"I recognize you", said a very non-sober voice after half an hour of snoring. Ginny had been leaning her head against the glass window for a while, dreamily gazing at the rainy weather outside, getting lost in thoughts. She flinched when her attention unwillingly got drawn back to the man next to her.
"Huh", she said, trying to avoid any trace of interest in her voice.
"You totally do, you know, I don't know where I've seen you but I've totally seen you!" Said the blonde man, with a voice so enthusiastic you could think he'd found the antidote of cancer. He definitely wasn't sober, and she was impressed he still could talk.
"That's impossible for me to know. Can you even remember your own name in such a drunk state?"
"Of course I can. Don't be stupid." Draco gave her a demoting look which she definitely had seen before. "You only get more and more alike the person I was talking about, but since you're not behaving very well, I won't tell you who it is." He leaned back in the grey Manchester chair with his arms crossed, ignoring the fact that his strength pushed the chair back so much, the old woman behind him made an angry noise. Ginny scrutinized the train compartment, desperately hoping to find another seat, but this was a popular train and all the seats were occupied.
She really should've used another transport alternative, but Luna had become angry as soon as Ginny mentioned it. This project was very important, she'd said, and broomsticks or apparition would make the creatures annoyed and other researchers curious. You could say a lot of stuff about Luna, but Merlin's beard, you could never say she didn't take her research seriously.
So in her wish to be a good friend, she was hopelessly stuck on this train, and would be so for another three hours. Draco was snoring again, way too loud, but she still found it preferrable to the annoying company that was the alternative.
She wished she'd brought a book in her handbag. She had packed a few, but they were all in her other bag, placed in the other end of the compartment. All she had was a finished report about the Quidditch match between Chudley Cannons and Russian Roses – an English team, actually, consisting exclusively of old ladies that no one understood. They were quite terrible at Quidditch and got angry all the time, so the game could've been pretty thrilling, but it turned out to be just as tedious as Professor Binns classes. She'd been forced to imagine the old ladies playing in only their underwear and with clown hats to keep herself from falling asleep. She still couldn't get the picture out of her mind, but wasn't sure her boss would appreciate her including that in the report. It had been a tough job, not letting that vision influence her, but as she skimmed through it again, she thought she'd done an acceptable job.
She felt a well-known, warm sensation in her jeans pocket. The two-way mirror 3.0, a birthday gift from Harry, was telling her someone was at the other half of it. Ginny stood up, carefully climbed over Dracos legs, and made her way to the bathroom. She wasn't quite sure that people would ignore someone having a public conversation with a mirror, and it was best not to risk it.
The train bathroom was quite clean to be a public one, and she sat down on the floor before answering the mirror.
"Hello, someone there?"
"Yes, definitely." A face she knew very well showed up in the mirror. Harrys hair looked messier than usual – if that even was possible – and he looked exhausted, but still gave her a big smile.
"How's the train ride going? Tired of muggles?"
"It's fine, actually. I don't mind them that much. The train ride is okay, I guess. Boring. And auror training?"
"Tough." Harry reached for his water bottle and took a sip. "We're at the toughest part of physical training, and they've probably changed routines since, but I really can't understand how Mad-Eye and Kingsley got through this part. I'm going to start doing burpees in my sleep soon!" He shook his head and Ginny laughed at the picture her mind made up.
"Mad-Eye never seemed much of a fitness type to me, but what do I know, maybe he just hid his muscles under that coat..."
"Nobody knows." Harry laughed. "I've had three hours of physical training this afternoon and I swear, there isn't a part of my body that doesn't ache."
"Sounds lovely. How's Ron?"
"I'm going to go check on him in a while, I think he might have fallen asleep while changing from his exercise clothes."
"Say hi to him from me."
"I will. When are you in Wales?"
"Two and a half hour. Luna is picking me up at the station, first we're going by bus and the rest afoot. She really must be doing some interesting work, living that far away from civilization.."
"Says the country girl herself. Anything exciting happening on your train?" He yawned.
