The Malfoys' Friendship

The next day at noon, the Potters heard someone Apparating in front of their house. The bell rang and Ginny opened the door. In front of her, dressed in a highly elegant livery, stood a house elf who bowed low to her.

"Good morning, Ma'am. The House of Malfoy offers its compliments and best wishes to the noble House of Potter," he said pompously. "My name is Blubber. I am supposed to escort young Mr Albus to the Manor."

For a moment, Ginny was unsure whether she was expected to reply in similarly overblown language, but then she simply said:

"That's really lovely, thank you very much Blubber, please come in."

The elf bowed and followed her into the living room where Albus was already waiting with his packed suitcase. He was a little disappointed because he had actually hoped that Scorpius himself would come.

"Albus Potter," he introduced himself. As the elf was bowing again, Albus did not dare to offer his hand.

"Blubber," the elf replied, "I have the honour of serving the House of Malfoy. May I ask you, sir, if you are ready to leave?"

"Er, yes," Albus agreed. He thought for a moment about how to put his question politely; then he said: "I really appreciate you picking me up, Blubber, but why isn't Scorpius doing it?"

"I'm afraid that's not usual, sir," the elf replied with a slightly piqued undertone. "For the son of a noble house, it would be hardly appropriate to do so. However, Mr Scorpius is already waiting for you in the reception hall of the Manor, sir."

"Er, well, so don't let's keep him waiting unnecessarily," said Albus a little perplexedly, hugging his parents goodbye, and then saying to the elf who had already lifted his suitcase by a Levitation charm: "Let's go."

"May I ask you, sir, whether you prefer to travel by floo network or by Side-Along-Apparition?"

"Floo network is more convenient, I think ..."

Again the elf bowed. "Please allow me to hurry ahead to announce your arrival, sir."

When Albus stepped out of the fireplace in the Manor's large reception hall, Scorpius was already beaming at him. The two hugged, then Scorpius said to the house elf: "It's fine, Blubber, I'll take our guest upstairs myself."

Scorpius tried to take the suitcase that was floating next to the elf, but was prevented from doing so by the elf's energetic clearing of his throat.

"I am afraid, sir," said Blubber with a deadpan expression, "I have to draw your attention to the fact that parts of the wizarding community might consider such an unprecedented act inappropriate and even scandalous."

"All right," sighed Scorpius resignedly, "then take the suitcase and go ahead of us."

The elf bowed almost to the ground. "As you wish, sir."

"You still have house elves?" asked Albus as they followed Blubber up a magnificent marble staircase to the first floor. "I thought my aunt had freed the elves."

In fact, the liberation of the elves, Hermione's old favourite project, had been her second act as a Minister. The first had been issuing the list of prohibited expressions.

"She lifted the spell that was on them," Scorpius replied, "but the elves have continued to serve us as they always did. Then she decreed that they have to be paid. When we told them, I feared an elf riot was about to break out, for they were so offended. They felt dishonoured. We had to swear to high heaven that it wasn't our idea, but the Minister's. Finally they let themselves be persuaded to accept payment."

"Not much, I suppose?" said Albus.

"So little that I would be embarrassed to tell you the amount. But there was nothing we could do, they wouldn't have accepted more."

"So, virtually nothing has changed?" asked Albus, disappointed, for he had been very proud to be the nephew of the Elf Liberator, as which Hermione was celebrated by the Daily Prophet.

"Two things have changed," Scorpius replied, "namely firstly, we can finally dress them decently without them suspecting we wanted to get rid of them. That's very good, they look quite different in livery than in the grubby dishcloths they wore before. And secondly," he sighed, "we can't do practically anything ourselves now, to avoid them thinking we're tired of their services. You've seen it: I'm not allowed to pick you up, I'm not allowed to carry your suitcase and so on."

"Just do it anyway," Albus said, "I mean, you and your family, you are the bosses here, right?"

Scorpius answered with a sour-sweet smile. "Do so when your house elf threatens to commit suicide."

While they were talking to each other, Albus looked around curiously. He had never seen such a house from the inside. Visitors from the continent would probably have considered the fact that the Malfoys called their family home a "Manor" a typically British understatement. It was a palace. From the marble floors to the wood panelling to the ornately carved chair legs, everything was classy and elegant and smelled of very old money.

"Do you enjoy living here?", Albus demanded.

Scorpius knew what Albus meant and smiled.

"Let's just say I don't know anything else and I've got used to living in a house where you can only leave your room if you look spick and span. In this house, it doesn't even occur to you to do it any other way, but sometimes I would like it to be a bit more comfortable. That your parents sometimes allow you to sit at the breakfast table in your pyjamas," he said ecstatically, "is great. Do you think I'll be allowed to do so, too, when I'll visit you?"

