Goyle’s shift ended at five, but Draco had already arrived at 4:30. He was chewing his lips once more. Apologising wasn’t his forte; apologising to Goyle was something that he had never imagined he’d do one day. However, Draco couldn’t stand the apathy of his life any longer. He had to start somewhere, and he figured this was the best place to do it.
Still, if he had known he would end up meeting Goyle’s girlfriend instead, he wouldn’t have come at all.
“Mr Malfoy?”
It was too late to pretend he hadn’t seen her, so he gave her an awkward nod instead.
“Did you come to see Greg?” she asked.
It was so odd to hear someone call Goyle ‘Greg’. Although Draco had made up the nickname on the spot that fateful night, he hadn’t given it a second thought.
“Yes,” he said. “But if you have a date or something, I’ll leave.”
“Oh no, we don’t,” she said pleasantly. “It’s Greg’s off day, didn’t you know? He doesn’t do Thursdays.”
“Oh.” He hadn’t known that. “Then I’ll just go.”
“Would you mind having tea with me?” she asked him.
That unsettled him even more. He wasn’t sure if Goyle would fancy the idea of Draco having tea with his girlfriend, neither could he imagine why the girl would propose this in the first place.
“I have some work …”
“It won’t take long.”
She had a disarming smile, thought Draco, as her face lit up with it. Against his better judgement, he found himself saying “All right.”
They were headed to Feeny’s again. Draco wondered if this girl ate at any other place. That said, he preferred Feeny's, as the other option would have been the Leaky Cauldron, which he would rather avoid. He hated the stares people gave him.
Perhaps, the girl loved talking. She carried on a one-sided conversation on their way to the restaurant. Draco merely nodded and muttered something like an “ah” or “oh” as she narrated the details of her job at the apothecary. Apparently her uncle owned it, and from what Draco could tell, he was childless. He supposed she was angling to inherit it, but she also sounded enthusiastic about her work at the same time.
“Two cups of tea,” she told the waitress as soon as they were seated. Turning towards Draco, she asked, “You remember my name, don’t you?”
“Yes,” said Draco, a bit disconcerted by the abrupt change in topic. “Chloe Pucey, isn’t it?”
“Right.” She grinned. “You didn’t call me by my name, so I thought you’d forgotten it.”
Draco smiled “ stiffly “ not knowing where the conversation was going. “I tend not to call people by their first name,” he said, and then hastily added, “except for Greg.”
She raised her eyebrows before bursting into laughter. “Now, now, Mr Malfoy. No need to give me a performance. I knew you at school, even though you probably can’t say the same for me. You always called Greg ‘Goyle’.”
Flushing, Draco countered, “I don’t anymore “ ”
“I said you don’t have to lie,” she insisted. “It’s fine if you call him by his surname. I don’t mind, really. It’s not my place to mind.”
“I’m relieved,” Draco said. He was getting annoyed with the girl, and perhaps, a bit intimidated too.
“You seem to take offence,” she said, her eyes sparkling with challenge.
“Look!” Draco snapped. “If you don’t have anything of importance to discuss “”
“I do, in fact,” she cut in.
At that moment, the waitress arrived and gave them their tea. Draco didn’t spare his cup a glance, eager to leave, but the girl was taking her time, slowly stirring the drink in her cup and inhaling its aroma.
“You were saying?” he asked her.
“Greg likes you,” she said bluntly. “I can’t imagine why, but he looks up to you. He considers you a friend.”
Although touched, Draco asked, “So?”
She raised the cup to her lips and took a sip. “Have the tea, it’s wonderful,” she said. When Draco continued glaring, she sighed. “Mr Malfoy, I’m not here to start a fight. I just want to request you to let him be for once, okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“The fact that you were poking into his life,” she answered. “There was no need to spy on us.”
“I wasn’t “” He stopped when she rolled her eyes. “All right, fine! I was. He was being evasive, and I wanted to know what kind of girl you were for his good.”
