Dazed and Dumbfounded 12

Draco's nerves were jumping by the time Hermoine walked in through the door of the Leaky Cauldron. The ten nerve-biting minutes he had waited had been spent drinking coffee, which in retrospect wasn't a very good idea. He noticed right away that she was dressed very Muggle-like in blue jeans, a turquoise T-shirt and sneakers. Her shiny curls were secured in a ponytail and some odd glasses with dark lenses were on her face. Apprehensively he got to his feet and shoved the empty mug away from himself. "I didn't know you wore glasses."

"I don't. These are sunglasses, to keep the sun out of your eyes." Hermoine explained as she happily led him outside through the front door.

Although he had flooed to the Leaky Cauldron many times in his life, he had always exited through the back door that led to Diagon Alley. Oh, he had known the Muggle world awaited on the other side of the front door but he never dared step through before. He had always been taught that Muggles were inferior, that they killed magic-users. So it was with great uncertainty that he followed her through the forbidden doorway and stepped out onto the Muggle sidewalk. The first thing he noticed was the noise. Muggles were known for the awful racket they created. And the air had a funny smell to it. As he stood there gawking open mouthed some large moving metal box came barreling down the road with great speed. The Pureblood gaped at the semi truck without really comprehending what it was or that it was carrying a cargo of beer; something very popular among most Muggles. The truck blew its screeching air horn at another car and Draco leaped an entire foot off the ground. The sound had been loud!

"Oh, it's just a truck! Pay it no mind." Hermoine explained as she hurried back to him and gripped his wrist securely. Once she had a firm hold on him, she started to drag him towards her car, which she had parked at the curb near the Leaky Cauldron. Upon reaching the car, she happily looked at it. "See? This is my car. My father bought it for me."

Gazing at the car, Draco noted that it was bright red: a Gryffindor color. This was the first time he had actually been so close to one of the odd Muggle vehicles. Oh, he had a very general idea of what they were: metal boxes that moved somehow and often hit things. Now he noticed that big black wheels were on the bottom and that it had several windows, too. The Pureblood was totally unaware that cars came in different sizes, makes and models or that some cost a lot more than others. The thing that concerned him now was that Hermoine expected him to get inside of the Muggle deathtrap. "Are you sure this thing is safe?"

"Of course it is!" Hermoine replied as she reached forward and opened the passenger side door. "Get in."

Taking a deep breath, Draco carefully slid into the car. Sitting inside he supposed wasn't too bad. The seat was soft as was the backrest with room for his feet. After checking that he was securely inside with no clothing dangling in the way of the door, Hermoine closed his door and went around to the driver's door. Sliding in quickly, she slammed her door closed and smiled happily at him. "See? This isn't so bad now, is it?"

"This thing isn't moving yet…" He pointed out as he eyed the mysterious wheel in front of her. He also noticed all the other little things that meant nothing to him, things like the fuel gage, speedometer, turning light and so forth. It all looked so Muggle! He could feel his heart pounding in his chest and his mouth was suddenly dry. "What makes this thing go anyway?"

"It burns a fuel called gasoline, which is refined from crude oil." Hermoine explained as she buckled her seat belt. "You best buckle yourself in. See? This strap hooks into this little thing here…"

Grumbling, he did as he was instructed. "First you drag me into this tin can and now I have to be chained up? I thought this was a date, not a dungeon!"

"My car is not a dungeon!" Hermoine insisted loudly. "Just because your father has a dungeon doesn't mean I do! That seat belt is there to protect you!"

"All right." He conceded, frowning. With nothing else to do, he watched as Hermoine stuck a metal key into a slot. Right after that there was a loud roar as the car started up. She made the wheel thing move and soon the car pulled out onto the road. His stomach felt slightly queasy and he hoped they wouldn't hit anything. As they slowly drove down the London street he saw shop fronts, street lights, weird poles that had big wires hanging from them high overhead, strange containers that sat on corners (trash cans and newspaper boxes), trees and all sorts of Muggles. When five minutes passed and they hadn't run into anything yet, he began to relax slightly. Maybe, just maybe Hermoine did know how to drive the strange contraption… He began to notice the different lights on poles and that the cars seemed to stop when the red light was on. Was that how Muggles controlled traffic, with colored lights? His father would never believe that!

"So, do your parents live around here?" Draco asked as he stared out the window at the passing Muggle world.

"Not in London. I thought we'd take the highway. It's faster then going down all the residential streets." Hermoine explained as she shifted lanes and made the car go up some sort of ramp.

