So...

[thornyrose42]

 I'v been off the grid for a while due to being away peer mentoring on a residential drama project for kids at risk of exclusion. It was, in case you wanted to know, amazing but absolutely exhausting. The kids ranged from sensible and mature to down right aggravating. However the other leaders were fantastic, we all bonded really well and had a blast whether we were moaning about the kids or having huge water fights. So glad I did it and will totally do it again next year.

In other news I have finished the spin off fic about Susan Bones giving Draco a job. It is unbetaed and it is actually the first time I've written Draco. Critique is much appreciated and I will eat up any comments you have with a spoon.

As always, characters aren't mine, they belong to JKR, I'm only trying to stick them back together after she broke them.

Title: TBC

“A job?” For once Draco found himself too shocked to drawl.

 

“Yes Malfoy, a job. Its where you work for money.” Susan said testily with a curt gesture for him to sit down.

 

“I know what a job is, I just don’t understand why you’d want to give me one.” He replied draping himself as casually as possible over the chair opposite her desk. She added a piece of parchment to the already trembling stack in her out tray, quickly signed another form then looked up at him and pointed to the door with the tip of her quill.

 

“In case you hadn’t noticed that hall is full of boxes which mainly contain highly dangerous Dark Objects and more are arriving every day.” She returned to the dregs of her in tray,” If they aren’t catalogued,” her quill scratched, “labelled,” scratch, “and stored” scratch, “very soon then something is going to reacted with something else and I will be out of a job because both you and the Manor will no longer exist.” One last flourish. “On the plus side no more paperwork every time your mother wants to visit your father and I’m sure that the Ministry would be ecstatic to hear that the Malfoy problem had been solved so… explosively.” A drawer in the filing cabinet slammed open and the contents of her out tray started to cascade through the air and slot themselves in the relevant files. Susan put down her wand and stared across the desk at Draco. He stared back.

 

“But you… wouldn’t be happy?” 

 

“I don’t see what the house has done to deserve being blown up.”

 

Draco adjusted the sleeve of his robe and leaned back. “So you want me to help.”

 

“No, I want you to work. I want you to work for me. You have experience with Dark Objects - “

 

“Not that much.” He yelped.

 

“More than I do.” She started to tick points off on her fingers, “You can help me sort them in to types, clear out the rooms that they are going to be stored in and fill out all the paperwork that turned up with them. General dogsbody basically. I wouldn’t turn your nose up - “

 

“Believe me I wasn’t going to.” Dogsbody to Bones was several million times better than lurking at the Ministry filling in forms and hiding every time he spotted Potter. 

 

“As I am probably the only person that is willing to employ you that the Ministry will let employ you. Well, what do you say?” 

 

Draco breathed in. There it was: the break he had been looking for ever since the end of the war. After two years of trials and interviews, living off toast and charity, debts both financial and personal nagging at him like thousands of tiny, biting splinters, finally, here was his chance to start the struggle back to normalcy. He would make things better for them. He breathed out.

 

“How much?”

 

“Minimum wage to start off with.” She consulted yet another bit of parchment whilst saying in a brisk fashion, “Quite frankly I don’t think I’ll be allowed to pay you any more, but if you don’t piss me off too much I might be able to get you some more next year.”

 

“Next year?” Draco raised an eyebrow, “I take it that the Manor is going to become the global drop off point for Dark Objects then?”

 

“Not quite, but I’m sure that there will be lots for us to do.” She pushed what turned out to be a contract of employment across the desk to him. “Sign at the bottom.”

 

Draco picked up the scroll and read through the whole thing twice partly because experience had taught him never to sign up to anything without reading the fine print but mainly to annoy her. It didn’t seem to work. When he looked up after signing she was idly censoring one of his mother’s letters while munching her way through a chicken salad sandwich. He tossed the scroll back on the table and the tight, hot feeling of frustration eased slightly when she had to scramble to retrieve the stack of papers that he had knocked over. 

 

Then she was back behind her desk and his petty little victory was over. 

 

“Tomorrow at eight” She waved him off without looking up. 

 

Useless anger and humiliation brought a flush to his cheeks. He got up, his family couldn’t afford for him to make a mess of this, and his hand was on the door knob before his control cracked. 

 

“Look, you aren't doing this because you feel sorry for us are you?” He asked turning back to face her. She looked up, her face stony. “Because Bones that would be fairly sick. I mean forgive and forget is one thing but isn’t this taking it a bit far? Not to be crude or anything but the Death Eaters killed half your family, you were sent here because the Ministry knew that you wouldn’t give an inch, but now your doing me a favour? Why?”

 

She put her quill down. When she spoke her voice was cold and relentless.

