They say there is safety in numbers. Draco agrees with whoever ‘they’ are, because within numbers there is order, sense and discipline. All the things that the son of a Death Eater values. When Draco was a child his father was absent for long periods of time without reason. It always made Draco anxious. When Draco got older he realized that his father had been meeting with other Death Eaters who were waiting for Lord Voldemort to return. This worried Draco. It made him bite his fingernails and twist his hands together. Draco knew his father could be hurt at anytime, and that his mother could be arrested simply for being Bellatrix’s sister and Lucius’s wife. It made him worry, but there was nothing, absolutely nothing that Draco could do to keep his parents safe. Draco could do nothing to make his and his parents’ lives safe so he made order out of everything else.
Which is why when the alarm goes off at 5:55 in the morning, every morning, Draco gets up and goes for a run. This run takes him exactly 25 minutes. Including the five minutes to warm up and five minutes to warm down, Draco is always back in his room, flushed and slightly out of breath, by 6:30. When he runs, Draco counts his steps; it takes him anywhere between 6000 and 6500 to run the course from the front door of Hogwarts to around the lake and back. This difference of 500 steps annoys Draco but is so difficult to be perfect all the time. Nonetheless, Draco tries.
When Draco gets back to his room he spends thirty minutes showering, dressing and fixing his hair. All of these activities take exactly ten minutes – no more or less. It takes Draco five minutes and roughly 600 steps to get the Great Hall, and for breakfast he eats two rashers of bacon and one egg. He drinks one glass of juice. The type of juice alternates between orange and apple. The number of sips it takes him to drink the juice in depends on the number of teachers sitting at the Head Table. He always stirs his drink twice, an old habit from his tea-drinking days before he started at Hogwarts. He finishes eating at 7:30.
After breakfast Draco has half an hour to spare before classes. On Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays he goes to the library and studies. On Tuesday he goes to the owlery and sends a letter consisting of two pages of paper to his parents (he will receive one back between 4 and 4:30 on Friday afternoon). Wednesday is the day he tutors a first-year before class, a most trying exercise during which Draco learns to understand Professor Snape’s frustration a little more. The weekends, however, have an entirely different pattern to them. A pattern that is actually rather flexible - anything can happen on a weekend.
The other Slytherins had learnt simply to accept that Draco is a little odd, and that he will hex you if you make him late. Some are puzzled by Draco, but most just accept him. After all, he is a Malfoy and centuries of inbreeding have made them all a little odd. Draco’s great aunt Hilda is rarely spoken about as her penchant for trees (and talking to them) is hardly suitable for the Malfoy dinner table. Draco’s ‘cute’ oddness, as his mother calls it, is hardly exceptional. His need for order and his liking for numbers (to the degree where he carries a wooden ruler and soft measuring tape on his person at all times) just mean that he is very organized.
However, Draco’s mother had once looked up a Muggle psychology book on a friend’s advice but had decided almost instantly that her little Dracokins could never have this ‘Obsessive Compulsive Disorder’ it had mentioned. For starters, she had, after reading the book, asked Draco about the insistent hand-washing that the book had mentioned as a common symptom. Draco, of course, found this ridiculous. There were, after all, lots of germs on the average human hand and most were there for a purpose. It was illogical to try to wash them all away. No, this OCD was a strange and only Muggle disorder. Draco just liked numbers and would probably do well in Arithmancy.
Although the Slytherins and Draco’s family accepted his and his little quirks (everybody has a toothbrush for each day of the week and knows how many little brushes are in each tuft) they did not, however, advertise or even tell anyone about Draco. It was a weakness, however small, and could not be shared with the school at large. So if the rest of the school were slightly suspicious of Draco’s neat freak tendencies and orderly ways, they usually dismissed it as a result of the stick they assumed was stuck up Draco’s arse.
Usually. However, not everyone dismissed Draco’s ‘quirks’ quite so quickly. A young witch with an interest in becoming a Healer and with, therefore, an interest in all forms of medicine, Muggle included, might just notice enough clues and enough hints to become intrigued.
And Ginny Weasley was definitely intrigued. So intrigued that she began to watch Draco, began to become slightly obsessed herself. Because Draco was different than everyone else. Draco was special.
Draco came to notice that the young Weasley girl was watching him. Blaise had been the first to point it out to him. ‘That Weasley girl’s looking at you again,’ he’d pointed out as they’d stood together after Quidditch training. ‘Reckon she’s got a bit of a crush on you.’
