The Oddest of Couples

He would have recognised her anywhere.

Yes, it had almost been a decade since he had seen her, but the moment he spotted her tall, slim figure weaving down Diagon Alley, he had felt the familiar flutter in his chest that he had always experienced when he saw her.

Pushing through the crowd, hastily apologising for any toes he was trampling on as he tried to catch up with her, he kept his eyes on the silvery-blonde hair that hung down to her waist.

Her most distinct feature.

A grin quirked his lips up.

Most distinct feature among other things.

He saw her walking at a leisurely pace further down the street and scrambled after her, determined that now - no longer a stammering schoolboy - he would get some closure on the issue he had had with her.

Issue.

Mad, passionate crush was a closer description.

Almost knocking a witch off his feet, he paused to steady her and turned to look for the woman he was following.

"Damnit!"

The witch beside him made an indignant sound and scuttled off into the crowd, as the red-haired man rapidly scanned the street for any sign of the stunning woman, but she was gone.

"Bugger," he groaned. "Typical."

Searching out the spot that he had last seen her, he continued down the street in that direction, hoping that he would glimpse her, determined to talk to her like a civilised adult and finally squash the last traces of the crush he had.

There was no trace of her.

It was as if she had vanished into thin air and that... well, that bollixed the plan for slide-tackling her, pinning her down and telling her, in no uncertain terms, that "No, I don´t fancy you anymore, even if you´re gorgeous, a sexy-as-hell Ice-Queen, your arse is stunning, you have the most snoggable mouth ever."

Slapping a hand futilely against the wall, the red-haired man made his way glumly back towards the Leaky Cauldron, wondering if it would be such a crime to drown his crush in several too many Firewhiskys.

After all, he had finished the jobs he had to do in Diagon Alley, delivering various important dispatches by hand to different Ministry workers, in numerous offices, to ensure they arrived all right.

The Ministry owls were all getting on a bit and were in dire need of either a break or retirement. Recently one had apparently ended up in Tibet when it was just meant to be going `To Bette´, a woman working seven streets away.

It only took a few minutes to get back to the small pub and he shuffled in, throwing himself dejectedly on the stool in front of the bar.

"Ello, Mr. Weasley!" Tom said. "What can I get for you?"

"Firewhisky, lots of," he replied, folding his arms on the counter and burying his head in them and trying to imagine how wonderful the world would be if something could just go right for him for once.

"Ah... one of those days?"

"Nguh..."

His head was still lying on the counter when Tom returned, the bottle thumping down on the counter along with a glass, the coolness radiating from the chilled bottle against the side of his hand.

Unwilling to move even to get drunk, he settled for wrapping his hand around the bottle and just lay there.

That is, until a voice spoke in his ear.

"May I pour you a drink?"

The red-haired man had never moved faster in his life, jerking upright and staring in astonishment at the woman standing beside him, smiling slightly at the stunned look on his face.

"You!"

"Yes?" she inquired with amusement, her expression suggesting she was having problems hiding a smile. "I saw you following me, outside."

"Um..."

He almost shot out of his seat, as if he had touched an electric cable, when one of her hands came to rest on his leg, warm through the material of his trousers and dangerously close to the top of his thigh.

"I did not mind," she purred, gazing at him from beneath half-closed lids. "You have grown a lot since we last met."

That was true. It had been a decade earlier, when he had been a teenager, in the year of the Tri-Wizard tournament, the thing he remembered that year for along with the Quidditch World Cup.

There was a great difference between a fourteen-year-old and a twenty-four year old.

"Ah... well... er..."

"Shall we drink?" she asked. Her hand palpated his thigh and whatever answer he was about to form went sailing out the window as he blinked mutely at her.

Even though ten years had passed, she was still as stunning as she had been the first time he saw her. Her eyes were a little more mature, her figure fuller in the right places but everything else... perfect as he remembered it.

And no wedding ring.

A definite plus.

"Drink?" he squeaked. Squeaked? Oh Merlin! How manly!

Mind you, he was utterly justified in the way that his mind was currently turning into a dribble of useless mush.

After all, one of the women that almost every boy in his Gryffindor year had admitted lusting over at some point was standing beside him, her hand on his inner thigh, her hair brushing his shoulder.

"You know what a drink is, don´t you?" Her hand moved up a little and his eyes went very round, the seam of his trousers brushing against the edge of her fingers. A smirk lifted her lips. "Unless you would prefer to do something else..."

He squeaked again.

Dear Merlin, this was humiliating.

"Shall I take that as a yes?" she asked, leaning a little closer to him.

"Ah... er... well..."

"Walk with me," she suggested, lifting her head and hand and moving gracefully away from him, her nose in the air. It was that imperious pose that prevented half the men in the bar from approaching her.

Scrambling to his feet, his trousers suddenly rather tight in a certain region, he shambled after her wondering if it were possible for him to look any more like a whipped puppy, trailing after its mistress.

Lead through the side door and into the private corridors of the Leaky Cauldron´s residencies, he found himself pinned up against the wall, the woman´s face less than an inch from his own.

"Why me?" she asked huskily, staring up at him.

"Y-y-y-you´re gorgeous..."

Her lips curved in a smile. "Is that all?"

"Um..."

One of her manicured hands spread on his chest. "Is it because I´m older than you?" she asked, her eyes still holding his. "More experienced? Could it be because I am mysterious? Elusive?"

"Um... all of the above?"

Her eyes glittered with amusement. "A good answer," she murmured, trailing her fingertip under his chin. "And why, Mister Weasley, would I have a reason to be interested in you?"

"Well... er..." Fishing around for a witticism, he shrugged. "You know what they say about tall men..."

"Enlighten me."

"Er... actually, I don´t know, but it sounded like a good thing to say."

She laughed, a gentle, tinkling sound. "You make me laugh," she murmured, holding his chin lightly in her hand. "It has been many years since I have had someone who could make me laugh."

"Um..."

"So very amusing," she cooed, rising on her toes and brushing a kiss across his lips. "Many do not...appreciate if a man can make you laugh." Another kiss touched his chin. "I admire it... desire it..."

The red-haired man made another strangely pathetic squeaking noise in his throat, his brown eyes wide open, as her mouth covered his, her lips soft, sweet and pliant.

Hesitantly, his hands rose to her hips and he drew her closer, as she deepened the kiss, leading him where his wildest fantasies had only ever taken him before, her hands combing through his hair.

The kiss broke, leaving him panting and flushed.

"You have a devilish tongue," she whispered, licking his lower lip.

"Look who's talking," he retorted, grinning down at her.

"What is it?"

"I was just imagining," he said, chuckling. "The look on your son´s face if he finds out the son of one of his dead dad´s worst enemies, has been snogging his mother. If I didn´t know better, I´d say you were trying to piss him off."

"Why," she asked with a seductive smile, as she pushed the young man back against the wall, "do you think I deliberately chose you? My son is too like his father. He needs a little... shock, to remind him that he is merely mortal."

"So I´m a shock tactic?"

Narcissa Malfoy shrugged. "You could call it that," she replied, tracing the curve of his lip with her fingertip. "Or you could say sex-toy..."

Ron Weasley briefly contemplated the thought of both getting laid with a stunning blond and scaring the crap out of Draco Malfoy.

Beaming, he replied, "Sounds good!"