I have not written a fic since maybe 2017. THIS IS ALL QUARANTINE'S FAULT.

I was halfway through writing this whole fic when J.K. Rowling went on her terf rampage, and I edited/modified it in a bunch of subtle ways to spite her. You'll see as the story unfolds. Aside from these little things, I tried my hardest to make this seem plausible in the canon hp universe. Since it's about Draco, who Harry really doesn't care all too much about, this was very easy and gave me a lot of leeway. Thank you Harry for being unobservant of my boi :)

Enough rambling.

ENJOY!

Draco landed jarringly in the fireplace of a clean, moody looking house. He stumbled into the hall, still not quite used to the Floo, although he'd never admit that to his parents. A wave of anger seized him - why did they have to move out of the manor?

He had spent the majority of the last year at school, away from home, and missed it terribly. His father wouldn't tell him why they were downgrading to such a filthy place - surrounded by muggles, no less - and Draco was downright miserable because of this.

He crossed the sparse living room and headed straight for the front door; furious, but curious despite himself. He ignored his parents' calls for him to get back in and help us unpack as they made their way through the fireplace, and struggled with the lock to what was probably the front door. Draco got the door to wrench open, and stepped out into the sunlight.

He had never lived in a neighbourhood before. The Malfoy manor was a lone building, on a very, very, very spacious property. Here, he was surrounded by houses - house after house down a long and winding street. Houses with white picket fences, metal fences or none at all; some stucco, some brick, all numbered, with small driveways and large garage doors.

There was a muggle a few houses down hosing down her grass in the sweltering heat (how pitiful, father usually got the house elves to attend to their grass with magic). If he looked the other direction, a group of puny kids were lobbing a small ball between them (an activity that didn't even come close to rivalling quidditch).

The front garden of their own house was pitifully puny - twenty of these unkempt gardens could have fit on the old property! Where would he practice his quidditch? How could muggles stand to live like this?!

"DRACO!"

It was his father. No doubt he wanted to give Draco a little chat, something to establish ground rules.

Remember, you will not speak with the Muggles. You will not this, you will not that-

"What kind of name is Draco?"

There was a girl, about his age, in the front garden. She was tall, willowy, and had on a clean, white shirt and jeans. There was something in her hand, a board with wheels. He zeroed in on it with a fascination his distaste for muggles couldn't stop fast enough.

She caught him staring and let it clatter to the ground, startling him from his reverie.

"It's my name," Draco said hotly, meeting her curious stare. Stupid muggle.

She snorted. "I've never heard anything like it!"

"Can you get off my garden? You have no right-"

"No need to boss me around!" She stepped back, onto the street. "Git. I just wanted to welcome you to the neighbourhood."

"What?" He was utterly perplexed. The muggles were going to welcome them? That would make it a bit harder to avoid them… "Don't!"

She snorted again. "Git…" She stepped onto her board, and pushed herself away.

So it was a transportation device. Quite an impractical one, at that. Not that it was his business.

He watched her glide away. The wheels scraped against the rough pavement, clickety-clacking like a quieter version of the Hogwarts Express.

"DRACO!"

Draco let out an angry huff. He'd have to suffer two more months in this blasted neighbourhood? He wasn't sure he'd last till the end of the week.

"I'm coming, Father!"

It was the middle of a hot July afternoon when Draco stomped out the front door for what must have been the tenth time that week. He was practically seeing red. Their old house-elf had just dropped by with a letter from Blaise Zabini. Draco had taken an oath not to tell any of his schoolmates where he was currently residing (not like he would tell them about the muggle dump in the first place) and every letter he got was just a crude reminder of what he didn't have.

Draco had thrown the letter into the fire.

The front door creaked open, and his mother joined him on the porch. "Let's go for a walk, dear."

He was still angry, but he adored his mother. They fell into step and walked in silence down the street. His mother's eyes were trained straight ahead, unwavering. Draco tried and failed to copy her. He had never been down the street. Never explored much of the neighbourhood at all. His eyes roved across the patchwork of houses hungrily.

"Where are we going?" he asked after a long silence.

"There's a park you might like."

They looped onto the street behind theirs, then veered onto a more hidden path Draco would never have noticed. It was between two shabby looking brick homes (honestly, how these Muggles could live in such atrocities was beyond him), and fenced in by criss-crossed wire, to separate this path from the residences sandwiching it.

