4. Malfoy in the Shower

He knew inviting Potter over was a mistake.

It had been Dumbledore's idea, of course it had the daft coot, but it had been his apparent step towards 'a brighter united future' and such. Malfoy knew it was a good thing really, brilliant actually, that Dumbledore and the Dark Lord had fallen in love and decided to go off and have lots of sex in Jamaica. The previously imminent war was off and it was peaceful.

The downside was…

Tempestas Potter.

It had been seen as a sort of co-operation tactic for the still resentful parties of both sides. So Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks and Tempestas Potter had come to stay at Malfoy Manor for two weeks. And all hell was unleashed.

In rectrospect, it was really actually all his own fault. Inviting Tempest hadn't been the original idea, but he was the only teenager stuck in a (admittedly massive) house with eight adults, half of which despised and hated the other, and the other half of which despised and hated the other, just more openly. Logically, at the time, Malfoy had hinted to his mother, who had hinted to his father who had hinted to the Dark Lord that he'd prefer someone else there his own age.

The most obvious choice had been Potter. Of course the Dark Lord had chosen her; she had been the unexpected catalyst to Dumbledore and Snake-face's romance. From what Malfoy'd heard, was that the Dark Lord had been possessing Tempest and Dumbledore was trying to talk him into leaving her unharmed, trying to persuade the Dark Lord to come to his senses- to which the Dark Lord apparently had an emotional breakdown inside Tempest's body and in the depths of her mind, in true Tempest fashion, she had rolled her (mental) eyes and told the Dark Lord to cut to the chase and snog Dumbledore already.

She clearly had not been expecting the Dark Lord to do exactly that. …while still in her body.

The last detail Potter hadn't needed to give (and in fact she hadn't) but it was easy enough to deduce by the look of utter disgust and traumatization on her face as she had finished the tale.

But back to the point. Of course all of the above then led to her arrival at Malfoy Manor and Malfoy's subsequent realization that he was a moron.

It hadn't really been all that bad before. His parents were good but distant hosts, his uncles Rod and Rab kept to themselves, Lupin and Tonks had mostly stayed holed up in their room together, Black had clashed with Aunt Bella a lot, but ultimately it had been manageable. With Tempest came bedlam.

She drove his father to his wits end with her comments about his peacocks, drove his mother to distraction with her insistence that coffee was better than any tea she brewed. The house elves complained about her refusal to let them serve her; Black was a thousand times worse when she was around too. On her first day, her and Black's combined efforts had ended with Bellatrix swearing murder and promising torture with her eyes, suspended upside down from the grand chandelier in the atrium of the mansion.

Still it was peaceful here.

In the shower, Malfoy worked the product in his hair into a lather and thought about dinner in a couple of hours. Merlin, he could see it already, and it'd be nothing short of a miracle if they managed to get through it without an actual physical fight breaking out. He was just rinsing his hair when he became aware of the sound of the door to the bathroom opening and closing.

Through the glass and steam that surrounded him, Malfoy saw the silhouette of a familiar figure in the bathroom beyond.

"Potter!" Malfoy all but yelped, "what in the seven bloody hells are you doing?"

"Shh!" was the impatient reply, "shut up, keep showering!"

"What?" spluttered Malfoy, wiping damp hair out of his face and fumbling around for a towel- a towel he had left in the room beyond, because he hadn't exactly been expecting to have visitors mid-shower.

"Voldemort's looking for me," she replied, strange to hear the words from her mouth without the cursory undertones of disgust and veiled fear. "They're back from that tropical island- Malfoy, the man has a tan, it's an assault to all beings with vision!"

"Right," said Malfoy, processing all of that and still coming up blank. "But why are you here?"

"Merlin you're dense- I'm hiding! This is the last place short of your parent's bedroom they'd think to look, so here I am-"

"But I'm in the shower!"

"I had noticed- just stay there if it'd make you feel better, I don't think they'll look for much longer than half an hour- although this is the man who was hell bent on killing me for fifteen years so there is that-"

"Half an hour? This shower is glass!"

"Frosted glass," said Tempest dismissively, "I'm not interested Malfoy, and it's not like it'd get suspicious, you holed up in your bathroom for so long."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Meaning you spend a ridiculous amount of time self-grooming- I mean the result isn't half bad, and ultimately it does work in my favour today, but just think of the wasted water."

Malfoy had to think through all of that before he reached the conclusion that she had actually paid him a compliment. "Well what does the Dark Lord- actually, the title doesn't ring as true anymore- want? Was he trying to invite to you to go with the next time he and Dumbledore go off on vacation?"

Tempest's groan was audible over the sound of the water. "Worse- he was trying to show me pictures! I caught a glimpse of Dumbledore in his bathing suit before I had the sense to run… I could have gone the entire rest of my life without seeing that…"

From where he was standing under the steady jet of hot water, Malfoy shuddered too. "Alright, your fleeing was justified."

"Thanks," Tempest drawled, and Malfoy could see her blurred shape pacing to and fro on the marble tiles beyond the shower.

After a beat, Malfoy asked, "so when you say bathing suit-"

He heard a choked off laugh that sounded more like a dying cat. "Barely anything there, I wanted to claw my eyes out… Merlin… do you keep bleach in here?"

"Bleach?"

"Nevermind."

There was a beat of silence, then Malfoy said; "if you're going to be out there, could you at least pass me a towel so I can shut the water off?"

There was a loud sigh, then several cupboards opening and closing, Tempest muttering something about 'of course they have monogramed towels' then a mass of white was thrown over the shower door and onto him. Malfoy swore and shut off the water, but not before the five or six towels she had thrown him were soaked through. He sighed and selected the least damp one, wrapping it around his hips, then throwing another one across his shoulders and leaving the rest in a pile on the floor of the shower.

Tempest wasn't looking at him when he stepped out of the shower box, rather staring at the door to the bathroom, and the line of her back spoke of distraction, rather than pointed disinterest. Malfoy wondered why he felt rather disappointed.

"I'm sure the worst is over now," hinted Malfoy, "you could leave-"

And then from his bedroom, they heard the unmistakable sound of one formerly dark wizard and another who dressed as though he was attempting to prove to the world that magenta and violent yellow could coexist in the same building together.

"Tempest?" called the voice of the reformed murderer of her parents, "are you in here? We even brought chocolate for you!"

For a split second, behind the horror in Tempest's eyes, Malfoy saw a flicker of temptation- then she had grabbed him around his waist and was bundling the both of them into the showerbox. They slipped on wet tile, crashed into the stonewall of the shower; towels were everywhere, and Tempest reached up to yank the water back on, full strength.

Malfoy swore again as icy water doused the both of them, quickly scrambling to his feet (losing his towel in the process) to adjust the temperature.

"Draco darling!" sang a voice from outside, "are you in there?"

Malfoy lunged for his towel, glaring over at the now sodden Tempest on the floor of his shower, her face contorted in both wicked laughter and anticipation.

"I'm showering!" Malfoy snarled, "Merlin, what is it with you people?!"

"We were just wondering if Tempest was in there with you!" called Dumbledore and Malfoy wanted to strangle the showerhead.

"It's the last place she'd hide, so she should be here!" followed the Dark Lord's voice.

Malfoy head a dull thudding, and looked down to see Potter banging her head against the marble wall of the shower.

"She's not in here!" yelled Malfoy, "could you very kindly fuck off now, please?"

Silence, then Malfoy heard the bathroom door open slowly.

"GET OUT!" he roared, and Dumbledore and the Dark Lord scrambled off. As they went, Malfoy heard Voldemort's voice.

"Let's check Lucius's room next!"