Draco had laughed it off but he’d remembered the casual comment. Because it was true, the Weasley girl was always around him. She was in the library when he was writing his Charms homework, and he saw her watching him across the tables at dinner. He would see her when he went to the owlery and on his way to Potions. The strange thing was that she was watching him too. If they had just passed each other in the hall a lot he could have dismissed it as an overactive imagination. But he knew she was watching him. It wasn’t, however, the kind of look that made Draco think she liked him. With his mysterious slightly-bored air and toned body Draco knew that he presented the typical bad boy image that girls seemed to like. But she wasn’t ogling or staring at his muscles in worship. No, the gaze was intrusive but it was more speculative that anything else.
Their first proper meeting came at a rather bad moment for Draco. Unfortunately, they bumped (literally) into each other during his morning run. Nobody really knew about Draco’s runs because, well, Draco looked plain awful when he ran. He turned an unflattering shade of red, he huffed and occasionally he even wheezed. Draco knew he looked ugly when he ran, he looked common (for want of a better word) and Draco despised looking common. Draco had just re-entered the school when he ran head first into the Weasley and knocked her onto the ground. She was small he realized suddenly and only just reached mid-chest on him. Although Draco was not particularly tall (178.46cm), he had to marvel at her lack of height. He knew, because it had pissed him off on numerous occasions, that her brother was damn near a giant. He stood, Draco would have to guess, at about 194cm. Draco was unpleased with this guesswork but could not see a way of finding this information out discreetly. He could hardly just walk up to the Weasley and pull out a measuring tape. Obviously she hadn’t inherited the same giant genes as her brother. He wondered how he hadn’t noticed her height or lack of it before now. This was something Draco usually guessed at accurately when he met people. Not only was she short, Draco realized as he pulled her off the ground, she was tiny too. Fully dressed and dripping wet, she’d be lucky to weigh 50 kilos.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered with her head down as she brushed off her robes. ‘Didn’t see you.’
The last statement was, however, a lie - a big, fat stinking lie of the variety which would have made her nose ten-feet long if a blue fairy were around. Ginny was observant and she had known exactly where Draco would be at 6:22 on a Monday morning. Because just entering the school after a run was where he always was at precisely 6:22. Curious.
Then she raised her head and looked at him, and Draco knew exactly why he hadn’t noticed how short she was. It was because of the way she looked. Somehow her stance (shoulders back, head high) and that curious gaze seemed to make her appear taller than she actually was. She looked like some sort of Amazon woman, tall and proud. Strength flowed from her. Curious.
Draco glanced down at his wristwatch. Damn it he was running late. The familiar tight feeling grew in Draco’s chest as he stared at the seconds ticking by. He swallowed, anxiety threatening to freeze him. He had to go.
‘I have to go,’ he announced, interrupting her speech about something.
‘You weren’t listening,’ she accused.
But Draco was already running away and to his dormitory, far too far away to say that he hadn’t been listening because he thought she looked like an Amazon woman.
And Ginny was left watching him run away from her, thinking that he had rather nice muscle tone without his robes. She found him later though.
It was 7:43 and Draco was where Ginny knew he would be. In the library.
‘Draco,’ she said as she plopped herself down on the seat next to him. Her eyes surveyed the pile of books next to him (they were in alphabetical order) and the quills which are all identical black and perfectly pointed. She said nothing, and Draco did not notice the glance.
She was dressed in her school robes and two tiny studs, about 4mm in width, adorned her ears. Her hair was out now and was about 30cm long, Draco guessed. He couldn’t tell properly because of the way it curled madly around his face. If he could only straighten or stretch it out then he could measure the little Weasley’s hair accurately. Draco liked measuring people. He knew all the measurements for his parents and himself. His mother’s hair was 28.86cm long and his father’s was 18.24cm long the last time he’d seen them. Measuring people meant that he knew them in the most basic sense of the word. To Draco, when you knew somebody’s dimensions, it meant you were connected to them. Draco had never wanted to measure a girl before the little Weasley. He wondered what that meant.
Suddenly, Draco realized he didn’t know this girl’s name. He had always called her ‘the little Weasley’ in her head, and although it suited her – both in her place in her family and stature - Draco presumed it was not what she would like to be known by.
‘I don’t know your name,’ Draco blurted out without thinking. His mother would have been horrified at his lack of manners. He could have asked somebody else so she wouldn’t have known. However, there was nothing Draco could do about it so he said nothing and did not apologise.
