Chapter Text
Banquets for the Sacred Twenty-Eight were once exciting, but have long since worn off on Draco.
He can still remember his first banquet, when Mother spent hours dressing him in perfectly-fitting robes and Father lectured him on acceptable conversation topics. Draco would spend all day in a state of nervous energy, practicing expressions in the mirror and slicking his hair back every few minutes.
Things are different now; Draco is older and he dresses himself. His hair stays in its place. What was once exciting has turned into a farcical show; over the years, the all-day anticipation was slowly replaced by a prolonging dread beginning from two days before the banquet. Now these nights feel less like social events and more like stages in which Draco finds different ways to deliver the words that will turn him into his father.
"...and there may be some visitors from Bulgaria," Lucius drones, tapping his cane absentmindedly on the tiled floor in front of their fireplace. His long, blond hair glows in the light of the lamps. Draco thinks that his father must enjoy the banquets, for Lucius always looks just a bit wealthier, a bit more put together, and a bit more intelligent than the other wizards in attendance. Tonight, he is wearing long black robes with a gleaming white trim. His silver snake-headed cane vies for the light, lightly clinking against the heavy rings on his fingers. He has been delivering tonight's latest instructions to Draco in a long monologue, one that has stretched further than Draco's ability to care. "Do not mention the summer events. Although they are not yet confirmed to attend..."
"Yes, Father," Draco replies. He straightens his cuffs and resists the urge to rub his temples. This night cannot end soon enough.
“Did I forget...? Ah, yes. Gaten Sterling says that Margaret Sterling will be in attendance." Lucius twists his mouth wryly and cocks an eyebrow. His lips press together and his jaw cuts a sharp line on his face. "Just in time."
Draco's mother is straightening her own dark sleeve with her wand, tapping it lightly against invisible wrinkles. At these words, she pauses, looking at her husband and shaking her head. "I think it may finally happen this year. Lauria Parkinson said that a friend of hers just had a meeting with Margaret last week."
"Here?" Lucius stops smiling and turns quickly to Narcissa. They share a moment of eye contact before he looks back to Draco. He is not smiling anymore, Draco observes with sudden interest. His father looks very grave and maybe a bit pale. He remembers that Margaret Sterling had once been childhood friends with his parents. "She has been gone for fifteen years. Never finished her Hogwarts schooling. The Sterlings insist that she returns every year, but..."
"I haven't seen her since she was a child. How many years younger than me? Two, maybe three? Frightening thing, she was. Bulging eyes that wouldn't blink." Narcissa shivers and shakes her head, moving to a mounted mirror on the wall to begin adjusting the hat on her head. It is also black, with thick crisp lines that cut against her light brown hair, and Draco watches her critical gaze flickering over herself through the mirror's reflection.
"Yes, well. If she has re-entered society, I have a feeling that she will truly return this year. From Gaten's mouth, I heard that Margaret Sterling will bring her daughter -- he's never made that claim before.”
Mother stops rearranging the feathers on her hat and glances again to Lucius. “That's new. The daughter that was born in the States?”
Father's features dissolve and melt into a dark chuckle. “The bastard daughter, that one." He glances again at Draco. "The Sterlings maintain that Margaret was married, but nobody ever caught wind of the husband's family. Some name that they have always claimed as a pureblood family."
"Lauria also tells me the husband is deceased-"
"Convenient," Lucius says knowingly, his chin tilting upwards as he strides closer to Draco. Draco watches, still and silent, as his father's eyes, silver like his own, flicker up and down, appraising Draco from head to toe. "They'll come, I can feel it." Lucius's cool breath brushes against Draco's forehead before his father pauses, then finally steps away. "His tie's crooked."
Mother stops fussing with her hat and comes to Draco. "The husband is deceased, and no one can remember his name. The Sterlings always have a spell of grieving whenever anyone asks.” Her expression melts into brief amusement before she begins to straighten out Draco’s tie.
