IV
The familiar sound of Kippy’s pop echoed in the library as Draco sipped his wine. Kippy uncorked another bottle, slid it toward Draco with an exasperated sigh, and cleaned up his dinner plate before apparating off. It’d been a shit weekend.
Crabbe and Goyle were both dead. Not that he had much to do with them after the war, anyway. They’d maintained their stance on blood purity and hierarchy nonsense. Draco knew for a fact there was a question on Crabbe’s parentage (apparently, Mrs. Crabbe had quite the drunken squander with a muggle man on holiday by the rumors). And Goyle wasn’t even recruited by the Dark Lord because of his bumbling ineptitude with a wand. (Much to the horrifying dismay of Mr. Goyle Senior). They were as they’d been in school—useless thugs.
But it was the circumstances of their deaths that had Draco reeling. Two more death eaters dead with an unnamed potion claiming them. Draco had to assume it was a potion. There was no way a spell could pass by this many Aurors undetected. They were experts.
“Shall I give you three a minute alone?” Potter asked as he lifted the sheets off them.
Malfoy ignored the quip.
“He’s gone even more pale than he normally is,” Weasley said.
“Probably worried he’s next.”
Draco cast his untransfigured charm over their bodies, hoping to reveal something that one of the other Aurors may have missed. But nothing changed. He pulled Weasley’s pen from his robes and used it to pry Crabbe’s mouth and then Goyle’s.
“Oi, watcher!”
Weasley tried to reach over his shoulder to retrieve his pen, but Draco was taller and sufficiently boxed him out of the way with his shoulders.
“We’ve already checked for poisoning,” Potter said.
“Then you would know that oftentimes poisoning can have delayed responses due to the body’s decomposition.”
“Er-”
The two twits looked back and forth at one another but had no other clever responses.
“Don’t you two have some other case to handle?” He asked. “Shouldn’t you be hunting down the golden cunt or whatever we call her these days?”
He smirked to himself as Weasley launched himself at Draco with a roar. The perfect response he expected from his cantankerous red-headed foe. Potter reacted a second quicker and intercepted Weasley on his mission.
“Rather embarrassing. Don’t you think? It’s been… what… a year? Eighteen months?”
Draco tutted as he shone a light in Crabbe and Goyle’s lifeless eyes.
Weasley struggled beneath Potter’s hold.
“Perhaps the jig’s up,” Draco continued. “Might be time we all admit the bronzed pussy is, in fact, as dead as these two great oafs.”
He’d finally struck the nerve. Both of them launched themselves at Draco over his callousness toward Granger. Draco stepped to the side at the last minute and sent them tumbling into the corpses of Crabbe and Goyle as they noisily crashed to the floor.
Draco watched in awe as their gruff contact caused both bodies to completely erupt into a black inky substance. Draco conjured a vial and slipped some of the former corpses inside before pocketing it. Weasley and Potter fell into the gunk below while retching and gagging. Draco slipped and tossed the pen back to Weasley before stepping out of the examination room.
“Gentlemen, always a pleasure.”
He spun the vial between his fingers as he watched the sticky black substance move back and forth. Wine in one hand, deceased former classmates in the other. It seemed to be just another night in Malfoy Manor.
***
“I’ll give it a go,” Nott said as he studied the vial. “But I’m no Auror.”
“That’s what I’m banking on.”
The last thing Draco needed was another Auror trying to rationalize or analyze the case. He needed an outside perspective. One that specialized in different magic. Alchemy.
“How are things progressing with your little American?”
Nott snorted.
“About as well as you’d expect. Cheeky thing.”
“You could always give in and drop Luna an owl.”
“I tried,” Nott said. “She’s on with Longbottom.”
Draco threw back his head and howled with laughter. Nott laughed, too, as he pocketed the vial.
“I’ve got a few potions to brew today. Then I’ll get to your sea sludge.”
“It’s actually bits of Crabbe and Goyle.”
The earlier laughter died on his lips as he looked up at Draco in horror. Draco shrugged at his mortification.
“See you at Zabini’s tonight?”
He didn’t wait for an answer as he strolled out of the shop.