Chapter Text
He was known as the miracle worker, the chemist, the herbalist, the potions maker. Everyone in the small town tucked into the Scottish highlands knew that Draco Malfoy was a wizard and a bloody good one. They also knew that he wished to leave the war behind him and make a new name for himself, one that wasn’t tied to his dark history and his even darker family. He prided himself on helping people, atoning for his past sins, and ignoring the larger wizarding community. His life was a quiet one, filled with a few people in the town that had become his surrogate family, and his days were centered around his work.
Nine years had passed since the Wizarding War. Shortly after the battle, Draco had cut all ties with his family. As much as it had pained him to no longer see his mother, he knew it had to be done. Lucius had nearly destroyed their family with his fanatical devotion to the Dark Lord. Draco quietly traded letters with his mother now, but he had not seen her – or his father – since the day Voldemort had fallen. Once he had effectively disowned himself from his family, Draco had packed his bags and moved to a small village in the Scottish highlands. Using most of the money in his name, Draco purchased a small shop in the center of the village and renovated the second floor to a cozy little apartment. Within the month he had opened the doors of The Dragon’s Cauldron and lived above his shop.
The village was small by anyone’s standards, but suited Draco’s needs. It held no more than three hundred occupants – most of them wizards and witches, the rest were Muggles. Strangely, the Muggles knew of the wizards and loved them. They came to the magically gifted for healing, for love, for help. In return, the Muggles protected the secret presence of the magical community in their sleepy and isolated village. The town didn’t often get visitors, but when they did, the Muggles gently warned the wizarding community to lay low on the magical front and try to blend in (which didn’t always go so well). Most of the Muggles in the town were married to witches or wizards and many hoped that one day, other towns in the UK would follow suit.
When Draco had opened his shop nine years before, everyone had known who he was and had been reluctant to go to him. He specialized in potions and herbal treatments and remedies. After the events of the War, he wanted to help others and try to repay his debt to the community. Soon enough, the town figured out that he was nothing like his family name – and finally acquiesced to his plea to be known as Draco Black instead of Draco Malfoy. In the intervening nine years, they had welcomed him into the town, made him a part of the family, and trusted him completely. A few of the residents had even adopted him into their families. Surprisingly, it was three Gryffindors that had taken him under their collective wing.
Angelina Johnson, who taught physical education at the local primary school along with coaching the youth football club, had been the first to befriend him. She had been sent to his shop to purchase a remedy for a sprained ankle one of the boys in her youth football club had sustained during practice. Over time, she kept coming back, having realized that Draco was a gifted potions master – and desperately in need of a friend, even if he would never admit to it. Eventually, she invited him to dinner one night and they had begun a tentative bond. Now, she popped into his shop twice a week to pick up supplies and keep him company during the afternoon lull.
The second year Draco lived in the tiny village, Angelina had drug in a very sick Seamus Finnigan, who was spluttering about not going to a bloody Slytherin for help with the very potent respiratory bug he was suffering from. The cold had mutated oddly, Draco discovered, as every time Seamus sneezed, any object in his line of fire would catch fire from the sparks that would fly from his nose and then proceed to explode. Between bouts of laughter, Draco had brewed a remedy for Seamus while Angelina ran interference with the fiery sneezes. After he had stopped accidentally lighting things on fire, Seamus had realized what Angelina had the year before – Draco was a brilliant man, and perhaps now that he was far away from the larger wizarding community, his sour temperament had mellowed a bit.
The week after Seamus’s exploding cold, he had practically hauled his boyfriend, Dean Thomas, into the shop. Seamus had spent ten minutes showing off Draco’s shop to Dean, expounding the Slytherin’s skill to his boyfriend. Dean had finally halted Seamus’ excited talk with a kiss and asked Draco if he’d like to come over for dinner that night as a thank you from them for saving their apartment and most likely half the village from exploding.
After that, it became a weekly routine on Sunday afternoons for Draco to go across the street to Seamus’ pub, The Flying Quaffle, and watch British soccer matches on the sole television in the pub with the boys and Angelina. Dean spent his days running the local newspaper – a hybrid of wizarding and muggle news that decidedly ignored anything to do with the rest of the world. Perhaps that was the reason Draco loved the town most; it was far away from anyone who cared about his past and small enough that he could feel like he belonged. The town was quiet, peaceful, full of life, and Draco finally had a family of his choosing. Everything was perfect – until that git Harry Potter waltzed into town and turned his whole world upside down.