Disclaimer:
Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 07: The Kind Boy
"You all right, Harry?" Vernon asked, placing a heavy hand on his shoulder as they left the wand shop. "You've gone pale again."
"Fine," Harry said automatically. "Just… a lot to take in."
Petunia was waiting for them outside with Dudley, who had somehow acquired a large lollipop from somewhere and was sucking on it with cheerful concentration.
"Did everything go well?" she asked quietly. "I saw two strange men entering the shop and got worried."
"We got the wand," Harry said, holding up the box.
Petunia nodded, "Where to next?"
Vernon consulted the list again. "Robes, perhaps?. Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions...I think I saw that shop's name before. It's just down the street."
Harry nodded. "That sounds good."
Duddley gave him a shocked expression. "You have robes in that school?. That sounds awful!"
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Madam Malkin's looked, from the outside, like a perfectly respectable establishment. The windows were clean, displaying mannequins dressed in elegant black robes with silver trim. A sign above the door swung gently in the breeze, its gold lettering freshly painted.
But when Harry pushed open the door, he noticed the same thing he had noticed at Ollivander's: there was a great deal of neglect, hiding beneath a thin layer of polish.
The floor was clean, but the corners were dusty. The robes on display were beautiful, but the racks behind them were half-empty. And the air smelled of flowers, but there was something unpleasant beneath it...something rancid.
A small bell tinkled above the door.
"Be with you in a moment!" called a woman's voice from behind a curtain at the back of the shop.
Harry and the Dursleys stood in awkward silence, examining the robes while they waited.
Dudley tugged at a loose thread on a display cuff until Petunia swatted his hand away.
Then the curtain parted, and a woman emerged.
She was tall and thin, with sharp elbows and a sharper jaw. Her hair was a frizzy mess of grey and brown, and her blue eyes darted around the room like frightened mice.
She was smoking a long, thin cigarette, and the smoke curled around her face, forming grey ribbons.
"Sorry, sorry," she said in a high-pitched voice. "Busy day. You're here for robes, yes? School robes? Hogwarts?"
"Yes," Harry said. "For me."
The woman's eyes landed on his face, and she went very still. The cigarette trembled between her fingers. "Oh my...you are the vivid image of...w-what is your name, young man?"
"It's...Harry Potter, Madam."
She flinched. "Of course it is...you must be James Potter's son. I heard you were back." The woman tried to recover her composure. She finished her cigarette and placed it down in an ashtray that was already too full. "Well then...let's get you measured."
Harry wondered why his name seemed to upset this woman so much. "Did you know my father by any chance?"
She dropped the measuring tape. "No!. W-what gave you that impression?" Her hands moved instinctively to her neck while she used the other hand to recover the tape and stand back up.
Harry had a bad feeling about this and decided that he did not want to ask anything further.
This world's version of James Potter had been a loyal servant of a twisted version of Albus Dumbledore.
Harry could only imagine what James must have done during his later years, but it could only have been bad things...perhaps worse than bad.
"Right," she said, pulling herself together with visible effort. "Robes. School robes. Please step up onto the stool. Don't move. The tape measure will do the rest."
Harry climbed onto the wooden stool as an enchanted tape measure slithered out of her pocket and began winding around his arms, his legs, his chest. It moved with speed and efficiency, but the woman barely watched it. Her eyes kept drifting to the windows, to the door, to the curtain at the back of the shop.
"You're very thin," she muttered. "I'll need to take in the waist...okay, done. Come back in two hours. Or tomorrow. Tomorrow might be safer."
"Safer?" Vernon asked, frowning. "What do you mean, safer?"
The woman opened her mouth to answer, but before she could, the bell above the door tinkled again.
She jumped. Actually jumped, her hands flying to her chest like a startled bird.
But the person who walked through the door was not a hooded agent or a Ministry official. It was just a boy.
He was about Harry's age, perhaps a bit younger, with a pale face and hair so blonde it was almost white. His eyes were light blue, and they were wide and nervous, darting around the shop as the woman had previously done.
He wore expensive-looking traveling robes, dark green with silver fastening, but he held himself like someone who was trying their best not to be noticed.
Behind him, a tall, thin woman with the same blonde hair stood in the doorway. She was truly beautiful, and her eyes swept the room with quiet assessment. She placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Gon on, Draco," She spoke softly. "I'll wait outside. Dont take long."
The boy nodded and stepped further into the shop as his mother retreated.
Harry's heart nearly stopped when he recognized him. This was Draco Malfoy.
He was supposed to be Harry Potter's first enemy. A sneering, arrogant bully who mocked Ron's family for being poor and looked down on Hermione for being a muggleborn.
He had been the son of Death Eaters, a spoiled, rich boy who used his father's influence to torment others and always get his way.
But the boy standing in Madam Malkin's shop looked nothing like that.
He looked actually terrified.
"Sorry," Draco said, his voice soft and shaky. "I didn't mean to interrupt. I just need robes, too. School robes for Hogwarts...Madam."
The tailor nodded. "Another first year, huh?. Step up over there, there is another stool. I'll take your measurements in a moment."
Draco moved to the second stool, his eyes shifting to Harry before moving them away. He was twisting his hands together in front of him, a nervous gesture that reminded Harry of how the original Neville Longbottom was supposed to be around this time.
