Would you fall in love with me again

Butterfly flapped its wings

London, July 1996

The rain in Muggle London did not care about blood purity. It fell just as heavily on the cracked concrete of Charing Cross Road as it did on the manicured hedges of Malfoy Manor.Draco stood huddled under the shallow canvas awning of a Muggle bookstore, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of a dark jacket he had bought from a secondhand shop an hour prior. He felt exposed without his robes, and his wand pressed uncomfortably against his ribs. He was here on his mother's quiet orders—to disappear for a few hours, to escape the suffocating, dark presence currently occupying his family home. He hated the city. He hated the noise of the black cabs, the exhaust fumes, and the sheer volume of oblivious people pushing past him.

He stepped backward to avoid a splash from a passing bus, his shoulder colliding sharply with someone else trying to seek refuge under the awning."Oh! Sorry," a voice said.Draco snapped his head down, a sharp, aristocratic reprimand ready on his tongue. But the words caught in his throat.

She was a Muggle girl, around his age, clutching a dripping umbrella that had clearly jammed halfway open. Her hair brown hair was damp, plastered to her cheeks, and she was laughing a little at her own clumsiness. When she looked up and caught his eye, her smile faltered slightly, taken aback by the intensity of his pale, icy stare.

"Didn't mean to crowd you," she offered, shaking the broken umbrella. "This thing chose the absolute worst day to give up on me."Draco blinked. He should walk away. He shouldn't be speaking to her. If his father knew he was standing within breathing distance of a Muggle, let alone acknowledging one, the consequences would be severe.

"It's broken," Draco said, his voice stiffer than he intended. He reached into his pocket, his fingers instinctively wrapping around his wand. A simple Reparo would fix the metal spikes in a second. But he couldn't use magic. Not here. Not now.

"Yeah, the latch is completely snapped," she sighed, squinting down at the mechanism. "I'm supposed to meet a friend three blocks away, and I'm already late. If I run for it, I'm going to look like a drowned rat."A sudden, sharp gust of wind swept down the alleyway. The girl shivered, her shoulders bunching up against the cold.

Draco looked at her, then looked out at the pouring rain. A massive, terrifying future was waiting for him back at Hogwarts—a dark mark, a dying headmaster, a war he didn't want to fight. But right here, the universe had narrowed down to a broken umbrella and a girl with rain on her face. If he turned left, he could walk to the nearest underground station and go home. If he stayed, everything would change.

"The awning is wide enough," Draco heard himself say, stepping slightly to the side to give her more room. "You can wait here until it slows down." She looked surprised, then gave him a warm, genuinely grateful smile that made his chest feel suddenly tight. "Thanks. I'm Penelope, by the way.... But my friends call me Penny." "Draco," he replied, the foreign Muggle name of the street echoing in his mind as he spoke his own.

The butterfly had flapped its wings.

Short first page I know but I'm getting a feel for this at the moment I don't even know if this will go anywhere but I'm hopeful.