Go Ahead. Make My Day.

Although it had taken a bit of convincing, Avery had convinced Keiran and his mother to allow Mairen and an on-call healer into their home. Keiran’s father had been moved from the house but the healer had also accompanied Mairen to try and discover what had happened. Thinking back to her encounter with the Ex-Slytherin she was hoping to convince to partner her on the case, she had been sure to take in everything. Notes had been written down around Keiran pointing out anything he thought could be of use.

A look of grim determination passed over her face as she stepped out of Ms. Cabot’s office for what was meant to be her lunch break. Instead, she would be spending the hour trying to find Scorpius and convince him that she’d done the work it took to get the case going. To convince him she was worth his time. Unfortunately, that meant that she would have a painfully long afternoon, considering the ache of hunger that was already setting in. But there wasn’t time for such things when something so important was waiting for her attention.

Mairen popped into the break room and grabbed a coffee before making her way back down to the office she had visited the previous week. Ms. Cabot had made threats regarding the paperwork, announcing that if Mairen couldn’t get them from him by the end of the week, there would be serious re-consideration of her position as the woman’s intern. Mairen didn’t exactly take it seriously, knowing her employer’s adoration for the dramatic, but that didn’t mean she wanted to risk anything.

A glance down the hall alerted Mairen to Ms. Cabot’s door opening. Shifting the file she carried under her arm, the redhead let her feet carry her back to Malfoy’s office, knocking briefly before opening the door and letting herself in. She was definitely going to be that person, who just let herself in after having met the man just the one time.

“Hello,” she greeted, though her attention was focused on glancing into the hall and closing the door behind her. Taking a drink from her coffee, she turned to face him and ambled over to his desk, dropping the file in front of him. “I got what you wanted.” Mairen grinned smugly, one hand on her hip as the other held her cup.

“Have you signed those papers?” She leaned against his desk, sitting on the edge and looking down at him from her perch.

((OOC: Sorry, I don't now how this ended up so long...))

Scorpius was eating lunch in his office. It was an uncommon occurrence for the man, only having happened once before. Prior to getting so busy, the blonde had spent his mornings lounging around and keeping an eye on Honeydukes. He would then eat lunch, and go into the office for the second half of the day. Occasionally he would stop by Honeydukes again on the way home from the Ministry, but that would only happen two or three times a week.

Upon getting busy, the man had dramatically changed his schedule. Scorpius now spent his mornings in the office, stopping by Honeydukes only during his lunch hour to check in and have a quick meal in the staff room. He would then go back to the office, and use the afternoon to get more casework done.

That day, Scorpius had been struck with a brilliant idea for the Little case only minutes before the start of his lunch break. Figuring that he could always stop by the sweet shop after work, the man started to scribble down his idea, fearing that he would forget it.

It was only a few minutes into his lunch hour, when an owl landed upon the ledge of his single window, and pecked repeatedly at the glass to get his attention. Letting the owl in, Scorpius recognized the bird immediately. Knight was his sister's owl, and had so much attitude that he didn't know how Cesca stood it. Dropping the letter onto his head, the owl flew back out into the sky without a backwards glance.

The Death Eater had been slightly confused upon receiving the letter, but after reading it figured that he really shouldn't have been. The note read:

Brother,
I have a shift at the shop now, and you aren't here. Therefore, you must be at work. I hope they're paying you overtime.
Don't forget to eat something, or I'll set Knight on you. You know I will.
Cesca

Sighing over-dramatically despite that fact that his sibling would be unable to hear it, the man slumped back into his desk chair. Not trusting that the Ministry would sell decent food, Scorpius let his head loll backward and said, "Bibby." Bibby was the house elf that he'd inherited upon turning of age. The creature had been his nursemaid when he was a baby, and had been his personal elf ever since. Consequently, Bibby knew him very well, and had developed somewhat of an attitude.

Bibby popped into appearance with a cracking noise, and looked up at Scorpius questioningly. "What can Bibby be getting you, sir," she asked, the genuineness of her tone striking something deep inside the man, as it often did.

