Tania – Hrm. I just found that out when I read through a couple of my old chapters. blushing That was a mistake, yes… I'll try to be more careful. Don't worry, Tamara will not become wanted by all the boys or something. Nothing drastic.

Misao, Demon Master – Wow that was random. LoL.

ViviBlack – Hm. Yeah. (?) Thanks anyway.

3broomstix – Really? For me it was the opposite. The idea was very appealing to me but I'm not thoroughly satisfied with how it turned out. Oh, well, glad you liked it.

Sarah – Erm, SATs? Heheh… I'm not from the US (where I suppose you are from) so I don't know anything about SATs. But I'm sure you'll do well anyway. Good luck!


Chapter 27 – Summer Rain and an Unpleasant Surprise

One of the first things I did when I got home was making a calendar for the summer. I was going to draw a cross over every day that had been, and count the days that were left."Friday", I muttered one evening and marked the day that had been before counting the remaining ones. "42 more days to go", I said and tried to sound positive.

"What are you blabbering about?" Draco stood in the doorway.

I span around. "Oh, nothing. 42 more days to go before school starts."

"Can't wait, can you?" he said and rolled his eyes before disappearing.

I sighed and quickly changed into my pyjamas before going to bed.


I woke up early the following morning, realizing that I had forgot to take down the blind. Morning sun shone in through my exceptionally clean window (we didn't have a dozen of house-elves, maids and cleaners for nothing, did we?) and dazzled me slightly. I saw that it was almost nine already, and decided to get downstairs to eat some breakfast.

Mother wasn't there. I highly doubted that she was still asleep, but there was no note. I didn't let that bother me too much, though, and sat down, allowing one of our house elves, Binky or whatever his name was – I never learn, to serve me breakfast.

"What does Miss Malfoy wish for breakfast?"

"Toast, please. With strawberry marmalade."

"Excellent choice! Bing will fetch it immediately."

It was Bing, not Binky, I reminded myself. Who the hell named a house elf Bing?! "Stupid name", I muttered to myself.

While waiting for Bing to return, I absently picked up this morning's The Daily Prophet, and flipped right through it to the comic strips in the end. They were all quite boring, except for one called Elvis, that was about a tortoise named so. Reading it only took a couple of seconds and I chuckled slightly at his dumb thoughts before I flipped back to the first page.

Bing arrived with a plate filled with different kinds of toasts, everyone covered with a different kind of marmalade. Stupid house elf, I thought for myself. I had specifically asked for strawberry marmalade, so why did he have to bring a dozen different ones? Out of these – I counted them quickly – fourteen marmalade covered toasts on this plate, there was only one that was like I wanted it to be.

"Thank you, Bing", I said coldly, grabbed that specific toast and returned to The Daily Prophet.

Then I dropped the toast. It landed on the table with the marmalade side down.

"Miss Malfoy!" Bing exclaimed in a high-pitched voice. "You dropped the sandwich!"

But I didn't care about that. I was busy staring at the article on the front page.

Death Eaters escaped from Azkaban Prison

"What the…", I said out loud.

"Miss!" Bing said. "You-"

"Shut up, you stupid little house elf!" I yelled at him. "And leave me alone!"

That shut him up, and I returned to reading.

A still unknown number of Death Eaters is reported missing from the Azkaban Prison last night and investigating aurors are still not sure how they have managed to escape. This group of Death Eaters is highly likely to include…

Then they started enumerating a number of Death Eaters, all of whom had been old friends of my family. But when a certain extra dreaded name popped up, my heart skipped a beat.

and Lucius Malfoy.

"Shit", I said. "Double shit."

I grabbed the newspaper and ran back upstairs to knock frantically on the door to Draco's room.

"What?!" I heard his muffled voice.

I kept knocking, indicating that he should let me in. "I need to talk to you", I said.

He sighed. "Come in then."

I flung the door open and stormed in. Draco was still in bed, his head under his cover.

"What do you want?" he muttered. "It's barely the crack of dawn."

"It's eight o'clock", I informed him. "Could you come out from under the cover, please?"

He muttered something before emerging from the cover. "You'd better have a very good reason for waking me up like-"

"Read this", I said and threw The Daily Prophet at him. "First page."

He looked at me in a weird way before turning to the paper, while I watched him closely, waiting for a reaction.

"Holy fuck", he muttered and sat up when realizing.

He quickly scanned through the whole article before turning back to me.

"Mother is gone", I said, "I have no idea where she is. No note."

Silence.

"He'll come here, won't he?" I continued in a high-pitched voice. "After what I did-"

"Shut up", Draco snapped. "Calm down. Yes, he might come here, and then you better not be around anymore."

"What do you mean?" I asked weakly.

"I mean that you need to get the hell out of here now."

"I don't have anywhere to go!" I exclaimed. "I don't have any money! I-"

"Stop yelling!" he exclaimed and opened the drawer in his bedside table. He took out an envelope and handed it to me. "Here. Pay it back some other time."

I didn't know how much money it was, but quite a lot, I guessed, as it weighed quite much. "Thanks", said I. "Do you reckon I could stay at the L-"

"LALALALALA!" he shouted, putting his fingers in his ears. "Are you stupid, Tamara? Don't tell me! What if he'd use Verisaterum on me or something?!"

"Oh", I said. "Well…"

"Pack your trunk – don't forget your Hogwarts stuff – and get the hell out of here."

"Yeah", I said. "Thanks", I said, and then I couldn't resist throwing my arms around his neck and give my only brother a hug.

He patted me awkwardly on the back. "Yeah, whatever. Be careful. Hurry up. Take care now."

I smiled briefly before I headed out of his room, and into mine, which was right over the hall. I had still all of my Hogwarts things in my Hogwarts trunk, so I took out another trunk from my wardrobe. It was just like when I had thought I'd have to leave one year ago. This time I didn't have much time to pack, though. I chose to pack some of my favourite clothes, some books and some drawings. I caught sight of that old teddy bear of mine sitting on my (former) bed.

I wonder if I should bring it, I thought. My trunk was quite heavy already, but on the other hand – a teddy bear didn't weigh too much, did it? I made a quick decision and left it sitting on my bed. I was sixteen, for Christ's sake! A sixteen (almost – my birthday was in late August) year old girl doesn't have teddy bears.

I took a final look at my room before leaving. As underage wizards aren't allowed to use magic outside of Hogwarts, I had to pull both my trunks down which was quite a job. I managed, though. Before heading out through the door, I grabbed my jacket from a hook on the wall and threw a quick look out through the window. It was raining.

"Great", I muttered to myself. "Just great."

What I had been about to ask Draco, was if he thought that I could stay at the Leaky Cauldron. That was about the only place where I knew I could stay. Question was; how did I get there. Knight Bus probably, I thought and sighed. I would have preferred flooing, but flooing from Malfoy Manor could easily be tracked.

Therefore, I fled Malfoy Manor by simply walking out into the summer rain, pulling my trunks behind me.