Author's Note: I have nothing to say for once...

Chapter Nine

Vivian got the job the next day.

He found a copy of her resume, and sent an owl to her home, asking when she wanted him to come over, subliminally telling her she got the job.

He didn't read her reply when it came, not immediately. He wasn't sure why, but he didn't want to know what her response was. Not yet. He wasn't ready for people to respond to kindness from him yet. It felt like he was failing himself, his pride, what he'd shaped to be since his childhood.

Overall he felt good about it though.

&&&&&&&&&&

"Brom,

come whenever you'd like, except I'm sort of busy most of this

week. I'm going to be home Thursday and Saturday. So come whenever

you want on those days, but surprise me."

That was all she wrote. He couldn't read between the lines about what she thought of him. She was beginning to understand him too; that he was detached, and he was full of himself, and he was horribly skittish about everything. He was like a bird that had been in a cage all his life, and when set on the windowsill between his cage and freedom, he'd still return to the cage, if he could. Except someone locked the cage again, and he felt uncomfortable with it still.

&&&&&&&&&&&

He didn't come Thursday, it was too soon. He decided to come Saturday. He didn't think about it much as he had procrastinated it a good week forward, but when he reached Friday evening he realized that he had to see her tomorrow.

Draco had to bathe Lucius that night; Lucius could manage to figure out what to do in a bathtub (pretty much hold still and let Draco do everything), but it was completely draining for Draco, both emotionally and physically. He felt ashamed of what his proud father had been reduced to.

No, he had to be proud of his family, his Malfoy-ness. Brom Breeler could be out, being kind, but privately, away from the world, Draco Malfoy was proud and alone. His family blood line rested with him. He didn't trust women, he didn't trust anyone. He didn't plan to tell Vivian his true identity; he decided to keep that away from her. He would never tell her; at least, that was how he felt at this current time.

He stayed up late into the night again Friday, thinking, mulling things through.

He got up from bed and wandered like a ghost through his new home, and found his feet leading him to the library. With its two-story high, beautiful windows, the top half of which were stained glass images of winged people, it was by far the most beautiful room in the house.

Draco sat down in the corner, not on a chair or recliner or sofa, but on the polished hardwood floor, where the expensive carpets didn't reach. He pulled out his wand and with a handy spell, he managed to light his wand so that it lit up his little corner. He pulled a book out from the shelf; he had all the books he hadn't read stocked to the left and the ones he had read on the right; and the ones he hadn't read spanned most of the library; its tall wooden shelves reaching to the very ceiling; a long ladder on wheels stood on the right side. Only a few shelves held the books he had read.

The book he had pulled out happened to be an old copy of an old witch or wizard's library staple; it was an old love story, somewhat like the Muggle Romeo and Juliet, but longer, and in first person from the point of view of the female.

Draco hadn't read it; he had typecast it as silly and overly romantic; now he opened it, realizing it could give insight on the female mind. He had never sought to understand women before. He felt strange, almost as if he was betraying part of himself, but curiosity permeated his thoughts.

His eyes looked at the illuminated page.

The heroine was making a speech, "Alas, I can barely envision myself with you securely; our parents are devout to their ideas; mine have weighed your character and find you unworthy, and a recreant to your own family, as our families have hated one another for so long. Unless we flee and wed in some unknown chapel and start a life from nothing, guided only by a handful of seeds in each pocket to sow and harvest in order to provide for our lives," and it droned on and on, for half the page, at which he flipped a few pages ahead and read, with agitation, that she was prone to going into long, detailed rants and speeches, in which she spoke her heart out entirely. He had never met a woman that sang her every thought and feeling like this, women had some sort of mystery to them.

Draco tried to remember his girlfriend that one sixth year, and how he managed to understand her. He could barely recollect anything about her.

It's not like she's my girlfriend; I just don't understand what she wants with me, he thought to himself, I need to know how to deal with it when the time comes. I can sense her trying to ask me out.

