Family Bonds and Brewing
LOCATION: St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries DATE: November 3, 2020 @oflupinx
Draco Malfoy was not a fan of early mornings; he tended to sleep poorly and wake early, yes, but that didn’t mean he liked rushing off to “face the day” right away. He preferred a late and leisurely breakfast, staying in his dressing gown until nearly noon, perhaps a morning read on the terrace with a good book or a walk in his father’s gardens...a slow, pleasant morning that proceeded at a meandering, gentle pace.
There was nothing meandering or gentle about the pace of things at St. Mungo’s, and even though it was barely past nine o’clock Draco was already fed and dressed and out of the house. His long gray robes were accented today with a pale green apron -- his concession to the uniform requirements of St. Mungo’s, which as a consultant he did not technically have to follow but which as a potioneer-on-premises he was encouraged to. Paying lip-service through the long apron was a compromise that both he and the higher-ups could live with...and the man he was now had learned how to accept those sort of compromises at which a younger Draco would have railed.
That didn’t mean he’d improved in all respects, and being grumpy about being summoned here so early to do follow-up work on a patient he’d helped diagnose last week -- in this case, to instruct the attending healers on the precise balance of brews that Draco had prescribed to defuse the Curse and repair the damage that said patient had done to herself when she’d so rashly donned that freshly-inherited jewelry. People were idiots...
Potentially including the junior healer he’d been assigned to instruct. “You’re late,” Draco snapped as a greeting, although in fact it was barely two minutes past their scheduled nine-thirty meeting time and given the inherently chaotic nature of a hospital that accepted walk-in patients at all hours of the day and night, a two minute delay was nothing. “I hope that isn’t indicative of your nature,” he continued sharply. “Brewing potions of this caliber requires precise timing or you’ll as likely find yourself with a poison as with a curative.”
He didn’t recognize the blue-haired young wizard who’d walked in -- and why should he? The Tonkses had never been allowed into his family; the aunt who had chained herself to that muddy surname had been gone long before Draco had been born. His first cousin-once removed had been nothing but another lash that the Dark Lord could use to humiliate the Malfoys; Draco had never thought about the boy as a relative, had barely thought about him at all. Edward Lupin might have technically been family...but he was still a stranger.
