Fortunate Misfortune ( A Draco Malfoy Fan Fiction)

A Bloke Named Shakespeare

For once, Esme was not at shady ol' Four broomsticks on a Saturday.

Astoria, of all people, had stumbled across her basking in the sun all alone and invited her to go to the Three Broomsticks with her. Although Esme wanted to politely decline her offer, she knew she could use this occasion to find out if she liked Draco... subtlety was key of course.

The blond ferret wouldn't let her hear the end of it if she accidently blabbed about his feelings for her. Besides, they weren't her feelings to share. They were Malfoy's and she respected that.

Astoria was one of the limited few that didn't believe in the "curse" of " misfortune " baggage that Esme apparently brought with her wherever she went.

Yes, She knew all about the rumors.

It started back in the second year when she had gotten paired up with Lavender Brown for Herbology. Before parting ways after class, she wished her a good day and apparently she ended up having the worst day of her life.

Legend has it that Lavender tripped from a steep flight of stairs and broke several bones that day. It was said that she was on Skele-Gro potion all day.

Esme obviously felt horrible when she found out but it was baffling that none of these people had even taken a moment to consider the factor of coincidence .

It was funny how the rumor mill could churn something as simple and harmless as " she ate toast for breakfast " to something like " the toast ate her for breakfast ."

"Butterbeer, Esme?" Astoria asked, interrupting her inner monologue. "On me of course."

"I'd like that, actually. Thanks Astoria." Esme gave her a grateful smile as she walked away to fetch the beverage she'd promised.

****

"You know, I haven't seen you this distraught since that one time you turned into a ferret." Blaise commented about the quidditch match from earlier that morning as they walked towards Three Broomsticks.

Blaise was right. Draco had lost sight of the Snitch allowing Ravenclaw to win by a landslide.

Most of his team members were halfway understanding about it and gave him a pat on his shoulder as they exited the locker rooms like they felt sorry about his complete inability to locate the snitch, let alone catch it.

"Not the ferret thing again, Blaise." Draco gave him a dismissive huff before proceeding to enter the inn.

Three broomsticks was always crawling with students from Hogwarts on the weekends. Just upon entering, he saw several familiar faces crowding the booths and tables.

As his eyes scanned the premises, they landed on someone he was least expecting to see there.

Absent-mindedly Sipping on butterbeer, oblivious to the foamy mustache that had formed her lip while Esme nodded eagerly to whatever Astoria was saying.

Astoria's curious eyes caught him for a millisecond and he quickly felt his blood rush up to his face. In a desperate effort to conceal this and bring his blood pressure back to normal, Draco decided to look at Esme instead.

She seemed to have noticed this, mid sip because her eyebrows arched in surprise as she quickly wiped the foam mustache off from her lips.

It was only then that he realized that looking at Esme somehow was inducing more damage because he suddenly felt like he had a raging fever with his ears all hot.

I hate this. I hate it here.

"Draco!" Esme swiftly stood up from her seat and waved at him. "Over here."