Quality Quiddich Supplies

"Veni, vidi, visa. – I came, I saw, I spent a little money." (Anonymous)

Lucius Malfoy impatiently tapped his foot on the polished flagstone floor of Quality Quiddich Supplies in Diagon Alley. Draco was now trying on the seventh pair of seeker gloves and his father was just about ready to slam his silver-tipped cane on the counter and tell him to make up his damn mind and hurry up. "I don't know," he heard his son say. "I think the last but one pair had a better fit, though this one seems to possess a better grip."

The shop-assistant, a young wizard only a few years older than Draco opened yet another box. "Well, if you like the grip of these, then you want to try this." He pulled out a new set of gloves and waved them under his customer's nose. "We've just got them in from Spain, finest kidskin, slightly roughed, and impregnated with some very subtle adherence spells – perfectly regulation of course. I want to see the snitch that slips through their hold. And of course they are a bit snugger around the wrist, like the pair you said fit better. Here, try them."

Lucius' patience was truly wearing thin by now. "Draco," he growled and tossed back his robes. "Do you think there is a chance we will actually make it out of here before the Hogwarts express leaves tomorrow?" The blond boy looked back at his father, gloves in hand. "If you recall, I offered to go by myself this year," he defended himself.

"Yes, and have the Death Eaters pick you off and murder you. I don't think so," said the elder Malfoy. Draco scowled now. "Well and whose fault is that?" he sneered. "I didn't get myself caught red-handed and fell out of favor with His Lordship."

"Young man, I'm warning you to watch your tongue," threatened Lucius, tightening the grip around his cane. Just then a small cluster of bells above the door chimed, and the wizard turned to see who had entered the shop. Despite his best efforts to remain annoyed his lips curved in an involuntary smile as he regarded the red-haired witch who peered into the dim interior of the store. "Eleanor," he said and took a step towards her, only to see her recoil with an expression close to panic on her face.

His brows shot up in surprise. There was absolutely no reason why his fiancé should react to him in this way, but a moment later the young shop assistant had dared to bodily push him out of the way and rushed towards her, grabbing her hand.

"Miss Lestrange – Athena, it is so good to see you! And you are alive! I am so glad!" Everyone in the rather busy store turned to stare, and into the sudden quiet Lucius heard the love of his life say quite distinctly: "Oh crap!"

Lucius had hardly the patience to idly stand by and watch this little snot of a quiddich salesman first manhandle him and now lay hands on his future wife. He stepped up and pushed the chased serpent top of his cane against the clerk's chest.

"Excuse me," he snarled. "I believe you are mistaken. I would strongly suggest you refrain from bothering this witch. This is Professor Eleanor Sartorius and you have absolutely no business with her. Now I advise you to let go of her and help my son to finally decide on his quiddich gloves." The shop assistant stared in confusion at the red-haired witch and in alarm at the fanged snake-head that now painfully pressed against his sternum. "But, but…"

Eleanor sighed and stepped to the side to lay a calming hand on Lucius' arm as the students and parents that crowded the store gawked at them. Ever since Mr. Malfoy's trial earlier that year and the long article in Witch Weekly about Mrs. Malfoy's red-haired rival and her scandalous divorce, the Lord of Malfoy Manor and his lover were marked wizarding folk. It was impossible to go anywhere without inviting unwelcome attention.

Lucius Malfoy had been rehabilitated by the wizengamot a little over a month ago after his spectacular arrest at the Department of Mysteries, and Eleanor had been cleared of any wrongdoing in helping him, but both had retained their notoriety, him as a Death Eater who had been briefly exiled to live as a muggle, her as an unprincipled home-wrecker, and both as practitioners of the Dark Arts of the worst kind.

Eleanor realized she had to clear up this misunderstanding in public, before anything worse could happen. Lucius' temper seemed extremely taxed already. She tried to smile at the shop assistant, looking suitably contrite.

"I'm afraid, Mr. Malfoy here is right. My real name is Eleanor Sartorius. I do apologize I had to resort to a little white lie the last time we met and you sold me that fantastic Firebolt. I had to get away from an auror who was following me. Still, your help that evening was invaluable. I would recommend you to the Ministry, but of course you were instrumental in getting an auror arrested and beaten up by mistake." She smiled sweetly, causing the young man to cast a terrified glance at his curious audience.

"I swear, I didn't know," he explained to no one in particular. "She tricked me!"

Eleanor's smile broadened. "Perhaps you should go and help your young client over there," she suggested gently and indicated Draco with a nod of her head. "I think he has a question for you." Blushing beet-red and flustered the quiddich salesman rushed back to his counter, and slowly the other customers returned to their errands.

Eleanor found herself under the watchful gaze of her lover. "What was that all about?" he said quietly. "Oh, never mind, dear," she said airily, lacing her arm through his and stroking the gloved hand that held his ebony cane. "I promise you, you don't want to know the gory details. In any case I don't think we'll ever live this year down, regardless."

