Chapter Text
Draco
The sun had well and truly encased Malfoy Manor the summer after Draco’s fifth year at Hogwarts. His mother’s rose garden overflowed with bursting buds of red and white, the flowers bewitched to last ten times as long as any regular bloom. The grass lay in perfect sync, like silky velvet; trimmed to perfection, down to every last blade, by one of the family’s house elves. Because to be an elf to a family such as the Malfoys, one had to have an eye for perfection – and yes, this grass was perfect. As the sky turned pink in the setting sun, casting a magical glow across the earth beneath it, Draco stood up to shut the curtains and, in turn, shut out any light or happiness that might accidentally enter his confines from the outside.
One more year, he thought. One more year until he would no longer have to stand up to do such a mundane task as shutting curtains with his hands and not his wand. In a year’s time, he would be flicking his wand in every direction, not moving a muscle apart from his wrist to get everything he could think of done by magical means. However, for now, he was reduced to servant’s stuff, actually having to use his extremities to complete these small tasks.
His eyes flickered back to the fireplace as he made his way back to the biggest, puffiest armchair in the dark sitting room. The chairs had to be big these days; over the summer, he had grown and grown until his whole wardrobe needed to be replaced. In a few days’ time, he would be travelling to Diagon Alley to get new school robes fitted for his sixth year, along with books and all the rest of it – he only awaited an owl with the full list of things he would need.
Draco was starting to get restless. His mother, Narcissa, had left hours ago with Aunt Bellatrix and with his father still in prison, the Manor felt desolate and uninviting.
He snapped his fingers impatiently. “Lia!” he bellowed, looking down at where the small elf had appeared out of thin air with a pop.
“Yes, Master Draco,” she said with an accent almost as posh as his own.
“Coffee for me, and a tea tray for Mother. She must be returning soon.” Another glance over to the dark fireplace confirmed she had not yet arrived.
“Very well, Master,” Lia quipped before clicking her fingers and popping out of the room, probably to one of the Manor’s many kitchens.
Draco stood up and marched over to his father’s liquor cabinet in the corner of the room. Although it hadn’t been used in months, not a speck of dust could be seen on the shiny black glass top, nor on the gilded gold handles protruding from the sides. He gingerly opened the antique glass door and dug around until he found what he wanted: a bottle of firewhiskey from 1979. It must have been a good year to even be present in the Manor. Only the finest assortment of liquors, dress robes, sheets, anything really, was allowed to enter through the doors of the Manor, and that included people.
Draco reached up for a glass lining the shelf behind the cabinet and placed it directly on the cabinet top before pouring a generous helping of whiskey into its depths. Just as he pushed the cork back into place, a tea tray with his coffee popped into existence on the side table and the room glowed green. Heat caressed the back of his dress shirt from the flames erupting in the hearth.
“Draco, you’re still up? I told you not to wait for me.” Narcissa waved her wand casually over her robes and all the soot and ash was swept back into the fireplace.
“Mother, you went with Aunt Bellatrix, of course I was going to wait. You could have come back in any sorry state.” Draco eyed his mother warily, taking in the dishevelment of her usually pristine appearance before holding out his glass of whiskey and offering it to her as she took a seat in his armchair.
Narcissa reached out to accept the glass of amber liquid, the movement making the sleeve of her robe hitch up slightly around her wrist. A brilliant new blue vine could be seen wrapped around her hand and disappearing beneath her sleeve, glowing ominously. Even as Draco stared at this strange, illuminated vine, the glow became fainter and fainter with every blink he took. Comprehension dawned in an instant and his gaze snapped up to his mother’s lifeless face.
“What have you done! What vow have you made? On my behalf? Mother, you have doomed us!” Draco let the words out in a rush, getting louder with every syllable he spoke. “I am the man of the house now, and it’s my role to protect you – not the other way around. I had a plan. I had a plan and now – now what am I supposed to do? Actually complete the mission?” He was pacing the room, taking long strides back and forth, and running his pale, elegant fingers through the strands of his blond fringe in dismay.
