Aidan Fucking Drummond
Harry hesitated, trying to take in what Kingsley was telling him despite the loud whirling of gears already spinning in his mind. Fifteen deaths. There had been fifteen deaths classified as suicides in the London area in the last thirty days, which according to Kingsley was barely over the current statistical average for the area of 13.5 per month. Somehow, Harry had never realized that that many people committed suicide on average. Just in London.
He didn’t have time to truly process that, though, so he tried to replay the important parts he’d retained. Fifteen suicides. It wasn’t outside of the range of statistical variation—which was why Kingsley kept emphasizing that it ‘might’ be a case—but something was clearly off about them. Some of the deaths were (though the thought made him gag) expected. Three had occurred in St. Mungo’s when a patient either hadn’t been restrained in time or had been given a terminal diagnosis and decided to take their fate into their own hands. Apparently, that wasn’t that unusual.
Seven of the remaining twelve were confirmed to be either suicidal, have suicidal tendencies, or had just experienced a dramatic life change which could explain their decision. One, in particular, Harry noted because the only bullet point under the name was: two month old daughter drowned. For a few seconds, Harry couldn’t breathe.
He shook it off, both for the sake of Kingsley and for this ‘potential’ case. Discounting the St. Mungo’s deaths and the seven confirmed suicides, Harry turned his attention to the bottom of the list where the remaining five names sat in bold letters.
Antonina Lang
Claud Mullins
Anne-Marie Anker
Delaney Hasegawa
William Van d’ Ekinson
They meant nothing to him, but he could see the bullet points beneath their names like a list of charges. Devoted single mother—left behind three children. No note. Practicing Hindu—family swears suicide isn’t a possibility. Had just come into a large inheritance. Friends say she’d never owned a gun or a weapon of any kind—no fingerprints.
“You think these people were killed.”
It wasn’t a question, but Harry still looked up at his superior for some kind of answer. Kingsley’s face was drawn tight and Harry felt a sharp stab deep in his chest when he remembered that the man had two children of his own. He looked down, tracing over the name Anne-Marie and the words single mother. The world now had three more orphans.
That hit Harry much harder than it should have, but he shoved the emotion down deep in his chest. Later, he could process it and let the memories overtake him. Right now, he was at work and there were five people who may or may not have been murdered right under the Ministry’s nose.
“As you can see, the circumstances are not as clear-cut as the other ten cases. They have no common threads or connecting relationships that we’ve been able to establish and, as far as we can tell, they never even met each other. Each one, individually, may have been an anomaly. But together?”
Harry nodded, suddenly glad that the report didn’t have pictures. Names could be dead—fine, not great but tolerable—but faces were always what got to him. God help him if he had to see those three little kids… He shook his head vehemently at that and decided to cross that bridge when, or if, he came to it. Focus on the case, he thought, people are dead.
Aurors always said one was an accident, two was a coincidence, and three was a pattern. If that was true, what did that make five?
For eight blessed days, Draco was left to work in relative peace in his office. Kaiser had done their investigating for the month after the releasing of statements, so Draco was left more or less alone on the topic of his mysterious new client. Said client also did not owl or randomly appear. The most communication he’d received had been three separate packages now from Andrea and one little note asking if the breed of saltwater tailfin was important. It wasn’t, and he’d told her so.
But peace couldn’t last—it never did.
Alarms blared throughout the entire building and Draco barely had time to cast a blanket stasis charm over his potions before darting for the door. He grabbed his coat on the way out. Kaiser could chastise him for ‘grabbing nonessentials’ if they wanted, but Draco vividly remembered the last winter fire alarm that had been pulled. Frostbite sucked.
All around him, people pooled out into the courtyards. More people than Draco could ever remember meeting or working with, he thought, though they clearly all knew him. If the signature blond hair hadn’t given him away, his utter isolation would have. Even in a patch of grass packed with people, Draco managed to have a circle of empty space around him at all times. No one spoke to him, but he overheard whispers about an explosion in one of the upper potions labs and he prayed under his breath that nothing of his was damaged. He had no idea if the new wards protected against things like explosions.
