The Impatient Man and His Suit

Entropy

There was no need to make a decision on whether I wanted to lie in Draco's bed again or sit in the living room. I followed after him into the kitchen and realized where he had been the while I was asleep. Three brown paper bags were collected on the table and among them was something I had never seen before. A glass container the size of a large pickle jar with some type of ginger root suspended in a clear, slightly golden liquid.

Pulling a chair up to the table, I sat in front of the jar and stared at it, half disturbed and half intrigued. Draco came over after taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves and began emptying the contents of each bag, one item at a time. He revealed a loaf of sliced commercial bread, boxed bone broth, spring onions, eggs, milk, garlic seasoning, onion seasoning, basil leaves, sugar, crushed tomatoes, a box of angel hair noodles, and a fat slab of butter wrapped in brown parchment. In the very last paper bag, he pulled out a white paper bag filled with cookies.

I watched in awe, confused and captivated by the curious idea of Draco Malfoy shopping for groceries and buying ingredients for entire meals which require someone to actually cook them. He did not speak to me the entire time he put the items away, and afterward, he set to work by starting two pots of boiling water. I continued to watch him in a trance, while he simply threw the bone broth and the spring onions into one of the pots and noodles in the other. While the noodles boiled to become squishy and edible, a separate saucer was also put on a burner. Inside the saucer, Draco poured in a portion of the bone broth that had been cooking and chased it with the crushed tomatoes. He seasoned the sauce with the garlic and onion seasoning, then dropped four basil leaves into the pot, placed a lid over it, and turned the burner on low.

Draco came over with a cup and ladle in his hands. He filled the cup with the substance and presented it to me, explaining very vaguely what it was.

"Ginseng-alcohol. It's a medicinal drink, so it will do your insides well. Mind you, don't drink it too fast. The alcohol content is 15%."

I stared at the potent golden liquid as it swirled dangerously inside the cup until I paid attention to the vessel itself. I was evidently holding a real drinking glass—not a little blue or yellow mug. I blinked quickly in surprise at its newness and caused the alcohol to swish dangerously up against the transparent sides.

"Where did this come from!" I cried.

Draco swung his head around in case something truly surprising had entered his home, but his alert quickly dissolved once he saw that it was the glass I had exclaimed over, and without a remaining care in the world, he turned around again.

I watched his back while he lifted his arms up and down, fixing the tomato-base with the bone-broth he had just boiled. As pleased as I was to watch him cooking real meals and buying new cups for me to drink Korean-alcohol out of, I wasn't used to the feelings of normality, or comfortability swirling in the air and began to feel strangely uneasy. Still, I was satisfied, even happy, sitting at his kitchen table as something other than a student preparing for a lecture.

I returned to my new cup and took a sip of the ginseng-alcohol before drawing back in displeasure. The sweetness was apparent at the beginning, but the alcohol quickly bit at my tongue. My tolerance had deteriorated quite a bit since I had left my modern life back in London, ergo the strong reaction. I drank nonetheless, enjoying the relaxation it delegated to my headache and sore muscles.

Apparently, I had fallen into a particularly heavy sleep on the kitchen table and awoke with the warmth of a hot bowl radiating quite close beside my face.

"I told you it was strong and you're especially exhausted."

"Indeed, 'tis strong," I replied, rubbing my eyes slowly.

As soon as I came to, my eyes fell upon a bowl steaming with spring onions suspended in a clear salty liquid. I grabbed my spoon and began to consume the soup but forgot to thank my caregiver. It was a gratitude he ultimately did not deserve, however. Raising my head and preparing to recite those two words: "Thank" and "you", I stopped myself almost immediately the moment my gaze locked on a large pile of beautifully saucy noodles delicately arranged on a large plate and garnished with little basil leaves. The villain, who decided it was a good idea to starve his especially hungry ward and stuff his own face full of Italian gourmet, had his fork in hand, tangled in a beautiful mess of red glistening noodles, about to shovel them into his evil mouth. Suddenly, like a panicked deer listening for footsteps in a wood, he paused, and his eyes shot up at mine.

He blinked once, "What, are you too ill to eat?"

I sunk my spoon back into my soup and glanced back and forth between his meal and mine.

"Why is it, that you've got a delicious dinner spread before you and I haven't?"

"Because you're ill and your body can't work to digest a large meal."

"Cold, bitter, villain," I whispered.

"You were deliriously sick earlier," Draco commented, "declaring you were going to throw up all over me and my house. And now you want to eat yourself silly. It's the alcohol. You can't eat bread. You'll regret it later when your stomach rejects it via your mouth."

He was right, so I kept quiet and ate my humble soup.

We both retired to the living room and sat in silence until shortly after we sat down, a great gust of wind shook the house and in came swirling across the living room floor from underneath the front door little flakes of icy snow. I stared at Draco as he stared at me, quite startled while the silence resumed. In just a few seconds however, another gust built upon itself in the distance and came hurtling towards us like an angry beast. This time a couple more puffs of swirling snow rushed into the living room and the wind shook the house in consistent pulses.

The worried look on Draco's face seemed to fog over and turn into something more of satisfaction. I watched him in shock while he opened up his book and ignored the piles of snow pouring in from beneath the front door. It was as if he decided to surrender to what appeared to be an uncontrollable situation. Perhaps he had noticed the early signs of a blizzard house arresting us and only found satisfaction in his correct assumptions.

Rising from my chair and scrambling around the living room to find a thick bit of fabric to stuff under the door, I spotted my jacket as being the only appropriate thing to use. Thrusting it tightly into the drafty space and setting my knees into the thin snow covering the carpet, I seemed to set Draco of at last. Tossing his book to the side, he cried out, "No, no! Not that, it'll be frozen by tomorrow morning and then what will you do?"

I ignored him and resumed vigorously tucking my jacket into the space. Getting up from his seat, he stomped into the kitchen and returned with a pile of hand towels, pushing me aside, he tore my jacket out and began stuffing them in one by one. Falling back on his hands he took a breath and said,

"It appears we will be spending Christmas Eve together after all."