Chapter Text
CHAPTER ONE
“I know you were so set on Hyperion, darling, but look at him… he doesn’t look quite like a Hyperion, does he?”
“No… no, ‘Cissa, I suppose he doesn’t.”
“Well?”
“Something traditional, but not too common.”
“How about Orion?”
“Orion Black certainly was an uncommonly unpleasant man.”
Narcissa pursed her lips, but didn’t deny it.
Her expression relaxed when she took in the small, innocent face of her second— and, according to her team of healers, most likely last— child. He was a veritable cherub, with the white-blonde hair of his father and the delicate nose of his mother. Worth every ounce of the pain and suffering that accompanied her difficult pregnancy.
But she wouldn’t do it again. Even if it were possible, she wouldn’t.
“Aquarius?” she suggested, lightly running a finger across the brief landscape of the newborn’s smooth cheek.
Lucius set his cane against the wall behind the headboard and leaned in close to watch her delicate ministrations. “A tad pedestrian.”
“Scorpius?”
Lucius‘ lip curled. “None of Father’s names… lest we curse the boy…”
“What about…” she trailed off for a moment, cutting her eyes sideways, “Angelo? I’ve always liked that name. A tad exotic, but I believe there was an Angelo on my mother’s side, the Rosiers…”
“You think?” Lucius repeated, unimpressed. “What if he was a degenerate, Narcissa? Or worse, a squib?”
“The Rosiers birthed no squibs,” Narcissa denied immediately. “I like it. Angelo. Angelo Malfoy.”
“Very well. What of a second name?”
“Draco has yours,“ she reasoned. “Mine is traditionally masculine.”
“Angelo Narcissus Malfoy,” Lucius enunciated carefully. He sat back, appearing to mull it over. “It does sound quite sophisticated. Draco and Angelo. Yes, I think it fits.”
Narcissa smiled in satisfaction and settled against the pillows propping her up. Angelo opened his mouth and a small whimper spilled from it.
“There, there, mon ange,” she cooed. “Mummy’s here, yes…”
Lugh be merciful, thought Draco Malfoy, watching his brother attempt to mount the broom he’d gotten for his sixth birthday. This is the most pitiful thing I’ve ever seen.
The thing was rearing up at the tail, something Draco had never even seen a riding broom do. Angie was clutching the handle and trying to shove it back down in order to get one bowtruckle-thin leg over. Their mother watched fretfully from the veranda. Draco didn’t think she need worry; at the rate things were going, the boy would never get high enough off the ground to hurt himself.
“Draco,” she snapped. “Draco, help him.”
“I think he has it,” Draco said, unwilling to put an end to the show just yet.
“Draco!”
“Okay!”
“Don’t take that tone with me, young man! Assist your brother or I’m taking away your broom!”
Draco sulkily stomped over to the broom and its incompetent handler and snatched the thing up with impatient hands.
“Wait, Drake,” Angie cried, his high voice so annoying that Draco considered whacking him with his own present. “Wait, I can do it!”
“No, you can’t,” Draco replied bluntly. “You’re not even holding it right.”
“I can do it!” Angie repeated shrilly.
He grabbed onto the handle and started pulling. Draco tried to keep a firm grip, but he was only a little bigger than Angie and they ended up engaged in an energetic game of tug of war that went crashing onto the grass of the gardens.
Draco didn’t even want to help him anymore; now he wanted to beat him so bad with the broom that he would never even want to look at one again.
The Malfoys’ get-together for Saturnalia was a rather subdued affair in comparison to their much more grandiose showing for Yule. It was mostly family and close friends as opposed to foreign dignitaries and the entirety of the British upper class. Saturnalia was drinks and food and a cherished tradition or two— careful planning and no less elegant, but nonetheless low key.
The Malfoy heirs were typically the stars of the evening, because every year since they’d begun lessons, the two young wizards played a duet at the grand piano in the manor’s playroom for all of the guests at the peak of the evening.
The adults ate it up.
The other children in attendance teased them mercilessly.
Theodore Nott seemed to have a particular propensity for poking fun at them at functions like the one during the Winter of ‘90.
“What are you wearing, Angelo?” the dark-haired boy laughed in disbelief.
Angelo blinked. “I’ll have you know that these are my new performing robes, and that they are made from the finest dragon silk in all of Milan.”
“They’re pink,” Theo pointed out, and Pansy Parkinson stifled a giggle behind her hand.
Draco sighed. “Give it a rest.”
“They’re salmon,” said Angelo. “Why aren’t you all making fun of Draco’s threads?”
“Because I don’t look like I’ve strut straight off the pages of Witch Weekly,” Draco quipped. His robes were, indeed, a more conservative forest green.
“You should be so lucky to have enough fashion sense to be featured by a nationally respected publication.”
Daphne Greengrass smiled. “The color suits you, Angelo.”
“Why, thank you.”
“Boys!” their mother called from the raised dais attached to the far wall of the playroom. The pearly piano waited patiently behind her. “Won’t you show our guests what you’ve been working on?”
“Coming, Mother!” Angelo replied excitedly, and made as if to bolt to the other end of the room.
Draco flung an arm out to stop him. “Walk, brother. The last thing we need is to lose any more dignity than we already have.”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, brother,” Angelo bit back. They began traversing the space at a much more reasonable pace. “I love playing for guests.”
“That’s because you haven’t yet realized we’re a couple of monkeys at the mercy of our ringmaster’s command,” Draco muttered.
Angelo ignored him.
He knew Draco liked to play, too, and took a healthy interest in the classics just as much as him; it was the show that always got his brother tied up in miserable knots. Secretly, Angelo theorized that Draco had a touch of stage fright and dreaded being forced to actually try in front of an audience, even one as small as their yearly Saturnalia crowd.
Angelo had no such fears, but he supposed he understood Draco’s. It was a common enough thing, after all. He could forgive the quips at his expense in the meantime.
“Garrison Guilford the Great’s thirteenth symphony in C minor,” Draco announced when they arrived at the dais. Angelo bounced lightly on the balls of his feet.
Subsequently, they took their seats at the bench (minding the hems of their robes, of course) and began.
Draco was a bit stiff at first, but he loosened up quickly. Angelo followed his lead with gleeful abandon, and had to stop himself several times from overtaking his brother’s pace.
“Slow down,” Draco hissed lowly to him about halfway through.
Angelo hummed, “Keep up.”
“I’m leading!”
“Doesn’t feel like it.”
“Stop talking and focus.”
“I can’t, I’m too busy trying not to get ahead of you.”
Draco slipped up and missed a note trying to match Angelo’s slightly faster tempo.
If there was one thing that threw Draco off of his rhythm, it was screwing up. It happened again, and again, a train wreck of a domino effect, and eventually the older boy yanked his fingers off the creme keys and shoved Angelo so hard he fell off of the bench.