Then again, he hadn’t heard any explosion. Usually, he at least felt the aftershocks in the floor before the alarms started. Maybe his Mr. Doe had had the forethought to include physical damage and outside explosions on the list of things to ward his office against.
People glared at him for having a coat. Draco ignored them and idly created a to-do list in his mind, running through his responsibilities for the day as they all stood on the grass and waited. They could have grabbed their coats—for Merlin’s sake some kind of alarm had gone off at least once a month ever since the interns had arrived and begun brewing… It wasn’t like the evacuation was unexpected. The chosen stupidity of his coworkers never ceased to amaze him.
Twenty minutes after the all-clear was given, once Draco had settled again in his office and made sure nothing was destroyed, there was a knock at the door. Draco was expecting Kaiser with a report about damages, or maybe even Andrea with a new ingredient. He was not expecting to look up and meet worried, glamoured brown eyes.
“What are you doing here?”
The man took that as an invitation to enter the room, which Draco supposed he didn’t mind. He watched a glamoured hand close the door to his office and cast a muffling charm at it—not a silencing charm, though. Interesting.
“Hey, Draco, how are you doing? Is everything okay?”
Draco flushed, suddenly very aware that he was alone with the man he’d had a wet dream about the night before of course and the man somehow knew that he had. Was there some kind of telepathic warning you got if someone fantasized about you? Draco was fairly certain there wasn’t because otherwise Hogwarts would have had a lot more fights, but maybe the castle itself prevented such charms? Merlin, he couldn’t look at the man.
“I’m fine. What are you doing here?”
The man was looking around the room, Draco realized, eyes flicking from item to item with a frantic kind of energy. Was he expecting something to go wrong? Looking for some kind of listening device or surveillance charm?
“Oh, um… I felt something touch the wards. I tried to firecall you, but your floo had been disconnected and so the only response I got was a message saying the building was undergoing evacuation.”
Draco was kidding himself. But, just for a second, he thought he heard an undercurrent of something like worry in the man’s voice. Mr. Doe—a very rich, and clearly very important Auror—had come running down to Whirlwind in the middle of the day just because he’d felt something in the wards and been unable to reach Draco. That was oddly… Sweet.
“That’s very considerate of you, Mr. Doe. I’m fine, though, and it was just a reactive potion that exploded somewhere upstairs I think. The alarms and evac routine happens pretty regularly around here. People aren’t as careful as they should be.”
The man looked relieved, then frowned, then went back to being relieved. He offered Draco a small smile of understanding or maybe of apology and sat on Andrea’s settee. Only then did Draco realize the man’s face was flushed and his breathing was quick. Had he run here?
“Making yourself at home there?”
Rather than be annoyed, though, the man laughed and leaned back against the cushions to close his eyes. It was the first time Draco had ever been able to study his face without having to hide the fact that he was doing so, and Draco cursed the glamour for sticking so well. He just wanted to know dammit.
“I’m afraid that’s a habit of mine, but don’t worry you’ll get used to it. I can leave you alone once I’m done dying, if you want, but to be honest I could really use an excuse not to go back to work.”
You’ll get used to it. There was a promise there, if Draco looked hard, that he wasn’t sure how to feel about. He raised an eyebrow, aware that the man couldn’t see it, and began tying bundles of herbs he’d gotten from Andrea the day before. His brain considered his options. The man had given him two possible things to latch onto—the dying, or the not going back to work because there was no way in hell Draco was going to ask about the ‘you’ll get used to it’. One was more informative, but the other was easier.
“Dying? Are you really that winded from half a flight of stairs? Merlin, doesn’t the Auror department require some level of physical capability?”
He heard a snort, and was vaguely proud of himself for choosing the lighter option. As much as he wanted to interrogate his guest/intruder, he could feel a certain weight in the air that he did not want to worsen. The man shifted on the settee, and Draco tried to focus on his hands. Ugh, why did people always insist on packaging oregano and marjoram together? As if they weren’t hard enough to tell apart already.
