It seemed like hours of jumping around and hugging before Draco's patience
snapped.
They look like chimpanzees, thought Draco; chimpanzees leaping with joy at the discovery of a new banana hoard. It was embarrassing. He could not understand, however, how people could just continue to walk on by as if nothing was going on.
He cleared his throat loudly.
The two girls broke apart. Hermione cleared her throat and looked from Draco to Lisa.
"Lisa, this is Draco Malfoy - we're at school together. Draco, meet Lisa."
Draco nodded.
"Hi, nice to meet you." Lisa held out her hand, smiling.
"Charmed." Draco spoke smoothly, not taking her hand. Impure blood.
Hermione shot Draco a livid glare behind Lisa's back. Draco merely smiled, but it did not reach his eyes.
Lisa uncomfortably withdrew her hand and turned to Hermione, a puzzled look suddenly coming over her face.
"Herm, is he your b-" she began.
"No!" Hermione retorted, a little too quickly. "He, umm, we, uhh..." Hermione racked her brains. "We have chemistry together!"
Draco's left eyebrow shot up. What was she talking about? He hoped she hadn't just implied what he thought she had. There was certainly no chemistry between them; in her dreams maybe, but... But wait. Lisa had taken this comment with no problem at all. In fact, she just nodded and turned to Draco.
"So, besides chemistry then, what other subjects do you take?"
Draco froze. WHAT?! He had no idea how to answer this question - it had baffled him. He could hardly say Arithmancy, Herbology, Potions and Charms; Hermione would kill him. His considered this, and decided that maybe it was worth the risk. At least if he was dead he'd be out of this mess. But he decided against it, and looked to Hermione for help.
Seeing his obvious distress, Hermione quickly said, "Oh, Draco does maths and physics, along with chemistry of course."
"You must be well clever," Lisa's mouth dropped open, "Let me guess, another future doctor!" She laughed at her own joke.
"Yes actually," Draco drawled, much to Hermione's surprise. He was playing along? She shrugged it off; of course he was playing along. It was in his best interests to do so. In seven years of knowing him, Malfoy had never done anything without an ulterior motive - there had to be something in it for him.
Lisa giggled and flipped her hair behind her shoulder with a toss of her head. "I just love men in white coats..."
Hermione felt queasy. That was an undeniably flirtatious comment! Lisa was flirting with Malfoy?
Thinking of a few men in white coats who'd be glad to take her away, Hermione stifled a giggle as she struggled to keep a straight face, whilst at the same time ignoring the sickening fear that perhaps Lisa actually meant to flirt with that stupid blonde git.
Malfoy managed an uncomfortable half-smile at Lisa. He took a moment to subtly gaze at her. What was the word he was looking for? 'Dumpy' sprang to mind. Short with what could be described politely as an overly ample frame, Lisa had shoulder-length blonde hair; except, could those dirty blonde roots and limp peroxide tips really be called blonde?
Suddenly there was a noise. It was coming from Lisa. Draco jumped as her denim jacket started playing a loud tune.
"Excuse me one moment." Lisa reached into a pocket and extracted a brightly coloured, hand-sized rectangular object; the noise got louder. She touched its surface and raised it to her ear. "Hello?" She turned away.
Draco turned on Hermione, "what the hell...?"
"Mobile phone," Hermione hissed. "Muggles use them to contact one another when they aren't at home."
"Ok, listen Granger this is a little to freakish for me. I've had an idea to get me out of here anyway. Surely somewhere on this bloody street is owned by some stupid half-blood and is connected to the Floo Network... Or you could tell me how to get someplace where I can send an owl without attracting too much attention..."
Draco's blood pressure was rising, he could feel it. He put a hand across his forehead and massaged his temples.
"Just. Get. Me. Out. Of. Here." Every syllable was injected with resentment and, Hermione thought, maybe even some fear. It was hard to tell what Malfoy was thinking, he averted his eyes during conversation - obviously a defensive characteristic drilled into him by his strict upbringing.
Hermione threw an apologetic look at Draco, and then a sideways look at Lisa, who was still chattering away on her phone. Hermione, straining her ears, managed to pick out three words from Lisa's side of the conversation: "very fit bloke". She rolled her eyes, and looked back at Draco, who was now staring at the road, apparently intrigued by the scores of cars and buses racing by.
He could be almost cute at times. Not in the conventional sense, Hermione reassured herself. It was almost as if Draco was a baby dragon; rather adorable-looking when helpless, but absolutely devastatingly dangerous when he opened his mouth.
