St. Petersburg Nights
by Natasha Shaitanova
Prologue: A New Life
DisclaimerI don't own Harry Potter. I do own this story :)
Snow was falling heavily on the broody, fogged streets of St. Petersburg, with thick, wet clumps of snowflakes drifting and dripping down from the fragile branches of apple trees planted along the sidewalk. Cars rumbled intermittently through the freezing, icy slush, although few ventured out into the night after the three-day storm. Pedestrians were especially rare, so the passengers tucked safely away in their heated vehicles stared curiously at a lone figure trudging steadily through the snow.
He wore full black, though everything was muted to a dull gray in the fog: a scraggly trench coat, a typical Russian hat, tall boots, and a scarf that he wrapped several times around his neck to guard against the penetrating February wind. His back was slightly hunched, his head downcast against the blizzard, as the stranger struggled a few more steps along the street before turning into a dingy building squatting on the corner of a dark alley.
As he entered the bar, the man did not alter his stance, but made his way straight to the back, motioning to the bartender as he went. With a glass of cheap whiskey sitting on his carved-up table, the stranger seemed to relax a bit as he lowered his shoulders and threw his tattered hat down next to the windowpane.
He tugged at his scarf to take a drink and the motion revealed a surprisingly young man, no more than twenty five, made older no doubt by the somber expression on his refined features. His white-blond hair hung limply around his ears, desperately in need of a cut. Tired, gray eyes stared through the impromptu bangs at the amber liquid in the glass before him, revealing nothing about the stranger, but giving off a distinct sense of discontent. The man would have berated himself for this transparency had he known, but his troubles had blinded him to this minor detail.
Draco Malfoy was not sad. Oh no, Merlin forbid he ever admitted to such a thing. He was merely brooding.
Seven years may seem like a long time to forget, but he learned the hard way that forgetting certain things was never easy. Seven years ago, he fled England for Russia. Seven years ago, he failed Voldemort's mission. Seven years ago, he betrayed everyone he knew, no matter what side, and simply vanished. Draco spent many sleepless nights in his small, ratty apartment, fantasizing of how one day he would tell his story to an ardent audience. He was still waiting for that day, but the story went something like this.
After he had let Snape complete his duty of killing Dumbledore and whisk him out of Hogwarts, Draco had cooped himself up in one of the bedrooms of Spinner's End. He had spent three days simply staring at the ceiling, resigned as he was that any minute Death Eaters would burst in and throw him at of the feet of the merciless Dark Lord. He believed himself prepared for the various tortures he would then face, but he had no illusions of dying as a glorified man on a mission—he would die a coward, he knew. He failed to complete the mission because he was afraid, and somewhere in the back of his more truthful memory, he knew he failed to complete the mission because Dumbledore's offer of reprise upon defection had taken a hold, and by no means a weak one.
Draco tried to squander those thoughts for hours on end, but the promise of redemption kept him awake and wondering. He hated his father; he hated the Dark Lord; he hated the whole psychotic ideal of the Death Eaters; so, just maybe, the old coot could have helped him.
On the fourth day, Draco sat up. The "old coot" was dead. Snape was gone, no doubt receiving honors for killing him. And he, Draco, was in no way ready to say goodbye to life.
Having so decided, he left his room, checking the house cautiously to ensure he was alone, and proceeded into Snape's drawing room. The man had never trusted banks of any kind, not even Gringotts, and had always kept a stash of a few thousand galleons in the dungeon of the house. Draco had thought carefully back to his childhood memories to recall the entrance to the basement from the drawing room, finding it finally behind the ever-burning flames of the fireplace. From there on, it took little effort for him to slip down a flight of crooked stairs and fill a decent-sized leather sack to the brim with coins. Snape never assumed that anyone unwanted would ever find the location of his house, let alone figure out how to reach his underground vault. He had certainly never suspected the "Malfoy brat" would remember.
Stocked sufficiently with money, Draco apparated to Nocturn Alley and took a Floo trip to the shady sister shop on the coast of the English Channel. From there he exchanged his galleons to pounds and euros and paid for a ferry to France, without complication. It was only a matter of a couple of days fro him to make his way through Europe, traveling by train through France, Germany, and Poland. He had a bit of an unfortunate encounter in Poland—an English wizard, traveling abroad, had recognized him from the Wanted signs back home and attempted to apprehend him, but a strong Confundus Charm took care of that problem.
