A/N: Alright, I haven't done one of these in forever, but since this is the last chapter, I think its's sort of necessary. Thank you guys so much for reading, reviewing, and so on, this fic! It means so much to me that people enjoy my writing, and take the time out of their day to read this and even tell me that they enjoy it. I have loved reading every one of your guys' reviews. Unfortunately, however, this fic has come to an end. That definitely doesn't mean the story is over, I'm already working on the next fic in this "series", I guess you could call it. It'll likely be posted in about two weeks, and it's called Trails of Darkness if any of you would like to read it when I post it. Anyways, I have had so much fun writing this, and I hope y'all have had just as much fun reading it. I have created some art for this fic, btw, it'll be on my tumblr (writing-is-hard-af) soon, so... y'all can check that out if you want to. Okay, enough of my rambling, enjoy the last chapter!

The next day, the last day at school before they all left and went back home, was a lot easier than the ones before. None of them were worried about Harry anymore, at least not as much as before, and Ron, Hermione, and Draco all decided to leave him alone for the day knowing that he needed rest. There was a higher chance that he'd be able to come to the end-of-year feast if they left him alone, plus, Draco was pretty sure Madame Pomfrey wouldn't even let them near the door to the Hospital Wing, let alone inside of it.

The morning was spent sort of milling around outside, it was warm out, the sky was clear, a brilliant bright blue that spread for miles in all directions around them. Birds, which Draco had never noticed nor heard before, sang up in the trees, both at the edge of the forest and the ones scattered across the grounds. The good weather disappeared after lunch, however. Storm clouds pulled over the castle, rain abruptly pouring from their grey depths, lightning crackling, thunder booming, and a silent agreement seemed to pass between all of the first year gryffindors, the guys at least. All five of them—Ron, Draco, Dean, Seamus, and Neville—went up to their dorm after they were done with lunch, Dean and Seamus joking around with each other, and Draco, Ron, and Neville talking about their exams, which Draco had in all honesty mostly forgotten about until they had been told that morning that they would get them back later that day.

"How long do you guys reckon it'll take us all to pack?" Ron asked as they walked up the staircase to their dorm room, and Neville shrugged a little bit. It surprised Draco that he hadn't been even remotely nervous around them since they'd put a full-body bind curse on him. Most people would've avoided them like they would curse them again if they got within a five foot radius. Neville, however, had only been slightly hesitant the first day after they had cursed him and then gone back to normal. It was odd how forgiving he was, like they had never done anything wrong.

"All of us, or just you?" Draco asked and Ron shot him a partly amused and partly annoyed look, his eyebrows raised slightly.

"I just said all of us." Draco shrugged in response, trying not to grin.

"Yeah, but knowing you, you'll take much longer to pack than I will because you'll keep getting distracted. You have a very short attention span, Ron," Draco said and Dean snorted in front of them, turning back to face them as Seamus opened the door to their dorm room.

"He has a bit of a point, Ron. Seamus is the same though."

"I am not!" Seamus snapped and Dean just laughed, following the other boy into their dorm. They both went over to their beds and Draco, Ron, and Neville did as well, Ron with an annoyed frown on his face.

It was odd, Draco thought as he pulled his trunk out from under his bed, how much his relationship with everyone in his dorm had changed since the beginning of the school year. He had hated all of them at first, had resisted the urge to find hexes to throw at each and every one of them just because he found them annoying. Their loud and sometimes obnoxious behaviour had driven him mad, and he had tried to spend as much time away from them as possible. Harry and Ron became the exception after a month or so, and Neville became more tolerable after the Hufflepuff vs. Gryffindor quidditch match, but Seamus and Dean were still annoying to him until they got in trouble because of being caught out after curfew when they tried to sneak a dragon out of the school. Pretty much everyone else in Gryffindor had hated them because they lost them so many points, the Slytherins had made fun of them for it, and the other two houses had been angry at them for putting Slytherin back in the lead. Seamus and Dean had been surprisingly fine with it; sure, they had been annoyed that they had lost points, but at the same time they both (though it was more Seamus than Dean) thought it was cool that they had snuck out in the first place.

Draco glanced over at the two of them as he threw his trunk open. They were joking around again, something that Draco hadn't realized until then they had sort of stopped doing while Harry was in the Hospital Wing, unconscious. It was sort of strange to think about the fact that they had their own group of friends with two of the gryffindor girls—Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown—, they seemed like it was just them sometimes. He had seen them around the girls, and they were different then somehow, though it did make Draco wonder whether Hermione might be friends with one or two of the girls as well. She never interacted with them, however, which was a rather odd thing considering she had lived with them for nearly nine months already, then again, she did spend most of her time with Harry, Ron, and Draco or in the library, she probably was only in the dorm when she was sleeping.

Draco shook himself out of his thoughts. Since when did he think so much about the other people in his year? He sighed slightly and returned his focus to his trunk; he hadn't emptied it completely in the beginning of the year. Technically, he hadn't taken anything out of it until about a month and a half into school, part of him had thought they were going to discover a mistake and move him to Slytherin, or that his father would come and drag him off home, so he hadn't unpacked his things until the very beginning of November, after he had sent his first letter to Aunt Andromeda.

