Wire Act

All things considered, Draco was very happy with Fairgate. When he had owled his mother to ask if she would look at homes in London for him, he sent a very long list of specifications. Narcissa Malfoy, thrilled with her son’s return from abroad, came through marvelously. Draco would continue to tinker with the warding, probably for some time, but the whitewashed brick townhouse had a certain charm that he was very comfortable with.

Strong anti-Muggle wards and Notice Me Not inlaid foundations left it undisturbed by Draco’s quiet new neighbors. Across the street was a small park that he could envision spending what few sunny days there were in, and it made for a nice view out of the massive sitting room window. Fitzie had settled right in, redecorating the master suite for Draco in a way that ensured it was nothing like any of his previous bedrooms. The house elf was happily preparing for his guests while Draco pretended not to notice the suspicious glances she would throw his way as if expecting him to demand she accept money at any moment.

The doorbell finally rang just as the sun was beginning to set. Fitzie was just shuffling in Blaise and Theo when Draco met them in the entrance hall. “Evening Theo, thank you for tracking down our elusive friend.”

“Oh I’m the elusive one?” The handsome man appeared unimpressed for a second before his face softened and he gave Draco a careful hug. “Whereas you’ve hardly shown your face or written for the past couple years.”

Draco shrugged in the embrace. It felt nice, reminded him of school and lazy weekends spent in the Slytherin Common Room and cold nights wrapped up in the dormitory. Theo brought his own kind of nostalgia but wasn’t really the hugging kind. Blaise was much more taciturn. “Come on, let’s sit down.”

Blaise kept his hand on Draco’s waist as they went to the sitting room. It really was Draco’s favorite room in the flat, barring possibly his bedroom. The room bumped out of the building’s footprint so that three sides of it were covered with ceiling high windows. They were lovely, old-fashioned windows with multiple small panes. At precise points on the sides would be a small piece of stain glass to add a bit of color. Along the back was a sideboard, and though the room was small, at Narcissa’s insistence no piece of furniture was larger than a fainting couch, making it feel well proportioned.

Draco claimed an armchair for himself where he could see the sunset over the park, Blaise sitting to his left and Theo across from them. “Fitzie, get us some wine please.”

Blaise’s dark eyes locked on Draco’s as he absentmindedly grabbed a glass from the passing tray. “You know Draco, besides seeing you in the Gallery today, I don’t think we’ve seen each other since the end of the war.”

Poor Theo twiddling his thumbs must have been feeling terribly ignored at this point, but Draco couldn’t find it in himself to look away from Blaise. Even the mention of that horrible period didn’t shake the fixation on his guest. The end of the war was shockingly swift and created a confused atmosphere. The Minister had been exposed as a collaborator and there was a power vacuum at the top. Kingsley Shacklebolt, next in the line of succession, became the acting leader of Wizarding Britain by default. Draco himself had been detained. The omnipresent terror that was living under the Dark Lord’s reign was replaced with agonizing fear of spending his life in a prison cell.

“After my father was tried and my charges dismissed, I only waited to finalize my plans and ensure Mother was settled.” Lucius’s trial had been one of the first conducted by the tribunal, and it was swift. Shacklebolt tried to put together a system for holding the combatants responsible for their crimes while also working to restore faith in the Ministry. It was a balancing act he wasn’t always successful at.

There was a fevered air at that time. Retribution. Untold grief. Physical and mental wounds still unhealed. The decrepit foundations of their society fouled again by the Dark Lord. Certain families feared to go outside, not because as before there was apprehension of attack from a Death Eater, but instead fear of assault from a defender of the Light. A few, perhaps, deserved the newfound scorn, but others were merely caught in the crossfire. Draco suspected there were still wizards and witches for whom no amount of self-flagellation would ever overcome a suspicion they could be Dark. Or more appropriately, not sufficiently Light.

“The situation seemed to be settling down after cooler heads prevailed and nixed that ridiculous reparations’ proposal.” At that point Britain reached an almost revolutionary atmosphere with radicals trying to propose massive changes to the operation of government. The counter-revolution after the Dark Lord’s coup.

