"Safe to assume the meeting with Granger was the colossal conflagration everyone thought it would be?" Theo chuckled, taking a long pull from his Butterbeer as his eyes scanned the crowded expanse of the Leaky Cauldron. He and Draco had a standing date with alcohol every Friday night following their long days at the Ministry, a welcome release to the stressors that actually working for a living provided.
To their credit, making an honest living was a conscious choice they both made following the war, clearly not for monetary gain as neither wizard was hurting in the Galleons department. Self-preservation being an innate character trait of every Slytherin, they had both decided over a flagon of Firewhisky one drunken evening that the best way to repair their tarnished reputations would be to make amends the plebeian way- by working.
The Ministry seemed to be the obvious choice, seeing as there was no better way to publicly align themselves with the war's recovery effort. And so far, it was working swimmingly. Well, it was until earlier in the day when Draco was unceremoniously thrust into the inhospitable confines of Hermione Granger's office.
"When ever has anything involving Granger not been an absolute catastrophe?"
His brooding tone confirmed what Theo already suspected.
Not wanting to further incite his mate, but also keen on stating the facts, Theo responded with marked trepidation. "Well, she did save the entire wizarding world from a madman, so I suppose that's one thing that wasn't a complete catastrophe."
Draco immediately looked up from his tumbler of Firewhisky donning a murderous glare.
Not seeming to notice, or perhaps knowing Draco long enough not to be intimidated by his theatrics, Theo continued, "And most everyone in the DMLE speaks very highly of the Gryffindor Princess, so I'd say after minimal research efforts conducted by yours truly, you're somewhere in the minority on this one."
Draco bristled. He despised that moniker possibly more than he despised Granger herself.
Rolling his eyes with an audible groan, he continued to swirl the icy liquid contents of his nearly empty glass.
While his friend certainly had a valid point, and Draco knew his words to be regrettably true, he did not take kindly to being contradicted by the likes of Theo Nott. There was an unspoken rule among them that come hell or high water they had each other's backs and this seemed like a blatant betrayal of their unwavering brotherhood. He was well aware the wizarding world had elevated the swotty Granger and her two doltish sidekicks to celebrity status following the war, but that didn't mean he had to follow suit.
"Well, if that's how you feel, perhaps you should be the one heading up the MacNair case along with the pugnacious little prig." He gestured irritably to the barkeep to bring another round of drinks to their table.
"Heading up the case?" Theo asked with a thinly masked look of incredulity. "I think that may be putting the carriage before the thestral there, mate!" He chuckled heartily, nearly sputtering out a swig of Butterbeer in the process. "I'm pretty sure Potter said you would be under Granger's tutelage. You didn't assume you'd be heading up the whole case, did you?" With realization dawning on him that that's exactly what Draco did, he threw his head back in a bark of laughter. "Merlin, mate! Now I see why the meeting went tits up!"
Barely unable to control his amusement, he guzzled the remaining contents of his Butterbeer, raising the empty bottle toward the barkeep as a friendly reminder of the next round's urgency. Theo's entire body continued to shake as he tried unsuccessfully to fight back the tears of mirth now threatening to escape.
"Are you quite finished?" Draco scoffed, arms moving to cross irritatingly in front of his chest. The increasingly noisy atmosphere of the Leaky Cauldron was beginning to grate his nerves, not unlike the current conversation. "I was not under the impression I would be heading up the case. If you must know, I merely clarified the simple fact that I wouldn't be Granger's minion. Can you even imagine how insufferable she would be as my superior?" He rolled his eyes, emitting a rather undignified snort. "I may not have a highly-regarded Ministry position in a commodious corner office with a view, but I do have my self-respect."
His explanation trailed off as he spotted the barkeep approaching from beyond the throngs of people now collecting in the walkway between the bar and their table. As she shuffled past several wizards he vaguely recognized from the Ministry, Draco swore he saw Granger's dimwitted counterpart Potter sidling in through the front door of the Leaky. He silently prayed to whatever god that would listen that his eyes were deceiving him. Apart from Granger, Potter was the last person he wanted to see at the moment.
His attention abruptly shifted when the exceedingly attractive barkeep arrived and eagerly deposited two drinks onto the table in front of them. Leaning forward with a coquettish smile and her ample bosom deliberately pouring out of her décolleté mere centimeters from his face, she quietly inquired with a sultry bat of her eyelashes if she could be of any further service for the evening.
The rather enticing implication not lost on him, Draco forced a polite smile and begrudgingly sent her on her way. This was by far not the first time he had encountered a willing trollop trying to wile him with her feminine wares. Regardless of how far he had fallen, he could not allow himself to be lured into the sordid underbelly of the magical world and further sully the Malfoy name. He was painfully aware that even outside of the Ministry walls, his every move was being watched and scrutinized. The Daily Prophet for one would never allow him to forget that fact.