I should probably send her an owl… Draco thought distantly as he frowned down at the mess of unused quills, clothes that weren't his uniform, scraps of paper and parchment, books he had put in there because he didn't know what else to do with them. The potions book— Moste Potente Potions — that Hermione had given him for Christmas lay in a corner of the trunk, binding still in perfect condition due to it only having been opened once or twice. He picked it up and put it on his nightstand before taking a deep breath and turning his trunk over so that its contents spilled out onto his bed. A few things rolled onto the floor, but most things stayed on top of the blanket. Ron glanced over at him and raised a questioning eyebrow even though his trunk was just as much of a mess, possibly more of one, and needed to be sorted through as well. Draco raised his own eyebrow and Ron rolled his eyes and looked away, though a small amused grin tugged at his lips as he did so.

For the next hour or so they all mostly packed and organized their stuff in silence, even Seamus and Ron seemed focused on it and barely spoke. Draco stacked all his books onto the bottom of the trunk, creating a layer of books that covered the entire bottom of it, and then began to fold up his uniform—first the shirts, then the pants, then the sweaters, then the robes, and so on—, stacking them on the right side of the trunk, and his non-uniform clothes went on the left side.

"I thought I lost this!" Neville yelled suddenly and Draco looked up from the quills and ink bottles that he was rolling up in unused scrolls of parchment and his socks so that they hopefully wouldn't break. He really wished he knew how to do the spells his mother had placed on everything that might break in his trunk before school, but even though he had found them in books in the library, they all seemed too complicated.

Neville was holding his remembrall in his hands, staring at it in wonder. For once, the smoke inside it didn't change color, and Neville was grinning at it instead of frowning. "I couldn't find it when I was packing for Christmas and I was sure I'd forgotten it somewhere and wouldn't find it again…"

Things sort of got more talkative after that. Neville began to chat with Seamus and Dean, while Ron started making predictions about what their grades would be.

"Either you'll be the top of the class, or Hermione. Nobody else in our year is as good as you two, not even the Ravenclaws or Nott," he said while Draco was putting the rest of his paper—besides two pieces that he was going to use to write a letter to Andromeda— into his trunk. Draco raised an eyebrow at him, partially because of the small mention of Theo, and partially because Ron thought he was smart enough to be top of the class. "Harry probably got really good marks in Defense Against the Dark Arts, even though Quirrell was You-Know-Who, he's probably the best in that class."

"Who knows, Ron, we'll find out tonight after the feast when we get our results back." Draco rolled his eyes and closed his trunk, placing it at the end of his bed on the floor. Ron hadn't commented on the fact that he had finished before Draco yet, so it seemed like maybe he wouldn't.

"I know, but it's fun to guess!" Draco scoffed but didn't say anything as he glanced over at the clock hanging over the door, which said that it was six thirty. His eyes widened for a moment, and he blinked. Had they really been in the dorm for six hours, just packing? How had it taken that long?

"We need to get to the feast," he said and Ron followed his gaze, eyes widening a bit before a grin spread across his face and he sprang to his feet.

I guess I'll write that letter to Aunt Andromeda later... Draco thought as he followed the redhead out of the dorm, quickly followed by Dean, Seamus, and Neville, who all seemed to realize where they were going.

At least half the school was already in the Great Hall when they arrived there, chattering loudly with one another. Ron and Draco slipped into the empty spaces beside Hermione, who must have come down with the girls from her dorm. The food was already spread out on the table, the same amount as there was at the beginning of the year feast, though this time it actually looked appetizing, unlike back then, when everything felt a little bit like sand due to the fact that he was scared of what would happen over the next year. He had a right to be scared, though it didn't turn out even close to as bad as he thought it would; he had three best friends, who were sort of dangerous to be around but still, he had started talking with his aunt, he had a place he could go over the summer that wasn't his own house. Things had turned out way better than he had expected they would when the hat had called, "Gryffindor!" back on his first night in the castle.

"I never realized how difficult it would be packing to go home. I have more stuff than I did when I packed up at home after Christmas, not to mention the fact that I didn't even pack everything when I went home for Christmas. I have so many assignments that I wanted to take home and show mum and dad, but I'm not sure I'll have enough space to fit them in with everything else," Hermione said while Draco reached for a bread roll.

"You kept your assignments after you got them back? I threw them all away," Ron said incredulously and Draco froze, looking over at him in shock.

"You what ?" Draco and Hermione both demanded at the same time, but before Ron could answer Harry walked into the Great Hall. A hush fell over the room, which had filled up by that point, and many people turned to face the door when their friends went quiet. Harry fidgeted nervously with the hem of his sleeve and he hesitated for a moment before his eyes landed on Draco, Hermione, and Ron. He practically ran towards them and he quickly sat down between Draco and Hermione, pulling a plate towards himself as he avoided eye contact with everyone else.

"You made it!" Ron said as people started talking again, many glancing over at Harry every few seconds.