Angelo hit the floor like a log, but sprung up with a high-pitched roar and tackled his brother off of the dais in retaliation.
“So much— for— dignity!”
“I’ll— strangle you with your pink— robes!”
“They’re salmon!”
Very suddenly, they found themselves thrown apart by the force of their father’s nonverbal interference. Angelo landed flat on his back with his limbs up in the air, and Draco fell a bit more painfully on his side some meters away.
“Upstairs, boys,” Lucius rumbled. “Now.”
The air of the room had gone from shocked and reluctantly entertained to icy and awkward in less than a second. While their mother managed to swing things around by taking the guests into some other room to entertain them in far less barbaric ways, Lucius dragged them up the staircase by their collars.
He set them down roughly at the fainting chaise on the second floor landing and stood before them with his hands on his waist.
“Father, before you say anything, I’d just like to say that my third rib hurts a lot right now,” Draco remarked, rubbing his side tenderly.
“Run and tell your mother after I’m done,” Lucius replied coldly. “The way the two of you behaved is unbefitting of the Malfoy name. I ought to ban you from leaving your rooms for the rest of the evening with only Dobby for company.”
“Oh, but Mother hasn’t broken out the glacé petit fours,” Angelo mumbled.
Draco sighed wistfully. “Poached pears on white cake with sizzling ginger drizzle.”
Angelo made a noise of high-pitched regret and covered his face with his hands. “We’re sorry!”
Lucius stared at them for a moment before pinching the bridge of his nose with a furrowed brow.
“Don’t let it happen again,” he uttered darkly, still not looking at them. “Or you’ll be spending the night out on the lawn with the peacocks.”
Angelo shuddered. “Please, no. The big one stares at me with carnivorous eyes.”
“It’ll do more than stare if you don’t straighten up.”
One thing that had always terrified Angelo about their father was the fact that it was impossible to tell when the man was joking. His face was almost permanently twisted in some kind of negative expression— anything from boredom to pure malice— and at that moment, all Angelo could determine was that it would have been unwise to assume he was bluffing.
“Yes, Father,” he said at the same time Draco said, “Yes, sir.”
“You’ll apologize to our guests and be the perfect heirs for the remainder of the evening. Or else. Is that clear?’
“Yes, Father.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Off with you, then.”
They popped up off of the chaise and practically tripped over each other bolting down the stairs.
Astoria Greengrass was a frail thing with the most delicate wrists and ankles Angelo had ever seen. Her light-colored eyes blinked slowly and infrequently, and her head turned carefully as if she were concerned about it toppling off of her shoulders. Her dark hair threw her complexion into an almost sickly pallor. He feared that if he spoke too loudly in her presence she would fall over.
Nervously, he fussed with the roasted beet and goat cheese salad in front of him and mentally recited a few key phrases he’d gone over with mother before the Greengrasses had arrived.
“So, Angelo, are you looking forward to attending school this autumn?” Lord Greengrass asked, tucking into his own salad.
Angelo jumped at being addressed. “Yes, sir.”
“Yes, Slytherin will be glad to see another Malfoy,” Lucius remarked, and Angelo thought he heard pride in his voice. “Draco’s already made quite the mark.”
“Yes, I’ve heard from Daphne that he’s at the top of his class,” said Lady Greengrass. Her lips were pursed. “Or near it, anyway. You’ve heard of the Granger girl, I suppose?”
“Ah, yes,” Narcissa smiled sharply. “The… muggleborn.”
Angelo felt the tension rise at the table and his fingers began to tremble, shaking crumbles of goat cheese off of his fork. He had never been good at handling such situations. He felt his mouth start going before his brain could catch up.
“You know, speaking of school, I read the funniest thing the other evening,” he said, twitching. “Did you know that Salazar Slytherin originally suggested a host of different serpents to be the mascot for his House? One of which was the occamy, for the fact that its eggs are pure silver, half of the House colors— there’s some debate going on recently, you know, that occamies are distant relatives of the bogart because of their unique choranaptyxicality— ”
“Angelo,” Narcissa cut in pleasantly, patting his hand. “Finish your salad, dear.”
Lord Greengrass chuckled. “Slytherin, eh, Lucius? He rambles like one of those ravens— and I would know, married to one as I am.”
“Eagles,” his wife corrected, batting him gently on the chest. “Tread lightly.”
Astoria caught his eye across the table, and he could have sworn he saw the corners of her mouth flick up in some echo of a pleased expression. His eyes widened and he quickly returned to his food, heart beating madly.
He was no fool. This lunch was merely a precursor to a more important meeting— the one that would determine whether or not Astoria would become his betrothed, and vice versa. Draco’s marriage had almost been arranged before he left for Hogwarts, but their parents had pulled out of the agreement at the last moment because of some legal trouble the Parkinsons had run into before the semester started. It was quite the scandal, and their mother had been adamant about finding the perfect match for Angelo so as not to suffer such embarrassment the second time around.
The Greengrasses were politically neutral and thus almost always just left of the limelight, their daughters weren’t unattractive and the dowry for both girls was generous. The Malfoys wanted for nothing, but the size of the offer spoke volumes about the Greengrass’ wealth and the esteem in which they held their heiresses. It would be a classy exchange.
Angelo knew he should be grateful that he had parents that had the connections and means to arrange such a meeting, but he couldn’t help but feel just the tiniest bit resentful of tradition. Astoria seemed like a perfectly nice girl, but he felt as if his life were being written out ahead of him. He missed the pretense of openness about his future from when he was a little kid.
Everyone has to grow up sometime, thought the eleven-year-old.
“This salad is very refreshing,” said Lady Greengrass. “The flavors complement each other well. Oh, and the lamb looks positively succulent. Where did you find your elf, Narcissa? He seemed too young to be inherited.”
“Dobby was a gift from Lucius’ parents. They purchased him from that— that agency on Gulliver’s Alley… what was it called, Lucius, dear? The Magical Assistance Habitation, I believe. Are you in search of a new elf, Deirdre?”
“Oh, well, Hokey’s getting up there in age and I thought I’d better have our ducks in a row…”
“Ravenclaw!”
Angelo clutched at his chest in shock and practically toppled sideways off of the stool. The Hall clapped politely, but it was scattered and there were a few murmurs.
Malfoys are Slytherins. It was… a rule, or something.
What did he do wrong?
The deputy headmistress cleared her throat pointedly and he realized he was still sitting stock-still with the Sorting hat perched on his head. He plucked the awful thing off (honestly, would it kill them to visit a decent haberdashery and pick up a new one to enchant?) and slowly made his way to the Ravenclaw table, which was a sea of black robes and blue-and-bronze striped ties.
