Disclaimer to JK Rowling.

I hope you enjoy this story (:

Chapter One

"Until tonight they were separate specialties,
different stories, the best of their own worst."

Anne Sexton from A Story to Rose on the Midnight Flight to Boston

Hermione straightened herself up as she tried not to bristle from the sheer humiliation that she had managed to put herself through. She glared at the now-closed carriage behind her. Well, really! Hermione thought to herself, there is no need to be so rude!

She had introduced herself to Harry Potter – someone she had been itching to see since she had read about him – and shown him some proper magic – not a made-up spell that would turn a rat yellow, Hermione noted, since it was OWL level Transfiguration at the very least – and then she found herself interrupted by the idiotic redhead (whose name she hadn't managed to get) that had mumbled his way through said colour-changing spell. He irritated her, his mocking taunts on the way she spoke was more than enough for Hermione to take a hint. Life experiences had told her so much and Hermione Jean Granger would not allow herself to succumb to such low tactics to stay in favour with such a moron. She managed to retaliate by making a comment about the cleanliness of his nose and then she flounced off without further ado. She had things to do and toads to find, she really couldn't be listening to a redhead mutter anything else about her.

Hermione gathered as much confidence as she could before rapping against the door of the closed carriage. For a while, she thought that it was empty, as no one would open the door. Then she realised that it couldn't be empty as she distinctly remembered someone saying that all the carriages were full and so she waited for a response. Her patience was rewarded when a thickset boy opened it. Her confidence almost refused to stay with her as she thought that the boy was in a year that was above hers. She managed to calm down when she saw that his tie was plain black, like her own, and he too was a new student at Hogwarts.

"What is it?" he asked in a low growl that intimidated Hermione slightly. No, she thought to herself, I will be confident. I promised Neville to help find his toad!

"Have you seen a toad? A boy called Neville has lost his."

Her voice had a hint of a tremor that Hermione could have gone without but she patted herself mentally on the back. She hadn't cowered. Yet.

"Neville, as in Neville Longbottom?" a soft voice inside the carriage called out.

Hermione took this opportunity to step around the thickset boy and into the carriage. She assessed her surroundings. On the left of her was another boy, as burly as the one standing up, if not more, but to her right...

They had to be royalty. They had to be! They had a regal air around them, even though they were wearing the same black tie around their necks which showed that they were first-years as well.

Hermione stared at the girl and stopped for a moment, her heart pounding as if she had finished a race but realised with a start that she had mistaken her for a different girl.

It's not her, she would never sit so regally, calm down.

The girl was sat gracefully, poised like she was hosting an audience. Her long, blonde hair fell down her shoulders, in such a manner that Hermione deeply envied and Hermione even tried to flatten her irrevocably bushy hair in her presence. Her face moved to face Hermione more directly, her hair swaying like liquid silk. The boy beside her was undoubtedly her twin. He was a mirror image of her but with shorter hair. He was sitting on his chair like he was a king, or something to that description. He was clearly bored. Hermione reddened. He didn't look at her, like she was too plain to look at and it would hurt his eyes if he did.

"Well?" the girl asked, "Is he?"

"Lacie, does it even matter?" the boy murmured. For her, he did turn to look at.

His sister tore her gaze from Hermione for a second and looked at her brother. She said something in too quiet a voice to the boy and he reddened slightly. He looked away from her immediately but his posture changed. He looked like a spoilt child now. The girl, or Lacie as the boy had called her, turned back to face Hermione with curiosity.

I am confident. I have courage. I will answer. Hermione's innate compulsion to answer the questions overwhelmed her fear to dare speak to someone she barely knew, especially someone...like her.

"Yes, Neville Longbottom lost his toad and I'm helping to find it," Hermione said clearly, enunciating each word.

"Why? Who is Neville to you?" she asked again, her interest piqued.

"A friend."

"Who are you?"

"Hermione Granger and you are?"

