When Draco had failed to kill Dumbledore, Snape took him to his Muggle house. He told him that he had all the time in the world to make a decision on what he wanted to do, but that he had to be the one to make the decision.
'In a person's life,' Snape said, 'there are rarely ever opportunities like this.'
He was too worn and weary to say anything. He'd never been allowed to make decisions for himself before; the idea of it alone was daunting, even if he weren't as lost as he was right then.
'No one has to know that you are alive,' Snape continued. 'I'll bring you food, and you can stay here—you'll be safe here—as long as you need.'
It was the best gift anyone had ever given him, and probably the last thing Snape had the power to. And just like he had all his life up until then, he threw it all away. He said he didn't want to think about it, didn't want to sleep on it, he said, 'I want to go home.'
#
As Draco sat wandless and stared at the half collapsed castle from inside Aberforth's hut, he thought about how there was rarely ever a chance like this. How he'd thought about how he regretted that he hadn't given himself a night, a day, a week to think about what he wanted for once. All he'd thought about where his parents were and getting back to them as quickly as possible. But they were adults and they were fine without him, and he was their child, and they'd control him for however long he was around them.
He loved them, and he'd never have the strength to go against their wishes in front of them.
All in all, running away then—even though he didn't have the resources he would have had if he'd taken Snape's offer—was the coward's way out again. He knew he couldn't stand up to his parents. Before he hadn't thought he'd ever want to leave them or ever go against their wants for him. Whatever they had wanted he did as well.
He'd never be able to find Snape's house again. If it was as safe as Snape made it seem, it was probably hidden by magic somehow. So many people had died that day that it would take nothing for people to assume he was one of them. They'd never find Crabbe's body and the same could be true of Draco's. Any number of things could have happened to him, and the last people to see him weren't friends of his parents anyway.
They'd find his mother's wand lying around somewhere from when he was last attacked and lost it before he ran out to the perimeter. He could still hear the fighting going on, but he knew nothing he did then would matter.
No wand, no talent for fighting, no one trusting him on either side.
It was pointless.
He walked towards Hogsmeade because it was the only place he would be able to travel from. He stayed on the edges of town and behind the buildings because he didn't want to be seen. It only took a quarter of an hour before he had been.
Aberforth got him inside and without any discussion of who Draco was, and only a brief one of whom Aberforth was, seemed to know everything about him. He fed him and got a small bag together of more food to take with him.
'I wouldn't advise staying here,' Aberforth said. 'It's too dangerous. I'd suggest the Leaky—and getting into Muggle London as quick as possible. Keep your school uniform but ditch the robes. You might be a bit overdressed for some areas, but you'll blend in well enough without them. Lots of places to hide there, easy place to find transportation to wherever you want.'
As long as that place wasn't home and that he was offering Draco a chance of a lifetime were left unsaid but known.
This time Draco took it.
#
Draco had never been in Muggle London before. He had never even been to the Leaky Cauldron, before, but he had heard of it and knew where it was. Not that he needed that knowledge as he Flooed right into the pub.
He'd never been anywhere Muggle unless he counted Snape's house, which on the inside was distinctly not Muggle. He left the Floo and went straight to the front door without making eye contact with the few people in the pub. The man behind the bar didn't even look up from his newspaper. Draco wondered if he was even aware that there was a battle going on at Hogwarts.
Draco walked the streets just looking around him.
He'd heard about cars, but seeing them was something completely different. They were terrifying, and Draco stayed on the sidewalk as long as possible.
With no destination, Draco decided that London was just as good as anywhere else. Since he didn't have any money, he really never had much of a choice. Plus, London was a huge city, so even if someone did look for him there—without a trace on him—they'd have a hard with it. He'd stick out more in a small town. The people past him without much as a glance. He felt safe being unnoticed in the crowd. Safer than he had in a long time.
He spent the first day just watching the people around him. Blending in as best he could. Once he'd gone around the same block twice, he'd move on to a new one finally crossing his first road with cars on with a group of people. He was slowly mapping out the area with his feet. He liked the idea until night fell.
That first night, he didn't sleep.
Every once in awhile, he stop in a shop doorway to rest. But he never felt safe in them for long and once he began seeing them occupied by other Muggles, most likely also homeless like him, he didn't feel safe mapping out the area around him anymore.