"Then I'll ask," Draco says, twisting around as Narcissa pulls just a tad too hard. "And I'll spell away their tears and ask a second time."
The corner of her lip twitches upward. He watches as she opens her mouth, but his father interrupts, voice humorless as he turns his back to his son. Lucius is looking at one of the portraits on the wall, the one of Draco's grandfather Abraxas. The specter that looms over Draco's life, as blonde and gray-eyed as him and his father and all the Malfoy men that have come before. "Act as a Malfoy, Draco. You represent the family, your grandfather, the manners of your blood. You will not be Margaret Sterling. Her actions have tainted the name of her entire family." He clears his throat and tips his head further back. Draco can't see Lucius's face, but he can imagine his features, deep in thought. "There was a time when the Sterling name was nearly as great as the Malfoy name. There was a time, when I was your age, when our families were nearly equal..." his voice trails off, and on the wall, Abraxas's portrait makes a soundless scoff.
Narcissa presses her lips together and swallows, smile straightening out into a flat line. Her fingers find another mistake around his collar. “Don’t ask about Margaret Sterling's husband, Draco.”
“I won’t,” he promises, barely holding in a sigh, and disengages himself from her fretting fingers. She holds on until the last moment, finding some other final fix that he's missed. He wonders if she feels the same way he does about these banquets, if she too tires from the endless mental games of the night. Probably not, he thinks. He finds it hard to imagine his mother complaining. She never missteps, never speaks out of line. He will get there someday.
The table is long and arranged by alphabetical order. Draco sits by Mother, as usual, and rearranges the name cards with some quick maneuvers so his right hand seat is for Theodore. Across from him, the Hufflepuff -- Macmillan -- keeps his gaze set firmly at his lap, trying his best to avoid Draco’s eye. He doesn't have friends here, but his family still makes an appearance nearly every time. They are always early, and always the first to be seated at the table. Draco wonders if the doorman ever bothers to announce them anymore.
“Alistair and Cordelia Nott,” the doorman's voice declares. Draco feels himself perk up and turn back to the staircase.
Theodore’s stepmother is pretty and young; nobody would mistake her to having blood relations with Theodore himself, who is a bit sharp-looking and much less social. Alistair is another story: sweaty and overweight, his robes are barely able to bundle him together, and he has a large hooked nose not unlike Professor Snape’s. He is also, to Theo's chagrin and in most of Draco's jokes, balding and much older than his new wife. They are seated several plates away from Draco, and glance suspiciously at their son's name card when they spot it by Draco's side. As soon as Theodore's name is called, Draco sees him linger at the top of the stairs for a second before he catches his eye. Theo cocks his head, raising an eyebrow; Draco smirks back and lets his eyes fall onto the seat next to him.
Theo expertly finds a path through some lingering wizards deep in conversation, pulling out the chair and ignoring the way the legs squeak loudly on the tile. He doesn't seem to register the many stares directed his way and leans into Draco's ear. "Where's Pansy's card?"
Draco can't help but smirk. "Who do you think I swapped you with?"
"Alright," Theo says, "I underestimated you. I thought I'd get a front-row seat to the catfight tonight." He sniffs and bumps his shoulder into Draco's, leaning back and ignoring Macmillan with gusto.
Pansy had been a pressing item for Draco tonight. Or rather, she had been a pressing item for him to ignore; she'd asked him to escort her but he’d ignored her owl. Somehow then she'd found a way to arrange her seat next to his, no doubt planning different expressions of wrath all night. Escorting witches to Sacred banquets was a disastrous business; he’d have to find new robes that matched her dress or her eyes or some other nonsense. And maybe their parents were in marriage talks, but until things were settled, they were not betrothed.