Narcissa watched on, taking a very unladylike chug of her firewhiskey. She coughed politely into her fist as it burned its way to her stomach.
“I have not doomed us, Draco, I have saved my only son. I will do anything to protect you from this – this life Lucius has thrown you into.” She spat the last words with imminent disgust.
Draco let his body fall onto the sofa opposite the grand armchair and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and dropping his head into his hands. The full weight of the Dark Lord’s mission pushed him down deeper into his pit of despair.
“What was the vow?” he asked flatly, all the fight from before now gone. “What did you promise Bellatrix?” Narcissa took another sip, smaller this time and with actual decorum lacing her movements.
“I did not promise Bellatrix anything, she was merely there to oversee.” She paused and sat up straighter, flicking her hair over her shoulder before peeking down at the fading blue vine twisting around her wrist. “I went to Severus and I asked him to protect you in any way he could.” She paused for effect before tagging on, “You’re just a child, the Dark Mark is the last thing you need and either way, we lose. If you don’t complete the mission, he will kill you, and then me. If you do complete it, you get branded with the Dark Mark and will be forever tied to the Dark Lord. It’s not the life I wanted for my only son.”
Silence coated the air in a thick layer, like paint. Every breath felt like he was choking on fumes as Draco took in the words his mother spoke. It’s not a life he saw for himself either, if he was being honest.
The life he once dreamed of did not contain snake and skull tattoos entwined with eternal servitude to anyone, let alone the Dark Lord. Sure, he agreed with the ideals Voldemort held, but when it really came down to it, did he really care whether or not half the magical community weren’t Pureblooded? Did having to live and work with Muggle-Borns actually change his life at all? He knew he was elite; he had known since he could speak that his family and other Pureblood lines were better than the rest of the wizarding community. Did he have to prove that by using the Cruciatus and killing bloody Dumbledore? Because if the Dark Lord won this war and Draco somehow managed to live, what would his life entail? He would be a Death Eater, his days would be spent doing someone else’s bidding, and for what? So a Half-Blood, mentally unstable lunatic could control his every action and force him to do whatever he wanted, whenever he so desired? No, that is not the life Draco Malfoy had in mind for himself.
He thought his life after school would fall into easy, relaxing days, sipping firewhiskey while strolling the Manor’s many walkways and chatting animatedly to whichever Pureblood girl his family wished him to marry. Pansy probably, if he were going by the post he had received from her scrawny barn owl all summer. He assumed her family was pushing her to make a connection with him now to ensure her future. They clearly had yet to get the memo that they dated last year and it had fizzled out. He was more than satisfied with the idea of having to marry some Pureblood witch. It was unchallenging and straightforward; it made sense to marry Pansy, even if he barely desired her. Their families had been friends for hundreds of years, this would only bring them together for hundreds more.
Yes, an ordinary life sounded quite adequate to Draco. He could focus on securing his excellent grades this year instead of how to kill the greatest wizard of all time, one whom Voldemort himself had quaked in fear of. Who actually believed Draco could accomplish this? He realised suddenly that no one did, not even his mother, as she had sought an unbreakable vow to try to save her only son from his fate. The moment this mission entered the Dark Lord’s filthy mind, Draco’s life had prematurely ended.
“It’s not the life I wanted for myself either.” Draco looked hopelessly into his lap as he leaned back into the sofa, slumping his shoulders slightly in defeat.
Silence encased them once more before Narcissa broke it in a rushed whisper. “So it is not the life you shall have. I have spoken to Severus, you are to follow through investigating the vanishing cabinet when we get your school supplies, and when you arrive at Hogwarts you will need to speak to Severus privately.” Narcissa’s eyes showed hints of motherly kindness as she acknowledged Draco’s disagreeable posture, letting it slide just this once. She stood and smoothed out her robes.
“Goodnight, dear, do try to get some sleep,” Narcissa called from the doorway before taking herself to her suite in the Manor.
