31 Theo

When Draco had been spending his time in France, under his grandfather's strict tutelage, his company was undergoing the process of expansion. Eugenius and Dirk worked quickly, in order to finish up their boring tasks soon and go back to researching new things. After doing most of the vital work, they handed out the unimportant tasks to junior enchanters and arithmancers and went off to continue their work back in Britain.

Although the progress of creating new networks was quicker than expected, the same couldn't be said for the creation of the actual products. Draco didn't hesitate to spend a lot of money on opening up a few new mirror-producing factories in the mainland. He also approved the employment of more enchanters and arithmancers as well as managers and sales staff.

This, of course, took a lot of money, especially since Deborah Aston, the senior manager of Dragon Enterprises in Britain, wanted to open up all of the stores at the same time and make it into a big event. Draco not only didn't get to see any of the profits from the sales in his home country, but he also had to borrow more money from Lucius. The boy was, understandably, quite disappointed.

However, as December approached, the Dragon Enterprises' opening ceremonies once again caused a commotion, though this time it was overseas. Although the preparations for the branches to open started half a year ago, Draco also didn't expect for it to take so much time.

In order to not leave the British magical citizens out, Draco also approved the organization of the First Anniversary event – the first one hundred people, who went to the shop on that day, would get a chance to buy a special casing, which made the mirror float at face level whenever the owner took a call. So, even if one was resting on a bed, or jogging somewhere outside, the mirror would be floating in front of them, and they could even adjust its position within 180 degrees.

As this was a limited edition item, many people already decided for themselves that they have to get these casings. Although the magical population didn't have the understanding of what 'limited edition' was at first, the posters and radio advertisements explained the concept quite well.

In order to make people come into his shop more often, Draco asked the enchanters to think of various accessories, which could be bought with the mirrors. After all, he didn't want for people to come to his store only one time in their lives – to buy mirrors. He had to make them into returning customers!

As such, the First Anniversary event not only granted the opportunity to get limited edition items, but it was also the first day when various kinds of different mirrors and casings would be released.

Among them were special mirrors, which could be used to monitor young children placed in different rooms – one just had to take it out to see, what the child was doing. The monitoring mirror was designed to always carefully follow the specified person. Draco predicted that it would also be popular among aurors, who would be able to monitor situations or people at distance.

There were also mirrors for stargazing, looking through which made observing the sky easier as it filtered the clouds and zoomed in the image, like a telescope - but it was still, unfortunately, weaker. Other mirrors could be used to see through enchantments, detect invisible people, make out ingredients used in potions and do other miscellaneous things. They couldn't replace the actually strong artifacts, which were designed for similar specific purposes and cost hundreds of galleons, but they could still be useful.

Mirror casings were also different – some transformed mirrors into different appearance, others made the call receiver's face appear different (appearing seriously ill when calling-in sick would be a hit!). Some casings had the beautifying effect on the owner when they appeared through the mirror, while others could make one appear uglier, become a werewolf, be invisible, make it seem as though a dragon was behind them, etc.

Most of these products were quite simple to enchant and Draco gave free rein to his researchers when it came to innovation. He only made sure that Eugenius and Dirk had enough assistants to help them with the development of the messaging system. Since it would be integrated into the magical network, it was a lot harder to make, after all.

On the first of December people once again gathered in front of Dragon Enterprises store. However, this time, the phenomena were repeating across many different countries and magical communities.

Many people in France, Germany, Norway and other places already heard about and experienced the usefulness of the communication mirrors. Some people even tried to replicate the British company's success with varying results – most ended up being called scammers by the customers.

A lot of magical folks also visited Britain to obtain their own mirrors, but in the last half year, they were gently rejected by the selling staff. The foreign witches and wizards were told that same mirrors would be soon available in their own counties – this also heightened the anticipation.

"Look, look! The mirrors on the store's window display show so many different types of effects that the casings have! I really want the pink one, which would make me look as beautiful as a veela, ah!" Commented a young woman to her boyfriend. She kept pointing her finger at the window display and almost squealed in excitement.

There were many women in the line, who came with the same purpose of buying the image beautifying casings.

"Everyone already knows what you actually look like, so what's the point?" Asked the witch's boyfriend with an eye-roll. Privately, he also wanted to take a look at the beautifying casing - maybe it would make him look more handsome. He heard that it could even make one look as though they had an eight-pack. How the eight-pack would be visible in the small mirror was another question entirely, though.

"My boss never believes that I am sick when I call in to get out of work," complained a young man to his friends.

"Mine also stubbornly insists to just take a Pepper-up and come to work…" mumbled another wizard.

"We should all buy the casings, which show how sick we are. Personally, I like the one which makes disgusting warts appear all over the body!"

The other man disagreed, "It doesn't look realistic. I would rather buy the one which makes my eyes appear yellowish and look like I am barely holding out from puking."

One of the older wizards in the line, who was just ahead of the group of young wizards, who had been discussing how to appear sick to their superiors, disdainfully snorted. "You do realize that if your acting isn't half-bad, you can just charm yourself to appear with warts or yellow eyes?"

