Eight: First Date

They found a cafe nestled between a watch shop and a bakery and took a seat at one of the tables outside, risking an easier capture from Healers who might be searching for them. The day was too nice to spend it inside, so they risked imminent capture in order to feel the sun directly on their faces for the first time in three months. Draco was relieved to be outside, to feel a breeze, to be surrounded by people who weren't his jailers. Odd. He'd been avoiding people since the war, and now he felt more comfortable in a crowd than he did alone. Or semi-alone. Weasley was always with him, which wasn't such a bad thing anymore.

A waitress took their orders and then left them in uncomfortable silence. It had been a long time since the silence between them had been unbearable, even through Weasley's ups and downs and all those emotions.

Weasley laughed in embarrassment. "It's almost like a date, isn't it?"

He and Weasley? Dating? He supposed there was some merit in that notion. She wasn't unpleasant to look at, and he'd come to like her feisty nature. Sure, when it was directed at him, it made his blood boil, made him want to grab her by the arms and push her against a wall, and then.... Well, that idea needed more consideration. Of course, she hadn't been particularly feisty since their second week in St. Mungo's, and the most he'd seen of her had been the wreck her family and Potter had made of her. But he knew what her potential could be and he wanted to see her fulfill it, no matter the cost. Why?

He supposed he'd been quiet for too long because Weasley frowned and looked away, saying, "Just kidding. This isn't like any date I've ever been on."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Draco asked.

"Maybe I've just been lucky when it comes to first dates, but I've never felt more awkward in my life. As a good date, you should at least pretend to be interested in making conversation. Don't just sit there staring at the salt shaker like you don't know what it's for." She rolled her eyes, then turned her attention to the act of people watching.

Draco had never found people watching a particularly interesting diversion, but he'd had lots of practice in it over the last three months. He felt like he knew Ginny Weasley's every expression, emotion, and gesture, and one thing he'd learned about her very quickly was that she was cheeky.

Draco reigned in his smile for the sake of their argument. "I hadn't been aware this was a date. I'm sure I've told you before, but if there's something you want, all you have to do is ask."

Ah, yes. A reaction he had a notable fancy for: her blush. There was something about her embarrassment that he quite liked—perhaps the ferocity in her eyes that indicated her failing fight against her body's involuntary responses. She tried so hard to appear unmoved and failed miserably at it.

"I hadn't been aware you would date me," she muttered.

"I hadn't been aware you had thought about dating me," Draco replied, surprised to be quite honest. Where had this come from? He played the arrogant womanizer on the surface, but as he'd told her, he hadn't had an opportunity to woo women since he was fifteen, and even then he'd been a bit limited—not to mention a horny teenager. His behavior was dictated by what protected his emotions and upheld his family's reputation most. What had she seen in him that would make her even consider dating him?

Her face reddened even more, until it was nearly the color of the tablecloth. The waitress took that moment to reappear with drinks, but she wandered off again swiftly thanks to the uncomfortable atmosphere.

"Don't be ridiculous," Weasley said. Then she muttered something and the only words he could catch sounded frighteningly similar to "Blast-Ended Skrewt" and "pigs fly."

Silence took over once again while Draco allowed her to immerse herself in her people watching, giving her the opportunity to overcome her embarrassment.

When she finally took a sip of the water she'd ordered, he said, "Maybe we should give the first date thing a go."

She choked and nearly spit her water out all over the table, only just managing to keep it in her mouth. "What?" she cried, her voice and her fit drawing eyes to their table. "What first date thing?"

Shrugging, Draco answered, "You were the one who mentioned first dates first, Weasley. I'm merely suggesting that we pretend this perfectly normal outing is our first date. We can try it out and see if we want to pursue the rest of the ordinal numbers of dates."

"Yes," she said with a sarcastic twist in her tone, "that is usually how first dates work. But why would you want to do that?"

"Honestly?"

"Honesty is a pretty good start for a first date."

"I don't even know myself. All I know is that you are intriguing, from your colorful insults all the way down to the color of your cheeks when you're embarrassed."

As if on cue, her cheeks reddened again.

"Or maybe it's because you are the first woman I've come in contact with since the war who wasn't related to me or dull as dust."

Weasley frowned. "You must associate with the dullest women, then."

