OWL/RP: Sending yet more flowers...

[rar_draco]

Date: 11 August 1998
Characters: Draco Malfoy, anyone else
Location: Diagon Alley (because there's nowhere in Hogsmeade to buy roses)
Status: Public
Summary: Having struggled through a hard day, Draco heads home. He has things to do on the way.
Completion: Complete

The flower shop was a phrase dictionary, a veritable language of flowers, all written

Comments

[rar_bill]

It wasn't often Bill took the long way home, but as keyed up as he felt, he needed to walk before arriving home to Fleur. With Greyback gone, he was less concerned, and it seemed so was everyone else, seeing how packed the streets were.

He was looking at the window of the florist shop, debating if he should get some flowers, deciding Fleur would have his head if they didn't bring some straight from her garden, when he felt someone bump into him. Turning, he reached out a hand to steady.

"Careful, mate." He turned and looked at Draco, recognizing the hair and adding, "Wouldn't want to muss the flowers." He'd heard enough about Draco to dislike him on principle, but in the crush of Diagon Alley at the end of a long week, he couldn't bring himself to be rude. Besides, it had been Lucius who set Ginny up, not his son.

[rar_draco]

Someone bumped into him. Nobody bumped into him. Ever. He turned towards the man as he helped him keep his balance, and scowled the moment he saw red hair, before realising exactly who it was. Bill Weasley. The oldest, hardest looking Weasley. The one who had been attacked by Fenrir. He was frozen in place, an insult on the tip of his tongue that didn't seem to be able to free itself. He swallowed it back and straightened up a little bit.

This was his oppurtunity. His chance. Bill would know the things that Draco needed to know, wouldn't he? He narrowed his eyes. But how to do it without driving him away? Draco wasn't naive enough to think that his concern would be seen as concern, and not hidden agenda.

"You'll have been at St. Mungo's all day, won't you?" he asked, carefully.

[rar_bill]

At the look on Draco's face, Bill thoroughly expected to be put in his place. At least, as much as Malfoy could tell anyone off these days, what with the way things turned out. But then he paused, drawing himself in, and Bill's interest was piqued. He couldn't imagine what would make Malfoy bite his tongue in half rather than sneer at a blood traitor.

At the question, Bill's eyebrows shot up. "Much of it. What's it to you?" He said curiously, without any belligerence.

[rar_draco]

"Right," he said. "What is it to me?" He wasn't entirely sure. He brushed his fingers over his shoulder, as if cleaning off the Weasley touch there. "Perhaps what it is to me is the same thing that keeps me from insulting you," he said, stepping forwards and lifting a white lily from its pot, turning it gently in his fingertips. His flower. It was beautiful, but cold. Precise. Four simple leaves, a tiny touch of yellow.

Oh...he would hit - hard and true. He tilted his head towards Bill again, smiling his cool, arrogant smile. "How is Hermione?" he asked, using the first name intentionally to get his point across. Draco would do what he needed to do to get his information.

"The radio and the newspaper have not been particularly fruitful, and understandably, I didn't presume that I'd be welcome at the hospital. Not with it being full of Weasleys." Damn...he just couldn't resist.

[rar_harry]

A frown furrowed Harry's eyebrows briefly as he took the flowers and the letter back from Hermione. Kreacher was there in an instant to take the flowers and put them in water; Harry was too busy staring at the letter to do that, even if he would have thought to. He recognised the handwriting, of course; he'd only just finished exchanging notes at work with Malfoy. Brushing off his instinctive concern, he reached for a quill. Hermione wasn't answering any of her letters today; her wrists were still too swollen and painful to write anything, but she'd not wanted to leave them hanging until she got better. He wrote out a reply to Draco, brow furrowing even more when Hermione asked him to add another sentence to the bottom. His left eye twitched once, but he didn't protest, instead scrawling out the sentence before folding the note and sending it off with Cliodna.

[rar_draco]