"Yeah, Madame Pomfrey said Dumbledore said I could. I can go back to the dorms tonight too, though that took a bit more convincing on my part," Harry said, finally looking up from his plate. The bruises on his neck had faded into practically nothing, though he still looked exhausted.

Draco opened his mouth to speak, but before he could Dumbledore came through the doors and the words died in his throat, as did pretty much everyone else's. Silence fell over the hall as the headmaster walked through the center of it, between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables, and then turned around right in front of the staff table.

"Another year gone!" Dumbledore yelled, a wide grin on his face, the twinkle in his eyes visible even from this far away. "And I must trouble you with an old man's wheezing waffle before we sink our teeth into our delicious feast. What a year it has been! Hopefully your heads are a little fuller than they were… You have the whole summer to get them nice and empty again before next year…" Draco frowned slightly in confusion, Dumbledore was weird, really weird…

"Now, as I understand it, the house cup here needs awarding, and the points stand thus: In fourth place, Gryffindor, with two hundred and sixty-two points; in third, Hufflepuff, with three hundred and fifty-two; Ravenclaw has four hundred and fifty-six and Slytherin, four hundred and seventy-two."

Cheers erupted from the Slytherin table. Pansy and Blaise were grinning widely, both cheering, while Theo, who was sitting next to them gave them odd looks out of the corners of his eyes, barely showing any amount of happiness at having won the house cup beside a maybe partially there smile. Why wasn't he more excited? He used to ramble on and on about how he wanted to win every award you possibly could at school, which included the house cup, so why wasn't he just as happy about it as Pansy and Blaise? A frown tugged at Draco's lips, something wasn't right, though he doubted he would find out for two different reasons: one, they were leaving the castle the next morning, two, he and Theo weren't friends anymore so he likely wouldn't get an answer either way if he did manage to ask him.

"Yes, yes, well done, Slytherin," Dumbledore said. "However, recent events must be taken into account."

Draco looked back towards the headmaster in confusion as the hall went silent again. The Slytherins all looked at each other in concern, smiles fading.

"Ahem," Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling brighter than before somehow. "I have a few last minute points to dish out. Let's see… yes…

"First—to Mr. Ronald Weasley…"

Ron turned a deep shade of red when multiple pairs of eyes turned to stare at him, and he shrunk down in his seat, trying to hide behind Hermione, who was much shorter than him. Hermione gave him a look that could be either annoyed or amused, it was always rather difficult to tell the difference between the two with her.

"... for the best-played game of chess that Hogwarts has seen in many years, I award Gryffindor house fifty points."

Sound seemed to erupt around Draco, cheers being yelled like battle cries, though this time he didn't cover his ears like he had on the first day of school. He turned to face Ron, who was no longer blushing, but looked pale with shock, and grinned broadly at him.

It took a good two minutes for the noise to die down enough for Dumbledore to speak again, and when he did, he looked at Draco, Hermione, Harry, and Ron.

"Second—Miss Hermione Granger… for the use of cool logic in the face of fire, I award Gryffindor house fifty points."

Hermione buried her face in her arms, shoulders trembling slightly, as Gryffindor erupted into cheers again. They had won a hundred points in just five minutes, they were ahead of Hufflepuff! They were no longer in last place!

"Third—Mr. Draco Malfoy… for showing true courage, loyalty, and bravery even in the face of incredible danger, I award Gryffindor house fifty points."

Draco's eyes widened in shock and he gulped, not sure he had heard the headmaster correctly. He got fifty points? He got the points he lost Gryffindor months ago back, simply by helping Harry get to the stone, and he hadn't even really done much himself. The other three had done much more than he had; Harry had stopped Voldemort from getting the stone, Ron had won them the chess game and figured out which type of key they needed, Hermione had gotten them out of the Devil's Snare and had solved the Potions puzzle, he hadn't done anything. The gryffindors were cheering again, but Draco could barely hear them, too shocked to notice it until it was gone again and Dumbledore was speaking.

"Fourth—Mr. Harry Potter... " Dumbledore said and the hall went dead silent. A snitch's wings could've been heard had one flown in, it was so quiet as the school waited to hear how many points Harry would win. "... for pure nerve and outstanding courage, I award Gryffindor house sixty points."

The screams and cheers that time were somehow ten times louder than before, deafening even. They were tied with Slytherin! Draco doubted that was accidental, he was pretty sure Dumbledore had purposefully made them get enough points to reach four hundred and seventy two.

Dumbledore raised a hand and somehow the hall went quiet again, as if he had cast a spell, though Draco doubted he did. It was technically illegal to cast spells that could control what someone did, so it couldn't have been that.

"There are all kinds of courage," said Dumbledore, smiling. What was he doing? "It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. I therefore award ten points to Mr. Neville Longbottom."

If Draco thought the cheers were loud for Harry, they were even worse for Neville. People threw themselves at him, hugging him as they cheered. They'd beaten Slytherin! Draco's face broke out into a wide grin.

Someone elbowed him in the side and he stopped for a moment, turning to see Harry pointing across the hall to Pansy and Blaise, who both looked as if someone had hexed them with all the hexes they'd cast on people throughout the year. Theo was still giving them that odd look, though his grin was still semi-present, for some reason.