“How serious do you think that was?” Blaise seemed skeptical, but then he wasn’t as intimately involved as the other two were.

“Oh, I suppose there was a point where it looked possible,” Theo spoke up. “From what I heard, Lady Longbottom and some other families convinced Shacklebolt – not that he needed much convincing – that there was no legal basis to seize property like that. After all, it’s not like people became rich as Death Eaters, those assets already belonged to them. Plus, he was looking for reconciliation, not seeding the ground for another war in the next decade.”

It was amazing how few people seemed to know about the law or its procedure, and even less seemed to care. Stupidity wasn’t contained to the Dark Lord’s supporters. The Manor of course had been searched, but there wasn’t much left for investigators to take. It was promptly handed back to Narcissa who put the elves to work erasing any trace of the disgraceful characters who briefly inhabited it.

“Well anyway, Mother was taken care of, and I was free to leave for school. The Hauteville School of Architecture in Sicily, you know? It was a good experience.” Draco scratched his pale neck, lost in a daydream of the hot island and the very slight tan he was able to get after many months in the Mediterranean sun.

“There’s not much to tell there. I learned a lot; the professors were very knowledgeable. The school’s been there since the Norman conquest in the eleventh century – don’t look at me like that Blaise – and I like what I do.”

“Yes, Draco. We’re very impressed with your very old school and your multitude of talents –”

“And good looks!”

“Those too. But school has been over for how many years?” Blaise mused, his deep voice lifting mockingly.

“I did come back after school, Merlin knows where you were Blaise, but . . .” Draco paused. It was hard to know how to express it, coming back after four years away. Britain so different but still the same in many ways. Seeing his mother happy and gardening when he had grown used to the tight, stressed expression she wore from hosting murderers and sadists. It felt wrong, like putting on an old cloak and finding it pinched you uncomfortably. “I just couldn’t stay,” he put simply.

“Are you staying now?” The question was loaded and both Blaise and Theo looked as though they didn’t know how he would answer.

“Yes, I’m staying,” Draco said softly. Both boys relaxed at that, Theo going so far as to raise his glass in salute to Draco and down it in one go before waiving Fitzie over to refill it. “Actually, I’m not sure if you knew this Theo, but I was interning with Gavin Hailsen for a few months before I left.”

“Really? I thought I caught him wink your way today. What an opportunity.” Theo sounded jealous, and Draco preened a bit because he was right to be. The Chief Warlock was well liked and a master of parliamentary maneuvers. Seeing it firsthand had been a thrill for Draco and he was able to pick up a few skills just from observing the older gentleman. “Were you there when he sanctioned Bowles for saying Shacklebolt’s report on the post-war reconciliation effort was ‘dodgier than the man’s wife?’”

Draco snorted softly. “No, I think that was before my time. I imagine he was less than impressed.”

“No kidding. Shacklebolt had already stepped down as Minister but was still responsible for the review of the proceedings. Just as well, he got some sympathy from the chamber and some good press to hide the fact that the man had no head for politics.”

“Not that the people in charge now are much better,” Blaise muttered.

Theo nodded in sympathetic agreement. “Now hold on,” Draco said. “Before I go back to talking about myself, which I could do indefinitely, how is it Blaise that managed to get a seat in the Wizengamot?”

“The usual way, kissing babies.” Blaise grinned wide, his white teeth brightly contrasting his complexion, son of the Black Widow on full display.

“Mm just babies, I’m sure. Are you a constituency member or regional?” The Zabinis did not have a hereditary seat in the Wizengamot. The majority of seats were elected either from distinct constituencies such as Diagon West (long held by an Ollivander), or from a regional list.

Blaise scoffed. “Regional, Southeast England. Can you see me canvassing through some horrid spot like Godric’s Hollow?”

“Not London? Do you actually live there?”

“Mm, Kent. Got a charming little cottage there.”

“Remind me how many bedrooms that cottage has, Blaise,” Theo interjected.

