Snape shook him by the arm and snarled, "I asked you a question, boy!"
Despite his resolve not to cower, he couldn't help but flinch a little. "I'm sorry, sir."
"You certainly will be! I suppose you feel you don't need to answer a proper question, is that it? And that rules are for everyone else, but not for Potters? Well let me tell you something, you insufferable brat, you will learn very quickly that when I give orders, they are meant to be followed. And when I deem something forbidden, you are meant not to do it!" By the end of his tirade, he had pulled Harry very close and specks of spittle hit Harry's face and bare chest. Even without glasses, Harry could see the disgust and rage clearly in the man's eyes.
"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir. I'll obey the schedule."
"Indeed you will. And you'll have detention tonight at 7. Do. Not. Be. Late." Giving Harry one last shake by the arm, the professor flung Harry away from him and stalked out of the bathroom in a ripple of black cloth and menace.
Harry grabbed up his towel and scruffed it over himself, then got dressed, lickety split, shrugging the encounter from his mind. The words the professor had shouted were no worse than what he'd heard from the Dursleys, after all, and he certainly deserved them. He was just glad Snape hadn't asked more questions he couldn't answer.
Once he was dressed, he crept out of the Slytherin common room and made a quick -- or as quick as he could make it -- trip to see Hedwig and give her an order to take to Gladrags, down in Hogsmeade. He was glad directions to the owlry had been part of the information handed to him by his Prefect, as well as a list of clothiers who serviced the school.
By the time he returned, the other students were just starting to stir, making their slow way into the showers, or the common room, and Harry busied himself with reading a chapter from his Potions textbook, wanting to be as prepared as he could be when he met Snape in class. He took out some parchment, too, and practiced taking notes with the quill and ink. It was much sloppier than with a ball point, and after he splotched up on roll so bad he could barely read anything, he would have traded a hundred chocolate frogs for one pencil.
While he was trying to scrape away some excess ink, he saw Malfoy come down into the common room, flanked by the two large boys who seemed to follow him everywhere. Goyle and Crumm . . . no, Crabbe. He wasn't sure he knew which of them was which, though. Malfoy, on the other hand. It wasn't hard to make him out from the crowd, with his white blond hair and permanent half-smile, as if he knew a prank was about to be played on you, and for a price, he'd tell you what it was.
Harry glanced at them as Malfoy sauntered and the other two lumbered over to the couches and slumped into them, but he kept at his work. Malfoy hadn't said anything to him at dinner, but he'd been one of the ones who stared.
"It's ridiculous, isn't it?" the blond said, and covered a small yawn with a hand. "That we have to be up so early every day. I mean, I could understand the first day, with schedules to be handed out and all. But weekends?"
Harry, not sure if Malfoy was speaking to one of his goons, didn't say anything, though he privately agreed.
"Are you deaf, Potter?"
Making sure to put hold his quill away from his parchment, he looked up to see Malfoy smirking at him. "No. I didn't know who you were talking to."
Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Like I make conversation with these two, honestly."
Harry gave a half smile. Dudley was just about as dismissive of his goons, too. Didn't stop them from having wicked fists on his command, though. And Harry was awfully tired of being beaten up at school. So he shrugged. "I'd rather we were allowed to lie in on weekends. Doesn't make much sense to get us up so early. I though breakfast didn't even start till 8 then."
"Exactly." Malfoy leaned forward a little and held out his hand. "I don't think we've had a proper introduction. I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."
"Harry Potter," Harry said and shook the boy's hand.
"I tried to find you on the train--"
"You did?" Harry asked. He'd thought he'd caught a glimpse of the white blond hair at the end of the car, when he was coming out of the loo one time, but Ron hadn't said anything about it when he got back to their compartment.
Malfoy gave him a long look. "Of course. You're rather famous in some circles." He smiled, with only a trace of haughtiness. "I wanted to see what all the fuss was about."
Harry laughed. "There's no fuss. Really. I didn't even know I was a wizard till a month ago."
Something in Malfoy's face tightened. "But your parents weren't Muggles."
"No . . ." Hagrid had told him about what Muggles were, and that some folks in the wizarding world didn't care for those who weren't wizards, or born of wizards. "But I was raised by Muggles. You know, after my parents died."
Wrinkling his nose as if he smelled something dead a week or more, Malfoy leaned back against the couch. "That's . . . awful."
Well, Malfoy didn't know the half of it, but Harry wasn't going to tell him. "They didn't like magic," he volunteered, however. "But I kept doing it anyway, I guess."
"Obviously." Something in Malfoy's tone suggested that it would be impossible for anything else to have occurred.
Breakfast was a quiet affair for the Slytherin table, as all the students had been up late and then up early, but some of the other tables were rather rowdy, particularly the Gryffindors, where Ron Weasley had been sorted. Harry was a little sad about that, but he knew that the boy he'd met on the train and who'd told him about collecting chocolate frog cards and such was probably happier with his family than he ever would have been in Slytherin.
Like he was supposed to, Harry waited till everyone had their fill of breakfast before he snagged a slice of toast, though he almost dropped it back on the platter when Draco gave him a hard look. Instead, he nibbled at the edges, just as Professor Snape came around to their table with schedules.
Harry kept his head down, his ears turning red, remembering the morning's scene in the bathroom, but Professor Snape said nothing about it, said nothing at all, in fact, just gave him a nasty look as he shoved the piece of parchment at Harry.
Draco peered over his shoulder. "We've got Transfigurations first." He rolled his eyes and sent a baleful look at the loudest table. "Then Herbology. With the Gryffindors."
"I wonder how they can hear their Head of House, with all their noise," Harry murmured.
Draco snorted a laugh. "Like my father says, they're uncultured ruffians. They can't help it, really."
Harry wrinkled his nose, but finished his toast and waited, according to the new rules, for his year mates to finish, as well as for any announcements, before they left to go to their first class. Though he was feeling rather queasy with the knowledge that he didn't know any magic and was likely going to be terribly behind all his classmates, he was still very careful, while walking next to Draco to their first class, to make sure none of his awful clothes peeked from beneath his robes. It was harder to hide his trainers, but if he took deliberate enough steps, his robe didn't flap around them and kept them from being seen. So far so good, for the day.
Professor McGonagall seemed tough but fair, and she told them first thing that her class would be amongst the hardest they would have at Hogwarts, and she wouldn't tolerate any messing around. Later, in Herbology, Harry had a chance to say "Hi," to Ron for the first time since the boats across the lake, but to his disappointment, Ron gave him a disgusted look and turned away.
Seeing that, Draco swore under his breath something about "blood traitors," which Harry didn't understand. The rest of the day went fairly well, and Harry was almost used to the odd way the staircases had of moving when you least expected it, and to the various ghosts who flitted by them in the corridors. Peeves was another matter, but since everyone seemed equally annoyed by the poltergeist, that was okay, too.