A/N: my final (for now) Draco drabble sequence. This one is Draco's haphazardous attempts at love. As always, it includes the Draco-Ginny-Harry tug-of-war - didn't mean for Ginny to be such a slut, sorry to my fellow D/Gers. All this of course instigated by his parents' rocky relationship (we have to bow to that inevitable cliché, don't we?) seen in the epilogue.

Note that Birthday Kisses is told in a longer, slightly different version and can be found on my author's page. I am now reposting to explain:

THESE ARE NOT SEQUENTIAL. No one seems to have got this on the last set of reviews, a "series of drabbles" does not mean "narrative" or "story". It means they are cameo images about draco, not necessarily connected, in canon, or in any kind of order. it is a CHARACTER piece, not a narration.

Enjoy!

1. Mudblood

Hermione was standing outside Florean's with a dripping, strawberry-flavoured ice cream. Draco had never seen anything look so delicious. She was taking tiny bites out of it, trying to make it last.

"Mudblood dog," Lucius said, following Draco's gaze. "If any pureblood behaved like that –" She was laughing, head back so she wouldn't spit her mouthful out; Potter must have said something funny.

Draco looked at her until she saw him, masking his delight at her delight. She half-closed one eye in a wink before turning away.

"Don't worry," he replied coldly, his insides soaring, "I don't like strawberries."

2. Flavour of the Month

Draco lay on his back on the lawn of Malfoy Manor, arm around his girlfriend. He was half-listening to her, drifting off in the afternoon heat.

"That one looks like a bunny," Hermione was saying, "see that big puffy cloud? And there's an airplane –"

"A what?" Draco opened one dubius eye. "Arr… plane, did you say?"

"An airplane." Hermione was on the edge of laughter, he could tell, and it annoyed him.

"Yes, well, what is it? Some kind of clever thing you've read about," he said scornfully.

"No, it's –"

"I don't care," he said.

And that was that.

3. Birthday Kisses

Ginny's birthday was in August. She had a family party, cake and presents and so on, but never celebrated with her friends. By her fifth year at Hogwarts she was fed up with it, and that February decided to throw herself a half-birthday party.

She held it in the Room of Requirement. It was a big room, so she invited her friends, their friends, the old DA, their friends…

When she was backed up against a wall with Draco Malfoy kissing her neck she realised why her family liked keeping parties intimate.

She was going to do this every year.

4. The Sorting HatGinny and Harry had reached a point where they felt they could tease each other. Ginny was taking advantage of the feeling by tickling him until he showed her his 'tattoo'.

"I've told you, I haven't got – Ginny!" he bellowed, as she attacked. "Don't make me –"

"Don't make you what?" she asked, stopping with her arms around him. His sides still aching with laughter, he tried to be serious too.

"Throw you into the lake," he murmured.

Draco, watching a sopping yet cheerful Ginny from his seventh floor window, felt that to be a Gryffindor might have been something…

5. Exactly As Planned

Ginny always planned to marry Harry Potter. They'd fall in love, save the world, and then…

"Draco," she whispers, creeping into his arms. "Where did you send him?"

"This is the last time, Gin, I promise." Draco rubs circles into her back. "No more worries."

"You sent him to Voldemort?"

"Straight to him."

"And he'll win?"

"Of course he will."

"It'll feel good to be loved again," she tells him, and he nods agreement. He's learned to look her in the eye, even when he's lying. They've both grown in that respect.

"It'll be perfect," he says. Exactly as planned.

PROLOGUE: Argumentative

Lucius whispered to his fiancé at a dinner party, "I think I might love you after all."

She turned, startled; then she saw the joke in his face. "You'd better, you're never getting past my pre-nup."

"I'm going to find it and rip it up." He ran upstairs, where he let her catch him, laughing. He could never keep himself from touching her.

"Oh, you wouldn't –"

--

"Don't be ridiculous, the legalities are clear," Lucius snapped, fixing his wife with a look that told her to hold her tongue, not to argue in the presence of guests.

There was a time…