Chapter Text
It is a stifling day in July and Draco Malfoy groans with impatience. “Quimby! Get over here with the fan!” He barks. A nimble house-elf scampers over with an overlarge palm frond and begins to waft it over Draco who sighs with contentment. He could use a cooling warm of course, but there was something about a palm frond that was ever-so-much more preferable.
The heat was so insufferable that he and Theo had been forced to spend most days by the pool at Malfoy Manor. It sparkles serenely under a blazing sun. Draco had to be careful when it came to the sun. He had the tendency to crisp under it within minutes which was dreadful for his reputation with the witches. Not like Theo. Theo could be out in the sun for hours and get nothing more than handsomely tan. He squints at his friend-turned-adoptive-brother over his sunglasses.
He’s entertaining the pool boys again, Matteo, Andre, and Chet. They coo over his bartending skills as he shakes a tumbler over his head, smiling his most charming fuck me smile. Draco calls out “Oi! Make one for me as well, yeah?” Theo doesn’t even look over. His gaze stays fixed on Andre who has pushed himself up into a handstand whilst simultaneously twerking his hips. It would be impressive if it didn’t come at the expense of being ignored. Draco huffs and settles back in his chaise lounge.
“Quimby, what do I have going on this weekend?” He asks the elf.
“Master has a waxing tomorrow morning at the Primped Pygmypuff.”
Draco turns to around to look at him. “And?” He gestures out with his hand, inviting the elf to continue.
“And that’s it, Master. Quimby is not aware of any other engagements.”
“What about Blaise? He was supposed to join me tonight for drinks to celebrate the Ministry awarding me with a Medal of Honour or whatever.”
“They awarded you Honourary Chair to the Medal Advisory Committee, sir. And Lord Zabini has yet to respond.”
“Then send another invitation!” Draco grouses, tired of feeling like he’s the only one here with any real sense anymore. Quimby drops the frond and disapperates away to do his master's bidding. Draco pouts. He had not considered that the fanning would have to stop in order for Quimby to send the letter. He scratches absent-mindedly at the stubble sprouting from his normally smooth chest. Something catches his ear and his sits up suddenly to listen.
From in inside the Manor, someone is shrieking.
“Theo!” He shouts, cupping a hand around his mouth. When Theo doesn't look over Draco tries again with a little more panic in his voice than he intends. His friend finally looks up and catches Draco’s expression. The tumbler in his hands slowly lowers. Another shriek has them both run into the Manor to find the source. It doesn’t take long.
Narcissa Malfoy is one her hands and knees—hands and knees!—scrounging for the scarves, furred robes, jewels, paintings, and numerous other Malfoy family heirlooms are being levitated or else unceremoniously thrown from the balconies down to the grand foyer. “Heathens! Despicable, low-bred, ingraites! How dare you defile our home! How dare you! Lucius—LUCIUS DO SOMETHING!” She cries, her voice going up several octaves.
Lucius Malfoy, for his part, did appear to be doing something. Draco found him gesticulating wildly with a stout wizard who appears to be from the Ministry. “There has been some kind of mistake. This is completely outrageous. I am redacting and further chartible contributions to your department this very instant Mr.Prince. I hope you have good solicitors because you will certainly be hearing from—“
“You have no solicitors, Mr. Malfoy.” Mr.Prince cuts across his father smoothly. Draco is stunned. He doesn't recall ever seeing someone stop his father mid-rant.
“That’s Lord Malfoy to you, boy” Lucius points a menacing finder at him. Draco approaches his father to stand just behind his elbow. His lips turn down in an aristocratic frown at the ministry ponce who looks far too smug when he holds out an official looking scroll of parchment.
“Not anymore” He states, enunciating the ‘t’ with an annoying lilt.
Lucius takes the scroll with sneer and unfurls it, his eyes scanning its contents with rapt attention. Draco sees them widen with every line. His father inhales sharply and looks up. “No.” He rasps. The sudden change in demeanor unsettles Draco.
