PRECEDENT : Draco Malfoy II

01

Everyone is buzzing like crazy a week before the Yule Ball. The library is more empty than normal. One night, Hermione isn't even there, and so I feel like I've made up for the absence that she would have felt when I was at the greenhouse. We're on an even playing field now, even if I don't have anywhere near her grades. Not many people study like she and I do.

Hermione and I are two of six people in our year who are muggle-borns. Other years have about the same number, but they have more students. While there are only forty students in our year at Hogwarts, there are at least a hundred second-year students, and a hundred and fifty students in first year.

There was a war going on when we were born, so there were fewer wizards having children at the time. Consequently, the muggle-borns in our year make up a decent size of the student body. We also tend to be the ones more interested in our classes. After years of colouring in maps and doing multiplication tables, who can blame us? Now, we're doing things our friends and families back home thought were impossible. Besides the interest in coursework, Hermione and I are both clever enough to know that with our lack of connections through our parents, we will have to put in twice the work to go half as far. The wizarding world is insular, so nepotism feeds the economy more than magic sometimes.

My parents don't really understand why I'm hoping to work in the wizarding world after I graduate, I bet. While I should be studying in the library now, or at least eating my dinner instead of hovering over it, I am reading letters from them. Da wants me to get home as soon as I can. He brags about me going to a boarding school for gifted children to anyone who will listen, but I know he doesn't understand me. There isn't even footie at Hogwarts and talking to Da about anything besides the hypermasculine is impossible. Mum just misses me loads. My brothers have even sent me a letter, wishing me a happy Christmas. Aaron even helped Mum pick out my dress for the Yule Ball, even though I haven't gotten it yet.

"Marty," Michael clears his throat.

I look up from the letters from my family, tucking them into a pocket in my robes. Classes have just ended for the term, and so the Great Hall is fuller for dinner than it usually is. We're tightly packed at the Ravenclaw table, which forces me to sit with the other fourth years.

Forced, I should say. I was so wrapped up in Aaron's story about his ex-girlfriend trying to contact him from prison that I hadn't noticed the other Ravenclaws leave. I'm glad the ministry let me go after what I did to her. For a second, I felt my throat tighten. Once more, I'm there again.

Sometimes I wish it was a good idea to extract the memory from my head.

"Marty," Michael says again. It is just us sitting down.

"Yes, sorry," I say. "What is it?"

"I finished the recording," he says. "I'm going to go play it for Michael and Terry. I figured it would make sense for me to offer to let you hear it, seeing as you solved the dilemma."

Michael jerks his head towards the end of the Great Hall. I can see Terry and Anthony together. Terry has his nose buried in his book, and he pushes up his glasses. Anthony is talking to him or rather talking to the air since it doesn't quite seem like Terry is listening.

"Yeah, sure," I say.

Michael and I get up. We head down the hall towards the others. Anthony is talking to Terry about some Quidditch match he heard on the wireless last week. Quidditch always bored me, but after the events of the Quidditch World Cup, and the resurgence of the Dark Mark, I've been even less interested than usual.

Michael continues to relive the match, and Terry continues to read, while we head to the choir room. I don't think I've been inside it in years. Music has never been something that I've particularly excelled at doing. I tried to join the choir in my first year, but my voice was mediocre, and I wanted to spend my time elsewhere rather than put in the work to make it better.