Part II.
The second time Harry meets Mrs Nott, he’s dressed in brown trousers covered in oil and a white undershirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The black boots protecting his aching feet have just split awkwardly at the sole, and Ron is standing an arm's length behind him, making matters worse with his crude laughter.
“Christ,” Harry immediately says, abandoning the train tracks to climb up onto the cement platform, where he had spotted the upper class woman from a mile away. She was bent at the waist, just slightly, reading the yellow-printed schedule for the latest commute to London. Her hair, as blonde and pretty as it had been when they spoke last, was coiffed into a side part, with a silver clip holding it above her pierced ear.
Her dark green coat has a furline trim. Her stockings are brown and thick, sculpted delicately along the thin curves of her legs. White silk gloves defend her porcelain pale arms from the early December cold. She is, in a word, beautiful. But of course Harry wasn’t allowed to think these things— for two big, big reasons— so he pushed them away and simply said, “Ma’am, good evening.”
Mrs Nott glances sideways at him and for a long, horrifying moment, Harry convinces himself that she has forgotten who he is.
Then she replies, “Mr Harry Potter!”
He smiles. He ignores the sensation of Ron’s piercing gaze watching them from below. “Hello, Mrs Nott.”
“Are you… working?” she says, after conducting a survey of his dirty outfit.
Harry nods, gesturing at the train tracks. The metal rods were in bad shape—they needed fixing urgently, or else it would only corrode further. Sir Robards, their boss, had sent them over in a cab earlier this morning to take a gander at it. That was how Harry earned most of his pay cheques: on odd jobs around town, going wherever people needed hands-on expertise for their machinery.
“Ah,” Mrs Nott says, perhaps comprehending all this, or perhaps not. “Well, don’t let me keep you. I’ve just come to the station to pick up my husband. He’s spent the last few weeks in London, you see.”
“S’alright, Mrs,” Harry promises. “You should probably know, though, that the line into town has been cut off temporarily. So the company—I mean, me and the other boys— can work on it without any interference.”
It’s fascinating how fast her expression transforms from pleasant to frustrated; her eyebrows scrunch, her mouth pursing downwards. Slowly, so as not to reveal the anger in her voice, she replies, “That is… a shame. Do you have any idea how long it will be until the line’s opened again?”
Harry considers. “Latest? Probably Friday morning. Earliest, I suppose, Wednesday evening. Before then, all rides are postponed.”
Mrs Nott’s bottom lip trembled. She wasn’t upset, Harry thought, not in the melancholic sense, anyway. Some other emotion was controlling her.
“Thank you for letting me know, Mr Potter,” she said eventually. “Theo must’ve sent a telegram just after I left the house, so I missed his warning.”
Theo Nott. The elusive husband.
“Probably,” Harry said, swallowing. “Did you want—?”
“I’ll ring Dobby to bring the car back around,” Mrs Nott decided, as if she was not aware she was speaking aloud. Her body turned away from him, her fingers rising to tap at her chin. “There goes my plans for today, though. How am I meant to entertain myself without Theodore?”
“I could—”
“Harry!” Ron shouted.
He rolled his eyes and called back, “What?”
“Stop bloody slacking off! S’not lunch yet, is it?”
Harry curses his best mate (in his head, of course), while trying not to overthink the strange gleam now in Mrs Nott’s silvery eyes.
“Sorry,” he says to the lady, tipping his hat at her. “I best get back to, er…”
“Of course.” She smiles. “See you around, Harry Potter?”
“Yes. Certainly. See you.”
Mrs Nott left. Harry watched her arse move till she was fully out of view, then hopped off the platform and returned to Ron’s sweaty side. All things considered, he thought, that hadn’t gone so bad. After all, Mrs Draco Nott remembered him. Not many country boys could claim to be on friendly terms with someone so upper-class.
“Who was that?” Ron said. “Friend of yours?”
“Nobody,” Harry lied.
Draco’s husband returned from London a few days later. Harry knew this because he saw the happy couple in town together on Saturday afternoon, presumably out for lunch. Harry himself was busy visiting Fred and George’s shop.
The Weasley family, you ought to know, settled in St. Ottery’s sometime in the nineteenth century, following a difficult period of poverty. Via the occasional investment in land, as well as good work ethic, they improved their circumstances steadily over the ensuing decades.
