Chapter 14
In which Draco tried his hand as a counselor.
In his long tenure as a teacher, and then the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore could honestly say that he'd never seen the Headmaster's office as some kind of refugee. Up till this day, that is. He stared at the table that had somehow appeared in the corner of the office, where Severus Snape was marking his students' essays with vicious vengeance. He winced as the quill made a subtle screech as the Potion teacher drew a large red T on the paper and muttered about dunderheads who couldn't be bothered to check their grammars and five years old who could write a better essay.
Albus coughed discreetly and asked.
"Severus, is there a reason why you did your marking in my office?"
Severus grumbled in irritation. "I'm hiding, Headmaster."
Albus sighed. "Don't you have an office in your personal quarter for that? "
"The Dark Lord is there, in the middle of an existential crisis I would like nothing to do with. If I went to the teacher's lounge, he'll just follow me there. " He said tersely.
Needless to say, there's no way Voldemort would approach Professor Dumbledore's office willingly.
Albus frowned in confusion. "Existential Crisis? Is this something to do with that odd detention he had with Ms. Potter? I heard it was a success, much thanks to you and your associates' efforts. "
Severus sighed in resignation. The Headmaster, much like his predecessors, loved gossiping, and he would pester him just to get the juicy exclusive info about the Dark Lord's first date… err, detention.
"Yeah, well, it started well enough, and ended well enough, until the Dark Lord brought up Charlie Weasley that is. Ms. Potter is looking forward to offer him a space at the Conservatory, and the Dark Lord is none too pleased." Severus said.
"Why is that? I heard Charlie Weasley got a lot of praises and recommendations in the Reservations. " Albus wondered.
He was rather proud of the accomplishment of one of his alumni.
"Well, apparently, Charlie Weasley is young and exciting. Ms. Potter didn't help matters by saying he is too old for her. "
"Who, Tom? "
"No, did you even listen at all? Ms. Potter said that Charlie Weasley is quote Way Too Old for Her unquote. Draco said that the Dark Lord Aura became too oppressive and he had to drag both his fellow chaperones for cover when something started to explode."
Albus stared at him incredulously.
"I know, I know, he's too… ahem… grown up to have any kinds of accidental magic, but that happened, and then Ms. Potter made it worse by commenting blithely about age and accidental magic. Needless to say, he was furious. The three chaperones described the walk back to the castle as something alike walking through a blizzard. It was freezing, and both their auras are oppressive enough that dark creatures of the night actually avoided them. By Merlin, I saw a Lethifold actually change direction. "
"There's a Lethifold in the forest?" The headmaster sat up straight, alarmed at that news.
"Oh, not anymore. " Severus waved her hand unconcernedly as he drew yet another giant red T, followed by a note that he can't read the chicken scrawls at all. "Lucius caught it and sent it to Macnair for the Conservatory. "
Albus stared at his employee aghast. "Alright. Aside from an infestation of dark creatures at night that I'm unaware of, Ms. Potter is eleven years old, so she's hardly going to see Charlie Weasley or even anyone else as a love interest. Also, while Tom is older than her (he's the same age as her grandfather, for Merlin's sake!), she understood that they are married, and would not be interested in any other males in a romantic sense. It;s just the nature of a marriage bond, you know? And that doesn't explain what you are doing here?"
" Yeah, tell that to the Dark Lord. As to why I'm doing my job here, the Dark Lord is currently over sensitive with the word Old and was pestering me for a deaging potion. He also sulked because Ms. Potter went home for the Christmas holiday and was scheduled to interview Charlie Weasley two days after Christmas."
"Ah. So, he was sulking in your office? Didn't Quirinus have a personal quarter? "
"Yeah, I don't know why he's in my office either. But Lucius is busy with his meeting schedules with Ms. Potter. I heard she added to his work as a steward. We haven't heard from him since about four days ago. Narcissa said that he's risking missing the annual Malfoy's Yule Ball. I figured that I'd hide here while The Dark Lord is free to contact anyone to listen to his whines. "Severus explained.
Albus steepled his fingers as he watched Severus make yet another red slash in the parchment, and wondered if he should make an essay writing class just to prevent the students from being emotionally abused for doing their assignment.
Harriet was working on her clients' backlogged accounts, accompanied by Dudley who was having trouble with his mathematics and some science subjects and asked for help when Narcissa came with Draco to visit them.
