"You sure about this one, mate? Not your usual style, is it?" Blaise Zabini asked Draco from his desk where he'd been drawing a new sketch.
"I'm sure. Can you do it?" Draco asks his old friend in a droll tone.
"Can I do it? Of course, I can. What kind of amateur do you take me for?" Blaise retorted, his voice laced with a hint of mock hurt. "May I ask what the symbolism for this one is?"
Draco levels Blaise with his flat stare. Blaise always asks the meaning of each tattoo, but Draco never tells. Every piece of art on his body has meaning, but it's for him alone to understand. It's the only way he can physically represent his innermost thoughts without speaking the words aloud.
"Figured." Blaise retorts as he waits for Draco to remove his customary cotton black t-shirt. "Right or left?" Blaise asks.
"Left," Draco responds as he rubs a hand over his left peck.
"Ready, princess?" Blaise taunts as he hovers the tattoo iron over Draco's heart.
"Prick," Draco responds with no real malice. The all-too-familiar buzzing of the tattoo gun lulls Draco into a sense of listlessness. He floats along to the song of the needles moving over his skin, changing the barren landscape into something beautifulâ"something he can look at and not feel disgusted.
"Been researching a new ink supplier," Blaise says nonchalantly as he traces over Draco's chest.
"Yeah? I heard the last one was a bust. Anything interesting about this one?" Draco responds with equal feigned disinterest.
"Bigger operation, I hear. There are some new players on the board to shake things up. I hear they are experimenting with some pretty radical ideas." Blaise says, and Draco doesn't miss the flash of concern in his friend's eyes.
Three years ago, Blaise pulled himself out of his drunken stupor and opened a tattoo shop in Diagon Alley. The shop served two purposes. Tattooing helped keep Blaise focused and was an outlet for his self-hatred and aggression after his seventh year at Hogwarts. The second reason is intelligence. Blaise mastered getting his clients to talk and took everything he could from them. He'd been assisting Draco for the last year and a half in sniffing out the research centers. They'd found a few of them, but they'd been abandoned when Draco arrived.
Draco had been chasing the elusive scent of books, ink, and adonis flowers from location to location. The faint scent always left him aching and his Alpha raging against the bars in his mind. His omega was out there, and he knew she was being kept in one of these centers. After presenting, he'd not scented Pansy or Luna, but he wouldn't be surprised if they were kept in the exact location as his omega.
"What kind of radical ideas are we talking about here?" Draco responds with a level tone, ignoring the ache as Blaise adds shading over the tattoo design.
"I hear they are experimenting with different colors, testing how long they can last under extreme exposure and what kind of scent they can illicit from each one. Things of that nature."
My Omega The beast within snarls at the thought of anyone touching what is his.
"Where is this new supplier supposed to be setting up camp?" Draco asks in as level of a tone as he can manage. Rage grips his chest as he imagines the experiments on innocent omegas. Omegas deserved nothing less than worship. Omegas that belonged with their Alphas.
"Run down warehouse over in Park Royal. I'll write down the address before you go. It'd be great if you could check them out before I waste my time with them. With you being my best client, you'd be an excellent judge of product quality." Blaise says as he uses a sterile cloth to wipe up excess ink.
"I'll check it out." Draco agrees, and the two sink into companionable silence as Blaise swaps his tattoo gun for his wand. He'd become an expert in combining magical and muggle tattoo design in his practice, creating some truly spectacular art pieces.
After another hour or so, Blaise declares his work complete. "What do you think?" he asks Draco.
Draco takes in the ornate cover of a faded tome. Pages flit at lightning speed, and the faster they go, the more ink bleeds from the pages, dripping over his peck until a pile of wilted adonis flowers lies. The ruby buds resemble droplets of blood. The tattoo is the perfect symbol of the story of his life. The faded pages give everything they have until they are bled dry, and nothing remains but a pool of his lifeblood.
"It's perfect." Draco praises Blaise's work before accepting the bandage and pulling his shirt back on. "I'll let you know what I find out about that new supplier." Draco offers before stepping out of the shop and into the rainy main street of Diagon Alley.
Draco had the unfortunate but fitting task of interrogating one of his old classmates and members of the Order of the Phoenix. Torture wasn't something he overly enjoyed, but it was a skill he'd been forced to craft over the last few years. Silver chains hung from the ceiling and clasped the wrists of one Cormac McClaggen. Draco had never been fond of the wizard; he found him to be a poor excuse for a man, an even more pitiful excuse for an Alpha. Pushing all of that aside, he still had information Draco was tasked with obtaining.
"Come now, Cormac. This would be so much easier if you could just tell me the location of your little Order's headquarters."
"Sod off, Malfoy." McClaggen sneers and levels a hostile glare at Draco.
"I would if I could, but I have an extremely overbearing boss, and he would be quite displeased if I didn't get the information he requests from you." Draco circles McClaggen's dangling form once before picking up a pair of pliers. Now, do us both a favor and be a good boy," Draco taunts.
A warm glob of blood launches from McClaggen's bloodied mouth and lands against Draco's cheek. Without a word, Draco grips Cormac's lower jaw and pries his mouth open; with his other hand, he uses the players to pry at one of the shining molars firmly embedded in the pink of his victim's gums.
"Last chance," Draco whispers against Cormac's sweat-soaked cheek.
"Fuck you." Cormac whimpers, but it comes out more as uck u with the pliers hindering his speech.
"Just remember. I did give you the option to make this easy." Draco grits out as he clamps down with strong fingers and wiggles the tool back and forth; Cormac's pained screams reverberate throughout the small, darkened room. With a final twist and a fair amount of blood, the tooth tears loose from Cormac's gums.
Draco tosses the tool, still holding the crimson molar, on the table with his other implements. Tossing his head back, he takes a deep breath and runs his fingers through his hair. "Now, tell me where the Order Headquarters is located."
"Why the fuck do you care? Most of us are rarely there anyway. They only call us for urgent meetings." Cormac answers through his whimpers of pain.
"Not that it's any of your business, but seeing as you won't leave here alive, I guess I could tell you. I'm looking for the two nitwits and Granger. I know the Order moves its members around frequently, so Headquarters seems to be the best place to find them. Well, really, I need Potter and Granger. Weasley would be for entertainment."
"Granger?" Cormac's tone of surprise sets Draco on edge. Why wouldn't Hermione Granger be important?
"I'm sure you've heard of her. Swotty know-it-all with feral curls." Draco responds impatiently.
"Of course, I know who Granger is, you knob-end. Nobody has seen her for years. She's been missing since the Battle of Hogwarts. I figured your lot would already have that information. Guess Voldemort isn't as all-knowing as he lets on." Draco ignores Cormac's taunt as he processes the fact that Hermione Granger hasn't been seen in years and what that may imply.
"How in the world have Potter and Weasley survived without Granger all this time? She was the only reason they lived as long as they did at Hogwarts."
"Granger was a bloody prude, is what she was. It was easier to break into Gringotts than get between her thighs. Trust me, I tried." Draco's thoughts are colored with absolute disdain at Cormac's words.
"You know what, Cormac? I am very glad you didn't choose the easy route. We're going to have some fun, you and I." Draco picks up his favorite scalpel and sets to work on teaching Cormac a lesson, starting with his wagging tongue.