A/N: This is my fist attempt at a romance fic so I hope it is not to bad, please r/r, all comments are welcome, even flames (yes I am that desperate for feedback)
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Draco Malfoy, JK Rowling does. I am just borrowing them for a midnight romp.
She was beautiful. There was no doubt about it in Draco's mind. But the fact of it was that she was still a mudblood, and close to Potter. If she was disposed of there would be one less thing in the way of the Dark Lord, because without her brains, with out her, the golden trio was nothing really.
If she hadn't been a mudblood he might have pursed her, hell he might he pursed her anyway, if his father had conveniently dropped of the face of the earth or something similar. She was a challenge, something he had to work hard to get, and Draco liked challenges. Having always gotten his way all through life so far he found them refreshing.
He went back to watching her, seeing her chatting amicably with her friends made his heart clench painfully. He would end her happiness. He wondered briefly why he was sympathizing with her, and when had he become so soft. Of course her happiness would not be gone forever; the Dark Lord had promised Draco that he could have her once she had been interrogated. Draco knew how fickle his master could be, but he planned to get her for himself, even if it took more effort than originally anticipated.
Once she was in his care he was sure he could make her happy. After all he had so much to offer her, and he would do almost anything to see her smile, for him.
He continued watching the group of friends as the path their walk was taking brought them closer to the bushes in which he was hiding. When they passed the bush which concealed him he would jump out an attack, rendering the three friends incapable of resistance and remove her. No one would know it was him, particularly as he was wearing the white mask and black hooded robes that marked him as a deatheater.
The group of friends was even closer now, almost, but not quite close enough for Draco to see how her brown her cinnamon eyes really were. But he could imagine it, and the light dusting of freckles that graces her cheeks and nose. He loved her freckles, to him they made her seem more human, they were a blemish on the perfection that his infatuation had constructed as his view of her. He thought they made her more real, more tangible.
A few more paces and he would have to jump out and take her away from her friends, the people who made her happy, who at that moment were the reason for the smaile that graced her features. But she would smile for him too.
"What makes you think that will ever happen?" queried a small part of his brain that he had been trying to push down for weeks now.
"What if she'd rather die than live with you?" the small voice (Malfoys did not have a conscience) persisted.
They were even closer now, one more step and he would have to jump out and attack them. She stepped forward, her eyes on the weasel as she laughed at something he had said. Her laugh was carefree and lilting, a welcome break from the darkness that had recently overtaken the wizarding world. She looked beautiful when she laughed, with her head thrown back, the sunlight catching the gold in her honey brown hair.
And he couldn't do it. He couldn't take her away. The stubborn childish part of his mind that insisted he would make her happy and that Malfoys always got what they wanted, had been subdued, by the small voice in his head which had begun to utter these thoughts that contradicted his personality so completely.
So he stayed and watched her pass, still laughing with her friends. He waited until they were well past, then stood up and apparated.
When he looked back in later years, he felt sure he ahd seen her turn around, and look at him, just before he apparated away.
FIN