The sky was all sleet and the man behind the counter mused that he had a heart to match. The rain was falling, knife-like, against the ragged cobblestones of Diagon Alley, and the thoroughfare was empty save for the occasional wizard dashing, hooded and hunched, from shop-front to shop-front through the rain.
There was no gentle patter of rain on Draco Malfoy's roof. No, his shop was snuggled in between a milliner's shop and a wand shop, and was the ground level to a prodigious old building whose attic warehouses and junk shops stretched for five stories above the street. There were the splatter of rain against windowpanes and the tumbling crash of water rolling from his Slytherin-green awning to the sidewalk, but never was there the calming patter of rain on rooftop. He rather missed it.
He made for an odd proprietor of the shop. He was too withdrawn and pensive to handle customers with ease; he answered questions brusquely and as a consequence sold things seldom. On this afternoon he sat on a worn barstool, wearing a long-sleeved white shirt and a pair of black trousers. He was surveying the rainstorm impassively. The bad weather meant that few would venture out for dinner in the evening and, without the usual traffic to and from the nearby Leaky Cauldron, his shop would likely be vacant for the evening. However, despite the fact that the rain dampened his business prospects, it did little to dampen his spirits. He liked to work in the rain.
He stretched his long torso and then bent again to the sheet of paper in front of him. He had pushed his sleeves up past his elbows, and he held in his right hand a soft drawing pencil. His fingers were smudged from blending and as he made a careless motion to swipe a bug from his cheek he left a trail of pencil lead across his temple. The table in front of him was littered with shreds of eraser and the crumpled-up refuse of earlier drawing projects. And as the rain fell in endless curtains outside, an image of near-photographic quality was forming beneath his fingers.
Narcissa Malfoy could not have looked more like herself if she had indeed been standing in Draco's shop. In her son's sketch, she appeared oddly relaxed; one elegant hand rested on the long blonde hair that draped over her shoulder; she wore a tasteful emerald on her finger which accentuated her flawless pale complexion. Her expression was mild; her mouth was set in a pleasantly determined line and her eyes smiled. Draco was penciling the delicate lines around her eyes, but the portrait was nearing completion.
The tender portrait seemed out of place in Draco Malfoy's store. The walls and display racks of his shop were peopled with drawings far less intimate and meaningful. He scoffed as he glanced at the greeting cards featuring smilingly anonymous witches holding wrapped gifts. There were a few exceptional portraits in the room; some bore the likenesses of notable celebrities while others merely captured a strong sentiment in deep detail. None, however, had the personal beauty of Narcissa Malfoy's portrait.
Draco asked himself why he was still selling the clichéd greeting cards and cookie-cutter portraits. He asked himself too – and often – why his shelves were lined with mediocre work from a man whose hand and eye were clearly capable of more. When he became too dissatisfied, however, he remembered the rise in the costs of drawing paper and pencils at Flourish and Blotts. He remembered the dingy attic above the store, which held his cot, his bedroll, and not much else. He remembered a noble legacy shattered, a noble family dispossessed. And he continued to draw that which he could sell.
The rain was still streaming when the shop door swung open, triggering the tiny bell to chime the woman's arrival. He heard the jangling, but distantly, so absorbed was he in his art. He decided not to speak with her; she could seek him out if she had questions. He went on sketching laugh lines and taking joy in his mother's elusive expression.
In the back of his mind, he was aware of the woman's stirring about the shop. He heard the rustle of her robes as she moved among the smaller portraits, and sometimes the sound stilled and he could tell that she was gazing at one of the larger portraits that hung on the walls. She stopped for a long time on the east side of the shop, and he knew that she was gazing at a portrait of a man playing Quidditch. It was one of his better pieces; he almost hoped that she would not buy it. He stopped sketching, pencil poised above the paper, to listen to her movements, and was relieved to hear her stir once more and glide on through the shop.
He felt her gaze only moments before she spoke, her voice thick with incredulity. "Malfoy?" He froze. His pencil felt heavy in his fingers. He paused for a moment, gazing at the paper to compose himself. He had known that she was in town, working in a shop a few buildings down. He had known, but hadn't cared. He was near to fuming with the thought that this woman, this woman who had never been civil to him, was standing in his shop. He had to deal professionally with her; he could not lose her business. He felt one final twinge of humiliation, but he smothered it; he was going to appear friendly to young Weasley or die trying.
She spared him the trouble. "These sketches are crap, Malfoy. Never thought I'd see you catering to the masses."