He thought over the few excuses he could use to worm his way out of dating her, but he had no idea which would work well with a girl; he would as a man understand the reasoning behind the excuses if a girl gave them, but girls were more sensitive. His father had once told him, as part of the sex-education talk they've had, that "women thought with their hearts and men with their heads".

What's her heart thinking?

Then another troubling thought floated to shore of the vast ocean of thoughts and feelings that he kept bottled up in this head, and what will my head think of it, when the time comes?

&&&&&&&&&&

At four in the afternoon, he knocked on Vivian's door. He hoped he had come just in time for tea time, so that they would have something to busy themselves with during his visit. He couldn't imagine filling the time otherwise; asking for sugar and stirring his tea would give him something to do.

"One minute," she called from inside.

His stomach fluttered upon hearing her voice. He was nervous about the entire visit. She knew he was skittish, so he didn't expect her to do anything crazy. Yet, Draco knew that perhaps something crazy would be just what she would want to do, as she liked to challenge him.

He leaned back on the banister; the apartment stairs were on the side of the building and he had to walk three floors to get to hers. He couldn't imagine walking up and down those steep iron steps; they creaked uncomfortably, and he felt someone should fix them with a few spells so that safety was assured. Draco could only imagine how terrible it would be during the winter, where the steps would freeze over.

The door swung open. He lost balance on the banister and one of his hands slipped backwards, and he caught himself before he careened backwards and fell three stories.

"Oh! Watch it!" Vivian exclaimed from the doorway. She had colored her hair a faint, delicate pink color.

"I'm okay," he said, then added, "your hair?" He specifically left out any comment that would hint that he liked it; but he did, it was delicate, and oddly feminine. It didn't even clash that much with what she was wearing. She had on a white button-up shirt tucked into a black skirt, and knee-high black socks and black shoes.

"Oh, I was trying to dye it red, I really don't like using spells to fix up my hair, I always mess up. But this time I messed up being all Muggle about it. I bleached it and the chemicals got screwy. I don't know if I like it," She realized she was talking to him in the doorway and stepped a few steps backwards and motioned for him to come in.

Draco walked into her apartment. It was messy; that he saw at once. There were half-finished art pieces propped up against the wall with the windows, the couch had a white sheet thrown over it and a pillow – where she slept, he figured – and there was just a bathroom and a kitchen adjacent to the room. The apartment was very small.

"Let's go to the kitchen," Vivian said.

He followed her and found her kitchen as cozy and tidy; with black and white checkered pillows on black chairs, a white crisp tablecloth and yes, a pot of tea on the table.

"Tea time?" He asked.

"Yes," She sat down at the table and poured some into a tea cup, then pushed it to his side of the table, "Have some. It's Lemon-Raspberry Delight."

Draco tasted it, " Oh, it's already sweetened."

"Is it too sweet?" Vivian asked.

"It's the way I like it," he drank half of it, quickly, not sure why he was taking it down so fast when he had intended to be slow and meticulous when he drank and ate, to fill up time.

"I'm glad you like it, I just bought it yesterday."

"It's nice," he looked around her kitchen and saw she had no photographs, no pictures hanging up, "Why don't you put up your art or something?"

She shook her head, " I never like it enough to keep it for myself. A good artist would never let go of a piece of they like it. I couldn't bare to let go of this one, for instance," she reached behind her and pulled out a black-and-white painting of a little girl holding a basket of flowers and a kitten peeking out, "but I don't like it enough to hang it up. So it's forever lost in between being mine for real and a for-sale."

"Complicated," he said, finally.

"Do you paint?"

"No."

"Draw?"

"I can draw a pretty good caricature of myself, or my parents," he said, "but that's all it is, a distorted picture. I'm not too good."

"Draw me," she handed him a quill and ink from the basket on the table. She had art supplies everywhere, he noted.

"On what?"

"On the tablecloth."

"I'll ruin it," Draco exclaimed.

"I do it all the time. I have at least ten tablecloths filled with ideas. When I'm hurrying through breakfast I don't have time to get out my sketchbook," Vivian explained to him.

