Chapter Two:
Draco awoke with a throb in his head, his mouth feeling as if it were full of sawdust, and a painful, empty ache in the pit of his stomach. He opened his eyes, which was a task, since they were coated with a crusty matter that he had to rub away before his eyelids became unstuck. It wasn't pleasant. In fact, it made him want to wretch. But he refrained. What he saw around him awed him out of his need to be sick. It was a cottage, small in length and width, but when you looked up, you saw a spiraling staircase that went up and up onto different levels, each smaller than the next, but adding up to quite a bit of area if you took the time to calculate it. The place was shaped like a cone, in a way, a circle getting smaller and smaller the higher up it went. The whole place looked as if it had been carved from a single solid chunk of wood, which wasn't far from the truth. Draco suddenly heard a scuffling in the corner of the room and saw a man. He had fuzzy grey hair and wore the most uncivilized clothes Draco had ever seen.
"Are you hungry, Master Malfoy?" the man asked. And then, it registered. Ollivander. The old coot who made wands. He had disappeared some time back and no one knew where he had gone, not even Voldemort. He had been here all along. Draco just didn't know exactly where 'here' was. His stomach groaned, and he knew the old man had heard it, too. "Yes, I suppose you are. I'll just go get some tea," the old coot said, looking at Draco with his strange milky eyes. He left Draco to lay on...Well, Draco didn't rightly know wht it was that he was lying on. He looked at it and was surprised to see a net of rope covered by a few roughly made blankets. Resettling in the bed, he looked up and saw that the shelter, whatever it was, went up and up, platforms lining the walls and stairs leading to each platform. It was amazing. Green light filtered through the windows, the magical light of forests and wilderness. The old man shuffled back into the room holding a rough wooden tray with a carved tea set. Draco was amazed at how much in the house was made of wood and leaves. Ollivander, it appeared, lived like an elf.
"Where is this place?" Draco asked as he sipped the tea. Willowbark tea. Go figure.
"Well, I would say that is about four miles from the Hogwarts edge of the Forbidden Forest, just outside the Hogwarts security boundary. Of course, what Hogwarts is and why they have a security we may never know, right, cookie?" he answered, directing the last statemet to the platform just above them. Draco was shocked. What was going on? Since when did Ollivander not know what Hogwarts was? And who was this "cookie" that he was referring to? Did Ollivander have a lover? The idea was laughable. The idea suddenly became even more improbable when he saw the beautiful, shapely legs climbing down the ladder that led straight down to Draco and Ollivander's level. The legs led to a waist clad in what looked like fur and the remains of something made of black fabric, a full bust, a bronze, slender neck. Draco was very pleased with what he saw until he looked at the woman's face.
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A/N: Who is the woman? Why is he not pleased with her face? These burning questions will be answered in the third installment of The Tree House.