The next year passed in much the same manner. Cornelia faced the same level of strict discipline as ever before, whilst Draco was left to his own devices. The only difference being an increase in their education. They both started magical history classes together which consisted of in-depth studies of their family trees. Cornelia enjoyed these lessons which they took with Aunt Cissy, as she was finally able to find out as much as she liked about her mother and father. Whilst her Aunt and Uncle had never hidden the fact that her parents were in Azkaban, they had always refrained from telling her the full story. It had been a disturbing discovery to find out her mother had been locked away for both torturing two people into insanity as well as seeking out the Dark Lord with her husband and his brother. She had pored over pictures of her mother in particular, conflicted emotions of pride and disturbance at the similarity in their appearances.

Cornelia had inherited her mother's mass of black curls, her pointed chin and large dark eyes, although hers were substantially less hooded than her mothers. She thought her mother was beautiful, and she couldn't pair the scenario of her torturing someone with the images she saw. When she asked Aunt Cissy what she was like Cissy had replied "She was very clever and powerful. She also has a terrible temper, something I don't want you to repeat."

"Did the Longbottom's do something bad for her to torture them?"

Aunt Cissy had fixed her with a long calculating stare before answering slowly "They got in her way."

Cornelia had been too shocked to ask anymore, instead spending weeks chewing over this new information about her mother.

As well as magical history classes, Cornelia finally joined Draco in magical theory classes. It was during these lessons that Cornelia experienced her first sense of freedom.

They were taught by an old witch named Bathilda Bagshot who was extremely strict, but also very fair. It became obvious almost immediately that Cornelia was to flourish in these lessons, picking up theory quickly and understanding the mechanics of a broad range of spells that Draco struggled to get his head around. Particularly the defence against the dark arts spells, which she found exciting. Because of this Cornelia, for the first time in her life, was treated as a favourite and was praised regularly.

Draco was also not used to being second best to Cornelia and he found that it didn't suit him at all. For the first few lessons he had sucked up his negative feelings of jealousy as Cornelia picked up on spells that he had been trying to figure out for months longer than her, and tried to focus on just being glad to have classes with her. However, he couldn't hold it in for long.

After their fourth lesson together studying the expelliarmus spell, Cornelia had understood the general physics behind the spell: To create a magnetic field between the opposing wands and applying a force through ones own wand that jolted the opponents wand right from their fingers, causing it to arch through the air and eventually being drawn to the attractor side of the magnetic field which was the castor of the spell. When practising with their false wands she had perfected the movement and pronunciation perfectly on her first try, gaining a light applause from Mrs Bagshot. Draco couldn't bite back the outrage that rose like bile in his throat and ended up throwing his false wand upon the floor and storming from the room.

Later that evening when Cornelia had padded into Draco's room he ignored her attempts at communication stoically, something he had never been able to keep up with her before, but the jealousy still gnawed in his stomach ferociously. No matter what she said or where she moved Draco turned his back to her until she stormed from the room blinking back hurt and frustrated tears.

He turned to look at the door she had slammed behind her, a shade of guilt flitting through him for a moment before it twisted and renewed his previous rage. He made his own way out of the room and down the stairs.

A gong sound shook Cornelia from her daze a little while later. She had been laid on her bed with a book called 'Scary Spells for Spooky Kids' in front of her. She had been attempting to read the same page on the venomous tentacular for the last 15 minutes, but instead her mind kept trailing back to Draco and her stomach writhing uncomfortably at the thought.

The gong signalled a family meeting in the reception room, something that hadn't happened for at least a year, so Cornelia scrambled up quickly and made her way there as fast as she could without running. She had been markedly watching her behaviour since starting her magical theory classes, not wanting to give Aunt Cissy any excuse to take her out of them.

When she arrived she was greeted by three pairs of eyes, all of the Malfoy's being seated comfortably in the room. Draco quickly looked away and stared down at the wooden floor as if it were suddenly a fascinating book.

"Cornelia, take a seat." Uncle Lucy gestured to an armchair opposite his own beside the crackling fire. Cornelia nervously slid into it, getting a strange feeling that something unpleasant was about to happen. Why else would Draco be avoiding her gaze?

"We have been discussing your magical theory lessons with Draco." He continued and Cornelia's eyes shot straight back over to Draco who had a pink flush high on his narrow cheekbones. "It has come to our attention that Mrs Bagshot may be a little… past her best to be teaching."

"What?" Cornelia's mouth dropped open.

"Pardon!" Aunty Cissy corrected her sharply.

"Draco has informed us that her lessons are convoluted and meandering, and how she often loses her train of thought. It won't do to have our broods to be taught by a senile old woman now will it?" Lucius smiled in what he believed was a friendly manner.

