Draco sulked when he didn't get what he wanted and what he wanted was Ginevra Weasley. And he was fairly sure she liked him too - as well she should because he was a whole year older and a Malfoy and she just a firstie - but she didn't seem to have any intention of singling him out. She kissed him over the holiday and they spent every day together flying and exploring weird old passageways in the castle, but as soon as everyone else came back she just spread her attention around. Blaise still walked her to class. Theodore still sat with her at meals and tugged on her hair. She didn't treat him like he was anything special and that irritated like a bug bite he couldn't quite reach to scratch. It was outrageous. It was unfair.

He complained to his mother expecting sympathy but all he got was a note reminding him to invite the girl home for the Easter holidays and make sure to find out if she had any food allergies because after that unfortunate incident with dear Millicent one couldn't be too careful.

Millie was allergic to strawberries. They made her whole face break out in red welts. It hadn't been pretty.

Narcissa was more forthcoming with Lucius. She passed him Draco's whinging note and the man almost managed to contain his laughter. "Poor lad," he said. "It's the first time he's not gotten what he wanted."

They rolled their eyes in mutual sympathy. Draco could be a bit of a horror and if he was one they'd created with indulgent parenting, well, they still recognized it.

"He'll be fine," Lucius said as he reread the very aggrieved note that had words underlined and occasionally resorted to use of all capital letters as if lower case couldn't properly convey how very unfair it was for this girl to not want a steady boyfriend at all of eleven years old. I know she likes me, Draco's note read. IT'S NOT FAIR. "It'll teach him to work for something and make him value her more when they're older. If she just fell into his lap now, he'd be tired of her by the time he was fifteen."

"Sooner than that," Narcissa said.

"We play for the long view," Lucius said. "Not to get our son a date to Ministry Children's Dance."

Narcissa made a face. She'd been on the planning committee for that wretched social event for three years now and every time she tried to beg off she was reminded how important it was for suspected Death Eater families to maintain ties to the community. Political influence came through networking and knowing the right person, no matter how pure your blood was, and that meant running charities and attending the right luncheons. Draco, mercifully, wasn't old enough to attend the Children's Dance yet, but soon he would be and then she'd not only have to organize a charitable party for the tedious offspring of bureaucrats, she'd have to watch her own child mingle with them.

Watching the blood traitor Weasley clan clutch at their fake pearls in distress as Draco escorted the only girl in their clan to the event might make it somewhat less of a chore. Narcissa hoped that little Ginevra had better taste than her mother and made a mental note to take the girl shopping when she was a bit older. Even if they child couldn't afford much she could be taught to recognize quality couture and good lines so that when she was properly brought into the fold, as it were, she didn't embarrass herself.

"The long view is always tricky," was all she said. "Children have opinions, and, more worryingly, they never did find a body. He may not be wholly gone."

Lucius nodded. "It's a gamble," he acknowledged. "But to bring the first Weasley in hundreds of years - "

"Ever," Narcissa corrected him. "I checked the records."

"Ever," he said with a nod of his head, "into the folds of Dark magic would be quite a coup. Worth the risk, I think. And if He comes back we claim to have been doing it all with His goals in mind."

"I wouldn't mind a world where He stayed nicely missing," Narcissa murmured.

The Dark Arts were one thing but a psychopath with a god complex quite another. She enjoyed playing politics, even if her role often involved more charitable planning committees than Wizengamot hearings. The Blacks, as well as the Malfoys, had pulled the strings of their world for a long time and Albus Dumbledore was a worthy opponent. He'd co-opted her idiot cousin Sirius, who now languished in prison as a direct consequence of that poor choice, though anyone with a brain knew the stupid boy hadn't killed those people. Sirius wouldn't have killed Muggles he didn't know. As unstable as he'd always been, his violence had always been personal; he was a Black, after all, even if he'd landed on the tedious and light side of the last war. Their hatreds tended to be personal.

"Things are easier without quite that much… passion," she said. She didn't need to say more. She and Lucius had been married a long time, and he gave her a long, sideways glance that said he heard everything she didn't say. In this, as in most things, they were agreed.

"I suppose you've given Draco advice on how to win the girl," he asked, returning to the matter at hand.

Narcissa laughed. "No," she said. "I reminded him to invite her home and made no mention o his twelve-year-old social difficulties. Whether the girl thinks of him as a love interest, substitute brother, or friend makes no difference to my plan to take her out for ice cream and make a fuss about buying her a very expensive hat that she'll love and wear everywhere she goes and that everyone will know came from us."

"Little political prize," Lucius said, his fond tone for his wife and his words somewhat ambiguous.

"I wonder how she feels about the Dark Arts," Narcissa murmured. "Probably too soon to ask, however." She tweaked the note out of her husband's hands and smiled again at her son's petulance. "We should throw the child a birthday party and invite all their little Slytherin friends."

"Oh, the joys of making the Weasleys squirm," Lucius said. "Life is wonderful."

. . . . . . . . . .

A/N - Thank you so much to Ibuzzo and turbulenthandholding, who beta read the first version of this for me. New errors in this version are my fault.

Several people have asked whether Draco's gift of a cheap bracelet in the last chapter has the same significance it did in Green Girl. It does not. Different story, no carry over of non-canon elements. It's just the kind of cheap gift a pre-teen might get a girl he had a crush on, especially if his mother took him shopping and gave him suggestions. There are no long term implications.