Find a way, we hadn't seen before

Found a reality that shields us and clothes us,

Makes us hungry for the things the day can offer

Ásgeir - "In The Silence"

The bus on Tuesday morning delivered them to what was ostensibly a school but looked nothing like Hogwarts, nor even the private schools or universities in the Wizarding world. The building was imposing enough amongst the modern chaff, but to Narcissa's eye looked overly simplistic and uninspiring.

Mister Hannigan led the small group through the dully tiled hallways and down into the basement, to a wall which appeared to have once hosted a doorway. The wall was fully brick down beneath the foundations of the building but in one spot the bricks appeared brighter, newer, than the dully chipped masonry surrounding them, giving the impression that a door had been recently bricked over. Still, to the muggles it would appear no more than a solid wall. Mister Hannigan pushed at the newer portion of the wall which swung open with no resistance.

Narcissa wondered at the relative lack of security. At the Leaky Cauldron, one had to touch just the right stones in just the right order to unlock the gate through to Diagon Alley, yet here they relied only on the illusion of solidity and left the door itself unlocked to all who may wander through this corridor.

Nevertheless, through the door was a marked difference, and there was no doubt that they were now in Wizarding territory. The modern appliances she'd slowly begun to familiarise herself with; glaring artificial lighting, the uninspired decor, the echoing ceramic tile floors all gave way to french-laid stone and the natural sunny brilliance of magic chandeliers and an understated yet intricately carved ceiling.

Instantly, Narcissa felt herself relax at the more familiar setting. There were several doors in this corridor, more closely packed together than at Hogwarts, but then she supposed the School of Muggle Studies had a much smaller student population. She certainly couldn't imagine anyone choosing such an utterly pointless carrier path. And yet, here she found herself. Her and her son and a good deal of their acquaintances. By the end of this probationary sentence, Narcissa Malfoy would be a Master of Muggle Studies. Would wonders never cease?

Nearly halfway down the long hall, past several doors, Mister Hannigan led them into a large open room with several small kitchens the likes of which she had in her own new flat. At the front of the room were several long tables and a young woman only a few years older than her son with a curiously short, blonde hairstyle.

"Welcome everyone! You may call me Professor Bettsthorne."

Bettsthorne… A well-known pureblood family, though Narcissa had heard a rumour that old Pelleas' granddaughter had been born a squib.

Hannigan left them as Miss Bettsthorne bade them take their seats in the front of the room.

"Now, ordinarily, you would have a full course load with classes throughout the School of Arts and Sciences, as well as culture lessons here in the Muggle Studies Department, and come autumn you will! You, along with all of the other students of Muggle Studies will eventually receive a full understanding of Muggle life and history and be capable of fully integrating into Muggle Society if you choose. For now, however, consider this a crash course! I will personally lead you through the most urgent information that you'll need for life here in the Muggle world. Our typical students live in our Hall of Residence for the first year or else find somewhere in Diagon Alley to live while they attend. You lot, however, don't have that luxury of magical accommodations and so for this summer term I will ensure that you at least have the basic knowledge needed to live in a muggle home or get a simple job.

"Today we will focus on how to use electricity and basic kitchen appliances. You'll all go home with a booklet of simple recipes to use until your true class of home cookery begins in the next term. Of course, you're all encouraged to experiment on your own time, but many first time learners aren't comfortable with that at quite this stage."

As Miss Bettsthorne spoke, she wheeled out an odd contraption and fiddled with it until a light shone on the white screen behind her, showing a picture of something unidentifiable.

"Now, first things first: Electricity. It is this which powers nearly all of modern muggle life. Look here, this is called a power socket, and you'll all have several in your homes, and indeed in most rooms in the muggle world. Into the socket goes a plug - that's this here," she pointed to another object in the picture, "which is connected to an electrical appliance. Lighting, kitchen appliances, hair appliances, you name it!"

Narcissa listened carefully, if grudgingly as Miss Bettsthorne explained how to use this 'electricity', which she gathered was the muggle equivalent of magic. Now that she'd been shown a few more images, as well as had the 'socket's pointed out around the room they were in now, she admitted that she had, in fact, seen the strange things in the walls back at the flat, though she'd not put any thought to their purpose until now. In fact, she'd assumed they were art pieces at the first.

