Draco woke with his alarm, set early so he could take a shower. Being able to use soap and water, to scrub his skin pink and work shampoo through his hair, it left a relief in its wake that cleaning spells could never quite manage. It felt just a little bit easier to breathe as he stepped out and dried himself off with a fluffy grey towel.

He had two slices of toast with eggs on them for breakfast and only ruined one, though it did taste just fine. The shop was getting ready to open as he came down the stairs. George and Ron were at the two tills, filling them with sickles and knuts for the day.

George waved him over before he could leave.

"Yes? I need to get to work," Draco said.

Ron grinned, "Congrats on the job! That was quick. Where you working?"

"St Mungos, brewing potions, or helping, at least," Draco said.

George's eyes widened, "You brew?" He glared at Ron, "He brews? Do you know what I would give for another competent brewer?"

Ron held up his hands defensively, "I didn't know!"

George sighed, leaning against the counter, "...damn. Well, if ol'Mungo's doesn't work out, I'll hire you on, got that?"

Draco nodded, "Glad to know I'm wanted."

"Yeah well most of the students out of Hogwarts can't brew without someone holding their hand the whole time," George said, "And intuitive brewing is rare as unicorn tears."

"Ah," Draco said.

Ron nudged his brother, "The key?"

"Oh, right!" George patted his pockets and pulled out a small envelope, handing it over to Draco, "A key to the door. Ron wouldn't leave well enough alone 'til I got one made. It's charmed so only the first person who touches it can use it so no lending it out."

"I won't," Draco said, opening the envelope. The key was old fashioned heavy iron and grew warm in his hand for a few seconds as the magic took hold. "I appreciate it," he said, putting the key into his pocket.

"Yeah, yeah," George said with a grin, "Better hurry to work."

Draco nodded and picked up his pace to the nearest apparition point.

The hospital's potion lab was empty of any Huberts when Draco arrived, but he knew what he was meant to be doing. The drifts of paperwork were the worst of the mess but also the least important. He started by scrubbing the tools and cauldrons clean and moving enough paperwork out of the way to clear off one of the long workbenches.

"Hubert! Hubert!" Florence's voice came down the hallway ahead of her. Her expression turned to resigned disappointment as she stepped into the lab, "Of course he's not here. Morning, Draco. Nice to see someone's here at a reasonable hour."

"Good morning, Florence," Draco said.

"Hubert will be in later, I'm sure," Florence said. She handed him a list, "Here are our potion store numbers. I've circled the three we're lowest on, pepperup, calming draughts and skele-go. Let Hubert know."

"I will," Draco said.

"Thank you! Glad to have you working with us!" Florence called, already out the door and hurrying on to her next appointment.

Draco frowned at the list. He had only ever brewed in single doses, but for the number of potions that were needed, they would obviously be brewing larger numbers. Draco wasn't sure if he was allowed to brew, and certainly didn't want to mess up his first day by overstepping his bounds, but he could at least prepare the ingredients.

He found a scale and an old neglected potion book to look up the weights and measures he would need, working out the amounts for brewing twenty doses at once. One entire wall was made up of shelves and drawers for materials. There appeared to have been a system of organisation at one point, but the labels on drawers were mostly missing and usually contained the wrong thing if there was a label. Luckily, Hubert primarily relied on large clear jars for his ingredients which allowed Draco to spot everything he needed. Organising the wall would have to be on his list of things to fix if he ever managed to get enough time.

When Hubert showed up at eleven, Draco had two trays prepared to brew pepperup and calming draught and was working on the third.

"Humph," Hubert muttered, looking around, "Haven't done much."

Draco didn't bother looking up from crushing scarab beetles, "I scrubbed out the cauldrons and cleaned all the stirring rods and ladles."

"And that took you three hours, did it?" Hubert asked, pulling off a red knit cap and tossing it and his robes on top of a pile of paperwork that used to be his desk.

"No," Draco said, sifting the crushed beetles through a fine mesh and returning the larger pieces to the bowl, "Florence came by with a list of potions needed for today, I've been preparing the ingredients for them. I didn't think the papers were a priority."

Hubert came around the workbench and frowned at the two trays. He pick up the calculations Draco had done and read through them, "This your work?"

Draco stopped what he doing and looked over at Hubert, "Yes, sir."

Hubert nodded, drawing a finger down the list, "You were one of Severus Snape's students, weren't you? And not one of the rubbish ones, one of the ones that actually learned something from him."

"Yes, sir," Draco said, feeling a faint pang of loss remembering his favourite professor.

"What were you Potion NEWT's?" Hubert asked.

Draco squeezed his eyes shut for a second, "...I don't have them, Mr Hubert. I can assure you I will, and I will get and Oustanding."

"You'll get a perfect score," Hubert said.

Draco blinked, "Excuse me?"

"If you're going to work for me, you'll get a perfect Potion NEWT," Hubert said, "They test in June. You can take one hour every workday to work on the potions and study for it. Mungo's will pay for it. It's worth it."

Draco nodded quickly, "Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir."

"Hubert is fine," Hubert sniffed, his moustache bristling, "It's Draco, is that right?"

"Yes."

