Best worst first date
Draco stared into the beady little eyes that stared back at him.
“Fuck off.”
The peacock let out a high-pitched whining noise and didn’t budge.
“This is my hiding spot. Go find your own.”
More whining. More peacock judgment.
He lit the tip of his wand with a small flame and waved it in the direction of the bird, who spread it feathers with a squawk, finally backing away. Draco chuckled in victory and lit a cigarette, sinking further into the junction of hedges that would hide him from view.
His bi-annual attempt at Pureblood courting had gone as it had the last six times. Held at the Manor, as some ancient custom dictated, the same robes are worn, the same dishes served and essentially the same witch was seated across from him every time.
This time it was Astoria Greengrass, who was pretty but couldn’t get a word in edgewise over her parents, so had given up speaking early in the meal.
But she did giggle at a joke he’d made that made his mother hiss Draco! Across the table at him.
His father, as usual, had as much personality as if carved from cheese. He grunted in agreement in the right places and made noises of disagreement on occasion.
The peacocks had more to say than he did.
And at present moment, one of them had started screeching at something.
“Shoo! Bugger off!” said an unfamiliar feminine voice.
He poked his head out from the hedge to see Astoria, heels and outer robe abandoned and hair was undone from the proper style she sported earlier.
She took a pull from the tiny bottle of liquor in her hand and waved more wildly at the bird to get it to go away.
She spotted him and pointed-
He tried to hide again but she followed swiftly.
“Wait…I’m not…gods I don’t want your bleeding name or money, I just want I cigarette.” She held out the small bottle of muggle Tequila. “I’ll trade you. Mum binned all mine before we left.”
“Fine, but you didn’t get it from me. Blame the birds, if you must.” he fished one out for her and she snapped it up greedily.
“Deal,” she mumbled around it while lighting it with her own wand.
After a few minutes of companionable silence, she spoke again.
“So, that was a fucking bore of an evening. How often do you do this?”
He stamped out his own finished cig with the heel of his shoe. “I have an arrangement with my mother to try it every 6 months. It goes about the same every time. No offense.”
“Wow, you must really love your mother. I’m on an annual basis myself.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “How long until you think they come looking for us?”
“If Father brings up the Wizengamot reforms…4…5 hours…” he shrugged.
“Hmm…” she nodded in agreement. “So…we could stay out here and become increasingly harassed by peacocks…or, we could sneak up to your room and fuck?”
Draco choked on the stolen tequila. “Pardon?”
She shrugged again, giving him a brilliant lopsided smile. “It was just an idea. I didn’t think you subscribed to lifestyles of the rich and frigid, but alright.”
“What? No…I don’t…not frigid…” He vanished the finally emptied bottle. “We could go on a date…like a real date.”
“Someplace muggle?” she suggested.
“Naturally.” he grinned, transfiguring his clothes to a muggle style, fit for a nightclub while she did the same to hers, showing more skin than any witch ever had in this garden.
At the end of the night, he apparated them straight back to the spot she’d found him hiding in, and drunkenly begged her to his. With the tang of tequila still on her lips and the world slightly tilted on it axis, she did.
Best worst first date.