The Groceries
Story stepped out from the market with her bags full of groceries. Some pureblood families didn’t live with house-elves as their servants, including hers. It was her turn to buy the monthly grocery at the moment.
She was about to go find the nearest floo network when someone suddenly tapped on her shoulder. She warily turned around, trying not to let her guard down.
“Hello. My name is Mark and I see you have some heavy bags right there.” A young man with black hair, pale skin and blue t-shirt introduced himself before he looked at Story’s grocery bag. “I know how to turn it into a weightless and endless bag.”
Story wished she knew as well. Actually, Daphne knew the spells but since her muscles were something else, she never had any problem carrying heavy grocery bags.
“Really?” She put down the grocery bags on the ground to rest her tired arms. That monthly grocery was way heavier than the usual. She also forgot where her usual floo network was. “You’re not doing this for free, are you?”
“Of course not. I love how smart you are,” Mark smirked. “The spells are hard to perform so I apologise but I have to charge you for it.”
Daphne also said that when Story asked her to do it.
“You need a table to unpack the stuff, don’t you? My place is right there.” He pointed to a dark alley on their left. He bent down to lift the grocery bags before she could reach them. “Merlin’s beard! These are too heavy for a petite woman like you to carry!”
Story stared at the dark alley as hesitation began to cloud her mind. “Mark, I’m sorry but—”
“What are you waiting for?” Mark had already walked into the dark alley with the grocery bags. “Come on. And light up your wand, will you? It’s a bit dark in here.”
Story wondered if she should follow him or just run away and leave the grocery behind. But she had to buy them all over again with her own money. Worse, she didn’t bring a lot of money in her wallet that day to prevent her from spending too much. She had to save for next year.
“Mark, wait!” She went after him. “Can you give me back the grocery bags? Thank you for the offer but I don’t need them to be weightless or whatever.”
“Aw, don’t be shy.” Mark arrived at a shabby looking two storey building. The front door had a small window with yellow lamp from the inside. He unlocked it and stepped aside for her. “Make yourself at home. Don’t be afraid.”
The building had a strong metallic smell but oddly familiar. It was similar to… blood.
Chills went down her spine. She cautiously stepped away from him, wand ready on her side. “N-no, thank you.”
She immediately turned away and walked as fast as she could. But the more she walked, the more she heard someone else’s footsteps right behind her. With her racing heart, she broke into a run towards the light at the end of the alley. She should have abandoned the groceries from the beginning. She shouldn’t have followed him. Why was she so stupid?
The footsteps were getting closer to her.
She abruptly turned around and aimed her wand at whoever was following her. There was another man with a black hat and a black cloth that covered his face except for his eyes zooming on Mark from his back. “Stupefy!”
Mark suddenly collapsed on the ground.
Before Story could move, the masked man wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her so close until she could feel his heartbeat through his black clothes and smell his oddly familiar perfume. She tried to push him away from her but his grip tightened on her. Her whole body shuddered in fear when he suddenly leaned his face to her ear.
“Greengrass,” the faceless man whispered gently to her ear. “It’s me.”
She blinked. She knew his voice. She leaned back to look at his eyes which were like a deadly but calm storm waiting for its moment to strike a ship in the middle of the sea. No one could have those eyes except him.
“Malfoy?” She whispered his name like a prayer in desperate times.
That really explained why his perfume was familiar.
She let Malfoy brought her out of the alley. They moved to a secluded spot on the back of a store. Story rested her body against the wall. Malfoy took off mask before glaring at her.
“What the bloody hell were you doing in that alley?” Malfoy scolded her. “Were you out of your mind? Didn’t your parents teach you not to go into a suspicious looking alley?”
Story recounted her foolishness to him.
Malfoy snorted mockingly. He planted his hands on his hips like a dad scolding his child. “Seriously? You risked your life just for your groceries?”
“I don’t bring enough money to buy them again.”
“You can just return tomorrow!”
She flinched when he suddenly raised his voice. “I know but I can’t do that either.”
“Why?”
Grandmother would scold her for weeks because she let a stranger picked up the groceries. She would be ranting about how much money the family had lost just because of her granddaughter’s carelessness.
“You’re so… unbelievably confusing,” he groaned when she didn’t answer him. pinched the bridge of his nose as if she was the trouble that he could never solve. “I’ll pay for your groceries. Come on.”
Her eyes widened. “No, no, no, you don’t have to—”
“I insist,” he gritted his teeth. He took off his long black coat, revealing his long-sleeved black shirt tucked inside his black pant. Story wondered if that wealthy man had other colour of clothing. “Wear this.”
He wrapped his coat around her. The coat… smelled of him so much that she felt like being blanketed by his warmth and scent from head to toe. Even though the weather wasn’t really that cold to wear a coat, she really, really wanted to pull it closer to her body as if she was really cold.
She glanced at him when a question stuck in her mind. If the weather wasn’t really cold, why did he wear a coat anyway? Wouldn’t he feel too stuffed? Why did he also mask his face? What was he doing in the dark alley when he scolded her about going in there?
“Greengrass!” Malfoy called impatiently. “Are you coming?”
Story brought him to the market. He insisted on carrying the basket while she walked around the aisles to pick up the stuff she needed. She watched him carrying the basket awkwardly while his eyes studying the content. Sometimes he would look around, his eyes twinkled in wonder while scanning the shelves.
“Have you,” she dared herself to ask while they were in the queue to pay, “never been to a market before?”
He turned to her. “I always have the house-elves to get the groceries.”
Which explained why there were some house-elves roaming around the market except the clothing section.
“Must be nice to have house-elves,” she commented, trying to get the conversation going.
“They do the job for you excellently but they also love to spy on you whenever they have the chance,” he explained bitterly. “They love to gossip.”
She frowned. “What do house-elves even gossip about?”
“One time, they gossiped about me. It was unpleasant. I almost gifted them my old clothes. They quickly apologised and swore not to do that again.”
“You must’ve traumatized them,” she giggled.
The cashier had called for them to step forward. Story avoided the cashier staff’s look who studied her, probably wondering why she returned and bought the same thing. She glanced at Malfoy who was mindlessly counting some coins in his hand before handing it to the staff.
“I will pay you back,” Story promised him once they were out of the market. “I’m sorry you have to spend so much for this.”
“It wasn’t much for me,” Malfoy muttered. “That was like five percent of my daily expense.”
Curiosity won over her rage for his smug. She frowned in disbelief. “What do you even purchase every day?”
He looked up to the sky as if the answer was there before he replied nonchalantly, “I love collecting some good wine.”
“But you don’t buy wine every day, do you?”
“I buy only when I find a good one.”
“Then, that’s not daily expense.”
“I also buy things,” he paused hesitantly, “that I don’t want to discuss with you for personal reasons.”
Noticing his hint, she decided to change the topic. “Tell me, how do you recognise a good wine?”
He raised his eyebrow. “Seriously? I thought you knew about wine. The one you poured for me was good. You also knew how to pour wine properly.”
Her heart did a small tap dancing at his compliment. “My sister taught me a day before Grandmother’s party. The wine was my grandmother’s choice.”
“In conclusion, everyone in the family knows about wine except you.”
“My mum doesn’t understand wine too,” she urged defensively. “It just doesn’t run in the family, alright?”
He suddenly stopped walking and turned to her. “You said you wanted to pay me back for the groceries, didn’t you?”
“Yes?” She replied hopefully. Finally, she could be cleared from her debt.
He smirked. “Invite to me to dinner then.”