Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter universe and no money is being made from this story. Just borrowed some characters ;)

A/N: Thanks to my beta CMemlovr, you're doing great work!

As always, this story is Alternate Universe. No Voldemort, no war, tada.

"So tell me, Crabbe – Goyle – how were your holidays?" Draco leaned back on the big sofa in Slytherin common room. This difficult question seemed to be too much for them.

Two pairs of eyes stared at Draco in confusion. When three minutes had passed and he'd still received no reply. Draco got a little nervous. He looked at Goyle, but he didn't seem to be all there.

"Lights are on, but no one's home," Draco muttered.

He turned to Crabbe instead. "Go on," he prompted, "How was your holiday? What did you do?"

"Uh, yeah." Crabbe blinked several times.

Internally screaming, but externally calm, Draco nodded. "Good one. I always knew you had the larger vocabulary between yourself and Goyle."

'One would have thought that they'd be able to answer a normal question by now! They're seventh years, for heaven's sake.' The thought made Draco smirk. Unfortunately, he had no other option. His original plan had been to somehow get rid of Things One and Two, but Snape had appealed to his conscience and reminded him: "Slytherins are always loyal to one another, Draco." He heard his godfather's drawl in his thoughts, and damned the Slytherin loyalty that forced him into Crabbe and Goyle's company. 'Damn Sorting Hat, should have left out the 'Or perhaps in Slytherin, You'll make your real friends'-part,' he thought irritably.

He looked at Crabbe again.

"Try the question again – I'll wait." In the meantime, Goyle seemed to have caught up to the conversation. Lightning quick as he was, he had understood that Draco had asked a question.

"Planes." he gulped.

Draco's eyes widened with surprise, he hadn't expected Goyle to answer that fast. "What?"

Goyle smiled happily.

"There were planes," Draco nodded, trying to speed up the process a bit. "And apart form that?"

Now it was Crabbe's turn to participate in this thrilling conversation. "We were… walking?"

Draco could only roll his eyes. "Was that really a question? I wasn't there, so you have to tell me what you did during your holidays!" Draco rubbed his forehead with his palm wearily. How could a single person be so dumb?

"Well, our parents didn't like our O.W.L. results so much, so they wanted us to do a muggle job without magic."

Draco's mouth fell open. There it was- the moment he'd apparently gone mad. "Whole sentences, Goyle? What happened to you?"

'Maybe,' thought Goyle, 'now is not the right time to mention that I was working on this sentence the last four minutes.'

Crabbe nodded affirmatively. "Yeah, told us we should learn to value magic. Without a good certificate we have bad chances on the job market."

In the meantime, Draco had caught up well enough to be bored again. "I understand, you had to do a muggle job. But what exactly did you do? Walking isn't a job by itself!" There was a clear undertone of ridicule to his questions, though of course Crabbe and Goyle missed it completely.

"Well, as I said. We had to walk on kind of a street. But there were no cars," explained Crabbe.

"There were planes," Goyle eloquently continued Crabbe's contribution. Draco put his hands on his cheeks, looking at Goyle in mock shock. "No way! If you hadn't mentioned it for the third time, I wouldn't have known that there had been planes. Merlin's beard, where would a nitwit like you be allowed to work?!"

Crabbe gasped. Draco raised an eyebrow in a Snape-like manner, looking disparagingly at him. "Oh come on, get a grip! 'Nitwit' is still too nice for Goyle, that wasn't an insult in any way! Now come along, I don't have all day."

"We had to wear hi-vis vests. The people there told us that if we see any birds, we have to make them go away."

Draco pressed his palms against his eyes. "I'm going to make a wild assumption here and say that you've been working on an airfield."

He opened his eyes. Two heads were wildly nodding, both looking at him happily.

"It's a very important job!" Crabbe added.

Draco sighed. "Did the people there also tell you what this very important job is called?"

Two heads began to nod once more.

Draco waved his hand, asking them to continue.

"Avian management executives," they replied in chorus.

As it dawned on him exactly what the job had entailed – despite the more complicated title - Draco rubbed his temples gently, feeling a migraine coming on. Looking back at them, he sighed.

"You are aware that two scarecrows could have easily done your job these last two weeks, aren't you?"

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