Draco almost slammed the door shut to his bedroom, then stopped to close it gently. After putting on his shoes, he stood before the mirror and combed his disheveled hair back into place. Blinking away the rest of his tears, he slapped both of his cheeks a few times. “Malfoy. Draco Malfoy,” he said and gave himself a confident nod.
Walking down the staircase, he heard his father speaking to the visitor by the front door. He stopped just before the spiral staircase opened into the foyer and sat on the step, concealed from view.
The visitor was a man with a high-pitched voice. “You were supposed to be at the Ministry!”
“I’ve reconsidered. Besides, the others have it covered,” Lucius responded coolly.
“You can’t simply reconsider. The Dark–”
“I have obligations to take my son for his school robe fitting,” Lucius interrupted. “Draco, come out of the shadows and meet your Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.”
Draco’s face grew warm as he stood and descended into the foyer. A tall man wearing a lumpy turban stood beside his father. The man glanced sideways at Lucius, then down to Draco. “I’m Quirinus Quirrell. P-Professor Quirrell. Though it’s best if you keep our meeting private so the other students don’t think you’re receiving s-special treatment.”
“My son knows the importance of discretion, Quirrell,” Lucius warned.
Draco beamed at his father, then quickly composed himself and gave Professor Quirrell an understanding nod. His first day at Hogwarts hadn’t even arrived, and already he had leverage over a professor.
Narcissa walked into the room, her heels clanking against the marble, and stood behind Draco. She placed her hands on his shoulders and squeezed. “Forgive us, Professor Quirrell, but we do have an appointment and must get going.”
Professor Quirrell held Lucius’s gaze for several tense moments before turning toward the door, his long cloak dragging behind him.
Diagon Alley was packed with Hogwarts students and parents preparing for the upcoming year. Many students looked around in wonder, wide-eyed at the self-stirring cauldrons, the owls flying about, and the gag-quills with sparklers shooting from their tips.
Draco wasn’t impressed. He had seen it several times before while shopping with his mother. The real magic would be at Hogwarts when he could use his wand. Once they received their wands, students were forbidden from using magic outside of school until they turned seventeen.
As they passed a pastry shop, the scent of fresh apple croissants swirling through the air carried Draco back to the first time he remembered using magic. He could still feel the tingle in his chest when he made something happen that he didn’t have the words to explain at the time.
It was his fourth birthday party. The courtyard of Malfoy Manor was filled with the children of his mother’s friends running around being much too loud. Draco picked up The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a book his mother gifted him, and snuck away to the creek behind his house. He sat down to read against his favorite tree, relieved to escape the noise and bustle of the party.
Reading the first story, The Wizard and the Hopping Pot, he was reminded of the apple oatmeal his mother made him in the fall with the green apples from the very tree he was sitting under. That was why it was his favorite tree.
The apples wouldn’t be ripe for a few more months, but he wanted one right then. Looking up at the tree, the apples were not apples at all, but small buds. Draco thought that if he could pull one down and open up the bud, maybe he could get a juicy green apple out of it.
After several attempts to reach the lowest branch, he finally picked a bud. Proud of himself, he sat back down and started to pull the bud apart. After peeling back the bud’s outer layers, he was surprised to find nothing but a seed buried in all the fibers. His desire for the apple grew stronger, and he closed his tiny fist around the seed, imagining the seed growing in his hand until it became too large to hold inside his closed fist.
His chest started tingling as he squeezed his eyes shut. He then felt the seed dancing around in his palm. Startled, he opened his eyes, squeezing the seed even tighter, trying to keep it contained. His fingers began to spread involuntarily, revealing a bright green sphere swelling against his palm until he could no longer hold it in one hand.
Transfixed by the apple, Draco stared for a moment before giggling uncontrollably. He hopped up and started running around the tree as fast as he could and then hugged it.
He had to show his mother.
On the way back to Malfoy Manor, Draco started to eat the green apple. It was the best apple he had ever eaten in his short life. By the time he arrived, the apple was gone.
He found her in the kitchen cleaning up. “Mommy! Mommy! I got an apple from the apple tree and it was the best apple I ever had. And it was a seed, but I made it grow big in my hand. Mommy, come see! I’ll show you!”
