A/N: Sorry about the delay. Busy like a bee lately. Thanks and hugs and puppies to all of my wonderful reviewers. I'll say it before and I'll say it again, reviews are food for the writer's soul. It's the only payment we get for writing fanfic, so it is always more than appreciated!
Chapter Six
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Draco leaned against the wall by the dressing room, huffing in annoyance.
Potter wouldn't take the advice he had tried to offer them about dressing to fit in at an American high school. After all, the Golden Boy had pointed out, he was the only one of the boys that was muggle born.
Of course, to Draco's eyes, it really didn't make a bit of difference if Potter had been raised by the Dursley's. All of his muggle clothes looked as if they had been handed down to him by someone roughly the size of a gorilla.
And Weasley, of course, was a Weasley. His clothes had been worn by at least one, if not all, of his brothers. Well, maybe not all of his brothers, Draco conceded to himself. Weasel had grown enough that he was larger than more than one of his brothers, and he now was nearing the size of whoever had given Potter his hand me downs.
Maybe Potter should just give the Weasel all of his clothes.
Of course, that would only take care of the size issue. There was still the matter of style to discuss. But, not surprisingly, the two thirds of the Gryffindor trio that he had been left to clothe wouldn't take a Malfoy's advice on anything, never mind anything muggle. Forget that he had spent the better part of a year with two overly fashion conscious Californian women. And there were also the multitude of other girls who had straggled into their lives and their home before that final fight. And more than one of them liked to pore over fashion magazines.
But no, Malfoy couldn't know what he was talking about. Potter must know better. Never could a Malfoy know something muggle. Especially if they claimed to know more about said muggle thing than St. Potter.
Even if Draco himself was currently clothed like a muggle GQ cover model, complete with the jacket he had put on to hide his arm from the others, he couldn't know about clothes. Potter, on the other hand, looked much like Weasley, as if he had never had any muggle clothing that hadn't been given to him after they had been outgrown by someone else.
He really wished that Dawn hadn't gone off with the girls. She might have had better luck with clothing the two other boys in something fashionable. After all, it had been Dawn that had taught him how to dress. But she insisted that Buffy wanted them home, so they had to split up to make things go faster.
Surely she'd been wrong. It couldn't be faster this way. Draco felt as if he had been there forever.
His inner rant was interrupted by sharp voices in the dressing room, and the young wizard came crashing back to reality.
"I'm telling you they're fine! Muggle teens wear them all the time. It's not just an undershirt."
The door to the closest dressing room was flung open, and the redhead within was pushed out forcefully. "Ron, seriously! You were dressed like my Uncle Vernon on a weekend. Now, at least, you are wearing something that a normal teenager would wear."
Draco looked the other boy over, and had to grudgingly admit that it was a vast improvement. Weasel now looked like your typical American jock. The white t-shirt he wore was snug over the muscles that he had built up from playing Quidditch, and he was wearing the American teen staple, blue jeans. The gorilla actually looked okay. Not terribly fashionable, but he looked like any average football player that attended their school.
Potter didn't look much different, actually. Draco was just grateful that, as much as the other boys were dressed like typical jocks, they had both opted to keep the boots that were the regular Hogwarts attire instead of switching to sports shoes. Dawn thought that the only time those shoes should ever be worn were for gym and for training sessions.
"But this shirt! I always wear another one over a shirt like this! Won't I get cold?"
Draco answered before Harry could. "It's warm here, even during the winter. Warmer in December than most summers back home, Weas . . . ley." The one time blonde used the redhead's full name, knowing that Dawn would hate it if she heard him use the names he usually called them. She had admonished him for them when he had discussed his rivals before, and she had made him promise not to do it to their faces.
Still, he couldn't bring himself to call them by their first names, even knowing that he would have to do it in school. It was too intimate a thing.
Hell, he hadn't even called any of his housemates at school by their given names. Crabbe, Goyle, Parkinson . . . he was hard pressed to remember if he had ever used anyone's first name before Sunnydale.
There were few people that had the honour of being so addressed by him, even now. Dawn. Buffy. Willow. Xander. Anya, but she was gone now. Faith.
