After the way her birthday lunch went, Bones didn't contact Draco. He waited, without really expecting her to. Occasionally an owl arrived from Fleur Delacour or Viktor Krum requesting urgent files, legislature or funds from Shacklebolt. The urgency made Draco suspect that Bones was behind most of the requests; though the handwriting definitely wasn't hers. It was decipherable for one. He retrieved the required items from Shacklebolt's people and sent them through as swiftly as he was able.
There were a few that he could have contacted Bones about. Some that extra information would have been helpful on; but he didn't push to see her when he was evidently unwanted. Besides Fleur's half-hysterical writing style was beginning to grow on him, so he sent his queries to her instead.
Four days before Christmas Hottie brought down Voldemort's Revenirs; the group of wizards that had been his power base in raising armies of Inferi. It was in the morning paper, but Shacklebolt sent through a quick memo in case Draco had managed to miss the front page spread.
He wondered whether it would be considered odd to cut the article out.
"Yes," said a voice and Draco looked up from his toast to find Nott walking towards him. He didn't ask how he'd come in. All of Draco's close friends had access to the manor, and they all knew that he was spending Christmas there.
"Yes?" he drawled instead, practicing what Pansy liked to call his sultry sex-god tone.
It was wasted on Nott who had no hormones. He merely shifted his shoulders back and raised an eyebrow at Draco. "Yes, it would be incredibly creepy if you cut that page out and squiggled little hearts over it as it looks like you're intent on doing."
Draco smiled easily. "Leave the sarcasm to me, Nott. I've told you you're no good at it," he said before setting his slice of toast down and spinning the paper around to show Nott. "Isn't she marvellous?'
"She's covered in blood," said Nott.
That made Draco frown at him. "Aside from that."
Taking his reading glasses out of his front pocket, Nott put them on and moved closer. "Is her nose broken?" he asked conversationally.
Draco made a sound of disgust and tossed the paper down. "She brought down The Revenirs and you're worried about a broken nose." He waved a hand, offering Nott a seat. He didn't offer Nott food, being aware that Nott would take what he wanted. "So why the visit?"
Picking up a croissant by the corner, Nott's brow furrowed. "We need to talk about this," he said. When Draco began to protest, Nott held up a hand. "Parkinson will find out something, somehow. We need to have a plan of some sort for that eventuality."
Draco smiled at Nott's concern, reaching for his slice of toast once more. "I'm keeping this low-key. There's no need for worry."
Stretching his shoulders under his thin shirt, Nott's brow did not smooth.
"Scrimgeour will win the election again then," said Draco. "It was a nice political stunt having The Revenirs come down right on the heels the anniversary of the fall of You-Know-Who."
Nott smiled finally. "I know that you're changing the subject on purpose. You have no subtlety." He allowed the topic to veer away from Bones, Pansy and plans though. Perhaps he realised that Draco wasn't up to it just yet.
"I am the God of Subtlety," Draco informed his friend firmly.
Theo was not the sort to smirk so his expression merely became graver. "Gods are not subtle."
Draco held his twice-bitten toast up in a silent salute to something that was not quite worth laughing at but worth acknowledgement, and then took another bite out of it.
"Things are going well with her?"
Looking up at Nott, Draco frowned.
"You're happier," Nott pointed out. "You're nearly cheerful today."
Draco leant back in his chair. "She's avoiding me," he said. "And she's very different to how she used to be; more like a Slytherin than a Hufflepuff really."
"Perhaps I'll like her more now," commented Nott, but his voice was dry and Draco was quite sure that he'd made his mind up on disliking Bones long ago.
He shrugged because it didn't matter. "We'll never be what we were. It's inconceivable to try; but there's room for something. If it works it will be something like what we had before but all cut apart and stitched back together with scars that won't fade."
Sounding genuinely confused, Nott asked, "So why are you smiling?"
Draco laughed his short, sharp laugh. "I like her, Nott. I really, really do. She's nothing at all like she was, but when I spend time with her, I just want more."
"Not something I needed to know," said Nott dryly.
Smiling at him, complacently, Draco said, "More time, Nott. I want more time."
