Author's Note: A dear and much-too-smart friend of mine noticed that you also fix lunch and dinner. I am choosing to pretend I never heard any such thing.
Personally, I think the Magic 8 Ball bit is the funniest part of this entire story.
Oh, and… show me a cat that obeys orders (as Sparky does within), and I will show you a dog in disguise. That's what we call "creative license."
And in response to saige, Chapter Ten was kind of rushed. There was a lot I wanted to do in 2,000 words, and it got a little smushed. My bad. Or, as my Algebra 2 teacher used to say to mock people like me who say "my bad," my NOUN.
And to Liz… my mom and my brother give me crap all the time about not being able to understand my writing. I'm afraid big words kind of wriggle their way in there, usually without my permission.
Chapter Twelve
Reactor Core Meltdown
The eggs were coming along nicely. Draco had just diced and added some ham when Hermione said, "Why don't you go to Gringotts?"
There was something tentative in the tone of her voice that reassured him that she hadn't meant it as an accusation. "Because," he answered evenly, "I doubt that there's anything there. If my parents did escape to the Continent—which I think is very likely—they'd have been wise to convert every last Knut to a Euro and take it all along."
He glanced at her where she sat with her hands folded on the table, and the light of comprehension was in her eyes. Hermione was quicker to understand than sharks were to follow the scent of blood through the water, quicker than the brief sprint of a cheetah or the solid snap of an alligator's jaws.
He wondered offhandedly if maybe—just maybe—he'd been watching a few too many nature shows.
"Can I do anything to help?" she asked, nodding to their prospective breakfast.
Draco paused. She looked like she hadn't slept at all, though her eyes were as bright as ever, and if he put her up to anything strenuous, she might well collapse on the floor and start mumbling nonsense words that would summon archaic evils. And then Draco would really have to exorcise something.
"Could you send reinforcements to the beverage front?" he inquired.
Hermione obliged. "Would you like apple, orange, or mango-banana-papaya?"
"Hit me up with some M.B.P." He tried not to giggle. It sounded like a drug.
"Your death warrant," Hermione noted calmly.
"I like to live dangerously," Draco declared. There was a pause as they both remembered that he didn't—not in the slightest. He liked to live nicely, warmly, quietly, and peacefully. He probably would have been up for returning to the womb if such a thing were possible.
"You know," he commented after a moment of silence, "isn't it interesting how you fix breakfast? Since it has the word 'break' in it? Funny, huh?"
Raptly Hermione looked at him. "I never noticed that," she said slowly.
"Me neither," Draco replied. He arranged half the eggs on each of the two plates and then grated some cheddar cheese over them. He handed Hermione her portion.
"You," she told him, "are a certified Breakfast Repairman."
"And a Refrigerator Exorcist," Draco reminded her. "I'm a man of many talents."
One of which, he added mentally, is throwing women on the floor and ravishing—
"Glad to hear it," Hermione rejoined crisply.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
At ten minutes to five, Helicane bustled out of his office, saying he was in the mood for a spot of tea; would Ardoc Olyfam like any?
Draco figured that someone with a name like Ardoc Olyfam would only drink tea if it was spiked with vodka, but instead of saying so, he politely declined.
At two minutes to five, the phone rang. Draco, who had been watching the second-hand of the clock intently, cursed under his breath. It was going to be a client, and said client was going to keep him tied up for the next thirty-five minutes bleating about this service or that problem—
"Hello?" he said, forcing himself to sound kind and open-minded.
"Helicane there?" a low voice on the other end inquired peremptorily.
"I'm afraid not, sir; can I take a message?"
"Yes," the man responded curtly. "Tomorrow. Eight o'clock. The usual."
Chewing his lip, Draco jotted it down, word for word. It wasn't difficult. There were only five words to it.
"Will that be all, si—?"
There was a click as the man hung up.
Draco's eyes darted to the clock. It was thirty seconds to five, and Helicane himself was nowhere in sight.
Sighing as he looked at the hardly-legible note on the Ministry letterhead, Draco picked it up and stumped into Helicane's office. All he had to do was leave the note on his boss's desk, and then he could get the Hell out of here and go pet Sparky until they both fell asleep on the couch. All he had to do was focus, ignore all distractions, set it down, and leave, and—
There was a Magic 8 Ball on Helicane's desk, nestled between an ostentatious statuette of a horseman (his sword looked to be a letter opener) and a small potted cactus (which looked to be dying).
It took some real skill to kill a cactus. Or some absolutely inhuman breath.
Draco plucked the 8 Ball free and brushed a bit of dust off of its shiny black exterior. It was random. It was plastic. It was a toy.
He shook it anyway.
"Does Hermione Granger want to throw me on the floor and ravish me?" he whispered furiously, close enough for the Fantastic Powers within the orb to hear.
