Chapter Text
Harry Potter OC Self-Insert
Life after death is always seen as some great adventure. She prefers to go without all this nonsense and drama. [Draco's older sister! Semi-SI]
She tried her best to ignore the magical nonsense around her. Really, she did.
When she was a few months old and finally beginning to develop clear eyesight again and saw floating toy blocks in the nursery, Adrienne brushed it off as strange baby-fantasies that would go away in a few years. Whenever she went outside to play in the gardens, the hedges trimmed themselves and the flowers emitted sparkly gold dust every three hours. The ugly, wrinkled house servants had elvish ears that stuck out on the sides from their monstrous faces, but she summed that up to an overactive imagination. When she skipped down the hallways and encountered several paintings of deceased ancestors that muttered foul language under their breath, she again dismissed it as a mild worry and went back to playtime (with the floating blocks).
Adrienne didn't mark down the exact time and date of when she finally accepted that maybe, just maybe , this new world was full of the unknown and supernatural. It might have been since she was one years old and falling asleep to a lullaby sung by a fairy portrait. It might have been when she was two and a half years old and welcoming a baby brother named Draco into the world. It might have been earlier that morning, just before the crack of dawn, when her father came back home in a mess of blood and ash and created a ruckus about the death of the Dark Lord.
Now though, she fully accepted her position in this strange new life.
Wearing only a puffy white nightgown, the chill of the early morning breezed through the open window in Father's sitting room and sent a trail of goosebumps up her spine. The little girl kept silent by the edge of the open doorway, barely daring to listen to the worries of Mother and Father.
"The Dark Lord is dead, Lucius! What do we have to lose now? We need to keep our family safe ."
"The Death Eaters will not stand trial. The Wizengamot will doom us to Azkaban for the rest of our lives, we - I - cannot risk that. We have everything to lose if we completely switch sides and plead guilty. The Malfoy name will be tainted, will be cursed, for the rest of time if we mar our livelihood with foolish wizards like Dumbledore."
The argument kept going until she wasn't sure if either side had reached an agreement or half hearted compromise yet. The sun finally peaked through the windows and the hallways grew brighter with chilly November light, so she quietly crept away back into the nursery.
Her seventeen month old baby brother laid asleep in his crib peacefully, where Adrienne peeked her head over the bars to nudge a finger into his chubby cheeks. He didn't wake up, so she went about her business in the nursery playing with her dolls and other assortment of toys. The strange magical nonsense of this realm extended to almost every facet of her waking life, from elf servants watching over the nursery to whimsical tea cups to hair bows that changed colour depending on the temperature. If she poked and prodded at the hedges in the garden long enough, they also eventually changed from evergreen to indigo. Maybe they had their own magic, or maybe she was the one accidentally conjuring up random bouts of sorcery.
Either way, she was curious enough to want to test her own experiments.
The idea of magic, while unnerving and more than slightly terrifying, appealed to every childish wonder her three going on four year old body could produce. Her mind had already been through a lifetime devoid of sparkly unicorns and fire breathing dragons that didn't hold as much temptation for new things, but learning new types of "science" always proved entertaining. And, well, wasn't that all magic was? An unexplored realm of science?
So every morning before breakfast (and hopefully before Draco woke up the entire mansion with his incessant screaming), Adrienne tested out theories on her dolls.
"Can you please fetch the ribbon behind you? Thank you," she said to the china doll. Her name was Ruby and she had been a gift for her third birthday from the Higgs family, a friend of the Malfoys. They had a son named Terence who was only a few months younger than Adrienne herself. Undoubtedly they'd be seeing much of each other in their school years.
Ruby didn't budge an inch. She hadn't moved position for several months now, as gentle pleas apparently did not equate to proper spellwork. Or maybe Adrienne didn't have a lick of magic in her and she was damned to be a squib the rest of her pitiful life.
Breakfast time eventually came and house elves ushered her to put on a day dress and comb back her wild hair before going down to the foyer to greet the guests.
"Guests? What guests?" She asked the house elf, squinting fiercely at the buttons on her sleeve.
Nini fluttered around, big ears flopping as the elf hurriedly fixed the tiny buttons. "Guests? Guests! Masters Malfoy expecting wizards."
"Oh alright," she sniffed. "Thank you for informing me, Nini." She'd prefer more detail next time, but it wasn't like her parents would tell the elves everything. Besides, showing gratitude to the house servants significantly increased their helpfulness to her when necessary.
Downstairs, her parents were dressed to the nines and poised themselves with proper posture with no hint of an angry spat just an hour earlier. After the guests had arrived, representatives of the bank and the Ministry of Magic, she understood the reason behind her presence. The officials weren't so cruel as to inflict the worst words and punishments in front of a guilty man's toddler child, despite the fact that she didn't understand half the terminology being used over the shared breakfast meal. She played her part obediently, butting in and asking Father if he could buy her more dolls later. "Of course," he had said, making eye contact with the officials. "Your father has lots of money to buy his precious daughter as many dolls as she wants."
Maybe the entire conversation was over the top, but no matter. It didn't concern her as long as the officials left politely and Mother and Father could still live with them.
Adrienne turned four years old a few days later, still unsuccessful in her magical experiments.
By next summer, she could finally produce little glowing sparkles from her pudgy little fingers, matching the fireworks in the sky from the mid-summer festivities.
The Malfoys hosted a party for the summer solstice, where the other acclaimed and wealthy Dark families were invited, bringing along their loud and annoying bratty children Adrienne was forced to entertain. Most of them were trying to set the hedges on fire, but at least none of them were capable of creating burn spells yet. Terence Higgs and Adrian Pucey were the only children her age, with many of the other kids in Draco's future graduating year or several years older than both of them. Consequently, they stuck around her like fungus, the other Adrian peppering annoying questions about her fancy house and Terence asking for a place to take a nap.
Wizards, in this day and age, didn't only still have arranged marriages but also arranged friendships. Heirs and heiresses are congregated together trying not to piss off their overworked parents, then usually end up doing just so because some idiot heirs kept trying to ignite the hedges.
Screaming two year olds clawed and bit Adrienne's arms as she forcibly guided the brats off the gardens and back into their parents' watchful eyes. A particularly annoying one named Pansy left bright red teeth imprints and slobber all over her legs, bringing a new meaning to "ankle biter."
Adrienne felt too miserable to show off her sparkles to her parents until the next day.
"Look Mother," she mustered up an appropriate amount of excitement for the bout of magical ability. "Do you like my sparkles?"
She slapped her hands together, concentrated on the sparks of warmth in her core, and slowly drew out the comforting feeling running through her veins. She carefully brought her hands apart, a tiny fizzle of bright lights fizzing in between her curved palms.