The wired fences towered on either side of him, engulfed in vines, leafy appendages that snaked through the fence walls as Draco walked through. The foliage obscured the sunlight in the passage, and he was reminded fondly of the path to his Hogwarts dormitory.

The pathway opened into a wide open, sprawling park, surrounded by a paved walkway. Along the fences closing off the park from the houses, there were a couple of trees.

Draco stepped off the paved walkway and onto the green, freshly-cut lawn in a triumph. This was the space he had sorely missed and needed.

He shared a knowing smile with his mother.

He and his mother traipsed back to the house and waited for his father to get home shortly after their excursion. The minute he appeared in the fireplace, mother and son teamed up, campaigning to let Draco out to the park. The campaign was a success, and for the first time all summer, Draco was in good spirits.

The next day, a hot July afternoon (when it was hottest and nobody in their right mind would be out in a park with no shade), Draco shrugged into old clothes, gently wrapped up his broom in a black leather bag his father had found, and strode away to his new quidditch pitch. No doubt his muggle neighbours were perplexed as to why a boy would stroll by so cheerfully in the sweltering humidity, and that filled Draco with a smug satisfaction. He loved the potential for attention.

And for the love of Slytherin, Draco had sorely missed flying. On his new broomstick, Draco could cross from one side of the park to another in almost the blink of an eye. It responded easily to the smallest of touches, something Draco had been delighted to discover as he zig-zagged through the copse of trees.

The broom was perfect, and that meant Draco's flying was going to be perfect, and before long he'd be the perfect seeker, the perfect person to beat Potter to a pulp on the quidditch pitch.

(He was very excited.)

Hours later, he dragged himself back to the house, upset that he couldn't fly back, sweaty and exhausted, but internally gleeful because his new broom worked like a charm. The sun was slowly starting to set, bringing with it cool night air.

The neighbour girl was sitting on her lawn as Draco trudged into his driveway.

"Hello, Draco," She mocked.

"Hello," Draco said crossly.

He wasn't going to stop and chat with her, but then she said, "I was wondering when you'd ever come out of your house."

"Go inside," he growled. Her very presence had riled him up instantaneously.

"You were out playing golf for a long time," she observed, totally brushing aside his comment.

"Yeah, well," Draco said, just wanting to go inside, "I like to practice."

"Fancy a match tomorrow? I play with my dad sometimes. He says my form is good." She said this with a proud tone Draco was all too familiar with. If only Draco knew what golf was - maybe he would have been impressed.

"I'll pass," Draco said coolly, and, ignoring her crowing, he turned his head and marched inside with a smirk.

"Were you talking to that Muggle girl?"

Draco looked up, startled. His father was standing in the middle of the living room, a stern look on his face.

"She keeps bothering me," Draco grumbled, carefully setting down his broom in the closet. His father would understand that he'd never willingly talk to someone like her. "Can you get rid of her?"

His mother, who was in the kitchen, smiled. "Draco, she fancies you!"

Draco felt his face go hot. His father's stern expression broke, and he barked out a laugh.

"Get rid of her!" Draco exclaimed with a stamp of his foot. "She does nothing but torment me!"

"Lucius Malfoy, you will not go around exterminating little girls," his mother declared.

His father waved his hand nonchalantly. "Fine. I will not interfere."

Draco let out an angry huff, but he knew there would be no arguing with his father over this anymore.

"Don't go falling for her," he continued with an eye-roll. "And watch she doesn't follow you. You know how girls are."

"Lucius!" his mother yelled.

Draco smirked. "Wouldn't dream of it, father. She is a muggle, after all."

"That's my boy."

But the next day, things went horribly, horribly wrong.

The muggle girl had caught on to his timed outings, and harassed him accordingly. She had been standing on the street in front of his lawn, that board in her hand again, a more charged imitation of their first meeting. Draco didn't say anything at first, just hoisted the golf bag higher up on his shoulder and stalked to the end of the driveway, then down the street.

He dared not look back, but there was a clatter and the unmistakable scrape of her board's blasted wheels on the pavement. "You can't ignore me forever, git," she hissed.

"Watch me," he retorted. He still hadn't looked back, but he could imagine her gliding along after him, a scowl on her tanned face and a curious gleam in her eyes.

