Tap tap tap. Tap tap. Tap tap tap tap. Tap tap tap. Tap.
It was incessant and never ending. Tap tap. Granger's fingertip beat an uneven rhythm against the top of her rosewood desk, likely in time to the thoughts that were ticking through that clever, bushy haired head of hers. Tap. Her front teeth, Draco had noticed in the week since he had been working with the Ministry, were shorter than they had been at Hogwarts. Less beaver-like, but he still noticed them when she nibbled at her lower lip, deep in thought. Tap tap tap.
Granger's mind was wired for investigative work— then again, there was scarcely much that her mind wasn't wired for, except perhaps fashion. Draco's eyes trailed down to her feet, which were sticking out from under the desk. The sparkly, sequin covered flats had surprised him, and not pleasantly. He had always pinned Granger for a sensible bird with sensible clothes, if her cardigans and pencil skirts were anything to go by, and the (quite frankly) ugly shoes had actually made him stop in the doorway that morning. She hadn't noticed, too absorbed in Potter's latest report to even glance up as she mumbled a good morning.
Tap tap.
"Granger."
"Mm?"
"Will you stop it with the bloody tapping?"
The witch glanced up with an apologetic grimace, and curled the offending hand into a fist. Draco sighed quietly and tried to return to his own report. It was about none other than Gregory Goyle, who he had failed to find in the Merseyside shack that was listed as his address. Aside from a legal transcript, where Goyle was sentenced to six months in Azkaban for the robbery of a shop called Cobb & Webb's, there was little to nothing on the man.
Tap tap tap tap.
Granger, who had a faint crease between her brows, was now rapping her knuckles against the desk, while silently mouthing Potter's report to herself.
"Granger."
"I'm sorry. It's just…" She was slow to admit it, as though unwilling to insult her friend. "Harry's writing is rather difficult to read."
Draco leaned across the desk and grabbed it from her hands, convinced that the witch was overreacting. Surely Potter's handwriting couldn't be that illegible…
"Merlin, this is awful. Why doesn't he just use a Self-Writing Quill and save everyone the headache?"
Granger gave a helpless shrug, now tapping those absurd, bedazzled shoes against one another. Aside from the Ministry insignia stamped at the top, Draco couldn't make out a word of the report, so handed it back to her with a quiet, derisive snort.
"No wonder everything at the Ministry happens so bloody slowly— you can't even decipher each other's memos."
Shrugging again, Granger absently swished her wand and sent the report flying into a nearby filing cabinet. "On Level Four, we type everything. The typewriters are bewitched to change ink colour based on what sort of note it is."
"Level Four… Magical Creatures?" Draco leaned back in his chair with his elbows draping over the sides. "Please don't tell me you continued with all that tripe about house elves. What was that group at Hogwarts called? Puke?"
"I'll have you know, S.P.E.W. became very successful!" Granger's voice had risen an octave in her indignation, and she sat a little higher in her seat. "The Department has become instrumental for the protection of house elf rights, and I would still be working there now, if I wasn't needed in the Auror Department."
"When will you people learn that elves don't want to be free? Fuck, they enjoy serving their families— you're just making them unhappy! I don't know what about that is so difficult to grasp."
Granger actually rose to her feet, then, and slammed her hands down on the desk with enough force to make Draco start. "When will you people learn that Elf Legislation is completely medieval!" They both glared at one another with narrowed eyes. "They deserve fair representation, protection, and suitable pay."
"Elves don't want to be paid in anything but kindness and recognition," he said with a scoff, relaxing against the seatback airily while Granger grew even more vexed.
"And what would you know about kindness, Malfoy?" she said waspishly. "You're a spoilt, Pureblood brat who grew up taking house elves for granted. And when it comes to abuse, your family went beyond what I would consider horrific."
A deadly silence fell over the office, punctuated only by the ticking of the miniature pendulum clock. Tick. Tick. Tick. It suddenly seemed absurdly loud.
Granger swallowed thickly. "I… I'm sorry, Malfoy. I didn't mean that."
"Oh yes, you did." Draco could feel a familiar numbness radiating from his chest, so complete that even the ticking stopped. "But what do you know about my life, Granger? Name one thing about my family, other than what people whisper behind my mother's back."
She stammered lamely, gaze flitting about the office as though looking for something to spare her from the flush that Draco could see creeping up her neck. He rose, very slowly, to his feet. Granger cringed away from him when he rested his knuckles on the top of her desk and leaned in close.