“For your information, Draco,” His eyes snapped up, but the man’s were still closed. “I jogged here from the nearest floo point and only remembered about halfway here to cast my glamour. Then I saw the flashing lights. So I stupidly thought you’d managed to get yourself blown up or something.”
“Ah, they won’t turn the lights off until they’re done with decontamination. So you wanted to be the first to loot my office upon my death?”
It was a joke, because Draco was trying desperately not to focus on the fact that Mr. Doe had been worried about him and had run from the nearest floo point because he thought Draco had been in danger. The Auror snorted again, and Draco vaguely felt something small and paperclip-shaped hit his back.
“Very mature. For your information, my office has been shockingly quiet and peaceful for the last however many days and I’ve gotten quite a lot accomplished—no thanks to you.”
“Aw, Draco, are you trying to say that you missed me?”
From anyone else, Draco would have spluttered at the mere implication but he just rolled his eyes and tossed a miscut frog eye over his shoulder. He heard it land with a satisfying, wet slap. There was no squeal of disgust or shuffling of limbs, though, so after a second Draco glanced back at the man.
Mr. ‘Doe’ was lying back and holding the frog eye between his thumb and forefinger. He was studying it, it seemed, and Draco couldn’t imagine why but he looked genuinely interested by the thing. Well, that revenge had backfired. His eyes skimmed his desktop, looking for something else non-dangerous that he could throw, when a soft voice cut him off.
“You know, I always thought eyes were cool. They were the only part of potions I remember liking and I always thought they should be ingredients in special potions that could see the future or… I don’t know. A bloody boil cure just seems too mundane to use something like eyes for.”
Draco was not brewing a cure for boils, but he didn’t say that because he remembered that lesson early on at Hogwarts. Evidently, Snape hadn’t changed up his curriculum.
“You are aware that what you’re holding is a frog’s eye, right?”
“Obviously. Well, no actually. But I’d guessed newt’s eye so I was pretty close at least. They’re still cool, though, and deserve to be in cool potions.”
Draco was not capable of processing the logic of that remark and he realized, slowly, it was because there wasn’t any. These were opinions. Light, rambling opinions that had absolutely no factual basis or necessity for Draco to know. Was the man just sharing with him… for the sake of sharing?
“This potion is ‘cool’ and it’s not a cure for boils. It’s a Philter of Focus. They use it at St. Mungo’s to help manage attention disorders. Want to see?”
Draco didn’t know why he was offering, because the man had made it clear before that he didn’t give a damn about potions. He wanted to take it back. But the man was here, sitting on Draco’s settee in the middle of the work day and talking about ‘cool’ potions so…
“Really? You’ll show me?”
How could a person’s voice sound so mildly hopeful and at the same time utterly surprised? Draco nodded, and heard shuffling. His heart leapt into his throat, fighting to give it more meaning than it deserved. This was a bad idea. Before he could change his mind, the man had stood and moved beside him.
“What’s that?”
The man winced, as if expecting him to be annoyed by the question, but Draco hadn’t talked about potions or recipes to anyone—aside from Andrea that one day—in years. He welcomed his pupil, even if the man wasn’t going to retain any of the information.
“That is pulverized broccoli—delicious, I know. Want to help me add it?”
Harry couldn’t even find it in himself to be angry with the world as he lifted the bowl and gently sifted in the pulverized broccoli. He knew it was stupid to skip out on work, to hang out/bother Draco, or to try to hide in the Potioneer’s office as if not facing the sunlight would mean that those people hadn’t died. Being around Draco was nice, though, and distracting.
The offer of letting him help had nearly floored Harry. His memory of Draco in Potions was still very clear and he could remember how particular and impatient he’d been with any partner he was paired with. Maybe it was different because that had been for a grade? Or because Snape had been looming over them all in the background?
