Soft and fragile.
There is grace in the dead of silence.
As we dream gentle hands are shaping,
Further, higher as the new day enters
Ásgeir - "In The Silence"
In the end, the ministry wouldn't allow them to buy a house. Rather, they were to stay in the little beehive that the ministry had procured for them. It was a large house in the City of London a short distance from The Leaky Cauldron which was split into several flats into which would be thrust all the Death Eater's wives and children who were removed enough from the real goings-on as to shed reasonable doubt on their involvement. Or, at least six of them.
Draco and his mother were tossed into one of the first-floor flats; a hideously cramped little hole with two minuscule bedrooms and no dining room to speak of. He could only assume the other apartments were much the same. Though the furniture from the Normandy chateau was lighter and a fair bit daintier than the heavy austere decor of the manor, it nevertheless was far too big and far too nice for their surroundings. The effect was rather like dressing a pig in a ballgown.
And then there was the kitchen.
Draco honestly had no idea what a serviceable kitchen ought to look like for muggles, but it was nothing like the massive open chamber of Hogwarts, nor even the smaller private kitchen at the Manor. In either case, those kitchens were built primarily for elvish use and were meant to feed a whole estate. This was just barely larger than the coffee bar in the morning room and Draco honestly didn't trust himself to properly identify any of the apparatuses. He doubted it was any clearer to his mother, but presumably one or both of them would have to learn how to cook eventually if they were going to eat.
He wondered how Greg and Pansy were faring.
The Parkinson estate had been a muggle build originally, back before they'd established themselves as a wizarding family in the sixteenth century, but even if it hadn't been refurbished to fit magical standards Draco doubted anything they'd have had would in any way resemble the odd white-metallic mechanisms likely facing them down in the Parkinson's new abode downstairs.
Greg and his mother were upstairs on the second floor, and while the Goyles were an older family than even the Parkinsons were, Draco knew the two would settle into their more humble lives much easier than Draco or Pansy would manage. Missus Goyle had always been a kind and modest woman, and though this would hardly be the life she had grown accustomed to, Draco suspected her optimistic disposition would go a long way toward smoothing their transition into muggle mediocrity. Or so Draco hoped, for Greg's sake.
Theo lived alone in the flat next-door to Pansy. His widowed father, facing the threat of Azkaban had commit suicide before the Aurors had found him after the battle. Theo himself only just avoided Azkaban, more's the pity.
The other first floor flat belonged to Corban Yaxley's widow and their two sons whose names Draco had never bothered to learn as they attended Durmstrang and were some years younger than him, despite Yaxley himself being older than his own father. The second floor flat next to the Goyle's was occupied by an older couple Draco had never met, presumably some supporter of the Dark Lord who had never committed to taking the Mark.
Draco and Narcissa were the last family to move into the building, having waited until the day before Midsummer, fighting with the ministry for the freedom to buy their own property. As such they were unacclimated to the new environment when the time came for them to perform their ablutions the next morning. Though they had managed to clean their teeth and arrange their hair with a mixture of wandless magic and various benign potions, neither Draco nor his mother could decipher how to work the shower.
In a magical household, necessities such as plumbing and lighting were charmed to respond to touch or voice commands, primarily for children and squibs, or those who, like Narcissa, were banned from the use of magic. Nothing in this flat was charmed, however, and their workings were a mystery to them both.
It was a disgruntled and unwashed pair that ascended the bus that morning, and the day did not improve from there.
As the group took their seats a tall man in perhaps his early thirties stood. He had light blond hair which was beginning to recede slightly, and an unpleasant disposition eerily reminiscent of Perceval Weasley. Torin Hannigan had met with the Malfoys, and presumably the other Death Eater families several times in the weeks since the trial as their probation officer.
"You all know why you're here. Make no mistake: this liberty is a blessing none of you can afford to lose, and you are walking a very fine wire. If I determine that any of you are not upholding your obligations, or have gone against the restrictions that have been set for you, the Wizengamot will not be lenient. This is your one and only chance to redeem yourselves. Do not waste it.
"This bus will arrive at precisely 7 o'clock in the morning Monday through Saturday. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays it will take you to your community payback projects. These projects may change, or you may each be sent to different projects throughout Central London. If you miss this bus it will be your responsibility to find transportation to your assignment. If you choose not to attend to these duties you will be penalised.
"On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays you will be taken to the City, University of London campus where you will attend courses in our School of Muggle Studies. For the duration of the Summer, these classes will prepare you for life in the Muggle world, eventually cumulating in your readiness to procure muggle employment, excluding those of you who will be attending Hogwarts upon its reopening. In the Autumn, the rest of you will be enrolled in a full Muggle Studies track. Your schedules will be modified to fit these various obligations, but they will all be factored into your rehabilitation.
"You will live as muggles. You will work as muggles. You will assist in aiding the muggle community. It is the hope of the Wizengamot that this new understanding will lead to an appreciation and understanding for those against which you have all harboured such dangerous prejudices. We hope that these lessons will stay with you if you are reintegrated into the Wizarding World. Your current views will no longer have a place within our community. Your new lives begin now." Hannigan took his seat and the bus lurched forward, silence ringing in the wake of his speech.
It was several minutes before quiet conversations broke out amongst the passengers. Geraldine Parkinson moved to sit next to his mother, the two leaning in close. Draco turned in his seat to share a shellshocked look with Pansy and Greg.
