The following Sunday, I took Draco to Diagon Alley for ice cream. He'd been avoiding me for the whole of Saturday, probably embarrassed that I had witnessed Narcissa behaving so badly, and I figured the boy needed cheering up and what better way of doing so than with ice-cream?

I must admit, I did consider informing Lucius of what was going on between Draco and his mother, but it was never mentioned again, (at least, not until later, but that's not for now.) and I put it to the back of my mind. Besides, I had enough trouble to deal with as it was.

Sitting outside Florean Fortescue's Ice-Cream Parlour with two bowls that looked at least three feet deep and spoons that reached from here to Knockturn Alley, Draco stared blissfully into the icy depths of chocolate, pistachio and raspberry sauce. I didn't like raspberry, so I had chocolate sauce instead, with coconut ice cream.

Spoon hovering over the creamy perfection, Draco lowered it again and looked at me. I stopped, my own spoon halfway to my mouth, feeling suddenly awkward; the look he was giving me meant he had a question and probably not an easy one, come to that.

"Sir, who's Harry Potter?" My spoon clattered onto the stone, spattering chocolate sauce everywhere in the radius of a metre.

I frowned, "What?"

"Who's Harry Potter?" Draco asked again. "I keep hearing people talk about him and sometimes Father says why can't I be more like Harry Potter 'cause he could do magic as soon as he was born."

"It still hasn't shown up then?" I said sympathetically. Draco glowered into his ice-cream and shook his head.

"It's never going to come," he muttered angrily. "I'm gonna be a squib, I know it!"

"Magic always takes a while to show. True, some people's takes longer than others, but it will turn up in the end."

Despite the bitterness of the subject, I was relived that it had got Draco off the subject of Harry Potter. The name Potter was still a sensitive spot in my mind and I didn't particularly want it prodded.

"So who is he?" Draco prodded, sucking innocently on his spoon.

"A boy," I responded curtly. "Just a boy." Draco looked disappointed, obviously hoping for something a little more exciting than 'just a boy'.

"Oh…how old is he? What's he like? What are his parents like? Where does he live?"

I hesitated for a moment, choosing my answers carefully. "About your age, I think. Perhaps a bit younger."

This seemed to please Draco, his eyes lighting up with excitement. "That's means we'll be in the same year at school, doesn't it? We'll be friends, won't we? I'm going to have lots of friends when I go to school," he added proudly, pushing his spoon right down to the bottom and pulling it out again with a noise that sounded like a duck stuck in mud.

"I'm sure you will," I said. ""But that's a long way off yet. I wouldn't give it much thought if I was you."

"Five years," agreed Draco thoughtfully. "But Father says it will come fast and I had better be prepared. Father says I may not even go to Hogwarts. He says Durmstrang's better 'cause they don't let in mudbloods and wizard scum like they do at Hogwarts and you get to learn more useful stuff like how to make dark magic." I noticed, suddenly, a pool of melted ice cream and chocolate sauce was forming at the base of my bowl. I mourned the waste of chocolate sauce and began once again on my ice cream, still listening to Draco ramble on.

"Don't you have to take a test or something to get into Durmstrang, though?"

Draco frowned, "I think so…" he said uncertainly. "But I don't know what it is." He hesitated, biting his lip, before admitting quietly, "I don't really want to go there. I want to go to Hogwarts, but Father doesn't approve of the headmaster, he says he's…he's…" Draco searched for the word amongst the vanilla. "Incompetent! Yes, Father says he's incompetent."

"Why don't you want to go to Durmstrang?" I asked curiously. "If your father says it's the best school, why don't you want to go?" Draco eyed me for a moment, debating whether or not he could trust me.

"It sounds scary," he murmured, dropping his eyes quickly to the ground. "Father says that if you're bad they cane you and lock you in a dungeon. Hogwarts sounds nicer anyway. Do you think Harry Potter will go to Hogwarts? 'Cause if he's at Durmstrang I probably wouldn't mind it as much. Do you think he's nice?"

"Draco, I have no idea. I really don't know anything about Harry Potter," I snapped, started to feel quite irritated. "Why are you so curious about him anyway?"

"I told you already, people keep saying his name and Father says, why can't I be more like him. Why does everyone know him? What's he done that's so special?"

My Death-Eater alarm started buzzing loudly in my ears; it wasn't my place to drag Draco into such matters, especially since I distanced myself as much as possible from them.