Unfortunately for Draco, he had no idea what a highway was. Upon seeing all the metal boxes zooming along at breakneck speed his entire body stiffened in fright. His gray eyes widened as he took in the horrible sight before him, the four lanes of fast moving traffic. "Are you crazy? We're going faster than a Firebolt!"

"Oh, don't be silly!" Hermoine shook her head, her ponytail flying about. Deftly she switched lanes until they were in the smoothest lane of traffic. The engine hummed merrily as they sped on towards their destination, big signs passing by overhead. "Would you want to listen to some music?"

Petrified, Draco stared at the speeding traffic around them. It was a virtual Muggle nightmare!

"Draco?" Hermoine repeated as she glanced at him and noticed the wide-eye gaze. One white-knuckled hand gripped the door handle and his face was paler than usual.

Forcing his eyes off the road in front of him, he looked at her instead. "What?"

"I asked if you'd like to listen to some music." She repeated as she reached for the radio. "See, this is a radio. Muggles record music and send it over the airwaves. Well, I suppose you don't understand that."

The blonde shook his head. He didn't understand it. In fact, he was beginning to think that Muggles were a lot more complex than he had always thought. They had a ton of things he didn't understand and most likely never would. And what would Muggle music sound like? How could music come from a little thing in a car without a band being present? "Sure, I guess."

Hermoine flipped the radio on and soon found a station broadcasting some soft rock music that had a nice beat to it. Her fingers tapped on the wheel in time to the music. It was one of the things she missed most in the Wizarding World and she failed to see how they could have moving photographs but no way to record music? How could they dance without it? Or did they dance so little that they just didn't care? Besides, it just sounded nice and it was often fun to sing along to the songs when no one was around.

After listening to the music for a short time, Draco decided he liked it. It had an infectious sound that made his foot tap on the floor and he had to admit he had never heard anything like it before. Not even the Weird Sisters, the most popular band in the Wizarding World, sounded like this. This music was fun.

"Your parents aren't really dark wizards, are they?" Hermoine asked over the soft music. "It seems to me they're just pretending to be; although it is a fairly believable act."

Glad to have his mind off the frightening traffic all around them, he concentrated on her. He had to admit she looked nice with her hair tied up in the ponytail; it exposed the long graceful curve of her neck. A soft gleaming wave of honey-brown hair trailed along her ear and that made her just more beautiful. Silently he vowed that some day he'd buy her expensive jewels to wear around her throat; jewels that would be worthy of a Malfoy. "What makes you think that?"

"Well, I think it's pretty obvious if you look at all the facts." Hermoine explained as she kept a careful eye on the road. "You remember Second Year, don't you? That whole Chamber of Secrets stuff with the basilisk?"

Draco nodded. "Of course. How could I forget? Potter thought I was the Heir to Slytherin, a bunch of ridiculous nonsense if you ask me. The fact that my family has been in Slytherin all those years proves I wasn't, didn't it? I mean, otherwise the Chamber would have opened every bloody year a Malfoy was at school."

"That's right!" Hermoine nodded her head in understanding. Why hadn't she thought of that Second Year? "Anyway, after I was cured of being petrified, Harry thanked me for giving him the answers on a slip of paper. He said he found it in my hand while I was lying in the hospital wing. Now, I would never tear a page out of a library book! Harry may mistreat his textbooks. He scribbles in margins and bends the corners of pages; it's just ghastly what he does to them! So when he told me about this page with the word pipes on it, I just agreed. We were just so happy that the monster was dead and everyone was OK. I didn't want to stir up a new mess by saying it hadn't been me. He can be so paranoid and suspicious, you know."

"And you think that I put it there in your hand?" Draco asked. By now he had calmed down somewhat; the music and talking of familiar things was helping. "Now why would I do that? Hmmmm? We weren't even friends Second Year!"

"Well, I thought about it for a long time and I do admit it had me stumped." She admitted honestly. "But I finally figured it out Fourth Year at the Quidditch World Cup when you gave us that warning out in the woods."

"So you think you have it all figured out, do you?"

"Yes, I do." Hermoine nodded again but kept her eyes on the busy highway. "You didn't have to warn us about the Death Eaters looking for Muggle-Borns, but you did. Harry and Ron, of course, took it for a threat or thought you were bragging. But I started to put it all together then and it stared to make sense. Of course, I understood you couldn't warn us openly because of the other Slytherins…"

Draco sighed. "And that's when you realized I really didn't mean anything by the Mudblood comments…"

"So, did you slip that page into my hand while I was petrified?" She asked.

"All right! I admit I did that." Draco drawled as he shifted slightly on the car seat. "I tore the page out of a book in Florets and Blots before school started. I figured that Potter wouldn't be able to correctly guess what the creature was and that he'd need some help. So while he was out to visit Hagrid, I snuck into the hospital ward and stuck the paper into your hand in hopes that he'd find it."

