The Malfoy Case

Chapter 14

Draco's morning probably qualified as the dullest morning he had had in a long time; with all his concern related to the fate of his mother having dissipated, and letters detailing the Fluxweed situation – read and re-read until the corners were crumpled and the parchment faded– tucked under a nearby flowerpot and the firm understanding that there was nothing he could do about it, there was really nothing he could occupy his mind with. The thought of indulging in more alcohol already gave him a headache, and the sitting room held absolutely no appeal... Merlin knew he had spent enough time in it already.

He had stayed under the covers for over an hour after he had already awoken, falling into a fitful sleep once in a while with full knowledge that he was only prolonging discomfort by stubbornly refusing to leave the warm embrace of his blankets. He was entangled in his sheets in a way that he didn't remember being for a long time; he had spent most of the nights over the past years thrown over the covers with complete disregard for propriety, collapsing out of sheer drunken exhaustion. Awakening in this way, then, with the covers pulled up to his chest and sunlight filtering through the slits in the curtains, felt unsettlingly like the mornings he had spent during the innocence of his early teenage years, in those weeks of the Summer holidays when his only concerns had been whether or not he could persuade Father to get him tickets to the next Wimbourne Wasps match and what ridiculously complex recipe he could order Dobby to make for him.

He had dragged himself out of bed only when Ollie arrived, setting down a breakfast tray on his bedside table and going through the process of pulling the curtains open and making the room look more awake. Even the Elf had seemed a bit more chipper, muttering to itself as it removed his pile of dirty clothes and arranged the things he had left strewn over his desk. Draco hadn't had much of an urge to silence Ollie and instead indulged in the taste of sausage, bacon and poached eggs with a relish he hadn't felt in a while.

Later, however, pacing around his bedroom after an admittedly relaxing shower, he was unable to find anything that captured his interest. The books in his bookshelf, varying from childhood books like Loony Nonby vs. Cornish Pixie and Tales of Beedle the Bard to books he had taken an interest to in later years – Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland brought back interesting memories, as well as Lupine Lawlessness: Why Lycanthropes Don't Deserve to Live, which his Father had enforced as obligatory reading after the particularly memorable events that had taken place during his third year at Hogwarts– were all so familiar that they bored him on sight. Secrets of the Darkest Art now made him shudder; he had read it sometime during his fifth year, unaware of the impact its contents had had on the Wizarding World, reading through its pages with perverse glee in full knowledge that his mother would be horrified if she had known. It was, however, a book housed in the Malfoy library, so they couldn't really blame him, could they?

The Decline of Pagan Magic was one of the few that didn't stir up conflicting emotions, but he had already all but memorized its contents along with Fifteenth-Century Fiends. No one had ever understood why he enjoyed history so much, but Father had been proud and had encouraged it; that encouragement had meant an irritating insistence on his parents' part for him to learn Nature's Nobility by heart, but he had skillfully evaded the book after reading it once: it had to be one of the dullest Draco had ever read.

He found Magical Moral Perspective accumulating dust on the floor just beneath the lowest shelf, where Ollie seemed to have missed it. He gave it a nasty kick until it disappeared from view. Perkins had given it to him in some half-hearted attempt to 'fix' him, as if being his barrister gave him the right to dictate how he ought to live.

It had been good riddance, really.

Sitting down on the end of his large bed again, he ran his hands through his hair and let out a low sigh of frustration. With his mind suddenly quiet and collected, the world now felt boring.