Blaise waived him off. “You’ll just have to come see it for yourself, Draco,” he said with a wink. Draco had just a hint of blood rush to his cheeks, and quickly wet his throat with the wine Fitzie had picked out. “But it’s not far for the amount of work I do here. I’m at the Goblin Liaison Office, and Draco,” Blaise got serious, “Theo’s right. The people running the Ministry have no idea how close we are to another Goblin war; they keep trundling along their path like a blind Erumpent. No one would listen to my warnings, so I decided to run for a seat to do it myself.

“It can’t be that bad,” Draco assured himself, but Blaise was already shaking his head.

“If anything, it’s worse. Relations were not good between the tribes and the Ministry in the lead-up to the war and a number of Goblins died when Voldemort rampaged through Gringotts after Potter blew the bloody bank up. Shacklebolt didn’t have much use for them in his brief spell at the top, and since then,” Blaise shrugged. “The new creature legislation that’s passed, while some good, seriously damaged the independence of the Goblins. They’ve always been suspicious of wizards and the past decade and a half has not made things any better.”

“Goblins are Blaise’s wheelhouse,” Theo cut in. “So, I defer to him on questions involving them, but he makes a good point. Fudge, Scrimgeour, Thicknesse, Shacklebolt, Drangot, and now Pearson. Now some of them weren’t bad, but none of them have had particularly good dealings with the Goblins.”

The silence that reigned after that was not surprising, with all three of them lost in thought. Soon enough they were retiring for a scrumptious meal prepared by Fitzie. Naturally nothing contained apple on the menu, Fitzie’s revenge for Draco subjecting her to the singular cruelty that was Hermione Granger.

Draco spent most of dinner regaling the two former Slytherins about the last two years he spent in the U.S. In a joint-sponsorship between the Wizengamot and MACUSA, Draco got to see a whole host of the country. The two guests made appropriate noises to the tales of the fast-talking blonde; “Do you know how large it is?” “Their wizarding community is six times bigger than ours!” “The stadium at Ilvermorny was nearly as massive as for the World Cup!”

They seemed very interested in the sister wizarding school hidden away in Massachusetts. Draco spent considerable time there, taking a warding course as well as teaching as an adjunct for half a year. “I know, there are so many things I could teach but it was a specialized Charms class,” Draco preened. “You know how we think the castle is a good size (bigger than Durmstrang anyway); Ilvermorny is a whole campus. They even forbade the students from using brooms to get from one building to another because of how many airborne crashes there used to be.”

“Is there a Hogsmeade equivalent?” Theo pressed.

“Yes, a little Cape town called Waquoit Bay. It was very much an escape,” Draco murmured, drumming his fingers on the table. Similar, yet different, his time at the American school. Being able to walk in the sand dunes was a welcome change from the Scottish Highlands, especially after getting used to Sicily. “But I had to come home sometime.”

“So, what’s your big idea then?” Blaise asked. At Draco’s feigned innocence, Blaise smirked. “Come on, Draco. We’ve known you long enough that when you get that look in your eye, you’ve got something planned. There must be something that brought you back above homesickness.”

“Fine, spoil my pitch,” Draco grumbled. “One thing I learned above all others in America is how to better use space. I mean truly how few wizarding communities are there in Britain? It makes absolutely no sense. In America, they are all over! Everything from buildings or streets hidden in the cities, to whole towns secreted away in their national parks. That’s what I need your help with. I need to convince the Wizengamot to approve creation of a new district.”

It wasn’t just America. His professors in Sicily opened his eyes to a huge spectrum of opportunity that allowed wizards to live (and hide) in plain sight. The French countryside, Alpine villages, Adriatic towns. Wizards could be terribly clever about expanding and maintaining their territory, in ways that made Britain seem positively backward by comparison.

The others considered the proposal, Theo somewhat skeptically with Blaise seeming more open. “Alright Draco, I see what you’re saying but to what end? I mean, how are you going to sell this?” Theo asked.

“Is this a proud country? Because I’m not sure a proud country would limit itself to essentially two main shopping centres with a few scattered enclaves on top.” Draco responded forcefully. “There are plenty of opportunities for Wizarding Britain that we just don’t take advantage of. We should have somewhere to go to live and shop and eat outside of London. And there should be more areas for a community to grow together instead of sprinkled so far apart that first years know essentially no one until they start. I’m thinking either Birmingham or Manchester would be good places—”

“Draco, if you get involved with this project, don’t you think there will be accusations of self-dealing? Creating an opportunity for the Ministry to contract your skills? That’s not going to strike people well.”