He only rolled his sleeves down and buttoned them at the cuffs. It cost him much to do it, but he smiled at her. "How may I help you today, Miss Weasley?" He couldn't help but hiss her name; on his tongue it became less than respectful. "Perhaps you'd like to order a custom drawing?" He didn't sneer that, as a Weasley, she couldn't afford to commission one; she could.
"Malfoy," she said indignantly, "you know none of these are good." He was silent. She leaned in, her voice urgent. "I've seen your sketches, Malfoy. The one I found in potions, sixth year? It was good. It meant something." His face was impassive. "You know, genuine?" Now she was taunting him openly, leaning across the bar to lock her eyes on hers. "If you'd stop pandering and start drawing…"
He didn't know if it was the ragged shirt that had been too-often washed or the sight of the worn countertop littered with the stubs of drawing pencils from which he was stubbornly nursing the last ounces of life, but something stopped her. What was that dancing in her eyes? Pity? Her gaze had fallen to the countertop, and he saw her freeze, saw her eyes roam over the sketch of Narcissa. He felt suddenly naked, as if her eyes were stripping him of this necessary façade.
She picked up the sketch, her eyes raking deeply across the fresh lines. "So Draco Malfoy has got talent. Oh, don't worry," she said, taking a step back from the counter as he reached for the portrait. "I won't tell the world your secret. Not that they'd believe me anyway. Everyone on the street knows that Draco Malfoy draws what sells."
His voice was very low and very dangerous. "Out." She began to protest, but he grabbed the sketch of his mother and began to escort her out of the shop. She walked with him to the door without resisting the firm hand he'd laid on her arm, but when they reached the entry she turned abruptly to face him. "I want to buy a portrait," she said, her voice firm and level. He looked at her, for once completely nonplussed. He moved to deny her outright, but thought again of his drawing pencils. Then he recalled his position, and did several things at once. He removed his hand from her shoulder, set the sketch of Narcissa face down on a nearby counter, and slipped back into his glib manner.
"Certainly, Miss Weasley. If you'll follow me back to the counter, I will take the portrait specifications and give you a price estimate." She looked too damn triumphant, he thought, but led her back to the counter anyway. She leaned on the countertop and watched him rummage for a notebook. She said nothing, only watched him silently. "What exactly did you have in mind, Miss Weasley? I can do a variety of physiognomies and expressions," he said, confident that here at least he would be on solid ground.
She looked at him for a moment, and then popped a toffee into her mouth. When she did speak, her voice was casual and strong. "I want you to draw me," she said firmly. He gaped. Draco Malfoy's jaw actually dropped open and hung in slack uselessness for a few moments before he attempted speech. What he finally uttered was, "I don't draw acquaintances."
She motioned toward the portrait of Narcissa Malfoy. "That's clearly a lie," she said flatly. He struggled for something to say. He could not draw a portrait of Weasley. He had spent weeks studying his mother's face, watching its peculiar dynamism. He had studied and sketched; he had dreamt about those aristocratic eyebrows and that damned smirk that was so impossible to draw, despite its familiarity.
He looked again at Weasley; a mistake, for now his fingers itched to draw that lovely mouth and those slender fingers, and that was not acceptable. "You'll have to come in for a sitting," he said, hoping that this would discourage her. "But of course," she answered smoothly. No such luck.
He took a calming breath and continued. "After that I require a few weeks to complete the portrait, and I might ask to see you again-" Ginny raised an eyebrow. "-if I am having particular difficulty capturing something in your expression." To his dismay, she agreed readily to all the conditions he set forth.
He tried one last time. "I am rather busy at the moment; it might be some time before I can schedule your sitting." She met his eyes with her own level gaze as she said, "Malfoy, you and I both know that this may very well be the only commission you get in the next few weeks. You would do well to try to keep it." She smiled gently when he had no response. She must have seen something in his face that expressed his confusion and frustration, for when she spoke again her voice was almost kind. "I really do want this portrait, Malfoy. And I'll pay you reasonably for your work."
He didn't acknowledge her shift in tone, only named his price coldly. She agreed without blinking; if she thought the amount was too low, she said nothing. An idea was forming in his mind, but he waited patiently for her to settle the size of the portrait and the date it was to be completed. She drew her robe more tightly about her and turned toward the door. Then, remembering, she turned to ask, "When shall I come in for my sitting?"
He grinned inwardly. "Stay; I'll do my preliminary sketches now." He was rewarded by a moment of surprise that flickered across her extraordinary eyes. She recovered her balance very quickly. "I think not, Malfoy. I'm not prepared; I got caught in that rainstorm, and I look frightful. I'll have to come back."
