Draco stops mid-incantation and risks a glance at the clock. The knock comes again just as the minute hand noses its way past the top. His office is wonderfully secluded, with no windows, a large oak desk that keeps a good bit of distance between him and visitors, and uncomfortable chairs for everyone but himself.
It does not lend itself to interruptions. He carefully ties away the loose ends of his spell and removes his Reveliospecs. If Draco wants privacy, he's chosen the wrong line of work. The knock is more insistent this time, so Draco flicks his wand at the heavy door, and it bangs open.
His secretary jumps back, startled. There's always been a fidgety way about her. When Theia first applied, he thought she couldn't be more than a year out of school, a dandelion waiting to be blown about by a strong wind. He has to admit now that he was wrong. For all her fidgeting, Theia is tough, never minces words, and remains the only secretary he's ever had that he can roll up his sleeves around without thought.
"Yes, thank you, Theia." He rises from behind his desk and grabs the manilla folder from her hand. "I'll see to them now."
"Hold on a minute, Mr Malfoy," Theia begins in her lilting Irish accent. "I figured you could do with a warning, he's—"
Draco has already crossed the shiny wood floors and pushed into the patient's room.
He shuts the door behind him with a soft snick and scans the file. It'll be a fairly standard case. The patient is middle-aged, male, and otherwise uninjured aside from the damage to his eye. Curse magic. That's usually what brings them in.
"You've already been to St Mungo's, correct? Usually, they try for reattachment before they send a case my way. So, how'd you sustain your injury, Mr..." His eyes jerk up. "Potter?"
Potter doesn't look surprised to see him, which means Draco's at a disadvantage. He wishes, for once, that his name weren't carved into every door.
Potter holds up a pair of damaged Spectroculars, the lenses dangling from their frames, seemingly burnt to a crisp. He has on an eye patch, satiny black with a skull and crossbones emblem stitched into the fabric. Perhaps that's meant to be ironic.
"Merlin," Draco whispers. "What happened?"
"You tell me." There's hatred sewn so deeply into Potter's words that Draco takes a step back.
"How would I know?" Draco asks.
"They're your product."
"I'm not responsible for how people use them."
Potter reaches up a hand and tugs off his eye patch.
The skin where Potter's eye used to be is unmarked. It's as if someone smoothed his features away with their thumb, and left just a concave divot in his face. The eye itself is gone, and so are the lids.
Draco crosses the distance between them. He's just about to tip Potter's chin up to better access the light when Potter says, "Don't."
Draco waits, his hand hovering above Potter's jaw.
"Wand on the table," Potter says.
With great reluctance, Draco tugs his wand from his sleeve and places it flat on the counter. When he steps back in front of Potter, something jams just beneath his ribs. Draco lets out a startled exhale.
He doesn't have to look to know that any wrong move will get him cursed.
"Okay," Potter breathes. "Tell me what's wrong."
Draco fumbles in his pocket for a rubber glove and snaps it on. Then he reaches out a finger and brushes over Potter's skin, feather-light. There isn't anything unexpected.
"How did you get the Spectroculars?" Draco asks.
"Teddy. But you already know that."
Draco shakes his head. "I had no idea."
"You didn't think it was odd that Teddy was buying them? He's not an artist."
"Neither are you."
"I've been painting for more than twenty years," Potter says. "I've been a professional for ten."
"Since when can you even hold a quill correctly?"
Potter's nostrils flare. "Why would I lie?"
"I'll never attempt to grasp the workings of your brilliant mind, Potter. I'm just not smart enough."
Potter's eye narrows. "Luna would have told you."
"Luna doesn't tell me anything about your life."
"You'd have seen it in the Prophet."
"I avoid reading any papers that use my history to make their Galleons."
"Someone would have told you."
"Who?"
"Anyone."
Good Merlin, Potter is exhausting. "We don't exactly run in the same circles. I've been living in Ireland since my son started at Hogwarts. Now that I mention it" — Draco takes a step back — "that was ten years ago."
"Then why did the Spectroculars malfunction?"
That, Draco doesn't know.
"May I?" He holds out a hand.
Potter wavers, then gives him the spectrometry glasses.
The lenses are cracked and burnt a smoky brown. The screws have come loose at the hinges.
"You were using them to paint a moving portrait?" Draco asks.
"Yes. When I tried a Doubling Charm on the painting, they exploded. They're defective."
Draco raises the glasses to peer through them. The room looks like an old photograph: yellowed and fuzzy, sporting odd stains in inexplicable places.
