Potter!

A New Hogwarts

During the summer following the battle of Hogwarts, Draco spent most of his time surprisingly with Harry Potter. Who would've thought?

Eventually, just before he was due to retake his 7th year at Hogwarts starting in September, he visited his family home, only after endless nagging from Pansy Parkinson. She had insisted he go or she would never speak to him again. Little did she know, that if she knew that he had become great friends with the golden trio, she wouldn't be speaking to him again anyway.

Entering that house, after everything that had happened, felt like a regression. The last thing Draco wanted was to regress back into the hated slytherin asshole he once was. He had never felt so alive when he had finally shed that skin.

His mother greeted him with a loving hug, tears prickling in her aged eyes. But his father showed no affection towards him, glaring soulessly whenever he entered the room. Draco wondered whether he knew about him and Harry.

Towards the end of his short time there, he vowed that he would not go back there after he finished his last year at Hogwarts. Even in his 2 weeks he had almost let himself slip but once he'd owled Harry in secret, felt much better.

And finally he was on the Hogwarts Express, tumbling down the aisles, looking for a certain bespectacled boy who he was having withdrawal symptoms from after not seeing him for 2 whole weeks.

"Drayyycoo!" Harry called from behind him and he whirled round, grinning.

"We're in here." Harry chucked watching Draco bound down the aisle at speed and into a seat beside him.

"Well hello there," Hermione looked up from her book and smirked, "eager to see someone are we?"

She sniggered, and Draco narrowed his eyes at her willing her to shut up about his slight obsession with Harry that until Hermione had pointed it out a few weeks ago, he'd thought wasn't obvious.

"The Manor was hell. I don't think my father spoke a single word while I was in the room."
He laughed trying to remove the attention Hermione's statement was getting from Ron's raised eyebrows.

"Oh well," Harry rolled his eyes, "you don't need to go back there now, I'm hoping that you get an invitation to the Weasley's for Christmas!"

"Fat chance," Ron whispered under his breath, "He's still a Malfoy."

Draco pretended he hadn't heard it and continued to grin, but the words struck him like a knife in the chest, he would always be a Malfoy, a death eater, to them.

Despite what Harry and Hermione had thought, Ron still disliked Draco, and he felt it everyday he spent with them. He didn't blame him, he was the reason his brother was dead. And he wouldn't blame the Weasley's if they accidentally 'forgot' to invite him at Christmas. He was sure Christmas at Hogwarts was just as good. Anything to stay away from the Manor.

"Ron," Hermione hissed at him, kicking his foot, and gave Draco an apologetic look to which he returned a small smile telling her it didn't matter.

Harry clearly hadn't heard at all and was in his own dream world staring out of the window at the landscape flying by.

The hours flew by while he was with Harry, unlike the dragging hours spent at the Manor, each of which felt like an entire year. Soon they were entering the doors of the Great Hall. Everything was back in it's place, with the help of magic, of course.

Draco noted that the ceiling still twinkled with stars and planets as it had on the first day they arrived as little first years.

Leaving, Harry, Ron and Hermione behind at the door he made his way to the slytherin table and sat down next to Pansy and Blaise, who were actually the only other Slytherins to return for the 8th year.
They were chatting together enthusiastically, until Pansy saw Draco and jumped up, flinging her arms around him and smothering him in her sickly smelling perfume.

Draco caught Harry's eye from across the hall, and thought, for a second, that he saw a flicker of hurt. But as soon as Harry realised he was looking back at him, he grinned and rolled his eyes in a knowing way.

"Did you go to the Manor?" Were Pansy's first words.
Draco nodded and slipped into his seat at the tablet just as McGonagall stood up to welcome the new first years and some second years who were unable to attend last year.

Everything about the sorting ceremony and the feast felt normal to Draco and it was just what he needed. To be back at Hogwarts for another year. A normal year.

As he glanced at Harry, tucking into the mountain of food on his plate, he knew that a year could never be normal at Hogwarts, especially now he was friends with Harry Potter.