1977, Drake's rumination on friendship.

Drake has always felt alone.

From the moment he entered the world, screaming, the hollow ache in his chest bloomed. After all, he was born to ruin.

And ruin, he did.

His footsteps destroyed families; his sticky hands destroyed his own. From the moment Drake stole that silver watch that glints on his wrist, his father fought for him, and run, he did.

Ruin, he did.

And then he met them: Rosalie and Acacia. The former accidentally broke his arm and hospitalised him for weeks. She, too, hurt herself, of course, but he hated her, and that stupidly pretty girl that visited her. The two girls had matching flower names, like a kid's television series.

Acacia and Rosalie.

His twelve-year-old self called bullshit.

But then a friendship between Rosalie and Drake bloomed, and he saw himself around the two girls often. Besides hanging with Jennifer Fawley, one of the only Slytherins who tolerated (and still tolerates) his aloofness, Rosalie and Acacia became his only option.

Something in his heart stitched.

But when Rosalie starts fainting and losing his sleep, he loses himself. Wonders why she's doing this to herself, wonders why she can't rest. He hasn't felt concern for people in years, until the two girls came into his life.

Acacia, with her sharp tongue, blazing eyes, and wit. Rosalie, with her kindness, lingering sadness, and a hilarity he hasn't seen before meeting her.

Now, he even starts tolerating Rosalie's other friends, the Marauders. Which, to him, is insane. How could James Potter ever be likeable? His intelligence is wasted potential, hidden underneath his lack of common sense. Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin are tolerable. And Sirius Black, the one who he knows hurt Acacia, also stole Rosalie's heart.

Drake has always been tangled in a web of friendships and complicated people. Ask his sister; Amber is the most nuanced person he's ever had the displeasure of being around.

But this? Well, Amber still makes him feel alone. She's hardly around, wasting her life for him.

It's these other people that cleanse the void settled in his chest, making him realise that he was never meant to be alone.

He wasn't born for loneliness, and he knows that, now.