Unfriendly Faces
@venemous-tentacula
Draco did not ordinarily make a visit to Diagon Alley simply to “take the air,” so to speak -- the chances of running into an unfriendly face were too high. He generally only braved the more crowded paths of the Wixen World when something forced him. But the reports in that morning’s Daily Prophet had intrigued him, and he’d wanted to sample the mood of London’s magical community -- no, say it plain: he’d been curious.
Even as a child, Draco had been incurably nosy (enough so that he’d worried briefly about being sorted into the wrong house; when the hat shouted his proper placement before it so much as ruffled his hair, he’d been almost as relived as proud, not that he’d ever admitted as much to anyone) and five years of trying to suppress the urge hadn’t cured him of it. So here he was, prowling the alley as though he were just another nobody doing some window shopping (as if a Malfoy ever window shopped, ha!) with his hood pulled up against the faint drizzle...and the less-faint chance of recognition.
That chance became a grim certainty when he stepped a little incautiously past the doorway of Slug & Jiggers and collided with someone coming out carrying something tall and leafy. Draco managed to keep his feet thank to his quick -- if somewhat rusty -- Seeker’s grace, but the other party, hampered as they were by the overlarge plant, wasn’t as lucky. Fighting the urge to say something snide, Draco instead forced out a stiff, “Terribly sorry. Didn’t see you there.” Apologizing did not come naturally to him (at least not when he was apologizing to someone who didn’t hold his future advancement or life in their hands) but he was making an effort.
He even offered his hand to help the hapless tumbler up, realizing two things too late to save himself. One: his hood had fallen back in the collision and his face was now revealed to anyone who cared to look and two: that was Neville Longbottom on the ground. Draco would have paled if that were possible with his pasty complexion; as it was, he went stiff and cold, frozen with his hand still extended and his eyes gone wide with horror.