"You should Vanish these," Draco says. "In case they're still dangerous."
"No." Potter shoots out a hand, startlingly warm, and plucks the Spectroculars from his fingers.
"What, keeping all your evidence to report me to the Aurors?"
"And what if I was? I'd have every right." Something dangerous glints in Potter's remaining eye, like a lion pacing in its cage.
"So you would. But I didn't do anything. I thought they were going to Teddy."
If Potter knew him, that would be enough.
Draco's decision to go into this business had been entirely for Teddy. When he'd reconciled with his Aunt Andromeda three years after the final battle, Draco had finally been introduced to his young cousin, and — at Astoria's urging — Draco had gotten involved in his life.
Three years later, when Teddy had just turned six, Andromeda said a sudden sense of wrongness pulled her from sleep.
She'd gone to check on her grandson at three in the morning, only to find his bed empty and the window smashed through, curtain blowing in the breeze. The light of the full moon had leaked onto the carpet, casting the room in a yellow-white haze.
She'd screamed.
Draco was the first person Andromeda called, followed by Potter and every last Weasley she could think of.
They looked for Teddy until the sun rose at dawn, when Granger finally found him lying in a creek, half-conscious. The side of his face had been torn apart by some animal that mercifully left the rest of him alone.
They hadn't thought to make preparations ahead of time. Teddy was too young to be sure he'd even inherited lycanthropy, and most sources speculated that the first few times a werewolf turned, they'd be too exhausted to seek prey.
But it didn't matter what sources said. They had the proof in front of them, small and battered.
Wizarding ocularists at the time didn't know what to do. Never before had they considered fitting a prosthetic eye that would still work once the owner transformed into a wolf.
And they had to consider it, because Wolfsbane Potion — even though it vastly improved in the years following the war — would never eliminate Teddy's need to hunt. A single dose would be enough to put him in his right mind, but his appetite would assure he was always in danger.
Draco had been terrified. If Teddy went out without peripheral vision, it was nearly certain something would attack him again, especially because many fellow werewolves didn't like how "domesticated" Teddy was. He'd never found anything resembling a pack. So Draco got involved in every way he could, and eventually, the magic of ocularistry itself drew him in, even more than simple fear could.
But if Potter knows all that, he's pretending otherwise.
Draco releases a slow sigh. "Are you here to get a prosthesis?"
"I'm thinking about it."
Draco usually lets someone else handle this part, but ... "Would you like to take a look at your options? Fit, style — that kind of thing."
Potter gives him a slow nod. "Okay."
"I'll need to take your measurements."
When Draco moves to pick up his wand, Potter raises his own.
"For Merlin's sake, Potter. I'm not going to curse you."
"As far as I'm concerned, you already did."
Draco huffs and begins pulling open drawers at random. He's used to Summoning the tape measure and having it do its job magically. He finds it in the last drawer he checks, rolled up at the very bottom. Draco also grabs a quill and parchment to take down notes.
He has to step far too close to Potter to loop the measuring tape around his head. Draco lines it up with Potter's brow bone and takes down the circumference, then measures the distance between Potter's nose and the outer edge of his face.
Potter looks up at him in a way that jolts something deep in Draco's stomach. Potter's eye is startlingly green. Draco pauses, then manages to pull his gaze away and focus on the numbers he's jotting down.
He says, "Have you thought about what model you might like?"
"Not really. What's Teddy got?"
"His is a unique make, but it's considered extrinsic, because it's held on with a strap. For someone that wears glasses, I usually recommend an orbital prosthesis instead. It's more natural-looking, which is helpful if you spend time in the Muggle world."
Potter frowns. "More natural looking how?"
"It blinks and moves in tandem with your other eye," Draco says as he takes a few more measurements of the diameter of Potter's eye socket, "unless you prefer to forgo those charms. Of course, the downsides are that you can't wink or cross your eyes, and they can't be charmed to allow access to more visual information, either. But regardless of the model, we'll need to find one that fits under your glasses. Assuming you still plan to wear them."
There are tiny wisps of hair clinging to Potter's neck, soft curls as black as ink.
"I've thought about getting a monocle instead," Potter says.
Draco can't tell if he's joking. "Oh?"
"It just seems like rather a lot of scrunching is involved to keep it in place."
"There are magical ones that can stay up more easily," he says. "I think you should go for it. I'm tired of people finding you attractive."
Potter lets out a soft breath, almost like a laugh. It's as surprising as the first taste of spring after months of cold. "I'll keep that in mind."