Draco huffed a stilted, “’Night, mother,” before dragging himself from the sofa’s embrace.
The corridors were dark and cold, the lanterns flicking on as he walked past and then blinking off again suddenly as he left them in his wake. The portraits along the walls turned their heads at his approach, curious as to what he was doing at such an hour in the corridor. There being only his mother and him in the house, it made for an uneventful place to be forever immobilised in oil paint on canvas.
At his door, he pushed his palm flat onto the wooden surface, letting the room know it was him before turning the brass door handle and entering into the warmth and glow of the lamps inside. His father had put a clever charm on the room a few years back; should anyone other than the house elves or a Malfoy try to enter the room without him, it would turn into a cleaning cupboard, overflowing with buckets and mops that followed the person out and hit them over the head repeatedly as they escaped.
Draco had made his best friend Theo open his door once in third year and fell on the floor laughing as he was assailed by swinging wooden mop handles pelting him across the shoulders while he ran away screaming at Draco to, “Make them stop!”
He smiled coyly at the memory as he shut the door behind him, the charm making the edges of the door glow yellow for a second before returning to its ordinary redwood exterior.
Draco was a very neat person; he knew everything had a place and his room was an example of that. On his bedside sat a golden lantern set to glow on when he clapped and off when he clapped twice. The table itself was plain and sleek, the same redwood that made up his door popping up in his furniture as well. Everything matched perfectly, from the dark green walls to the almost black carpet. Luxury oozed from every surface, every crevice, every fabric, and every jar of magical hair product adorning his sleek dresser. Pillowcases made from spun acromantula silk lay neatly fluffed on his four-poster bed, the sheets turned over by Lia the elf, ready for him to crawl into.
Sighing with contentment, he jumped into his shower and began washing off all the dirt he must have accumulated just by existing – ew – before getting into his warm, inviting bed and clapping twice at the charmed lantern. After a few days of anxiety mixed with utter contempt for the mission he had been given, Draco found himself walking down the cobbled road of Diagon Alley with his old friend, Theodore Nott.
His mother tailed behind them at a leisurely pace, taking in the storefronts and feigning slight interest in the window displays, but holding enough decorum to not go and peer eagerly at them up close with the wistful look of someone who could not afford such an item.
“Darlings, let’s get your robes sorted out, shall we?” she said as she stepped up to Madame Malkin’s and waited as Theo opened the door for her with a small bow. She had always adored Theo, offering to have him stay with them for half the summer every year since he lost his own mother. Until eventually, she signed a paper stating he was as good as her own... unbeknownst to Nott Sr.
She walked gracefully into the store and plopped herself on the edge of a maroon velvet chaise-lounger in the corner, opened her dragon-hide handbag, and pulled out her latest book on gardening before studiously ignoring the boys as they stood up on the platforms to be fitted.
Madame Malkin and her assistant rushed over to the two Pureblood boys and, without wasting any time, started waving their wands around, pulling fabrics down off the shelves around them. Cloths of black and rolls of Slytherin green satin fell over their shoulders languidly, drifting down around their bodies as the ladies worked.
“How has your summer been?” Theo asked as he glanced down at Draco’s left forearm blatantly, raising his eyebrows in the process. Draco took a moment to respond, thinking carefully about how to phrase the sentence. “I have been given some extra work to get done, but other than that, it was pain-free.” He pulled a sugar quill from his inner pocket and unwrapped it. He had been obsessed with these stupid quills ever since last Christmas when he was given a box from Zabini. Theo eyed his sugar quill, probably hoping Draco would offer him one.
“Can I help? Not some Pureblood etiquette shit again, is it?” The spoke slowly and with an obvious double meaning behind his words.
“Yeah, something like that,” Draco muttered, his eyes going to his reflection in the mirror just as the door behind them opened up wide and three Gryffindors walked in.
She looked up at him without warning, their gazes connecting in the reflection, her hair blowing wildly around her head from the open door and mouth slightly parted as if she were saying, “oh,” but no sound reached him.
