Exactly." Malfoy leaned forward a little and held out his hand. "I don't think we've had a proper introduction. I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."
"Harry Potter," Harry said and shook the boy's hand.
"I tried to find you on the train-"
"You did?" Harry asked. He'd thought he'd caught a glimpse of the white blond hair at the end of the car, when he was coming out of the loo one time, but Ron hadn't said anything about it when he got back to their compartment.
Malfoy gave him a long look. "Of course. You're rather famous in some circles." He smiled, with only a trace of haughtiness. "I wanted to see what all the fuss was about."
Harry laughed. "There's no fuss. Really. I didn't even know I was a wizard till a month ago."
Something in Malfoy's face tightened. "But your parents weren't Muggles."
"No . . ." Hagrid had told him about what Muggles were, and that some folks in the wizarding world didn't care for those who weren't wizards, or born of wizards. "But I was raised by Muggles. You know, after my parents died."
Wrinkling his nose as if he smelled something dead a week or more, Malfoy leaned back against the couch. "That's . . . awful."
Well, Malfoy didn't know the half of it, but Harry wasn't going to tell him. "They didn't like magic," he volunteered, however. "But I kept doing it anyway, I guess."
"Obviously." Something in Malfoy's tone suggested that it would be impossible for anything else to have occurred.
Breakfast was a quiet affair for the Slytherin table, as all the students had been up late and then up early, but some of the other tables were rather rowdy, particularly the Gryffindors, where Ron Weasley had been sorted. Harry was a little sad about that, but he knew that the boy he'd met on the train and who'd told him about collecting chocolate frog cards and such was probably happier with his family than he ever would have been in Slytherin.
Like he was supposed to, Harry waited till everyone had their fill of breakfast before he snagged a slice of toast, though he almost dropped it back on the platter when Draco gave him a hard look. Instead, he nibbled at the edges, just as Professor Snape came around to their table with schedules.
Harry kept his head down, his ears turning red, remembering the morning's scene in the bathroom, but Professor Snape said nothing about it, said nothing at all, in fact, just gave him a nasty look as he shoved the piece of parchment at Harry.
Draco peered over his shoulder. "We've got Transfigurations first." He rolled his eyes and sent a baleful look at the loudest table. "Then Herbology. With the Gryffindors."
"I wonder how they can hear their Head of House, with all their noise," Harry murmured.
Draco snorted a laugh. "Like my father says, they're uncultured ruffians. They can't help it, really."
Harry wrinkled his nose, but finished his toast and waited, according to the new rules, for his year mates to finish, as well as for any announcements, before they left to go to their first class. Though he was feeling rather queasy with the knowledge that he didn't know any magic and was likely going to be terribly behind all his classmates, he was still very careful, while walking next to Draco to their first class, to make sure none of his awful clothes peeked from beneath his robes. It was harder to hide his trainers, but if he took deliberate enough steps, his robe didn't flap around them and kept them from being seen. So far so good, for the day.
Professor McGonagall seemed tough but fair, and she told them first thing that her class would be amongst the hardest they would have at Hogwarts, and she wouldn't tolerate any messing around. Later, in Herbology, Harry had a chance to say "Hi," to Ron for the first time since the boats across the lake, but to his disappointment, Ron gave him a disgusted look and turned away.
Seeing that, Draco swore under his breath something about "blood traitors," which Harry didn't understand. The rest of the day went fairly well, and Harry was almost used to the odd way the staircases had of moving when you least expected it, and to the various ghosts who flitted by them in the corridors. Peeves was another matter, but since everyone seemed equally annoyed by the poltergeist, that was okay, too.
He ate lunch with "Teddy" Nott, as he preferred to be called, while Draco sat with a couple of girls from their year, who he said he'd knows for years and wanted to catch up with. Teddy kept giving Harry odd looks during the meal, and finally Harry said, "What? Have I got something on my face?"
Teddy's lips quirked into a semblance of a smile. "Except for your scar, no."
Harry frowned. It was a remnant of the night his parents died, and he preferred not to think about it, but Hagrid had said they hadn't died in a car crash at all, but were killed by a wizard named Voldemort. And it was the scar that made him famous. "It's just a scar," he said, and pushed his hair down to cover it the best he could. "I wish people wouldn't stare at it."
Eyes widening just a bit, Teddy nodded sharply and applied himself to his meal. Harry thought he seemed almost . . . wary, which was kind of disconcerting.