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antonin-whoisleft​:

Antonin kept his mouth shut when he heard the grand doors of Malfoy Manor open and close from the parlor down the hall. He didn’t not like being there, though that had nothing to do with the manor so much as it had to do with Malfoy himself. The pair of them had never quite gotten along, too similar in their ambitions and dissimilar in their means of achieving their goals; but Antonin was nothing if not a loyal member of Lord Voldemort’s army, and he went where he was told to go.

Besides, getting to enjoy a glass of hideously expensive scotch while he waited for his contact to arrive was a bonus. The Malfoy house elf had scampered up to him with it, one ice cube perfectly chilled inside, and he’d been left to his own devices while some of his comrades went over their own mission plans a few doors down.

It was a respectable place to call a safe house, that much was for sure. As long as they all staggered their exits, disapparating or floo or otherwise, it was nearly impossible to draw attention to the place. It was too out in the open, too obvious, too… belonging to a powerful family. It really was perfect.

The doors opening was a sign as good as any that his contact had arrived; she would be the only one using the doors that day, most likely. Malfoy had arranged some ridiculous measures for anyone not pureblood to enter his house, he was sure it would be abandoned once it was clear having their few halfblood comrades walking up visibly to his manor might cause a bit of a curious stare from anyone looking too hard.

“Harper Baddock, yes?” He asked, voice smooth and welcoming, standing now in the doorway and watching the woman with his curious, perhaps a bit unsettling, large green eyes. “Lovely room, isn’t it? Lot of blondes, though.”

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“Indeed” Harper replied, matching the smoothness of Antonin’s tone, answering his questions and comment in one word. While she wanted to make a wise-crack about what would happen should a Malfoy child be anything but blonde, Harper knew this was certainly not the place, and was still unsure enough about the company to do so. “You must be Antonin,” she stated, rather than asked, with a slight lift of her chin.

Antonin, she had already gathered, was a young man with an edge; Death Eater associations and beliefs aside. There was something about him that wrenched her stomach a bit, but she could not yet put a finger on what it was. Large eyes often gave an innocent appearance, but in Antonin’s case, the trait that came to Harper’s mind was snake-like. She hoped that she could charm him enough to end up at least on his neutral-to-positive side.

“I’d ask what else is going on around here, maybe even try to get the grand tour… but I doubt that I’d be shown or told much, or that it would even be well-received” Harper quipped, though internally unsure how much of her comment was actually in jest. She moved to focus on the business matters before she could dwell too much on her own words.

“Obviously, I have all the paperwork I was to bring. I’m sure you’ll find everything in order. I can take you through it, if you’d like,” Harper continued, gesturing to the couch and table towards the center of the room. “Or we could just chat…” she offered tentatively. “I guess getting the short end of the stick and having to meet with me isn’t so bad, considering you get a nice drink out of it,” she remarked, her eyes flicking from his face to the glass in his hand.