Chapter Text
When the yellow-haired man appeared to buy mermaid scales for the third time that week, Draco finally marked it in his ledger. There were only a few potions someone may need that quantity of mermaid scales for; most of them were unsavory, and plenty were downright illegal. Draco was usually careful to keep note of the ingredients of this nature he kept in stock, and eventually he would inform customers as they approached the legal limit of how much they could purchase or possess at a time, though it rarely came to that.
But with this man, Draco was reluctant. If Draco cut him off, it meant he may stop coming to the shop.
He’d been working as an apprentice in the small potions shop for about a year now; it had taken him several years after the war to admit to himself that he needed some kind of path in life or he’d slowly drive himself insane. Of course, it took as much time for the Wizarding World to accept former Death Eaters back into society, and yet longer time for him to find a Potions master willing to take him on, even as an apprentice.
Draco was always good at potions; unlike many other things, potions made sense, as did the bulk of the rest of his life these days. It consisted largely of him working, far more than his parents found ideal for someone of his upbringing, but he refused to take another penny of their money. When he wasn’t working, he was tinkering in the makeshift potions lab he had created in the spare bedroom of his flat, having Blaise or Pansy around, or finding any other way to distract himself from the fact that this was it: the rest of his life.
Most people’s lives began to open up, to improve or at least drastically change once they were finished with school. This wasn’t the case for Draco, for his friends, for anyone who had seen what they saw as children. Because what could life possibly have in store for him that was more unforgettable than a war ?
When the yellow-haired man began to show up in the shop, something alighted inside of Draco. There was nothing particularly noteworthy about him, at least nothing that Draco could place. He tended to hover by the vials of premade potions in the window when the shop was busy, waiting for people to clear out before he made his purchase as if he was afraid of interacting with crowds, no matter how small.
But when he finally approached the counter to pay, Draco found himself immediately disarmed by his gaze. The fellow was good looking, yes, but there was something in his eyes — a deep, velvety brown - that made Draco forget how to string words together to form a sentence.
And so he didn’t. The man looked up at him and his face turned into something like a smile, something with a twinge of embarrassment as he checked out with a few potions — a minty breath potion, a hangover cure potion, and an anti-nausea potion, all options that anyone with the faintest skill could make easily and more affordably — and the mermaid scales thrown in as if an afterthought, as if the odd ingredient might go unnoticed amid all of the distraction the others supplied. Draco rang him up, he nodded, and he left.
The next time he came in, the yellow-haired man bought the mermaid scales alone. It was almost as if it was a challenge, as though he wanted some kind of comment, and Draco would admit that he was tempted. Many other shops were already limiting customer access to the product, locking them up behind counters and requiring identification or even Ministry approval to purchase. In addition to their dark associations, the scales were also insanely expensive —one sachet cost about a quarter of Draco’s rent.
“How do you like it?” the man blurted out that time, and immediately looked slightly cross with himself, like he hadn’t thought it through.
“I can’t say I’ve ever had a need for this particular product,” Draco replied flatly, taking the man’s Galleons and adding them to the till.
“Oh,” the man said slowly. “I meant — the shop. Working here. Do you like it?”
Draco studied his face and found it revealed nothing — aside from a chiseled jaw and five o’clock shadow as well as a small twinge of awkwardness.
“Are you looking for work?”
“No,” the man replied immediately and smiled down at the scales Draco had placed in front of him. “No. Thanks,” he said, and he left.
As if by clockwork, the shop owner brought the scales up that evening while he was taking inventory. “I haven’t seen so much movement in this product in years,” Ragbin said, holding one of the shimmering bags in his hand almost inquisitively.
“It’s the Nox,” Draco explained. “Street potion,” he added as Ragbin blinked at him, pleased on some level that there was something he could educate his own mentor about. “It’s a party potion. Makes everything glossy and beautiful and shimmery and not there. That’s how I understand it,” he added hastily. He wasn’t one to dabble himself.
