harry potter one shots

rumors

Draco Malfoy hadn't believed the rumors when they'd started.

Because that's all they were.

Rumors.

Or so he'd thought.

Draco sighed as he tossed aside another copy of the Daily Prophet, stretching out tiredly on his comfy, sky-blue armchair. Pansy rolled over onto her stomach on his matching sky-blue couch, eyeing him curiously.

"Another Potter Prophet?" she asked, rolling her eyes grumpily when Draco nodded. "Really," she continued, when Draco offered nothing else to the conversation. "They should let this stuff go already! This is obviously some huge play just to cover up Potter's random early retirement from the Auror Force. An insult to injury, if you will."

At this moment, Blaise waddled into the kitchen, balancing a kettle of tea, three mugs, and a small plate of cookies. "Okay, that's a dumb idea, Pans. Harry Potter, Savior of the Wizarding World, Head Auror and role model to children for generations to come, randomly drop out of the Auror force? Bit odd, no?"

"Well, then," Draco mumbled around a delicious mouthful of lemon-raspberry cookie that he'd snatched, a few crumbs falling out of his mouth. "What do you think happened to our dear friend Potter, eh?"

Blaise blanched at that for a second, eyes wide, then stuttered out: "Dunno. Maybe he's got some illness? If not lycanthropy, since you guys are oh-so-disbelieving of such, maybe something? Cancer, perhaps, or- I dunno, some sort of injury?" His voice spiraled higher and higher with each sentence, and Pansy and Draco cast suspicious glances as one another.

"Do tell the truth, Blaise dear, otherwise you might find yourself screeching it while dangling right above The Grand Canyon - and with rope, all Muggle style," Pansy said, quite calmly, nibbling at a dark red cookie (red velvet?).

At this, Blaise let out a soft, sharp sigh, realizing and accepting that he'd been caught, then lowered himself, somewhat shakily, into the other sky-blue armchair - Draco had gotten the couch and three armchairs in a set, the other one was up in his room.

"I was at the Ministry the other day - just checking up on how it was, y'know," Blaise started, looking carefully at Draco. "It's changed quite a bit since the last time - I saw more new faces than old, it was quite interesting. The point being, I was strolling around Level Four for a bit, just peeking, and I passed The Department of Magical Beings. There was this elf there," he said, his face twisting into a slight smile at the thought of it. "It was an old, shabby thing, it was, all sagging, grayish skin and these enormous bluish eyes, sort of grayed with age - the thing was definitely old, I'm assuming, seeing as it had these clumps of white, fluffy hair sticking out its ears. It was wearing this little white toga-"

"Blaise, for heavens sake!" Pansy interrupted, looking rather irritated. "Stop telling us about your new crush on a half-dead elf and get to the point, some of us have, oh, a life, and we'd rather not it be bored to death by your ramblings."

Looking rather miffed and slightly put out, Blaise rolled his eyes and continued. "The elf, in fact, was standing at the kiosk outside The Office of Lycanthrope Affairs, which was quite odd in itself, so I asked it if it knew where it was and what it was doing."

He paused, seeming almost uncertain; Draco's curiosity peaked. "Well, what'd it say, then?"

"It didn't say anything at first, but someone behind the counter handed it a vial - a vial filled with Wolfsbane; the potion was blue as no other potion is."

Draco nodded, still not understanding what point it was that Blaise was trying to make. Several people send their houselves to fetch potions and such for them; why is this specific elf so peculiar to Blaise?