The young men turned silent. One of the shy ones quietly whispered, "If I charmed myself to appear with warts, I would really be sick, because I wouldn't be able to get rid of them…"

The older wizard was speechless. He decidedly ignored the younger wizard's mutterings and turned his back to the group. The younger generation got more and more incompetent as years passed by, what else could he think?

---

Despite his promises to Abraxas, Draco still interacted with Arcturus Black. He didn't really feel particular like or dislike for the man, but the old wizard wasn't a bad person. The boy just had the impression that the Black Patriarch was already too old and tired of life. He was completely different from the Malfoy Patriarch, who spent his retirement living peacefully in a nice environment, occasionally exercising his body, having good meals and frequently socializing with his friends. Arcturus still had to take care of the Black family's matters and be actively involved in politics, with almost no spare time for resting.

Draco felt pity for the old man, so he often accompanied Arcturus when he received invitations to visit the Black manor. One person, whom the boy particularly liked, was Melania Black nee Macmillan, Arcturus' wife. As he speculated before, she was a very grandmotherly person and Draco felt very close to her.

In his previous life, his grandmother, who took care of him since childhood, when his parents were busy earning money, died very early. The boy always felt very regretful for not expressing his love more. And Melania really reminded him of his old grandma.

"Draco, welcome! I missed you very much," said the old woman when the blond boy entered the living room of the Black estate after arriving there via the fireplace. He broke into a smile when he spotted Melania, sitting on her couch with a wand in one hand, and a ball of yarn in another. She was magically knitting a light blue sweater.

"Grandma, I also missed you," he replied and went over to hug the Black Matriarch. After visiting her a few times, he no longer observed the formalities at her urgings, and directly called her 'grandma', even though technically, they weren't really related through blood.

"Draco is here?" Arcturus came into the room. He had just come back from a session in Wizengamot and felt very tired. The old wizard came to sit on another couch beside Melania and turned to the Malfoy heir. "Come, sit down. Tell me more about what have you been up to nowadays."

The Black manor belonged to the Black Patriarch and that is where the main family lived. After the first visit, Draco rarely saw any other member of the Black family – even his actual grandparents didn't seek him out too much. Pollux was ill and didn't have the energy to accompany a young and energetic boy – his words, not Draco's. Whilst Druella actually wanted to meet him more, however, Narcissa strictly refused. She knew, how overbearing her own mother could be and Draco, who was a free-soul and disliked restrictions, wouldn't be able to bear her for a long time. Thus, she limited Druella's and Draco's time together. The blond boy was very grateful to his mother's insight.

When Draco visited Arcturus, the older man usually taught him about the current political situation, both internal and external. Although Draco learned History with his tutor, they didn't discuss the current political climate and focused more on dates, why some Dark and Light Lords or Ladies were popular in their time, goblin risings, various treaties and spell innovations. At first, he was rather interested in discussing politics, as he thought it would be useful to know for the coming years, when Voldemort started to actively try to come back. However, after a time he found it rather boring.

But, surprisingly, today Arcturus didn't try to start this topic. Instead, after listening about Draco's progress in different lessons, he asked: "What about your friends? After Yule celebrations and New Year, it will be the young Nott's birthday, right?"

Draco found it a bit strange that the older man asked this question but he nodded nonetheless. "Yes, Theo will be turning nine in just a few weeks."

"How is he doing?" Arcturus insisted on continuing this topic despite the boy's short answer. Draco couldn't understand what was up – there must be a reason for these questions.

The blond boy carefully thought about the past few months. After coming back from Egypt, Draco was busy with his lessons and company, then he went to France for summer. When he came back, he was still busy, so the meetings between his friends, although still quite frequent, recently decreased. But, whenever he saw Theo, the other boy was always pale and maybe a bit more withdrawn than before.

When Draco, Daphne, Susan and Hannah decided to meet spontaneously sometimes, Theo always came, but he frequently appeared as though he was sick – his body often trembled as though he had a high fever. Friends always asked whether the dark-haired boy was alright, but he insisted that he was fine and none of the children ever thought too deeply about it. They just took care to do less strenuous activities.

Theo had always been very pale, sometimes appearing sick because of the lack of sun. However, he had never been withdrawn or ill for long periods of time. Suddenly, Draco's eyes narrowed. Could it be?

The boy looked towards Arcturus, who had been silently observing Draco's changing expressions and didn't interrupt the boy despite his long silence.

"I crossed paths with Finlay Nott a few times in the past few months. I sensed that recently, he had been practicing more Dark magic and he doesn't seem to have taken precautions to differentiate the spells in order to mitigate the effects on the soul and emotions…" said the Black Patriarch calmly. "Since it has been happening over a long period of time, I thought that it may involve someone that the Nott Lord is close to. The only person I could think of is his son and from your expression, it seems that you also suspect something."

Draco nodded. Looking back, everything fell into places – Theo never said, how his father punished him for getting involved in the incident in Egypt. It seems that his friend suffered so much because of Draco's decision, yet he hadn't done anything and didn't even notice that the other boy was being tortured.

"Grandfather, grandma… I suddenly remembered that I have something to do, please excuse me," without waiting for a response Draco stood up and hurried out of the room.

He has a friend, who needs his help.