He chanced a glance at the Slytherin table. Draco stared back at him. If Angelo didn’t know any better, he would say his brother looked nervous for him. As if that helped.
“Oh, dear,” he muttered to himself. “Oh, dear.”
Was everyone staring? Merlin, they were, weren’t they?
Then, McGonagall called the next name and all at once he was forgotten.
He took an empty seat between two students in Draco’s year who subsequently introduced themselves as Anthony Goldstein and Padma Patil. Angelo greeted them and introduced himself as politely as possible, minding his manners and not wanting to make any enemies.
The rest of the Sorting passed in a blur, although the Creevey boy made quite the soggy impression.
As the Sorting gave way to Dumbledore’s speech and then a grand feast, Angelo was mostly thinking of what he would write in his first missive home. Oh, what would father say? He’d always been vocal about his expectations if absolutely nothing else, and Angelo hated to disappoint him… although that wouldn’t be such a change of pace from the status quo, this somehow seemed a lot worse…
“So, little Malfoy,” the girl across from him interrupted his dreary train of thought. He blinked at her. “On a scale of one to ten, how alike would you say you and your brother are? Just out of curiosity’s sake.”
She stabbed viciously into a slice of glazed ham as she said this, and Angelo jumped at the sound of her knife hitting the golden plate. He glanced nervously at the faces around him and noticed that they all seemed to be paying attention to what he had to say.
Draco wasn’t the easiest to get along with, sure, but just how much of an arse had he made of himself to put Angelo in such a spot?
“Well,” he began carefully, and served himself small helpings of a few items in front of his plate to keep his hands too busy to fidget, “if you mean in terms of looks, we have similar coloring, though I favor Mother. Maybe a seven, there. In terms of personality… well, Draco’s a fan of Mahler. That should tell you enough.”
A few people chuckled, though Lisa still eyed him warily. Anthony clapped him on the shoulder, which startled him so bad he almost dropped the ladle for the gravy.
“As long as you share what you know and aren’t a complete and utter prick, you’ll fit right in,” said Anthony.
Padma snorted. “I don’t know about that. Breaking out the classical references a bit early, aren’t we? It’s no wonder the other Houses think we’re a bunch of stuffy stiffs.”
Angelo twisted his hands together anxiously. “I can keep them locked away. But, um… how do we feel about the opera?”
“I love the opera,” Lisa declared, and just like that, her icy demeanor thawed and she began chatting his ear off about her favorite arias.
Angelo didn’t mind at all. In fact, he was taken aback by just how enthusiastically his fellow eagles seemed to tack onto his references and run with them, going from topic to topic in a manner that made his mind wonderfully dizzy with new perspectives.
It was never like that at home. Usually, father would tell him in no uncertain terms to shut up and go talk Dobby to death about whatever he found so interesting as to wax verbal essay about it; mother just nodded and smiled and let him go until he got tired. He could have a somewhat decent back-and-forth with Draco about food and literature for at least a couple of minutes before his brother grew bored and went off to fly his broom on their private pitch.
He almost forgot about his pending missive home.
Almost.
Halfway through the meal (which was almost too English in the way that it sat at the bottom of his stomach), there was a gap in the bodies that shifted back and forth at the other tables and he caught a glimpse of a face that would haunt him for the rest of his days.
“Who is that?” he attempted to casually ask Anthony.
Anthony turned away from his conversation with the black-haired Michael Corner. “Who?”
Angelo subtly pointed. Anthony pushed his glasses up his nose and squinted.
“Oh, that’s Granger.”
Angelo cleared his throat so hard he began to splutter, and took a sip of water only for it to go down the wrong pipe, which sent him into a raucous coughing fit. He slipped his embroidered handkerchief from the internal pocket specially sewn into his robes and covered his mouth, utterly mortified.
Anthony patted him on the back, and after he settled down, turned back to Michael Corner— seemingly oblivious to the cause of the momentary trouble.
Granger. A muggleborn— a… mudblood.
Angelo looked at her again, but only for a second. And then again. One more time. But then he focused his gaze on his food and forced himself not to look up again.
How could a girl with tainted blood bare such resemblance to a goddess carved from burnished mahogany? That voluptuous mane of hair… her big, brown eyes… so limpid and full of intelligence and… concern?
He wondered what negative thought plagued her. He wished he could wipe it from her mind.
Was love at first sight possible? Why couldn’t it be? Wasn’t there endless precedent in the various accounts written in hundreds of great novels and plays and operas over the years?
His heart thumped, his ears rushed, his cheeks and neck prickled suspiciously. The world had ceased to move around him except for her and the way she kept glancing toward the doors, seemingly in slow motion.
Was this love? It had to be!
He couldn’t believe it. Sorted into Ravenclaw and madly in love with a mudblood all in one night.
You’re on a roll, he thought to himself. The letter won’t be dull, that’s for certain.
Not that he would tell anyone about his newest discovery, least of all his extremely conservative parents. He knew his Sorting would already be a surprise to them; there was no need to send them (or himself) to an early grave.
“Is that Malfoy’s little brother?” Ron muttered, disgruntled. “Again? Why do I see him every time I turn around? Aren’t the firsties on a different schedule than us?”
Harry seemed lost in his own world, staring off into space and just barely managing not to trip on anything as they walked to Charms.
“He’s probably just lost,” Hermione reasoned, rolling her eyes. She was positioned between the two of them. “And would you listen to yourself? You say ‘firsties’ like we weren’t in their shoes last year.”
“I don’t see any of them rushing off to save the school,” Ron bit back. “If you ask me, that’s at least three years’ worth of effort.”
“Anything is three years’ worth of effort to someone who nearly turned in his brothers’ old essays for Transfiguration.”
“Fourteen inches, Hermione! With a letter size maximum. They’re practically asking us to cheat.”
“Excuse me,” interrupted a somewhat familiar, posh voice.
They halted; Hermione stuck out an arm to keep Harry from running right into Malfoy. The narrow-faced boy stood before them with a brown leather attaché case clutched tightly in his pale, bony fingers by the reinforced handle.
“I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of Professor Binns’ room?”
“Ask your ferret of a brother,” Ron replied rudely, and made as if to keep walking.
Hermione stepped on his foot and he yelped loudly, turning to glare at her.
“What was that for?” he hissed.
She ignored him. “It’s on the second floor. Take a left at the portrait of the man with the feather in his hat.”
The boy stared at her.
She felt a bit awkward at first, and then annoyed soon after. “Do I have something on my face?”
“Oh! Um,” he cleared his throat, and then promptly dropped his attaché. He scrambled to pick it up, and when his face became visible again it was pinker than the sky at sunset. “No, I— um, thank you. Miss Granger. I mean— Granger. Thank you, Granger. I— okay, I’ll be on my way.”
