Characters: Draco Malfoy Type of Scene: Solo Setting: Valentine’s Day, Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire
In the early hour of the morning, unnaturally bright rays of sunlight streamed through slits between heavy black drapes in Draco Malfoy’s bedroom. One moved enough in the advancement of the morning to strike him in the face, rousing him from his sleep, wakening a young man of fair skin, fair hair, and a sneer on his lips. Mornings were not Draco’s particularly favorite part of the day, but once awake he was quick to extricate himself from the bed. Wearing only creased black linen pajama bottoms and sporting a short mane of bedhead, Draco reached for and shrugged on a dark green silk robe with embroidered snakes on the two front pockets as he trudged to the windows to pull open the curtains fully to the grounds of his Wiltshire home.
Pushing open one of the windows to let in the crisp air, Draco then reached to his left and picked up a wand made of alder wood. He ran his fingers over it, face darkening slightly as he examined it, lips struggling not to mutter first thing in the morning. It had given him issues at Borgin & Burkes without warning whatsoever. What was a simple magnification spell to more closely examine a piece of ancient parchment and the delicate and faded markings written upon it had instead caused a complete eruption within the shop that caused utter catastrophe, setting off nearly every cursed object within.
Draco had no idea what had become of the manager of the shop, but Borgin had a few choice expletives for the vanishing of someone who wasn’t even supposed to be there in the first place. Well, perhaps he’ll turn up. The missing man was not remotely of concern to Draco. No. His concern was his wands.
Yes, his wands.
A quick flick at the bed with the alder wand in hand produced absolutely no result whatsoever. Instead of the bed tidying, it stayed unmoved and entirely mussed. Dropping his wand arm to his side, Draco closed his eyes, breathed in, and sighed heavily. Defeated. He turned the wand about in his grip and strode over to a cabinet next to his writing desk, pulling it open to reveal a myriad of wands set inside, each held in place, and each entirely useless to him.
It had been this way since after the Battle at Hogwarts. Draco had been to nearly every wand shop on the planet since then. He would visit a wand shop, be measured and tested against wands, find one that would choose him or even had one made to exacting specifications, and then – inexplicably – the wand would stop working. It could be days, or weeks, or months, but the wand he used at the time would invariably cease responding to him.
For all he could tell, there was absolutely nothing wrong with his magic. He was able to perform his usual magic with each and every wand he wound up with. They would just stop working after a time. They simply… abandoned him, it seemed. It had caused him an enormous level of continuing stress. Ollivander had very grudgingly discussed the subject with Draco after much plying (and gold), to no avail. There was simply no viable conclusion to be had. And from there, Draco had carefully reached out to different witches and wizards on the subject of wandcraft and wandlore, but none had ever heard of this sort of serial issue. As a last resort, he found one person who might steer him toward answers, or at the very least offer him an alternative. But he was waiting for their reply.
Draco added the alder wand to the collection of unusable wands and stared at them all, his face now expressionless, though he nearly screamed at these wands with his mind. He closed the cabinet door and turned, trudging out of his room and relocating himself to the dining room where a tray of hot breakfast was already waiting for him, along with the morning’s post. New house elves were hard to come by, but the family had decided after the war that they could not be without. However, their treatment of their latest house elf was ever so slightly better than how they treated Dobby. The Malfoys had decided they did not want a repeat of that foolish elf under their roof.
Grabbing a bit of toast and anchoring it between his teeth, Draco first attended to the stack of disturbingly heart-bedecked post and the box underneath them. They were anonymous Valentines, and extremely off-putting. Brows raised, he stared at the irksome “BE MINE 4 EVER” card and the dead cherub card, looking between them both, turning them over to see no name, and then chucking them in the fireplace to be incinerated later. Draco couldn’t fathom who would do such a thing. Was he still even acquainted with anyone who would bother? Taking a bite of the toast held by his mouth and putting it on a provided plate, he then picked up the box, untying it and prising it open.
“Let’s Not Be Friends” “Go Away” “You Suck” “You’re A Tool” “Bite Me” “Size Does Matter”
Quite possibly the weirdest cookies he’d ever received.
He reached for his wand before stopping short and realizing it was in the cabinet with the other useless ones. So much for checking them for a jinx or poison. Despite the ill messages, they looked like good cookies. He closed the box and pushed them aside, grabbing a stack of letters and sitting down to actually eat his breakfast.
Letter after letter, bite after bite, it wasn’t until Draco had mostly finished his breakfast that he slit open the last of the post that bore an official seal from the International Confederation of Wizards. Sitting up a bit straighter, he slid a sheaf of parchment out of the large envelope, some of which dripped with magicked wax seals. Fingers quickly rifled through the pages, a pleased look spreading over his features – perhaps the first one in a few months. He was eager. Acknowledgements, permissions, protocols and instructions, and more information, he set them all down except for the top letter, addressed to him from Babajide Akingbade, the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards.
“Perfect,” Draco said with a tone that may have resembled satisfaction. He flicked the signature at the bottom of the page, tossed it on top of the other pages, and leveled himself out of the chair to stride out of the dining room. Draco needed to go wake up his mother and tell her the news.
/END