Like Clockwork

Chapter One

When Draco found out that Harry Potter had become an Unspeakable, he hurled three bottles of Chateau Mouton at the wall and set his curtains on fire.

"Are you telling me," he breathed, trying to regain hold of his sanity, "that Harry fucking Potter, Boy Idiot, Imbecile Who Lived, had the audacity to actually grow a brain? Are you telling me that not only did he crawl his way out of that team of over-glorified scrappers, but he also managed to secure a position that is widely regarded as the most prestigious and intriguing title one can hold?"

"Draco," Pansy drawled, summoning a new bottle and uncorking it with a faint pop. "Don't you think you're too old for these childish tantrums?"

No, he was not too old. Not when the catalyst in question had the ability to regress him right back to the age of eleven without even being present. How dare Potter even suggest that he was more than just a brute with an overabundance of luck? How dare he prove he was capable of more than blindly pointing his wand at targets and exploding things at will?

This was not fair. This was unjust. This was... This was... bloody sexy, if Draco was honest with himself, and that just made him madder.

He doused the flames with a poorly aimed Aguamenti, soaking the walls and half the window, and held his glass out for Pansy to pour him a new drink.

When he had calmed down enough to speak without ranting, he asked her how she'd learned the news.

"I was searching for something for Millicent's boys for Christmas," she said. "You know how I like to get my shopping out of the way early. So, I went by that Weasley shop in Diagon." She smirked suddenly, hiding it with her glass. "I was a smidge before opening time, it turns out, but they'd forgotten to lock the door on their little pre-work celebration. They were quite abashed when they realised I was there, but the cat was already out of the bag, so to speak."

"The shop," Draco breathed, barely listening.

He tuned out of the rest of Pansy's anecdote about how busy Diagon Alley had been and how dreadful the general public were by way of sound and smell, and began his plans for the following morning. If he'd bothered to notice the way that Pansy was smirking at him, he might have realised he had quite probably walked right into a suspicious trap, but by that point, even he would have acknowledged that the damage was done.

There was just something about Potter that managed to rile Draco up like nothing else, and it didn't help that he'd only gotten hotter since leaving Hogwarts. There was something uniquely infuriating about a man who had the audacity to walk around looking like sex on legs, whilst possessing the most intolerable personality Draco had ever had the misfortune to come across. Still, he supposed it was better than if Potter had both good looks and an attractive personality. At least this way, Draco remained mostly unbothered.

"Sickle for your thoughts?" Pansy asked, smiling at him over the rim of her glass.

"Don't act like you don't know," Draco drawled, draining his glass and summoning the bottle to pour another. "You put them there deliberately, after all."

Pansy only laughed.

*

Draco pushed open the door to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and winced as the gigantic pumpkin above the archway screeched like a cat.

"Welcome!" George Weasley appeared from behind a stack of spinning wheels, the smile falling off his face when he made eye contact with Draco. "Oh, it's you. What do you want, Malfoy?"

"And hello to you too," Draco sneered. "Don't worry—I'm just browsing. No need to stretch your conversation skills."

Weasley snorted. "Wouldn't dream of it. My tongue would probably drop off if I tried to speak fluent ponce. Don't touch the squid display." He pointed to something bright red in the corner that jiggled ominously. "It bites."