With Pansy sufficiently far away, Draco settles in his chair and watches the slow trickle of attendees walk in, absently half-listening to Theo's muttered stream of consciousness about their robes. He has to agree that Millicent Burtrude is wearing a disastrous color tonight, and almost laughs a mouthful of wine out his nose at Theo's thoughts on the shape of Millicent's shoulders. Before long there are only a few notable holes in the table: the Shacklebolts, likely doing business; Draco's aunt Bella, who has been adventuring in France; and the Sterlings. All of them.
“Another false alarm," Theodore mutters. "Cordelia will be furious, she had a wager going. Don't tell me that your father believed the news?"
Draco rolls his eyes. "Take a look at him and tell me yourself." After a second of searching, both boys simultaneously catch sight of Lucius. Draco's father is staring at the empty Sterling name plates, jaw clenched and eyes on fire. Lucius hates many things, but the thing he hates the most is being proven wrong. Normally the expression on his father's face would send a chill down his spine, but with Theo's stifled laugh, along with the distance of the table, it suddenly strikes Draco as funny.
"I've never seen a man so incorrect," Theo snarks, and Draco has to hide another laugh; he should probably stop drinking the wine.
As Draco is focusing on not looking back at Lucius, the doorman appears again, causing the conversation at the table to suddenly halt. He announces two Sterlings -- the oldest ones -- and the smile drops off Draco's face. He exchanges a wide-eyed look with Theo, whose laugh is also magically gone. The Sterlings, for all their Margaret-related familial drama, are one of the most illustrious and wealthiest families of the wizarding world. Their lost daughter returning would be a very important moment indeed.
The entire banquet is watching out of the corner of their eyes, awaiting one -- no, two -- supposed arrivals. Several Sterlings come and go, including one of his housemates.
“Garrick Sterling.”
Garrick towers over the doorman, with buzzed hair and rigid, sharp features. Even from across the room, Draco can see the muscle twitching in Garrick's jaw. He cracks his knuckles every few minutes and always appears as if he has just been assigned some great secret mission, his eyes darting around and drinking in every feature on the faces around him. His broadcasted suspicion unnerves Draco in every interaction they've ever shared, and Garrick contributes to many of Slytherin's lost points through his large number of physical confrontations. He sits in his seat with a heavy thump in his chair; Darco barely manages to hide his shudder.
More Sterlings are announced, one after another, each brimming with barely-contained rage, until one name catches his interest. Like Draco, Theo has been silent.
“Margaret Sterling.”
Theo leans in. "No escort," he hisses, exchanging a meaningful look with Draco. "That husband must really be dead." A low murmur ripples through the table as a tall, thin woman appears at the doorway. Her features are sickly stern and the trademark mustard yellow Sterling hair on her head is covered with a large hat. She wears a conservative dress the color of emeralds that matches her piercing Sterling eyes, and surveys the room with a learned vigilance. She looks like a Sterling, through and through; her heels clack against the wooden stairs as she descends. Her posture is perfect and her head is set proudly on her shoulders.
"No need for a blood test," Draco mutters, and the rest of his loosely-formed joke about Sterlings is quickly forgotten to his proper shock at what comes next. By his side, Theo's mouth drops open.
“Vanessa Sterling.”
Vanessa, Draco has time to think, what an untraditional name, before she appears at the top of the staircase. For a second he thinks that Margaret must be playing a joke; most of the table has gone silent.
Draco cannot believe that this girl is a Sterling, and by Theo's low whistle, she's not fooling him either. Sterlings are cold, vampire-like wizards; this girl is the opposite.
This girl has dark brown hair and her skin looks warm, like she has been in the sun for hours. She is tall, like her family, but she has some softness in her cheeks and warmth in her features. But the least Sterling-like trait is her eyes: wide, trusting eyes that are looking back at the wizards staring up at her. She is glancing at each face, one by one, like she is equally surprised by them as they are by her. Her big eyes keep looking down at her feet in between each stair, as if the wizards at the table are going to jinx her into tripping. Draco looks at the fourth finger on her right hand -- it's bare, with no sign of her family's emblem.
