A Redheaded Evans

Julia was glad when classes finally ended for the day. She had escaped unscathed during her history class with Nicola. The professor, Vincent, had called the students by their first names only, so Nicola hadn't known that Julia was called out of her usual alphabetical order. Julia was actually looking forward to the class; her father was British and she had been raised in the British education system, so she loved British history. She wondered how much muggle history Draco knew of his own country.

Nicola caught up with her after class. "Hey, can we use your place to game tonight?"

Julia nodded. "Sure."

"Listen, how is Draco? The last time I saw him was about a month ago. His parents kicked him out of the house and he was just so lost." Nicola's mouth pinched into a worried frown. "I was so worried about him. How did he end up here?"

"He knew this place from you," Julia said; it wasn't really a lie.

"Do you think he'll get along with Tony all right? He really seems to hate Tony a lot, and we never really talked about him." Nicola frowned, puzzled.

"Well, he has been living with me for a month. But you know Draco - he's a Malfoy, and they have perfect manners." Julia did a scarily accurate imitation of Draco's patented 'Malfoy Smirk', and both girls laughed.

"We'll be over at around seven. Is that all right?" Nicola said once they'd calmed down.

Julia nodded, and she headed for home. It would be another couple of hours before Draco got home, so she decided to get some reading done.

Draco arrived home from work on time. He went straight to his room to change out of his uniform, then made his way quietly back to the den. Julia was curled up on one end of the sofa, a blanket pooling at her waist while she read Paradise Lost. He leaned in the doorway and just enjoyed the vision of her. To most people she was a plain redheaded girl, but to Draco she was beautiful and vibrant. He hadn't been jesting when he'd told Lisa that he loved Julia earlier. He really was in love with her. He'd been slowly falling in love with her through his letters over the years, but now that he was with her every day, he fell over and over again. He smiled sadly at his own pathetic state. Here he was, the heir of the Malfoy family name and fortune, and the girl he was in love with had married him out of pity, out of sympathy.

Julia looked up and gasped.

Draco pulled himself out of his reverie and smirked. "I get that from a lot of women."

She pulled herself into a sitting position. "I didn't even hear you come in."

Draco nodded at her book. "That must be interesting."
Julia smiled. "It's fascinating, actually. How was your day at work?"

"Better than most, now that I can come see you every day at lunch," he said, sitting next to her on the sofa. "Not that I couldn't do it over the summer, but Robert suggested it today. Karen's really not a bad girl, but it's ingrained into her to flirt like mad, and sometimes it's really a nuisance."

Julia slid a hand over his. Draco wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her, but she thought he was uncomfortable with physical contact and so kept her touches fleeting and gentle. Draco wasn't uncomfortable; he was too comfortable - and worried about what he would do if she became comfortable with him.

"Draco, I have something to ask you - but you don't have to answer if you don't want to."

He blinked at her serious tone.

She book marked her book and set it aside. "I know what happened with your father and mother, but...how do you feel about it? What will happen to you?"

Draco sighed. "Ah. Well. I never really talked about it, did I?"

Julia bit her lip, looking worried.

Draco stroked the back of her hand gently with his thumb. "No need to be worried, Julia. I expect that my father, the devious Malfoy that he is, may find some way to beget another heir upon my mother before he is executed. Then they can disown me as they've always wanted to and ensure that the Malfoy fortune stays with the proper bloodline."

"That's horrible!" Julia cried.

"What is?"

"That you can think of yourself as so expendable, as an object rather than a person."

Draco shrugged. "That's how aristocratic families are. Children are just tools to gain power and dominance. You read my letters - I was nothing once I refused to fully follow the footsteps of my father."

"And what of the world you left behind? The war?" Julia asked softly.

Draco closed his eyes. "There was something I didn't tell you in my letters, something no one knows." He swallowed hard.

Julia's hand on his tightened. "You're safe here, Draco."

