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There are few things in this world that Draco Malfoy loved more then cuddles. The feel of squeezing himself close and wrapping himself up in whoever’s lap was closest was one of his very favorite things in the world.

But.

There was an issue.

The ice prince of Slytherin, the heir to the Malfoy name and the most badass of badasses (a title that he has come up with himself but fuck off Blaise, its true) did not cuddle.

It was, as his father would say, an unseemly act. Malfoy men could shake hands, they could give encouraging pats on the back and, if things where dire, they could exchange quick manly hugs. Those were only for the most desperate and trying of times and where not an act to take lightly.

And so, Draco suffered.

It was disheartening, he thought, how terribly deprived he was of things that he wanted. There was nothing for it though, he would have to live out this caricature of a life, he would have to pretend, he could do that, for his father’s sake. Malfoy men were strong, dammit!

He glared across the common room as Pansy threw herself on the couch, half landing on Goyle who grunted in response. How dare she! How dare she flaunt herself like this, right in front of him!

Draco turned his head to the side, this wasn’t fair. Why was his life so unfair? His hand clutched tighter to the blanket that he had wrapped around himself. Why was he the only person ever in the world who had to suffer like this?

Draco pinched his lips together, the beginning of a thought crossing his mind. If Malfoys and ice princes weren’t allowed to cuddle, then he was going to have to be not a Malfoy. But how? Polyjuice? No. Draco shudder at the thought, there was no way the he, The Draco Malfoy, would ever lower himself to taking someone else’s skin. No, there had to be a better way.

He shot upright, a shout of triumph leaving his lips and echoing across the room. Draco ignored the looks of irritation he received in response to the disturbance, his mind already busy with plans.

He, Draco Malfoy, was going to get what he wanted, and he was going to get it in the most sneaky, most brilliant, most Malfoy way to ever exist.

The thing about becoming an animagus, as Draco discovered, was that one couldn’t simply choose their own form, no, the magic reflected you, as a person, and not your brilliant super sneaky plans and that, while being rude and not at all what Draco wanted, was ok, as long as the form he did eventually take helped him achieve his high and lofty goals.

Now, the issue of how to become one in the first place. Draco was a good student, he was smart, he knew this, and he also knew that he could figure this out on his own. Along with all the things that Draco knew, one more thing was that becoming an animagus without going through the proper channels was illegal but, whatever, his family was rich, and he was a Malfoy and his life sucked so if this was the thing that was going to absolutely make everything wrong ever better, then he was going to do it.

The books where easy to get, a little smile here, a little fast summoning charm there and boom, a manual. Which was all well and good except that the damn thing was written in such stupid, flowery, metaphory language that Draco had a hard time resisting the urge to throw it across the room.

Malfoy’s didn’t throw books, it was unseemly.

He did, however, point his wand at the little first year making his way into the Great Hall and whisper out a little tripping jinx, pinching his lips together to keep the giggle in. He was so evil, his mother would be so proud, she was always telling him about how he was destined to do great things and here he was, proving her right.

The first year let out a yelp and toppled over his own feet, narrowly avoiding smashing his nose into the cold, hard floor and flushing a bright read as most of the heads in the hall turned his way. Draco scowled as stupid Potter shot to his feet, smiling a stupid big smile and rushing forward to help the stupid first year up.

Draco kept scowling as he watched stupid Potter throw an arm around the stupid first year and escort him to the Gryffindor table, sitting his stupid self-down and tugging the stupid first year down with him. Stupid Potter, always rushing to destroy anything that made him happy.

If Draco had to choose, stupid Potter would be the one person in the whole world that he hated the most. Stupid Potter was his nemesis and one day, Draco knew, he just knew, he The Draco Malfoy, would do his whole family line proud and take out stupid Potter. In the death way. Not the other way.

Whatever.

Draco bit into his toast, pushing away Pansy’s hand as it made to grab the bread from him, rude, he was already holding it, she buttered this one she could butter another.