Mother did not offer praise or a gentle congratulations. Adrienne craned her head upwards to beam at her Mother with the new achievements, but was not met back equally. She returned a careful gaze, lips smushed into a straight line. After a second too long, she patted her daughter's mess of platinum blonde ringlets and offered empty appraisal, gaze focused elsewhere.
Adrienne had never felt coldness from previous families. She had lived another life, in another world, where family meant warmth and cuddles and hearty laughter. Praise and love was handed out easier than breathing. Love was love, with no discrimination. The ideals of how life worked functioned differently here, with a cold home and little smiles. Perhaps Narcissa and Lucius loved their children as much as her previous memories of family, but they sure had a funny way of showing it. The Manor was large and beautiful, but overarchingly empty. She held onto memories of a tiny little house with hordes of loud children and chubby aunts and uncles and spicy meals next to a fireplace hearth. Nights were gross and sweaty with baby siblings drooling on her shoulder and everyone jam packed like sardines around the blankets, but the comfort of waking up to nuzzling into each other's shoulders after sweet lively dreams held no parallel.
Draco and her shared the same nursery room, but for how long? Adrienne could spend hours playing with her baby brother, substituting his impish smiles for a past loved one's, without ever truly getting to know him for the brat he was.
After tossing and turning all night, Adrienne tip-toed out of bed to Draco's crib. He was squirming and babbling something nonsensical silently, so she rushed back to her bed and laid all the sheets and plush blankets down on the floor, then scooped out the two year old and set him down on the makeshift bed. Her noodly toddler arms struggled to lift his twelve whole kilogram body, but magic must have supplemented her strength because she didn't lose her balance and stupidly trip into the crib. She settled beside him and shifted his body so his head rested on her shoulder so she could hold him tight. His fidgeting halted as she started to stroke his soft tufts of matching platinum blonde hair.
I'll protect you , she thought. I'll make sure you grow up loved.
He'd be loved and always warm. Instead of being forced into a lonely little wolf, she would make sure the boy would know there was always going to be someone he could rely on. Children were born, adults were made. Truthfully, Adrienne hadn't enjoyed fictional depictions of bullies in her previous life. Her current life situation had only been a story in a book, where kids grew up in harsh conditions while parading under a cloud of magical mystery. Maybe he'd grow up prissy and arrogant from the constant elitism fed to him as a developing child and bully other children in school. But that was the kicker, wasn't it? Child. Draco, too, was just a child. He didn't know any better. Not to be blamed for learned behaviours, as long as she was around. Maybe Draco wasn't her "real" sibling because she remembered her own from the first (and only) time growing up, but he was still there and present.
His pudgy baby fingers grabbed onto the front of her nightgown and he sighed, physically relaxing from the fits. Adrienne cuddled closer.
A few days after showing off magic to Mother, Adrienne finally received the praise she had wished for from the most curious of sources.
"Can it change colours?" Father asked, a shine of an unnamable emotion glistening in his steely grey eyes.
She nodded, legs dangling from the too high chairs in his sitting room. She closed her eyes and concentrated on gathering the funny warmth in her core. Her fingers shot out little streams of silvery blue sparks with buzzing electricity encircling the fingertips. At his request again, she changed the colours to pink, then orange, then green. After the fifth colour change, she felt drained in a way she couldn't describe.
A quill zoomed through scratches of notes above their heads, noting every little observation and question at his request. "Are you thinking about a specific word or command when you summon your... sparkles?"
Adrienne shook her head, wondering why her Father found such great interest in her magic. The entire family was magical, some simple sparks ought to have garnered a happy smile, not an entire inquiry! "No, I just wanted sparkles to appear, so I thought really hard about them and what they looked like and asked my magic really really nicely."
"You 'asked' your magic?"
She curled her toes and suppressed a yawn, helplessly looking around the pristine room. Lunch time was soon. "Mhm. Forcing magic to do stuff for me makes me feel bad. So I never force anything. Make it flow and be warm through my fingers easily."
No matter what all those children wizarding books said, magic was sentient. It had to be. Magic breathed life through the inanimate, so magic - the science - itself also had to be some animate force, right? Magic felt friendly and warm, just like family. It hugged her and cradled her close to its chest, allowing the strength she drew upon her core to be full of happiness and comfort.
The Malfoy Monarch viewed his daughter with a critical eye. "Adrienne darling, can you try something for your Father? Can you ask your magic to bring the signet on my desk to you?"
Adrienne, while curious, nodded and heeded her father's words. She looked at the signet on his desk in front of her and visualised it floating up and wobbling in the air to her outstretched hand. The image imprinted fiercely in her mind, she believed you will come to me and the warmth in her core ceded control after a polite request to herself (to her magic). Slowly but surely, the signet behaved from her visualisation and wobbled into her hand. She thanked nobody in particular and looked back up to awaiting eyes.
He took the signet from her hand and placed it back on the desk at the same spot. Adrienne frowned.
"Now, think about the word Accio. Do it again."
She stretched her hand out again and thought Accio with the basic visualisation. This time, the signet whipped through the air and slammed right into her palm in the blink of an eye.
Father smiled.
"Do you wanna play with me Juno?" Draco asked in the dead of night.
He tended to call his sister by her nickname after expressing difficulty pronouncing "ad" and "ri" as "ahji" until Adrienne suggested the easier middle name of "Juno." So Juno it was, until he gained more control over speech ability.
Said girl squinted up from bed. "Wha - ?"
He shook her a bit painfully. "D'you wanna play with me?"
She wrinkled her brow and smacked him down with a pillow. "G'ta sleep."
He whined again. "But I wanna plaaaayyy. You promised!"
Adrienne peeked out from under the blankets, conjuring the memory from that morning. She had promised, hadn't she? Later , she had said before being whisked away all day to practice her magic under the watchful and satisfied eye of their father.
"Fine," she sighed, kicking off the blankets. Might be best for him to not garner a grudge against her if she ever broke a promise. He screamed in delight and raced off to the other side of the nursery to gather his toys. Adrienne ended up falling asleep mid castle building contest, but still woke up at the proper time to take her morning lessons from the governess.
Madam Chang was an elderly Chinese woman as quick as a whip and a personality to match. She had a granddaughter a year or so younger than Adrienne herself, or so Madam Chang often reminded her. The Malfoys had hired a different governess before, but the poor Madam Winsley had been driven out in tears after Adrienne proved herself to be quicker witted than the adult. "It's not my fault Madam Winsley doesn't know basic maths very well," Adrienne had sniffed in defence of her mildly disappointed parents. In the end they had agreed that if Adrienne were to inherit a banking position in the Malfoy name, she'd have to have a more advanced teacher.
