Chapter 4
I hated how nothing was mine. The clothes I wore, the food I ate, the communal bath I shared with fresh recruits who had no sense of decorum. The trainee infesting my bedroom each fall felt more and more like a violation. Flashes of crimson always at the edge of my gaze, now behind me, now in between the shelves I’d foolishly considered my domain.
An “audit,” they called it. Good experience for Potter for when he was promoted to administration. A complete load of crock.
He kept touching things. Even if I answered his asinine questions he’d still paw at the item of interest. My back hurt from hunching over my kiosk to stop myself from accidentally catching a glimpse of red.
I really wasn’t the best judge of whether the reparations the ministry demanded were fair. What was fair? My father orphaning the children who now benefited from the Malfoy fortune? I just wish they’d leave me this tiny box of a room.
It was their room. Their files. Records of their work. Their golden boy, Potter, investigating every choice I ever made that put my grubby fingerprints on it.
Put it in the report, Potter. My mantra every time he asked why I didn’t do things different.
I buried my nose in my work and refused to explain a damn thing I was doing. I took twice as long as normal to accept every file in order to fully record it in the log so I could run away from Potter when he left work at six each evening. I risked a long dinner each night in the hostile canteen to be sure he was gone before I returned to update my index.
The space was mine again at night. Pristine and quiet. I told myself I was there to work, but mostly I wasted time scouring the room for Potter’s reckless influence. Righting all his wrongs. Ensuring he wouldn’t leave marks here like he left marks on my skin. I went to bed too late. Exhausted but unable to sleep.
The morning he arrived before me was when I realized I was scared of him. He’d opened my index. He’d pulled out an entire pile of cards. Crimson robes, red as blood, were draped over the back of my chair.
Not my chair. None of it was mine.
You look pale, Malfoy. Do you need to sit down? Potter moved the robe away to make it clear he would allow me to. I’d sooner faint than take his offer. With luck I’d bash my head on the way down and bleed out before anyone could save me.
When did you finish the filing? Do you always get in so early? What do these notations mean? Are you sure you don’t want to sit down?
I’d assumed Potter was shit at investigations because his case closure rate was abysmal and his paperwork sucked. Imagine my surprise when I read his final audit report. It was a courtesy copy. I thought you should have it, he had said. Not for the files or the index or the officials who didn’t actually expect him to fix anything. He made a copy just for me. He told me to keep it. It was the one and only thing of my very own.