It was stupid and dangerous to walk so close to the Leaky Cauldron. He'd find himself on the block staring at it again, watching the people pass it by mostly. Every time the door opened to let someone in or out, Draco was filled with fear. He needed to stay away.
By morning he found a park. He put his bag under his head and fell asleep for a few hours.
He was still tired when he woke up, but he couldn't stick around for long. Even though he didn't see anyone that might cause him trouble yet, he knew instinctively that he couldn't stay out in the opened too long.
The second day, Draco figured out who the Hit Wizards were. Well, the Muggle version of them anyway. They wore blue, and they walked the streets as well. He saw one asking a man for an "ID", and though they were low on his list of people to worry about, he knew he had to stick clear of them. When Draco had walked the same block more than once, he realised he was also noticed by them. He gave Draco a funny look.
Draco ducked into a shop. The man didn't follow him in.
When he entered, two girls were in the shop that was otherwise empty. One by the till and the other organising clothing onto a rack. They both looked him up and down and then shared a look with each other.
Trying to make it seem as though he had a reason to be there, he looked for a section of clothing that might actually be for himself. He knew nothing about Muggle clothing and couldn't tell the difference between the girls and boys clothing at first glance. All around him were t-shirts. Draco had seen Muggleborns wear them at school and in Hogsmeade. As he scanned the pictures on them, Draco saw that some of them had rainbows and bright pink.
Pink wasn't a popular colour with wizards in general, and the only person he'd seen wear it were Muggleborn girls—Granger to the Yule Ball and Brown often from her jumpers to her hair accessories. So Draco determined that he was not in the right section and then looked up to see if he could find the boys' section on his own, only then he met the girl at the till's eyes. The shop could be girls only, which would explain why they both gave him such a funny look when he came in.
'You lost?' the girl at the till asked in an accent Draco had never heard before, and as such he could barely make out what she was asking.
Draco's mouth hung opened for a moment and then he said, 'I'm looking for something . . . for my girlfriend.'
The girl laughed then, and Draco wondered if he was sorely mistaken about only girls wearing pink.
The other girl, the clothing arranging girl said, 'Imogen!'
'What?'
And then to Draco she said, 'Ignore her.' Walking toward Draco, she asked, 'Do you know what your girl likes?'
Imogen snorted. 'Come on, you know he was lying about having a girlfriend.'
Draco glared at the girl. He was obviously lying about shopping for his girlfriend there, but that didn't mean he was so undesirable that he didn't have a girlfriend at all.
'Well,' the other girl said, ignoring Imogen. 'If you need any help, my name is Willow, and I'll be right here.'
'We ain't that kind of shop Willow,' Imogen said rolling her eyes. 'Do you see smiling kids or men's abs along our walls?'
Draco saw mostly black, and there were posters, but no one was smiling in them.
'She's just trying to talk you up because she thinks you're cute,' Imogen said, looking at Draco again. 'And hoping you're still far enough in the closest to kiss her, because as I said: we all know you ain't got no girlfriend.'
'You can't tell that just by looking at me.' His answer made Willow smile, but Imogen smirked.
'I can tell a lot of things just by looking at you—' Imogen came around the counter to stand in front of him. She was hardly wearing anything at all, but it all had holes or rips that Draco thought might actually have been there on purpose. 'But any doubt I had is now gone—you're looking more at the holes in my clothes than my tits. Meaning tits aren't your thing, but that's not why I said that. You're far from home, love. And from the fine clothes you are wearing and how dishevelled you are, tells me, you either ran away from home or were kicked out.
'And you come from money, so there are only so many reasons that either of those things happened. You don't have the look of a druggie, so clearly—you're gay.'
'Yeah,' Willow said sarcastically, 'You're a regular Sherlock Holmes.'
Draco didn't say anything to that but swallowed a lump in his throat. She was very close to right.
'I'm right, aren't I?'
There was no point in trying to explain the truth, so Draco nodded.
Willow gasped and came up beside them, looking for a moment like she was going to give Draco a hug until Imogen gave her a look.
'Where're you staying, love?' Imogen asked, and when Draco obviously had no answer to that she swore and headed back behind the counter. She grabbed something and seemed to be writing on it as Willow began again.
'You can stay with us.'
'You . . . live together?' Draco couldn't imagine it as they seemed to hate each other.
