"Best chocolate cake in London indeed,"
Ginny raised her eyebrows and said, "I know chocolate cake."
"You know, I had said coffee, not chocolate cake at 11 o'clock at night."
"Says the man drinking coffee at 11 o'clock at night," Ginny said, as Draco took another sip from his steaming cup.
"When you've consumed as much caffeine as I have during your lifetime, it starts to have no effect whatsoever. I can drink coffee at 3am and go to sleep 10 minutes later."
"That isn't really something to be proud of though is it? Its actually a bit of a bummer to not be able to rely on caffeine." Ginny said, swallowing her last bite of cake. Draco's piece lay untouched, save for 2 mouthfuls.
They were sitting in Calabria, a little café off a side street of Diagon Alley. One that Ginny visited at least 3 times a week. And one Draco had not known existed.
Draco merely shrugged and said, "So when I asked you to grab coffee you had no intention of actually ordering coffee did you? You had your eye on that cake all along,"
"As far as I'm concerned, coffee is only drunk first thing in the morning, and maybe again in the afternoon on a particularly grueling day. Cake, on the other hand, especially this cake, can be eaten anytime," Ginny said with a smile.
Draco shook his head but laughed all the same. Ginny Weasley was really quite a character.
##
As they were leaving the café Ginny said, "I still can't believe you were willing to waste the rest of your perfectly good cake. You said yourself it was the best in London."
"It is. But I'm not bringing a half eaten cake home with me, and I'm sure as hell not going to eat a gigantic piece of cake this late at night. I'm still surprised you finished the rest of it though."
"It's criminal to throw away good cake, Malfoy," Ginny said simply, as if it put the matter to rest once and for all.
They turned towards each other, clearly both confused as to an appropriate way to end the evening, but both too wrapped up in thought to notice the other's discomfort.
"So I hope you'll have some kind words to say if Rudolfo asks about me," Draco said with a smirk.
"If he asks," Ginny smiled in return.
Draco just laughed, nodded his head and said, "Well good night, Weasley."
"Good night, Malfoy,"
And they simultaneously pulled out their wands and Disapparated back to their apartments. Ginny Apparated into her foyer, changed, and quickly fell asleep, leaving no time to reflect on the night's bizarre events.
##
As was customary for Ginny on Sunday mornings, she met Hermione for brunch at Calabria, even after having just left the café 10 hours prior.
She was dressed in her casual Sunday attire, jeans, sweater and boots, topped off with a hand-knitted scarf courtesy of Molly Weasley.
As expected, Hermione was already seated at a table when Ginny arrived, and greeted her, momentarily taking her eyes off The Daily Prophet in front of her.
"Anything noteworthy in there?" Ginny asked, gesturing to the paper as she sat down.
"Just what you'd expect of a Sunday paper: arts, style, restaurant and book reviews, wedding announcements. No real news, but I guess no one wants to read anything too depressing on a Sunday morning do they?" Hermione replied as she folded the paper and set it aside, clearly disappointed in its contents.
Ginny ventured a guess that Hermione was exactly the type of person who would have liked to read depressing news even on Sundays.
"I sure don't, but I don't really read the paper anyway. So how was your week?" Ginny asked, as she flagged a waiter and placed their usual order.
"Pretty much what you'd expect from a roomful of wizards arguing over what laws should be changed and updated or why they should stay the way they are. Anyway, I wont bore you with it too much. How was your week?"
Hermione had once been met with blank stares and bored expressions (namely from Ron and Ginny) every time she discussed her work at the Law Development section of the Magical Law Enforcement Department at the Ministry. She now knew better than to talk about her work in too much detail around her friends.
"Usual mishaps, the contractors are a week behind schedule so there's still not much I can do, and Mariana and Rudolfo are still disagreeing over wall colors for the whole house, but we've finally chosen and ordered all the kitchen appliances. So that's one room relatively done. Though you'd never guess who I ran into at Life's anniversary party last night. Malfoy," Ginny said dramatically.
"Malfoy? Draco Malfoy? Please tell me he didn't do anything too horrible," Hermione said sympathetically
"Surprisingly, no. He's trying to lobby Rudolfo into investing for something. And we actually had a pretty good time; we even went out for coffee afterwards."
The waiter returned with their food as she said this, and as the smell of her waffles wafted into her nose, Ginny realized just how hungry she was and dug in immediately.
"Coffee? In the middle of the night?" Hermione asked, as if they hadn't been interrupted.