Albus had to laugh. "Definitely!"

They now entered the room intended for Albus, which in its splendour, but also in its rococo style, resembled the rooms Albus and Ginny had furnished for Hermione in the former Chamber of Secrets.

"Wow!" marvelled Albus. "You could host a king here!"

"We make it a point to make our guests feel like kings in our house," Scorpius replied with his characteristic Grandezza, while Blubber opened Albus' suitcase and with a mere wave of his hand made his clothes disappear in the wardrobe in good order.

Then the elf bowed to Albus and said: "The family will receive you in the grand salon in ten minutes, sir."

"And afterwards we'll have lunch," Scorpius added after Blubber had left the room.

The next morning, Albus and Scorpius went to a hall in the castle specifically designated for spell practice, for Albus had promised his friend to teach him the spells he had practised with the Incorruptibles in their DA meetings. At the Manor, Scorpius could do this safely even as a minor; the castle was protected from the Ministry's tracking charms.

"You've made a great impression on my familiy," Scorpius said casually as they were walking through the seemingly endless corridors of the Manor.

"Oh, did I?" Albus was still not quite aware of the exquisite impression he made on adults.

"Yes, you did. My grandfather said I had the right feeling in my fingertips in choosing my friends." He grinned with satisfaction.

"Yes, I also felt that they were watching me from time to time."

"From time to time?" Scorpius grinned again. "They've been watching you all the time. That's one of the reasons why you were invited. They wanted to check you out to make sure I was friends with the right one."

"With the right one?" Albus stopped dead and stared at him, aghast. "I mean, who would be wrong? And why do your parents and grandparents care? It's your business who you're friends with, isn't it?"

"In a family like ours, it's a little different," Scorpius replied. "You ask me who would have been the wrong one. The wrong person, for example, would have been one who viewed the splendour and luxury here with resentment or greed. You didn't do that, you just looked around curiously and with interest, because you've probably never seen a house like ours before. You know, we are quite rich, but like all other people we want to have real friends, so no one who likes us just because of our money, but also no one who is envious and secretly hates us."

"I understand that," Albus agreed. "And who else would have been the wrong one?"

"A person with an unstable character and unpredictable behaviour. Our friends can always rely on us, throughout their lives. This means, however, that conversely we also want to have friends we can rely on, and that, too, throughout our lives. And since children are not necessarily able to judge people – although the wizarding nobility teach their children from an early age looking closely at people – the adults make up their own minds about our friends."

"You mean yesterday's talks were some kind of test?"

"Something like that," said Scorpius, "and you passed it with flying colours."

"What if I had failed?"

"I knew you wouldn't fail," Scorpius replied calmly.

"Yes, but let's just assume I had," Albus insisted. "Wouldn't you be my friend any longer?"

Now it was Scorpius who stopped dead and looked Albus in the face. "You don't really believe that, do you?"

"Well," Albus said a little uncertainly, "you say yourself that everything is a bit different with your family, so how should I know?"

"I see. Well, you would still be my friend, but just my friend. But now you may consider yourself a friend of the House of Malfoy."

"And what does that mean?"

"It means that the Malfoy family supports our friendship and will never let you down if you need our help, and on the other hand, we're relying on you not to do it either."

"How am I supposed to help you?" asked Albus, almost a little amused. "You have everything, not just money ..."

"In the course of an entire lifetime, there will be enough opportunities, count on it."

"Could someone like Roy be your friend in that way, too?" The question came to Albus spontaneously.

"Hmm, that would be more difficult."

"Because he's Muggle-born?"

"He's a Slytherin, so he can sort of afford his Muggle descent," Scorpius commented. "I will also never forget how he stood up for me on the very first evening, with that mudblood story ..."

"Oh dear," Albus interjected, "the Ministry men are going to Apparate in a minute!"

"Not here," Scorpius grinned, "the Manor is protected from the Ministry's Taboo by the same counter-spell as Hogwarts and the Ministry itself. Where were we? Oh yes, so I very much hope I will have the opportunity to return the favour to MacAllister at some point. He is exactly one who could be my friend but would hardly be accepted as a friend of our House like you."

"Why?"

"Because they would instinctively feel that he doesn't fit to us. He is so different, so headstrong that he would be incalculable for the family. They would certainly respect him – who doesn't? – and they also admit that he is important to Slytherin precisely because he is so stubborn. But he's just ... well, different."

"But if he wasn't ..."

"... he could well be a friend of the family, in any case it would not fail because of his origin. However, even then he couldn't become a member of the family, that is, he couldn't marry my sister, for example, while you very well could."

"Goodness," groaned Albus, "it's complicated with you! Why don't you make life a little easier for yourselves?"

"Because we wouldn't have been one of the leading wizarding families in the country for eight hundred years if we did."