"I work five hours a day, five days a week and I'm on emergency call twenty-four-seven. You'll come in three hours before every day to prepare like this and clean if you've got time. As you said, the paperwork isn't a priority."

"Just tell me if you need me to do anything," Draco said.

Hubert nodded, picking up the first tray, "Good. Let's get to work then."

Hubert was used to working alone so Draco couldn't do much to help him brew, but he cleaned the potion vials and stands, filling them and labelling them as Hubert finished the potions. In five hours, they somehow managed to brew all twenty pepper-ups, fourteen anxiety draughts and eleven skele-go.

Draco cleaned the cauldrons again before leaving for the day. He wasn't used to doing so much work, and he had aches and twinges all over his body as he left.

There was a package on his bed when he got back to the Weasley's shop. An untidy scrawled note for Ron told him that it had arrived at the front desk via owl. Inside the small parcel was a radio and a message from Potter.

Here's a little house warming gift, I thought your flat could use some music. It can pick up muggle and wizard stations, so I'm sure you'll find something you like.

-Harry

Draco smiled to himself as he turned it on and that night fell asleep to the sound of soft music playing.

Draco fell into something like a routine with his new job. Going in at eight after making a simple breakfast, preparing the lab and ingredients and slowing cleaning up the storage wall and creating an inventory of what they had and needed to would have to replace soon. The last hour of the day, Hubert would grumble his way through paperwork. And Draco tried to study. He wasn't sure if he was bothering Hubert or if Hubert thought he was bothering Draco, but he sent Draco to study in Mungo's research library.

It was in the basement of the building, with dim lighting charms and packed shelves lining narrow walkways. There was everything from introductory textbooks, to books on the most minute corners of healing magic, to papers of research, done here and at hospitals around the world.

A few desks and lamps had been provided for healer trainees who were also expected to study during what little downtime they had. There Draco lost all interest in studying for his potion NEWT, especially since he had already taken it not that long ago before the world forgot him.

More importantly, the library contained everything he could ever want to know about memory charms and curses and how one might go about reversing them. He never really had any particular interest in memory charms before, so he had to start from the beginning, with a copy of his old charms textbook.

Friday came faster than Draco was expecting. During the week he managed to organise the wall of ingredients, deciding to just put everything alphabetically to save time and headaches. Hubert didn't care one way or another. Given a choice, his preferred system of organisation was chaos. Though he always knew where to find things, even when they were under drifts of paperwork years old.

Ron was at the register when Draco got back to the shop. He worked the morning most days except it seemed Friday, the day Draco had met him on the street.

"Hey! Draco!" Ron called waving him over to the counter.

This late at night there wasn't much demand for canary creams and dung bombs, but a few people still wandered the shop looking at the different flashy things for sale.

"You get the weekend off?" Ron asked.

"Yes," Draco said.

"Nice. Weekends are our heaviest sales, so me and George always work them," Ron said.

"When do you get time off?" Draco asked.

Ron shrugged a shoulder, "Monday and Tuesday usually, sometimes its Tuesday and Wednesday but if things get crazy I'll come in anyway. I hardly get any time off around christmas and when Hogwarts lets out and right before they start up again."

"Doesn't that cause problems with-" Draco stopped remembering that Ron hadn't mentioned Granger to him. He didn't even know if they were still together. "with... your family?"

"Hermione also works late. She's my fiance. We've been talking a lot about what we're going to do if we start a family, how we're going to balance it, but that's still a ways off," Ron said.

"That's... very forward-minded of you," Draco said.

Ron laughed, "That's one way of putting it."

"I just meant that you're planning for the future," Draco said, "I feel like I've just been doing my best to keep my head above water."

"Yeah, well you've had a hard time of it lately. Sometimes that's the best you can do," Ron said.

But it hadn't been just lately. Draco felt like he'd just been living day to day for years. Ever since he was sixteen and everything fell apart. He didn't know what it felt like to plan for the future. He had lost his and didn't know how to make one of his own.

"If this is prying you don't have to answer but, what happened?" Ron asked. "You seem like such a posh bloke, like you belong in a country estate, not a tiny attic flat."

Draco hesitated, "Well... my father died a few years ago, and my mother started getting sick And I- I was drinking more than I should." He looked down at his hands, "One night I got very drunk, and ruined everything. It's not a very exciting story."

Ron nodded, taking the hint that Draco didn't want to go say anything more. "You know, I meet up with some old friends from school on Fridays. You want to come along? It's at a pub, but you don't have to drink."

Draco pointed to himself, "Me? You do remember that you don't know me very well."

"Yeah? That's why I'm inviting you, to get to know you. It's up to you. I'm gonna go after I lock up at eight," Ron said.

"Alright. I'll think about it..." Draco said.

A few customers came up, and Draco went upstairs. He exchanged his coat and button-up shirt for a soft pale blue jumper.

He had gone back to the muggle shopping centre twice since Potter had shown it to him and bought a few things he'd forgotten and some clothes that turned out to be quite nice. He still needed to look up some tailoring spells to get them better fitted, but they weren't uncomfortable. Draco had even come to like a sweater that was a bit too big, he could pull it down over his hands and keep them warm.

After an hour of trying to read about memory charm theory, Draco gave up and grabbed his coat, heading back downstairs.