Just Stay There {Drarry}

Chapter seventeen

They roamed the aisles of the clothing store with no particular goal. Malfoy occasionally held up a shirt to him, then clucked his tongue and put it back. They'd been wandering for about ten minutes when Malfoy finally decided to speak.

"You're awfully hard to shop for Harry Potter, you know that?" he said, cramming yet another insignificant cardigan back onto the racks.

"Well you're the one who decided we needed to go shopping in the first place." Harry grumbled, turning to the rack of clothes behind them.

Malfoy grunted behind him, and further rustling could be heard, as Malfoy looked at every single goddamn cardigan in the bloody store. It wasn't like Harry would object to wearing a cardigan. He wouldn't object to wearing most things. He'd already carved out a much broader acceptance of clothes than he had had at the beginning of summer.

His jumper was tied around his waist, Malfoy still donned his. Maybe that was why the other boy was so grumpy. It was summer after all, and the slight chill from outside was now thoroughly buried under an air-conditionless store.

"No this isn't it either," the pureblood muttered, finishing off an entire rack of cardigans. He grabbed Harry's wrist, and started to walk him to the other side of the store.

The first time that Malfoy had done that at the strawberry field, had pretty much set Harry off kilter for about five minutes trying to process it. Now, Harry knew it was Malfoy's way of saying 'hurry up, let's go over here now,'. He let himself be dragged to the distinctly more 'girly' side of the shop.

They got weird looks from passersby. It probably was quite a sight to see two male teenagers rummaging around in the women's section. Malfoy didn't seem to mind, and kept dragging him to yet another display for cardigans. Apparently they were going to search every last one until Malfoy found one he liked. Whether it was meant for females or not.

Then it hit him.

Malfoy didn't know the difference between the two sections.

He cleared his throat, and pulled his wrist out of Malfoy's grip. "Uh, Malfoy?"

Malfoy hummed, and continued to route around the display. He didn't even glance up.

"You do know this is the girl's section, right?"

Malfoy paused his search and turned towards Harry. "Is it? Looks much the same to me. Less quality fabrics but the same."

"Well it is," Harry said, glancing around at the other shoppers. Now that the initial gawking was done with, they all just sent him and Malfoy curious looks every minute or two.

"Does that bother you?" Malfoy said, as he turned back to the various jumpers and cardigans.

"Erm, not- kind of?" Harry said, feeling his face flushing. He hated it when his mouth betrayed him and started stuttering.

"You seem awfully unsure," Malfoy said, with a light smile on his face. "Here hold these," he said, shoving two similar looking cardigans into his arms.

"What am I? Your personal coat rack?" Harry muttered, holding onto the clothes anyway.

"Why? Are you offering?" Malfoy said cheekily.

Harry scoffed loudly, and let his slight annoyance be known by kicking Malfoy lightly in the shin. The pureblood only snorted, and continued searching. A few steps away from him, Harry noted. Out of kicking range. Damn it.

He slung the sweaters over his forearm anyway, and watched as Malfoy examined each cardigan pickily.

Come to think of it, he rarely ever put up a fight with this 'new' Malfoy. Now that Malfoy wasn't being such a biased prick, he actually was... kinda nice. Not once, had he even uttered the word 'mudblood'. Harry didn't have much to protest about these days. He was being integrated into a completely bizarre social circle, yet he hardly minded at all.