Matchmaking My Brother

What if Draco Malfoy had a little sister? What if she was sorted into Gryffindor? What if she happened to adore the muggleborn Head Girl and wanted to play matchmaker for her and her brother? Imagine the hilarity!

CHAPTER 1

The eleven-year-old, blond little girl paid no attention whatsoever to the commotion in front of her. As other first years lining in front of her stood nervously, waiting for their names to be called by Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, for the sorting session with the Sorting Hat; she threw her glance across the Great Hall, briefly at the four long tables occupied by students of all ages wearing four different sets of colors, at the staff table, and was now fixated at hundreds, maybe thousands of candles floating in the air just under the enchanted ceilings, which reflected the starry night sky outside.

Her mouth was open a little. She was quite amazed with the massive number of candles and the size of the hall, as well as the tallness of the ceilings. Not that she had never seen similar things before, in fact her grandiose manor home had a very large hall, too, which could accommodate maybe up to five hundreds people, and many of the ceilings of the two hundreds or so rooms were enchanted as well.

But, this Great Hall of Hogwarts was just… great. Quite much larger than the largest hall in the manor, with much higher ceilings and many more floating candles to light up the room. She was, simply put, quite impressed. And that said something, because she was hardly impressed by buildings, what with her home being one of the largest wizarding manors in Britain.

Hogwarts, however, was at least three times larger, and it had those soaring towers which the manor was lack of. In an instant, she dropped her gaze back at the commotion in front of her. Her sapphire blue eyes gleamed with exciting schemes and plans, and her cherry red lips curled up a little on a corner in complacency.

Oh yeah, Hogwarts was not disappointing. She couldn't wait to explore all halls, chambers and corners of the castle as she had used to do in the manor, making her even more expert of the great stone building than her parents, who had been living there for a considerable more time than her.

Forget about her brother, he wasn't even worth mentioning. That sorry excuse for a boy, although having been born six years earlier than her, might be familiar only with his living quarters in their West wing of the house and slightly with their parents' East wing. He barely even stepped his feet on her living quarters, let alone those for guests.

He was so lazy, took a real effort to get his lazy ass off the couch. Only during meal times and when their parents summoned him that he left his living quarters. Other than that, he ordered the house elves to do practically almost everything for him.

He was only lucky he was a fanatic fan of Quidditch and used most of his leisure times at the manor to practice the sport at their massive back yard, if not lazing around. Otherwise he would surely grow as much fat as his goons aka minions aka dumb bodyguards Crabbe and Goyle. Not that the gene in the family would allow him to be fat and chubby, though.

Speaking of that idiot of a brother, she had seen, from the corner of her eyes, that he had been beckoning to her to look at him from where he sat at a near corner of the Slytherin table, with the two oafs on each of his side beaming somewhat proudly at her (maybe because she was the sister of her brother? Could never understand the way those two thought. Did they ever think at all?).

Her brother had been doing so since she had first entered the hall. Not that she cared, she knew exactly what her brother wanted to say. He had been annoyingly nagging her on the issue since he had returned from his sixth year at Hogwarts for the summer break. He had even made the effort of dragging his feet to her room in the manor when she had refused to answer to his calls, which were conveyed millions of times (okay, not really millions, but very frequently nevertheless) by the house elves, just to remind her that she should be in Slytherin no matter what, or face being a disgrace to the family.

Indeed that was annoying. Even her sometimes very annoying father was not as annoying as him. Her father only specially spoke to her on the issue once, during which he drawled about the nobility of the Slytherin house, and how each and every Malfoy, since the first of them had entered Hogwarts, had proudly always been a member of the house, which accepted only the purest of pureblood families in the Wizarding world, excepting maybe that now dead half-blood maniac Voldemort, whom her father had deceived by pretending to be one of his Death Eaters for years but had actually backstabbed slowly but surely, reluctantly in favor to Dumbledore. Please, that man -her father- was too arrogant to let anyone order him around, thus the reason of his siding with the Light side. He was not that noble, really, to support the cause merely for the sake of defending goodness on Earth.

Apparently, her father was very confident that his cunning daughter would undoubtedly be a prominent member of Slytherin as Malfoys, including her poor excuse of a brother, had always had. She knew how both of her parents knew that she was brighter than her elder brother (not that he was stupid like his two goons, only not as thoughtful and sharp as she was), and her father especially was very proud of her. He seemed to have no slightest doubt that his daughter would never -for the life of Merlin- end up anywhere but in the Slytherin house.

Her brother, meanwhile, seemed paranoid that she would somehow end up in Gryffindor, which he always mentioned with disgust, calling the members of the house a bunch of idiot blood traitors and mudbloods who mistook stupidity and suicidal tendency with nobleness and bravery.