"Lacerta Malfoy," she replied meekly. "This is my brother, Draco, who you must have realised is my twin. The one standing up is Gregory Goyle and the other boy is Vincent Crabbe. We are childhood friends of sorts."

Hermione made a mental note.

"Forgive me for being so forward, but are you related in any manner to the Potioneer, Hector Dagworth-Granger?" Lacerta asked her.

"No," Hermione laughed. "My parents don't know magic."

Draco had perked up from his statue position beside his sister and he looked at her in a manner that made Hermione feel as if she was a piece of meat at the market, "You mean to say that your parents are Muggles?"

Hermione was confused by his sudden interest, "Yes."

"So you're a Mudblood, then?" Draco asked with a wide grin. Gregory and Vincent chuckled around her. Lacerta gasped and looked at her brother with a shocked expression.

"A, what?" Hermione asked, she was smiling but she didn't know why. She was genuinely confused.

"Draco," Lacerta was growling now. "Stop it."

"It's just, someone – who, someone who – comes from a Muggle background," Draco had a hard time of keeping his face straight. "Like you."

Hermione didn't know whether it was a bad thing or a good thing. Judging by the laughs of the people around her, she doubted it was something nice. Get out now!

"Well," Hermione said, a lump now rising in her throat. Her confidence had completely gone. She just wanted to run. "If you do see a toad, please do return it to Neville." She gushed through the last half of her sentence and made her way – or rather, rushed – out of the carriage. The guffaws of Gregory imprinted on her eardrums and she could hear them as she hurried down the train. She was going to apologise to Neville, but she really couldn't help him. Not when any dignity she had, had been brutally shredded by a group of mean wizards and a witch.

"Wait, Hermione!"

Hermione stopped and turned around and stared at the approaching figure. Even whilst she was jogging, her hair swayed side to side gently. Burying her jealousy, she looked towards the ground.

"What is it, Lacerta?"

"I want to apologise to you on behalf of my brother," Lacerta said, "He is an immature eleven year-old and does not know when to shut his mouth. His language was disgusting and I hope you don't hold it against him."

Hermione didn't look up at her. She, too, was eleven and the twin sister of the said immature eleven year-old but she had no trace of the immaturity she accused her brother of having.

"It's fine, I don't even know what a Mudblood is, and judging by your brother's description, it makes sense that he called me one. I am one," Hermione said, still facing the vibrating ground. She wasn't just shaking due to her anger or her mortification but because of the moving train. It was just the moving train. She was trying to tell herself that, but she believed it less every second.

A hand touched hers and Hermione looked up in shock.

"No, it's a disgusting term," said Lacerta softly. "I do hope that you don't call yourself that."

She didn't say much else as she turned away from Hermione and danced her way up the train back to her carriage. Hermione, stood, a little confused but then went back to her own carriage, feeling a lot better than she had before.

Lacerta Malfoy was ashamed. She was disgusted.

We haven't been raised this way, her furious mind kept telling her.

Sure enough, Lacerta had heard her brother, Draco, say his fair share of curse words and often trumping her in their battles to see who knew the worst one. That was a game of the past. This was the present and they were supposed to be responsible with the things that they said. Yet he had found the worst word he could and had hurt someone with it and he had the gall to act as if he was in the right.

She had definitely not been raised this way and she cringed at the idea of what Mother would say if Draco had said what he had said in front of her. She honestly didn't know where her brother managed to get his bad habits. He definitely would not have learnt them from his mother; she knew that with a certainty. Her father may have condoned his comments, but - … Lacerta struggled to even find a justifiable explanation for what her brother had done. Seeing as Narcissa was no longer there with them and Lacerta couldn't tell on him (yet!), she would have to assert Narcissa's position and give him a good talking to.

She stormed into her carriage and glared at her brother. He was patting the seat beside him, inviting her to sit beside him. She wasn't going to sit next to him. Not after his little charade with that poor Muggleborn.