"He has a scar," I told him, not untruthfully.

Draco frowned, "A scar? I have a scar too," He pulled up his sleeve. "See? It still hasn't gone away. I ought to be famous too!"

I laughed, "No, Draco. It's a curse scar, which isn't quite the same as yours. When Harry Potter was a baby, somebody tried to kill him with a bad spell, but it didn't work and left a scar instead."

Draco looked at me, silver eyes huge with the horror of such a notion. "Why would somebody want to kill a baby? It couldn't have done anything that bad. Did they try to kill his parents too? Had they done bad things?"

'Yes,' said my memory, 'They were evil people who deserved to die! 'But to say that wouldn't be fair on Draco. It was Lucius who corrupted his mind, not me.

"His parents are dead, but I don't know why they were killed. "

Draco shivered; looking quite sickened, and pushed his bowl away. "I don't think I want anymore," he mumbled. "So…so who does he live with now, if his mother and father are dead?"

"Muggles," I told him with a hint of disgust.

"Muggles?" Draco exclaimed in disbelief. "Why? Does he like them? Father says they're filthy and sub-human, why would he want to live with muggles?" I shrugged, unable to answer. Personally, the thought of living in the muggle world repulsed me, but that was simply down to personal experience. Not all muggles were uncivilised, violent creatures, although the majority were.

"To be honest, I don't think he has a choice. They're the only family he has."

At this, Draco pulled a face. "You mean he's part muggle?" I flushed and simply nodded. I wasn't quite sure how I felt at Draco's reaction to half-bloods, it didn't bother me especially, but a sharp pang of uneasiness shot through y gut at his words, as innocently said as it was.

"Don't you want to be friends with him anymore?"

"I don't know," said Draco, shrugging. "Maybe. But I don't think Father would want me to," he thought for a moment. "But if he's famous, then maybe that would be all right. Yes," Draco decided, smiling happily. "I think it would be okay. We're going to be best friends!"

I wish I knew then what we both know now; how much trouble the boy called Potter would cause us. But neither of us could've known nor been prepared. But that story is not for here nor is it my place to tell it. If you want a story about Harry Potter, you are reading the wrong thing.

Life continued as normal, or at least as normal as it was going to get in Malfoy Manor. I tutored Draco in whatever was requested of me, either by my young student or his damnable father and over time Draco became quite the little scholar, showing off, when the mood took him, with big words even though he didn't know what they meant.

Lucius became more irritable, more easily angered, partly because of work which, according to him, was becoming increasingly more demanding but mostly because Draco still wasn't showing any signs of magic. Of course, being a Malfoy, it was completely out of the question that it wouldn't show itself at some point. It just seemed to be taking its time.

"Why can't you be more like Harry Potter?" Lucius would snarl every time the subject came up. "He was able to do magic when he was only a baby! Look at you, you're nothing better than a mudblood."

Draco met these cold remarks with a mumbled apology and a promise that he would try to be better; more like Harry Potter. But he could see that his father's words hurt him deeply and I had a feeling that, by the time Draco was eleven, he wouldn't be so eager to become friends with the boy he was so often compared to, particularly if things kept going the way they were.

"What's so special about Harry Potter anyway?" Draco burst out angrily one day when he had been waving his practise wand around with no result. "You said yourself that he was just a boy. Why does Father want me to be like him? He doesn't even know him!" He threw the wand to the ground and sat down sulkily on his bed. "I bet he can't even do any magic. People are just making it up."

"But I'm sure you're better at flying than he is," I put in, hoping to cheer him up.

At this, Draco smiled. "Yes," he said confidently. "I'm the best at that. Even Father says I'm good. Any way, if Harry Potter lives with muggles, he probably doesn't even know what Quidditch is," the boy shuddered. "Imagine! He must get so bored. When we go to school, he won't really know anything about Wizards and such will he? So I'll have to help him. I'll have to teach about Quidditch and how to fly. Then everybody will want to be friends with me, because Harry Potter will be my best friend."

I was glad that Draco finally had something to look forward to, despite it being over five years away. I wasn't concerned for him though, who's to say it wouldn't happen anyway? It was perfect conceivable that Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter would become best friends, although it was just as possible for them not to be…only time would tell.

Greetings! I told you I'd start updating faster ;) This was just a filler chapter and aslo i wanted to write about Harry Potter, and this was the only place i could really put it. Hope you liked it and keep reviewing!

Love Lily xxx