A/N:
Hello there, everyone! If you've made it this far in the fanfic, thank you so much for reading. I know there may be some inconsistencies in the writing—I'm not a professional writer, and English isn't my first language. As I mentioned in the Chapter 1 A/N, this is a fanfic, so some things will be different from canon. Any comments, reviews, or Power Stones would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for your support!
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The Hogwarts Express moved steadily across open countryside, the afternoon sun lying warm and flat across the compartment floor. Harry and Ron had been drifting in and out of drowsiness for the past hour.
Across from them, Hermione was wide awake. She was several chapters into Voyages with Vampires and at a particularly gripping passage, which meant she noticed the compartment door opening slightly later than usual.
A boy with platinum-blond hair was looking in through the gap.
She met his grey eyes. They were somewhat cautious — an expression she didn't often see from him.
"Draco," she said, surprised, and caught herself smiling. "This is unexpected."
"There's something I need to do," he said. He glanced briefly at the seat beside her.
Hermione understood. She shifted toward the window without being asked, making room.
"Thank you." He sat down. His posture was correct and composed, but the line of his mouth was tight in a way that betrayed the performance.
Hermione had a reasonable idea what had brought him here. She had spent the better part of the morning in a state of private turmoil over it.
The previous week, at Flourish and Blotts, she had arrived with her parents in time to hear Ginny Weasley telling her brothers in a low, shaken voice about a scene she'd witnessed outside the shop: Lucius Malfoy, icily contemptuous, and Mr. Weasley, furious. The specifics were vague, but the general picture was not.
Then, this morning, Ron had spent a considerable portion of the first hour of the journey explaining — with the thoroughness of someone who has been building toward this for several days — the history of the Malfoy family's ideology, their suspected involvement with Voldemort as Death Eaters, and Lucius Malfoy's particular views on blood status.
"Death Eaters?" Harry had asked.
"The most devoted followers of You-Know-Who," Ron said. "All skilled in the Dark Arts, all committed to the most extreme pure-blood doctrine. My dad says Lucius Malfoy was one of them — he got off after You-Know-Who fell by claiming he'd been placed under the Imperius Curse. Dad doesn't believe a word of it."
Hermione had sat with this information for a long time without knowing what to do with it.
Because it didn't fit. Draco, who had carried her books across the castle without being asked. Draco, who had been impeccably kind to her parents in Gringotts, who had treated them with the same calm courtesy he showed everyone he respected. Her parents had spoken warmly of him all the way home.
He knew perfectly well they were Muggle-born and Muggles. His behaviour had not shifted a degree.
How could someone raised by a man who held those views behave like that?
She had spent the morning trying to reconcile it and failing. Several times she had nearly gone to find him. Each time she had talked herself back into her seat. She didn't know how to begin the conversation, and she wasn't sure she was ready for whatever he might say.
Then he had come and found her.
He was sitting very upright beside her now, his profile a few inches from hers, looking directly at Ron.
"I know you have reason to be angry about what happened in Diagon Alley," he said. No preamble, no deflection. "I can't tell you exactly what my father said, but judging by your sister's face, it wasn't acceptable. I'm apologising for his behaviour."
Ron stared at him.
Of all the things he had been prepared for — a provocation, a dismissal, Draco pretending nothing had happened — this had not been on the list.
He glanced sideways at Harry, who gave him a quiet, encouraging look. Harry had spent a portion of the journey arguing a version of this: Draco hadn't said those things. Draco had helped them, more than once, and without being asked. None of them had chosen their parents.
Ron looked back at Draco. At the slightly tense expression and the careful grey eyes.
He had a complicated history with this particular Malfoy. The family background alone would have been enough to keep any Weasley at a distance. And yet Draco had guided them to the Transfiguration classroom when they were hopelessly lost. He had been at the Quidditch match when Potter's broom went out of control. He had been the one to push them toward questioning Quirrell.
He hadn't done anything wrong. He simply had a father who had.
"It's all right," Ron said, with less difficulty than he'd expected. His face was slightly pink. "Harry's right — none of us can choose our parents. It's between adults, anyway." He paused. "Just don't make a habit of apologising for him. It's not your job."
"I appreciate that," Draco said. A faint, genuine smile crossed his face — the kind he produced rarely and tried to suppress quickly.
He hadn't expected that. He had come in braced for an argument, or worse, the particular Weasley brand of cheerful contempt. The readiness he'd seen in Harry's face and the deliberate effort in Ron's meant more than either of them probably understood.
He turned to Harry. "Thank you."
Harry shrugged, smiling. "They're your friends too, aren't they?"
Draco said nothing. He looked out the window for a moment and thought that perhaps the Gryffindor approach to friendship was less irrational than he had always assumed.
