Monday, September 3rd, 2001
Draco walked down the staircase to the main floor, following the smell of coffee. He had gotten used to the alternate universe like lifestyle he found himself living; he was roommates ("which is all you are, our politically inconvenienced roommate", said Hermione the other night) with two of the people he was most cruel to in his youth.
His mornings were spent eating breakfast with both, taking his potions, reading in the library until lunch, more potions, another meal with Harry and Hermione followed by some reason to leave the house – groceries, a trip to the apothecary, visiting parts of muggle London to continue his education on the majority of Britain's population – and when he got home, he would help with supper. The evenings were always filled with more potions and either more books, a movie, or sitting alone in his room looking at the walls and wondering when this peaceful world he'd been given reprieve in would fade away and his cell bars would come back into view. They never did.
Draco regained his sense of self in that simple pattern, but with the two week mark upon them, everything was going to change.
"Morning," Hermione said from behind her edition of Potions Monthly. Harry looked up from his spot at the counter and nodded, not yet verbal without his coffee. Draco joined him, grabbing his mug from the cabinet as he did, and waited silently alongside his one-time foe.
"I'm done with this if you want a peek, Draco," Hermione offered, bringing the magazine to his spot on the counter. He nodded and began flipping through, watching in his periphery as Hermione went to the window where the Daily Prophet's morning edition was still waiting. She unfurled it and returned to her oatmeal and berries, making hmming and scoffing noises as she reviewed the headlines.
"Of course they would..." she muttered, her rage clearly building. Harry and Draco caught eyes and smirked lightly at Hermione's unintentional dialogue with herself, Harry breaking it off first to pour both of their coffees.
"Do you two have anything planned today?" Hermione asked, not looking at either as they sipped their scalding hot coffees.
"An owl or two but otherwise no," Harry responded, his voice still that early morning scratchy that coffee would slowly cure. "Why do you ask?"
Hermione inverted the Daily Prophet, handling it not at all delicately, and showing the front page off: Death Eater to Don Auror Robes as per Ministry Mandate. Draco snarled at the cover and at the photo accompanying it, his face bloodied and dirty on the morning his body was dragged, kicking and screaming, away from the French border. He had made it to the coast, somewhere near Canterbury, when everything when wrong, and the his screaming face on the newspaper's cover was a poignant reminder of how thoroughly defeated he felt that day.
"I know the two of you were going to go in tomorrow to get Draco properly suited and set up for auror responsibilities, but how difficult would it be to sneak in today and get it done, without the Prophet knowing? Because it seems they're prepared to do another full page spread tomorrow of every single step and awkward stare tomorrow, Ministry sanctioned of course," she spat out, tossing the ratty paper onto the breakfast nook in front of her.
Draco turned and looked at Harry, who seemed to be contemplating the many steps involved. Draco wasn't exactly looking forward to working on and off at the auror department throughout the next two years, favoring the kind of work Hermione did as a ward breaker and maker, as well as an obscure magic researcher, but now he was downright dreading it.
"I'm in. Let's go."
Draco sighed and downed the still burning coffee, turning and returning to his room to change to more Ministry suitable clothing. When he returned to the kitchen, he found two Harry Potter's sitting at the breakfast nook. Not sure what Hermione was playing at, Draco walked over and sat next to the closest Potter.
He didn't expect for that Potter to jump halfway out of their skin to get away from him.
"Wotcher cousin, scare a girl half to death!"
Draco couldn't quite make sense of that statement, so he turned and stared at the other Potter for clarification. Harry, the one Draco decided was the real one, sighed and glared lightly at his doppelganger. "You can change back any time you feel like it," he suggested, taking a large gulp from his second coffee.
Draco turned his head to inspect the fake Harry but instead of green eyes and a black mop of hair, he was face to face with a short woman with the most unnatural green hair and dark blue eyes. It was the Black nose though that he focused on, until she scrunched her face and turned it into Severus Snape's hooked nose, drawing Draco out of his confusion with a revolted look on his face.
"Much better. It's rude to stare you know," the woman said, seemingly happy to have Draco looking at her whole face. He replayed the morning so far and remembered she had called him cousin. That, coupled with the nose, meant only one thing.
"Andromeda's daughter," said Draco, not trusting himself to say more. He remembered his Aunt Bella raging on and on about the 'daughter of my good for nothing blood traitor sister' and her unfortunate marriage to Remus Lupin who, for all Draco said about him in their third year, wasn't wholly awful.