Or maybe Draco was just taking pity on him. Harry loathed the very idea, but he supposed it wasn’t all that unlikely or impossible. He’d practically refused to leave and then acted like a sick puppy when Draco had tried to banter with him, even though his mood had nothing to do with the blond. Well, the bad parts of it didn’t at least.
“Would you hand me that glove? This part is very easy to mess up so you can watch, but don’t touch.”
Harry nodded, surprised to find that taking directions from Draco Malfoy didn’t raise his metaphorical hackles. Maybe because they weren’t at Hogwarts? It was definitely much more relaxed in Draco’s office than it had ever been in Snape’s classroom and Harry didn’t feel the need to watch his back constantly. Or maybe he no longer considered Draco his rival and instead merely enjoyed the company.
Either way, he handed over the dragonhide glove and watched long, slim pale fingers slip into the material. He wondered what those fingers would feel like around his—he stopped himself. The clash of Draco's pale skin against Harry’s own darker skin would be beautiful, though, especially if he wound his fingers into those platinum blond locks… That was a dangerous train of thought. New topic.
“Clover leaves don’t seem like the kind of thing you need a dragonhide glove for.”
The blond was adding clover leaves very carefully one at a time so that they floated on the surface of the bubbling liquid and the glove was steadying him somewhat, but even with the brace his hand still visibly trembled.
“Why do your hands shake like that?”
Harry cursed himself for even voicing the question, but gestured to where Draco was bracing his wrist against the edge of the worktable. Of course Harry knew it was an intensely personal question, but it was also a genuine one. And a part of him was hoping that, since Draco was distracted, he wouldn’t think too hard before answering. If he answered.
“Destruo armamentis.”
Draco said it with a flat tone, completely devoid of any emotion or inflection, so Harry had no context clues to gauge how he was supposed to react to that. It wasn’t any spell or potion he’d ever heard of. Destruo armamentis didn’t sound like a potion ingredient—certainly nothing like the juggerknats that Draco had introduced him to, or the intensely venomous slugs Hagrid had shown him during his last visit.
Noticing his silence, Draco glanced up briefly from his work. His face must have given away his confusion or lack of recognition because the blond sighed as he moved onto the lemongrass roots.
“It’s a torturing curse. Literally: ‘destroy the shell/casing’. It eats at your skin, of course, but apparently the target of ‘casing’ isn’t well defined. I’m not sure how familiar you are with Muggle biology, but it damages the myelin coating of your nerve cells. It causes intense pain and, among other things, shaky hands. This isn’t too bad, though. It’s usually worse when I’m anxious.”
Harry sucked in a sharp breath, unable to help himself. That was more information than Malfoy (or Draco, for that matter) had given him in all their years at Hogwarts. A torturing curse? As far as he knew, the worst magic Draco had ever been hit with had been that damn curse in the bathrooms during Sixth Year. When had he been hit with a curse like that?
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know that you’d…”
Been tortured, his brain supplied. But he couldn’t make his mouth form the words.
“No offense, but why would you?”
Shit, that was a good question. Panic welled in his chest and he was unbelievably grateful for Draco’s hands slowly stripping the lemongrass roots. It gave them both something to look at. What was he supposed to say? He could blame the papers, but something that wouldn’t have been public knowledge unless it had come out at the trials—which it hadn’t, otherwise Harry would have heard it
Fuck.
Draco cut into the silence, saving the man from the question he clearly did not know how to answer, but his curiosity was at an all-time high.
“I want you to drop the glamour.”
“Why?”
“Is wanting to know who I’m talking to not a good enough reason?”
The man swallowed hard and, out of the corner of his eye, Draco could see those brown eyes focused intently on his hands. Was he worried because Draco was holding a knife? Surely, he knew that an Auror with a wand would have no issue utterly destroying an ex-Death Eater with a peeler?
“It is a good reason,” the man relented. “But I don’t think it’s your reason. At least not entirely.”
