The Malfoy Dairy

The Auror had arrived at the Manor a few minutes ago and had been shown to Draco's study. He had greeted her with surprise and offered her a seat and some tea; now she sat in a chair on the other side of his desk, one long leg crossed over the other as she sipped her perfectly-warmed cup of Earl Grey. If this hadn't been an official visit, he might have been tempted to send a wordless, wandless hex to the cup to splash the tea all over her shirt just to see how she'd react, but he suspected he already knew, and he really didn't feel like being on the receiving end of one of her hexes (or worse, one of her lectures) at the moment.

Ah, well. Perhaps later, when she was off-duty; she had a better sense of humour then. "Now that we have dispensed with the formalities, Auror Granger, why are you here today?"

"I have been sent to search the Malfoy dairy for evidence of whatever happened in your home while Voldemort resided here."

Draco glared at her from across his massive desk. "That's preposterous. Did your superiors actually think we'd be so stupid as to leave anything there? I assure you, there is nothing in the Malfoy dairy that's even remotely connected with him. I should know—I checked. This is highly insulting, particularly as so many years have passed since the war, and I will not agree to it."

"It's not like I asked to be here!" she protested. "They gave me this assignment because they're under the strange impression that you and I are actually friends."

That stung a little. "Oh, so that makes it so much less of an invasion of privacy."

Hermione sighed. "I'm sorry, that wasn't called for. As much of a prat as you are, we are friends. But just take me to the damn dairy, Malfoy. Once you've shown it to me, I'll be out of your bleach-blond hair before you know it."

He barely stopped himself from pouting at that. "My hair is not bleached!"

"So you say," she smirked.

"This isn't encouraging me to show it to you, you know."

"I should warn you that I've been given a special license to use the Imperius curse on you if you refuse, though if it's all the same to you, I'd really rather not."

He sighed and rose from his chair. "Fine. We keep it in the library. I'll bring it to you."

Her eyebrows shot up, coming almost comically close to her hairline. "IN THE LIBRARY?!"

"You'll understand when you finally see the bloody thing." With that, he slipped out the door and was gone.

A few minutes later, he re-entered the study, pulling what looked like a wagon with a table on it, upon which rested an absolutely massive and obviously very old book.

"Malfoy! That is not a dairy, that is a diary!"

"I know. One of my ancestors was a little confused on that point. We think he may have been dyslexic—or at least that he had a very bad memory. Officially, at least, we have a dairy where we write about important things that have happened to the family, and we have a diary where we keep cows and make cheese and yoghurt."

"Why does that suddenly make so much sense?" she asked, shaking her head.

He smirked. "Probably because you've become so well-acquainted with my family's many eccentricities in the past couple of years."

She sighed. "That may be it."

*****

Author's Notes: Blame karelia for this one. As soon as I saw the title of her cheesemaking blog, "The Malfoy Dairy", an unusually rabid plot bunny bit me.

While I intended this to be a stand-alone fic, it can be viewed as being in the same alternate universe as "Wanted" and (maybe) "Draco's Problem".