"Gretchen Sterling," the doorman says, and Vanessa's cousin appears at the top of the stairs. At least, Draco assumes she does; he is still watching Vanessa as she descends the staircase and strides to the table. She is walking slowly, staring at each name card like she is memorizing the names of her family. When she gets to her chair next to her cousins, Garrick begins to rise, preparing to pull it out for her. She puts a hand on his shoulder, pushing him back down, and flicks her wrist easily.
The chair slides out by itself, no wand in sight. Next to him, Theo curses under his breath. Draco feels an inkling of shock; nonverbal, wandless magic at all, much less before Sixth Year? She must have powerful magic then.
Suddenly, he realizes that the dread that has been building in the back of his head for this banquet is gone. In its place is something more interesting, more exciting, more unknown. Draco has known every person at this table since he could walk. That is, until now. He curses himself for not reading the name cards earlier; he honestly would have moved Macmillan further away if he'd seen Vanessa or Margaret's names at the table. Well, maybe not Margaret; her seat has been empty for quite some time.
He can hardly focus during the meal. On his other side, Ollivander is talking about wands, probably. He is always talking about them, and Draco nods at the right places, asks the right questions, and does not bring up the Bulgarians (who in fact did show and are at the other end of the table). But his mind is on the new Sterlings. Why does Vanessa Sterling go by her mother's surname? Perhaps her dead father is a half-blood? Why would she return now? He takes a quick bite of his food, and as he places his fork down, sneaks a glance at her end of the table; she is leaning forward, in conversation with her cousin Gretchen. Do the other Sterlings know about her parentage?
After the banquet is over, the plates and tables vanish, and Draco ponders how he can go fish for some more information. The wizards are standing up around him, refilling their glasses with wine and forming standing circles to socialize and pry information out of one another. He can't even remember the food, or what he'd been forced to converse; he suspects that, if Ollivander had not been so talkative, he and Theo could have come up with a few theories rather than listen to another night of wand-making practices.
“I can't think of a world where Rosier is asking the right questions,” Draco hisses to Theo, who is also staring. Due to having the letter R quite close to S, Evan Rosier has been able to make conversation with the Sterlings all evening.
"She's kind of hot," Theo replies lowly, his eyes not leaving the Vanessa's.
"Focus, Nott." Draco digs his elbow into his friend's side. Out of the corner of his vision, he sees a witch headed quite quickly their way. "Hey. Snap out of it. I need you to distract Pansy."
Theo's eyes widen and come back to Draco's. His thin features become a bit pale. "Come on now-"
Draco doesn't pay any mind to the rest of Theo's sentence and hurries to where Vanessa Sterling and Evan Rosier are now in a conversation with Slughorn. Theo doesn't know how to talk to new people anyway, not the way Draco can, but he can be a good trap for the people he does know -- in other words, Pansy. Besides, he needs to be on the defensive, or they'll never get the information they're wanting. “Hello, Professor Slughorn,” Draco greets, effortlessly shouldering Rosier aside and allowing himself into the tight circle. He shoots his best impression of his father's menacing look at Rosier. To his satisfaction, the other boy leaves in a hurry.
“Have you ever considered returning to your teaching position? Although Snape is not unskilled, your classes were far more compelling. I'd enjoy having you as Head of House for more than just my first year.”
Slughorn gives him a gummy smile. “How generous for you to say, Mr Malfoy! However much I enjoyed Hogwarts, I do find my position of retirement to my liking. I was just talking to, erm, Essa here about the potion and Herbology skills of indigenous American peoples. Ilvermorny is quite different from Hogwarts in several ways. I find it fascinating. The ingredients and wand-less foundation of their magic is so different-”
A bit caught off guard by her nickname, Draco turns to her, extending his hand in a practiced, casual manner. “I don’t suppose I’ve introduced myself. I’m a Malfoy, you see. Draco Malfoy. I expect that you've heard of me.”
