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Conference #1—10:03 AM, September 2, 2004

"I'm sure you realize why you're here, Mr. Malfoy."

The man in question raised his blond head, shaking the stray strands of hair slightly slower than was necessary, an unconsciously conscious move that told the redhead opposite him that he was well aware of the affect he had on women.

Ginny Weasley, however, was unaffected. "Draco Malfoy" was synonymous with "bug that she accidentally stepped on that resulted in a high-pitched 'Ew!' of disgust and funny faces as she scraped said nasty bug off her shoe," in Ginny's book. So his blade-thin lips that curved in a sneer and jagged swipes of prominent cheekbones barely made her bat an eye. She certainly didn't see his appeal.

Said Malfoy merely looked as if she was wasting his time with the question instead of conducting an important parent-teacher conference, and Ginny felt her indignation rise. After all, she was the one that needed a substitute teacher on the second day of school because of poor planning, not him. This was a far greater inconvenience for her than it would be for him.

"No, I'm afraid I'm not, Weasley," he drawled back, having the audacity to withdraw a pocket fob from his emerald vest and look upon the watch face with a put-upon sigh of monstrous proportions.

Ginny fought the urge to reach across her brand-new mahogany desk and snatch the watch out of his hands so he'd finally pay attention to her.

She couldn't help but note just how Slytherin he managed to look, despite the fact that it'd been eight years since he'd last been at Hogwarts. His slim, charcoal grey suit was the height of fashion in its adherence to Muggle fashion, as was the trendy thin tie and fashionably Wizard addendums such as the extra pocket on the waistcoat for Floo powder and a sleek wand holster up the right (or left, if requested) sleeve.

Silver glinted in various places from his clothing, and Ginny was positive that the nearly invisible stitching on his breast would reveal to be a snake upon closer inspection, if she was inclined to breech the unconscious five-foot-minimum buffer zone they preserved between them in true Malfoy-Weasley style.

"All I'm aware of is the fact that my son's teacher—" Here he paused, giving her professional attire and elegantly coiffed hair a dismissive glance that said he didn't quite consider her qualified enough to be teaching his heir, "—is forcing me to reschedule my ten o'clock appointment for some trivial matter."

Ginny practiced her breathing exercises that she'd been taught to utilize with particularly errant five-year-olds.

It didn't help as much as she'd hoped.

She also resisted the twin urge to say, Oh, boohoo, poor little Malfoy is missing an appointment? How utterly tragic. She had the odd intuition that such a remark wouldn't exactly be appreciated.

"Mr. Malfoy, while I realize that certain circumstances prevented you from accompanying Altair to his once-in-a-lifetime first day of school experience—" And here she paused and fixed the smarmy blond with a steely amber gaze to inform him exactly what she thought of that, "—I know that you are not entirely ignorant of the longstanding traditions that Lilliban Academy has associated with its First Day of School Ceremony since its founding in 1593."

"Don't shovel me that recited drivel," he said, sculpted eyebrows puckering together as he sat up straighter and out of the negligent sprawl he had assumed in her welcoming burgundy armchair.

It was a new acquisition; only a couple of days ago had she been permitted to go shopping for furniture for her new office given as a sort of reward for surviving her first year at the prestigious Academy. As a result, she had decorated the small space with a clever layout to open up the little room and had adopted a mostly crimson color scheme.

Gryffindor roots or not, she still enjoyed the color (Although her mother had warned her that red would only subconsciously make her angry, she'd ignored that prediction. In retrospect, she hadn't known when she was shopping that she was going to have to deal with Draco Malfoy, either.). It made her wonder if Hogwarts graduates adopted the mannerisms of their houses to the point that it became ingrained in their psyche or if they had such idiosyncrasies because they were in those houses.

It made her head hurt, so Ginny decided to stop thinking about such puzzling quagmires and focus on the basics: red made her happy.

"'That drivel' 'must have had some sort of impact on you if you chose to send Altair here," Ginny retorted frostily, her own spine stiffening in anticipation of the coming battle.

Malfoy's brow smoothed and he smirked, languorously lying back while Ginny realized the opening she'd given him.

"That was before I was aware that the Academy was hiring Weasleys," he sneered, giving her clothing another disdainful scan before landing on her freckled face. "Evidently their standards have dropped significantly."

Ginny wondered just what was so unsatisfactory about her clothing. She had only just picked up the dark navy pencil skirt and blazer combination, and she'd been assured that it was currently the "in vogue" thing for businesswomen. Coupled with an ivory button down and a pair of ebony pumps, she'd assumed she was perfectly presentable. Apparently not, if Malfoy's perusal was anything to go by.

