I must say, I never thought I'd see the day when I finally got around to writing anything of my own. Welcome to my first.
Muggles. Everywhere. Draco suppressed a shudder of revulsion and slipped into the crowd. He tried to keep himself separate, not to touch any of the seething mass around him. He hated them, all of them. He hated his job, his house, and his clothes, down to the round cotton shoelaces that kept slipping out of their knots.
Ever since Voldemort had been defeated by Wonder-Boy Draco had been on the receiving end of the Wizarding World's animosity. Once the fear had lifted they had gone looking for someone to blame, an entire community of wizards out for blood. Unfortunately for Draco the Death Eaters had been killed off, leaving him among the few upon whom it was possible to fix imagined guilt. He found it all the more frustrating for the fact that he had stayed carefully neutral during the war. While he held no sympathies for the so-called good side fighting for life, liberty, and Muggle preservation he placed great stock in self-preservation and had hidden off to one side. Luckily for him the Dark Lord had been too preoccupied to hunt him down.
What made it all the worse was that Harry Potter had died during the final confrontation. No trace of him had been found in the charred ruins of the mansion but there had been an elaborate funeral service all the same. Draco had attended but had been beset from all sides by accusing glares. His culpability was clear to all. If he hadn't been with them, he must have been working against them.
Now he worked among the Muggles. He carefully sidestepped a man hunched against a brick wall, ignoring the clinking of coins in a paper cup. If Draco had been able to find work after that fiasco at the Ministry anyone could.
He pulled his coat tighter around him as if to ward off both the city and the chill. He hated the place, yet now spent his life walking its streets. Even on his day off. He rarely visited with wizards anymore. Somehow everyone seemed to recognize him on the streets and he had been spat on more than a few times while walking down Diagon Alley.
Draco paused at the corner of two streets and watched the cars screaming by. He flatly refused to learn how to drive one and so walked everywhere. By now he had a fair mental map of the important places closest to his small house.
He continued walking down the street but soon felt a raindrop hit him smack on the nose. He brushed it off and scowled at the perpetually grey sky, daring it to rain on him. As if in response another fat drop splashed onto his cheek. He cursed at the sky, drawing a few startled glances from passers-by already safely hidden under their umbrellas. They seemed to be accusing him of having deliberately gotten caught out in the rain and then having the audacity to complain about it.
He walked a bit further until the drizzle decided to escalate into all-out rain. He tried out a few more inventive curses aimed at the clouds but as this didn't seem to be helping he ducked into an ensconced doorway. There was already someone else in it, but he paid them no mind, huddling further into corner and trying not to touch the grimy walls.
The young man opposite him was staring out at the rain with an amused expression, watching the men and women caught without umbrellas scramble about like ants. He turned to Draco, mouth partially open to spark a conversation but shut it quickly and snapped back around, his black hair whipping around him.
But not before Draco had seen those eyes.
"Green eyes. Black hair. And here I was hoping you were dead," he said monotonously.