At least until the Great War smacked them right back into the trenches of destitution. Mr Arthur Weasley was already unable to maintain a career, due to a leg injury sustained at his old factory job; Mrs Molly Weasley had no education, and could therefore find no steady work; the oldest brothers—that is, William, Charlie and the twins—were sent to the frontlines; Ron managed to keep out of the world’s conflict due to pure luck (in 1918, when he finally became of age, England didn’t want anymore soldiers. They had enough coming in from the States); and young, pretty Ginny Weasley, was destined to never earn more than thirty pounds a year, on account of her sex.
Harry had tried lying about his age early on in the war, but was unsuccessful. He found himself grateful for this whenever he saw George’s missing ear, or the haunted expression that occasionally crossed Fred’s oval face. William—Bill, to friends—had come back even worse; he’d lost four fingers, a foot and a huge area of his stomach due to a German bomb. It was a miracle he survived at all, everyone in the town said.
Last December, Fred and George decided to rent out one of the stores in town to sell costume jewellery to the area’s middle-class folk. Business was slow at first, but now there were about ten customers looking around the place at all times. Harry realised this as soon as he entered that Saturday, and a rush of pride shot through him as a result.
He had known the Weasley’s since he was a child; Molly and Arthur virtually adopted him out of the local orphanage after Ron wouldn’t stop going on and on about the ‘funny’ boy he sat with in Sunday school. So of course he was glad that the twins’ shop had succeeded. They were on their way to becoming members of the gentry.
George, manning the counter, waved Harry over as the entrance door jingled shut behind him. His orange hair made him stick out amongst the crowd of customers. “Ron mentioned you might pop ‘round today. Lookin’ to buy somethin’?”
“Ron should mind his own business,” Harry replied. Then, “Er, yes. I wanted to know if you had any, I don’t know, pearl necklaces or bracelets…”
“Just received a batch of lucite pearls this week, actually,” Fred said, appearing next to his twin brother suddenly. He grinned at Harry. “Shopping for a certain someone, are you? A little birdie told me so, but I hadn’t really believed it.”
“You don’t know shite about shite, Frederick,” Harry retorted.
Crossing his arms, George said, “You can have the necklace for half-price if you tell us the girl’s name, Harold.”
They want to hear him say ‘Ginny’, but all he can think is Draco, Draco, Draco.
“I’ve got enough to pay the set price, thank you very much,” Harry says, pushing the guilt down. He then grabs the wallet from his trouser pocket and spreads the right amount onto the counter. “We got a deal?”
“Yeah, mate,” Fred says, accepting the money. “Enjoy, you dog.”
Harry rolls his eyes, slips the proffered necklace into his jacket, and walked back out into the sharp December air. Immediately, he’s greeted with Mrs Draco-Bella Nott and her husband.
The couple are standing by the fountain, holding hands. Mrs Nott is wearing the same fur-lined coat and stockings as the other day, but has brushed her pale hair into a different, more complicated style. The short strands curl prettily around her neck and forehead, emphasising her jawline. She is, Harry thinks with some surprise, oddly sharp for a woman. Almost masculine, though not in a bad way.
Comparatively, her husband— Mr Theodore Nott, son of a colonel and blind as a bat, if the rumour’s true— is hideous. His skin is patchy, his head balding and his clothes hang grotesquely along his stick-thin frame as if, even with all his wealth, he couldn’t be bothered to purchase things that fit him properly. Specifically: his black pants and matching blazer are cropped too high on his wrists and ankles, while his top-hat sits lopsided on his temple. It gives the appearance of an imbecile.
Harry glances away, determined to return to the Burrow without either Mr or Mrs Nott noticing him. Unfortunately, a moment later Mrs Draco has tilted her face to the side, just enough to catch a glimpse of Harry’s awkward attempt to escape.
“Mr Potter!” she calls, flapping her gloved hand at him.
He winces, but disguises the expression with a respectful nod as he approaches the husband and wife. “Good afternoon, ma’am. Sir.”
“Who is this, darling?” Mr Nott asks.
“The man who found my earring—you remember, I told you about it yesterday evening, in the cab. It was very lucky. I don’t know what your mother might have done if I’d lost it.”
“Thank you,” Mr Nott says after her explanation, not quite meeting Harry’s gaze as he spoke. Definitely blind, then. “My wife is extraordinarily clumsy. Her knees are perpetually covered in bruises as a result of her constant falls.”