"You were out of line," that was all she was going to say to him. She was furious with him.

"Lacie, it was a joke." That was his excuse all the time.

"I'm not laughing, Hermione wasn't laughing. The poor girl was close to tears, Draco!"

"So what? She got an apology," Draco frowned. He is so incredibly childish! Lacerta thought, why do I always have to play the parent role?

"Not from the right person. Mother didn't raise you this way. She didn't raise you to demean other people. Hermione didn't make fun of you, there was no reason for you to act in such a manner towards her," Lacerta said angrily.

"That's because she had no right to -..." Draco paused, evaluating Lacerta's increasingly irate face. "Fine, fine. I was out of line. I won't call her a Mudblood for a month. Happy?"

"I want you to never use that term again, Draco."

"You're starting to sound like a bloody Gryffindor," Draco said distastefully. "Watch out before the Hat puts you in that no-good, Mudblood-infested, blood traitor House."

He had used the term again and Lacerta wasn't going to have any of it. She growled his name in a manner that she had heard her father use on him when he was being like a brat. He recoiled slightly.

"Fine, fine. Whatever you want, Lacie," Draco said wearily. "Will you take a seat now?"

Lacerta decided to take a seat opposite Draco and Draco slumped into his seat. He threw his arms around himself and sulked.

Lacerta smiled despite herself and leaned forward.

"You really need to return Neville Longbottom's toad. It's cruel to keep the poor creature in your filthy trunk for so long," she whispered and winked.

She wasn't that Gryffindor after all.

Hogwarts was a strange place, Hermione had to admit. So far, she was in the boats that needed no one to neither steer nor propel them forwards after a giant greeted them. He couldn't possibly be a giant. He was far too short to be one. Well, short in terms of giants that could be up to twenty feet. She closed her eyes to stop her mind from overflowing with statistics and figures about what she had read up on the Wizarding World. Her mind was always brimming with useless titbits of information. She just needed to keep it under control. It didn't help that she was in the same boat with the same redheaded boy that she disliked, and that Harry Potter was articulating questions that even the boy, who seemed to think that he knew everything, couldn't answer. Hermione knew the answers, of course, but she wasn't going to answer for the boy. That was the only reason why she kept her silence.

It was hard, though, to have to keep her mouth shut. She bit her lip in order to keep her mouth closed. Harry and his friend probably thought it was worry. It was, slightly, but it wasn't to the degree that they were assuming.

"Are you alright, Hermione?" Neville prodded her arm. She loosened her grip on the lantern in the boat and nodded. They had reached the docks they stumbled out of the boat. Other first-years were bustling around and following Hagrid up the long path that would take them into the Castle that Hermione knew was Hogwarts.

"I think I've lost my toad," Neville said sadly. "Forever."

"I'm sure he'll turn up, I've read that toads have magical powers...maybe Trevor will somehow find his way back to you," Hermione muttered. Her pool of knowledge wouldn't cease to bubble if she didn't say something. It settled in her mind after she had said it and she smiled.

"What are the four Houses anyway?" Harry asked. They were walking in front of her and Harry's voice floated backwards towards them.

"Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin," Hermione blurted out uncontrollably. She flushed. She had been a bigmouth again. "Sorry."

"I can see that you'll be a Ravenclaw," the redhead boy snickered. Hermione's blood boiled. He really was irritating.

"I wouldn't mind that," Hermione snapped. "Ravenclaws are wise and I thank you for the compliment. Though, I do wonder where they would place you."

He was taken aback by her answer and the following question. He narrowed his eyes at her, "I know where I'm going to be. I'll be Sorted into Gryffindor."

It was Hermione's turn to snicker, "You sound confident of that, too confident even, I do wonder what you'll do if you get Sorted into Slytherin."

He hissed, like the symbol of the House Hermione had just been speaking about. So, he would be perfect for Slytherin, Hermione mused to herself.

