Draco Malfoy's Very Good Day

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. This was written for the HPFC Meet the Muggles Challenge by Kore-of-Myth.

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Draco Malfoy was having a very nice day, thank you very much. He had spent the morning out shopping, and had purchased a smashing new set of pitch black robe and a white half-mask that would look great at parties. The parties he would attend them in would be quite smashing too, of course, but he didn't like to brag... well, yes, he did, but that's hardly the point, now is it? No, the point was that he had had a good day thus far and was now traversing the horrific jungle known as Muggle London.

It was unfortunate that he had to be in Muggle London at all, and worse still that he had to be wearing muggle clothes while doing so (the suit rather chaffed him), but he reminded himself of the robes he had bought and the half-mask and how wonderful all the parties he would attend them in would be. Maybe the Mudblood, Granger, would be at one of them. The thought caused him to smile.

He quit smiling, however, when he reached the appointed meeting place for the evening. For some reason, Astoria Greengrass – his girlfriend and the two-years-older sister of Daphne, who was in his year of Hogwarts – had wanted to meet in a muggle shopping mall. In a muggle store. Next to a giant cloud of awful perfumes that would have put Merlin himself out of commission. Draco's hand twitched toward his wand, wanting very much to hex all the bottles to smell like skunk and put a bubble-head charm over himself, but he knew he couldn't. It was unfortunate, and sadly illegal.

With a sigh, he slumped against the railing that went over the muggle moving-staircases (they reminded him of the moving spiral staircase to the Headmaster's office, though he had only been twice, and would likely see more often now that Snape had been made Headmaster). She was late, he was sure, but he could pull out his pocket watch, now could he? The muggles would notice the handsome, expensive thing, and he still had to figure out how to read the blasted thing. Stupid coming of age present didn't even show time properly.

Glancing to his left, he saw a glass display case full of watches like the ones he saw muggle-raised students wearing, like Potter. They had to tell time, didn't they? Draco shoved off the railing and walked over to look at them; they all had terribly cheap price tags compared to what he had in his muggle-wallet (Astoria insisted he bring muggle money with him just in case, so he had a couple thousand pounds in the odd leather thing) so he could buy one if he liked.

There were row after row of watches; gold plated, roman numerals, regular numbers, some with odd looking creatures on them (he thought they were called care-tunes or something), but one in particular caught his eye.

It was simple, made out of some synthetic substance he was sure. The pale gray strap was directly connected to the darker gray face, and glowing green numbers sat directly in the middle, telling the time without a hand to point at numbers on the rim. 11:58. The numerals were blocky, true, but it seemed terribly more convenient that counting the bloody tiny lines on a regular clock-face.

So, in a display of rather un-Malfoy-ish behavior, he bought the "digital" watch. He didn't really know what that meant, but it sounded foreign, somehow dangerous, and he reveled in that. He felt so rebellious! Strapping it to his left wrist – that was how he had seen muggles wear them – he looked at the time again. 12:00. Now Astoria was going to be late for their lunch date. He leaned against the railing again and started playing with the "functions" of his new watch as the directions stated. There was a timer – he set it going to see how long it would take her to get there – and an alarm – he set that for six o'clock, since that was when his father demanded he be home for the Death Eater meeting – and various other things he couldn't make hide nor hair of.

Yes, Draco Malfoy was having a good day. Until he found out that the Dark Lord had failed to capture Potter yet again and he was subjected to the Cruciatus curse for no fault of his own.

And he ripped his new robes too. Damn.

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A/n: Heheh... yeah. I kind of imagined him having to meet Astoria in something like a JC Penney's store or whatever the English equivalent might be. And thus he bought a muggle watch...

Yeah.