BANALITY : Draco Malfoy

51

Draco shakes his head with a bit of a smile. He sits down in the chair adjacent to mine. It would be better if he were to sit across from me. This ought to be some sort of interrogation.

"I don't suppose you'd like to ask the first question," he offers.

I feel myself growing cold. With a flick of my wand and an incantation, I bring a blanket over to me. It nearly slams into me, but I manage to catch it. I put it in my lap and leave the questions with sheet music on top. He tries not to look at me.

"It's a rudimentary spell," I tell him. "Not impressive."

"I'm intimately familiar," he bites his bottom lip.

He can say he isn't impressed, but he is. Maybe he should be more nervous. If I catch him right, I can get him to slip even slightly, and get a full ten minutes with his wand. His hands are fidgeting on his wand the way they so often do. Perhaps he is nervous. His jaw is close set. He's trying not to smile.

"Are you going to ask a question or are you just going to stare at me?" he smirks.

"Can I do both?" I ask.

His grin only widens. He gestures for me to speak.

"Who is the current prime minister of the United Kingdom?" I ask.

"Tony Blair," it doesn't even take him a whole second to respond. He must see that I look puzzled. "He helped negotiate the Good Friday Agreement, which brought an end to the war which killed my dead girlfriend."

"I remember," I say, shaking my head. "Pansy, right?"

He scowls a bit, "I should have expected you to say that."

"I should have expected you'd know about the Good Friday Agreement," I have to revise a question or two now. I had expected him to know much less than he actually does.

"What house were you in at Hogwarts?" he changes the conversation, and I feel my stomach go sour. I have no idea what houses there are at Hogwarts, let alone which one I called mine.

I don't imagine it was Draco's house. He says I barely knew his friends, so not that. Certainly not the one to which Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and Harry belonged. I'm not sure if they all belonged to the same house, but they seemed not to know me.

Luna did though.

"I was with Luna," I tell him.

"What's the name?" he presses.

"If I knew, I would have already told you," I point out.

He shrugs, "I'll give you half a minute if you can tell me why you were selected to be in that house."

I try to think about the things Luna, and I have in common. I used to use oil pastels. She has a strange sense in fashion. I suppose it might have to do with something like that.

"The artistic house?" I ask.

He furrows his brow, before he shakes his head, "not really. Ravenclaw is known for wit. I suppose creativity too, which is why Luna is there. Not you."

"That should be half a point," I shake my head.

"I'm not giving you half of half a minute," he rolls his eyes, and his smile feels less mischievous than usual.

I haven't seen him make a gesture that casual to me since the last time we kissed. I have to remind myself that it is Monday, and we kissed on Friday. Really, I should say that I haven't been this casual with him while sober in quite some time. Perhaps ever. Sobriety is harder than I had imagined it would be.