We need him and Altair to continue going here, Ginny told herself with a resignation that came with the knowledge she was going to quickly develop a mantra. The funding and prestige this school gains from Draco Malfoy and his followers (who send their children to the school because he sends his son to this school) is massive.

Not that the Academy necessarily needed it, but it would certainly look bad for Ginny, a second-year teacher, if she pissed off their largest shareholder and he took his son elsewhere. Not only would they lose a significant source of revenue that came directly from the Malfoy vaults, but they would also lose all the tertiary funds and students gained simply because Malfoy endorsed them.

Smarmy git, Ginny thought sourly and felt that the epithet had the flavor of a soon-to-be mantra as well.

"Malfoy, it seems that you've passed your ignorance of the First Day of School Ceremony on to Altair," Ginny said instead of pursuing the conflict that would occur were she to reply to his previous words. It was almost against her nature to be civil to a Malfoy, but for the sake of her job, she stifled her instinctual urge to throttle him.

But it's not as if that statement was entirely non-confrontational, either, Ginny thought with a grimace when she'd realized she'd dropped off the polite "mister" she'd been humoring him with and had accused him and his heir of being ignorant.

"How so?" he asked smoothly, grey eyes glittering with deadly awareness.

Ginny just knew that he'd known what this blasted parent-teacher conference on the second day of the bloody school year was for. Hell, he probably put Altair up to it. But I'm certainly not going to assume that Altair Malfoy is blameless in this debacle, Ginny thought with a flash of remembrance for guileless green eyes in a cherubic face framed with white-gold curls.

"Because Altair—instead of giving me the standard bouquet of flowers like every other student—gave me this." She pulled out the slim viridian velvet case from her desk drawer, setting the innocuous rectangle in the middle of her mahogany desk.

"You can hardly fault him for his pragmatism," Malfoy said with an indifferent Gallic shrug after he spared the box a quarter of a second's examination before turning to his inspection of his nails. "He merely recognized that a box would simply be more practical to a Weasley than a bunch of weeds wrapped in pretty paper. At least that box has resale value."

"I find it laughable that you would be unaware of a missing diamond necklace," Ginny continued as if he hadn't spoken. She then belatedly realized that it might be entirely plausible that he was unaware of a missing diamond necklace if he had enough of them. The concept of having too many diamond necklaces to keep up with them all confounded Ginny.

"A diamond necklace?" His eyes narrowed, but Ginny was unable to determine if it was feigned or not.

"Yes, a diamond necklace," Ginny repeated impatiently, reaching out to flick the case open. By the sheer number of diamonds alone, she would have usually called it gaudy on principle, but it managed to be both ungodly expensive and elegant at the same time, a balance she should have expected coming from a family with the last name of "Malfoy."

"I was unaware that Altair was pilfering the family jewels," Malfoy said in a smooth drawl that seemed twice as dangerous because of its dulcet tones.

"Were you really, Malfoy?" Ginny snapped back, piercing him with a glare. "I get the impression that you put him up to this."

And here was the reason she had stepped in (beyond the obvious reason that Altair Malfoy gave her a diamond necklace): the complete lack of delineation between right and wrong in the boy's mind. She was about ninety-five percent certain that Altair had been unaware that his action was clearly in the wrong. He only saw giving the necklace to her for bribery as standard, which Ginny guessed with a scowl he had retained from observing Daddy Dearest's less-than-ethical business dealings.

"I did nothing of the sort," he protested mildly, raising lily-white hands up into the air for her to inspect as if she'd be able to read his innocence in the fine lines of his palms.

"Malfoy," Ginny threatened. She might not have any ground to stand on, but she still had a mean Bat-Bogey Hex that she was certain he hadn't forgotten since her fourth year.

Evidently, he realized that she might not be as restrained as she appeared and he sighed heavily, as if she (and not his son) was the source of his current troubles. "If you'd like me to take Veritaserum, I gladly will," he said with a slight warning edge as if to imply that he was aware she didn't really have any ability to force him into compliance.

"You don't need to take Veritaserum," Ginny responded quickly. She certainly didn't want to have anything to do with Draco Malfoy's truths. "But telling me whether or not you instructed Altair to give me a diamond necklace would be nice."

"Weasley, why are you even complaining?" he asked instead, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and a faux-confused expression on his face. "I would have thought that a diamond necklace would be welcomed by someone as impoverished as you are."

Ginny tightened her hands together and ignored that all-too-tempting fantasy of whipping her wand out and cursing the insufferable git fourteen ways to Sunday.

"Malfoy, for one, I'm not impoverished. And two, you should actually give a damn about Altair."

The smirk that had been hovering around his lips disappeared at her accusation, but she ignored it and plowed on, heedless of the tenuous ground she was figuratively tromping over.

