It was a weekend in September, the first Hogsmeade weekend of the school year in fact, when Draco Malfoy made the decision to run away. He had been indecisive, balancing on a knife edge; swaying from one side to the other, for long time. Although he had planned for it on numerous occasions over the last years, being meticulous and cautious, taking care to every detail of his schemes, he had always backed out in the last minute.
The events that lead up to that fateful moment in his life was in many people's opinion quite curious, as one would think only the most shaking of experiences would lead to such a rash and dramatic decision and that weekend had been entirely (and meybe even suspiciously) uneventful for Draco until he did decide.
The moment we are talking about came when Draco found himself all by his lonesome, walking down the main street of Hogsmeade on an especially rainy day. He had for once chosen to travel without the company of Crabbe and Goyle, the two large, dimwitted boys who usually accompanied him wherever he went. Crabbe and Goyle, like most of the Slytherin students, had known Draco long before Hogwarts. The supporters of The Dark Lord, the Deatheaters, made a small and closeknit community where most knew each other at least by name, and though you shouldn't expect baby showers, barbeques and children's birthday parties in these social circles, he had been present at many tense dinners at which their parents did all the talking, and usually repeated the same topics over and over; The Dark Lord, their hate of mudbloods, muggles and muggle sympathizers and also an even stream of trying to one-up each other in the endless pissing contest that was life, and that way he had been introduced to many fellow Deatheater's kids.
It was actually this that Draco was pondering that day. He was thinking of the fact that his friends had been pretty much decided at birth just like everything else about him and wondering what Crabbe and Goyle thought of him; if they really saw him as the leader they treated him like or if they had the same feelings of discontentment at being paired with him that he felt at being paired with them. Or if they were simply too dimwitted to have thought anything of it. His bet was on the latter.
He also speculated what would have happened if he tried to get new friends, but he knew that that train had long since left and that that was part of the reason he kept Crabbe and Goyle around despite of the terrible lack of compatability he felt. He was and always had been rather hostile towards others and as a result others started acting hostile towards him. That's when having two burly stalkers came to good use.
That day however he had sent the two on their merry way to Honeydukes where they would no doubt gorge themselves on chocolate frogs while Draco was free to walk around alone the quiet town thinking. It was then, trudging down that street that a realisation came to him; he was the only one that were completely alone. Everybody else he had seen that day and everybody walking down that street in the current moment were accompanied by one or more people that they could call their "friends". Draco watched as a familiar gang walked out of the Three Broomsticks laughing. Four redheads was among them and he immediately recognized Ron Weasly who appeared to be bantering with his two older brothers while his little sister was talking to Potter and the mudblood girl. There were some others too, that Draco didn't care enough about to identify.
He felt his chest tighten uncomfortably at the sight of the happiness that seemed to emanate from the group and had to turn away from it, starting to walk in the other direction. That moment seemed to dislodge something in his mind and suddenly it felt to him like running away did not only seem a possible and attractive option, but also the only option; a necessity, as if he didn't get away now his heart would burst and the darkness and pain and anger he had so long felt bubbling below the surface would swallow him whole and he would drown. As if he had to get away, or else succumb to the oblivion he both desperately craved and feared.
And so it was that Draco Malfoy disappeared.