---
Hermione had not contributed a word to any of this.
She was, ostensibly, still reading. In reality, she had read the same half-page four times.
She had her answer now. The apology confirmed it: there was no misunderstanding between the Weasleys and the Malfoys. Lucius Malfoy was exactly what Ron had described, and Draco had known it, and had come to apologise for it anyway.
What she hadn't worked out yet was how to feel about that.
On her right, Draco and Ron and Harry had moved on — Ron was in the middle of a passionate defence of the Chudley Cannons' historical record, which Harry was following with the expression of someone trying to learn the rules of a sport mid-argument — and the conversation had taken on the easy back-and-forth quality of people who have recently resolved something uncomfortable and are relieved to move past it.
Draco was listening rather than leading, which she had noticed he tended to do when he was relaxed.
She stole a glance at him.
His hair had caught some summer sun. Not much, but enough to soften the platinum into something warmer. His hands were folded in his lap, and his expression was composed, and — she looked back at her book — it was really not the moment to think about any of that.
She turned a page.
He had the most awful father imaginable. He had apologised for his father without being asked. He had carried her books in the corridor without being asked. He had been kind to her parents with the complete naturalness of someone who hadn't prepared for it.
She had no idea what to do with him, and she suspected that was the point.
"Draco — which team do you support?" Harry asked.
"I follow individual players more than teams," Draco said. "Eunice Murray of the Montrose Magpies. Gwendolyn Morgan of the Holyhead Harpies."
"Both Seekers," Ron said, in a tone of dramatic foreboding. He elbowed Harry. "You'd better watch yourself. That might be a rivalry in the making."
Draco smiled and said nothing. He glanced at Hermione, registered her expression, and changed tack.
"What do we know about Professor Lockhart?" he asked. "New Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Has anyone encountered him yet?"
Harry's expression shifted toward something diplomatic. "I met him briefly at the bookshop. I'm not sure what to make of him."
"He's written a great deal," Hermione said, surfacing. It came out more defensively than she intended. "He's clearly very experienced—"
"He grabbed Harry and used him for a promotional photo," Ron said. "Without asking."
"He was—" Hermione started, then stopped. She had been about to say enthusiastic, but she could hear how that would land. "He was probably very excited about the crowds."
"Or he simply doesn't think about other people before acting," Draco said, in the careful tone of someone not expressing an opinion.
Hermione looked at him. He was looking out the window, his face expressionless.
"We'll see," she said.
---
The trolley witch passed. Draco flagged her down and bought a quantity of sweets that he set on the seat between himself and Ron without comment — Chocolate Frogs, Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, a handful of Liquorice Wands, some Pumpkin Pasties.
Ron looked at the pile.
"You don't have to—"
"I know," Draco said, in a way that closed the subject without being dismissive.
Ron considered the Chocolate Frogs for a moment. He picked one up.
The compartment door burst open.
"Look who it is!"
"The Malfoy heir himself!"
Fred and George Weasley appeared in the doorway, wearing identical expressions of gleeful calculation. Before Draco could speak, they had each taken an arm and hauled him bodily out of his seat.
"What are you—" Draco began.
"We're borrowing him," George said pleasantly to the compartment, specifically to Hermione, who had gripped his sleeve. "Just for a bit. We won't damage him."
"Why did you say borrow?" Hermione said, slightly flustered, releasing her grip.
They were already gone.
The three remaining occupants of the compartment looked at each other.
"Was that—" Ron started.
"Yes," Harry said.
---
The empty compartment the twins had found was two cars down. George checked the corridor through the window and drew the curtain.
Draco smoothed his robes and ran a hand over his hair, which had been disarranged in transit.
"Was that entirely necessary?"
"Little bit of payback," Fred said, cheerfully unrepentant. "Our dad, your dad—you understand."
"I've already apologised to your brother for that."
"We know," George said. "Ron told us. That's why we're not actually doing anything terrible to you."
"This is terrible," Draco said.
"This is nothing," Fred said, and handed him a brightly wrapped sweet. "Try that."
Draco held it up to the light. It was a lurid shade of orange and pulsed faintly.
"Fever Fudge?" he guessed.
George made a disappointed sound. "You've been paying attention."
"The side effects," Draco said. "Has the boils problem been resolved?"
"Still working on it," Fred admitted. "They do come up in some unexpected locations."
"Then it's not ready," Draco said. "The Skiving Snackboxes are supposed to solve problems for the customer, not add new ones. A student who takes Fever Fudge to get out of Transfiguration and then spends a week unable to sit down has not had a good experience."
"We know," George said. "We gave some to Lee Jordan this morning to see what happened."
A pause.
