I know, I should spend my time on actually finishing some of the snippets I posted recently rather than work on mostly stream-of-consciousness poorly-planned ficlets. Shut up.


He's in a bar. Muggle bar. He doesn't do much of that magic stuff anymore socially. Wizards and witches are, in general, damned annoying and they never shut up about the Fantastic Mr. Potter.

Mr. Malfoy? Who? Wasn't he a Death Eater?

Well, yes, but we all make mistakes. Being born, for instance.

This broody-introvert thing doesn't suit him much, and he decides to meet a pretty witch - girl. He's a bit sloshed, but fully functional and still gorgeous as all hell despite donning a disguise. Namely, spelling his hair black.

"Heeey baby, I'm a wizard. Wanna see my wand?"

Ok, perhaps he's a bit more shit-faced than he'd anticipated. The girl in question is blurring in and out of his vision. She seems pretty...she's dark-haired, petite, and curvy. And she's ignoring him.

Nobody ignores Draco Malfoy. He scoots closer, invading her personal space and grinning wickedly as he purrs, "C'mon...give a guy a break. I'll show you some magic like you've never seen before."

"I highly doubt that," she says. Bit of a cold fish, but Draco Malfoy can warm anyone up. Muahahaha.

"Did you just say 'muahahaha'?"

"Um. What if I did?"

"Look kid, you're cute but obviously stupid. And drunk. Get out of my face so I can go back to being a broody introvert."

What's wrong with that sentence?

"Inprimis, I'm twenty-two. If I'm any judge you're hardly older."

"Inprimis? What century are you from, anyway?"

"That brings me to my second point. While I concede that I am absolutely pissed right now, I am still the most intelligent guy you'll ever meet."

She gives him a long look. "Whatever."

"No, really. I can find intervals of convergence in my head."

"Negative one to the k times half x to the k, sum zero to infinity."

"Give me a hard one. Plus and minus two."

"All right. My place or yours?"

Professor Vector was right! Arithmancy did help you pick up girls! Well, he hadn't actually said that. Just sort of implied it.

"Um. Yours would be better. Mine's kind of far."

Her apartment is just a block or two away. They get inside and he starts kissing her, but she stops him. Which is a first for him, and he doesn't like it.

"I don't sleep with strangers."

"Then what the fuck did you bring me here for?"

"Chill. What's your name?"

He's not going to give her his real name, especially if he's not going to get laid.

"Rick. You?"

"You can call me Lisa."

"No, I don't think I will." Lisa Turpin. His first crush, and the first and last girl he was actually interested in who turned him down.

"I'll call you Helen."

"You can't just rename me like that!"

"Can and did, doll. Anyway, I don't think Lisa's your real name."

"You got me there. All right, then I'll call you Dante."

"Dante? Okay, I can live with that. Want a taste of my inferno?"

"Please don't tell me I just opened myself up to a barrage of awful metaphors."

"You chose the name..."

"Right, I don't think we're strangers anymore. Want to fuck?"


He wakes up and it's too fucking bright. She's taken over the covers and right now all he can see is piles of long, curly hair. It's a good thing, too, because he discovers that his hair's reverted to almost-white. Another good thing is his wand, still hidden in his coat on the floor. He finishes touching up on his disguise and wanders into the kitchen.

She catches him with toast in his teeth, buttering another slice. "You know," she says, "You're too skinny. Have a donut." She opens the fridge and hands one to him. It has chocolate sprinkles on it.

"I think I love you," he says, gulping down the toast and grabbing the donut.

She laughs. "Next time, we're doing it at your place. Stock coffee."


He calls her the next afternoon and says, "Hey, it's Dante. Let's do the boyfriend-girlfriend thing. Like with the regular sex in exchange for flowers and candy." She says, "Yeah, okay."
They go out and see some stupid flick, whispering a running commentary, and he has fun. He feels alive for a while. Then he brings her back to the flat he lives in, because he hates the Manor and couldn't bring a Muggle there anyway, and feels even more alive. He wakes up to an empty bed and empty coffeepot, but she's left a note on the bedside table.

D -

I had fun. But I've got a meeting I'm already late for. Thanks for the coffee.

Even though he understands, he feels unreasonably upset about the fact that he's male and should have waking-up-first privileges. Then he notices she's signed the note Love, H on the back and is unreasonably happy.

He wonders what it's like to have a job, but not enough to actually get one. If he ever runs out of money, which is more or less impossible with his lifestyle, he can always sell some lands in France. Or he could give tours of the Manor. He imagines leading a group of third-years. "And this was the sitting room of the late Lucius Malfoy. Yes, it's very scary. Don't touch anything or you may turn into a duck for a week. Standard security. I'm not kidding." He makes a sweeping gesture and hits his wrist against the pantry doorknob. Damn these fragile Malfoy bones, he thinks, while definitely-not-whimpering-and-clutching-the-afflicted-joint. He needs a drink. And a more permanent hair spell if she's going to keep spending the night, or vice versa, like this.


It's another day or two before she returns his calls. It's a good thing she does, because he's starting to feel like a stupid obsessive clingy fifth-year with her first boyfriend. "Jesus, Dante, don't you have a job or something?" Should he tell her he's independently wealthy? Will she start only dating him for his money? Will she get intimidated and shy away?

Is he thinking too fucking much?

"Daaahn-taaay...you're taking too long. Please tell me it's nothing illegal."

"Nothing illegal."

"Embarrassing then? Fish-skin shoe manufacturer? Manager of a drag bar specializing in anime themes? Can't be a grocery store clerk, not with Armani in your closet."

"I'm um. Unemployed?"

There's silence on the other end for a moment. "Sure, whatever."

He's feeling a bit defensive now, angry that he had to half-lie for no reason at all. "What do you do for a living?"

She pauses and he can hear her thinking. Whatever she says will be a lie. "I'm the department manager for my company. I mostly make sure reports are filed and sort through inefficient grunt-work."

He wants to believe her. But he doesn't.

They've finished talking and he's putting the phone back before he realizes that he forgot to ask her out.

He tells himself, so what if it's not working out? It's just a couple dates. One real date, if you don't count the first time. This sort of thing happens a lot. Not to him, though. He's not a particularly casual person.

But he does like her. So he picks up the phone again.


Two weeks later, and he likes her even more. She's pushy and too organized sometimes, but she's...nice to be around. He's gotten used to her. He's gotten used to coffee and waking up first in her place, and last in his place. He's even gotten used to finding random books that he knows he didn't buy scattered throughout his apartment.

Two weeks and three days after he picked her up in the bar - she insists she picked him up - it goes boom. Like crazy. It's a Saturday, and though he wakes up first he decides to go back to sleep. He wakes up again in a couple hours and she's holding his wand and staring at him like she's not sure whether to laugh or cry. The last time he saw that expression was when Millicent Bulstrode found out her parents were dead.

Then it hits him. She's holding his wand. How is she doing that? Muggles shouldn't be able to see it, let alone touch it.

When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be true. She's not a Muggle.

This makes things so much easier. No, wait. It makes things so much harder it's making his head hurt.

She's going to say something, but he cuts her off. "Look, obviously you've got your own reasons. Is this salvageable? Do we have to start over?"

He's studying the floor like he's never seen it before, and wonders why she's not answering. Then she touches his hair with the wandless hand and says, "Hey, Malfoy."

His head snaps up and his own pale hair falls into his eyes. He's brushing it away before he realizes she wouldn't call him by his last name unless she knew him.

He looks at her again, really looks at her, sees the fading glamour charms and watches Hermione Granger emerge on her face.

"Do I call you Draco, or what?" she says.