The Black Sheep

Harry, a lanky bespectacled boy with messy black hair, felt his entire world crashing down around him. The air rushed out of his mouth in a quick gust as he tried to take in the words that his best friend in the entire world, Ron Weasley, had just spoken.

Great. Well there goes my school year, Harry thought bitterly to himself.

“Are you serious?” he managed to say after frowning silently for several moments.

“Yep, Dad told me this morning,” Ron said, mirroring Harry’s expression from across the carriage.

“Honestly,” Hermione said from next to Harry. Her hair, a wild bush of curls bounced slightly as the train jiggled from beneath them, “I don’t see what the big fuss is. Who cares?”

“Who cares? Hermione, he’s been my sworn enemy since our first year together. ‘You’ll be next Mudbloods’, sound familiar?”

“Yes, well… maybe he’s turned over a new leaf,” she said stubbornly.

“Draco Malfoy has not turned over a new leaf. He’ll be the arrogant git he’s always been,” Ron argued, glaring at Hermione. He was, obviously, siding with Harry on this one.

That very morning, when he had been about to step onto the Hogwarts Express, the great red steam train that carried them to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, his father, Arthur Weasley had pulled him aside.

“Ron, a moment please?” he had asked, taking hold of Ron’s arm and leading him away. Ron’s immediate thought was that he was in trouble.

“I didn’t do it!” he muttered, panicked, even though he had no idea what his father was about to say. He was completely off the mark however, because the next words out of his father’s mouth were:

“Ron, Draco Malfoy will be returning to Hogwarts this year. I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to give him a hard time.”

Ron stared at his father with an expression of shock and disgust… mostly disgust. How could this happen? The year, which was surely going to be a wonderful one without Draco, was slipping away with the smoke billowing from the train above him.

“What?!” Ron shouted, his nose wrinkling. A girl already in her Hogwarts robes turned to stare as she hopped onto the train with her giggling friends.

But Arthur Weasley said nothing more, and shoved his son in the direction of the train. Ron boarded without speaking, his mind thinking in outrage, until he smacked into the glass door of a group of Ravenclaw’s carriage. They laughed very loudly indeed, and Ron had to shake his head back and forth a few times before he realised that Harry and Hermione’s carriage was the one next door.

The Ravenclaw girls were still laughing when Ron slided in with Harry and Hermione.

Harry stared out the window, refusing to meet Hermione’s eye. He was furious with her… how could she be sticking up for Malfoy? Malfoy, who had made her teeth grow to the size of rulers? Who had called her a Mudblood in their second year? Who had made fun of her her entire schooling career?

“Why is he coming back?” Harry exploded, after a long time of silent muttering. “I thought Durmstrang was right up his alley.”

“Maybe his precious Daddy wanted him back,” Ron laughed.

“Maybe he didn’t like it there after all,” Hermione whispered quietly, not daring to look up at the reddening faces of Ron and Harry.

“Why I came back is none of your concern, Potter,” said a cold, drawing voice from above the trio. Their heads whipped up, and who should be standing in the doorway, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle, but Draco Malfoy himself.

“Piss off, Malfoy,” said Ron, clearly angry now.

“Language, Weasley. And if I didn’t know any better, I’d say your face has finally become so red with embarrassment that it’s blending in with your hair. Really quite fascinating, I must tell you,” Draco said from the doorway, his lip curling in delight.

Crabbe and Goyle, not the brightest bulbs in the packet, guffawed stupidly from behind Malfoy. Malfoy glanced back at them, smiling.

Ron shook with fury as he glared at Malfoy, stealing a glance at Hermione, who had turned silent as she looked up at Malfoy. Surely she wasn’t still sticking up for him now?

“Just leave, Malfoy,” Harry ordered.

“Gladly,” he said, before spinning on his expensive shoes and marching away, leaving the bright red blood-traitor, Mudblood and Potter behind. He marched along the hallway, passing the carriages of his fellow students. Some Slytherins smiled up at his return, others – Gryffindors – glared like precious Potter.

Finally he reached his carriage, where Pansy Parkinson, his girlfriend of two years was waiting eagerly for his return. She all but wet her pants when she saw that Draco was back. He sat next to her, Crabbe and Goyle sitting opposite them.

“What did they say?” she whispered, staring up at Malfoy in pure ecstasy, as though everyone would like to be in her place.

“Nothing. They couldn’t say anything,” he assured her. She giggled in delight. “Stupid Muggle-lovers.”

“Draco, tell me about Durmstrang,” whined Pansy, smiling up at her beloved once more.

Draco could feel his tongue itching to tell them exactly what it was like – how they studied the Dark Arts, not the stupid Defence they did here – but he held back, and simply said, “Later, Pansy.”

There were some things about Durmstrang he wouldn’t tell them, of course. He would keep them to himself.

The time passed with Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy all complimenting Draco, laughing at his jokes, smiling in adoration at him, complimenting him some more. Draco was beginning to grow quite impatient, wanting to get to Hogwarts for once in his life. There was only so much endless complimenting one person could take.

Soon, the high towers and stone walls of Hogwarts were in view, and three of them changed into their robes. Draco remained in his normal clothes, staring out the window as the night sky whipped past him.

“Aren’t you getting changed, Dracey?” Pansy asked, this tiny detail exciting her beyond everything else, as it was to do with Draco, her beloved Slytherin boyfriend.

He hated when she called him that, “No, I have something to do before I join you.”