As if the fates were continuing to conspire against him, he looked up only to see Potter sauntering over with a lopsided grin. "Malfoy. Nott." He glanced from one to the other, giving Theo a hearty slap on his back for good measure.
"Potter!" Theo called out above the din. "Fancy seeing you here! To what do we owe the honor?"
While Harry and Theo had been working together in the DMLE for the better part of a year, Harry as Head Auror and Theo as a Hit Wizard, they had developed an affable tolerance for one another. Their jobs necessitated ample collaboration within their departmental duties, allowing for something adjacent to a friendship to form.
Shifting to run a hand through his messy raven locks, his eyes wandered over to Draco as he openly assessed the wizard's current agitated state.
"Well, I suppose I thought I'd drop by to see exactly what had your knickers in a twist today, Malfoy. Hermione left her office in a huff this afternoon and hasn't been answering any of my owls since. It doesn't take Auror credentials to know you likely had something to do with her sour mood."
"Oh, come off it, Potter!" he snapped, donning the infamous Malfoy sneer. "You didn't actually think Granger and I would be exchanging secrets and braiding each other's hair, did you? Anyone with half a brain would have known it was a horrendous idea to put the two of us on a case together." He looked across at Theo for agreement but saw no sign of unity from his erstwhile friend. "What? What did you expect the outcome to be?" he scoffed sharply, fiery eyes hardening with visible annoyance.
Theo and Harry exchanged a furtive glance, tacitly urging one another to reply to their nettled colleague.
Finally conceding to the pressure of the lingering silence, Theo cut in, "Mate, I know you may reach across the table and hex me for saying this, but I think you and Granger would make a bloody good team." He put up his arms in mock defense when he saw Malfoy surreptitiously reach for his wand beneath the table. "Hear me out," he reasoned, quickly scouring his mind for a more satisfactory argument to convince his uncompromising companion. "For starters, you both have an irritating habit of always thinking you're right. And I'll admit, most of the time you are." He chuckled nervously under his breath, wondering if the added bit of spirited humor would soften the blow of what he was about to say. "And then there's the fact that you both finished Hogwarts at the top of our class. That has to count for something."
He began ticking off his talking points on each of his fingers as he went.
"And both you and Granger are infuriatingly logical and have the maddening ability to see details most of us commoners are too blind to pick up on..."
As Theo continued rambling, there was no obvious softening of Malfoy's façade. He certainly didn't need reminding of Granger's intellectual attributes for which he was already well-aware. What neither of the two tossers in front of him seemed to realize was that it was her detestable personality that had him wanting to bludgeon himself to death anytime she came near. Which fortunately for him, apart from a few innocuous path-crossings at the Ministry during the past year since he began working there, their post-war lives had barely intersected. For that, he was immensely grateful.
But his good fortune was apparently short-lived, considering the current situation in which he now found himself. Although Malfoy no longer held any prejudices about her unfortunate upbringing, a war in which she'd triumphed having quickly turned his previous misconception on its head, he cringed to think of what the success did for her already inflated ego. The mere thought had him wishing he had taken his parents up on their urging to begin life anew alongside them at their ancestral estate in Saint-Jean-de-Luz. Suddenly, sandy French beaches and leisurely seaside pursuits held more allure than they had when they first proposed the idea following their release from court-ordered Ministry supervision. To think he could be dining on delectable Basque cuisine on the coastal promenade while bantering with the locals about where to find the best boulangerie seemed a laughable juxtaposition to where he currently sat, across from the now unintelligible Theo. He was beginning to think he was relegated to eternal damnation for the choices he made in his youth. At least that seemed like the only logical explanation for why his life continued to mimic that of a blast-ended-screwt.
Seeing Draco lost in thought, Theo realized it was a futile effort to carry on with his persuasion. "Look mate, at least consider that you may be wrong about this one. No one is saying that you have to marry the witch...although that's a very amusing image to conjure if I do say so myself." He choked on his laughter, immediately realizing he was treading on razor-thin ice even insinuating such a thing. "All I think we're saying," he continued, glancing at Harry for affirmation, "is your two heads would be one hell of a good combination for our department and for this case. What's the worst thing that could happen? You hate each other, you solve the case, boom! Finite Incantatem. You never see each other again."
His gesticulating arms aimed to drive his point home while both he and Harry returned their attention to their irascible target.
Stiffly kneading the back of his neck for several prolonged minutes, in an unmistakable attempt at assuaging the tension that settled there, Malfoy finally released a slow and strained breath. "You two better have stock in Ogden's finest because we're going to need more than exists in all of the Malfoy reserves to get through this massive heap of hippogriff dung."
And with that, he drained his highball, slapped it down on the table, and swiftly retreated to the loo at the aft of the Leaky, leaving Theo and Harry with matching contented grins at their small victory.