Theo's mouth pulled upward into the smile he used when something pained him. "Things may not pan out that way, Malfoy," he said, voice soft. They had talked like that during the war; in voices incredibly low so as not to tempt fate to cruelty. Speaking hopes and dreams aloud was too presumptuous for dark times such as those.
Draco was glad that Nott was still being superstitious over Bones. She was too important to do it wrong.
Shaking the suddenly heavy mood away, Nott stood up. "Come on. If we have any chance of elbowing our way through the mad mothers and finding anything remotely useful we'll have to leave now."
Draco almost groaned. He'd forgotten that Nott and Parkinson were meant to be going shopping with him and, mentally going over the calendar in his mind, he realised that today was the agreed upon day.
Most of his friends would have teased him for his reluctance but teasing wasn't in Nott's nature. "Parkinson will be impatient," he said. "You know how she loves Christmas shopping."
"I know how she loves shopping," said Draco sardonically.
They found her wading through a sea of heavily jacketed men; palms delivering swift, sharp jabs at regular intervals. Theo was taller than most of those guys and she saw him before Draco had the chance to pull him out of sight.
"Nott! Here! Come!"
Draco had often wondered whether she thought of her friends as wayward dogs or whether she spoke to all men in that manner. Images like that were hard to erase so he had never asked.
He and Nott made their way into the wine shop in Diagon Alley, skirting around the other frazzled customers as they headed for Pansy. They reached her just as she finished wrenching what seemed to be the last bottle of Hennessy from an unlucky wizard's clutches. "Ha!" she cried in triumph, shoving her prize into Nott's hands. Glancing around swiftly, like a dragon scenting prey, she nodded to herself. "Crème de menthe," she said loudly to no one in particular before clawing her way further into the store.
Nott tucked the Hennessy into the crook of his arm. "Does she even drink crème de menthe? Does anyone drink crème de menthe?"
"On Christmas?" asked Draco. "I think we'll be drinking whatever it takes to get drunk and remain so."
Nott's mouth twisted in distaste. "Crème de menthe, Malfoy," he said in pained tones. "Please wrest it from her. Spare us."
"You don't drink," Draco pointed out.
"No, I'll be the one holding back your hair as you vomit your minty-fresh stomach contents up."
"Excuse me, I certainly don't need anyone holding my hair back as I vomit," said Draco in tones of deep indignation.
Heaping a load of insult to injury, Nott looked down his nose at Draco. Draco was pretty sure he'd taught Nott that move; and if that wasn't bad enough, Nott was taller than Draco, making the whole thing oh so much more effective.
"That was one time Nott. And if Parkinson hadn't been passed out under the table I would have gone to her. Girls are so much more sympathetic."
Nott glanced across the store, his features wrinkling into a frown. Following his gaze, Draco noticed Pansy crouched low over a mound of bottles, snarling when anyone approached too closely. "This is not good," said Nott.
"It's a reasonable posture," said Draco. "That's how the dragons in the Triwizard tournament protected their eggs." When Theo gave him a dumbfounded look, Draco reconsidered. "Of course all of those dragons did lose their eggs…"
"She's hexing people," said Nott, moving into the crowd.
They managed to get Pansy out of the store with a small fortune's worth of alcohol. She let them carry her bags, using her compact mirror as she smoothed her hair. "The Bat-Bogey Hex isn't really a hex, Nott," she said soothingly as he glared at the back of her head.
"It's called the Bat-Bogey Hex." As usual Nott sounded mildly disinterested; the tension of his shoulders, though, looked nearly painful.
"Well, it shouldn't be. It's not that unpleasant." Snapping her compact shut, Pansy turned to frown at her friends. "Get your House-elves to fetch the bags, for Merlin's sake. We have so much more to do," she said irritably.
Sighing, Draco called for Minty. He hoped unkindly that this shopping trip was as excruciating to Theo as it was to himself. Then maybe next Christmas no one would gang up on him and drag him out and he'd be left to brood alone at home. Minty arrived then and took the bags and Draco wished desperately that he could go home with her.