The Sterling Manor is quite large, though not as large as the Malfoy Manor. This is the first thing Draco thinks as Elizabeth Sterling opens the door. Vanessa's grandmother is dressed elegantly, a long feather extending jauntily from her hat. The Sterling women all wear hats to hide the unflattering shade of yellow they have as hair, except, of course, for Vanessa. Draco wonders if she even realizes her good fortune as Elizabeth kisses Mother on both cheeks, the two of them exclaiming at the other with fake smiles.
Father watches with thinly veiled amusement, and Elizabeth leads them through several large rooms into the kitchen. Portraits of mustard-haired ancestors with muddy brown eyes watch them, whispering furiously underneath their breaths.
"The Malfoy boy," Draco hears one of them exclaim in awe, and he cannot help his proud smirk. "He's so tall and handsome. Has he finally come for Gretchen's hand?"
Gretchen Sterling is a Third Year in his house. She bears an uncanny resemblance to her brother Garrick. Draco had sworn to himself, long ago when her parents had offered her hand to Mother, that he'd rather the Malfoy heir not exist at all than have to live with the nightmare of conceiving a child with Gretchen.
"No, no," another portrait exclaims. "Are you mad? He's come for Margaret's daughter, that American beauty."
"How can he be so sure of her lineage?"
The ancestors murmur amongst themselves, and, with dread, Draco can see Father's jaw tighten.
When they reach the kitchen, Draco is slightly startled to see all the adults clustered around the large table. Elizabeth sits on the left to her husband, Roman Sterling, who is positioned at the head of the table; on one side are Garrick and Gretchen's parents, and the other, alone besides Elizabeth, is Margaret. again he is struck by how unalike Essa is to the rest of her mother's side; all three women at the table wear hats and have sharp, strict features. Father sits down, leaving an empty chair between him and Margaret Sterling, and Mother fills it. Margaret stands up promptly, causing the feather on her own hat to bob.
"I will lead you to Vanessa's room," she tells him, her voice low and scratchy in a way that is quite unattractive, especially for a woman.
He follows her as she walks up the stairs. On the third floor, he expects to stop, as he glimpses Garrick's door slightly adjacent. He is hunched over a thick textbook, no doubt studying for a class, but Margaret puts her foot on another flight of stairs.
"I apologize for the inconvenience," Margaret drawls. "Vanessa insists on an unoccupied floor."
"It's no problem at all," Draco says politely, unable to accept that there is a good chance this woman will become his mother-in-law. He hopes his heir will not inherit her voice.
It is clear that the fourth floor has only been recently lived in; the walls are blank, and as they walk past several rooms, he notices that almost all of them are empty. His curiosity climbs when Margaret leads him into several halls, and she finally comes to a halt once they have reached the end of the corridor farthest from the stairs.
"She doesn't care much for her cousins, but she's very friendly. I have no doubt you will find her good company," Margaret tells him, only slightly desperate - a union would not only bring more merriment upon her house than on his, but to have her daughter be the one that joins the Malfoy family is as good as redemption in the eyes of the social court. Draco nods as she knocks on the door. "Vanessa, you have a visitor." She turns her head back to him, and has to tilt her head back so far that he expects the feather to fall to the ground. Height, he supposes, is yet another thing her mother has not given her. "Go on."
He reaches out and turns the knob as Margaret walks away.
His eyes flicker around the room as he steps in. It's not as large as his, of course, and not as elegant. The walls are white and bare. There is a bed, but it's smaller than what he expects even a Weasley bed to be, and pushed almost into the wardrobe. A suitcase lays at the foot of the bed. It is half open and filled with clothes. She's not in the room.
Preparing to make the treacherous climb back down all four flights of stairs, he turns on his heel and nearly jumps out of his skin in shock. Strung up near the ceiling right above the door is a hammock, and Vanessa watches him, one eyebrow raised.
"Good morning," she says, and swings her legs over the side of the hammock in an effortless, practiced motion. He manages to repeat the phrase after her, and blinks as she jumps down and lands without hitting the ground hard. She has on long, loose fitting gray pants and a jacket of the same color that comes down nearly to her knees. "Drake, right?"
