Draco Malfoy might have been a little hyper, as he boarded the Hogwarts Express, with Harry at his side. He could not wait to show off the manor to his best friend! He would show him his room, and the games room, and the quidditch pitch, and the gardens, and the dance hall, and the stables, and the forest grove, and the secret passages, at least the non-blood-warded ones, and he'd have Dobby make them something extra sugary in the kitchens, and…
"Draco, stop!" Harry laughed. "Your bouncing is making me feel dizzy."
Draco grinned, unabashed. "We're going to have so much fun!"
"I believe you! But we'll have even more fun if you save a little energy for when we actually get there."
"I can't help it. I'm too excited. Have you ever seen an albino peacock, before?"
"…no?"
Draco's cheeks hurt with the force of his smile. "You'll hate them."
Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm best friends with a crazy person."
Draco lurched forward, as someone roughly barrelled past him. Red hair assaulted his eyes as Ron Weasley continued down the train car, loudly complaining about a kidnapped scabbard or something. He was such a strange person.
"Ginger hair must cause brain damage," Draco muttered, straightening his robes.
"Did I ever tell you my mother was a redhead?" Harry asked.
Draco stuck out his tongue. "Don't get salty. You know what I mean."
As they continued through the train, searching for an empty compartment, they spotted Tracey Davis openly flirting with second year Dustin Urquhart. She was twisting her fingers through her honey-blonde hair and batting her eyelashes at the boy in such a blatantly ridiculous way that Draco started loudly mock-gagging as he and Harry approached the pair. Tracey did not break from her conversation, but did wave back at Harry when he mouthed a 'happy Christmas' at her. Draco pretended to dry heave, and she gave him the finger, before pointedly ignoring him. Draco grinned.
Avery's voice echoed loudly through the train, as he shout-sang a popular wizarding yuletide carol from his compartment as his prefect friend Damian Perriss attempted to direct the flow of students over the cacophony. Harry hunched his shoulders as they drew near, so Draco threw his arm over Harry's shoulders to shield him from Avery's notice as they continued their search.
A group of students were grumbling amongst themselves as the pounded loudly on one of the compartment doors.
"What's going on?" Harry asked the group of Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors.
A girl that Draco didn't know huffed loudly. "It's Granger. She's stolen an entire compartment for herself, and locked it up tight."
"We want to sit together," another girl added, gesturing to their clustered little group, "but most of the compartments are at least half full. Granger can't just hog an empty one alone. It's not fair."
"Good luck with that," Draco drawled, dragging Harry along.
"I feel kinda bad for Granger," Harry said softly. "She still doesn't have any friends."
Draco gave him a pointed stare. "Do you want to be friends with her?"
"Well, no…"
"That's what I thought. If she'd stop being so insufferable, maybe she wouldn't be such a human-repellant."
"I guess…"
"Hi Harry!" someone called out.
Draco could have kissed Neville Longbottom for distracting Harry from his morose self-recriminations.
"Hey Nev," Harry said, "found a compartment, yet?"
"Yeah. I've got one with Justin, Dean, and Seamus. You?"
"We're still looking," Draco said. "It's difficult to find decent company, on this thing."
Harry smacked his arm. "You sound like such a stuck-up brat sometimes."
Draco beamed at his friend, and shot Neville a wink. "Well, I do have a reputation to uphold."
"I won't keep you guys," Neville said. "I just wanted to wish you both a Happy Christmas."
"Thanks, Nev!"
"Is your grandmother dragging you to the ministry ball, this year?" Draco asked.
"I'm not sure, yet," Neville said with a shrug. "She never seems able to decide between showing me off, and being ashamed of me."
"Well, owl me if you're going. Me and Harry will probably be there, so we'll search you out."
Neville smiled brightly. "I will! If Gran thinks I'm being corrupted by a Malfoy, maybe she'll let me skip the next one."
Draco laughed. "Glad I can be of assistance."
