Mother?"
Draco received no answer, but quickly noticed and read the note that had been left for him on the coffee-room table.
Dear Draco, I had an appointment for breakfast, but I'll meet you for lunch at the little Italian place in Tennant St. Please be punctual. Love, Mother.
He cursed, and headed off towards his office. Heading in the side entrance (the front door was locked on the weekends), he stole past the front desk and up to the main office. There, he settled behind his desk, and sighed at the large numbers of pink ribbons festooning his overdue work.
Three hours later he placed the last invoice in the tray, then looked at the clock and cursed. Alas, just as he was standing up and putting on his jacket, a voice drifted out from the manager's office behind him.
"Malone? Are you up to date now? And have you finished with the Yoshiji case? Come and see me – we have plans to work on."
Draco swore again under his breath and turned towards the manager's office, grabbing a folder that sat at the edge of his desk marked "Friday Launch." He hoped his mother would forgive him for being late, because he surely would be. Very, very late.
"I'm afraid I'll be working back tonight," Draco announced the next Friday morning as he headed for the fireplace. "There's a work function, and my manager wants me to help with the logistics. The launch of some new line in Nogtail trotters, I think."
"I'll manage," responded his father. "Do you want me to keep some dinner aside for you?"
"No thanks. Mother wants to feed me. She worries I'm starving." Draco grimaced, feeling the waistband of his smart trousers cutting in very slightly due to the bachelor diet the men had followed for the past little while. "I should probably get some exercise, though. Don't wear the dogs out while I'm gone."
Lucius laughed wryly, and rubbed his still-sore forearm. He didn't comment on his son's plans, though, as they fitted perfectly with his own. For once, he had been asked to review an event from the very rooms themselves, and he didn't expect to be back early either. He finished his breakfast (the last slice of toast being donated to a pair of worthy furry recipients) and headed for his bedroom to review his own outfit for the evening.
A few minutes sufficed to find a well-cut suit and elegant cloak, but a moment later Lucius realised his folly. Showing up as myself will completely give the game away. Bother. Bernard Grey will need a completely different look.
It took another hour to unearth a suit that reflected an older yet dignified era, something that would suit the personality. Strangely, while he wrote the columns, Lucius had had in mind a gentleman who had been the height of elegance and taste in the 1920s; something of a Wooster or Wimsey, aged gracefully and still dapper. The suit he retrieved from the bottom of an old chest was exactly that, having been worn by his grandfather during a gentler time. Luckily, Lucius was close enough in size to fit the suit well, and he admired his image in the mirror. A few carefully-cast transfiguration charms softened the aquiline features and shortened the hair to the slicked-back parted style that matched the suit.
"Adequate. Suitable. And not at all me." He removed the suit and the charms, and dressed again to find Mrs Harris. She was putting together some sandwiches for him, and kindly agreed to press the suit and lay it on his bed that afternoon – fifty years in a camphorwood chest had left a few wayward creases in it, and Bernard Grey could not appear dishevelled at all.
He realised that he still had a column to finish for the afternoon deadline, so he sat at the dining table with his sandwiches and a cup of pumpkin juice, and applied himself to the destruction of Porpentina Scaramander's self-worth, with specific reference to the outfit she had undoubtedly worn at her own debut and was now attempting to wear at her granddaughter's. Some time later, he was finishing up the last incisive paragraph when the twinges of hunger started up. Lucius wasn't surprised – since he had started working and walking he had found his appetite sometimes demanded afternoon tea as well as lunch. Unfortunately, Mrs Harris had long since bid him good day as she left, and a quick check in the kitchen showed that there was only a stale crust and a packet of cornflour in the cupboard.
"Drat!"
He headed back to his room and the money pouch on the dresser, but the small pile of knuts and sickles held within would have been more suited for the Weasley vault than a Malfoy's purse. Lucius decided that for once, his son owed him.