He surveyed her damp hair, which tangled slightly and hung heavily around her face. Her cheeks were slightly flushed and her skin was cool and damp from the rain. Her face was strangely mobile; he had not realized before that Ginny Weasley was a beautiful woman. Before he could stop himself, he said, "Nonsense. You've never looked lovelier. Let's sketch." The moment he said it he realized his mistake. He had just given her the upper hand.
Her composure was admirable; he couldn't read her expression. He stood with bated breath, knowing that he should dismiss her, should make some move to qualify that remark of his, but his overwhelming desire to draw her stilled him. He bit his lower lip from habit and waited, trying to keep his face impassive.
She surprised him by shrugging off her robe, revealing a dark green long-sleeved dress which, though modest, made him catch his breath. If she noticed she didn't comment, and he recovered quickly to lead her back to his workroom.
He turned to see her gazing at the crude wooden shelves that supported his incomplete and abandoned artwork, his palettes and pencils. "I didn't realize you painted as well." He grimaced; "That's because I don't anymore. I was no good." He didn't know why he admitted that, but it was the truth. His fingers, so deft with a pencil, felt clumsy and alien on a paintbrush. He dragged a wooden stool to the middle of the room and motioned for her to sit there.
"How do you want me to sit," she asked as he drew his easel out of a corner of the room and into the light. "I just need to be able to see your face," he said. He took a seat, but soon stood again and walked briskly to her. "I lied. I need you to move your feet to the side." She shifted her legs and he nodded. "Now turn your torso more towards me, and tip your face this way," he said, making a sweeping motion with his hand. She tipped her head, but it wasn't what he wanted. He placed his hands brusquely at her temples and moved her head with surprising gentleness. "There," he almost whispered. He stood back a few paces to look at her.
"Also, I need you to relax. You're closing your face off to emotion, and that makes for a distant portrait." She opened her mouth to respond, but his next words floored her. "There. Right there, when you let yourself become angry. You should have seen what that did to your eyes. Just… emote. That all I ask."
He returned to his stool and began to sketch. He detected the confusion in her face, and he put it onto the paper in deft strokes. He saw her frustration, her smothered anger, and put those lines into her face. As he fell into the rhythm of observation, he forgot that this was Ginny Weasley who sat before him. She became a dynamic and deep woman, someone to be studied. He struggled to catch everything he saw in her face.
Twenty minutes into the session saw Draco begin to sweat, despite the cool weather which prevailed outside. He mopped his forehead with his sleeve and unbuttoned his white shirt. Ginny thought that he now fulfilled the quintessential image of the artist: unkempt and sexy. He caught the flicker of appreciation and amusement in her eyes, and captured that. He had long ago stopped thinking of her expressions as reactions to himself, or he might have been surprised.
Another hour passed in silence before Ginny experimentally stretched her legs, and the movement brought Draco back to this reality. He was still slightly dazed from the concentration he had invested in her sketches, but he remembered sheepishly that she had been sitting there for some time with little reaction from him. He put his pencil down and stretched his arms behind his back. "Ok," he told her. "You're released."
She stood and walked over to him, attempting to peer at the sketches. "No way," he cautioned, tucking them under a sheet of blank paper and standing up to regain dominance. She was close to him, but she did not step backwards when he stood. Once again he caught his breath. Her eyes were hard; he thought maybe she was going to chastise him for keeping her so long.
The words did not come. Instead, he found a slender hand squeezing his shoulder warmly. Her voice was mellower than he had supposed possible. "Thank you." He was startled, but he managed a flicker of a smile before his face closed to her. Her gesture made him wonder whether she had been engaging in some observation of her own during their time together. "I'll be done in a month," he said, turning away on the pretense of putting away his easel. "You can come by then." She lingered a moment more, as if waiting to say something, but she nodded and left before she had won that battle with herself.
Five weeks had passed and Ginny had not come to pick up her portrait. He didn't want to give it to her; it was without contest his favorite piece of work. Yet he worried over the mortgage on the shop and he was tired of eating beans and rice for dinner. A paycheck, even if he had to give away the portrait to gain it, would not go amiss.
When he became too discouraged with the routine of the shop – the meaningless sales, the inept customers, the need to hawk his sketches to uninterested passersby – he gazed at the portrait of her, which hung in his workroom. She was, he admitted to himself often, truly beautiful. Her face bore a complex set of emotions that sprang very vividly to life at the bidding of the right hand. Even rendered as a portrait, Ginny exuded an energy that was undeniable.
