hat then we can re-negotiate.’ He watched as Harry’s anger turned cold.

‘I see. So our relationship is reduced to a business negotiation. I knew you’d moved on, but this really is something else. I’ll make sure you don’t have to see me around the department then.’

Draco was speechless. How was it that every time he attempted to be near Harry, things descended into absolute chaos? It was really bloody tiring.

‘Whatever. I need to go.’ Draco’s voice wavered, and he prayed Harry didn’t think he was about to start crying. One of his morning potions hadn’t been ready when he left, and he was way overdue his dose.

‘Are you ok? You don’t look so good. You’re not going to have another one of those attack thingies are you?’ And there he goes again, pretending to be concerned after he’d just thrown the weight of their split in his face.

‘Piss off Potter. Don’t you dare pretend like you care.’ Draco stormed out of the conference room and disapparated. et the bloody floo, he didn’t care about social decorum around that waste of space.

In the second month of Draco’s agreement with Hermione, Draco quit his job. His bosses were furious, they even tried to blackmail him into staying, but Draco held his ground and walked out of there with his head held high.

The following week, he started his new job at the ministry. Harry had given him his own lab in the bowels of the Ministry. Draco would’ve thought that Harry was being generous in giving him the most state-of-the-art lab money could buy, but he knew there was no coincidence that his lab was as far away from Harry’s office as physically possible.

He spent the first week getting ustomed to the history of the case and visiting the patients in St Mungo’s. Even in the time that had passed between Kingsley’s offer and Draco’s eptance, there had been no change in the patients’ status. The healers were having to replace their stasis charms every couple of hours and time was running out.

At the beginning of his second week on the case, he was preparing blood samples to analyse them for rarepounds when he got a surprise visit.

‘Draco darling!’ Pansy exclaimed as she walked brazenly into his lab. Draco was so shocked he nearly dropped the vial of blood he was extracting from.

‘Pansy!’ He said, raising his eyebrows, ‘what on earth are you doing here? More to the point, how did you get in? This is off limits to the general public.’

Pansy rolled her eyes and kissed him on both cheeks. He hoped that was witch’s lipstick and he wouldn’t have bright red-stained lip marks on his cheeks.

‘Bitch please, one puppy-eyed look Potter’s way and he was leading me straight to you.’ She said with a smirk.

‘You spoke with Potter?’ Draco’s eyebrows were quickly disappearing into his hairline.

‘Why, haven’t you?’ She shot him a confused look.

‘Of course I haven’t,’ Draco sniffed. ‘I’ve seen hide nor hair of him since I started. He even got Weasley and Macmillan to take me to that hideous warehouse.’

‘Oh!’ Pansy seemed astounded. ‘That’s not the impression he gave me. He spent a good ten minutes talking about how well you were fitting into the department and how fantastic your work is.’

Draco took in her appearance. Her black hair was cropped into a harsh bob cut and despite living in Dubai for the past ten years, she was as deathly pale as she had always been. Pansy’s face wasn’t one that hid her emotions well which meant for a Slytherin she was quite terrible at lying.

‘He did?’ Draco couldn’t image why Harry would do that. Draco had barely scratched the surface with this case. In fact, he was waiting for Kingsley himself toe down and tell him to get his shit together. Maybe not quite in those words.

‘Yes! I swear that man is still head over heels for you.’ Draco pretended he hadn’t heard and it worked out well because Pansy wasn’t done. ‘Anyway, what the hell is this I hear about you moving to France?’

Draco wasn’t too proud to admit that Pansy scared him

‘Yes. I have an apartment ready for me whenever I’m done with this case.’ He straightened his tie unnecessarily. Pansy just stared at him open-mouthed. ‘What?’ He said, a little too defensively.

‘You’re serious about it? Draco, when I said do something different I meant buy a new flat or get yourself out on a date, I didn’t mean run away.’ Pansy’s tone shifted to something a lot softer, which was so much worse than angry.

‘I’m not running away, Pans. I need space to get my head together and figure out what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. Maybe I don’t want to date anymore, maybe I don’t want a family. I don’t know any of that because I threw myself head first into a marriage which was doomed since before it even started.’ Even as he said it he was done explaining himself. It was his decision to make.

‘You have work over there?’ She asked him. She wandered over to the far corner and started fiddling with one of the microscopes. Magic worked really well for a lot of Draco’s work but sometimes nothing could beat the human eye.

‘I had planned on starting my own business, but my loan application was denied after that awful newspaper spread on Harry and his new girlfriend.’ Draco said bitterly. He’d never brought it up with Harry, but he hadn’t quite iven him for it. If Draco was any wiser than he was, he’d be able to admit that it wasn’t Harry’s fault. He wasn’t.

‘Oh yeah. Blaise told me about that, one of his publishing clients told him. Word has it Potter was absolutely furious and demanded a retraction, but they wouldn’t do a thing about it. I think he would’ve taken them to court if Blaise hadn’t told him you’d hate the extra exposure.’

‘Why is it that everyone else hears about this stuff before I do?’ Draco moaned. Slumping down on his stool. Pansy shrugged.

‘Anyway, I just came to see if the rumours about you leaving were true. I want you to know that I don’t agree with it but seeing as I’m not your mother, I won’t argue with you about it anymore.’

‘Thank you Pans. It would be nice if I could get some support for once.’ He made a point to subtly remind her of the backlash he received both during and after his divorce. He turned back to his bloods and began casting diagnostic spells. He knew Pansy was here for something more than that, but she was never all that good at confrontation.

‘Potter wanted me to invite you to his birthday next week.’ Pansy said quietly after a few minutes of peaceful silence. Draco’s last scan of this particular sample ricochet off the workbench as his concentration slipped. He put his wand down to avoid destroying his remaining samples by ident.

‘He what?’ He swivelled round on his chair to find Pansy propped up against the metal table behind him, staring at him intently.

‘He wants to invite you to his birthday. He said Teddy had been pestering him about it for weeks. He even offered me an invitation if it meant you’de.’

‘He invited you. To our house. His house. His.’ Draco corrected himself, but it was too late. Pansy gave him one of her most piercing looks and Draco felt like she was looking at his soul.

‘Yes, he did. I think you should go. I have some time off from work so if you want to I’ll stay, and we can go together. Luna will be there too, and Granger. You won’t be alone.’

‘I’ll think about it but right now I really need to analyse these samples. I think I might be on to something here.’ He said as one of his samples started giving him some bizarre readings. Pansy huffed at being turfed out of his lab.

‘Ugh. Fiiiiine. You’re such a bore these days Draco. You’re all work, work, work.’

‘If you want to talk about work, go listen to some Rihanna.’ He said absently as he noted down his findings. He really needed to show this to Harry as soon as possible.

‘You know Rihanna?’ He grinned in vaguely the right direction.

‘Pansy please,’ he imitated her exaggerated tone, ‘I’m gay, I’m not dead.’

She cackled her way out of his lab and he was finally able to get back to his work in peace, his mind whirring with the implications of Harry wanting him at his birthday. It would be the first time he’d ever been back to his marital home and he wasn’t sure he would ever be quite ready for that.

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