Draco felt for the first time in his life, a tug from behind his ribcage, the pull so discreet that if he weren’t standing still he may not have noticed. He growled down at Madame Malkin and stepped off the platform. “Aren’t you finished yet?” He scowled in her direction, letting a sneer drip from his mouth.
“Yes, sir, all done. We will post them once they’re finished, which usually takes about three days.” Theo smiled down at the assistant, took her hand in his, and bent to graze his lips over her knuckles lightly. “Always a pleasure, Fiona.” He smirked as she giggled mercilessly into her hands, blushing red as she turned away.
“For fuck’s sake, Theo, you’ll give the girl a heart attack,” Draco groaned.
“Just showing my appreciation, aren’t I?” Theo answered with another grin at Fiona.
They heard a loud scoff behind them, which could only belong to a redheaded Gryffindor hovering in the doorway. Draco turned to glare down at him, removing the sugar quill from his mouth in the process.
“Didn’t ask for your opinion, Weasel, and I never will. Now get out of my way,” Draco sneered at Weasley in
disgust.
Theo came up behind Draco, smiling brightly and looking over his shoulder at the witch still blushing as she put the green satin away on the shelf. Draco had always envied this about Theo; wherever he went and whoever he met, he managed to dazzle them almost instantly, Gryffindors withstanding.
Weasley was turning an ugly beetroot red as he sputtered indignantly at Draco towering over him. Huh, so even Weasley noticed how much he’d shot up, he thought. He must admit, being taller than all three of them made him puff his chest out a little more.
Theo smacked his lips together, making a popping sound before rounding on Weasley. “Now, now Weasley, at this rate you’ll be losing house points before we even make it back to school, a new record for you.” He shouldered his way past a furious Weasel and a bewildered Potter and opened the door wide.
Wind rushed in and Granger’s hair blew wildly around her face as she tried – in vain – to hold it down with her hands. The smell of strawberries accosted Draco’s senses and he froze momentarily to glance quickly down at her as she passed. She paid him no mind, trying to get out of the wind’s path. Huffing, she stalked over to the platform Draco had vacated two minutes prior.
“Gryffindor, please,” she said confidently to Fiona.
Just as Draco was turning to leave, their eyes met again in the mirror’s reflection. Her cheeks were flushed and her skin was covered in tiny freckles, golden from the heat of the summer sun. He glanced briskly down her body to see muggle denim shorts and long, tanned legs without a cloak in sight. The tug he felt earlier came again, but this time it wasn’t so jarring.
He swallowed loudly and left the shop, his mother coming out a few seconds later after paying the bill for both boys.
“Potions ingredients, yes?” Narcissa questioned, as if her son as his best friend had not just insulted another boy in front of her. She stalked off in the direction of the Apothecary and left Theo and Draco to follow.
Narcissa spotted the Parkinsons soon after collecting their books and shrinking them all to fit in her handbag. Mrs. Parkinson insisted they ‘join the party for a spot of iced tea on this scorching summer’s day’. Polite nods and ‘we couldn’t possibly intrude’. Followed by, ‘nonsense, take a seat’ were heard from the ladies as they sat around the white wrought iron table.
Pansy immediately batted her eyelashes in Draco’s direction and he couldn’t help but smirk lazily back at her. He knew the Parkinsons were watching them, so he picked up Pansy’s hand and, like Theo had just done to Fiona, swiped his lips over her knuckles while maintaining eye contact.
“Hello, Pansy.” His grey eyes drifted over her complexion and briefly down her summer dress robes of honey yellow. In all fairness, Pansy was glowing; the sun had turned her already golden skin even darker and her blue eyes popped against her jet black hair, cut just above her shoulders.
Theo cleared his throat politely next to Draco and plastered the most winning smile anyone had ever seen across his face, brushing his brown hair back in the process. Boyish dimples and perfectly straight white teeth were on full display, his eyes simmering with interest.