Draco looks down at his hands. He's retaken the same measurement three times now. A simple thing like a laugh shouldn't rattle him, not if he's going to finish this appointment in one piece.
"You said you were an artist, right?" Draco asks as he finally steps back.
"That I did."
"Well, it's probably best to go with an orbital model, then. Colour differentiation is a binocular effort — it requires both eyes to notice more minute differences. Although, you may not like the way they feel. Some people don't."
"Why not?"
Draco opens a new drawer and pulls out a head-strap. "It's a lot of work for one of your eyes to interpret all the information of two. It can cause strain, headaches, all sorts of things." Draco stretches the elastic band around Potter's head and begins to work it down until it rests at an angle across his missing eye. "But I'm very good at my job, so we can avoid most of that."
He almost wants Potter to agree, to say that he knows Draco is fully capable.
It's a ridiculous wish, and Draco is glad, in the end, that it doesn't happen. Potter just keeps looking at him.
"The spells are complex," Draco continues. "The pupils need to contract and expand with light, the lids have to respond to your brain signals ... There's a lot that goes into making prosthetic eyes function properly."
He takes a step back to examine the fit over Potter's head.
"How do you like that size? Comfortable?"
"It's making me dizzy," Potter replies.
"Hm. Well, we can give you something adjustable, or a different material." Draco removes the band. "Any looser and it would slide all over the place, though."
He grabs a few prostheses that are set aside as models and brings them closer to Potter.
"Okay," Draco says, "this first one is encased in titanium gold, with a leather strap." He lets Potter take it and examine the finer details. "It isn't great for peripheral vision, because the casing can get in the way. But it's sturdier than all the others, so it's less likely to need repairing if you ever drop it." Draco eyes Potter speculatively. "Are you clumsy?"
"Not particularly."
Draco must look doubtful, because Potter quirks a brow, the one above his missing eye.
"Never had much trouble with the Snitch, did I?"
Draco steps closer. "Do that again."
"What?"
"Your eyebrow. You can still move it."
"Er ... yeah." Potter wiggles it a second time.
"Can you feel my finger right now?"
"No."
"Good, I'm not touching you. Now?" Draco brushes very delicately over the skin between the upper part of Potter's nose and his missing eye.
"Yeah."
"Any pain?"
"A little."
"'A little' meaning, 'I'm just a big, strong man being brave about it,' or 'a little' meaning, 'a little.'"
There's a flash of amusement in Potter's eye. "It hurts. But the Healers gave me plenty of pain potions, and they say that it should feel fine in a week."
"Mm," Draco says vaguely. "Well, this next prosthesis is the best model for taking enchantments. They won't wear off as quickly, and I can stack more of them without running into problems."
"There's a limit?"
"Always. Magic isn't a perfect healer."
Potter shifts in his seat. "And neither are you?"
"I'm not a Healer at all. I provide ... alternatives. Supplements. Not replacements, and not a restored version of the original."
"Right." Potter takes the second prosthesis from Draco. It has a thick elastic strap and an aluminium frame.
"Some people find this kind more comfortable," Draco says, "but when the elastic wears out, they tend to slide around throughout the day, and the friction can become painful."
"What's this little symbol on the side mean?"
"It's waterproof."
Potter's lips twitch again, and he gestures for the next one.
"Who would want a colour like this?" Potter asks.
It's an offensive shade of green, most closely resembling troll snot.
"The strap becomes essentially invisible once you put it on. People like having the security of their prostheses being strapped to their heads, but lots of them still don't want you to know they're there. It's our most popular option."
Potter frowns. "Teddy's isn't invisible."
"No," Draco agrees, "it's not. But Teddy's been monocular since he was six. People who gain a disability later in life tend to have a different relationship with it."
"Hm." Potter flips over the prosthesis and examines the back. "And what about the casing?" He taps on the clear glass shell of the goggle, held in place with a ring of brass.
"Good peripheral view, but it can only take about three extra charms once I've added all the standard ones."
Potter takes on a thoughtful look as he examines the eye. "You paint these by hand?"
"Yes. They have to be personalised to the wearer."
"Reckon I could do it myself?"
Draco shouldn't be surprised that Potter would come up with an idea like this.
"You couldn't use just any paint," he says. "It would have to be medical grade. And they aren't easy to get right. Working from a photograph — plus the challenge of monocular vision — means the colours likely won't match, and using a mirror would be ... difficult."
Potter shrugs. "I don't need them to match."
