Hufflepuff: The loyal and the patient.

New friends. (part one)

In the back of the shop, a familliar boy with a pale, pointed face was standing on a footstool while a second witch pinned up his long black robes. Madam Malkin stood Hope on a stool next to him, slipped a long robe over her head, and began to pin it to the right length.

"Hello," said the boy, "Hogwarts, too?"

"Yes," said Hope.

"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands," said the boy. He had a bored, drawling voice. "Then I'm going to drag them off to took at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."

Hope was strongly reminded of Dudley like she had before.

"Have you got your own broom?" the boy went on.

"Not yet," said Hope.

"Play Quidditch at all?"

"Hmm, yeah, a couple of times." She muttered the last part.

"I do -- Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?"

"No," said Hope, thinking of what house she would want to be in.

"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been -- imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"

"Hufflepuff isn't that bad!" She blurted out, she quickly shutted her mouth.

"I say, look at that man!" said the boy suddenly, nodding toward the front window. Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Hope and pointing at two large ice creams to show he couldn't come in.

Hope smiled sadly, she wanted to tell him all about Dumbledore which would be impossible due to him respecting the old coot.

"That's Hagrid," Explained Hope. "He works at Hogwarts."

"Oh," said the boy, "I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"

"No-- well kind of." She muttered darkly. He looked at her.

"Who are you anyways?" He finally asked.

"Hope, Hope Potter."

He stood there looking shocked. "H-hope Potter? The girl-who-lived?"

"Yeah, yeah." She said akwardly.

(A/n: alright, ending the first part here, I'm still thinking of what Draco should say in the next part.)