"Just some lunch thanks Bibby, something quick and easy," he responded, knowing that even after all these years the elf still tended to go overboard with everything she did.

Bibby's massive eyes narrowed. "Sir did not break his fast at home this morning," the elf squeaked disapprovingly, "did sir not do any eatings?"

"Ah, no Bibby," Scorpius admitted with a wince, "I was rather busy and-"

"Bibby cares not!" the elf announced loudly. "Sir Scorpius knows that the morning meal is not to be skipped! And now sir wishes to eat while working? No, no, no! Bibby is not liking this, but Bibby will make sure that sir eats three meals a day! And if sir orders Bibby not to, so help me Master, I will be turning all of sir's robes pink!" With that final threat hanging in the air, the house elf vanished with a far louder noise than she had arrived with.

A little while later, Scorpius was happily munching on one of many sandwiches, even as his quill moved swiftly across an official document. A knock sounded upon his door, but before the blonde could call out, the door opened and Mairen stepped in. Smirking at her actions, he listened as the witch spoke.

"Perfect," the lawyer replied, lifting the file that Mairen had tossed onto his desk. It had been a week, and Scorpius had wondered more than once if the woman would be coming. She had however, and the vision of her sitting upon the edge of his desk was quite the sight, in his opinion.

"I have indeed," Scorpius admitted with a smile that was almost a smirk. Tugging open a drawer on his right, the blonde pulled the papers from inside of his desk. "For you mademoiselle," the Death Eater said with a flourish and a wink, offering them to Mairen.

(OOC: xD http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=111775778 )

Mairen pulled her eyes from his smirk, albeit reluctantly, and extended a hand to take the papers from him. She rolled her eyes at his wink and teasing name, but couldn’t keep a laugh from quietly falling past her lips. Glancing down, she saw that they were, indeed, completed properly. She smiled faintly, looking up at him again as she drank from her coffee and ignored the sandwich in his hand.

Standing briefly, she moved to set the papers in a nearby chair before moving back to stand next to Scorpius’s chair so she could reach past his shoulder and flip the folder open. “I think you’ll be interested in what I got,” Mairen told him pointedly, gesturing with a finger to the top page. “Written explanations from the son and wife, as well as-“ she turned the page “-signed statements from the healer that came with me, and pictures of the man’s potions lab, which the family swears they’ve not touched. Too hard, apparently. We also wrote out exactly what we found.”

A slight frown passed over her face at the memory of having to ask about things, and seeing how Avery almost felt bad for mentioning it to her. In the end, though, Keiran and his mum had seemed rather grateful that someone was at least looking into it. Why wouldn’t they want to know? She would’ve.

“So,” she started, turning her head to look at him from her spot just over his shoulder. It was strange to be so close to him; if he turned to look at her, Mairen feared they would end up touching noses or something. She tilted her head slightly so the possibility was taken away. “How’d I do?”

A rather confident grin was inching its way onto her face, so she lifted her cup and peered at him over the rim as she took another drink. If her eyebrow was lifted, it wasn’t her doing; the thing practically moved on its own when she thought she had won a challenge or bet.

Scorpius smiled as Mairen rolled her eyes. She could pretend all she wanted, but it was obvious enough to him that the woman wasn't as immune to his charm as she wanted to be. Then again, very few ever were, so it really wasn't all that surprising of a concept.

Looking down at the words inscribed inside the now-open file, Scorpius ignored the witch in favor of the information she'd just provided him with. Realizing what a terrible host he was being, and that certainly wouldn't do, the blonde looked up at Mairen through half-lidded eyes.

"Do have a sandwich," he said, pushing the platter towards the woman with a single raised brow, "they're good." Having spoken, the male turned back to the file he'd just been given. Skimming the information, Scorpius had to admit that he was rather impressed. Mairen had been quite thorough, and had been sure to jot down even the smallest of details on the off chance that they ended up being significant later.

"You did well," he informed the redhead with a smile, "you did really damn well."

Little did Scorpius know that those words, those simple and seemingly innocent little words, would have a ridiculously large impact upon his life. An impact so large, that he'd never be the same.