And with that, he scurried off in the wrong direction. Hermione stared after him, bewildered.
“Bloody Malfoys,” Ron muttered, and they were on their way once more.
Even though they had their differences, Angelo had always respected his older brother. Before he came to Hogwarts, Draco always made it seem in all of his letters to Angelo that he was the cock of the walk at school; it may have been true in Slytherin, but to the rest of the student body, he was no more than a mean-spirited bully.
It was almost embarrassing to be seen with him outside of academic settings, but they had a standing arrangement to chat and have a light breakfast at the top of the astronomy tower on Saturday mornings. Draco wasted no opportunity to ham up the fact that they got no chances to talk, separated into different Houses as they were.
“I’m sure you’ve heard,” Draco said during their second get-together. He sat with one polished shoe atop the opposite knee, a perfect copy of their father. “I’ve made the quidditch team.”
Angelo dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “I did hear. I also heard that father bought your team all new Nimbus 2001s, but that’s probably unrelated.”
Draco scowled. “Oh, not you, too. You know I didn’t ask him to do that.”
“No, you never do, do you?” Angelo muttered.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” he replied quickly. “Anyway, I also heard about that fiasco on the pitch. I would’ve paid to see Weasley barf up slugs.”
Draco snickered. “It was a real treat, alright.”
“What hex did you use?”
“He did it to himself, can you believe it?”
Angelo frowned. “No, I can’t. He turned his wand on himself?”
“No, the busted thing backfired on him. Mummy and daddy probably can’t afford to buy a functioning one, dirt poor as they are.”
Angelo shuddered and took a delicate sip of his breakfast tea. He couldn’t imagine not having the money to buy even a wand. It was a simple necessity for any wizard; to go without wasn’t only dangerous, it was humiliating.
“...playing the hero, acting all big and bad just because I slipped up and called Granger a mudblood to her face…”
“You did what?” Angelo coughed, sending tea all down his front. He pouted and began dabbing at the spots with his kerchief. “You said it to her face?”
Draco shrugged. “I may have lost my temper.”
“We have a reputation to uphold,” Angelo remarked stiffly. “Malfoy heirs and all that. Spewing slurs where anyone can hear like some common brute isn't exactly the classiest behavior, brother.”
“I won’t lose sleep over it. It’s not like her parents will be having a word with ours,” Draco said wryly. “I’ll just be more careful in the future. Next time, Weasley’s wand will backfire and kill us all.”
“We should be so lucky.”
Draco smirked. “Have you spoken to your betrothed since the train?”
“...no. We… haven’t had the chance.”
“Ah. No wonder.”
“No wonder what?”
“Nothing,” Draco replied quickly. “Read anything good lately?”
Angelo regarded him sourly for a moment before giving up on having his question answered.
“As a matter of fact, I’ve recently become invested in a series of articles about the effectiveness of potions ingredients in correlation to their preparation method…”
“It’s a myth,” Angelo sighed, reaching into the pocket of his silk dressing gown to retrieve his favorite gilded comb. He began combing back the sides of his hair as he said, “Frankly, I find these rumors ridiculous. It was obviously a prank by a member of the student body.”
“I don’t know,” Scott Ancrum mused aloud. He was tossing a quaffle up and down from a lying position in his four-poster bed. “That stuff on the wall? Chicken’s blood! Imagine going through the trouble of slaughtering a couple of chickens and not being a bloody sociopath.”
Dennis Aldermaston, who had been traversing the room in just his boxers, stopped dead in his tracks. “You’re sure?”
“Positive! I heard it from Padma,” Scott insisted. “She heard from her sister, who got it from Lavender Brown, who overheard McGonagall talking to Flitwick about it.”
“So practically a firsthand account,” said Angelo. Dennis snorted.
“Listen, if you ask me, I think whoever petrified Filch’s cat did us a huge favor,” Ethan Bexley declared. “That thing’s a menace, and I actually like cats.”
Scott slammed his quaffle— which was signed by Lynch from the Irish national team, a fact he never let them forget— into his left palm and scowled at them all. Angelo wanted to make a very ugly face at him, but his superior breeding wouldn’t allow it.
“Who cares about stupid Mrs. Norris? If this means what everyone thinks it means, the muggleborn students are in danger.” He slammed the quaffle again, and locked eyes with Angelo from across the room. “Your brother made a big deal about that, didn’t he, Malfoy?”
Angelo turned away from the room and continued combing his hair in the mirror closest to his bed. “Yes, I… did hear that he cracked a couple of jokes.”
“Jokes? Is that what those were?”
“His tact needs work,” Angelo defended weakly, letting the arm holding the comb fall to his side. His hair didn’t need to be combed any further. If he kept it up, the static would likely adhere him to the carpet. “I didn’t say they were funny jokes.”
“They were the furthest thing from funny,” Dennis muttered, crawling into bed and pulling the curtains. Dennis was muggleborn.
Angelo shoved him comb back into his pocket. “Well, he could have gone about it differently, but what he said was true in the loosest sense of the word. Historically, muggleborn students were the ones targeted by Slytherin’s so-called Chamber. The chamber that is mythical and houses an equally mythical creature.”
“Just say your brother’s an idiot and go to bed,” Scott said.
“I won’t,” Angelo said stiffly. “He isn’t.”
Scott palmed his quaffle dangerously. “Oh? What else, then? I suppose he’s just some misunderstood softie with his heart in the right place?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“Give it a rest, Scott,” Ethan said quietly. “Draco may be a wad, but that’s his brother, for Merlin’s sake.”
Scott didn’t say anything else, but he stared hard at Angelo, who avoided his gaze and gracefully shed his robe at the rack beside his bed before getting in and pulling his curtains shut.
He wished Draco knew how to be quiet. Certainly that was a valued trait in Slytherins, who were supposedly known for their cunning wit and keen sense of self-preservation? Didn’t sneaky people know how to keep their traps shut?
Angelo didn’t mind his dorm mates, but they didn’t have very much in common. During meals and in his free time, he usually hung around Lisa, Sue Li, Padma, Anthony and sometimes Anthony’s friend, Michael. They were funny, and they understood his references. They also kept him up to speed on all of the happenings within their class, which was by far more interesting than his.
The first Gryffindor-Slytherin match of the season was upon them before they knew it, and Anthony insisted Angelo accompany them to watch it unfold.
Angelo had already been on the fence about it; he wanted to support Draco, but his brother’s popularity had taken a plunge and he didn’t want to seem too eager to be seen at his side. Getting dragged along by his friends meant that Angelo had his excuses for coming.
Day saved.
“The Gryffindor-Slytherin matches are always a bloodbath,” Michael explained on their way down to the pitch. “Good for a laugh.”
Angelo’s mind conjured the image of Draco’s face covered in blood. He shuddered.
