Chapter Text
Draco ignored the icy cold stare of his father over the edge of the Daily as he slathered butter onto his toast. Honestly, he considered whistling just to piss the man off before he thought better of it. Best not to agitate him more than absolutely necessary. He smirked, setting down the knife and taking a bite of his breakfast, his eyes rising to meet his fathers in a silent challenge over that blasted paper—barely more than a gossip rag.
“Anything exciting planned for today, Draco?” his father finally asked, his voice tight. Draco barely bit back the smirk that threatened to flit across his lips.
He was saved from answering and causing yet another wizarding war as the steady beat of his mother’s heels sounded upon the marbled floors and he rose, as did his father, on instinct.
“Oh Lucius—” his mother warned, “Let’s not linger… again.”
His mother’s voice was soft but her tone was final and Draco didn’t hide the smirk this time as he raised a brow in challenge to his father.
Lucius Malfoy, for what it was worth, said nothing more as he moved to pull out his mother’s chair for her.
Truthfully, it wasn’t as though Draco didn’t deserve some of the ire his father was currently glowering in his direction. However, if it hadn’t been for his father’s blatant and unbearable arse kissing and power grabs all those years ago, he wouldn’t have even been in this position to begin with.
His mother, seeming to understand, drew his father’s attention from him once more and allowed him to finish his breakfast nearly unencumbered as he listened to his mother prattle on about last minute preparations of some kind or another. His father, ever the ardent and admiring husband, listened intently though Draco was sure if he just peeked into his father’s mind there wouldn’t be much more than the most recent quidditch scores.
Draco sipped from his goblet of pumpkin juice, rolling the stem between his fingers as he watched the way his father fervently served his mother and he wondered, idly, if perhaps his mother might be right.
Before he could ruminate too long, however, Tippy appeared before him.
“Mister Malfoy, a Mister Nott has arrived to see you—”
“Please, just Theo. Mister Nott is my father—” Theo’s voice announced as he waltzed into the dining room as though he owned it, his robes billowing behind him. He stopped only to bend down to kiss Narcissa on the cheek before he slid into the empty seat beside Draco and helped himself to a scone from the spread before them.
“Theodore,” his father asked, his voice just barely concealing the hint of amusement that always seemed to follow the younger Nott. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”
The man swallowed his bite of scone and smirked, “Oh, you know, just gallivanting around town, painting it green,” he paused. “I was actually coming to see if Drake would accompany me to the Ballycastle Bats match this morning. I have box seats and a need to watch some Irish blokes in tight pants straddle a strong piece of wood.”
Lucius, having been taking a drink from his teacup, nearly inhaled the entire thing, saucer and all, as Narcissa rolled her eyes boredly.
“Theo dear, if you must be so crass, at least do so where my husband will not expire on top of the lovely breakfast the elves have prepared.”
“Apologies,” the man smirked, completely unabashed and took his own sip of tea, “So, how about it Drake?”
Draco sighed but shook his head, bringing his arm up to peek at the watch that sat on his wrist; an expensive gift to himself that had made his father nearly birth a pygmy puff when he saw it in the shiny muggle box. “Sorry Theo, today is my first day back at Romford Shopping Hall I’m afraid.”
The man frowned, “Romfor—Oh, wait, you’re still doing that?” and then, “Why?”
“If you find out, please enlighten us,” his father cut in sourly from across the table. His mother tutted, reaching out to smooth her hand across his.
“Draco, when you have a moment,” she said, ignoring her husband's lingering misery, “please do look over the list of eligible witches I have given you.”
“Mother,” he groaned and it was his fathers turn to smirk at him, “No—”
“Yes,” his mother intoned, “it is time. I would like to actually see my grandchildren from this side of the veil and you are no closer to finding an acceptable witch than you were six months ago, so if you won’t, then I will—”
Theo muttered something that sounded suspiciously like danger into his mug and Draco tossed a sneer his way before he turned back to his mother.
“The last time I allowed you to meddle Mother, I ended up engaged to that trite Greengrass girl.”
His mother blanched unbecomingly and it was Lucius’ turn to rub her hand soothingly.
Draco smirked and turned to Theo, “I’ll show you out before I leave.”
Theo, for what it was worth, took the cue and stood up, stuffing the rest of the scone into his mouth before he crossed over to kiss Narcissa’s cheek one last time.
Draco, ever the dutiful son, did the same before he hurried from the dining room, unable to listen to his parents push and pester him any longer.
It wasn’t as though he hadn’t tried; Merlin knew he had tried.
After the war, his father had begged off his sentence, trying to turn money and power into freedom from consequences. Instead, he had spent five years in Azkaban while Draco and Narcissa had made out far more advantageously—thanks in part to Harry Sodding Potter and his right hand man-er, witch.