He turned it over and looked in the window.
My sources say no.
"Well, your sources are bloody wrong, you lying piece of shi—"
The door started to open, and Draco shoved the 8 Ball back into its place and folded his hands innocently behind his back.
"Oh, hello, Ardoc," Helicane boomed pleasantly. "What can I do for you?"
"Just a little note for you, sir." Draco thrust it out towards Helicane, willing the man not to see the bit of a blush he was battling. He was also fighting the urge to snatch up the offending 8 Ball, hurl it to the ground, and stomp upon it vigorously.
Helicane took the slip of paper, scanned it, and nodded. "Very good, very good." He grinned. "And none of that 'sir' business, my dear boy. Do call me Giles."
"All right… Giles," Draco acquiesced awkwardly.
"You've done excellent work these first two days," Helicane declared. "Truly excellent work. I expect you'll get even better as you go along." Elaborately, his capacious stomach swelling even more, he yawned. "I'll be heading home quite soon, though, Ardoc, my boy, and I'm sure you're ready to do the same."
"Of course, si—Giles," Draco acceded again. That was how he'd landed this job in the first place—by being agreeable.
"There's a good boy. See you bright and early tomorrow, Ardoc."
"Goodbye, Giles," Draco replied. Then he escaped out the door to collect Hermione.
Hermione was already waiting to collect him.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
They were sitting idly on the couch after dinner when Draco's curiosity got the better of him.
"Whatever happened to Ron?" he asked. Seemed like an innocent question. He hadn't seen the Weasel weaseling about anywhere, and it made him wonder a bit.
Unexpectedly, and quite without warning, Hermione Granger exploded into tears.
"There was this girl!" she cried. "Everything was fine, until there was this girl! She was tall, and tan, and she had hair like rippling waves of golden wheat and eyes like the purest Caribbean waters—" Draco supposed he couldn't expect her descriptive facilities to be particularly good when she was having an emotional breakdown. "—and she wore a black miniskirt—" This was getting worse and worse. "—and she had huge—huge—you know—" Draco knew. "—and she thought Ron was this big hero, and at first he was trying to ignore her, only then he didn't, and then he dumped me, and I was mortified, and Harry was trying to be an intermediary—" Only Hermione Granger would use the word 'intermediary' at a time like this. "—only now they're getting married—" Draco used his extraordinary intuitive powers to deduce that she meant Ron and the girl, rather than Ron and Harry. "—and he asked Harry to be his best man, and now neither of them is talking to me, and—and—I—hate—boys!"
The conclusion needed a little work, but then again, the girl was pretty distraught.
"Hey," Draco said. It sounded like a reasonable thing to say. "Don't forget to breathe." He drew a large, dark green handkerchief from his pocket like a cheap magician and pressed it into her hands. Immediately she had buried her face in it. "It's going to be okay." He took a brown blanket off of the back of the couch and laid it over her legs. "I'll make sure of it." He saw the crippled cat wandering around by the television set and whistled sharply. "Sparky," he said commandingly. He pointed imperiously at the space next to Hermione on the couch. The cat hobbled over and made an obedient, if ungainly, leap onto the couch, where he curled up against Hermione's thigh. "Now, hold that thought," he instructed.
He stood, slipped into the kitchen, and opened the freezer. There were ice cube trays, frozen peas that had seen better days, frozen carrots that were faring about as well, and, in the very back, a pint of vanilla ice cream. (He should have exorcised the freezer, too, he reflected.) He pulled the lid off of the ice cream, stuck a spoon in it, and returned to the living room to place the prize on the coffee table.
"No double-whip fudge brownie, I'm afraid," he remarked. He didn't add that he had eaten it all. Didn't seem tactful. Rather, seemed suicidal.
Hermione hiccupped forlornly and clung to the handkerchief.
"Here," Draco offered. Taking the ice cream carton in one hand and the spoon in the other, he scooped up a little and put it out for her. "Here comes the airplane?" he attempted hesitantly.
The ice cream disappeared as if a crocodile had surged out of the murky waters and felled a zebra pausing to drink.
Damn those nature shows. Damn them all.
"Good," Draco said. "Very good."
When the ice cream was gone, Hermione was still breathing a little unevenly. "I'm sorry," she managed weakly. "Going on and blubbering like this—"
"'Blubber' makes me think of whales," Draco noted. (He was going to sue whoever had started that kind of programming, damn it. Damn it and damn them. While he was at it, damn everyone.)
Well, damn everyone except Hermione. She had enough problems.
"And you are categorically not a whale," he concluded. "Rather, you are a human being who has been treated badly, and you have every right to do as you're doing."
"You think so?"
"I know so."
"How do you know?"
"Um, magic."