Circumpolar

Chapter 2: The Sorting Ceremony

Draco rubbed his forehead absently as the train slowed and eventually stopped. The headache was the phantom aching of an atrophied sixth sense; something not quite in his head, but not wholly external, either. It was a holdover from the Druids; the last vestiges of a weather-sense that had survived down through all the intervening generations since the Roman Conquest.

The sense had been severely stunted from its original form; all that remained of it these days was a ache made all the more annoying for its intangibility. It flared up during severe drops in barometric pressure. Draco, like most wizards whose ultimate ancestors hailed from the British Isles, had the Druidic early-warning system built in as a vestigial extra sense. In these modern times of meteorological spells and weather maps, though, it was more of a hindrance than anything else.

Crabbe and Goyle were similarly affected, their stares glassier than was usual, even for them. Bulstrode, oblivious to the discomfort, was asleep. Beautiful Blaise, whose lineage was Italian Strega, remained blissfully ache-free. Surprisingly, Pansy was also unaffected, raising Draco’s suspicions about her family once more. Rumor had it that the Parkinsons were only a few generations removed from Gypsy commoners.

Draco was loathe to move, but the increasingly frantic calls of the prefects (minus the Slytherin seventh years, who were ignoring their duties) for the first years to follow them to the boats spurred him into action. At least they still take their cues from me, he thought as they stood as one after Draco rose to his feet. Millicent jumped up with surprising agility after Crabbe nudged her gently.

Without knowing why, Draco turned suddenly and looked at his year-mates, memorizing the picture before him. Five teens with accents of silver and green all watched him expectantly. Draco realized then that, with the exception of Pansy, he knew very little about the people he had spent the last six years of his life with. He knew their lineage, and kept a mental filing cabinet filled with blackmail material on them, but couldn’t have named their favorite colors or names of their pets.

And what’s wrong with that? Realizing how sickeningly pathetic that line of thought was, Draco let his common sense take over with acidic exasperation. That’s the way it should be. No need to get all sentimental about your subordinates, he reminded himself. Keep it up and you can ask that bloody Hat to re-Sort you into Hufflepuff.

For the first time in his life, Draco had the urge to check that the others were actually following him as he led the group out of the train and onto the platform. Uncertainty in his position as leader was a new and unwelcome emotion, and it physically manifested itself as a touch of nausea to mix with the weather headache.

The carriages were waiting for them, and Crabbe and Pansy broke off from the group to use their dubious authority as prefects to score a carriage for themselves and the rest of the Slytherin seventh-years. Or so Draco had assumed; when he turned to them, however, he found them staring, and pointing, at nothing.

Not nothing. Draco realized with another sickening lurch that Crabbe and Pansy were seeing that which he could not- the thestrals. Draco shoved a thumbnail in his mouth, a long-forgotten habit, as he considered this development. Crabbe and Pansy had seen death. Not just the natural kind, either, as Draco would have been aware of deaths within their families. Had a Crabbe or Parkinson died, it would have been cause for a state funeral which Draco would have been forced to attend. They had seen death, and Draco hadn’t. Had they been present on one of his father’s “business trips?” Once again, he furiously resolved to bring his lack of Death-Eater experience up with his father.

Pushing the indignity of it down inside himself, Draco crossed the few feet of dry, sere grass to the carriage, flanked by Bulstrode and Goyle. Blaise followed a step behind, discouraging anyone from complaining about their usurpation of an entire carriage with a forbidding glance.

*** ***

To Lord Lucius Malfoy, from your obedient son, Draco Augustus Malfoy, greetings. I should like to know why my peers, whom you have taught me to lead, have enjoyed new privileges as fitting to their station and age, while I have been kept ignorant…

Draco wished he had a quill to write this down. The Sorting Ceremony seemed interminable this year, especially with the pounding of his head. Draco had briefly entertained himself by noting which students shared Druidic blood, as evidenced by glassy gazes and hang-dog expressions. He noticed Potter rubbing at his scar, as if that was the source of his discomfort. Over at the Hufflepuff table, Hannah Abbott was pinching the bridge of her freckled nose.

Having grown tired of that, he then shifted his attention to the results of the Sorting for a time, and was moderately surprised at the unusually low ratio of new Slytherins to those Sorted elsewhere. Little Star Zabini, sporting the same white streak in her hair as her older sister, had been no surprise; the Hat had Sorted her into Slytherin almost before she had sat down on the stool. Star had already shown her dominance over the other (few) Slytherin first-years and was holding court down the table.

