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Say Please	By : ColdWaterFairy Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 28196 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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A/N: Bear with me guys, I'm working on getting a beta

smurphy- Thanks so much for being the first to leave me a review, I really appreciate it. I'm glad you enjoyed the first chapter and felt my characters interaction were believable

Margot Le Faye- Hope this chapter doesn't disappoint. It's a little slow.

apple_blossum24- Thank you

gabby1234-I hope my plot continues to be refreshing to you

paigeey07- Hello there. I'm pleased to see you found me again
Draco flipped over onto his stomach, stubbornly clinging to the last vestiges of sleep. He knew he should get up but he wasn't ready. He needed to buy furniture and get some food, but not in that order. He finally got up and headed to the bathroom. After brushing his teeth he stood a moment pondering his reflection. He knew his reluctance to go out had to do with the fact that he was worried about running into people he knew from Hogwarts. It had been six years since the end of the war, and he knew he looked different but not enough that he would be unrecognizable. His hair was still platinum blonde but much shorter. He'd buzzed it all off before getting on the plane, as if that would make him another faceless wizard in the crowd. He'd grown some since school and he now topped off at 187 centimeters. His body had filled out; he was no longer lanky and slightly disproportionate. He had muscle, it just wasn't obvious.

He usually didn't give a lot of thought to his body. It would seem that being home had driven him to introspection. He had changed in the years he spent in New York. He had been forced to. He was no longer Draco Malfoy, son of Lucius Malfoy, pure-blood wizard with a Gringotts vault full of gold. It was humbling and he resented it. His parents had sent him away to shield him from the fallout over Voldermort's defeat. He wasn't there when they threw his father into Azkaban or when his mother left the manor for Greece. He kept in contact with her and saw her at Christmas time but part of him, as much as he loved her, was angry at her for believing Voldermort's lies, for instilling in him both her and Lucius's hatred and discontent for life. He had shaken off most of the hate but the discontent, he feared, would be with him forever. This constant chafing of unhappiness was wearing him thin. He thought maybe it was because he missed the wizarding world.

The one person he had confided in about why he'd left, leaving out the particulars, had mentioned something about his soul needing to atone. He thought that was bollocks. It wasn't like he had killed anyone. He had, however, started the war by letting those Death Eaters into the castle. He took a deep breath and shook off his melancholy thoughts. He needed to get a move on.

He dressed and Transfigured his bed back into a book and left the flat. The realty witch had left him a list of places to look for furniture. His first priority was to find a bed. His stomach rumbled in protest to remind him that he hadn't eaten anything in nearly twenty-four hours. He stopped at a deli and got something to eat. He sat with his book open in front of him, tuning out those around him. He wasn't really reading, he was trying to psych himself up for the trip to Diagon Alley. He practiced in his head what he'd say if anyone recognized him. He imagined himself cool and aloof, like a true Malfoy. When he finished eating he checked his list. There were some Muggle places on the list as well as magical. He decided to go the Muggle ones first. Coward, his mind called him. He chose to ignore it.

At the first place he stopped he took one cursory glance around and then left. The stuff was too modern for his taste. He wasn't into furniture that didn't look functional and was meant to be feng shui. The second shop was too rich for his taste and for the look he wanted for his flat. That left him with no choice but to head to Diagon Alley, as the last Muggle place was on the other side of London.

His stomach immediately knotted itself as he headed for the Leaky Cauldron. His breathing came faster and faster with each step. If he continued on like this he was going to have his first ever panic attack. He quickly ducked into an alleyway. What was his problem? Yes, he'd fucked up when he was sixteen years old; no, he hadn't been the best person—but he was a Malfoy. He should hold his head up high. That name meant something in the wizarding world. He snorted. Well, it had until his father happened. With that thought in mind Draco walked the three blocks to the Leaky Cauldron, opened the door, and walked confidently through the taproom and out the other door until he was faced with the brick wall. He took out his wand and tapped the bricks to reveal the archway. He hurried through and walked ten paces before stopping.

He had purposely chosen to come late in the day to avoid crowds, but there were still a fair number of people bustling here and there. It was beautiful. He had missed the familiar sight of witches and wizards going about their shopping. Children were running to Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes or Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. He was jostled from behind and realized that he had stopped in the middle of the walkway. He started forward, keeping to the edge of the street and hoping to go unnoticed. He stepped into Attila's Able Furniture. He perused the offerings for an hour before settling on a black maple sleigh bed plus the accompanying bedroom set, a small oak pub table, and two black leather couches. As he walked out after paying for his purchases and arranging to have them delivered the following day, he went over his mental list of what else he needed for the flat. Luckily for him, his friends had bought him dishes and flatware as going-away presents; he just had to wait for them to be delivered via Muggle post. He walked further down Diagon Alley.