He began to draw, uncertainly, sketching out her head; he made her eyes large and doe-like, her nose small and jutting in a slope downwards slightly; he drew the faintest spattering of freckles across her face and then drew a bold, thick few lines to show a dramatic inward curve of her hair, then a delicate swoop of her neck. He sketched in the straps of a black tank top just so she didn't appear nude, as his mind informed him a few seconds after drawing her shoulder.

"It's great," She said, laughing, "even the freckles look about right."

"It's not my best, I haven't tried to draw you before," he said apologetically, anyway, "I can do a good one of myself."

"Go ahead. Wait, am I in a bra?"

"No," he said hurriedly, then drew in a sleeve immediately, "it's a shirt."

"I'm just teasing you."

"Hmm."

"Sketch yourself beside me."

He did; his hair was pulled back on one side behind his ear, on the other casting over his cheek in a delicate wave, tilting inwards; his face was thinner, with exaggerated cheekbones, but handsome; his nose also swooped down, but a little more severely; his eyes were average-sized and thoughtful-looking. He started on the mouth and chose to make it just a thin, slightly wavering line, where his upper lip curved to two delicate points, just faintly suggesting a little, very loose "m" shape. He looked sad in it.

"It's great," Vivian said, "kind of depressing though."

Draco shrugged.

"So, want something to eat?"

"Not really," he admitted, "I ate before I came here."

"Yeah, right, you're anorexic I bet, look at how thin you're getting. You must have lost at least a stone or something, in the time I've known you," She said critically. She stood and pulled out a plate of cookies from a cabinet, "any man that says no to my cooking is a fool."

He saw how appetizing they looked and took one, eating it in intervals with sips of tea.

"So, what's the problem?" Vivian asked, "Just no appetite?"

"No, I have an appetite," Draco said, "these are really good," he took a second one, "I just forget to eat a lot, and I walk around a whole lot."

"Yeah," she nodded, "I'm at least two stones overweight."

"Nah," he said, " really?"

"Look," She stood up and turned around. He never really noticed her body. She was always huddled in all these black clothes. She did have rather bountiful curves, but she didn't look overweight, she looked a little cuddly, he figured.

"You're exaggerating," Draco said.

"I could probably curl you up and fit you in my body, we probably weigh the same, but you're a good head taller than me too, I'm so short," Vivian laughed, "Most of my brothers always towered over me."

"I wasn't this tall when I was younger. I grew a lot my seventeenth year, I guess. I look so much older. I looked kind of young before, a little baby faced maybe. I don't know what happened."

"Good genes, let me tell you, you could've been five stones overweight and absolutely ghastly-looking as a kid, but the moment you finish growing, your good genes fix everything," Vivian said, sighing, "My Mum's round, my father's medium I guess; all my brothers are average-looking, so am I."

"Good genes?"

"Look at you. Fair, blonde, blue-eyed, tall, slender; you get the whole package. My family pretty much packs it in as plain looking."

"Heh," he said, softly, peering into his now empty tea cup.

"Want more?"

"I'm fine."

"There's not much to do here, but it's a little better than the café, I think. More comfortable. You can kick back and relax at home, but you have to sort of keep yourself pulled together out at the café."

"You looked pretty confident there."

"I like it better here," She shrugged.

"It's a nice kitchen," He offered, then shrugged too.

"Aren't we an awkward pair, though," Vivian said, "If you combined me with you we'd get this odd, perfectly normal person. We're on polar ends about a lot of things."

"I've done some thinking," Draco offered, "I'm not close-minded, don't think I don't think things through."

"I know you do, your articles are always thought through."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," She grinned, "What're you thinking about? You're spacing out."

"Just... nothing much," He had been thinking about leaving; he was wondering how long he could gage his stay so that it looked polite but not too interested in her home. He estimated that an hour would do, but barely ten minutes had crawled by as of now.

Vivian glanced out her window, where an owl perched.