Draco tried not to think of the blabbering man staggering through the streets of Krakow as he boarded the train to Kiev. From there, he avoided Floo locations like a plague—he had no desire to be traced so close to his destination, and completed the final length of his journey by muggle taxi, leaving the remainders of his money with the drivers as he finally reached the bustling streets of the Window to the West.
Summer was upon St. Petersburg when Draco arrived and the blooming boulevards, overflowing with greenery and roses, seemed to welcome him to the city, despite the fact that he had yet to find a place to stay. Draco, or Dmitri Morozov, as he began calling himself, spent the last of his galleons (converted to rubles) on a week at a cheap, backwater inn as he searched desperately for odd jobs to pay for his bread. The search had turned futile as no one seemed inclined to hire a bumbling Englishman who seemed not to have the slightest idea of what anything was.
Draco had immersed himself fully in the muggle world to avoid detection –he was well aware of the fact that the English Ministry had appealed to foreign nations for support (although most have gracefully declined) and that the Death Eaters had infiltrated Europe long before the First War, albeit England became the stronghold. Dolokhov, from Moscow, was a prime example and Draco flinched every time he encountered someone looking particularly like the massive Death Eater in question.
The situation quickly turned desperate. The week at the inn was long overdue and he was on the verge of being thrown out, although the owner let him stay a while longer in return for helping around the place—cooking especially. As with basically everything else in his new life, Draco had no idea of how to cook, so his potions knowledge and his wand was all he had to go on. It took him a total of one and a half day to decide that the arrangement was in no way working out and that there was only one feasible alternative.
And Draco had no inhibitions about turning to thievery. Having the wand with him made stealing from muggles especially easy—not only did it pay more than adequately for his food and roof, but it gave him a sense of vindictive pleasure to get back at the people he believe responsible for his plight. He gradually progressed to stealing more than petty cash from unwary pockets—a few rubles turned into multiple wallets, then accompanied by jewelry, watches, purses, suitcases.
Draco did not stop. He could not find it in himself—it became his obsession, his drive. He pushed himself to steal more and bigger items, wishing every time that he would get caught and deported back to England. He hated Anton Vassilievich, the landlord of his new, rundown apartment. He hated the apartment. More than anything, he hated himself.
Bit by bit, Draco became the new, single face of crime in St. Petersburg. Watches turned into full store casings, illegal car trafficking, eventually bank robberies. Draco was reckless. He did not care if he got caught, although he knew he never would be. He had successfully avoided the wizarding world for years, dealing only with muggles, robbing only muggles.
He prided himself, however, on the fact that he never killed. He used stunners now and then, even obliviated when need was dire, but he never maimed or murdered. He told himself he would not descend to that level, yet sometimes asked himself if there was really anywhere lower to go. Crime became his job, his addiction, his talent. He ignored the brakes and cruised on as in his new BMW.
Draco had long ago departed the impoverished state he had arrived in, using his ill-earned profits to create a comfortable, though low-profile, living in the Russian city. Gradually, he learned the language, with a few spells to help him along and eliminate the language. He kept his appearance the same throughout the years, confident that no one would recognize him in the abundance of gray- and blue-eyed blondes St. Petersburg played host to. All in all, he adapted. After all, that was what Malfoys did.
As Draco swirled the final drops of amber in his glass and dragged his finger through the fog on the dirty window, he frowned and dragged his thoughts out of the dangerous waters of reminiscence. As every time he thought of the glorious story of his escape, he hit dead end once the tale arrived at the threshold of his criminal career.
Even as he sat in the cheap, forgotten bar in a lonely alley, he forced his mind to think about his latest job and the best way to go about it. The bar was his thinking place—he could get away from unwanted distractions and concentrate on the current task at hand. Downing the last of his whiskey, he called the waiter for a bottle of vodka and a shot glass—thinking would not come easy this time, not when the item in question happened to be rather…human.
Draco threw his head back and let the transparent liquid burn a path down his throat. He may have sworn not to maim or kill, but kidnapping did not fit that category.
A/N: Alright, this is only the prologue, of course. This gives everyone the context and an idea of what this story is about. Much mroe action and dialogue will follow, I promise
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-NS
