Okay, I am so freaking nervous about this. LOL. I have some very wonderful writers on my flist, and this is the first time I've posted writing, and I'm kinda nervous about it all. So... here we go.

This is the first chapter of how my Draco and Victoria met, betaed by the ever so wonderful buttfacemakani *huggles joo* And the Greek in this chapter is translated by a friend of guad s, so thank you and *tackles* to both of them as well :D

Oh, and I don't have a name for the story, so give me some ideas!! ;D

Eeeeeeek!! *flings chapter out and runs away*

Chapter 1: Looking and Listening

She was there with a group of friends. A very large group of friends. About a thousand, if Draco had to guess. Or, if he was being honest with himself, probably ten. They just made the noise of a thousand people.

The group had arrived three weeks after him, and had immediately proceeded to take over. Long nights of drinking, eating and laughing, accompanied by loud, and at times, very obnoxious music, had become a regular occurrence in the small Greek harbour. He knew some of them at least, were British, as he spotted Terence Higgs and his now wife, amongst the group. This was one of only a myriad of reasons as to why he hadn’t spoken to any of them.

Most of their days were spent waking up at midday, with rather large fanfare, as though they didn't do this often, before going out on day trips. They Disapparated with rather loud cracks, and left the surrounding inhabitants to breathe a sigh of relief. Even the goats looked more cheerful as they went.

Except her. No, she rarely went out during they day. Or rather, she rarely went out during the day, with them. At first she had... the first couple of days after their arrival, Draco watched as she Disapparated with her friends, and looked up from his book when they reappeared, usually with more food and wine, and the ritual started again. But she had stopped doing this, and instead waved her friends off, with their loud cracking, proceeded to shed her gown and take out a book of her own, just as she did now.

He tried not to stare from his balcony as she lay on her sun bed, wearing only a swimsuit, a pair of sunglasses and a small smile that played about her lips as she read. Occasionally she would take trips of her own during the day, but they were becoming less frequent, and Draco often felt himself irrationally lonely when she wasn’t there. It wasn’t as though the two neighbours had even spoken, or as if he even knew her name, but seeing her daily routine had become something of a habit, and he didn’t like it at all.

Perhaps he should move on again. To another part of the world he could discover, and then leave again just as abruptly. Often he felt as though he was running from something, though he couldn’t think what. There was nothing to run from anymore. No threats to himself or his family... if he went home right now, he would be greeted with open arms from his mother and father, and life would probably resume as normal, as though he’d never left. He had left, though. He left three years ago almost to the day, and had wandered to world, sending owls back to home monthly with letter to say he was fine, and that the weather was nice.

The villa he’d chosen to live in, was in one of the few wizarding locations on Crete, and he’d specifically chosen it because he hadn’t been in a purely wizarding location in a long time. Perhaps his subconscious was preparing him for the inevitable journey home. Before taking a villa, he’d begun to feel tired of travelling, and decided he was going to spend at least a few months doing nothing, and soak up some sun.

Not that he ever did soak up any sun. His mother had spent so much of his early childhood trying to protect his skin that it had become second nature to him to perform the necessary charms on himself so that he wouldn’t burn. He had managed to lose the greyish tinge his skin had acquired during his last year at Hogwarts, and the year following it, but if he had tanned, Draco hadn’t noticed.

Unlike the beautiful woman currently sunbathing in the villa below - her dark hair spread out around her, curvy skin glistening under the sun, one hand lazily draped over her stomach.

Draco looked away. He was staring again. When had he become such a voyeur? Of course, it wasn’t as though he spoke much anyway. On his three-year trek, Draco had learnt the immense values of listening and observing.

At first, it was merely because he didn’t want to talk to anyone, and indeed, the idea of him travelling had first been born out of wanting to get away from people who knew him, and knew what his family had done and gone through. To get away from the looks of disgust or, even worse, pity. When he finally found the fame he had once envied in Potter, he realised he didn’t want it. Though the two cases were hardly similar. He left because he wanted to get away from everything, to reassess and regroup. He had only planned to be away for six months, a year at the most. He never would have imagined that in three years time he would still be wandering.

His journey had begun to get away from talking, but he found himself in the most remote locations in the world, and instead of not integrating himself with people, he found himself listening to others and their stories. It seemed as though even in the harshest conditions, and the most isolated places he could think of, people still found a way of living. Not thriving, but living all the same. These were the most interesting people. Draco picked up many languages on his journey, and had come to the conclusion, that even though he had travelled so far, people were, by and large, the same in every place he’d been to. And there were people with stories just as harrowing and debilitating as his own.

He saw victims of Muggle disasters, disfigured and sick beyond even the help of wizarding medicine. He saw his own kind, immersed in dark magic, so addicted to the power that they didn’t have the energy to perform it themselves, and prowled alleyways looking for other wizards to give them their fix. He met an old Muggle man in Mongolia who had seen his family taken by vampires and spent his life trying to avenge their deaths, only to find that they were killed by a mob in Prague after decades of searching for them.

But he’d also seen the best in people as well. Everywhere he went, there were families laughing and playing, old couples still devastatingly in love, new people meeting and making friends for the first time.

