Friends Close, Enemies Closer
Chapter 2: First Encounters
His first reaction was to say something as rude as possible, preferably with liberal references to her Mudblood heritage and her stupid bushy hair. In fact, he had a rather clever comment about a bird's nest already lined up in his mind.
But his words died on his lips as he noticed something in her expression, or rather, something that was distinctly missing from her expression.
The look of pure loathing that she reserved exclusively for him was completely absent from her face.
"I said I was sorry," she snapped at him indignantly. "You don't have to be a prat about it."
Well, maybe it wasn't a complete absence.
Her voice jilted him back to reality. Of course, there was a reason she wasn't looking at him with her usually hatred: she wasn't looking at him at all, at least, not what he usually thought of as himself. She was looking at Evan Thomas, who was stupid, harmless and innocent, everything that Draco was not.
Quickly, he remembered that he had to try to befriend her and to convince her to let him join the Order. The thought of being nice to Granger churned his insides. Apparently, they churned his outsides too, because she was not looking at him very curiously.
"What's the matter?" she asked, her tone softening considerably. "Did I hurt you?"
"Erm…" Draco said. He began to feel the insistent pressure of panic pushing against his mind. He was not ready. He hadn't planned to run into someone close to the Order so soon, much less someone he already had quite strong feelings of resentment toward. He had not thought out what he was going to say, how he was going to convince her.
Evidently, Hermione thought his lack of an intelligible response meant that he was fine. She was picking herself daintily up off the floor already, brushing the dirt from the front of her robes. Draco had to restrain himself from telling her that dirt was probably an improvement over that shoddy fabric. He thought perhaps this was not the best way to become her friend.
She gave him one last half annoyed, half pitying look, probably because she thought he was rather dim for not being able to answer a simple question. Then, she turned away from him and started to walk off down the High Street.
"Wait!" Draco called desperately. He could not let a chance like this pass him by. He might not find someone else close to the Order for ages. He scrambled quickly to his feet as she turned to stare at him again.
"What?" she asked tersely.
"I'm really sorry for bumping into you." No he wasn't, he wanted to knock her over again, preferably by hitting her very hard in the head with a broomstick.
She paused a little. "It's all right," she allowed grudgingly.
"Er… would you care to have a drink with me?" He could think of nothing else to say.
"I was on my way out," she said. He could tell she wanted to add "obviously".
"What's the rush?"
"I've got… work to get back to." Of course she would be an awful liar. Perfect Granger who would never misbehave or talk back to a teacher.
Feeling more confident now that Granger was off balance, Draco decided to play the pity angle. As much as it pained him to ask for her sympathy, he had seen the vaguely pitying look in her eyes before, and he knew that it was his best shot. Besides, this stupid bloke that he had stolen the appearance of had a permanent "I'm about to cry" expression on his face, perfect for eliciting sympathy from girls.
"Oh…" said Draco, putting in just a little hesitation and loads of disappointment, "well, that's ok then." He made sure to raise the pitch of his voice just slightly, as though he were distressed.
She hesitated for the slightest moment biting her lip.
"It's just that, I don't like drinking alone," he said wistfully. Then, feeling as though he might as well hint at wanting to join the Order, he added sorrowfully, "What with all the horrible things happening to people these days and all."
He knew she was on the brink of accepting his invitation. There was no way she was off to do work. More likely she had been told by the members of the Order to leave headquarters as little as possible, and she wanted to get back before anyone noticed her absence. But she was wavering. She pushed her hair back behind her ear nervously and appeared to be thinking very hard about the proposition. Draco stared intently at her face, taking in every feature, scrutinising it for signs of hesitation. Her eyes shifted quickly as though afraid that she might be discovered, then focused on his. He saw acceptance in them. She opened her mouth to speak. He could taste the victory of his deceit…
"HERMIONE!" bellowed a voice from somewhere further down the street.
Both of them jumped a mile in the air. Hot, furious frustration swept through Draco as he turned to see who had interrupted his brilliantly convincing act.
Ron Weasley was hurrying up the street. His face was an odd mixture of anger and worry. Then, upon spotting Draco standing with Hermione, the worry evaporated immediately.
"What're you doing out here?" Ron demanded, ignoring Draco entirely. Draco rather preferred this, since he had no desire to talk to Weasley. There were only two people in the world he hated more than Granger, and Ron Weasley happened to be one of them.
"Ron!" Hermione said quickly. "I was just on my way back."
"You weren't supposed to leave unless you had to anyway, Hermione," he said. "What're you doing at the Three Broomsticks, having drinks with random blokes?"
"I haven't had a drink with him yet, Ron," she protested.
"'Yet'? What do you mean by 'yet'?"
"Nothing, just that I haven't done anything wrong," she said defensively, "not that it would wrong if I had a drink with him," she added quickly, with an apologetic glance at Draco.
Noticing this, Ron turned to Draco. "Who're you?" Ron asked again.