Mrs Nott flushes bright pink. Harry, trying not to match her blush, thinks purposely of things totally unrelated to Draco on her knees.
“Of course, I am not much better,” Mr Nott adds, oblivious. “Thanks to my infernal condition.”
“I best be leaving, ma’am, sir,” Harry says abruptly—he can hardly bare their combined presences. “Have a lovely afternoon.”
“You as well, Mr—?”
“Potter. Harry Potter.”
Mr Nott shakes his hand. “I’ll remember that. Mr Potter. Potter, Potter. Like pottery. I occasionally have trouble with names...”
“Goodbye,” a smiling Mrs Draco-Bella Nott chimes as her husband trails off.
Her straight teeth lift his spirits. “Farewell, Mrs Nott.” And then Harry walks away, ignoring the erratic speed of his heart, and pretending that he wasn’t already in love.
&&&
The redheaded girl seated on Draco’s chaise doesn’t look much older than sixteen, though her identification papers had professed her to be his age.
She’s donning a ratty old dress, her hair is tied into two frizzy plaits, and her shoes are scuffed with use. Yet, inexplicably, with her bright, confident eyes and unconscious smile, she manages to fit into the manor’s atmosphere. The girl—Miss Ginevra Weasley, Draco remembers—is exactly what he was looking for in a maid. Young, passionate, pretty. It’s a shame Theodore hated her on sight.
Well, not on sight; Theo had behaved courteously enough at the outset of the interview, then began to deteriorate in etiquette as the grandfather clock behind them ticked on. Draco couldn’t fathom it. Ginny was polite, more so than the majority of farm girls, and obviously qualified. She had told them that she was raised completing household chores—washing, cooking, cleaning and the like.
“During the war, I would babysit for the neighbours, too,” she added, with a pointed glance at Draco’s stomach. “In case you ever need…”
Actually, now that Draco thought about it, it was only after that particular statement that Theodore lost his enthusiasm for her. Typical man.
“Our previous maid had to retire quite unexpectedly, because of her arthritis,” Draco told her, while Theo stomped down the hall to their bedroom. Good riddance. “So we’ll be in touch very soon, I would say. You live in the Burrow? Over the hills?”
Ginny nodded. “Yes, with my parents. All my older brothers have moved out or gotten married.”
“I’ll send a telegram over once I’ve discussed your wage with Theodore,” Draco said.
The girl hesitated, then murmured, “Your husband did not seem to care for me, much, if I may say so.”
“Ah.” Draco took a sip from his tea—he had prepared the tray of biscuits and hot drinks prior to Ginevra’s arrival—and considered his next words carefully. He didn’t want to offend the girl, but she seemed a little bit… naive, about male troubles. “I’m afraid the topic of, ahem, infants is rather sensitive at the moment. We are having troubles, you see, with conceiving.”
Ginny gaped for a moment. “My God! I’m so sorry, ma’am! I didn’t know!”
Draco smiled a little. “It’s perfectly alright. Now you do know, so the solution to redeeming yourself is very simple…”
“Don’t bring it up again?”
“Precisely.”
Both of them laughed. Draco couldn’t remember ever feeling so comfortable with an individual from the staff before. He wasn’t raised to treat the working class with anything except polite frostiness.
After they finish their tea, Draco leads her to the parlour so they can exchange their farewells.
Surprisingly, there is another person on the manor’s doorstop, already waiting for them.
“Mr Harry Potter,” he says, startled. The man looks as dashing as ever, with his bad haircut and dirty clothes. His boots are tattered, the sole split to reveal his sock-clad toe. Additionally, there’s a swipe of something on his brown cheek—coal, or oil, perhaps. Potter mentioned working with mechanics when they ran into each other at the train station, a few weeks ago. “What are you doing here?”
Potter coughs. He scratches his neck as he explains, in a weird tone, “I’ve come to fetch Ginny, actually.”
Disappointment settles like a stone in Draco’s chest. He did not come to see me.
Then, just as quickly, he reminds himself this is a good thing. Why would Draco, who was a wife before he was anyone else, want some country bumpkin to visit him? It was ludicrous. Sure, they had bumped into each other by coincidence a few times now, but that meant nothing, realistically. It certainly did not mean their fates were tied, or anything else so childishly romantic.
“Ah,” Draco says eventually, feeling awkward. “Well, here she is.”
