Chapter Text
The coffee shop was packed to the rafters, humming with the overlapping rhythms of Muggle London. Cups clattered against saucers, an overworked espresso machine hissed and sputtered like an irritated Kneazle, and the warm, slightly burnt scent of over-roasted beans clung to the air in a way that made Draco feel increasingly murderous.
“Honestly, if that stupid bint of a barista moves any slower, we might as well take a Portkey to Brazil and roast our own coffee beans!” he grumbled, scowling darkly when Pansy rolled her eyes at him.
“It’s been ten minutes since we placed our order. Have a little patience, Drake.”
“I will have no such thing. I need my coffee and I need it now. And for Merlin’s sake, stop butchering my name like that, Parkinson. You truly are an insufferable brat.”
“Salazar, you get really nasty when you need a caffeine fix, don’t you?”
Draco glared daggers and crossed his arms tightly over his chest, tailored jacket sleeve brushing against the edge of a sticky Muggle table. A group near the window laughed loudly, and the draft from the open door carried in the scent of rain-swollen pavement and petrol fumes — all of it only worsening his mood.
“There’s absolutely no way it’s only been ten minutes,” he muttered. His wand hand itched terribly; a sharp little hex would undoubtedly make the barista move faster. Not that it would help with the abysmal technique. Judging by the snail-like pace at which she was wrestling with the Italian espresso machine, he was fairly certain it would take a swarm of angry hornets to make her produce more than one cup of coffee every five minutes.
“I swear, Parkinson — I could finish everyone’s orders in a quarter of the time it takes her to complete one.”
“I dare you!” Pansy said brightly.
Draco shot her a sideways frown. Pansy Parkinson — best friend, occasional fake-girlfriend, sometimes-boyfriend, and long-standing partner in every ill-advised decision he’d ever made — was watching him far too closely.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Pans. I’m not working here. I’m hardly going to commandeer the shop and start making coffee.”
“Because you can’t,” she muttered.
Draco’s head snapped round. “What was that now, Parkinson?”
“You heard me, Drake.” She lifted a brow. “You’ve got no idea how to work a coffee machine. You’d hex these Muggles on your first day. Within the first ten minutes, probably.”
She chuckled. Draco gave her a black look.
“Well, isn’t that just lovely. Best friends for over two decades and you’ve absolutely no faith in me.”
Pansy shrugged, smug as ever.
“I know you, darling. You don’t have it in you. You’d give up before your first shift even ended. That or you’ll end up in Azkaban for attacking a Muggle and breaking the statute.”
“I would absolutely make it work!” Draco snapped — more loudly than intended. A couple of Muggles glanced over; he ignored them.
Pansy’s smirk widened. “Want to make a bet?”
Draco held her gaze for a long, simmering moment. He wanted to dismiss her outright. He wanted to ignore the itch in his pride. But there was a flicker — barely a spark — of something else beneath the annoyance. Challenge. Curiosity. Perhaps even the faintest wondering of whether he could stand to do something so defiantly ordinary.
He broke eye contact only when the barista still hadn’t made any progress whatsoever.
“You’re on, Parkinson. I’ll prove you wrong.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said with feigned boredom, though her eyes gleamed triumphantly. Draco felt the intense urge to hex her.
“One month, Drake. If you can last one month working in a Muggle coffee shop — without being fired, without hexing anyone, without losing your mind — I’ll…”
“You’ll pay for your own shopping for a year,” Draco cut in smoothly.
Pansy paused, considered, then nodded. “Deal, Drake.”
She extended her hand. Draco shook it.
He should have known then that Pansy was playing him — she always played him — but his pride was smarting, his nerves were frayed, and his brain desperately needed caffeine to function properly. How he had ever survived on tea alone was a mystery for the ages.
What he didn’t admit aloud — not yet — was that some part of him wondered whether throwing himself into something unfamiliar, something grounded in the mundane and the Muggle, might not be such a terrible idea after all.