Traitor: A Draco Malfoy Story

ten

"Man, you shoulda seen the look on Dumbledore's face when the Sorting Hat refused to sort you! Ethan laughed. "He was about to shit himself."

The four of us; Ashton, Jenna, Ethan, and I were walking alongside each other before separating to go to the dorms. Ethan and Ashton were regaling us with what the reaction from each of their houses had been. Jenna's face as flushed with laughter, but Ashton's humor was more forced.

We walked down a hallway with a stack of barrels on one side. "This is me," Ethan said, stopping. He climbed over the barrels and saluted us with two fingers at his brow before walking backward into the wall, melting through it. "Catch you girls later, get some rest!"

"Ugh, I have to pee so bad," Jenna mumbled. "There's a bathroom around the corner, let me stop before we take you up to Ravenclaw Tower, Ashton." She excused herself and I was left alone with the last girl.

Her face was serious as she looked at me. "I didn't want to mention this in front of the others because I didn't want the rumors to continue to swirl around, but some of the Ravenclaws claim to have heard some pretty god-awful things about you, Azalea." She took her glasses off and suddenly became very interested in wiping nonexistent dust off of the lenses with the sleeve of her black and blue robe.

"Oh?" I raised an eyebrow. "And what exactly were people saying?"

"Well, a few things," she mumbled sheepishly. "All contradictory, of course. Because no one knows you, and everyone wants to be the one with the inside scoop. Word travels fast around Hogwarts. One time, this Ravenclaw girl Cho Chang and her boyfriend--well ex now, unfortunately...we all miss him terribly, he was a good wizard. Anyway, there were up in the Owlery and people all over were saying that--"

"Ashton."

The girl looked even more apologetic when she realized I could tell she was stalling. "Just get it out in the open."

"Well some of the Ravenclaws were saying that they heard you had come to Hogwarts because you got expelled from Ilvermorny in Massachusetts because you did something awful, and that's why the Sorting Hat didn't know where to put you. Because you were too evil. Then, it finally put you in Slytherin, and they get a bad reputation since You-Know-Who was a Slytherin."

Context clues would need to be my friend here. Ilvermorny must be the Hogwarts of America. But who was "you-know-who?" I didn't know who. But the students seemed to be terrified of them. What could they think I'd done to be as bad?

"Something awful?" I chuckled. "What, do they think I killed someone or something?"

Ashton wasn't laughing. "It's one of the rumors."

Great.

She continued. "Another one is that you're a Muggleborn, but you weren't allowed to go to Ilvermorny because your gifts came too late, and Dumbledore took pity on you."

"Seriously, how are people even making this shit up?" I sighed. "They saw me what, like three times? In the station, maybe on the train, and here at school. It's not like I've given them anything to go on."

She shrugged. "I don't know, Azalea. All I know is that some people really don't like that there's an American here. Some people think that Dumbledore is setting up a full exchange program for Americans, and there's already a petition against it among students. The argument is that the United States already has its own school, and the families there are much more accepting of Muggle-borns and half-bloods. Some parents are furious. It's a whole superiority complex thing."

I massaged my temples. "Okay, well at least some people do actually believe I'm an exchange student. Which is the truth," I emphasized when I saw Ashton looking at me. "Look, I'm not exactly sure what's going on in Dumbledore's head right now, or why he chose me, but I'm here and I'm going to make the most of it."