"And that's why you crumpled it up…" Hermoine said as the facts started to add up a bit more. "To make sure he'd find it. Merlin knows that I'd never carry a piece of paper that way! I'd fold it neatly and put it into my pocket for safekeeping. And I can't possibly imagine why Harry thinks I did crumble that paper! He's so close-minded!"

"Tell me about it…" Draco rolled his gray eyes. He knew Harry all too well, even if they were friends now.

"But the bit that really had me stumped was how you knew it was a basilisk!" Hermoine continued, her thoughts helped by the soft music in the background. She was enjoying this little private chat with Draco immensely. Without anyone else around they were free to talk of things they couldn't before, as they never knew when someone from the Wizard World would show up. But the Muggle car was safe and secure. "It made me rethink a lot of what I thought to be fact. And the only answer I came up with was that someone told you it was a basilisk and the most likely someone was your father. So, is that right?"

A huff of breath escaped his lips and it blew the silky blonde hair off his forehead. "Yes, Father told me it was a basilisk! Are you happy now that you figured it all out?"

Hermoine bit her bottom lip and her brow creased in concentration. "So your father wanted the basilisk dead?"

"Of course he did! Do you think we want a bloody thing like that crawling around the school?" Draco said his voice slightly irritated. "He is the School Governor, you know!"

"But Harry said he's the one that sent Tom Riddle's diary into the school…." She pointed out. Then realization dawned on her face. "The Chamber wouldn't open without the diary, would it?"

"No, it wouldn't. It's what you call a calculated risk, Granger." Draco drawled as he leaned back in his seat, his eyes closed. "We knew there was the chance that people could get killed, but what else could we do? The Chamber needed to be found and the basilisk destroyed. Since Potter had already proved himself First Year by taking on Professor Quirrel, we felt the time was right…"

Hermoine was silent for a few long moments. She didn't think it was right that they had risked the lives of everyone in the school just to find the Chamber, but maybe they were right. Then a new idea occurred to her. "It's why you made the snake during the wizard duel! You wanted to test Harry, see if he could speak Parseltongue!"

"Father taught me that spell…" Draco admitted. "We suspected he knew it but wasn't sure."

"And was Dumbledore in on all of this? I mean, if your parents were helping to destroy the basilisk than surely they belong to the Order, don't they?"

"Of course Dumbledore knew about it! That old man knows everything that goes on in the school!"

"I noticed he loves to act stupid and pretends nonchalance." Hermoine agreed as she thought to the time turner incident at the end of Third Year. She and Harry just returned to the hospital after rescuing Sirius. When they told the headmaster they had been successful in their mission, he had acted stupid.

"Father even went to the school Second Year to remove Dumbledore. They thought with the headmaster gone Harry would feel freer to go after the monster. I think there's an old Muggle saying; 'While the cat's away the rat will play'? Besides, if gave them the opportunity to talk without seeming suspicious, Father and Dumbledore, I mean."

"Mice, not rat." Hermoine corrected. Truth be told, she was surprised he had even heard the saying! "But what about the Avada spell? Harry said your father tried to kill him with the Death Curse in the school hallway after he freed Dolby…"

"Oh, that." Draco waved a hand dismissively. "Father has to have Harry convinced he's a Dark Wizard, you know. And as for the curse, he knew that Dolby would stop him. You should have heard that drat elf, going on and on how wonderful and great Potter was! It was very clear that Dolby wouldn't allow anything to happen to Harry."

"But why can't you just tell Harry the truth?" She asked, confused.

"Because Potter would get my whole family killed, that's why!" Draco rolled his eyes. "You know he can't do Occlumency! You Know Who just has to see him one time and then he'd know the truth that my Father is really on Dumbledore's side. He kills people that betray him."

They both were silent for some time as Hermoine finally directed the car off the highway into a residential area.

"Years ago when my parents went to court and said they were controlled by the Imperious Curse, almost no one believed them." Draco stated sadly. "And it was mainly just because they're in Slytherin."

