Way Down We Go

Chapter 10

Chapter Text
Draco wakes to the smell of soupe de poisson à la rouille.

It's distinctive: the caramelised onions and brandy and heated beef stock. He can't tell from scent alone if whoever is making it has added sherry or eggs but he can smell garlic and saffron and—

It smells like his childhood.

It smells like his mother.

It's jarring, actually, as he moves from sleeping to waking—half-formed memories of standing on a stool so he could peer over the kitchen counter as his mother hand-stirred a simmering pot, singing in French; the house elves wringing their hands over their mistress doing all the work.

He sits up, pushing away the phantom feeling of his mother's fingers in his hair; the lilt to her voice as she called him mon prince.

Potter has his hip braced against the kitchen counter, squinting at a sheet of paper in one hand, the other pointed—rather lazily, really, Draco thinks, but that's to be expected from Potter—at the hob, where a spoon is stirring something in a large granite pot.

There is vegetable and herb detritus on the counter next to the stove and a second, smaller, pot in the sink that looks to have burned insides and an assortment of knives and measuring cups and bottles and eggshells spread across various accommodating surfaces.

"What," Draco says, "and I cannot stress this enough: the fuck."

Potter jumps and the self-stirring spoon slides despondently down into its pot.

"Bugger," Potter mutters, and then uses another spoon to fish it out by hand instead of using his ridiculous magical ability.

The Chosen One, indeed.

"You're awake!" Potter says.

Obviously.

"I mean, yeah. Obviously. Good. Here."

He collects two glass jars from the fridge and hands them over the back of the sofa.

Draco downs their contents, then judges himself a little for his blind trust as he hands the empty jars back.

Then again, if Potter wanted him dead he'd have had ample opportunity over the past several weeks. He certainly wouldn't be cuddling him in wolf form and cooking him French food, which leads Draco back to his initial question:

What the fuck.

"I don't know how to pronounce it," Potter says, because of course he doesn't, "but Pansy said this was one of your favourite meals and I thought—well the potions look pretty awful—and I've been wanting new recipes to try, so."

It seems Potter is still incapable of completing a single sentence.

However, judging by Draco's past experience with Potter's culinary experiments...he's not an incapable cook.

"It smells good," Draco allows.

Potter grins: crooked and honest, and scrubs a hand through the back of his hair, the bit not tied up into a stupid topknot on the crown of his head.

"Ah. Good. It should be ready in just a minute. I know it's not exactly breakfast food but it's past breakfast time anyway and—"

Draco sits all the way up from the disaffected slouch he'd been carefully constructing.

"No. What time is it? The deliveries. I was—"

"Oh," Potter says, abruptly turning back to the stove. "Don't worry about that. I took care of it."