Flashes of riotous curls, chestnut eyes and a painting of freckles and blush painted cheeks danced before his eyes and he shook them away.
“So,” Theo asked as they approached the floo parlour. “Romford Hall still?”
Draco clenched his eyes and his jaw and tilted his head back, “Not you too.”
“Sore spot?” Theo asked, raising a brow as he stepped in front of him and leaned against the marble fireplace side.
“You could say that—”
Theo laughed, “Lucius?”
“Lucius,” Draco confirmed with a nod. “He thinks it’s beneath us, which honestly is all the more reason to keep doing it.”
“You know,” Theo said as he pushed up from the wall and walked to the ornate floo powder stand and grabbed a handful. “I know you like people to think that you do it to piss him off but I’ve known you long enough Drake. You enjoy it, and I think it’s fine time that you get to do something for you,” the man winked, “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”
Draco watched as the green flames engulfed him and he disappeared in a swirl of green flames.
He wasn’t wrong, Draco thought as he adjusted his own robes and grabbed a handful of powder.
When Granger and Potter had testified for him before the Wizengamot nearly eight years ago he had been sure that it wouldn’t have mattered. He was destined to spend years in Azkaban for all that he did. For all that he didn’t do.
He hadn’t listened to their testimonies, pleading with his solicitor to let him beg off and crying in relief when his request had been granted. He had stood in front of the chair, only after, his arms and legs in shackles and intently ignored the press of eyes on his profile as he stood waiting for his sentencing and then—
“Five years of probation including monthly auror check-in’s, regulated wand checks, and (last part of probation) In addition to this and in lieu of prison time after the… vehement requests of Mister Potter and Miss Granger,” the old codger’s voice shook and Draco felt the very end of his lips pull up at the obvious alarm the latter must have caused. “It has been decided that you must take and pass an approved muggle studies course after which you will be expected to work with muggles for community order for unpaid work for a minimum of 300 hours.”
In the end, Draco had found out just how far his surname would get him outside of the carefully constructed—yet, admittedly invisible—walls of the wizarding world; the answer? Absolutely nowhere.
With Azkaban looming over his head after having passed the muggle studies course—with top marks he might add—he had found himself wandering muggle London in the fall, in search of what, he still wasn’t quite sure.
When he had stumbled, bleary and weary, into the storefront at Romford Shopping Hall, he had been wide-eyed. It was as though Diagon Alley had been pushed and shoved into the building of brick and metal.
It was pure happenstance that he had found the job solicitation stuck haphazardly to one of the walls and he hadn’t expected much as he walked into the manager's office that day, paper clutched too tightly in his hand. The woman had been nearly beside herself when he had told her he was interested in the position without really asking many questions. It seemed, for what he had garnered from her excited babbling, that the last man who had had the job had fallen asleep while working and had smelled like bourbon for most of his shifts. Draco hadn’t really been sure what all of that really meant but he had been desperate enough not to care as the woman asked him a few basic questions and he had made up as much as he could on the spot. Surprisingly she had hired him right then and there.
“Can you start next week?”
“I—yeah-yeah I can,” he had stammered, his heart soaring at the prospect of not having to share a cell with one of his father’s old cronies.
“Perfect,” she had said as she shook his hand and then turned, “follow me I’ll grab the suit.”
He had nodded and followed along, his eyes sweeping over the dull tiled floors as they walked the service hall until they came upon a small closet at the end, its light flickering ominously. Admittedly he should have known it was a sign, but instead he had waited as she disappeared inside. He had wondered, briefly, if the suit would be gray or black, hoping it wouldn't be blue. Not that he wouldn't have been able to pull it off but blue always tended to wash him out and—
His thoughts had froze when she had returned, the large garment bag tucked under her arm,Unzipped, and a bright red garish suit gleaming at him from within–actually fucking gleaming.
“You’ll have to stuff it of course. Our last guy used some old pillows, I might have those around here somewhere—” she had said as she turned to look back into the damp of the closet and Draco swallowed.
“Father Christmas?” he had asked, and he would never admit how much his voice had cracked then.
“Well, of course,” the woman said and she looked back at him, “what else would we need someone for in the Christmas Grotto?” she asked pointedly as her eyes cut to the paper he still somehow had clutched in his hand. “The Easter Bunny?”
“No, no I just—”
The woman sighed, “It’s fine if you’re not up to it—” she took a step back into the shadows of the closet and Draco could almost feel the walls of Azkaban creeping up behind him.
“No,” he nearly snapped. “No, I’m up to it, I just wasn’t expecting to uh… wear something so… red.”
The woman grinned at that and thrust it into his hand, “Well of course, what else would Father Christmas wear?”