She turns away from Slughorn, takes his hand, and shakes it. And suddenly he is looking right down at her.
Her hand is warm, as warm as her skin and her hair look. Although she forces a smile on her mouth and the hand he's holding is lightly firm, her left hand tightens around the neck of her wine glass until her knuckles are white. She's not as tall as he is and has to look up at him, making her already-wide eyes look even wider. Up close, he can catch the details in her face in a millisecond: the rounded curve of her cheek, the violin's bow of her lips, the slight flickering of her eyes as she examines him in return. She is wearing makeup on her skin but it does not hide the faint scattering of freckles around her nose. He almost starts to count them, but tears his gaze away and glances back up into her eyes. They are Sterling green.
So then she must really be Margaret's daughter, he thinks, staring in disbelief. The Sterlings somehow became... this. The familiar piercing color collides with his gaze, but they are framed in a set of long, dark eyelashes that soften their color and are watching him in an uncharacteristically nonviolent way. He's accustomed to Garrick and Gretchen Sterling's narrowed, slightly-bulging stares; on Vanessa Sterling, the Sterling eyes glitter and capture his in a way that has him suddenly letting go of her hand to smooth down the sides of his hair. Her smile is still strained, but something about her eyes make her look curious, not calculating. He gets the sense that he is being inspected, and fights the distinct urge to step back and cross his arms over his chest, to put some distance between the way her entire face sharpens and a muscle in his ribcage twitches in response.
She ignores his non-question. “Hello, I'm Essa.” She has an energy in those eyes. Those Sterling green eyes, that are still looking. She has never met a Malfoy, probably has never met anyone who's known a Malfoy outside of her mother. He wonders what she's heard.
"Not Vanessa?"
"I've always gone by Essa," she replies quietly, tilting her head to the side.
He can't quite stop staring at her face; his hands, held stiffly by his side, are flexing like they are searching for his wand. His shoulders feel tight and it's all strange, strange, strange. He says the first thing on his mind. "So interesting that you go by your mother's surname."
Those eyes widen, and something open in her expression shutters. Her eyebrows lower just a centimeter, and she looks back at Slughorn, away from him. In his mind, there's a flash of relief -- that she's finally as uncomfortable as he feels -- followed by a sharp curiosity. Essa can't quite hide the unease that creeps across her features at his remark, but she smiles politely and shrugs her shoulders. She hasn't yet learned the Pureblood skill of managing the thoughts on her face. Maybe she didn't interact much with Purebloods in the States.
"Well," Essa says after a moment of hesitation, "I've been told that her name holds more meaning here." Before either he or Slughorn can respond, she turns back to Draco. “Do you go to Hogwarts? I’ll be a Sixth Year in September.”
Her American accent peeks out more and more as she continues speaking. He’s heard of American accents, but has never experienced one in real life. It's round, odd, intriguing. Like she's talking to him as a friend, not as a stranger who's just walked up to her at a banquet.
"So will I," he replies, filing away her reaction in the back of his mind. "I'm a Seeker on the Quidditch team. Do you play in the States?"
“I'm also a Seeker back home!” She smiles, more relaxed this time. It's as if she's already forgotten the question he's asked about his father, the one that he'd promised Lucius not to ask. "I'm going to try out for the team when school starts."
Draco feels a slow smirk start on his face. “Please excuse me saying so, but I don’t believe that will be possible,” he tells her. One of her eyebrow raises in response and her smile begins to find an edge. “I am the Slytherin Seeker. However, there are two openings for Beaters. You are welcome to try for those.”
She is still making her best impression at a smile at him, one that is becoming increasingly stiff. He almost laughs and has to take a sip of wine to school his features; maybe on one of her cousins, that expression would look menacing. But her face is too soft, too open. And she can't hide her feelings at all. He wants to poke her again and see her reaction, this American dark-haired Sterling girl whose big green eyes give away all her thoughts. She can barely hide how much she wants to shout at him right now. And Theo was right, he finds himself thinking. She's pretty.
