"New York State of Mind"
Kaylee Snape
Chapter 1 – Confrontation
"Transmito absens," Draco Malfoy muttered to himself. "Transmito absens." He glared at the sky above him, the sky that stubbornly insisted on remaining bright blue and cloudless, when by all rights it should have been crawling with black thunderclouds and sheeting rain. If life worked the way it was supposed to—the way it did in books and movies—the rain would have been coming down in torrents so thick that even with the lightning flashing every other second, Draco would have been almost blind. Of course, weather like that probably would not have been very helpful, but it would have been far more appropriate.
"Transmito absens." This time, the repeated spell was accompanied by a complicated flicking motion that looked like a cross between the hand jive and sign language. Draco was walking a very thin mental line- he knew that if he concentrated too hard on what was to come, he would grow incredibly nervous and fail to fulfill his mission. However, if he didn't think about it at all, he might forget some important word or gesture, and then he would fail to fulfill his mission. Either way, the Dark Lord would be greatly upset and his father… Draco didn't even want to think about his father's reaction. Failure was simply not an option, not on the first and most important mission Draco had ever been assigned. If he succeeded—when he succeeded—he would obtain the Dark Mark before returning to Hogwarts for his fourth year, and if that weren't enough a reward, he would be able to participate in whatever his father had planned for the World Quidditch Cup.
A brief thought occurred to Draco, but he shoved it to the back of his mind before his brain could fully formulate it into words and therefore make his mind accept it. He did not wonder whether or not he wanted the Dark Mark; he knew: it was what he was meant for. His birth signified another Death Eater to carry on the Malfoy tradition. It was an honor, and everyone—everyone who mattered, anyway—would be horribly jealous of Draco when he returned to Hogwarts. His father told him so.
In an effort to distract himself from his disquieting almost-thoughts, Draco looked at his surroundings, rather more intently than the rather mundane environs warranted. To either side of him were rows of almost-identical houses; the only way that Draco could tell that they were not merely the same house over and over is that each one would have a slightly different color for its shutters, or a different type of tree in the front yard, or a different car in the driveway. If all of these houses looked the same… where in Salazar's name was he? And… where exactly was he supposed to end up?
He fished around the pocket of his black jeans—he had worn Muggle clothing to fit in with his surroundings—and pulled out a piece of paper. The sun was shining so brightly he didn't even have to squint to discern that the words on the page read "Number Four Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey." He jogged a few steps to the nearest street sign, the breeze created by his passage plastering his new silk shirt to his chest, and peered up at his present location. Where in the world was 'Magnolia Crescent?' Where the Hades was Privet Drive? Had he passed the turnoff while preoccupied with practicing?
Draco retraced his steps quickly, his calf-high black leather boots thumping rather loudly on the pavement. The disquieting sameness of the houses made it seem as if Draco weren't moving at all but simply retracing his over and over again in a never-ending loop. How could Muggles live like this? A block later, he found the turnoff. There, his steps slowed, and the nervousness he had tried to suppress came back with a vengeance. Forget butterflies—Draco imagined that a herd of dragons were having fiery, aerial battles in the roiling mass that had once been his stomach. He was about to die of fear, and it was almost time for him to kidnap Potter.
He really should have been supplied with more of a plan than "Kidnap Potter by saying this spell." That wasn't even a plan- that was just a set of orders! He couldn't just walk up to the door and say "I'm here for Harry Potter… could he?" Actually, why couldn't he? He could say that he brought orders from the school board… The set of orders that he had been given completely bypassed the half-baked stage and developed into a fully-fledged plan, and a very clever one at that, at least in Draco's completely unbiased opinion.
Sooner than he would have thought possible, he was standing in front of a rather small, square house with the same address as his slip of paper… Potter's house. Time to screw his courage to the sticking place, as it says in Shakespeare's Macbeth, and-
He rang the doorbell. A boy of about his own age answered the door, but this boy was definitely not Potter; he was huge! He was larger than Crabbe and Goyle put together, and he didn't have an ounce of muscle on his body. Draco took a moment to gauge the measurement of the door and the boy, noting with inner amusement that he would have to turn sideways to fit out of the front door. "Yes?" the boy said with the irritated air of one who was forced to repeat himself thanks to the stupidity of others. Thanks to the aforementioned Crabbe and Goyle, Draco knew that tone intimately.
Leaning up against the doorpost with his trademark smirk, Draco replied "I'm looking for Harry Potter."
The dislike that had appeared on the boy's face at the presence of Draco's smirk deepened into suspicion. "You're one of his weird friends, aren't you!" The supposed question came out as an accusation, and Draco could clearly sense the fear behind his words.
"If I am," Draco moved so that the tip of his wand peeked out of the top of his jean pocket, "it wouldn't be wise to keep me waiting, now would it?"
The obese boy blanched and disappeared so quickly that had Draco not known he was a Muggle, he would have suspected the boy of having apparated. After a few moments, he reappeared at the top of the stairs. His massive expanse of flesh blocked the stairs completely, so no matter how Draco strained his eyes, he couldn't tell if there was another figure behind the locationally confused whale or not.
At the bottom of the stairs, the boy moved aside to reveal a familiar figure with bright green eyes, perpetually unkempt hair, and the lightning bolt scar that had made him the second most famous wizard in all of London, possibly in all of Wizarding England. "What are you doing here, Malfoy?" asked Potter the moment the Muggle shifted to reveal Draco's presence.
"Why all of this hostility, Potter?" Draco asked, opening his eyes in mock-innocence and placing a hand over his heart as if wounded. "Oh, I know—you have so few friends that whenever one visits, it just throws you into a state of shock. It's all right, Potter, I'll let it go. I would do the same for Weasley if I ever watched him open a bag of galleons. Of course, that would never happen, so I'm safe."
"I know you didn't just come here to insult my friends. Get to the point, Malfoy, so that I can get rid of you."
Draco glanced at the room into which the Muggle had disappeared. "Let's take a walk, Potter. I don't want to spend any longer in a Muggle house than I have to." He bowed mockingly, never taking his eyes off Potter who approached the door warily.
"You first," he ordered shortly.
"All of this mistrust!" Draco's nervousness was making him even more flippant than he usually was. He preceded Potter out of the door, figuring that the stupid Gryffindor would be too noble to hit him in the back with a jinx.
Draco's supposition was correct, and the two began walking side by side down the street of Privet Drive, each watching the other out of the corner of his eye. When Draco judged that they were far enough out of earshot, he stopped and turned to face Potter.
"You know that my father is on the school board-" Draco began
"Not anymore," Potter interrupted.
Draco continued as if he hadn't spoken. "Well, he came home last night and told me a piece of news so delicious that I had to deliver it in person. Because that criminal Black is still on the loose, and he apparently has some sort of reason to want you dead, you won't be allowed at Hogwarts next year! You've been deemed 'a danger to the students.'"
Draco was so busy gearing himself up for the spell he was about to perform that he almost missed the look of horror on Potter's face. Before the stunned part of the stunned disbelief could wear off, Draco whipped out his wand and yelled "Silencio!" Now that Potter couldn't utter a counter spell, Draco could take his time to perform the next, much more difficult spell properly. "Transmito absens-AHHHHH!" Just as Draco was finishing his spell, Potter leapt at him, almost wrenching his wand out of his hand. Draco's vision narrowed, and all he saw was the stupid Muggle-raised Potter who had been so… ill-bred as to attack him physically. He was barely aware of any sense of movement; he only realized that his surroundings had changed when he hit his head on an object that hadn't been there two moments before, and that was the last thing he realized for quite some time.