He ignored the conversation around him, standing up as he friends did and following them out and to class. He was deep in thought and the least his friends could do was to let him think, he had important things to think about because he was an important person and he felt that he should remind them, just in case, because this was something that should never be forgotten.

“Guys.” Draco came to a stop in the middle of the corridor, “Guys, I’m very important.”

Blaise raised an eyebrow and patted him on the shoulder in a way that was very, very Malfoy. “Of course you are."

Pansy smiled at him and reached over to pinch his cheek, Draco allowed it but only because it was rude to hit a lady and not because it made him feel happy and warm inside.

Crabbe put his big, lumbering hand up into the air and let it drop, gently, onto the top of Draco’s head and hold up, was he petting him? Draco narrowed his eyes and Crabbe let his hand pass over the deceptively thick, blond hair one more time before dropping it back down.

“Do you suppose we could talk about how important you are while we walk to class Draco?” Asked Blaise, but Draco ignored him.

He was thinking about important things because he was important!

Didn’t his friends ever listen?

After reading the dumb, flowery manual five times Draco was well on his way to figuring out his animagus form. It wasn’t hard, and he was a genus so no, he had never doubted that he would be able to figure it out.

It was two in the morning and the fireplace in the common room was crackling, Draco was sat in front on a little cushion, legs crossed, and eyes closed as he let the warmth flow over him. Meditating was so easy, and Draco could not, for the life of him figure out why people complained about it so much. All you had to do was empty your mind and be calm and Draco gave himself a mental pat on the back for how good he was doing.

He had a lot to do, he was way behind on figuring out his form and if he didn’t figure it out then how was he supposed to turn into it and if he didn’t achieve his form then how was he to commence with his plan an-

No, Draco cut himself off, he would succeed because he was a Malfoy and also because he was super smart and he would do that really, really soon but first he was just going to lay down for a bit because the fire was warm and soothing and the common room was quite and he was so tired and he was just going to take a little nap.

The very next day, at six in the morning, Blaise entered the common room to discover the heir to the Malfoy fortune curled up on the floor hugging a little throw pillow. He shook his head, heading over and hunching down, taking a second to slide his arms under Draco’s knees and back and letting out a little grunt as he lifted him.

Draco was not heavy, but he was not, by any means, light either and lugging him up the stairs to his bed was a nice work out. After pulling the covers up and around his friend Blaise took a second to just look at him, lips in a gentle smile and heart feeling soft and fond.

Draco was a pain in the ass, but he was an undeniably cute pain in the ass. At least most of the time, sometimes he was an incredibly vocal and irritating spoiled brat and it took everything in Blaise to not lose his temper and do something like send the idiot to a random corner and keep him there with a sticking spell.

Ah well, maybe next time. For now, Blaise wondered just what the hell Draco had been doing in the common room so late and if it was worth asking him about or not. Whatever, he would think about it later, for now, he still had a morning run to do.

This was the day, Draco could feel it, this was the day that he would find out his animagus form. It turned out that meditating was just a little harder then he had thought it would be and, in the end, he had had to find someone who was willing to help him figure it out. Turned out there was a thing called a Yoga Club and, while Draco knew he was a far more important and an all-around more amazing person than anyone in the club, he did have to admit that they were very helpful when it came to finding his inner peace. They were also very surprised when showed up but that was ok, Draco knew that it could sometimes be difficult for normal people to act normal when there was someone as important as a Malfoy around and he didn’t begrudge them that bit of starstruck behavior.

So anyhow, today was the day! He was full of peace and his mind was super quiet and soon he would know what his animal was and that was brilliant because he was brilliant and he deserved this.

So Draco closed his eyes again and cleared his mind. This was going to be brilliant.

This was not at all brilliant and Draco threw the stupid animagus manual at the wall in his dorm room, narrowly missing Goyle’s head as he walked into the room and huffing out a breath as he crossed his arms and stomped his foot.

He ignored Goyle as he walked across the room, shooting Draco annoyed glances.

Ten minutes later, after collecting the book from the floor and vowing to never think of this moment of weakness again, Draco let out another angry huff. Then another and another and really, what was it going to take for Goyle to ask him what was wrong? He has the most unobservant friends ever.