Perhaps it was unwise to show such early progress, but patience had never been her strong suit. Pretending to be weak would do more harm than good in a dog eat dog magical world, and Adrienne preferred to come out on top, thank you very much. They said it was strange to be able to do long division and read adult level novels at her age, but what did it matter? Other people had more fuel to gossip and she could focus on more important issues.
Like magic.
Having already been through mandatory schooling before, she didn't struggle with maths, basic history, sciences, or literature. The huge unknown in this world out of her grasp and understanding was magic . Who won the Great Fairy War of 82 A.D.? What were the properties of thestral hair in medicinal potions? Why were certain metals easier to transmute than others? What was the difference between Light and Dark magic, exactly?
She spent the mornings with Madam Chang, absorbing information like a sponge. In the afternoon to early evening, Father set time away from financial work to oversee her magical prowess.
When Draco celebrated his fifth birthday and showed no signs of prodigal knowledge like his older sister, he began to ask questions. Why won't Father spend time with me? Why doesn't Father want to see my wax drawing? Why is father so busy? Why, Juno, why? Why can't you play with me everyday?
In all honesty she felt horrible for being one of the reasons he might develop daddy issues later on in life, but she settled her nerves with the fact that his favouritism wasn't either of their faults. She might've set child expectations much too high for the younger sibling to follow, but that didn't excuse their parents' poor behaviour.
Mother must have seen the tension build up, so one fine August mid morning, she took the two children out to magical London.
"Oh, I always hated flooing," she muttered under her breath.
Adrienne peered out from behind her mother's skirts. Instead of entering Diagon Alley from the muggle side or even the other various wizarding portals from other parts of England, they opted to floo.
"Listen closely, Adrienne. Say 'Gertrude's Lounge' very clearly and make sure you're holding onto your brother," Mother advised.
The seven year old clutched her brother's hand tightly and released the floo powder in the fireplace. "Gertrude's Lounge!"
A foreign force tugged sharply at her navel for a quick second before pain erupted from her lungs. Adrienne wobbled out the fireplace of the new location, coughing up dust fiercely.
The floo point was... nice. Gertrude's Lounge was a small and quaint lounge for upper class witches, where they sold expensive perfumes in the powder rooms and offered a resting area inside a cooled room instead of lazing outside on a bench like the plebeians. Several elegant couches sprinkled around the building, with a reception desk made entirely out of glass on the far side near the door. The grandma floral patterns did not suit her taste, but she could acknowledge the pristineness and high borne airs.
Expensive boarding rooms made up the top floors, open to any witch with enough in their pockets. There may have been another lounge room for men, but Adrienne didn't care to find out.
"Come along now, dears," Mother said behind them. "We'll fetch lunch after Gringotts."
Riding down in a somewhat unsafe cart to one of the most bottom vaults in the British Wizarding Bank was not a fun experience. Vault 398 lay home to several Malfoy treasures and conquests, with mountains of gold, precious metals, possibly dangerous items, ancient tomes, and more. Draco wanted to jump into the coin mountains, but thankfully he was convinced out of doing so.
They lunched at a posh parlour called Romarin, where the crème brûlée shrieked in pain while being blowtorched and the cutlery let out shrill squeaks once the plate was cleared.
Mother let the children roam free in Flourish and Blotts, where the fun truly began. Draco followed his older sister around like a cute duckling, wide eyed at the long French titles of musty chained books. Their French lessons progressed nicely under a governess’ teachings to the point where they knew the majority of the language’s vocabulary suitable for their age group, but lacked proper grammar etiquette.
“Juno, do you know where the snake books are?” He asked, tugging on the back of her robes after she had spent an annoyingly long time reading the synopsis for a mediaeval French text. She led him to the animal section and let him peruse the “cool” snake books (because little boys were gross like that) while enamoured with the French text. She barely understood half of it, but the other half she could translate depicted real life examples between Light and Dark magic - an answer she had been searching for for several years.
Ugh. She’d have to immerse herself in French studies now.
She added three snake books from Draco’s selection into the little wire basket the shop owner gave to the browsers and her own French text. Her brother dragged her to the history aisle next, where he immediately zoomed to the quidditch section.
The idea of flying on brooms sounded cool enough to Adrienne, but the true fanatic was Draco. Their parents didn’t allow him to purchase the ugly and garish team posters, but the nursery was littered with several prominent player figurines and the outside garden sheds held a few toy broomsticks they were only allowed to fly on under close supervision of at least two house elves.
Two gangly teenage boys were also in the quidditch section, not bothering with their presence until Draco started taking out many of the bottom shelf books and stacking them on the floor.
Both boys had bright red hair and milky white skin. The shorter one had brown eyes and a few freckles dotting his cheekbones. The taller one had hair down to his shoulders and stared down at the five year old boy with bright blue eyes. “Oi kid. It’s not good manners to take out all the books,” the taller one said.
Draco harrumphed and started dragging his stack of books towards Adrienne with the basket. “I’m going to buy it all.”
The two teenagers shared a strange look.
“Draco, do you want to let them look at the books too?” Adrienne said, examining the large stack.
He scowled. “No. I wanna have them.”
She knelt beside him. “Why do you want to have all these books?”
“I wanna be good at quidditch.”
“Did you know that…” Adrienne scoured her brain for the name. “Karl Broadmoor, your favourite beater , was really good at teamwork? Do you know what teamwork is?”
He stayed silent, looking at his books.
“Teamwork is when people work together and are nice together. Do you know what the nice thing to do is?”
He mumbled out an answer. “ They can… They can look at my books. ”
Adrienne smiled and offered a quick hug. “Thank you Draco. I’m very proud of you.” She put the books back in the bookshelf, then withdrew two from the second shelf that appeared easy to read and had many pictures and gave them to her brother to look at. He pushed them away, sitting on the floor and silently glaring in the opposite direction. She set them inside the basket anyway.
The two teenagers stared down at her curiously.
“You can look at the books now,” she said. “If my brother still wants them later, I’ll put some in the shopping basket.”
“Good job,” the taller one said. “You’re a good sibling to him.”
“You’re a bit strange, aren’t you,” the shorter one teased.
Instead of responding to that, she held out her hand. “Adrienne Malfoy,” she greeted in her squeaky child voice. “Pleasure to meet you two.”
The shorter one shook her hand back, squeezing too hard for comfort. “Charlie Weasley,” he replied with a mean smile.
Bill shook her hand next, much more politely and less painfully.
“You’re very nice for a Malfoy,” Charlie said unkindly.
“Oh, shut it Charlie. She can’t be older than Percy.”