"Oh, be careful, if you're going much further down the train. Someone jinxed some mistletoe between cars four and five."
"Thanks for the warning," Harry said.
They continued on, peeking into compartments, but not too concerned about finding a place to sit, yet. Draco knew enough people from pureblood circles, and they both were popular enough within Slytherin, that they knew they wouldn't be left stranded.
They met Adrian and Cassius stomping up from the other direction, their hair dyed a garish blend of festive red and green, with gold and silver tinsel cascading down their backs.
"What happened to you?" Draco asked, not even trying to hide his laughter.
"What do you think?" Cassius scoffed. "It was the Weasley twins."
"They have a rat dressed up as Santa chasing people, and biting them. If it gets you, this happens," Adrian said, pointing to himself, "and it keeps herding people under some cursed mistletoe that makes you snog so hard you touch tonsils, before it lets you go."
"We avoided the mistletoe," Cassius was quick to point out, "but not everyone was so lucky."
"Need help planning your retaliation?" Draco asked.
"Nah, we'll try to keep this a third-year affair," Adrian said. "If we need you, we'll let you know."
"There you two are!" Marcus Flint said, grabbing Adrian and Cassius and dragging them towards a compartment. "Team meeting. Harry, Draco, you come, too."
They squeezed into a compartment that was clearly not designed to accommodate a full quidditch team, an alternate, and two first year hopefuls. Draco ended up having to sit on Cass' lap, much to the older boy's amusement while Harry stood, pressed up against the sliding door. Marcus handed out parchments to everyone.
"Here's your holiday training schedules. Make sure you all stick to it. We can't afford to lose our edge over the break."
"This is pretty intense, Captain," Cass said, reading off of Draco's copy to save room.
"I live in a London townhouse," Montague said, apologetically. "There's no warded air space to fly outside. I'll have to modify this to things I can do in my room."
"I can probably invite the team over for a day or two," Draco offered. "We have a full pitch."
Adrian snorted. "Of course, you do."
"Malfoys are superior beings. Welcome to reality."
"I know there's a few wizarding parks in London, Graham. Do your best to visit one every other day. Draco, we're taking you up on that offer. Owl me once you've talked to your parents."
Draco nodded, smugly.
The meeting was dismissed, and Cass dislodged Draco to find a quiet place with Adrian to plot their revenge. Montague and Bletchley joined them, to regain their collective third year honor.
"Avery said he'd save us a seat," Fenwick said, tugging on Burke's arm, "but if the ponce forgot about us, again, we'll be back."
"See you in five, then," Marcus said, with a laugh. Fenwick rolled his eyes, but Burke nodded.
Terrence looked longingly at his stack of textbooks and notes, before sighing and standing to do his turn at patrolling the train. "Don't let anyone touch my stuff, Marcus. I'll be back as soon as I can."
"No, you won't," Draco said, cheerfully. "The twin horrors have been busy."
Terrence groaned. "More than hair dye and tinsel, then?"
Draco grinned. "Rats and mistletoe. Probably more."
"I'm going to petrify those two and store them with the luggage," Terrence said.
"Good luck, Higgs," Harry said. "Happy Christmas!"
Draco laughed at Terrence's grimace.
Marcus settled back into his seat and stretched his legs out, pulling out a book. "You two want to sit with me?"
"We'll stay for a while," Draco said. "Harry gets too fidgety if I try to force him to stay in one place for more than an hour."
"Like you're any better," Harry said, giving Draco a playful shove.
"Your parents doing their Christmas tea again, this year?" Marcus asked.
Yeah," Draco confirmed. "Mother's been sending me color swatches for my robes for the last month."
"Me too," Harry said, his look of bafflement causing Marcus to crack up.
"I'll be seeing a lot of the two of you, over the break, then. Christmas Tea, the ministry ball, team practice… I wonder if your parents will ask me to babysit you, again."
Draco stuck out his tongue. "I'm too old for that, now."
"Yes, you are clearly the embodiment of maturity."