dear draco,

dear draco, pt. 2 - preview

November 1999

EIGHTEEN MONTHS AFTER THE BATTLE OF HOGWARTS

-

Isobel had watched Draco Malfoy from a young age.

She had been so curious, it left a sour taste in her mouth. Bitter to know the inside of his mind. To know where all of his hostility came from; if he really meant the foul insults he flung across hallways to people he didn't like. If his sneers were really filled with spite and hatred. There was nobody quite so intriguing as the white-blonde boy who stalked around the Hogwarts Grounds with his head high and his lip curled, as if the entire world was against him. Which, to be fair, it probably was.

She used to watch him across the Great Hall, or from the back of a classroom. Now she watched him from across the street, half hidden by lampposts and bus stops.

Before Isobel Young and Draco Malfoy ever spoke one word to each other, she stared at him, incessantly. Continually scorned by Harry and Ron, who by their third year had reduced Draco to no more than a playground bully - she became obsessed with trying to understand him. With finding a crack in his cold surface.

Now more than ever, she wanted to understand him. It was probably, she thought, the thing she wanted most. Some people wanted money, fame, power. Success. What Isobel wanted was to understand how someone like Draco Malfoy had fallen in love with someone like her.

She rested her back against the brick wall. From behind a third floor window, fifty metres away, Draco was filling an electric kettle at his sink. This was routine for him at this time of day. A cup of tea after dinner, another around nine. The times she had stayed longer, he usually had another around eleven. Big tea drinker. She never managed to stay past lights out, because Draco tended to stay awake until ungodly hours and she couldn't risk being the only person left on the street. She couldn't let him see her.

In school - in all of her staring - she had never seen him drink tea, to her recollection. This was new.

And the longer, looser hair. That was new, too. It was nice, and, well - unexpected. The Malfoys used to be so well-groomed. Draco looked a little dishevelled these days, in a quiet, unthreatening way. He looked very different to the Draco she knew.

But she had never really known him, she reminded herself, nestling into her jacket. Her breath was visible in the cold November air. No matter how hard she had tried, he had always been so difficult to read.

No, she didn't know Draco Malfoy at all.

Draco Malfoy, as she knew him, was a horrid, arrogant, snarky git. He had tossed insults at her and her friends every time the opportunity arose. He was selfish and entitled. She hated him, and he hated her.

And yet. . . And yet.

Crumpled in her fist was a torn, yellowing piece of parchment that said something quite different.

My dearest darling love.

Stay a little longer.

I'd give anything to have you back.

And the nickname. Belly. She hated that, too.

Without warning, Draco turned to face the window. Isobel cursed and looked down, pretending to pick at a loose thread in her glove. In her peripheral vision, he stopped for a moment... Then, slowly, turned back to his tea.

She blew out a sharp breath and hurried away, towards the quiet alleyway where she liked to Apparate. That was enough for tonight. She really should stay away for a while, to ease any suspicions he might have. If he realised he was being watched... Well, she didn't know what she would do then.

But then again, that was what she told herself every time. Every time she came here, she swore she wouldn't return for at least a week or two. Sometimes she even convinced herself it would be her final visit, that she would walk away and leave the elusive, confusing Draco Malfoy behind forever.

But then, she would find herself back again. Watching him. Deducing him.

No, this wouldn't be the last time.