“The real fun is counting their fouls and seeing if the numbers go higher than the number of players on the pitch,” Anthony remarked with a humored grin.
Angelo noticed that his friends were headed for the Gryffindor stands. He hesitated for a moment at the splitoff and Anthony looked back at him.
“You coming, Ange?”
Angelo bit his lip and glanced up at the green and silver hangings so far away from where he stood.
“Yes,” he sighed, and followed them into the wash of gold and blazing crimson.
He immediately felt secure in his decision when he spotted the beautiful, boisterous tresses of Hermione Granger next to her boorish, freckled redhead friend. Lisa was the closest to the Gryffindor girl out of their friend group and took the lead in asking whether or not they could sit.
“Of course,” Granger smiled, and elbowed Weasley in the side to get him to budge over and make room.
Angelo had never given any thought to what he might like in a witch, but he decided that he respected such a display of strength and generosity.
He brushed the bench off with his kerchief and sat primly on the edge of it.
“Malfoy?” Weasley said distastefully, squinting at him sandwiched between Sue and Anthony. “Come on, Hermione, really?”
“Hush up and watch the game, Ron.”
“I don’t want to sit with Malfoy!”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to sit with you,” Lisa bit back, shooting the boy a nasty look.
“As well he shouldn’t,” Ron parried.
Angelo shifted uncomfortably. He wanted to sit with his friends, but Weasley was a lot bigger than him and if the older boy decided to make a fuss, he had a feeling it would be him being tossed over the wall and down fifty feet to land on the pitch.
“I’ll make no trouble if you won’t, Weasley.”
“There, see?” Granger said, and nodded curtly at him. All of the breath in his lungs disappeared. “Already leaps and bounds ahead of his brother in that department.”
“I don’t believe it for a second,” said Ron. “I’m watching you, Malfoy.”
“And I’ll be watching the match,” Angelo replied blithely.
Sue barked a short laugh and they all settled in and attempted to ignore the awkwardness of it all.
In the aftermath of the game in which Slytherin lost and Harry Potter was attacked by a vindictive bludger (and subsequently de-boned), Angelo was drenched in a nervous sweat all down his back.
He knew exactly who’d bewitched the stupid ball.
He’d seen it happen before to Draco, when Angelo told their house elf, Dobby, to make his brother pay for ruining his ship in a bottle by shaking it like a maraca. Draco’s dragon figurine collectibles came to life and chased him around the manor and the grounds, only stopping when father ended the curse and chalked it up to a spot of accidental magic on Angelo’s part.
It was the same phenomenon, right down to the heat-seeking aspect. It could have easily been someone else’s handiwork, but Angelo had a feeling that it wasn’t. The real question was why Dobby would come all the way to Hogwarts and wreak havoc upon Potter, of all people.
Unless.
“He wouldn’t,” Angelo muttered to himself as Potter was carried off the pitch.
He watched with the rest of his friends as Granger and her accompanying Neanderthal went trotting after him.
Lisa looked at him. “Who wouldn’t? Wouldn’t what?
Angelo swallowed thickly. “Nothing. No one. I— I’ve got to go, I have an assignment due Monday and I haven’t started.”
Without elaborating, he made haste to catch his brother before he disappeared off to the Slytherin common room.
After the confrontation, Angelo fled to the dorms, angrily flung off his outer clothes without folding or even hanging them up, and curtained himself into his bed in a furious flurry of flailing limbs.
He sat cross-legged in the middle of the neatly made bed and pressed his face into his hands. The stained tissues sticking out of his nostrils popped out and fluttered down into his lap.
Not only did Draco deny tampering with the quidditch equipment, he provided ample evidence to prove that he hadn’t. Angelo felt foolish standing there with no leg to stand on, and to add insult to injury, Draco demanded to know why he even cared and Angelo had been forced to lie and spout more nonsense about the family name. His nose began bleeding almost immediately as a result of the dumb lie, and of course his brother saw right through him.
He managed to storm off without prompting Draco to follow him and demand more answers, which was the only part of the interaction that went his way. Merlin, he hated being wrong.
More than being wrong, however, he hated unexplained phenomena. It was entirely possible that someone else bewitched the bludger, but who? And why?
The answer suddenly seemed very close.
“Dobby,” he called out firmly. His voice sounded stuffy inside his own head from his earlier nosebleed.
With a loud pop-crack, the batty little thing appeared and stood at the foot of the bed. His eyes, already large and bulbous, were wide and nervous-looking, and his hands wrung together like a couple of mating snakes.
“Young master called?”
“Yes, I did,” Angelo thundered. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Those grayish, bony fingers wrung each other harder. “D-Dobby is not knowing what the young master means.”
“The bludger! You almost killed Harry Potter!”
Dobby’s little face scrunched up and all at once he burst into noisy tears. Angelo reared back, shocked at seeing his lifelong caretaker behave in such a way.
“Wait, stop,” he stuttered. “Dobby, I— stop! I order you to stop crying at once!”
The elf straightened up, arms coming down hard to be pinned to his sides by some invisible force, and the tears dried up. The expression on his face was still one of despair, however, Angelo supposed there wasn’t much to be done about it.
“Dobby isn’t meaning to hurt Harry Potter,” sniveled the elf.
“Then what on earth are you trying to do?”
Dobby struggled not to open his mouth. Angelo stared in disbelief; he had never seen him actively fight so hard not to tell the truth.
“I won’t tell father,” he assured the elf. “Or mother.”
Dobby fell sideways onto the bed and began twitching from the effort of keeping his mouth shut. It looked painful.
“Dobby, you have my word.”
Dobby looked like he wanted to cry again, but instead of tears, words burst from him like water from a broken dam.
“The school is not safe for Harry Potter! Dobby is only wanting Harry Potter to go home where he will be safe!”
Angelo furrowed his brow. “Not safe? What do you mean?”
“It’s happened before,” Dobby choked, popping back up to his feet and bouncing a bit as he did so. “History repeats itself, young master! Harry Potter is not safe!”
“If the school isn’t safe, why aren’t you worried about me?” Angelo asked, horrified.
For a second, Angelo swore Dobby might roll his eyes.
“You is not in danger, young master. You is being protected by blood.”
Angelo suddenly realized all at once what Dobby meant and felt irritation build in him like magma.
“This is about that Chamber, isn’t it?” he scoffed. “It’s a myth, Dobby. It’s not real. The last time it was ‘opened,’” he formed air quotes around the word, “a student was killed, but that could have easily been the work of another student. Unless there’s a killer on the loose among the student body— in which case I would implore you to tell the proper authorities— I suggest you leave this matter alone.”
Dobby trembled. “But— ”
“Leave it alone! Before someone gets hurt more than they already have,” Angelo muttered.