He had strolled for another twenty minutes when a noise to his left drew his attention. He saw what appeared to be a street market with different vendors. This was a new addition to Diagon Alley, he mused. He decided to check it out. The first couple of stalls were hocking personal protection devices. Then came the fabric and reportedly rare books. He was a little confused as why this was here; there were shops already selling the same things. At the end of the alley were artists. There was a booth for taking magical photographs; he watched as a young couple came stumbling out laughing over their pictures. In his apartment in New York all of the artwork belonged to the owner of the building. He thought the same type of innocuous paintings would do well in his flat here. He just needed something to cover the empty space. He wasn't the type to buy pieces that said something about his tortured soul, or whatever bollocks reasons his Soho friends bought art for. He was looking at canvases in the last stall in the row of vendors when he noticed the old witch sitting on a stool at the back of the stall staring at him. She was creeping him out, and he was about to turn away when one painting caught his eye.

It wasn't spectacular, by any stretch of the imagination. It was actually a poor attempt at recreating a classical. What caught his attention was the woman in the picture. She was turned away from him, her head turned slightly to look over her shoulder. The curve of her cheek looked so real that he caught himself reaching out to touch it. The roundness of shoulder was so soft; she was beautiful in her femininity. There was something slightly familiar about her.

He was startled when the old hag's voice asked, "You like that painting? For fifty Galleons it can be yours."

He barked out a laugh. "Fifty Galleons! I don't think so."

He was about to walk away when she said, "Thirty Galleons!"

He gave her an incredulous look. "You expect me to pay thirty Galleons for a painting that's a recreation—a mediocre one at best—and by an unknown painter?"

Again he turned to go. He was just about to turn back and haggle when she said, "Twenty Galleons. That's my final offer."

He thought he could probably get her down to fifteen, but he was tired and just wanted to head back to his flat. He nodded and pulled out the money. The old hag wrapped the painting and handed it to him. She gave him a look and smiled showing missing teeth.

"Enjoy."

Draco gave an involuntary shiver. There was something seriously creepy about her. He took his purchase and hurried away. He didn't want to linger there and run into anyone; he thought himself fortunate not to have already done so. Once again he stuck to the shadows, passing through the Leaky Cauldron without incident.

When he arrived back at his flat he let himself in, put the painting down, and headed to the kitchen to get a drink. Glass in hand, he pondered where he should hang his new acquisition. He thought of his new black leather couches and shook his head. It would come off as pretentious, like he was trying to acquire quality art and had failed. The kitchen and dining room ran together, so that wouldn't suit. The painting was too big to hang in the hall. That only left his bedroom. He put his glass in the sink and went to retrieve the painting. He stood for a moment mentally rearranging the furniture in his room. The picture could go on the eastern wall except it had a window, and it would look weird for something to be on one side of the window and not the other. The northern wall was out, as his bed was going to be on that wall and he didn't want to hang the painting over it. That left the left the southern wall, which faced his bed, or the western wall. Since he had nothing else in the way of decoration at the moment, he decided to hang it on the southern wall.

Once he hung the painting using magical means, he stepped back and looked at it again. It was still there, that pull. It was visceral. Looking at the girl gave him a sense of awareness, like she was someone familiar. He stared at her and again was struck by the artist's ability to render her both feminine and mysterious. He admired the expanse of her shoulders exposed by her off-the-shoulder dress. Her skin managed to portray a creaminess that he would have thought impossible to capture with mere paint. Her hair was a nondescript brown and looked as if it was falling down from a topknot. Her one visible eye was brown. Her eyelashes were long and her gaze was looking forward and was slightly downcast. Her mouth, the part that was visible, was not curved in a smile like one would have expected; instead it almost turned down at the corners. The more he took in the details, the stranger the painting seemed. The background was ordinary and wasn't painted with much detail or skill. but the girl was magnificent. She almost seemed to have been transplanted onto the canvas.

Then it occurred to him. The painting wasn't moving or talking like most magical ones did. He frowned; something just wasn't right. It seemed like the figure in the painting should be moving—like she should turn around fully and face him at any moment. It was then that his stomach growled, reminding him that it had been several hours since he had last eaten. He decided he'd better head to the market. He gave the painting one last look and headed out.
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