A/N: Everything except the stuff you don’t recognize belongs to JK Rowling and her utter genius.
Fatum Amoris
Welcome to Hogwarts
“You knew this day would come,” Draco whispered into his wife’s ear as their daughter boarded the train.
“I know.” She sighed. “I didn’t realize it would come so fast.” Hermione allowed her husband to comfort her. “I know she’ll be fine.”
Draco tried to stop it, but he snorted anyway. “What? Like we were? Have you forgotten all seven years of our schooling?”
“I’ve tried.” She teased and her forced smile turned almost genuine. She watched the pale, puffy hair of her daughter disappear into the massive, steaming train with one last wave. “We should probably go now, before I start crying.”
“You still have tears left?”
Hermione hit him playfully. “Yes.”
Draco just smiled. They’d been married for twelve years, and he loved her more than ever. He woke up smiling everyday she was by his side. Even the fact that people still glared at them in the streets, or that their former schoolmates with children the same age still gawked at them instead of waving to their children didn’t bother him. They were happy and that was all that mattered. “You want to go to the store, don’t you?” he asked the train pulled away, even though he knew the answer.
“Yes,”
* * * *
Medea Malfoy finally found an empty compartment just as a mixed group of first years like herself came down the corridor. She quickly stepped inside and pulled the door shut. It was a vain effort though, because the door was opened again as she sat on the seat nearest the window.
“Isn’t there another one?” one of the girls asked as she looked Medea over.
“Did you see one?” the tallest boy asked a little too harshly and the girl nodded. “She’s the only one in here so deal with it, Odile.” All four of them spilled into the compartment and sat near the door.
Medea envied them, but she didn’t like them automatically. They were friends and she’d hardly met anyone until then. Her only friends were the characters in the muggle books her mother gave to her every week. Her mother told her that she knew as much as a third year already. But she still didn’t have any friends, and the aforementioned facts probably wouldn’t gain her many. Not true friends anyway.
They whispered to themselves the whole trip. They didn’t introduce themselves, or speak to her at all. She just sat there with her book and pretended to read, but she was really looking them over.
She could automatically tell that the tall one was the leader. His hair was deep, dark auburn, and it looked like it hadn’t been combed at all his whole life, but he was obviously a leader. His skin was pale and it contrasted with his bright eyes, so green that she could them clearly from where she sat.
The other boy had dark skin and hair, but his features were definitely English. He hung on every word out of the other boy’s mouth, but every time the lot of them laughed it was because of something that had come out of his mouth. Humor seemed quite natural to him.
The girls looked very much alike and they acted very much alike, she almost thought they were twins. They both had silky, strawberry blonde hair. No, that wasn’t it; it was strangely pink because it looked so silky. But as she looked at them closely, that strong resemblance stopped. Their features were different and their voices, although both with the smallest hint of a French accent, were very different as well. The voice belonging to the taller one with long hair was light, high and soft. The one with neat, shoulder length hair had a lower voice, almost husky. And they got along too well to be sisters anyway.
All four resembled each other strangely, even though they were so different.
Medea didn’t look up until their door was slid open and boy with carefully parted red hair and a Head Boy badge came into the compartment. “Here you are!” he said.
The girl they had called Pheadra narrowed her eyes. This was apparently her brother. "Go away, Bill Jr."
"I told you not to call me that, Phaedra!" he whispered.
"Go away," the other girl, Odile, reiterated. "I'm glad I'm a only child."
Bill ignored both girls. “Mum told me to look after you four.” He shook his head. “Anyway, get your robes on, we’re almost there.”
Medea looked down. She was already in her uniform, all she had to do was slip on her robe and she’d be ready, so she went back to her book while the others changed.
As they crossed the lake she stared up at the castle in amazement. For the past year her parents had been telling her about it, and how they’d felt, but nothing could have taken the magic away from that moment. It was the same with the great hall, especially the ceiling. But their warnings also couldn’t quell the nervous knots in her stomach.
“First years,” Headmistress McGonagall addressed them. “Welcome to Hogwarts. You will now be sorted into your houses.” And she stood aside for the ancient hat to sing its song.
Medea remembered the four houses from her mother’s book, Hogwarts, A History, and some of the first years around her smiled knowingly as people were sorted. They had friends; they knew where they were going. Her parents had been in different houses; she didn’t know where she was going. It could be anywhere.
“Medea Malfoy,” Headmistress McGonagall called and she went and sat on the stool.
“A Malfoy,” the hat mused. “But this, no, it couldn’t be. I never thought I’d see the day I wouldn’t place a Malfoy in Slytherin, but it better be… GRYFFINDOR!” it yelled.
She hopped off the stool and went to the table among much cheering. It seemed that no one else would be placed in Gryffindor; everyone else after her went to the other three houses. She looked to the person next to her, the redheaded, badge clad boy from the train, and asked, “Are there only the six of us in this house?”
He laughed and pointed to the group she’d shared a compartment with. “See those four? They’ll all be in here.”
Sure enough…
“Patrick Potter… Gryffindor!”
Then there was a long line of others.
“Hyatt Weasley…Gryffindor!”
“Odile Weasley…Gryffindor!”
“Phaedra Weasley…Gryffindor!”
As they sat beside her one by one, she couldn’t help but think about what the Sorting Hat had said. With the other four there had been no question, no pause, the hat had decided almost before it had been rested on their heads. But not with her…“Never thought I’d see the day I wouldn’t place a Malfoy in Slytherin.” What did that mean?
Before she could think on it, a feast appeared in front of their eyes and she forgot her worries. In fact, she didn’t think on it until the ten new Gryffindors were led to their new home, the Gryffindor Tower. It was then that she realized that she’d have to share a room with the two pink haired girls. Share a room for seven years. She wasn’t quite looking forward to it.
She was glad to be there though. She found some parchment and a quill and immediate began a letter to her parents. She told them about the train ride and the Sorting Hat, but she was sure to tell them she was happy even if it wasn’t quite true.
When she went back into her new room, the two girls, Odile and Phaedra if she remembered, stopped talking immediately and their eyes followed her as she walked across the room. She didn’t understand their contempt; it was the same with the two boys. They knew something she didn’t.
And then they began speaking in French. Medea smiled to herself but remained silent until they’d had their fill of insulting the school and saying how they should have gone the Beaubaxton. Then they said something about her, her thick, pale braid to be specific, and Medea took that as her cue. She turned on them and said in perfect French; “I speak French, you nit wits.”
In fact, she spoke five languages thanks to her mother. French was just one. But it got the wanted effect; they shut up with a snooty Hmph!
* * * *
Patrick Potter raced his cousin to the Great Hall for breakfast the next morning and met the disapproving eyes of the blonde Gryffindor he’d sat with on the train. Medea Malfoy, he remembered. She had the pale skin and hair of a Malfoy, or at least, that’s the way his family had always described the Malfoys. But those Malfoys had always been in Slytherin according to them; this one was in Gryffindor, house of the Weasleys and the Potters.
She had a book in her hand and went back to it as he sat down. He wasn’t stupid, if she was in Gryffindor then it meant she belonged there, and that meant he should try to be nice. “Good book?” he asked.
She looked up in surprise. “Yes,” she replied and went back to it.
Patrick didn’t really mind. If she didn’t want to talk that was okay. He had his cousins; he wasn’t in need of friends. He really didn’t dislike her, but she could use some warmth.
Fatum Amoris...The Fate of Love by Nicole_Riddle
Chapter Notes: This is a sequal to It's Witchcraft in the Draco/Hermione pairings. If you haven't read it, I suggest that you do before reading this...otherwise, it won't really make all that much sense. Thanks, Nicole