“That’s not a great comparison, brother.”
“You’re not very nice for a Weasley,” she shot back, stepping back to be closer to her brother. “I’m seven years old; I’m too innocent to understand abstract concepts like magical discrimination. Nice to meet you again, it’s time for us to go.”
Draco stopped being so sour at the checkout line where Mother had been waiting for them. The trio returned to Malfoy Manor, with a nasty taste in the little blonde girl’s mouth. She had expected the Weasleys, the nice family, to have less bias, but she supposed even older children were susceptible to the world around them.
Father returned from his meeting with the Ministry of Finance in time for another afternoon lesson. This time around, an uncomfortable rock settled in her stomach throughout the progress check. Nothing much had even happened that day, just some careless boy being testy. It was stupid to have upset her like this, which led to her feeling more than a bit furious at herself.
“Stop,” Father commanded after the eleventh failure to light the candles. “Something is clouding your mind, child.”
Adrienne crossed her arms and looked to the side. “I…” she faltered. “I feel angry today and I don’t know why.”
He leaned forward and stared at her straight in the eyes. He had light grey eyes that his children had inherited, along with white-blond hair colouring. Draco looked very much like his father, while Adrienne took after her mother’s side more. Her bouncy Shirley Temple ringlets and heart shaped face reminded of her one of her mother’s sisters, someone had once said. She didn’t know which one it was, since Bellatrix was in Azkaban and Andromeda had cut ties to all familial relations.
“Focus on what made you angry,” he said in a low voice. “Focus.”
Against her better judgement, she thought back to the time when Charlie had snubbed her. It made her feel upset, but she hadn’t been upset at him. She had been upset at herself for initially overreacting to a teenage boy being emotional. He wasn’t to blame and neither was she, but the emotion was uncomfortable and distressing to feel.
“Incendo.”
Burn , she visualised, and a massive burst of flames erupted from her open palm. A rush of icy freshness shot through her veins and sent her straight into delight. It felt - It felt refreshing and nice, she admitted. Ignoring the quickly melting wax, she focused more energy into the flames. The fire flickered for a half second before changing colours to searing blue. With one hand, she melted the entire candle in less than a minute, leaving a charred copper candlestick holder sitting on Father’s desk.
That felt wonderful , she mused as the icy feeling faded away. But why…?
Father laughed and clapped gloriously, bringing a second candle to replace the ugly bubbles and char. “How powerful are you, child? Do it again.”
But why do I feel guilty?
It took a few years for Adrienne to develop her French ability to read the Light versus Dark magic text in its entirety. A ten year old Adrienne wandered down to the Manor library one evening after dinner while Draco was outside practising on his brand new broomstick. A Cleansweep model because Mother opted to buy a slower and safer broomstick as his first official feature in concern for his safety. Yes, he was prone to be reckless at times, but it annoyed both siblings because they knew a Cleansweep was no better than a children’s toy broom.
She navigated down the dimly lit hallway with a trailing light orb guiding the way. The family library impressed her still, with the arching entrance and hundreds or even thousands of ancient tomes stored away in the elegant and massive mahogany bookshelves. At least half the books were written in Latin and cursed to the nines if anyone not of Malfoy blood dared touch them. There were no windows in this room and no lighting fixtures, so it was imperative to bring a candle or a lamp or charm. Physically carrying a heavy lamp sounded like more work than necessary, so Adrienne often opted to summon a bright orb of light to trail above her head while down there.
At the back of the botany aisle (rarely visited except when something went faulty in the gardens) rested Adrienne’s preferred reading spot. A comfortably worn leather couch and desk could be found at the far back in total darkness where no one but her and the cleaning house elves dared visit.
She settled down comfortably in the familiar seat and started reading.
Like any old text, about seventy percent of it was entirely convoluted and disgustingly unnecessary to read through. But after the eighth chapter, it began to evolve into something of actual importance. The seven deadly sins were the key component in Dark magic, it read. Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. Dark Wizards drew power from the core values of madness. What did she feel that day, when her magic ran icy cold instead of burning hot?
She closed the book and hid it underneath the couch cushions. She returned to the children’s wing and went to bed without getting a wink of sleep.
After her tenth birthday, her parents had decided to remove her from the nursery. Her room was right next door and she could still play with her brother as much as she liked, but being in a cold lonely room didn’t sit right with her for the first few months. It was smartly decorated in pastel green and varying silvers, with an adult sized bed, a large desk, an assortment of lounge chairs by the window, and access to a balcony for outside leisure. Her new Arabic studies books sprawled all over the lounge seats because the house elves knew she didn’t enjoy anyone rifling through her books and journals.
She had started bothering with keeping a diary recently, but most of it contained odd scribbles and new thoughts on magic ideas. Spells were mostly useless in her opinion; it was so much easier to visualise the magic in her head and will it to life. That was how she taught Draco his first spell - a wandless incantation of Lumos. He needed the extra guidance of spoken words, but her advice to imagine the spell taking root in his mind helped immensely. She dared to say he would be the most advanced at magic among his pureblood yearmates.
“Dobby?” She asked, settling down into a chair.
A loud crack later and a little house elf appeared before her. “Yes, Missus Malfoy?”
“Fetch me a cup of hot peppermint tea please.”
And that was how her interaction with the Manor went. She remained courteous with the house elves not because she particularly liked the creatures (or anyone in particular that wasn’t Draco) but because they were living sentient beings and deserved a modicum of respect. After Draco had learned that Dobby and Nini sometimes gifted her with a little extra dessert or charmed her cardigans to be warmer, he too behaved more respectfully to them. Going in search of treats may have been the wrong mindset to start with, but at least he didn’t bully them like Father or disregard their work like Mother.
Being polite to the Manor helped as well. She made sure to say proper greetings to the statues and knights of armour in the dungeons if she ever visited down there, and the house remembered to make her bedroom a little cosier at night and to silence the rude ancestor portraits whenever she walked past them in the main sitting room.
Speaking of being polite, she desperately hoped Pucey wouldn’t be showing up at the upcoming Christmas party. Higgs was nice and normal, but that scoundrel Pucey never stopped talking. Or eating. Or being loud in general.
Of course, the world never listened.
Eight year old Draco was off entertaining his large group of agemates, including the newly invited Zabini child who no one quite liked yet for some odd reason. The Greengrasses, Crabbe, Goyle, Parkinson, Nott, The Carrows, Bulstrode, and Zabini followed him around as leader while Adrienne had to deal with Higgs, Pucey, and Flint.
Adrienne wondered if all the Pureblood families timed their heir’s births or the fact that most of the current prominent Dark heirs were born around the same time was a huge coincidence.