Hermoine understood that very easily. Out of the four Houses, three got along very well but Slytherin was always the oddball that the others didn't trust. Even the Sorting Hat couldn't get anywhere with the student body to bring the houses together. It was sad really. And whether she liked it or not, Harry was one of the most stubborn people in that regard. He practically hated Slytherins with a passion. "He wouldn't believe all this, you know. He'd think it was all lies and some gimmick to trick him. I still think he's convinced your father will hand him over to You Know Who…"

"Well, we won't." Draco relaxed in the car seat, his foot still tapping to the music. He looked on with interest as the car pulled into a Muggle driveway and finally stopped. After it was explained, he managed to unlock his seat belt and open the car door. Climbing out, he was relieved to be back on solid ground and still in one piece. A large house rose up in front of him and he guessed it was where Hermoine had grown up. It was nowhere near the size of the Manor but he figured for a Muggle it was considered large. Neat hedges and colorful flowerbeds decorated the front yard along with a mowed lawn. All in all, it looked OK. He had survived the deathtrap Muggles affectionately called cars and now he was to face something even worst: a cookout. As he followed his girlfriend up the walk, he idly wondered who would be doing the cooking. It was clear they didn't have house elves. Did Muggles have servants or were they forced to cook everything themselves? His gray eyes shifted to the beautiful young woman beside him and for the first time he speculated if she could cook. She opened the door and he followed her inside.

In times like these he could use a bit of that Gryffindor bravery!

Meanwhile back at the Manor, Harry was just waking up. He stretched sleepily and glanced around with blurry vision. Feeling for his glasses, he found them on the nightstand next to his double poster bed and put them on. For a brief moment he was confused as to where he was and then it all came flooding back to him. "Great, that's just great! That bloody git still wants me to marry Pansy…"

In this particular case, the git happened to be Lucius.

The pain in his bladder had awoken him, so he crawled out of bed and straightened his new pajamas. The house elf had insisted he wear them last night so he had, even if he didn't like it. Why should he trust a Death Eater? Although he now had a soft spot in his heart for Draco's mother, it was his father he didn't trust. The bathroom was right across the hall from his room and a few minutes later he emerged, feeling better.

"Ah, there you are!" Lucius smiled at him. Like usual, the tall blonde man was dressed in black clothing accented by silver snake jewelry. "I thought today we could meet the Parkinson's…"

Harry glared at him, but the look didn't have the desired affect. "It's not going to work."

"Of course it will!" Lucius promised as he gently laid a hand on Harry's shoulder.

"No, it won't." Harry noticed that even in the house the Death Eater was wearing his dragonskin gloves, no doubt convinced that the slightest touch from him will be deadly. "They'll know who I am."

"They'll know that you're my son." Lucius led him back to his new bedroom and pointed out the clothes on his bed. "Why don't you wash up and get dressed? I'll be waiting downstairs when you're ready."

Glaring angrily, Harry watched the man leave. What right did he have to force him to marry Pansy? He wasn't his father! In fact, the old Pureblood families didn't even know how to live. People should marry for love and not because of a stupid piece of paper created years and years ago! That was just extremely dumb. It was similar to the rule that a Prince had to marry a Princess. The people involved had no free choice in the matter.

Then Harry remembered his thoughts from last night and his vague plan on finding the missing baby. The child was no doubt near his own age if he used Draco's age for a guideline. But did he really have any hoe of actually finding the boy? And if he did, was it right to push his problem on some stranger? Doubt gnawed on Harry's mind and he frowned. He would have to think this through logically. If the boy lived in a nice home and had loving parents perhaps it was better not to tell him the truth. But if on the other hand he were unhappy…

His frown deepened as he realized there was no easy solution to this mess until he knew all the facts. And the trail would be so cold; it would be useless to even try…

But he had to try, didn't he?

Picking up the clothes, Harry returned to the bathroom to wash up. It was clear the house elf had already been through as the tub waited with hot sudsy water at just the right temperature. Removing his pajamas and stepping into the bath, he sunk into the relaxing water gratefully. He had to admit there were a few nice things about living here. He had always suspected that Draco was spoiled and pretty much got whatever he wanted. It even looked as if his father might cave in and let him marry Hermoine…

As long as he agreed to marry Pansy, that is.

When his bath was over, he toweled himself off and wiped the steam from the mirror. He still wasn't used to his new reflection. With the blondish-white hair he looked a lot like Draco. It was kind of odd, really. How could a simple thing like hair color make you look so different? Yet it did. Would Voldemort even recognize him like this? Yes, of course he would. No matter how much he changed his physical appearance the evil man could always find him through the mental link they shared. Harry wished he could erase the link as easily as he had switched hair color, but he couldn't. Even Dumbledore couldn't do anything about that…

Dumbledore! Perhaps the headmaster could help him in his quest to find the missing boy. He knew for a fact the man had a list of all children born with magic and seemed to know exactly where they lived! Why hadn't he thought of that before? And if he were lucky, perhaps Dumbledore even knew how to take the spell off his hair…

"If I can escape out of this house, that is."

To be continued…

Sorry for the short chapter last time. This one flowed more easily, hence it's longer. The cookout will be next chapter!