Drarry One Shots

The Artist

A/N All fluff. Partly inspired by 'Oh my gosh' lyrics by Basement Jaxx (some of the lyrics are absorbed into the story)! Small fact: Basement Jaxx did have a residency at the Star of Kings pub, nr Kings Cross (the timings aren't actually correct for my story but hey, artistic licence). Coincidentally, one of their songs was in the film 'Bend it like Beckham' but I found that out after I referenced David Beckham.

Draco cursed his bestfriend and her girlfriend as he took the stairs two at a time while trying to juggle his art folder, rucksack, student lanyard, and the tea Hermione had brought him from Costa. He was still clutching his Oyster card too after dashing across London to Kings Cross station. He was only a few minutes late but even in the Muggle world, Draco disliked drawing attention to himself these days.

Pansy and Hermione had insisted on meeting him at the Tate Modern after their shifts at St Mungo's. He was already there, carrying out his dissertation research on echoes of Walter Sickert in Lucian Freud's paintings. Freud was a life artist of ruthless genius, in Draco's humble opinion. Only Pansy, like the hopeless ignorant wench that she was, totally didn't understand Draco's enthusiasm and dragged him and Hermione off to Costa. At least Hermione had pretended to look interested. Pansy had tried for a wine bar, insisting Draco really didn't need to go to his evening life-drawing class. Only, aside the fact that this was actually part of his final work for his degree, life classes were a rarity and this class had been cancelled for a while as the art college struggled to find a reliable model. Eventually, the evening classes had been reinstated for third years and post-grad students. Of course, it had to be evening for the privacy of the model because some of the younger students were idiots and liked to barge in and snigger about seeing someone stood naked in front of the class, even if they were generally old enough to be their grandmother.

Hermione had berated her girlfriend for trying to disrupt Draco's studies. Trust Hermione to come down on the side of learning...

'You're late, Drake...' Professor Campbell tutted as Draco carefully pushed open the door to the fifth-floor studio, as if doing it slowly and quietly would hide his late arrival into the silent room.

And yes, Draco had long since accepted that it was easier to go by Drake in the Muggle world because the name 'Draco' abso-fucking-lutely screwed with Muggle's minds, even in the more avant-garde circles of the art world.

'Sorry, Professor,' he muttered.

'How many more times? It's Lionel. We really don't insist on being addressed by our academic titles. First names... first names...' said the unnaturally tall and lanky professor.

It was still an informality that Draco struggled with in his switch from Magical to Muggle education. His father always frowned disapprovingly when he referred to his Personal Academic Tutor as Emma. And Draco felt he could, at least, call her by her first name because they meet frequently and knew each other a bit better. Mind you, his father always frowned whenever Draco referred to Central St Martin's School of Art; it was deemed highly inappropriate education.

Painting! his father would sigh. You were supposed to be the next great Malfoy. You would have gone far in politics...

And I would have hated every moment of it. Besides, I no longer believe the words 'great' and 'Malfoy' are allowed in the same sentence these days, no matter how much money you throw at the Ministry and all the other worthy causes considered necessary to redeem our family name.