COME AROUND
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of JK Rowling. No infringement intended.
Author's Note: Bored. Very bored. Very very bored. Very very very bored. Very very very very bored. Very very very very very bored. So bored that I'd keep going till there are twenty very's there, but I felt sorry for you people who might actually want to read this. Also, I am just trying to irritate you. Behold my success. Now, on a less bored note, let me just say that this fic was inspired by a Rhett Miller song, Come Around. I will post the lyrics at the end. If I ever finish. Maybe then it'll have some meaning to you. I am a slasher, but this is straight because I want it to be. EDIT: 1/4/03 -- added a bit. Thought it was too short.

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He was precisely the wrong kind of person to go backpacking. Yes, he was absolutely wrong and absolutely dumb for doing this. He could hardly find his room at the Manor in the dark without the help of some terrified little house elf. He couldn't cook. He never really did anything for himself. Yes, it was the wrong thing to do. He should go back home, apologise to his father, and get back to living the pompous and proper life that suited a nineteen-year-old Malfoy heir. What was the reason he went backpacking, anyway? Why had he fought with his father? What compelled him to abandon everything he had valued, the money, power, comfort, and magic? Yeah, he'd ditched the wand back at Malfoy Manor, too. If he'd had it with him, he'd be so reliant on it to get him through the day, and that would completely defeat the point of this little trip. If it could be called little. So why had he done so, he wondered to himself, walking up a beautiful, old street in Tuscany, heaving an enormous bag full of belongings he just couldn't live—or leave—without, not to mention wearing ridiculously simple-looking Muggle clothes. He did have some Muggle money, he reminded himself.

Then again, what was a Malfoy without a bit of cash? He grinned. Not that it was a bit. He'd pulled some (some in his language meaning a hell of a lot to most other people) of his money out of his Gringotts account and got himself a Visa. He smiled to himself. You could take the boy away from the Malfoys, yeah, but you sure couldn't take the Malfoy away from the boy.

So what if I'm a bit materialistic and I've got enough sense to worry about getting run over by some insane Italian Muggle in a sports car? he mused, spotting a bench near a fountain. He dropped his pack onto the seat and dumped himself exhaustedly into the chair. It was true, though. Italian Muggles drove at breakneck speed. He was quite afraid to cross the street. Had he his wand, he could have Impedimenta-d and Avada Kedavra-d all the ignorant, non-magic folk. Their own bloody fault. But he didn't have his wand.

So why had he gone on this 'ridiculously selfish little field trip' (his father's words, not his) around Europe by himself? Heck, he didn't want to have to be confined to backpacking around Europe. He had his Visa, he could go to America or Asia if he bloody wanted. Which, at the moment, he didn't, but eventually, he might.

You're eluding the inevitable topic again, Draco, he scolded himself, smiling a bit. Why had he decided to drop everything and go backpacking? To find myself. Find himself? But he knew exactly where he was. He had a life, he had a family, he had a fortune, he had a future. Family? he wondered, smirking a bit, yeah, if you could call it that. Could he call it that? Were the Malfoys, his parents, family to him? Sure, they paid for food, school, bought him pretty much everything he'd ever wanted. But he'd never felt any affection from them, and to Draco, that was what a family should have been all about. Nope, no family. He hadn't put friends on the list, either, for obvious reasons.

Why had he gone on this trip? He knew the answer. He knew the bloody answer, but he couldn't bear to say it, or even think about it. He wanted to escape. This trip was an escape from everything he knew, everything he had known.

It was an escape from her. Draco sighed, exasperatedly. He'd said it. It was out. He could now approach this tender subject and try to get it out of his system. Yeah.

But he couldn't even say her name to himself. You can try, Malfoy, you prat.

Cho.

Cho Chang.

Cho--insert expletive here--Chang. He had many expletives he could use to fill the space. Draco smirked as he ran a hand (almost tanned! The Italian sun was doing wonders!) through his silver hair. He was a creative boy. Not to mention the fact that he'd grown up hearing countless expletives in many languages. He could manage. Draco grinned. He was very good with putting nasty images in other people's heads, too. This, he found, was not always such a beneficial talent. Sometimes, people found it amusing, sometimes, people thought it was disgusting and that he was a very horribly twisted child.

