Full Summary:
Draco Malfoy grew up wanting nothing more than to make his parents proud, but his chance of ever doing that flew out the window the second the word "Gryffindor" came from the Sorting Hat a year prior. After that, he wasn't no longer a proper Malloy, he was an outcast. His friends abandoned him and his father all but disowned him, he was alone. Until he wasn't, then he almost wished he was because the three who became his friends seemed to cause nothing but trouble. Then again, becoming friends with Harry Potter has no way of being ordinary or completely safe. Still, getting wrapped in a dangerous mystery two years in a row was not what Draco expected, not exactly wanted. Not that he'd give it up for anything, however.
A/N: Hey guys! I'm so sorry this took a bit longer than expected to get out! I hope you guys like this chapter!
Draco Malfoy was tired. That seemed to happen a lot since he had returned to Malfoy Manor after his first year at Hogwarts; it was difficult to sleep when it felt like the shadows in the house were reaching towards him like claws, inches from grabbing hold of him and dragging him away into the darkness.
His father wasn't much help either regarding the whole failure to properly sleep thing—he seemed to be watching every single thing Draco did with an abundance of attention. He had stopped him more than once when Draco had been sending letters to his friends with one of the family's owls—never his father's or mother's, always one of the other ones—and threatened to take away his privileges of using the birds. So far he'd had no luck in stopping Draco, mainly because his mother had somehow convinced him that if he stopped sending letters to people they might start to get suspicious, not that there was anything to be suspicious of in her opinion. Still, it had been nerve wracking for his father to say that it was even a possibility that he couldn't write his friends, or his aunt, and—during the last couple weeks—his cousin Nymphadora, or Tonks, as she preferred.
His Aunt Andromeda had started talking a lot more about Tonks in the letters she sent him over the summer. Tonks was home until her second year of Auror training started in late August, which apparently meant that she was being even more reckless than before. At first nothing she said had really seemed that interesting, mostly just things about auror training, but after a few letters Andromeda started, in a somewhat mocking tone, telling him about the failed "romances'' Tonks had had during training, the pranks she had pulled on her fellow trainees (as well as on Andromeda and Ted) along with many other things that were entertaining enough that Draco wasn't always feeling like he just wanted to shrink into the floor of the Manor and hide until the first day of September. He'd started owling Tonks during the second week of July, partially because he wanted to hear things from her perspective and partially just because she seemed cool. Since then they'd been owling rather consistently, though not quite as often as Draco did with Ron and Hermione.
He had received his first letter from Ron two days into break, and from Hermione a week later. Harry hadn't sent him anything, nor did it seem like he'd received any of the letters Draco had sent him. After the first few letters came back unread, Draco had simply assumed the family owls had gotten lost—that happened sometimes when they delivered a letter to someone for the first time. But by the fourth time an owl returned with the letter still attached to its leg, Draco wasn't so sure anymore. He had asked Ron and Hermione in it in his next letter if they'd had the same thing happen, and had received the same response from both of them—Harry hadn't sent them anything, and their letters seemed to just disappear after they sent them.
There had been a couple of times in the past couple months when Draco had wondered if Harry's relatives hadn't let him send messages to his friends, like his parents had threatened to do to him. It didn't make sense that they would do that, however, and there shouldn't have been any way for them to have stopped him from reading the letters they all had sent him since June. Still, about a month into break he'd mentioned it in one of his letters to Ron, who seemed to agree that Harry wasn't responding because of his aunt and uncle. Not long after that Ron sent him a letter saying that he, Fred, and George had an idea on how to get both Harry and Draco out of their houses and to theirs, though it would be a little while before they could successfully pull it off. He didn't tell Draco much in any of their letters, in fact they barely mentioned it in the next few ones they sent each other. Not until about a week ago, that is, when Ron had written in the end of a letter that they were going to break them out on August 3rd, after dark.
So, Draco packed everything he would need for school, which was practically everything he owned at that point, over the course of the week before they were planning on coming to get him. It was surprisingly difficult to hide from his parents that he was putting everything into his trunk again. Usually they stayed away from him, and ignored him, but one of the house elves must have mentioned or hinted at the fact that he was packing everything up because they seemed to either come by his room every hour or so or just made him do things that didn't really need doing to keep him out of his room.
He warned Ron in his next letter that his parents were more on edge and might have made the wards surrounding the manor more powerful due to that, so he had to be careful when he came. Ron didn't really say much in response to that besides that they would be in and out before anyone even knew they were there.
On August 3rd, Draco didn't even bother going to bed. Maybe that was why he was tired, but at the same time he knew there was no chance he would be able to fall asleep if he tried, so he just pushed an armchair that was usually in front of his fireplace next to the window so he could wait there until Ron arrived. He had no idea how they were planning on getting him out, Ron hadn't told him that, though he highly doubted they would come by floo—that plan had too many flaws, could fall apart too easily, and it wasn't something Fred and George would even think of doing. It would probably involve some sort of flying however, that seemed like the kind of plan the twins would come up with, so he sat by the biggest window in his room, the one he had told Ron was his to make sure they went to the right one.
The night was clear, sky a dark, navy blue, sprinkled with silver stars, and trees swayed slightly in the distance from a soft breeze. Draco's room was warm due to the sun having shone directly into it almost the entire day, but still he shuddered a little where he was sitting in the armchair. He wasn't cold, if he was he could've just gotten the blanket off of his bed and curled up in it, but some part of him was nervous about Ron and the twins coming. Pacing didn't help, that Draco knew both from having tried and just from the fact that pacing never helped him release his nervous, pent-up energy. He stared out the window at the night sky, arms wrapped tightly around himself as he bounced his leg, fingers tapping irregular beats onto his upper arms.
