Draco Malfoy and his Unknown Fate:
Author's Notes: This story is going to be somewhat of an epic, so if you don't like long reads you may not want to read this story. However, I have almost all of it already written, so it will be finished. I usually don't post WIP's, but this one's so big you'll have quite enough to keep you occupied while the last few chapters are written. It will have romance in later chapters (H/D), but it mainly explores Draco's life as a Slytherin and how he deals with being his own person.
Warnings/Summary: It's still summer. Draco's still settling in. No warnings.
Disclaimer: The characters in this story belong to J.K. Rowling. I'm merely borrowing them for the time being. This will be slash (eventually). Don't like it? Don't read it. Otherwise, enjoy.
Draco found that he enjoyed his job, but it wasn't very surprising. His love of potions had started when Snape, who was friends with his parents, had gifted Draco with a miniature (and idiot-proof) potions set when he was six. Draco, who loved anything capable of causing mayhem and destruction, had adored it and, to his mother's dismay, had messed about with it, all the while managing to get soot and ingredients all over himself and any furniture unfortunate enough to be within a ten-foot radius. The brand new cauldron he had received when he was ten had only encouraged him further. And the dramatic speech Snape had given his first-year class on how to "bottle fame, brew glory and stopper death" had cinched it. Draco was a sucker for good theater, and Snape was a first class performer.
So he found himself hiding small smiles while he puttered about the shop organizing the shelves and refilling the empty jars. The shop was usually quiet, but it did not lack for company. Mr. Jigger was, he had found, an intelligent man who was painstakingly fair and who let him take a good number of breaks but demanded that Draco not shirk his share of the work. His daughter Lydia, who had deep blue eyes and wheat-blonde hair, dropped by the shop occasionally and had given Draco some biscuits she had baked herself. Stephen Slug, the son of the original Stanley Slug from the sign out front, was a serious, handsome, dark-haired youth who observed things quietly and spoke little. Apparently his father traveled around gathering supplies for the shop, especially the rarer ingredients, and returned every three months for a week or so to spend time with his son and order his affairs before going off to gallivant about the world again. Steven and Lydia were engaged to be married, and occasionally Draco caught snippets of conversation, such as "No, no, the invitations should be in gold ink. Silver? Silver went out in the nineteenth century. Now, the guest list on the other hand…" whenever Lydia dropped by, which was often.
Draco's main tasks were simple, but time-consuming. He was to keep the store tidy by sweeping every morning and evening as well as cleaning up any accidental spills. He was also required to stock the shelves, which, he found out, involved a lot of heavy lifting since he wasn't allowed to use magic during the summer and a lot of the ingredients were far too sensitive and temperamental when it came to stray magic anyway. In fact, Draco had taken to organizing the shelves alphabetically and was still on the D's. The dodo brains (usually used in Dolt Draughts) were stored in small jars, but the containers had gotten hopelessly mixed up with the jars of Dusty Moth wings. Occasionally, when the shop was busy and Stephen and Mr. Jigger were attending to customers, Draco got to stand behind the counter and work the cash register, which was an old-fashioned cranky thing that made a half-hearted, wheezing "ding" whenever the drawer was shut. When it opened in the first place that is. Only Stephen could work it without error - even Mr. Jigger couldn't figure out how to open the drawer when it was at its most stubborn. And it had tried to slam Draco's hand in the drawer on two separate occasions, possibly because he had called it a "heap of moldering junk".
So a week passed without incident while Draco settled into his new schedule easily. His pay wasn't excessive, but it was a tidy sum that added up daily. Draco felt like the dragon he was named for after he had received his first little bag of coins at the end of the week when he sat up in his bed counting them all one by one, with a sort of miserly satisfaction that his great-great-two-hundred-something-greats-great-grandfather had probably felt upon first acquiring the Malfoy fortune. Draco had earned every single solitary one of those coins with his own two hands. For some reason, it felt surprisingly nice - doing something by himself without his father's influence to overshadow his own accomplishments. Then he had promptly dropped it all off at Gringotts the next morning and had spent the next two minutes viewing his little growing pile of coins with fatherly pride. The goblin, who looked like he desperately needed a comb, had rolled his beady little eyes and shut the vault door firmly far before Draco was finished smugly congratulating himself.
This became a habit, and after three weeks the pile was considerably larger than it had been when he'd started. After Draco spent the required amount of time viewing his vault, he had stopped to do a little drooling over the Quicksilver display and sulking about the fact that he couldn't afford one. That had taken up a good deal of his time, and then he had been forced to jog over towards the Apothecary to prevent any tardiness. "Well, if it isn't the best-dressed stock boy on Diagon Alley. Nice morning, Draco?" Lydia greeted him with a bright smile while Stephen's lips just twitched a little in amusement.