Draco's room was not much changed from the last time Lucius had looked in several months ago. Mrs Harris had hung the freshly ironed shirts on the wardrobe door and folded the other laundry onto the bed. Lucius knew his son kept his funds in a small box on the dresser, next to the brushes that had been a present from Narcissa on his fourteenth birthday. The money box was unlocked, and the lid slightly raised as if it was unable to contain all the money within, which indeed proved to be the case. The money, however, was paper.
Notes.
Lucius pawed through to the bottom of the box, and only once he had emptied it out did he realise that there wasn't a single bit of real money in it. Twenty and ten-pound notes drifted across the top of the dresser, and knobbly fifty-pence pieces fell out from between the notes. He saw one golden coin and grabbed it, only to find it was a one-pound coin rather than a Galleon.
"By Merlin's large and pendulous... Where the hell did he get all of this?" Lucius piled all the money back into the box, then hesitated and took out two twenty-pound notes.
Twenty-five minutes later, residents of the nearby village of Wilton were vaguely curious to see a tall and distinguished looking man walking a pair of Irish Wolfhounds down the road, and apparently having a little trouble controlling them. They pulled him left and right, and it was only through some determined counter-leaning that he kept them from chasing across the road and towards a cat perched on a nearby fence. He did manage though to make it to the front of the local shop, where he tied the dogs' leash to a convenient bus stop and headed in.
"Oh hello there, dearie! Fancy seeing you here!" Mrs Harris was just leaving, and waved at the wizard before heading out the door. The shopkeeper, a sour-faced man in a grubby dustcoat looked Lucius up and down before uttering a surly "Yeah?" to Lucius's inquiring look.
"Bacon, please, and a bottle of milk. And perhaps some biscuits."
The shopkeeper snorted in a very rude manner. "We ain't had bottles of milk here since forever, but I can get you a carton. One litre or two?"
Lucius felt very out of place, but responded in the manner he knew best. Drawing himself to his full height, he looked down the length of his aristocratic nose and proclaimed "One." The shopkeeper froze, immediately straightened up, and bustled around being much more diligent than his usual attitude suggested was possible. Within moments, a packet of bacon, a packet of shortbread and a carton of milk stood on the counter.
"Will that be all …. sir?" stammered the shopkeeper. Lucius pondered a moment, then was reminded by a yelp from outside of the other need.
"Dog food. What do you have? I only want the best."
"We've got that Precious Paws brand, sir. It's supposed to be good for them, and Mrs Fullaghar up at the Hall won't buy anything else for her little ankle-biter." The shopkeeper put a can in front of Lucius, and it was all that the tall blond could do not to burst into laughter. The container was about the size of a tin of sardines. He had a quick mental vision of himself on the floor of the kitchen, twenty empty tins discarded around him, and the two wolfhounds inhaling the contents of yet another tin and then menacing him for more.
"No, I'll need something more substantial. Never mind – I'll cope with the dry food for a while yet. That will be all." Lucius gestured at the goods, which the shopkeeper gathered up and placed in a bag. He handed over a note, then restrained himself from examining the change returned. As Lucius headed outside he cursed when he saw the hounds had completely tangled up their leashes.
Another ten minutes passed before he had the dogs released from their temporary bondage. He'd had to untangle one, tie it to another nearby pole then return to the second. It was as he was gathering up the leads and the shopping bag that he realised the biscuits were gone, and one dog was looking rather satisfied. The language used at that point was not that which suited the elegant clothes and normal attitude of the senior Malfoy.
Lucius staggered back up the hill, pulled in some measure by the dogs, and let himself in the front gate of Malfoy Manor. Any Muggles coming past would have seen him walking through the crumbling front gate of the tumble-down old ruin on the hill, courtesy of the still-working charms that kept it from non-Magical view. As such, it didn't have a letterbox at the front, but luckily the delivery owl found Lucius on the drive rather than awaiting him at the door of the Manor. The owl was carrying his Portkey for the evening's function, and he slipped it into his shopping bag and staggered up the drive to the front door, cursing the necessity that had taken him so far on a day when he would need all his strength for the evening. Maybe a short rest before the evening's activities...