Breakfast at Natalie's

Draco Malfoy woke up one Sunday morning and went into the kitchen for a cup of coffee, only to discover that there wasn't any left in the pantry. He sighed. Might as well have breakfast in the café...

He exited the apartment and headed for the small café nearby. He passed a newspaper stand on the way and stopped to pick up the paper, tucking it under his arm. He pushed open the door of the café, the bell jingling merrily as he entered. He came here often enough that the waitresses recognized him and knew his order by heart. He gave a nod at the waitress named Emily and took a seat in his favorite corner.

"Good morning, Mr. Malfoy," said Emily, coming over to his table. She was the only waitress in the place who never called him by his first name.

"Good morning, Emily," he replied.

"The usual, I assume? Wheat toast with marmalade, scrambled eggs, and coffee?"

"Black," he said, nodding. "Wheat toast with scrambled eggs! Marmalade on the side!" she yelled to the cook. She turned back to him. "I'll be out with your coffee in just a moment."

She moved on to pass out menus to a family of four and then disappeared into the kitchen, her brown hair glinting in the morning sunlight.

Malfoy unfolded his newspaper and began to read. A few minutes later, Emily returned with his toast and poured him a cup of steaming hot coffee.

"Enjoy." She gave him a smile and went to serve the other customers.

He lifted the coffee to his lips and inhaled before taking a sip. It was bitter and burning hot, just the way he liked it. He munched on the toast while flipping through the newspaper, crumbs occasionally cascading across the pages.

A few minutes later, he raised the cup to his mouth and found that it was empty.

"Damn," he muttered, signaling to Emily.

"More coffee?"

"Yes, please. And I'd like the check as well."

A waitress that he'd never seen before came toward him with a pot of fresh coffee. Her waist-length, blonde hair obscured her face as she bent to pour his coffee.

"Natalie!' called a voice from behind the counter. The girl jumped so badly that hot coffee sloshed onto the table and soaked into Malfoy's pants. He yelped as the boiling liquid burned his skin.

"Bloody hell!" he cursed, leaping out of his seat.

The girl bit her lip, keeping her head down as she dabbed at the spill with napkins.

"Natalie?" Emily appeared next to them. "There you are. How many times have--oh, Natalie," she groaned, seeing the puddle of coffee.

"S-sorry," stammered the girl, looking up at him. Malfoy found himself gazing into a pair of gray-blue eyes not unlike his own--his mother's eyes. His anger vanished immediately.

"I'll take care of this," said Emily exasperatedly, mopping up the spill. "Sorry about that, Mr. Malfoy. She's new--I know that's no excuse--but, well, you see how she is."

Malfoy was still staring after the waitress named Natalie.

"Anyway," said Emily, handing him a slip of paper, "here's the check. Don't worry about leaving a tip. God, this is so embarrassing."

"No, no, it's fine," he said, taking out his wallet and leaving a tip despite Emily's protests.

"Have a nice day!" she called, as he left the café. Then she turned to Natalie, who was rearranging a stack of napkins. "You really ought to be more careful," she scolded. "He's one of our best customers."

"I'm sorry," said Natalie meekly.

"Whatever," sighed Emily, disappearing into the kitchen. Natalie leaned against the counter, watching the people outside pass by the window. Why had that man looked at her so strangely? Or perhaps she'd merely imagined it?

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Malfoy hurried back to his apartment, his heart pounding wildly. He went into his bedroom and stripped off the coffee-soaked clothing, tossing it into the hamper and changing into flannel pajamas. He flopped down in front of the blank TV screen, stretching out across the black, leather sofa.

What was her name? Nora? No, it was Natalie.

"Natalie, Natalie," he said to himself, hoping that saying her name over and over again might give him a clue as to who she was. But no matter how many times he chanted her name, he could not seem to remember ever meeting anyone named Natalie.

He had been thoroughly startled when their eyes had met. Her eyes were the exact shade and shape as his mother's eyes. With her long, blonde hair and thin stature, she closely resembled Narcissa Malfoy. At first, he'd thought she was his mother, that she'd come back to haunt him. But as he observed her carefully, he saw that though her face had the same features, they were softer and more rounded. She was also much younger. He wasn't great at estimating ages, but he would hazard a guess that she was somewhere in her mid-twenties.

He decided to place a call to his work partner, Charlie Jenkins. Charlie was three years younger than him. He was dark-haired, energetic, and quite the ladies' man. He was very intelligent and had an obsession with cars, so he did the driving when they were sent out on a mission.

They were both Aurors working for Kingsley Shacklebolt, a legendary Auror himself. Though he was only in his forties, he was too old to do field work, so he mostly sat around in the office, barking orders in his deep voice and buying lottery tickets.

"I'm going to win the lottery someday," he would say to them.

"Boss, you know it's pointless. You have a better chance of being struck by lightning."