He can not even bring himself to irritation, for he is so intrigued by her. There are so many things he wants to ask her, but it would not be polite. Why do you have a hammock when there is a bed? How did you get up there at all? Why do you call yourself Essa when Vanessa is yours for the taking? What is the reason behind your odd nightclothes? Are you a Pureblood? Who is your father? Is he really deceased, and if so, what happened to him? Why do you smile so much? "Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."
Essa gives him a smile so sweet he has to steady himself in his shoes. Her eyes, he notices dimly, are brown, but not the Sterling shade. Hers are a bit lighter, with flecks of blue in them that undoubtedly come from her mysterious father. She adopts a horrific British accent that makes him internally cringe. "Bond. James Bond." At his blank expression, her eyebrows draw together. "You haven't seen it? Well, I don't suppose you would have." Her accent, fortunately, is once again American.
"Who is James Bond?"
"I guess you just have to wait and find out," she winks, looking so attractive that his body physically can not believe she exists. "Now, what brings you here to my humble abode, Draco?"
He collects himself. "I'm here to introduce you to people you will find are beneficial to your behavior and status."
"In other words, you want me to meet your friends. Oh, my," she says, fanning herself as if the room is warm. "Aren't you the charmer. We haven't even reached first base yet!"
He has never been so confused in his life. Having a conversation with her, he imagines, is more difficult than playing Quidditch without the help of brooms. "Excuse me?"
"It's a joke. I'm joking," she says. "When are we leaving?"
"Now," he says, replaying the last few seconds in his head and trying to catch any jokes he'd missed. He finds none. "We're going to Diagon Alley."
"Here, can you hold this for a second? Thanks, don't turn around."
She doesn't wait for a response and thrusts the book she had been reading into his hands. Draco turns around halfway, but her fingers are at the edge of her shirt and her feet are carrying her to the suitcase. Although tempted to watch, she will be furious if she catches him, and there is no telling what this girl, unpredictable as she is, will do. With a sigh, he faces the wall and looks down.
He takes note of the book's title and how worn the edges are. He flips to a random page, and his eyebrows twitch. Several words are surrounded by blocks of different colors, and there are notes in the margins. Her handwriting is not cursive, but print, and very… spiky.
"Where are we going?" Essa asks him, her voice slightly muffled.
"The Three Broomsticks."
"Who are we meeting?"
"Theodore Nott and Daphne Greengrass. They both were at the banquet, but I don't suppose you conversed with them."
At this, she makes a sound that is accompanied by the rustling of cloth, and their conversation is over. He busies himself with trying to find out what her book is about, and reads half of a truly puzzling line on the page. Afterwards Squealer was sent round the farm to-
He promptly shuts the book, a crease forming in between his eyebrows. There are Americans named Squealer? How quaint, as Mother would sniff.
"Alright, I'm done," she says, and he turns around, a question on the tip of his tongue. He has allowed himself one question and one question only - after all, when faced with an enigma, there is always a thirst to solve it. He swallows the question in shock. Standing in front of him is Vanessa, still undeniably attractive (much to his chagrin), but in a short, ripped pants and a sleeveless pink shirt.
"No."
"No?" She cocks her head to one side, allowing a curl to bounce into her eyes, and the effect is so distracting his impatience ceases a bit. He must give her some room to adapt; she has the potential to be greatly respected within his (and, hopefully, her) house.
"Absolutely not."
"It's just a tank top. Why?" She turns slightly, and he almost chokes on his tongue. He can see her bra in the side of that piece of cloth she calls a shirt. She disregards his status as not only a Malfoy but also a Pureblood, and refuses to obey him even when he clearly has the authority - she should be infuriating to him, but he's flustered and unsteady against her.
"You're a… you're a lady," as much as the term has been relaxed to fit you, "and ladies do not wear these things. Besides, your pants… they're broken." He begins to gesture at her legs, but one glance down and he thinks better of it, forcing his focus back onto her face (which, to tell the truth, is not any less distracting.
