TIME

VII

The platform 9¾ was awfully crowded. Draco clutched her hand as they waited for the train, and took in his surroundings.

She felt the moment he laid eyes on Harry Potter deep in her gut. Draco had frozen, and then furiously tugged on her hand.

"Mother! Mother, look! It's Harry Potter!" The wonder and joy in his voice made her smile. "Mother, we're going to be the best of friends! I hope he's in Slytherin, and we get to share a dorm, and..."

His voice was drowned out when she noticed Harry. A tiny little thing, only a baby, in gigantic clothes and broken glasses. He was pushing his cart and looking around in bewilderment, because she knew he had never seen anything like it before in his life. His hair was jet back and raggedy, and she could see his famous scar even at that distance.

Harry was evidently introduced to the Weasley family already because he was right in the centre of a family of gingers, walking beside Molly Weasley.

Narcissa had felt a pang in her chest. She had wanted to scoop him up, give him a hug, show him some love, because he was a child, because he had the whole world on his shoulders and he didn't even know it yet.

He's only a boy, only a baby.

She caught Molly's eye, and could see it all in her face: a perfect reflection of what Narcissa was feeling- pure, unfiltered, motherly adoration and helplessness, because they both already knew the outcome of this little boy's story.

She would never admit it, but, in that moment, Narcissa rooted for him. She rooted for this child that had so much to fulfill. She rooted for this boy, who was somebody's baby, who was already so loved in a world he didn't yet truly know existed.

She turned away from Molly, hugged Draco to her knees, reminded him to write, and watched him and all those little children board the train and leave home.