Last Train Home
Title: Last Train Home, Chapter 1: The Beginning
Author: Lyndsie Fenele
Rating: All Ages/Not Naughty
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Summary: A story of one generation, still feeling the aftermath of a war not their own, and of the parents who love them.
Author's Notes:: Mostly completed before HBP, but inaccessible for several years due to my own idiocy (dumping water on my laptop). I am finishing it now. For a never-going-to-happen spinoff of this story, see here.
Chapters: Undetermined.
Some years' difference.
Toby was practically hopping from excitement as he and his father strolled down the cobbled stones of Diagon Alley. They had just finished purchasing his supplies for his first year at Hogwarts, and his father had said they could go for ice cream at Fortescue's. Toby was already imagining the taste of his three-scoop chocolate, vanilla, and Cockroach Cluster cone when his dad touched him lightly on the shoulder. The eleven-year-old looked up from his loaded cauldron to see that his father was face-to-face with a woman he had never met before. She looked to be about the same age as his father, and she had thick brown hair and carried a pile of books. What was odd was that they were regarding each other coldly, as though they had rather have not have run into each other at all. Most people were happy to see his father, because he gave so much money to help people who needed it.
"Malfoy," the woman saluted curtly. Her lips were in a tight line, and she stared at his father challengingly.
"Good afternoon, Granger," his father replied, grey eyes snapping. "I see you haven't changed much in the last decade." He gestured to the books she held.
"Nor you," she replied snappishly, and Toby didn't understand what she meant by that. "And it's Longbottom now." His father's eyebrows rose.
"Yes, I had read that. Congratulations." It didn't sound sincere. Toby had never seen his father act like this before. He was almost being rude to this woman, but that was against what he had always taught Toby. Manners were very important to his father.
The woman was looking at Toby curiously now, and he felt his father's hand tighten on his shoulder. Even though the woman had been looking at his father like she would have liked to throw the books down and hit him, she looked at Toby kindly.
"I'm afraid we haven't been introduced. You are attending Hogwarts next term?" Toby grinned.
"Yes, ma'am. It's to be my first year." He attempted a bow, which didn't work out very well because of the cauldron he held. "I'm Tobias Adrian Malfoy. Delighted to meet you." He looked up at his father for approval, only to find that his father appeared unhappy. Toby's smile fell.
"Malfoy?" the woman addressed to his father with an eyebrow raised. "I thought you were the last of your family."
"We're the only two left now," he replied with schooled indifference. "It's been wonderful seeing you again, Mrs. Longbottom, but I'm afraid my son and I have to be going." Toby watched as the woman's face reflected complete surprise. At what, he wasn't sure. However, she recovered quickly and got in the last word.
"Yes, well, it was nice to meet you Tobias. I'll be seeing you at Hogwarts September 1st, then. I'm your Transfiguration professor." She looked at him piercingly before his father pushed him gently away.
The encounter with the professor was driven out of his mind as he sat at the ice cream parlour, licking his cone contentedly. They were all out of Cockroach Cluster ("been very popular that") so he'd had to settle for pistachio. His father had said he was going to buy him a going away present, with instructions to sit at the table and not to move. Toby had grinned mischievously at that, because he was always getting into messes when his father wasn't watching. He was a very curious boy and he knew his father was afraid he would wander off and get lost. He also resented being treated like a five-year-old.
He nearly fell out of his seat when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Turning around, Toby saw a girl with long dark hair and startlingly green eyes. She looked to be the same age as him.
"Excuse me, but are you starting at Hogwarts too?" She was wearing a knee-length navy blue skirt and a white short-sleeve shirt with an embroidered butterfly on the front pocket.
"Yes," Toby replied, suddenly feeling self-conscious about his wizard's robes. He wasn't often around other children his own age, and he didn't know if it was the style to wear Muggle-style clothing. "I've just bought all things on the school list."
"Me too, of course. We don't often come to Diagon Alley. I'm Emily, by the way." She stuck out her hand to shake, which Toby thought was a bit odd for someone so young, but he took it.
"Toby," he said. "Would you like to-" he had been about to say 'sit down' when a red-haired boy rushed up to Emily and began speaking excitedly without seeming to notice Toby. He was wearing dishevelled robes over Muggle clothes, which made Toby feel better about his own clothes.
"Come on, come on! They've got the new stuff out, and if we go now, Uncle George said he would let us in before they open to the public." The girl rolled her eyes.
"As if you need to be let in early. Your dad pretends for your mother's sake, but we all know that he gives you whatever you like anyway." Toby looked back and forth between the two, confused. The other boy seemed to take notice of him finally.
"Oh, hullo. I'm Simon, you for Hogwarts too?"
"Yes," he said. "Name's Toby."
"Well come on," the other boy exclaimed, grabbing Emily by the arm. She rolled her eyes again.
