kiss her like he'd been dying to do for three years. She struggled at first, and smacked him on his right bicep, but he had the element of surprise on his side.
There was also the fact that he had nothing more to lose at that moment. This gave him the kind of bravado that had so far been lacking in his courtship of Pansy.
After a minute or so, he deposited her on her bed, breathless and pink-cheeked. She absently reached for the elephant again.
"You' ll remember that," he mumbled gruffly, and then he was out the door and out of her life.
Pansy spent the next two hours crying into her elephant. Goyle had given it to her for her twelfth birthday.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
His mum was looking a bit misty-eyed as she stood in Madam Malkin's showroom and observed Draco in his school robes.
The hem of the ordered robes had been a tad too long and had to be taken up.
Draco looked at his mum's reflection in the mirror, as she stood behind him and suddenly wished she'd stayed at home. Goyle's dad had volunteered to take the boys to buy their school things, but Narcissa had insisted on accompanying Draco personally. It was, after all, the last time they would see each other before Draco started his first year at Hogwarts.
Narcissa Malfoy was not very good company on an outing to a place like Diagon Alley. Goyle's father was an ogre of a man, but he was not above a bit of tomfoolery when the occasion called for it; like throwing 'Exploding Ants' at the heels of Muggles, for example. It was easy enough to spot them. They were the ones who inevitably gawked at everything.
Narcissa, on the other hand, worried about things like too much sun and Muggles and crowds and running into people she didn' t want to run into such as Mrs So-and So from last Sunday's afternoon tea.
But still, she had wanted to accompany her son, and so there she was, smiling fondly at him as she picked off a loose thread from the black material of his robes.
She covered her sentimentality with a sharpish comment. "You're not quite as tall as your father was at the same age, but I suppose you have plenty of time to catch up."
Draco fervently hoped so. It would not do to remain two heads shorter than Goyle and the same height as Pansy Parkinson. Shortness had long since been eliminated from the Malfoy bloodline.
That, and giggling.
"What's left on the list?" his mother asked.
Draco remembered that he had stashed it in his back, trouser pocket. He retrieved the list and unfurled it. Mother and son consulted the last two items.
"I've yet to pick an owl and a wand," Draco said
Narcissa nodded. "Your owl has already been arranged. Your father's seen to the selection personally. His name is Pietro and he's very fine."
Of course the bird would be fine. Lucius didn't know the meaning of the word 'substandard'. Draco was a bit put out by the fact that he would not be permitted to choose his own owl, though. He had even briefly entertained the notion of getting a cat, but that was out of the question. He would require a safe and secure means of communicating with his parents and a school bird would not do.
That left only one other thing to be done. Draco changed out of his school robes while his mother paid Madam Malkin, and then they crossed the street with their packages and headed down to Ollivanders, where his mother paused just outside the shop.
The wind and the walk had caused several wisps of her blonde hair to escape her previously immaculate chignon and she tucked these loose strands behind her ear. His mother was perhaps the most beautiful witch Draco had ever seen. Not a vibrant-pretty, like Blaise Zabini's mother, but the sort of beautiful you had to take a step back from, to appreciate. Her features were almost plain in isolation, but together, she seemed pristine, perfect.
"Draco, come here."
He did as requested. She smoothed the parting of his already smooth hair and made a fuss of straightening his perfectly ironed collar. It occurred to him that there really wasn't much mother-stuff for her to do.
Everything, right down to the preparation of his meals and the way his pyjamas were laid out for him on his bed, while he had his baths, was seen to by Manor staff.
"Mother" he whined, when she trailed her