“So that’s where you disappeared to? The apple tree?” Narcissa smiled. “There are no apples right now, not for a few months.”
“Mommy, I know. I made a seed into an apple by holding it real hard, like this!” Draco showed his fist to his mother and scrunched up his nose in concentration like he just had under the apple tree. “And then it turned into an apple. Please, Mommy, let me show you!” He started pulling her hand, trying to lead her outside.
Narcissa knelt in front of him. “Draco, are you saying you made a seed into an apple just by thinking really hard about it?”
“Yup!”
Narcissa chuckled, but her smile slowly turned into a straight line. “Draco, you must listen to me. Look at my eyes. You must not tell anyone else about this, okay? Tomorrow, when everyone is gone, you can show me, but it must stay our secret. Can you promise me that?”
“Head promise?” Draco grinned. Head Promise was a special thing he and his mother did where they made a promise by touching foreheads. Sometimes Draco would bang his head into his mother’s a little too hard and give her a headache. He meant to show her that he would never break the promise.
“Okay.” She smiled and touched her head to his, then rubbed her nose back and forth against his, which made him laugh. “Go back to your party, Draco. It is time for cake.”
“The Muggles shouldn’t be allowed here.” His father’s voice jolted Draco back to the crowded street. Lucius’s nose lifted in disgust. Two Muggle adults dressed in jeans and sweaters passed by with a young girl who had a helmet of bushy hair.
“It says that we can go to Ollivander’s for my wand. I’ve read that the wands are made using one of thirty-eight different types of wood, which is relatively few since only certain tree species produce wood suitable for wandmaking. And every wand is unique, just as the wizard or witch who wields it…” The girl continued talking a mile a minute with her parents trailing behind her.
How does a Muggle kid know so much already? Draco wondered.
The Malfoy family walked into Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions as Madam Malkin herself was fitting a school robe around a dark-haired boy in the back corner. “I’ll be right with you!” she called out.
“We have an appointment,” Lucius said impatiently.
“For which we are early,” Narcissa interjected. “Madam Malkin, please do take your time. We’ll browse.”
Madam Malkin disappeared to the back of the store while Narcissa and Lucius walked to the opposite corner, arguing over how long this was going to take. Draco looked towards the young boy with messy dark hair wearing a school robe with pins stuck all around him like a pincushion. He decided to take advantage of this opportunity to practice his introduction.
He slowly walked to the boy with his back straight and head held high. The boy looked to be his age. “Hello. Hogwarts, too?”
“Yes,” the boy replied.
“I’m Malfoy. Draco Malfoy.” Draco started to hold out his hand, but when he realized the boy looked too stiff to move beneath all the pins, he quickly lowered it. He looked over towards his parents, who had their backs turned. “Do you know what house you’ll be in?”
The boy looked confused. “Er, no.”
“Well, I am going to be in Slytherin, obviously, like my father and all the Malfoys who came before me.” Draco smiled proudly.
The boy nodded, but didn’t react to Draco saying his surname again. “Are your parents…Muggles?” Draco whispered the last word.
The boy furrowed his eyebrows and shook his head. “My mom was a witch, and my dad was a wizard.”
“Was…?” Draco questioned. He had never heard of wizards being stripped of their magic and turned into Muggles before. That would be worse than being born a Muggle.
“They’re dead,” the boy said curtly.
“Oh…sorry.” Draco felt awkward. “Well, at least they weren’t Muggles. Their kind shouldn’t even be allowed here.” He tried to sound disgusted like his father had earlier. “What’s your surname by the–”
He was cut off by Madam Malkin and her assistant returning from the back. The assistant started plucking the pins from the boy’s robe and Madam Malkin wrapped another robe around Draco while a floating measuring tape started wrapping around his head. His parents walked over and started discussing thread counts with Madam Malkin, and when he turned again, the boy was gone.
While getting prodded by pins, Draco wondered why the boy with magical parents didn’t seem to know his family’s name. Maybe he’s an American.
After what felt like hours, his robes were perfectly fitted, with his last name stitched inside each hood.
“Thank you, Madam Malkin,” Narcissa said as they walked out the door. Draco waited for his father to thank her, but he never did, so Draco didn’t either.