"He had coffee. I had cake," and Hermione nodded knowingly, she really should have known Ginny would have cake, and not coffee.
"So you had a tolerable semi-date with Malfoy…" Hermione said, urging Ginny to continue.
"It wasn't a semi-date. And it wasn't tolerable, because it was actually… Enjoyable. Surprisingly," Ginny replied as she drunk her coffee, "at an appropriate time," she thought wryly, "We just talked and caught up. Though the whole thing was rather strange, but natural at the same time. I'm really just as surprised as you are about the whole thing, or maybe even more so."
"So Malfoy's really changed then,"
"I wouldn't say changed. I'd say, grown up," Ginny said after a bit of thought.
"Well I wouldn't have thought him capable of even that,"
Ginny laughed in reply and said, "Neither did I."
##
They finished the rest of their brunch with little more mention of Malfoy. Hermione guessed that Ginny didn't know what to make of their night either, and decided to halt her enquires. Still though, she suspected that this wasn't the last she'd heard of Malfoy, and was eager to question Ginny about him again soon.
As with brunch, visiting antique stores was part of her Sunday routine. Ginny had figured out that Sundays, in fact, was the best time to go antiquing. As the owners put out their newly acquired stock in time for Monday, visiting on Sundays insured that Ginny would have the first look at anything new.
"So would you like to come to Stonehouse with me?" Ginny asked once they were on the sidewalk outside.
Stonehouse Road was a narrow street filled end to end with 18th century stone houses selling all manner of antiques. It was a goldmine for an interior designer like Ginny, and one of the best-kept secrets of Ottery St Catchpole.
"No thanks, I thought I might stop by Ron's for a bit actually," Hermione replied.
"So how is my dear brother? I hope he's treating you alright. You know I can always have a word with him if he's being an arse."
Hermione laughed, and said "No, he's just being is usual, somewhat annoying self. But I'll definitely take you up on that in the future."
"Alright," Ginny smiled, "Tell Ron I say hi," turning towards Quality Quidditch Supplies, intent on browsing the new racing brooms, as Hermione spun and Disapparated.
##
Stonehouse Road failed to wield any spectacular finds that weekend, though Ginny was extremely pleased with the goblin-carved crystal fruit bowl she had found for Mariana.
Wandering the cobbled street of Stonehouse Road gave Ginny's mind no choice but to ponder the previous night's strange events, from finding Malfoy at the party to their pleasant conversations.
It wasn't that she was romantically interested in him "sure, he was a looker," she thought, and he could carry a pretty decent conversation, but Draco Malfoy was cocky. It was in a way that made her roll her eyes partly in humor, but also partly in disbelief that such a man actually existed.
And why was he suddenly warm towards her? He did seem genuinely sincere. Was the explanation really as simple as that he had grown up?
The bottom line was that she still couldn't figure him out and was frustrated at her mind's incapability to stop dwelling on the thought.
In an attempt to preoccupy herself on something else, Ginny decided to stop by The Burrow and visit her parents. Surely her mum would insist she stay for dinner afterwards. After all, Ginny did miss her mother's cooking.
##
The next morning, Ginny sleepily walked out of her bedroom still in her pajamas, thinking, "Ah, the perks of having the office at home," and proceeded to grab some cereal.
Ginny's apartment was a modest two-bedroom, one of which she had converted into an office. As she worked alone and was frequently on-site during projects, she didn't need a separate office to work in, and actually found her apartment to be more than enough space.
She dressed promptly, eager to show Mariana her new Stonehouse find, and heard the distinctive tapping of an owl's beak on her window.
She was met with a handsome ebony owl she had never seen before. Unrolling the parchment tied to his leg, Ginny offered him an owl treat - which he so rudely declined - and read.
Weasley,
Meet me at 5 for a piece of cake at Calabria and you can tell me all about Rudolfo.
Malfoy
"Well that was straight to the point," Ginny thought. No bullshit. Just like Draco.
#
A/N Thanks to all those who reviewed! I've now abled anonymous reviews so the rest of you have no excuse! Anyway, this may seem like a strange place to end the chapter, what with the day just starting and all. And it is a short chapter, but I thought the letter was a good place to end. I now know a little more of where I'd like the story to go, and that should be apparent in the next chapter or two. I really don't think a relationship between those two (friendship or otherwise) can develop in a short period of time, so for now, at least, the story won't be moving too incredibly fast. But we'll see how it goes as time progresses :)