"His father is one of the founders of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, and he forgets that not everyone gets as excited as he about the new fall line." Toby was perplexed.
"Wizarding What's?" he asked. Immediately he knew he had made a mistake. The two other preteens stared at him as though he had suddenly grown a second head.
"You don't know WWW?" the girl asked him, astonished. "You're not a Muggle, are you?"
"No, I just never heard of these Wheezles…" He was startled when the boy grabbed his arm as well.
"Then come on, we'll show you."
The store was one of the most amazing places that Toby had ever been in, and that was saying a lot because he and his father had travelled all over the world. The shelves were impossibly high and stacked with all kinds of tricks and sweets. In one glance he saw quills that would only write insults, a whole case of firecrackers, cauldrons whose bottoms leaked (for some reason dubbed "Percy's Pots"), and a variety of caramels that changed parts of the consumer's body. But the best part of all was the flying carpet that would carry you from end of the huge store to the other.
"Brilliant!" he shouted, running over to it. "I thought I'd never get to ride one again. Aren't they illegal in Britain?"
"Apparently not if you have it in a closed course," responded Emily with mirth. "Uncles Fred and George are very good at skirting the rules." Toby looked up and the two others.
"You're cousins?" he asked. The girl shrugged.
"Not really. Our parents are really close, so we were raised like cousins, even though we're not really related."
"Oh," he said, though he didn't really understand. His family was just him and his father, and although his father had friends, Toby didn't pretend they were aunts and uncles. He thought it sounded like a good idea though. It would be nice to have even pretend cousins.
"Come on!" cried Simon exasperatedly. "Before we have to go home!"
They spent the next half hour stuffing their school bags with anything they could get their hands on. They hadn't wanted to leave, but George shooed them out, saying that their mums would hex him inside out if they found out what he was doing. Just as they were leaving, Emily handed Toby a small bouquet of flowers off a shelf by the door. Warily he took it, and as soon as it was in his grasp, it turned into a raw fish. He dropped it in shock and it turned back into flowers.
"It's not real. It just seems like it is," she chastised. Toby picked it up and it stayed as flowers; he put into in his bag where the red and yellow petals peeked out.
They were excitedly discussing the coming school year and what to expect ("Do you really think Uncle George wasn't lying about having to wrestle a troll?") when Toby caught sight of a tall blond figure swooping towards him angrily, levitating a cauldron stacked with books.
"Bloody bats, that bloke looks angry," cried Simon, motioning to Toby's dad.
"That's Draco Malfoy," Emily responded quietly. "His family supported Voldemort during the war. I say we stay out of his way." She veered towards the Quidditch shop to the right.
Toby was caught between being outraged and afraid. He'd never seen his father so angry. He also didn't think it was fair what Emily had just said about his family. He gulped.
"I forgot I wasn't supposed to leave the ice cream shop." Emily and Simon looked at him curiously. "My dad's really overprotective." It seemed Simon was about to ask for an explanation when Draco Malfoy stopped right in front of them. Emily's eyes went wide.
"Tobias, I have been looking for you for nearly half an hour. Didn't I tell you to stay at that table?" Draco's eyes were flashing.
"Yes, sir," responded Toby meekly. His cheeks were red from the embarrassment in front of his two new friends.
"And where did you go?" he demanded.
"I went to WWW with Emily and Simon. I'm really sorry Dad, I just forgot," he tried to apologize.
"Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes?" he asked. Apparently even Toby's father knew of it. "You'd better come up with a better excuse than that, because I just went by and it's closed. And who the bloody hell are Emily and Simon?" Toby motioned to behind him and the two other children smiled nervously.
"Excuse me sir," broke in Emily with a shaky voice, "but we did go to Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. It's that Simon's father is Fred Weasley and his uncle let us in." Draco looked at the girl measuringly.
"You are Emily, I presume?" he asked, a bit harsher than he should have to Toby's ears. The girl responded without faltering.
"Yes, sir. Emily Potter. And this is Simon Weasley."
"Nice to meet you," muttered the other boy.
"Yes, well, we have to be going. Say goodbye to your friends, Tobias." He put a strange emphasis on the word 'friends'. Toby barely had time to mutter anything by way of farewell before his father grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away. He looked back apologetically, only to find Emily giving him a look of pity and Simon looking at him in a way that was anything but friendly.
At home, his dad confiscated all the WWW products (Toby almost couldn't contain his laughter as the bouquet turned into a fish again) and warned him a little more sternly than necessary to never go off alone like that again. When he protested that he hadn't been alone, his father grew angry and said that he had not been in proper company. In anger, he told him to stay away from the Weasleys, which Toby thought strange but did not protest.