Marcus Flint was two years older than herself and reminded her more of a troll than human. He preferred being nonverbal and silently glowered at the entire affair - which was fair, she didn’t enjoy being forced to socialise either - while Adrian Pucey talked her ear off.
Pucey had dark hair, hazel eyes, and an unattractive face. Higgs was a little taller, with sandy blond hair, blue eyes, and constantly pink stained cheeks. A flattering case of rosacea, indeed.
“What do you think Hogwarts will be like next year?” Pucey asked again , shoving down the lamb roast unceremoniously.
“Educational,” she answered in a clipped tone.
“Oh Merlin, I’ve hoped they bring back the duelling club. Father told me they cancelled it because too many baby Hufflepuffs were getting injured,” he said, pausing to snicker.
“Lovely.”
He bounced up, jabbing a finger into her arm. “Oi, oi, oi, do you duel? Do you want to duel? Father’s taught me a whole lot of difficult spells with my wand. Did you know? He bought me a wand two years ago.”
Confirmation exited her mouth without much thought, before she froze and replayed the conversation. Oh no , she thought. How dreadful.
He gasped and shouted. The ballroom paused, with many heads turning to the children’s table. Pucey colored before owning his outburst. “I challenged Adrienne Malfoy to a duel and she accepted!”
The adults and other officials in the ‘adult section’ quieted down to pay rapt attention to his ruckus. Adrienne sighed and stood up in silent confirmation, walking towards the empty middle space of the ballroom between the adult and children tables.
Some banking official wearing the most ridiculous set of bright yellow robes decided upon himself to keep score. The other adults must’ve been bored out of their minds from the formal and uninventive party, so nearly everyone focused on the two children in the centre of the room, already standing in position.
Pucey attacked first with an explosive Stupendo. His incantation was decent, but the delivery was flat and the stream of magic emitting from his wand was slow enough to provide thinking time. By the time it had reached Adrienne’s body, she let a hand out in front of her and pushed it back with a force of energy. There was no spell needed for that simple block, only key visualisation and willpower. He returned with an advanced shielding spell that immediately broke after contact but still managed to dispel the return. To wrap things up efficiently, she shot back a barrage of advanced Stupefys until he couldn’t physically keep up with the speed and succumbed to his eventual loss.
She glared over his frozen body, wholly irritated at the entire ordeal. The funny yellow man undid her spell as the audience provided polite applause for her win.
Her father loomed behind her just as the Pucey head held his head up high behind his son’s shocked body.
“My daughter will be the strongest witch of her year,” Father boasted, clapping a hand on her shoulder. “Your son did the best he could.”
The Pucey head offered a stern face. “Of course, Lord Malfoy,” he bit back. “Your children are as excellent as you. Pray tell, how does a young girl such as Miss Adrienne learn wandless magic? Satisfy an old man’s curiosity.”
She stared up at Father, who only glowered at the Pucey head. “Through her inborn genius, I’m afraid.”
After the Christmas party, life somehow became even more annoying.
Information spread easily through bored noble wives. The Genius Malfoy Heiress, the Magical Prodigy, the Oh Please Show Me Your Skills throw away titles and whatnot. Adrienne hated them all. She wasn’t famous for the duel, of course not, but she started getting letters almost every day from Pucey and a few other Slytherin families asking if they wanted to practice duelling. She answered back every time with a short ‘No’ and carried on with her day.
Or perhaps this was the popularity befitting of a prominent heir. How unfun.
But there were some upsides to the popularity. Draco finally stopped pushing her to make new friends. That little brat.
“Mother tells me you receive letters from Pucey every morning ,” he said with a strange glint in his eyes while they were out in the gardens one lovely June evening.
“Unfortunately,” she snipped. Oh gosh, that irritating twat wouldn’t stop pestering her for a rematch. Sometimes he even went in detail about personal and useless matters such as his favourite foods and colours.
Draco hummed. “What about Higgs?”
“What about Higgs?”
“Does he send any letters? Or what about Flint? I don’t know if he knows how to spell his own name but he’s at least sent a caveman rock, yes?”
“I don’t want to be their friend, Draco. Pucey makes me want to crush his head into a pulp, Flint is a literal troll, and Higgs is more boring than your drawling governess.”
He frowned. “Weren’t you the one preaching the joys of friendship to me? Companionship and hanging out with likeminded people was important for ‘the growing mind’ or whatever.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “But your friends are somewhat alright. I like Zabini. The Wisterias are tolerable. The other ones aren’t horrible.”
“I don’t like Pucey but he wants to be your friend. I think. Isn’t that a step in the right direction?”
Adrienne scowled unprettily. “No,” she said. “I don’t like him at all. He’s stupid and mean and ugly.”
“It’s my birthday tomorrow and your gift to me is to make one friend before you go to Hogwarts,” he snapped, jabbing a harsh finger into his sister’s ribs. “You stupid hypocrite.”
She gave him the stink eye.
Alas, her baby brother was her main weakness. She couldn’t get mad too long at a boy she practically raised.
And he was right, to her chagrin. Draco had her as a role model, she knew she fixed up much of his behavioural and attitude problems behind their parents’ backs, and to continue being a role model she’d need to follow her own advice.
“Make friends,” he had said. Of course it would be easy to find a family friend around her age and do kid things together, but it felt unfair to the other child. Her brain was already a matured adult and they wouldn’t be able to keep up with her mental prowess for riveting conversation. And the adults of similar age to her own mind wouldn’t want to befriend a prissy ten year old girl such as herself.
The only person outside of Draco and maybe Mother on a good day she could tolerate would be…
Higgs.
Terence Higgs was an oddball. He wasn’t dreadfully annoying like every other child she knew, instead preferring to ignore most situations and crawl into a figurative turtle shell to read books all day and stare at the clouds and whatnot. Out of Draco’s yearmates, she hated Zabini the least because he had a sensible head on his shoulders and grew up in a mostly diverse environment so he wasn’t blindly prejudiced and raised under strict pureblood ideals like the other children. The Greengrass children weren’t poorly behaved either, just a tad naive.
Adrienne had met Madam Chang’s granddaughter, Cho, a few times. Cho was simple, sweet, and smart. Cho was a year younger but had more manners than people several times her age. She was nice to hang around with, but the poor girl was too shy to do much else than engage in simple pleasantries and shallow conversation. If need be, Adrienne could withstand a few months of smalltalk to worm her way into Cho’s heart, but that sounded… annoying.
“Merlin, I’m such a prick,” Adrienne said to herself in bed while mulling this over. She emerged from the blankets to rest on the balcony on the warm summer night. The stars were bright and twinkling almost unfairly.
