Low cheers sounded from the corridor outside the compartment.
Prefect Farley nodded in satisfaction, clearly quite pleased with the effect of her social maneuvering.
Before leaving with the group of students, she turned back toward Draca.
“Have you seen Harry Potter?
I heard he’s sitting in a compartment in the next carriage.”
Seeing Draca hesitate slightly, Farley continued with great seriousness.
“The prefects have been arguing about it nonstop.
They say this is an important year.
Quite a few children from the Sacred Twenty-Eight are starting school, along with Miss Malfoy and Harry Potter.”
“With students like that joining us, it’ll be a tremendous help in competing for the House Cup.”
Farley tugged at the collar of her robes, her tone full of pride.
“Slytherin has won the championship six years in a row.”
“If we get Miss Malfoy, Miss Greengrass, and Miss Parkinson…”
“Then even if we don’t get Harry Potter, we can still take the championship this year.”
“So the competition between Houses is really that intense.”
After Farley and the other Slytherins left, Daphne looked at the compartment door as it slid shut again and sighed.
Pansy, meanwhile, wore a completely baffled expression.
“But coming to us doesn’t accomplish anything.
We don’t get to choose which House we’re sorted into.”
“Sometimes I wonder what would happen if you were sorted into a House you really didn’t want.”
Pansy and Daphne went back and forth, but Draca remained silent, her mind fixed on what the prefect had said before leaving.
She lightly bit her lip and slowly rose to her feet.
Pansy and Daphne looked somewhat surprised, then both smiled at the same time.
No words were needed.
Their shared understanding brought faint smiles to their lips.
“Want us to come with you?”
Pansy asked with obvious enthusiasm, but Draca had something else in mind.
“I’ll take Crabbe and Goyle.
After all, he might not be alone.”
Whether Harry Potter really was the black-haired boy or not, making a first impression with two bodyguards at her side could at least prevent certain unexpected situations.
“Don’t be too nervous!”
“Be careful.”
Draca slid open the compartment door.
Hearing Pansy and Daphne’s reminders, she smiled and nodded at her friends, then knocked on the compartment opposite theirs. This chapter was taken from novelping.com without permission.
With Crabbe and Goyle following her, she headed toward the next carriage.
Both ends of the carriage were crowded with students who were curious about Harry Potter but didn’t dare disturb him.
The moment Draca appeared, people at the back of the crowd began whispering excitedly.
“Miss Malfoy is here too!”
Draca raised a brow, unsurprised when the crowd parted to make way for her.
“Thank you.”
She simply thanked the students on either side as she passed, her steps graceful and light.
Then, upon reaching the glass window of the compartment, she stopped dead as though stunned.
The compartment curtain had been rolled up, leaving the mess inside fully exposed.
A red-haired, freckled boy with a dirty nose was eating ravenously, his cheeks covered in crumbs.
The boy beside him wasn’t much better.
His familiar messy black hair was in complete disarray, his thin cheeks puffed out with food, and his lips had been stained dark brown by melting chocolate.
In his left hand he held a Chocolate Frog card, while his right greedily clutched a bag of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans.
Between the two seats sat a small mountain of Cauldron Cakes, Chocolate Frogs, and pumpkin pasties.
Opened boxes and wrappers littered the floor, while both boys were struggling to keep talking with their mouths stuffed full.
“What…
is this…?”
Draca muttered in disbelief.
So that boy really was Harry Potter.
But by this point, that revelation wasn’t even the most shocking thing in front of her.
Having been raised in elegance from childhood, Draca was stunned by such completely unrestrained greed and even felt a little frightened.
How could those sincere, courageous emerald-green eyes hide such a beastlike hunger beneath them?
Instinctively, she took half a step back and turned around, only to find that the crowd behind her had grown even denser.
Apparently, whispers that “Miss Malfoy and Harry Potter are about to meet!” had already spread through the Hogwarts Express in a remarkably short amount of time.
Two students who had attracted attention before even arriving at school were about to meet face-to-face.
Naturally, plenty of curious students had hurried over to watch.
Feeling the crowd’s attention fixed on her, Draca steadied herself and slowly calmed down.
She made up her mind.
She absolutely couldn’t be the one to lose her nerve first.
Besides, the legendary Harry Potter couldn’t possibly be this uncouth.
The social responsibility of a great pure-blood family wouldn’t allow someone as ignorant of the wizarding world as him to be corrupted by the Weasleys.
Draca turned back around.
Her long platinum-blonde hair swept through the air, making the gathered students stare in momentary fascination.
Facing the compartment door, she straightened her back and lifted her chin.
In the reflection of the glass, she saw her own delicately arched brows, proud expression, and youthful, beautiful face carrying an unexpectedly striking air of confidence.
She slid open the compartment door and folded her arms across her chest. Get faster updates on novelping.com.
Her bright eyes were cool and sharp as she stared imposingly at the two surprised boys.
The black-haired boy’s mouth fell open, and his entire face suddenly flushed red.
Apparently, he recognized her from their brief meeting in the robe shop.
A trace of pleasure flickered through Draca’s heart at that.
Then she glanced toward the red-haired boy.
He simply sat there staring blankly, still chewing his snacks without stopping.
“So it’s true, then?”
“The entire Express is buzzing about Harry Potter being in this compartment.”
Looking at the two of them, Draca raised a brow and carefully controlled her tone.
“So I suppose that means you’re him?”
As the words left her mouth, Draca felt quite satisfied with her slow, unconcerned, almost lazy tone.
She had practiced this manner of speaking for a long time, combining aspects of Severus’s, her mother’s, and her father’s social voices.
She had always believed that this kind of delivery best emphasized the status and position of the Malfoy family’s young heiress.
“Y-yes.”
The black-haired boy forced himself to swallow the food in his mouth before answering honestly.
That straightforward admission, paired with the same sincere green eyes, caught Draca somewhat off guard.
She stared blankly for a few seconds before speaking again.
“You haven’t met them.
This is Crabbe, and this is Goyle.”
Turning slightly, she introduced the two silent followers behind her.
Harry nodded in acknowledgment, then hesitantly began,
“I’m still—”
“Malfoy.
Draca Malfoy.
That’s the name you didn’t manage to ask for at Madam Malkin’s.”
Draca hurriedly cut in.
Remembering their encounter in the robe shop, and the faint disappointment behind Harry’s words before leaving—”I still don’t know your name”—her face nearly heated up again.
Fortunately, that brief embarrassment was interrupted by the red-haired boy beside Harry.
The moment he heard her name, the red-haired boy let out an undisguised snort of laughter.
Harry looked somewhat at a loss.
Crabbe and Goyle immediately stepped half a pace forward, only stopping when Draca subtly waved them back.
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