He opened his eyes once he had full control of himself. "Remember that I'm part-veela? That's the reason I'm so precious to my father. That's why the Malfoys are so powerful. You see, the Dark Lord has a form, but it is a weak form. A temporary form made with dark magic. The Dark Lord bred my parents - " Julia flinched at the word 'bred' - "specifically to have me. And he can do it again if they think they've lost me. You see, when I came of age, I was to take the Mark with my father and the Dark Lord would use me as a vessel."

Julia stared at him in horror.

Draco bowed his head when he saw her expression. "Now you know the truth. The great Malfoy I profess to be is a lie. I am just a shell, a tool to be used as the Dark Lord sees fit."

Julia placed warm fingers under his chin and lifted his head, meeting his gaze steadily. "I'm not ashamed of you, Draco. I'm horrified that your parents would sell you for power."

"I said it before, to aristocrats children are - "

"That may be true, but that doesn't mean it's right," she said firmly. "I care about you, Draco. You're not just some vessel for an old, decrepit wizard to parade around in."

He nodded and avoided her gaze again.

"Draco, what's wrong?"

"Don't you see? Whatever young sibling I have will be subject to the same fate."

"It's not your fault!" Julia cried. She wrapped her arms around him and dragged him into a tight embrace. Draco gasped at the sudden contact and closed his eyes, willing himself to stay in control.

"You're human, Draco," she whispered in his ear, holding him tightly. "You're Draco before you are a Malfoy. And I don't care if you've abandoned that war. All I care is that you're happy and here with me."
Draco swallowed hard. He hadn't fought tears like this in years. She was so naïve, she didn't understand the ramifications of the war, didn't understand that he had fled like a confused coward. He should have gone with his mother and stopped her from seeing his father, done what he could -

"No, Draco, no, don't blame yourself," Julia whispered.

Draco blinked. Had he spoken aloud?

Julia just held him tightly.

The doorbell rang, startling them out of their embrace.

Julia cast Draco a worried look, but he waved her off and so she rose up to answer the door.

"This was pretty easy to find." Fiona and Andy were the first to appear.

Julia let them in. "Welcome to the humble abode."

Fiona surveyed the house. "You've got a nice place here. So do we get to meet the roommate?" She giggled.

Julia led them into the den where Draco was sitting, looking dignified, as if nothing had happened between them the past few hours. She wondered if he would ever be able to drop his Malfoy façade.

"Hello again," Andy said, waving.

"Draco, this is Fiona. She and Andy are in my French class."

Draco rose up smoothly and caught Fiona's right hand. He bowed low and kissed it. "Enchanté."

Fiona giggled. "Hey. I like him."

Draco flashed her a charming smile.

"Have a seat," Julia said, trying to remember her mother's hostess lessons. "Can I get anyone anything to drink?"

Andy held up a pack of Red Bull, and Fiona held up a two-liter bottle of root beer.

"We came prepared," Andy said. He and Fiona sat down on the sofa. Draco sat down in the armchair next to the desk.

"So do you game?" Fiona asked.

Julia noted the interested way Draco watched as Fiona and Andy set up their character sheets, dice and pencils. She hurried from the room to grab her own gaming gear and when she returned she found Draco managing to keep a very calm composure while Fiona and Andy pawed through his book collection.

"What the heck is Herbology?" Fiona asked.

"A basic study of the magical and healing properties of plants," Draco said.

Andy ran his fingers down the spine of one of the leather-bound tomes. "These are really nice."

"I value my books." Draco smiled.

The doorbell rang again, and this time Nicola and Steven appeared.

"Glad someone's on time," Fiona teased. "There's something wrong when our Storytellers show up after the players."
Steven looked at his nonexistent watch and shrugged. "Ehh. We're still not late."

"Hello, Nicola," Draco said. "I presume this is the Steven about whom I heard whole summers' worth of moping?"

Nicola blushed.

Steven said, "Hello. You must be Julia's new roommate."
The two of them shook hands. Julia noted the odd way Steven eyed Draco, and she remembered that Steven was a pagan the same way Nicola was, and that Steven sensed things other people didn't.

"Did anyone bring food to bribe the storyteller?" Nicola asked, sitting down on one of the chairs.