"She is not senile!" Cornelia couldn't hold back from raising her voice in her outrage at Draco's blatant lies. "Draco is lying!"

Lucius's previously warm expression darkened and Aunt Cissy hissed "Cornelia! Control yourself!" whilst Draco's head shot up and he shouted back "I am not!"

"You are too! You're just jealous that I'm better than you!" Cornelia ignored Aunt Cissy's warning and shouted directly back to Draco, jumping to her feet.

Draco spluttered for a moment, his whole face flushed a dark red now. "I am not – You-you are not!"

"That is enough." Lucius's voice boomed with authority and immediately silenced the two children. Cornelia remained stood, her hands clenched into fists which quivered by her side. "This discussion is over. You will have a new tutor by the day after tomorrow. In the meantime, Cornelia you will come with me." He stood up and moved past Cornelia into the hallway. The quivering in Cornelia's hands took over her whole body as her previous anger was replaced with fear. Uncle Lucy's punishments were always much, much worse than Aunt Cissy's.

Draco watched her trail after his father, the previous flash of guilt now engulfing him. His mother patted his hand and smiled gently down at him. "Don't worry darling, we believe you." But the end of her sentence was lost in the shrieks that began from somewhere else in the mansion. Draco shot up and murmured "Goodnight mother." Before running upstairs and throwing himself into bed, pressing his pillows to his ears as hard as he could.

Draco tossed and turned all night, the wretched feeling in his stomach completely banishing any form of sleep. His bed felt cold and too big without Cornelia's warm form breathing softly beside him, and he finally gave up at 4.12AM, throwing the covers away from him and tiptoeing from the room.

He hesitated at Cornelia's door, his heart hammering in his chest. What if she refused to be anywhere near him? What if she hated him forever? After a few long minutes he forced himself to quietly push open the door and sneak to her bed.

He could tell she wasn't asleep; he knew what her breathing sounded like when she slept, but she didn't move or acknowledge him at all as he climbed slowly into the bed with her. He didn't dare to touch her and left a good foot of space between them before whispering "I'm really sorry Nelly."

Cornelia didn't respond. "Nelly?" He slowly reached out and put a gentle hand on her back. She flinched forcefully away and let out a low pained hiss. Draco drew back his hand quickly. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" He started to cry but Cornelia just went even stiller than before, apparently holding her breath.

After a few minutes Draco got a hold of himself and swallowed his sobs, staring widely at her back. As a last-ditch attempt, he reached out again, this time towards the mass of dark curls on her head. He buried his hand in them and found her earlobe where he tugged gently two times. It was their secret code, a wordless communication that they had developed right from being babies. It was hard to translate, but it loosely related to overwhelming feelings of love, and a signal to the other person that they needed comforting.

Cornelia let out the long breath she had been holding, her shoulders sinking before she stiffly shuffled around to face Draco. She met his gaze and he saw that her eyes were red and swollen from crying all night; Draco's own tears started to fall again in response. They embraced and cried into each other's shoulders, Draco careful to avoid touching the raw skin on her back, and eventually they fell asleep in each other's arms.

They didn't need to speak about what had happened the next day, instead arising together and continuing their day as usual. Cornelia didn't even mention it when they went into the classroom the day after to be faced with a new tutor by the name of Amycus Carrow.

Their new tutor was much wiser to the Malfoy ways than Bathilda Bagshot. Amycus ensured to overlook Cornelia when she outperformed Draco and praised Draco in a very over the top manner when he did well. Needless to say, there were no more rows between Draco and Cornelia, even if Cornelia did feel bitter every time Draco gloated to his parents about the praise he had received from Mr Carrow.

Finally, after what felt like forever, the day arrived for Draco and Cornelia to leave for Hogwarts. They had been preparing for the entire week before their departure, shopping for their supplies in Diagon Alley and getting a whole new wardrobe to last them the year and oncoming growth spurts, and their own wands. Cornelia hadn't taken the wand off her person since their purchase, extremely proud of her cedar wand of dragon heartstring and white river monster spine, a combination that Ollivander was delighted to ramble on and on about its rarity whilst looking her over with curious moon like eyes.

They also got matching friendship bracelets, a thin golden band with a single small emerald in the centre. They asked Lucius to bewitch them so that the metal would cool considerably if one of them were in mortal peril. He obliged with an amused smirk and Draco and Cornelia made a pact to never remove them.

