Usually Draco could wake in the morning, accept that he had survived something awful by doing exactly what was required of him. Other days were not good days. Bad days—when it felt like he'd been complicit in his own desecration, and irredeemably guilty for everything he'd done in order to survive—were excruciating. Today was not a good day.
Blaise has slept at his London flat in order to receive a shipment of antiques this morning, so Draco slept alone. This was not new, but the lucidity and horror of his nightmares was made anew—as if it had been four days and not four years—and he'd awoken this morning screaming. Sobbing. A bloody awful mess.
A part of his mind that sounded a lot like Lucius told him to pull himself together, stiff upper lip and all that, Malfoys don't do whatever the hell it is you're doing right now. It didn't matter that it was four in the morning, or that he could feel his heartbeat pounding through his entire body like a Weird Sisters concert. It didn't matter that his life had been threatened, or his mother's life. It didn't matter that he had wanted to melt into the floor and hide whenever someone spoke in his general direction back then. It didn't matter that he had never been able to cast the Killing Curse or that he was a paltry torturer, and given the Golden Trio's escape, a worse gaoler.
What mattered was that he was soaked in cold sweat, but it felt like he was on fire and his stomach wouldn't stop rolling. What mattered was that he was a ruin of a human being, loathsome and guilt-ridden, and would be ruinous to whatever woman had the misfortune of being assigned his hand by the Ministry.
The fact that is was a Tuesday did not help matters. Tuesdays were the tedious doldrums of his workweek. He usually found them and their inevitable paperwork irksome, and in his already tempestuous mood, he did not anticipate today improving. At all.
...
Blaise knew smuggled Egyptian Middle Kingdom when he saw it, and he certainly recognized a 1920's knockoff by sight. And smell. This was just insulting. Couldn't this cretin even do him the service of trying to bring forward items worth his effort to smuggle them?
Ugh, this was not what he expected when asked to make a deal for export. One, they had required him to get up early. Two, half of these goods were stolen, the other half were fakes. Three, Draco was going to be irritated with him adding to his paperwork, because this level of idiocy practically required him to report to the Ministry. Four, Blaise had woken up profoundly itchy. Five, he had tried wearing a new jacket today that wasn't fitted correctly and it was rasping between his shoulder blades. Six, the men currently showing him around a soggy warehouse were more unwashed than his usual clientele. If he could come up with one more reason to end this farce, he'd hex these blighters and then call the Aurors. It was at this moment that the lead irritant decided to speak, in a thick accent,
"And nyow, ve best discuss yer fee. It vas mention'd y'need von t'ousand Galleons per crate. Ve can do fifty dis shipment, thyen ve will do t'ousand nyext shipment."
Oh the bloody brass of this one. Blaise was going to enjoy this.
Moments later, all of the miscreants were on the floor and disarmed under Langlocks, bound up like a bunch of onions, and rapidly forming blisters all over. Blaise was quiet, furious, and smirking as he sauntered out,
"Good day gents. You'll find that I don't work for half-rate, and I certainly don't do it for such cheap fakes as these." He tossed the particularly bad gaff of a Horus figurine back into its crate.
Having reached the door, he grinned to deliver his final blow,
"I, unlike you, do my research. I know all about your business, and you. Should you ever speak my name again to anyone, not only will you never do business again, but your families and your Pakhanwill find out that you're all sukifor pissing off an exporter enough that he called the law."
Telling off Russians was mildly amusing, reporting them to the Ministry for a reward would be delightful. Perhaps today hadn't been a total ruin. And after the Ministry and some lunch, he could go get this blasted coat refitted.
...
Draco had been right about today. Instinct spot on, well done, sir. Totally Fucking dreadful.
The fact that Granger—Hermione—had swanned into the bullpen five minutes prior in an ivory dress might as well have set his skin on fire. It was some sort of Muggle wrap dress, its deep vee neck baring more of her décolletage than he'd ever seen prior, with gauzy long sleeves and button cuffs. He was also entirely certain that she was not aware of nearly six inches of puckered curse scar peeking out under her right collarbone, completely upsetting the overall idea that she might have dressed herself in a somewhat sunshine-filled cloud this morning. He wanted to simultaneously cover it for her sake, look away so he wouldn't feel guilt over her past wounding, and unwrap her like some kind of gloriously unexpected present, just so that he might see just how far the scarring went. His entire body gave a shiver, and he was getting quite tired of mentally describing the sensation as 'stuck in a bucket of ants', but he couldn't verbalize it another way, so this was just where he lived now.
The Dress, as it was now dubbed, was cinched and primly bowed around her waist—now that he'd seen her thighs, he knew exactly where they were under it—further framed by a hip to waist ratio that would have made the old masters weep with joy, and wonder if they were correct about basic physics. To call her callipygian would have been a tragic understatement, and The Dress was flaunting this fact. It was draped in a way that clung to her upper legs but whispered around her ankles in fluid ripples, and every few steps, a tawny leg would peek out of the slit. His cock actually twitched, Merlin, this was not fair to have happen to him on a Tuesday of all days.
One firm knee, a shapely calf, the aforementioned left leg drew his eyes down to matching buttercream wedge heel with a thin strap surrounding a tiny ankle and her equally diminutive feet. Her toenails were painted a pale pink. Her tattoos were not visible.
This bothered him, but he wasn't going to inspect the reasons when he had to finish a report on how fellow Auror Seamus Finnegan has needed to be healed last week after he'd somehow managed to turn an illegal singing and dancing cauldron into a bleve. Instead he took a deep breath through his nose and resolutely returned his gaze to the parchment on his desk, sitting under his oddly damp palms.
...