Steven remained standing next to her. "That's cheap. I hope you know that."

Nicola smiled innocently up at him. "But it's a way for me to get chocolate."

"You do know that I can just buy you chocolate, right?"

Nicola leaned up and gave him a brief but tender kiss.

"They look very sweet," Draco said softly, near Julia's ear.

Was it just her imagination, or did he actually sound wistful?

Lisa and Kenneth arrived and there was another round of introductions, and the group of friends stood around chatting, catching up with the parts of each other's lives that they'd missed over the summer.

"You'd better be nice," Nicola and Julia warned Draco, who smiled innocently when the doorbell rang for the last time.

Draco saw Tony first, and would have recognized him anywhere from the descriptions Julia had given him. Blue eyes met gray from across the room, and hostility sparked instantly. Draco smirked to himself.

Jealous, are we, Tony? But he shook hands with the young man all the same, maintaining a polite demeanor. He hadn't been lying when he'd told Julia that Malfoys had perfect manners.

Christie reminded Draco of Pansy Parkinson in an odd way. Christie had plain brown hair and dull brown eyes and unremarkable features, but the way her gaze slid over him sparked familiar uncomfortable feelings.

"So, does everyone know everyone now?" Julia asked.

The young adults exchanged glances and nodded.

"All right, then let's get started. One group can stay here in the den, and the other can go into the kitchen," Julia said.

Nicola glanced at Steven, and something passed between them before they shrugged, wearing twin expressions of indifference. Draco had never seen this side of Nicola, and he was glad that Steven made her so happy.

"We'll take the kitchen," Steven said. "Come on, gang, let's go." Lisa, Christie and Tony filed out of the den after him, leaving Kenneth, Andy and Fiona to settle themselves on the furniture.

"Are you just going to watch?" Kenneth asked.

Draco nodded, leaning forward and resting his chin in his hand.

Nicola took a bit of time arranging her papers. "Okay. Now just remind me who all of your characters are again - name and clan and personality and whatnot."

Fiona glanced over her character sheet. "I'm a Ventrue, eleventh generation, a politician in my original life. My name is Cordell, and I am a wealthy, manipulative bastard."

Andy cracked his knuckles and cackled. "I am Christian, a twelfth generation Malkavian. I hear voices of children begging me to go play when I am in my madness. I have the most humanity, and massive willpower to counter true faith. I am most like my old human self, an ordinary high school boy."

Kenneth arranged his dice as he spoke. "I am Callum, an tenth generation Tremere. I'm a sly, greedy coot who sells my magic for money."

Draco blinked when Julia spoke, for it was with an arrogant drawl the same as his own. "I am Quinn, an eighth generation Toreador assassin. I am a monster in nature, but a soldier in demeanor. And remember - you have problems with me."

Nicola frowned, scribbling notes. "What sort of problems?"

"I have a four in appearance." Julia smirked.

Draco was intrigued at the changes that came over the four players; it was as if they had all become different people.

Nicola shuffled through her notes. She glanced up at her players. "So all of you are male?"

They nodded. Draco was surprised - they didn't have to keep to their own genders when they were playing?

Nicola sighed. "And three of you have names that begin with a C. Original, really." She picked up one of her dice and rolled it. She studied the number that landed face up, then scanned her players. "Cordell, let's start with you."

Fiona nodded.

"You're sitting in a bar in New York City. It's a more expensive bar with a subdued atmosphere. Dim lighting. The sort of place where the Wall Street tycoons go for an hour or so after work. Only it's a weekend and late after sundown and so the bar holds some partying people, rich kids. You recognize some of the people mingling as Toreadors. What do you want to do?"

Fiona considered for a moment. "Well, I'm going to order a midori sour and lean back against the bar. Who's the nearest Toreador?"

"A very good-looking boy with jet-black hair and vivid blue eyes. He's wearing all black, leather and vinyl. And he's sipping a soda," Nicola answered.

"I'm going to catch his eye and idly play with my clan insignia pin, make it flash so he sees it." Fiona grinned.