“Goyle!” Draco snapped, ‘Goyle!”

Goyle looked up, “What your highness?”

Draco smiles at the title, his friends may be unobservant but at least they treated him with the respect that he deserved.

“Goyle, I have a problem. It’s a big problem and before you ask, no, I won’t tell you what it is, but I will tell you that it’s important and bad and that it’s not fair.”

Draco snapped his mouth shut and stuck out his bottom lip, Goyle still looked less than interested and that just would not do. “Goyle, are you hearing me? I told you, I have a problem. Fix it.”

Goyle took a deep breath, deeper than Draco really thought necessary seeing as the man was sitting and was not, in any way doing any kind of activity that would require heavy breathing. Then again, Goyle was a big guy and maybe it just took that kind of breathing to keep his body running. Draco would have to start paying more attention. Later though, right now he had a problem.

Goyle reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers, wincing a little before looking Draco right in the eye. “If you won’t tell me what it is then how am I supposed to fix it?”

Dammit, Draco had to admit that that was a fair bit of logic.

He stomped his foot again.

“If you were a real friend then you would figure out a way to make it better.”

Goyle rolled his eyes. “If I was a real friend huh?”

Draco nodded.

“How about this, come on over here and tell me what you can about your important problem, and then maybe we can come up with a way to fix it.”

“Will you get the house elves to bring chocolate?”

Goyle patted the bed and smiled, “Do I not always?”

Ok, Draco conceded, maybe Goyle was an alright friend.

It had now been a few long, miserable months since Draco had concocted his most brilliant plan, and, while Draco still believed it to be brilliant, he also believed it to be boring. And hard. Who knew that finding the animal spirit within you so that you could take it’s form in an act of spectacular magic would take this much time and energy.

He hadn’t.

And it wasn’t fair.

If this kept up, he would graduate before he had even the smallest chance of getting a hug and the worst part of this whole thing was that no one understood. No one on this whole planet had even the smallest understanding of what he was going through, and Draco felt, he felt so alone.

Year end testing was almost done and a large group of Slytherins where gathered together in the common room, bodies loose after the mental strain they had been under for the last few weeks. Everyone was happy, chatting, someone had snuck drinks in and the room was buzzing with a layer of calm energy and overtired giggles

Draco had never felt so out of place.

His friends, his most bestest friends in the world where piled together on a couch, limbs tangled in what looked like a very nice cuddle pile and Draco felt something cold and acid start to climb its way up his throat.

No!

He pushed the feeling away. No, he wasn’t going to do this, he wasn’t going to cry. Malfoy’s didn’t cry. They, they pushed through, they pushed it all down, no matter what it was and went on, heads held high and that was exactly what Draco was going to do to. Except.

Except.

Except Pansy was waving him over and Crabbe had an arm out in invitation and they looked so happy and comfortable and it would be ok if he let himself do this, just once, right?

Draco bit his lip, could he let himself do this? Give in like this? There was a little voice in Draco’s head, a voice that he had spent an incredibly large part if his life ignoring and that voice was telling him that maybe, just maybe, he should for once, let himself be who he wanted to be and not who he was told he should be.

The voice was usually silenced by one that sounded an awful lot like his father and well, Draco loved his father, he really did, but he wasn’t blind to the man’s faults, no matter how much he acted like he was, and if he could admit to himself that his father wasn’t perfect then maybe he could also admit that not everything his father told him was great.

And maybe he could also go join his friends on the couch. Draco’s finger twitched. It would be so easy and yet, there was still a little sliver of unease, a little chain that kept him tied to his seat in the corner and away from the beckoning smiles of the people he had spent his childhood with. The people that would soon be graduating with him and no longer be there everyday with their praise and patience and quite understanding and Draco felt a heavy stone lodge itself in the pit of his stomach.

He had been so caught up in finding ways to sneak affection that he had forgotten that they had always, from the first moment they had all met, made it clear that their care for him was offered with no contingencies and Draco, Draco had taken it for granted, swept it under the rug and had pretended that it was something that he had to trick them into because a Malfoy, a Malfoy wasn’t so weak as to need support.

