"No. I'm just trying to paint a new picture of you...that's all. You're not the girl I had originally imagined you would be."

"We all change, Malfoy, you should know that."

"I'll take your word for it thanks."

They were silent for a long period of time, staring into one another's eyes. There was something there, anyone entering the room would be able to feel it...you could reach out and touch it yet, Draco and Rowan remained impassive.

"So are you saying you want to come with me?"

"Do you want me to?"

"Do you want to come?"

"Are you inviting me out of obligation?"

"Would you just answer my bloody question?"

"Sure, I'd love too." Draco mumbled.

"You'd what?" Rowan asked. There was a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. She knew what he'd said...they were beginning to grow on each other. Something was definitely changing.

"I want to come." Draco replied, changing his answer. She hadn't been shocked by his reply. Slowly, Draco realized, things between them were changing, they were beginning to tolerate one another. Who knew what step would be next.

"Okay, well do what you want to do, we aren't leaving to go out until around 11."

Rowan left Draco where he stood and went into the living room, sat down and turned on the tv, but she couldn't concentrate on it. All she could think of was Draco. When she looked at the tv, he was in her mind's eye. This was quickly deteriorating into a disaster prone situation, with no way back. It was suddenly necessary to reevaluate her feelings for Draco...or whatever she was feeling right then. It couldn't have been love, could it?

Rowan glanced up out of the corner of her eye and noted that Draco had moved into the doorframe and was leaning against it, his eyes closed, deep in thought. It was while she was watching him, she felt something that she hadn't felt in a long time. Her heart skipped a beat... That was it, she liked him again. Three bloody days of working with him, she was back to the same old problem she had faced all through Hogwarts. However, it began to be evident that perhaps he no longer felt like he had when he was at Hogwarts...maybe he too was beginning to like her back. Too much thinking. Rowan shook her head to clear her thoughts and became engrossed in the sitcom that was playing out on the tv before her eyes.

Draco watched Rowan from across the room, completely engrossed in whatever was happening on the, what was it called, tv? He left his post by the door silently and returned to his bedroom. He tried to organize his thought process, but found that it was nearly impossible. All day it had been nearly impossible. Well, maybe not all day, only since he realized that his old feelings for Rowan had come back. How could he have expected to forget about her? She was his whole life at Hogwarts and even though she shunned him, his feelings never decreased, if anything they grew stronger with time. They had grown stronger since then and now, Draco realized, his stomach sinking. He was in love with Rowan. The one girl who would never love him back had stolen his heart and locked it away some place where it would never be retrieved. Perhaps a little persuasion could be in store. He knew the power his physical presence had on women...he was gorgeous and they loved it...maybe with a little luck and some determination, Rowan might be swayed. It actually seemed, now that he looked back on what he had just seen in her living room, that she was reevaluating her own thoughts. Maybe there was something there he just wasn't seeing. After all, Harry had said they were exactly alike. Maybe she did like him...this mission was turning out to be even more complicated than he thought and they hadn't even really started the official, IWO mission.

"Malfoy! Out of the toilet now!! There are other people in this flat, besides you, me for one...and this is my flat."

"Hold your hippogriffs." Draco called serenely from the bathroom that he'd been occupying for the last twenty minutes. "Actually, you'll be holding your breath when you check me out..."

Rowan rolled her eyes, even though she knew that he wouldn't have seen them. She also desperately wanted to see what he'd been working on so hard. "Any minute now."

The door swung slowly open and Draco strutted out, yes, he strutted.

Rowan was vaguely aware that her jaw nearly dropped to the floor when Draco stepped into the living room.

"You like?" He asked casually.

Rowan gave him a once over and then a twice over, just in case she missed something the first time. Draco wore a black silk shirt that had stripes where the material was thick and thin, in the thin parts you could see slivers of Draco's chest. He wore snug fitting black trousers and black shoes.

"You clean up nice." Rowan sputtered, although it was nothing like what she was thinking that would involve no clothes at all and just not going to club because they'd be doing a completely different type of dancing.