As soon as they got into Diagon Alley, Draco took his leave of the driver and his school friend. The older Crabbe looked confused, and Draco decided that his father had told him not to let him out of his sight, but he was not going to waste the precious freedom from the castle, the school and his father by spending it with a minder, and silenced his unspoken protests with a look. He promised to meet up with the two in a few hours for lunch and left them to shop for Crabbe's needs in peace, savouring the freedom, even if it was limited to one street of shops. Malfoy was a solitary creature, had been all his life. No one could blame him with his parents, who chose everything for him, even the people he was allowed to call friends. Now he sauntered at a leisurely pace down the street, stopping to inspect things in the shops for the first time, because all other times he'd had his father hurrying him past them.
On his way to Madame Malkin's Robes shop, he passed the wizard bank Gringotts, and saw the Mudblood Granger sitting on the pure white steps of the bank. He grinned to himself, she was alone, like him, and he could actually talk to her if he wanted, without his father's reprimand for 'fraternising with sub humans' or whatever to worry about.
"Hello, Granger." He stopped in front of her and she looked up, and scowled at him.
"What do you want, Malfoy?" He was quite taken aback by her reaction, he had been perfectly civil.
"Oh, I don't know, but I wouldn't be messing up the steps with your Mudblood." He countered. She stood and glared at him.
"Take that back." She approached him slowly and dangerously.
"Gladly, Hermione, I'm sorry." He made a face of fake contriteness. She watched him, confused, and then decided that it was genuine.
"You're forgiven." Her expression softened and she actually smiled at him.
"But seriously, the goblins have to scrub the Mudblood off those steps every day." His forehead wrinkled with concern, his hand on his hip, inspecting the steps.
She laughed, Malfoy was taken aback, she was supposed to be angry with him, that's how it goes. Then she punched him on the arm, but not in a nasty way, in a friendly way, he fancied. He could think of nothing to say to this. He'd never been involved in friendly 'banter' before; when he spoke he was either deathly serious or plain vicious.
"Get away from her!" Ron and Harry came running up, wands at the ready. "I swear if you touch a hair on her head." Ron pointed his wand at Malfoy's neck.
Malfoy looked at him, amused. At least Weasley knew the proper conduct. "You'll what? Wave a stick at me? You can't use that out of school, you know."
"No, but I can use this!" He raised his fist and went to grab Malfoy by his shirt.
"Oh stop it, Ron, Malfoy wasn't doing anything!" Hermione stepped forward looking amused and crossed her arms and rolled her eyes at him.
Ron looked from Hermione to Malfoy suspiciously. "He wasn't doing anything? He was being nice? Yeah, right." He glared at Malfoy, then let go of his shirt.
Malfoy saw that Ron's mother was coming up to greet them, and decided to leave. "I'll see you later, Mudblood."
He walked off, ignoring Ron who had just gone for him again, but was stopped by his mother. Glancing back at the group, he saw Hermione receiving a huge bear hug from Mrs Weasley, and felt a pang of jealousy. It quickly subsided as he smirked at Ron, who was scowling after him.
He sauntered off to the robe store, where he bought five new lesson robes and a dress robe of rich velvet black. His elation from the freedom surged once more, and he thought how immensely odd it was not to have his father or teachers watching over him again. It was rather confusing that Granger was nice to him, though, he had openly insulted her and she had laughed, as in joyfully, not nastily.
An hour later, he wandered up the street, going to Flourish and Blotts. He passed the little ice cream café that he was forbidden to go near, on account of the owner being muggle born. Granger, Potty and Weasel were sitting outside it; each had a huge glass of ice cream that looked to be changing colour the whole time. Weasel said something that was apparently very funny, because the other two laughed until ice cream came out of Potter's nose, which made them laugh harder.
Malfoy walked quicker, if they chose to waste their lives talking and laughing then that was their problem, he had better things to do than watch them.
After he had finished in Flourish and Blotts and got his other effects, including a new cauldron, he went in search of Crabbe, wishing to go home as soon as possible. When he did find him, he was chuckling with Goyle. Draco waited patiently for them to stop.
"Oh hi Draco, we was just talking about you." Goyle wiped a tear from his eye.
"Well that's, disturbing." He turned to Crabbe. "Where is your uncle, I wish to go home now."
"Err… right, he's in the leaky cauldron, he told us to meet him back there." He led the way down the cobbled street.