"You aren't planning to..." Draco changes tack. "Look, I know you and Professor Moody were rather close" — this startles a bark of a laugh out of Potter — "but prostheses have come a long way since his time. Even if you don't need them to match properly, surely it couldn't hurt to make them both green. Or, at the very least, to not choose some atrocious electric blue that makes everyone feel as if you're looking right through us."
"Can I do it myself or not?"
Draco hesitates for a long moment, then lets out a sigh. "Fine. I'll have to paint the pupil, but you can do the rest. Muggles will think you have a wicked case of heterochromia."
For the first time, Potter actually looks pleased.
~
It's over dinner that evening that Scorpius announces his campaign to be the official Ministry Liaison between wizards and magical creatures.
"No," Draco says simply.
"Cheers! I wasn't asking."
Draco considers the prongs of his fork, which he walks back and forth across his plate. He exhales slowly. "What did your mother say?" There is no doubt Scorpius told her first. Draco has tried over the years not to be jealous that this ex-wife is Scorpius's confidant instead of him, but he hasn't had much luck.
"She said you'd be a prick about it."
Draco huffs out a laugh. "Maybe I should just ask her myself."
Scorpius sulks. "She said that your reputation could create a barrier for me. But I think she's wrong. I think you're both wrong."
"I'd love to be wrong." But he knows he won't be. Just as well as Astoria knows it.
Scorpius drops his head. He looks so much like Astoria when he's upset. Scorpius got his mother's bright eyes and deep russet brown skin, but also her smile, her frown, the way her dark brows draw together when Draco does something disappointing. Draco hates to let either of them down, but it's better now than later.
The house-elf walks in, humming the tune to some Muggle song Draco has been struggling to pry out of his head for weeks, and sets down the next course.
When she's gone, Scorpius turns his imploring black eyes on him. Crow-black, Draco had thought when he was born. Astoria called Scorpius Little Bird until he was nearly a teenager, and he finally grew out of it.
As a child, Scorpius had embodied the nickname. He seemed to always be fluttering about, full of boundless energy and enthusiasm, never wanting to stop long enough to look directly at you.
Draco's parents had been troubled by this, when they were finally released from Azkaban and met Scorpius at age five. They'd tried to insist on Scorpius standing still and maintaining proper eye-contact while speaking, but they hadn't gotten it.
Now, Scorpius sets Draco with a woefully unwavering stare, the kind he reserves only for moments when he's determined to make a point. "She also says you're better at this stuff than she is. That if anyone's going to help me, it's got to be you. I don't think the family reputation is even as bad as you guys say."
Draco is all at once grateful and sorry that they've shielded Scorpius from this. While Draco might have built himself a respectable business practice over the years — might've been mentioned in the paper a few times without the words 'former Death Eater' attached to his name — he will never be the Ministry's darling. Campaigns for official Ministry positions are popularity contests more than anything, and all about leveraging your influence over others. They also involve a fair amount of blackmail, if his father was any indication.
Covert manipulation is not the kind of thing Scorpius excels at, bless him. He has far too much of Astoria in him.
Draco sighs. "What's the job, exactly?"
Scorpius perks up. "I'd be handling public relations between wizards and other magical species, except for centaurs and goblins, of course."
"What would you have to do to win?"
"It's simple, really. I just have to get thirty or more of the fifty board members to vote my way."
"Which requires...?"
"Well, there's an interview."
"No, I mean the important bits. Campaigning. Schmoozing the board members. Impressing the Prophet."
"I don't know. Is that kind of stuff really important?"
Draco exhales exhaustedly. "Only if you actually want to win. Haven't you looked at any of the past candidates? Read about their charitable contributions in the year leading up to the vote, studied their connections and achievements?"
"I'm interested in the work, not the race."
Draco massages the bridge of his nose. "Scorpius."
"I'm serious about this. I am. Tell me what I need to do, and I'll do it. The whole campaign. Schmoozing, politics, whatever."
Draco gives himself a moment to sit with the idea. It would mean a big lifestyle change. He'd have to finally start catering to the Ministry's ridiculous whims, donating to charities loudly rather than in private, networking with people who'd rather forget he wasn't dead, simpering for the Prophet, and appearing out in public for the tabloids to photograph him to their fill. It's everything he loathes about reformation, feeling like he's performing good deeds for an audience rather than carrying them out because he knows they're right. It's the kind of thing that reminds him of his father in a painful, uncomfortable way.
But it would mean seeing Scorpius more often than once a fortnight, when they have their dinners. Not to mention that this — helping his son work towards a job in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures — is something Lucius Malfoy would have never, ever done.
Draco caves. "All right."
Scorpius's answering grins lights up his face for the rest of the night.