I shouldn't have been there. I shouldn't have been on that corner in mid-London at 8 pm on a Saturday night, but Harry and my sister, along with Hermione, had dragged me to a stuffy little French restaurant for a cute romantic dinner. Personally I hadn't seen the point when there was perfectly good pre-prepared food at home, but I went along with it because no one really wants to anger three premenstrual women. Oh. I meant two. Really. Anyway, long story short, I shouldn't have been sitting in a corner booth staring at a completely unintelligible menu, terrified of ordering something disgusting like snails and not knowing it until I saw them staring at me surrounded by some odd mushroom sauce, while Harry and Hermione were engrossed in a discussion involving the newest spells they had learned in their auror training, and Ginny stood off to the right having a brief discussion with her boss at the book store in Diagon Alley, into whom she had literally run when we entered the restaurant in a tizzy.

Hermione had been sure that our reservation was for 7:45 as opposed to 8:00 and thus had gone bursting into the tiny establishment apologizing profusely for being late. Ginny had followed her apologizing, instead, for Hermione. In doing such she bumped into Madame Riosche and thus had begun the conversation about inventory and new releases.

I had just been contemplating ordering something called "Ratatouille" when my oh-so-graceful sister threw herself into the booth next to me and sighed into my ear.

"Honestly," she was saying. "I plan to go out and have an intelligent, relaxing dinner, and instead run into Cissy and then have to discuss, in detail, everything about the shop that could possibly cause any amount of stress." Out of the corner of her eye she spied our waiter coming toward us and exclaimed "Oh good, I could do with a dri…OH GOD!"

Having grown up with the now-woman I had become accustomed to her random outbursts so it took me a minute to look up and realize what had caused such a violent reaction. Standing in front of our group of slack jawed witches and wizards, was a tall skinny blonde metro-sexual man in his young 20's staring down at us defiantly with his crystal clear grey eyes. "Excuse me," he said and walked away gracefully, and get with obvious haste.

"Was that?" asked Hermione. We were all still staring off in the direction

our waiter had hurried off in, and didn't bother to look at one another.

"Malfoy," said Harry. It had been 3 years since the war and those who were either deatheaters or of deatheater descent and had escaped prison, disappeared expertly. Rumor was that Blaize Zambini and his family had returned to Italy and begun a new life. So granted, this played a part in our complete and utter shock that here, in central London, we ran in to one of the most famous and proud supporters of Voldemort. Also in a staring role was the fact that Malfoy was a waiter. Like, he served people.

As we were all contemplating the total irony that was unfolding infront of us, a shorter, darker man, dressed in a white shirt with black pants and tie (as Malfoy had been previously) came up to our table and addressed the table stating that his name was Andrew and he would be our server for the evening. Hermione composed herself quickest out of all of us (no surprise there) and inquired after our amazing disappearing waiter.

"Draco was feeling unwell and asked if I could cover his tables while he went out back to catch some fresh air," the one called Andrew replied in a tone signifying that he did not wish to discus Malfoy's health anymore and instead was tired on his feet (having been at work since 10 o'clock that morning) and wanted nothing more than to take our orders and find a crate to sit on in the kitchen. Sometimes I'm amazed at how much a certain inflection seems to convey to me. I'm probably just bored and making up stories, for the people around me, in my head, but still.

It took the rest of us a few seconds to remember that we were in a restaurant and had been in the process of obtaining sustenance. After we had finally ordered and sent poor Andrew on his quest to the kitchen, we returned to the subject at hand.

"Draco Malfoy is a waiter."

"Screw that," said Harry as he took a swig of his Heineken. "What intrigues me most is that he's still in London, and some how not in Azkaban."

"Harry," replied Hermione in her all-knowing voice, "there are quite a few who've slipped through the ministry's fingers…" Soon the two were engaged in a heated argument about the effectiveness of the newest laws passed that concerned those who had taken the dark mark. Ginny decided this'd be a good time to catch up on her reading (because I was obviously not nearly as interesting) and I was left to come to terms with the sight of Malfoy's silver eyes looking straight into mine as if daring me to make a comment.

I hadn't seen the boy…no, man, since the night after the battle, as he and his family sat huddled in the Great Hall, hoping no one would notice them and clinging to each other desperately. I wasn't able to concentrate on them (even if I had wanted to) since George sat to my right. My big brother looked so lost, staring off into the distance. I'm not going to lie, we were worried about him those first few months, afraid he'd try and join Fred, if you know what I mean. However, days went by and slowly he began to gain a little more life.

He still isn't the same, but I guess if you think about it, none of us are. Hermione's quieter, not as confrontational. I get the feeling she's still afraid of losing one of us after just having had a row. Ginny and Harry, once having met in broom closets and under staircases, are now completely inseparable, and to tell you the truth, disgusting. I can live with Harry dating my little sister because, come on, who else is worthy other than the boy who saved the world? But when I have to see them snogging almost every time I turn around, well, it gets old.

This is not the point of my story however. It had been years since I had laid eyes on Draco Malfoy, and I realized that the old schoolboy rivalry that had once burned in my chest every time I saw the prat was gone. It was replaced by something, pity? He'd kill me if he thought I, a Weasley, a poor bottom-feeder, pitied him. But I did. He wouldn't have been working in a dingy pseudo-french restaurant on a street corner in London if he didn't need to, and the fact that he needed to had to screw with his entire universe.

What? I can be deep.

The food came. We ate. We talked. Often at the same time. By the time the little white candle in the middle of our tablecloth had burned down to a stub and then all the way out, our little booth had discussed everything from politics to religion to the ethics of mass toy production in third-world countries. How we had gotten onto the last subject was still unclear as we left a tip and exited the restaurant around 9:30.

We were making our way down the street in the eastward direction, Ginny hanging onto Harry's arm, the two of them cooing some sort of obscenities to each other, and Hermione and I walking side by side, holding hands. She was looking at the stars (barely visible above the hazy grey cloud that was London air) and thus I had to steer her away from at least 3 lampposts, which was rather impressive considering we had only made it a few feet. We passed the alley behind the restaurant we had just devoured strangely named foods in and I noticed a glint of gold hair in the light from one of the street lamps Hermione had almost had an altercation with.

I stopped to catch a better look and was run into from both the back and the side.

"Oi!" exclaimed Harry. "What the hell'd you stop for mate? Might give your friends a bit notice before simply ceasing progression."

"If you hadn't been drowning in my baby sister's baby-blues, you would'a seen me stop." I replied with a laugh.

"Ron," Hermione pulled on my hand. "We'll be late for the cinema!" The cinema was something completely new to Ginny and myself only a few weeks before the date in question, and thus Ginny became overly excited and yelled at me, like a horse, to "keep going."

"You guys go on ahead," I said. "I'll be there in a second, just think I left my wallet behind." The other three nodded and kept going.

Not truly knowing what I was doing, or more specifically, why I was doing it, I turned and headed back to the entrance of the alleyway and slowly approached the hunched over figure of Draco Malfoy.