"That's the point, Weasley. I hardly associate with anyone at all."

She considered him, and he stared back coolly, only breaking eye contact to sip his tea.

"All right, then," she said. "Let's pretend this is a first date. Why not? What else have we got to do?"

“What do we do now?” Draco asked. “As you know, I am inexperienced when it comes to first dates. You seem to be the expert, though.”

Her eyes narrowed, and Draco allowed his lips to turn up into a smirk. “I’m not sure if that’s an insult or a compliment,” she said.

“It’s just a fact,” he answered innocently.

“Well, we start with mundane small talk. For instance—” She perched on the edge of her seat, looking overly-engaged. “—what do you do for a living?”

Draco mulled over his answer, going for the truth rather than a farce. The date might not be real, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be themselves. Why Draco wanted to be himself he could only guess. But it had been so long since he’d connected with other people. His mother had been his only companion for the last several years, and he’d learned very early on during the war, that the only way to protect himself was to build a wall to keep people out. Since arriving at St. Mungo’s, he’d come to regret his isolation, but he had no idea how to tear the wall down. The easiest way—and thus the hardest for Draco—was honesty.

“I dabble here and there,” he said. “I invest in people and companies that most other people and companies don’t have time for.”

“Like what?” Weasley asked.

He noticed the hint of suspicion in her tone and her expression, and it hit him with a righteous pang. This was exactly why he had avoided everyone since the war. People looked at him and saw someone plotting to do evil deeds, not someone just trying to survive.

Instead of getting angry, he feigned nonchalance, shrugging for maximum indifferent effect. “Various things. Four years ago, I sponsored a boy through a summer Quidditch training program. You might know him, actually. He was just picked up for Pride of Portree.”

Weasley’s gasp was almost satisfying enough to soothe the sting of her earlier slight. “You don’t mean Harris Beckenridge, the Prides's star Chaser?”

“Oh, but I do. And I annually donate a sum of money to St. Mungo’s, Tilly’s Orphanage, and other charitable organizations.”

She looked puzzled. “But how is that a career? What do you get out of giving people money?”

“Respect. Trust. Like I said, I invest in people and companies, so I expect Tybalt Tilly to tell his wards what an honorable and generous man Draco Malfoy is. When the children grow up, hopefully they’ll remember how my donations bought them better food and good quality clothing.”

“And what does that achieve?” Weasley asked softly. Oh, she had some pitying look on her face of which Draco did not approve, but he supposed pity was a better emotion than suspicion.

“My main goal is to turn my family’s reputation around. I want to be able to walk down the streets without receiving suspicious glares. I want my mother to go into a boutique without being denied service. We’ve been hiding for years. Another few years to achieve that goal will be nothing.”

Yes, the pity was there all right, right between her eyebrows. Even that blasted wrinkle in her brow had returned, though not in worry for herself this time, which didn’t make it any easier for him to look at her.

And then she said some words he wasn’t prepared to hear—hadn’t been prepared to hear in many, many years.

“You always talk about your mother. What happened to your father?”

An insane side of him wanted to laugh in her face and laugh for an eternity. How could she ask him that question? How could she not know? The unexpectedness of such an inquiry made his lips twitch into a smile, and it was so out of place—he knew it was—but he couldn’t stop the reaction.

“You really don’t know?” he asked, and she seemed startled, maybe because he was grinning at her. Maybe because his grin was vicious, making him look lethal. Maybe because she had just realized what a very bad question she had asked.

“No,” she mumbled, looking embarrassed now. Good! She should be embarrassed.

“Well, I suppose you wouldn’t. Mother paid off The Daily Prophet to keep them from writing about it, but the story still spread by word of mouth.”

“You don’t have to answer,” she said hurriedly, her hands up in a defensive position. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, no. It’s our first date. You have a right to know.” She’d brought the subject up and Draco had spent so many, many years trying to forget it. Might as well tell the whole story. What was that one phrase? Truth will out? Ridiculous of him to think he could hide this truth from anyone. Including himself.

“At his trial, my father was sentenced to fifty years in Azkaban for conspiracy, treason, and war crimes.”

“I’m so sorry,” Weasley said with a frown. Her hands had fallen into her lap, but he could see her fidgeting fingers twisting and worrying each other.