“What?” she started to ask, but Draco cut her off, “You’ll find out soon enough, Pansy.”

Pansy’s heart gave a flutter as he said her name, the way his tongue moved around the word. He was just perfect. His white blond hair glistening in the lights of the train, the way his lips curled up ever so slightly at the corners, the confidence in how he held himself. Pansy wondered if there was anyone else in the entire world who was as perfect as Draco Malfoy, then thought it unlikely.

And then the train lurched to a stop, and the students began filing out, onto the stone platform of Hogsmeade. The tiled roofs of the cottages around them , covered in snow, glittered beautifully, like life size ginger-bread houses.

Draco could see precious Potter and his friends arguing some paces ahead of him, and so he sped up and made sure to say quite loudly, “Yes, Father was quite hesitant to bring me back to this sad excuse of a school, but my parents missed me too much, and just had to have me back.”

Harry heard the emphasis on the word ‘parents’, and knew what Malfoy was trying to do. But he ignored him as he sauntered off, with pug-face-Pansy trailing after him, almost drooling, doing anything to return Draco’s attention to her.

“Why isn’t he in his school robes?” Ron questioned angrily, glaring at the back of Malfoy’s white head, pulling a loose thread from his fourth-hand robes.

“He doesn’t know what house he’ll be in yet,” Hermione replied knowingly, gazing at the back of Malfoy’s retreating form. Ron and Harry didn’t say anything, just stared at her in confusion. “Honestly, doesn’t anyone read?” she asked, irritated, when she returned her eyes to them.

They both shook their heads, still staring, as the three of them got into the carriage, pulled by thestrals that Ron and Hermione couldn’t see, that began slowly pulling them up to Hogwarts.

Hermione quoted from no-where, “When a student leaves Hogwarts, and returns once more, he or she must re-enter themselves for sorting, as he or she may have undertaken a change of character, and therefore wouldn’t fit their previous house characteristics.”

Ron and Harry still stared, apparently at a loss for words.

“It’s all in Hogwarts: A History.”

“Well, I don’t see why their bothering,” Harry snorted, “Malfoy is a Slytherin through and through. He hasn’t had a ‘change of character.’ He’s still a prat.” Ron nodded in fervent agreement.

“House changing isn’t totally unheard of. There was a witch, seventy two years ago, who was in Gryffindor, who left to go to America with her family for a year, and when she came back was sorted into Ravenclaw. It’s not for certain that Malfoy will go back into Slytherin, however likely.”

“Whatever,” Ron muttered, as the great stone castle of Hogwarts finally emerged into view and the carriages stopped to let them out. “I’m so hungry I could eat a Hippogriff.”

“You’re always hungry,” Hermione argued, laughing as Ron turned to glare at her. Harry joined in, as they walked into the Entrance Hall, and then into the Great Hall, where students were sitting down at their house tables. Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, and the dreaded Slytherin.

The Great Hall looked as stunning as usual; the four house tables glittered with the gold plates and goblets lining them, thousands of candles floated above the tables, bathing them in a soft golden light, the bewitched ceiling showing the glittering star-filled sky above them, the house ghosts floating around them, occasionally stopping to speak to a student.

Harry, Ron and Hermione found Seamus Finnigan, Dean Thomas and Ginny Weasley and sat down, laughing at the tall figure of Malfoy, who was now surrounded by a group of tiny, excited, scared out of their wits first years. He was scowling down at them, and soon they had shuffled away from him as if he had the plague. Malfoy preferred it this way.

“Why is he standing with them?” Ginny asked, and Hermione proceeded to tell Dean, Seamus and Ginny what she had told Ron and Hermione on the way up.

“He has to be re-sorted? Why bother?” asked Dean.

“That’s what I said! If there is one person who is an absolute Slytherin, it’s Malfoy.”

Seamus, Ginny, Dean and Harry all nodded their agreement. Hermione tried to tell them it was possible to be sorted into a different house, but they shot her down. She remained silent after that, staring in Malfoy’s direction as she waited for him to be sorted.

Draco noticed her staring and felt his lip curling in disgust. Dirty Mudblood.

And then the stupid charade began, as Professor McGonagall – a stern looking woman with her hair pulled so tightly back it looked like she would pop her eyes out of their sockets – sat a very old, very worn hat on a stool in front of the entire hall.

“Welcome students. The sorting will now take place. First years will move forward when I call their name, and I will place the Sorting Hat onto their heads. The hat will place you into the house it feels you fit.”

Silence followed, followed by a few gasps from the first years, as the hat opened its mouth and began to sing. Draco’s mind wandered as he waited impatiently for his name to be called, so he could join his Slytherins.

“Malfoy, Draco,” Professor McGonagall finally sang out, and the silence in the Great Hall felt as though it could be cut with a butter knife.

Draco marched forward confidently, and caught the perfect trio staring at him. He scowled before sitting down on the stool for the second time in his life.

And then the hat was on his head.

Draco Malfoy, we meet again… it whispered into his mind. A very obvious Slytherin… but… what’s this? it said, and Draco, for one moment, felt a prickle of fear. It passed quickly though, reassuring himself that he was a Slytherin, and not even a stupid old hat could tell him other wise. But are we a Slytherin, Draco? I would know… it’s all here… in your head… Nonsense. You’re not the Draco Malfoy I sorted six years ago…

And then all Draco wanted was for it to be over.

Better be… the hat whispered…

“GRYFFINDOR!”