Always Something - Dramione

Chapter One

Hermione Granger Malfoy's firstborn son, Pollux Malfoy, came coughing and fuming out of the Floo in The Malfoy Institute for Magical Memory Intervention. His sister came crashing behind him, her face green with firelight and then grey with soot, like Paul knew his own must be.

He beat his dusty clothes with his hands. "Sod it Castora, give me a second to clear the hearth before you knock me over coming through yourself."

His mother heard his coarse language, but instead of scolding him, she turned on his father. "Do you hear yourself, Malfoy? Do you hear your own filthy mouth talking through that sweet boy?"

Paul was sixteen years old, home from Hogwarts for Easter break, and far more than old enough to bristle at being called a sweet boy. He and Castora were hearing their mother's voice from beyond the ceiling-high bookcase that divided the library section from the laboratory section of the institute's large main room, but they couldn't see her. They couldn't see their father either but knew he must be there for their mother to scold, though she had already left off doing that and was now giggling, nearly squealing, still hidden behind the bookcase-- her laugh doubtless more of the work of their father's filthy mouth.

Paul faked a loud retch. "For the love of Salazar. We are leaving."

"No, you're not," Draco Malfoy called, coming into view around the end of the bookcase. "Come through."

"Dad!" Castora chirped, hopping forward to meet him.

Draco caught her, smoothing the frizzy hair on the crown of her head with his palm. "Cassie-cat has come along too, has she?"

Paul sneered. "Yes, always. Still a complete baby about being left home alone, even at her age."

"Enough," Hermione said. "Let's have your worksheet, Paulie."

He held the paper over her head. "Alright, but you're not supposed to just fill it out for me, Mum."

"I won't," she said, grabbing at her son's homework all the same. The Ministry of Magic couldn't be swollen with any more employees so Hogwarts had added mandatory career development and counseling to its program to try to diversify the dream jobs of their graduates. In Paul's year, it meant job-shadowing an adult established in their field. In order to do that, he had to interact with adults who weren't teachers. His Malfoy grandparents didn't have jobs and the dentist Grangers -- well, that was no good. It meant he was forced to come here, to the strange but prestigious laboratory his parents founded just before he was born to research the effects of magic on memory -- something inspired by a mishap with his Muggle grandparents during the war, and his parents' tabloid love story, and who cares...

It's true that they did indeed do important work for wizarding society, the flashiest bit of which was when they restored Guilderoy Lockhart's memory. Unfortunately, it got him writing again. "Manglings of Memories" did, of course, go on at length about Paul's parents' work. Paul himself even makes an appearance in the book, on page 94, as a pudgy baby in a play-yard in a corner of his parents' first, much smaller laboratory. Everyone's read it. Everyone has Lockhart's phrase "cherubic cheeks" come into their minds, and sometimes, out of their mouths when they meet Pollux Malfoy.

His mother was about to accio his worksheet anyway so he gave up tussling with her, relinquishing his homework, groaning and turning his back to all of them. "This is so embarrassing."

Hermione felt her neck. Had Draco left a mark just now?

It wasn't what Paul meant. "No one else from school is reporting on their parents' careers for this assignment. They've all got other adults they can use, so they don't look quite so pathetic tagging along with mummie and daddy."