A/N: Thanks to PartialToPotter for help with this one.
Draco tipped his chin up as Madame Malkin pinned down the lapels of his new formal dress robes, eyeing the street traffic with interest. He had taken an unprecedented second day off of work in the past week, and he was enjoying the relative freedom of Diagon Alley's slowest time: a monday afternoon. Three young witches exited Slug & Jiggers Apothecary and promptly disappearated with collective giggle, leaving the street mostly empty.
"Straighten up!" Madame Malkin commanded.
He perked up.
Madame Malkin eyed his hem thoughtfully, and then nodded. Three needles, already laced with fine silk thread sprang to attention, tidying down his lapel and whipping through his hem and sleeves with ruthless efficiency.
"I wasn't sure when you said you wanted to go with a navy, but it's just perfection." Madame Malkin crossed her arms.
"It's to match my date for the evening." He replied simply, brutally forcing down the accompanying maelstrom of anger and rolling emotions.
The Madame raised one impeccably drawn on eyebrow a fraction higher. "I hope the young lady is prepared to be the center of attention.
He pulled at his sleeve, testing the length. "She knows who I am."
Madame Malkin was too discreet to question him too closely. She was an old family friend who knew that the best place to get the gossip was to go behind his back. In fact, he was sure his mother would be all abuzz about his "date" by the time he got home this afternoon.
He paid and Madame Malkin promised to send the robes over as soon as the trimmings were owled from Ireland. Banshee lace, in an intricate silver-colored scale pattern, would soon be added to the cuffs and lapels, completing the ensemble.
Out on the street, the air was foggy and brisk. He had planned on floo-ing home, and having lunch with his mother. He had a lot more time on his hands, it seemed, now that Granger was gone.
Had it always been this way? Work and then home was so tedious now. Anger rolled over him like a thunderstorm at even the thought of her, but he found himself balking from going home to another night in. He missed the time when he was not thinking of her, not knowing her. If he'd known this is what was in store for him, he would have relished his time in the holding cells at azkaban, going slowly barmy from loneliness.
Draco turned up the street, dodging dirty glances from the few shoppers out and about, reasoning that a quick jaunt wouldn't hurt.
Soon she would be at the mansion more than enough for his liking, he told himself. The prophecy promised even a death that would not separate them. He should be enjoying being rid of her, but as the days grew closer to the event anticipation, reluctant as it was, was mounting. He told himself it was the prospect of watching her negotiate the open public scorn that was sure to follow announcing their "engagement." He told himself he would enjoy making her dance to his tune.
But he feared that she had attached herself in some awful way to his life, and he wouldn't be free of either the pain from her calculated manipulation, or the longing to be worthy of her recognition. He remembered too clearly the feeling of her listening to him, that calmness that fell over him when she was nearby, when she was shining even a little of the light of her attention on him.
Humiliation washed over him like a cold shower, and he looked up to find himself across from the jarringly bright facade of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. The door sign said "Open to Buisness, Funny and Otherwise," but the shop was empty apart from Weasley the King himself and a shop assistant, who was stacking boxes precariously on the highest shelf of a large case. The youngest Weasley sibling rounded the corner, a clipboard in hand.
Anger flared at the sight of them, a seething white hot feeling crackling all over him. It was just like it had been in school, treated like a joke, or worse, like a hapless animal who was being subjected to a charm to test its potency. He wasn't a trial Voldemort. He had never been explained the right way, only chastised for knowing the wrong. He had been young and stupid and cruel, but being treated like the lowest of the low hadn't made it any easier to defy his father. On the contrary, the more he was treated like a death eater the closer he came to being one. It was easier that way, knowing there would be no sympathy for him on the other side.
The wind blew gently along the street, hustling the few remaining fall leaves into a fury. And he was alone again, on the outside looking in again.
He walked across the cobblestone street with his hands clenched into fists, ready to bust through the door and tell them off for daring to meddle in his love life. But as he reached the door, almost blind with fury, he stopped. Potter's son had been resting, just out of street view on the platform that surrounded the counter, in a seat-like contraption with bizzare plastic buckles and hooks. As his mother's back was turned, he was pulling himself out of the seat and onto his tiny feet.
He rose shakily, his green eyes raised hopefully towards his mother and uncle, who were watching the boxes stack themselves and checking the clipboard periodically. He took a shaky step, hands reaching forward. Draco watched him take a second step, closer towards the edge of the platform, but the toddler's eyes never looked down.
The baby stumbled back, and then started forward again.
It happened unconsciously. There was the jingle of the door's bell, and two strides before the baby fell, not onto the polished floors of the joke emporium, but through the air and into Draco's arms. He whooped and giggled, his tiny feet still swinging.