“By order of the Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, I hereby strip the House of Malfoys of all titles, lands, and inheritances. You will turn over the keys to the Manor as well as your vaults at Gringotts and see yourselves out at once. Let's not make this more difficult than it needs to be, shall we?”
Draco looks from his stricken father to Mr.Prince, and back and forth several times, before balking in disbelief “you’re joking.”
“I’m afraid this is quite serious.” Quips Mr. Prince.
“You’re having a laugh!”
“I’m not laughing.”
“Are we being punk’d?!” Draco cries, referring to the muggle television show he and Theo have taken a liking to as of late. Theo joins them. He’s heard everything and claps a good natured hand on Draco’s shoulder.
“Chin up, Draco. I’ve been leeching off your family for years but I suppose I’d be willing to lend a hand here. The Nott family fortune should be more than enough to hire a league of solicitors and get this all sorted. I will, of course, need to hear a good bit of groveling from you before we get the rescuing bit of my good graces.” Theo shakes his long dark hair away from his eyes which are shining bright with the delight of having the upper hand on Draco for once.
“You are not exempt from this ruling Mr. Nott.” Says the official. Theo’s hand slides off Draco’s shoulder like mud.
“I beg your finest pardon?”
“Since the Malfoy’s officially adopted you, your estates have been combined. The loss of House Malfoy is also the loss of House Nott.”
Theo gapes like a fish, unable to comprehend. Then his gaze finds the pool boys who are being ushered away through the front doors. “No!” He shouts, moving towards them in starts and stops. “Not my boys. Not—not…”
“Goodbye, Monsieur.” The three of them push out their bottom lips and give pathetic little waves. Andre reaches out towards Theo’s limp hand and kisses it.
“Chet, Matteo, Andre, wait!” He calls after them, falling to his knees. They do not look back as their sculpted arses cross the threshold and leave the Manor behind. Theo gets up and runs to Narcissa who hands him a Hermes Scarf to blow his nose in. They both hold each other and wail hard enough to give a screeching banshee a run for her money.
Draco rolls his eyes and looks back at his father who has shakily found a seat and is now holding his head. “Get up Father! Fix this! This can’t possibly be right.”
“This was always a possibility. We’ve been buying off councilors and magistrates at the ministry for years to avoid this outcome. It seems, however, all that goodwill bargaining has been for not. We’re destitute, Draco. I have nothing to my name.”
“That’s not entirely true.” Mr. Prince chided. Draco wishes the man would simply go back to the sad Ministry cubicle from whence he came and leave their family in peace. “Some years ago, you purchased a town in the Cotswolds did you not?” Lucius stills then shifts uncomfortably in his seat.
“You can’t possibly mean—“
“I do. Minister Shacklebolt has kindly allowed you to keep the town. You’re very fortunate. The Mayor has been informed of your situation and is eagerly awaiting your arrival. Here is the deed to the town in case you needed a refresher on the specifics of it.” Another scroll passed between the two wizards. Lucius does not open this one. Draco hovers over him, waiting for him to snap back into himself once more and take charge.
When he doesn’t, Draco exclaims. “But Father! This is great news. Your entrepreneurial prowess has paid off. Which town did you acquire? Bibury? Broadway?” He wracks his brains for any other notable cities or towns in that area. To his surprise, his father’s cheeks begin to redden. Was he—embarrassed? Draco holds out his hand to read the scroll for himself. His father obliges and Draco reads the name of the town aloud.
“Great…Tit…Bottom?”
From behind them, his mother screams “NO!”
….
They take the Night Bus because it is all they can afford. It’s a far cry from the enchanted carriages drawn by golden Pegasi that Draco is used to. He scoffs when he and Theo are forced to sit on the same bench. They shove at each other to get the window seat. Draco wins, of course. With every tight turn the Night Bus takes, Theo takes extra care to squish Draco into the window he had earned. Draco pushes back once the bus straightens and snickers when Theo falls to the ground.