"My name is Evan," Draco supplied helpfully. Being nice to Granger was one thing, but Draco could not bring himself to be nice to Weasley, who was clearly itching to have a go at him no matter who he looked like.
"Well Evan," Ron said. "Why don't we go inside and have us all a drink together? I can't wait to meet you."
"Ron, I was just leaving," Hermione said, now looking rather annoyed herself. "We don't have to bother Evan here. You found me. Let's go."
"No, I want to meet your new friend."
"He's not my new friend Ron, I just ran into him."
"You have deep, involved conversations with people that you randomly run into, eh?"
"I wasn't having a deep, involved conversation! What are you, a seer? You can tell exactly what I'm thinking and doing all the time, Ron?"
"Well, I'm bloody better than you are at Divination! You couldn't see your way through a piece of glass."
"Oh yes, you're fantastic at making up predictions, oops, I mean Divination. 'Today I will drown', 'Tomorrow my head will catch on fire, but that's ok because there's nothing useful to burn in there.'"
Draco never thought he would feel sorry for Harry Potter, but he was coming very close to it right now. Potter dealt with this sort of bickering every day? Draco thought his head might explode if it went on much longer.
"We're being rude to your friend, Hermione," Ron said suddenly. Draco thought it was perhaps because the other boy couldn't come up with a retort. "Let's all just go inside and have a nice chat then."
Hermione glared at him. "Maybe we should, maybe I'll enjoy some fresh company."
Staring daggers at each other, and dragging Draco helplessly along, the three of them entered the pub together.
They picked a table close to the corner, away from the center of attention. Perhaps even in their anger Ron and Hermione understood that they had to keep a low profile. Draco thought this was a rather good thing. This way, they were less likely to have another inane argument.
Each of them ordered a butterbeer from Madam Rosmerta after settling into their table. For a few moments, there was an awkward silence.
"I'm Hermione, and this is my friend Ron," Hermione said, avoiding Ron's glare which was still fixed on her. "It's nice to meet you, Evan."
"I'm pleased to meet you both too," Draco lied through his teeth.
"So, Evan," Ron said, finally deciding that glaring at Hermione wasn't very productive. "Are you from around here?"
"Er…" Draco was unsure of what to say. He hadn't had a chance to memorize the personal details of his disguise carefully yet. "I've lived and worked here since I graduated school last year," he explained, carefully avoiding the issue of his hometown. He doubted it would matter, but he wasn't going to make something up unless forced to.
"Where did you go to school?" asked Hermione.
"Where do you work?" asked Ron, at the same time.
Draco gave a friendly little chuckle, as he supposed this Evan fellow would do in such a situation, and said, "I went to Hogwarts, and I work at Dervish and Banges. What about you two?"
"We're at Hogwarts too," Hermione replied. "I mean, we were."
"What do you mean by were?"
"Well, we won't be going back this year. What with Dumbledore dying and all…"
"Yeah, I heard about that." It took all of Draco's skill and self control to force his face into an appropriately saddened expression. He wasn't sure if he had succeeded, so he added, "Everything has just been so awful since You-Know-Who returned, and now Dumbledore is gone too. What are we going to do?"
Hermione's expression looked sad and uncomfortable at the same time. Even Ron seemed to soften a little. Draco gave himself a mental pat on the back.
"Let's not talk about such horrible things," Hermione said hurriedly.
Draco's imaginary hand stopped mid-pat. Bloody hell.
"Yeah," Ron agreed. "What about Quidditch, eh? Who do you reckon is going to win the league this year?"
"The Cannons," Draco replied automatically, not even stopping to think about what Evan's favorite team might have been.
Instantly, Draco berated himself for his mistake. No one ever seriously thought the Cannons were going to win the league. He was not going to earn any favour from Weasley or Granger this way. He knew all too well the dubious look people usually gave him when he told them that he was a Cannons fan, that condescending, disbelieving look.
To Draco's total surprise, Ron's eyes lit up with fierce enthusiasm. His expression brightened and all traces of animosity left his face.
"You're a Cannon's fan?" Ron demanded excitedly. "What d'you reckon about the new Keeper? You think they'll be able to cope without Crawley?"
Astonishment and relief flooded through Draco. Weasley was a Cannons supporter? He had thought it utterly impossible for Weasley to have good taste in anything.
They chatted amiably about the Cannons for a good twenty minutes, about the time they had almost won the league a few years back (or at least, come in second to last, which was really very close), about the new players that had been recruited, and about what veterans would turn in spectacular plays this year.
When the butterbeers came, Hermione took hers first and gave the two boys a patronising glance. "I suppose all boys are the same, never shut up about Quidditch," she said, taking a sip from her bottle.
Ron stopped, mid-description of a particularly astonishing save involving hanging one handed from a broomstick, to glare furiously at Hermione, apparently at a loss for words.
Draco however, turned his attention toward her and said loftily, "There are other things worth talking about, too."
"What else is on your mind then?"
"The things in the news, the followers of the Dark Lord killing people, all these horrible happenings have got me thinking about more serious matters," Draco said carefully. "What can normal people like us do in times like these?"
