the shovel talk
It was rare that Draco had a good night of sleep. Last night was no exception. Except, instead of seeing dementors or death eaters, Draco saw Lauren, alone and afraid. Being alone and afraid was not foreign to Draco and perhaps that was why he felt so deeply troubled for the girl. He wanted to help her but he remembered being 13 and thinking nothing in the world could save him. It was a terrible thing to be so young and so alone.
Draco finished his cup of tea and cast a quick scourgify charm to clean the cup. Then he stood up from the kitchen table and smoothed his hair down. He had given up on slicking his hair back and truthfully, he was quite mortified at the memories of how much hair gel he used to use. Though Draco’s hair was not nearly as messy as Potter's. At the thought of Potter, Draco felt sick to his stomach. He was not looking forward to spending his day looking over cases with Potter and there was no doubt Potter was feeling the same sense of dread.
Draco arrived at the ministry and kept his head down as he moved to Potter’s office. He assumed that is where they would be meeting as Draco’s office was completely overtaken by cauldrons. Draco was fully intent on stopping in Potter’s office first thing. He fully meant to stop and open the door and say hello and sit down and maintain decorum. But his feet moved past the door and continued walking toward Hermione’s office. Inexplicably, Draco felt relieved at the prospect of seeing Hermione instead.
He approached her office and knocked gently, opening the door only after she called out for him too.
“Hello,” Draco said, peeking his head into the room. Unfortunately, it seemed fate was in a bad mood today.
“What are you doing here?” Potter asked, standing up from the chair Draco usually lounged about in.
“Oh, relax,” Hermione leaned back in her chair and beckoned for Draco to come in. “Hi, Draco.”
“Draco?” Potter turned and gave Hermione a look of utter betrayal.
“Harry, I believe I have mentioned that I had an expert helping me build the structure of the bill I wanted to propose.” Hermione raised an eyebrow and Potter looked from Draco back to Hermione.
“You never mentioned it was Malfoy-”
“Well, I didn’t want you to freak out.” Hermione said plainly, looking tired of Potter’s dramatics.
“You know, I think I am going to wait outside-” Draco said, stepping back from the pair.
“Good idea!” Potter exclaimed as Hermione said,
“Don’t you dare!”
Draco stayed put as he was much more inclined to listen to Hermione. Potter glared at him.
“You left without warning yesterday, very unprofessional.” Potter said. Draco rolled his eyes.
“You were being annoying.” Draco snapped and Hermione sighed loudly. Potter still stood glaring at Draco with clenched fists.
“Relax, both of you. Draco has been indispensable in building my case.” Hermione nodded down at the chair and Potter sat down looking quite like a scorned child.
“Yeah, Potter-”
“Draco,” Hermione gave him a warning look, “don’t start.” Draco snapped his mouth shut and felt similar to how Potter looked. Hermione shuffled some of her papers and looked up at Draco. “Harry mentioned you two are working on a case involving werewolves?”
“I thought that was confidential?” Draco said, innocently, happy to throw Potter under the bus.
“And what were you coming here to discuss, then?” Hermione asked, with a small smile, and Draco was glad to know at least someone found this situation funny. Potter smirked and Draco thought about conjuring a cup of tea to throw at his head.
“Nothing.” Draco crossed his arms, “I can’t just visit my friend?”
“Friend?” Potter asked and Hermione rolled her eyes, once again.
“I appreciate both of you coming to visit me to voice your concerns but you know I'm not going to let the press bully me into stopping this bill.” Hermione straightened up, “if that’s all children, I do have work I need to do.”
Draco scoffed at being called a child but he still followed behind Potter as they shuffled out the door.
“I didn’t know you were the friend Hermione has been mentioning.” Potter muttered, leading Draco towards his office. Draco hadn’t been aware Hermione had been referring to him as a friend to other people.
“I wasn’t aware she had been referring to me either.” Draco said honestly. They arrived at the door to Potter’s office and Potter hesitated.
“You know- Ron’s been dying to meet you.”
“We’ve already met?” Draco frowned, confused on what exactly Potter was trying to say.
“I mean, Hermione hasn’t mentioned your name, just that some brilliant expert has been helping her with her recent project.”
“She thinks I’m brilliant?” Draco asked, before he could stop himself. He knew Hermione thought highly of him but it was nice to hear the affirmation. Potter narrowed his eyes and Draco still was finding it difficult to determine what had Potter upset. Perhaps he just lived in a perpetual state of anger.
“Look, Hermione’s Ron’s fiancee.” Potter said plainly.
Draco nodded, “Yes, the whole wizarding world has heard.”
“And he’s been hearing loads about some random guy.” Potter continued and Draco finally realized where this was going. But not before fighting a blush at the thought that Hermione found him interesting and helpful enough to talk about.
“Oh, come on.” Draco could’ve laughed at the thought, “I have no interest in getting between them.”
“Okay,” Potter said after a moment. He seemed to realize the ridiculousness of the situation and he shook his head, “sorry, I just- they’re my best friends.”
“I get it.” Draco said, though he didn’t really. He couldn’t imagine trying to meddle in Blaise or Theo’s relationships. “But rest assured, I have no interest.”
Potter seemed to find that answer acceptable because he finally twisted the door knob and pushed the office door open.
Draco couldn’t resist the urge and as he watched Potter enter his office, he said, “You should probably tell Weasley I’m not interested or else he’ll try to hex me and end up throwing up slugs. Again.”
