Toxic

Declaring War

I'm falling...

Draco held his breath as he gave the liquid in his cauldron one, two, three counter-clockwise stirs and then stepped back slightly, waiting anxiously. The last time he had gotten this far in the concoction, it had chosen to explode and it took him hours to get the sticky remnants out of everything and nearly ruined all his notes. There were still residual mud green stains on most of them.

For the last few years he had devoted himself to working on potions that affected the mind. Namely, that when taken would protect the user from magic aimed at controlling the mind. While ultimately he hoped to develop it to protect against dark magic such as the Imperius Curse, for the time being he hoped to find a way to block the most basic of memory charms, figuring that was as good as any place to start.

The liquid continued swirling, slowly changing from forest green to a light, mint color. Happy that it hadn't exploded this time, he breathed a sigh of relief and walked over to his notebook, bending over to write his observations down, though he kept a steady eye on the simmering potion.

When he was locked up in his lab, it was almost as though nothing had changed. He could pretend that Watkins was in his office and he had never been looked over for a promotion that clearly should have been his. It had been a few days since Liv, er, Olivia - no, De Loughrey - started but Draco had rarely seen her. She seemed to be taking her vow seriously and spent most of her day going to every lab on the floor and getting briefings of each and every project that was underway.

She was diving into a hands-on approach, it seemed, and thankfully had yet to make it to his office.

There had been whispers going around. Some thought she was absolutely lovely, though rather serious. Others thought she was an arrogant know-it-all who rattled off every minute imperfection. Susan Bones had gone on about her for a good 20 minutes before Draco had to walk away because he was annoyed. Draco wasn't sure which to believe, though it wasn't as though he had any clue as to who Olivia actually was, despite their intimate encounter.

She hadn't shared anything about herself that night and neither had he, though since she started at the Ministry, he had taken a bit of time to look into her. The eldest child of Oliver De Loughrey seemed to be a mystery, with not much out there in the New York society pages on her - all references were in journals in regards to her work which he found odd considering there was an abundance of photos and articles on her younger sister and brother. Maybe she was more private than they were? Though Draco knew hiding away from the wizarding media was no small undertaking when one had a powerful last name. Or infamous.

Perhaps he should ask his mother next time he saw her. Narcissa Malfoy had a near perfect recollection of just about every pureblood family both in the United Kingdom and New York, where the De Loughreys hailed from. But then he remembered her slight Southern accent from that night.

People in New York didn't speak like that, did they?

Draco stopped writing, frowning as he looked at the potion. He had done it again. Allowed himself to get off wondering about his new boss rather than focus on his work. Though, thankfully it wasn't one of the more sordid fantasies that had passed through his mind this time.

"Bloody focus," he muttered to himself. "Doesn't matter."

"What doesn't matter?"

Thankful that he hadn't jumped or started at the sound of her voice, he collected himself before turning around and seeing De Loughrey standing in the doorway to his office, a clipboard held tight to her chest and a friendly smile on her face.

She had shed her outer robe and had the sleeves to her green blouse rolled up to her elbows. While her hair was pulled back in a low pony-tail and there were flecks of some sort of substance still stuck in the strands that framed her face (probably made someone nervous and they did a potion wrong), she still managed to look fashionable and put together.