Well, her brother deserved at least a credit for never having it cross his mind that she could probably belong to Hufflepuff. Not that she was being prejudiced or anything like her brother and father, whom she often rolled her eyes at for their outdated pureblood mania. She just thought she was far from being too plain to be a member of that house.

To Ravenclaw she thought she could probably belong because almost every friend of her parents who ever met her complimented her so-called rather superior intelligence. But, even her seemingly-ignorant and dimwitted brother knew she was far from being merely intelligent, that she was also very cunning and often too alarmingly-scheming that Slytherin would happily take her and proudly announce her membership in that house to the rest of the world.

The source of her brother's concern, however, was that she was, too, rebellious and too daring for her own good, that she practically had no fear of anything (not that her brother needed to know that she did have certain fear on certain things that was better be kept secret), giving him a run for his money for it was nearly impossible to make her submit to him by threatening her, scaring her off or blackmailing her.

Heck, even their father's very much-feared wraths did not scare her the slightest. While he had been known to sometimes beat his son when he was very angry, he could barely raise a tone before his much-spoilt daughter. Even his wife had often been a victim to his wrath, though not in physical term. His daughter, however, could be the end of him.

Every time he was so angry and in rage, the anger or whatever that was causing his tone to alarmingly increase and his face to redden in madness would easily dissipate as soon as he saw the puppy-dog eyes of his much-beloved daughter, not that said daughter was not aware of her power over her father and how to make most of it. Who would have ever thought that the infamously mean and scary Lucius Malfoy could be so easily subdued by an eleven-year-old girl?

Anyway, that daring and fearless trait was definitely worthy of Gryffindor, which was why her brother had been somewhat panic. Imagine, the sister of the Slytherin Prince himself, Draco Malfoy, being a Gryffindor? He could be a mock everywhere he went, and no longer would he be able to insult the Gryffindor house in general because that would indirectly mean insulting a Malfoy, too, if -at the worst scheme- that prat that was his little sister was tragically sorted into the house.

Not to mention Potter and the other members of the Golden Trio could then have a little power over him, what with his sister would be within their reach and far from his protection. Not that he cared that much about protecting her, but an attack at her, a Malfoy, would naturally mean an attack at him as well. She could practically be his weak spot if she was ever sorted into Gryffindor. There was no way he could ever allow that!

His sister, however, did not actually mind being placed in the house founded hundreds of years ago by Godric Gryffindor. Imagine the reaction of her father and brother (her cool-headed mother she was sure would not be so troubled, although might be a little bit disappointed), it would surely make some good laugh! Besides, she was rather curious about the infamous Harry Potter and the rest of the Golden Trio, whom her brother had often ranted about. Maybe she could find something from them that could be a source of good laugh at her brother. For her own personal pleasure, of course. She was not that mean sharing laugh at her brother, however poor excuse of a brother he was, with his enemies.

Back to the problem at stake, although Draco was practically yelling at her now (he seemed to think he was still whispering and hissing although -for Merlin's sake- anyone within the radius of 100 meters from him could hear his baritone voice!), she only gave him a brief mind-your-own-business-I-don't-give-a-damn-care look before paying full attention to the headmaster, what with there was only another student in front of her now (she was at the end of the line because of having been too busy looking around before reaching the Great Hall).

And, finally, just after the fellow first-year left the stool of the Sorting Hat (the clumsy boy was sorted into Hufflepuff, predictably) and before her name was called, she puffed up her chest and raised her chin proudly -like any Malfoy should- and fixed her eyes at the Sorting Hat.

And when the headmaster shouted out her name, "CRYSTABELLE MALFOY!", which invited gasps from across the hall (geez, were they that poorly informed that Draco had a sister?) but the Slytherin table, who, again, beamed annoyingly at her (honestly!), she glided gracefully toward the Sorting Hat, taking it off the stool, replacing it with her bottom and putting it on her head, while the rest of the population in the Great Hall watched her between amazedly and curiously.

They were mostly amazed by her striking resemblance with Draco, especially because of their similar platinum blond hair, though hers was shoulder-length and a little bit wavy while his was short. Only a few seemed curious if it was possible for her to be sorted into another house beside Slytherin; the rest seemed more than convinced she definitely belonged to that House they didn't even bother thinking about another possibility. That was why, when the Sorting Hat loudly announced,

"GRYFFINDOR!"

everyone gasped in shock, the Slytherins stared at her in pure terror, and Draco practically fainted.

Crystabelle, meanwhile, beamed happily as she put back the Sorting Hat on the stool. She approached quickly the Gryffindor table -the occupants of which still stared at her in awe, her little feet made that rhythmic dance of little girls when they were happy and preoccupied with something. She smirked that infamous smirk of her brother while her mind repeated one sentence in sing-song tone:

"Fuuun, here I cooome … !"