The Weaslette turned eyes wide. "Malfoy wh-"
He straightened, not knowing quite why he felt so foolish. James Potter squirmed in his arms, heedlessly giggling as if he hadn't just been seconds from a chipped tooth.
"He was about to fall." He filled in, feeling completely useless.
Her eyes swivelled to the baby. "Did you walk?"
The baby babbled back, his hands still reaching towards his mother.
"He's never walked before," She explained, her face just showing surprise. Draco handed the child over to it's mother, his anger completely gone now. It was hard to come back to white hot fury from this awkward encounter.
She held the baby close on her hip and turned back to face him.
He stiffened, then nodded. "Weasley. Potter."
He turned and headed quickly out onto the windy street again, the bell jingling mockingly behind him.
It jingled twice.
"Wait-"
Ginny Potter nearly ran right into him as he turned to face her.
"What?"
He must have been harsh, because she jumped back, her hands raising unconsciously. "I just… I wanted to say thank you."
"Is that all?" He said, clipping the words succinctly.
Her manner changed immediately from defensive to offensive, her hands coming to rest on her hips. "Excuse you. What crawled up your arse today, Malfoy?"
"Oh, so you and your pals are just going to act as though you didn't try to ruin my life?" He snorted. "I wish I had the luxury of forgetting it happened."
She crossed her arms, sheepishness writ plain across her face.
"Cat got your tongue, Mrs. Potter?" He crossed his arms. "What happened to running out after me to say thank you?"
She jerked her chin up, meeting his eye. "Don't be such a baby. Men will lie, cheat, and steal to get a woman to be theirs, but when a woman does a little harmless hiding of her intentions, suddenly she's a crazy bitch."
"I wouldn't exactly call a prophecy about the fate of the wizarding world not to mention a child's hand in it a 'harmless intention,' but hey, what do I know, I'm just the bloody sperm donor." He hissed.
"It's not like tha-"
"If it's not like that, it's not far from it. I wouldn't be entirely surprised to know I'd been slipped a love potion." He tightened his hold on his arms.
"Listen, for what it's worth I am sorry about the way things went down. Although not when you're raving like the same self-besotted lunatic who we went to school with." She pursed her lips.
He could feel a flush crawling up his neck.
"So, you admit that you helped her with tricking me. With lying to me." He replied in a growl.
She threw up her hands. "Does it matter? What do you care if I helped her talk to you? You made up your mind long ago that Ron and I weren't worth talking to."
"I want to find out how deep the rabbit hole goes. Did Granger start with the idea of humiliating me and work backwards, or was it a fly by the seat of his pants Potter plan?" The anger pitched and rolled through him like a bracing wave.
She didn't seem surprised by his anger, and just tossed her hair to the side. "I did help her. She wanted to bring you around to the idea of dating her, and going through with the marriage law, so I helped her coax you out. But I'm not sorry about it."
"You're not." His voice became razor sharp.
"No. I'm not. You were a rude, overly emotional tosser in school, and you've barely grown up since then. Hermione knew that if she told you you'd go into a spiral about being controlled, and muck everything up." She crossed her arms and looked him up and down. "And she was right."
"You all schemed and planned away my life, and you dare laugh at me? You manipulate and coerce, and then you mock the person for being taken in? And I'm the tosser?" He bit our bitterly. The words he'd been seething over the past few days did nothing to take the edge off the anger.
"It wasn't like that. We weren't laughing at you, we were just giving Hermione a chance to get closer without you pushing her-" She shook her head.
"So, you knew she was going to fuck me to soften me up." He ground out.
"Yes, I did. I told her it would work, because-" Ginny stood defiant.
He dropped his voice to a whisper, his face falling into it's same placid aloof mask. "Because I'm so pathetically hard up that I'd fall for Granger making herself easy and willing. She made a fool of herself."
She half shook her head. "I don't think you're pathetic and I'm not laughing at you, if you would just listen to me for one second-"
"Here's a little tip from me to you, most people don't fall for whoever is the easiest to sleep with." He smirked. "Potter being the exception."
Her eyes widened. "I was trying to apologi-"
"You really needn't bother." His voice was cool and breezy, but anger was twisting, rolling around in his chest like an injured snake.
She jerked back. "You know, you're completely right Malfoy, I needn't bother. Maybe if you were less of an insensitive prat, Hermione wouldn't have needed to pretend to love you. Merlin knows that's the best you could hope for."
He took in a breath to respond, but she held a hand in his face.
"Thanks for helping, Jamie." She spat, somehow seeming the angriest about that, and turned back towards the shop.
He said nothing, letting the wind blow around him. He felt nothing, just a gaping,empty, desperate, hollow nothingness that yawned out from his chest into the universe. Granger didn't care for him, he knew it now, for sure. And that was the end of everything.