Meles Malfoy

Chapter 3.

Draco slept fitfully that night. The bed was slightly too hard and the room slightly too warm for him, however, foremost in his mind was the Howler he was expecting from his father.

Very early the next morning, after having decided that he had had about as much sleep as he was likely to get, he rose without a glance at his room-mate, bathed and changed into his newly Hufflepuff coloured robes. The common room had only a small number of other early risers moping around before breakfast. As he passed, they threw him the sort of odd looks that groggy, disheveled people give to those who were natural early risers like Draco.

After exchanging a few pleasantries from the witch in the tapestry, he was able to get directions for the owlery. His plan was to get a letter explaining everything to his father and mother as soon as possible, that way, the howler ought to be less bad. From bitter experience though, he knew that this wasn't possible but he didn't know what else he could do.

When he reached the owlery, he found round faced boy in Gryffindor robes who had just dispatched one of the school owls as Draco entered the room. Draco knew this boy as Longbottom. On the train, he had made fun of him for having a toad. Longbottom seemed quite highly strung and Malfoy didn't hesitate in exploiting this.

"I hope your toad hasn't escaped again Longbottom. If it finds itself in here, I'd give it about thirty seconds before my owl has it for breakfast," he said with a nasty laugh.

Longbottom didn't reply and instead, blushed and left the owlery with his lower lip trembling.

"That was too easy," Draco thought to himself as he called Orion, his eagle owl down from the rafters.

Draco produced a quill and a sheet of parchment and wrote a letter explaining the events of the previous day. He was careful not to mention the bit about the muggle-born he was sharing his room with or what the hat had said about his ambition or what Snape had said or most of the conversation or the part about him fainting in front of the whole school and most of the conversation with Dumbledore. It was a very short piece of correspondence.

As he tied the letter to Orion's leg he got the slight feeling that the bird didn't like the look of the yellow and black colours on his robes. Draco ignored this. "Take this to Father as quickly as you can," he said.

The bird was, after all, just a servant and it knew what fate awaited it if it failed to take orders. "We do not have patience for disobedient staff!" he remembered his father once shouting at the Tidy-Up Fairy.

"Gads, I'm turning muggle already! Tidy-Up Fairy indeed!" he muttered to himself as he watched the eagle owl fly off. It was time to head down to the main hall and wait for the inevitable.

Justin and a few others he had seen on the train were already sitting together at the Hufflepuff table and Justin, who spotted him first, waved and made room beside him. "Pathetic, he's forgiven me. I can't believe it," he thought.

Passing the Slytherin table he was acutely aware of the malevolent looks he was being cast. Someone stuck out a foot and he tripped landing face down on the great hall's floor. "Not again," he thought, as the entire of the Slytherin table exploded with vitriolic laughter.

All of a sudden he was aware of a lot of shouting and someone grabbing him by the shoulders and dragging him to his feet.

"Just what do you think you're playing at Warrington?" shouted the angry voice from the previous night.

"Nothing at all Webley. You Hufflepuffs can be so clumsy. He simply fell over as he was walking past our table," replied Warrington in an unctuous tone.

Webley, a stocky prefect about 175cm tall, was having none of this. In fact, he sounded absolutely furious and had drawn his wand. "Let me make myself perfectly clear on this matter. You mess with one member of my house, and everyone in my house will have something to say about it! I somehow don't think the same could be said for Slytherin!"

There were general murmurings and a few cat-calls of assent from the rest of the assembled Hufflepuffs standing behind Draco and Webley. Draco was also surprised to note that quite a number of Ravenclaws and Gryffindors also appeared to be annoyed that Warrington had interrupted their breakfast.

The confrontation was broken up by Professor Sprout. "Boys! Boys! Would you calm down. It's the first day of term. Warrington, get back to your seat! And Webley, I'm surprised at you. This is no way to behave."

The show over, people began to drift back to their seats and Draco went to sit with Justin and the other first years.

Prof. Sprout followed Draco over and said in a slightly more cheerful tone, "Good-morning. Here are your timetables everyone. Draco, perhaps you could explain exactly what just happened."

Draco told her that he had been tripped up and told her what Webley had done.

"I must go and speak to Webley and I will be taking this up with Prof. Snape," was her response before she continued on up the table distributing timetables.

Draco turned around and started filling his plate with deviled kidneys and black pudding and was about to begin eating when he noticed that all of the other first years and most of the others on either side of them were looking at him.

"What?" he asked in a puzzled tone of voice.

Everyone burst out laughing and Draco, not really understanding the joke (spontaneous mirth was almost entirely unknown at Malfoy Manor) but nonetheless, recognising that something humourous had just occurred, he joined in. He felt like he could do with a laugh.

"She's not usually like that when things get out of hand. Usually she's a right tyrant if a Hufflepuff doesn't toe the line," explained one of the second year girls.

"Didn't sleep much last night? Neither did I. Did you find the room a bit too cold as well?" asked Justin. "Merlin, doesn't this one ever shut-up?" asked Draco to himself as the rest of the house resumed their frenzied chattering.

Over breakfast, he learned the names of other Hufflepuff first years. Ernie McMillan's family was pure for at least 8 generations and his father had a private arithmancy consultancy, Hannah Abbot's parents worked for Comet Racing Brooms. The others were mainly the children of ministry backgrounds. To Draco's surprise, Justin was the only new muggle-born in the house this year. Generally, he found that he would be living with a far more diverse group than he had been expecting. Slytherin kids were generally the offspring of land owners.

"Will this diversity mean lower standards? I mean if they accept just about everyone then they are bound to accept just about anything. What must they think of me then? I'm a Hufflepuff. Am I like this?" he mused to himself, "and what of Webley? He really seemed intent on hexing Warrington right in front of the entire school. Are all Hufflepuffs like that? Maybe there is more to this house than thankless toil, pomposity and mindless chatter." Just then, someone called, "Post's here!" which derailed his train of thought.

Draco looked up and saw his father's owl flying in over the Slytherin table before banking sharply and coming to a rest in front of him. To his immense surprise and relief, the letter attached was not a violently scarlet envelope but a plain scroll of parchment sealed with green wax. The contents of the letter were far worse than any howler though:

Draco,

Was disappointed to hear that you will not be continuing the family tradition of Slytherin house. I will be at Hogwarts on Saturday to discuss this matter with you further. You will meet me at the entrance hall at three o'clock sharp.

Lucius Malfoy

Draco was used to seeing his father angry but a letter as cool and concise as that made all of his muscles tense with apprehension.

"Come on you lot, get to class," called Webley, ushering them out of the hall on their way to Potions with the Ravenclaws.