Canary Creams and New Yellow Paint - (DRARRY)

Chapter One

Draco stops mid-incantation and risks a glance at the clock. The knock comes again just as the minute hand noses its way past the top. His office is wonderfully secluded, with no windows, a large oak desk that keeps a good bit of distance between him and visitors, and uncomfortable chairs for everyone but himself.

It does not lend itself to interruptions. He carefully ties away the loose ends of his spell and removes his Reveliospecs. If Draco wants privacy, he's chosen the wrong line of work. The knock is more insistent this time, so Draco flicks his wand at the heavy door, and it bangs open.

His secretary jumps back, startled. There's always been a fidgety way about her. When Theia first applied, he thought she couldn't be more than a year out of school, a dandelion waiting to be blown about by a strong wind. He has to admit now that he was wrong. For all her fidgeting, Theia is tough, never minces words, and remains the only secretary he's ever had that he can roll up his sleeves around without thought.

"Yes, thank you, Theia." He rises from behind his desk and grabs the manilla folder from her hand. "I'll see to them now."

"Hold on a minute, Mr Malfoy," Theia begins in her lilting Irish accent. "I figured you could do with a warning, he's—"

Draco has already crossed the shiny wood floors and pushed into the patient's room.

He shuts the door behind him with a soft snick and scans the file. It'll be a fairly standard case. The patient is middle-aged, male, and otherwise uninjured aside from the damage to his eye. Curse magic. That's usually what brings them in.

"You've already been to St Mungo's, correct? Usually, they try for reattachment before they send a case my way. So, how'd you sustain your injury, Mr..." His eyes jerk up. "Potter?"

Potter doesn't look surprised to see him, which means Draco's at a disadvantage. He wishes, for once, that his name weren't carved into every door.

Potter holds up a pair of damaged Spectroculars, the lenses dangling from their frames, seemingly burnt to a crisp. He has on an eye patch, satiny black with a skull and crossbones emblem stitched into the fabric. Perhaps that's meant to be ironic.

"Merlin," Draco whispers. "What happened?"

"You tell me." There's hatred sewn so deeply into Potter's words that Draco takes a step back.

"How would I know?" Draco asks.

"They're your product."

"I'm not responsible for how people use them."

Potter reaches up a hand and tugs off his eye patch.

The skin where Potter's eye used to be is unmarked. It's as if someone smoothed his features away with their thumb, and left just a concave divot in his face. The eye itself is gone, and so are the lids.

Draco crosses the distance between them. He's just about to tip Potter's chin up to better access the light when Potter says, "Don't."

Draco waits, his hand hovering above Potter's jaw.

"Wand on the table," Potter says.

With great reluctance, Draco tugs his wand from his sleeve and places it flat on the counter. When he steps back in front of Potter, something jams just beneath his ribs. Draco lets out a startled exhale.

He doesn't have to look to know that any wrong move will get him cursed.

"Okay," Potter breathes. "Tell me what's wrong."

Draco fumbles in his pocket for a rubber glove and snaps it on. Then he reaches out a finger and brushes over Potter's skin, feather-light. There isn't anything unexpected.