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Severus Snape inhaled so sharply, his nostrils almost closed. How disgusting could these rugrats get?
It was his own misfortune as Head of House. The other Heads likely had similar grievances, but he didn’t care to be objective. He preferred to wallow, loudly and to great extent.
“Were you all raised in barns?” he spat, far more effective than hollering like some low-league Quidditch coach.
Draco was the worst offender. The spoiled brat grew up with house elves following centimetres away, picking up trash, laundering discarded apparel, serving meals.
Here, they tottered around, dressing Draco and spiriting away the rejections, gelling his bloody hair, giving manicures and pedicures, slathering his head in vomit-green facemasks. Which unfortunate creature handled the loofah when the boy showered?
He left messes everywhere, a walking human hurricane, and half was food. He’d finish an apple, hold the spent core to the side, and drop it. An elf was always there - sometimes to catch it mid-air, sometimes not.
Just yesterday, his pompous git of a godson was plucked/tweezed/fluffed by an elven trio, another feeding him crumpets, a fifth dusting crumpet crumbs off his front. Draco used exactly one napkin per crumpet, discarding it and outstretching a hand for the next.
Meanwhile, the Bulstrodes no longer had an elf at all. They’d only had one, which finally passed away of old age. The Bulstrodes couldn’t afford a replacement. Neither was the recent economic pinch isolated to the Bulstrodes.
Before long, Draco would take a hex to the back. Even now, as two elves measured him for new robes, he stood completely oblivious to the hostility wafting from the room’s fringes. Eating, he sent a mess all over the floor, and when one elf swapped measuring for tidying, he kicked at the poor thing. Spindly white hair covered in crumbs, it kept shaking itself off like a dog while Draco snapped his fingers for more biscuits.
In the end, Severus felt it only appropriate to assign detention. The jealous antagonism across two-thirds of Slytherin’s inhabitants made it a matter of public safety. He’d avoided this for too long, and leniency towards his pseudo-relative contributed to this situation from the start.
It was time for a smidge of course correction.
* * *
“Detention?!”
Draco screeched.
“Why?!”
The injustice! He hadn’t done a thing. He hadn’t bullied anybody, talked back to a professor (this week), missed assignments, skived off class to snog Pansy in the Astronomy Tower (delightfully unmonitored during daytime). He hadn’t publicly heckled Granger in two days, at least.
His professor/godfather/HoH only stared back, impassive. Draco seethed, feeling the futility but unable to stop.
“You’ll serve it in the kitchens.”
Draco exploded again. The kitchens?! With the help?! What about the bloody Forbidden Forest with that oaf-giant (giant-oaf?)! At least that sounded cool! At least Pansy would want to snog him afterwards!
“...with Miss Granger supervising.”
He reached an emotional detonation hitherto unseen. He flailed, arms waving wildly, feet stamping the ground. Utterly undignified, but nothing could be more undignified than serving kitchen detention with Granger keeping watch! Like a bloody child, he had to have an au pair! Her?!
What was so horrible that he had to fraternise with the help? He thought his godfather liked him. He thought he was the favourite.
“Are you mental?”
Snape’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Two nights.”
“She’s running a charity! It’s asinine! So, I’ll polish badges to hand out to all the ickle elvies? They don’t even want them!”
“Three nights.”
“Malfoys don’t do charity work!”
“Your mother does a lot. Four nights.”
Draco finally shut his sodding mouth at the six-night mark, stomping off to stew (not spew) in sulky silence.
With four minutes spare, he called an elf to apparate him. It wouldn’t do, to be seen walking there
or
be fetched like a dog. Draco had enough pride to know that.
* * *
The kitchen positively crawled with elves. Why couldn’t he call some to assist him on occasion? The surplus here was absurd.
Sure, some had harder jobs than others. Sorting cutlery, cleaning and stacking dishes, repairing chipped plates and cracked glassware. The cooks weren’t much better, with burned sleeves and piles of crisped, blackened headwear.
Granger saw him looking. “Yes, exactly! They’re overworked and stretched thin, accidents happen constantly! The injury rate’s unacceptable. The hats are only the tip-”
“It’s called a toque, Granger.”
She stopped, flummoxed.
“The chef hat. It’s a toque. Haven’t you been to France?”
Her face grew pink, a pleasant shade not out of place in an overcrowded commercial kitchen.
“Terminology is by-the-by. They’re doing more than they should be, already! We ask too much of them and you’re abusing your position, beckoning them at all hours of the day or night!”