When Draco figured out from Snape's essay assignment and the bountiful supply of aconite conveniently visible in the potions lab that there was a werewolf on campus, he recoiled at the idea of a monster among students, but the man never quite lived up the horror stories Draco had heard as a child.
Fenrir Greyback, however, did. Draco would have no trouble differentiating the two.
Schooling his expression to being entirely neutral, Draco put a hand out to shake his cousins. She broke into a bright smile, pink leaking out of the top of her head and highlighting her chopped locks, and took his hand and turned the proffered peace offer into an uncomfortable hug. Draco turned to Harry in panic, but his enemy-turned-ally just laughed into his fist, obscuring the mirth on his face, and did nothing to help.
That traitorous bastard…!
"Alright, I'm done making you uncomfortable for now, but I reserve the right to continue if and really, when the opportunity presents itself," the woman said, releasing Draco from her grip and moving further into the bench to give Draco proper room to settle. "Harry was just explaining to me your plans to infiltrate the Ministry without the press any the wiser. Can't teach an old dog new tricks, hmm?"
Harry laughed, suggesting to Draco that he was okay to smile, so he did. Harry then launched back into what they had already been discussing, which was the many steps required to register Draco with the Ministry, who the main players were, and how to circumvent the lot of it.
"Tonks brought by all the paperwork you need to fill out on our department's end, that's what you're reading now. Grab a pen off the counter and start filling those out," Harry ordered, sending a secretive smile to Draco, guessing that the later wasn't sure what he should be calling his cousin by. Draco nodded and got to work, grabbing one pen for him to use and another to charm for repetitive forms.
"Remus is already at the Ministry, getting some of the forms you'll need from Health Services so we can fill them out, away from prying eyes," Tonks informed, going off of the list she and Harry had been consulting when Draco first entered, "You also have to do a physical, but there's technically a clause allowing you to do it at St. Mungo's and nothing to say you can't do it later tonight."
"Isn't your boss going to be put out that you're doing all of this without any warning?" Draco asked, somewhat absentmindedly as he finished one form after another with mindless repetition. His cousin chuckled before responding, "Nah, I'm a huge fan of initiative."
"Wait, you're the head of the auror department?" Draco asked, surprised. He could remember how his father has lost his mind when a woman – Amelia Bones – had been named the head of the DMLE years ago and couldn't imagine the Ministry being a much better place towards woman these days.
"Against their better judgement," she replied, a smirk on her face suggesting she knew exactly what he was thinking. Embarrassed for his father and for himself, he blushed and shrunk slightly into himself. "Helps that the only man with more experience and qualifications than me is the Minister of Magic himself. We lost a lot of good people during the war and in the follow up. Took on a lot of people right away to try and fill the gap but half of them were vigilantes there to abuse the badge."
Draco nodded, thinking back to the two wankers who had arrested him, and couldn't agree more with the description.
"I've had a hell of a time clearing out the dead weights in the department, and I'm hoping that adding you to our roster will help shake things up again, show where the weak ends are hiding," she went on, a somewhat feral, vindictive smile on her face. "I shouldn't enjoy firing those cocksure assholes as much as I do, so let's just blame the Black in me."
This time Draco and Harry both snorted.
"That leaves the DMLE for your criminal records, Wizengamot administrative services for your parole clearance forms, and a stop at the Records department to deposit it all," said Tonks, making a small note on the list that Draco didn't bother trying to decipher.
"Hermione is wrestling with the Wizengamot folks to get those clearance forms and should have them by the time we arrive," Harry explained, taking over for his boss, "and I have a friend in the DMLE getting your criminal records set aside for us on the down low so no one can tip off Skeeter."
Draco nodded again, finishing up his last form and not noticing that Harry was pulling something out of his bag and setting it on the table. Not that he could really be blamed, though, considering it was largely invisible.
"Well then, if you're done with those, it's time to suit up and go."
Author's note: First off, a very happy birthday to our favorite werewolf. I knew I had to decide soon whether or not he and Tonks lived, and since the timing worked out as well as it did, I figured this would be a nice birthday present for our favorite professor. Secondly, some of you might recognize "politically inconvenient roommate" from Colubrina's Protective Custody, which was meant in homage: her story helped nurture the seedling that was Silver Linings, a story of a hurt Draco in an unfair political environment.