There was no noise coming from any part of the manor, everyone had gone to bed, even the house elves had disappeared about an hour ago. The silence was almost more anxiety inducing than if there was some sound in the house, mostly due to the fact that if Ron got there and made any noise whatsoever, they'd be caught. He glanced around somewhat hesitantly, the shadows in his room once again looking like they were reaching for him despite the fact that he had multiple candles lit in his room to keep the darkness away. A shudder ran up his spine again and he turned back to face out the window, almost not noticing the sudden addition of two small lights among the expanse of stars in the distance.
Draco sat up straight and moved towards the window, his ears picking up on a faint rumbling coming from outside. He squinted out into the darkness, watching the two steadily growing balls of light as they got closer and closer, no longer looking as if they might be stars. A small, involuntary confused noise escaped him and he leaned against the window sill in an attempt to see better without actually touching the glass. Just as he did that, there was a sudden shimmer in the air around the lights, like small rainbows caused by light being shone through a crystal with dozens of edges. Whatever those lights were, or were attached to, had just flown through the wards surrounding Malfoy Manor, meaning his parents were likely both awake, or waking up due to whatever type of alarm was attached to the wards.
Draco bit his lower lip and looked around his room, eyes landing on the closed trunk lying on his bed. Whatever those lights were probably had something to do with how Ron, Fred, and George were planning on getting him out of there, meaning he would need to get that and bring it over to the window. The only issue with that was Draco was not strong enough to carry his trunk all the way to the window without help.
The rumbling outside grew louder, no longer sounding at all distant and Draco turned to face his window again, heart pounding, though if that was caused by fear or excitement he didn't know. The lights were close, probably only ten or so meters away, and he blinked in an attempt to see past them at what they were a part of, his room illuminating around him. If his parents hadn't been woken up by the wards, then they would be awake now due to all the noise whatever it was that was out there was making.
Squinting, Draco quickly unlocked the latch on the window and threw it open, letting a soft, warm breeze inside. The thing that the lights were attached to finally became discernible as it drew nearer; it was something that he had never properly seen before and it was flying decently quickly towards him.
Judging by the metal structure, the glass windows, and the four rubber tires, Draco assumed it was a muggle car, something he could vaguely remember Theo once rambling to him about. Back then he had mostly ignored him, because before he had met Harry, Ron, and Hermione everything that had to do with muggles had seemed disorderly and horrendous, wrong in some way or another. Theo hadn't seemed to share that viewpoint until they had started attending Hogwarts however, which in retrospect was sort of odd. Despite his lack of interest in what Theo had been talking about, he was pretty sure he would have remembered if he had mentioned that they could fly. It could have just been something that was newly added to cars, but he was pretty sure that wasn't the case, meaning it was likely flying due to magic.
The car suddenly turned so that the lights were no longer facing into Draco's room and moved closer to his window, coming to a stop just a meter or so away. The door closest to Draco opened to reveal Ron, who had a grin on his face, though he looked more relieved than excited, as he usually did when he was grinning.
"Ron!" Draco exclaimed and grinned back at him, a combination of relief, happiness, and slight fear coursing through him at the sight of his best friend after over a month of not seeing him. "How in Merlin's name is that thing flying?"
"My dad bewitched it, he loves messing with muggle stuff. C'mon, you got your stuff packed? George says we set off some sort of alarm wards back there, like you said we would, so we need to hurry, I think." Draco stared at him for a second before nodding. He pushed himself off of the window sill he'd been leaning against and rushed over to his bed, which was neatly made with his trunk laying on top of the blankets. Grabbing hold of the sides of it, he attempted to pick it up, only to have it slip from his fingers and nearly fall onto his foot, which he only prevented by quickly moving forward again to make it fall back on the bed instead.
"You need any help?" One of the twins, likely George due to the mole on the left side of his nose, asked. Draco jumped slightly and stared at him for a couple of seconds, his confusion likely evident on his face. He'd appeared at Draco's side as if he'd apparated, though that would have made noise and he was too young to do so anyways, meaning he must have just moved really quickly.
"How - I - Whatever… Maybe, a little help would be nice." The words came out more like a question than a statement and George smirked, grabbing hold of the trunk. The smirk quickly morphed into a grimace, eyes darting down to look at the trunk in shock before looking back up at Draco and moving to only hold one end.
"What do you have in here, rocks or something?"
"Shut up," Draco muttered and grabbed the other end of the trunk, helping George lift it. Together they carried the trunk across the room, moving around the armchair he'd moved before, not having realized it might have been in the way of getting stuff out the window. Just as they were about to reach the window the faint sound of footsteps echoed through the hall outside of his room, causing Draco to freeze in place. It was hard to tell whether they belonged to his mother or father, but neither of the two would be good right now.
"Hurry!" he hissed and looked frantically out the window to see that the car had turned again so the back was facing them. George quickly let go of the trunk and opened the back, then grabbed the trunk again, helping Draco hoist it up into the car before slamming it shut again. The car pulled away for a moment, turning as it did so, before moving closer again, the passenger door once again facing them. George climbed up onto the window sill and swiftly got into the front seat of the car just as the Draco's door swung open behind him, slamming into the wall beside it with a loud thud.
"Draco!" his mother yelled, her voice sounding both panicked and annoyed at the same time. "What are you doing?"
He turned back to face her by instinct, staring at her for a moment before spinning around again and following George's example, getting into the car beside Ron in the back seat.
"I'm sorry, mum," he said quietly, looking back at where she was still standing in the doorway of his bedroom and then pulling the car door closed. What he was sorry for, he wasn't really sure, all he knew was that he felt guilty for something.