‘It’s Ginevra. Everyone calls me Ginny.’
‘Yes, but I’m not everyone, Ginevra.’
She smiled. ‘Very well. I’m here to talk to you about what I was talking to you about this morning when you so rudely left.’
‘I was late.’
‘I know. That’s why I’ve forgiven you,’ said Ginevra with a shrewd look in her eye that made Draco think that maybe she did actually understand the tightness that had grown in his chest. ‘Anyway, I wanted to know if you would like to go to Hogsmeade with me on Saturday. I still do. Want to know, that is.’
Draco laughed out-loud and received a harsh glance and a ‘shhh’ from Pince. ‘You’re asking me to go to
Hogsmeade with you?’ he asked incredulously.
‘Yes. I don’t bite.’
Draco wanted to say yes. He really did. He could ask her to find out her brother’s height if he went to Hogsmeade with her. He wanted to ask her why she kept staring at him and how she got her hair so soft and touchable-looking. Purely so he could emulate her methods for his own hair. Of course. He had absolutely no desire to reach out and touch it. No desire whatsoever. Anyway, mind back on track, he had things planned for this Saturday and they couldn’t be changed at this late date. Draco had learned to be accommodating with his weekends but they were always planned on the preceding Sunday afternoon. They couldn’t be changed. He couldn’t go to Hogsmeade. It wasn’t planned, and therefore it couldn’t happen.
‘I can’t go to Hogsmeade. I have plans.’
‘That can’t be changed?’
‘That can’t be changed,’ he repeated. ‘Sorry.’
‘No, I understand. Could I join these plans possibly?’
Draco considered this. Although unprecedented, Draco could see no reason why Ginevra couldn’t join him on the weekend. As long as she didn’t interrupt him or take him off schedule all would be well.
‘Yes, you may join me.’
Ginevra’s expression didn’t change as much as Draco would have liked. After all, she had just been allowed to spend an entire weekend in his company. The lucky girl.
‘Where and when?’ she inquired politely.
‘After breakfast 7:30 here. I have assignments to do.’
‘Same. I’ll see you then.’
A disturbing thought filled Draco’s head. ‘Ginevra, this isn’t a …date, is it?’
For the first time ever, Draco heard Ginevra Weasley laugh, and it was beautiful. The sound seemed to roll out of her in long waves of pure enjoyment
‘No, Draco it isn’t a date. Yet,’ she said.
Then she left, leaving a confused Draco, an annoyed Pince and the faint smell of her perfume behind.
Which is why when the alarm goes off at 5:55 in the morning, every morning, Draco gets up and goes for a run. This run takes him exactly 25 minutes. Including the five minutes to warm up and five minutes to warm down, Draco is always back in his room, flushed and slightly out of breath, by 6:30. When he runs, Draco counts his steps; it takes him anywhere between 6000 and 6500 to run the course from the front door of Hogwarts to around the lake and back. This difference of 500 steps annoys Draco but is so difficult to be perfect all the time. Nonetheless, Draco tries.
When Draco gets back to his room he spends thirty minutes showering, dressing and fixing his hair. All of these activities take exactly ten minutes – no more or less. It takes Draco five minutes and roughly 600 steps to get the Great Hall, and for breakfast he eats two rashers of bacon and one egg. He drinks one glass of juice. The type of juice alternates between orange and apple. The number of sips it takes him to drink the juice in depends on the number of teachers sitting at the Head Table. He always stirs his drink twice, an old habit from his tea-drinking days before he started at Hogwarts. He finishes eating at 7:30.
After breakfast Draco has half an hour to spare before classes. On Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays he goes to the library and studies. On Tuesday he goes to the owlery and sends a letter consisting of two pages of paper to his parents (he will receive one back between 4 and 4:30 on Friday afternoon). Wednesday is the day he tutors a first-year before class, a most trying exercise during which Draco learns to understand Professor Snape’s frustration a little more. The weekends, however, have an entirely different pattern to them. A pattern that is actually rather flexible - anything can happen on a weekend.
The other Slytherins had learnt simply to accept that Draco is a little odd, and that he will hex you if you make him late. Some are puzzled by Draco, but most just accept him. After all, he is a Malfoy and centuries of inbreeding have made them all a little odd. Draco’s great aunt Hilda is rarely spoken about as her penchant for trees (and talking to them) is hardly suitable for the Malfoy dinner table. Draco’s ‘cute’ oddness, as his mother calls it, is hardly exceptional. His need for order and his liking for numbers (to the degree where he carries a wooden ruler and soft measuring tape on his person at all times) just mean that he is very organized.