“Anything that requires that much mermaid scale would also have quite potent physiological and meta-magical side effects,” Ragbin said, returning the scales to the shelf and continuing his inventory. “Potentially be highly addictive. We may need to rank up our regulations. I don’t need the Ministry breathing down our necks again.” Draco’s mind flitted back to the man earlier, who didn’t seem like the addicted type, nor the potion pusher type. He didn’t seem like any type, in fact; it was impossible to place him.
The next time the yellow haired man appeared there was a gaggle of young witches stirring through the shop, chattering over the Lip Lock potions Draco had brewed just that morning. The man pretended to be transfixed with the display of Frog Knuckles in the window, but Draco knew he was just waiting for the crowds to leave. The moment after Draco checked the witches out, he crossed the room over to the man before he could come to the register.
“Not that it’s my business,” he said, making a show of restocking vials and Quick-Cut Blades to the shelves and speaking out of the corner of his mouth. “But if I were you, I’d at least diversify a bit.”
The man looked up at him inquisitively, and it almost bothered Draco that he was clearly trying to play dumb.
“If you keep buying from just the one shop, you’re going to end up on a Ministry list by the end of the week,” he murmured, leaning across the man to take a misplaced Shaving potion back to where it belonged and finding, incredibly, that there was something even in this man’s scent — dark and earthy, with a spice to it, like cinnamon — that made Draco regret doing anything that might scare him off from making his regular appearances.
“A Ministry list?” the man said, the corner of his lip pulling up like he had heard something very funny.
“I can’t imagine that would be very good for your business,” Draco added, not meaning for it to sound so much like a threat as it did.
“My business?” the man repeated again, glancing down at the sachet of scales in his hands. His face twisted solemnly, and Draco was almost a bit disappointed that it seemed so easy to talk him out of whatever illicit behavior he was obviously engaged in.
And then the man burst out laughing, a deep, hearty sound that came from somewhere low in his belly. For someone who seemed so reticent of attention, being the loudest thing in the room didn’t seem to bother him; Draco could even hear Ragbin stir in his office at the disturbance.
“No, I’ll —” the man said, wiping a tear — a tear! — from his eye while Draco tried to decipher what in Merlin’s name was so funny. “Thank you,” he said, putting his hand into Draco’s, which confused him until he realized he was holding a fistful of coins, the scales in another. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
And then, once again, he was gone.
The man didn’t come the next day, or the next day, or the next. He didn’t come the entirety of the next week. But someone else did: Granger.
The moment he saw her slip through the door to the shop, Draco pondered what he considered each time this happened: packing up his things and moving to Scotland, or Morocco, or God, even America. Anywhere that he didn’t have to do this — to see the people he had been guided into attempting to destroy, to have it all wash back against him and then to have to chat with them and act like it never happened, though it was never quite like that with Granger.
She looked tired, but she always did; her hair seemed unkempt, her robes misaligned like she’d thrown them on without her usual thought. Draco considered asking Rabgin to cover him before she looked up and locked eyes with him, exhaling slightly as if seeing his face was just one more way the day was trying to torture her.
“Malfoy,” she said as she approached the till.
“Granger,” he said. “Something I can help you with?”
“I didn’t know you — worked here,” Granger said slowly, and Draco felt himself flush. Granger had never forgiven him, would never; most wouldn’t, but she also wouldn’t pretend that she had like so many others did. She was probably judging the shop, he thought as he watched her glance around and take it all in, wondering what kind of an establishment would hire a filthy former Death Eater. Draco was rolling another half-insulting inquiry on his tongue when she spoke again, quietly, so close to him.
“I’m looking for mermaid scales.”
And just like that, something in Draco’s brain clicked.
“Those are very closely regulated here,” Draco lied, buying time, trying to consider what questions he could ask to tease out the information he wanted.
Granger snorted, like she knew something he didn’t. “Don’t you keep them on a shelf right in the open, Malfoy?”
So it was true; she hadn’t been here before, yet she knew what she was looking for, knew where to find it. She glowered at him, clearly mistaking his confusion for scorn, and he couldn’t blame her, so swirled the two were within him.
He stepped away to fetch a newly-filled sachet from the back and placed it on the counter.