"That means," Dumbledore yelled over the noise, which the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs had joined in on. Draco found it sort of odd that they were happy they lost, just because Slytherin also did. " we need to redecorate a bit."

He clapped and suddenly all of the banners turned from emerald green to scarlet red, and from silver to gold. The huge snakes on them transformed into lions, and Severus reluctantly stood up and shook Professor McGonagall's hand, a smile he wore when he was trying not to show how much he hated something appearing on his face. He glanced their way as he sat back down and Draco froze, a stab of guilt going through him as he remembered that he had blamed him for what had happened, had thought he was the one responsible for all of the bad and mysterious stuff that year. His godfather's eyes weren't cold when they met his, though they didn't rest on him very long, and Draco looked down when he looked away.

Draco quickly shoved away all thoughts of his godfather and went back to talking with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. The rest of the night was happy, the air lighter than it had been in a long time, maybe even lighter than he could ever remember it. For the first time, Draco understood what people meant when they said home was the best place to be, was the place where you went when you needed comfort. The Manor wasn't his home, Hogwarts was, with his friends, something he never thought he'd really have.

Dear Aunt Andromeda,

I'm sorry it took me so long to respond to your last letter, I was… busy? I guess that's the word you could use. I'm not sure if you've heard about what's been going on at Hogwarts, or more like what happened, but even if you have, I thought it might be a good idea to explain it, since it does have to do with me, though it's more connected to Harry than me.

First, though, how are you, Tonks and Uncle Ted? Has anything particularly interesting happened lately? Has Tonks done anything particularly funny? I'm doing well, though all the interesting stuff that's happened here is my main reason for writing this letter, so I suppose I shouldn't stall anymore...

Over the course of the year weird things have been happening. I told you about some of them in my letters, though I never really explained why they were super important. We accidentally found a cerberus dog in the forbidden corridor on the third floor, guarding a trapdoor. On halloween someone let a troll into the school and Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I had to defeat it (that sounds odd to write, even though it's what happened). Harry's broom was hexed during his first quidditch match in an attempt to throw him off of it and make it look like an accident, but Hermione somehow managed to stop the person. When we got detention for being outside of our dorm at night and had to go into the forest, we encountered Voldemort, or at least some form of him, drinking the blood of a unicorn. And a couple nights ago we figured out that someone was going to try to get past the cerberus, so we snuck out and tried to stop him. We knew there was something valuable down there, and the teachers didn't believe us when we said someone was going to try to steal what it was. It didn't exactly go as planned, Ron got hurt, so did Harry.

Everything's alright now, we're all okay, but I thought it would be a good idea to tell you myself instead of you reading it in the Daily Prophet, if it shows up in there. Anyways, I hope to hear back from you even though I'm heading back to the Manor today.

Draco

The scrolls of parchment with their grades scrawled onto them in neat writing were lying on their beds when they got back to the dorms after dinner, tied up with scarlet red ribbons, but everyone just moved them to their bedside tables and collapsed into their beds. They were all asleep pretty much instantly, and morning seemed to come just as quickly, as if the night hadn't fully taken place.

Draco woke up feeling lighter than he had in weeks, and for once he didn't yell at, or even complain to, his dormmates like he usually would when he heard them talking loudly early in the morning. He opened the curtains surrounding his bed and tiredly rubbed his eyes, trying to get the sleep out of them.

Harry had his trunk thrown open on his bed, which was neatly made, unlike all the other boys' beds, and he was moving around the room, grabbing pretty much everything that belonged to him and placing it neatly in his trunk. Unlike everyone else in the dorm, besides Draco, he didn't have anything that could stay there permanently. Dean, Seamus, and Ron were all talking about their summer plans, still in their pajamas, and Neville was nowhere in sight.

"Morning," Harry said and Draco looked over at him again, seeing a small smile spread across his face. It looked slightly tense, not forced exactly, just strained, so unlike the bright grin he'd had the night before at the feast that Draco had to refrain himself from frowning.

"Morning, sleep well?" Harry nodded, a bit of the tension bleeding out of his shoulders, his smile a bit less strained like Draco acting as if everything was normal made him feel better about whatever it was that was bothering him.

"Yeah, had to get up early though since I couldn't pack yesterday," Harry said and turned away from him again to continue putting things in his trunk. Everything inside it seemed to be organized; his books had disappeared from sight, no longer stacked in piles on his bedside table as they had been the night before, his closet was open, empty of all clothes, which were every so slightly visible over the rim of the trunk.

Draco wasn't exactly sure what to say in response to that so he simply stood up and grabbed the clothes he had thrown on top of his trunk the day before. Normally he wouldn't have cared about changing in front of his dormmates, but some part of him felt on edge again, like he had the first couple months of school. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he was going back to Malfoy Manor, that he would be in the same building as his father again, for the first time since he'd been sorted into Gryffindor, since he had been all but disowned by his father. Maybe it had something to do with Harry being tense and nervous. He wasn't sure, but no matter what it was, he slipped into the bathroom attached to their dorm, closing the door behind himself. Maybe Harry's nervous for the same reason… part of him whispered, but he shoved it away. The thought didn't make any sense, Harry shouldn't have a home life that he would fear returning to, he couldn't.