All of it made the world seem so small. But as Draco thought of his own struggles and life, he couldn’t help but feel he had unfortunately played such a huge part in almost destroying it. How different would the past five years have been if he hadn’t acted on anger, hurt and revenge? Would Dumbledore still be alive? Would Voldemort? Snape? Would the battle have been won early, and his family not have to endure everything they’d gone through? Would he not be scarred? Perhaps he’d be married to Pansy, and she’d still understand him. Maybe he’d be playing Quidditch after being scouted by the Appleby Arrows in his seventh year. Or maybe everything still would have happened. Maybe he’d be dead.

Draco shook his head and refocused his eyes on the page in front of him. He’d gone over the “what if”s more times than he’d like to count, and it never did him any good. He took a glance back over the balcony towards the reclining figure, only to find she wasn’t there anymore. Her gown had gone from the chair that had been beside her, and he felt the usual pang of loss that went through his stomach as he realised she’d gone.

That was it, he decided as he looked at his page number and put his book down. He was moving on next week. This couldn’t continue. He’d move to a different island in Greece, where the wizarding tourists didn’t go and where there weren’t beautiful women who taunted him by lounging alluringly in scantily clad swimsuits, reading good books and looking all... luscious and curvy...

He decided to go down to the harbour, buy The Daily Prophet and watch the boats arrive and leave the port over a cup of tea. He swung his legs back off his sun bed, put his sandals on and walked from the balcony. He made his way through the villa, picked up some money, his wand and put them in his pocket before he closed the front door behind him.

Despite not having spoken to his neighbours to the front, Draco had managed to meet a few people in the surrounding villas, including Olga, who ran the little taverna just down the street. Her husband had left her recently for the young man who used to be the supplier of their calamari, and she was not above cursing all men throughout any conversation she had, despite the topic. She was currently in her garden, brandishing a long stick, and hitting a large olive tree with apparent malice. A goat was standing alongside her, chomping grass, and looking thoroughly bored. Draco stopped for a moment outside her fence, leaned on it and smiled at the woman.

‘Pos paei to mazema tis elias, Olga?’ he asked over the sound of falling olives. He knew that this was one of her favourite activities, and always asked how it was going.

Olga stopped hitting the tree and turned towards him.

‘Poly kala efharisto, Draco.’ She smiled. ‘Makari na itan autos o antras mou, de symphoneis?’

If only it were her husband. This was not an unexpected response from the woman he’d come to know over the past month.

‘Makari!’ Draco agreed, laughingly.

‘Pithanon na itan kalo pou me afise telika? Alios mporei na glistrousa me to mpastouni katalathos kai na ton xtupousa.’

“Accidentally” having the stick slip and hit the man... now that was something Draco would pay to see. He had imagined her husband to be an argumentative sort of man, short and dumpy, in comparison to his tall and quite lanky, wife. They would be quite the comedy duo. He imagined her now, running after the stout man with the stick nipping at his heels.

He fought back a laugh and agreed once again with her.

‘Tha pao kato sto limani, hreiazesai tipota Olga?’ He often offered to get supplies for her when he went into town, but she never accepted.

‘Ohi euharisto hrise mou. Efharisto pou rotises. Isos na iparhei elpida gia tous antres telika.’ And with that, she turned back towards the tree and began hitting it again, a new batch of olives falling into the blanket that was stretched out below. The goat looked up at her blearily and kept chomping, apparently completely oblivious to anything that had just happened.

Saying there might be hope for men yet, in regards to Draco made him smile in face of the overwhelming irony. He turned back to the path and kept walking down the slope towards the port.

When he arrived, he walked to the little shop where he could buy The Daily Prophet and bought a copy, before he proceeded to the café next door, ordered a cup of English Breakfast and settled at an outside table. Nothing much seemed to have happened in the wizarding world since he had left, so far as he could tell. Kingsley Shacklebolt was still Minister for Magic, apparently Hogwarts had acquired a Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor who had actually managed to hold the position for all three years they’d been there, and the British wizarding population was booming after the war, with three times the amount of babies being born.

Today, however, something caught his eye; the list of people who had graduated their traineeship and become qualified Aurors. Heading up the list, he was not surprised to see, was the name “Harry James Potter” emblazoned in illustrious print. And he felt... nothing. Utterly nothing.

The last time he had spoken to Potter, he had gone to ask for his Hawthorn wand back, and they had left on the mutual terms of nodding in public and not trying to kill each other. But looking down on the page now, he had no feeling whatsoever. He thought perhaps he might feel a stab of irritation at the fact that Potter hadn’t just taken the original job offer, without having to do the tedious three year training, or jealous that he was getting on with his life in the way that was expected of him, but he didn’t. Draco remembered him, and remembered all they’d been through, everything that had passed between them, but it was almost as though he was looking at the life of another person, feigning mild interest in another’s story.

He was so caught up in reading the Prophet and his own thoughts, he didn’t even notice when she sat down opposite him.

‘You’ve been watching me.’



*Peeks out from under bedsheets* So... what did ya think? Zomg, PLEASE review. LOL. *begs* I'm dying of nerves here!! XDDDD Are you all shocked I can write without putting XDDDD after everything? HAHAHA :D

And just for a bonus, you get one of the characters drawn for you, so here we are:


Olga is not amused if you don't review :D
She shall come after you and whack you with her olive whacking stick XDDD

Peace,
Rotae