Two weeks later, Scorpius was yet again sitting in his office. Papers were still stacked messily on his desk and filing cabinets, and Bibby had once again needed to bring him lunch. Honeydukes was still doing well, and the Little trial had taken place a few days prior. Scorpius and Mr. Little had won, to the great displeasure of Mr. Bell. To the untrained eye, nothing seemed significantly different in the life of one Scorpius Malfoy. The untrained eye couldn't be more wrong.

The blonde Death Eater had seen Mairen almost everyday the past couple weeks, and he'd grown quite fond of her during the elapsed time. The womanizer had previously struggled to understand why his friends had been willing, even eager, to settle down with a witch and be faithful to her. But now, Scorpius was finally starting to get it.

Mairen snatched up a sandwich and sat on the arm of Scorpius's chair, watching him go through the pages as she ate. His eyes had practically pierced through her, even through his lowered lids, and she had to look away.

When he confirmed her success, she had to bite her lip, hard, to keep from blurting out that she'd told him she could do it.

Two weeks later, she had somehow convinced Ms Cabot to give her an hour each day to work on their case, which - luckily - fell right before lunch hour. With a bounce in her step, she hurried down the hall and let herself into Malfoy's office.

"Morning, Mr. Malfoy," she greeted brightly, voice only slightly teasing, sinking into a chair across from him. She had long since stopped knocking or asking before picking up a sandwich off of his desk. Taking a bite, she leaned back into her chair and let her fingers play with the pages in her lap.

"So," she started, holding a hand in front of her mouth to hold onto some propriety, "What's the agenda for the week? I figure it wouldn't be too hard to find out exactly what Mr. Hayes was working on. Get a potions professional to look at it. Keiran is convinced it's something to do with the Ministry and their laws, but until we know what it is..." She trailed off and shrugged, glancing up at him.

Brushing her hair off of her shoulder, Mairen took another bite and regarded the man across the desk from her. Even the first time she had seen him down the hall, before ever speaking to him, Mairen had been curious about the blonde. But now the curiosity had been replaced by attentiveness and attraction. It wasn't just that his eyes could see through her, or that his smirks made her breath catch. He was funnier than he thought he was, and insanely brilliant. Two weeks felt like nothing, her weekends starting to feel longer than the weekdays. Maybe it was just that the case had called to her all along. Or maybe it was that working on it meant seeing him.

"Good morning, Miss Tierney," Scorpius practically purred, a small smile upon his lips. The man had glanced up expectantly the moment that his door had opened, hoping that it would indeed be the redhead to walk through his door. The wizard had unnerved quite a few of his co-workers that week, greeting them with smiles instead of his usual scowls due to him thinking that it would be Mairen walking through the doorframe.

"Right," the blonde said, glancing down at the dead man's notes and a vial of over-boiled potion, "we'll have to send it off to a professional." Making a quick mental list of the potions experts he knew who weren't in anyway affiliated with the Ministry, the wizard almost groaned aloud. Running a hand roughly through his hair, Scorpius glanced up at Mairen with hopeful eyes.

"You don't happen to know anyone, do you? Because otherwise I'll need to ask Alexander, and knowing that twit I'll never hear the end of it," the Death Eater admitted, spotting a frankly adorable freckle on the side of Mairen's nose and quickly becoming enchanted by it. Alexander Greengrass was a distant cousin to Scorpius, with Alexander being three years the Malfoy's senior. The man was brilliant with Potions, but the two wizards had been involved in a friendly rivalry for as long as either could remember. Scorpius needing a favor from his cousin would probably haunt him for years to come.

Glancing back down at his papers, the lawyer spent the next few moments thinking about the witch sitting across from him, eyes reading the papers but not registering a single word.

"So Mairen," Scorpius started leaning forwards, suddenly and inexplicably desperate for the redhead's attention. "What do you think of the sandwiches? They're not the normal kinds, Bibby decided to change things up a little today," the ex-Slytherin said, latching onto the first topic of conversation that came to mind. It was a reasonable enough question, after all, Scorpius was allowed to want to know what his... friend... liked to eat.

