Harry Malfoy's Trials | Book One

| The Trophy Room

The First Years started their flying lessons on Thursday. Harry was excited for it. After flying around his toy brooms, and riding with Bill and Charlie on their brooms, this was going to be his first day flying around on a real life broomstick all by himself! And Draco is going to be with him too!

That morning, Hermione Granger was boring everyone stupid with flying tips she'd gotten out of a library book called Quidditch Through the Ages. Only Neville Longbottom hung on her every word, desperate for anything that might help him hang on to his broomstick later, but everybody else was very pleased when Hermione's lecture was interrupted by the arrival of the mail. A small owl landed in front of Harry and dropped a letter full of pictures. Harry opened it and smiled as a few pictures fell out. "This is the house I told you about," he said to Ron.

"Wicked," Ron said taking a picture to look at it. In it was Sirius Black smiling like a madman in front of a very large, and very old looking house.

"What's that?" Seamus Finnigan asked.

"Harry's godfather," Ron said. "He brought this house with only Twenty Galleons or something ridiculous!"

"Twenty-five," Harry corrected him. "He brought it from a senile old muggle woman." Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas laughed while Hermione Granger gave a slight frown.

"That doesn't sound very nice," she said.

"Who cares? He wrote that she was a loon," Harry said picking up a picture. "Look—this is going to be my and Draco's room."

A barn owl brought Neville a small package from his grandmother. He opened it excitedly and showed them a glass ball the size of a large marble, which seemed to be full of white smoke. "It's a Remembrall!" he explained. "Gran knows I forget things—this tells you if there's something you've forgotten to do. Look, you hold it tight like this and if it turns red—oh..." His face fell because the Remembrall had suddenly glowed scarlet, "...you've forgotten something ..."

Neville was trying to remember what he had forgotten as Harry turned back to the photos Sirius sent him. They were exterior shots of the house, and photos of Sirius showing off the inside of the house smiling broadly. Then he reached the last picture... which had a small note attached to it. I found this photo in box I've hid in my old home. I thought you should have it—Sirius

Harry stared at the photo it was two teenage boys smiling. One boy had unruly raven hair, brown eyes behind his glasses, a very handsome face and pale skin. The other boy looked like a younger version of Sirius, he was taller than the pale-skin boy, broader like the Sirius of today, his hair long and wavy reaching the bottom of his ears. They had their arms around each other's waist, and from the looks of it they were on the Hogwarts grounds, in front of the Black Lake. "Dad..." Harry whispered.

He stared at the boy who was his father. They had the same hair... same skin... they looked absolutely identical. Except their eyes. Harry's were green like emeralds or summer grass while his father's were dark-brown like two dark gemstones shining in the sun. Harry smiled at the picture, but hid it when Ron tried to look over his shoulder. He didn't want Ron or anyone else to see it yet. The picture was just for Harry, and Harry alone.

At three-thirty that afternoon, Harry, Ron, and the other Gryffindors hurried down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying lesson. It was a clear, breezy day, and the grass rippled under their feet as they marched down the sloping lawn towards a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side of the grounds to the forbidden forest, whose trees were swaying darkly in the distance.

Harry waved at Draco and Blaise as the Gryffindors lined up against ten of twenty broomsticks. The two waved at Harry, the three of them ignoring the odd looks the Slytherins and Gryffindors gave them. Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, gray hair and yellow eyes like a hawk.