Summary: In which Danielle Malfoy has a little crush on her cousin, and literally crushes somebody.
Malfoy - notice how the word rolls off your tongue nicely? The name, it's a prestige, and honour that's bestowed upon every single person in the family. You're literally born with a silver -wait, no, platinum - spoon in your aristocratic mouth.
Malfoy - power, fame, wealth. But I would give up all of that for my one true love, my hero, who would come to rescue me from this drudgery, this prison, this –
"Danielle Malfoy!" Mom's voice reverberated throughout the mansion. Her footsteps could be heard encroaching upon my suite. I slammed Great-great-grandmother's journal shut. Then the door blasted open. Mother stood in the doorway, holding a book away from her with her thumb and finger. She looked incensed.
"Yes, Mother?" I blinked innocently, hoping to placate her. What was it this time, I wondered. Did she discover the nicely moustachioed portrait of Grand-uncle in the library?
"If I find anymore of these… Muggle romance novels," she spat the words out with much vehemence, "I will make sure you wear black for the next two months."
As if to demonstrate her disgust with my novels, she promptly threw the offending book on the floor and Incendio-ed it. Then she stormed out of my bedroom in haste, possibly to get ready for yet another cocktail party at Parkinson's.
"Mom!" I was appalled. Black was soo last season. I'd rather die than suffer a fate such as allowing myself to be caught in such a fashion disaster.
But I was surprised she found out about my secret stash of romance novels (or at least one book from it). I had hidden them so carefully in the remotest part of the mansion, in the family vault! After I'd read about Great-great-grandmother's falling in love with a Muggle thespian in the aforementioned journal, I swore I would keep my novels with her in the vault to keep her company. Poor Granny, being forced to marry a Black after her love affair was discovered, died of a broken heart a few months after the marriage.
I had hoped that those Judith McNaught novels would be fine company, comforting Granny in her resting place. McNaught wrote such stirring stories! Her heroes so wonderfully brought to life, with their dark pasts and stormy grey eyes - grey eyes?
Draco. I smiled to myself. My dear cousin would have ways to procure some more of those novels. Now that I was living with Uncle Lucius and Aunt Narcissa, I saw my favourite cousin more than ever.
We had previously lived in the US, but Father, upon Uncle's recommendation, was offered a post at Britain's Ministry of Magic. So we packed our bags for Malfoy Manor, home of 197 generations of Malfoys. After we moved, Father and Uncle went off to work early everyday and came home late into the night. I rarely ever saw them. Mother and Aunt would busy themselves with widening their social circles. That would have left Drake and I together at home, but Drake kept going out to "duel with Potter". That was what he told me, though I often heard him tell Uncle that he had been at Crabbe's or Goyle's.
I guessed Drake bought those novels to keep me preoccupied so that I would not rattle on him.
Drake would be going to Hogwarts for his fifth year when the new school term started; I would be going to join the third-years - Oh! So that was why Mother was in such an irritable mood! We had decided to shop for school items at Diagon Alley today, how could I have forgotten?
I hurriedly picked out a dark green robe and fixed my shoulder-length hair with a simple spell. (All Malfoys have platinum blonde hair. It's in our tight leather genes. Choice of eye colour: grey like Drake's, or blue like mine.) I surveyed myself in the mirror before I left. At five-foot-four, most clothes tended to fit me quite well. The mirror wolf-whistled at me before I left.
Thankfully I was just in time before Mother yelled for me. Diagon Alley, here I come.
It was my first trip to the wizarding centre of London. It was amazing. It was, also, a maze. I found it hard to keep up with Mother, what with all those grown-up wizards and witches around me.
"Aha! Madame Malkin's!" Mother ushered me into a rather cheery shop. There were racks of ready-made robes (some of which would have been labelled "to be burned" if I were in charge), but Mother was having none of that. I was, instead, to have my school robes custom-made. Ah, the wonders of wealth. I heard from Drake that "the Weasley" always wore hand-me-downs, what a nightmare!
Having my measurements taken seemed to take an eternity. Not that I had anything "impressive" to measure, of course. After the exhausting episode, Mother was still energised. She marched out of the store, apparently with a destination in mind. When she disappeared from sight, I overcame my inertia, albeit reluctantly, and picked myself up from where I was sitting.
"Mother!" I called after her, but she was nowhere to be found. I turned a corner abruptly but -
"Oof!" I collided with a tall, raven-haired boy. Looking up to apologise, his - grey? green? - brown eyes met mine and I was at a sudden loss for words.
"Watch it!" The guy-with-the-brown-eyes scowled at me and stalked off, still muttering under his breath.
Here you go. Totally unbeta-ed. Pardon me for all grammatical errors! And now we await the guy's reaction (coughcough.) to this chapter. =D What is up with Kiryo? (And this should technically be an X-men/ Harry Potter cross-over fic, luZ.)
the girl, jinx.