𝐎𝐍𝐋𝐘 𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐁𝐄𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆

Chapter 2

Only Another Beginning

Chapter 2

The Italian restaurant Potter had taken Draco to wasn't – as was to be expected – a very fancy place, but also not one of those shabby take-aways where Draco sometimes got himself a cheap dinner. The place was nice and cosy and full of mostly young people around their age, and looked, with it's cubicles of cushined benches, rather like an American Diner.

"That'll be an Italian Salad for me, Pasta Mista for my friend and as main dish we’ll share a Jumbo Mozzarella Pizza," Potter told the waitress, a young woman with a dark blonde pony tail.

Draco blinked, taken aback that Potter had just ordered without actually asking him, but then again at the moment he’d probably be alright with anything they’d present him. After looking around the restaurant out of the corner of his eyes, the blond turned his gaze onto the table in front of him, arms crossed over his chest. He was curious, true, but wild horses wouldn’t bring him to look at Potter now – or address him at all for that matter.

"So," Potter started, and when Draco looked up at him for a fraction of a second he thought he saw something like uncertainty glinting in those green eyes that were now covered by more modern looking, slightly angular glasses. "Have you been here in London all those past five years? And where do you live?"

“Yes I have, and nowhere in particular,” Draco answered, not bothering to rise from his position leaning against the back of his bench, slightly slid down. He watched Potter’s face intently, suspiciously looking for any kind of scorn.

"Oh," he just said, looking neither mocking nor too pitiful. "What do you spend all your money on, then?" he asked bluntly.

Draco stared at the dark-haired incredulously. “All my money?”

Potter shrugged and Draco was slowly getting the impression that he wasn't all that easy and casual about the whole thing at all. "Well, you must earn something, don't you? If not why would you be out there every night? You just charged me three hundred pounds for an evening. I wondered why it's not enough to get a small flat or room somewhere."

The blond snorted softly, slowly shaking his head. Obviously Potter was not one to drive around at night to pick up whores or hustlers, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked that question.

“London’s the most expensive city in the world, didn’t you know?” he asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

This time, Potter showed at least some sort of emotion by rolling his eyes. "Yes, I know that, but I also know that there are students or other people who don't have much more than five hundred pounds a month and don't live 'nowhere in particular'."

In that moment, the waitress came back with Potter's salad and Draco's pasta as well as their drinks: coke for both of them.

"Thank you," Potter told her politely and then, when she had left, turned back to Draco. "I was just wondering, that's all."

But the former Gryffindor didn’t receive an answer right away as Draco attended to his plate with four small portions of different kinds of pasta immediately. He had been able to forget how hungry he was for the last few hours, but right now as he was presented with a hot, full meal, he was sharply reminded.

Potter quietly ate his salad, much more slowly than Draco ate his pasta. Then a mobile rang and Draco was again surprised that it seemed to be Potter’s which he now took out of his trouser pocket.