"Not really." She didn't feel like bringing up her train neighbour – she wasn't necessarily sure it would improve the conversation. "I'm going to buy some dinner soon, that's about it."
"Yeah, well, I have to go. I have to cook dinner for us.."
"With cook, you mean microwave-hex."
"Whatever. Still complicated." Harry rolled his green eyes. "Hear from you soon?"
"Of course. I love you." She smiled at the screen.
"I love you too." Harry turned his mirror off and Ginny found herself staring at her own reflection again. Someone was banging at the door, angry about her errand taking too long. She had no choice but to return to her seat, next to the blonde man which company she so strongly wished to avoid.
When you were used to chocolate frogs and freshly baked cauldron cakes, the train cafeterias dinner alternatives seemed both dull and unappetizing. She was very, very close to asking the cashier where they kept their pumpkin pasties. Eventually she chose a depressing pasta salad with greyish pesto and crumbly feta cheese, paid for it without getting too confused about the muggle money, and made her way back to her seat. Draco still seemed to be sleeping - She silently thanked Merlin for the fact that the snoring part was over for this time, and took a bite of the pasta, careful not to break the featherlike plastic fork in two.
She'd only eaten four pieces of overcooked pasta and one piece of feta cheese when Draco Malfoy started to reveal small signs of consciousness.
"Great", Ginny mumbled. Draco was making all sorts of weird noises, and the expressions on his face made her wish she owned a camera. Oh, what a sweet revenge for all the stuff this man did at Hogwarts… it was really too bad Harry wasn't the revenge type.
"Hannah Abbott", said Draco without warning.
"What?"
"That's you, right? I remember you."
"Hannah Abbott? Eh, no." She wasn't sure if she should be relieved or disappointed about him having trouble with remembering her name.
"Dammit. I'm terrible at names." The blonde man patted the gold ring on his ring finger. "When I'm drunk, I sometimes forget my wife's name, too. I've called her a few times in that state, and she gets SO mad." Draco didn't seem to care the slightest that at least fifty other passengers heard everything he said. "Sometimes I call her Pansy, which seems to make her the angriest woman in town. Other names aren't quite as bad, but she turns her mirror off either way. She's such a bitch!" He laughed with his mouth wide open, and Ginny felt the odour of old beer and… other things. She considered giving him her toothbrush and toothpaste, but she would need it herself later. The disgusting smell grew stronger – Draco now had his face approximately 10 centimetres from hers, staring at her while obviously waiting for a reply.
"Maybe she doesn't want you to forget her name. It's actually very cold-hearted to forget the name of someone you're married with."
"That's how it works if you like getting drunk. Which I do."
"Uh-huh." Ginny wasn't an expert, but she felt pretty sure Draco had a problematic relation with alcohol. She couldn't explain why, but a part of her certainly felt worried.
"The muggle shit can actually be better than firewhiskey sometimes!" He gave her a smile and she felt his disgusting breath again. The whole compartment were staring at them by now.
"I don't drink much."
"You're missing out." A laugh and a smile again. Then he quietened, and his expression turned serious. Ginny tried to move as far away from him as she possibly could, but it wasn't necessary. Draco had put his hand in his hair, making some sort of gesture that she figured was a thinking one.
"I'm hungry", he said, after half a minute in that thinking-position. Then, before she had the possibility to stop him, he stuck his hand down in her food box and filled his hand with pasta. Ginny couldn't do anything but stare. Now she sure as hell wasn't eating that.
"What?" Draco had his mouth full of food, and he was ignoring it the same way little kids do. It's barely okay for kids to stuff their face and talk with food in their mouth like that, with grown men it's just disgusting, Ginny thought.
"That wasn't very polite."
"You weren't eating it anyways." He swallowed loudly.
"Yeah, well, now I'm definitely not. " She pushed the box over to him, trying not to think about the fact that she was 1) giving away food like that, 2) giving it to Draco Malfoy. It really was too awful to think about.