“I see you love being dramatic,” she said, laughing softly. “He was evasive, yes, and why do you imagine that was? He was scared of disappointing you, see? I personally don’t think you’re a shining star, but to him, you’re a role model. He wasn’t sure you’d like me.”
Draco didn’t know what to say to that, so he picked up his cup, avoiding his turn to contribute to the conversation.
“Basically, I don’t give a damn whether you like me or not,” she continued, her tone still light and unaffected by any emotion other than amusement, “but to him, it matters for whatever it’s worth. So … be nice to him.”
“Are you suggesting I am not?” he asked defensively.
“Have you ever?” she dared him.
Draco looked away. “You … you know nothing,” he muttered.
“I don’t know everything,” she said. “But I know enough. And I was there at Hogwarts, Malfoy.” Draco registered the change in her address, but he didn’t comment, feeling sick all of a sudden. “I saw you. You weren’t exactly a paragon of healthy companionship.”
“Goyle didn’t mind,” said Draco.
“How would you know?” she asked him. “Did you think your bullying made him a better person?”
“I didn’t bully him!”
“Apparently, you don’t fully appreciate the concept of bullying.” She surreptitiously took out her wand and cast a Refilling Charm on the cup before diving into her lecture again. “What you did to Greg, how you treated him, was nothing better than how a wizard or a witch treats their house-elf.”
Draco did appreciate the implications of his actions. He did all too well, but he wasn’t going to cave in to this bizarre girl who had appeared out of nowhere. “You’re taking things a bit too far,” he said. “Goyle had his share of fun.”
“Fun?” she asked. “Well, I can assure you it isn’t fun for him anymore. He has … Sometimes, he can’t sleep, you see?”
“We all have nightmares.”
“You haven’t seen the scars on his body, Malfoy,” she snapped. “You have no idea what he had been doing to himself before he met me.”
“What do you mean?” asked Draco breathlessly.
“I was a Trainee Healer,” she said. “His mother brought him to St. Mungo’s. He had just been released from Azkaban, and he had begun torturing himself, wanting to die because he had these visions at night. I recognised him at the hospital, and you know what, I didn’t feel sorry at all.”
“How did I not know about this?” wondered Draco aloud. Then, he remembered. He had stayed in Italy with his parents for around two years. He hadn’t been aware at all.
“I’m not surprised by this rhetorical question,” she said. “In any case, I helped treat him, helped him get over it. But I left the job… Didn’t like it much. Then, I met him a year ago. I'd gone to order cauldrons from the store he works at. He had transformed to a certain extent. We started talking and I gradually began to like him.”
“Why?” asked Draco in honest perplexity.
“That is an unreasonable question,” she said, not meeting his eye for the first time, “but you may conclude however you wish.”
Draco knew the answer, but his lips wouldn’t utter it. Goyle was, when it came down to it, a simpleton who didn’t mind worshipping people. He wouldn’t have a problem adoring and doing whatever the vixen in front of Draco desired him to.
“He seems happy,” he said finally.
“He is,” she replied, brightening up somewhat. “So, now that we have cleared this up, we can go back to pretending we give a shit about each other for his sake.”
Draco was sitting at Feeny’s for the third time in a week. He had owled Goyle, and he hoped the man would turn up. If the latter didn’t … Well, in that case, Draco would have lost the sole person apart from his parents who wouldn’t lament the fact of his existence. He had courage and willpower enough to ask for forgiveness only once. So, it was now or never for the both of them.
To his relief, his friend lumbered in right on time and sat down on the chair opposite his.
“Anything wrong?” asked Goyle.
Something about Goyle’s conversation starter upset Draco; he sounded like he was almost waiting for an order. It was though he had forgotten about Draco’s recent crime and fallen back into the usual scheme of things.
“Nah, just fancied a drink,” said Draco.
“Oh. Right.”
Goyle looked as though he was at a loss. He was silent and he kept his eyes on his large hands, which were folded upon the table.
“I like her,” began Draco awkwardly.
It made Goyle look up. “For real?”
