Disclaimer: Me no owney.
Summary: It's easy to fall in love. It's when you include everything else that you end up with problems.
A/N: Right, this is a prequel to Five Year's Worth of Interest but you really DON'T have to have read it because this basically starts with a blank state. Hell, if you've not read I'd almost say just read this first. Oh, and folks this is going to be Draco-centric with very little Ginny POV mainly because I tried to write the second half of this chapter Ginny and it just wasn't happening and that is why the first half has been done for like a week and the second half was finished half an hour ago. Also, this is going to be long. I have the basic outline and there's a lot of stuff to get into it and it might take me a little longer to get each chapter out, we'll see. Anyway, read on and remember reviews make the world go round.
It was strange, really, how it all started. Because if there was anything that Draco Malfoy was, it was dramatic. Even his name was conducive to drama. But the most important thing that ever happened in his life, the thing that would be the catalyst for most of the major decisions he ever made again happened without any drama whatsoever. There was no fanfare, nobody died and certainly no-one was born. Because one day, without any drama, Draco Malfoy noticed that Virginia Weasley existed.
*
"You know if your ancestors had crawled out of the primordial ooze ten milliseconds later, ensuring that all the willing primates were taken, they really would have done the world a favour."
Vincent Crabbe looked up from the tying of his shoelace and frowned at the tall, blonde boy stood imperiously over him. Draco shook his head, recognising Crabbe's expression, it was the one he wore when he was particularly confused by long words, which as that happened quite often he wore a lot. Gregory Goyle, trying to work out which way round his robe went didn't appear to have heard anything. This didn't really surprise Draco who knew that Goyle tended to only hear things connected with food.
Draco blew out an exasperated breath. "Will you two please hurry up? I'm hungry." Draco tapped his foot impatiently before rolling his eyes and storming out of the common room yelling over his shoulder, "I'll see you in the Great Hall," and muttering under his breath; "Ingrates."
Striding down the dark hallways that led to the dungeons as though he owned them, Draco scowled fiercely into the darkness, almost as though he were preparing himself for the coming day in which much scowling and annoying of those below him would be required. As this type of day was perfectly normal for Draco he didn't even realise he was making that particular facial expression.
Pushing open both the doors to the Great Hall, Draco paused and looked over the room, in much the same way as a King would survey his kingdom. His scowl deepened as he glimpsed Potter and his little friends, heads bent together, no doubt cooking up some new scheme that would be completely against the rules and yet would not result in them receiving any sort of punishment. The sight of Potter made Draco's bad mood intensify and it was with much banging of plates and cutlery that he sat down in his normal seat at the Slytherin table.
"Draco, dear, are you all right?" Pansy Parkinson's grating tones made Draco clench his jaw and ladle his porridge into his bowl much harder than was necessary. He looked up at the girl who was watching him with concern.
"I'm perfectly fine, Pansy," he ground out, still throwing porridge into his bowl angrily, "Just hurry up and eat, won't you? Then you can leave." Pansy just frowned at him before returning to her breakfast.
"Someone's in a good mood," Blaise Zabini observed as he slipped into the seat next to Draco. Draco glared at him. Blaise just raised an eyebrow and grabbed Draco's wrist, stilling his porridge ladling motions. "I think you have enough porridge," Blaise looked pointedly down at the bowl, "in fact I think you have enough porridge for all the third world countries on the planet."
Draco slumped back in his chair, crossing his arms as though he'd just been scolded. "I got a letter from my mother."
"Ah," said Blaise knowingly, "that explains the gigantic black cloud hovering over your head."
Pansy looked up from her food and frowned at Blaise. "You shouldn't joke about that, you know. That actually happened to one of my cousins." She shook her head as she took a sip of pumpkin juice. "The occasional lightening bolts made her hair go all frizzy. Dreadful. Oh, and she couldn't remember the full alphabet for months afterward." The two boys opposite her were staring at her with indefinable expressions. "What?"