Where Draco was a little nervous about the day ahead, Cornelia was brazenly brimming with excitement. She couldn't wait to escape the thick cold walls of the manor and to get away from the watchful eyes of Aunt Cissy and Uncle Lucy. She heeded Aunt Cissy's strictest warnings of controlling herself and protecting the family name all the while fighting to hold back a grin from her face. Still, when they arrived at Platform 9 and ¾ and Draco immediately beelined for the two hulking figures of Crabbe and Goyle, Cornelia felt uncertain for the first time.

She followed slowly and hovered behind him whilst he chattered away animatedly to the two boys. She had seen Crabbe and Goyle before of course, they had visited Draco at the manor every now and then, and from first sight she had decided they weren't her kind of people. They had always been big for their ages, and their mouths had always hung open in a way that she thought looked stupid. Their eyes were often glazed over and she soon realised they thought more with their fists than anything else. Not that they had ever dared to attack her, something about her haughty manner and quick temper kept them at bay, not to mention Draco wouldn't allow it. But she had watched them fight each other, their favourite game being Draco putting them up against each other and cheering them on from the side-lines. She had quickly bored of the boys and kept her distance from them whenever they were visiting. She hadn't thought of them being there today, and she had the sinking realisation that Draco wasn't going to just stick with her all the time. He had his own friends whilst she had none.

She dully wished her aunt and uncle goodbye and followed Draco, Crabbe and Goyle onto the train to find a compartment. All around her people were rushing to greet old friends and catching up excitedly but she suddenly felt very alone. She quietly joined Draco in the compartment they had chosen and looked out of the window, carefully composing her face so as not to show her disappointment. She forced a smile onto her face along with the other grinning boys when the train began moving and then lulled into silence as they continued to chat. After a while Draco dug an elbow in to her ribs and looked concernedly into her face.

"Did you hear what I said?" He asked and Cornelia shook her head, she had zoned out completely and had been sinking into her glum mood, imagining a future where she was left trailing behind Draco forever. "I said Potter's on the train! You know… Harry Potter?" He continued uncertainly at the blank expression on her face.

"Oh." Was all Cornelia managed. In spite of herself she felt her curiosity rise. They had obviously been told all about Harry Potter during their magical history classes, and Uncle Lucius had always insisted vehemently that Harry Potter was just an ordinary child that the rest of the wizarding population had projected their hopes onto, that there was no way that he could be responsible for the demise of the Dark Lord. Her and Draco had been brought up to respect and recognise the Dark Lord's power and to identify with his quest to purify the wizarding race, placing noble families at the top of the pecking order where they belonged.

"Well?" Draco wiggled his eyebrows at her like a pair of blonde caterpillars. "Shall we go and see him?"

"And do what?"

Draco paused. He hadn't thought that far ahead. "Well, he'd be a powerful friend to have." He said eventually.

"What so you're just going to walk up to him and become his friend? I bet everyone and their cat is trying that one." She snapped, her previous dark mood leaking out. Draco blanched.

"Well you don't have to come." He huffed, getting to his feet and turning his back on her. "Crabbe, Goyle, come on." And they shuffled after him like a pair of baboons.

Just great. Now she looked as alone as she felt. She rested her head on her arm and glared angrily out of the window. At one point the doors to the compartment slid open again and what looked like another first year girl peered in. "Is anybody else sitting here?" She asked timidly.

"Yes!" Cornelia snapped again and instantly regretted her decision when the girl hurriedly retreated before she could take it back. She fingered her wand, spinning it quickly between her fingers before letting out a sharp growl and thrusting her wand into the air in front of her. There was a sickening crunch and Cornelia flinched away from the window before staring at it in shock. A long crack had appeared in the glass, webbing out from a small point that looked about the width of her wand tip. As she stared back and forth between her wand and the window, Draco and his cronies returned.

Draco froze in the doorway and stared wide eyed at the crack. "What happened to the window?"

"Uh- I erm…"

A mischievous grin spread across Draco's face as he moved back towards his seat. "If you wanted to meet Potter that much all you had to do was say."

Cornelia flushed and snarled back "It doesn't look like he was much interested in being friends with you anyway!"

The smile was wiped from his face at that. "He seems like a loser." He muttered, and they quickly dropped the subject of both the window and Harry Potter.

It wasn't until the night fell and the train began to lose speed did Cornelia begin to feel jittery with nerves and excitement again. They changed quickly into their silk robes and waited, Cornelia listening to the boys exchanging stories of how they expected to be sorted into houses. Crabbe seemed to think that they would be forced to fight in a pool of mud.

"What do you think Nelly?" Draco asked Cornelia, his voice taking on a softer tone than it did when he addressed Crabbe or Goyle.

