"It was a prank."

"Or the beginning of some sick revenge plan."

"Pansy, calm down. He was dared by one of his dumb friends, I'm sure."

"Draco, honey, listen to me. He has been through too much and he's finally snapped, we knew it was going to happen sooner or later. And he hates you. He always has. This is his revenge, we need-"

"Pansy!"

Draco was sat with his two best friends, three half-drunk bottles of Butterbeer on the table in front of them.

His heart was still racing. He could feel the blood pounding within him. However deep he breathed, the breaths didn't feel complete, and he felt like he was suffocating. Anxiety. He could recognise it now, though recognition had yet to lead to remedy.

"Hey?" Blaise said softly. Draco looked up into his kind, dark eyes. "Are you okay, hon?"

"Yeah," Draco lied, knowing that he was fooling no one.

"Well, you're going to be okay, all the same."

Draco smiled at the two of them, glad beyond description that they were with him. Blaise took Draco's hand into his own and smiled back. Pansy manically laughed. She leaned forwards, over the table, placed an arm around each of them and pulled them into a hug. "My boys!" she shouted, then said, "We need proper drinks."

Blaise squeezed Draco's hand that he was still holding before letting go. "I'll help you," he said. The trio disentangled and Blaise and Pansy walked to the bar.

Alone, Draco found it harder to ignore his thoughts. The events in the alleyway replayed in his mind. The concern instead of distrust. The hurt instead of hatred. Potter's face, guard dropping as soon as he recognised him. Draco. He called him Draco. And he looked happy to see him, just for a second. That couldn't be right as Potter had defences that were almost as thick as his own with absolutely no reason to lessen in his presence. Yet, Potter's emotions were sprawled across his face today.

Maybe the encounter was a joke or revenge like his friends believed, and the emotions as well that blue thing were part of it. It made little sense; then again, Potter was never exactly intelligent. But if it was real… The scream was still echoing in his mind. Potter protected him, the bastard, and what if he's not okay?

His train of thoughts were interrupted by Blaise, Pansy and three glasses of firewhisky. They sat down and Blaise gave Pansy a very pointed look. In her most monotonous voice, she said, "Potter probably isn't trying to get revenge so don't worry." Blaise rolled his eyes. Draco exhaled a deep anxious breath, then put on a smile.

A few drinks in and definitely buzzed, Draco could almost forget. Almost. It was made easier by drunk friends regaling him with stories of their past week. They were quite good storytellers, though Draco would never tell them in fear of the effect on their already overinflated egos.

They had been doing Friday-evening pub catch-ups for the past two years, once they were all settled into their new post-war lives. It was Blaise who initially suggested it, and Draco almost didn't make it past his apartment door that very first time – anxiety (though he didn't know its name back then) like quicksand in the corridor. As he watched the two idiots sprawled over each other laughing, he was so glad of the choices he'd made, of the path he'd carved for himself. Draco took another sip of his drink and laughed with them.

In a quieter moment, Draco felt his phone vibrate. He took it out of his pocket to find three missed calls and seven texts from Astoria.

"Shit. I have to go. I completely forgot, it's Ivy's birthday."

"Boo," Blaise said.

"No, don't go," Pansy whined.

"I have to," Draco said, reaching for his jacket and bag.

"But-"

"Don't worry. Go. Have fun," Blaise interrupted, placing his hand on Pansy's shoulder.

"Why don't you two come?" Draco asked.

"I have a breakfast date tomorrow, so thank you but no thank you," Blaise said.

Draco raised his eyebrows at him at this revelation – notoriously single Blaise Zabini was dating – then turned to Pansy. "What about you, honey? It's at a gay bar."

"Don't try to tempt me with the prospect of homosexual activity! You know that I don't care for the Muggle-lover or the Muggle," Pansy said, pouting.

"Pansy," Draco warned.

"Fine, fine. Bye."

Draco sighed. "Okay. I'll miss you guys."

"Us too," Blaise said.

Draco slipped out of the pub, already typing a text to Astoria as the evening air, still holding onto the day's warmth, enveloped him. A moment later, she apparated beside him.

"Six months, right? Then I won't have to be your chauffeur?" she said as a greeting.

"What will you do with all your spare time?" Draco said. He pulled her into a hug.

"I can think of a few things. They all involve my beautiful girlfriend. Funnily enough, we're meant to be celebrating her birthday today with our closest friends, but one of them was in a pub getting pissed without us."

"I know, I'm sorry, I completely forgot. It's been a weird day."

"Yeah well, 'sorry' means nothing without changed behaviour, right?" Astoria said with a blank expression, her words echoing the lectures he had heard hundreds of times since the war had ended. Draco looked down, anxiety resurfacing, another apology – a better apology – forming on his lips, when Astoria burst into laughter. "Shit, I can't do it."

"Huh?"