"Listen Dra- Malfoy," Hermione broke the somewhat awkward silence, "I'll see what I can do. In the mean time, you're just going to have to lump this. I can't just cancel on Lisa now that she's here, and we still have to wait for Claire - that's my other friend - she'll..."
"...Not be coming." Lisa interjected, evidently finished her lengthy yet quite clearly superficial phone call. "That was Claire just now. She's come down with the flu."
Draco's ears perked up, "Floo?"
Hermione quickly intervened. "Yes Draco, FLU... Influenza, the ILLNESS."
Lisa threw Hermione an odd look, "someone's into stating the obvious."
Hermione laughed uncomfortably.
"So..." Lisa bit her lip. Then her face broke into a wide grin. "We're only here for one thing, Herm - how does shopping sound?"
Lisa linked arms with Hermione and started off down Oxford Street. Hermione grabbed Draco by the arm, and pulled him alongside them. Hauling his arm free, he threw a disgusted look at Hermione.
"Don't think of this as some sick kind of bonding experience between you and I, Granger." he hissed, "you're still a common mudblood, and you will never be anything more!"
"The only thing that's sick, Malfoy," Hermione responded coolly so that Lisa couldn't hear, and hiding the gaping wound that his malicious comment had left inside her, "is you, and your pig-bloody-ignorance."
Draco trailed a couple of paces behind Hermione and Lisa, with his hands in his pockets and a scowl on his almost entirely pale face. His cheeks were tinged with pink from the coldness of walking outside. He watched as Lisa and Hermione walked arm-in-arm, deep in conversation. Every so often one of the two would burst into hysterical laughter, which would immediately set the other off. This immensely annoyed Draco. This was partly due to his exclusion from the joke, and partly because he was in a foul mood, and other people's happiness did nothing but accentuate his own unhappiness.
"Bloody Granger," he muttered, "and her bloody stupid fat friend..."
SMACK!
Lisa and Hermione had stopped to look in a shop window, and Draco being so absorbed in his own mood had failed to notice this, and had walked right into them.
The display in the window caught Draco's eye straight away. He stared, captivated by its splendour. Red and gold tinsel hung from the ceiling, whilst a Christmas tree stood below, with hundreds of glowing lights cascading over every branch. It was almost magical... Then Draco remembered - it wasn't. That was the point.
But it was stunning, nevertheless.
Hermione looked over her shoulder at Draco, and nodded towards the door, which screamed "WELCOME TO SELFRIDGES", in the same way Next's window had done.
"Coming?"
With a look, which resembled that of somebody trying to withhold immense interest, Draco nodded, and followed the two girls.
***
Draco had never seen anything like this before. His mouth fell open in amazement. His cold cheeks were quickly warmed, and a pleasant aroma caught his attention.
The shop lights were bright, and everywhere he looked there were sparkling ornaments and decorations, shop assistants dressed in red smocks with dazzling white smiles, standing by small counters, brandishing crystal bottles of clear liquid, crowds of people everywhere, yet the store's vastness still leaving enough room to move freely.
"Through here." Lisa led the way, weaving in-between people and counters.
"Excuse me, Sir," a polite voice rang out, as a slim woman in a black suit stepped in front of Draco, separating him from Hermione and Lisa, who continued to walk on, not realising he had been stopped.
Draco glanced nervously over her shoulder, watching Hermione move further away, her figure frequently disappearing behind other people.
"Sir?" Draco's attention was back on the woman in black. "Would you care to try our new fragrance?" She flaunted a pale blue, frosted glass bottle in front of his eyes. "New from Calvin Klein, especially for him. Its called ICE..." The woman, held out the bottle, and took Draco's arm in her spare hand. As she sprayed the cool liquid onto his wrist, he jumped. In the wizarding world it was not clever to let people randomly squirt liquids onto you - last time that had happened, Neville Longbottom had ended up with eight fingers on each hand and speaking nothing but Spanish for a week.
The woman lifted his wrist to his nose, and motioned for him to smell.
Draco cautiously inhaled. It was strong, but fragrant. Pleasantly fragrant. Draco looked up at the woman, and gave her a small smile.
She was quite attractive, for a muggle that is. Dark brown hair slicked back into a ponytail, blood red lips and clear, pale skin - slim physique. Draco's eyes came to rest on the nametag on her jacket. 'Corinne' Well, not quite as elegant as her person, but that couldn't be helped...
"Nice, isn't it?" Corinne smiled at Draco. "The bottle's quite attractive too... It matches your eyes." A slight blush appeared on her pale cheeks. She cleared her throat softly, "would you like to buy a some?"
