Young Writers Society

Chapter One: The Hogwarts Express

The massive train was red and black—or maybe blue and gold, Harry couldn't figure out the difference. But it was massive, he was sure of that, unless there was something bigger in the wizarding world than this train, in which case it probably wasn't so massive... He squinted up at the windows, then back at his new friend with the really shiny reflective hair.

"So this is it?" he asked, trying to look nonchalant by leaning against his trunk (he still hadn't figured out his new friend's gender, despite being told their name at least a hundred times, and by gosh he was going to flirt with anything that moved, because at least it was better than Dudley).

"The Hogwarts Express," his androgynous friend said, their shiny face parted only by a shinier smile full of the shiniest teeth. "And my name's Draco," the boy added out of habit.

Draco, Draco, Draco. Harry repeated the name to himself under his breath—"Draco, Draco, Draco," he mumbled.

"Hm?" the other boy asked, shoving his reflective hair out of his face with an even more reflective hand. He still wasn't used to this Potter boy, who kept squinting at him from behind those big awkward glasses, but he was going to do as his father said and make powerful friends while he was at Hogwarts. Make powerful friends, Lucius had commanded before leaving him in favor of hitting up Madame Malkin's back in Diagon Alley. "What did you need?"

"Oh, er, nothing." Harry flushed and stood straight and, thinking that maybe he could save this social situation, he tugged his luggage towards the door before smashing his head into the metal frame.

Draco winced (on the inside; a Malfoy shows no pain, said his father's voice in his head) and said lamely, "It's closed, Harry." Count to three, he reminded himself. Count to three and the pain will stop. Well, there wasn't any pain, but there was a definite itch in his fingers to pull out his wand and make sure the Potter boy couldn't hurt himself any more, preferably by way of a Full Body-Bind.

Harry stumbled back and tried to regain his composure, brushing his shirt straight. "I knew that. Tooootally knew that," he said with a laugh, trying to pass it off as intentional as possible. He glanced with fear up to the closed train door, wondering why he couldn't make it out very well, then decided that it must be blue—the train must have been gold and blue. He'd always had a little bit of trouble with blue.

"R-i-g-h-t." Draco always spelled out words in his head when he was stressed, and now he nearly slapped himself for that habit transfering to speech, but his father would've been proud, at least. Now if only he hadn't just insulted one of the most powerful wizards in the world—make friends with the Chosen One, Draco, his father's voice echoed. The Chosen One, the Chosen One, what's his name? Jerry Mopper?

Harry Potter, his mother had corrected, filing her nails at the kitchen table with her favorite butterfly knife.

"The Chosen One, Harry Potter," he mumbled, staring at the boy in front of him with the strange lightning-bolt scar and unruly mop of hair. There could be no one else—there was only one Chosen One, and only one Harry Potter.

Actually, now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure he heard someone else calling a name that sounded distinctly similar...

"Neville Longbottom!" an old woman screeched in his ear as she roared past him and his new friend, headed straight for a dopey-looking boy that looked, indeed, very similar to Harry. Draco squinted for a minute before deciding that the names were too different for even his father to get wrong.

Who would mistake a Longbottom for someone powerful, anyway? He smirked and turned back to Harry, one hand resting on a popped hip. "So you'll be sitting with me, right?"

The Chosen One stopped picking at a strand of hair and straightened up. He squinted at his very reflective friend again and said, "Duh. You're the only person I know here, uh... Drano?"

"Draco," the boy corrected. "My name is Draco, Harry." He looked up at the train—very much red and black—and then back at the rest of the platform. It was nearly empty except for himself, the Longbottoms, and a pocket of Weasleys down near the end. He smirked wider at the sight of the Weasleys' half-dead owl perched on top of their mother's head, making a magnificent hat.

"D-D-D-Draco," an all-too-familiar voice stuttered behind him.

This guy, he thought, turning to face the turbaned professor with a sneer. What could he want? "Yes, Quirinus?" he drawled. "I don't know if you can see this, but I'm busy. With my friend. Harry Potter. The Chosen One."