'Yeah, upstairs. I own this place.' Imogen was back again, shoving the paper into Willow's hands. 'Find him some less noticeable clothes and write down the codes so I can write it off and order more. Then show him around and start training him in the back. We have a lot of back stock he could go through once he knows what to do with it all.'
Draco couldn't imagine anything in the shop being less noticeable than what he was already wearing, but he followed as Willow's face lit up at the prospect of her task.
All Draco could force himself to say was, 'Why? Why are you doing this for me?'
Because she was very clearly saving him from the street, even if she was setting him up to work for her. It was the middle of a weekday, but he couldn't imagine the place ever being busy enough that she needed extra help.
'Oh, love. You'd be eaten alive out there. Someone as clueless and good looking as you? You'd be on your knees in an alley within a week. And I just can't watch that happen. Besides, no one wants to work at minimum wage forever; we have a high turnover, and I'm always looking for more help.'
#
The upstairs flat was small, but Draco didn't complain. He didn't complain about the weird food or the smells or the drunk people who hollered at night outside. He was just glad not to be out there with them.
He'd been wrong about the amount of work there'd be for him. The shop was packed with kids on the weekends, and Imogen wasn't the most organised person. Lucky for her Draco was. He completely reorganised her back room in the first month he was there. After she had brought him out on the floor, Imogen taught him all about Muggle money.
'You've never seen money?'
Draco shrugged. 'My parents took care of all of that for me.' Which was true. His parents didn't just give him money growing up. If he wanted something, he asked them and they decided whether or not they'd get it for him. He did know all about money from his own world, though. It didn't take long to learn the numbers, and he got used to counting it quickly.
He quickly felt at home with them. They just as much runaways as he was only they were a few years older, and Imogen wasn't so much a runaway as an abandoned by her mother at fifteen. She'd met a man and just up and left Imogen. With only a couple of weeks left before rent was due, she did the only sensible thing she could think to do: she looked for a job. Imogen might not have been very organized, but she was very good with money.
Willow was a runaway. She'd fought with her mom most her life and then it just blew up one day, and she left. She hoped to find her father in London, but never located him. Either her mother was lying about who he was, or he'd disappeared. No one from the areas her mother mentioned knowing him had ever heard of him. Her mother didn't bother to find her, and she had no desire to see her again either.
Draco didn't share his story with them. They thought they already knew it, but really without omitting all the most important parts—which he'd have no choice but to do—he no real reason to run away.
He had loved his parents. Loved them so much he couldn't stand to see the disappointment in their eyes every time they looked at him.
He was gay. Only they didn't care. It wasn't a negative thing to be in his world. But it fit for their world, so he let them believe it.
For the first time in his life, he could be himself. With their own past, Willow and Imogen were very non-judgemental. Things he said at home that caused outrage from his own peers, they laughed at. That had been what he'd been after, even without knowing it. The chance to be himself. The chance to figure out who that even was without the weight of his name hanging over him.
'Oh, love,' Draco said. 'Tell me who did that to your hair so we can boycott them; it is just sad.'
'It's horrible, isn't it?' The girl laughed. 'Can you believe that witch still charged me?'
Draco still flinched when someone said that. Some of the younger customers would use witch to keep themselves from having to say bitch. He tried not to react to the word because it brought on questions he didn't have the answer to.
'Hey,' a deep voice said as a man came up from behind her. 'Watch your language.'
'I said witch,' she said with an attitude and rolled her eyes. 'My brother,' she told Draco.
'Well, hello brother.' Draco hadn't meant to flirt, but damn it he'd spent too much time around Willow and was picking up her habits, and the man was gorgeous: a few inches taller than Draco with dark brown hair and eyes to match which widened at Draco's suggestive tone. His sister laughed at it, but then her expression change to shock when he held out his hand to Draco, said his name was Connor and asked Draco for his name in return.
Hesitantly, Draco took it. It would have been rude not to, but Draco wasn't sure if he was ready to explore that part himself yet.
Draco caught Willow giving him a thumbs up from the register and mouthed, 'go with the flow.'
That was always her advice, and it made him smile, maybe it was Connor's smile that was making him smile. Either way, going with the flow was all he'd been able to do since he ran away. So within five minutes, he can Connor's number and appointment—the three of them—for Draco to fix his sister's horrible bleach job.
Luckily, because of Pansy, Draco actually did know how to fix it, even without magic.