 

“Do you know why no one wants anything to do with you Malfoy? Why you can’t get a job? Why all your mother get in reply to her letters to her sister is curses? Its because you didn’t lose anyone. Your family survived, so we took everything else away, your house, your money, your furniture, your photo albums, your stuffed dragon with the missing ear, we took everything we could and it still wasn’t enough. So now we just want to pretend that you don’t exist.”

 

“Does this story have a point?” He interrupted, “I did live through all of this after all and I don’t really need a reminder.”

 

She ignored him.

 

“I don’t like you or your mother and, when he gets back from Askaban, I probably won’t like your father either but this isn’t about you.”

 

“I’m shocked.” 

 

“You are just a symptom.” She said pointing at him. “The Ministry wants to shove the war under the carpet and pretend it didn’t happen or at least, pretend it didn’t happen the way it did.”

 

He slouched against the door and said with false brightness:

 

“Ah, so the Ministry didn’t collapse as soon as the Dar - ahem- You Know Who looked in their direction and everyone else didn’t sharply fall into line, pausing only to feed the guy beside them to the Dementors before sticking their fingers in their ears and going la la la for a year.”

 

“Those in glass houses Malfoy.” She said lightly, “But it isn’t even just pretending that there wasn’t extensive collaboration by people in and out of the Ministry, its like the whole year didn’t happen.” Again she began ticking points off savagely on her fingers, “No Carrows, no Registration Act, no deaths. You get the occasional “My Great Escape” story from someone who buggered off to Italy through Snitch Airways but they try not to mention the part where the movement was brutally shut down and everyone involved died. They practically paid the kids that survived Section Uma Welta to stay quite about that hellhole!” She got to her feet and moved towards the window as if driven, “Over half of the Muggleborns in Britain died that year and yet the only people we hear about are our noble dead, the heroes that died at Hogwarts because that is the only bit that counts.”

 

“Well obviously. Bones, winning is the only thing that matters.” He studied her closely as he spoke. this was more passion than he had seen for her ever since she had taken over the Manor.

 

She snorted. “Maybe to a Slytherin.”  

 

“Yes, but we didn’t win, did we?” Anger brought a snap to his usual drawl, “We were driven out of that hall at wand point…”

 

“Right into the arms of your Death Eater family.”

 

“If only.” 

 

She turned around sharply, “No I forgot, you stayed behind, you stayed behind to capture Harry Potter and got your friend killed.” 

 

“I told them to stop!” He bit his lip and saw triumph flash across her face. He breathed, licked his lips and then said quietly. “Not like you, I bet it was all: “Oh Justin, saving Mudbloods is so heroic! So daring!””

 

“Stop it!” Her eyes flashed. He had hit a nerve.

 

“You could have told him to go, to save himself, I bet he would have gone if you’d begged, if you’d pleaded, if you’d really wanted him to leave.” He found himself stalking forward, the taste of power pushing all restraint aside.

 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She pushed past the desk to meet him.

 

“Did you honestly think he could get everyone out?” He almost had her, “It was very Hufflepuff all this never leave a man behind rot. But you must have known that they’d catch him eventually. I heard he burned.” Abruptly her wand was at his throat. She held it perfectly still but her eyes were bright with tears. It wouldn’t take much more. He could break her. “Funny how heroes die just the same as us villains.” Her wand twitched and despite himself he smirked. She stared at him and then, still holding his gaze, brought her wand down and sheathed it. 

 

“No.” Her voice was once again cold and controlled, “You’re not worth it.”

 

“Look Bones I don’t know what it is you are trying to achieve…” He could feel desperation creeping into his voice and he was almost glad when she cut him off.

 

“Neither do I.” She turned away and went to the window. “Not yet. But I’ve heard whispers about dumping some files from that year down here and where some go others follow…. Dennis Creevey wants to write a book.”

 

“A reference library? Granger will be so pleased with you.” 

 

“I honestly don’t care.”

 

“Well I’m sure….”

 

“Your opinion doesn’t matter either Malfoy so you can show up tomorrow at eight and do what I tell you to or you can stay in the kitchen and sulk.” She leaned against the window sill, once again in command, “Its your choice.”

 

He turned to leave but couldn’t resist one last parting shot.

 

“So I suppose you think dear Justin would approve…”

 

“OUT!”

 

 

Comments

[softly-me.livejournal.com]

See? There is no need for thumbscrews. It took a while because of work and school and I seemed to have a lot to say.

Let's see, then, where to begin.