In a low, cold voice, he said, "When I was fourteen, I stopped my father from beating one of our elves. Guess who he hit instead? I couldn't walk for a week afterwards, and you stand there trying to tell me I don't care?" Something flashed in Granger's eyes that he didn't recognise. "You know nothing of my life beyond what you've read in the paper."
"I've been to your house… or have you forgotten," she said, almost too quietly for him to hear.
He hadn't forgotten, and the memory landed like a physical blow. Draco could feel countless words bubbling up inside him, but when they reached his tongue, none sounded right; none would be satisfying enough, or complete enough, so he didn't voice any at all. He left Granger in a tense, uncomfortable silence, stalking from her office and out of sight.
"You look like shit."
Draco grunted, and threw back another tumbler of firewhisky. "Do I?" It burned his throat on the way down, but five shots in, he found the sensation pleasant. Numbing.
"It's barely noon, mate. You sure you don't want to slow down?"
"If I wanted to be mollycoddled, I would have gone to my mother's house. I asked you to come and have a drink with me, Zabini, but if you've changed your mind, you can piss off."
Blaise sighed quietly through his nose, intelligent dark eyes tracking witches and wizards who were wandering past the pub's frosted glass windows. He took a long, slow sip of pumpkin juice. Outside, Knockturn Alley was uncharacteristically busy— in the years since the War, many of the shops closest to Diagon Alley had been repurposed, trading their shrunken heads for Butterbeer kegs, clothing racks, and bird cages. To find more… unconventional wares, one had to wander all the way down the street, to the more seedy back alleys that even Shacklebolt's progressive Ministry couldn't cleanse.
Draco wasn't sure if the blurred outlines through the window were from the frosted glass or his spinning head. The thought of someone seeing his father's shadow as he skulked up the street to Borgin and Burkes all those weeks ago made a bitter laugh rise in his chest. It came out in a weak rasp that made Blaise look at him sidelong.
"What's so funny?"
Draco slid his whisky tumbler from side to side on the pockmarked bar. "He was buying Dark artefacts when they did away with him, did you know that? Ever since the Ministry confiscated everything, he's been building up quite the collection."
"Your father?" Blaise had gone still, and was watching him intently. Instant irritation crawled over Draco's skin like a thousand insects, and he bad temperedly rose to his feet as though to shake them off.
"Of course my father, you tosser. Who else would I be talking about?"
"Don't bite my head off just because something pissed you off-"
"And you know," Draco continued loudly, cutting Blaise off mid sentence. People were beginning to stare, but through his alcohol-induced buzz, Draco found he didn't quite care. "Even when I heard that he'd croaked, the only thing that I was concerned about was my mother. Do you know what it's like to hate your father so much you don't even give a shit someone killed him?"
"I wouldn't know, would I? I never knew my father."
In his irascible state, the pleasant, heady effect of the whisky had faded to make Draco feel nothing but dizzy and sick. He dimly registered a bolt of regret for his harsh words, but before he could open his mouth to issue a very rare apology, a jet of red light sailed into the pub. It missed Blaise's head by no more than an inch, shattering the shelf of bottles behind him into nothing but dust. The last pieces settled on the floor right as people began to scream.
Any lingering drunkenness was stripped from Draco's mind like cobwebs. Curses flew through the room, striking down patrons indiscriminately and sending them sprawling to the floor. He roughly pushed Blaise down, out of the trajectory of a spell that left a shivering imprint in its wake, before roaring at him to leave.
"Go!" Dust and debris rained down, pattering harmlessly off of his conjured shield. "Get Granger!"
"Granger? Draco, what the hell are you-" A plume of flame scorched its way between them, and Blaise cringed even lower beneath the bar.
"Go to the Ministry. Just do it!"
The counter exploded as a spell hit it, leaving a splintered mess where Blaise had been just moments before Disapparating. Draco cast another protective barrier before charging out onto the taproom floor. Through the fleeing people and the flashes of light, he could make out a hulking, robed figure. People in the figure's path crumbled, falling victim to the vicious slashes of his wand.
"Stupefy!" Draco cried, but his opponent deflected the spell and sent it ricocheting into a mirror hanging on the wall behind him. Through a curtain of falling, shattered glass, Draco could see wand light glinting on a silver face.
Not a face… a mask.