Ginny smiles sheepishly at Potter. She’s blushing, oddly enough, her cheeks the same tone as her hair. “Hello, Harry.”
Oh.
The two were courting. Maybe engaged, already. That made sense, Draco supposed, considering their connection to one another.
To be frank, he’d conducted some minor investigation into Potter’s personal situation, after speaking to him outside the Weasley jewellery shop. He learned about Potter’s lack of parents… his mother-son dynamic with Molly Weasley… how close he was to the youngest brother, Ronald…
Draco crossed his arms, wondering how he possibly had failed to connect the dots as soon as Ginny’s application form reached the Nott mailbox.
It was better this way, he realised while the silence drew on. Draco’s little infatuation with Potter would fade now that he knew the man was taken. He could remain completely faithful to Theodore, both emotionally and physically.
You are a married woman. You should have never daydreamed about kissing the blasted man, anyway, no matter how green his eyes.
“Well, we’ll be off, then,” Potter said.
Draco blinked. “Of course. Goodbye, Miss Weasley, I shall be in touch soon.”
She thanked him, and then the young lovers were disappearing down the gravel path, their figures becoming smaller and smaller till Draco could no longer see them at all.
Back inside, he found Theo waiting for him in the drawing room.
“Finished sulking?” Draco drawled. He took the spot that Ginny had just vacated on the velvet chaise, placing one leg over the other underneath his skirts.
“We must make love,” Theodore says, instead of acknowledging his earlier tantrum. “Now. While I’m in the mood.”
Draco raised his eyebrows. “Must we?”
His husband glared at him. “You ought to be begging for it, you know. To have my child would be the greatest honour of your life.”
“Yes,” Draco said, slowly. “But you aren’t very good at it, are you? So why should I or, indeed, any girl, ‘beg’ for it? Christ, Theo, you’re like a dog in heat sometimes.”
Theo melted into the space beside him. “C’mon, dear, we’ll do it quickly. I know your father’s mad we aren’t pregnant, yet.”
“Fine,” Draco said. “But not again till after my bleed. Pansy told me it’s more likely to ‘take’ after a few days.”
“Yes, yes…”
Theo leaned over, pressing their lips together. Wet, Draco thought. His husband’s tongue was always so wet. He despised the sensation of their mouths touching like this.
After the first, perfunctory kiss was over, Theodore began untying Draco’s pink blouse and unbuckling his belt… his hands moved down and down, caressing his bony hips… then, without even warning him, he had pushed inside… for a second, it seemed the agony would go on forever, but after a minute had transpired, Draco grew numb to it. Like always.
Theo thrusted back and forth rhythmically—with no finesse, really—moaning grotesquely into Draco’s ear.
“Almost,” he muttered, his hips stuttering. “Almost there. Just lay still, dear. Good girl.”
Draco sighed, looking over Theo’s shoulder. It really wasn’t very proper to do this particular marital chore in the drawing room of all places. What would happen if a servant decided to come through for a quick clean of the coffee table? They’d be subjected to quite a traumatic scene.
“Oh, God,” Theo said, and it was done. His thin cock spurted deeply inside Draco’s dry cunt. “Perfect, dear, so lovely. You’re always so good for me. Such a pretty doll, aren’t you?”
“Get off,” Draco growled, crawling up and away. He was tempted to go run a bath and clean his insides out, but Theodore would hear the water running and stop him. “I’m going to stay at Pansy’s for the evening. She invited me over for dinner, because her husband is out of town. Is that alright?”
Theodore, naked from the waist down, had never looked more pathetic than that moment. “Oh? Uh… yes, okay. You have my consent. Give her my well wishes…”
“And by the way,” Draco added, before he left to go change into a cleaner skirt. “I’m hiring Ginny Weasley. I don’t care if you disapprove.”
“Miss Weasley?” Theo said. “You mean the girl? Sure, I don’t mind. Very nice, her.”
He’s fucked himself dumb, Draco thought wryly, then exited through the left corridor, towards his personal bedroom. What an absolute fool.
Alone now, he pushed the memory of Theo’s most recent intrusion away and sat at his desk to draft the telegraph for Ginny. It was sent directly to the Burrow the following morning, to inform her of the salary and workload expectations. Draco felt zero regret about the situation—he hoped, secretly, that by hiring Ginevra, he might have more excuses to see Mr Harry Potter… There’d be no harm in becoming friends with the man, after all.