Chapter 7. The First Days.
"Longbottom, Neville!"
The boy made his way to the stool with barely visible trembling and slowly sat down.
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
I shook my head in mild surprise. I hadn't really done anything, and already the story was changing. I had never even met Neville. Perhaps he had simply been frightened by the sight of Weasley throwing punches and didn't want to risk ending up alongside someone like that — so he hadn't asked the Hat to put him in Gryffindor.
While the boy was walking to his table, several more students were called up. Some of them I knew — or rather, had heard of. Others I hadn't. But in general everything was going as expected. Those who were meant to end up with the Snakes did, those who were meant to go elsewhere —
"Davis, Tracy!"
A girl with dark, nearly black hair approached the stool, and I would not have paid it any attention at all, except that at the sound of the name Daphne gave an almost imperceptible flinch.
"RAVENCLAW!"
The girl hurried over to our table and soon sat down across from Daphne.
"Hi, Tracy..."
My faithful maid's voice carried a slight note of uncertainty.
"Hi... and that's all you want to say to me?"
She looked Daphne over carefully, then shifted her gaze to me with a mildly contemptuous look. She said nothing, however. Which was understandable — the House of Davis did not number among the noble houses, which meant I ranked above her in status. And given the way I had conducted myself and put Weasley in his place...
"I... can we talk later?"
"Yes..."
She winced slightly but agreed with Daphne's words. I could guess well enough at the reasons behind Tracy's behavior, but Hermi was glancing back and forth between Daphne and Tracy in complete bewilderment.
"Draco, why are they being so..."
She turned to me helplessly, as I was closer, and asked quietly — though both girls heard the question perfectly well.
"I can't say for certain..."
I shook my head.
"...but my suspicion is that before Daphne became my attendant, she spent a great deal of time with Miss Davis. Afterward, however, in order to meet the high standards expected of an attendant of the House of Black, she had to study an enormous amount. So much so that she was only able to see even her sister once a month, or sometimes once every two months. And Miss Davis took this personally and felt hurt by her friend?"
Tracy's eyes went wide and she stared in astonishment, first at me, then at Daphne.
"Yes. I am now the personal attendant of my lord Draco of the House of Black."
It was said with pride, and before Tracy could get a single question out. Her mouth closed again and she fixed her gaze on me once more — now with anger, and something close to hatred.
"I wouldn't..."
I shook my head before she could say anything.
"...Daphne has already promised to speak with you, Miss Davis, and she will tell you the reasons for her current situation. As well as whether she is content with it. After that, if you still wish to, you are welcome to say whatever you think of me."
She gave a slow nod and forced out a single word through her teeth.
"Fine."
The Sorting continued, and soon we heard the name of the hero of the hour.
"Potter, Harry!"
The boy came up to the stool and sat down, showing his face to the room. His glasses were broken and barely clinging to his face, and a bruise was already darkening under his right eye.
"Mr. Potter, if you don't mind, I'll repair your glasses — if you'll just take them off for me."
Harry did as McGonagall asked, after which she carefully transferred the Hat so that both the list of students and the Hat were in one hand, and with her free hand drew her wand. A short motion of the wand, and the glasses in Harry's hand were completely repaired.
"My word..."
I shook my head.
"What is it, your illustrious Blackness..."
"Tracy."
Daphne silenced her friend, who was clearly barely holding herself back — though she did fall silent.
"My lord?"
She looked at me attentively.
"To say the verbal formula and make the gesture, I could have repaired the glasses myself — and might even have eliminated one of the two and still managed it. But it wouldn't have looked quite so elegant. Without the gesture and the key word, however..."
I shook my head.
"...it's in exactly those simple but flawlessly executed spells that true mastery lies."
"Pff..."
Tracy's snort expressed her opinion on my words. But I genuinely believed it — executing even a simple spell without words or gesture, and doing it with that kind of elegance, was considerably harder than casting certain advanced charms.
Not that I meant to dismiss the difficulty of advanced magic — but if you had mastered it, you had generally already refined the simplest spells to exactly that level of perfection. Though some wizards simply got by on flooding everything with large reserves of raw magic.
That particular option wasn't available to me.
Or rather, it wouldn't be available to me any time soon. As a wizard I was above average in potential, but I still fell short of what one might call the genuinely gifted. Those were the ones born with magical reserves so vast that rigorous study was barely necessary — they just needed to shout their spells loud enough and believe firmly enough that it would work. And judging by canon, Potter was exactly that sort.
Meanwhile, Harry had put his glasses back on and the Hat had been lowered onto his head, and the long minutes of waiting stretched out. The Hat frowned, shifted and fidgeted on the hero's head, but couldn't seem to reach a decision.
"Fine... if that's what you want, then — RAVENCLAW!"
The Hat's words surprised me considerably, but the House erupting in applause seemed not to notice that telling little hesitation, and Harry made his way to the table and sat down next to Tracy. And with that, the last of anything interesting at the Sorting came to an end.
"Before we begin the feast, Headmaster Dumbledore wished to say a few words."
McGonagall stepped slightly to one side, and Dumbledore rose from behind the staff table.
"Thank you, Minerva..."
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled with his customary warmth, and then he looked out with a more serious expression over all the children who were hanging on his words.
"I wish to remind our older students, and to inform our first-years, that the Forbidden Forest is off limits. Additionally, our esteemed caretaker, Mr. Argus Filch, has asked me to announce that the corridor on the third floor, on the right-hand side, is strictly out of bounds. Anyone who ventures there faces a most painful death of the sort most terrible you can imagine."