Dobby wrung his hands some more, but eventually bowed his head so low that his nose brushed the comforter; then, he promptly and loudly disappeared.
Angelo ran a hand through his hair and grimaced at the pomade that greased up his fingers as he did. He opened his curtains and plucked his robes from the floor to retrieve his kerchief from its hidden pocket. The eggshell-colored fabric became stained with his hair products after a few passes over his palms. He heaved a long-suffering sigh and went about tossing the kerchief in his woven hamper for dirty clothes (the only one in the dorm; the other boys, to Angelo’s horror, simply tossed their things onto the floor as if they’d been raised by wolves) and hanging up the outerwear he’d discarded so carelessly before.
With no adrenaline or fear to preoccupy his mind, he fell upon his usual idle muse.
She’d looked so afraid out on the pitch.
Though the face most people saw— him being included in most people— was that of an academic, a rigid, book-bearing gal with an answer for everything, it was easy to see that she was also an incredibly empathetic individual. He sometimes gazed upon her caressing the petals of flowers as she passed them on the grounds, overheard her nagging her friends to eat something other than meat and potatoes at meals, helping first years like himself with directions to class… he admired her sensitivity, the brief bouts of gentleness that peaked through her cool, intellectual exterior.
It seemed that she cared very deeply for Potter; he wondered if she harbored feelings for the boy, and if Potter felt the same. Hell, in a couple of years they could be Hogwarts’ golden couple: the Boy-Who-Lived and the girl at the top of the class of ‘98. The very thought filled him with a sort of bleak emptiness that he couldn’t quite identify.
He looked at himself in the full length mirror by his bed. He was bird-chested, and his slight features made it so that if he had longer hair, he might as well have taken up residence in the adjacent dorms.
He’d gotten his fair share of teasing about his size from just about everyone who cared enough to say two words to him. In times like these, when he’d spent the harder part of the day being wrong (a state in which he hated to be), those words came back and made him feel small. Smaller than he actually was.
He straightened his lapels and smoothed his hair back on either side of his head, drew himself up and puffed out his chest. He looked ridiculous.
“Oh, whatever,” he muttered.
The next morning, Angelo picked miserably at his scrambled eggs while the rest of the Hall seemed abuzz with the latest news. Lisa kept nudging him to prompt his participation in their speculation of who might have petrified Colin Creevey.
“I bet it’s a snake that did it,” Michael declared. “They always did like to pick on the poor kid.”
Anthony hummed thoughtfully. “It’s also logical to assume that the Heir of Slytherin was Sorted into his ancestor’s House.”
“But it could be anyone, really,” Lisa posited. “From any house, of any gender.”
“Heir of Slytherin, not Heiress of Slytherin,” Anthony pointed out, smirking. “Plus, are you really so eager for your gender to claim the perpetrator?”
“It’s not about claiming them, it’s about the fact men aren’t the only ones capable of murder and violence.”
“There are no descendants of Slytherin in this castle,” Angelo finally announced. “His bloodline ended with the Gaunts. There’s also no Chamber of Secrets, because— ”
“ —‘it’s a myth,’” Lisa finished, rolling her eyes. “Come on, Ange! There are historical accounts, redacted maps, the professors won’t give us any straight answers— at this point, it’s more likely than not that it exists.”
“It’s a story that someone’s using to scare people,” Angelo insisted, slamming down his fork. “And the more fuel we give it, the more hysteria we induce. It’s a tactic to distract people from the real danger. How can none of you see that?”
They all stared at him.
“Angelo,” Anthony began carefully. “Where were you last night?”
Angelo gaped at him, and then clenched his fists so tight on the tabletop that his manicured nails cut into his palms.
“In my room,” he answered stiffly. “Sleeping, just like every other person in this castle except for some wannabe murderer who is not me.”
He stood, snatched up his attaché case, and stormed out of the Hall, shaking. His ears pounded from the blood rushing through them, but faintly, he could hear Lisa viciously pummeling Anthony with her copy of the newspaper.
Angie,
I was very disappointed to hear from Lady Greengrass this morning about your behavior— or rather, lack thereof— toward Astoria. I understand that you are in different Houses, but you should make the effort to get to know her better. As her betrothed, it is your duty to make her feel comfortable and secure in her parents’ decision to align our families; that includes speaking to her on occasion.
You and your brother are representatives of our House, and you must act in a manner befitting that responsibility. I will speak no more on the matter.
I read this morning about the petrifaction of that muggleborn. Make sure you’re walking to classes in a group, and that you heed the curfew. Your father will be meeting with the Board to discuss what is being done about the threat, but in the meantime, I want you and your brother to exercise the utmost caution in your movements. I would pull you from school and continue your education here at home with tutors for the rest of term, but your father resisted the idea. You know how he is— always so sure that no one would dare risk a feud from our House by harming one of our heirs. One day, I’ll get through to him that not everyone considers the potential ramifications of their actions in such a way.
Please stay safe,
Mummy
Despite the fact that nobody in Ravenclaw actually respected or deferred to Lockhart as an adult capable of teaching them anything, it seemed nearly everyone had a crush on him; he was a very pretty man. It was for that reason and that reason alone that many marched down to the Great Hall to attend the first meeting of the dueling club.
“It’ll be a laugh,” Anthony clapped Angelo on the shoulder as they traveled in their usual group. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“I lose studying time to watch an imbecile shake his wand around like a dowsing rod?”
“Even us eagles need a day off,” Anthony replied solemnly. “Keeps the brain sharp.”
Angelo gave him a wry look, and Anthony’s lips curled inward in an attempt to keep from laughing out loud.
To Angelo’s dismay, the dueling club ceased to be funny when Draco stepped up to duel Potter and completely disregarded the rules in an attempt to humiliate him. It didn’t humiliate the Boy-Who-Lived so much as force him to reveal himself as a parseltongue— which frankly didn’t make any sense to Angelo, but there you have it— thrusting the gossip chain of the school into a state of suspicion against the one person who should have, logically, been the least suspicious.
It did wonders to keep him out of the limelight, though. Nobody even passingly joked about Angelo being the murderer after the dueling club incident.
Hermione was on the way to the library. She knew she’d have to cross a courtyard to get there expeditiously, but as luck would have it, the Scottish skies decided to open up and cry holy hell upon its countryside. The other way around would be drier, but also longer, and her business at the library was of considerable import and time-sensitivity. The longer she dawdled, wary of the cold rain, the more her sense of urgency increased and made her dance from foot to foot.
Just as she began to steel herself to make a break across the sopping grass, she heard someone approach behind her over the roar of the downpour. She turned. It was the younger Malfoy brother.
“Granger,” he greeted, grey eyes wide. Whenever Hermione encountered him, Angelo Malfoy always seemed just a little caught off guard.
