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"Albus, what do you say?"
"Fankyou Uncle Charlie," Albus replied obediently, holding his present in both hands. He carefully unwrapped it, managing to do it all by himself for once.
Inside was a bright green dragon with purple wings and a yellowy tail. The dragon was soft and squishy and Albus immediately hugged the little toy to his body, squeezing its wings to his chest tightly.
"I think he likes it," Ginny smiled at her brother who seemed to be incredibly touched at how well his gift had been received.
The dragon quickly became Albus' favourite toy and he took the little thing everywhere he went. He'd run around the garden, flapping the toy's wings as he went; when baby Lily came along, he'd rock his little dragon the same way Mummy rocked his baby sister; he'd have long and elaborate conversations with the dragon about how best to breathe fire and every night he'd curl up with the dragon clutched in his hand, a thumb in his mouth as he stroked one of the soft wings over the tip of his nose.
One day, James pointed out that Albus' dragon didn't have a name. Albus had been confused by this concept, because why would his dragon need a name? He was the only dragon there was in the house, the same way there was only one Mummy, only one Daddy, only one Lily and only one James.
But once James had put this idea in Albus' head, there was no going back. His dragon needed a name.
Albus' search for a name coincided with the time Teddy started talking about Hogwarts lots, and James suddenly had more questions than Harry and Ginny knew what to do with. Every night before bed, Albus would settle down with his dragon, and his daddy or his mummy would sit on the end of the bed with James curled into them and they'd tell them stories about Hogwarts and all the magical things that happened there. Albus would fall asleep dreaming about Gryffindor Tower and cauldrons and feasts and Quidditch.
"Mummy, where's Gwyffindor?" Albus had come running into her bedroom one morning, in a panic because he'd woken up and his dragon was nowhere to be seen.
"Where's what?" Ginny had understandably been confused by his question.
"Gwyffindor! My dwagon," Albus said, his bottom lip quivering.
Ginny helped Albus locate his dragon, which had fallen under his bed.
"Gwyffindor!" He hugged the dragon to him like he had when he'd first received the toy.
"Is that his name now? Gryffindor?" Ginny asked her son in amusement.
Albus nodded very seriously.
Gryffindor the dragon grew up with Albus, he spent all of Al's toddler years playing right alongside him and, when Albus started school, he rode along in his coat pocket on the first day. Albus liked to tuck Gryffindor under his arm when he was playing so he had full use of both hands.
As Albus got a bit older, Gryffindor would stand guard in his bedroom all day, proudly atop his pillow ready for Albus to give him a cuddle as they both fell asleep at night. When he was a bit older still, Gryffindor found a nice home tucked into the corner of Al's bed, beside his pillow and there in the night just in case Albus needed to reach for him.
When Albus was eleven, he was faced with a rather large dilemma. Because in just a few months, he would be leaving for Hogwarts and sleeping in a dormitory with boys he didn't know, and what if none of them had a dragon? James didn't have a toy like Gryffindor.
Albus conducted an experiment and he put Gryffindor on the window sill, hidden behind the curtains, positioned so Albus knew Gryffindor could still see him, and settled himself in bed to go to sleep. In the middle of the night, he crept out of bed and retrieved Gryffindor.
Albus tried not to think about his experiment all the way up until the last week of August when it was time to pack his trunk for Hogwarts.
"And Gryffindor of course," said Ginny, going to place the toy into Albus' open trunk. "You can't forget him."
Albus gave her an anguished look. "Mum, will people laugh at me? James didn't bring a dragon in his first year."
"No, James brought his niffler," Ginny said conversationally. "You know, the one he's had since he was a baby."
"What? He told me he sold Niffles to Uncle Percy when Lucy was born!" Albus realised how stupid that sounded now he was saying it out loud.
"Bring Gryffindor, Al. Trust me, it's nice to have a little piece of home there with you." Albus nodded gratefully and tucked Gryffindor inside his dressing gown in his trunk.
It was his first night at Hogwarts and Albus had never felt more miserable in his life. He drew the hangings around his bed so he was sure nobody could see and withdrew Gryffindor from the inside of his dressing down. He stared at the toy, taking in the familiar facial features.