Startled, Draco glanced down to see that he was wearing a pair of charcoal-gray trousers that were tailored so they fit nicely, but were not too tight; a nice formal white collared shirt, along with a light gray vest of satin embroidered with darker gray thread; a red silk tie; the matching opal tiepin and cufflinks; and a heavy, gray, almost opalescent over-robe that shimmered in the morning sun pouring in warmly from the front windows. Even the cloak pin situated near his shoulder was an elaborate affair - a dragon wrought in silver with winking eyes of diamond and a tail that moved occasionally. "Oh, yes, it was quite a pleasant morning. Do I need to change?" he asked out of concern for his clothes. He hadn't realized he'd dressed so nicely until Lydia had pointed it out. The formal outfit felt like a second skin to the disowned Malfoy heir.
Lydia smiled gently. "It's fine, but I suggest you stay behind the counter today. Don't want to get dust on such a nice outfit. How's the organizing project so far?" she asked with genuine interest. He could tell Stephen was listening too, because the dark-haired man was still polishing the same spot on the counter. Usually he was much more efficient.
"I've gotten all the way to the S's. I'm still working on the snidget feathers, sphinx fur, and squid ink. What about you? Have you chosen what kind of flowers you want for the wedding yet?" Draco set about checking the cash register and glancing at the order forms that were scattered across the counter.
Lydia, obviously happy to find a welcome ear, sat herself down on a stool and began regaling Draco with the details of arranging her wedding. Stephen looked like he'd heard the same speech a million times and quickly escaped to the back of the shop with a heartfelt sigh of relief. "…and then there's the meal! I know I want six courses, but I can't for the life of me figure out what to have for the soup course. Stephen's allergic to clams and father can't stand anything with onions and chicken soup is simply so…"
"Plebeian?" Draco interjected with a smirk.
Lydia nodded her agreement. "Exactly. It's too bad Mother can't stand this sort of thing or she could help me. Mrs. Slug's offered her opinions on the matter - but then again, she always does. The woman has a thought on every subject ever spoken, and she's always willing to share it." Draco heard a strangled cough drifting from the back of the shop that sounded like someone trying uselessly to stifle laughter.
"Well," he said slowly, "my mother, Narcissa, served lobster bisque for a few of her formal meals. How about that?" Lydia beamed at him, clapping her hands together with delight.
"Oh, how perfect. Stephen, what do you think?"
A shuffling sound reached Draco's ears, and then the dark-haired man popped his head out from behind a shelf. "Whatever you like, dear. No clams, right?"
"Right. But I was thinking for our main course pheasant would be -" Her words were interrupted when a dark figure swept into the shop in a billow of robes. Draco, recognizing the dramatic entrance for what it was, sat up and took notice.
"Professor, how can I help you?" Draco drawled out the question as he assumed the arrogance that he had discarded the past week out of necessity. He ignored Stephen's look of perplexity in favor of smirking at his Head of House. The fact that he was doing an honest day's work was enough to give Snape a heart attack - he didn't want to finish the old boy off by being humble to boot. And, well, he had a lot of respect for the Potions Master; he didn't want to appear weak or ineffectual in front of his role model.
Snape's head swiveled round, and he stared, obviously shocked. When he spoke, it was with his usual severity. "Draco… whatever are you doing in this dingy apothecary? Does your father realize where you are?"
"I expect my father," he practically snarled the last word, "has no interest in my whereabouts. I've been disowned, disinherited, thrown out - whichever choice of wording you care for. I'm surprised you haven't heard about it by now. This must come as quite a shock to you."
Snape's expression turned almost sympathetic before the former Death Eater composed his face into cool neutrality once more. "That is a pity. Your father's loss then. Where are you staying?"
"The Leaky Cauldron, why?" Draco asked suspiciously.
"Get your things, you're coming with me. The Headmaster will want to have you settled in at Hogwarts."
"What?" Draco squawked, stunned. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm not going anywhere."
Severus Snape folded his hands into the sleeves of his robes and treated his favorite student to the superior look he was so good at. "I beg to differ, Mr. Malfoy."
"You don't understand," he said, with a more than a bit of frustration coloring his tones. "I need to pay for my school supplies."
The Potions Master nodded. "That is understandable, but the Headmaster and I will deal with it."
Draco was incensed. He knew he was turning an embarrassing shade of pink, but his coloring was of little concern in the face of Snape's words. "You think I'd take your charity?" he shouted in indignation, careless of the two other people in the shop staring at him. "You've obviously been inhaling too many cauldron fumes. I may not be the Malfoy heir, but I'm still a Malfoy, and I'd rather sleep in the streets than accept any handouts from you or that daft old coot." Snape raised one eyebrow, used to his favorite student's dramatics. It was a source of common ground between them.
"Obviously your pride is intact, even if your bank account is not." He sounded resigned. Snape loved to interfere in other people's business, but he knew a lost cause when he saw it. Draco might have been prone to being overdramatic, but the intent behind his words was heartfelt. If Snape stunned him and dragged him back to Hogwarts by force, Draco would only run away and possibly end up getting himself hurt into the bargain. They both knew it, and Snape simply had to accept it. "Very well then, but I'm afraid you'll be seeing quite a lot of me. I'll check up on you every Monday, and don't even try to argue this point. You're just lucky I didn't drag you off to Hogwarts, you ungrateful little brat. Now then, I don't suppose you have an ogre tooth on hand?"
And that, as they say, was that.
To be Continued
Comments and constructive criticism are more than welcome.