The tape measure finished its work and slithered back into the tailor's pocket. She muttered something about measurements and disappeared behind the curtain, leaving the two boys alone.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Draco cleared his throat.
"I'm Draco," he said. "Draco Malfoy. Are you… are you starting Hogwarts too?"
"Yes," Harry said. "I'm Harry. Harry Potter."
Draco's eyes went wide, and his mouth fell open. "Y-You are a P-Potter...I'm sorry!. I thought that..."
Harry glanced at him. "You thought what?"
"Well...my father told me that all the Potters had died..."
"Really?. Well, as you can see, I'm still alive." Harry said. "But I grew up with muggles, so I dont really know much about what happened back then." He also didn't want to touch the topic of his parents. He had the feeling that he was not going to like anything that he could learn about them.
"You grew up with muggles?" Draco looked shocked. "But you knew you were a wizard, right?"
Harry shook his head. "Not until I received the letter from Hogwarts."
"Wow..." Draco stared at him with a baffled expression. "Wait, maybe you shouldnt tell people that when you are at Hogwarts. Try to come up with something else."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean...you shouldnt tell people that you grew up with muggles. They...the other students may not like that. More so, if you want to get into Gryffindor, like the rest of your family."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying that Gryffindors dont like muggles?"
Draco flinched. His face contorted with fear. "I...I'm not supposed to talk about it. My father works for the Ministry, so he knows a few secrets... first-year students are not meant to know much about the houses. I'm sorry..."
"We are not supposed to know about that?" Harry didn't understand why. It seemed like something basic.
Luckily, he already knew about the four houses and the four founders.
Draco shook his head. "There are rules written in the school manual. You need to read them and memorize them...the Headmaster always punishes those who break the rules."
Harry noticed how terrified Draco looked. His body was trembling like a leaf.
"You are afraid of the Headmaster." Harry was becoming more curious to find out what kind of person he was.
Draco's pale grey eyes met his. For a moment, he looked like he might cry.
"My father is afraid of him," Draco whispered. "Everyone is afraid of him. The Malfoys used to be powerful and respected in the past. But then Dumbledore decided we were… undesirable. He took most of our fortune. He threatened to have my mother arrested. My father has to pay protection fees just to keep our house. You need to be very careful when you are in Hogwarts."
Harry thought of the two hooded men in Ollivander's shop, collecting their yearly fee. He thought of Isolde's bitter voice: "Protection. That's what they call it."
"I see...thank you for the advice, Mister Malfoy," Harry said.
"You can call me Draco...if you want to."
"Sure," Harry smiled. "Then call me Harry."
The curtain rustled, and the tailor woman returned, her arms full of black fabric. She had lit another cigarette, and the smoke curled around her head like a halo.
"Robes will be ready tomorrow," she said, not meeting anyone's eyes. "Come back in the morning and pay at the counter."
She disappeared again, and the two boys were left standing on their stools, the tape measures coiled at their feet.
"Well, I guess we are done." Said Harry.
Draco nodded. "Y-yes."
"Listen...is there anything else I should know?. I dont want to get in trouble on the first day." Said Harry. He could really use someone who knew more about this twisted, magical world, since the information he acquired from reading the books was not going to be all that useful.
Draco hesitated, then spoke again.
"Well...you need to watch yourself when around some of the professors," Draco said. "Most of them are fine. But some of them… some of them work for her."
"Her?"
"Professor McGonagall." Draco's voice dropped to barely a breath. "She's the Chief Inquisitor. That's not just a title. She runs a network of students...informants who report to her on everything. Who's friends with whom. Who says what about the Headmaster. Who might be… disloyal. She has eyes and ears everywhere in the castle."
Harry's blood ran cold. "Informants? Students spying on other students?"
Draco nodded miserably. "You should be careful with what you say and whom you trust. If you say something you shouldn't, if you're caught reading the wrong book, if you even look like you might be questioning things… you get called to her office. And no one comes back from her office the same."
That didn't sound like a school...more like a prison.
"What happens there?" Harry asked, though he was afraid of the answer.
Draco shook his head. "No one knows. No one who's been inside will talk about it. But my father says…" He stopped, swallowing hard. "My father says that's where students disappear."
Disappear.
The word hung in the air between them.
"Then why are you going?" Harry asked. "If it's that dangerous, why not go to another school? Durmstrang? Beauxbatons?"
Draco laughed, producing a bitter, hollow sound. "Because Dumbledore doesn't allow it. Every magical child in Britain who received the letter has to attend Hogwarts. That is the law, and if you try to leave, if your family tries to send you abroad… you're declared a blood traitor. And blood traitors…" He trailed off, his pale eyes filling with tears he refused to shed.
"They disappear too," Harry finished.
Draco nodded.
Harry was about to open his mouth when the door of the shop opened, and more people walked inside.
"Well...I have to go now." Said Draco, clearly feeling uncomfortable with being around more people. "I-I...see you there, Harry."
"Yeah, I'll see you there, Draco." He got down from the stool and watched the blonde boy leave.
It was at that moment that he truly understood that his experience at Hogwarts was not going to be anything like that of the original Harry Potter.
He did not know what to expect or whom he could trust.
It seems like he had woken up in a very dangerous world.
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