King Albus had outdone himself with the ballroom. Outside, the weather was bitterly cold, and it was shaping up to be the coldest Hogwarts winter on record; but inside it was crackling warm, like sitting by a good fire. The ballroom ceiling had been enchanted to mirror the star-spangled night sky. Every so often thick white flakes spiralled down to nestle onto people’s heads. Hermione was amused to see that Draco rapidly acquired so many snowflakes on his white-blond hair that they glittered like a circlet of diamonds. A sign that he would wear the Sorting Hat one day? She didn’t believe in portents of the future. But it was hard to deny that an indefinable sense of royalty dripped off him like cologne. If anyone in the room had been born to wear a crown, it was he.