"I'm sorry. Ivy asked me to make you feel bad. I couldn't say no to a birthday girl's wish."

After a pause, Draco said, "I hate her." Astoria's laughter, as wild as she was, filled the evening again. "No, I'm serious. I think that you should break up with her. And you've loved me for longer, so you have to do what I want."

"You've never loved me in the way she does, though," Astoria said, winking.

"And I never will. Fine, you can keep her for now, but tomorrow, I'll begin my search for a replacement."

"Okay, Draco." Smiling, she held out her hand for him to take.

Draco remembered the first time he held Astoria's hand. She was a tiny thing, shaking, silent. That laugh, cold and cruel, was ringing in his ears and Draco wanted to scream. Instead, he walked towards her. He couldn't let this girl that he barely knew be killed before his eyes – Draco had finally reached that point. He took her hand into his own. "We'll fix it," he said, loudly, directed at the monster behind him. The green flash of light that he'd expected didn't come.

The second time he held her hand, it was the first day of the next part of his life, as though three years in a barely functioning department could absolve him of his sins. The three-year ban on magic-use, however, was a truer punishment. Of course, Draco knew that he shouldn't complain when what he deserved was Azkaban. Yet another debt that he owed Potter.

Instead of dementors and psychological torture, Draco was given the opportunity to change. He found himself the happiest and healthiest he's ever been, surrounded by friends that he loved, living as his authentic self, and trying to change his behaviour as a genuine apology to those he'd wronged.

Astoria was only sentenced to one year of the reformation programme and magic ban as she was younger and had put less bad out into the world and wasn't a Malfoy. Aside from the guilt that burned within him, she was probably the most important catalyst in him becoming the man he now was – a better man.

Draco placed his hand on top of hers. The next moment, they were in the cramped and very sticky toilet stall of a bar.

"You couldn't have apparated us outside the bar? It had to be in here?" he said.

"Hey, no more family money, remember? I'm saving those ten bucks for two shots. You're also saving your ten bucks for my third and fourth shot."

Draco laughed as they clambered out of the stall. Then he stepped out of the bathroom and immediately regretted leaving the pub. He felt a wave of body heat crash over him. The flashing lights left him disoriented and the bass that he felt pounding in his chest left him breathless. Astoria disappeared in front of him, but their interlinked fingers kept them connected as they weaved through the crowd. He noticed his mind withdrawing from the present, inch by inch, with each brush against a stranger too out of their minds to grasp the concept of personal space.

Just as he thought to pull Astoria back to him, to tell her that his day had been too much to now endure this, Draco made eye contact with a boy he recognised from the programme – Jake or Jack or something. He took a step back to find a whole group of vaguely familiar faces that he was almost certain he'd seen before, probably whilst intoxicated. He nodded to them as a greeting and realised that it was too late to leave now.

"Hey Drey."

He turned around to find the epitome of Muggle witchcraft smiling up at him. Dark green woven into her cornrows, smudged make-up, a tight black dress and punk rock boots. "Don't call me that," Draco said, having to shout to be heard over the music.

"It's my birthday. I can call you what I want," Ivy shouted back.

"She's right. She can," Astoria said, not having to shout in the same way as her voice was one that demanded to be heard. Turning to Ivy, she then said, "So I tried to make Drey feel bad-"

"Oi! You can't call me 'Drey' either!" Draco interrupted.

Astoria silenced him with a stare, then continued as though he had never spoken, "I tried to make Drey feel bad, like you requested my birthday princess, but the poor thing looked like he was about to cry so I had to stop."

Ivy laughed, hopping up from her seat and into Draco's arms. "You're a big ol' softy under all that cool, detached sexiness, aren't you Drey? I like you."

Draco awkwardly patted her back, muttering under his breath, "Well I don't like you."

"What was that?" Ivy asked, humour glinting in her eyes.

"Oh, nothing," Draco smiled tightly. "Anyway, happy birthday. I got you this," he said, pulling a small box from the inside pocket of his jacket.

Ivy opened the box and her mouth dropped slightly as she took in the gift. Draco had found this delicate gold necklace with an emerald pendant in the shape of a crystal from the antique store that Blaise works at, and as much as he pretended to dislike Ivy, he knew that he needed to get it for her. "Wow," she breathed. She looked up at Draco and said, "This is beautiful. I don't know what to say."

Draco shifted uncomfortably. "You don't have to say anything."

"Draco," Ivy softly said.

"You honestly don't. What's important to Astoria is important to me, and you're important to her. For now, at least."

Ivy laughed and said, "Thank you."

"Enough with the mushiness. She's right, Drey, you really are a softy," Astoria said.

"Shut up," Draco said with absolutely no malice in his voice. He took off his jacket and threw it into the pile of belongings that their group had created. Unbuttoning the top two buttons of his shirt as Astoria and Ivy whooped, he sang, "Shall we party, ladies?"