I think you did a great job writing our favorite Slytherin. You avoided the usual mistake us fangirls fall into which is making Draco far more impressive than he is. We like to think he's just wit and good hair and bad boy charm, but he really isn't at all. There's some wit, of course, but the last few books made it clear that he is very human indeed. You capture this human side effortlessly with little things like the way he 'yelped' and hid from Potter at the Ministry and pettily tried to provoke Susan. I also like the way he was Malfoy from the first few books - the one thing he's really good at is getting under people's skin. It was great to watch him push her buttons perfectly - his own little revenge for the humiliation he was feeling. Spot-on character wise.

I love what you've done with Ms. Susan Bones. She's someone who matters very little in the books and only pops up in the fanfics from time to time, but you really took her to a whole new level. The only thing we really know about her is that she lost all her family in the war and you built on that to give a fully-developed character. She's angry and bitter and deals with Draco in a way that is completely believable.

'After two years of trials and interviews, living off toast and charity, debts both financial and personal nagging at him like thousands of tiny, biting splinters, finally, here was his chance to start the struggle back to normalcy. He would make things better for them.

I liked several things about this bit. Your description of how he had been living was the perfect mix of general ('trials and interviews') and specific ('toast' =D). It's really hard to get descriptions like that to be so informative while drawing a clear image in the reader's head. The metaphor for splinters was also very good. I'm always afraid to go throwing in metaphors like that because I worry it will sound forced. And, of course, I love that Draco is concerned about taking care of his family. Malfoys stick together.

'“Do you know why no one wants anything to do with you Malfoy? Why you can’t get a job? Why all your mother get in reply to her letters to her sister is curses? Its because you didn’t lose anyone... So now we just want to pretend that you don’t exist.”

This entire speech was brutal and biting. It may be my favorite part. I can almost feel the bitterness she feels that the Malfoy's didn't lose anyone at all.

'“...and everyone else didn’t sharply fall into line, pausing only to feed the guy beside them to the Dementors before sticking their fingers in their ears and going la la la for a year.”'

*giggles* Pure Draco.

One quick grammar thing : In ‘“Not that much.” He yelped.’, the ‘H’ should not be capitalized - ‘“Not that much,” he yelped.’ This is the general rule for most phrases like 'she said' and 'he asked'. They aren't sentences on their own.

So, I enjoyed this immensely. Now where is your Draco/Asteria story, hmm?

[thornyrose42.livejournal.com]

But... but I haven't been able to use the thumbscrews for ages! They are getting seriously rusty.

Anyway first of all thank you very much for this lovely long review I am very glad that you defeated the demon of Real Life and managed to write it. Twas certainly worth the wait. :-)

Ta for the grammar pointing out, it was never my strong point and I always bow before the knowledge of others. I've actually sent it off for beta and hence to Checkmated. Draco feels very put upon as being forced in to a R/H archive is his idea of torture. But seriously I cannot find any where else to put it! Was UR the only Draco website? Surely that cannot be!

I'm so glad that you felt that Draco was IC. I was especially worried since it has been ages since I read the books and generally I stay away from the canon characters that get a lot of screen time for fear of making a fool of myself. But fortunately I think that I managed to keep LeatherPants!Draco at bay. This Draco would not be able to afford leather pants even if he wanted to wear them. I must admit that the more I write him the more he grows on me as a character. Not that I didn't like him before but I was, as you know, much more interested in the pervious generation of Slytherins. But his flaws make him all that more fun to write.

Susan I think is me returning back to my favourite place: exploring little known characters in far too much detail. She does mellow slightly towards Draco in later years and she has a soft spot for Scorpius but she is still a very effective warden. Also in my own personal canon she and Dennis Creavy, who goes to the Manor library to research for his books on the war, have a slightly destructive relationship that involves them bonding over their shared desire to tell the truth about the war, guilt over their dead families and hot library sex.

Of course Malfoy's primary objective is taking care of his family, why would anyone think other wise? (Yes I am looking at you HBP movie.)

I think in way this fic and the other potential fics in this verse are a sort of rebuttal to all the fics that have the Malfoys retain some measure of their position of supremacy after DH purely, as far as I can see, so that they can keep Scops as the rich snobby one and thus re-enact all of their D/H, D/Hr and D/G fantasies with nothing having really changed.

Where as me? I think it is really interesting that the Malfoys are now the lowest of the low. And everyone hates them. Which is great for fics!

As for Draco/Asteria fic... well technically the Cissy fic which I am meant to be writing has them in it, but a) I'm sort of stuck on that one and b) they aren't in it much. I did write a drabble about them but it suffered from me wanting to include more exposition than character. It was the drabble that wanted to be bigger. I'm going to post that soon. Actually the exposition demon is really difficult to control in these fics, I just want to explain everything, but then I remember that it is a fic not an essay and I have to do some serious pruning.