Three hours later, after they had all gone down to eat breakfast and returned to their dorm to make sure they hadn't forgotten to pack anything, Seamus finding Neville's toad, Trevor, in the bathroom, they all wandered down to the main entrance hall of the castle. The doors were thrown wide open, letting a warm breeze in and the light from outside illuminating the whole corridor more than it had all year. Students, young and old, were all lingering on the steps, saying goodbyes to friends they wouldn't sit with on the train. Some were wearing muggle clothes already, while others were still wearing their uniforms.

There was a line of black carriages in front the steps, though there wasn't anything pulling them, which wasn't the oddest thing in the world. Many things were done with magic when it worked, especially when it was something that was only done or used every once in a while. It took Draco a moment to notice that the boats they had ridden on their first night at Hogwarts were back on the lake, Hagrid standing next to them, looming over all of the students who were all at least a foot shorter than him, his usual coat gone again. A smile lit up Harry's face when he saw him and before Draco could fully register what was happening, he and Ron were both being dragged by him towards the gamekeeper.

Hagrid smiled when he saw them, though his eyes looked a bit sad as he looked down at them. "Yeh four ready ter go?" Draco blinked and turned around to see Hermione standing just behind them. When had she gotten there? As far as Draco knew, she hadn't been with them on the way down to the lake.

"Where'd you come from?" Ron demanded, staring at her incredulously and she looked at him for a moment before smirking.

"I teleported," she said and Ron scoffed, rolling his eyes while Harry stared at her as if he actually believed her.

"You can do that?"

"No, of course she can't. Nobody can learn to apparate until they're at least sixteen," Draco said and Hermione scowled slightly, making a slightly offended noise.

"I'm sure I could figure it out if I tried," she said, but didn't contradict his statement.

"Doubt it, but you keep telling yourself that," Ron said, though a grin was tugging at his lips. Harry looked between the three of them with confusion written all over his face, eyebrows scrunched together, lips pressed into a firm line that's corners were turned ever so slightly downwards. Before any of them could say anything, another voice spoke from behind them.

"How much longer until we're leaving?" Theo Nott asked, not unkindly and when Draco turned to face him, his gaze was directed past them at Hagrid. A jolt of surprise went through Draco at the sight of him, mostly due to the fact that he was alone, neither Pansy nor Blaise with him, but also partially because he looked like he had before Hogwarts, in the same type of clothes he would wear when he came over to Draco's house when they were younger. He wasn't wearing a uniform, unlike almost all of the other first years, especially the slytherins, who all seemed determined to wear robes as long as possible.

His gaze flicked towards Draco and for a brief second their eyes met. Something like an apology was written in them, but before Draco could even properly think about it, Theo looked away again. It was odd, and confusing, but there wasn't really time for him to question Theo about it because Hagrid answered his question.

"The train leaves in half an hour so we should get goin' as fast as possible." Theo nodded and walked away without looking at Draco again, likely going to find his friends so they could get on a boat together. An odd flash of disappointment went through him but he shook it off when Harry went over to a boat and climbed in. He had new friends now, Theo wasn't one of them. He had no reason to miss him, especially since he hadn't been even remotely nice to him since he'd been sorted into Gryffindor.

Draco, Ron, and Hermione followed Harry into the boat and gradually each of the other boats filled as well. The crowd in front of the school thinned as students got into the carriages and once everyone was gone from the steps and grounds, their boats seemed to take off of their own accord. The ride across the lake was different and the same as the first one, on the first day of school. He was with a different group of people, with completely different personalities, but it felt almost the same for some reason. His chest ached with an odd sense of fear, caused by completely different things than the last time, and he attempted to push it away by talking with his friends. It worked a bit better than it had the first time; by the time they reached the opposite shore his hands were no longer trembling.

"What were your grades?" Hermione asked them after they'd placed their trunks, which had been waiting for them on the train platform when they got there, in the racks above them in their compartment. Ron looked up from the chess game he was setting up, his eyebrows furrowed in the expression he got every time he was reminded of something he was supposed to do, but didn't.

"Um… I never checked," he said and Hermione stared at him as if he had just set a book on fire.

" You never checked? " she demanded, voice an octave higher than usual with shock. Ron stared at her, a nervous glint in his eyes as a small smile spread across his face and he shook his head.

"Neither did I," Harry said, and Draco looked over at him at the same time as Hermione spun to face him.

"You too?" Harry shrugged a little bit, a flash of guilt glinting in his eyes for a second as he looked down. Hermione stared incredulously at him, then at Ron before looking back again. "Why in the world did neither of you check? I looked at them the moment I got back to my dorm, as any logical person would do!"