After the Sorting, which had been a disappointment given the sheer volume of new Gryffindors (must be an epidemic of bravery this year…) , Draco half-listened to the announcements. Absently, he twirled his wand through his fingers as Dumbledore rattled through his usual shtick.

A collective gasp that turned into a great whooping cheer over at Gryffindor central snapped Draco quickly back to attention. Draco turned his gaze to the head table, and despite his upbringing, which included learning to keep his face impassive at all times, felt his jaw unhinge into a gawping stare of dawning horror. “And during Madame Hooch’s hiatus,” Dumbledore was saying with infuriatingly benevolent glee, “Mr. Wood here will be taking over as flying instructor and Quidditch referee.” Draco’s headache suddenly vanished as thunder crashed, appropriately punctuating the announcement.

Oliver Wood, in all his thick-shouldered, Quidditch-playing glory, waved sheepishly at the crowd, which was, for the most part, on its feet. Draco banged his head down on the table in disgust. Goodbye, Quidditch Cup, he thought miserably.

*** ***

Around 4 AM, Draco gave up on sleep entirely. His mind was on a continuous loop of his concerns about the other Slytherins, his future as a Death-Eater, how spectacularly the Slytherins would lose the Cup with Oliver Wood refereeing, and that awful wet sound Crabbe was making with his nose as he slept. He sat up, pushing his hair out of his eyes, and waited a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

After gathering quill and parchment from his trunk, he slipped out of the room quietly, though he probably could have tap-danced out the door without waking Crabbe and Goyle. A few lamps still flickered idly in the Slytherin common room, creating long shadows across the floor. Seating himself in the most comfortable chair in the room, Draco braced the parchment against his knees and began to write.

To Lord Lucius Malfoy, from your son, Draco Augustus Malfoy, greetings…

*** ***

Harry Potter didn’t sleep much. He hadn’t gotten more than a few hours of sleep per night since the death of… since Sirius. It wasn’t so bad during the day. Everyone had been right, time did heal all wounds, but Dream-Harry didn’t seem to know that Sirius Black was dead, and enjoyed nightly adventures with his godfather. And so, whenever Harry woke up from one of these jaunts, it was with a crushing agony that he realized that Sirius was dead all over again.

Over the summer, like the summer before that, Harry had spent much of his time reading. Mrs. Figg was glad to loan Harry borrow her books, spell-books and wizard fiction alike. She also let Hedwig stay with her, and held Harry’s mail for him until he could escape the Dursley’s to come pick it up.

Now that he was back at Hogwarts, the Owlrey was Harry’s refuge. He could babble all he wanted to Hedwig, who responded only with an occasional soft hoot or a chattering of her beak. Unlike Hermione and Ron, she didn’t give Significant Looks or try to analyze Harry’s every emotion.

The storm had abated sometime after midnight, and had, with its dissipation, brought blessedly cool weather. The clouds had moved on to reveal a brilliant night sky, untouched by haze for the first time in a month. The full moon, descending now towards the western horizon, shone through the window at Harry’s back. He sat tucked up into the embrasure, one leg dangling to the floor. Hedwig sat sedately on his forearm, which he had remembered to protect with an arm guard.

“Agrippa?” a voice called softly from the darkness. Harry froze, realizing just how foolish he looked chatting up his owl at this ungodly hour. He was only slightly comforted by the fact that this interloper shared Harry’s unorthodox sleeping patterns.

A bird alighted from one of the darkest recesses of the Owlrey, gliding on ghostly wings towards whomever had called it. Harry caught sight of the raptor as it flew into a beam of moonlight and began to backwing.

The person that stepped into the light to offer his forearm looked inhuman. What little coloring the boy would have had during the day was utterly bleached out by moonlight. It was only the wingspan of the bird that made Harry realize who it was standing there, looking for all the world like an apparition that had coalesced from the moonlight itself. Only an eagle-owl had that enormous wing-span, and only Malfoy had an eagle-owl.

Amazingly, Malfoy hadn’t yet noticed Harry, who was sitting quite conspicuously with the moon at his back. Harry’s west-facing window was perpendicular to the door, and Malfoy hadn’t turned his head to scan the room. Harry, undiscovered for the time being, listened carefully as Malfoy gave his instructions to his owl.