“She’s … very pretty,” said Draco. To be honest, Pucey did have a wonderful smile, even though she wasn’t really his type. “She looks fun.”
“She is,” said Goyle, who was now positively glowing with happiness.
“So,” drawled Draco, allowing himself to ease into his old self so that Goyle felt more comfortable, “what did you do to get her?”
“Nothing,” said Goyle. “We just talked sometimes at the store.”
“You sure you didn’t write her a rhyme? Like that horrid one which the dwarf delivered for Potter on Valentine’s Day in second year?”
Goyle chuckled; it had been one of their favourite things to laugh at.
“I can think of a perfect one,” said Draco. “Roses are red/Violets are Mauve/ Give us a kiss/ Or I'll shove you in a stove.”
Goyle was now guffawing, and Draco couldn’t help but chuckle a bit as well.
“I’m sorry about that night,” said Draco when their laughter had died down.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t! I really shouldn’t have done that.” Deciding to come clean, he added, “I … I like a girl.”
“Not Pansy?”
“For the love of Salazar, no,” cried Draco with a groan. “Did you know Daphne had a sister?”
“No,” said Goyle, puzzled. “I don’t even know what Daphne looks like no more.”
Draco heaved a sigh of relief and said, “Turns out she has one. My parents were trying to get me to marry her over a month ago.”
“If you like her …” said Goyle, confused.
“I hadn’t seen her,” explained Draco. “Besides, the first thing she said when we started talking was that she didn’t want to marry.”
“You … could say yes if you wanted.”
“Yeah, but then…” Draco paused; he didn’t really know what it was that had made him agree with her. “I didn’t want to force her, I suppose.”
Goyle played with the tall glass of mead which had just appeared on the table, his lips moving soundlessly as though he was struggling to say something helpful, but didn’t quite know what.
“I know where she works,” Draco continued. “Twilfit & Tattings. I wanted to go in and see her, you know, but I waited forever. I was too nervous. Then, she came out and I didn’t know what to say at all! Then, she left. I didn’t even ask her if I could owl her …”
Having nothing else to add, Draco raised his glass and downed half the mead in one go.
“I think …” said Goyle at last, still toying with the glass, “that you should talk more.”
“Hmmm?”
“You need to know her better.”
“I do, Goyle, I do.”
“Then go see her. Go to Twilfit and … whatsits.”
“Do I just walk in and start chatting with her?” asked Draco desperately. He finished the remaining half as Goyle took his time framing his response. His glass instantly refilled on its own and he took it up gratefully.
“I dunno,” said Goyle at last. He had some of his mead and then spoke up again, facing Draco. “When I started with Chlo-wee, we just talked about anything. Nothing very important. But … after some time, I knew what she liked. What she wanted. So … I changed.”
Draco drank some more, and said, “But … but you were already changed before you met her… or so I think.”
“I mean,” said Goyle, finishing off his mead, “I became … cleaner and all that. I got some new robes.”
“Right,” said Draco. “Right, I know what you mean.”
“And then … I liked her, so … but then, she asked me out, not me …”
“Wish I were that lucky,” moaned Draco.
“Just … talk.”
“Right, mate,” said Draco after a while. “Right. So, I talk to her. Find out what the hell she likes and wants. But dammit, how do I even begin to talk to her in the first place?”
Goyle didn’t answer as he watched his glass refill in delight. Clearly, the mead was more interesting than the woes of his friend’s non-existent love life. Draco, however, failed to register this loss of interest. He was lost in the excitement of an epiphany that had just hit him.
It was Pucey who had done the courting, not Goyle. He could picture her going to the warehouse every day, pretending she needed new cauldrons, and chatting up the innocent Goyle.
Later, when he got home that night, he opened his closet. He hadn’t bought new robes in a long time, having lost the desire to dress nicely as there were few left to impress. He decided he ought to get a few new ones now, and he knew exactly where to get them.
Because You Came by hestiajones
Chapter Endnotes: Credit for Draco's little rhyme goes to fabtastic Equinox Chick/Carole/Croll.