He half heartedly listened after that as he held the garment bag draped over his arm and followed her out and into the Christmas Grotto to take a look at where he would be working for the next few weeks.
Working.
The word felt foreign enough as it were, but add in the garish red suit adorned with bells and he was almost positive he could hear his father’s voice in his head over Mrs. Whitmore’s I did not survive the dark lord just to watch my heir become… jolly.
He had honestly thought that he would detest every single soul sucking minute of sitting on that garish and gaudy gilded velvet throne. He thought he’d clock his time, counting down every second until his 300 hours of unpaid work were, well… paid in full. He had planned to sit there in that stupid chair that smelled faintly of tinsel and—horrifyingly enough—vomit, and he would be able to leave at the end of the season with his dignity, mostly, intact.
Except somehow… that wasn’t what happened.
Instead on his very first day that next week some tiny little menace in pigtails (google says maybe ‘bunches’ instead of pigtails) with mismatched shoelaces had climbed up on his lap and demanded to know what his reindeer really ate because carrots alone were not enough to keep their strength up. She had glared at him with all the suspicion of a Gringotts account manager and he had stammered idiotically until he had said, stupidly, “They also like apples.”
Apparently it had appeased her as she had beamed up at him with a gap in her front teeth and said “Give them some of your biscuits too.”
He hadn’t dared argue before she had told him she wanted some absurd game for Christmas and hopped off with her mum, still grinning ear to ear and somehow… it fit.
The absolute absurdity of it all should have felt humiliating or degrading or at the very least even slightly embarrassing to him. Instead it had felt… good. Something small and quiet had unfurled in his chest as he watched her bounce and bob away hand in hand with her grown up and he had smiled to himself just slightly.
So, of course, when the next child had clambered onto his lap with all the grace of an inebriated flobberworm, he had expected the same kind of stand-off or determination. Instead the little boy had whispered that he’d like a robotic puppy and also for his mummy to not cry at night anymore and Draco had froze, his hands tightening on the armrest as the little sprite had looked up at him with big brown eyes full of wonder and… hope.
He hadn’t known what to say really, or what to do, he knew he couldn’t promise him anything, would never dare to try to fix it but instead he had said what he had wished someone had said to him at that age.
“Sometimes,” he said quietly and he cleared his throat, “Sometimes people feel sad or scared. Even grown-ups and that’s okay. Sometimes we get tired or scared or quiet and it doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten how to be happy, we’ve just forgotten we can be.”
The little boy seemed to mull that over as he stared up at Draco with wide, unblinking brown eyes.
Draco swallowed thickly before he pressed forward, hoping to Merlin he was saying the right things. “And sometimes, people just need a reminder. Someone to… give them a reason to remember.”
Just a reminder, he had thought. Because sometimes little boys needed to hear it and sometimes fathers never said I love you; they just reminded you to stand tall as you walked into a courtroom. And sometimes mothers didn’t say I’m proud of you, they just smoothed your hair when they thought you were sleeping. Sometimes love was quiet, sometimes it was cold and sometimes it was hard, nearly impossible to see. He was starting to see that it didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
The child was still looking up at him when he finished talking, as though he were absorbing every syllable Draco had spoken and for a moment he was sure that (manager) was going to come yank him off the throne that had finally started to feel comfortable, and toss him out the back. Instead… the little boy had smiled and nodded and said, “Thank you Father Christmas,” before he too had bounded away and that… Well, it had felt like magic.
That night as he had turned in the suit, (manager) had told him he had gotten glowing reviews from the parents who had brought their children and that had made his cheeks and his chest warm slightly. He had gone home with a pocket full of Santa’s pennies and fuzz from the fake beard Mrs. Whitmore had insisted he wear. When he had caught a glimpse of himself in the hall mirror, he expected he would feel humiliation or shame or his father’s voice reminding he was a Malfoy, that this was beneath them…
Instead he had heard that tiny little voice “I want my mummy not to cry at night anymore” and he hadn’t cared even the slightest that his hair was mussed and he definitely had smelled far better in the middle of a battle than he did from wearing that stifling suit. For the first time in as long as he could remember he felt… useful.
So he kept going back; day after day, week after week. He sat through children screaming and parents pleading and tiny voices asking for impossible things and before he knew it the season had drawn to a close and his unpaid work hours had been fulfilled. He could have quit then, washed his hands of it, chalked it up to completed restitution and moved on with his life. He hadn’t.
He’d stayed.
He’d come back the next year and the year after that and the year after that. Not because he’d had to or because the threat of Azkaban loomed over him. He’d come back because against all rhyme and reason and Malfoy legacy, he’d found that he was good at it. Really fucking good.