"Okay, Quinn, you see the Ventrue at the bar looking at you. What are you going to do?"

Julia smiled slowly. "I'm going to take my drink and go stand at the bar near him." She turned to Fiona and said, "What brings you to the feeding grounds of the Toreadors, snob? Or are you so desperate for a social life that you finally decided to drag yourself away from your dusty account books?"

Fiona replied, in an equally haughty voice, "Even if you are a Toreador, I've heard of you, and you're not really the partying type. No one to eviscerate?"

"Are you offering?"

"I doubt you could kill me."

"I was asking if you had someone you wanted eviscerated, and if you would like me to do the eviscerating."

Draco was fascinated. Fiona and Julia were fantastic actresses. It was almost like being back at Hogwarts and listening to the other snobs in his house bantering. Nicola skillfully maneuvered all four of them into the same area, and then introduced a character of her own - what she called an NPC - told the four players that she had a job for them. Once all four of them agreed to the job, they set about attempting to complete it. They had a person to kill, something to steal and then someone to kidnap, all in one night. The four characters clashed and connected in fascinating ways. When men and women randomly stopped Julia's character to hit on him chaos ensued, and when Andy's character randomly went mad more chaos ensued. During their first fight, all five were kind enough to explain the dice system to Draco, explaining what they were rolling and why, and what the results meant when it was all said and done. Draco was enthralled by the way in which the five of them wove the story, felt that he could almost see it coming to life before him.

About an hour and a half later, Nicola called for a food break. Everyone crowded into the kitchen and Julia divvied up the snacks that everyone had brought.

"So are you enjoying it so far?" Andy asked.

Draco nodded. "It's really quite fascinating. I'm not sure about the dice still, but all of you are fantastic actors. And Nicola is a wonderful storyteller."

"Would you ever play?" Fiona asked.

"For now, I think I'll just watch." Draco smirked at her disappointed expression.

Steven's cell phone rang, so he headed outside to take the call. Then Andy's cell phone rang, followed by Fiona's and Nicola's, so a small group was left in the kitchen.

"Electronic leashes," Lisa said, shaking her head. "So Draco, where in England are you from?"

"I grew up on the moors in the north, but spent seven years at a boarding school in the heights of the Lake District," he said.

"Boarding school? Why did your parents send you there? Did they not like you or something?" Kenneth asked.

Draco lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. "My parents would have sent me there whether they liked me or not."

Christie giggled. "Did you have to wear a really dorky school uniform?"

Julia frowned worriedly, but Draco said smoothly, "I thought I looked particularly good in my uniform, but some people didn't look good in their own house colors."

"So are you an only child, or what?" Tony asked.

Draco saw the challenge in those eyes. He wouldn't back down. If Draco were forced to admit it, and only under veritaserum would it even be possible, he would admit that Tony was good-looking in the same unconventional way that Harry Potter was. But Tony was distinctively not as nice - not that Draco had ever cared how nice Potter was.

"My parents had a difficult time conceiving, so yes, I am an only child, and unless some other miracle happens, will be for the foreseeable future." Draco reached up to push his hair out of his eyes. He had given up gelling it back years ago, but it was so fine and fluffy that it always fell into his eyes, obscuring his vision.

"That explains a lot," Tony muttered.

Draco arched an eyebrow. "Really? What does it explain?"

Julia and Lisa flinched at his haughty drawl.

Tony waved a hand. "Oh, nothing, nothing."

"Yes, I can see how that's what you would think of." Draco turned to Lisa and said, "Would you pass the milk, please?"

It took a moment for the insult to sink in, and Draco felt himself on the receiving end of a particularly vicious glare.

"So Draco, this school that you went to, what did it teach you?" Christie asked.

Draco could feel the animosity emanating from her as well, obviously in defense of Tony.

Draco shrugged. "A little bit of this, a little bit of that, how to offer cake or death in the same sentence and make it all sound polite."

Kenneth, Lisa and Julia burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" Christie asked.

"Cake or death!" they chorused, still giggling.