Narcissa leans her blonde head between the two of theirs. “Can you please, for a moment, remember that you are two full grown wizards and not a couple of tittering school children!” She scolds. Draco and Theo bow their heads and in acts of repentance with murmurs of “yes, Mother.” Once she has leaned back Draco casts a jinx at Theo that makes it feel as if a bee as flown up his nose. Theo snorts loudly and Lucius hits him over the head with a newspaper. Draco preens at the win.
Several hours later, the gravel creaks beneath the wheels of the Night Bus as they finally reach their destination. Narcissa’s hand finds her chest as she descends the stairs with her husband and children. “Is this it?” She asks, looking back at the driver. He hacks several times as if he’s a cat working up a hairball. Narcissa looks as if she’s about to fall ill waiting patiently for him to process air in a more dignified way. He recovers and nods.
“Great Tit Bottom, Greywater Lake, Cottage #7. This is it ma’am.”
Narcissa turns away from him. Unable to stomach the idea that she is now a ma’am. Lucius pulls out his coin purse. The only coin purse they have to their name. It’s depressingly light and seems to lose a third of its weight when Lucius doles out the correct fare. Four sets of eyes watch as the coins fall into the calloused hand of the driver. Their trunks are lifted out and deposited directly onto the ground. Then the bus is gone and the only sound any of them can hear are the low hoots of some owls in a nearby tree.
“Who-who! Who-who! Who-who the hell are you?” They seemed to say.
The Cottage might be described as quaint by someone of the working class. As it were, Draco would describe it as “shite”. The lime green door, like a healer’s robes, offended his delicate tastes. It was constructed of the same yellow and grey limestone that the entire town seemed to be cobbled together with. Lucius approaches first with Narcissa and Draco close behind. Only Theo remains unmoved. He coughs pointedly and they all turn.
“Forgetting something?” With one hand in his pocket he uses the other to gesture towards the luggage laying forgotten on the ground.
Narcissa scrunches her face. “The house elves will—“ then she stops. The house elves most certainly will not. She looks at Lucius who squeezes her arm reassuringly.
“Boys? Get those, will you?”
Theo and Draco sputter but Lucius is already turning his wife around and running a hand soothingly between her shoulders. Draco will be doing no such thing. He turns to Theo.
“Get those, will you?”
Theo makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and cough. Draco turns to leave as well but Theo gets him with a leg-locking jinx that fells him like a tree. His wand flies out of his hand. Theo picks it up and twirls it between his fingers. “You get them. You’re always prattling on about how much stronger and more adept you are at everything. And y’know what?” He asks, booping the tip of Draco’s nose with the butt of his wand. “I completely and one hundred percent agree with you. Have fun!” He lifts the jinx as soon as he’s out of strangling proximity.
Unbelievable Draco thinks, dusting himself off and turning back to the luggage. For only having ten minutes to gather whatever that could at the Manor, his family had managed to throw together quite a few trunks. Draco had never carried luggage by hand before. In the most dire of circumstances, when he had to do it himself in the past, he levitated them. Now he grunts and puffs as he hoists them up the mossy, wooden steps. One by one he piles them inside. With the last one he manages to bust open a blister on the inside of his thumb. He sucks on it and thinks of his well stocked stores of salves, dittany, and pain killing potions back home. They didn’t even cross his list of top ten things to get when he had the chance.
The Cottage was even smaller on the inside than it had seemed on the outside. It was comprised of four rooms: a kitchen/dining area, a single bathroom (Draco tried and fails not the shudder), a guest room with two twin beds, and a master bedroom with a single queen in the middle. It’s covered in a lurid floral quilt. His mother is clutching Theo’s hand on top of it and breathing as if about to go into labor.
“Stay with me, Mother. We’re going to get through this together.” Says Theo, patting Narcissa encouragingly. She screws her eyes shut and gives a derisive nod. “Okay. Here we go.” He leans over and wriggles a tag out from under the quilt. He gags but recovers quickly. His reaction does not go unnoticed by Narcissa.
“Is at least a thousand?” She asks, voice quavering.
Theo shakes his head. “Lower”
“Eight Hundred?”
A swallow, then “lower.”
“Surely it’s not below four hundred!?” Narcissa is starting to sound hysterical now.