"Draco?!" Hermione's voice interjected, sounding slightly irate, "what's keeping you? Oh..." She politely smiled at Corinne, and then looked back at Draco. "Lisa's waiting for us upstairs."
Draco threw an almost-apologetic look at Corinne, and politely declined, "No, I don't think I'll be buying any, not today anyway."
She smiled her dazzling shop-assistant smile. "At least take a sample and think about it," she thrust a tiny blue bottle into his hand, and nodded, "enjoy the rest of your day, Sir."
Draco walked away with Hermione. "I got caught behind... She, umm..." He was stuttering, how embarrassing.
"No problems," Hermione answered, half-smiling at Draco's nervous state, "Lisa's upstairs - there's something she wanted to look at, so I left her there and came to find you."
"Yeah, umm... About coming to find me..." Draco stammered, "I guess I should say thanks."
Hermione looked at him, almost blankly.
"You didn't have to do that, especially seeing as how rude I've been to you. I-I uhh... I suppose what I'm trying to say is that..." He took a deep breath and looked her straight in the eye, "I'm sorry."
That was it, Draco decided, wishing he could disappear. She's going to laugh at me, think I'm weak... But to his surprise;
"You're forgiven. If I was you, I'd be pretty scared too."
"Who said anything about me being scared?"
"Come off it Draco... Malfoy... Oh, whoever you are..."
Hermione's voice trailed off, and they approached the escalator in silence. Draco had never seen an escalator before, and was quite reluctant to step onto a moving staircase, but he was also too curious to refuse.
Hermione smiled to herself at his child-like astonishment at the simple machinations of the muggle world she had grown up with.
The reached the second floor. Lisa waved at Hermione from a few metres away, and beckoned for her and Draco to join her.
Hermione stifled a giggle as Draco took a step forward, and then froze in his tracks.
"SECOND FLOOR - LINGERIE"
"No WAY!" Draco was rooted to the spot, refusing to move.
"Yes way..." Hermione laughed out loud this time, and started to walk towards Lisa.
What could he do? The idea of remaining behind alone only to be commercially molested by more shop assistants filled him with even more dread than shopping with Hermione for underwear...
His face as red as the famous London buses he had seen speeding by outside, Draco kept at Hermione's heel as they walked towards, what seemed like at present, his worst nightmare...
They look like chimpanzees, thought Draco; chimpanzees leaping with joy at the discovery of a new banana hoard. It was embarrassing. He could not understand, however, how people could just continue to walk on by as if nothing was going on.
He cleared his throat loudly.
The two girls broke apart. Hermione cleared her throat and looked from Draco to Lisa.
"Lisa, this is Draco Malfoy - we're at school together. Draco, meet Lisa."
Draco nodded.
"Hi, nice to meet you." Lisa held out her hand, smiling.
"Charmed." Draco spoke smoothly, not taking her hand. Impure blood.
Hermione shot Draco a livid glare behind Lisa's back. Draco merely smiled, but it did not reach his eyes.
Lisa uncomfortably withdrew her hand and turned to Hermione, a puzzled look suddenly coming over her face.
"Herm, is he your b-" she began.
"No!" Hermione retorted, a little too quickly. "He, umm, we, uhh..." Hermione racked her brains. "We have chemistry together!"
Draco's left eyebrow shot up. What was she talking about? He hoped she hadn't just implied what he thought she had. There was certainly no chemistry between them; in her dreams maybe, but... But wait. Lisa had taken this comment with no problem at all. In fact, she just nodded and turned to Draco.
"So, besides chemistry then, what other subjects do you take?"
Draco froze. WHAT?! He had no idea how to answer this question - it had baffled him. He could hardly say Arithmancy, Herbology, Potions and Charms; Hermione would kill him. His considered this, and decided that maybe it was worth the risk. At least if he was dead he'd be out of this mess. But he decided against it, and looked to Hermione for help.
Seeing his obvious distress, Hermione quickly said, "Oh, Draco does maths and physics, along with chemistry of course."
"You must be well clever," Lisa's mouth dropped open, "Let me guess, another future doctor!" She laughed at her own joke.
"Yes actually," Draco drawled, much to Hermione's surprise. He was playing along? She shrugged it off; of course he was playing along. It was in his best interests to do so. In seven years of knowing him, Malfoy had never done anything without an ulterior motive - there had to be something in it for him.
Lisa giggled and flipped her hair behind her shoulder with a toss of her head. "I just love men in white coats..."
Hermione felt queasy. That was an undeniably flirtatious comment! Lisa was flirting with Malfoy?