Under his black cloak, he was dressed for the weekend, in a grey turtleneck and a pair of smart, olive trousers secured with a slim brown belt. Hermione wondered what the conventional social rules were about wearing ordinary clothes; it seemed like older magical folk wore cloaks like a final layer of clothing in the place of bottoms, but younger people - purebloods and muggleborns alike - wore them more like long duster jackets. She wondered how children who grew up in pureblood families knew to dress appropriately. When had muggle fashion become popular among the masses? Did they know what they were doing? Was it introduced slyly by some half-blood and picked up like a trend that would never truly die out?
She shook her head a little to dissuade it from distracting her further.
“Malfoy,” she remarked politely. He’d never been anything but polite to her despite everything; she figured she should extend the same courtesy, even if it was likely that his political opinions were more purist than not.
He cleared his throat and looked out into the courtyard, and then back at her, expression skeptical. “You weren’t planning on going out in that, were you?”
“I-- well,” she began, and then stopped abruptly. She hated seeming unprepared, and admitting that she lost her umbrella would alter his perception of her; this person who she didn’t even care about that much. “I don’t have an umbrella.”
He stared at her bemusedly for a moment, and then - haltingly, as if he wasn’t quite sure he was doing whatever he was doing - he shrugged his cloak off of his shoulders and slipped his wand out of one of the pockets. She tensed, reaching for her own, but he wasn’t looking at her; he waved his wand over the back of the cloak and incanted, clearly, “Impervius.”
Then, he held it above his head and stepped up to where the stone floor spilled out into the grass. He looked over his shoulder at her in invitation. She stood still for a moment, and then without a word, ducked under the cloak. They stepped out into the rain. She watched in fascination as droplets of water dripped in continuous streams off of the edges of the jacket like so many miniature fountains. The gray of the area seemed to throw the dry space in which they walked into startling clarity. She couldn’t help but glance at him a few times, but he stared determinedly ahead.
When they reached the other end of the courtyard, he swung the cloak from over them and examined it briefly. It was dry. He slipped it back on and stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets.
“Thank you,” Hermione managed, too stunned about the past minute to say much else.
He nodded curtly, not looking her in the eye, and strode off down the corridor, shoulders rigid.
She couldn’t dwell on the strange occurrence for too long. She patted the mirror through her cloak pocket and went off in the direction of the library, determined to find some answers.
One of Angelo’s favorite pastimes was looking up charms of convenience. It was a pleasant coincidence that he had one tucked away that came in handy right when Hermione Granger, of all people, seemed to need it.
He spent the rest of the day in a pleasant haze, lounging in the Ravenclaw common room while it was still somewhat quiet. Most of the House was attending the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match, so he had his pick of the armchairs by the fire. He bit into an apple and read the same sentence in his copy of the Charms textbook over and over, unable to concentrate on anything but the memory of Hermione Granger huddled next to him, the warmth of her arm practically burning a hole in his.
He wished he’d said something charming in answer to her thanks. Something cool that she’d remember him saying for years. Instead, he’d run away like a coward.
He groaned and let the textbook cover his face, burying his nose in the crease of the binding.
The portrait hole swung open and other students came pouring in. The mingling voices weren’t occupied with cheerful, post-game chatter, however; there were worried murmurs and sidelong glances. Professor Flitwick stepped into the common room and approached Angelo, who sat up straight in his chair and clutched his apple tightly in his left hand.
“Mr. Malfoy, I’m going to have to escort you to the Headmaster’s office,” the half-goblin wizard informed him gravely.
Angelo stood abruptly. “May I ask why, Professor?”
“I’m afraid not,” Flitwick replied. “Come along, then.”
Angelo looked around, confused. His friends weren’t looking him in the eye, and most of his other Housemates seemed torn between avoiding his gaze and glaring poisonously at him.
“Now, please, Mr. Malfoy.”
He tugged at the collar of his jumper and followed after the little man, bewildered. Before they reached the portrait hole, Lisa stepped in his path and gently slipped his book and apple from his loose grasp.
“Won’t be needing these, I reckon,” she remarked quietly, and managed to give him a comforting half-smile.
He nodded confusedly before answering to Flitwick’s urgent beckoning and leaving the common room.
“My son wouldn’t say boo to a bowtruckle,” Narcissa insisted, eyes narrowed into slits.
Lucius sighed heavily and tightened his two-handed grip on the ornament of his cane. “It’s true.”
Between his two standing parents, Angelo was shaking in his chair, which was across from Headmaster Dumbledore’s desk. Professor Flitwick stood off to the side, observing the proceedings nervously. The head of the school was flanked by two aurors and an official from the DMLE, all of whom seemed to be under the impression that Angelo had played some role in the petrifaction of Hermione Granger.
“Frankly, I’m convinced of your son’s innocence in this matter,” said Dumbledore. “But because of recent events, law enforcement is taking a few extra precautions.”
“Starting with replacing you?” Lucius drawled.
Dumbledore merely smiled tightly.
Angelo wrung his hands together. “Um, Headmaster? I’d just like to say that while I did escort Miss Granger across the courtyard apparently minutes before her petrifaction at the library,” he let out a nervous laugh that sounded a bit like someone wiping a window, “I did not, in fact, take any part in the petrifaction itself, don’t even know how to petrify someone, even— and is she alright, by the way? Like, this is reversible, right?”
“You escorted her across the courtyard?” Lucius demanded sharply. “Whatever for?”
Angelo pulled at his collar. “It- it was raining earlier, father.”
“And?”
“W-well, I was just— you know, what mother is always s-saying a-about treating witches p-properly— ”
“You found the time to escort that girl across the courtyard but you can’t spare even a fraction of an afternoon for poor Astoria,” Narcissa sniffed.
Angelo spluttered, “I- I’ve just b-been busy w-with— you know, my studies a-and—”
“Your nose is bleeding,” Lucius pointed out dryly.
Narcissa leaned forward to dab at his face with a lace kerchief. Angelo allowed it, staring blankly ahead of him and feeling keenly as if the world had been tilted on its axis.
“I’ve observed quite enough,” the DMLE official declared, a woman with dark hair pulled back into a slick bun. “Aurors, this boy couldn’t be further from an accessory to what occurred this afternoon. I believe our business here is finished for now.”
After the Ministry’s representatives departed the room, Angelo looked around and felt that the nightmare hadn’t quite ended yet.
“Before we dissolve this insightful little meeting,” Lucius began, holding up a hand. Professor Flitwick gazed at his father with what Angelo recognized as severe dislike. “I’m not convinced that the current leadership is doing everything in its power to ensure the safety of the students, Headmaster. The Board will, of course, hear about the incident that took place this afternoon, and I can only hope that we come to a solution to this issue that satisfies all parties.”