Beside her, Geraldine and Ivona watched their young professor with varying levels of interest. Ivona appeared to be listening politely but Narcissa could see the glazed look in her eyes belying her idle daydreaming. Geraldine, like Narcissa, had brought parchment and quill, but a glance at the other woman's paper showed nought but idle drawings and a poor attempt at poetry. She felt like a teen again at Hogwarts and felt a flash of irritation at her companions' lack of attention. Though, she supposed they'd had longer than she had to familiarise themselves with the electric power that fueled this world.

She paid closer attention, herself. If she was to live here, she would not be caught unawares. She'd already lost her standing in the Wizarding World; there was no way she would be looked down on by muggles.

Once they'd had the range and all the various small apparatuses explained, cooking was actually quite easy. After all, he was following a recipe and what was seven years of potions class if not extensive training in using a knife and following a set of instructions? Draco could dice vegetables all day, although the onion made his eyes burn and he wished dearly for his goggles to protect him from the potent fumes.

Slightly harder was the actual act of sautéeing the onion and garlic and ensuring they didn't scorch along the bottom of his saucepan. Using the 'e-lec-tron-ic' food 'processor' was an intimidating ordeal but in the end it wasn't overly complicated. Draco assumed there were charms to purée, but Draco would be damned if he knew what they were. That type of domestic, practical magic was not the sort he'd ever had to learn.

Once the onion and garlic were caramelised and the mince browned and thoroughly seasoned, it was an exercise in patience as the sauce cooked and the water came to a boil.

"In future," Professor Bettsthorne explained, "you can buy your sauces pre-made from the supermarket if you wish. The jarred sauce never tastes quite as good though, and it's important for you to learn to do things by hand, just in case."

"In future," Pansy said under her breath, leaning over into Draco's cooking space, "I'm never cutting an onion ever again. I don't care if I have to settle for sub-par sauces, there is no way I'm putting myself through that a second time."

"It wasn't that bad," Draco argued, mostly for the sake of argument as he rather agreed about the onion.

Pansy glared fiercely. "Maybe not for you! I had to rinse my eyes with water and it still took nearly a full ten minutes before my eyes stopped burning enough that I could open them again!"

Draco had seen that, actually. Heard Pansy whimpering as Professor Bettsthorne led her blindly back to the front of the room, away from the miasma. A part of him, the part that was forever stuck as an attention-seeking thirteen-year-old longed to follow her example, but the past few years had tempered that particular impulse and Draco merely pushed through the burning of his eyes and said nothing of it.

"My eyes hardly watered at all," Greg offered, almost apologetically, wincing as Draco and Pansy both glared at him with red, irritated sclera, Pansy's cheeks streaked with involuntary tears.

"I don't mind it so much," Draco admitted. "Cooking, that is. Apart from the onion of course, but overall it's not so different from potions work. Of course, ideally, I'd rather be eating coq au vin or smoked quail than spaghetti bolognese, but one must admit this is probably a good deal easier to make."

"Gods," Pansy sighed, "can you imagine our fathers trying to do this? It's surreal enough seeing our mothers muddle through but can you picture Lucius Malfoy cooking pasta?"

Draco snorted. "Absolutely not. Father hates to get his hands dirty."

"Oh, mine, too! My father would rather starve than do housework like this. He'd never survive the indignity."

"My dad would've just made mum do everything if he were here now," Greg said, voice subdued. "Did I tell you, they're getting a divorce?"

Pansy gasped and Draco did a double-take, wiping his hands before crowding into Greg's station. "Are you serious?" he asked.

Greg nodded, glancing at his mother at the other end of the room. "Mister Hannigan said that they can process the divorce even with my dad in muggle gaol. It's just a matter of paperwork. I'm planning on taking my mother's name, Miskinytė."

Pansy furrowed her brow. "Don't Lithuanian names have a male and female form?"

Greg nodded a little hesitantly. "Yeah, they do."

"So which is Miskinytė? Your mother's version or yours?"

Greg turned away, busying himself with adding the pasta to his pot of boiling water. "Both, actually. Miskinytė is the womens' form, but I'll not be taking the masculine name."

"Won't that be odd?" Pansy asked, not bothering with her own pasta. "A boy with a girl's surname? I mean, not that anyone here would know the difference, but even still. Is it just for simplicity's sake?"

Greg shrugged faux-casually. "Not if I'm not a boy."

Pansy giggled, a little awkwardly. "But you are a boy."

