Given
"Help me"
The bed creaks. It echoes, because it's silent in the chamber. She rolls, and the bed creaks again with the weight. She tosses her head, side to side, restless. She sighs heavily, reaching for the glass of water on the table.
"Here you are, Bella."
"Thank you." she says, sitting up with difficulty to receive it. Drinking without her usual grace, she swallows the entire contents before asking "Hasn't Lucius come back yet? I truly don't feel well."
"I know. You'll feel yourself again once this is done with."
"Would you mind letting me alone for a bit, Narcissa?"
"Are you certain you will be all right?"
"Yes, could you please? I would like to sleep for a while."
"Very well. Lucius will be back soon, I should think."
"I hope so."
Much to Bellatrix's annoyance, Narcissa covers her with a beautiful quilt. Like everything belonging to the Malfoys, it is wantonly expensive, having pearls sewn onto it. It is quite out of place, considering that the lot of them are hiding in the safest location to be found, in a remote section underground, heated and lighted only by their magic.
It was thus that Bellatrix is left in the dark. In a few hour's time the heat will be gone, and the chamber will be cold once more. At some point, someone will come to warm the room, and she will feign sleep so that they wouldn't know that she can't heat it herself. She fears that on some level, her sister must know instinctively.
"Draco?"
"Huh?"
"Where are your parents?" Severus Snape asks, acting as a chaperone. This year, there has been an unusual amount of fights, of abnormal violence, prompting Hogwarts to take action due to the complaints. Snape had been unlucky enough to be appointed this duty.
Ill-tempered and ascetic as usual, he kept to himself in the first car, joined by a few Slytherin pupils. Several times, Draco had attempted to find a place in another car. The first time, he was sent away by an attendant for standing in the aisle, then Potter and his friends had annoyed him until her left that car, and each time he tried after, he was met with no more success. He had failed to escape Snape, so now is in an uncomfortable situation.
One of the last at the train station, Draco plays at waiting for his family, hoping that Snape would get bored and leave. He wonders ruefully why he told Snape about going to Paris in the first place. Avoiding his teacher's question, he covers his owl's cage in a disdainful manner. Unable to remember a time when there were not at least fifteen owls in the aviary among hunting falcons and hawks, he had never formed an attachment to the bird, though he had always secretly wanted a cat.
When Severus repeats his question, Draco thrusts a finger between the bars. Predictably, the owl bites him, giving him a good reason to continue ignoring his professor. Knowing Snape will likely ask a third time in a few minutes, Draco gathers his belongings and says cordially "I suppose they are busy doing something, maybe forgot. I'll just leave. Enjoy the holidays, sir."
"How are you getting home?"
"By taxi..." he tells the man reluctantly.
"Taxi? You mean a muggle taxi?"
"Yeah."
Snape's expression is puzzled, his dark eyes shrewd. "Since when have you mingled with muggles?"
Draco considers making a colorful, slightly inappropriate, and entirely false comment, but decides against it. Lying again so not to reveal anything, he responds "Since people started getting robbed traveling by Floo."
"Oh, right. Your parents don't care about you wandering around with muggles?"
"No. Well, they do, but it's obviously the best choice. They wouldn't, but they don't have to go very far to get where they need to be."
"Still, I think I ought to accompany you."
Carefully keeping his expression bland, Draco returns politely "You don't have to. It's no more than twenty minutes or so to a spot where I can cross back to the wizarding side. From there, I'll just go to Goyle's place and go by Floo from there. It's not far."
Snape shrugs his thin shoulders, saying "I'll come anyway."
"What for?" he inquires, suspicious.
"Caprice, if you will."
Unable to find a plausible excuse for Snape not to come along, Draco sighs and agrees. Starting to get stressed, Draco begins planning how he may ditch Snape before he realizes that there is no such place to enter the wizarding world like he mentioned. He can't let Snape follow him to the airport.
"Good day, Mr..."
"In time, Doctor, in time. Here is hardly the place for a discussion."
"Oh, of course." Wright says anxiously, adjusting the angle of his glasses.
"So, my friend, we're off to Paris. Did you bring what I told you to?"
"Paris!"
Lucius Malfoy arches an eyebrow towards his German companion. He meekly protests "But I have nothing else with me: no clothes, no money!"
When Lucius simply smirks, Franz Wright adds "I don't even speak French!"
"You speak English well enough. They speak English in France, too. You'll be provided for so far as amenities and necessities," he answers with typical arrogance, assuming anyone worth communicating with would be able to do so in his native language. Disregarding the doctor's concerns, he says again "You did bring what I requested?"
"Yes, but, sir"
"We're going by a muggle plane in half an hour. There is no time, Doctor."
"My wife"
"You can write her when we get there."
"Get where, exactly?"
Lucius only smiles grimly, turns, certain Wright will follow. Striding purposefully through the crowd on the busy street, he does not even peer over his shoulder. Desperate and irrational, plus still slightly shocked, Franz does follow. Seeking his employer's sleek, pale hair, he catches sight of the taller man and hurries in his wake, to be lost amid a sea of strangers.
"Bellatrix, why did you not bring this to my attention? It is no curious thing that you are unwell, keeping to where it is cold and damp. You could have come to the main hall; why didn't you?"
"My lord, I need sleep," she pleads wearily. Dark crescents beneath her eyes testify the truth in her statement.