“I know,” Draco fumed, frustrated. “I know this is my specialty, but why? I like doing this, I’m good at it, and I believe it’s needed! So, people will talk, they always do. But is that something I can overcome or convince people it’s nothing to worry about? I’ve spent the last few months putting together this proposal, I’m not going to let it die in this dining room.”

“Okay Draco,” Theo nodded plaintively. Blaise had a small smile watching their conversation. Draco had gotten more worked up perhaps than he wanted. Merlin, he probably sounded like Granger.

“Will you help me?” he pleaded.

“Draco, I would’ve helped you regardless. I just want you prepared for counterarguments, and to know that you’ve thought this all out.”

“I have,” he said wryly. “It’s practically all I think about.” He paused, “Recently anyway.”

“Alright, Draco. Run it through with us.” Draco clapped his hands together. He had them trapped while he laid out his plan, Fitzie continually plying them with more and more wine. He wanted either Manchester or Birmingham, either of which would be good options. The largest cities in Britain outside of London, and a good middle ground for those whom London or Scotland were too far, especially the Welsh. He needed more information though to choose between them.

“We’ll have to put you in a room with their representatives,” Blaise cut in. “I don’t know at what stage you want to do it, could be tricky. Either would want it conceivably, but if you stick with one, you could alienate the other whom you might need in the lobby.”

Draco wanted to build something on the scale of Diagon Alley, with shops and housing and more. Potentially a branch of Gringotts. Maybe. Plus, Draco was intent on keeping at least a slice for himself. Which, to be fair to Theo’s point wouldn’t help his image. But, hey, it was his dream project!

“So, we need approval, funding, resources and a strategy to spin this to the public.” Theo was making notes on a cloth napkin with a quill he produced from the folds of his cloak. Draco appreciated his help, but really, on a cloth napkin?

“I have a fully fleshed out proposal – well nearly done – in the other room.” Or I could get you some parchment, Draco thought. “What do you think the reaction will be?”

Theo looked up. “Honestly, I don’t know. There are certainly people who are going to oppose it because, you know, it’s you.”

“Thanks.”

“But it may appeal across usual factions. I think people can get behind more space, greater centralization, and your idea of increasing direct representation by adding members for this new district. You never quite know what people will object to, though.”

They wrapped up soon after, Theo flooing back to The Landing, the Nott estate, but Blaise stood propped against the entrance way, observing Draco. “What’s next, Draco? Appropriating the Isle of Mann and converting it into Hong Kong on the Irish Sea?”

Draco snorted. “That’s a lot of geography Blaise. I’m content with my project for now.”

Blaise reached out and took Draco by the wrist. His dark brown eyes trapped Draco’s, searching for something Draco couldn’t name. Blaise got a satisfied look after a moment. “I’m really glad you’re back.”

Draco could only nod silently. For all his years away, these people were the ones who knew him best, knew him in every way. “I hope you haven’t been alone,” Blaise whispered.

Draco creased his brow. “No, Blaise. I’ve been fine, don’t worry about me.” He swallowed hard once. “And I can’t imagine you’ve been spending the past few years alone.”

Blaise got a slightly bashful expression, unusual for him. “No, I haven’t thankfully.”

“Should I ask who it is?” Draco teased. Honestly, he was glad Blaise had someone in his life, someone who would make him blush like a teenager again. Though it was always hard to tell when Blaise blushed, damn him and his complexion. Draco’s poor face lights up like the embers of a fire whenever he’s embarrassed.

“Best leave you in suspense,” Blaise answered back with a wink. “I’ll see you soon.” He gave Draco a swift kiss on the cheek, and then bounded out of Fairgate perhaps a bit faster than he intended.

Draco stayed rooted to his spot for a moment before he called out into the empty room, “Fitzie! I think I’ll be having another drink before turning in.”