Although it wasn’t the first time that he had asked for her opinion or help with something, Mairen still found herself surprised – or was it just that she was pleased? – when he turned to her. She was nearly distracted by his own mussing of his hair, but quickly registered that he was still watching her and had requested her help.

“Well,” she started, chewing on her lower lip as she thought through the list of people she knew. “We might be able to convince Cael Ivanov, though he’s very good friends with the son. So maybe that wouldn’t be a good idea. Otherwise, I know someone whose trade is to know people for odd jobs and things just like this. She could put us in touch with someone.” One shoulder lifted in a shrug before she went back to her sandwich.

Originally, when he had mentioned his house elf, she had been massively confused. After all, whose house elf comes to work as well? She wasn’t complaining, though, when the little guy so kindly brought her food as well (though Mairen had never asked if Bibby was aware of her joining her charge for lunch). Besides, when the blonde was saying her name like that – as he had done when she first walked in – she didn’t even think about commenting on the elf or the fact that he was asking about sandwiches instead of the case.

“Oh, well they’re lovely,” she attempted, nodding as though it would make her point more effective. Not that it was a very good point at all. Mairen simply didn’t understand why she could make perfect sense when going on about the case, but when he asked her something so simple she just lost whatever she was thinking by the time the words tried to come out of her mouth. “I just- I mean, you don’t eat them every day do you? I imagine sandwiches could get boring, regardless of what is in them.”

Realizing she’d basically just insulted him or the house elf (she wasn’t sure which), Mairen sat up straighter, looking a little embarrassed. “That is, I tend to change up what I choose, but there’s no reason to switch if you like them.” She wasn’t helping herself. At all. No, indeed, she almost just wanted to hide or change the topic. Biting the inside of her cheek, she ran through ways to turn the conversation around before offering, “With an hour off for lunch, one would think you could find time to even go out somewhere if you wanted.”

((OOC: Sorry, Bibby came back. She amuses me too much to let her be a one-time thing.))

Scorpius winced slightly and shook his head, "I wouldn't ask Ivanov, might be a little bit too close to home. It's alright, I'll ask Alex. At least that way we know we'll get the results back quickly." Figuring that he'd pop over to his cousin's place personally later, instead of trusting the information to an owl, the blonde set the papers and vial off to the side so that he wouldn't forget.

Scorpius couldn't help but chuckle slightly at the way Mairen got embarrassed, as if she'd somehow insulted him when commenting upon the food he was eating for lunch. "You're so adorable," the ex-Slytherin muttered, freezing a moment later upon the realization that the words had been spoken aloud. Quickly pasting on a slight smirk to make it look like he'd complemented the witch on purpose, Scorpius took a sip from his glass of water to save him from needing to speak for the next few moments.

Finally sure that he'd be able to control his own larynx, the wizard smiled at Mairen. "Normally I would change it up a little more," the lawyer admitted with a shrug, "but Bibby is a little displeased with me right now." Scorpius's voice trailed off a little towards the end of his sentence, almost as though he was embarrassed by what he was admitting to.

"I wasn't kidding when I told you I was busy before," the ex-Slytherin confided casually, "I've forgotten to eat a few times, and Bibby tends to get a little angry when I do that. I swear, that elf thinks she's my mum or something." Scorpius rolled his eyes, and half expected Mairen to do the same, before remembering that she hadn't been raised by the family elves in the same way he had.

As though the creature was capable of telling when she was talked about, and really the blonde wouldn't have been surprised, she appeared a few feet from Scorpius's desk with a crack.

"Sir Scorpius should be knowings better than to be ignoring letters from his sister!" the elf squeaked, either not noticing that Mairen was there or opting to completely ignore her. Tossing an unopened letter that the wizard had received the previous morning but not opened upon his desk, Bibby placed two little fist on either hip and scowled up at her master.

"Miss Cesca had to call Bibby away from her cleaning to ask about sir and make sure yous wasn't dead in a ditch somewhere!," the elf exclaimed, voice reaching an almost ear-spitting pitch. Removing her fists from her hips only to cross them over her chest, the well-dressed elf looked up at Scorpius expectantly, as if asking what the blonde had to say for himself.