"I didn't check until this morning," Draco spoke up, trying to draw her attention away from Harry and Ron. "We were all exhausted, so we just sort of... set them aside. Ron probably forgot and Harry was packing pretty much all morning, so he never really had time." He wasn't sure why exactly he was trying to give excuses for why they didn't look at their grades, it just seemed like Hermione was overreacting a little bit and Harry seemed tense enough as it was.

Hermione blinked and looked over at Draco, almost as if she couldn't believe he was taking their side, though a bit of the tension that had built up in her shoulders faded. She glanced over at Harry and then Ron again before she sat down in her seat again, looking a bit embarrassed. "Right, sorry. You guys should check though."

The nervous look in Ron's eyes disappeared and he nodded. "Yeah, maybe later. Anyone up for a game of chess?" Harry nodded, the quickest agreement Draco had ever seen him make to playing chess, and moved over to the seat next to Ron, who looked a bit surprised but still grinned as he finished setting up the game. Hermione glanced over at them, a glint of slight annoyance still in her eyes, though she also looked a bit guilty. Maybe Draco hadn't been the only one to notice Harry's somewhat odd behaviour.

The first couple hours of the train ride passed by quickly. Most of them were spent playing chess, which became one of the tournaments they'd been doing for months at Hogwarts. The trolley witch came by about two hours into the ride and Harry bought a decent amount of sweets from her, almost all of which Hermione gave slightly skeptical glances as if she wasn't quite what to make of them. She grabbed one of the Cauldron cakes and turned it over, inspecting the packaging.

"The food label on this doesn't even make any sense! I can't find where it says how much sugar's in it." Hermione frowned, eyebrows knit in frustration and confusion.

"Why does it matter?" Ron asked without looking up from the chess game he was currently playing against Draco.

"Because my parents will kill me if they find out I ate something with too much sugar in it, especially on the way home. It was fine during the school year when they had no way of knowing that I ate anything that's technically bad for my teeth but now…" Hermione grimaced slightly and put the small cake down beside her, back in the pile of sweets.

"Why would they care if you eat anything sweet?" Harry asked, speaking up for the first time since he'd taken his transfiguration textbook and a piece of parchment out, along with a quill and bottle of ink. It was sort of odd, Draco thought, that Harry, who always waited to do his homework until last minute, would start on the summer homework before he was even home.

"Because they're dentists and they basically forbid me from eating any kind of candy at home," Hermione sounded almost annoyed about that fact, though it was more annoyed in the sense that she just thought it was pointless, not that it was necessarily a bad thing that inconvenienced her. Draco furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, what was a dentist?

"They're dentists? You never told us that," Harry said, looking up from his essay.

"It never really came up." Hermione shrugged and went back to the pile of sweets, grabbing a pumpkin pasty and inspecting it briefly before seemingly deciding it wouldn't upset her parents if she ate it and opened the packaging.

"What's a dentist?" Draco couldn't help asking and Ron looked over at Harry and Hermione. The look on his face suggested that he wanted to know the answer to the question as well, but hadn't wanted to ask it himself.

Hermione and Harry both looked at them in shock. "Wizards don't have them?" They spoke at the exact same time, their shocked tones of voice nearly identical. Ron and Draco glanced at each other and both shrugged.

"No…?" Ron said slowly, hesitating ever so slightly.

"They clean your teeth, make sure they don't rot and stuff. They're sort of like doctors, but for your teeth," Hermione said and Draco blinked.

"Weird…" he murmured and turned back to the chess board. "We just use magic to make sure that doesn't happen, or to fix it if it does." Ron nodded and did the same as Draco, moving his knight a moment later.

"My parents would be appalled by that," Hermione muttered and they all sort of went silent again after that.

"Why don't we do something else? As fun as beating all of you guys in chess is, it gets a bit boring after three hours," Ron said after he beat Draco for a third time in a row.

"I need to finish as much of this as I can…" Harry muttered and Draco looked over at him in surprise. He was sitting next to Hermione, who was reading a book on the history of wizarding britain, and he had his charms textbook out, with a fresh piece of parchment. His hair had gotten messier since the beginning of Draco and Ron's fourth chess game in a row, and his frown had grown a bit, along with the tension in his shoulders.

"Harry, you have all summer, at least take a break. Even Hermione isn't doing her homework yet," Draco said and Hermione glanced up from her book at the mention of her name.

"I'm not sure how much of my magical things my aunt and uncle will let me keep…" Harry's voice was softer than usual, like he didn't want to admit that fact and a piece of a memory from a winter night months ago, something Harry had said that hadn't made much sense, resurfaced in Draco's mind: "They hate magic, wizards, everything to do with it. That... includes me." . Harry had acted despondent and forcefully blank when he spoke about his family, he got like that every time—not that there were many, he tended to avoid the topic—he spoke of his aunt, uncle, and cousin.

"Why wouldn't they let you keep your things? Especially if you need them for homework," Hermione demanded, putting her book down and turning on her seat to face Harry.

"They don't like magic," he said with that practiced detachment and then looked down at his charms book.

"Harry…" Draco started to say, but Harry gave him a small, pleading glance. His eyes glimmered with slight fear, something he had shown maybe once, when he talked about his encounter with Voldemort. The words died in his throat and he swallowed thickly, trying to stop the frown on his face from growing.