"He can't be serious?"
Hermione's stunned whisper went unanswered.
"And now..."
Dumbledore looked around each table in turn.
"...let the feast begin."
And immediately, the tables began to fill with plates laden with all manner of dishes. Hermione tried at once to heap some onto her plate and get started, but I stopped her.
"What?"
"First — commit to memory a few rules of conduct in the wizarding world. Even in what would seem to be the safest place in all of Magical Britain, one must not neglect basic personal precautions. Which means one ought to cast diagnostic charms on one's food. Watch the gesture and the verbal formula..."
I demonstrated the spell to Hermione and she nodded along dutifully. Harry was watching me with an astonished expression but wasn't yet interfering.
"Hold on..."
I shook my head and cast the charms on her food myself.
"...first you'll demonstrate the correct execution of the spell to me or to Daphne, and only after that will you cast it on your own food yourself."
"Do you think..."
"No."
I shook my head before she could finish.
"...it is extremely unlikely that at official mealtimes — breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the Great Hall — anything will be slipped into our food. However, this needs to become a habit. Also — if anyone offers you sweets, or something to drink, those must be checked as well. That is precisely where doctored potions are most commonly concealed."
The girl gave a slow nod.
"Good, everything's clean — you can eat..."
"Em, may I..."
Tracy glanced at Potter, who was looking a little uncertain, and with a sigh cast the charm on his portion as well — after which we all set to eating. Potter tried his best to keep up with us, though honestly, Daphne and I were not adhering to the full requirements of etiquette ourselves, limiting ourselves to the essential minimum.
"As for..."
I took a small sip and suppressed a slight grimace. I don't like pumpkin juice, but one ought to show a little appreciation to the house-elves before asking for something different. Not that I particularly cared about their feelings — but I simply had no desire to give offense. Afterward I could just go and have a quiet word with them.
"...the Headmaster's words about a most terrible death. Bear in mind that the Headmaster himself is a man of an entirely different era. When he was a student at Hogwarts, corporal punishment was practiced openly. So it is quite possible that he placed something genuinely dangerous in the school while assuming that a warning would be more than sufficient to cool any hot heads."
Hermione swallowed. I finished my drink, set the goblet down, took out my wand, and gave two short taps on the edge of the table. Each tap came with a small pulse of magic.
"Pomegranate juice, please."
And immediately my goblet filled with pomegranate juice, and surprised looks converged on me from all around — not only from the first-years, but from several older students as well.
"What?"
I looked around at them.
"I simply shared a little magic with the house-elves and asked for a different drink."
"Is that actually allowed?"
The question from one of the second-years was met with amused snorts from the better-informed students at our table. Very quickly the correct way to change one's drink became known to everyone around — though I noticed that no one thought to mention that one could simply walk down to the kitchens and have a word with the little creatures directly.
The feast after that passed pleasantly enough. Light, easy conversation — though Daphne kept her ice queen mask firmly in place, she chatted with Tracy from behind it with evident enjoyment, and Tracy, by the end of the feast, had stopped shooting hateful glances in my direction. Evidently the conversation had made it clear to her that her friend had no complaints.
"Em, Draco, right?"
Potter caught my attention when most people had already finished eating and were simply talking with one another.
"Yes, Potter, that's my name."
"Em... do you know who it is that's talking to Professor Quirrell over there?"
"Hmm?"
I turned to look at the staff table.
"Ah — that's Professor Snape. Head of Slytherin and Potions teacher. Incidentally, I'd recommend reading at least a couple of chapters of the textbook before his lessons. From what I know, he and your father weren't exactly on friendly terms. So his attitude toward you may turn out to be somewhat biased."
"Em..."
Harry gave a slightly dazed nod.
"...yes, I definitely will."
He rubbed his scar, and all I could do was shake my head.
"Does the scar hurt?"
"What? Y-yes..."
He nodded, looking embarrassed.
"I don't know whether you'll take my advice, but..."
I looked at the boy carefully.
"...you ought to visit the hospital wing. I'm not entirely sure where you've been living until now, but from what I can observe, it certainly wasn't among wizards. Which means you may not have received the proper medical attention you needed."
"Em..."
The boy looked flustered.
"Actually, Muggles are quite educated and have perfectly good medicine. My parents, for instance, are dentists."
I smiled at Hermione.
"Hermione, I'm not doubting what Muggles are capable of. I know what they're capable of. However, the effects of a curse like the Killing Curse on a living person..."
I pressed my lips together, and the children closest to us at the table fell quiet.
"...ordinarily result in death. To be precise, only one person is known to have survived it — and that is Mr. Potter..."
"Harry. Just Harry is fine."
I nodded to him.
"All right, Harry. So — Hermione, after a curse like that it's advisable to undergo a full examination by a Healer — or a Mediwizard. Which is essentially the same thing. Harry, had the scar given you any trouble before today?"
"Em... no..."
He shook his head, looking rather uncertain.
"Hmm... I'm no Healer, and I still lack sufficient knowledge — but I'd advise you to see the school nurse all the same. At the very least she can examine you and offer some guidance."
"I... thank you..."
He nodded at me.
At that moment Dumbledore rose from his seat.
"I hope everyone has eaten their fill?"
The Hall erupted in an enthusiastic affirmative, and the Headmaster clapped his hands — after which all the food vanished from the tables.
"Wonderful. Now then — let us sing our school song..."