Draco went into Olivander's shop alone, as his father had gone to run some errands on his own.
The boys he had seen minutes before were now running around just outside the store, flicking their new wands at random objects.
He couldn't help watching them in awe from the window.
He wondered if he should have gone up to them and started a conversation.
He wasn't exactly good at talking to people, not when his only company was usually his house elves.
After getting his own wand, little Malfoy decided to man up and try to talk to them.
He opened the door, then closed it back behind him as he left the shop.
One of them, a black haired boy, seemed to capture Draco's attention more than the other one, a freckled redhead.
There was something about him that he found rather intriguing. Maybe it was his eyes, they were incredibly bright and their intense green tone was outstandingly beautiful.
He hadn't noticed that he had been staring for a while, his mouth dropped, so when the mysterious boy came up to him and said "Are you alright?" Draco's pale face became so red that anyone would have noticed from miles away.
"Oh.. um.. yeah, I was just... looking for my father. See, I've just got my wand."
The pale boy awkwardly responded, proudly showing off his new purchase.
He wasn't sure the other boys would have bought it, so he hoped they wouldn't get weirded out.
The emerald green eyed boy flashed him a wide smile.
"Oh, my friend and I got ours, too! These things are so cool! Finally, I get to have my own!" He said excitedly, waving his wand around a bit.
His friend wasn't much of a talker, Draco observed. Must have been the shy type.
"I'm Draco, by the way. I suppose you're both going to Hogwarts?" The blond boy asked, after finally introducing himself. He felt a bit stupid for asking them that question.
Why else could they have gone there if not to buy their supplies for Hogwarts.
The black haired boy nodded. "Yeah. Name's Harry, and this one here is Ron." Harry said, pushing his friend forward.
Ron awkwardly waved his hand.
"Nice to meet you Draco." The redhead managed to say in a quiet tone.
"So what house are you hoping to get into?" Draco asked, trying to break the ice with the two friends.
"Gryffindor." Harry and Ron said in unison, both smiling proudly.
Draco suppressed a grimace.
His father had told him all the worst things about that house.
He had said that Gryffindors were weak, Slytherin wannabes who would spend their time in Hogwarts trying to get all the attention they could. Playing the heroes of random situations was their favorite pastime, it seemed.
"You?" Harry asked, interested.
"Slytherin. All my family members used to be in Slytherin, so I'm aspiring to follow in their footsteps." Draco responded. Ron gave Harry a look.
Harry noticed that his friend was starting to feel a bit uneasy.
It was probably because of what he had just heard.
They had been told that Slytherins were horrible people who would mostly end up as ruthless criminals.
Lucius Malfoy had been one, for example, and their parents surely didn't describe him as a kind man.
"Cool." Harry simply said.
This difference, though, didn't put them off.
The three boys ended up going to Florian Fortescue's ice cream parlour to try his famous Butterbeer cup.
Ron even opened up to Draco and the three of them began forming a bond.
When you're eleven years old, making friends is not the hardest task.
They chatted about how excited they were to start school in Hogwarts.
Ron's brothers had all told him that those seven years would have been the best years of his life, so he had started counting down the days to the first day of school.
Draco saw it as a much needed break from the monotony of his own house and the constant fear of his father.
He had never tasted anything similar to the ice cream he had just put in his mouth, it was sweeter than fruit, the only sugary thing his parents had allowed him to eat.
Ron and Harry were definitely fun, much better than Crabbe and Goyle.
They were also pretty quirky.
He watched, amused, as the two of them ate their icy treat as if they were dogs.
He found himself hoping that they wouldn't be mudbloods, or his father never would have let them be friends with him.
Having them in Slytherin wouldn't have been awful, either.
The two best friends seemed to find Draco, entertaining, too.
They had never had house elves or been home-schooled by a powerful witch, so they were visibly interested in his house events.
"Are elves always obeying you? Even if you ask them to tap dance on the table?" Harry asked, curious.
Draco nodded, while swallowing a spoonful of ice cream. "They're the only way I can have fun in my house, really. It gets lonely sometimes." he replied.
Harry looked a bit thoughtful. He couldn't imagine spending all those hours alone, without his parents or his friends, or even his school teachers.
He felt a bit bad for the poor creatures, though. He really considered himself lucky that he wasn't a house elf.
"You said you're only child, right?" Ron asked.
"Yeah. Wish I wasn't though. I forgot how many times I begged my parents to make me a little brother or sister." The grey eyed boy informed. He had never said anything so personal to anyone else in his life before, not even his so called 'friends'.
"Oh, trust me, it's not all fun and games. I have six siblings. It gets crazy, most of the time." Ron chuckled. "And, also, the attention is divided by seven, so I hardly get any."
Draco was amazed by that information. Seven children in one house? That would have been messy, but, probably they would have fit in his gigantic home.
The divided attention bit, though, made him glad that he was an only child.
He rarely got any attention from his parents, him being their only son, imagine being one of seven.
Just when Draco felt that he was, maybe, becoming friends with the other two, a loud 'thud' broke his trance.
It was his father's walking stick, which had just hit on his chair.
Ron and Harry both jumped back, startled.
Draco froze in horror, then he turned around slowly, fear in his eyes upon seeing his dad.
"Draco Malfoy, where in the world have you been? Didn't I tell you to wait for me outside the wand shop?"The man spat, looking furious."Why must you always be so disobeying?"