"How stupid of me, thinking I could be a Gryffindor," he whispered to the toy and he felt like the dragon was watching him and judging him. I expected to be spending my first night at Hogwarts in Gryffindor Tower, Albus. We were meant to laugh about how that's where you got my name from. But I suppose we're stuck here in Slytherin, where I don't belong.
Albus stuffed Gryffindor under his pillow as far as he could and tried to get to sleep.
It was three days into his first year at Hogwarts and Scorpius Malfoy was still the only person who spoke to Albus without blurting out some unkind comment or another, or just outright staring at him as if expecting him to start performing spontaneously.
Every morning when he woke up, it was to discover that his tie had gone missing again, and it would always turn up in the strangest of places, but not before he'd been told off by a teacher for not wearing it. Every lesson was peppered with people staring and Polly Chapman and her friends loudly wondering why Albus was such a terrible wizard. Every evening he lay in bed, thinking about his stupidly named dragon stuffed under his pillow where he could pretend it didn't exist.
Albus tossed and turned, unable to feel sleepy when his thoughts were rushing through his head at top speed. His pillow felt lumpy and strange and he realised he was sleeping directly on top of Gryffindor's spiky tail. He pulled the toy out sharply and held it in front of him like it was something from the bottom of a sewer.
The toy was so familiar, so comforting, such a strong reminder of home that Albus couldn't bear to look at it any longer. He took the dragon in one hand and held onto its wing with another and tore it clean off. It ripped neatly at the seam until one wing lay sadly on the bed. Until it was joined by the other wing, and then the tail, and both legs.
Poor Gryffindor the dragon was in pieces, his stuffing poking out and his face looking strangely flat. Albus threw the pieces into his trunk, hoping they'd get buried under the rest of the year's rubbish. He turned over and cried, somewhere his sobs turning to sniffles and then eventually snores.
Albus felt cold and empty at breakfast and it wasn't just because he had nobody to talk to at the breakfast table (Scorpius was nowhere to be seen that morning). He kept thinking about his dragon, ruined forever and hidden in his trunk.
Get a grip, Al. It's just a stupid toy, he told himself, imagining what James would say if he knew what Albus was thinking.
He was in the dormitory, collecting his forgotten Charms textbook when Albus spotted something most surprising sat atop his pillow with a note attached.
I'm all better again, hope you didn't miss me too much Albus!
The note was pinned to Gryffindor's wing, but the wing was firmly attached to his body, as was the other wing, and both legs, and his tail. In fact, Gryffindor looked just as he had when Albus had reluctantly packed him the night before he arrived at Hogwarts.
"Who fixed you?" Albus muttered to himself, not the toy. Was this the sort of thing the Hogwarts house elves did? Fix ripped toys when their owners had meltdowns and destroyed them?
It was strangely comforting to see little Gryffindor looking like he did when Albus was growing up, even if he was now the most ridiculously-named stuffed dragon to ever exist. He reminded Albus of home and of a time when everything was just that little bit easier, but he didn't feel himself wanting to rip and destroy this time.
The dormitory door opened and Albus dropped Gryffindor as if he were scalding hot. The newly repaired dragon bounced off the pillow and landed on the floor at Albus' feet. He went to kick the toy under the bed so Scorpius wouldn't see, but Scorpius was staring right at the little toy dragon.
"Are you okay?" Scorpius said very meaningfully. He crossed the room and picked Gryffindor up, sitting him neatly on top of Albus' pillow as he had been before. The note was lying on the bed nearby.
"Of course I'm okay," Albus replied, embarrassed that Scorpius seemed to think he slept in bed with a toy.
"That was really hateful of them to rip your dragon." He spoke very seriously, patting Gryffindor's wing.
"How did you know he'd been ripped?"
"I found his wing in my trunk. Are you angry with them?"
Albus stayed silent, not sure if he wanted to admit that he had ripped the dragon up himself in a fit of rage.
"I think I might be a bit angry with them. That's such a cruel thing to do." Scorpius sounded as if he were being deadly serious, no hint of amusement in his voice at all.