This was contradicted by a loud laugh behind her.

"Weasley, in Slytherin? Please, Granger, please do say something else, you do manage to make me laugh every time I see you." Draco Malfoy had arrived. Judging by his laugh, he had most likely heard everything that they were talking about.

Weasley, who had heard Draco, stiffened and turned around to face Hermione. "I don't want to be in Slytherin. My family have always been in Gryffindor. It's family tradition."

"Tradition?" Draco's voice broke in the incredulity. "I bet the Sorting Hat was bored of you Weasleys breeding like rabbits and decided that you should all go into one House so he didn't have to think about it."

"I could say the same about you, Malfoy."

"You could but you would not be able to draw parallels between us, Weasley, seeing as you're a disgusting blood -..."

Draco was stopped by his sister putting her hand on his arm and saying, "Enough."

She managed to say it with enough force to silence everyone in the vicinity. She was staring at Draco with a fierce expression, "Draco, that is enough. Weasley had enough right to say that about us since our family has always been in Slytherin. Do you really want to pick a fight before we've even entered Hogwarts?"

Draco glared at her and looked away, his cheeks reddening slightly. Lacerta seemed to take this for an answer and she turned to look at Weasley and said, "I do apologise for my brother's behaviour, Weasley, and I would appreciate it if you stopped thinking about hexing him now."

Hermione chortled in her mind. It seemed that Lacerta did have her own motives underlying her kind words. She was also observant as Weasley took his hand out of his pocket immediately, leaving his wand inside. Lacerta relaxed and smiled. She wound her arm around her brother's and walked, persistently away from them, not before flashing a smile at Hermione. Weasley shuddered in front of her.

"The Malfoys are a piece of work, the lot of them," he told an inquisitive Hermione, "They're untrustworthy little..." Ron assessed the crowd around them that had gathered as they neared a large oak door. Hermione could see that he was not going to finish his sentence.

"Lacerta is not too bad," Hermione interjected before Weasley could say anything more about the Malfoys.

"The girl?" Weasley asked Hermione, "I've never met her before and she wasn't there when Draco introduced himself to us on the train." He paused and mulled over in his mind and shook his head, clearly unsure about Lacerta. "Nah, she's probably got something up her sleeve. You heard her, her family are all Slytherins – Slytherins always have a plan."

Hermione remained silent as listened to Weasley's words over again in her head.

It just didn't make sense, how could Lacerta be conniving? She hardly seems like the type. Hermione frowned. Then again, I shouldn't judge a book by its cover. I know that much.

Her attention was grabbed as the jostling crowd in front of them parted because Lacerta seemed to be making her way back through the crowd of excited first-years. Hagrid had just knocked on the door and presented Professor McGonagall, a formidable looking woman who made a little speech about rules at Hogwarts. Hermione watched as Lacerta managed to edge her way backwards towards the four so she didn't interrupt the Professor's speech, when the Professor told them to smarten themselves up and swept away from the first-years, Lacerta took her chance.

She looked at Neville, directly, her pale grey eyes staring at him and making sure his absolute attention was on her. Hermione's attention was on her. She seemed to attract attention like a sore thumb and it was inevitable. Others around her were looking at her to see what she could possibly want with the round-faced boy that they were familiar with, the boy who had lost his toad.

"Is this the toad you were looking for?" she asked with a small smile. She reached inside her pocket and pulled out a rather large toad that contrasted with her pale hand.

"Trevor!" Neville exclaimed, scooping his toad into his own hands. He blushed as he muttered his thanks.

"It's alright," Lacerta winked before skipping back to where her brother was stood, managing to evade Professor McGonagall as she returned and told the first-years to line up.