And Spike. But what else could he have ever called the vampire? He never let anyone know his last name. And he just wasn't the kind of guy to give endearments to. Even if he had been the only man Draco had ever wanted to call Dad. Dad was never a thing he could have called Lucius Malfoy. Father, yes, but never Dad. But Spike? Draco wished that Spike had been around long enough to accept being called Dad.
He was thinking about the elder Malfoy, and how he didn't even feel like a Malfoy any longer, when he was addressed by that name in Potter's annoying voice. The name brought him back to the present with an alarming snap.
This outing was making him maudlin. Shopping with the enemy. Dawn owed him one. Or a thousand.
"What?" Draco demanded sharply. He hated being called Malfoy. That wasn't who he was anymore, even in school. Where they were going tomorrow. And, knowing Buffy, she'd skin them alive if they were out late on a school night.
"How many outfits are we supposed to get?" Harry questioned snidely in response. "I want to get out of here as much as you do."
Draco glared at the pile of clothes that his rivals were carrying in their arms. "That should do it. Buffy'll want to shop for you two on the weekend. The makeover, one of the sadistic joys in her life."
"So, that's what happened to your head, then? Figured it must be some kind of punishment. Always were overly proud of the platinum locks."
Ron was unceremoniously shoved against the wall with surprising force by the smaller Draco before he even finished speaking, his clothes flying to the floor. He glared down at the former Slytherin, prepared to come to blows. What he saw in the other boy's eyes stopped him, though, before his legendary temper could finish igniting. The look in them was the look that Harry got whenever someone offhandedly mentioned Sirius in the conversation.
Before Ron could decipher why the fact that there was pain in Draco's eyes would matter enough to stop him from pummelling the boy, Draco was speaking. "You ever mention my hair again, Weasel, or anything else unusual about me, and I'll drag you to the basement at Wolfram and Hart."
He abruptly let the larger boy go, picking up the things he had made Ron drop and heading with them towards the cashier, leaving the other boys flabbergasted. They didn't know what to make of what just happened. They looked at each other, silently asking a multitude of questions. Why hadn't he threatened them with Voldemort or his father? Why did he let Ron go without taking a swing at him? What was Wolfram and Hart? Why was the basement so scary? Why had he picked up Ron's things, something that could be considered a human gesture? And why, above all, was he so touchy about something as simple as his hair?
Draco handed the cashier the clothes and fished out the company card from his wallet, indicating that Harry's things and the clothes that the boys were wearing should be added to the bill as well. The cashier, who had looked as if she was going to call security at the minor confrontation, had paled at the mention of Wolfram and Hart, and was now treating Draco with the terrified respect that Harry had seen shopkeepers in Diagon Alley give to Lucius. What was that place?
While the girl finished with their purchases, the Slytherin boy reached into his pocket, Harry's eyes widening in shock as he pulled out a muggle cell phone and punched in a number, raising the phone to his ear.
"Is that another fellytone, like Dawn's?" Ron whispered at Harry. The boys were nearly afraid to speak, not knowing what would set off Draco's temper. Given the cashiers lack of response, Ron surmised that the device was a muggle convention, rather than a magically enhanced version, as he had assumed Dawn's had been in the car.
Harry realized that Ron's only experience with muggle phones hadn't included a cellular phone. No wonder he had been somewhat surprised at Dawn's call from the car. He had probably wondered where the cords had gone!
"Telephone, Ron. Yes, it's a cellular phone." They were beginning to get strange looks from the cashier, as if she had heard them. "I'm sure Hermione will explain."
Draco pocketed his phone, having finished his conversation, and signed for the purchases.
"We're supposed to meet the girls in the food court." Draco nearly laughed at the expression on the other boys' faces. Even Harry, who was a muggle, had been surprised by a lot of things in the Californian mall, and he imagined they had never seen a food court. "Weasley should like it. It's one of Xander's favourite places, and I believe they share the same eating habits." The boys were still speechless, as if trying to puzzle out what a food court even was. Draco could only imagine what they were thinking. It seemed that there was going to be some amusement in guarding the golden boy and his friends, after all.
"Come on, or we'll be late." The former Slytherin bad boy turned his back on them, leaving them all the bags to carry. Typical Draco. But Harry was beginning to think that there was not much left of the boy he had once hated.