Harry looked away again and shrunk a bit further into the corner of the compartment they were sitting in, like he wanted to disappear into the shadows. Ron, Hermione, and Draco frowned at him, none of them trying to hide their concern but all knowing that they wouldn't get a response if they asked him about why he was so nervous and why he avoided the topic of his muggle family like talking about them would release some sort of curse.

The next hour passed in silence. Hermione went back to her book, glancing at Harry every once in a while, and Ron and Draco went back to playing chess, mainly just because they didn't really know what else to do.

"Harry," Ron said rather out of the blue, "if your aunt and uncle really do take your things away, you can do the rest of the homework when you're at my house."

Harry looked up from Charms homework, which he was still working on, and stared at Ron. "You still think I can come after I put you in danger by dragging you along with me through the Trapdoor?"

"Of course, mum doesn't care. Well, she does care that I could've been killed by… a lot of different things, but she doesn't blame you." Harry blinked and continued to stare at him like he couldn't believe that Ron was telling the truth, like it was impossible for someone to not blame him for Ron, Hermione, and Draco having been in danger. Ron frowned at him and shifted slightly in his seat so he was fully facing Harry and not just looking at him. "Harry, it's not your fault. We chose to go with you down there."

"We wanted to help you, Harry, everyone knows that. Nobody blames you, especially not us." Hermione's hand twitched like she wanted to reach out and grab Harry's, but refrained herself from doing it.

"I-"

"No, Harry, you do not get to blame yourself. The fact that we were ever in danger is Voldemort's fault, maybe a little bit Dumbledore's, it's not yours. Any time, in the past or in the future, that we are in danger because we're trying to help you, to protect you, it will not be your fault. We're your friends , Harry, if you put yourself in danger for any reason, we're following you. You're never going to be able to stop us from doing that, and that's not your fault. We will stand by your side no matter what." Harry stared at Draco, eyes wide and lips parted slightly.

"I… okay, but-"

"No 'but's, my family loves you, Ginny maybe a little… too much." Harry blinked and looked at Ron, confusion etched all over his face, eyebrows scrunched together, lips turned down at one corner.

"Huh?" A small, confused noise escaped Harry and Ron's face flushed, his cheeks turning a bright red.

"My sister might be… a little, um… obsessed with you," Ron phrased it almost like a question and he fidgeted with the hem of his left sleeve, avoiding their gazes.

"What? Why?" Harry demanded at the same time as Draco snorted with laughter and pressed a hand to his mouth to try to stifle his snickers. Hermione grinned, succeeding much more at hiding her laughter than Draco, and her eyes glinted with amusement.

"Harry, you're a famous wizard who's only a year older than her," Draco said through a grin.

"That doesn't make it any less weird!" he protested, gesturing wildly with his hands as if to emphasize something, though all it really did was flick a drop of ink from the end of the quill he was still holding.

"Never said it did," Draco said at the same time as Hermione yelled: "Hey! Harry!"

The ink had landed on Hermione's face, it seemed, judging by the blue smudge on her right cheek, and she was scowling down at the blue on her fingers which she had obviously just smudged the ink with. There was still a glint of amusement in her eyes, however, so she likely wasn't actually that annoyed.

"Sorry, Hermione," Harry murmured, though he himself looked a little amused, which was certainly an improvement from before. "Seriously, though, what do you mean exactly by obsessed, Ron?"

"You'll see this summer… or maybe even at the train station. Speaking of which, how much longer do you guys think it'll be until we get there? It feels like we've been on this train for a whole day already."

"It's…" Hermione glanced at the watch, which Draco had never seen her wear before, on her wrist, "about five thirty, so… we'll probably get there soon. We should probably change out of our uniforms."

An hour later, they rode into London, buildings that were unfamiliar to Draco rushing past before they pulled into King's Cross and Platform 9 ¾. The station was crowded with people, all in wizarding robes, exactly as it had been on the first day of school, when the Hogwarts Express pulled to a stop. Hermione snapped her book shut, and stood up, reaching up to pull her trunk down from the rack above her seat. Ron yawned loudly, like he'd just woken up even though he'd been talking with Draco and Harry, technically Hermione as well, except she was reading the whole time, about what to expect from his family.

"Finally," Ron murmured and grabbed his trunk as well, along with the cage with his rat—Scabbers—in it. Draco had tried his hardest to ignore the rat for the entire year and had mostly succeeded, though that was likely due to the fact that they were so busy with everything else going on.

Harry did the same as Ron, pulling his trunk and owl cage down from the rack and opening the trunk to put his Charms homework inside. Draco followed their lead and pulled his own trunk down from the rack, nearly dropping it as he did so. How did I get that up there in the first place? He wondered as he looked up for a moment at the rack and then down his trunk.

"It is not going to be fun carrying these out onto the platform…" Draco muttered and Ron snorted.

"Yeah, these things are bloody heavy," he said and tried to lift his trunk, nearly dropping it on his toes as he did so.

"How about Ron and I take his trunk, and Harry and Hermione take one of their trunks and then we come back for the other two?"