Sure, Draco was handsome, with his blond hair flicked casually to the side and his obvious wealth proudly shown in his tailored suit. However that may be, Theo was the complete opposite in most ways; his easy smile and demeanour drew in anyone near enough to see it. His arm flopped casually over the back of his chair and, although his family were just as well off as Draco’s, his appearance said otherwise.
He wore an old muggle band t-shirt with the words ‘Led Zeppelin’ plastered across his chest and black denim shorts ripped off at the knees. His shoes looked almost like trainers, with laces crisscrossing all over the front and a large white circle logo on the ankle. Draco had never bothered to help change Theo’s style – he was so used to it now, he didn’t even notice it most of the time. But that wasn’t to say Theo’s father was as accepting of his eccentric style.
In second year, they had spent their weekends creating a charm of disillusionment to cast over their regular clothes so it looked like they were wearing their school robes and vice versa. This charm was excellent for the first day of school when they caught the Hogwarts Express. Instead of changing into their robes in the cramped co-ed carriages, the boys were able to wave their wands over themselves, the spell rippling into existence to switch their muggle – or in Draco’s case, casual – attire to their school uniforms. The only problem was that they needed someone else to cast the spell initially, as they were still underage. However, Draco had an easy answer for that. Narcissa was very accommodating when it came to the boys and their strange antics. After explaining the spell to her and the reason behind it – “Mother, we have to change our clothes in those tiny little compartments!” – Narcissa had pursed her lips in disdain as if getting dressed in anything except one hundred square feet around her was for poor folk only. She nodded ever so slightly in agreement and let Theo show her the spell.
“You just have to envision what you want others to see and say ‘celare’!” said Theo, standing there in his school robes. Narcissa closed her eyes and if Draco had blinked, he would have missed the slight lifting of her upper lip in its corner. Theo’s robes ripped like heat waves on the horizon, changing from black and green to hot pink layers of lace and tulle overflowing from multiple skirts surrounding his legs.
“Aghhrrr, what the—” Narcissa’s small giggle interrupted Theo’s exclamation while Draco fell to the sofa in fits of laughter. To this day, that is the happy memory he used when trying to produce a Patronus charm. Draco smirked coyly at the memory, the smell of sweet peaches drifting from Pansy’s breath as she discussed the results of her O.W.L.’s from yesterday’s post.
“Well, I had expected a better mark in Potions, however Acceptable is still a pass,” she said. “But an Outstanding in Divination – Father thinks I have inherited the Seer gene from his great aunt Meredith.” She grinned and pulled her straw through her teeth, pursing her lips to take a long drink of tea. She looked up and caught Draco watching just as she licked a drop from her bottom lip.
He scowled and turned to face Theo again, already forgetting that he was meant to be trying to win himself a bride; he had already dated Pansy and it didn’t work out, so surely that was enough effort for now. He enjoyed how Pansy’s robes hugged her curves, sure, but that was about as far as his indulgence for her went. He still had years before he had to settle down with a Pureblood bride, if he had years at all to live. The thought sobered him up somewhat, reminding him that he had a task to complete today in Knockturn Alley.
“Theo, I just remembered we forgot to get our – er – ties,” he finished lamely. “We’ll be right back.” He got to his feet and smoothed out the front of his shirt before grabbing Theo around the elbow and tugging him away from his coffee – while he was trying to guzzle it down.
“Smooth,” Draco said as Theo smiled widely at Pansy, shrugging his shoulders in apology.
They walked as fast as they could down the mismatched cobbles of Diagon Alley without drawing attention to themselves, and just past the Weasley twins’ new joke shop – which Theo wanted to have a look in: “Just quickly, Draco, they have that instant Peruvian darkness powder again, I thought it could be fun, you know when you’re with a gi—” Draco tugged at his elbow again and cut him off mid-sentence.
