"So shall we head off to Diagon Alley?" Hermione asked as she walked into the kitchen. The sun was shining and it was a typical summer's day in England. Harry looked up from his book at the table that he was reading when he was eating breakfast.

"Yeah sure sounds good." He responded. "Do you think Draco would join us? Make a day out of it?"

"No harm in asking him is there? Go and floo him and see." Hermione smiled at Harry. She knew he felt attracted to him, now all she had to do was get him to admit it, but she knew that was quite a way off.

Harry basically ran into the drawing room to the floo. He grabbed the floo powder and threw it in the fire as he called out 'Malfoy Manor'

"Draco" he yelled hoping that someone would hear him. He was startled when Narcissa walked into the room.

"Hello Mr. Potter. How are you today?"

"I'm good thank you Mrs. Malfoy. What about yourself?"

"I'm well thank you. As good as can be under the circumstances"

Whereas Draco got a 3 year good behaviour bond on the condition that he attended Hogwarts for 8th year as punishment for the trouble during the war, Narcissa got 12 months house arrest because she never took the dark mark. Draco only got what he did because he did take the dark mark, but as Harry had testified, he had no choice. They also took his age when the crimes were committed into consideration. Lucius got 22 years in Azkaban for the crimes committed in both wars.

"As if expected Mrs. Malfoy. I was wondering if Draco was around?"

"Of course. I'll just fetch him for you. Twix!" she called out and there was a pop. "Could you tell Draco that Mr. Potter is at the floo for him please?"

"Of course Mistress." The elf exclaimed and with another pop it was gone. Harry only had to wait a few seconds before Draco popped up (literally) in front of the fire.

"Hey Harry. What's up?"

"Hey Dray" Harry smirked at the look on both Malfoys faces. "Hermione and I are heading to Diagon and we were wondering if you wanted to come along? We're hoping to get the stuff we need for school, which is everything on the list."

"Yeah let me just tell mum where I'm off to and I'll floo over?"

"Sounds good. I'll give you clearance." Harry smiled as he ended the floo call.

Harry sat back on his knees with his shins tucked in underneath him. He had a lot to think about, but

He didn't have time at the moment. He didn't want to think. That was the problem. He just wanted to it to be a normal year but his gut was telling him that wasn't going to happen. He suddenly realized he needed to move otherwise Draco was going to fall straight on top of him when he stepped out of the floo. He scrambled up and onto the lounge.

Hermione came into the drawing room at the exact time that Draco exited the floo. They smiled at each other as they greeted one another. Harry watched on from the side and smiled at himself. It was good to see Hermione so calm and collected again, it had been a while since he had seen her that way, with the war and all which he could appreciate it. He was thankful that she had accepted his truce with Draco with open arms, although one could say that it was more a friendship at this point.

Since meeting at the hogs head a few weeks ago they had hung out multiple times, doing different things each time. Whether it be meeting somewhere for a drink, playing a one on one in quidditch or just sitting, relaxing and talking about everything but nothing at all, they were defiantly forming a solid friendship. That thought made the butterflies in Harry's tummy move. He could admit that Draco was easy on the eyes and it defiantly made things easier, but they had only just started being friends, he didn't want to jeopardise that. Hell for all he knew, Draco was as straight as an arrow and had absolutely no interest in Harry like that.

"Are we going today Potter? Or are we going to stand here while you continue to stare off into space?" Draco drawled.

"What? Oh yeah, let's go." Hermione giggled and shook her head at the boy's antics.

Walking down the alley Harry remembered why he hated coming out in public. The attention he got just for walking was astounding and he hated every minute of it. He knew it was still fresh in everybody's minds what he had done for the wizarding world, but he couldn't help but feel like he only wanted things to be normal for once. Peace and quiet was apparently too much to ask for.

He looked to his left and saw Hermione and looked to his right to see Draco, with his head down and trying not to look at anyone or bring unwanted attention to himself. Harry laughed inwardly as he thought about that. Walking down the street with the saviour of the wizarding world was the one thing he shouldn't have done if that was the case. He must have laughed out loud because suddenly Draco was looking at him with an unreadable expression on his face. He lifted an eyebrow as if to ask what he was laughing at.