"Great idea," Ron said and put his trunk back down before grabbing one end of it again. Draco grabbed the other end and together they lifted it up, Harry and Hermione doing the same with Hermione's trunk. It took the four of them fifteen minutes to haul all of their trunks down onto the platform and then to get their stuff all onto trolleys.

They wandered across the platform towards the exit where someone was letting people out in groups of two or three at a time, people yelling goodbyes after them. Most were aimed at Harry, telling him to have a good summer, or that they'll see him next year.

"Still famous," Ron said in a teasing tone, smirking over at Harry, who looked faintly uncomfortable with the amount of people calling after him.

"Not where I'm going." Draco frowned at him, once again remembering the way Harry acted every time they talked about his family and home life. He knew the feeling of not being exactly welcome at home anymore, but why did Harry feel that way as well? What was wrong with his relatives? Harry rarely talked about them, and that night over Christmas break, and when Ron told them all they could visit, or come stay with, the Weasleys' that summer after Draco's father had told him to come back to the Manor for the summer in a not kind way… he hadn't acted like himself. Both times he had obviously been uncomfortable and distant, nervous in the same way that he was on the train, slightly scared. Everything about those interactions had seemed off to Draco, he didn't know how exactly, but they seemed wrong.

Before Draco could say anything to Harry, he and Hermione were at the front of the line being let out into the station. The man let them through and just moments after the weird feeling of passing through the barrier washed over him, Harry and Ron came through as well.

"There he is, Mum, there he is, look!" a young feminine voice that Draco had never heard before yelled. Ron groaned loudly and pressed a hand to his face. Draco looked up and saw a redheaded girl who looked a lot like a younger Ron standing next to a slightly plump, redheaded woman, pointing at Harry and grinning. "Harry Potter! Look, Mum! I can see-"

Ron groaned again and glared over at her.

"Quiet down, Ginny, and you don't point at people," the woman who Draco assumed was Ron's mother said softly and smiled softly at Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Draco. She looked a lot like what Draco had imagined her looking like, smile lines etched deep into her face, eyes twinkling happily, hair red and curly.

"Busy year?" she asked them when they approached her and all four of them nodded.

"Very," Harry said, smiling back at her. "Thanks for the fudge and sweater, Mrs. Weasley."

"Thanks for mine too, it's really soft," Draco felt his cheeks heat up a bit and he smiled nervously at Mrs. Weasley.

"Oh, it was nothing, dears." Her eyes crinkled at the sides when she smiled at them and a sense of comfort that Draco had never felt from his own mother washed over him.

"Ready, are you?" A gruff voice spoke from behind them, breaking the moment of calm and warmth. Harry tensed up for a second before turning around to face the person who spoke. Draco turned as well and found himself face to face with a man who looked like the very definition of an average muggle, who Draco was immediately sure was Harry's uncle. His thick mustache, his balding head, his short, round body structure, his clothes that look like they were supposed to be seen as fancy; all of it screamed muggle. It was as if Harry's aunt had purposefully chosen someone as ordinary and non magical as she could find. In that moment it made a little more sense why Harry hated him so much, even if he hadn't known about magic before Hogwarts, anyone wouldn't have liked him.

A blond woman with a long neck, and a boy their age who looked exactly like a younger version of Harry's uncle stood a few feet away, like they wanted to stay as far away from anyone who might look odd as looks on their faces seemed scared, or horrified, by Harry's arrival, like he brought along a curse with him. A frown tugged at Draco's lips and he refrained himself from telling Harry to just go home with Ron then and not wait till later.

"You must be Harry's family!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed, her smile still wide, though a bit of the twinkle in her eyes had faded, replaced by confusion.

"In a manner of speaking," the man said and glared down at Harry for a moment. "Hurry up, boy, we haven't got all day." With that he turned and walked away again, back to the woman and boy who were probably Harry's aunt and cousin. Harry didn't follow him, but instead turned to face Ron, Hermione, and Draco again.

"We'll see each other this summer, then," Harry said with a smile that seemed forced. Draco wasn't quite sure what to say to Harry, so he glanced after his relatives, still frowning. How could Harry handle them if they looked at him that way and spoke to him like he didn't have a name, like he wasn't a member of their family?

"I hope you have a—er—good holiday," Hermione said uncertainly, looking desperately after Harry's uncle like Draco.

"Oh, definitely." Harry smirked in a rather un-Harry-like fashion, his green eyes glinting behind his round glasses. "They don't know that we're not allowed to use magic outside of school. I'm going to have loads of fun with Dudley this summer…" Draco's jaw dropped.

"Harry!" he exclaimed but Harry's smirk just grew before he followed his uncle.

"Remind me why we're friends with him again?" Ron snorted at Draco's words and first cast him an amused look, then Hermione.

"You know why," he said simply and Draco looked after Harry as he disappeared into the crowd of muggles in King's Cross station, a small smile spreading across his face despite the fact that in just a short amount of time he would have to return to Malfoy Manor, the cold place he used to call home but really didn't want to go back to.

"Yeah, I guess I do."