"I've always been a lucky man. I don't think my luck will fail me now."

"Whatever you say, boss."

Malfoy dialed Charlie's number and waited for him to pick up.

"Hello?" came Charlie's voice.

"Charlie? This is Draco."

"Hey, buddy. What can I do for ya?"

"Well, you see, I saw this girl at the café--"

"--and let me guess...you fell in love with her and now you want to go out with her, but you don't have her number, so you're calling me because you think I have her number?" He chuckled. It was true--Charlie did seem to know a fairly large variety of people. He was what you would call "well-connected."

"Something like that," said Malfoy, not wanting to reveal his real purpose.

"What's her name?" Malfoy could hear Charlie flipping through his mini-address book. He could've saved himself a lot of time and energy by using magic to keep track of records, but he preferred to do it this way.

"Natalie," said Malfoy into the speaker, his palms sweating.

"Natalie...hmm..."

"I don't know her last name."

"Neither do I," said Charlie, his voice crackling on the other end of the line. "It seems that I'm not acquainted with any Natalies."

"Oh," said Malfoy, disappointed.

"But say, you wanna meet me at the BR tonight for a couple drinks? I'm sure there's plenty of gorgeous girls there."

The BR stood for the Billiard Room, a favorite pub of theirs where Charlie frequently hit on girls and tried to hook Malfoy up with one of them.

"Sure, why not?" agreed Malfoy.

"Great." Malfoy could hear the glee in Charlie's voice. "Eight o'clock sound okay?"

"Yeah," said Malfoy. "See you there."

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At a quarter to eight, Malfoy put on a jacket and hailed a cab. He stepped inside the dimly lit bar and found Charlie already waiting for him.

"Two beers, please," said Charlie, winking at the pretty barmaid.

"Right away, sir."

"Charlie..." said Malfoy reproachfully.

"What?" he said, looking around innocently.

"You're doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"Flirting," said Malfoy.

"So?" he said shrugging.

"You're almost a married man. Don't you think you should exercise some restraint?"

The barmaid arrived with their drinks and Malfoy took a small sip of his beer. He actually wasn't very fond of beer, but he drank it to appease Charlie.

"Liz knows I'm a player," said Charlie, referring to his fiancée. "And besides, I've only got what, two and a half months left of my flirting career? I should savor it."

"Are you ever going to grow up, Charlie?" said Malfoy, shaking his head.

"Someday. Maybe when Kingsley wins the lottery." They both laughed.

"He's hopeless," said Malfoy. "I keep trying to convince him to give up on it."

"It's okay, just let him think that he's going to win it. Every man needs a reason to live." They sat in silence for a few minutes, observing the billiards game in the adjacent room. "So, Draco," said Charlie. "Tell me about this girl you met."

"What girl?"

"The one you called me about. Annalise, or whatever her name was."

"Natalie," he corrected. "Her name is Natalie."

"Fine, whatever. Natalie. What's she like? Is she pretty?"

"She's shorter than I am," said Malfoy, trying to remember what she looked like. "Blonde hair that goes down to her waist. Skinny."

"Sounds like a hottie."

"And she's got my mother's eyes," said Malfoy quietly.

"Whoa," said Charlie. "Say that again."

"She reminds me of my mother," said Malfoy. "They have the same facial features, except she looks less hostile. She's timid, just like my mother was before she..." He trailed off. Before Narcissa Malfoy died, she'd become increasingly paranoid and jumpy, believing that everyone was an Auror coming to arrest her. In the end, she couldn't take it anymore, and she swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills that she pilfered from a small Muggle pharmacy. She died peacefully, and Malfoy was glad that she no longer had to suffer.

"Hold on," said Charlie. "You like this girl because she looks like your mother?"

"I never said I liked her. I just wanted to know who she was."

"Oh," said Charlie broodingly. "D'you think you're related?"

"She's not on my family tree," said Malfoy. He had dug out the old family albums in his apartment, but there was no mention of anyone named Natalie.

"Maybe it's just a coincidence," said Charlie, finishing his beer. "I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of people who look like her."

"You don't understand," said Malfoy, frustrated. "She has the exact same eyes."

"Okay, whatever, Draco." He still sounded skeptical.

"Look, Charlie, if you don't believe me, come 'round to my place next week and I'll take you to the café."

"Sure, sure," said Charlie nodding. He glanced at his watch. "Liz is waiting. Catch ya later, mate."

"Yeah, see ya." They paid for their drinks and then went their separate ways.

Malfoy had to get up for work the net day, so he brushed his teeth and went to bed. On the way to his room, he grabbed the old family album he'd left out on the coffee table and took it to bed. He slowly flipped through the pages, reliving his childhood that seemed so long ago. His fingertips lingered over familiar faces, and he fell asleep with the picture in his lap, his mother waving up at him from inside the frame.