Draco found the muggle computer fascinating, but looked in apprehension to the big boxes of receipt that Harriet was sorting through. Sensing that she was in a black mood, he decided to not say anything and choose a book from the shelves before settling down beside Dudley to read quietly.
A year ago, if you said that he would sit beside a muggle and read muggle books, Draco would curse you before you could finish your sentence, transfigure your body and hide your transfigured body somewhere you wouldn't be found. Never in a million years would he thought his pureblood fanatic Mother excited to have tea with his cousin's muggle Aunt while he sat with her muggle cousin while waiting for her to do a muggle thing.
"Was there something you wanted, Draco?" He looked at Harriet who was still typing in her muggle contraption without looking at him and sighed.
Apparently, the blizzard is still raging. On this side, at least. Last he heard from his Godfather, The Dark Lord had moved on past anger to insecurities and now devolving into despair.
"I'm just accompanying Mother. She had an appointment with your Aunt. I thought I might spend the day with you."
Harriet eyed him with a weighing stare, and sighed before closing the file she had on her lap and stored it in the shelf behind her desk.
"Alright. Dudley, are you finished?" she asked her other cousin who was still concentrating on his homework.
"Just this…I'm done. Here." he handed her his book.
Harriet leafed through the book with a nod here and there, and took the pencil to make some notes on some pages before handing it back to Dudley.
"I'm running some errands today, if you want to come with us." she said to Draco.
He nodded and put her book on the table. He saw Harriet's eyebrow ticking and immediately took the book back to the shelf. It wasn't wise to test his cousin's temper today, so it seemed.
His Mother and Her Aunt stood up as they entered the living room.
"Ready?" her Aunt asked.
Harriet nodded and followed her Aunt and cousin out to the car. Aunt Petunia and Narcissa sat in the front while the three of them squeezed to the back.
"Where are we going?" Draco asked his cousin.
"I need to go deposit my paycheques and take care of my investments at the muggle bank in town, and then I'm doing christmas that we will have lunch at the mall, and go to Aunt Marge's kennel. She promised me a puppy from her latest batch that was born two months ago. She's weaned now." Harriet said patiently.
"Paycheques? What is that?" he asked curiously
"I did accounting for my clients, and they paid for my time by cheques." she showed him some papers with muggle money amounts written on it. " I used it for my living costs and investments."
"You mean you got paid for working? But your family is rich! Why do you need to work this young?" Draco didn't understand.
From what he've heard, The Slytherin and Gaunt's accounts were also fully loaded, now that his father had cleared the debts and sorted out the investments and all. He was aware that Harriet was going to be a very wealthy witch in the future,
"Why not? I like accounting. Also, investments are really exciting. Besides, money is money, you know. If I ever got locked out from my accounts for any reason, I'd still have my muggle accounts I can rely on. There are also some things in the muggle world that I might like, and they don't recognise galleons here." she said nonchalantly.
"Is 20,000 pounds a lot?" he asked again, curious about this paycheques. 20,000 pounds was the smallest amount on the papers.
"Eh, i don't know today's exchange rate, probably around 400 to 500 Galleons?" Harriet said thoughtfully.
"For a week worth of work?" He didn't think that his father earned that much, and the Malfoys are at the top tier of ministry's backers.
"For one account, yes. And don't forget that it's not a week's worth, it's 6 months' worth of work. I only did it during holidays because we were at school and the muggle computer didn't work there." Harriet said.
He was still a little dazed when his cousin negotiated new investments with the cheques she deposited (Dudley is a little more desensitized, and while he is still dependent on his parents, he understood the importance of management now.).
It wasn't until they arrived at Aunt Marge's kennel that Harriet broke him from his stupor by asking an absurd question.
"Do you think Thomas would like a puppy?" she asked softly as she played with her new puppy.
Draco tilted his head in confusion. "Who's Thomas? The Gryffindor?"
"No, Thomas, my husband"
He raised an eyebrow. "Weren't you still angry with him?"
"I'm not angry with him, per say. He just annoys me so much."Harriet frowned.
"I did think that you two behaved childishly, which is a bit strange considering that he's the Dark Lord and you're anything but childish."
" I am a child, I 'll have you know, and since he was still in a snit about that age difference, I figured that taking care of something might take his mind off that and make him concentrate on something else." she sniffed. "I don't like fightings."
Draco hid a smile. He was thankful that it was school holiday and they were in a muggle place because he was pretty sure that she's going to hex him for the smile.
"I think he would love the sentiment behind it"