Hermione and Ron exchanged dubious looks. Draco cursed himself for jumping into the topic so quickly. Of course, no one would sound so eager to help after just talking about a light-hearted subject like Quidditch. It was too sudden. He could have kicked himself under the table.
"I don't suppose there's anything we can do," Ron said, staring uncomfortably at Draco.
"I just meant," Draco amended, trying desperately to make the sudden transition smoother. "It's so strange that life goes on. People still care about everything they normally do, Quidditch and all that, but the murders and the attacks get worse every day."
Hermione was still looking at him strangely. "I reckon that's a pretty deep subject of conversation, Evan. I don't know if I've thought that much about it."
"Yeah, you're right," Draco said, hastily aborting his attempt to nudge them into revealing information.
"Where did you say you were from again?" Ron asked.
"Er…" Draco said, searching for a convincing lie that they would easily forget.
Just at that moment, Madam Rosmerta bustled by their table, bringing a tray of drinks to a group of warlocks seated by the window. Plunging his hand into the pocket containing his wand, Draco gave a quick jerk under the table and a hurried command at Rosmerta.
She stumbled forward and collided with their table. The tray she had been carrying went flying and knocked over Draco's butterbeer, spilling it into his lap.
"Oh blast!" Draco exclaimed, jumping up and adopting a most convincingly surprised expression. He held out his hands, which were dripping in butterbeer and tried to shake them dry.
"Oh no, I'm so sorry," Madam Rosmerta said, whipping out a rag from her pocket and attempting to dry Draco off.
"It's all right," Draco assured her easily. "I've just been a magnet for clumsy moments today."
Ron too had risen from his seat and pulled out his wand, pointing it at the table where the amber liquid was forming a spreading puddle littered with shards of broken glass. Eager to help, Hermione too had whipped out her wand. She pointed it at Draco, probably intent on performing a drying spell.
"No, it's ok, don't bother," Draco said quickly. "It's going to stain anyway. I'd better go home and change."
"Evanesco," Ron muttered at the mess on the table. The spill and the shards of glass vanished from the surface. "Bad luck, mate," he said kindly. "It was nice meeting you though."
To Draco's complete surprise, Ron actually sounded totally sincere. Taken aback, Draco paused for a moment before offering, "Likewise. I'll see you around."
He turned to leave. Once outside the pub, he dried his clothes quickly with a muttered spell and crept around to a window to see if Ron and Hermione were still there.
They were helping Madam Rosmerta clear up the remaining broken glass that littered the floor. Perfect, Draco thought to himself. He fed Rosmerta a command to tactfully eavesdrop on their conversation so that he could discover what they were talking about later.
Feeling as though he had gotten further today than he could have hoped, he set off down the High Street rather pleased with himself. He hadn't expected to so much as see anyone from the Order until at least a week into his assignment. Although he was pretty sure that Granger and Weasley hadn't bought his act, he had at least planted himself in their memories. He had a base to build on.
When he arrived in his dingy, cramped apartment, Rosmerta's head was already in the fire, ready to offer him a report. Draco plopped himself onto the sofa and stared at her expectantly.
"When you left, the girl and the boy began to speak about you," Rosmerta began, her eyes glassy and her tone completely monotone. Draco leaned forward, interested.
"The girl said she found you rather strange. She said that she thought it was a bit dodgy for someone to be that insistent about the amount of trouble You-Know-Who is causing."
Draco scowled. Stupid Granger had to question everything.
"The boy just shrugged, and said that he reckoned you were all right. He went on to say that he thought maybe you were just lonely, so you were overly concerned about You-Know-Who's attacks because you could be easily targeted."
Draco's scowl faded and he snorted slightly with laughter. The idea that he, an undercover Death Eater, was scared for his own side to attack him was a bit ludicrous.
"The boy then pointed out that you had 'good taste in Quidditch'," Rosmerta continued.
Draco smiled a bit. Bloody right he had good taste in Quidditch. Cannons were by far the best team in the league, any idiot could see it. He supposed that included Weasley.
"The girl responded by saying that obsession with Quidditch turns perfectly normal brains into rubbish, and the boy argued that her brain was not 'normal' in any way; it was far too big. The girl told him that just because he—"
"That's enough!" Draco cut in. He had already had his share of incessant bickering for today. He did not need to hear any of it repeated by Rosmerta. "Return to running your pub. Alert me immediately if any of the people on this list enter the pub." He duplicated a list of known Order members that he had been given by Aunt Bellatrix and handed it through the fire to Rosmerta.
"You are dismissed," he told her flippantly.
She gave a curt nod and left the flames, leaving Draco completely alone in the apartment.
He heaved a sigh of annoyance. His first attempts to befriend members of the Order had been quick in coming but definitely not completely successful. Weasley and Granger were far from trusting him. He would have to take the time to devise a more subtle, clever strategy to earn their favour. The next time he ran into them, he would be prepared.