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Draco scowled into the amber liquid of what was already his fifth firewhisky of the afternoon. He was lucky that he’d waited until after lunch to argue with Adam, because he’d been able to apparate straight to the Leaky and proceed to drink his sorrows away undisturbed.
Hannah had looked surprised to see him there in the middle of the afternoon, alone, and had initially tried to get him talking, but gave up when she realised that he was just going to stare into his drink until he could see the bottom of the glass. Every time he could, he just asked for another drink and repeated the process all over again. He couldn’t allow himself to stare at the wooden bar too long through the bottom of an empty glass without thinking about the hard eyes he’d had to put up with for the past three years, hard, brown eyes which he’d once thought were assertive and ridiculously sexy.
The appeal had disappeared once that assertiveness started showing itself in all the wrong things, at all the wrong moments, becoming too domineering.
Growling at a sudden, unbidden thought about what Adam would say about how much he was currently drinking, Draco downed what was left in his current glass and pushed it towards Hannah.
“Another,” he slurred loudly. “Another glass, Hannah.”
“Draco Malfoy,” she looked at him sternly. “I know for a fact you were raised better than that.” She stood behind the bar, a striped tea towel slung over her shoulder and her hands on the curve of her hips. He’d have preferred if those hands were already reaching for the bottle of Ogdens on the shelf behind her.
“Hannah, please, just keep filling the glass up,” he met her eyes with a glare, softening a bit when she just glared back. “Please. It’s over.”
“Well, good,” she smiled, her hands leaving her hips. “But that’s no reason to be drinking yourself into oblivion.”
Draco scoffed. “No, I suppose not. But what he did that made me finally see sense is.” He reached his hand out waiting for her to place the refilled glass back in his grasp.
“Ah. Well he was a dick anyway. Looked down his nose more than you did.”
He snorted at that, which made him cough and splutter. “Merlin, Abbott. Say what you mean why don’t you.”
“Gladly.” She leaned her elbows on the bar so she was looking directly into his eyes. “I’m not facilitating the drowning of your sorrows. This should be a happy occasion.”
“In that case,” he grew close to snarling at her, “I’m celebrating.” He took Hannah by surprise and launched across the bar separating them in an attempt to grab the bottle he had his eye on.
“Draco! What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing? Do you want me to chuck you out?” She had pushed him back onto his stool which wobbled precariously, Draco’s heart pounding as he scrabbled to keep hold of the bar.
“Do you need a hand here, Hannah?”
Draco groaned upon hearing the smooth, low voice that sounded from behind him.
“It’s alright, Harry. We’re fine, aren’t we Draco?” She said his name pointedly, but he ignored the question.
“Get lost, Potter,” he muttered without looking towards the saviour-turned-auror.
He had no such luck though, because the scarlet-clad annoyance took an uninvited seat on the stool next to him. Draco turned surreptitiously to glare at Potter, but the glare turned slightly wide-eyed. Salazar, the man cut a fine figure in those robes. He must be drunker than he’d thought. Mind you, he’d not drunk more than one glass in a single sitting since Adam had got short with him for it over two years ago.
“How many’s he on, Hannah?” the green-eyed devil asked.
“He’s after his sixth.”
“Christ, Malfoy. How have you got like this after five glasses? Didn’t peg you as a lightweight,”
“Only since that twat stopped me drinking. Forgot how much I liked it,” he moaned, dropping his head onto the bar.
“Bloody hell,” he heard Potter mutter. Then, “give him the sixth, Hannah, my responsibility. I’ll have one, too.”
“Not on duty, Mr Auror, Sir?” Draco murmured into the bar, eliciting a deep chuckle from his companion.
“No, I was just here to floo home after patrol.”
“Then bugger off then.”
“And leave you like this? I don’t think that’ll be good for anyone, Malfoy.”
Draco felt a glass knock into his knuckles and raised his head to smile at Hannah.
“Don’t make me regret it, Malfoy,” she said sternly before moving to serve her other customers.
“So,” said Potter, “who’s the twat?”
“Adam. You’ll hear all about it in the Prophet tomorrow, although I’ll probably be the twat then.”
“Yes, well, that’ll happen if you end things with a seemingly untouchable Quidditch star.”
Draco sat up straight, ready to give Potter a piece of his mind, but stopped with the words on the tip of his tongue when he saw the look of understanding on Potter’s face.
“Ah. Of course. Ginevra.”
Potter chuckled. “Yup. Even I couldn’t get away with it. What did yours do?”
“Said something one time too many.” Draco looked down into his fresh glass of whisky before taking a large sip. When he looked up again, Potter was still looking at him, waiting.
Draco sighed. “He called me a…he said…” He had to close his eyes a second and take a deep breath before continuing in a rush. “Apparently nowhere will hire a good-for-nothing Death Eater.”
He opened his eyes and looked directly into Potter’s which looked surprisingly angry. He knew his own must look pitiful. Potter blinked a few times, his suddenly tense shoulders moving with ragged breaths as the anger in his eyes dissipated.
A tanned hand reached out to lay lightly over Draco’s left forearm, but he flinched back from the touch.
“Don’t,” he warned, face screwing up in pain. Potter’s face screwing up in confusion.
“Why does that physically hurt you?”
Draco cradled his arm in his lap, hoping to remove it from Potter’s reach, but again, he was never lucky when it came to the boy-who-lived-twice.
“I said don’t, please,” he whimpered as Potter grasped his hand and lifted his arm, unbuttoning the cuff of his shirt and rolling the sleeve back to reveal the bruise purpling over his redundant Dark Mark.
“He did this?” Potter asked unnecessarily. Draco looked away from it, already knowing what Potter was seeing. A large, plum handprint curling around his forearm and squeezing tightly.
Thankfully, Potter corrected his sleeve for him then they both drank deeply.
“He had said it before, every time I mentioned getting a job. But this time it was something I really wanted to do, was really excited about. I’ve been a bit of a potions hobbyist and wanted to go for an opening at St Mungo’s. Prepared a portfolio and everything, full of what I’d been creating, all the healing potions. I made the mistake of showing him it, how proud I was of it, of wanting to do something good.” Draco stopped and took a long sip again, feeling Potter’s gaze on him. He turned to meet those piercing eyes.
“He threw it in the fire, all of it. Held me like that to get it off me then squeezed tighter when he said that nowhere would employ someone like me.”
“You left?”
Draco nodded. “Packed my bags as soon as he left the flat and sent them to the Manor.”
“Good,” Potter said, grasping his hand again and Draco looked shocked at the tanned fingers wrapped around pale. “You are Draco Malfoy. You once made me believe you were a Dementor. Made those damn pins in fourth year. You can do anything you want to put your mind to. You even defied Voldemort.”
Potter was smirking at him, actually smirking. It was such a bizarre sight that Draco started laughing.
“I’m serious, Malfoy. You’re putting that portfolio together again even if I have to help you.”
That just made Draco laugh even harder, clutching his stomach. “You? Help me with a Potions portfolio. Didn’t think you were that daft, Potter.”
Draco felt his hand being tugged at lightly and it slowly got him to calm down. Potter was still looking at him, waiting for the laughter to subside.
“You mean it don’t you?” he realised.
Potter nodded. “This,” he said, shaking Draco’s arm slightly, “is not who you are now. It’s not even who you were, not really. Don’t let it stop you from what you want to do. And never let anyone tell you that it will.”
Draco swallowed the emotion that was rising in his throat as he stared into those intense eyes.
“You hear me, Malfoy?”
“I hear you.”