Hufflepuff Draco: Loyalty and Lies

"Draco, I can't reach the pumpkin juice," little Hannah Abbott said, stretching her arm as far out as it would go, reaching for the pitcher. Even at twelve, Hanna was a couple of inches less than five feet.

"Here you go. I put some QuikGrow potion in it just for you," Draco said, smirking a little, looking down from his five foot three advantage.

Hannah gulped it down. "I wouldn't mind if you did," she said. "But since you really didn't, you get to help me reach the top of my Towering Tomato today. Hufflepuff pride!" She held out her hand for a high five. Draco stared.

"It's a muggle thing," Hannah explained softly, lowering her hand.

"Oh," Draco said, staring at his untouched pancake. The last time he'd said those same words, "It's a muggle thing," to his father, Lucius' reaction had been so STRANGE.

Later, in Herbology, when Hannah was stretching to get food into the uppermost tiny maws on the Towering Tomato plant, Gregory Goyle elbowed her, hard, in the head.

"So sorry," he said, laughing. He was five-foot eight, bulky, and probably fourteen already despite being a second-year. "My father tells me the Mud in their veins stunts their growth. What a pity she's so small."

Draco turned red. He wasn't large enough, by far, to start a fight with Goyle. He turned, sadly, away from his Towering Tomato, belatedly remembering Hannah's request for help that morning. There was just nothing he could do.

"You were supposed to HELP me!" Hannah told him bitterly at dinner. "That's what Hufflepuffs are supposed to do, help each other."

Draco gritted his teeth. He had WANTED to help.

"You should have been sorted into Slytherin," Hannah said, getting up and moving her plate down the table, to sit next to Susan Bones.

That evening, Draco pulled one of the texts Narcissa had given him off his bedside shelf: A Child's Introduction to Anatomy. It started off with charts of little muggle insects...mosquitoes, butterflies, etc. Then there were frogs, cats, and at the very end, people.

Draco read the paragraph about the human circulatory system. It was all about capillaries and arteries, red and white blood cells, and on and on, but there was no mention of mud.

"Goyle's dad is stupid," Draco commented to Hannah at breakfast the next morning, after apologizing for the day before.

"No kidding," Hannah muttered, giving a vicious-looking cut to her sausage patty.

"I mean, Mudbloods don't really exist."

Hannah turned red, and the glint of her white teeth showed--she was clenching them in anger. Small sparks flew from her balled fists and singed the tablecloth. "What's that supposed to mean, Draco?"

"Hannah?" Draco was pale and confused.

"You're as much a bastard as your father."

"Hannah? Hannah, I..."

"O my goodness," Hannah said, and her anger seemed to fade as quickly as it had started, replaced by shock. "You have no idea what's going on, do you?"

Draco looked up, his expression helpless and blank. She spent the rest of breakfast time whispering in his ear.

A week later, as the month of December passed its midpoint, Draco was trying to work up the courage to approach the Weasley fourth years...the twins whose mischief-making rocked the school with as much laughter as gnashing of teeth. Their brother Ron had been his partner in potions class on a few occasions, and had recently told Draco that their names were Gred and Forge.

"Not so strange, if your parents are anything like mine," Draco had said. "Goodness sake, why not something like ‘Dan' or ‘Doug' or ‘Dean.' Although at least they decided to call you ‘Ron'."

Ron had laughed, which Draco didn't understand; but then he had disclosed where Gred set up shop every Friday night...in a large storage closet twelve doors down from the Fat Lady, on the right.

"You say he sells a growing potion?"

"That's right," Ron had said with a smile. "It's called Canary Cream, because it's bright yellow, and it comes in the form of a creamy candy."

Draco had smiled. Hannah loved candy, and wanted to grow, and it would come in one of the Hufflepuff house colors to boot. Once the task was complete, he caressed the wrapped present in happy anticipation until he remembered that it WAS indeed Christmas, and that Christmas meant he needed to go home.

He nearly cried, thinking about it. He was proud not to have cried. But why would there be a group called "Death Eaters"? It wasn't just ridiculous, it was disgusting.

Draco doodled on a scrap of parchment as he waited for Hannah in the common room:

Corpse Consumers. Post-mortem Partakers. Mortality Munchers.

He smiled as she entered the room, and handed her the present. He glowed with happiness as she read the little card outside and undid the wrapping. Oh, he was far from crying. He'd never, ever, ever be afraid.