Draluna - Draco's Assistant

Chapter 1

Draco woke up in the late morning to a barrage of texts and a heavy hangover.
He wiped his face sleepily, his vision still slightly groggy, and lifted his phone to his eyeline. The light was too bright in his face so he squinted at it.
It was his father. 11 Missed calls.
For a second Draco worried that something terrible had happened, as someone who had lived through a war might understandably do.
But then he remembered. Freakin' Martha. What a shit secretary she'd been anyway.
He would have bloody fired her if his dad hadn't told him he couldn't.
So what had happened was that Martha had once again forgotten to get the staff feedback forms onto his desk... and you see when he went out to her desk to reprimand her about said accountability she'd had her bloody oaf of a boyfriend there. Yes Draco may have remarked this out loud, but she really shouldn't have had him there anyway. This was a place of work. I mean really! and so then they had gotten into some sort of altercation, an argument really, him and the oaf, about how Draco was apparently overworking and being 'mean' to his girlfriend. Draco may or may not have laughed and rolled his eyes... this altercation/argument may or may not have ended in Draco, in self defense might I add, bending to miss a hit from the oaf and then giving  him a good punch in the face... The oaf may have gotten in one good shot as well.
Really Draco thought it would be character forming for him. You can't just go around coming into peoples work places and trying to take a swipe at them, he was bound to get a good run for his money at some point.
Draco was also a few whiskeys in at this point. Not that he still wasn't justified in what he did.
So Draco groaning realized it would be this whole ordeal that his father was ringing about.
His father really had a bee up his bonnet about Draco's goings on with secretaries.
Yes he had never kept an assistant longer than a year.
Yes there might have been one or two similar disgruntled stories, granted not all of them ending in an altercation with a boyfriend, but certainly resulting in Draco being put in the position of having to find a new assistant in a pickle.
Some Draco had fired... in fact the first three he had... all of them totally incompetent. He couldn't have an assistant working for him if he held doubts over whether they'd be able to pass third year O.W.L. examinations at a push.
But then Draco's father had stepped in, disallowing him to fire any further assistants, saying he was going through them too quickly and was wasting business resources in the hiring and firing processes, which were timely and sometimes expensive.
Then the fourth assistant he'd hated so much he'd had to force her to quit by not being the best boss... a similar thing had happened with the fifth, that one may have been even a little worse as she'd had a huge crush on him. Martha was his sixth assistant from the 4 years he had been working at his fathers company.
So yes sometimes he overworked them, and no he wasn't a polite prince charming all the time, but they were bloody adults weren't they? for Merlin's sake, did he really have to act like a total goody two shoes twat like Potter to keep an assistant?
Anyway it goes without saying, Martha had quit last night and news had obviously got to his father in record time.
Draco winced as he remembered the ordeal and thought of what his father was going to have to say about this. They'd had several chats about Draco's assistants leaving before.
Draco took a secondary wince as the feeling of being punched in the face last night settled in.
"Fuck, ouch" he uttered placing his warm hand against the probably forming bruise just above his left eye. He applied some pressure to try and relive the pain and the dull headache that was setting in.
It didn't work. The alcohol he'd consumed last night after the brawl...I mean argument, might have had some doing in the headache as well.
But alas, even if Draco wasn't the best boss for his assistants he was good at his job and he actually cared about it. So he begrudgingly got up from his comfy bed, texted his father that he would meet him in the office in half an hour and jumped into the shower shedding yesterdays clothes that were all crumpled up and wrinkly from him sleeping in them.
When Draco had smartened up, putting on one of his signature black suits he made it into the office. His father was waiting there for him. Martha was not at her desk.
Draco took a big breath before walking in to meet his fathers livid gaze.
Lucius never lost his cool demeanour outside of his house, but Draco knew him well enough to understand the expression on his fathers face.
"Draco" Lucius drawled in a successfully intimidating tone.
"Yes father" Draco said sighing ready for the lecture to begin.
"I have told you time and time again Draco. This is not acceptable. How can you keep expecting me to clean up your messes for you? Are you a child or a grown man?" he said making Draco shift in his place a little from the embarrassment at the look Lucius was giving him.
"Your work is good. Sales are up Draco because of you... but Merlin's beard why is it so hard for you to get along with the people you hire? If this had been anybody else you would have been fired instantly! if it weren't for your mother and her worrying about you I might still fire you... However, you are my son, and she does worry... so I am willing to give you this one last chance"
Lucius said all without letting Draco get a word in edge wise. He would have liked to have explained how it was hardly his fault that the oaf had taken a swing at him, and how bad of an assistant Martha had been, but he knew the drill and was silent, knowing his father would not hear any of this explanations.
If truth be told Draco was a little ashamed and frightened. His father was certainly an ominous man when he wanted to be, and Draco really did get the feeling he was getting to the end of his tether with Draco's workplace shenanigans.
Once Draco had felt Lucius had really finished his yelling he proceeded forward cautiously.
"Father, I know this isn't acceptable and I'll endeavor to do better... Even if this circumstance really wasn't just my doing" he couldn't help but add quickly.
His father scowled but before he got another lashing of words from him Draco interrupted.
"I will work on finding a new assistant straight away father. I'll even do the interview myself. There's no need for you to get concerned." he said trying to calm him down.
He really didn't want to get fired because of this misunderstanding.
But then something strange happened, Lucius's face started morphing into a sort of smirk.
Draco looked at him confused.
"No there will be no need for that Draco... because" he said drawing it out. "I have already found you an assistant." Lucius said pleased with himself. "You are to treat her with the utmost of respect, she's highly qualified and in good standing with the ministry, we don't need any more sullying of our name after the war Draco do you understand?" he said somehow looking down at Draco despite their being the same height these days. Draco nodded. "We've been needing something to raise our profile a bit and change some of the negative talk about the business being a business full of ex-death eaters you see. It makes perfect sense Draco" Lucius was seemingly becoming more and more pleased with himself as he talked. Draco looked at him confused once again.
"I'd been thinking about the companies public relations issues for some time now, and how we may change it's image a bit... and then this just fell into my lap. The girl literally called up asking for the job. It's practically serendipity." He said still not explaining what was going on but almost laughing out the words. Draco couldn't wait any longer.
"What are you on about father?" he asked slightly concerned and very intrigued.
"Well it's your new assistant. Her working for us will definitely alleviate some of the criticisms of the company. You see she has quite a good standing in the public sphere. She should be here any second." Lucius said still not letting Draco in on the joke that he was obviously finding amusing.
"Dad who is this girl, why is it so funny?" Draco asked now genuinely concerned.
And just as Draco was feeling suitably worried at his fathers words and the dark sparkle of mischief in his eyes, of which Draco had only seen when he was up to wrong doing, a knock was heard at the door.
Both men shifted their gaze towards the door.
"Ah that will be her now" Lucius said, a full grin now on his face and his voice melodic and menacing.
"Come in my dear".
Draco was utterly confused at what he saw when the door opened. It was a petite girl with long blonde wavy hair down to her elbows which held tiny randomly placed plaits in it. She had big blue eyes and a nymph like face. She seemed to be wearing some sort of 60's flower child, mustard yellow dress and colorful stripey stockings. Her wand was tucked firmly behind her ear and her bangles chimed as she lifted her left hand and tucked a strand of loose hair behind her other ear which revealed radish shaped earrings.
Draco paused.
"Luna Lovegood?" he whispered more to himself than anyone else.
Lucius had never looked more pleased.
This would show his son that he couldn't just go around doing whatever he wanted within this company. Lucius couldn't wait to see how his son would contend with such a strange young woman as his assistant.