It was dark and rainy, with a bitterly cold breeze casting pinpricks of icy rain into the students' faces. First-years had their cloaks and hoods on, umbrellas over their heads, causing the scene to seem ever more chaotic as the student body shuffled out of the train cars and flung out their umbrellas. The older kids were using simple charms to keep themselves dry.
In the crowd, a tall, blonde-haired boy with gray eyes scowled at the younger students bumping into him. With him, a dark-skinned boy with short hair, and fair-skinned girl with wavy blonde locks, and another girl with dark, straight hair, all cluster together, the blonde girls hand clutching the dark-haired girls arm.
The four stick close together and towards the edge of the crowd of students while the first-years break off from the group towards the lake. Left behind is a crowd full of returning students whose educational journies had been interrupted due to the Battle of Hogwarts and the issue with Voldemort. After nearly two years, Hogwarts is up and running again, and welcoming, or welcoming back, its students.
The oldest returning students, here to finish off their seventh years, are all between 19 and 21. As the four returning Slytherins follow the crowd, carriages are loaded and begin to trot down the path toward Hogwarts. Nearly every student could see the Thestrals.
The four Slytherins find themselves a carriage and they climb in, waiting to begin the bumpy ride to Hogwarts.
"I see nothing's changed. Still have these bloody carriages." Pansy remarks as she climbs in; Blaise, Andromeda, and Draco following.
"And those creepy rats with wings," Andromeda adds, shuddering. The Thestrals were remarkably creepy, with taut, shiny black skin and their bones nearly visible under what could be called their scales.
"McGonogall's too noble in her respect for Dumbledore to change anything about his school. I'm sure the old bat named each one of those Thestrals. He never was right in the head." Blaise takes a seat next to Draco on one side of the carriage, while the girls sit on the other side.
"Where's Theodore gone off to?" Pansy wonders aloud, peering out of the foggy window into the dark crowd of students, trying to spot the handsome, dark-eyed Slytherin boy, with long eyelashes that had half the girls in the grade after him.
The fact he'd come back to Hogwarts to finish off his last year when he'd likely skip half his classes and sleep through the rest appalled them all.
Blaise peered out the window, "Here he comes. He'd better put that bloody cigarette out before he climbs in here."
The carriage shudders and while it's beginning to move, Theodore's hand appears at the threshold and he pulls himself in as the Thestrals begin to break off into a walk.
Theodore doesn't pull the small carriage door shut, though, because following directly behind Theodore is another student, who climbs into the carriage and pulls the door shut behind him.
Theodore drops into the open seat on Pansy and Andromeda's side, and the other student sits by Draco, also with a lit cigarette between his lips.
The boy is relatively short, compared to the other three boys in the carriage, but not ridiculously so. His shoulders and general frame were a bit wider than Draco, who had always been somewhat lean and arguably scrawny. The student has short brown locks peeking out from under a dark beanie and noticeably hadn't bothered to put on any sort of uniform, instead in a pair of black jeans with a gray sweatshirt and a thin, though insulated, black coat on top.
At least Theodore bothered to wear something with the Hogwarts crest on it (a dark gray jumper with a Hogwarts crest over the right side of the chest, with a green stripe lining the collar.)
With the carriage door shut and two lit cigarettes, the air quickly became acrid and stuffy. Draco's eyes watered a bit, sitting directly next to the stranger's cloud of smoke.
Pansy was checking out the stranger, unapologetically judging him. "Theodore, who is this?" She voiced the silent but obvious question the others were all wondering.
Theodore inhaled and exhaled a stream of smoke painstakingly slow before blinking those long lashes and addressing Pansy, gesturing to the new guy. "This is Mattheo Lopez. Lopez, this is everybody else."
"How do you do?" Mattheo Lopez offers his hand to Pansy with a corner of his mouth upturned.
"Splendid." Pansy shakes his hand, and she and Andromeda both look at each other. Andromeda raises a brow.
"I'm Andromeda Tonks." Andromeda offers.
"Absolutely charmed to meet you." Lopez replies without hesitation.
"And I'm Blaise Zabini." Blaise's voice cuts in, humorless. "Andromeda's boyfriend."
"Lucky chap, aren't you?" Lopez jokes.
Blaise's face remains stubbornly unamused, so Andromeda smiles in place of him.
Pansy offers her own name, and eventually they all turn towards Draco.
Draco looks up from the ring on his finger he'd been fiddling with and blinks at them "What? Is there something in my hair?" He runs a hand through it, though it is tame and impeccable as usual.
Pansy gives him an exasperated look and gestures to Lopez.
Draco frowns, as though he hadn't noticed him until now, "Who are you?"
"A transfer." Theodore blows a cloud of smoke into Draco's face, whose face twitches.
"Mattheo." Lopez clarifies.
Draco frowns, "Surname?" He prompts.
"Lopez, if you must. I'd prefer Mattheo." Mattheo says with an innocent shrug.
"I've never heard of a Lopez bloodline." Draco observes.
Mattheo seemed unfazed by Draco's cold and interrogating air. "Let's just say I'm not from around here."
Draco pauses, deems the answer acceptable, and adds, "Well, I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."
Something flickers in Mattheo's eyes. Recognition. "Malfoy? I had a feeling. How is dear old Lucius doing these days, anyway?" Mattheo taunts.
Draco's jaw locks and a vein pounds in his temple, "He's fine." Dear old Lucius was, in fact, dead.
Mattheo catches Draco's cold glare unflinchingly, "Oh, really?" He asks politely, not accusingly.
Draco forces his features to slacken, "Yes."
Mattheo seems to think for a moment before prompting again, "Really?"
"Yes." Draco emphasized, his patience wearing thin and his temper volatile.
Mattheo smiles to himself, leaning back against the chair and saying "Well, that's good to hear."
Draco watches, fuming, as Mattheo holds his cigarette between his index and middle finger, bringing it up to his lips. His hands are covered in padded black gloves with unblemished, fine leather fingerpads and inlaid iron studs at each knuckle.
"Could you put those foul things out?" Draco asks through gritted teeth as the smoggy environment in the carriage burned all their lungs and eyes.
Theodore chuckles at Draco's request and leans forward, blowing a stream of smoke into Draco's face.
Mattheo shrugs. "Sure thing."
He takes off one glove and proceeds to smother the cigarette into the bare pad of his left index finger, which was discolored, misshapen, and now bright red.
Andromeda lets out a small grimace and Blaise looks pointedly away. Without the sounds of pebbles hitting the underside of the carriage, the others may be able to hear the sound Mattheos skin made as it met the cigarette butt. Draco could hear it just fine, being seated next to him.
Draco yanks the hands holding the now put-out cigarette away from Mattheo's other ungloved hand. "What are you doing, dimwit?"
Mattheo frowns, flexes his fingers, and inspects his permanently warped and discolored index finger, as though this was a common practice of his.
"Are you insane?" Pansy asks wholeheartedly.
Draco lets go of Mattheos gloved hand. Mattheo slips his other glove back on.
Then, he replies, as though it were obvious and made perfect sense, "I didn't want to ruin my new gloves."
okay I know this was ridiculously short, and I definitely finished writing this chapter, like, a month ago. so sorry :) and really, I finished writing it, like, five months ago. I'm very lazy and slow to transfer my writing from my notebooks to Wattpad, so don't hate me. I had originally intended this chapter to be way longer but decided for my sanity I would break them up into smaller chunks.
But uh yeah there's that.
I will definitely work on getting the next part done.
Once I find my notebook.