Turning the Page

Draco isn’t sure why Laura saw fit to offer him full time employment at her bookshop, but he wasn’t going to question it.

Instead, he goes home that night and stares at the note that Laura Avery, a distant relation to the Avery family, wrote for him before he left.

She’d made an offer of full time employment, to be paid in muggle currency, starting in two days.

Which means that so long as Auror Brently doesn’t put up a stink, Draco will be a bookseller instead of a magical janitor in less than 48 hours.

He feels lighter than he has in years. Maybe in the last decade. Someone had finally seen to give him a break. A helping hand. He just had to accept it.

Draco understood that he had committed evil acts. That he had caused irreversible harm to countless people and that he deserved to be punished.

But he had completed his prison sentence. He just wanted to spend the rest of his life in quiet reflection. Even if it meant stepping away from a world that would never forgive him. 

Draco doesn’t have a large wardrobe. In fact, he only has four shirts and two pairs of trousers that aren’t his DMM work attire. He’d been left with nothing when he left Azkaban apart from a stipend which he had spent on bedding, clothes, and shampoo for light hair.

Still, he spends nearly an hour trying to decide what to wear on his first day at Turning the Page. He should get a haircut as well. It’s grown a bit too long, often hanging over his brow and curling around his ears.

Though he shouldn’t spend money he doesn’t have.

That night, sleep doesn’t come, much like every night. But where it is typically paralysing to lay there and try to fall asleep, tonight it feels like giddiness. An unquenchable excitement.

Auror Brently looks like he could take on a nest of blast-ended skrewts all on his own. 

"So you went and got yourself a job in a bookshop, did ya?" Brently asks, reading the note Laura had given Draco.

Draco nods, folding his hands in his lap.

"Pretty boy couldn't handle getting his hands dirty, why am I not surprised?" Brently closes the file with Draco's name on it. "Doesn't mean I won't have my eye on you."

“Right,” Draco nods, hoping that those words mean what he thinks they mean.

“Alright, well this Laura wants you to start tomorrow, so I suppose I have no choice but to allow you to end your employment with the Department of Magical Maintenance.”

Draco swallows his grin.

“I’ll be stopping by to check the new place out, talk to the owner. Make sure you aren’t doing anything to violate the terms of your reintegration. You will not be involved with the magical half of this store, am I understood, Malfoy?”

“Yes,” Draco nods, his knee bouncing nervously.

“You have to finish the day,” Auror Brently says, reaching for a large rubber stamp and pressing it into the file with all f Draco’s information in it.

“Absolutely,” Draco nods and then both men stand.

He takes the approved work transfer notice and stuffs it in his overall pocket.

“While you're here, you should know that your hearing was denied by the Wizengamot.”

Draco had forgotten about his request for a hearing regarding the use of his magic.

He wasn’t exactly surprised they refused to hear him though. 

“Thanks,” he bites out.

Brently waves his hand at the door and it opens, giving Draco his cue to leave.

It was cold in Draco’s flat that morning so he’d settled on a pair of grey flannel trousers paired with his cream jumper.

Now, he was wishing he’d worn something lighter.

He has to roll up the sleeves of his jumper nearly right after arriving to Turning the Page.

Laura was a much better boss than Fusco.

She explained the layout of the store and the services they provide over a cup of tea.

Then she’d left him to walk through the rows to “make an acquaintance with the authors and their works.”

He had already smiled more this morning than he had in the last month.

Like the magical, the muggle shop offers many services.

Book bindings, author recommendations, public readings by popular or local authors, private consultations, and procurement of any book not currently in stock.

Laura comes back through the door marked Storage to carry on “training” Draco.

“You’ll mostly just be handling sales. Making recommendations. Helping customers who don’t remember the title. Most often they tell you the colour of the cover. Not exactly helpful,” she explains, gesturing around the dusty stacks, mostly containing brown and black covers.

“I haven’t read much muggle literature,” Draco confesses, looking down at the table in front of him.

“Not to worry, most people who come in here haven’t either,” Laura jokes.

For the fifth time that day, yes he is keeping track, Draco smiles.

He had been so miserable just a couple of days ago.

Funny how things happen sometimes.

“Alright, let me show you how the register works. You’ll have to ask Hermione for help with the muggle currency. I still get the little coins mixed up now and again.”

Draco makes it an immediate goal not to have to ask Granger for help with simple calculations. How hard can it be? No system could be more complex than the wizarding one. 

Laura walks Draco through how to use the register, how to note which books are bought, and how to open up in the mornings.

“I work late nights next door mostly. Witches and wizards don’t tend to need emergency translations or short handed potions ingredients in the middle of the day. They can just go to Diagon for it.”

Draco nods, thinking about the number of times his Father had been forced to go to Bourgin and Burkes in the middle of the night during the early days of the second war.

“Feel free to take lunch whenever you like, just make sure to pop the be back soon sign in the window. If you are going to be gone more than an hour, just put up the closed sign. A little bit of hope is a good thing, but too much and people get antsy.”

Draco smiles again, thinking about why he would ever need more than an hour for lunch.

“Hermione comes in around one most days. Except weekends, she practically lives here. Levi too, but it’s no trouble. You are all welcome.”

Draco decides not to ask about Levi. Probably a boyfriend and he has no right to Granger’s personal life anyways.

“I’m sure there are other things I am forgetting. Just ask Hermione, she knows everything there is to know about this place.” Laura spins slowly like she is trying to figure out what she forgot, but doesn’t seem to come up with anything.

Draco nods, even though he has no intention of asking Granger anything. Besides, what else could he possibly need to know? Sit around until someone wants to buy something and then give them change. Sounds easy.