"If you cared even two whits abut him, you would recognize that teaching a child to ignore societal standards is merely setting him up to fail. You should nurture his curiosity, but also take care to teach him what's right and what's wrong. I try to teach my students that, but there's only so much I can do. The rest is dependent on the child's parents. However, at this point I'm not even sure if you qualify—"

"As amusing as it is to listen to you prattle on about your idealistic shortcomings, I did not come here to be lectured by a spinster on how to parent my own child," he interrupted with a flinty glare.

If she had thought about it, she would have recognized, however grudgingly, that he was right. It really wasn't her place to preach to anyone about how they raised their kids. She just taught them five days a week from eight in the morning to three in the afternoon.

But instead of seeing wisdom, Ginny saw red at the "spinster" comment and ignored all the warning signs (like his deceptively serene face and too-wide eyes) that proclaimed Draco Malfoy to be in a not exactly peachy mood.

"'Spinster,' Malfoy? If the gossip rags are to be believed, you haven't had a date since Pansy 'Pug Face' Parkinson in your fifth year!"

Mercurial eyes narrowed into slits as he pressed forward to the point that it appeared he was about to slip off the edge of his seat. His aristocratic (and probably manicured, Ginny thought enviously with a stray thought to her own woeful cuticles) hands curled into the armrests like claws.

Ginny felt the breath catch in her throat at the blatant challenge she saw in those stormy eyes. She pressed closer to her desk, at the edge of her own seat and was tempted to meet him halfway and take a swing at that unfairly beautiful face.

"Is that so?" he questioned softly with an almost musical quality. "Then how on earth was Altair conceived? From what I hear, you've been turning blokes queer lately. First Dear Thomas, then Longbottom, and now Potter? Really, I'd even go so far as to wonder if you're hiding an extra limb under that skirt, if you know what—"

No, she didn't particularly care to know what the wanker meant. Ginny reacted instinctively, as any Weasley does when faced with an aggravating Malfoy.

She took her brand new name plaque and chucked it at his head.

A/N: Hello there! This is for darling Aerileigh, who had the awful misfortune of having me write one of her prompts for the (current) DG Forum Spring Exchange. In classic Roma style, I procrastinated right on past the deadline, so now I'm technically excluded from voting and my punishment has yet to be meted out. However, there is a silver lining: I get to bypass the posting-on-the-forum-account stage and get right to posting it here, and I can now take as much time as I want to write on Broken Mirrors, which is what I really wanted to do.

fury-shashka beta'd this, who generously told me it was amazing (despite the fact that it has no smut in it—her personal specialty).

In other news: I graduate from high school in T-minus 28 days! :D (Hmmm. Twenty-eight days later...)

Thanks for reading! :D *throws bundles of Draco-shaped cookies at you ala Ginny-style*

Roma

Aerileigh's Prompt for the DG Forum 2010 Spring Exchange

Basic Outline: Solve the mystery of how the little wizards learn to read before Hogwarts...

Ginny is a young teacher at London's premiere Wizarding prep school. The school focuses on the early basic skills, like reading and mathematics, though dabbling in more Wizarding-related subjects might be expected. Either way, the school is elite - it's expensive and selective. Ginny teaches the young children - kindergarten age or thereabouts - and ends up teacher to Draco's Malfoy's child. Draco is a single dad and isn't the best of fathers - you can decide what this means (he doesn't say no, he always says no, he ignores his child...some combination of those...so on). This makes Ginny angry, because she really loves her students, but she's a professional.

However, when the child's behavior starts to become a problem (either outright acting out/fighting or maybe more subtle things--class clown, etc.), she pulls up her Gryffindor bootstraps and, from Draco's perspective, sticks her nose where it doesn't belong. He takes it personally, so he makes it personal. End it however you like.

Must Haves: At least one parent/teacher conference that ends rather unprofessionally. Realistic childlike behavior. Idealistic, passionate Ginny versus cynical, calm Draco. Draco having an uncanny ability to shut up said idealistic, passionate Ginny.

No-no's: Extreme violent/creepy behavior from the child. You can interpret 'acting out' loosely, but if they start killing off the classroom pets and smearing their blood on the walls, then you need to tone it down. Sappiness/fluffiness - please don't reform Draco and/or his child into the perfect little family. A lot of interaction from the child's mother, if she's not dead. Angst over the loss/divorce of the child's mother.

Rating Range: Up to you.

Bonus Points: School spirit. Draco parenting a lot like Lucius/Narcissa parented him, but furious at Ginny for pointing this out. The line, "Daddy, I want another pony." Any creative details exploring what a Wizarding primary school would include, both in study and generally.