Thinking of a few men in white coats who'd be glad to take her away, Hermione stifled a giggle as she struggled to keep a straight face, whilst at the same time ignoring the sickening fear that perhaps Lisa actually meant to flirt with that stupid blonde git.
Malfoy managed an uncomfortable half-smile at Lisa. He took a moment to subtly gaze at her. What was the word he was looking for? 'Dumpy' sprang to mind. Short with what could be described politely as an overly ample frame, Lisa had shoulder-length blonde hair; except, could those dirty blonde roots and limp peroxide tips really be called blonde?
Suddenly there was a noise. It was coming from Lisa. Draco jumped as her denim jacket started playing a loud tune.
"Excuse me one moment." Lisa reached into a pocket and extracted a brightly coloured, hand-sized rectangular object; the noise got louder. She touched its surface and raised it to her ear. "Hello?" She turned away.
Draco turned on Hermione, "what the hell...?"
"Mobile phone," Hermione hissed. "Muggles use them to contact one another when they aren't at home."
"Ok, listen Granger this is a little to freakish for me. I've had an idea to get me out of here anyway. Surely somewhere on this bloody street is owned by some stupid half-blood and is connected to the Floo Network... Or you could tell me how to get someplace where I can send an owl without attracting too much attention..."
Draco's blood pressure was rising, he could feel it. He put a hand across his forehead and massaged his temples.
"Just. Get. Me. Out. Of. Here." Every syllable was injected with resentment and, Hermione thought, maybe even some fear. It was hard to tell what Malfoy was thinking, he averted his eyes during conversation - obviously a defensive characteristic drilled into him by his strict upbringing.
Hermione threw an apologetic look at Draco, and then a sideways look at Lisa, who was still chattering away on her phone. Hermione, straining her ears, managed to pick out three words from Lisa's side of the conversation: "very fit bloke". She rolled her eyes, and looked back at Draco, who was now staring at the road, apparently intrigued by the scores of cars and buses racing by.
He could be almost cute at times. Not in the conventional sense, Hermione reassured herself. It was almost as if Draco was a baby dragon; rather adorable-looking when helpless, but absolutely devastatingly dangerous when he opened his mouth.
"Listen Dra- Malfoy," Hermione broke the somewhat awkward silence, "I'll see what I can do. In the mean time, you're just going to have to lump this. I can't just cancel on Lisa now that she's here, and we still have to wait for Claire - that's my other friend - she'll..."
"...Not be coming." Lisa interjected, evidently finished her lengthy yet quite clearly superficial phone call. "That was Claire just now. She's come down with the flu."
Draco's ears perked up, "Floo?"
Hermione quickly intervened. "Yes Draco, FLU... Influenza, the ILLNESS."
Lisa threw Hermione an odd look, "someone's into stating the obvious."
Hermione laughed uncomfortably.
"So..." Lisa bit her lip. Then her face broke into a wide grin. "We're only here for one thing, Herm - how does shopping sound?"
Lisa linked arms with Hermione and started off down Oxford Street. Hermione grabbed Draco by the arm, and pulled him alongside them. Hauling his arm free, he threw a disgusted look at Hermione.
"Don't think of this as some sick kind of bonding experience between you and I, Granger." he hissed, "you're still a common mudblood, and you will never be anything more!"
"The only thing that's sick, Malfoy," Hermione responded coolly so that Lisa couldn't hear, and hiding the gaping wound that his malicious comment had left inside her, "is you, and your pig-bloody-ignorance."
Draco trailed a couple of paces behind Hermione and Lisa, with his hands in his pockets and a scowl on his almost entirely pale face. His cheeks were tinged with pink from the coldness of walking outside. He watched as Lisa and Hermione walked arm-in-arm, deep in conversation. Every so often one of the two would burst into hysterical laughter, which would immediately set the other off. This immensely annoyed Draco. This was partly due to his exclusion from the joke, and partly because he was in a foul mood, and other people's happiness did nothing but accentuate his own unhappiness.
"Bloody Granger," he muttered, "and her bloody stupid fat friend..."
SMACK!
Lisa and Hermione had stopped to look in a shop window, and Draco being so absorbed in his own mood had failed to notice this, and had walked right into them.
The display in the window caught Draco's eye straight away. He stared, captivated by its splendour. Red and gold tinsel hung from the ceiling, whilst a Christmas tree stood below, with hundreds of glowing lights cascading over every branch. It was almost magical... Then Draco remembered - it wasn't. That was the point.
But it was stunning, nevertheless.