Draco just stared at his wife and her friends when they began chanting, "Tea and cake or death, tea and cake or death. Little red cookbook, little red cookbook."

Tony rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. "Eddie Izzard."
Draco frowned. "Who?"

"You're from England and you don't know who Eddie Izzard is?" Kenneth cried.

"Not everyone listens to your favorite professional transvestite," Lisa said, patting his arm.

"So Draco, what does your father do?" Christie asked.

Draco kept his expression calm. "He used to have a rather boring government job, but now he is...deceased."

Julia cast a worried look at him.

"How did he die?" Tony asked.

"Killed. Execution style."

Christie raised an eyebrow. "You seem pretty calm about it."

"I've had time to reconcile myself with that old bastard's departure." Draco sipped his milk.

"I take it you didn't like your father," Kenneth observed.

"I don't think that my mother even liked my father," Draco drawled.

"You come from a lovely family," Lisa said sarcastically.

"So what does your mother do now that your father is dead?" Tony was munching his way through a bag of Doritos.

"She doesn't really have to do anything. I suppose she could take up his post, but between her ancestral fortune and his she'll never have to work another day until she dies." Draco crossed the kitchen and rinsed out his glass before putting it into the dishwasher.

"Your family's that rich? And what do you do, then?" Tony challenged.

"I have a job. Enough to pay for my half of things around here. I study what pleases me and when the last of my family dies I suppose I shall have to take up residence in the drafty pile of stones more fondly known as the family manor and carry on the lovely Malfoy line." Draco's tone was still drawling, but it had taken a sarcastic edge.

"Malfoy," Kenneth mused. "That's a French name, isn't it?"

Draco smiled, not nicely. Julia looked very worried, and Draco realized that he would have to end this topic of conversation before the others came in. "Yes, once upon a time it was. It means 'bad faith'."

Tony raised his eyebrows. Draco would probably end up talking to him later. He knew there was baseless animosity. Draco had faced down more shrewd, cold-blooded aristocratic children than this Tony had ever met, and Draco had sent each of them away with tattered pride. Tony would not survive if push came to shove.

"So did you have fun?" Julia asked once everyone else had left.

Draco smiled. "Yes. I can see why you and Nicola enjoy those games so much. But I still don't think I can bring myself to play."
Julia pretended to pout for a moment. "That's too bad. Thank you for behaving, by the way."

Draco's eyes darkened. "I did what I could, but the next time that prat gets in my face he's going to find out why we Malfoys ruled in an unholy dynasty."

Julia cringed. "I know I hate him, but you don't have to hate him too."

"I don't hate him because you do," Draco assured her. "I hate him simply because he warrants no other response." He was startled when a yawn bubbled out of him, and he immediately lifted a hand to cover his mouth.

Julia chuckled and prodded him in the ribs. "Go to sleep, Dray. I'll see you tomorrow."

He raised his eyebrows at the nickname. "I thought my name couldn't get any shorter."

"I have to have some sort of ridiculous pet name or nickname for you. After all, you're my husband."

Draco felt a frisson of shock when she leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. Then she planted a hand in the small of his back and propelled him in the direction of his room.

"Bed. Now."

He made a show of imperious indignation, but in the end succumbed to her wishes and brushed his teeth and washed his face. He changed into his pajamas and turned off the light before climbing into bed.

He lay on the narrow mattress, staring up at the blank ceiling, and heard the shower come on through the wall.

Did she not realize what she did to him, with her fleeting touches and sudden gentle kisses? Draco had enjoyed watching her play, not just because she was a fantastic actress but also because it made her happy to play. Being with her friends and talking her way into and out of crazy antics had brought a light to her eyes that Draco fiercely wished he could give to her.

What would the other students at Hogwarts have said if they had known that the great Draco Malfoy, Prince of Slytherin, muggle-hater extraordinaire, was in love with a simple American girl with no magic in her veins? He wanted to laugh suddenly, loud and hysterically at the top of his voice.

He fell asleep with a pair of shining green eyes dancing across his eyelids.