"I don't care as long as I'm in Slytherin." She answered nervously. She didn't really see the point in all of this guess work seeing as they were going to be finding out shortly, it just made her more nervous. All of the Malfoy's had been sorted into Slytherin, as had her own parents. It was the house of power, something that Cornelia dreamt of wistfully. She had lived her whole life in such close proximity to power watching Lucius and Narcissa navigate the wizarding world, and yet her own personal power was suppressed constantly. She couldn't wait to grow up and have power of her own building.

Draco agreed eagerly, as did Crabbe and Goyle when the train ground to a stop and they spilled out on to the bitterly cold platform along with all of the other students. They could make out above the hustle and bustle around them a loud deep voice calling "Firs' years over here! Firs' years this way!"

Lucius and Narcissa had told them to expect to look for a half giant oaf of a man called Hagrid on their first day there, and that they would be taking a boat ride up to the castle separately from the other students. Still, it was quite overwhelming to be face to face, or rather knee to face with the man himself and then lead to a fleet of small wooden boats bobbing on a black lake.

Cornelia was pleased when Draco stuck close to her, practically clinging onto her sleeve as they sorted themselves into who was in what boat, and remained to do so right up to the sorting ceremony. They were both astounded by the size and grandiosity of Hogwarts, it absolutely dwarfed the Malfoy mansion. When they were lead to a classroom off the grand hall and a troupe of transparent humanoid figures walked through a wall, Draco had grabbed her hand briefly before quickly letting go and looking around to make sure nobody had seen before meeting her eye and smirking at each other knowingly.

Finally they were lead into what Professor Mcgonagall had called the Great Hall and their breath left them momentarily. As well as being faced with an enormous hall filled with hundreds of students all of whom had their eyes turned towards them, it seemed that the hall had no ceiling. They looked up in to a clear night sky identical the one they had left outside. Cornelia heard a girl say "It's bewitched to look like the night sky, I read about it in Hogwarts: A History."

Dragging her eyes from the sky above them, Cornelia peered towards the front of the crowd of first years at what they were all moving towards. There she saw an ancient looking pointed hat sat upon a stool and she shared a confused look with Draco. At least there was no pool of mud. She almost jumped out of her skin when what looked like a great tear in the hat opened up and an equally ancient sounding voice boomed out of it.

After reciting a long poem the tear closed and Cornelia could feel thick anticipation in the air. Professor Mcgonagall stepped forward holding a scroll and began calling out student's names who would teeter forward and put the hat on their head. Sometimes immediately, sometimes after a few moments the hat's 'mouth' would open and it would boom out one of the four Hogwarts houses.

Cornelia's heart raced and her stomach churned as Mcgonagall got further down her list and finally read out "Lestrange, Cornelia."

She was sure that she heard a few whispers erupts from the students around her as she moved forward, suddenly glad for the many etiquette lessons she had had with Aunt Cissy where she had learnt to walk elegantly and properly. However, her mind was far too focussed on the hat to really pay any attention to what the other students may be saying.

As it slid over her ears the old voice sounded quietly in her ears. "Ah yes, power is what you seek. It is clear where you belong." Before shouting loudly into the room "SLYTHERIN!"

The Slytherin table erupted into loud cheers whilst the other houses clapped politely, and now Cornelia could clearly see some of the other students sharing pointed looks as she made her way to an empty seat. Once again the thought was whisked from her mind when she was greeted to the table by smiles and claps on the back, and suddenly all of her loneliness from the train journey evaporated and she felt more elated than she ever had in her life. She beamed round at them all before sitting beside another first year and turning her gaze back to the students waiting to be sorted, focusing in on Draco who was looking wistfully over at her. She gave him a confident grin which he couldn't quite manage to return.

They didn't have long to wait before Draco's name was called, and the hat barely brushed his head before it yelled "SLYTHERIN!" Cornelia jumped to her feet and dragged Draco into a tight hug the second he was within reach, and they jumped up and down squealing "We did it! We did it!" much to the amusement of the other Slytherins.

Phew! We made it to Hogwarts and I'm sure it didn't come as a surprise that Cornelia is of course a Slytherin. I find it really dull that Slytherin's are just typically painted as bad people rather than the children that they are, so we're going to cast a light in the dungeons and see what really goes on down there!

It's been difficult writing the whole 'getting ready for Hogwarts, going to Hogwarts, getting sorted' part of the story and not rushing it. It feels like Cornelia's story really begins in her third year at Hogwarts seeing as she won't be joining Harry in miraculously finding the philosopher's stone or the chamber of secrets, so I won't be writing multiple books worth of details about her first and second year. Does anyone else feel the same? We all wanna get straight to the good stuff right?