“The positions don’t reopen every year?”
“No,” he says.
Her smile stiffens even further. "Maybe they should."
"You think you could take it from me?" He cocks his head and appraises her again. He can see some definition on her arm as she takes a sip of her wine; she's athletic, like her cousins, but in a tall, lean way. Her cousins are wide and bigger, but she's slight, like a Seeker. Maybe she's a good player, but he takes more interest in the way her eyes bore into his.
“I was a Seeker back at Ilvermorny. Maybe I'll play for a different house than you."
At this, he feels his eyebrows twitch. "You haven't been sorted into Slytherin yet?”
“I’ll be sorted when school starts. And why are you so sure that I’m going to be a Slytherin?”
“You’re a Sterling,” Draco drolls, trying to keep his voice flat. His mind is whirring -- is she so far removed from her family that she truly thinks she could be sorted into another house?
He watches carefully as her eyes narrow just a bit and her smile slips slightly. A million possibilities are flitting through his head; perhaps Margaret chose a random American witch and enchanted her eyes before bringing her back into Pureblood society. Before he can think of another comment, she turns back to Slughorn, who is watching their conversation with an indulgent expression. Draco almost starts; he'd forgotten that his former professor was even there.
“Professor Slughorn, what is your opinion of the Triwizard Tournament?”
For several minutes Draco attempts to chime in with his own thoughts and take control of the discussion, but Essa is clearly fed up from their previous conversation. She does not nod wordlessly and bat her eyelashes the way Pansy does whenever they get together; instead, she raises an eyebrow in challenge and tightens her grip on her wine glass like she's wishing to wield it as a wand against him. After Slughorn wanders off and Essa continues to disagree with him, Draco begins, surprisingly, to enjoy himself.
She is trying to be polite, he can tell, but flashes her eyes at every disagreement like she is personally called upon to challenge him. He gets a sense that their discussion is spiraling wildly out of control, past proper Banquet formalities. When he yields on a point she makes about Hungarian Horntails, her smile lights up her entire face, and she looks so triumphant that he lets her have the argument. Somehow the conversation then switches to several other topics, such as the Quidditch World Cup last year. They discuss where the game would've gone if Bulgaria's team had played not Ireland but England, and he tries not to laugh at her fierce defensiveness when he disagrees with every opinion she has.
Margaret Sterling walks over to them as they have just breached the subject of the importance of the Snitch, and calls Essa away, eyeing Draco the way a cat might at a mouse.
"See you around," Essa tells him, giving him a less-tense smile. One of her cheeks dimple, and Draco shrugs, trying not to look at it. He doesn't let himself watch her as she Floos away with her family, and after she leaves, the banquet seems to resume its normal drab state of being. He takes a deep breath.
Theo rushes back to Draco's side, moaning about Pansy and something else; Draco isn't completely listening. Then he stops, brings his shoulder into Draco's and arches his eyebrow. "Well? Where is Vanessa on the Sterling spectrum?" He holds out his right hand. "Over here is Garrick Sterling-level troll..." Theo brings up his other hand and wiggles. "And over here is Gretchen Sterling-level squid-"
"Neither," Draco says.
Theo furrows his eyebrows. "In the middle then? A troll-ish squid? A squid-ish troll?"
"She's got the Sterling eyes, but-" Draco shrugs, trying to find the right words, but comes up empty. He glances over at the fireplace, then takes a quick sip out of his glass. Theo is quiet for once. "She's... strange."
"Like her mysterious father?"
"Her very mysterious father," Draco agrees. He and Theo exchange another look before the other boy's eyes shift over his shoulder and widen slightly, and then the conversation is over. Daphne Greengrass has finally joined them; she says something unexciting, and he immediately casts his mind away. Theo responds to her in good humor, leaving Draco free to turn over some thoughts in his mind as the other two keep each other company. Bored, he leaves as soon as Mother touches his elbow instead of politely excusing himself. His mind is full.