"Are you just bad at golf? Is that why you try so hard to get away?"

They had turned onto the street behind theirs now. Draco was going to have to shake her off his tail, or else no quidditch.

"Come on, Draco Malfoy. I just want a friend. There's nobody to talk to for miles in this stupid place."

"I don't care," he grumbled, trudging on. Although he did agree. It felt like there was nobody around for miles. But a wizard like him was bound to feel like that in an ocean of muggle.

"Is there something you're hiding, Draco?" She asked after a bit of silence.

He turned to face her, and she stamped a foot down to stop her board, a haughty expression on her face. He smirked. "My hatred for you."

He watched her expression change with a hint of satisfaction. His mother had been right - this Muggle girl clearly had a crush on him - she wouldn't have been so extremely upset at that remark if she didn't. She spluttered, absolutely dumbfounded, and Draco couldn't help but laugh. He had last seen such an aghast expression on one red-headed weasel, and seeing the similarities made him feel quite good.

"Now stop bothering me, you stupid muggle."

She looked as though he had smacked her in the face with her stupid board.

It had never been this easy to make Potter and his lot piss off.

He watched her roll away, back to her house to sulk, and with a pleasant sniff, he continued on his merry way to the park. The girl would leave him alone forever now, no doubt. No more having to deal with all her questioning, no more watching her grin like a dope, no more of her blasted board's clickety-clacking!

He was so sure he had gotten the muggle girl off his tail with his mean remark, that he didn't bother to check over his shoulder for signs of a potential stalker.

It must have been the blistering sun beating down on him that let Draco throw caution to the wind.

(If she was a wizard, she would be a Slytherin, through and through.)

At the park, Draco took out his precious broomstick with a sacred air, hopped on, and kicked off. A giddy thrill raced through him, his stomach doing excited flips, when the bloody muggle girl announced her presence by dropping her board from her hands.

It clattered deafeningly on the paved pathway as she stared up at him, still as shocked as ever.

Draco skidded to a halt in mid-air. It felt like there was a stone in his stomach. He cursed himself, his parents, the neighbourhood, that girl-

"Don't move," he snarled, anger that his flying had been keeping at bay bubbling out of him. She didn't move an inch until he landed in front of her. Then she tried to bolt, but Draco wasn't training to be a quidditch player for nothing.

His broomstick rolled away as he lunged for the girl.

They tumbled onto the lawn, and the girl let out a scream. "Get off me, you slimy git! GET OFF ME!"

Draco wanted so badly to do something to this girl - to slap her, to punch her, but this wasn't Potter. No, this was a girl, and although he had just tackled her into the ground, the red he had been seeing was starting to fade and his mother's insistent orders that he never act poorly in front of a girl were worming their way into his mind.

"You can't tell anybody what you've just seen," he whispered, hoping he sounded threatening. He rolled off of her and she sat bolt-upright, panting fervently like a puppy. "Or my father will make you regret it."

"You're a wizard!"

Draco felt as if he had just been run over by the Hogwarts Express. "You're off your rockers!" He spluttered.

But the girl had found the truth, and she knew it. "I knew something was up when you called me a muggle. And, you go to this park to fly… you don't golf, you fly…" she trailed off, visibly delighted by her discovery. "Do you even know what golf is?"

"How do you even know that I'm a wizard?" Draco asked, not wanting to dwell on what he did or did not know.

"Because wizards fly on broomsticks, and call us normal people muggles. Wizards…" She was clearly struggling to find words. "Wizards play… quick… no, hang on… quid. Quidditch?"

There was no denying that this girl knew anymore.

"We're going to my father."

"What?" She stood up warily. "Why?"

"Because you shouldn't know about us, that's why!" He grabbed her shoulder, but she shot like a bullet for her skateboard and held it like a sword. Draco took a startled step back, before remembering who he was and squaring his shoulders defiantly. "How dare you! I could hex you right now!"

The girl bit her lip, but continued to heft her skateboard. "You're lying."

"Am not." He fished his wand out of his pocket for dramatic effect, and brandished it like she brandished her board.

The girl's dark eyes widened fearfully for just a split second. "If you could hex me, you would have done it the minute we met. Or to shut me up, at least. I bet you can't do magic outside of school. You're just as powerless as I am."

