1998 - a Draco Malfoy love story

Prologue - The Hogwarts Express

"I can't believe I'm sending you off for the last time!" mumbled a teary Molly Weasley, pressing Ginny, Hermione and Lily to her chest in turn, as Arthur and Harry unloaded the bags and cages.
"Mum, we're barely at the platform, you can at least save the tears until we get onboard," Ginny laughed, eliciting a scornful scoff from Molly, as the mother and daughter linked arms.

"Yeah Mum, you didn't cry sending us off for our last year!" Ron waved his hand, as George nodded in agreement. "Blatant favouritism."
"Ron, you didn't go to your last year of Hogwarts," Hermione laughed, to his indignation.
"Bloody right I didn't! Not sure about you Harry, but I'll be glad to be rid of the place. And to be rid of younger sisters." He quipped, pulling a face at Ginny. 
Harry only nodded, closing the boot of the Ford, and pushed over the cart with his own sister's suitcases,  Bathilda's cage piled precariously on top. "I'm glad you're going back though Lil, really. I think it's good." He smiled, pushing the cart towards the platform.

"I don't care what Ron says, you'll not be rid of me that easily," Lily gave him a playful shove, "I expect to see you in Hogsmeade every weekend, or I'll turn your girlfriend against you."
"You couldn't if you tried." Harry grinned wryly in response, but his supposed high spirits were unconvincing - none that of them had been back to Hogwarts since the battle, and she could feel his nervousness radiating out.

"Alright, let's cross, everyone." Commanded Molly, by now more than used to ring-leading her massive group of children (now adults-), both the biological and the ~unofficially adopted~.

Given her freckles and strawberry blonde hair, Lily E. Potter often did feel more like a Weasley than anything else - of course, she knew she got her looks from her mother, but until people heard her name they tended to assume that she was a Weasley, usually being spotted with at least one of them.
For her first few years at Hogwarts, teachers and students alike had consistently mixed up her and Ginny, both girls being in the same year. It didn't help that the two had quickly become close, making it all the more difficult to determine who was actually who.
"Are you sure she's not one of yours, Weasel?" One particular platinum blonde Slytherin second year had joked snidely in her first week. "Looks far more like a Weasley than a Potter, too many of you to keep track at this point."

To Lily, it was more than a compliment. Harry's admission to the Weasley family had blessed them both - to the Weasley's it was only obvious that Harry's sister receive the very same treatment as he had, an equality she didn't often receive considering her was, after all, The Chosen One. Her first time meeting any of them was in the August before her first year at Hogwarts, when Fred, George and Ron had arrived in the Weasley's bewitched car to rescue her brother and herself from 4 Privet Drive. She smiled, reflecting on the uncertainty of that night - piling her small suitcase of belongings into a flying car full of people she had never met - but Lily had no intention of remaining a prisoner at 4 Privet Drive, and her brother's absolute faith in the strange boys was all the confirmation she needed.

The only magic she had ever seen before visiting the Burrow was Hagrid giving her cousin a pig's tail a year earlier - and despite Harry's confirmation, she still was never truly sure whether she had imagined it or not - but visiting the Weasley's was incredible. Pots and pans washing themselves, the clock that would track them all, Mrs. Weasley's knitting that did itself. At age 10, she had learned from Harry that their own parents were wizards, but that not everyone with wizarding parents was guaranteed to inherit their talents - so she hoped all day and all night for a way to escape the Dursleys, and when Hagrid had arrived with her own letter on the November day she turned eleven (not trusting that Dursleys wouldn't attempt to prevent her attending, as they had tried to prevent Harry), she had been so overcome by joy that she had leapt into the enormous man's arms.