“You know, most potions that require mermaid scales are —”
“I’m aware,” Granger said quietly, but firmly enough that Draco understood there was nothing on the matter he could tell her that she didn’t already know, and he realized that it was foolish to think there was.
Draco nodded as she handed over the coins.
The next time the man came, he didn’t buy mermaid scales. Instead, he settled for another combination of simple, overpriced potions Draco suspected he didn’t need at all. Like before, he hovered at the back of the shop while customers bustled through, but it wasn’t until he finally approached the till that Draco realized he’d waited until they were about to close, when it would just be the two of them.
He placed the potions on the till silently, the faintest of smiles playing at his lips. Draco added everything to the till wordlessly, and for a moment he thought that maybe neither of them would speak, that maybe this was all a fat lot of nothing, unrelated coincidences that had nothing to do with Granger, or —
“I was always rubbish at potions,” the man said, staring at the counter. “I find them quite finicky.”
Draco finally allowed himself to look up. And aside from the same thick, honey blonde hair, drawn back in a ponytail, the same careless stubble, the same rumpled robes, the man looked — tired. Extinguished, like it took everything that he had to simply remain upright.
“They’re not for everyone,” Draco said after a moment, nodding. He was aware that what drew him to potions — the precision, the nuance, the lurking danger of eliciting catastrophic results by taking one microscopic misstep — was precisely what many found to be so off putting.
“Right,” the man said, still smiling faintly. He leaned against the counter like he needed to be propped up. “I find I’m too messy.”
Draco fixed him with a look. As he stared, more pieces began to fall into place: the casual self deprecation, the earnest interest in magical conversation, the inability to meet Draco’s eye. Of course, it could all be coincidence. It surely was coincidence.
“Oh,” Draco said, surprising himself with how charitable his response was. “Sometimes magic is mess.” He looked up, met the man’s reluctant eye. “It’s all about finding what calls to you.”
“Right,” he said. “So do you like it?”
Draco blinked, remembering his similar line of questioning from the other day. “I like the job fine,” he said slowly. “It’s easy in ways it needs to be, challenging in the ways I like. And there’s a future,” he added, “If I stay the course with my training.”
The man nodded. There were bags under his eyes.
“I’m happy,” Draco said, surprising himself before adding, “Enough.”
If he was wrong, it would simply be an odd confession falling on the semi-deaf ears of a stranger. If he was right…
But the man revealed nothing in his gaze. “Right,” he said, and turned for the door before he scuffled back, grabbed the potions he surely did not need, and left once more.
The next time Granger came to the shop, she had Weasley in tow. Draco was beginning to think this was all a bad dream — what were the odds of seeing two, if not three of them all within a week? — and was really considering ducking under the till before they barrelled toward him.
“Malfoy,” Weasley said by way of some odd greeting. He seemed out of breath. Of the two, Weasley had inexplicably been more warm toward Draco on the odd times they crossed paths, perhaps simply because he was better at compartmentalizing. “Can you —” he stammered, his face growing as red as his hair. “Are you —”
“We need Occamy teeth,” Granger squabbled out. Draco blinked at her, and she gave one of those exasperated pleading looks she always shot the other two.
As Draco went to the back to fetch them, too stunned to really respond, he could hear the two squabbling indistinctly. When he returned with the ingredients, Granger placed her hand over the bag as Weasley rooted through his pockets to pay. “And,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “We need you.” She gazed up to him, locking eyes, and she didn’t have to say anymore; Draco immediately understood.
Draco excused himself to Ragbin and followed Granger and Weasley outside of the shop, where Granger looped her arm through his and Side-Alonged them into an apartment — her apartment, he realized immediately as he glanced around at her messy kitchen, the stacks of books that seemed to spring from every possible surface and cubby. She’d been training for some promotion in the Ministry or other, Draco recalled reading in The Prophet dimly as he took in his surroundings — and Weasley had just earned some award, and Potter —
“This way,” Granger said, her voice clipped. Draco followed her into her small living room, where someone was huddled on the couch. Unable to slow himself, Draco sped around to see.