"I think he was scarier than the Chief Warlock," Pansy whispered, leaning up to glance at him over the tops of the others' heads. "That man is absolutely ruthless."
"You can tell he thinks we all ought to be in Azkaban," Greg said sullenly. "Wouldn't put it past him to dock points just because he doesn't like us."
"It's not Hogwarts, Greg. We're not on a point system," Draco said, though he wasn't actually sure if that was true. In actuality, he had no idea how Hannigan went about determining or recording their transgressions. "But you're right that it probably won't take much for him to decide to lock us up."
"This never would have happened if it weren't for Potter," Theo piped up from across the aisle. "We'd all have been rewarded if the Dark Lord had won."
"Don't be an idiot, Theo," Draco snapped. "The Dark Lord didn't give a shit about who was loyal to him or not. Even Bellatrix got his wrath if he was in the mood. We all would have been just as subjugated as the mudbloods. At least Potter got us this much freedom. You know if it weren't for him they'd have tossed us all in Azkaban and thrown away the key."
"Maybe you would have, but everyone knows your family were a bunch of blood traitors. Us true followers would have been given positions of power in his regime. Instead, my father resorted to killing himself for the crime of wanting to return Purebloods to our rightful place. Harry Potter is the reason my father is dead and I'm stuck in a muggle hovel being shipped off to shovel shit or whatever it is that the muggles have got us doing, working us like house elves to service people no better than dogs."
Draco suppressed a shiver at Theo's impassioned words. He wondered how he'd even managed to get past the Wizengamot, but Draco supposed Theo hadn't yet been given the opportunity to take the Mark, nor to do any real damage at the Dark Lord's bequest. Unlike Draco. Still, he wondered if it was only a matter of time before Theo found his way back to Azkaban after all.
As for Draco, the weeks he'd spent there awaiting trial were quite enough. He only hoped at the end of this, he wouldn't be completely exiled from the Wizarding World altogether. That this "Community Payback" would go some way toward rebuilding the Malfoy name. And if this didn't do it, maybe helping Harry Potter would. That is, if the papers didn't spin it that Draco had cursed him into madness to begin with, which he wouldn't put past them. Draco knew first hand how underhanded Rita Skeeter could be, though in the past it had always been him helping to twist the truth of the matter, rather than the victim of it.
Really, it was no wonder Harry was so viscerally terrified of attention. With the way the people, even students at Hogwarts who knew him, would swarm him; the way the public vacillated between adoration and condemnation at the drop of a hat. It must have been a rare treat for him to pass by in obscurity here in the muggle world.
Draco wondered how long it would take before Harry would be able to face the Wizarding World again. If he ever did. Or if, in the end, he'd be shuffled off to the Janus Thickey ward, lost to his fear and delusions.
If anything was unfair, it was that. What was the reward for saving them from the terrorism of the most dangerous dark wizard the world had ever known? Being haunted by him in an afterlife of his own making. Draco only hoped the muggles could find a way to fix whatever had broken in him. Even if Draco himself held little hope in the matter.
"So how are you finding your new home, Draco?" Pansy asked to change the topic. "I'd have gone up to greet you last night, but I was sure you had your work cut out for you."
"It's awful," Draco said with blunt despair. "Have you managed to figure out the kitchen?"
"Yes, but only because Ivona came down and showed us how to work the range," Pansy said turning to Greg who shrugged.
"Mum said she and aunt Jolita were raised by their squib aunt, so they grew up in a muggle house."
"Your mother was raised by a squib?" Draco asked, scandalised.
"Yeah, I guess their father died when he was young. Don't know what happened to their mother, but they ended up with Aunt Svajonė and uncle Giedrius. Mum's taken me to Lithuania to visit a few times when I was younger. They were nice. I've no idea if Father ever knew about it though. Vince never did meet them."
"Were they very strange?" Pansy asked, fascinated. "I've never met muggles before."
"Well, you're about to," Draco pointed out even as Greg answered.
"Yeah. I guess they had a nice house by muggle standards but it was so odd. Nothing at all like our country house in Dorset. Everything was so cramped, and they acted so different from everyone we know."
Draco pondered this. "I think they may have just been middle class. I know some muggles have manor houses, too. Maybe upper-class muggles wouldn't be so different from us."
Pansy wrinkled her nose. "Middle class? That's so much worse than just being muggle."
Greg elbowed her in the side. "Careful, you're middle class, now, Pans."
Pansy stuck her pixie nose up high, sniffing scornfully. "The ministry can take away our house, but they can't take away nearly two decades of etiquette training. I'm still a member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight."
Draco snorted, "Yeah, so're the Weasleys."
Pansy scowled but before she could reply the bus pulled up to a derelict building and stopped. The lot of them were shepherded off the bus with the promise that it would return in three hours to deliver them back home.
In the meantime, they were left alone with a grizzled man in his fifties who thrust the most hideous orange vests at them.
"You're to wear these every day. You and the other yobs are gonna spend the rest of this summer scrubbing all the walls in the City. There's a few buckets of supplies over there," he pointed toward the mural covered wall, already being scoured by another group of people who'd been sentenced to this menial task; a man and woman in what appeared to be their twenties, and three other teenagers. "Grab a brush and a bottle and hop to it!"
Sure enough, there were brushes and bottles of some potent potion available for each of them, though there were too few buckets of water for them each to have their own, meaning they would end up having to share. With a look of resignation at one another, the group followed their mothers into the metaphorical fray and got to work.