Blaise shook his head. "Nothing Pans. It just amazes me how one minute you can go from simpering idiot, to blithering girl and then under the right circumstances to shrewd wench."
Pansy raised an eyebrow in an uncanny impression of Draco. "Wench? Never refer to me as that ever again, Blaise Zabini.
"Is 'slut' okay?"
Pansy thought about it for a moment. "I suppose so. And my miraculous transformations are, as you know, all for my," she waved her goblet around to encompass the hall, "audience, dear Blaise."
A disgruntled grunt was heard from where Draco had slouched dangerously low in his chair. "You know I was sure this conversation had started out dealing with my problem."
Blaise grinned down at him whilst Pansy rolled her eyes. "Ah, is little Draco feeling neglected."
Draco pulled himself up, adopting a nonchalant attitude. "Fine, if you don't want to know what my mother said…" Draco let the sentence tantalisingly.
"Draco just tell us what the letter said and stop with the dramatics, please," Blaise implored, managing to sound annoyed at the same time.
"Well, no, if you don't want to know I don't see why…" Pansy threw a piece of her croissant at him, cutting him off mid-sentence. "Hey!"
She raised another piece threateningly. "Fine, fine. My mother said 'Dear Draco, how are you. I am fine, not too sure about your father though…"
"Draco," chorused Blaise and Pansy together.
"Fine. She gave me the usual spiel about getting my act together and stopping with the childish taunts."
"As well you should," Pansy said, causing Draco to glare at her.
"She also hinted at our marriage again, dear Pansy."
Pansy frowned. "Don't sound too thrilled, Draco. Least you get me on your honeymoon, I get stuck with…" she gestured weakly at Draco who just glared back.
Draco waved a hand disdainfully. "You know you want me, Parkinson." Pansy opened her mouth to protest but Draco kept on talking, "Anyway she also hinted at developments."
Both Blaise and Pansy leaned forward in their chairs, expectantly. "She wouldn't say what exactly but…" Draco moved closer so that heads were bent together, for that moment he imagined that they must have looked much like the trio seated at the Gryfinndor table. "I definitely got the impression that we would be required soon." He leaned back slowly, taking in his companions faces. Blaise was impassive though Draco, knowing him so well, could practically see the cogs turning in his head as he contemplated what the ramifications of the news could mean for him. Pansy had gone paler than she normally was, which was practically impossible.
She stood and gulped down the rest of her pumpkin juice, striding out of the hall without saying a word to the boys. They watched her walk into Goyle as he ambled in and for an instant Draco thought he was going to be witness to one of the infamous Parkinson temper tantrums. But then the moment passed and Pansy merely pushed at him ineffectually and continued stomping out.
Draco and Blaise shared a look and reaching an unspoken decision Blaise rose from the table and strode off after Pansy, hands casually pushed into his pockets. Crabbe and Goyle dropped into the seats that the others had just left, offering monosyllabic grunts as forms of greeting. Draco watched them distastefully for a moment as they piled heaps of food onto their plates and then proceeded to shovel it into the gaping caverns they referred to as mouths.
Turning away from the macabre sight that was his quasi-bodyguards eating, Draco let his gaze idly wander over the Great Hall. He smirked at some of the cuter Ravenclaws who caught his eye, blatantly ignored the Hufflepuffs and sneered cruelly as he noticed Potter.
Then he noticed something, or rather someone. A pretty red-haired girl was daintily eating a muffin whilst chatting animatedly to the boy next to her. Draco tried to shift his gaze from her but something about her made it impossible. He knew he was staring, he also knew he should stop. Because he was fairly positive that his object of observation was Ronald Weasley's little sister. And it had taken Draco far too long to do his hair this morning for a little scuffle with Weasley to ruin it.
Whilst his rational part of his brain was telling him to stop staring, the not so rational part was reminding him how damn cute the littlest Weasley had gotten and how the hell had he never noticed her before? She laughed and Draco felt a familiar tug in his lower stomach. This was so wrong. She's a Weasley, Draco's inner voice sneered. But his body was betraying him, because the sight of her was making him have very bad thoughts that involved him throwing her across the Hufflepuff table and doing very bad things to her that he was pretty sure he would get into trouble for doing in public on top of a dish of black pudding. And he imagined the Hufflepuffs might be none to pleased.