Hermione looked over her shoulder at Draco, and nodded towards the door, which screamed "WELCOME TO SELFRIDGES", in the same way Next's window had done.
"Coming?"
With a look, which resembled that of somebody trying to withhold immense interest, Draco nodded, and followed the two girls.
***
Draco had never seen anything like this before. His mouth fell open in amazement. His cold cheeks were quickly warmed, and a pleasant aroma caught his attention.
The shop lights were bright, and everywhere he looked there were sparkling ornaments and decorations, shop assistants dressed in red smocks with dazzling white smiles, standing by small counters, brandishing crystal bottles of clear liquid, crowds of people everywhere, yet the store's vastness still leaving enough room to move freely.
"Through here." Lisa led the way, weaving in-between people and counters.
"Excuse me, Sir," a polite voice rang out, as a slim woman in a black suit stepped in front of Draco, separating him from Hermione and Lisa, who continued to walk on, not realising he had been stopped.
Draco glanced nervously over her shoulder, watching Hermione move further away, her figure frequently disappearing behind other people.
"Sir?" Draco's attention was back on the woman in black. "Would you care to try our new fragrance?" She flaunted a pale blue, frosted glass bottle in front of his eyes. "New from Calvin Klein, especially for him. Its called ICE..." The woman, held out the bottle, and took Draco's arm in her spare hand. As she sprayed the cool liquid onto his wrist, he jumped. In the wizarding world it was not clever to let people randomly squirt liquids onto you - last time that had happened, Neville Longbottom had ended up with eight fingers on each hand and speaking nothing but Spanish for a week.
The woman lifted his wrist to his nose, and motioned for him to smell.
Draco cautiously inhaled. It was strong, but fragrant. Pleasantly fragrant. Draco looked up at the woman, and gave her a small smile.
She was quite attractive, for a muggle that is. Dark brown hair slicked back into a ponytail, blood red lips and clear, pale skin - slim physique. Draco's eyes came to rest on the nametag on her jacket. 'Corinne' Well, not quite as elegant as her person, but that couldn't be helped...
"Nice, isn't it?" Corinne smiled at Draco. "The bottle's quite attractive too... It matches your eyes." A slight blush appeared on her pale cheeks. She cleared her throat softly, "would you like to buy a some?"
"Draco?!" Hermione's voice interjected, sounding slightly irate, "what's keeping you? Oh..." She politely smiled at Corinne, and then looked back at Draco. "Lisa's waiting for us upstairs."
Draco threw an almost-apologetic look at Corinne, and politely declined, "No, I don't think I'll be buying any, not today anyway."
She smiled her dazzling shop-assistant smile. "At least take a sample and think about it," she thrust a tiny blue bottle into his hand, and nodded, "enjoy the rest of your day, Sir."
Draco walked away with Hermione. "I got caught behind... She, umm..." He was stuttering, how embarrassing.
"No problems," Hermione answered, half-smiling at Draco's nervous state, "Lisa's upstairs - there's something she wanted to look at, so I left her there and came to find you."
"Yeah, umm... About coming to find me..." Draco stammered, "I guess I should say thanks."
Hermione looked at him, almost blankly.
"You didn't have to do that, especially seeing as how rude I've been to you. I-I uhh... I suppose what I'm trying to say is that..." He took a deep breath and looked her straight in the eye, "I'm sorry."
That was it, Draco decided, wishing he could disappear. She's going to laugh at me, think I'm weak... But to his surprise;
"You're forgiven. If I was you, I'd be pretty scared too."
"Who said anything about me being scared?"
"Come off it Draco... Malfoy... Oh, whoever you are..."
Hermione's voice trailed off, and they approached the escalator in silence. Draco had never seen an escalator before, and was quite reluctant to step onto a moving staircase, but he was also too curious to refuse.
Hermione smiled to herself at his child-like astonishment at the simple machinations of the muggle world she had grown up with.
The reached the second floor. Lisa waved at Hermione from a few metres away, and beckoned for her and Draco to join her.
Hermione stifled a giggle as Draco took a step forward, and then froze in his tracks.
"SECOND FLOOR - LINGERIE"
"No WAY!" Draco was rooted to the spot, refusing to move.
"Yes way..." Hermione laughed out loud this time, and started to walk towards Lisa.
What could he do? The idea of remaining behind alone only to be commercially molested by more shop assistants filled him with even more dread than shopping with Hermione for underwear...
His face as red as the famous London buses he had seen speeding by outside, Draco kept at Hermione's heel as they walked towards, what seemed like at present, his worst nightmare...