Malfoy. The word resounded in Harry's mind. It was the name of the colleague of his parents whom they felt so much hatred for. Could Draco have been the 'kid from hell' that his parents wanted him to stay away from?
The man right beside him matched the description of the terrible Lucius, too.
"Sorry, father..." The blond boy murmured, looking down in shame.
"Ah," said Mr Malfoy, noticing the presence of two other children. "I see you've got company." he smiled with his mouth closed. "May I ask who your new friends are?"
Just as he asked, a worried Arthur Weasley came running to their table.
"Lucius, what on Earth are you doing around my son? I thought we agreed on leaving our children out of this." Mr Weasley said, putting two protective hands on both his son and Harry's shoulders.
Harry's theory had just been confirmed.
Lucius Malfoy quirked an eyebrow and slightly opened his mouth. "Your son? I should have seen the resemblance there. Same carrot cake hair."
"Just stay away from my son and Lily and James'."Arthur glared at him intensely.
"You keep those filthy creatures away from my child." Lucius replied in kind, then he addressed his son. "Draco, you're seriously hanging out with a blood traitor and a son of a mudblood? I consider myself extremely disappointed in your socialising choices." He growled, along with a disgusted expression painted on his face.
Oh, no, those two kids belonged to two of his father's most detested categories.
"I didn't know that..." Draco defended himself.
"Let's go, immediately." Lucius said sternly. He then proceeded to grab his son by his hair, forcing him to get up.
Arthur urged the remaining boys to follow him and leave, although he wasn't as aggressive.
Draco winced in pain for the whole time that his hair was in his father's grasp.
When he finally let it go, Lucius pushed him forward abruptly with his stick.
"Draco, you listen to me now. You better not fraternize with those two... pieces of scum. When you go to school with them, either ignore them or make his life unlivable. You understand? If I get informed of the contrary, I tell you, you won't simply get away with a hairpulling." The father threatened in an almost shout.
Draco could only nod in response.
He kept looking over his shoulders as he walked, though, and Harry and his friend seemed to do the same.
"What were you thinking? Eating ice cream with Malfoy's son?" Mr Weasley reprimanded in a rage.
"We had no idea, he didn't mention-" Ron tried to explain, only to be cut off.
"I don't care. You are not to befriend him, his family is dangerous. Not only did they threaten James and Lily to set their house ablaze, but also, he was on The Dark Lord's side in the war that took place around ten years ago." Arthur explained, still livid with anger. "When your parents will find out about this, they surely won't be happy, Harry."
Harry didn't want his parents learn about that, but Arthur Weasley would have totally told them about that. He would always let them know whenever he did something he shouldn't have done.
Also, he couldn't help feeling somewhat betrayed by the blond boy.
He thought he had met someone cool that he couldn't wait to for a friendship with in Hogwarts, only to discover that he was the son of a horrible person who had probably even killed people throughout his life.
Just as it had been predicted, his parents scolded him at home.
"We explicitly told you not to make friends with that man's child." James told him, once they were all the dinner table.
"I told you, dad, I didn't know that he was his son! He didn't say his last name!" Harry argued.
"We told you that his name was Draco, though." Lily added.
Harry thought about it. He didn't recall the moment they had told him, he had probably been distracted. It happened to him quite often.
"Well, I think I'd forgotten..." the boy muttered.
"Harry, dear, we're just looking out for you. If that boy lives with his father's influence, you are not to engage in pursuing a friendship with him. He's surely vile." His mother said, lowering her voice. She took one of his hands in hers and caressed it softly.
"So, when you go to Hogwarts, stay close to Ron and his brother, OK?" His father indicated.
Harry nodded his head, sighing.
His mum and dad ended up grounding him for a week, only because he had bought ice cream with that pallid faced boy.
He knew that they were worried about him, but felt it was a bit to excessive to punish him for something so innocent.
However, he didn't want to disappoint them further, so he decided to follow their instructions.
At the Malfoy manor, Draco was lucky that his father had spared him a beating even if he was still heavily infuriated by his actions. What saved him was the fact that he had not known about the boys' provenience.
As he lay in his bed, that night, the young boy promised himself that he would have done anything to make Harry and Ron's time at Hogwarts impossible to endure.
It was the only way he could forgive himself for letting his old man down in such a way.
On the first day of September, Harry, Ron and Draco stepped foot into the immense castle for their first time ever.
Before the House Assignment ceremony had the chance to start, the blond boy, sided by his 'henchmen', swept his leg forward so that Harry, Ron and their new friend would trip.
Said friend was a very unpleasant, as well as muggle-born, girl.
On the train ride from King's Cross to Hogwarts, Harry had spotted a girl who he'd felt looked very familiar...
Not much later it had hit him, it was none other than his muggle best friend, Hermione Granger.
He had even cleaned his glasses multiple times, thinking that maybe he had been wrong.
When Hermione had seen him she had been shocked, to say the least.
"Harry? You're a wizard too?" She'd asked, her hands covering her mouth, her eyes widened. "It's all coming back to me now! That's why I could never visit your house!" She had giggled.
Harry glared at Draco intensely, once he found his balance again.
He would have hated that boy with a burning fire.
Unsurprisingly, the now git was sorted into Slytherin, while Harry and his two best friends went in Gryffindor, where the rest of the Weasleys welcomed them with open arms.