“Maybe later, we need to get this done alone first. That is, if your offer of help is still on the table?” Draco had thought about Theo’s offer and decided he could not go all year sneaking around behind his best friend’s back trying to fix the old, useless vanishing cabinet. Plus, Theo was the real brains in their friendship. Draco was smart, but Theo possessed intuitiveness where Draco needed facts and reasoning.
“Of course, I’ll help you, you don’t even have to ask – where are we going?” Theo lost all sense of humour and turned to walk briskly at Draco’s side, glancing behind them occasionally to check that no one followed too close. Draco put his head down and smiled slightly to himself as he walked on. He may not have many people in his life he could explicitly rely on, but Theo was one of them and he knew he could trust him with this.
“Borgin and Bourke’s, there’s a – something I need to reserve.” Draco uttered the last part quietly as two witches in the year below them stalked past in a hurry, glaring sideways at the boys. Or were they just glaring at Draco? He heard them giggling as they passed and whispers of, “Have you seen his dimples?” said in conspiratorial voices. They turned down the narrow walkway shaped like an archway, covered in green moss that seemed to move and wiggle itself into cracks as they passed. Theo reached out and pried some of the moss from the old bricks adorning the left side of the alley. He pulled a small vial from the back pocket of his shorts and stuffed the moss inside as it fought to get back out. Then, he shoved the vial into his pocket again and carried on as if nothing strange had occurred.
Pushing open the door to Borgin and Bourke’s, they were accosted with the smell of a room that had not seen an ounce of sunlight in one hundred years at the least. Lia, the Malfoy’s house elf, would positively faint and howl at the layer of dust spread across every inch of the shop’s surfaces, blubbering about dishonour and lack of respect for all the magical items inside. For that fact, even Draco wanted to faint at the small, the dust, and the obvious desolate state of the place. His eye twitched and he shoved his hands deep into his pockets to protect them from reaching out to run a finger through the layers of grime.
“Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Nott, how can I help?” Borgin looked as though he wished for anything but to help the two of them as he sat with his feet up on the counter in front of him, a Daily Prophet exclaiming, “INFERI OR DEMENTORS – WHICH IS WORSE?” was splattered across the front page accompanied by a moving image of three dementors swooping down over an old, rickety house in the middle of an empty field.
Draco pointed quickly towards the large vanishing cabinet that stood in the corner of the room while Theo turned to browse around the wares on offer under the layers of dirt and Salazar knew what else.
“You can’t sell it – that cabinet,” Draco drawled blatantly, getting straight to the point. “It must remain here, in the shop for the year.”
Borgin put down his paper and a cloud of dust puffed up around them from the sudden movement. Draco took a step back and turned his nose towards the door, eager to get out of the filthy place.
“Why would I do that, eh, Malfoy? What’s in it for me?”
Draco had known things might come to this and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a large sack of galleons. “Here – and don’t forget who you’re speaking to.”
Theo had materialised next to Draco and growled dangerously towards Borgin as he went to snatch the sack from Draco’s hand, but Draco was quicker.
“Do we have a deal?” He was quickly losing patience with the crusty old wizard, itching to get the hell out of the stale air and into the street again. Draco thrust the bag onto the counter, creating another puff of dust.
Borgin nodded in agreement. “Very well, Mr. Malfoy, it shall remain here for the year.” He bowed so low his nose almost touched his knees, but the cruel smirk that adorned his face made the whole endeavour rather pointless.
“Someone will be in touch about it soon.” Draco spat the words at Borgin as they turned to leave. He could have sworn he saw Theo run his finger quickly through a pile of dust and push it into another vial from his back pocket as they left the store in a rush.
Just as the door closed behind them, Draco caught a movement out of the corner of his eye from the rooftop next door. He could have sworn he had seen a large mane of bushy brown hair belonging to a certain Muggle-Born witch.
Feeling a little on edge from the assault of uncleanliness and barely breathable air, they took long, brisk steps towards the little teashop Narcissa and the Parkinsons were still entertaining from.
Pansy looked at them puzzled for a second before she said, “Where are your ties?”