The debate engaged him, in spite of himself. “What do you imagine I call them in the night for?”
Pink cheeks turned to red. “What you do with them is your business, but-”
“Apparently not,” he drawled. “Apparently I have to justify my use of them, to you, of all people. So, would you like to know everything I ask of them, day and night?”
Granger’s colourful expletive made his second eyebrow match his first.
“Language, Granger. They have delicate ears, you know.”
She really was quite at home in the kitchens. Bright red, perspiring, steam rising from her ears. The toque wouldn’t fit over her hair, but just as funny to watch her try and force it.
“I bet you’re an excellent cook, Granger. Why don’t you take over?”
“I have, you logger-headed miscreant! I’ve done every job, to understand their workload and help-”
“Did they want your help? With either the dishes or you trying to get them all sacked?”
“I don’t want them sacked, I want them paid!” she shrieked, her clipboard-holding hand thrown in the air. “And now, they are! Well, the ones who accept it. And most of them now wear aprons and toques, or whatever, because burning clothing is better than burning themselves!”
“A paragon of practicality, you are.” Draco took a closer look. “So, those who refuse aprons get to fix broken stemware? Still a hierarchy, all the loincloth elves in the back, and ones with proper apparel taking wages front and centre. I hope you’re pleased with yourself, creating this kind of social clustering amongst their own kind. It’s how bullies get made, you know.”
Gods, it was delightful. He should thank Snape, instead. Mercilessly heckling Granger for six straight nights? Whose punishment was this?
First up: cutlery.
This was easy. What was she whinging about? Draco knew proper place settings in his sleep, eating at formal tables since being out of nappies. Maybe that was the trouble: Granger was a commoner and it was all balderdash to her.
With rapid efficiency, he plucked, wrapped, and rolled silverware clusters for all four houses. Winky, his tipsy ‘kitchen buddy’ (according to Granger, who couldn’t stop being insulting if she tried) blinked blearily, swaying a little each time she tipped the bottle of butterbeer back.
He left the knives out of the Gryffindor bundles. They could chew their steak by spearing it with a fork and gnawing off it, for all he cared.
* * *
Repairing cracks and chips was also easy. What boisterous boy hadn’t broken things as a child and learned how to fix them before their parents cottoned on?
Okay, fine, maybe Draco called on elves to fix things, but he knew how it was done. He was a wizard. A smart one. Everyone said.
Winky tried to assist but only created another chip in the china. Draco indulgently repaired it. Her lower lip wobbled, tears filling her already watery eyes.
Draco didn’t do crying: not crying witches in general, and not a crying elf. Hastily, he flapped a rolled napkin at her, spilling the contents across the floor.
“Here. Don’t cry.”
This was taken as an order, precisely how he meant it.
* * *
He didn’t care for washing dishes. It was gross and felt like punishment. He was highly motivated to finish, but Winky couldn’t keep up. Draco learned right away to stop handing her things.
“If I do all of them myself, will you clean my fingernails after?”
“Malfoy!!”
* * *
Winky had alcohol stashed all over the kitchen. Granger would never find it all. Keeping the elf sober was a losing game, and the best Granger could do was stay close enough in case something went catastrophically wrong.
She had to know how predictable it was to pull out homework, and Draco took the opportunity to get his own butterbeer.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Granger hissed, stalking over to yank the bottle from his hands.
“Hey!”
Behind Granger, Winky slid another bottle off a lower shelf, tucking it into her apron. The garment sagged to one side, making Draco snicker.
“What’s so funny? You can’t drink while you cook!”
“It’s hardly ‘drinking’. It’s not Ogden’s.”
“She doesn’t need more -”
“Maybe you could use some. You’re generally miniscule, so maybe it registers as alcohol to you, but you’ll loosen up. The elves might like you more.”
Her jaw dropped. “I am not miniscule!”
“You’re practically an elf yourself. Is that why you campaign so hard for them? Because you can picture being right alongside, scrubbing dishes and making dinners? I meant it earlier, you know. I bet you’d be excellent in the kitchen.”
She glowered and he couldn’t resist. “You can make me dinner anytime.”
That did it. Off she huffed, leaving him the distinct impression that bright red flush wasn’t all about anger.
Interesting.
* * *
He was such a misogynistic prick! Hermione fumed.
Malfoy was in her head. That was it. Why was she so flustered?
