[4] UNREQUITED ENEMIES ━ Draco Malfoy

01. Be Safe, Please

ONE BE SAFE, PLEASE

Platform nine and three quarters are different that year. Diana and Xander are both of age now, but Xander feels as if he is decades older than seventeen with what he went through the last term. Jo and Alecks are standing on the platform with him and he knows his sister doesn't want to let him go. He's just glad she won't be alone while he's gone and he knows she's thankful for the same time. He knows Alecks will have Jo and she knows Xander will have Diana. Once upon a time, Xander might have had Draco, too, but the boy was nowhere to be found. Apparently, his family had pulled him out of Hogwarts following his assassination attempt of the headmaster. Well, former headmaster. Still, no one bat an eye at Malfoy's disappearance, and Xander was the only one who knew the truth. Diana knew, too, after Xander told her in a tear-stained letter. He cried over that night in the astronomy tower for most, if not all, of the summer. He couldn't get Draco's voice telling him to run out of his head. He wanted nothing more than to know if the boy was okay.

"Please for the love of God, no troublemaking this year," Alecks's spoke wearily as she hugged her younger brother tightly, her hands twisting in his black tendrils of hair he had let grow longer than they should. Normally his mother cut his hair, but Alecks hadn't quite figured out how to get it where he liked it. She tried, though, and that meant everything to him.

He still through of his mother every night. His tan hands gripping at the necklace he never took off every time he woke up from dreams of the astronomy tower, the flash of green, the dark mark on Draco's arm. He got chills just thinking about it.

"Let the kid breathe," Jo attempted to lighten the mood as a small chuckle escaped her lips, but all of them, even Jo, knew that something had truly changed at Hogwarts. Upon the news of Dumbledore's death shaking the wizarding world at its core, Alecks almost hadn't let Xander go back. He couldn't imagine her reaction if he told her that he had almost been murdered by death eaters last June. He figured that was a piece of information best left to himself.

Alecks sighed and let go of Xander, her hand cupping his cheek for just a moment, muttering, "Please be safe, I mean it."

"I will, I will," Xander smiled reassuringly, but even he didn't quite believe it. There was word that Snape was going to be headmaster following Dumbledore's death and Xander already knew that trouble would follow him and Snape was going to make sure of it. Xander didn't know how he was going to be able to look the man in the eye knowing what he did.

"Xander! There you are!" the familiar voice of his best friend, Diana Hyde, exclaimed as he was all of a sudden engulfed in a bone-crushing hug. He was thankful to have Diana's arms around him as they hadn't gotten to see each other over the summer and had somehow managed to miss each other at Diagon Alley. Still, he was just glad she was here. She held him tightly, crushing her face in the nook of his neck as one hand held the back of his neck as if he was going to try and run away. Then again, she almost lost him last year. He still could hear her cries as she tried to chase after him while a death eater's grip was searing into his skin. If he brushed over his upper arm, he could almost still feel the bruise it left.