Learn to Love » Draco Malfoy x Reader

XVII

"This is a little excessive, y/n," Daphne rolled her eyes.

Poor girl, I had dragged her around every dress shop that the wizarding world had to offer. We even ended up using floo powder to jump from place to place.

"I have to find an outfit suitable for this Slughorn party," I mumbled, pushing dresses to the side on the rack I was looking at. Tons looked fine; some floral, neutral, shorter, longer. But none of them quite spoke to me.

"I'm not even invited to the party," she huffed, "I'm getting tired, too. Just meet up with Theo again outside and he can help you find something."

"Daphne! I need your opinion. I can't ask a man... especially not Theo for this. He's got no sense of style," I forced a chuckle, trying to put a smile on my unhappy best friend's face.

She was having none of it. Her arms crossed over her chest and annoyed expression said it all: she wanted to go back to our room. "Look, I can go grab Theo for you, he's just next door. I really don't want to just wander around, especially since I'm not shopping for anything."

As much as I wanted to convince her to stay and help me look some more, I knew she wasn't interested. I felt like we hadn't seen much of each other lately, and despite the fact we lived in the same dorm room and told each other everything, I still missed having her around and doing fun things together. Cleary, this wasn't fun to her, though.

"Fine," I gave in, a half-hearted smile playing on my lips that she didn't bother reciprocating. "You can just go back. I'll wait for Theo myself. He's just picking up his clothes, anyway."

For the first time all afternoon she looked relieved. I can't say I blamed her, I'd get bored just accompanying her shopping too. I made a mental note to plan something fun for the two of us sometime soon.

I followed her outside and bid her goodbye before she Floo'd back to Hogwarts, leaving me to wander into the men's dress shop and wait for Theo to collect his clothes. We all came together, but split off when I needed to buy a dress and Theo just needed to pick his up that he ordered a few days prior. The shop looked rather busy, though, so I assumed he was in line.

Toward the front of the shop, there was a few chairs for what looked like a waiting area so I took the opportunity to sit down and just be patient. There were a few newspapers around, so I picked one up just to entertain myself for the while I was waiting.

My eyes scanned over rather than thoroughly read the paper, looking for anything interesting to catch my attention. A few scandals in the Ministry, a big donation to some wizarding charity, the new quidditch season heating up... nothing overly interesting. I was probably waiting for a few minutes before my attention was grabbed away from the paper.

"Y/n?" I heard my name being called by a masculine voice.

"Oh, Cedric," I smiled, tossing the paper aside and standing up to give him a hug.

He had a cheeky grin on his face, dressed casually and holding a garment bag over his right shoulder. His index and middle finger of his right hand were holding it up as it rested on his back.

"What have you got there?" I inquired, pointing to the bag.

"Just something for Slughorn's dinner party. I heard it's quite fancy. Couldn't show up looking like some riff-raff," he grinned. "What about yourself? This isn't exactly your type of store..."

I returned his chuckle with one of my own, laughing that I looked strange being the only girl in a men's fashion shop.

"Just waiting for someone. Trust me, I'm not buying."