Draco watched her take a sip of her juice and his eyes roamed over her lips, now glistening slightly from the stray drops. Her tongue darted out to lick them up and Draco nearly groaned. This was ridiculous. She must have sat there every day for years and yet he had never noticed her before. And Draco knew it was a very bad sign that he was thinking not how he wished he'd never noticed her but how he wished he'd noticed her a long time before.
Resigning himself to the fact that he was now harbouring a crush on Ronald Weasley's little sister, Draco realised that he should probably try and remember her name. Jenny? No. Gertrude. God I hope not. Ginny? Yes. That was it. Little Ginny Weasley. This time Draco did groan out loud, causing Crabbe and Goyle to look up from their chewing long enough to grunt out some sort of question that Draco immediately ignored. He had a crush on Ginny Weasley. She was a Weasley. And not even one that used their full name, like civilised people. Draco resisted the urge to drop his head on the table amongst the cutlery and crockery and his overflowing bowl of porridge.
Instead he jumped out of his seat and hurried from the hall, causing Crabbe and Goyle to shove as much food as possible into their mouths and run after him.
And so it was that Draco Malfoy noticed Virginia Weasley.
*
When he got back to the common room, Draco found Blaise and Theodore Nott sat in the high-backed chairs near the fire engaged in a game of cards. Draco raised an eyebrow and collapsed in the other chair, absent-mindedly noticing that Crabbe and Goyle settled themselves on the sofa near them.
"Where's Pansy?" Draco inquired, the other boys automatically dealing him into their next game. Draco held back a wince when he saw his cards but threw some chips in the pile anyway. "I'm in."
"Me too," Blaise shrugged as he tossed his chips, "Millicent's dealing with her."
"Is that wise?" asked Draco, his voice cool.
"Calm down, Draco." Theodore said, "I raise you three. Pansy was crying. What were we supposed to do?"
"I'm out. She was crying?" Draco asked incredulously.
Blaise nodded, his eyes fixed on his cards. "Yeah, and as it was Pansy who was crying we were sort of at a loss."
"I would imagine so." Draco leaned back in his chair, watching the flickering flames of the fire. It was always cold in the dungeons and occasionally, Draco wished for the warmth he imagined existed in the other, above ground, common rooms.
The boys sat in a companionable silence for a while till footsteps on the staircase to the girl dormitory's caught their attention. Draco glanced up along with the others and then away, appearing nonchalant.
Millicent came first and perched on the arm of the sofa, her hand resting on Goyle's shoulder. "Hi," she murmured.
The boys by the fire nodded a greeting, Blaise dealing a new hand of cards. They didn't glance up when Pansy came and sat in the remaining chair, Blaise silently dealing her in.
Draco glanced at her, taking in the perfect hair and make-up. He shot a glance at Blaise who was watching Pansy in the same way.
Suddenly Pansy threw her cards on the table and glared at the boys. "I'm not going to kill you if you ask me if I'm okay, you know."
Draco smiled a small grin. "We never really know with you, Pans. Sometimes you're all smiley and nice and sometimes you nearly rip out our intestines and use them as curtains pulls on your bed. You're a complicated person, Parkinson." Pansy glared at him and sat back down, picking up her discarded cards.
"Well, I'm fine," she said huffily, "and I'm also in." She didn't go to throw any chips on the table.
Theodore looked at her questioningly. "Erm, Pansy. You do understand the definition of the word 'gambling', don't you?"
Draco, however, was carefully watching her. She turned her attention to him and was caught by the calculating look in his cool grey eyes. "Are you sure?"
Pansy threw a chip on the table. "As sure as I'll ever be."
Draco stared at her for a moment longer and then placed his cards on the table and walked away, saying; "Then let's play."