2 Kids Who Are Not Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone

A Wizard and A Witch

Nearly ten years had passed since Lucius Malfoy had come home to announce to his wife that the rumors were true--it had really happened, the Dark Lord was gone, all because of some exceedingly peculiar business with a boy no older than their own Draco. As far as Narcissa was concerned, any peculiar business was quite all right with her so long as it meant her husband returned to spending his days in the respectable company of top Ministry officials and diplomats. And, for the past ten years, that was exactly what it meant. Life had improved significantly at the Manor without the late nights sitting up wondering whether her husband would come home, the unsavory company getting up to god-knows-what in the drawing room until all hours, and paralyzing fear that he would decide to grace these gatherings with his blood-curdling presence.

Some things, however, hadn't changed. Draco would be starting Hogwarts in just over a month, and it remained his responsibility to carry on the family's legacy. This afternoon, like many others, therefore found Draco and his father in the drawing room.

"I can't."

"That is the maxim of a lazy, ignorant fool. Draco, are you a lazy, ignorant fool?" A pause.

"No, Father."

"You're a very skilled actor, then. My compliments on your fine performance."

Draco had long since learned that the best approach to such comments was to allow his brain to go temporarily fuzzy, similar to unfocusing one's eyes for a moment. This had the unfortunate side effect of storing the words in his subconscious for later, but that was far preferable to allowing them to shake his concentration. He could not afford to lose focus.

Sitting on the table in front of him was a crystal goblet. It was a precious antique, his father had told him, which had been in the family since the eighteenth century. Draco had been trying all afternoon, thus far without success, to levitate it.

Strictly speaking, this was not allowed. Illegal, in fact. The Ministry of Magic had very strict laws regarding the use of magic by underage wizards, but everyone knew that, before these young wizards went off to school and learned to control their magic, accidents were likely to happen.

Draco's father was well aware that, if Draco should accidentally open and close doors without touching them, light candles from the other side of the room, or levitate crystal goblets, there wasn't a thing the Ministry would do to stop it.

And so, although his brain felt like a wrung sponge, he concentrated with all his might on the goblet and emptied his thoughts and his senses of anything else. He concentrated on the way its smooth, cold surface would feel if he touched it. Light glinted off the sharp edges of the crystal and bounced around the room, and Draco allowed them to fill his mind's eye and used every ounce of strength he had to concentrate the light into pure, white-hot energy and reflect the beams back at the goblet. At long last, he felt something like power just beneath the surface of his mind, weak but growing steadily and demanding to be let out--if only he could remember how.

"Concentrate, you useless boy," snarled his father from somewhere he couldn't see.

I am, he thought furiously, but now all he could concentrate on was the dry, bitter taste of anger creeping up the back of his throat as if to suffocate him. It took strength he didn't know he had to force it back down, and desperately he combed his brain for those beams of light and energy, that sense of power. It was no use; he was utterly exhausted. His father's words rang in his ears, but he couldn't even summon the anger he'd felt a moment ago.

Useless boy. Lazy, ignorant fool. If Draco couldn't move the goblet, he'd be right. A raw, numb feeling threatened to overwhelm him then, and he used his last ounce of strength to fight it off. He couldn't make it go away entirely, but if he could hold it back long enough to get up to his room, to safety...and then, in the back of his mind, something snapped.