บท 5: Train
The month after the shopping quickly passed. Draco didn't know what was special about his wand, he tried to figure it out but couldn't. The wand was similar to a normal wand but the only difference was that it consumed less mana when you cast a spell. Draco was sure that there were other uses of the wand but for now, no matter what he tried he couldn't find anything useful so he just gave up.
Other than that both Pansy and Theodore started coming to his house more often. Theodore was there to help him with the antidote of Veritaserum and Pansy in her own words, wanted to get proficient in potions. So most of his remaining days before Hogwarts was spent researching, teaching Pansy and spending more time with his family.
Draco had forgotten about buying an owl, so his father bought him one instead, His Owl was a Great Grey Owl, the biggest of his kind which he named Owlbert. Owlbert mostly stayed inside his suitcase where he had a lot of space to fly around in.
Today is September 1st, and the day to board the train.
"When you arrive at school, send us an owl to let us know that you have safely arrived there and keep sending letters every now and then, to let us know that you are okay. Mother will send you your favorite sweets and cakes every week, but you are not allowed to eat too much of it. Also, you are not allowed to stay up all night at school. And you have to come home for Christmas or else I will be very mad." Narcissa hugged her son and kept telling him what to do and not to do in school. Since it was Draco's first time away from home she was very worried.
"Okay, Narcissa the train is about to leave and Draco, I wish you a smooth semester," Lucius said trying to console his wife, but you could still hear some sadness in his voice.
Draco hugged his mother tightly and kissed her cheeks, "Don't worry too much about me after all I will be back in Christmas."
He looked at his father and both of them nodded at each other in understanding.
"Are you ready?" Theodore's voice came behind him.
Draco turned to look at Theodore and Pansy who was rubbing her eyes and nodded.
He took his suitcase, which was all the luggage he carried and walked away from his parents.
"Take care both of you, I will miss you a lot," Draco said walking towards Pansy and Theodore who were waving at their parents.
Draco walked through the wall giving his parents one final look and soon Theodore and Pansy followed behind him. Pansy quickly rushed and hugged Draco crying on his chest. Draco knew she probably didn't want anyone to find that she was crying so he stood there slowly caressing her back.
"Okay, it's getting late you two." Theodore said with an annoyed expression.
Pansy wiped her tears away and looked at Draco, "Does my face look, okay?"
"Cute as always." Draco replied and they began walking towards the train.
"You know, you can cry if you want." Theodore said with a grin looking at Draco. Draco just rolled his eyes as he got inside the train. They looked around and found an empty compartment to settle in.
Soon a girl with bushy brown hair came in, "Hello, is this seat empty?"
Pansy looked at the girl from head to toe and just ignored her as if there was no one there. Theodore was just reading his book so he didn't even bother looking at the girl. Draco looking at his friend's reaction sighed, "Sure, you can come in." Draco said with a gentle smile.
"Thank you." The girl said while trying to pull in a huge suitcase.
"Let me help you with that." Draco said taking out his wand. "Wingardium Leviosa"
The suitcase floated up and settled on the upper rack smoothly.
The girl looked amazed as she sat beside Theodore, in front of Draco, "A very beautiful levitation charm." She complimented. "I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard -- I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough -- I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you."
She said all this very fast.
Pansy and Theodore looked at the girl with rather large front teeth weirdly, It was as if a prey had walked into a den of lions. Theodore hanging around with Draco didn't have much prejudice against muggle-born rather he took them as an interesting subject, A person without any magical ancestry suddenly producing a wizard was a very interesting concept. Both Draco and Theodore did a quite a lot of research on this and still had no idea how a muggle born even had magic in them or how they got it. Both of them believed in the fact that, if they could found out how magic appears in a muggle-born in the first place, they could find a way to improve the quality of magic in a person by a large margin or even turn a muggle or a Squib to a wizard. Theodore was also very interested in muggle items from T.V to guns after Draco showed some of it to him when they were hanging outside. So even though he still had a sense of superiority it wasn't to the point of hatred.
Pansy, however, was another story, she had a pure hatred against these filthy mud-bloods but since she knew Draco didn't like discriminating them, she tried to control her hatred against them but she still had a strong dislike for them.
Draco looking at his friends behaving well smiled and looked at Hermione, "My name is Draco Malfoy, this cute girl here is Pansy Parkinson and that dork reading a book there is Theodore Nott." Draco said patting Pansy's head trying to calm her down from saying something outrageous which worked very well as the girl was blushing very hard. 'Sigh! Even though she acts tough and all, she is still an 11-year-old girl, I hope I can change her mentality later on.'
Draco looked at the girl in front of him, even though the large front teeth looked weird, she was still very cute. Hermione Granger, the brains one of the golden-trio and the one our current Draco had a serious crush on in his previous life.
"Draco... Malfoy." Hermione repeated the name as she suddenly said, "I know you."
Draco looked at her for a while and tilted his head with a questioning look.
"Idiot, She probably read about you in the Prophet Daily," Theodore said rolling his eyes.
"Yes, I read about you in the newspaper when I was buying some books." Hermione looked at him with a slightly annoyed look, "They said that you were a potion prodigy and your spells didn't lose out either."
Draco just scratched his head awkwardly, "I am not that good, they just like to exaggerate a lot for their newspaper sales."
Hermione narrowed her eyes, "So your potion formula's that you came up with?"
"I um.. had a lot of time to do experiments you know," Draco said awkwardly.