There was a burning in his eyes and Draco shoved his hand up, scrubbing roughly at the tears that were trying to make there way out and down.

No, this wouldn’t do. He, Draco Malfoy was not going to let seven years of love and friendship end with such a whimper. No, he Draco Malfoy was going to show this little family that he had somehow managed to gather around himself, just how much he appreciated them. And he was going to start now.

There was a little rose laid out on Pansy’s pillow, small and innocent and perfectly white and Pansy blinked at it. Where the hell had it come from? Pansy shifted her eyes, taking in a quick glance of the room. Nothing was out of place, there was a jacket one of the other girls had left hanging over the back of a chair, a pile of books stacked haphazardly on a little table and other random debris around the room. Everything was where it had been that morning and Pansy couldn’t, for the life of her, think of who would have left the little flower.

She wrinkled her nose, oh well, there was nothing for it. Pansy stepped forward, wand in hand and gave the rose a quick scan, no curses, no hexes or hijinks it was just, a flower.

She picked it up, looking around once more, just to double check, and then brought it up to her face while a little smile crept its way out and onto her lips.

It was nice to feel thought of.

Blaise was a sturdy, calm guy. He wasn’t prone to fits of explosive emotions, more likely to keep it in and think it through. But even Blaise wasn’t immune to a bad day and that’s just what this was, an incredibly terrible and horrible bad day that had started with him oversleeping and was now, apparently ending with him getting so caught up in his nearly overdue homework that he has missed dinner.

And dammit, he was hungry, the only meal he’d had that day was lunch and he was, technically, still growing and the world sucked, and he hated everything and everyone in it.

Except for whomever had gotten a house elf to leave a sandwich, cookies and some tea on his bedside table, whomever that was, well that person Blaise loved.

He thanked the house elf who squeaked at getting caught and picked up his sandwich, it was nice to feel cared about.

Crabbe and Goyle where good friends but they were not, as many people seemed to think, one person and where, in actuality, two very different people.

So, when Crabbe opened a parcel with his name on it that a delivery owl had dropped off and came face to face with a book titled “Home and Hearth: 100 Easy Meals for The Busy Cook” he couldn’t help the grin that stole over his face.

There where very few people that he knew who were close enough and cared enough to encourage one of his favorite hobbies and while his friends were all nothing less than supportive, all of them looked just as surprised as he felt at the delivery.

But regardless of where it had come from, it was nice to feel encouraged.

Goyle was many things to his friends, he was a backbone when they needed support, a shoulder when they needed someone to lean on and a willing ear to talk too when things got bottled inside and needed to be let out.

He loved his friends and he knew they loved him but sometimes, sometimes he felt a bit overlooked, and he always told himself that that was ok, what was important was that he knew they cared and, while the sentiment was nice it was still hard to sometimes quite the little voice in his head that would tell him that he wasn’t nearly as important to them as they were to him.

So, it was a surprise to find a little note on his bedside table, all folded and tucked, nearly hidden completely under a book, and filled with a sweet little hand-written letter telling him all the things that he had always known and had always worried about anyhow.

Goyle looked at the letter and held it a bit tighter in his fingers, as much as he had tried to deny it, the warmth that filled him at reading those words was exactly what had been missing. The handwriting looked so familiar and Goyle was racking his brain trying to think of who in his little friend group would have written it.

Ah well, he’d figure it out later, for now, it was just nice to feel loved.

Blaise, Pansy, Crabbe and Goyle where huddled up together in a pile on a bed in the boy’s dorm, school was coming to an end soon and they were all feeling a little nostalgic.

“Hey, do you remember the first night in here?” asked Blaise, laying out flat on his back with one leg thrown over Pansy’s lap, “When we were all tiny and terrified and Crabbe woke up at like two in the morning because Draco crawled into his bed?”

Goyle let out a laugh at that, leaning over to poke Blaise in the side and then dogging the half-hearted slap Blaise aimed in his direction, saying “He still does that with me you know, he just pretends that it never happened in the morning.”

