A Reason To Be

“Well we know he was a bastard, but how bad was it? Do Harry and I have to figure out where to start hiding bodies?” Ron asked Hermione. They had been dancing with their own partners that night but they couldn’t help but notice who had been Hermione’s. Now they were riding in their compartment on the Hogwarts Express, bound for London. The sun had not yet risen, the sixth and seventh year students had left extremely early for their Muggle Studies field trip. It hadn’t been difficult to come up with Muggle clothes, Hermione owned some already. Harry also had some and enough for Ron to borrow some pants and a shirt as well.

“Well yes, Malfoy is a bastard but it was tolerable. It wasn’t that bad.” Hermione replied as she fished around in her bag for her money. Students had been able to convert some of their wizard money into Muggle money for the trip. Now Hermione was searching for her last remaining Knuts to buy something off the lady with the trolley.

“I got it, Hermione.” Harry said as he fished into his pocket and bought their stuff with a single Galleon. They munched on their morning meal of candy and waited excitedly to arrive in London.

At the opposite end of the train, Draco, getting more and more frustrated, sat alone in his own compartment with a handful of Muggle money in his hand.

“Alright…They call Muggle money ‘pounds.’ Pounds of what?” Draco said to himself, looking at the pieces of paper in his hand. He noticed they had numbers on them, which he was confused about for a while until he settled on that it must mean how many pounds it was.

“This is not twenty pounds though, it doesn’t even weigh one.’ Draco thought to himself. He was getting annoyed; he hated not knowing simple things like this. He folded up the wad of paper and stuffed it into his pants’ pocket. At the dance, a week prior, Blaise had commented that he could find Draco some Muggle clothes. Sure enough, a few days before their field trip was scheduled, an owl brought Draco a parcel of Muggle clothes. It was a pair of jeans and a grey t-shirt that made an obscure reference to ‘play’ and it being ‘cold.’ Draco put a long sleeved, black shirt underneath the t-shirt and deemed himself a ‘Muggle look-a-like.’

Before they had left the school, Professor Hallimer had briefed everyone on what would happen in London that day. When they arrived the entire group would go to the Museum of London, the White Chapel Art Gallery and then the students would be allowed to go off on their own for some shopping and to eat, hence the need for money. Then in the evening, they would all meet back at Platform 9 and ¾ and return to Hogwarts. A day of learning and shopping in Muggle London.

Draco leaned back and shut his eyes. He figured if he could get a little bit of sleep, it would make the trip to London go a little quicker. He settled back, put his feet up on the seat opposite him and crossed his arms across his chest. Even though he was exhausted, sleep didn’t come right away though. He wasn’t nervous but he couldn’t help but think about the day before him. He really didn’t know anything about Muggle beyond what the professor had taught, and even then Draco hardly ever paid attention in that class. He couldn’t help but let his mind wander to what embarrassments might be in store for him later on due to his lack of knowledge.

When the train pulled onto the platform, it jerked Draco awake. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and rose from his seat. The students filed out of the train and onto the platform. When the whole group was assembled, they made their way from Platform 9 and ¾ and the exit of the train station. When he passed through the doors and looked around at the morning bustle of people he sighed deeply.

‘Here we go…’ Draco thought.



Draco had napped on the train and when he got off he was beginning to wake up but after a few hours in the Museum of London, he was right back where he had been. Very little of it was of any interest to him; the majority bored him to tears. He wasn’t the only one though. Even Hermione was extremely bored as they were led through the exhibit upon exhibit. In fact, Draco had almost been left behind on their tour through the museum. At a lull, Draco flopped down on a nearby bench and closed his eyes. He had only meant to rest for a moment, but then he dosed off When he awoke the group was at the other end of the room. He jumped up and ran to catch up. That had been the most thrilling event of the visit to the museum.

The art gallery was of some interest to Draco. It was mostly modern art and he found it very, very intriguing. He broke away from the group and wandered through each room on his own. Millicent had seen his leave the rest of them, but didn’t draw any attention to it. She would undoubtedly inform pansy of it later. Draco liked the vast array of mediums and methods used. Metal, wood, stone, canvas, paint and clay combined to make the large, small, soft, hard, rounded, jagged, colorful and monotone. Some pieces made absolutely no sense to him, while others seemed absolutely brilliant. When the group was ready to leave, Draco had seen the entire gallery while the others had seen about half of it. Now the students walked from the art gallery to a district where they could get something to eat and where they could go shopping.