"Scorpius, actually it was-"
"That's why I fixed him for you, I tried to make him just like I imagined he would have been when he was brand new. I hope I got it right."
"It was you who fixed him?" Albus stared at Scorpius in surprise.
"I thought you'd recognise my handwriting." Scorpius shrugged and picked up the note. Albus read it again, this time imagining his new friend repairing his dragon with his wand and writing the note out.
"You must be really good at fixing spells," Albus said, inspecting the joins of Gryffindor's wings and realising it was barely noticeable that he'd been ripped apart only the day before.
"I didn't use a spell, I wasn't sure which one I would need so I did it by hand."
"You can sew?" Albus looked at the joins again, imagining Scorpius crafting them with a needle and thread.
"A house elf helped me a bit. Mum taught me to sew once, it's not too tricky." Scorpius looked uncomfortable and Albus felt a rush of gratitude towards his new friend.
"Thankyou Scorpius! You didn't have to." Albus smiled, the first time he'd really and truly smiled since arriving at Hogwarts.
"I wanted to. That's a horrid thing to do to somebody."
"Um, Scorpius?" He looked up with wide eyes. "It was me. I ripped him up."
"You did?" It was Scorpius' turn to look shocked. "But...why?"
"Promise you won't laugh?" Scorpius shook his head emphatically. "Okay, I've had him since I was two, my Uncle Charlie bought him for me, and it was right around the time Mum and Dad started telling us stories about what Hogwarts was like. And I was only two remember, so I named him-"
He broke off, silently deciding he could trust Scorpius not to laugh at him or be offended.
"Gryffindor," he finished in a whisper, looking away from Scorpius. "I wasn't going to bring him to Hogwarts, but then at the last minute he sort of, fell into my trunk. But now I'm a Slytherin and it just seems stupid so I'll have to change his name and yesterday was such an awful day and I was in here and I was looking at him and I just... snapped, I suppose."
"Have I spoiled something meaningful to you? Did you want him gone?" Scorpius' ears had turned pink.
"No, I didn't want him gone," Albus answered in a very small voice. "I felt horrible this morning, like I'd ripped up my childhood best friend."
"But look, he's back and right as rain!" Scorpius picked up the toy, making him fly around.
"You probably think I'm an idiot, caring so much about a stupid toy when we're eleven." Albus felt a bit silly all of a sudden.
"He's not a stupid toy!" Scorpius cried indignantly, moving to his own bed and bringing Gryffindor with him. "Who cares if we're eleven?"
Scorpius lifted up his own pillow and retrieved a small, stuffed hedgehog. He turned back to Albus, a toy in each hand.
"Gryffindor, meet Chog." He held the toys so they were facing each other, as if they were really meeting for the first time, and addressed the dragon. Albus grinned at the sight. "He doesn't normally come out from under my pillow but I trust your Albus not to give his position away to anyone untrustworthy."
Albus knew what this meant: we won't tell anybody else about our toys.
He stood up to collect Gryffindor from his friend, smiling widely at Scorpius as he did so. "Thanks, Scorpius."
"No problem. Albus?" Albus turned from where he was hiding Gryffindor back under his pillow. "Don't change his name. It meant something to you at the time, it can still mean something to you now, whichever house you're in."
Albus nodded, tucking Gryffindor neatly away out of sight. "You're right." He crossed the room and sat beside Scorpius on his bed; it was the first time either of them had done that.
"So he's Chog the Hedgehog?" Albus let the faintest of smirks show, because he thought Scorpius would appreciate it.
Scorpius did, he grinned widely and started to laugh. "We had hedgehogs in the garden growing up, I used to chase them until Mum showed me how to coax them towards me so I could feed them instead. I loved those little hedgehogs. So for my third birthday, they bought me this. But I couldn't say hedgehog properly, I was only three remember, so I used to call him Chog. It stuck."
He was holding the hedgehog out in front of him and inspecting him from all angles. He looked up at Albus and grinned, putting the toy back under his pillow.
"Scorpius?" His new friend looked at him questioningly.
"Yes, Albus?"
"Thankyou. You're a good friend." Albus smiled, fully appreciating the person sat next to him.
Maybe Slytherin wouldn't be so bad after all.