Hatred coursed through him, so powerful he was staggered by it. Even though he couldn't see his assailant through their Death Eater's mask, the snakelike slits for eyes seemed to be mocking him, narrowed cruelly as spell after spell was sent spiralling his way. Draco met each curse, his wand and lips a blur as he murmured counters and attacks. Although slower than usual, through the lingering fog of whisky clouding his brain, Draco found he could keep up with the Death Eater. They were strangely lumbering in their movements, almost troll-like.
"Duck!" Draco shouted, forcing a little boy's head down as a Stunning Spell sped right for him. "Take your mother and leave-"
They both threw themselves to the floor; a jet of green light had narrowly missed Draco's ear. He could feel its killing power rippling across his skin. Anger, hot and fast, replaced the shock that had left him momentarily frozen.
"Expulso!" he bellowed, with enough force to send the Death Eater flying clear across the room. He hit a post by the entrance, connecting with unyielding wood and sliding to the floor. Draco's shoes crunched as he strode towards the feebly stirring wizard, who was still trying to wheeze curses from beneath his silver-lacquered mask. He shut up when Draco kicked him in the stomach, hard.
If this wanker thought a boot to the stomach was as bad as it came, he had another think coming. Draco reared back his leg, ready to make the Death Eater double over again, when he heard a series of cracks from the street outside.
"Malfoy!" Granger came bursting into the pub with her wand drawn, closely followed by Blaise and five other Aurors. "What happened?"
"Didn't Zabini tell you?" Draco palmed a trickle of blood from his chin. When had he started bleeding? "This cretin tried to kill me, and he very nearly succeeded."
Granger turned to the fallen Death Eater with her lips set in a resolute line. This was not the obstinate witch from that morning, but a cool, calm professional. She brusquely ordered two Aurors to interview the remainder of the pub's cowering inhabitants, before gingerly stepping over a body that had lain worryingly still for several minutes.
"Seamus, Apparate to St Mungo's and let them know what's happened. They could be expecting upwards of ten patients." Her countenance was grim as she crouched down and felt for the wizard's pulse. "It's weak but… he's alive. Integrum somnum." The spell sent golden light trickling from her wand tip. It twined around the wizard's head and torso; Draco watched him take a deep, rattling breath before falling still. Lines of agony that had previously marked his face smoothed out in a blissful, sleeping expression.
Without missing a beat, Granger uncoiled to her feet and stalked towards the Death Eater. Thin cords erupted from her wand, binding the huge wizard from shoulders to knees.
"We'll get him back to the Ministry with Side-Along Apparition," she announced, cuffing the Death Eater's arm with white knuckled fingers. "Are you injured, Malfoy?"
Draco tentatively examined his body, but even with the adrenaline gradually leaving him, he couldn't feel any pain save for the throbbing of a split lip. He knew, come tomorrow, he would be covered in bruises, but… he had been lucky. After seeing his stiff nod, Granger gave a few more instructions to the Aurors who were spaced around the half destroyed pub. Draco tuned out the words, catching mere snippets about reports and cordons, and stumbled over to her side.
Blaise was looking between them as though they had been splinched. "What's going on here?"
"New working arrangements," Draco muttered. "I'll tell you later."
Leaving Blaise in a state of bemusement, he and Granger turned on the spot and disappeared. They landed in the Atrium at the same time, the Death Eater still held firmly in Granger's unrelenting grip. In the time that it took Draco to blink, she had rapped the hulking wizard sharply over the head, rendering him the same colour as the dark wood floor, and swept him into the air with a nonverbal levitation charm. When she rounded on Draco, he found himself struck with the uncomfortable sensation of raw egg traveling down his spine before he could even lift his own wand in defence.
What she had said that morning echoed in time to the trickling of her Disillusionment Charm. Draco's jaw tightened and he glared at her, even though he knew he was all but invisible against the backdrop of the Atrium.
"I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself," he snarled, that sizzling anger returning to settle just beneath his skin. It was so blistering, he was surprised the air around them wasn't shimmering with heat waves.
Granger didn't respond, but rather turned on her heel and began marching the length of the Atrium. Although he wasn't visible, Draco knew that the unconscious Death Eater would be hovering close behind. Even while controlling the wizard's considerable bulk, Granger's steps were quick, and by the time he had reached the large central fountain, she was already stepping into an elevator.
"Granger, where are you going!"
A few nearby witches turned at the sound of his voice but, thanks to Granger, couldn't see anything. He grumbled curses under his breath before following her.