Hermione looked kind of depressed, she turned her head to look at the book Theodore was reading, 'Advanced Potion-making', reading the title made her even more depressed since this was an N.E.W.T level book.
"Is everything okay?" Draco asked looking at Hermione who looked as if she was going to cry any moment.
"Hey, tell me are you all from wizarding families?" Hermione asked looking at Draco to which he nodded in response.
"Oh my god! What am I going to do, I knew I should have prepared and read more books over the summer."
"Hey! Hey! Calm down okay!" Draco said looking at Hermione "The courses run according to everyone's pace, so you are really not losing anything." Draco knew of Hermione's character from the book so it wasn't hard to figure out, what she really was worried about.
"Hmph! Easy for you to say that." Hermione didn't know what to do, the whole wizarding concept was very known to her and she didn't even know she was a witch a month ago and now she sees the first peers she meets, one is a genius whose works are published in the newspaper with a title of prodigy and the other two are from family full of wizards and probably have more experience in magic than her.
"You don't need to be so annoying." Pansy said making a disgusted face, "I can assure you that there are many from wizarding families that aren't even close to Draco and the rabbit-face over there."
Hermione calmed down a little and looked at Pansy, "Is it true?"
"Yup, you know all wizards and witches get their wand around this time and finally start practicing magic, so you are not that far off," Draco said with a reassuring smile.
Hermione calmed down a lot, "Sorry! I tend to get nervous about these things."
'Sigh! sometimes it really takes a girl to handle another girl.' Draco thought to himself as he patted Pansy's hair.
"It's okay." Said Theodore "But the interesting thing is how you used magic outside of Hogwarts."
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked getting confused. "Am I not suppose to use it outside?"
"Hmph! Typical muggle-born." Pansy said, "I am surprised, you didn't get expelled."
"Expelled?" Hermione was getting worried again.
"Well since you didn't get any letter after using magic, so I am sure its okay now," Draco said.
"Yeah! you usually tend to get a warning letter right away." Theodore said, "There is a law passed by Ministry of Magic that the underage wizards aren't allowed to use magic outside of school, especially if you are muggle born."
"Thank God!" Hermione breathed a sigh of relief "So can you guys use magic outside?"
"It's not that simple." Draco said, "The Tracing charm isn't perfect as it doesn't tell you who used the magic since our parents are adult wizards the tracer just thinks that our parents are the ones using the magic even when we are the ones using it around our house."
"In simple words, we can mask our magic under our parent's." Theodore added.
Hermione nodded in understanding, "So why do you think, I didn't get a letter?" she asked getting a bit curious.
"Maybe since you only used basic magic, they probably brushed it off as a curious young witch." Draco said thinking for a while.
"It's quite annoying as the magic marks you until you are 17, I wonder what you have to do to get out of its clutches." Theodore said.
"I think you can get away with an aging potion." Pansy added.
"Nope, the magic probably marks your soul so your physical appearance doesn't really matter." Draco added.
Hermione quietly listened to their conversation with great interest since she didn't know much about it.
(The Tracing charm is very confusing and it isn't explained how it works even in the books... so I just came up with my own theory on how the charm works.)
As they were chatting, there was a sudden knock on the door of their compartment and a round-faced boy came in. He looked tearful.
"Sorry," he said, "but have you seen a toad at all?"
When they shook their heads, he wailed, "I've lost him! He keeps getting away from me!"
"Hahaha.." Pansy laughed out loud, "I knew students were allowed to bring toads but I seriously didn't think someone was going to do it."
Theodore was also laughing, "Haha, I feel sorry for you... if someone like Draco found your toad, you can be sure that the toad is in a glass jar somewhere."
The boy looked even more teary now wondering the fate of his toad,
Draco was trying to control his laughter, "Haha Don't be mean guys, haha I am sorry for them... I am sure it will turn up."
Draco wasn't trying to be mean but the boy's face and his reaction was too funny not to laugh at.
Hermione looked at them and stood up, "I don't think you should laugh at him."
She said walking out of the compartment, "Let's go, I will help you find your Toad."
The boy nodded still looking pale and worried.
Draco coughed and stood up, "Hey Hermione, I am coming with you."
"Why? why don't you sit there and laugh." Hermione said making an angry face.
"Okay, Okay I am sorry... um, what is your name?" Even though Draco knew his name already he still had to ask because he had never seen the boy before.
"Neville Longbottom." The boy said.
"Oh a fellow Sacred Twenty-eight, I am sorry Neville that I laughed at you... I will help you find your Toad as an apology."
The boy nodded and started walking towards other compartments.
"Hey, are you seriously going on a search for a toad," Theodore said still holding back his laughter.
"Yeah! I am bored, might as well do something than just sit around." He said closing the door while ignoring Pansy's pissed look.
He looked at Hermione who was already walking away, "Hey! Hermione no need to get so angry you know, I already apologized and Theodore and Pansy didn't mean anything bad either."
"Hmph! I know that already, why are you still following me?" Hermione said still looking a bit angry.
"You know I couldn't help it... I have never seen someone make such a tearful face for a toad." Draco said trying to hold back his laughter remembering Neville's face again.
"Hey! stop laughing already." Hermione said slapping Draco's arm but you could tell that she was smiling a little as well.
"Okay! Okay! let's go search for the damn Toad!" Draco said as they went from one compartment to the other asking if they had seen a Toad.
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Sonet
Sonet Writing this story from the beginning is very annoying as you can't drift away from the original a lot, expect a lot of copy paste from the book in the next chapter.
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