However, Draco’s mother had once looked up a Muggle psychology book on a friend’s advice but had decided almost instantly that her little Dracokins could never have this ‘Obsessive Compulsive Disorder’ it had mentioned. For starters, she had, after reading the book, asked Draco about the insistent hand-washing that the book had mentioned as a common symptom. Draco, of course, found this ridiculous. There were, after all, lots of germs on the average human hand and most were there for a purpose. It was illogical to try to wash them all away. No, this OCD was a strange and only Muggle disorder. Draco just liked numbers and would probably do well in Arithmancy.
Although the Slytherins and Draco’s family accepted his and his little quirks (everybody has a toothbrush for each day of the week and knows how many little brushes are in each tuft) they did not, however, advertise or even tell anyone about Draco. It was a weakness, however small, and could not be shared with the school at large. So if the rest of the school were slightly suspicious of Draco’s neat freak tendencies and orderly ways, they usually dismissed it as a result of the stick they assumed was stuck up Draco’s arse.
Usually. However, not everyone dismissed Draco’s ‘quirks’ quite so quickly. A young witch with an interest in becoming a Healer and with, therefore, an interest in all forms of medicine, Muggle included, might just notice enough clues and enough hints to become intrigued.
And Ginny Weasley was definitely intrigued. So intrigued that she began to watch Draco, began to become slightly obsessed herself. Because Draco was different than everyone else. Draco was special.
Draco came to notice that the young Weasley girl was watching him. Blaise had been the first to point it out to him. ‘That Weasley girl’s looking at you again,’ he’d pointed out as they’d stood together after Quidditch training. ‘Reckon she’s got a bit of a crush on you.’
Draco had laughed it off but he’d remembered the casual comment. Because it was true, the Weasley girl was always around him. She was in the library when he was writing his Charms homework, and he saw her watching him across the tables at dinner. He would see her when he went to the owlery and on his way to Potions. The strange thing was that she was watching him too. If they had just passed each other in the hall a lot he could have dismissed it as an overactive imagination. But he knew she was watching him. It wasn’t, however, the kind of look that made Draco think she liked him. With his mysterious slightly-bored air and toned body Draco knew that he presented the typical bad boy image that girls seemed to like. But she wasn’t ogling or staring at his muscles in worship. No, the gaze was intrusive but it was more speculative that anything else.
Their first proper meeting came at a rather bad moment for Draco. Unfortunately, they bumped (literally) into each other during his morning run. Nobody really knew about Draco’s runs because, well, Draco looked plain awful when he ran. He turned an unflattering shade of red, he huffed and occasionally he even wheezed. Draco knew he looked ugly when he ran, he looked common (for want of a better word) and Draco despised looking common. Draco had just re-entered the school when he ran head first into the Weasley and knocked her onto the ground. She was small he realized suddenly and only just reached mid-chest on him. Although Draco was not particularly tall (178.46cm), he had to marvel at her lack of height. He knew, because it had pissed him off on numerous occasions, that her brother was damn near a giant. He stood, Draco would have to guess, at about 194cm. Draco was unpleased with this guesswork but could not see a way of finding this information out discreetly. He could hardly just walk up to the Weasley and pull out a measuring tape. Obviously she hadn’t inherited the same giant genes as her brother. He wondered how he hadn’t noticed her height or lack of it before now. This was something Draco usually guessed at accurately when he met people. Not only was she short, Draco realized as he pulled her off the ground, she was tiny too. Fully dressed and dripping wet, she’d be lucky to weigh 50 kilos.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered with her head down as she brushed off her robes. ‘Didn’t see you.’
The last statement was, however, a lie - a big, fat stinking lie of the variety which would have made her nose ten-feet long if a blue fairy were around. Ginny was observant and she had known exactly where Draco would be at 6:22 on a Monday morning. Because just entering the school after a run was where he always was at precisely 6:22. Curious.
Then she raised her head and looked at him, and Draco knew exactly why he hadn’t noticed how short she was. It was because of the way she looked. Somehow her stance (shoulders back, head high) and that curious gaze seemed to make her appear taller than she actually was. She looked like some sort of Amazon woman, tall and proud. Strength flowed from her. Curious.