Lacerta walked right past the other first-years so that she could stand beside her brother. It they were attached to each other, like Siamese twins. At first, Draco struggled against Lacerta's attempts to coil her arm through Draco's again but Hermione watched as she said something – something that made Draco redden – and he relented, letting her hold him close. Hermione stared at them in awe. She had never seen sibling love in such a manner before, as she had no siblings. She had also never been in such close proximity to the exceptional bond that twins shared and it was startling. Even though Ron was adamant that they were incapable of human emotion as that was how they manage to belittle others, Hermione could only see otherwise.

Weasley had also been watching and he told Harry under his breath, "See? They always have a Plan B when Plan A fails."

Hermione scoffed under her breath. She didn't want to listen to Weasley's tirade about the Malfoys and watch Harry adopt his opinion. It was typical boy behaviour and Hermione didn't want to get wrapped up in their intense power fights.

Draco was unimpressed when he had seen the ghosts and was more unimpressed when the doors of the Great Hall opened. He was also unimpressed with how his sister was acting.

She had played the hero perfectly, chasing after Mudbloods and apologising, stepping in front of a blood traitor and apologising and returning a toad to a half-witted fool, although, not apologising this time around. Draco's skin prickled when he even thought about the way that Lacie would lower herself into apologising to everyone around her. Malfoys didn't apologise, mostly because they were always right, but on the off chance, it was because they were too damn proud for their own good.

Now, Lacie had besmirched their proud name by apologising every time Draco made a single comment. It was tiring.

"It's just like the book said," Lacie murmured, her head was facing the ceiling and a wondrous look coloured her face. "The ceiling is enchanted to look like the sky outside."

"Obviously, books don't lie," Draco said stubbornly. Lacie looked down at him. Regretfully, she was slightly taller than him and she had to look down at him frequently and Draco didn't like it but she smiled, and that alone seemed to make Draco feel slightly better.

"Books do lie, sometimes," Lacie said with a smile. "Except, everyone says they are editorial mistakes instead."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Only you would know that." He was right. Lacie was slightly more bookish of the pair and had read almost half of the library at Malfoy Manor whereas Draco preferred flying on his broom. However, their interests continually crossed paths as Lacie was a good flyer, although not on par with Draco, and Draco did like to read his fair share of books, especially the White Wizard series.

Lacie held on tighter to Draco's arm and Draco looked at her inquiringly.

"You don't think that I'll be a Gryffindor, do you?" she whispered. Her tone had said it all. Draco's continual comments of her possibly being Sorted into Gryffindor house had taken hold and Draco felt a wave of guilt over himself. He ignored it for the time being.

"Serves you right, treating everyone fairly and apologising and stuff," Draco said with a smug smile. "If you wanted to be a Slytherin, you should have let me keep the damn toad."

"Language," Lacie muttered before saying, "also, it was mean to keep the toad. Longbottom looked like he would have cried enough to fill the Lake."

"So?"

"So, what if someone took Eltanin, how would you feel then?"

Eltanin was Draco's personal rook that Draco adored beyond any common owl. Where Lacie had been happy with Adelais, her common Scop owl, Draco had demanded to have a rook carry his post for him despite rooks being incredibly unlucky. He could remember the arguments that he had had with his Father over buying the bird but after throwing several tantrums and an incident with Accidental Magic, Draco won. Eltanin was the only thing that he loved above his father and his mother, and that wasn't going to change, not even if Eltanin foretold Draco of his impending death or the deaths of his friends.

He imagined someone, Neville was the first figure to form in his mind, taking his rook and holding it hostage. His heart began to palpitate at the thought of someone taking Eltanin away from him. He shuddered and he glared at his sister. She made me think of it and now I feel like my chest is going to rip open.

"I see your point," Draco muttered.

"Good."

"I do hope you're in Slytherin," Draco said, not looking at Lacie due to his embarrassment. "I do hope that I'm in Slytherin too. Father would be so proud of us."

"Don't worry, Draco," Lacie smiled as she stared at the Hat, ignoring its jovial song about the different qualities of each House – she knew them anyway, and she only wanted to be in one House – and she turned to him. "We'll be together, just you and me, like we always have."

