Book 1: Nepenthe
Book 2: Halcyon
Book 3 : Selcouth
Magic has always played an intricate role in the life of Harry Potter. He is the Boy Who Lived, a title hovering his head since the time he was one year old, marked by a lightning bolt scar. He lear...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
An hour or so later, with the help of all the boys in the compartment, Draco had his own set of collectable cards. They had taken advantage of their compartment floor, with all of four of them spreading out their spares and allowing Draco to take the ones he needed. He didn't have nearly as many as the others, as their stacks were much bigger, but they promised him that he was definitely off to a good start. However, as he remained in his own seat beside Huxley with his cards in hand, Draco had yet to really smile.
Harry was just about to ask him if he was alright, but it was Ron that beat him to the punch first.
"You don't talk very much, do you?" he asked.
More than likely, it wasn't meant to come across as blunt, but it didn't mean that it came across as the most tactful either. Immediately following the question, Draco turned bright red in the face and looked down at the cards in his hands to avoid the gazes of everyone in the compartment.
"I'm not sure what you want me to say," Draco said, " I already said thank you for the cards. You know my name, what more is there to say?"
Before Ron could say anything, Huxley kicked the bottom of his shoe and turned to Draco. " I think what Ron was trying to say is, why don't you tell us about yourself? We all know each other here because we grew up together, but we don't know a lot about you besides your name."
Draco glanced around the compartment before swallowing. "What do you want to know?"
"Well, you could tell us about your family!" Neville told him.
It seemed like an innocent enough place to start as all the boys came from different types of families, whether they were being raised by a single parent, both parents, or a grandparent, they weren't there to judge. But unbeknownst to them, Draco had already been advised about discussing his family, the less people knew, the better. However, what his mother hadn't anticipated was the fact that Draco had become so desperate to interact with other children his age, rather than only having the company of Narcissa in his own.
"It's just my mother and me," he answered finally. "It's been that way since I was a baby."
"What happened to your father?" Huxley blurted out, only to have Neville kicking his shoe. The boys had become so accustomed to being open with one another that it was almost automatic for them to question things when they didn't get all the information they were after.
"You don't have to answer that," Harry said to Draco. "Only if you want to."
With the awkward silence looming over them, Draco felt like he had no other choice but to tell them.
"My father is in Azkaban."
If the boys thought it had been awkward before, they hadn't been prepared for such a confession so early on into the trip. Of course, they were curious enough to wonder why Draco's father was in the maximum wizarding prison, but neither one of them dared to ask such a thing. And the longer the silence remained in the air, the redder Draco became in the face. Simply because he knew why his father was in Azkaban, it wasn't a secret to him, but he feared the others weren't going to welcome his company if they knew of his father's crimes.