"Pansy," Draco snapped warningly as he stepped in close to his friend, looking over his shoulder to make sure none of the others could overhear. Sotto voce, Draco asked, "It's not just your surname you're planning on changing, is it?"

Greg bit his lip, giving a quick shake of his head without looking up from his food.

"What are you talking about?" Pansy asked, hands on her hips as she joined on Greg's other side. "You're changing your first name, too?"

"I've always quite liked Gillian, actually."

Pansy inhaled sharply as the implication sank in. Draco ran his fingers through his hair, throwing a look back at Theo who sneered back at him.

"Will you be undergoing the full ritual?" Draco asked and Greg - or should he start calling her Gillian? - nodded, turning her head toward Draco but keeping her eyes downcast.

"I'd like to get it done before school starts, but I'm afraid that no one at Saint Mungo's will be willing to do it, and it's too complex to do it on my own. All that potions work and fertility magic. I might not be able to get it done until after the travel-ban is lifted."

This close, Draco could see his - her - hands shaking as she stirred the tomato sauce. "I'm sure someone at Saint Mungo's will be willing to help," he tried to reassure even as Pansy whispered loudly,

"Why did you never say anything before now?" she demanded and Gr- Gillian turned her head to glare.

"With Vince and my dad breathing down my neck? You've no idea what Vince was like when it was just the two of us, he would've terrorised me!. And my dad would've disowned me in a heartbeat. There's no way he'd let a daughter inherit his estate!"

Draco pinched his lips together in anger. Although the cultural revolution following the Statute of Secrecy had greatly changed the Wizarding World's views on women and broadened the range of accepted gender expressions and sexualities, there were still sects of conservatives who refused to accept those liberated ideals.

Draco's own family couldn't care less. As long as Draco produced an heir - which could be done via several magical means - they didn't care whether Draco married a man or a woman. They'd known ever since he was seven when he proudly proclaimed that he would one day marry the Boy Who Lived that Draco was hardly heterosexual. When, after fourth year, Draco announced that it was only boys for him, his parents had accepted it with grace and abandoned the tentative discussion of a betrothal between he and Pansy and had begun looking for marriage prospects elsewhere.

Lucius, for all his mistakes, loved Draco and greatly respected his wife. Draco had no doubt that had he been born a girl, his life would not have been any different. He would still have ended up where he was now, as Lady and Head of the House of Malfoy. Women had been legally seen as entirely equal to men for three hundred years, and even before the Statute, women in his family had skirted the official rules of inheritance.

This acceptance was not universal, however, and men like Magnus Goyle still held views that women were the weaker sex; that same-sex coupling was something to be hidden behind closed doors, not announced in the matrimonial column of the Prophet. Draco knew his own sexuality had been a cause of contention between Mister Goyle and his father in the past, and that his father had in fact delighted in shoving Goyle's impotence in the matter in his face.

Gillian was right. There was simply no way her father would have allowed his daughter to transition. Draco wouldn't have put it past the man to sire another as many other children as it would take before he bore a son to pass his estate onto, rather than give his daughter that power.

"Well he has no power over you, now," Draco said confidently, patting his friend on the shoulder. "Let the name die with him. Pansy and I will help however we can, right Pans?"

Pansy was looking on, wide-eyed at Draco and Gillian both before shaking her head to clear her thoughts. "Of course," she asserted. "We'll make sure you get what you need before the start of term."

They went home that day with two boxes of sub-par spaghetti, a book of simple recipes, and a head full of racing thoughts. Draco had to admit that he deserved Pansy's scepticism in his vow to support Gillian in her transition. He had hardly been a good friend, especially where Crabbe and Goyle were concerned. He wondered how long Gillian had been suffering under both his and her cousin's thumb, if Draco ever would have noticed her turmoil. If he ever even would have cared, before.

For all that the War had ruined his life and all his future prospects, Draco was proud of how far he'd come as a person. How every day it was easier and easier to chip away at the veneer of Lucius Malfoy's Son. Draco wondered what sort of person he'd be when he was standing all on his own. Until then, he would simply do what he did best: what he had to.

With the Dark Lord gone and with him every ounce of clout and respect his name had once earned him, Draco would have to maintain relationships on his own merit, and that meant being the friend he'd never been, even if he wasn't quite sure how to manage it.

He wondered if Harry had ever had to try so hard to make his friends. Perhaps he'd ask him on his next visit to the hospital. He wondered if it would be as tricky making himself a worthy friend as it would be to make himself worthy of Harry Potter.