"You're drifting from the subject again, Draco," he whispered. A middle-aged Italian woman walked past him just as he said this. She glanced at him strangely, like she thought he was insane or had herpes (or something similar). "The first symptom of insanity is holding conversations with yourself, Malfoy," he thought, amused. He fought the urge to say this out loud, however, for fear that the poor lady would trip while running as far from him as possible, carrying what must have been fifteen pounds of groceries.

Back to the subject. Cho. Draco paused for a moment, and cleared his head. For a bit of effect, he looked up at the sky, too. Not a bloody cloud in sight. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, the birds were singing. The world was perfect. So why couldn't this perfection rub off on him? If everyone else could be so bloody happy, why couldn't he?

Cho Chang. What had she meant to him? What had she done to--done for--him that changed him in such a great way? That made him curse her inwardly every time he thought of her long, raven hair, her brown almond eyes, and her perfect smile? Why was he so affected? He had been hurt in the past and he hadn't cared. Malfoys never cared. Malfoys felt the pain and learned from it. Malfoys didn't flinch (most of the time, at least). Why did he care?

He thought it silly, asking himself questions that he knew the answers to, and yet, denying these answers. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Cho taught him what it was like to be loved. She taught him how to love. She gave him a life, something he never realised he hadn't had before. She'd made him a real person, one who had feelings. In one cold, insensitive, unfeeling, heartless (oh, he could just go on about this) sentence, she took all of this back. Everything she had given him. And everything that she had given him had been his only reason for living now.

I'm sorry, Draco. This was all just a bet that I took too far, she'd said, with a bit of smile, in her sparkling Yule Ball gown. She refused to meet his eyes. Hell, if she had, he wouldn't have wanted to look into them, anyway. He didn't want her to see the effect her words had on him. He didn't want to see her. Instead, he stared at her glittering white dress. They'd picked this dress out together at the boutique at Hogsmeade. Satin, silk, and lace, with a beaded bodice. It was exquisite, a one-of-a-kind dress that was made for Cho Chang. It fit her perfectly, curved, fell, clung, and swayed in all the right places. It was beautiful, but it didn't take any beauty away from Cho's features, only enhanced them. It was ridiculously expensive, but he'd insisted on paying for it, anyway. She tried to refuse, insisting that there must be another nice dress that would suit her, but he persisted. She thanked him profusely, her eyes gleaming with happiness. "Consider it your Christmas present," he'd said, taking the opportunity to give her what he thought was a suave, dashing, debonair smile. She knew what he was up to, however, and hit him over the head with her purse. "Silly!" she exclaimed cheerfully. "Thanks," she added, taking his hand as she dragged him into the men's department. Draco had tried to tell her that he had countless dress robes in his wardrobe already--he didn't need another--but she wouldn't hear of it. "I have to return the favour, don't I?" she joked, flashing him that special smile, the one that (he liked to think) belonged to him. He surely hadn't seen her using it on anyone else. "Now, let's go!" she proclaimed, pulling him along behind her, the both of them laughing.

She pulled out a gorgeous, dark blue dress robe for him, and he had laughed. He shook his head. Not blue. It should be green. The Slytherins would think he was a bloody turncoat. Cho handed him the robe, nevertheless, and he put it on. "It does look good on me," he remarked coolly. "Then again, doesn't everything?" he added. She threw his clothes at him. "Arrogant prat!" she laughed, her eyes sparkling. They'd played this game before. Draco knew that as much as she might say otherwise, she did think he was pretty good-looking, and this did wonders for his ego. He went back into the dressing room and changed back into his own clothes, and when he emerged with the blue robe, Cho took it from him. They had sat there for a few moments, just staring at each other. They both broke into beaming smiles, and raced each other to the counter, paying for each other's garment (though Cho's was obviously the more extravagant). This was all just a bet that I took too far. She'd turned away from him then, and walked over to where her date for the night had been waiting. It didn't matter to him, he hadn't been looking at her. Nothing had mattered to him anymore, ever again.

He went back to the Slytherin and pulled his blue dress robe over his head, ripping it to shreds with his own hands. He felt satisfaction with every tearing noise. He felt the anger as the fabric burned and cut into his skin. He threw it into the fire, and with the fragments of expensive fabric went everything he ever believed in.

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Author's Note: I'm bored. I don't know if I'll continue this. I can keep hoping. :D It's interesting enough, to me, at least. But there are only two pairings involving Draco that I approve of: Draco/Harry, and Draco/ME. What have you?