"It would not be difficult to say that you are only so spent from the pregnancy that you cannot waste energy. I could assign someone to such a duty."
"My lord, I mean no disrespect, but that wouldn't be a solution long."
I watch her stoically, annoyed with her stubbornness. Perhaps, it is in part my fault for praising her overmuch, but that cannot explain her behavior entirely. I would love dearly to 'glance' into her mind, but to have such devotion as hers requires that I afford certain courtesies, such as basic privacy. There are ways around that.
"Bellatrix, I understand that." I reprimand, then say, "You do not regret this child, do you?"
"Oh never! My lord, you are so good to pardon me throughout this! I know I have been...I am sorry to have caused you this trouble. Pride, it was, pride, my lord! I trust you wholly."
It is honestly that she speaks, I know, but it doesn't matter either way. If she will lie even, then she does not really question me, or does so little that the sensible portion of her will rapidly convince her that I am right in the end.
"In a matter of days, Lucius will return with this Dr.Wright he found. Until then, I am certain Narcissa will take care of you." Bellatrix flinches at the wording, and reassure her lightly.
"But will she believe I am so weakened?"
"Will she believe what I tell her?"
"I think so, my lord."
"Then, yes. After all, this is not a normal pregnancy. She would not know the difference." I say casually, eager to return to more urgent responsibilities, of which there are many. It is all coming together.
"You said about twenty minutes, didn't you?"
"Mmm-hmm."
"We have walking around for thirty or so."
"Can I help that the cabbie doesn't know his way around? I only have so much muggle money on me, sir."
"Then you don't know where we are?" Snape asks, feeling distinctly out of place because he is attired in his black robes yet. Draco, oddly inconspicuous for being dressed in muggle clothing, nods. Actually, Draco can tell precisely where they are because he had intentionally gave their cabbie the wrong directions, correctly guessing that Snape would not realize. Now, only to get away from the professor, accidentally of course.
Plotting, Draco kicks the toe of his Converse against a crack in the pavement. Feigning as if he were more stressed than he is, he sighs expressively and asks if Snape would like to stop to eat somewhere. The man shrugs, saying "There is a restaurant right across the street."
Draco gives him a disgruntled look, complaining "Sushi?" In truth, he loves it, but he has always felt the Severus Snape considers him spoiled. If that is the case, Snape will probably go along with him if he makes it too difficult to do otherwise.
"Fine." Snape says, perfectly content if it means a little more time to observe. Even if Snape had not noticed everything, he had caught on to more than his pupil thinks.
"Yeah, there must be a dozen better places. See all these muggles with cameras? We're at some tourist destination, so there will be plenty to choose from." he tells Snape, heading to a particular location.
"Hermione, it's weird."
"What is?"
"My scar..."
"Is it hurting again?"
"No, and it hasn't for the longest time, up until now."
"Well, you have been doing all the things Snape told you to, haven't you? Maybe that is a sign of improvement."
"I don't know...I can't help but feel like something's happening. You know, calm before the storm?"
"So you are worried because nothing is happening?" she asked, folding and unfolding a section of the blanket she was lying under. Harry looked at his sock-clad feet, sitting on Ginny's empty bed, across from Hermione's.
"I guess that sounds pretty ridiculous."
"Not at all. Almost every time you've had an instinct about something, you have been right, Harry." She gets up and shuffles across the wooden floor to sit beside Harry, but not until she had pulled the blanket out from beneath him and around her shoulders.
"Yeah...It still doesn't feel like we're doing enough though."
"Well, what do you expect, Harry? They can't send an army after him."
"I know, I know..."
"Did you see anything when that happened with your scar?"
"Nope, but I felt his...not joy, exactly, but contentment, I guess."
"Don't worry, we'll get to the bottom of it."
"Yeah...Thanks, 'Mione."
Draco is sorely tempted to ask how Snape's dates often go, if he has them at all. Snape just stares at him coldly, prodding his chicken salad with distrust, their casual conversation gone. He must work with caution.
Under the guise of feeding the insistent owl bits of bread, Draco bends or snaps a few crucial wires of the bird cage in a furtive manner so that it appears he is only holding the cage steady.
With all the rude glances muggles keep aiming towards them, Snape is ready to leave by the time Draco finishes his pasta with deliberate slowness. Gathering his various belongings once again, the final object Draco grabs is the owl. Snape, naturally, had never offered to help carry some of it.
Exiting the restaurant, he leads Snape to a busy corner were a group waits for traffic to cease. Intentionally he shoves his way to the front, in a subtle manner, with Snape at his heels. He sets all his luggage down a moment before the light changes, making it seem like his arms ache.
The signal indicates for the pedestrians to cross, and busy with their own tasks and unsympathetic to the pushy teenager, they walk around him, and one man knocks the birdcage into the street from where it had been resting precariously on the curb, like Draco had hoped. However, if that had not worked, he had placed he cage so near the street that he could have bumped it himself.
Rushing after this cage, rolling down towards the intersection due to the street's incline, he barely misses being run over. However, the car which almost hit the pedestrian is blocking traffic. Horns are blaring, and already an enraged driver or two has hopped out of his vehicle to harass a fellow driver.
In the chaos, Draco slips away from the scene with the rest of his possessions.