She didn’t know any other Ravenclaw children or Slytherin children she was acquainted with, so she turned her thoughts to the other houses. Gryffindor, never. Father would never allow a play date arrangement with anyone tied to the lion house despite the children not being sorted yet.
Amos Diggery didn’t work in Father’s department, but there were a grand total of three times Diggery had been invited to Malfoy Manor for some sort of business agreement. He had a son Cedric her age… but wasn’t he going to die in a few years?
With her mind made up, Adrienne returned to bed and slept fitfully.
The next week, the Higgs family was invited for a late brunch to Malfoy Manor. Mother seemed to enjoy her daughter branching out and finally willingly socialising with peers while Father couldn’t care less.
The arrogant beauty of the Malfoy family contrasted greatly with the Higgs family, who were subdued and almost humble in their fortune and power. After a pleasant brunch, Draco glared at Adrienne until she glared back and dragged the other heir outside to the veranda.
The sun shone brightly upon the two children on the perfectly nice day. The birds were chirping, the grass was green, the flowers had beautifully bloomed, the air smelled sweet from the orchards, and everything else was sickenly perfect to haunt the awkward air.
“I don’t really like you,” Adrienne admitted straight up.
Higgs yawned and spared a lazy glance at her. “Fine by me.”
“But I promised my bratty little brother to make friends, so I chose you because Pucey is the most insufferable person I know and everybody else is a saint in comparison.”
“Alright.”
“Do you want to pretend to socialise with me in the chapel in the rose garden while we actually read books and mind our own business?”
“Sure.”
Or maybe Higgs was actually a real life saint. He didn’t speak much, didn’t care much about making smalltalk or any other unnecessary social mannerisms, didn’t do much of anything at all except stay totally unbothered. Adrienne summoned Dobby to bring them a random stack of books from the library - neither of them held preference in reading material - and spent the next few hours absorbed in their own worlds. He selected a nonfiction text about Swedish native animals while she chose to read the autobiography of a famous wizard doctor from Uganda.
Her brother seemed satisfied at the fortnightly meetings with Terrence Higgs. They rotated every other time, where she visited the Higgs Estate for the first time and they read books all day in his sitting room. She tried her hand at reading Arabic novels, but only understood as far as basic children’s books highlighting unrealistic magical adventures and strangely happy endings.
The month of August disappeared in a rush of gathering school supplies, robe fittings, and spending nearly every waking hour with her brother. He spitefully promised to enjoy her absence and his new independence, but they both knew that to be a bold faced lie.
The night before September 1st, she spent hours stargazing in the gardens with Draco. The wet dewy grass stained their nightclothes and seeped uncomfortably to her skin, but she didn’t want to leave. They talked for hours about inane things and deep inquiries about their future, as that night would be the last normal night for a long time.
“I won’t miss you,” Draco abruptly interrupted the slow flow of conversation. “You’re too annoying anyway, it’ll do me good to be away from you.”
Adrienne smiled softly. “I won’t miss you either. You’re far too clingy and your atrocious bedhead makes me want to burn my eyes some days.”
She hummed silently, reaching out to the sky and emitting silver sparks from her fingertips to match the galaxy above.
“Juno,” he started, this time with a much quieter voice. “Don’t write to me every day. If you do, I’m going to assume you have no friends and I will kick your butt when you come back from the winter holidays.”
She barked out a laugh. “Alright you little brat, not if I kick your butt first!”
He flushed an amazing shade of tomato and she chased him around the garden paths until they were too tired and sore to laugh any further.
Half past ten, the Malfoy family arrived at Station Nine and Three Quarters to drop off their eldest child to school. A few other families milled about the station this early, which provided ample space for Mother and Father to provide their goodbyes without unwanted attention.
First to say goodbye was Mother, who hugged Adrienne tighter than ever before in her waking memory (which was a long time, mind you) and bade polite and courteous respects typical of a stern station. In an unexpected bout of emotion, Mother reminded her to make friends and to enjoy her experience as much as possible.
Father said to make him proud.
Draco was lighthearted throughout the process, having already spilled his heart the night before. There were foretelling bags under his eyes, so Adrienne made sure to hug him longer than appropriate in public before departing into the train. By the time she found an empty carriage (not too difficult, as the train was mostly empty yet) and looked out the window, the three of them were gone.
To ignore the foreign ache in her chest, Adrienne busied herself by straightening out her uniform to assure an impeccable first impression, floating her bags on the carriers above the seats, and laying out a book to read on the journey. Occlumency and Legilimency: A History would not interest the average eleven year old, but she found the idea of guarding her mind from intruders very interesting and useful indeed. She valued privacy in her basic tenets, especially considering how if someone discovered her older memories, there might be a body to dispose of.
Nobody wanted that.
Of course, finding an Occlumency teacher would be a hassle because she’d need to find one she could trust her mind with without accidentally (or purposefully) spilling all her secrets to anyone. So she settled with learning its history and theory from books instead of creating seeds of ideas in anyone’s mind.
By a quarter before eleven, the station had filled up considerably. Several students peered through the window blinds to her compartment and scurried away after noticing her presence. The first person to open the door was a familiar face who trotted right in and plopped in the seat across from hers.
“Good morning Higgs,” she greeted pleasantly, her eyes never straying from her book. He offered a similar polite greeting before they developed into the comfortable silence they had grown used to. The only noises in their compartment were the flipping of pages from her book and his - after a quick peek - a rather large tome detailing the herbology of South East Asia.
A few minutes passed before her silence was interrupted again by the inclusion of another. Adrienne scowled and refused to stare into the smirking eyes of Pucey.
“If you sit next to me I will hex your balls off, Pucey,” she threatened.
“Fine,” he sniffed. And then proceeded to yammer about something she didn’t particularly care about. She spelled a small bubble around her ears to block out outside noises and continued to read unbothered.
By the time the trolley came for snacks, Adrienne removed the bubbles and looked around the compartment. Higgs was asleep and Pucey was nowhere to be found.
“I’ll take seven chocolate frogs, three licorice wands, and a pumpkin pasty,” she told the trolley lady. When the lady left, Adrienne returned to her book.
Five minutes later she set it down and stared at the ceiling.
“So not worth it,” she hissed to herself.
She set a few chocolate frog boxes besides the sleeping Higgs as a token of - oh, she didn’t know, friendship? faith? companionship? - something important. From their time over the summer together, she noticed he enjoyed eating sweet treats and chocolate flavoured drinks while reading his books. And then marched outside the compartment in search of the other pesky child.
Adrienne didn’t enjoy being around Pucey, but she still cared enough about his general emotional wellbeing to be curious about his disappearance. Perhaps she was too harsh in her treatment of him. After all, he was only eleven and naturally annoying as all children were supposed to be.