Draco sighed, continuing to peel far more roots than he needed for the potion. He could can them, though, or make an extra batch of something and try to find a buyer. Really, he just wanted something to focus on so he could avoid the sudden depth to the man’s stare because he was fairly sure that he’d started this with a purpose. Now or never, right?
“I can’t read you—at least not the way I want to. The glamour sticks to your skin but it’s slow to react to quick changes which is why a lot of times weak spots occur at the hairline or the corners of the mouth. Your expression can tell me a lot and I’m used to being able to read a person’s face when I’m talking to them.”
The Auror hesitated for far too long after Draco’s explanation ended. He chewed his lip—which Draco noticed only because there was a brief flash of color at one edge. Darker, just like Draco had guessed. Realistically, the man had every right to remain anonymous and Draco couldn’t do a damn thing about it but Draco was edging from ‘urgent curiosity’ into more of a sharp, burning need to know. He glanced up, trying to judge whether the man was stalling or considering. Neither, it seemed, but those brown eyes were staring back at Draco like he wished he could just explain everything and make it all make sense. Draco wished he would just be honest.
“Dropping the glamour won’t make you trust me more.”
Oh, that was interesting. Maybe it was because Draco was still reeling from the realization that this man had run to his office at the slightest hint of danger or maybe it was because he felt like they’d been dancing around this topic for ages, but he was confident enough to push it.
“We know each other, don’t we? Or at least we used to.” The man nodded. “Seems like a bit of an unfair advantage then, wouldn’t you say?”
It was a very unfair advantage that Draco felt the knife’s edge of buried deep in his gut. The man knew him. That wasn’t all that unusual—lots of people knew the Malfoy name, if not Draco specifically, and his trial had had a record turnout. What bothered Draco more than anything was the familiarity of that magical signature. There was no way he could have recognized someone inconsequential like a lawyer or a bloody Hufflepuff with such speed and such certainty. But who did that leave?
“I’m aware, and I can guess that you’re not a fan of me having power like that. To be completely honest, which is what I think you want, I haven’t told you who I am because I really don’t want you to rip up the contract.”
Wait, what? Draco had been bracing himself for some speech about Death Eater scum or about not trusting Draco enough to tell him, but the contract? All of this messiness—the glamour, the fake name, the lying—was all because of the contract?
“The potion order?” The man nodded. “You think that me knowing who you are would cause me to give up the most lucrative contract I’ve ever had? Not to mention the fact that I’d be dooming some little kid to a lifetime of choosing between full shifts or an allergic reaction?”
Draco heard his own voice and he knew he sounded hurt, but he wasn’t sure that he cared because he was hurt. He wasn’t a monster. The man could have been bloody Mad Eye Moody and Draco still wouldn’t have dropped the contract because there was a kid involved. A kid who very much did not deserve the shit that he had been dealt, and who did not deserve to suffer. Did this man really think so little of him?
“I won’t rip up the contract, if that’s what you want to hear, because whoever you are doesn’t change what that little kid is going through. But you clearly have a different opinion of me, Mr. Doe. And you would know best, wouldn’t you?”
“Draco, I didn’t—”
“I’ll have the next batch ready on the day of the full moon. The Ministry is probably wondering where you are anyways, and I have work to do. Have a nice day.”
Harry cursed himself the entire walk back to the floo point. Idiot! He was such an idiot! He’d known that Draco would push him about the glamour and he’d promised himself he would be honest about his concerns—which he had been—so how the hell had it ended up like this? He’d been doing so well… Draco had even told him about the coating curse or whatever he’d called it.
And then he’d fucked it up.
“Harry,” Kingsley interrupted his thoughts, and Harry realized the man had been waiting for him near the floo. “A consultant has been brought in to help see if we have a case. Only, I’ve been given the impression that you two know each other already and I wanted to give you a warning in advance. His name is Aidan Drummond.”
Harry swore not-so-quietly and threw his coat at the hook across the room. It paused, and floated gracefully to hang itself on the hook which ruined the dramatic effect but he didn’t care. Things just kept getting better and better, didn’t they?
