Everybody spun to look at the top of the stairs.
Draco tilted his chin up, his cape draped over one shoulder. "After all the trouble you went through to make sure I turned up, you are so ready to begin without me. I'm truly hurt."
Looking up, Harry analysed Draco's costume. A gothic... vampire? Prince? It was definitely a gothic something. He's definitely pale enough to pass as a vampire even in his every-day clothes. Whatever he was, he was something with a cape.
"Took your time," Ron grumbled.
"Actually..." Lifting a cocky eyebrow, Draco looked at his shiny watch. "I'm right on time."
Oh you son of a bitch, Harry glared, hating that he was the tiniest bit impressed. Of course Draco could pull off an elegant vampire thing and not look stupid. Typical.
Ginny raised an arm of her tattered zombie shirt. "Alcohol time!"
Cheers echoed around the cement room and beers were passed around.
To everybody's surprise, Hermione was among the first to start drinking.
"Geez, Hermione," Ginny said, impressed. "I would have thought that you would be the only person who wouldn't drink."
"Usually," Hermione admitted. "But not today. I just finished all of my exams and I don't want to be sober to regret all my answers. Beer me up!"
"You scare me sometimes," Ron said simply, but he was smiling.
Carrying various drinks around the room, Luna almost knocked multiple drunk teenagers over as she made her way to Draco who was standing snobbishly in the corner. "Drink, sir?"
Draco wrinkled up his nose. "You think I'm going to get drunk with you people? Please, Lovegood, we may unfortunately be coworkers, but let's keep it at that, shall we? I have no desire to let you fools make a fool of..."
Across the room, Harry, who was already beyond tipsy, winked at Draco.
Widening his eyes, Draco looked back at Luna and wordlessly grabbed a drink, taking a long sip. He cannot be sober for this.
--
"You're into your sixth drink?" Ginny, sitting up on the table that looked as if it were about to collapse, said to Hermione a few hours later. "Try eight! Like the eight comfr- kampul- compe... fuck it. The seven- no! Eight! Tournaments I've won at Hogwarts so far."
A groan came from the ground, where Ron was having trouble keeping his eyes open. "I didn't win any competitions..." He had been drinking from the same bottle for the past hour, not realising it ran out.
"Not true!" Wiping her hair out of her face, Hermione wobbly stood up on her chair. "So many competitions... multitudinous, even. A real winner, here!" She pointed to where Ron was still on the floor. "Hogwarts never had a better keeper... Goalkeeper."
At this, Ginny interjected, "But I'm a better player all round."
"Of course," Luna nodded solemnly.
On the ground a few metres away, Draco had his phone out and the voice memo app open. "They think they're so wonderful," he muttered bitterly, holding the phone up to his mouth. "Weasleys and their... fuckin, ah, hockey. I play hockey, too, but nooo, nobody celebrates Draco. Only stupid Weasley is our King... wonderful song... and Potter!" He wrapped his cape around his curled up legs with his free hand. "Bloody... Wonderful Potter. Thinks he's so great with his- with his scar and his hockey stick-"
Harry reached for another bottle. "Get in me, you little bitch." he muttered suggestively.
"You know!" Ginny suddenly looked excited. "We should get Neville to bring us pizza!"
"Yesssss...!" Hermione screwed up her eyes. "I love pi- Neville, I love Neville. Don't you guys love Neville?"
Within a couple of minutes, everyone was crowded around Ginny's phone, their orders blurring together and a confused man attempting to distinguish them.
Within the hour, an embarrassed looking blonde boy wearing a pizza place uniform walked down the dusty staircase, greeted with drunken cheers of "NEVILLE!"
"How long have you guys- you been drinking for? You're completely..." Draco in the corner of the room still curled up in his cape caught Neville's eye. "Is Malfoy hissing at me?"
"Who cares." Leaping towards him, Ginny held out her arms eagerly. "Pizza us up!"
"Then sit with us, you beautiful bastard." Harry grinned, patting his lap.
Awkwardly taking a seat down with enough distance between him and Harry, Neville took off his company-issued cap. "I can't believe you guys all ordered pizza when you were like... well, this. It was- it was Blaise who was trying to write it down!"
Everybody (except Ron who was asleep but slowly stirring at the smell of pizza) let out a high pitched "oooooh," and Ginny wolf-whistled.
Neville, traumatised, buried his reddening face in his hands. "You guys are so mean... I think you've had enough to drink."
---
Holding her cheshire cat tail, Hermione waved to Neville as she walked up her driveway, swaying unnaturally.
Starting the car again, Neville turned back to his final passenger. "What's your address, again?"
"The Malfoy Manor," Draco said, crossing his legs. "It's the Malfoy Manor. Just- there." He pointed to the GPS on Neville's phone. "Far, far away from... normal people."
"Alright." Neville swallowed, pulling out of the driveway and setting off on the road, his car headlights illuminating the dark road. The silence of Neville's childhood bully in his backseat made him bounce his knee nervously, and he coughed quietly as the silence stretched on.
"Longbottom..." Draco began, making Neville freeze up.
"Um- yeah?"
After a few seconds of silence, Draco sighed. "What's it like being around... Perfect Potter all the time?"
Unsure whether he heard him correctly, Neville briefly glanced away from the road. "I... what?"
"Potter. Being around him. Is it... bad? Like my father says?"
Blinking heavily, Neville readjusts his grip on the wheel. "Well, er, no. Harry is, I dunno, he's cool. He's nice and brave and stands up for people, and... um, I dunno, he's..."
"Perfect." Draco said under his breath, quiet enough so that Neville could pretend he never heard it, passing it off as him mishearing him. But then words kept tumbling out of Draco's mouth, words that sober Draco would never ever say out loud. "Everything about him is perfect. Even his stupid scar. His green- emerald green eyes are so... so stunning, and then his stupid hair that looks so soft, like, how much does he wash it?"
Neville's eyes had never been wider.
But Draco didn't stop. But he wouldn't remember any of it in the morning. So how could he regret something he had no recollection of doing, even if it had the possibility to ruin everything he had tried so hard to maintain for the majority of his life. "It's been years but still I look at him and it makes me feel so- so-" he leaned against the windowsill, resting his chin on his elbow. Draco's head hurt. "If anyone ever found out the type of feelings that I have for him my father would kill me, if I didn't do the deed myself, first. He just- Harry is so... even though I am mean to him and constantly mock him and criticise every decision he makes and have been this same way since we started high school... I don't know what I was going to say there. There's no excuse, I treated him and everyone terribly. But it's because I... even though I'm terrible to him, I still..." Looking out the window, Draco could see a few stars. More of them could be viewed now that they were getting further away from the city's pollution. The moon wasn't out but the stars shone so brightly, it made Draco's head throb more. "I still love him, god dammit!"
The car slowed to a stop outside a long, marble driveway that snaked its way around hedges to an intimidating looking household.
"Well, ah..." Neville said, feeling his face burn. "Here's, um. Your... Malfoy manor."
"Oh." His head spinning, Draco unclicked his seatbelt and gathered his cape around him. "Well... I suppose a- a thank you would be... no, I'm not even going to try. Goodbye, Longbottom- how do you open this door?"
Neville popped the lock and the door swung open at Draco's touch who staggered out of the car, not sober enough to regret all the drinks he had.
Neville awkwardly watched him go, his hands frozen on the steering wheel.
He gulped. "Why is it always me?"