Just because he was technically correct that he was much larger than she was, just because his blonde fringe fell into his eyes when he scrubbed or chopped or washed, loosed from its gel prison, just because she was oddly curious about his earring, just because she might - might - enjoy some of the sparring, didn’t mean…
Well, it certainly didn’t mean she wanted to cook him dinner.
* * *
As much as he badgered Granger about being good in the kitchen,
Draco
was sort of good at it.
The nights of his detention progressed. A dawning sense of pride grew, the fourth time an elf complimented his work. First he’d thought they were placating him, and accepted it with stolid and demure grace as he was raised to (while inwardly basking in praise).
Winky even stopped trying to help, though she was drunker with her only job minding Draco.
She smuggled him butterbeer. She was like a niffler when it came to the alcohol. She could always locate some, but at least she shared.
* * *
He didn’t think Granger noticed the way they all glared at her.
The irony wasn’t lost on him: supposedly, he took advantage of their manual labour, something that (in her eyes) the elves didn’t like but couldn’t say.
And here she was, the very personification of something the elves did not like and couldn’t say. It brought a secretive little smile to his face.
He turned up the charm on her, which always worked. He’d perfected it by age three (probably earlier, but couldn’t remember that far back). He flashed his best smile, turning more than her ears pink. It was sort of endearing, in a confusing way.
* * *
Winky replenished Malfoy’s butterbeer, again. Why was Hermione letting him drink? If she caught anybody else drinking, she’d take it away. She was a prefect! And here she was, supervising detention and letting him drink his fill.
Just as her shame began to spiral, Malfoy said over his shoulder, “Thanks, Granger. This is cool of you. Here, have one with me.”
She spiralled in a whole different way.
* * *
Draco stared into the vat of soup in discombobulating confusion. Granger’s presence wasn’t so bad, when she removed her own metaphorical SPEW toque. Whenever she sat with him like a regular person, he didn’t mind her company. A little booze was all it took for Granger to ease up.
Tonight’s task, soup, was easy. Draco liked measuring spices and dicing vegetables, seeing how they came together to make something delicious. It was like potion-making and he thrived.
And he must be doing well, because the elves stayed pleased, not even seeming to mind the additional mess he made. Knowing they weren’t compelled to go behind him and re-do his work meant something. He cooked to their standards.
Granger kept watching with wide eyes, bordering on impressed. He liked that, too.
While he made sure to handle knives and open flames, he did enjoy Winky showing him new ways to do something. How to hold knives, to bend his knuckles to avoid cutting his fingers, how to balance heat under the pot for just the right amount of time.
Salads and side dishes came the next night, without enough variety or challenge. Draco could do it with his eyes closed, and spent the evening getting a bit toasty while he did.
Granger joined him in a funny temper, all flustered and distracted.
Finally, Draco poured her two fingers of Winky’s firewhisky. He wanted loosened-up Granger back. “Drink up.”
When she did, he couldn’t resist. “Good girl, Granger.”
Rather than flare with righteous fury at Draco treating her like one of his peacocks, she blushed beet red from her hairline to her toes.
What the hell was going on? Where was the fiery banter?
Witches were a mystery.
* * *
Night five progressed quickly, the preparation of entrees far more entertaining than salads. Draco sweated over stoves and directed elven traffic.
Not like the Lord of a manor would do, but running a high-volume kitchen during the dinner rush. It was thrilling.
Granger stayed out of the way, absently biting corners off biscuits. Draco rather enjoyed her rapt attention.
He’d never felt good at something like this. Quidditch was closest, but the pressure that wove through this was unique. He’d never worked this hard in his life, filled with a sense of purpose.
He was proud of himself. How bizarre. Everything prior paled in comparison.
* * *
On his final night (Draco aced the pudding - preparation, composition, and presentation), Granger’s eyes shone with unreserved pride. He fought an innate urge to preen.
“I’m impressed, Malfoy. I really am.”
He wasn’t done in the kitchens. He planned to return. Maybe only once or twice a week, but he wanted the rush, the challenge, the satisfaction.
“I think I’m going to keep coming. Not because of elf rights,” he clarified, intrinsically maintaining some level of personal pride. “But because maybe I could be a chef. Would you want to… meet up here, and I can cook?”
Her face lit up, flushing a pretty shade of pink. Draco felt a surge of affection along with an atypical warming of his own cheeks. Surely, gratitude that she’d introduced him to this. Nothing more than that.
Surely.