Her eyes roll as if he is the one wearing cloth that looks as if it could fall apart on her body if the wind blows, leaving her in nothing but undergarments. "Ripped jeans come like this-"
"There are rules here that prevent you from running around like a heathen." He stresses the last word, but to no effect; her eyes remain just as cheerful as ever. They really are the color of hazelnuts, or when the sun shines through dark glass… he shakes himself. "You must wear a skirt, in the very least, or a cloak. Get rid of that…"
"Tank top," she supplies.
"You can't go out like this. Purebloods have to be more formal." Her lips turn downwards at the corners in a truly distressing manner for the first time he's known her; he blinks in surprise and tries to make his voice softer. "Why don't you wear a skirt?"
"You'd swallow your tongue if I wore my short one, and it's too hot out for pantyhose."
He breathes in and out through his nose, feeling as if he is reasoning with a large child. "You have to."
"It's so hot," she says, eyebrows coming together in a way that a lesser man might describe as adorable. Draco, much to his severe displeasure, is a lesser man.
"Do you have pants that are any longer?" He finally consents.
She looks at him for a moment, and turns back to her suitcase, frown gone and replaced by an angelic expression. He disregards the way it makes him more aware of his own heartbeat; after all, seeing a truly attractive person for the first time in one's life registers its mark. And if the truly attractive person becomes his wife, well! - that would be tremendous.
He goes to stare at the wall for another moment as she ruffles through her suitcase. "Draco," she calls after a moment.
He likes the way his name sounds in her accent. When he turns, his eyebrows raise. "What does your shirt mean?"
She's still wearing jeans that look like they have been through several duels, ripped at the knees and thighs. They are a light blue that he's never seen on clothing, and so tight he feels as if he's violating her if he keeps looking. Essa glances down at her shirt. It's dark gray, with a large white W firmly centered. "It's my house shirt," she explains, and frowns for a second. "Well, it was, I guess."
For a moment he stands perfectly still, debating with himself whether an attempt to change her out of those disrespectful pants (or rather, lack thereof) will yield results. Most likely, they will be later than they already are, and she will resort to wearing no pants at all. He supposes he could allow her to wear those things once; after all, The Three Broomsticks is notoriously casual, and Daphne doesn't judge; he suspects Nott will love them.
"Come," Draco tells her, not willing to wait another moment. He'd owled Theodore and Daphne earlier to meet at their usual spot in The Three Broomsticks, and Malfoys are never late.
"Accio wand."
Another question for another day, Draco thinks absentmindedly as a white-colored wand flies out of her suitcase and into her waiting fingers. To his amusement, she pulls out the neckline of her shirt and drops the wand through. Somehow it neither shows through the shirt nor falls onto the ground.
"What did you do?" He asks, fingers tightening on her book.
She shrugs. "You wouldn't imagine a magic shirt to not be magic," she says breezily.
Oh, to bloody hell with etiquette, he thinks, and allows himself to ask the question that had been on his mind the second he'd read the cover of her book. "Why do you read of agriculture?"
"I don't," she says, puzzled, and then her eyes fall onto the book in his hands. A laugh bursts out of her. "I can't believe you're hiding a sense of humor underneath that stuffy exterior," she exclaims, taking the book and tossing it onto the carpet.
He decides not to address the latter part of her sentence in an act of mercy. "I see nothing humorous about my statement." Like Quidditch without a broom.
She shakes her head, still laughing, and passes him the bowl of floo powder. "I'll make a man out of you yet," she says, tossing her hair behind her shoulder.
He closes his eyes, holding back his cutting remarks and trying to push down his growing disbelief. And to think that before this conversation, he had thought her dull. "You're reading a book by the name of Animal Farm simply for entertainment."
Although he had not asked a question, she answers. "Yes," she says, "I am."
Draco climbs into her fireplace, unsure whether to laugh or cry at the minuscule chance of this girl being a Slytherin, and the nagging insistence in his body that enjoys her company despite of it. He takes a handful of powder. "The Three Broomsticks," he states clearly, and drops the powder into the flames.