explosion and limbs collapsing over the earth around the catastrophe. Involved in the horrid talk was Blaise Zabini, a fellow Gryffindor, and Ginny Weasley; many people had thought this young girl – the young sister of Ron- a boy when they first met her, for her language and ideals were very much alike to her brothers, and with her red hair cut short like a boys her resemblance to Ron was uncanny.

When the student population settled down to eat after the sorting, there came the bang from the tall oak doors that guarded the centre of Hogwarts from the rest of it. Everybody's curious heads snapped round, even that of Draco who really was not interested –yet terrified now he had to face Dumbledore- and upon seeing who came through the doors all the students and teachers where met with a very creepy shock.

Striding through the doors, followed by Dumbledore, came a boy who looked to be about the same age as Draco and Ron, with hair to his shoulders that under the enchanted ceiling shone ebony and beautiful. His eyes were a very solid green, but one could not focus on them for very long because he was shouting over his shoulder – still striding- at Dumbledore in a strange language.

Dumbledore was not affected by this whatsoever, and walked with this strange boy towards the Slytherin table where the boy sat down in the seat opposite Draco resignedly. Strapped to his back was a guitar case, and he wore rather odd appealing clothes, and topped with the strange language this boy made a very alluring case.

Dumbledore leaned down towards the boy and whispered something in his ear, and when the boy replied he spoke in a loud, clear voice in yet another language. French, Draco thought, and quickly he translated the words into: "I do not want to be here, get out of my face!"

It almost made Draco laugh, but he was very conscious of the place Dumbledore stood, and slowly he tried to sink down into his seat to avoid the gaze he was sure to come from Dumbledore at any moment. But Dumbledore was to preoccupied, and took his leave from the boy towards his assigned dining seat.

Every eye was on the boy across from Draco, who was muttering something in what Draco denounced as an Eastern tongue, but the appearance of this boy was certainly Western. Confusing though it was, because this boy did not have Western dress and he had yet to see whether he spoke with a Western accent. Although, Draco thought, he did have the most appealing French accent, which might mean he was a transfer from Beaubaton.

Once no more action to be seen came about, the hall returned to a tranquil state with the students chatting like nothing had happened. That is, the tempo and structure of sound was not anything out of the ordinary, however nearly all topic was of this mysterious character sitting across from Draco who couldn't help peering at the boy in front of him.

"What!" Snapped the boy for only Draco to hear, in French yet again. Draco cocked an eyebrow but decided to be friendly; this person was obviously a Slytherin, and it was his duty not only as Prefect from the following year, but as the only person quite willing to take on this volatile entity, to talk and introduce this person into the customs of Hogwarts and especially Slytherin.

"I'm Draco Malfoy," Draco replied in slow, thoughtful French; his hand twitching to shake this persons hand, "Welcome to Hogwarts…"

The boy narrowed his eyes suspiciously, the enchanted ceiling above them casting malicious glow that made dark circles underneath his eyes appear. "Malfoy? I have heard that name once or twice. Of what descent?"

"Split at the Abraxas line, and again at me." Draco replied without moving, his blood running cold at the look the boy gave him.

"You are Lucius' son?"

"… I am…"

"You look like him." Draco leaned a little back with that said, but decided to continue in a friendly and polite voice even though the gesture was strained.

"I'm not him you know."

"No, I don't know. I don't really care either, as I have no intention of submitting myself to finding out."

"What's your problem?" Draco spat, still in fluent French even if it was slightly shaky. He scanned the face of the boy, the face he looked upon very entrancing and mystical indeed, and noticing a lightning bolt scar on the forehead of the boy he added insult to injury with spiteful words of "Scar-head."

Raising his eyebrows, the scarred boy looked quite amused. "And that's offensive?"

"Who are you anyway?" Draco countered, his fume simmering and dying because he really was feeling obliged to be nice to this person.

The boy said something in yet another language, and correcting himself with a shake of the head he repeated whatever it was he had said in the first place. "The one person you probably never wanted to meet."

Draco started to answer but only let a quiet grunt pass his lips, as he had looked over the boy once again who was currently removing the guitar from his back and placing it so that it leaned up against the dining table. His face was chiselled and manly, but with a wave of femininity that began at the eyes, Draco noticed that he wasn't a meat-headed bulldog. There was slight facial hair of the same dark colour as that on his head, and contrastingly his skin glowed like that of a Goddess. And that scar, surely there was something familiar about that scar.

And what was this about the last person he ever wanted to meet? Surely Draco had not given so much of himself away that this boy could read him like a book? Then again, maybe in the momentary lapse of coherent thought, between the time the boy sat down and they began to talk, Draco had forgotten all his stature and authority in favour of being spiritually wooed by this bloke.

And like a ton of bricks it hit him. The boy opposite had started to eat, but his plate was not made up of the same very English dishes that everyone else was currently enjoying. He was eating from a wide bowl, with ivory sticks that picked up the food and balanced it between each length. The food was most certainly Oriental, from the smell and the look of the vegetables and slightly raising himself Draco could see, that there inside the bowl was a soup with noodles, meat and vegetables.

The only person he would know, from ever hearing such things as one happens to do, that would eat like that and look like that was a boy his own age, who was more legend than reality and certainly not a body that studied at Hogwarts. There had been rumours of course, when he had started school, that this person might come to Hogwarts but soon after the first couple of years Draco had forgotten about him for the rumours had been diminished with the fact that Harry Potter was no where to be seen in England. Instead, he was living as a traveller, and from private talks with his father Draco had concluded that the location of home to the Potter boy was far East in Japan.

It was Harry Potter. He had come to Hogwarts. And of course he was the last person that Draco ever wanted to meet, for his father had been put into Azkaban two years earlier by dear old Harry, or so he assumed from the tiny pieces of information he gathered from outside sources. But what on earth was Harry doing here?

It wasn't as if Hogwarts needed him, or he needed Hogwarts. The small school, however prestigious, was not a touch on those within the Eastern world, not to count for how Harry had fought in the war and succeeded in brining down one of the most powerful wizards of all time.

Draco was about to ask Harry why he was here, and try again at being courteous with the boy, but when he looked up he found himself one of the last older students in the Great Hall. Sighing, he made his way to the common room of Slytherin to take note of his friends and sleep, but once the task of seeing to his friends had been completed he settled into bed only to find himself rather unsettled.

This really sucks, he thought. And for Draco it unfortunately did, because he had already started off badly with Harry and he was sure that once the student population caught wind of who the mystery really was, then he was to be no more than a mere Slytherin whilst the person who put his father in prison got his seat of fame.