“Mmm, cheese.” – Wallace & Gromit

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Draco Malfoy was the perfect son.

In the eyes of his parents, there was absolutely nothing wrong with him – he got excellent grades, he was handsome, witty, popular, and more than responsible enough to one day take over the family business. Of course, he wasn’t home for his parents to admire his behaviour often, as most of his time was spent at his prestigious boarding school, but when he was home everyone in the small family enjoyed his company. The only thing his parents might think to complain about was that he was so rarely home.

He was, I shall repeat, the perfect son.

However, this does not mean that Draco was a perfect human being by any means. In fact, there was one certain girl who thought him not only rude, superior, and far too obsessed with himself, but also well deserving of a good, hard smack.

Most everyone who worked for the Malfoys thought this to some extent, though most were also able to acknowledge that the boy was handsome and highly intelligent, as well as their future boss, so they held their opinions in check. This one girl, however, did not care a whit for any of that, and even went so far as to fervently deny whenever anyone accused the heir of being either clever or good-looking.

This girl, while naturally more fiery-tempered than the rest of her coworkers, had several personal reasons to resent the young Master Malfoy. These were not quite logical reasons, but they were fierce nonetheless.

Firstly, Ginny Weasley resented Draco because he took all of his education and power entirely for granted; while she labored every day for his family, straining muscles and glaring down at her work, he rode about on his stallion or went for archery lessons.

In fact, the family had a ridiculous amount of money considering their somewhat small industry. The greedy bastards had a monopoly over all of the nearby towns, possessing the only land that was green enough to cultivate anything on. The Malfoy farms provided the surrounding areas with vegetables, fruits, and (most of all) dairy, and there was currently no one who stood a chance of toppling that monopoly, so they could price things as highly as they wished. Being the uncaring folk they were, they proceeded to do so, and lived in leisure.

The only good thing about working for the Malfoys was that they did treat their employees well, serving lunch every day and never stinging on the pay. Still, Ginny resented them and greatly resented having to get this job. Yes, it was only for the summer, until she re-entered the local public school, but it was still a great blow to her pride. The girl responded accordingly by fiercely disliking all the Malfoys she set eyes on – which narrowed her enmity down to Draco.

After hearing all this, one might expect the two to have some long-lasting rivalry, perhaps with a hint of hidden respect or admiration. Draco Malfoy might always visit the young girl working for his parents, and she would snap at him, and he would smirk and snap right back, engaging in almost constant verbal battles laced with a feeling of friendly competition. Until one day, the verbal battles escalated into a physical tussle, and then that tussle (after a pause in which eyes were stared romantically into) became a bit more of a romp. The romping would quickly serve to reveal the true feelings hidden behind the friendly jibes the whole while – and the curtains, one might expect, would close on a satisfied kiss.

One would be incredibly wrong.

Far from a cliché relationship of unrelieved tension, young Master Malfoy truly disgusted Ginny. And, secondly, she had never actually spoken to him. To tell the truth, she had never even been close enough to try; the extent of their interaction was limited down to Ginny noticing the heir, and glaring at him, from a distance.

Draco, one must remember, was an arrogant little snot of a boy, and as such never took notice of those working for his parents. He was far too engaged in his own privileged life to care, and anyway, they all feared his power far too much to interest him. They were like his personal servants really. Funny, what a boy can get away with when he holds someone’s job security in his hands.

To be honest, these two young people were fairly typical, much as they might expect otherwise. In any normal sequence of events, Ginny would remain bitter towards the Malfoys, but upon never meeting the objects of her distaste, would not take action. Draco would continue on his selfish life path, completely ignoring her, and one day, Draco Malfoy and his wife (some rich woman met in the city) would be handing out paychecks to a Mr. and Mrs. Resentful. Countless stories like the above have happened.

However, those have never been written about. It ought to be obvious by this point that this story has something special, something which separates it from the masses of might-have-beens, something unique that will lead to an instant tale. As, of course, it does. In fact, it has two.

Two simple facts, that caused all the trouble and changed a might-have-been into an actually-was.

First: Ginny Weasley, while a good employee, was a bit temperamental, and as she worked with a group of mostly male people of varying ages, some of whom were insensitive or ignorant, and some of whom were her friends, she tended to cause some trouble. Trouble of the sort that could not be blamed on her, exactly, but which led to her superior deciding that perhaps she was better suited to work on her own.

This decision then led to a change in her job. Though she did not refuse, because it came with a pay raise, she did not enjoy it one bit, and so she spent most of her time glaring about, cursing the Malfoys more than ever. She might enjoy animals, but Ginny did not enjoy spending half her day underneath vapidly chewing cows, milking them dry (technically, this wasn’t required but somehow she often managed to be recruited while waiting for cheese-in-the-making to coagulate). And while she enjoyed cooking, making cheese was a lengthy, boring process.

Second: Ever since a young age, Draco Malfoy had only one weakness: dairy. It was only to be expected, as most of the Malfoy income came from their dairy farms, but the young boy managed to have some sort of dairy product with every meal, and much of it. Milk, fresh that morning; butter, churned by their hard-working neighbors; yogurt, all he ate for breakfast some days; ice-cream, a dessert he ate so much of it was a miracle he stayed thin; and finally, cheese.

Over the years, Draco’s fascination with most dairy products began to die away; he drank water or juice, or alcohol on some occasions, dismissing milk as childish. Butter, cream cheese, and even ice cream were all deemed too fattening as the increasingly-vain teen began to pride himself on his devilish good looks. Yogurt was dismissed in favor of hearty breakfasts consisting of eggs, bacon, and toast, if not more elegant fare. The one obsession that stuck with him – even, one might speculate, grew stronger – was that with cheese.

Draco loved cheese more than anything else in the world: and being a selfish, uncaring brat, this extended to people as well. His obsession bordered on the ridiculous, and he spent large chunks of his time in the city hunting down various rare cheeses, which he then would ingurgitate secretively in his quarters.

For – and this is an important point – Draco was fully aware of how strange his obsession was, and as such took to extreme lengths to keep it a secret. He might not notice underlings, but this did not mean he wanted anyone snickering about him behind his back. At school, he could keep his cheeses ensconced in his room, where no one could ever find them – it was only when he came home that Draco ran into trouble. The only place to get cheese was from his family’s stocks, making it very difficult to do so unnoticed.

The summer that this story begins, Draco had decided to attempt to neglect cheese until August. Ginny, at the same time, took a job milking cows, preparing cheese, stocking it, and doing various such dairy- and cheese-related chores.