Hermione had come up to the DMLE to drop off her research on a new Dolohov sighting report when she watched Blaise strut into the bullpen—and while he smirked at her—he was clearly still scanning the room for an available Auror. When no one even looked up from their paperwork, he huffed and put his hands on his hips, visibly irritated, and announced to the room at large,
"I have already been to Misuse of Muggle Artifacts, and been told that the pack of Russians I left trussed up in a warehouse ought to be your purview, as they were attempting to smuggle Egyptian funerary goods, some of which are likely cursed. Anybody going to go get them?"
Two of the older Aurors—Samuels and Gunnarson—stood and shuffled over to take notes from Blaise on the location of said warehouse. They were both nearing retirement, and known in the DMLE for swiping every case where it looked like an over-eager citizen had done all the hard work for them. Hermione chuckled as Blaise drew a flamboyant red 'X' on their map and gave them more information on the artifacts in question.
She had been irritable all morning—skin crawling, neck tight and creaking like corded ships' rigging, everything from her hips to her ankles felt like smoldering coals made of needles and chipped razor blades—she'd already barked at at least five people, and she couldn't even be bothered to remember who. She'd disillusioned her cane—as she didn't even like people around the office, who knew she sometimes needed it, to gawk at it—and so far she'd gotten through with a mild Notice Me Not in the hopes that no one spotted the difference in her gait. This was easily achieved in a swishy wrap dress, but came with the additional knowledge that McLaggen had taken a longing look at her arse on her way past Sports and Games, which was disgusting and had made her skin crawl anew.
It was half noon and she'd already finished everything on her docket for the day, and she had a strong urge to go home to a hot bath and a stronger drink. She'd been about to do just that when Blaise escaped the near-pensioner Aurors and approached her,
"So, principessa, any plans for this evening?" She shook her head,
"Outside of a hot bath, and a not inconsiderate amount of gin, no." He grimaced,
"Pain levels not good today?" She snorted, which drew Draco's eyes away from his immaculate script on his latest report, and she could see him follow her hand to her invisible cane, white-knuckles against the handle he couldn't see,
"I would rate today somewhere between 'existential terror' and 'bear-mauling', but I'll cope until I can go home."
She'd been about to explain the recipe for a very large botanical gin fizz she was planning on making herself as soon as physically possible, when Harry burst into the office and shouted,
"INCOMING!"
...
Draco could feel hot adrenaline flooding his veins at Potter's shout. It was only iron will that kept him from ducking behind his desk, which was likely for the best, as Potter was clearly over-reacting for his own amusement. He could hear the crisp whoosh of what must have been hundreds of Ministry memos folded into paper airplanes suddenly barreling past the open DMLE door. Potter had actually ducked, and was dodging the parchment flight path of twenty odd yellow triplicate paper missiles as they veered out of the main hallway and into the Auror office.
Each memo whirled in the air briefly before bouncing against the face of their intended recipient several times and then falling immobile in front of each person in the bullpen who'd been in his Hogwarts graduating class. Merlin, he needed a stiff drink to even contemplate opening it here. He stared at it giving limp, ineffectual flaps on his desk like a fish out of water, and wondered if they would re-issue his notice should he set the thing on fire by will alone.
He was not ready to face some woman he didn't know from Nimue and then have to explain his relationship with Blaise. He knew objectively that between the Sorting Hat and the Land Binding that he was likely to find a great match—his best match really—but it would still mean a lot of apologies for being him, and alive, and he just wasn't ready to look down that wand just yet. He wasn't ready to be married.
He was not ready to submit to a law that kept him from going insane because his very long and deep ties to this island would put him 'round the bend until he met his match. He, frankly, wasn't ready to admit that the Land Binding had already been acting on him becauseof that long and storied pureblood history he'd been so proud of at thirteen.
He'd been contemplating the complete irony of that fact when Hermione's fingers appeared in his peripheral vision gripping the edge of his desk and she bent over to grab her memo off the floor. Her nail polish matched her toes. He could hear her unfold the thing, but for some reason was unwilling to look up and catch her amber irises when she inevitably told him she'd been paired off with some Ravenclaw of high repute.
The idea of it made a dull hot ache explode inside his chest cavity, so instead he looked to Blaise, who was palming his xiphoid process, having felt Draco's own throbbing ribs. Blaise's eyes had actually glazed over as if near to tears, and they were both holding their breath waiting for the sound of her voice. She finally spoke, in a deep murmur,
"I'm going home. Draco, Blaise, could you two please Side-Along? I don't think I'm up for it at the moment."
...
She'd read the form letter section of the notice and skipped ahead to the end where the answer the Sorting Hat had spit out was written in electric purple ink. The only thought she could drum up was, 'Huh', and a sense of relief that was likely to dissolve into ecstatic giggles if she let it.
Objectively, especially given new evidence, it made sense. And the moment that thought passed through her pain-fogged brain—which probably still ran double speed compared to most of her colleagues if experience had taught her anything—the awful, irksome, nagging itching underneath her own skin just suddenly ceased. The rapid change made her wish there had been a physical collision to explain the whiplash of an entire sensation instantly disappearing.
But no such luck. She was still standing in the Auror bullpen of the DMLE, Harry was giving her a concerned look that he thought she couldn't see over the top of her memo, and Blaise was holding his stomach as if her were about to be sick. And her feet hurt more than anything else. She was just distracted enough to consider kicking off the shoes she'd worn in the hopes that no one would notice her pain today, when she remembered she'd have to sit to unbuckle them and then it might be even more difficult to stand up afterwards. She needed to go home and take off these ridiculous shoes, and she heard more than felt herself say,
"I'm going home. Draco, Blaise, could you two please Side-Along? I don't think I'm up for it at the moment."