Draco smiled in comfort. Not because the Hat had finished its song and the Sorting was about to commence but because of Lacie's words. She was right. They had been together, playing with each other since they could play, reading together since they could read, flying together since they could fly. Nothing was going to tear them apart. They were twins for goodness sake. They were too similar to dislike each other.

"Abbott, Hannah."

"HUFFLEPUFF."

"Of course, only the first person to be Sorted has to be a bloody Hufflepuff, don't they? That doesn't bode well for the rest of us." Draco muttered to Lacie. She had been watching the Sorting with great interest and was ruffled about having to tear her eyes off the sight of it for one second. Draco could tell that she was annoyed.

Especially when she made a comment on his language. And his manners.

Draco sighed. Sometimes he wished that Lacie wasn't so much like their mother. She had been trained by their mother to be polite in public and react to stressful situations with poise and grace. Draco chuckled under his breath. It had to be why Lacie apologised. She was simply following Mother's instructions.

"Granger, Hermione."

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Draco smirked. Of course, Granger would have to be in that House, the interfering Mudblood. Draco was thankful that he would be spared the mercy from sharing too many classes with her interference.

"Malfoy, Draco."

Hermione watched with little interest as the pale, proud Draco Malfoy stepped up to the three-legged stool and awaited his own Sorting. He needn't have sat down as the Sorting Hat immediately placed him in "SLYTHERIN!"

I guess Lacerta was right when she said that all Malfoys were Slytherins, Hermione thought. She shook her head. She had no reason to doubt Lacerta. Hermione tore her thoughts away from her, it was getting scary, the way that her thoughts seemed to have one common thread. Lacerta.

"Malfoy, Lacerta."

Hermione watched as Lacerta glided through the throng of first-years and made her way to the three-legged stool that her brother had sat on moments before. Her gentle movements were quite unlike her brother's hunched steps. Her hair had been pulled aside so that it rested on her right shoulder. Lacerta looked up, the flickering light of the candles reflected on her pale face and she watched as Professor McGonagall place the Sorting Hat on her head.

Draco had stopped on his journey to the Slytherin table and was watching Lacerta's Sorting with a hopeful look on his face. He was probably waiting for Lacerta, so that they could join the table together.

Her body was unnaturally straight as she awaited an answer. She had probably expected the Sorting Hat to place her in Slytherin quicker than it had. However, Hermione could tell that she was patient unlike her brother.

Lacerta's eyes widened and her mouth moved slightly as she spoke to the Sorting Hat. Her head shook more frantically and her face dropped and whitened, even though her face was so pale.

What is she complaining about?

Hermione's question was soon answered as the Hat shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!"

Hermione's jaw dropped, much like Draco's jaw had dropped across the Great Hall. He had stiffened and he turned around swiftly, hiding the redness on his cheeks.

Lacerta Malfoy was saying something to Professor McGonagall and her face was flushed with red. Professor McGonagall seemed to push her in the direction of the Gryffindor table, even though Lacerta didn't want to move. She had to, since the Professor had called out the name of the next first-year. Lacerta walked towards the Gryffindor Table, her head bowed and her steps lacking the grace they had before.

Hermione stood up to welcome Lacerta to the Gryffindor table as she walked reluctantly towards the table. When Lacerta looked up at Hermione, her eyes were burning pools of silver. A brimming pool of silver.

Note: Lacerta is a faint constellation, bordering the likes of Andromeda and Cassiopeia. It is also the genus of lizards and the constellation itself is referred to as "The Lizard". I pronounce it LA-SER-TA. In the story, Lacerta will be referred to as Lacie, a short way/modern way of saying Lacerta. (Unfortunately Draco doesn't get the same privilege - Dudley is already 'Big D')

Lacie is an original character. Please treat her nice.

From, Becky x