The yellow haired man was sprawled across the couch, his robes halfway opened and revealing a muggle T-shirt, like he’d been in the middle of getting dressed when he collapsed. His head was pressed into the armrest in an awkward position, and it would almost appear that he was asleep, were it not for the fact that his eyes were wide open, glassy and motionless, transfixed by the ceiling. His expression was blank, if not a little loopy.
Draco blinked at the man, and then to Weasley and Granger, waiting for an explanation that he knew was not coming.
“He hasn’t moved,” Granger was blubbering, her composure breaking down in an instant. “He hasn’t moved in almost a day. He sleeps so much, he sleeps so much, but not like this, and none of my Reviving charms are working, and we think a Propago Potion might help, but I’m not sure of the interactions, and so I wanted someone to check my work, but no one at Hogwarts will owl back, so I just reckoned —”
“It’s fine,” Draco said firmly, producing a shrunken bag from his robes’ pocket and pulling out several vials and a small desk with a miniature inbuilt cauldron and cutting board for him to work on. He held his hand out to Granger, who seemed shocked to silence, whether by Draco’s willingness to help or his apparent indifference to the situation. She blinked at it and then dropped the bag of Occamy teeth into his hands as he began to prepare ingredients.
“I should have stopped him,” Granger murmured, both of her hands against her mouth, a caricature of fear and concern. Despite himself, her worry lit something dark within Draco — a resentment for the heroes’ unrestrained willingness to call on the villain in times of need, to demand his help without even having the courtesy of admitting who he was helping, loyal as these unrelenting Gryffindors always were to their friend.
“I should have stopped him. But I couldn’t —” she glanced at Weasley as if for confirmation. “He said he was going to stop. I—”
“Quiet,” Draco said, careful to temper his voice with patience. He glanced up at the man, eyes swimming in lifeless circles, as the faintest etchings of a jagged scar began to crease into his forehead. “He’ll be fine as long as I can work in quiet.”
The Polyjuice wore off in stages as Draco worked. First, it was that scar, and then the eyes, brimming from deep brown to the faintest of greens, almost silver, as they swirled in their lifeless gazing at the ceiling.
His hair changed in two parts, first turning a deep, rich brown and then recoiling back to its usual length, touseled carelessly against the couch. Then his cheekbones rose, his skin darkened, his eyebrows thickened, and his jawbones - if this were even possible - sharpened even more.
The one thing that did not change was his status. As Draco crushed, peeled, and stirred, adapting the Propago potion skillfully into something more specified to counteract the effects he knew of Nox, Potter remained in a trance, breath still, limbs limp, not unlike the students and staff who had been petrified by the Basilisk Draco’s second year.
“He doesn’t tell anyone,” Granger said in the corner at some point while Draco worked, her voice almost a whisper. “About the Polyjuice. Just us.” After a moment she adds, “And he didn’t even tell us, not at first. Ronald basically caught him in the act while he was staying at his flat.”
Draco threw a hand up, not wanting a distraction, nor wanting to hear this — Granger trying to apologize for Potter even as he lay there in a trance, scrambling to justify The Savior’s behavior as always. Granger trying to explain, maybe, what on earth could justify Potter disappearing on him for two years and then reappearing in his life through disguise, voyeuristically, with no intentions of actually reconnecting with Draco. As if anything could justify it.
As far as Draco was concerned, he wanted no part of it, and that included Granger’s apologies.
The brew in his cauldron bubbled pink, belched a cloud of sparkling green dust, and cooled to a milky blue liquid not unlike the way memories appear in pensieves. Draco measured a dose into a vial, added a cork, and tossed it over to Granger who leapt to catch it desperately, in a clear display of how precious this was to her and how little Draco cared. He began packing his things as Granger and Weasley stared down at him in awe.
“Will it work?” Granger finally asked just as Draco had shrunken everything back into his bag and pocketed it.
Draco blinked at her, and glanced over to Potter, sprawled out, sunken in, absolutely useless .
He was looking at a coward.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Draco offered, and Apparated out of the room.