He tried to talk to Emily and Simon again on the Hogwarts Express, but he hardly had the time in between meeting all the other students. When he did try to approach them and the group of other students that they apparently already had known for years, they brushed him off coldly. Emily looked at him pityingly again. In the end, he ended up joining a compartment of other first years that were an odd mix. There were two boys dressed in very Muggle clothes that looked a bit overwhelmed, and a girl wearing her school robes and reading a magazine in Spanish and apparently paying no attention to her surroundings.
"Mind if I sit here?" he asked. "Everywhere else is taken." The two boys shook their heads quickly and the girl looked up over the top of her magazine. As he plopped down into his seat she set it down, looking at him curiously.
The two Muggle boys exchanged glances with him.
"I'm David Griswold," the lighter brown-haired boy spoke up after a moment. "I'm from London. Just found out I'm a wizard a few weeks ago."
"And I'm Joey Cotton," the other boy broke in with a Scottish accent. "We were just talking about how odd it is to have been wizards all our lives and never known it. How about you? When did you find out?" The girl was watching them with interest, and Toby didn't know what to say. The question was quite odd for him.
"Uh, well I don't know. I've always known I was a wizard. My parents both were, too," he said, feeling the same pang as always when he spoke of the subject. He didn't actually know who his mother was, but he felt sure that she had been a witch, though he could not explain how.
"Yes," said the girl. "You couldn't help but be a Pureblood, could you?" She had a Spanish accent.
"Excuse me?" he asked, frowning. "I don't think I understand." She looked at him piercingly again.
"You are Tobias Malfoy, aren't you?" She smiled self-satisfied when he nodded in affirmation, throwing her black hair over her shoulder. "Well, everyone knows the Malfoy family has always been anti-Muggleborn." Tobias fumed, and the two other boys shared concerned looks.
Ever since the day in Diagon Alley when Emily had accused his father of being a Dark Wizard, Toby had been trying as hard as he could to find out just what they had been talking about. He had already known that around the time he was born there had been a war, and that there had been good and bad wizards. He had tried to find out more details, but found that the Manor's library didn't have anything more recent than 200 years in it. Toby thought that maybe his father had done that on purpose. He was beginning to think that his family, though respected, had not been quite respectable. People kept saying bad things about them. He had never considered the possibility that perhaps his family had been on the wrong side of the war, especially because his father was really such a good person. Would a dark wizard sponsor war orphanages and build hospitals? It didn't seem like anyone understood that.
"Well I don't care how things have always been!" he cried, frustrated. "That's not how we are now. I don't care if someone has Muggle parents, and I don't even know why everyone thinks my family is so bad, all I know is that I'm tired of it and if you want to say something bad about me, then you had better know me first!" The girl looked at him in surprise.
"You do not know why the Malfoy name is so tarnished?" she queried. Toby just glared with arms crossed. "Does the name Lucius mean anything to you?" she asked with no malice.
"No, but I suppose you are going to tell me." The girl raised an eyebrow.
"He was the right-hand man of the Dark Lord," she said, addressing the other boys as well. "Back in the time my parents were born, there was a war against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and he was winning. Then a child was born according to a prophecy that said he would be the one to destroy the Dark Lord. Lord Voldemort went to kill him when he was a baby, but the curse rebounded on him and everyone thought he died. That baby was Harry Potter." She looked at him questioningly.
"Yes, I know about Harry Potter," he responded to the unasked question.
"Good. Well, then it was ten years before the Dark Lord came back. He was again defeated by Harry Potter, but he still wasn't dead. He kept trying to come back. He gathered all his former followers again. The wizarding world was in chaos; the Ministry of Magic was denying everything and people were dying. I read that one very powerful, rich old family was behind the scenes controlling the Ministry for a while, a family that has been full of Dark wizards for centuries." Her eyes flicked to Toby. "Lucius Malfoy was a very powerful supporter of the Dark Lord. He was also your grandfather." Toby was speechless for a moment. The two other boys were looking at him in awe.
"I suppose that's why everyone hates me," he responded. "I wish my dad had told me that's how people thought of us." The girl spoke again.
"Not everyone thinks that way. Your father has done a lot of good since the war. It's just that it all happened so recently and old wounds have yet to heal."
"How do you know all that?" asked Joey in astonishment. The girl looked at him reproachfully.
"The subject interests me and I read a lot. My parents were killed in the war. I lived in a Malfoy orphanage for a while before relatives in Spain claimed me."
"Wow," breathed David. "So there was a war going on in England and no one knew?"
"I heard that the Muggles thought the last battle was an earthquake. That was about the time we were born," Toby put in. He was comforted by the thought that he at least knew that.
"Wicked!" David cried. "My grandmum still talks about how all the china broke!" The other boy was oddly pale.
"My older brother died in that earthquake. The ceiling fell on him." There was a moment of silence as they all digested that. They jumped as the door slid open.
"Anything off the trolley, dears?" asked a plump witch.
Digging some coins out of his pocket, Toby bought snacks for everyone, and the conversations quickly passed into more comfortable territory.
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