Draco glanced down at his wristwatch. Damn it he was running late. The familiar tight feeling grew in Draco’s chest as he stared at the seconds ticking by. He swallowed, anxiety threatening to freeze him. He had to go.
‘I have to go,’ he announced, interrupting her speech about something.
‘You weren’t listening,’ she accused.
But Draco was already running away and to his dormitory, far too far away to say that he hadn’t been listening because he thought she looked like an Amazon woman.
And Ginny was left watching him run away from her, thinking that he had rather nice muscle tone without his robes. She found him later though.
It was 7:43 and Draco was where Ginny knew he would be. In the library.
‘Draco,’ she said as she plopped herself down on the seat next to him. Her eyes surveyed the pile of books next to him (they were in alphabetical order) and the quills which are all identical black and perfectly pointed. She said nothing, and Draco did not notice the glance.
She was dressed in her school robes and two tiny studs, about 4mm in width, adorned her ears. Her hair was out now and was about 30cm long, Draco guessed. He couldn’t tell properly because of the way it curled madly around his face. If he could only straighten or stretch it out then he could measure the little Weasley’s hair accurately. Draco liked measuring people. He knew all the measurements for his parents and himself. His mother’s hair was 28.86cm long and his father’s was 18.24cm long the last time he’d seen them. Measuring people meant that he knew them in the most basic sense of the word. To Draco, when you knew somebody’s dimensions, it meant you were connected to them. Draco had never wanted to measure a girl before the little Weasley. He wondered what that meant.
Suddenly, Draco realized he didn’t know this girl’s name. He had always called her ‘the little Weasley’ in her head, and although it suited her – both in her place in her family and stature - Draco presumed it was not what she would like to be known by.
‘I don’t know your name,’ Draco blurted out without thinking. His mother would have been horrified at his lack of manners. He could have asked somebody else so she wouldn’t have known. However, there was nothing Draco could do about it so he said nothing and did not apologise.
‘It’s Ginevra. Everyone calls me Ginny.’
‘Yes, but I’m not everyone, Ginevra.’
She smiled. ‘Very well. I’m here to talk to you about what I was talking to you about this morning when you so rudely left.’
‘I was late.’
‘I know. That’s why I’ve forgiven you,’ said Ginevra with a shrewd look in her eye that made Draco think that maybe she did actually understand the tightness that had grown in his chest. ‘Anyway, I wanted to know if you would like to go to Hogsmeade with me on Saturday. I still do. Want to know, that is.’
Draco laughed out-loud and received a harsh glance and a ‘shhh’ from Pince. ‘You’re asking me to go to
Hogsmeade with you?’ he asked incredulously.
‘Yes. I don’t bite.’
Draco wanted to say yes. He really did. He could ask her to find out her brother’s height if he went to Hogsmeade with her. He wanted to ask her why she kept staring at him and how she got her hair so soft and touchable-looking. Purely so he could emulate her methods for his own hair. Of course. He had absolutely no desire to reach out and touch it. No desire whatsoever. Anyway, mind back on track, he had things planned for this Saturday and they couldn’t be changed at this late date. Draco had learned to be accommodating with his weekends but they were always planned on the preceding Sunday afternoon. They couldn’t be changed. He couldn’t go to Hogsmeade. It wasn’t planned, and therefore it couldn’t happen.
‘I can’t go to Hogsmeade. I have plans.’
‘That can’t be changed?’
‘That can’t be changed,’ he repeated. ‘Sorry.’
‘No, I understand. Could I join these plans possibly?’
Draco considered this. Although unprecedented, Draco could see no reason why Ginevra couldn’t join him on the weekend. As long as she didn’t interrupt him or take him off schedule all would be well.
‘Yes, you may join me.’
Ginevra’s expression didn’t change as much as Draco would have liked. After all, she had just been allowed to spend an entire weekend in his company. The lucky girl.
‘Where and when?’ she inquired politely.
‘After breakfast 7:30 here. I have assignments to do.’
‘Same. I’ll see you then.’
A disturbing thought filled Draco’s head. ‘Ginevra, this isn’t a …date, is it?’
For the first time ever, Draco heard Ginevra Weasley laugh, and it was beautiful. The sound seemed to roll out of her in long waves of pure enjoyment
‘No, Draco it isn’t a date. Yet,’ she said.
Then she left, leaving a confused Draco, an annoyed Pince and the faint smell of her perfume behind.
Author notes: I hope you liked it. There are two more chapters coming. Please review, as it will make me very happy.
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