Reel, verb. To vacillate, to waver, to be uncertain.
She sat on his sofa, staring at the length of vine wood between her hands. Ten and three quarter inch, with a dragon heartstring core, she'd been told. It was beautiful, fit perfectly in her hand, and when she'd first held it, had prompted the completely inappropriate thought, "At last, my arm is complete!" She had to stifle a giggle as the words wove their way back through her mind, because it was – inappropriate, that is.
She had learned over the previous months that this stick currently balanced on her palm could do great things. Great, and terrible, things. She shouldn't be comparing herself to a psychopathic murderer bent on revenge using a straight razor while holding her wand. She had, for a moment, though, nearly shared her joke with Draco, not that she believed he would understand it.
Draco, who had been sitting at the window for the better part of three hours. Draco, who had remained silent after paying the wand maker for her tool of witchcraft. Draco, who seemed to have forgotten she was there at all, so lost in his melancholy was he.
The wand maker had straightened a bit at the reveal of her origins, looking at the both of them with a strange awe, and no small amount of pride when he settled his eyes on the blond man. She didn't think Draco had seen it, as he'd averted his own eyes after making the declaration. He'd stepped away, his back turned as he stared out toward the street, though his eyes were unseeing more from an internal battle than the clouded glass dimly letting light through.
She knew from her lessons with Draco that being completely of a non-magical background was unusual in the extreme for their kind. Most, he had told her, had at least one magical parent, with the vast majority having at least one Muggle – that is, non-magical, he'd said – ancestor in the most recent three generations. The magical community was small, and it wasn't unheard of for some, like the Malfoys, to be related to every magical family of more than six generations. The Malfoy family was unique in its breeding, much like the Court of the Queen in its pedigree. His mother, Draco had said, was the last of the only other family to not recognize non-magical partners. Once, there'd been many, as recently as the turn of the century, but things happened and times changed, or so he said.
A foolish part of her wailed at the information, because he'd as good as told her that she wasn't good enough for the handsome formerly-stranger, and she was still a romantic at heart. She needed to be practical about this, though, because really, he'd just been doing his job in getting her, teaching her. Certainly, he'd been more than kind in offering her his spare room to stay in while they worked on getting her registered, but that's all it was: duty and kindness.
She swallowed heavily, the thin, light piece of vine suddenly weighing her arms down. "Draco?" She winced, hoping he didn't notice the crack in her voice. He straightened, turning his head slightly to show he was listening without looking at her. "I think it's time I went home, now."