“If it’s a problem, Harry, I can—”
“Is there a problem?”
Harry’s head snapped up without his direction and he narrowed his eyes at the man in the doorway. Aidan fucking Drummond. He was dressed in some kind of Ministry uniform that Harry had no idea how he’d even qualified for, given that his last occupational endeavor had been a vineyard and winery in Belize. Tall, dark, and handsome; he fit the cliche so perfectly it wasn’t even funny. Deep, dangerously dark eyes stared back at him across his office and Harry caught himself remembering how easily their skin tones melded and how exquisite that skin could taste.
“No,” he said sharply. “There isn’t a problem. What are you doing here, Aidan? You can’t honestly have applied for a Ministry job.”
He kept his tone on just the right side of frigid where it could still pass as professionalism rather than dislike. The man stepped easily into his office, as if he’d been invited, and Harry was reminded once again how it felt to be six inches shorter than someone and very aware of it. Kingsley glanced between them, but said nothing.
“Well, hello to you too, Harry. I see you’re doing well for yourself, though I’m hardly surprised that they like you here. He’s good at following instructions, isn’t he Minister?”
Again, Kingsley said nothing and clearly did not want to be involved in whatever was going on between them but was afraid to leave lest someone wind up cursed. He remained standing, which was unusual for the Minister Harry noted, and faced Aidan.
“Mr. Drummond, perhaps you’d like to explain why you were sent to help us on this potential case?”
Aidan’s face pinched slightly over the phrase ‘help us’. Harry had no doubt that he wanted the case all to himself—if it even was a case—and was less than pleased that Harry had gotten to it first. As if potential murder victims were a prize to be won.
“Of course, Minister Shacklebolt. You see, Harry, after Belize didn’t quite live up to my standards, I joined a program over in the States. I’m a psychoanalyst—consulting for the Ministry, currently. I spent the last two years in New York working on crimes with a particularly… interesting psychological motive. All classified, though, I’m afraid.”
Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes and instead tried to process what had just been said to him. Psychoanalyst. Grudgingly, he admitted that that actually made a lot of sense. Aidan had always liked trying to tease people apart and figure them out—which was why he’d gotten to know Harry like the back of his hand. It fit, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
“We don’t even know if we have crimes, yet, let alone a psychological motive behind them. So why are you here?”
Aidan tsked at him and, just for a split second, Harry felt that immediate urge to correct his mistake and make up for it. He shook it off and glared instead.
“Well, Harry, regardless of how the deaths are currently classified, there are either people committing suicide when, by all accounts they shouldn’t be, or there is a murderer disguising his work as suicides. Both possibilities are very interesting, psychologically speaking.”
Kingsley cleared his throat, drawing Aidan’s attention, and Harry took a gulp of air the second those dark eyes weren’t on him. This was his own personal hell. He couldn’t figure out what he’d done wrong, specifically, or if it was karma for offending Draco earlier in the day but Harry was positive that he was being punished. And, even if it wasn’t intentional, he was going to hate every second of it.
Draco bit his lip hard enough to make it bleed, then quickly tried to stop it with his tongue and managed to at least stem the flow of red liquid. The last thing he needed was for his blood to end up in a potion. Blood potions were… treacherous.
“Malfoy, do you have a minute?”
He did not, really, but Kaiser wasn’t actually asking so he cast another stasis charm and followed into his supervisor’s office. Of course Kaiser wanted to meet with him. Why not, right? His hands were shaking, but he couldn’t tell if it was nerves or if it was leftover emotion from his talk with Mr. ‘Doe’. He was hardly thinking clearly or present enough to navigate what was sure as hell going to be a maze of a conversation, but when had that ever mattered?
This was a low stakes meeting. It had to be, otherwise Kaiser would have looked far more pleased with themselves or Draco would have been warned ahead of time. Was this about the explosion? Draco doubted it, and he figured it was far more likely that Kaiser was going to grill him about his new, high-paying, high-priority potion contract but Draco had prepared for that weeks ago. He’d become very well-versed in what information he was required to give, and what he wasn’t.