"Oh! Here, see this," She opened the window and took the letter from the owl. It hopped onto a perch jutting out of her wall and preened itself.

"What is it?" He asked.

"It's a letter from Harry Potter. I wrote to him and said you moved in," She told him, a little nervously, "You ought to give Harry a try, I can sense you don't like him; Jeez, look how big your eyes got when I said it's from Harry."

"What's he got to say about me moving in?" Draco said, shifting in his seat uncomfortably.

"He says he didn't know someone moved in. You live quite a distance from his house, even though you're on the same street."

"I knew that he lived on the street."

"They said they'll stop by and bring something... here, let me read it... Hermione wrote for him, they're married, it's very sweet... oh, here we go: ' I think I'll stop by sometime with a cake or something, to welcome them in. I've heard of Brom Breeler; there's all this mystery behind who he is. I'll try sometime this week'... Now, what're you looking so horrified for?"

"I don't want to see them," He exclaimed, "How horrible, you shouldn't have written to them about me, I thought you'd keep some privacy between you and I and be respectful of the fact that I'm... eh, a celebrity I guess, I want to live anonymously."

She blanched a little, "Did I really screw up?" Her brown eyes were disarming.

"No," Draco sighed, then pinched the little pink corners of his eyes across the bridge of his nose, "Ah, hell, just say that I wish to keep private and that I won't open the door, and not to take offense. That I'm a hermit or something." They'll know it's me immediately; they'll see the family photographs on the walls, and my father and mother, and know I'm Draco Malfoy, and I can kiss anonymity goodbye. All my interviews; everything; the way I get scoop on people; they would never confess to a Malfoy, from the Slytherin house, knowing it was me.

"I will," Vivian said, "Then I should warn you, they said they might stop by this evening."

"I'll leave soon," Draco said, uncomfortably.

"I'm really sorry," She said, smiling uncertainly at him, "Are you mad?"

"A little," he shrugged again, "as long as you can take care of it and fix it I won't care. Just be careful what you say to people," he added after a bit of a pause.

"I will," Vivian nodded to herself, "I should have realized you wanted anonymity, picking a house such a long walk from the road. Well, as long as we're keeping things private between us, maybe you'll invite me to your house. I won't tell them anything."

You will if you find out I'm Harry's complete, utter enemy, he thought nervously, crap, what do I say to this? "Maybe." I'll have to stay in every day, so that Mother doesn't let her in by accident. She'd know for sure, everyone knows what Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy look like; look how many times they've both been in the paper. Not to mention the family name written on the doorway and the M's decorating the gate out of the garden. There's just no way...

"Sorry, again," She said, patting his back. He hadn't realized she was standing behind him, "You ought to get a move on then, if you want to avoid the Potters."

"I'll go," He said.

"It was nice, but too short. I'll come by sometimes and surprise you."

"Eh... alright... but wait a while, okay?"

"Why?"

"We're still unpacking, decorating... uh, we're just not ready, it doesn't look presentable."

"And my home does?" She shrugged, "Fine, I'll respect that though, it makes sense."

"Yeah..." He looked at his hands, uncertainly.

"Bye, then, I'll walk you to the door."

He turned while leaving through her door and asked, "Maybe we'll meet up in the café or something, before I'm ready to take you to my home." Maybe I can procrastinate it by seeing her at the café for a while.

"Sure," She smiled, "You're getting nicer every day, did you notice?"

"I'm just growing used to you, I think," he responded.

She squeezed his arm, above his elbow, and said, "Alright, see you sometime."

"Good bye," he said, half of his sentence cut off from her range of hearing as she shut the door. He thought about knocking again, saying something, but he couldn't figure out why and what he wanted to say. He turned and began a nervous journey down the steep steps, squeezing the railing gently. His eyes never looked up; he managed to avoid the pigeon shit and the part on the second floor that swayed, and once he was on solid ground he looked up at the stairway again.

Pigeons cooed and fluttered about. A feather was floating just above his head in a gust of wind. Draco turned and started the journey home, his stomach warm from tea and fresh cookies.