Malfoy, who in Harry’s eyes looked uncharacteristically childish with his hair in his eyes, was looking directly into the eyes of the bird. The eagle-owl was so large that Harry could see Malfoy bracing himself to hold it up. “Agrippa,” the Slytherin boy was saying urgently, though quietly enough that Harry had to strain to hear him, “Leave the message with my father, but don’t wait for him to read it. I don’t know what his reaction will be.”

The bird clicked his beak at Malfoy, and Harry had to blink in surprise as the other boy scratched the bird’s head, just as Harry had done earlier with Hedwig. Malfoy gave a grunt as the bird took off. It didn’t leave by the window Harry was perched in, but Malfoy must have caught him out of the corner of his eye regardless, as he jumped nearly a foot and leveled an accusing gaze at Harry.

Malfoy was no more an apparition as he stalked towards Harry, colorless eyes flashing. “Listening in on private conversations now, Potter?” he seethed.

Harry jumped down from the embrasure, Hedwig flapping her wings to keep her balance. He noted with some pleasure that he was at least two inches taller than Malfoy. “A private conversation with your bird? Really, Malfoy, how touching. And by touching, I mean touched.” He tapped a finger against his temple in the universal sign for “crazy”. The Gryffindor in Harry winced inwardly at the hypocrisy of that statement, seeing how he had been doing the same just minutes before, but the more practical aspect of him was pleased. Harry had begun to consider that practical side of him the Slytherin side.

“Touched?,” Malfoy crossed his arms over his bare chest, but not before Harry saw that one pale arm was bleeding from the eagle-owl’s talons. “I just came in here to owl my… to send a letter. I’m not the one hanging around in here for fun, it smells bloody awful. I think you’re the one that’s touched in the head, old boy.”

Harry took a step forward, and Malfoy, while appearing nonchalant, tightened his fingers around the wand dangling from his hand.

“Are we done, then?” asked Malfoy, trying unsuccessfully to appear bored.

“Running away from a fight, Malfoy?” Harry asked in an oily tone, his lips quirking up in a hideous approximation of a smile. His left hand was curled into a fist, while his right arm, containing Hedwig, was cocked at an awkward angle.

Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Well since you’re standing there like a bloody great git and shielding yourself with a bloody owl, then I guess I’ll let you live.”

“So you are running away, then.”

“I’m walking away, Potter,” Malfoy replied. “Strolling, if you will. Moving slowly away from you, with no worries that you might attack me from behind. And put that bird down, you look like a nutter.”

*** ***

Draco was loathe to admit it, especially in light of the whole Forbidden Forest Fiasco when he was twelve and in his first year, but he missed having Firenze as a Divination teacher. Trelawney was back, and though suitably chastened from the whole experience with Umbridge, she still taught her classes with the vague air of one not truly gifted with the Sight.

Draco had been forced to stay in Divination by his mother, who was convinced that her grandmother’s Seer blood would manifest in Draco. So far there had been no sign of it, but Lucius had indugled Narcissa this one thing to keep her tractable.

The smell of incense permeated the air, but Draco had appropriated a chair near the window, thankfully gulping in crisp air whenever the scent and lack of sleep threatened to get to him. Trelawney was fluttering about the room, occasionally fixing students with her glittering eyes and making some pronouncement or other regarding said student’s grim fate.

Rather than pay attention, Draco leaned back and began examining his fingernails. The thumbnails were ratty, as he had unconsciously taken to chewing on them as he waited for his father’s reply. Had it been a test that Draco had passed by asking for more power? Would his father be enraged that Draco had questioned him? Was his father so contemptuous that he wouldn’t even deign to reply? Lost once again in the endless loop of concerns, Draco was startled when Trelawney shoved her bloody head right in front of his own.

“The Dragon Star ascends! The season of blood has begun!” she pronounced, fixing an eye on Draco. He rolled his eyes.

“Astronomy isn’t your strong point, is it, Professor?” he asked contemptuously. “The Draco constellation is a circumpolar star. It doesn’t rise or set with the seasons. It’s in the sky year-round, just like the North Star.” Trelawney, though, seemed unaware that he had spoken, and wandered off towards Blaise.

“That old bat has got to go,” he muttered to himself.

*** ***

TBC!