Lucius shook his head and decided to change the topic. Eleanor could be maddeningly evasive if she chose to be.

"Did you get the parchment?" he asked. She smiled and held up an old battered scroll of vellum, sealed with an indigo ribbon and the Sartorius family crest. "No problems. At least the goblins at Gringotts are still discretion itself, quite a refreshing change."

She looked over at Draco and the shop assistant. The young wizard was in the process of nervously packing up one of the glove boxes and Lucius' son watched him with an air of arrogant amusement before he pulled out a well-filled purse and paid for his purchase.

As he approached, his father let out a small snort of annoyance. "Are you sure, you got the right pair? Can you really decide after only trying on half of all they have in stock here?"

Eleanor shook her head, certain she had missed something earlier. "Gentlemen, gentlemen," she admonished both, then leaned in on her companion, purring into his ear. "Lucius, you know damn well what you're doing to me when you get all angry and sarcastic like that." She felt a soft shudder run through his body, but then Draco looked back at them with a mixture of exasperation and disgust. "I heard that," he said.

The elder Malfoy appeared instantly sobered and cast a quick look around. "High time for you to get back to Hogwarts, Draco. Now let's get out of here," he said and opened the door. Soon they stood on the crowded pavement of Diagon Alley. The street was bristling with young wizards and witches and their parents, who were making last-minute purchases for the new school year.

Lucius pulled a letter from his robes and read over the writing in green ink. "Robes and books," he mumbled, then focused on Draco. "Very well, I'll go over to Madam Malkin and pay for your school robes – she can send them directly to Hogwarts. You go with Eleanor and buy your school books."

He proffered the letter with the book list to his lover and Eleanor raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure, you wouldn't rather go to Flourish& Blotts?" she asked, picturing Lucius squished in among hordes of giggling witches at the narrow robe-maker's store.

"No, trust me," said both wizards in unison. The red-haired witch threw up her hands in surrender. "Fine, fine, just asking," she said. "What do I know? See you at the Leaky Cauldron in half an hour," she called after Lucius, who now impatiently shouldered his way through the crowds.

"What's that all about?" she asked Draco when they were out of earshot. The young wizard shook back his blond hair and grinned. "Oh, five years ago father got into a fistfight with Arthur Weasley at the bookshop," the young wizard explained.

"Father gave Mr. Weasley a piece of his mind regarding the fact that the old Weasel is constantly brown-nosing muggles. Well, Weasley couldn't take it, lost his cool and attacked father. He was so angry, he didn't even think to do magic, used his fists instead, like one of his bloody muggles. He pushed father into some shelves, but father hit him back pretty well, you should have seen all the blood! He would have won, too, if he hadn't been smacked in the eye by a book. Mother had him lying at home on the settee in the drawing room that evening while the house elves kept putting raw steak on his eye. He was so mad!" Draco grinned. "It was pretty cool, though."

Eleanor shook her head. "Right, and now he has a restraining order against him or something?" Draco shrugged his shoulders. "Nah, but old Mrs. Blotts gives him evil looks every time he goes there. It's all rather unpleasant." With that they had reached the store and the witch sighed as she saw the crowds squeezing their way among the narrow passages between the shelves.

"We should really not listen to your father and leave shopping till the very last day of the holidays," she said. "Well, there's nothing for it now. Let's do this. You take 'Advanced Spellwork', 'Runes for Masters', 'Arithmancy III' and 'Astronomy of the Ancients'. They are all on the second floor. I'll grab the rest downstairs. Let's meet by the exit as soon as we are done."

Eleanor felt bad about chaperoning an almost 16-year-old, but she and Lucius had decided that since the elder Malfoy had fallen out of favor with Lord Voldemort and Draco had already almost been killed by Bellatrix Lestrange, they would not take any chances. She watched the younger Malfoy's blond head bob above the crowds as he pushed his way up the broad staircase to the top of the shop and then steered her own way over to the first book on her list: 'Magical Protection and Self-defense.'

As she leaned in to grab the heavy volume from a pile she overheard her name and stopped to listen. Two witches, who had obviously noticed her coming into the store, were excitedly exchanging gossip. They seemed unaware that she was now standing right behind them.

"You know, it all came out after the trial," said one of the women. "Apparently Mr. Malfoy and this Sartorius witch have been an item for years. He had her staying at his house right under his wife's nose and visited her at Durmstrang for weeks on end. She teaches Defense against the Dark Arts there. Well, poor Narcissa tried to keep it all together, for her son's sake. But finally when her husband got sent to Azkaban prison and then was made a muggle for what he had done, she just couldn't take it any more. I mean, who could? You'd have to be a saint!"

"Yes, and I heard Sartorius is a Death Eater, too. And that she hexed the judges, so they reviewed Mr. Malfoy's sentence and restored his magical powers and rehabilitated him. She even bewitched Albus Dumbledore. She only pretends to teach Defense, she really teaches the Dark Arts at Durmstrang," hissed the other witch.

