The Cowardly Lion (Book 1)

5: Of Hagrid and Panic Attacks

The first week passed very slowly, or at least, it did in Draco's opinion. Harry, who had been hanging around Draco and Ron, mostly, seemed to think it had gone by very fast. Draco assumed this was because of all the magic in his classes, but he didn't say this.

Draco kept hoping that the owl his mother had both picked out and named for him, an eagle owl named Atlas, would bring back letters from Malfoy Manor, but it seemed that the Howler sent by Lucius would be all his father would send. On Friday, though, Harry received an invitation to Hagrid's hut.

"Come on, Draco," pleaded Harry, up in the Gryffindor dormitories. Ron, who had been there when Harry had received the invitation at breakfast - Draco had been mysteriously absent during meals - was standing with arms stubbornly crossed next to Harry. Draco was lying - or rather, had been lying - in his bed, curtains drawn, doing homework that wasn't due for the next two weeks, and color-coding his classes.

Draco read over the invitation and frowned. "Hagrid's probably heard all about the Malfoys - "

"He'll want to meet you, Draco, please, you haven't stepped foot outside of Hogwarts this whole week! You haven't even gone to meals, and we're wondering how you're even still alive!" Harry ranted, glaring at Draco. "Either you come, or we make you come!"

Draco raised an eyebrow. "You'll make me come?" Privately, thinking of all of the jinxes and hexes he knew thanks to his father, he highly doubted Harry and Ron would be able to make him come.

"Yes, well, we hadn't quite thought that part out..." Ron stated slowly, still looking ashamed for what he'd said on the train, but not nearly as much as he had been.

"Just come," begged Harry, exasperated. "Come on, Draco, I want Hagrid to meet you so that we can show him that you're way better than your father!"

"Loads better," Ron added.

"I don't want to be better than my father!" burst out Draco. "I want to be a Slytherin, so then he wouldn't hate me, and he'd write to me, and he wouldn't be punishing me in the summer, and - " Draco broke off into tears. "I'm sorry, I just - it feels like he's disowned me, and I just...I wish he'd..." Love you again? He didn't love you to begin with.

"It's okay, mate," Ron said, while Harry looked at Draco with sadness in his eyes. "Look, it's a nice day outside, why don't we go visit Hagrid?"

"All right," Draco finally agreed, and the trio proceeded to Hagrid's hut, where they enjoyed some tolerable tea (Draco preferred black coffee, but you could only get that if you asked the Hogwarts kitchens specifically, and that was too much trouble) and some not-so-tolerable rock cakes. Harry did all the talking, recounting their week, and Ron edged away from a frightening-looking dog that Draco was doing his very best not to look at, his shoulders tense and nervous - he did not like dogs.

He was also trying to become invisible, at least to Hagrid's eyes.

But alas, soon enough Hagrid's attention was brought to Draco. "So. A Malfoy, eh? 'Spect you're a Slytherin, aren'tcha?"

His grammar, Draco thought, was astounding. He'd been trained as a young child to speak perfectly, pronouncing every word correctly, and this man...his voice was so rough, so...unacceptable. Draco's father would have punished him for weeks, had he dared speak so freely.

But nevertheless, he was understandable, and so Draco answered him. "No, sir. The Hat thought I'd do better in Gryffindor."

"Well, it's about time," huffed Hagrid. "Malfoys' bin in Slytherin so long, thought they were all bad. But you, yer provin' 'em wrong, aren'tcha?"