Blaise was at a club when Draco "dropped in" on him that night, and had clearly been partying for quite some time. Knowing Blaise's penchant for recreational potions, Draco was sure that alcohol alone did not account for the degree of incoherence he found in Blaise's head. He left a command for Blaise to come see him in the morning for breakfast, and left him to his girl and his swimming head.
Blaise's intoxication had left Draco rather dizzy and sick, so he took a hot bath and went to bed rather than try any further excursions that evening.
The next morning he arrived at the breakfast table and found not only a wan-looking Blaise, but two aurors drinking coffee and failing to make conversation. He had forgotten it was the auror's weekly scheduled day of inspection – one of many conditions to his father's being allowed to stay at the Manor rather than Azkaban. Lucius and Narcissa were eating in frozen silence at their end of the table.
Draco gave his parents a nod as he took his seat and the house elf served his coffee, and turned to Blaise. "Good morning," he said. "Rough night?"
Blaise managed to smirk. "Fantastic night. Once-in-a-lifetime, even. But I left the pensieve at home." The house elf delivered Draco's breakfast plate – scrambled eggs and sausages – and Blaise turned a little green.
Draco clicked his tongue, then dug into his sausages with malicious relish. "Shame. Still, I could use your help later with the potions assignment."
Blaise nodded gingerly.
"What potion is that?" asked the elder of the two aurors, looking up from the notes he had been making.
Draco favored him with a chilly Malfoy how-gauche-can-you-possibly-be look. "A memory potion, a summer assignment from Professor Snape."
The auror only nodded and made another note. "We'll test it before we leave," he said.
Draco did not deign to reply to that, but finished his breakfast and took more coffee and Blaise down to his lab.
"Oh, like that's not going to drive you insane all summer," Blaise observed, watching with interest as Draco zoomed around his lab, collecting the vial of legilimens potion and all the notes thereof.
"Evanesco," said Draco, and the vial was empty and pristine. As Blaise opened his mouth, presumably to protest, Draco Banished all the notes.
Blaise clicked his teeth together as Draco began setting up the lab for brewing their potions assignment, working at top speed and mostly using his wand. "Where did you send them?"
"Your house," said Draco, pausing in his casting for a moment. "I don't need to be caught with it all here, do I?"
"I guess not," said Blaise. He dropped his robe over the hook by the door, dumped a handful of sunflower seeds into a mortar, and started grinding them up. "So, anything else you discovered about it?"
"Not really," said Draco, measuring drops of hippogriff saliva into the cauldron. "That hot-pepper flavour appears to be unavoidable. Everything I can think of to tone it down also tones down the potency."
"How about the headache?"
"I don't recommend mixing it with hangover potion," Draco said darkly. Blaise's brows rose. "Some severe side effects."
Blaise nodded, probably assuming all the details were in the notes Draco had banished. Those notes did indeed include some detail, hopefully enough to put Blaise off the idea of trying the combination, but did not mention the particular side effect that had claimed Draco. He had decided to keep that to himself as long as possible.
They put together the rest of their assigned potion in silence. As they were decanting it into vials, the door opened suddenly and the younger of the aurors swept into the room. Blaise started, and snarled as he spilled potion on the worktop.
"Let's have a look," said the auror, without so much as an apology, and aimed his wand at the cauldron.
Draco favoured him with a look of deepest contempt, then cast evanesco at Blaise's spill. The auror frowned slightly, checked the results of his scan, and said, "Perfect memory potion." He turned and held out a hand to Draco. "Wand."
Draco raised the Malfoy Eyebrow. "What?" he said coldly.
The auror scowled. "Give me your wand," he said slowly, as though Draco were mentally impaired.
Draco didn't move. "Because -?" he inquired, in the same cold voice.
"Because I need to test it. Priori Incantatem?"
"Face it, Draco," sneered Blaise. "You're not going to get any manners out of him."
"So I see," said Draco, easily out-sneering his friend. "Here then. Try not to get fingerprints all over it."
The auror snatched the wand and cast priori incantatem. They watched the evanescos and levitation spells come forth, then some silencing spells, locking spells (The auror snickered), and a lumos spell. Draco, who knew his last casting of legilimens should be getting close, was relieved when the auror cut off the priori incantatem at that point.
There was a knock on the door, and the other auror looked in. The younger auror glanced at him, then handed Draco back his wand without commenting. Draco took it in silence, never relaxing an expression of frozen disapproval he felt could rival even his father's.
"Good day, gentlemen," said the older auror civilly, and the two men left.
"Definitely going to drive you insane," Blaise remarked, after a moment of silence. He refilled his potion vial and started to clean up.
Draco stood where he was, glowering and turning his wand over and over in his hands. He was outraged that he was apparently expected to swallow this sort of treatment from such low-class people as those aurors. On the other hand, his father clearly could not be expected to remain in the even lower-class environs of Azkaban. This was going to be a horrible summer, all things considered.
"You all right?" Blaise asked.
Draco tuned back in and realized that while he'd been sulking, Blaise had cleared up their whole work space. "I'm fine," he said. "Just suffering a little from Muggle-lover exposure."
Blaise clapped him on the shoulder. "I'm sure you want to bathe," he agreed. "I know I do. Tell you what; I'll see you tomorrow evening, say six-ish? You can help me with the next test of the new potion."
"Oh, really, can I?" Draco said sarcastically. "I'm not taking any more of that stuff."
"I will, then," said Blaise, unperturbed. "After all, we have to make sure it works on Mudbloods, don't we?" He grinned. "Should be fun."
Draco grinned back, although he was uneasy at the idea of Blaise running around loose on the potion for two days. "So it should. I wouldn't miss it."
"Come by my place around six, then," said Blaise. "We'll make an evening of it. You need a change of scenery."
"Assuming those ridiculous aurors haven't made some rule about my not getting out and enjoying myself," Draco muttered resentfully. "I'll let you know."
Blaise clapped him on the shoulder again, and went off to floo home. Draco went upstairs to take a long hot shower.