“Where is he anyway?” Asked Pansy, noting the distinct lack of blonde and bratty in the room and Blaise shrugged, “He said something about getting something from the library and ran out of the common room.”

Pansy hummed and bit her lip, “Do you think he’s been acting off lately?”

“He would tell us if something was wrong, right?” Blaise asked, pushing himself up into a sitting position, feeling a little tension start to seep back into his body, “I mean, if there was something really wrong, he would tell us?”

“I”- Pansy started, jumping and cutting herself off as the door slammed opened, letting in a very red Draco Malfoy who was now doubled over and clutching his stomach. Crabbe let out a shout of alarm and jumped off the bed, very nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste and stumbling the rest of the way to a still heaving Draco.

Draco pushed away the reaching hands and flapped his own in return, letting out a gaspy “I’m fine just thought it would be fun to see how fast I could run up the stairs, and then let out an indignant squawk when he was pushed over slightly.

“You scared us you dimwit, come over to the bed, we’re having a reminiscing night and you’re the one with the most dirt on Blaise.”

With the experience if years at his side, Crabbe dogged the poorly thrown shoe that had been aimed at his head and tugged on Draco’s arm till he gave in and followed him to the little cuddle party.

Draco flopped his body down, half draped over Goyle who gave his hair an indulgent pat, turning his head to the side and out of the blanket. The words out of his mouth where still muffled though and Draco huffed, turning so that he was half sitting up. He had had this whole speech prepared, had psyched himself up and had practiced it so many time in the mirror but now that he had a chance to say it, he felt like his stomach housed lava and like his checks where going to burn and fall off of his face, and he couldn’t have that. He had such a nice face.

But he had to say something, his friends where all looking at him now and well, who knew when they would all be together like this again, it was now or never.

Draco took a deep breath, letting it out slowly through pursed lips and picked his head up.

“Guys, I just, before we graduate, I just wanted to make sure that you knew, know, how much I, how much I……”

Draco let out a frustrated huff and looked up as someone caught his hand, smiling at Pansy as she rubbed her thumb over his fingers saying softly, “Take your time, we have nowhere to be.”

Draco tried to ground himself, he could do this. “I just, I just want to let you all know how much I love you, and that I know that I can be a pain and I’m sorry that I don’t tell you how much you mean to me more often, so, yah, that’s, that’s it.”

Draco dropped back onto the bed, and shoved his face into the blanket, hoping that maybe the bedding would strangle him and groaning when he felt himself being pulled up. Why could they not let him die of embarrassment in peace?

His friends where the worst, the best, but also the worst.

Goyle had him up and in his lap, arms wrapped around him and Pansy was pinching his cheeks, Crabbe was stroking his hair and Draco scowled because his hair took time to do and was being ruined, and Blaise was smiling so wide Draco was a little worried his jaw was going to unhinge itself.

“I hate you all.” Draco muttered, lips out in a pout that only got larger as Pansy pinched harder and squealed, “No you don’t!”

Blaise held up a hand “Wait up,” he looked straight at Draco, “are you the one who’s been leaving us little gifts?” Blaise’s maniacal smile only grew as the red on Draco’s face depend. Suddenly Blaise lunged over and wrapped his arms around both Goyle and Draco, and shoved his face into Draco’s personal space, lips making a wet smacking sound as he kissed his cheek.

Crabbe laughed at Draco’s disgusted expression and turned his head to take a good, long look at his friends, catching Pansy’s eye and smiling back at her.

Yes, school was ending and yes, they were all going their separate ways and yes, who knew what the future might hold, but one thing was certain, this, this little family that they had nurtured and built and protected, this little family was forever. Because they were all going to do their damn best to make sure if it.

And, while waxing poetic was nice and all, Crabbe had more important things to do right now, so, pushing his thoughts to the side, he turned back to the still pouting Draco and cracked a grin. This would not do, Crabbe grabbed a pillow that had been thrown off to the side of the bed and pulled it up slowly, this was the perfect night for a pillow fight.