It took some effort to keep the frown from Mairen’s face as he looked so disappointed. One of these days, she was determined that she would say something so entirely brilliant or perfect that he would beam at her. Something told her that he had the kind of grin that could make her stomach flip. She had yet to see a full-blown, blinding smile from him, but it immediately became a goal.

She blinked a couple times at his comment, unsure how to react, or if he had even meant it. Perhaps he was teasing her; it wouldn’t be the first time they had exchanged sarcastic comments. She pulled her lip back between her teeth to worry it as he spoke. When he confessed to having skipped meals, Mairen was surprised to see how frustrated he was by it considering she had done the same. Frequently. She was almost jealous of his having someone to chide him for it and bring him food anyway. She had opened her mouth to say that he should be grateful for it when the elf – or who Mairen assumed to be the elf – in question arrived.

Her eyes were wide as she watched the elf shout protests at the man in front of her and Mairen had to hide the smile threatening to grow on her face. It was massively endearing, though she hadn’t expected it to be, to see him being completely mothered by this little house elf. More so, it was rather curious that he had such a protective and concerned sister. Mairen didn’t think he had ever mentioned her.

Was the elf aware of her being there? Probably not. But Mairen felt bad that he was being chided when it was sort of her fault that he hadn’t been looking at his letters. Leaning forward in her chair, Mairen tried to catch the elf’s attention. “Um, Bibby? It’s my fault, I’m afraid. He’s been helping me on a case.” She put on her most apologetic face before adding, “He’s been making sure I ate lunch instead of just working on the case all day.”

Mairen cast a look in Scorpius’s direction briefly before turning back to the elf. She almost felt like she was talking to a child, except in this case the child had serious attitude and was very angry. Not that Mairen could judge; if she had to guess, the Malfoy family seemed the type to have elves around their whole lives. Bibby probably grew up watching out for him and was protective.

“Don’t be mad at him; blame me.”

((OOC: Sorry this took a little while. Take your time with the reply.))

Scorpius had known from the moment Bibby arrived that he was screwed. No matter how embarrassing it would be to get scolded in front of Mairen, the man couldn't bring himself to be frustrated with the elf or his sister.

He'd ignored Cesca's letter, worrying her in the way that very few things could. The two never ignored letters from each other, it was one of their unspoken rules. The siblings had always been rather protective of the other. Their personalities were an odd mix of extraordinarily similar and complete opposites. This left them alike enough to relate and be close, but different enough to fret over their sibling's incomprehensible traits. His sister had a tendency to worry over Scorpius's occasional recklessness, and the way that he often forgot to take care of himself. The lawyer loathed how the youngest Malfoy was treated by others, living in constant fear that the girl's certainty she could get her way out of any situation would one day blow up in her face.

The last time Scorpius had taken more than a few hours to respond to one of Ces's letters, he had been in St Mungos's. While Bibby had probably been over-exaggerating with her use of "dead in a ditch somewhere", the teenage girl was certain to be at least a little distressed.

The man had been about to stutter out some excuse, when Mairen beat him to it. To say that the blonde was surprised, would be an understatement. Scorpius could do little but watch fondly as the redhead bravely came to his defense in the face of an angry Bibby. The man grinned contently, finally acquiring proof that, no matter what the witch said during their banter, she was fond of him. After all, the wrath of Bibby was no trivial thing.

Bibby regarded Mairen for a moment, and if the elf had been surprised that Scorpius hadn't been alone in his office, it certainly didn't show. "At least Bibby knows that sir was listening to Bibby about the importance of eatings," the creature said slowly, tone managing to portray pleasure and reluctance in equal measure.

Turning back to Scorpius, the house-elf straightened up, trying to extend her two and a half feet for all that they were worth. "Bibby will be telling Miss Cesca that sir is in good health, and is being very very sorry," she informed her master, calm but clearly still unimpressed. With a short bow towards Mairen and one final glance towards the Malfoy heir, the servant disappeared once more.

Head falling into his hands the moment that the elf was gone, Scorpius let out a pitiful moan. "Sorry about that," the man said, words muffled into his palms.