He was spending just such an afternoon, revisiting the lines of that portrait to take his mind off of the stresses of the days, when Ginny visited his shop. He heard someone come in, but he was already frustrated with the demands of the day and he decided he didn't care about the new customer enough to go play the welcoming proprietor. He leaned his head against the back of his chair and closed his eyes.
She found him that way, slumped tiredly against the chair. She assumed that he was sleeping and moved to turn away, but her eyes found the portrait on the wall and she gasped quietly. He jumped and spun to face her, and she acknowledged him with a flicker of her eyes, but she was perusing the portrait. After a moment, he turned his gaze from her and reached up to take it down. She crossed the room quickly and stopped him with a curt, "Wait."
She noticed with amazement the multitude of expression that ran beneath her penciled face. She noticed the anger and the determination she had expected him to see, but she was surprised by the confusion he had captured in her eyes. She saw a flicker of sympathy, a ripple of pity. There were admiration and hesitance mingled in her visage. It was strange to her that those conflicting emotions could inhabit her face with such apparent harmony. But what surprised her most was the expression of gentleness that pervaded; had she really shown that to Draco Malfoy?. She brought her hand to her mouth, not caring that her shock was evident in that gesture. The portrait was beautiful; moreover, he had read her completely. She turned to him.
He was looking, not at the portrait, but at her. He had his hands stuffed into his jean pockets and he was studying her carefully. When her eyes met his, he turned his gaze away quickly and took the portrait down from the wall. He set it on a nearby table, and she came over to inspect it more closely. How in Merlin's name had he known all of that about her? She smiled to see his angular signature resting in the corner, and couldn't resist mocking him.
"Well, I am now the proud owner of a Draco Malfoy original. Shame it's not worth anything." She handed over a small pouch that contained about twice the sum he had suggested. "It's all there," she assured him, even though he had not made any move to count the money. He pocketed it and gave a curt "Thanks." He moved to turn away from her, but she put a hand on his arm and he turned to face her.
She ran a finger across the portrait, her eyes picking out once more the gentle, smiling lines around her eyes and the depth of characterization that Draco had given her penciled self. She looked up into his reluctant eyes. Her voice was quiet and incredibly gentle. "You saw all of that?" He looked at her searchingly for a moment before turning away.
"Yeah." The word was almost inaudible. She moved so she was facing him once more. "Thank you," she said softly. He looked at her, and his face softened for a moment before he closed up again. "That's my job." He turned away, once again smooth and icy, and she sighed. "Draco…"
He whirled to face her, eyes flaring with anger. "How dare you…" he almost whispered "address me by my first name? You don't know me, Weasley. Do you know what you've done to me?"
She waited, barely breathing, as he began to spiral out of control.
"Waltzing in here with the audacity to pick up my private sketch and demand your own portrait was bad enough. But to ask me to do this," he motioned towards the finished portrait, "when I have to deal with all this banality-" here a broad gesture that took in the shop "-is downright cruel. And to come back here and ask me whether I really saw all that in your face, whether I really invested that much of myself in that portrait? As if I had a choice. Sometimes I can't help losing myself in a painting, and I feel like I never want to come out. And then I do, and I discover that I've done something that I never meant to do."
He was breathing hard and looking at her angrily. She brought her voice down to match his whisper. "And what's that, Draco?" He looked at her, his eyes lucid but confused. "To draw you. I never wanted to find any of that in your face."
She struggled to understand him, but her voice was light, almost flirty. "Why's that? Because I'm not a bad person after all? Because I have some humanity in me, unlike you?" His face became hard and she had to lean in to catch his next words, he spoke them so low. "Ginny Weasley, I am not a cold fish. Even I've got a heart, but can you see it surviving a place like this?" They looked around the shop together and Draco looked as though he had been struck. "And if it weren't for you I'd still be ok. Working in this… dump… would be supportable still if you weren't so fucking beautiful."
His eyes, which were inches from her own, dared her to say anything to that. She couldn't, so she did the unthinkable. She grabbed the front of his shirt and twisted it, pulling him firmly to her. She reached up and pressed her lips against his, trying to communicate just how certain she was of his humanity, his beauty. She ran a hand through his blond hair, stopping at the back of his head to pull him into her kiss. His body was rigid against her, his lips cold, his arms like steel. Her heart was racing and she thought of pulling away, but she had taken the leap.
Then, incredulous, she felt his arm come tentatively around her waist. She felt his hand tangle itself in her hair and heard a tiny moan as she pressed the length of her body against him. His chest was heaving, and she released his shirt only to press her palm against his chest to feel his rhythm. She smiled against his lips and pulled away to breathe. It was only then that she noticed the tears running silently down his face.