“Of course,” Dumbledore replied evenly. “Know that I only ever have in mind the well-being of every pupil studying within these walls.”
“Of course,” Lucius parroted, smiling his serpentine smile.
Narcissa cupped the back of Angelo’s neck as she continued to hold her stained kerchief to his nose, fretting over him. He took the look his father shot him as they marched out of the office like a punch to the chest. Once again, he felt like he’d failed some sort of test with the man without ever having known the questions.
“Dumbledore’s been dismissed,” Lisa informed him as soon as he came down the stairs of the dorms the next morning. “And Hagrid’s been arrested. Apparently, he was held responsible for the last time the Chamber was opened.”
“That’s… ridiculous,” Angelo managed, furrowing his brow.
Lisa shrugged. “No one believes it but, well, you know. Anyway, everyone is panicking a bit.”
Angelo could see that, even as she evenly relayed the scuttlebutt to him, her fingers were tapping nervously away at the sides of her thighs, and that her dark reddish-brown hair was done up a bit faster than usual. Lisa was scared.
He grabbed her hand, doing his best to channel his mother when he’d had a nightmare. “It’s going to be alright.”
She sniffed. “I know.”
“I don’t know if he’ll be back, but this thing will get resolved,” Angelo assured her. “I know it will.”
Her lip wobbled, and then Angelo found himself wrapped in a tight hug. He was, at first, startled; he didn’t think he’d ever been hugged so tightly by anyone, save for his own mother. After a moment, he placed his hands upon her back and patted it, warmth suffusing him in great waves. He resisted the stinging that threatened his eyes.
“You’re right,” Lisa admitted tremulously, pulling away. “It’s just like last year, you know? Everything goes back to normal in the end.”
“...what happened last year?”
He knew he shouldn’t have been out and about after hours, but it was the only way he would have been able to see her without evoking the suspicion of the nurse or anyone who happened to stop by the hospital wing. Why would a Malfoy have any reason to visit one of the petrified students? Hermione Granger, most baffling of all?
He supposed not seeing her around made the school just a bit less bright.
He sat in a chair adjacent to her bed and took in her stiff form. Her arm was outstretched, her eyes frozen in fear and shock. He lightly touched the tip of the index finger on her extended hand.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I truly am.”
He didn’t know what he was sorry for. Perhaps not talking to her just a second more when they’d gotten out of the rain? Maybe if he hadn’t been such a coward, she’d still be healthily mobile. Perhaps he was sorry for everything— sorry that being a muggleborn meant certain death in their world; if not by petrifaction, then by social disgrace and stigma. He wasn’t oblivious to his family’s role in the perpetuation of such discrimination. He wondered if she thought he held the same beliefs, if she was under the impression that he cared one jot about the makeup of her stupid blood.
“I don’t,” he sniffed. “I don’t care. Not even a little.”
And he didn’t. So overcome with a feeling of helplessness and guilt, Angelo began to cry, and wiped his face on the back of his sleeve. Horrified and spooked that he’d been moved to do such a thing, he got up and fled the wing, aching for everything to go back to the way it was before he’d ever come to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
“It was Ginny Weasley the whole time,” Padma mused at the breakfast table. “Who would’ve guessed?”
“She was possessed,” Lisa shrugged. “Who could’ve guessed?”
“Meanwhile,” Anthony grinned, “we weren’t too off base about the Chamber. Seems it really did exist, didn’t it, Ange?”
Angelo, too relieved to feel beat up about being wrong, merely shrugged and smiled ruefully.
His relief came to an abrupt halt when Draco marched up to the Ravenclaw table and quietly, furiously informed him that Potter had cost them Dobby, and that their father, who had apparently been in possession of the diary— the one responsible for Ginny Weasley’s endangerment— for quite some time before the school year began, was being subjected to a small inquiry at work. Angelo felt his entire body go cold.
“Just thought you should know,” Draco finished peevishly. “Select who you hang around a bit more carefully, brother. There are a lot of people who would love to witness the fall of the House of Malfoy.”
Angelo felt the concerned gazes of his friends boring into him as his sibling stomped away. He felt overwhelmed by the information he’d been given.
His father… a man he’d always known to be capable of cruel things… had done this? Had been indirectly responsible for Hermione Granger’s petrifaction? Had he known about the properties of the diary? Why, why, why? For the first time in many years, Angelo wished he didn’t have so many questions.
And Dobby was gone. His caretaker for many years, out of the picture at the toss of a sock. He couldn’t quite believe it.
“Are you alright, Ange?” Lisa asked.
He blinked. She, and everyone else within a two foot radius, seemed to be torn between staring at him and staring at his place setting. He looked down. The plate, charger and utensils were trembling on the table. How embarrassing.
“Um,” he cleared his throat squeakily. “Yes, I— yes. Everything’s fine. Fine,” he stressed to his place setting, which seemed to settle at his forceful tone.
“You should go lie down if you’re not feeling well,” Lisa suggested. “You look a bit peaky.”
He stood abruptly. “I think I will go rest a bit, actually. They’ve cancelled classes, it’s as good a time as any.”
Lisa patted his arm comfortingly. His other mates nodded to him, concerned, as he exited the Hall, lost in his thoughts.
“You’ve ignored me all year,” Astoria Greengrass whispered. “I thought you might be okay, you know. You seemed so nice at our dinner.”
“I’m sorry, Astoria, I am,” Angelo muttered, eyes on his shoes. “It’s just that… the year’s been so hectic and I… I guess I didn’t prioritize the way that I ought to have. That’s entirely my fault.”
She daintily brushed a lock of hair behind her slightly pointed ear. “I… suppose I forgive you. You’re much easier to forgive than your brother.”
He slid his hands into his pockets and stared at the corrugated floor of the train, wishing he wasn’t where he was and hoping that the summer wouldn’t be one endless lecture about everything he’d done wrong that year.
“For what it’s worth, you’re not the first person to make me feel invisible. Honestly, it’s as if— ”
Hermione Granger exited a compartment about five or six doors away, looking around to orient herself before striding toward them. Angelo stared with wide eyes as she approached, heart thumping loudly away in his chest.
She gazed upon him thoughtfully as she passed behind Astoria, who was still talking, and right before her face turned out of his line of sight, a pretty smile turned up the corners of her full lips. He offered a shaky one back, even managing to throw up a twitchy hand in an awkward, quasi-wave before she disappeared completely.
“ —and, of course, you’re back to ignoring me again,” said Astoria. Angelo blinked, startled out of the moment. “It’s been less than a minute and you’ve already reneged on your apology.”
“I’m… sorry,” Angelo said again, flustered. “I have no idea what came over me.”
Astoria glowered at him icily. He chuckled nervously and stuffed his hand back into his pocket.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, and began trying to salvage the conversation from the depths of what felt like agony.