TRAINING WHEELS | draco malfoy ✔️

73. amortentia

TRAINING WHEELS
amortentia.

The Great Hall was bustling with life, people diving in for the food as soon as the Sorting Ceremony finished. Amora reached for some trifle, spooning out a small bit seeing as she had eaten quite a lot for her main meal. The Welcoming Feasts were always the best at Hogwarts - the house-elves took extra care to make sure there were wide varieties of everything, and it all tasted delicious.

Once the Sorting Ceremony had finished, Amora had snuck back over to the Slytherin table to eat with her friends. Sat between Blaise and Pansy, she laughed along to everything that they were saying, but couldn't help noticing how Draco had seemed to revert back to how he had been on the train before it had momentarily gone pitch black.

He barely touched his food, mainly resting his chin on his hand as he watched his friends interact, or even just stared down at the oak table. Amora worried about him, but she knew he certainly wouldn't appreciate it if she asked him now, in front of everybody, what was wrong. She planned on pulling him aside before they went off to their separate common rooms, but then Harry Potter entered the Great Hall.

He looked like he was in pain, holding a tissue up to his nose which was soaked in a crimson liquid — blood. Harry barely looked around as he shuffled down the long aisle, heading straight over to where his friends were sitting at the Gryffindor table. Amora's eyebrows furrowed, wondering why on earth Harry had turned up towards the end of the feast, and why he was hurt.

Amora glanced away from him, only then catching the way that Draco had also been staring at the Potter eye, his lip curled in disgust and his eyes glaring slightly.

"Looks like somebody gave Potter what he deserved," Pansy muttered sourly beneath her breath.

Draco scoffed quietly before his eyes met with Amora's. As soon as they did, he glanced away, the amused look slipping from his face. It was as if something had clicked inside of her and she knew it had been Draco that had hurt Harry. But when could he have possibly - ?

Amora's face turned red. Before she could say anything though, Dumbledore stepped forward and began to do his annual speech.

"Very best of evenings to you all," Professor Dumbledore said, "First off, let me introduce you to the newest member of our staff... Horace Slughorn."

Dumbledore gestured in the direction of a man sitting beside Amora's mother who stood. He was slightly round and had a kind face, smiling to everybody as they clapped politely for him.

Amora half-heartedly joined in, though her thoughts were being occupied by the past rather than the present. She'd seen Harry when she boarded the train and he was perfectly fine with Ron and Hermione, and the only time after that when she let Draco out of her sight had been right after they'd finished kissing when he claimed to need the bathroom.

But he'd only been gone a minute at the most. Was that enough time for him to find Harry and -

Amora stiffened. Draco hadn't needed to find Harry. Harry must have been very close by. Suddenly the blackout on the train made sense, and the reason why Draco had stopped acting so cold to her all of a sudden. As the Slytherins around her clapped for Professor Snape being elected as Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, Amora clenched her jaw and turned to look at Draco.

He was staring down at his plate absentmindedly. He hadn't even been paying attention to Dumbledore. Not that she had been, either.

"Now, as you know, each and every one of you was searched upon your arrival here tonight," Dumbledore continued, "And you have the right to know why. Once, there was a young man, who, like you, sat in this very hall, walked this castle's corridors, slept under its roof. He seemed to all the world a student like any other. His name? Tom Riddle."