How dare this girl call him powerless - a muggle girl, calling him powerless! The urge to punch her had never been greater.

"And you're not reporting me to your father, either," the girl continued. "You can't because I already know, and I'm not going to tell. My older sister's girlfriend is a wizard. Went to Hogwarts and all that."

He hated that she was getting away with this, but that connection caught his attention. Who was this mystery girlfriend? Perhaps he knew her… "Who is she?"

She looked at Draco for a moment, as if contemplating if he was worthy of the information. "She's a Hufflepuff."

"Never mind then." He put his wand down.

"And from that reaction I'm guessing you're a… The cool snake one."

His chest swelled at the words cool snake one.

"Well, fine then. I won't get father to obliviate you. And my house is Slytherin," he said condescendingly. And because he didn't want to risk being clobbered by her new weapon, he added, "Put that thing down."

The girl held still for a minute, then let it clatter to the ground at her feet. "Happy?"

"Not yet. You're interrupting my quidditch practice."

Her eyes swept around the clearing and landed on his broomstick. "I'm guessing you don't sweep the house with that thing."

He snatched up the broom before she could get any more ideas. He would not let Muggle filth near his broomstick.

"Are you on your school's quidditch team, then?"

Draco thought briefly of Potter, the only first year to ever be on a quidditch team, and a hot stab of jealousy ran through him. "Yes," he lied.

"What's your… job?"

"I'm the Seeker," Draco said immediately. She cocked her head. "I catch the little golden ball," he added with a touch of annoyance. She nodded her understanding.

"I'm assuming you're quite good," the girl said nonchalantly, and Draco felt a small thrill run through him.

"What makes you think that? Not that you're wrong," he added.

"Well, you're a pretentious git about it. It could go one of two ways, now that I think about it. Someone as self-absorbed as you could either be insanely talented - what with the enormous ego leaking out of your ears - or just desperate to look good no matter the situation."

Draco blamed the shameful flush in his cheeks on the summer heat. "Stop badgering me. This is my practice time." He emphasized practice time, hoping she'd still think he was as important as she originally thought he was.

She looked thoroughly unimpressed, but plopped down and crossed her legs. "Go on, then. Bet you fancy being spectated."

"I'm pure-blooded, you know," Draco blurted. "One of the last pure-blooded wizards."

She blinked. Hard. "Are all pure-blooded wizards blond and shiny?"

Draco blinked back. I will not punch this girl, I will not punch this girl-

"Are you saying this because you think it'll impress me?" she prodded on. "I know next to nothing about wizards, but I know for a fact that Janet's - that's my sister - that her girlfriend is a half-blood. She can fly too. She wasn't as skinny and frail as you are, I guess that counts for something-"

"I'm not trying to impress you. I'm trying to make you understand how important I am. And why you shouldn't be disrespecting me like this." She smirked, and his fists balled up. "I could stun you! With a flick of my wand you could have your mouth sewn shut!"

You won't." She grabbed her board and put it in her lap like it was a cat. "I'm pure-blooded too, you know. By non-wizard standards. Not a drop of magic in my blood. I love to lord it over wizards too." She pointed at his broomstick. "Go fly. I wanna watch."

"I-" Draco was now utterly confused. "Why?"

The girl scratched her head. "I've never seen a person fly before. Go on then," she said with a flick of her hand.

"No, why aren't you mad at me? I hate your guts!"

The girl shrugged. "I'd rather watch a person fly then just go to the skate park again. For Christ's sake, there's nothing for me to do all summer. And you don't hate my guts."

Draco let out an annoyed huff, but just this once, he decided he'd let the muggle see him fly.

It was his practice time, after all.

So he hopped on his broomstick, ignoring how the girl's eyes seemed to bore holes into him, and kicked off into the blue, cloudless sky.

He did a lap around the park's perimeter, flying just above the treeline, but he became wary as he neared the girl, and rocketed up into the sky and did his laps from that height. The muggle girl was starting to unnerve him with how fascinated she seemed, but he had to admit it was kind of cool to have someone admire him like this.

He had never had the satisfaction of having his friends see him fly like this at Hogwarts. It was thrilling.