Hermione sat outside, waiting for Harry, Neville and Ron. They had found a shop that sold comics, and they just had to go in and check out each and every one. As fascinating as comics were, Hermione had to decline. It really wasn’t her cup of tea. She sat on a bench near the entrance to the shop and waited. Her patience was waning.

‘How many comic books could there be? They have been in there more than twenty minutes!’ Hermione thought, glancing down at her watch. She sighed, leaned back and looked around at the people passing her, wishing she had someone to keep her company. Lavender had not gone on the field trip; she was still at home, helping her father with the funeral. Ginny had gone off with Seamus to a nearby park. She had no clue where Padma and her sister had run off to either. She was observing the crowds of people around her when something caught her eye. Across the street, a few stores down, Hermione saw Draco climbing the stairs of a music shop.

He paused and looked in the window before he went forward and through the door. Hermione watched and her curiosity rose by leaps and bounds. After a few minutes Hermione got up off the bench and walked into the comic shop.

“Guys, I’m going to go shopping by myself. I’ll meet you at the restaurant on the corner in an hour, alright?” Hermione told the boys when she found them amongst the many shelves.

“Yeah…Sounds good.” Ron said, never looking up from pages he was reading. Harry and Neville were in similar positions. Hermione laughed at them all and went back outside. She crossed the street and went into the music shop.

It was a very large place, racks and racks of cds. It wasn’t overly crowded but too large to see all that were there. She slowly started wandering down the aisles of music until she found him. He was standing in front of one rack and looking at the cover of the cd he had picked up, there were already a handful of cds in his hand. Hermione thought about it and then decided to approach him. Draco Malfoy in a music store, buying cds was something she just had to be a part of. As she approached she noticed he had already bought something. A bag from a local book store was set down near his feet.

“Buying music, huh?” Hermione asked quietly as she came up behind him. Draco turned around, somewhat flustered. When he saw who it was, a small expression of relieve came over his face.

‘Good! Someone who knows what the hell to do with this stuff.’ Draco thought thankfully. He turned around to face her and looked down to find a small smile on her face. It took him a little by surprise.

“Yeah, I wanted something to listen to.” Draco said, looking back down at the number of cds in his hand. He really didn’t know what he had in his hand, and he was hoping she would not figure that out. Hermione followed his eyes down to the cds and leaned closer to see what he had.

“So…How did you choose these?” Hermione questioned politely. Draco handed them to her so she could look through them and put his hands in his pockets.

“I eavesdropped on the other people. Picked up what they did.” Draco stated. It had seemed a decent plan at the time. Hermione giggled and flipped through the cases in her hand.

“Interesting…Let’s see what you have here. Marvin Gaye, that’s a good choice. The White Stripes, also a good pick. Uhhh…I don’t think you would enjoy N’sync. Lets put that back, along with Garth Brooks. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons…An acquired taste but I think it’s good. The Rolling Stones…very good, a staple of every musical collection.” Hermione stated as she handed the cds back to Draco.

“I need a little…round…” Draco said, demonstrating how big the object was with his hands. Then he pointed over to man in the next aisle.

“One of those, right? To listen to them.” Draco finished. Hermione looked over to the person he pointed at and saw the young man listening to his cd player.

“Yes, you do.” Hermione nodded. Then the two set out to find one. Draco picked up his bag from the book store and followed Hermione. They came to a display of them and he asked which he should get.

“How much money do you have?” Hermione asked. Draco reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of paper. He looked down at, flipping it over in his hand then finally just handing it to her. She had not expected him to handover all his money but she took it and start to un-crumple and count it. Her eyebrows shot up and then she looked up and Draco’s waiting face.

“You have more than six hundred pounds here!” Hermione looked amazed at him. Draco shrugged, in truth he had no idea if that was a lot of money or not.

“You have more than enough to buy a cd player and those cds. Six hundred is a lot of money.” Hermione explained delicately, sensing that he had no idea about how much money he had. She forward, grabbed one of the cd players and led his to the cashier. When they purchased his cds and player, he took the bag and walked out of the store with Hermione. When they reached the sidewalk they stood awkwardly silent, wondering what came next. After a few minutes of standing in the crowd of people, Hermione spoke up.

“I’m going this way…do you want to come with me?” Hermione asked tentatively, she really wasn’t sure what she was doing or how he was going to react. But he was being nice today and she wanted to someone to keep her company. Draco did not answer right away but then he started to nod his head.

“Okay.”