Drarry One Shots

In the Shadows (Pt. 1)

Draco would never deny that he was ambitious. Determined to rebuild his name and reputation after the war and his father's disgrace, he puts together a plan, the final piece of which includes having Harry Potter in his life. The only thing is, Harry has been missing for five years, even Ron and Hermione haven't heard from him. Almost ten years to the day after the Battle of Hogwarts an investigator walks into his Apothecary Shop and makes Draco an offer he can't refuse...

A Drarry story. Mostly angst and fluff. No smut!

I hope you enjoy.. xx

*****

It was a warm late-spring afternoon, almost ten years to the day since the Battle of Hogwarts. The apothecary shop door was open because of the balmy weather and Draco was so engrossed in his stocktaking he didn't notice the stranger silently approach the counter until his shadow fell across his books. When he looked up, the slender man with short sandy tousled hair seemed to have a slight smirk on his face where the corners of his mouth quirked up and Draco wonder how long the stranger had been in the premises because he seemed to have been watching him.

'I understand you're looking for an investigator, Mr Malfoy,' he said.

Draco appraised the man before deigning to answer. His boots, obviously dragon-hide, marked him as an Auror, however, they were old and weather-beaten; the laces had been knotted together where they had frayed and broken. Perhaps he was an ex-Auror, moved onto pastures new. The jeans were a rather dirty and ripped muggle designer brand, so perhaps a muggle-born or half-blood. His black shirt was fitted over a slim, toned torso suggesting his work kept him fit. He held a long wool black coat, highly unsuitable for the warm weather, which intrigued Draco as to why he carried it, perhaps he had just returned from cooler foreign climes. The man waited, fully aware that Draco was analysing him. Draco tried to take in the man's facial features but they were non-descript and, afterwards, he realised that he struggled to recall them clearly. His face was, however, genial, if not rather bland, though Draco was horrified by the tousled hair: it needed a comb running through it and straightening up. Finally, he looked into the stranger's hazel eyes with flecks of emerald that glinted as he waited.

*****

Draco would never deny that he was ambitious. He knew he'd inherited the trait from his father. He had also inherited an acquired taste for the finer things in life. But he liked to think that was where the similarities ended. The one aspect he decided he would never inherit from his father was cowardice. He never acknowledged his father was a coward until after the Battle of Hogwarts: after his father had called to him back to Voldemort's side; when his father had held onto him and prevented him from re-joining the battle when Harry Potter had revealed he still lived; when his father had practically run across the bridge away from Hogwarts; and when his father had apparated them back to the manor, thrown a collection of essentials together, emptied the safe, and suggested they went on the run. Then Draco thought back to his father's sycophantic behaviour towards Voldemort and realised the Dark Lord had invaded and sullied their home because his father was a coward; that he only had the dark mark on his forearm because his father was a coward. And Draco became angry.

Draco had looked at his shell-shocked mother, then his father, and said 'No!'. Draco would not run away, he would accept responsibility for his actions, he would serve his punishment, and then he would rebuild his name, the Malfoy name, away from the dark arts and the pure-blood mania, detached from everything his father stood for. So, he stood up to his father and said 'no!'.

'You may be a coward, father, but I am not. Therefore, I will stay and face the consequences of your choices. And once the debt is paid, I will rebuild the Malfoy name as one of honour. I renounce you, Lucius Abraxas, you are no longer my father, and you are no longer a Malfoy. You have brought shame upon the family name.'