Once he had done a couple of loops around the park, it was easy to ignore the girl's watchful gaze. His mind began to clear and he swooped around, taking in the beautiful park spread below him. The grassy fields, the winding path that served as the border enclosing the land. The trees dotting the fence line.

And the smart mouthed girl lying in the grass, watching him like he was some sort of fancy bird.

All of the kids at Hogwarts were easy enough to decipher. Potter was hot-headed and stupid, Weasley was easy to snipe at because of his heritage, and of course Granger was just a know-it-all mudblood. But this muggle girl wasn't as stupid as Potter, not at all ashamed of her lack of magic, and obviously intrigued by his world…

Would she pester and badger him like this for the rest of the summer? She was just like his mother, if his mother was a bratty 12 year old with a… what was the blasted board called?

The girl shot up so fast it caught his attention. Draco halted and watched her, a white speck in a sea of green hundreds of feet below. She pointed a ways away, to the park entrance.

Draco spotted the ripple of movement down the walkway, heard the chit-chatter of a muggle family, and immediately fell into a mad dive for the ground.

The girl had mounted her board and raced to the pathway entrance, talking loudly and animatedly. "Hello, Miss Rosie! I'm surprised you're out, I'm usually out here to skateboard, you know, I've never seen many other people out…"

Draco rolled onto the grass as far away from the park entrance as possible, heart hammering in his chest. The girl's voice carried over the clearing, as if amplified by a Sonorous charm.

"Oh, yes, I'm here with the new kid who moved into Ms. Writer's old home? Yes, it's quite sad, he doesn't have many friends - he won't mind me saying, it's the truth ma'am, we were trying to fly a kite but it's flown off… yeah, that was the thing you must have seen flying earlier, it got quite far, I'm surprised too, if you're taking a walk, let me come with! It's so unbearably hot here and I'm so bored, I have so much I want to talk about with someone… oh, you're leaving? I suppose it's a good thing, it's quite hot out, I can accompany - oh, ok, you go on your way then!"

Draco lay down patiently in the grass, waiting for something like an all-safe signal, heart still hammering in his chest. That had been an unbearably close call. He could envision his father's enraged face if he reported this incident back to him and felt his throat go dry - no, this would all have to be kept under wraps, and that meant… So would the girl.

He was just about done with flying and dealing with people for the day, but there the girl was, shrieking and jogging across the green for him.

She truly was quite despicable.

When Draco tried to move his legs, he barely suppressed a groan. Everything was sore from that fall. The girl stood over him. She was holding her skateboard (He had overheard the term) as well as his golf bag, looking at him imploringly. No doubt expecting his thanks.

They met eyes, and Draco felt his throat start to close up again. She was expecting something from him now, Draco could feel it in the sureness of her stature. He stepped off his broomstick gingerly.

"Why did you help me?"

The girl shrugged, dropping their stuff at her feet and offering him a hand up. "You're my friend."

There were just some stupid experiences that you just couldn't share without learning to accept someone, and this had been one of them.

"... Thank you."

He was grateful, obviously. But he didn't take her hand. He didn't want to have to touch her, even if he had just decided to accept her.

Ensuring that the bag was zipped up and his broomstick was secure, Draco hoisted it over his shoulder, the hot leather searing a mark into his shoulder. He turned to see the girl hadn't moved an inch, but was again observing him.

Draco started walking, slowly at first, and the girl joined him. They fell into step with each other. There were a couple of inches between them as they strolled out of the park. Draco cast a few sideways glances at her. She was a lot taller than him, he noted bitterly. There was a lengthy silence.

"What's your name?"

The girl turned to face him and gave him a smile, a sort of cheeky grin, pearly white teeth on display, long, dark hair glinting in the blinding sunlight. She was part Asian too, which kind of took him by surprise; seeing her close up he noticed the slight slant to her eyes and the delicate curve to her nose.

"It's Jane."

"Jane," Draco repeated again, sometime later. She had been silent, thankfully on their trip back. Draco figured he himself was a talker - his father's annoyance with him whenever he broached the subject of Potter made that evident - but he had nothing on Jane.

They were almost to their houses. Jane looked at him, a curious gleam in her eyes that Draco elected to ignore.

"Now that we're friends, will you let me ride your broomstick?"

That annoyance he had been feeling earlier resurfaced. "I will never do such a thing."