you raise me up || harry potter

chapter 2: there's a war inside of me

»»-----　song:　-----««

you wouldn't like me

★ by sleeping at last ★

❝ there's a war inside of me
do i cause new heartbreak to write a new song
do i push it down or let it run me
right into the ground ❞

♢ ♢ ♢

Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve. "Hogwarts, dear?"she said, when Harry started to speak. "Got the lot here- another young man being fitted up just now, in fact."

Harry didn't quite know how to correct her as she led him to the back of the shop. In actuality, she felt an odd tingle of satisfaction in her stomach at being called a "young man," and it felt strange.

She settled down in a stool next to a boy with buttery blond hair and bone china skin. He looked more feminine than Harry, a girl, did. Well, that wasn't very difficult given Dudley's baggy hand-me-downs and choppy black hair, but the other boy screamed pompous pansy with immaculately styled hair, and Harry was willing to bet his nails were manicured, too.

"Hello," he said. "Hogwarts, too?"

"Yes," said Harry, looking down at her hands. They seemed to be polar opposites—Harry with tanned skin from the endless weeding the Dursleys had subjected her to, dark hair and emerald eyes she quite liked, and the scar on her forehead, of course. The boy had pale hair and stormier gray eyes, and flawlessly pale skin. He was probably spoiled rotten too—although he had a certain level more class than Dudley and a much thinner frame, he was starting to remind Harry of her cousin.

"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands," the boy drawled. "I'll probably try to get them to buy me a broom—first years aren't allowed to have them, but I'll probably bully them into getting one for me. I'll smuggle it in somehow." Harry's dislike grew.

"Play Quidditch at all?"

"No," Harry said, wondering what on earth Quidditch was.

"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," Harry said, feeling stupid.

"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?"

Harry was feeling stupider by the minute. But that feeling was overwhelmed by the annoyance she felt from hearing the boy speak.

Harry turned her head away and the boy seemed to sense Harry's disinterest, for he fell silent. Harry watched Madam Malkin gather up fabric and wondered what the difference was between girl robes and boy robes. Madame Malkin slipped a robe over Harry's head and Harry bit her lip. "Erm..." she started.

"Yes, dear?" Madam Malkin said absentmindedly.

I'm not a boy.

"Never mind."

The boy looked at Harry curiously. Harry pretended not to notice.

"I'm Malfoy," the boy said suddenly. "Draco Malfoy."

Harry glanced over at him. "Harry," she said shortly.

"Harry, what?"

Madame Malkin chose this moment to bustle away, murmuring about forgetting fabric in the storage room.