So not worth it , she groaned after checking another compartment and just as quickly closing the door after a split second facial recognition of the crowd proved to be without one Adrian Pucey. Stupid eleven year olds. Stupid children. Stupid stupid fact that any eleven year old would probably be upset if I rudely ignored them without checking on their “feelings” or some shit. Stupid everything.
The twenty-second compartment contained one annoying Pucey sitting with that troll Flint and some other older Slytherin boys she recognized as the sons of outer circle Death Eaters.
Flint grinned his ugly little grin of crooked teeth and misaligned jaw. “Hey Malfoy.”
She crossed her arms and stared down at the pathetically puffy eyed target. “Pucey,” she gritted out, ignoring the second year. “You missed the trolley lady. I got you some snacks, come on.”
Pucey glared back, head held high. His pride clashed with her own ugly one. She would have held high and regal except the boy appeared to have grown a pair this time around, so she - regrettably - laid the groundwork of an apology.
“We need to discuss our upcoming duel,” she said in the same harsh tones.
He rolled his eyes but made the motions of following her back to their original compartment. “Over the winter hols, not on school grounds. I’m not getting detention my first year at Hogwarts, got that?”
Pucey stared down at his feet as they walked back. “Yeah, yeah. I’m going to defeat you this time.”
Higgs had awoken from his nap by the time they returned, munching on a pair of squirming candy legs. “Oh? You dragged him back? I thought you didn’t like Pucey, Malfoy.”
She held her head up defiantly. “If you’re going to be my duel partner,” she told Pucey. “You better be able to have a strong shielding ability. Otherwise you’ll meet a painful end.”
He stepped right up in her personal bubble, an eager smile in place. “Don’t worry about me. You should develop a stronger method of attack if you’re going to go against me soon, Malfoy .”
Higgs groaned in the background.
Hogwarts was everything and nothing like Adrienne imagined. She expected the large, towering walls and wings. She expected the chill in the air from crossing the Black Lake into the castle grounds. She expected the magic and wonder of witnessing a great moment in personal history.
She did not expect the thunderous welcome the castle greeted her magic with.
Hogwarts breathed life into her again, whispering against her core of energy, sending pleasurable shivers down her spine and a thudding in her ears. The castle was alive, the magic was very alive and well, speaking the gift of welcome and love and trust into her very soul. Every stone, every brick, every plank, every footprint echoed in liveliness and purity. While walking down through the great entrance with the first year group, she brushed her fingers against the stone walls and felt the warmth of its - no, Her - essence trickle through Adrienne’s human veins.
Awaiting behind the Entrance Hall doors, the deputy headmistress greeted the crowd of new children. She thanked the groundskeeper and ushered them inside to their new home.
“Do we really have to wrestle a troll to be sorted into our houses?” Someone in the back of the group whispered nervously.
And of course, everyone heard. The students chattered nervously among themselves, with Adrienne and Higgs staring uncaringly off to the sides.
Adrienne elbowed the jittering Pucey at her side. “Stop that,” she ordered. “Unbefitting of my future duel partner to be nervous over our Sorting.”
He immediately snapped back into ease and elbowed her back. “Of course not,” he lied, wearing a curious expression. She turned her head to focus on the deputy headmistress’ flowing robes.
They were gathered into a small chamber off to the side of the Great Hall, where Professor McGonagall finally introduced herself and alleviated the chatter.
"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room.
"The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rulebreaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honour. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours.
"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school." The Professor narrowed her eyes at the first years. “Tidy up now, I will call you into the hall as soon as the preparations are complete.”
And she left.
Leaving a group of nervous eleven year olds alone for a few minutes never bade well, and this group was no exception.
“Aha! It’s the ickle firsties!” Someone shouted over their heads.
Adrienne’s gaze shot upwards to see a ghost peek through the ceiling. The ghost phased through the rest of the ceiling, holding a large bucket of an unidentified substance. A poltergeist, she surmised, if it could hold onto objects in the physical realm.
“Nice to meet firsties, always,” the poltergeist exclaimed. “My name’s Peeves and - woops!”
Before anyone could react, the spirit had “accidentally” spilled the large bucket of murky water all over the crowd. Even the students in the edges of the group were sopping wet and muddy.
Adrienne glared at the ceiling where Peeves had disappeared into. “Stupid ghosts,” she muttered under her breath before snapping her fingers with magic and removing the mud and drying off the wetness. Even then, she still felt icky to the core.
When Professor McGonagall returned, she did not react well to Peeves’ prank, immediately spelling a cleaning and warming charm over the group then leading them to the Great Hall to be sorted.
There was no epiphany of self realisation that Adrienne could choose her own path because she couldn’t . Not without the high probability of being written out of the family inheritance and the possibility of being cast out and never to speak to her brother ever again. She didn’t exactly want to be sorted into Slytherin simply out of the prejudice it would rain upon her from the other houses, but it wasn’t as though she enjoyed the idea of being in the other houses. With her family name, the only place she’d truly thrive would have to be Slytherin.
The first half of the alphabet sorted into their houses before the deputy headmistress called forth Adrienne’s name. Many people quieted down to watch the heiress to the Malfoy name walk up to the front of the hall. Several pointed and whispered “Death Eater” but she tuned them out and sat on the stool by the Head Table to receive her destiny.
There’s only one house for me, she told the Sorting Hat. Please be quick.
You sound as though public perception worries you, it responded back.
I like to tell myself that outside voices don’t affect me at all, but sometimes I succumb to that weakness and pay attention to people who don’t know anything at all.
The Sorting Hat said, How nice of you to admit that. Honesty is such a Hufflepuff trait, isn’t it? Or maybe Gryffindor, for being brave enough to acknowledge true aspects of yourself.
Adrienne gripped the edges of the stool. I will burn you until only ashes remain, she swore. I will scatter your ashes into the mouths of sleeping children and let you be digested into nothing more than toddler shit.
Very well, child. There was only one option for you anyway…
“Slytherin!” The Sorting Hat bellowed. Said house cheered loudly to more than make up for the absence of noise from the other three houses. Adrienne smiled bitterly and sauntered to the table of green and silver.
Students made room for her in a show of submission to the Malfoy name and power. Adrienne idly checked her fingernails and took a seat between Higgs and a third year girl she knew to be a part of the Gibbon family. Pucey joined next, taking a seat to her right. With Higgs and Pucey at her side, she felt a sense of peace and familiarity. While she knew most of the purebloods and some of the half-bloods sitting in the Slytherin table, she foolishly felt safer in between two known direct allies, despite the fact that no one would dare cross her path.