Kaiser sat across from him behind a large, dark wood desk and spelled the door shut with a wave of their wand. They always liked to show off that they could do magic. Because Draco couldn’t.
“Thanks for meeting with me on such short notice, Malfoy. I was hoping we could chat about your newest potion contract. It seems to be taking up quite a lot of your time, are you sure you don’t want to hand it off to someone with fewer orders to manage?”
Draco narrowed his eyes, but forced his posture to remain neutral and specifically not defensive. Kaiser wanted to push him? Fine, then Draco was going to show them exactly how stubborn and unyielding he could be.
“I’m doing fine, thank you, and the client has been very clear that confidentiality is a priority so I won’t be transferring it to another brewer anytime soon. It’s coming along well. Did you have a specific concern?”
Draco could imagine that their main concern was that he could now potentially be making enough to live off of, which meant he wouldn’t have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for contracts and beg for leftovers from the other potioneers. Kaiser didn’t want to lose their faithful servant.
“I’ve noticed you placed new wards on your office.”
Draco was ready for that, too. Andrea was apparently very familiar with warding restrictions internationally as well as in Britain—such knowledge was valuable, according to her, when many of the most prized ingredients sat behind wards—and she’d ensured that every ward they placed was legal.
“I did, thank you for noticing. As I’m sure you’ve already guessed, they were not cast by me but they are keyed to my magical signature. They meet or exceed every regulation and requirement set by both the Ministry and by Whirlwind, including all safety clauses.”
That seemed to displease the supervisor, but they didn’t comment on it outright. They couldn’t, of course, because then Draco would have had actual ammunition to file a complaint against them with Whirlwind. There were other ways they could retaliate, though.
“As I’m sure you’ve heard, I’m going to be taking a two week vacation starting next week. Vienna is so beautiful this time of year, I’d hate to miss it. But, that does leave us with the issue of your annual performance review, doesn’t it?”
Draco’s stomach dropped straight through the floor. Fuck, was it that time of year already? At least he knew for certain that this meeting couldn’t turn into his performance review—he had to be given at least forty eight hours warning in advance, and had a long, annoying self-evaluation to complete before the meeting. Still, Kaiser looked determined.
“So you understand, of course, that I’ll be leaving early Friday to make my port key appointment. Sal will be covering for me while I’m gone, but I don’t want to give him a double workload that Friday, so it would be such a help if you could be considerate just this once. You wouldn’t mind moving your performance review up a bit, would you?”
Draco did mind, but it wasn’t actually a question. Kaiser was annoyed that he was staying quiet about his new client and they disliked changes in power dynamics even if it just meant Draco could now possibly afford food. Draco had chosen confidentiality over coworker comradery, and this was his punishment.
“Of course, not a problem.”
“Great, thanks for being such a team player, Malfoy. I’ll see you Thursday.”
Wait. Thursday? No, no, no, no…Fuck! Thursday was the day of the next full moon. Draco couldn’t spend two hours in an unnecessary meeting with Kaiser while they picked apart every little thing he’d ever done! He needed to be in the office to finish the new experimental batch of wolfsbane. Kaiser immediately caught how on-edge the suggestion made him, though, and raised an eyebrow.
“Unless you have something more important you’d rather be doing?”
Draco plastered a fake smile on his face and forced his voice to remain level, assuring Kaiser that he was more than happy to meet on Thursday. He would make it work, right? Maybe he could contact Andrea somehow and get her to help with the potion? She was overseas, of course, but he would figure something out.
As soon as Draco made it back to his office, though, he swore and slammed his stir stick onto his desk. Merlin’s fucking balls! There was no way he could rush the potion or risk poisoning a five-year-old kid. Which meant that he would both brew the potion and go to the meeting, somehow. Fuck! What was he going to do?
Slowly, Draco took a deep breath and tried to fight back tears. He was Draco fucking Malfoy and he would make it work. Because he had to.