Harry just shook his head, hoping it conveyed that he would explain later. Draco shrugged his shoulders and kept walking down the street.

"Where to first boys?" Hermione questioned bringing them both out of their silent conversation.

"I need new robes and all the books for the year, as well as stuff for potions." Harry answered.

"Yeah pretty much the same." Draco agreed. "But I need a stop at gringotts otherwise I'm not going to get anything."

"Bank first, Madam Malkin's after?" Hermione suggested. Both boys just nodded.

After they exited the bank they started to walk down to the robe shop and both boys realized the significance of being back here together after 8 years of meeting here. They shared a secret smile, the type that made the butterflies start up again for Harry and entered the shop. They took turns to get fitted and while the other two were waiting they insisted that they try on some of the robes in the shop, and soon it was a competition on who could pick the most ghastly robe. Harry won, but it was an accident.

He was only trying on a robe he actually thought would look semi-decent on, only to have both Draco and Hermione in hysterics with tears rolling down their cheeks. They both agreed that Harry won, and Harry didn't mention that he wasn't trying it on as part of the fun. He just blushed and went to pay.

Walking out of the shop and heading down the street to Flourish and Bolts is when it all went wrong. Harry was laughing and relaxed with his two friends when he tripped and luckily caught himself before he ended up face first on the pavement. This only caused Draco and Hermione to laugh harder until they looked up and saw the red fiery hair of Ron. Suddenly, it didn't seem so funny anymore.

"Nice to see how fast you moved on. Shame you had to lower your standards to death eater material to find anyone that would have you." Ron mentioned as his face went red from seeing the three of them together. He was supposed to be the third wheel of the golden trio, and they had replaced him with Malfoy of all people.

"You take that back right now Ronald Weasley or I won't be responsible for what happens." Harry said angrily as he pulled his wand from his pocket. Ron turned and Harry saw the look in his eyes. It was pure jealousy. He had seen it many times over the time of their friendship. He rolled his eyes inwardly and the thought of 'Here we go again' ran through his head.

"Leave it Harry, it's not worth it."

"Oh of course, I'M not worth it but the little death eater is. I see how it is."

Surprisingly Draco had stayed quiet throughout the confrontation so far. Harry glanced his eyes over to see the look on his face was one of pure horror. This is exactly what he didn't want when he came out today. That look only made Harry angrier because Draco was trying, Draco had changed and Ron just wrote him off as if he hadn't. If Harry, whom was his sworn enemy for 7 years, could see that and forgive him, then everybody should be able to.

"Ron, I'm serious, leave it. We're here to simply have a day out to get our school supplies and didn't ask you because you're not coming back remember? What was it you said? That school was childish? Well so be it, if we want to be kids for just a little longer then let us. But you want to go off and do your traineeship, then so be it. But you can't ridicule us for wanting to better ourselves." Harry was quite impressed with the way Hermione stood up to him. Not that she had ever let Ron walk all over her, but Harry had noticed lately Ron was getting what he wanted from her more during their relationship than in their friendship. It was like she had lost apart of herself during the war, he understood that, everyone had lost apart of themselves, but Hermione was getting it back. He smiled as he mused this.

Ron noticed the smile and noticed how Harry had situated himself slightly in front of the other two as if they needed protecting. He shook his head. Everyone knew, Harry more so than anyone, never to turn your back on a death eater because they will hurt you. Realizing that Harry was in trouble he pulled his want out and shot the first spell over Harry's right shoulder to Draco to try to protect Harry, even tho he thought he should just let Harry suffer the consequences for his mistake.

In the next moment there where spells shooting off every which way and no one was sure who was supposed to be hexing whom. Harry turned when he heard a scream behind him only to see Draco hit the pavement. Someone, and looking at which direction the spell came from realized it was Ron, had hit him with a Sectumsempra. He raced over to his new friend, picked him up, grabbed Hermione's hand and apparated to St. Mungos.