Double Trouble | Draco Malfoy [1]

Chapter 2 ~ The Leaky Cauldron

The bus went fast, and I meant very fast. Harry and I kept running into the windows, the beds, and into each other. Stan was leaning against the pole, watching us. During that, Harry tried to tell him we wanted to go to the Leaky Cauldron, but neither of us were sure if he heard us.

He pointed at us and asked us something. "What did you say your names were again?"

"We didn't," Harry replied, then turned to me. "Did we?"

I shook my head as I was trying to catch myself from falling. I grabbed Harry's arm and just in time, he pulled me up before I hit the floor. I stood up and practically jumped to where Stan was standing.

"Won't Muggles see us?" I asked.

"Muggles?" He started laughing. "They don't know what's happening these days." He took the newspaper I saw off the table and started reading it.

All of a sudden, I heard that little head talk again. "Old lady, twelve o' clock!"

The bus came to a halt, slamming us into the window with our faces smashed against it. The little head was counting down. "Ten...nine...eight...seven...six..."

The old lady was moving very slowly. I was really hoping she would make it already. Harry had a worried look on his face, too.

"Three...two and a half...two...one and three quarters...NOW!"

We went on speeding again. We started bouncing everywhere again, but this time, I actually fell. Harry was trying to hold on for his dear life. I could see lights going by me very fast from outside the window. I was surprised these people could sleep through all this. Or were they really asleep? Were they dead? Who could've killed them? Stan, maybe? Was he a killer? I gave him a glare, even though he wasn't looking at me but the paper instead. But when I looked at him, something else caught my eye. The front of the paper had a moving picture of a man screaming as if he was chained up. He looked crazy if you asked me. The top of the paper said something about him escaping from Azkaban. I couldn't read it since Stan folded it back up and was talking to Harry.

The bus once again slammed on brakes and again Harry and I smashed our faces into the window.

"The Leaky Cauldron. Enjoy," Stan said to us. Looked like he heard us after all.

Stan took our trunks and gave it to an old man.

The old man gave us a grin with a few teeth missing. "Ah, the Potters. At last."

I couldn't help but feel a bit creeped out when I followed Harry off the bus and onto the sidewalk. Then, the Knight Bus was gone.

I was cold and my body was hurting everywhere from that lovely ride. We headed inside into the Leaky Cauldron. I felt the warm atmosphere hit me, making me feel a bit better after being outside for a while. Chairs were being put up on the table by themselves and a man was stirring his tea while reading a book.

We were led upstairs by that creepy man and he showed us our rooms. To our surprise, Hedwig was already there and our new supplies for the year were there as well. At least someone knew where we were heading if everything was already here for the new year at Hogwarts.

I plopped myself on the bed, staring at the ceiling. I sighed and thought of the events that happened back at Malfoy's so-called "house." I didn't even know why they were living there. I assumed Dumbledore wanted me to be closer to Harry, since Malfoy Manor was too far from Privet Drive. Still, there were times where the family, including me, would go stay at Malfoy Manor for a few days at a time. But for some reason, the Malfoys were the ideal family for me to stay with, in Dumbledore's eyes. HA, no. He sure got that wrong.

I still didn't understand why Draco had to be mean to me. Wait, why was I calling him Draco? I knew that I was thinking to myself, but I shouldn't call him that, not even in my thoughts. Okay, well, MALFOY was such a pain in the arse. So was his father.

"Max, you okay?" Harry came and sat beside me.

I sat up, looking at him. "I'm just glad I'm here and not with the Malfoys right now. I didn't think I could spend another night there, especially after what happened tonight."

He was silent for a moment, then he spoke up. "Maybe we should talk to Dumbledore about you living with me at the Dursleys."

I scoffed. "Right, as if we haven't implied that I want to stay with you for the last two years we've known Dumbledore. He won't do it."

"Well, we need to be serious about it this time," Harry said. "We're teenagers now, so we need to be a bit more mature about this."

"We're hardly mature, bro," I pointed out. "In fact, we're barely teenagers." I got up and went to the bathroom to wash my face. "As much as I'd like to stay with you at the Dursleys, even though your living situation is just as terrible as mine--"

"Dumbledore can't leave us in these living situations forever," Harry intervened.

I huffed a sigh. "I know. Maybe one day things will change for us."

I glanced at Harry and could tell how disappointed he was in the result of this conversation. While we both wanted to talk to Dumbledore about all of this, like really talk to him, I didn't see that happening in the future. I felt like if this was brought up to Dumbledore's attention, he'd give some unclear reason as to why things were the way they were.

Once I was done with my face, I came back into the room, folding my arms over my chest. "Now what?"

Harry shrugged. "Dunno. I'm kind of bored."

"Well, let's explore the rest of the Leaky Cauldron."

"Max, you do realize how small this place is, right?"

"I'm still up for something to do."

Harry sighed. "Well, let's split up, then, see if there's anything interesting here."

With that, we both left our room and walked in opposite directions.