“It’s two hundred and fifty.”
She turns to him and throws her arms around his neck. “A thread count that low will tear me apart, Theo! My skin will be ruined! My hair will begin falling out and I’ll have to maraud about the streets like a child’s woebegone poppet!”
Draco plucks his wand out of Theo’s breast pocket. His friend is too distracted with his massive sulk to notice. He leaves them and finds his father in the kitchen who is staring listlessly out of the cramped window to the lake beyond. “Can I have a few sickles? I’m going to go find an Apothecary.” Lucius turns to him then lifts the desperately light coin purse.
“There isn’t much here. What kinds of supplies are you needing?”
“Mother is going to need a few Calming Draughts.”
It wasn’t a lie. But Draco hid his smarting thumb from view all the same. His father was far more likely to cough up a few more coins if it was for mother. As if on queue, he nods and doles out a few knuts.
“See what you can get with that.”
Draco audibly groans. Fat load of shite is what a few measly knuts will get him. He feels Lucious raps him on the head with his knuckles. It didn’t hurt. Not really. But it makes Draco feel seven years old again. He mumbles “sorry” and shoulders his way back outside, hands in his pockets and chin on his chest.
He doesn’t have a plan save for walking away from this nightmare that’s become his life. How far was town from Greywater Lake? He wasn’t paying attention when the bus dropped them off. His dragonhide shoes seem ill suited to the walk which takes place on pure cobblestone. A limestone wall lines the left side of the street he finds himself on. Green shrubbery drapes itself over the sides like wooing women. Draco finds a stick and lets it drag along the stones as he walks, deep in his own misery.
About a mile or so on, he begins to regret his choice. His toes are rubbing uncomfortably against the tips of his shoes and he’s deeply worried he took the wrong way. He hasn’t passed a soul and thinks it very odd indeed that the street is as quiet as it is. He thinks he smells smoke and squints. Up ahead, he can make out a smokestack. Who lights a fire in the middle of a summer’s day?
A bakery, as it turns out. Draco cups his eyes like binoculars and presses them against the window to see inside. Breads, croissants, cakes, and pastries, line a glass display cabinet and a wizard with forearms thick as tree trunks is throwing ropes of dough around with practiced movements. Draco’s stomach rumbles uncomfortably and he moves on.
This must be the town. Draco’s lip twitches with disdain as he takes it in. The street he’s on twists and turns and forks with little rhyme nor reason. Each shop looks the same with just slight variations in the types of yellow or grey moss growing on them. He passes an owlry, a grocer, and several shops for things like clothing or stationary. There’s a coffee shop and even—Draco pauses at the display window. Inside is a Nimbus 5000. He blinks. Then blinks hard again. His broomstick.
He could kick himself. Well and truly. He should kick his own arse right here, right now. How could he have remembered to pack his top of the line Quidditch kit but not his bloody broomstick? A wizard walks by him and snickers. “Keep walking, kid. That thing is worth more than the whole town.” Draco leers at the man’s kindly face. Far from striking fear into his heart, the man snickers again and pats him on the shoulder. The nerve!
With another wistful glance, Draco wrenches his eyes away and continues on. Blessedly he sees a sign ahead for Rose Apothecary and walks inside. A bell tinkles and he hears a woman’s voice call out “be there in a moment!” which feels highly unprofessional. Draco scoffs at being told to wait.
The ceiling is low here and banded with large wooden beams. Boughs of drying lavender, sage, and chamomile hang from them in neat little rows. The till is set against a wall of shelves stuffed to the brim with bottles of every size and color imaginable. He’s inspecting a stack of books on foraging the Cotswolds when a curtained doorway rustles and a witch steps out from behind it.
“M-Malfoy?”
He spins on the spot at the sound of his surname and comes face to face with Hermione bleeding Granger. For a moment, neither of them speak and he takes her in. She would be twenty-five now, same as him. But she has changed a great deal since their Hogwarts days. Her hair is just the same only now she ties it back with a colorful triangular scarf. She wears a pharmacist's apron with her wand tucked in the pocket. But unlike a normal pharmacist, she wears a sinfully revealing summer dress underneath. Her bare feet are clad in suede clogs. She looks…she looks…
His eyes snap back to her face as he tries to hide the fact he was just blatantly checking her out. Her lips purse and she puts her hands on hips. “Can I help you?”