The last two first years to be sorted were Fred and George Weasley. Pucey snickered and pretended to whisper conspiratorially into Adrienne’s ear, making a distasteful joke about the Weasley family.
“If you’re going to insult someone, at least use more swear words,” she said as a response.
Dumbledore’s speech was odd and extremely unmemorable, a basic welcome to the new students and to have a delightful new school year.
“The rumour is that he’s gone mad,” Pucey gossiped again before being shut up by the appearance of the dinner feast.
Adrienne mulled long and hard about the students in her year. There were three other female Slytherin first years and she could not recall any of their names or family history. That meant they were either half-bloods or muggle born students. No, she could not discriminate and bully her peers - that would bring more harm and good. She could not bring new radical beliefs of acceptance due to her standing as a Malfoy, expectant to hold up a snobby rule.
Or did she?
How would anything at this point affect her life, she mused. She successfully made it into Slytherin and had a few strong allies at her back already. Perhaps Adrienne would never be the paradigm for kindness and acceptance, but societal pressure didn’t have to force her to be someone she wasn’t. She would never bully anyone for their blood or class but she did not have to proclaim to the world her mostly pure intentions.
Let them cower at her image. She’d deal with that nonsense later.
“We should introduce ourselves,” Adrienne announced to the dormitory room. “It’s in our best interest to get to know each other in order to have a fun and productive school year.”
It’s not as though she hated the idea of being a leader, but there was no other choice when the four other girls appeared to have been educated in who their roommate was, Malfoy name and all. So she sat on the floor in the middle of the circle of beds and patted the room beside her. The other girls reluctantly followed suit.
“I guess I’ll start first,” she said. “My name is Adrienne Juno Malfoy. My favourite animal is a peacock and my favourite dessert is anything with mint flavouring.”
There was a quiet pause as the other girls digested the information.
“I’m Beatrice Turpin,” a girl across the circle said. She had dark brown hair and a plain face, unmatching her impressive height towering over the other three girls even while seated. “I… I like giraffes and my favourite dessert is custard pie. I am also a half-blood and proud of it.”
Beatrice directed that last sentence at Adrienne, who only half heartedly nodded and paid attention to the next girl.
“Kinjal Bhatia,” said the next girl. Her hair was wrapped up in a shimmery silver scarf and her eyes were a pretty almond shape. “I like turtles and honey cakes.”
The final girl was a short and skinny thing with bright red hair and a sharp nose. “Gertrude Meads,” she mumbled out, and that was that.
“I suppose I should tell you this before you make any assumptions,” Adrienne told the group at large. “I do not care in the slightest if you are of muggleborn or half-blood status. I will not discriminate against you or act untowardly to you for your magical class. There are, however, distinct differences between purebloods and those of a muggle nature.
“This is because purebloods receive a rich wizarding education from an early age, while our muggle natured classmates received a muggle education. As such, if any of you or your friends have difficulty with Hogwarts classes, please ask me or any other pureblood children for assistance. If our Slytherin peers refuse to assist any of you, direct them to me and I will make sure they come to a similar understanding.”
Turpin turned a beady eye towards the Malfoy heiress. “This is… unexpected,” she admitted. “Are you going to keep up with your word, Malfoy? ”
“Of course,” Adrienne replied coolly. “It would be unfair of you to discriminate against me for my parents’ actions if I do not discriminate against you for your blood status, is it not?”
Meads butted in. “I’m sorry, can you explain that again? I’m new to this whole… witch and wizard thing. My parents own a pie shop in Edinburgh and this whole thing was sprung upon me this summer,” she finished with a nervous giggle.
Perfect. A malleable and tiny little muggleborn.
“We can talk tomorrow morning at breakfast. It’s getting late and we should all get some rest before the first day of classes.”
As she settled into bed, Adrienne mulled over her thoughts. Turpin didn’t appear to like her, but it wasn’t quite a state of dislike either. The other first year girls were nice enough for friendly acquaintanceship, possibly even friendship if they were lonely enough.
The Malfoy name was the strongest in the entirety of Hogwarts. Slytherins would easily fall to her wishes, other pureblood students of other houses wouldn’t be so willing but they would respect her position and power. Pucey could be her watchdog and keep her informed of the daily happenings and rumours with his giant mouth and love for conversation. Flint was an abomination of a child but he was large and intimidating enough to be a guard dog if needed. The other children of Death Eaters were of a lower standing, but still could prove useful.
Higgs could be her moral support if she needed a break from dealing with goons all day. They could read books together and do nothing in particular.
Adrienne fell into an easy slumber.
Adrienne’s first class of the day was Potions with the Gryffindors.
She had met Severus Snape several times throughout her childhood. Sometimes for basic Potions lessons with the governess, mostly for long drawn out meetings with her father in a private room. He was beady eyed, mean, and more than a bit bitter at the world. She had no capability to fix his wounds nor any wish to do so of her own accord.
His dungeon classroom followed a lecture style layout, with two chair desks growing outwards from his main teaching podium and experiment desk. Adrienne sat with Higgs right in the front-centre of the classroom, knowing that she would need to keep up being top dog.
Her partner didn’t appear to mind the attention, so they stayed quiet until the lesson started.
“Malfoy. Pssss. Malfoy. ”
Adrienne turned her head back to see Pucey behind her desk. He sat with a Gibbons boy and another she didn’t recognize too well. “What.”
Pucey pointed at the Gryffindors who had separated themselves on the other side of the room. “Lookie. Weasleys.”
She rolled her eyes and focused back to the front of the classroom, where the professor finally began writing on the chalkboard.
Potions passed smoothly, minus the small green explosion in the back of the class from a group of troublemakers. Higgs matched Adrienne’s endless knowledge and they quickly finished up their first assignment before they were dismissed to their next class.
Next class was a free period until lunch, then Transfiguration class was next. The first week of school passed in relative peace, with students adjusting to their schedules and new materials. The abundance of free time was meant to be used to explore the grounds, develop bonds, and research the foreign magical materials. Really, far too much time for adventure seeking students. Adrienne kept up with her Slytherin housemates, making sure to memorise all their names and stations and introducing herself to the small crop of muggleborns and half-bloods to make them feel included.
She didn’t want to be a “saviour” to the snot nosed lone wolves, but Merlin forbid she set a bad example for her brother.
Soon enough a schedule developed. Adrienne hung out in the library to finish her homework and read books with Higgs and the occasional addition of other peers. Then she sunbathed and made sure to enjoy healthy amounts of fresh air by the Black Lake with her other year mates while chatting aimlessly about nothing - more often than not they were wizarding lessons to help her muggle-raised acquaintances.