Chapter 3: Fly Boys
Draco Malfoy was exhausted. If you had told him two days ago that he'd be spending an entire day in Diagon Alley trotting to catch up with a wildly shopping Pansy Parkinson, while lugging all of her insane number of purchases, he'd have laughed a long, drawn-out laugh, and, gasping for breath, told you to get the hell out before he sicced his personal assistant on you. And you would have taken him very seriously indeed, because Natasha was not someone you wanted after you - not even if she had legs up to there and silky hair down to here and great big handfuls of-
No, none of that mattered, because Natasha was an absolute monster masquerading as the very lovely personal assistant to Draco Malfoy. Being the head of Malfoy Publishing was no easy task, and being his personal assistant was even more difficult. Both jobs required aggressiveness in spades, and both Draco and Natasha certainly filled more than their respective quotas.
I'd give anything to be Natasha right now, Draco thought desperately to himself as he slumped against the wall outside Pansy's twenty-seventh dressing room. Surely then he would have handled this situation better. Surely he didn't have to stand there gawping like an idiot when Pansy had showed up on his doorstep a mere twenty hours after his re-entrance into the country, demanding that he accompany his best friend - "Who you haven't seen for more than a few hours at a time since leaving Hogwarts!" - on a random shopping spree. And had Draco imagined it, or had Pansy mentioned his escorting her to the Ministry ball that night? Not to mention, surely if Draco miraculously found himself inhabiting his God-send of a personal assistant's body, he wouldn't allow himself to be used as a luggage trolley.
Ignoring what his mother had told him as a child about always maintaining proper decorum, Draco groaned and hung his head, not caring that one of Pansy's larger packages was currently digging into his back.
"What's that, Draco?" Pansy's voice floated through the gauzy curtains that separated her from the rest of the high-end shop.
"Nothing, nothing." Draco rolled his eyes. He may have loved Pansy like a sister, but he'd be damned if he was going to allow her to get away with using him without exacting some form of retribution himself. At the prospect of retribution, the patented Malfoy smirk made a brief appearance. Nothing like developing an airtight plan for revenge to make being subjected to torture worth it, he thought to himself almost cheerfully.
The curtains flew open, as Pansy stepped out and onto a round platform facing a wall full of floor-to-ceiling mirrors.
"Pansy?" Judging by the reflected expression of the man seated behind her, Pansy thought it seemed as though Draco was concentrating very hard on something.
"Yes, doll?" Pansy spun so that her backside was facing the mirrors and craned her neck around, pushing her generous posterior out a bit.
The ghost of a smirk that had flitted onto Draco's face just minutes earlier was back, looking less like a ghost and more like a…well, more like a still-living person. "Won't you get into trouble?" His voice was the epitome of innocent curiosity.
"For what?" Here Pansy turned again to face the mirrors, stuck a hand on her right hip, cocked her left leg, and pouted. Shaking her head, she swiftly bent forward and pushed her silk-clad breasts together, nodding in a more satisfied manner.
"Well…for stealing a bit of the shop's dressing room curtains."
Draco couldn't help but chuckle at the rude gesture that Pansy flashed in his direction shortly before flouncing back into the dressing room with her head held high.
Needless to say, when Pansy and Draco finally exited the shop an hour later, he didn't have to worry about having yet another shopping bag to drag along.
Shortly after the final battle at Hogwarts, Draco was sent away by his parents to stay with a few of his mother's relatives in France. Finishing his seventh year studies at Beauxbatons, he was subsequently ordered by his father to Malfoy Publishing's main offices in Paris. In the beginning, many of the seasoned employees there were torn between fear that the Malfoy heir would report back to his father with unfavourable reviews of them, and contempt that a seventeen-year-old boy was given all the same privileges as they, simply because his surname happened to be whispered with respect in the highest echelon of wizarding society. Although, you'd have thought that witches and wizards who worked with the published word on a daily basis would have cited: "Never judge a book by its cover" as their golden rule.
Draco was no fool. Acutely aware of the pressure placed upon him from the moment he was afoot in France, he set out to prove himself more than worthy of his famous surname. At Hogwarts, he had cultivated his reputation as the resident wealthy brat. If you had accused him of treating those outside of Slytherin House in a deplorable fashion, Draco would have retorted that he'd have liked to see you try to act the part of the Hogwarts angel when you happened to have a rich Death Eater for a father. If life pelted lemons at you, what kind of deluded idiot thought that he could somehow squeeze apple juice out of them? Not that Draco really was an angel in hiding, or anything. He always had thought that Hagrid was an oversized loaf, that Ron Weasley had a hilariously annoying habit of tripping over his own gigantic feet in much the same way that a blind flamingo would, and that Hermione Granger really needed to invest in a Gringotts vault's worth of Sleekeazy products. Some facts just couldn't be denied.