"Well, what do you expect in Iceland? They are half-wild up there anyway. I would never send my daughter to school at Durmstrang. After all, they had a real Death Eater as headmaster – Igor Karkaroff. I heard Sartorius killed him last spring."

Eleanor bit her lip. This was outrageous nonsense, and for a short time her temper got the better of her. She grabbed her wand and quickly stepped out from behind the shelves. "Have you not heard of the common curse for libel and slander? Lingua bifurcata?" She did not accompany her spell with any wand movement, so nothing happened, but the two witches stared at her in pure terror, gasped and rushed off into the crowd.

She gave a laugh that sounded hollow, even to her, tossed back her hair and hefted the heavy Defense volume. It seemed she was really shaping up to be a true Malfoy. Now she was even threatening to hex people in public.

"Tsk, tsk, that was not very nice," said a deep voice behind her, and as she turned she looked into the haughty, sallow face of Professor Snape. His brown eyes held a spark of amusement as he taunted her.

"Yeah, well, as one of these brainless gossips just put it so aptly, 'you'd have to be a saint'," she snapped.

The potions master shook his head. "If you wanted to escape unwelcome attention, why on earth go shopping on the very last day of the summer vacations?" She gave him a sour smile. "That's exactly what I asked Lucius over breakfast this morning."

"Oh, but Lucius likes being the center of attention. You should know that by now," said Snape leaning in on her.

Someone jostled her from behind just then and the professor reached to steady her as she bumped against him. She felt his fingers on her wrist, and next sensed a thin piece of paper being pushed against her palm. Quickly she closed her hand around it. "Read this in private," he whispered into her ear, then drew back looking at her with detached amusement.

Eleanor quietly pocketed the note, tucked the Defense book under her right arm and pushed several coppery curls out of her face with her left hand. She saw Snape's eyebrow rise. "Well, well, Narcissa's old wedding ring. Lucius doesn't waste any time – or any money, does he now?" he leered at her. The witch felt blood sting her cheeks, partly with embarrassment, partly from annoyance.

"The ring belonged to Lavinia Malfoy, his mother," she explained stiffly. "And I think this is none of your business." She realized belatedly that the potions master had simply tried and succeeded in pushing her buttons. He gave her a self-satisfied smirk, then his features softened.

"Well, I guess congratulations are in order. When's the wedding?" Eleanor shook her head, her anger draining out of her. "We don't know yet, Severus. At the moment we are more concerned with merely staying alive."

The wizard looked at her soberly. "Well it seems you have your priorities straight. You will assuredly need to keep your wits about you," he added with a meaningful glance, then turned. "Give my regards to Lucius," he said as he walked away.

Eleanor shook her head and continued her battle through the crowds to collect the rest of Draco's study materials. They met outside Flourish& Blotts without another incident, both balancing a teetering pile of books. "Minusculus," she incanted and shrunk both piles so they would fit into their robe pockets. "Did you get everything," she asked the younger Malfoy as they slowly made their way to the Leaky Cauldron.

"Yeah," said Draco, "though I had to threaten a Hufflepuff over the last copy of Arithmancy III." Eleanor snorted. "Who ended up with the book?" she asked. Draco merely lifted an eyebrow. She tried to suppress a smile. As if she had to ask.

The Leaky Cauldron was crammed with students consuming large quantities of butter beer and grown-upsdrinking equally generous amounts of mead and firewhisky. It seemed the stress of shopping was getting to everyone. Eleanor tried to peer over the heads of the crowd looking for a glimmer of pale blond and eventually cast a quick location spell. Lucius hadn't arrived yet.

She miraculously discovered a small unoccupied corner table and ordered a butterbeer and a tankard of the Cauldron's rather good summer ale. Draco settled in and unwrapped his new quiddich gloves to give his purchase a closer inspection.

Eleanor found that sitting down with abouttwelve shrunk books in her robes was uncomfortable and tried to rearrange her pockets when her hand closed around Snape's note. She cast a furtive glance around, but couldn't see anyone pay any particular attention to her. She carefully opened the folded parchment and read the short message inside.

A hand suddenly molded itself around her shoulder and she jerked sideways with surprise. "Eleanor," she heard Lucius' voice, and as she looked up, she read concern in his grey eyes. "It's me. Are you all right? You look as if you'd just seen a ghost."

She shook her head, feeling a tremor run through her. "No, I'm not all right. We need to go home, Lucius. Now!" The blond wizard didn't even ask her for an explanation. He immediately pulled out a portkey, slammed a few sickles on the table for drinks they hadn't even started and spoke an apparition spell.

As the Leaky Cauldron winked out of existence Eleanor still saw Snape's precise handwriting before her: "Yesterday evening Mr. Crabbe has been commanded by L.V. to instruct his son to poison Draco at Hogwarts this year. This will be only the beginning."