The second his feet land in the Malfoy’s fireplace, he realizes that his parents are in deep discussion about Vanessa, and her parentage, and Margaret's return. He can't listen fully; he is replaying his conversation with Essa, something she'd said about dragons. He is jolted out of his thoughts when he realizes that both his parents have their attention on him.
“What do you think of the Sterling girl?” Father asks. “Margaret offered her hand in marriage after the banquet, but I wasn’t confident of her blood status nor her... pedigree and parentage. The Sterlings are a powerful family and a union would be beneficial; I, however, do not wish to risk our standings.”
Draco knows, of course, that his fate has been tied to Pansy's for the entirety of his life, but a glimpse at another option has him trying not to smile.
“She is adept at conversation and social orders," he says, and then ducks his head down, feeling the tips of his ears turn hot. "She will be fine. And I am sure that Margaret knows that her father's identity must be revealed."
Mother has a smile in her voice. "I heard from Milah Zabini tonight that Vanessa's blood tests have come back pure." She places a hand on his shoulder and looks to her husband. "We'll have to confirm further, but... Lucius, the Parkinsons don't have power over trade like the Sterlings do, and we've got enough Ministry relations to spare. We can afford to keep an eye on things." Draco suddenly looks up to see her already inspecting him. "She is a beautiful girl. And she seems to be an interesting conversation partner."
The heat in Draco's ears spreads rapidly to his face. He really, really can not bring himself to look at his father right now.
“I’ll inspect her myself when our families convene.” Lucius pauses before continuing. “She seems too... untrained to be a Pureblood. It would truly be a shame if her blood and behavior were anything but pure; it would be in your favor to discipline her, else she might end up as a Hufflepuff.”
Draco shivers in horror at the thought. "She disagrees with me quite often, it's unbecoming of a Hufflepuff. But she appears to be intelligent."
“She will learn, Lucius,” Mother says, touching Father's arm. “She didn't grow up in the healthiest of households, I remind you.” Her tongue clucks in pity. “To be raised away from other Purebloods and neglected of her own culture… it's a miracle she even managed to survive at the banquet.”
“The others can take her under their wings,” Draco says, pushing away the thought of Essa swathed in yellow and black. “I'll make sure of it.”
“Perhaps a bit of Slytherin influence over the summer is all she needs to be sorted into our house. Malfoys do not marry Hufflepuffs. Look at me, son.” Father says, gripping Draco's chin and lifting it so their eyes meet.
Draco looks up into his father’s face, so like his own, and struggles not to tear his gaze away. Piercing gray eyes, severe eyebrows, clenched jaw. It's the same expression he'd had before the Sterlings had appeared at the banquet, but up close and without Theo sniggering in his ear, it is suddenly not funny at all. Lucius’s voice lowers. “It does not matter how beautiful you think the girl is. If she is sorted into Hufflepuff, she will never be your wife.”
“She won't be. Essa is very cunning,” Draco says smoothly.
He's impressed with himself, because this is a lie. Essa is intelligent and bright and amusing, but she is not ambitious; if she were, she would not have befriended him, the resident Slytherin Seeker. A Slytherin or even a Ravenclaw would have started connections with the other players on the Slytherin Quidditch team, not waste time chatting away with a competitor. Her expressions are too transparent, like a Gryffindor; she’s too easy to read and rile up. She will never make it in Slytherin at this rate; she will be crushed underneath her own obliviousness towards their society's mannerisms. Without the guidance of his Pureblooded circle, she will crash and burn, but if they get started soon, she has a better chance at survival.
Perhaps Father ignores the coolness in his expression, for his fingers release their bruising grip and return to his staff. His eyes do not leave him. “Very well, son. Do not forget the Malfoy legacy that rests on your shoulders. You are excused.”
Draco bids his parents good evening with a bow, eager to get back to his own thoughts.