Yet France held no Hagrid, no Granger, and no Weasley - not that Draco would have been too surprised if a Weasley had turned up in France, considering his strong suspicion that the Weasley clan simply hadn't been around when the rest of the world was introduced to the concept of birth control. Thus, Draco left Beauxbatons at the top of his new French peers, with no new enemies, and amidst a gaggle of adoring witches who spoke in lilting accents that made Draco question his parents' decision to live in England. At his family's offices, he proved to be a more than capable leader - he never set out a task that he himself couldn't perform. Even the most cynical of employees grew to respect, and eventually to love, the youngest Malfoy. Within a year, Malfoy Publishing had been drastically revamped. Another year, and the corporation shifted from old-money hobby to malleable competitor. A month, and Draco had somehow acquired the personal assisting paragon that was Natasha. One more year, and Lucius officially signed everything over to his son. Word was spreading about the Malfoy who had more of a head for sharp business stratagems than mask-wearing, cloak-twirling theatrics.
Yes, Draco Malfoy had certainly come into his own. No more greasy hair products, no more juvenile-Death-Eater wardrobe ("Seriously, Mother, stop sending me knickerbockers. I'm eighteen years old now, for God's sake!"), and no more appalling behaviour. English Draco would not have recognized French Draco. At Hogwarts, Millicent Bulstrode and Theodore Nott had drooled over him. In France, Draco was king. And oh, was it ever good to be king.
"So."
"Mmm?" Draco held a blouse up to Pansy, as she looked through some slip dresses in Madame Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. They had just come from lunch, which had done an admirable job of infusing Draco with more energy. Bring on the dressing rooms, he thought to himself as he replaced the blouse (Hideous shade of orange, does absolutely nothing for Pansy's complexion, Draco had finally decided) and wandered deeper into the store in the vague direction that Pansy had gone off.
"Why are you back again? If it's to marry me, I'm sorry but I've known ever since we were in sixth year that I'm too good for you," Pansy called from a display of evening shoes. "Not to mention, I've made quite a name for myself in advertising and I refuse to let you impinge on my hard-won independent woman status."
Draco chuckled, taking a seat on a pink pouffe. "I've decided to rework the London offices myself," he answered, watching as Pansy slipped a golden sandal onto her left foot and a red high-heeled pump onto her right.
"How long are you staying?" Pansy stood up from her own purple pouffe and took an awkward couple of steps.
"I'm considering moving back permanently, actually. Kindly refrain from stalking me if I do choose to do so."
"Why are you worrying about me stalking you? You do know that Theodore's newly single and never likes to stay that way for long if he can help it," Pansy retorted.
"Maybe I should look into opening offices in America. Not that I think a major ocean would keep Nott away," Draco muttered darkly, recalling the terrifying time in third year that he had woken up in the middle of the night to find Theodore staring at him from across their darkened dormitory. When Draco had asked him what the hell he thought he was doing, Theodore had nearly smiled brightly and shut the curtains around his bed. Draco had tried to ignore what sounded a lot like muffled groans that hadn't ceased for another half an hour.
It seemed that Pansy remembered the incident as well (Draco had sworn her to secrecy the following morning). Pansy laughed out loud, though it was cut short when she caught her high heel on a shoebox and stumbled, flailing her arms around for a few moments before finally regaining her balance. "Blaise misses you," she said as she glared at Draco, who was failing miserably at maintaining a poker face.
"Of course he misses me," Draco replied, sounding bored now. "He's stuck all day working alongside Percy Weasley. I'm surprised he hasn't done anything drastic yet."
"Drastic?" Pansy took off the sandal and put on the other red pump. "There was that time a few weeks ago that he slipped a Vanishing potion into Weasley's morning cup of tea."
"I'd have paid to see that one." Draco smirked. "The day that a Weasley finally lets his orange hair down."
"Blaise has pictures, I'm sure he wouldn't mind gloating about it again," Pansy said as she strutted around in front of Draco. Suddenly, she stopped. A dreamy look crossed her pretty features. "Who knew a Weasley boy was capable of packing that, anyway?" At the thoroughly revolted look on Draco's face, her lips curved up into a smug smile. "Oh, don't worry, darling. My virginal heart will always love you the best."
Draco snorted. "Virginal my a-"
Bells tinkled as the door to Madame Malkin's Robes for All Occasions opened, effectively cutting him off. Madame Malkin herself swept magnificently from behind a back counter and moved to greet the newcomers in the front of the shop.
"Ah, Lavender, dear!" Madame Malkin called, air kissing the outrageously dressed brown-haired young woman. "Looking for a gown to wear to tonight's ball?" She smiled in an indulgent manner.
"No, actually," Lavender answered, gesturing at the other young woman who had entered just behind her. "Nothing for me today, I'm styling Ginny Weasley."
From a couple of pink and purple pouffes situated in the back of the shop just out of the line of sight of the three women currently gathered in the front, two former Slytherins stared in joint silence.
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