Draco, never one to be caught off guard, gives a dignified cough and straightens himself a little taller. “I’m looking for the owner of this establishment, I’m in need of some supplies.” He doesn’t bother to acknowledge their acquaintance.
She quirks and eyebrow. “Speaking.”
Draco shakes his head. “No I need the owner, please nip on back there and fetch him for me.” He waves his hand vaguely towards the curtained-off back room. A ginger cat with a bottlebrush tail peeks out from behind it. Granger snorts.
“It’s just me here, Malfoy. This is my Apothecary. What can I help you with?” She moves behind the till and begins rummaging through a box. Glass vials clink together as she pulls them out one by one and places them in their appropriate spots. Draco is surprised she isn’t putting up more of a fight or even acting flustered by his presence as she once did. She almost seems bored.
He walks over to the wooden partition that separates him from her and runs a finger across it. He brings it up to his eyes to inspect the non-existent dust on it. She stops stocking bottles and narrows her eyes at him. “Tsk, tsk. I’d think an establishment run but an insufferable swot such as yourself would be a bit, oh I don’t know, cleaner?”
Granger pulls out her wand and for a moment Draco prepares himself to be hexed, but she merely uses it to point to a sign that reads as We Hold the Right to Refuse Service to Anyone at Anytime. Underneath the official looking sign is a handwriting note: (that includes you too, Bob!)
“Make one comment about my ‘dirty’ blood status Malfoy and I won’t just throw you out of my store, I’ll throw you on your arse.” Her wand points to Draco now and his throat dries.
“That…isn’t what I meant.” He gets out, feeling genuinely awkward. She’s already moving on. With a deft twirl she stows her wand again and lifts an empty crate off the counter to stow it elsewhere. Draco’s left standing there, unsure of what to do. She asks him again, “did you need something?”
He nods. “Yes, I need three vials of Calming Draught and some Dittany Salve.”
Her backs turns to him to run a finger over the labels on the shelves and he’s rewarded with a few moments of uninterrupted time to give her backside a once-over. He couldn’t find a single thing to critique. Having found what she was looking for she rings up the cost and announces “eight knuts”. He only has four. He looks at her, then at the medicine, then back up at her. He reaches for the dittany and unscrews the lid to give it a sniff and pulls a face.
“This is rancid.”
Her cheeks turns a delightful shade of red and Draco thinks finally. “I’ll have you know that my Apothecary holds one of the highest ratings in the country. My medicines have been awarded multiple times over,” she motions towards a wall that’s probably filled with more than a few fancy pieces of paper—Draco isn’t sure, he doesn’t bother looking—“and I’ve earned myself an Order of Merlin, Second-Class, for inventing a few of my own that have saved countless lives. Rancid my arse, Malfoy.”
Draco does his best to dial his grin down to a dignified curl of his lip. He pushes the Dittany back towards her. “Just the Calming Droughts, if you would please Miss.”
Granger practically punches a hole through her till as she enters the correct amount and collects his knuts. He is entranced as he watches her package up the vials into boxes with swift movements. She hands him the finished product. “Please sir, do come again.” Draco tilts his head towards her and leaves the store, feeling a few inches taller than he had all day.
Back at the Cottage, he finds his family all sitting around the small wooden table looking forlorn. After the Apothecary he had an extra knut. He places the loaf of bread he had purchased with it on the table in front of them. The smell of freshly baked bread seems to awaken something in Theo.
“Cheers, mate.” He says before tearing off a hank and biting into it.
Draco places the package from the Apothecary in front of his mother. She opens it and finds the Calming Draughts. “Thank you, dear.” She says to him with a watery smile.
As they all enjoy the first meal of their new life, Draco looks around and realizes that it’s the first meal they’ve had together as a family in many, many years as well.