Bad Romance

Familiar Faces

-From your POV-

It had been about two weeks since school ended; out of the people that I actually kept in touch with, most of them had started working on their adult life already. Pansy had gotten a job working reception for the ministry, Draco had some internship under his father, the Weasley twins were both going down the career path of becoming a professor at Hogwarts. I had began looking into various free-lance jobs in writing and research. Overall, it was really quite mundane. 

I was out with Eva for the day; she wanted to go to Hogsmeade and a couple of the other magic shoppes down in Diagon Alley and I had nothing else to do and my dad was working, so I agreed to take her. She had ran off into some magical custom jewelry shop and I decided I was going to the whimsical pet shop for supplies for Viper. We agreed we'd meet up in an hour and go home, so with that, we were split up.

I was squatting down looking at the lowest shelf at cages when I stood up fast. "You seem familiar." a voice says from the other side of the shelf, through an empty gap, giving me a heart attack. My hand flies up to my chest and I stumble back one step before looking back up to where the voice came from. I hear a soft chuckle that makes my heart hurt and go light at the same time. 

"Draco, you cannot just interrupt someone that deep in thought!"  I squeal out. He walks around the edge of the shelf so we are now standing in the same aisle. He's still laughing at how bad he scared me and I punch him straight in the shoulder. He just rubs where I punched him as his laughing concludes. We stand there for a minute and just gaze at each other. He lets out a stifled laugh and I snorted and started laughing with him. "My God you're an idiot." I say. We just smile at each other. "Well, how are you??" I ask him, putting my arms open for a hug which he steps into.

"I'm doing well, yeah, actually. And you?" he asks, still hugging me. His arms and his cologne are something all too familiar and part of me still misses it.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm doing well too." I say as we pull apart. "I was buying a new cage when some blonde moron sent me into cardiac arrest." I say jokingly. He smiles proudly.

"Yeah, well, I was shopping for owl feed when some weird girl was crab walking on the floor." he says. I roll my eyes at him.

"For your information, I was not crab walking. I was picking out a cage, thank you very much." I say as I pull the one I wanted of the bottom shelf. He laughs and smiles smugly. Something about his cockiness towards everyone except me just felt endearing all the time; as smug and cocky as he tried to be towards me, I knew that in his eyes I was the only exception to his typical jackass demeanor. 

"Mm. You're actually paying for it?" he asks surprised. I grin.

"Well..." I trail off and he smiles wickedly. He looks at the shop owner and then at me. 

"Old times sake?" he suggests and I nod happily. He looks back at the shop keeper and mutters out a spell that knocks all the lights in the shop out, consuming the small building in darkness."Quickly, let's go!"  he shouts, his hand finding my empty hand in the dark. 

We ran out of the shop and down one of the alleys, escaping the shopkeeper who was cursing at us from behind. Once we were in the clear, we stopped to catch our breath and started laughing until our stomachs were sore and we could barely catch our breath. Once we finally regained our composure, we each leaned against the sides of the alley, opposite of each other, and looked at each other. "I miss you, Draco." I admit. His smile immediately drops some and his eyes deepen. "I'm so sorry how I ended everything. Nobody deserves that." I tell him.

"But Y/n, you had to put yourself first. And you should have. It was the right thing to do, despite how much it hurt." he assures me. I swallow hard and take his words into account before speaking again.

"Would you have done the same? If it were you, in that position, I mean." I ask sheepishly. He slowly nods and presses his lips together.

"Because I know you did it out of a place of love and concern for me as well as yourself. It wasn't out of self pity, or self centered-ness, or any of that. You did it because you knew you were going through hell, and you didn't want to drag me through it as well." he explains. I feel a soft lump forming at the back of my throat so I try to swallow it down and speak. 

I opened my mouth to speak but was cut off by the voice of a familiar idiot at the end of the alleyway. "So are you guys about to make out and if so, can I go shop for longer??" Eva asks. Both Draco and I turn and look at her. I roll my eyes and walk in her direction. 

"No you brat. We're going home." I say, examining how her arms are full. My eyebrows furrow. "Geez Ev, how much did you buy??" I ask as she starts dropping stuff on the floor.

"Well, that's the thing-" she starts out.

"THAT ONE! RIGHT THERE! NEXT TO THE GIRL WITH THE CAGE!!" a few shopkeepers shout out, running in our direction. I snap my head back.

"Shit! C'mon!!" I shout at her as I push her in the back and reach into my pocket for floo powder. 

"Here, I've got extra." Draco says, pulling out a few pouches of it and picking up the stuff Eva dropped in the process. We sat there and gazed at each other for another minutes before we remember the circumstances and run off. 

We had floo'd to my house because Draco was holding onto Eva's stuff. Once we were at my house, he handed her stolen goods off to her and she ran up to her room, closing the door quickly behind her. He just snickered at it and I shook my head. "Thank you, Draco. You kinda saved our asses back there." I say. His eyebrows go up.

"Kinda??" he says. I roll my eyes.

"Okay, fine. But I'm not admitting it aloud." I say. "Can I get you anything? We have water, soda, milk, juice..." I offer. He shakes his head.

"No, no. I'm fine, really." he says. One thing he must've forgotten is that we're equally stubborn.

"Draco,, it's the least I can do. Plus, we kinda got cut off in the middle of a conversation." I insist. He sighs and gives in. 

"Sure, but please, that cage is heavy. I'll take it up to your room while you make snacks." he offers. I roll my eyes, knowing that he's not going to budge, and hand the cage over to him and turn to the counter to start making some type of dish. 

I had settled on some random snacks we had in our pantry and brought them up to my room, where Draco had been playing with Viper on the floor. He looked up at me. "Oh, sorry. I meant to come back downstairs, but I got sidetracked." he says. I laugh and shrug, putting the snacks down on my desk and sitting down on my bed.

"It's fine. You're welcome in the house at any time; there's no ill will or anything." I explain and he nods in understanding. I was contemplating finishing what I was saying earlier when I finally managed to scrape up the courage for it. "Earlier- in the alleyway- I was going to say..." I trail off and he looks back up at me. "When you said I did it out of love- for you- that's completely true. I was deeply in love with you." I say, more nervous than ever. His eyes soften again.

"Was, or am?" he asks in a serious tone. I don't say anything, I just open my mouth but no words come out. "Well, that's my answer there, isn't it?" he says. "I never did stop loving you, Y/n." he says, standing up. "And I know you didn't either." he takes a step towards me. "So, what's the blank space for?" he asks, now standing over my bed and towering over me. I swallow hard and stretch my arms out, hooking my fingers into his collar and pulling him down to my level. 

"If you hate the space so much, then close it." I whisper out in a bossy tone. He wastes no time in leaning in and kissing me forcefully, and I pull my wand off my nightstand and use it to shut and lock my door.