“No, you’re not. There is no love lost between my family and yours. He did the wrong things. Bad, evil things, and some people would say he deserved his punishment. However, some people thought he should have been punished more. My mother and I made it through our trials without any punishment, and fifty years for my father was nothing. There were people who thought we’d got off easy, so they’d fixed the problem.” He laughed then, a disparaging laugh that startled Weasley, making her jump in her seat. “Someone poisoned my father the day he arrived at Azkaban, and the Ministry wrote it off as an accident. Someone out there thought they knew what my father deserved, and they dished out his punishment with vigilante justice. That’s what happened to my father, Weasley. That’s why I don’t talk about him.”

The waitress chose this moment to return with their meals, but just as before, she disappeared as soon as she deposited their plates on the table. It was clear by the expressions on both Draco’s and Weasley’s faces that an interruption would be most unwelcome.

Tears welled up in Weasley’s eyes; Draco could tell by the way her hand lifted to wipe her cheeks, though he couldn’t look directly at her. Instead, he picked up his fork and attacked his pasta halfheartedly, regretting his crazed anger, regretting telling her anything of the truth.

“I’m so sorry,” she repeated. “I didn’t know. I stayed away from the news for a long time after the war. I didn’t want to see the names or pictures of the dead, and I didn’t care enough to keep an eye on the trials. I was just too tired.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said gruffly. “Another Death Eater was eliminated, so who cares.”

“But he was your father!” she cried. “You’re right. I didn't care for him even as a human being. I had no reason to, but that doesn’t change how you felt about him!”

“How I felt?” Draco said, throwing his fork down. “I was one of the people who didn’t think fifty years was long enough. It was his fault what happened to me during the war. If he had made better decisions before I was born, or if he had succeeded in his mission at the Ministry our fifth year at Hogwarts, I never would have suffered the way I had, wondering if my failure was going to get my family killed. I’d decided before the battle was lost that things would have been better for me if he’d stayed in Azkaban. Yes, it was embarrassing, but I’d rather be embarrassed by my convict of a father than hate my dead one.”

His fists were clenched and shaking on the tabletop. In fact, his whole body was wracked in tremors, and he was afraid he was going to break down and cry. Him! A twenty-five year old man! A Malfoy!

Weasley’s hands slowly reached for his, and he couldn’t move away fast enough; his body was too tense. Then, her skin made contact, and she flipped his hands over, digging her fingers under his until she was grasping him and he was grasping her back. The fierce shaking in his body dissipated the longer they held hands. Even though it was embarrassing, even though he wanted to be in a whole other place by himself, where no one could see him for who he was, he looked into her eyes and saw compassion, not pity, though they were almost the same thing. He saw her tears, and realized that she shed them for his suffering. She hated Lucius Malfoy, but... she didn’t hate his son. And there was something comforting in that.

“A man’s supposed to pay on a first date,” she said, “but this time, it’s on me.”

She stood up, and since she still firmly held his hands, he stood up too. They had no money, so they fled down the street, connected by their touch.

The Healers found them not long after in a hat shop, where Weasley had done her best to make Draco smile by wearing the silliest hats the shop had to offer. On the way back to St. Mungo's, he and Weasley had shared secret smiles. Maybe they should have tried harder to escape; maybe they should have cared more that they were going back to their prison. But Draco was ready to go back. This outing, and all the emotional repercussions of it, had only reminded him why he lived in isolation, interacting with as few people as possible in his day to day life.

If there was one thing his stay at the hospital had been good for so far, it was keeping other people away from him more efficiently than he'd been able to achieve back home. Ginny Weasley seemed to be the only exception to his life of solidarity though. In the three months they'd spent hospitalized together, she'd become so familiar to him that not even her transgression earlier had made him want to part from her. The idea of a life at St. Mungo's spent alone was unthinkable. Complete isolation had never been for him, after all. Back home he'd had his mother for company.

No, what he needed to protect himself from were people like the ones who had killed his father and the ones who still looked at him and shied away in fear. As if he could hurt anyone! He couldn't injure or kill—let alone name—his enemy even when his own family's life had hung on the line.

He was better off building up a respectable reputation in the background of society. In time, people would come to see him and his mother as they really were and not as they had been. All he had to do was wait.