Malfoy: Year One

Chapter One: Madame Malkin's

"Hogwarts, dear? Got the lot here- another young man being fitted up just now, in fact."

I sighed. The quiet had been nice. Just Madame Malkin and her helper's fussing and muttering to break the tranquility. She and a boy around my age walked into the room, looking lost and uncomfortable. He didn't look like much, same height as me with untidy black hair and bright green eyes hidden behind dirty and broken glasses. "Hello, Hogwarts too?" I hoped that I could make a good impression on this boy. I hadn't met anyone even remotely close in age to me for years, and I wanted it to go well. My father always says that if you want to make a good impression then you must first assert your position in the world. "Yes." I had forgotten that I asked the boy a question and when he answered I had to admit to myself that I was puzzled for a second.

"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands, then I'm going to drag them off to took at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow." I figured that I would start the conversation so I spoke and after seeing the expression on his face afterwards I instantly regretted it. When I speak I try to speak like my father, and I'm not sure why this boy wrinkled up his face after I did. It was as if he was being somehow reminded of an unpleasant memory, which made absolutely no sense.  

I continued, trying to be more friendly,

 "Have you got your own broom?"

 "No."

 "Play Quidditch at all?" 

Stupid question really, how could you play Quidditch if you didn't have a broom?

"No," the boy replied again, looking mildly confused, as if he didn't know what Quidditch was. I was getting nowhere with this conversation, with him not offering up more than a one word reply.

 "I do -- Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?" 

"No" 

Honestly, what was I supposed to do? This boy was acting as if he had absolutely no clue what on earth I was talking about and it was getting old very fast. 

"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been -- imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"

 Come on, he must know about Hogwarts, he was going there after all, and establishing that I was sure to be in the greatest house of them all seemed like a fantastic way to make a good impression on him. 

"Mmm." 

Honestly, I was up to my limit, this boy had said exactly five words to me, FIVE. Is it really that much to ask for just one sentence? Suddenly a huge shape approaching the window caught my eye.

 "I say, look at that man!"

 The boy looked to the window and his eyes lit up.

 "That's Hagrid, he works at Hogwarts." 

Hagrid, I had heard of him from my father. 

"Oh, I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"

 The boy winced for a second. What had I said?

 "He's the gamekeeper." 

That certainly rang a bell, I tried to use some of the information my father had given me about him, 

"Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of savage -- lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed. "

 "I think he's brilliant."

 The boy's tone suddenly dropped to an icy, defensive tone, but I have no idea why. 

"Do you? Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"

 "They're dead," the boy said shortly, as if he was growing impatient. Oh no, maybe I was a bit blunt with the way I asked him the question, I wasn't expecting him to answer that way. My father always seems to handle death in a dignified manner, so I tried to reply the way he would. 

"Oh, sorry, but they were our kind, weren't they?" 

The way he had been acting, how clueless he was about everything, made him seem as if he were a Mudblood, but I had to be sure, just in case. 

"They were a witch and wizard, if that's what you mean. " 

I nodded. 

"I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families."

 That's what my father always said, and I think that I agree, not that I've ever met a Mudblood, my family gladly stay away from that lot. I wondered if the boy was from one of the Slytherin pureblood lines. 

"What's your surname, anyway?"

 The boy opened his mouth to answer, but Madame Malkin rudely interrupted, "That's you done, my dear," she signified to the dark haired boy, who stepped off the chair and started heading towards the door without even a nod, rude. 

"Well, see you at Hogwarts, I suppose."

 The boy looked back and then walked out of the shop to Hagrid with a disapproving look on his face. That experience baffled me, why was he so different from the other children I had talked to in the past? What had I said wrong?