Potter turned around to glare at him and Draco fought his smile back. Shaking his head, Potter continued walking to his desk. Draco was not surprised to find that the office was the biggest one he’d seen. There were two desks, one that looked completely untouched, and the other gave Draco a headache just looking at the mess.
“Do you have a regular partner?” Draco asked, standing awkwardly in the doorway.
“No, that’s your desk.” Potter said, as if it was obvious. Draco blinked at him. “I thought you would need space to work.” Potter said flatly and it suddenly occurred to Draco that Potter had conjured the second desk for him.
“I have my own office.” Draco said defensively.
“Well I don’t fancy hanging around the dungeon.” Potter said. Draco didn’t exactly fancy it either but he hadn’t had a choice. He bit back the snarky comment and sat down at his new desk. He pulled his roll of parchment and the case file out of his pocket. Draco finally took a proper look at Potter and he narrowed his eyes as he noticed Potter’s dark under eyes and wrinkled robes.
“Did you sleep here?” Draco asked after a moment.
“No.” Potter snapped which absolutely meant that he was lying. But Draco decided to let it go in the spirit of diplomacy. “But I, um, was here late last night and I think we should look at the scenes where the two attacks occurred.”
Draco just nodded, thinking that had been obvious.
“But also-“ Potter hesitated and Draco was already fighting the urge to glare at him. “I think we need to examine the possibility that your potion failed.”
“What do you want me to do? Brew it in front of you to prove it should work?”
“That would be useless, I’m rubbish at potions.” Potter rubbed the back of his neck.
“But you- in sixth year-”
“Yeah, I might've cheated all year.”
“I knew it!” Draco said, slamming his hands on the table, “Theo said I was just obsessed-“ Draco snapped his mouth shut. He had no idea why he was just about to admit how obsessed he had been with Harry Potter. To Potter, no less.
“What was that?” Potter, of course, had caught on to Draco’s slip up. “Obsessed, huh?”
Draco folded his arms, refusing to show his embarrassment.
“Don’t act like you didn’t stalk me all year.” Draco said and to his delight, Potter’s cheeks were tinged with pink. “Right, shall we focus now? I can send owls out to ask everyone who currently uses my potion if it has still been working for them.” Draco rustled through his robe pockets and eventually found a quill. “I’ll write letters asking about any adverse side effects or symptoms so as to not raise alarm.”
“Okay,” Potter nodded, “shall we visit the forest this afternoon, then?”
***
It took approximately three hours for Draco to finish writing and sending the letters off. Almost every Werewolf that was on the registry in Europe took Draco’s potion since its creation two years prior. Draco had made a point to visit and introduce himself to all the werewolves who took his potion. He assumed if he just sent out the potion absolutely no one would trust it and for that, he couldn’t blame them. However, if there was one thing Draco was confident in- it was his potion abilities. He owed it to the Wizarding World to do something good with his life and Draco had thought this potion and the advancement of Werewolf rights could have been it.
There weren’t many werewolves on the registry, but since the war the numbers had increased ten fold. Fenrir Greyback had been the cause of almost all new werewolves since and during the war. In every letter he wrote, Draco tried to be as personable as possible. It was a bit challenging after all, it wasn’t in his nature to be friendly but he had gained these people’s trust and for that, Draco was thankful.
“Right, that’s all done.” Draco lingered in the doorway of Potter’s office. Potter looked up from the piles of parchment he was hidden behind.
“Are you ready to go to the Forest?” Potter asked, straightening up, and pushing up his glasses back up his nose.
“Er, could we stop for lunch first?” Draco glanced down at his wrist to see it was just noon, which was when he usually ate. “The refectory should’ve just opened.”
“Oh.” Potter blinked as if the thought of lunch hadn’t even crossed his mind. “You can get lunch if you want, I’ve got a lot of work to do- but we can meet back here and leave in 30 minutes.”
Draco frowned, there was no way Potter had eaten earlier and Draco doubted he had picked up dinner before returning to the ministry last night.
“You’re not hungry?” Draco asked and Potter just shrugged, already back to scribbling away in his notes. “Suit yourself, I’ll be back soon.” Draco shut the door behind him and tugged the sleeves of his robes down as he made his way to the refectory.
He didn’t often eat in the cafeteria, mainly he would grab food, and return to his office. Although Draco worked at the ministry he still felt out of place. The feeling had just worsened after Minister Ignatius Blanche had taken office after practically encouraging people to take vigilante action against former death eaters.
The cafeteria was busy with its usual assortments of witches and wizards. Draco kept his head down and went to the self-serve soup bar. The floating ladle scooped chicken noodle soup into Draco’s cup. Draco placed a lid on his disposable soup cup and grabbed two bags of crackers, which he tucked into his robe, and finally, he took one jam-filled biscuit.
Draco quickly exited the area and walked back to Potter’s office. Food occupied both his hands so he cast a quick wandless spell to open the door for himself. Potter’s head snapped up and he looked slightly confused at Draco’s quick return.
Draco set his bowl of soup down next to his biscuit and pulled his packets of crackers out. As he had expected, Potter looked interested in Draco’s food. Draco levitated the biscuit over the Potter.
“Eat something, I’m not dealing with you passing out in the forbidden forest,” Draco said, blowing gently on his soup to cool it down.
“I think you’re just scared to be alone in the forbidden forest,” Potter said, but he took a bite of the biscuit without complaint so Draco considered it a victory.