"How is Lee Jordan?" Draco asked.
"Still finding out," Fred said.
Draco put the Fever Fudge in his pocket and turned his attention to the window. The landscape had shifted — the flat green fields of the south giving way to hillier, wilder country, and he could make out the distant dark smudge of the Forbidden Forest on the horizon.
"I want to discuss the shop," he said.
The twins looked at each other.
"We've been talking about Hogsmeade," Draco continued. "You need a proper base of operations. The Gryffindor dormitory is not a suitable product development facility—"
"In fairness, nothing's exploded," George said.
"Yet," Draco said. "And when something does, it would be better if it exploded somewhere that doesn't have other people's belongings in it. Or other people." He paused. "Hogsmeade is the obvious location. It's the only all-wizarding village in Britain, it has consistent foot traffic from Hogwarts students on open days, and it's close enough that supply logistics are manageable."
Fred was looking at him with the expression of someone trying to appear as though they haven't already been thinking about this for months. George had abandoned the performance entirely and was leaning forward.
"All the good locations are taken," George said. "What's left has either poor foot traffic or rents that would eat the profit."
"You don't need the main street," Draco said. "Not yet. A visible presence on a secondary street with good word of mouth is a more sustainable start than a prime location with costs you can't cover in the first two years." He looked at them. "A shop that people seek out is worth more in the long run than a shop that people stumble into."
"There is a place," Fred said, after a moment. "Behind the Three Broomsticks. Not directly behind it — on the road that runs parallel. There's been an empty building there for years. It's near a teahouse and a clothing shop, so there's some foot traffic without being exposed."
Draco was quiet. He ran the location through his memory.
Yes. He knew exactly which building they meant. He had passed it every visit to Hogsmeade for six years of his previous life without ever thinking about it.
"Survey it properly next time you go," he said. "Location, dimensions, structural condition, what the landlord's asking. Once we have the numbers, we can make a decision." He paused. "And while you're there, look into whether the relevant business licence application would need to go through the local council or the Ministry's commercial division. I'd like to know before we commit."
George was grinning. "You know, when we first read your investment proposal, we thought maybe you were a bit eccentric."
"You thought he was mad," Fred said.
"Both," George agreed. "We've revised the assessment."
"I'm glad," Draco said drily. "Don't neglect your O.W.L.s in the meantime."
The twins groaned in unison.
"There is absolutely no version of this conversation in which you sound like a twelve-year-old," Fred said.
"Your inventions have genuine gaps in the underlying magical theory," Draco said, ignoring this. "Hogwarts has six more years of professors available to you at no cost. When you leave, Snape will not be holding informal tutorials. Neither will Flitwick. Use the access while you have it."
"He's right, technically," George told Fred.
"Annoyingly right," Fred agreed. "We'll stay in school." He brightened. "Can we at least make it clear we're doing it under protest?"
"You may do as you like," Draco said. "As long as you pass."
The train was beginning to slow.
"One more thing," Fred said, with the air of someone who has been saving something. "Since you're so keen on Hogsmeade—we know a way in. For second-years who aren't technically allowed."
Draco looked at him.
"Behind the one-eyed witch statue on the third floor," George said. "Passage goes all the way through to the cellar of Honeydukes. We've got a fair amount of product stored down there already, actually."
Draco stared at them.
"You've been using a secret passage between Hogwarts and Hogsmeade as a product warehouse," he said.
"We prefer to think of it as efficient logistics," Fred said.
The train ground to a halt. The platform of Hogsmeade station was visible through the window, lit gold in the late afternoon.
"Which statue, exactly?" Draco asked.
The twins grinned at each other, stood up, and patted him on opposite shoulders simultaneously.
"Third floor," George said.
"You'll find it," Fred added.
They were out of the compartment and into the corridor before Draco had fully processed this.
He was after them six seconds later, moving at a pace that could charitably be called swift and less charitably called undignified, pushing through the stream of students disembarking onto the platform.
"Fred — George — which side of the corridor—"
Ron stepped out of the original compartment directly into his path, barely avoided a collision, and turned to watch him go.
"Harry," Ron said, in a tone of genuine bewilderment, "is that Draco?"
The boy with platinum-blond hair was weaving through the crowd on the platform, apparently trying to catch the twins, who had spotted him coming and were operating as a coordinated unit to stay just out of reach.
Harry watched for a moment. He was laughing.
"I told you," he said to Hermione, who had come to stand beside them, eyes wide. "He's fine. They all are."
Hermione watched Draco finally catch Fred's sleeve, spin him around, and receive from both twins simultaneously a cheerful and completely uninformative description of the third floor corridor that left him visibly no better informed than before.
She smiled, despite herself.
"I suppose they are," she said.