Canary Creams and New Yellow Paint - (DRARRY)

Chapter Twelve

Draco had to ask at least thirty different people at the Ministry where the Centaur Liaison office was before he finally got an answer instead of raucous laughter.

It's a piddling excuse of a workplace, hidden away on the fourth level, stuffed between the Goblin Liaison office and the beginning of the Spirit Division. He honestly can't believe he was willing to come here to ask for favours, but he doesn't have any better ideas.

He'll do this for his son. He'd do anything for his son.

When Draco knocks on the door, there's no answer, so he eases it open and peeks inside.

Lavender is hunched over her desk with her leg propped up on the top, struggling to paint her toenails.

When she sees him, her eyes go wide and she falls off her revolving chair. A bottle of nail polish clatters to the ground and spills baby blue across the carpet.

"Hello." He clears his throat.

"Malfoy!" She springs up from behind the desk, rubbing a hand against her side like she's hurt it. "For Circe's sake, what are you doing here?"

He walks farther into the room, closing the door behind him and waving his wand to right the bottle of polish. He Levitates it onto the desk again and Vanishes the evidence of its fall. "I've come to ... well, I won't beat about the bush. I'd like to ask a favour."

She sits back slowly in her chair, face impassive. Then, she gestures to the chair in front of her, and he takes it, tucking his hands between his knees.

"You can ask," she says, beginning to straighten papers on her desk — half of which are Witch Weekly magazines — "but I'm really rather busy these days. Lots of work to do. Lots of centaurs to liaise."

"Yes, it's about that. You see, my son is running for the position of the Ministry's Official Magical Creature Liaison. He'd be working with everything except centaurs, goblins, and dragons, I believe."

"Mhm." Distractedly, she opens a drawer and stuffs a few of the items on her desk inside, using some type of filing system he's not sure anyone else could figure out. "And you want him to hear what it's like to really work one of these positions?"

"Not ... exactly."

"It's far more difficult than people think. You're always ever so busy, but, well, we do it because it's what we love. Best job in the world."

He looks around the cramped office, the peeling edges of star charts Spellotaped to her walls, the moth-eaten curtains, and the single photograph sitting on her desk — a picture of her and one of the Patil twins waving at the camera, at least six years younger than they are now.

"It's a shame you don't have more free time. We were hoping you'd be able to vouch for the existence of a certain species that has remained hidden until now. They're causing a lot of problems, trying to get our attention."

She laughs softly. "Yes, well, as you can see." She gestures to her desk. "Busy, busy, busy."

He taps his fingers on the arm of his chair, thinking. This isn't as easy as he wanted it to be. He'd thought the hardest part would be getting past his pride and asking for help from someone who could very well hate him at the moment.

"They're the reason my prostheses have been malfunctioning. Whatever you're seeing, it's a message from the Wallygagglers, wanting to get in contact with us."

"Wallygagglers, hm? I hope you figure it out," she says tightly.

He looks at the photograph again, peering at it more closely. He could never tell the twins apart out of uniform, but he knows which one was in Gryffindor, and that seems like a better shot than any.