Ex-Friends || A Drarry Story

Three:Two

His room was his safe space, his only area in his entire house where no one but him was allowed in. Well, that didn't always mean he was safe from his parents in Malfoy Manor. Usually, his drunken mother would stumble her way to Draco's bedroom, bringing the stench of expensive wines and spirits with her, her breath reeking as if it were trying to escape from her mouth.

"Your father wishes to see you," she slurred one evening. His father, Lucius, was out with some of his Death Eater friends, possibly speaking about the recent escape of Sirius Black, known Muggle killer, allegedly a close follower of the Dark Lord. But Draco had never heard his name before he escaped from Azkaban, the infamous wizarding prison. No one escaped from there before.

Draco went back to his books until his mother stumbled away and, once she was out of earshot, he shut his door and quietly opened his window. The summer night was warm and stuffy, making the hair on the back of Draco's neck tingle. There was a slight breeze that made Draco's hair sway just a little bit.

How he could admit to himself that he longed to be out of his parents' reaches once again, he wasn't sure. Maybe it was how the quiet yet bustling business of Hogwarts enticed him so. Perhaps it was his friends that he missed. Even Theo, Theodore Nott, would be appreciated, his bubbling energy quite different from his own.

Draco leaned his head out of the window, breathing deeply. He loved the smell of the grass, all of the flowers in the gardens, the way the petals of some were soft as silk to the touch. His mother and father never allowed him to play in the dirt as a child, because, "It's not the Malfoy way."

But the Malfoy way seemed to be a joke to him. No dirt, no messes, tidy when told to, boss around the house elves to tidy for you so that you never lifted a finger, do your school work, never read Muggle books, only the ones approved for you in the Malfoy library, the list went on for ages more.

Draco had never felt this way about his family before. He always obeyed, always did exactly what he was told. . .yet his parents never seemed to appreciate it. They always had something to complain about.

Closing his window, Draco swore quietly. "Don't think ill of them, they're not idiots at least. Not like. . ." Stopping, Draco pictured Potter's face, the way his eyebrows twitched whenever Draco looked at him, the way his glasses slowly slid down his nose when he spoke excitedly, how amazing he really was at Quidditch.

"You really need to stop doing this," he murmured, shutting his window with a snap.

All summer, his mind would race and race until it finally halted at Harry Potter. He had saved his life twice now, once in their first year, when Draco had almost been strangled by that blasted Devil's Snare. The second time was just a few months ago, when Draco had been coerced by Tom Riddle's piece of spirit in a little diary.

Draco was often alone, but at least his friends wrote to him often. Theo rambling about his increasingly odd visions, but Draco often chalked it up to dreams. Sometimes he had dreams and then, days later, the events would transpire into reality. Theo insisted something was going to happen this year, something big. Caused by a rat.

Sighing, Draco folded his hands over his stomach, looking at the ceiling. He wondered what Potter was doing. How his Muggle family was treating him.

Better than this, I suppose.

===========================

Percy scrambled for every last Knut he could find in his bedroom before counting them all out: eleven Galleons, nine Sickles, and eleven Knuts. His heart sank. He knew he couldn't just conjure up a thousand Galleons from thin air.

There was a knock on the door and he threw the money into a bag, scrambling up to answer the door. It was his mum, Molly Weasley.

"Honey," she began softly, and Percy wanted to break down again right then and there. He wanted to hug her and be held again and tell her how awful the twins were behaving, blackmailing him so. He felt like crying. Again. "You've been holed up in your room all week."