Adopted by the Malfoy's {Harry Potter fanfic}

5. First impressions Pt. 2

A/N: Anything recognizable belongs to J. K. Rowling, only Lexie and Max belong to me.

‘What in the world?’  Draco thought at the high pitched scream and entered Lexie’s bedroom to see her looking scared out of her wits by the house elf, Dobby.

“Dobby is sorry mistress Malfoy, Dobby is not meaning to scare mistress.” The squeaky elf said, trying to calm her.

Draco walked up to Alexis and lightly shook her once to gain her attention. “Alexis!” She stopped screaming and focused on Draco in front of her, her eyes wide as saucers. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen a house elf before.”

Lexie shook her head vehemently, her mind still working to understand what the creature in her room was and how it’d arrived. And was that a tea cozy? Something wasn’t adding up, that something she could tell Draco knew about, judging by his lack of emotion for the thing.

Draco sighed, he hadn’t counted on this complication, that she had never been introduced to the Wizarding world and how to explain. Why should he though? It wasn’t his job to take care of her after all, a small selfish part of him remarked but he knew it wasn’t that simple. His mother and father weren’t likely to have much interaction with Alexis, which left him between a rock and a hard place.

Examining her closely to be sure she was calm now, he turned to the house elf, “Alexis isn’t used to magic, go away.” He sneered dismissively at the servant as it bowed deeply; eyes lowered and disappeared once more.

Lexie stared at the place the ‘house elf’ had just stood, a million and ten questions spinning in her mind, unsure which to ask first. “Why do you do that?” She muttered without thinking.

“What?”

“Sneer at everything like it’s beneath you.”

“Because it is, that was a house elf, the servants I mentioned before.” Draco answered casually, as if it had never occurred to him to do anything different.

Scowling, she turned to him, “Just because it’s a house elf doesn’t make it inferior.”

Draco gave her a long look, “A house elf’s purpose is to serve a wizarding family, how are they not inferior?”

“They’re still living things, with dreams and opinions and hopes. Who did they serve before you? What about family, do they have one? I’ll bet you haven’t even cared enough to ask.” She argued, annoyance shining at his arrogance.

“Of course not. They serve the Malfoy’s, which is an honor and you’d do well to remember it yourself.” Draco huffed and then watched as her scowl turned absolutely cold.

“You know what; I think I’m rather tired. Good night Draco.” Lexie stated coolly, then looked pointedly at her door and back at him.

Huffing once more, Draco left the room only to stop once she shut the door rather forcefully. He sighed. ‘Wonderful, I’ve managed to get on her bad side her first night here.’ Draco groaned and glanced down to see Max staring up at him reproachfully.

“I didn’t mean to make her angry,” he told the cat. “She just…” He let out a breath. Lexie sure had a temper, one that met his in a very difficult way.  He had to get along with her though, he was aware of his family‘s social standing and that she was supposed to be the turning point. That required a little effort on his part to seem like a decent guy. “What do I do now?” He asked himself.

Max meowed and started off down the corridor, stopped and looked back at him expectantly. Curious, Draco followed, still trying to figure out how to explain to his parents that the girl they’d just adopted already hated him and was in her room for what would most likely turn out to be the rest of the night.

The cat continued once he was sure Draco was following and entered what the blond recognized as the second floor library. Now he was definitely wondering what the feline was up to and watched as it jumped onto a couple of shelves, knocking over some books before it pawed at one until it fell. Max looked at the fallen book and meowed once more and Draco picked it up. The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland it read on the cover, and Draco looked at Max once more, confused. Why had the cat knocked over the book, and why in the world did they have a muggle book in Malfoy Manor?

Seeing no answer to either question, he once again followed the cat back to Lexie’s room, where Max sat at the door, tail swishing. Draco looked at the cat, then the book and back for another moment and shrugged, placing the book on the floor beside the cat and knocking. He moved down the hall to watch without being seen as Lexie opened the door, picked up the cat and the book, an odd look on her face. She glanced around before entering her room once more.

Draco let out a breath as he headed back to his own room, wondering as he went what the deal with the book, and the cat, was.