For What Is Broken | Drarry

Chapter 2

"You can't leave." Draco's voice made Malcolm pause in the act of patting down his pockets, in the way he always did when he was trying to remember where he had left his wand. The man only ever did it one of two times: when he was finally ready to get some work done after a prolonged period of faffing about, or when he was about to leave the shop. Given that Draco was currently occupied with their only repair project, he knew it had to be the latter. "He'll be here any minute now."

Malcolm waved off Draco's warning. "I'm not leaving." At Draco's sceptical look, he amended, "I'm not leaving yet. Obviously, I'll wait until after my little tête-à-tête with the world's most famous man."

Draco scoffed at his choice of words. "I don't think he's interested in getting to know you." And then, after a pause, "And he's hardly the world's most famous man. I doubt he's even the most famous man in wizarding Britain anymore."

That part was untrue, and they both knew it.

"You're always such a pessimist." Malcolm clapped him on the shoulder and affectionately mussed his hair, a habitual gesture that Draco detested. All that effort he put into styling his hair every day, and Malcolm could never resist ruining it. "Everything will be fine. Don't worry about it so much."

"I'm not worried," Draco insisted, though he was, slightly. He didn't know what this Ministry investigation boded for the future. In the worst-case scenario... Well, he would not let himself entertain the worst-case scenario. But even the most bearable of the bad outcomes was not something he wanted to imagine. He didn't know what he would do if he lost this job, or if he lost Malcolm, for that matter.

Malcolm had always treated Draco well, even during the times when almost no one else had. Malcolm had already been on the late side of middle age when Draco had first seen the 'Help Wanted' sign in the shop window and had come to plead with him for a job. In the years since, Malcolm had changed very little: grey-haired and perpetually unshaven, with deep laugh lines around his crooked smile.

Still a pain in the arse, always ruffling Draco's hair just to hear him grumble and never taking anything too seriously, even when the occasion warranted it.

Draco tried to reason with him. "I just don't think we should treat this lightly. If the Auror Office is involved, then—"

The jingle of the bell over the door interrupted them. Draco tensed, expecting to see Potter's messy dark hair, but he relaxed when he realized it was just a customer looking to peruse the shop. Draco smoothed his expression into something milder, greeting the fortysomething woman with impeccable politeness. When he glanced back, Malcolm had disappeared into the shop's back room, probably hoping to avoid Draco's lecture on the merits of a cautious and pragmatic lifestyle.

Draco sighed. If Malcolm wanted to end up on the wrong side of the Ministry by treating his obligations to the Auror Office like a joke, then at least it couldn't be said that Draco hadn't tried.

"Would you like me to wrap that up for you?" Draco offered when the woman brought her selection up to the counter a few minutes later, an antique wizard's chess set. It was a beautiful piece, wrought in gilt and enamel. Draco made a mental note of the display case she had taken it from, already thinking about how to rearrange the shelf to fill the vacant space.

"Yes, that would be lovely, thank you." She smiled as she said it, and Draco was glad she didn't seem to recognize him. In the first year after the war, hardly anyone had shown him such small kindnesses. Not that he could blame them—the pictures of Draco and his family at their trial had been front page news at the Daily Prophet.

He busied himself with packaging up the customer's purchase, a few practiced motions of his wand to secure the chess set in thick brown paper and twine. She had just handed him her money when the bell over the shop's door chimed once more.