Said Chosen One was busy squinting at the train doors again, wondering if he had to make them open with his mind, or if they were like normal train doors and just opened when it was time to board. He couldn't see a boarding schedule on the platform, not that he could see much of anything, so it was kind of hard to tell.

"B-b-b-busy, y-y-yes," Professor Quirrell stuttered. He adjusted his godawful purple turban and coughed into one hand, barely covering up a sneeze from the back of his head.

"Bless you," Harry said brightly as he turned back to the conversation. He paused and looked between his new friend and the tall man (well, average height, but he wasn't the tallest eleven-year-old to start with) and asked, "Uh, Dranko, who's this?"

Draco sighed and covered his face with his hand. There was no point in trying. He would be forever memorialized as Dranko of the Great and Noble House Baltoy if the Chosen One had his way. "Draco," he said anyway, irritably, "my name is Draco. And this is Quirinus Quirrell, the new... DADA teacher." He side-eyed the man.

Quirrell's turban shifted uncomfortably while he fiddled with a scroll in his hands. "Y-y-y-yes, Mr Potter, I will be teaching you and Young Sir Malfoy—"

"Dada?" Harry asked, his eyebrows furrowed in consternation. He couldn't make out most of the professor's face, but the turban was at least easy to see, considering how dark it was against the whiteness of his skin. "Like, sex ed? How to make babies? Da-da ma-ma?"

Quirrell sighed. "No. D-D-D-Defense A-A-Against the D-D-Dark A-Arts," he mumbled.

"D, D, D, Defense, A, A, Against—"

"Defense Against the Dark Arts, Harry." Draco pinched the bridge of his nose and looked around the platform to see if he could find anyone with an extra brain cell to rub against Potter's lonely wanderer. Crabbe might make a good match, or that Greg guy, what was his name? He was a Goyle, wasn't he? "It's a class. At Hogwarts. Where we're going."

Harry squinted his eyes narrower, but ended up seeing nothing but the inside of his eyelids. "Sorry, I can't hear him through the stutter."

"It's a learned skill," the Malfoy boy drawled. "Thank you for introducing yourself, Quirinus. Your services are no longer required." He waved a dismissive hand at the professor, who stuttered in protest.

What, exactly, he stuttered, Draco couldn't make out. He expected it had something to do with conflict-important information, but it certainly couldn't matter that much if he had to add a dozen extra consonants in front of every word. "Goodbye," he repeated—someone else had to be getting there soon. Someone smart. Like that Zabini kid, maybe.

"Draco! Dracooooooo!" The unnecessarily-drawn-out vowels came from some echoing corner of the platform, and he felt the blood drain out of his face. Not her. Not her.

Play nice with the Parkinson girl, Draco, his father's voice echoed in his head.

She likes you, his mother's voice added. Let her down easy, maybe set her up with that nice Nott boy.

Theodore deserved so, so much better than this fate.

"Hello, Pansy," he said in a tired voice. Just because he played with the girl as a child didn't mean that he had to hook up with her at age eleven. For Merlin's sake, he'd rather date Potter.

"Dracoooo," Pansy cooed, her hair done up in pigtails that her parents probably thought were cute—they were kinda cute, he admitted, but when someone acted like Pansy, it was hard to look at their face past their annoyingly-extended words.

A brilliant idea struck him.

Looking at his reflective friend's even paler face, Harry felt a sudden sense of dread knot up in his gut. He couldn't make out Draco's eyes, let alone his eyebrows, but he could definitely see that wicked, smirky grin. He side-eyed the slightly-more-visible girl who had just bounced up to them, and squinted at her. She was kinda cute, he guessed.

Draco looked between the two, his evil plan formulating in the back of his head. A way to get Parkinson off his back and Potter indebted to him at the same time... "Pansy," he said with a pleasant enough smile, "have you met my new friend, Harry?"