Chapter 3: Benefactor
Mr. Weasley, it transpired, intended to go and fetch Harry from his aunt and uncle's himself. Ron begged to tag along, as did Fred and George-with a highly suspicious glint in their eyes, in Hermione's opinion, but their father enthusiastically agreed without batting an eye. The four of them stood before Hermione now, the boys chattering amongst themselves, Mr. Weasley looking more excited than she'd ever seen him.
"Right then, Hermione. How do we look?"
"Er…" Ginny, who was sitting next to Hermione on the sofa and pretending to read a comic, gave a snort of laughter and hastened to stuff her knuckle in her mouth. This was, indeed, a difficult question to answer. Ron and the twins, accustomed to wearing Muggle clothing when they weren't at school, looked perfectly inoffensive. Mr. Weasley, on the other hand, was wearing a handsome, if a bit shabby, set of deep green robes and a pointed hat with a peacock feather tucked into the band. Though she had never met Harry's aunt and uncle, she had the distinct impression this ensemble wouldn't make him popular in their home. However, he seemed so delighted and eager that she couldn't bear to dull the enthusiastic zeal in his eyes.
"Perhaps if you…" she paused here to give Ginny a dark look, for the latter had dissolved once more into giggles. "Perhaps if you took off the hat?" she suggested. Mr. Weasley did so at once without a trace of embarrassment, and to her enormous relief, it was no small improvement. At that moment, however, Hermione was struck by the realization that their clothing might not be the biggest problem where Muggle camouflage was concerned.
"Er-Mr. Weasley?"
"Yes, Hermione?"
"How exactly...how are you getting to Harry's aunt and uncle's?" Mr. Weasley's grin told her at once that she was right to worry.
"Floo Powder," he said brightly. "Muggle fireplaces aren't supposed to be connected to the Floo network, strictly speaking, but I've got a useful contact at the Floo Regulation Panel who fixed it for me. Just for an afternoon, of course." Of course. Now more than a bit worried what might happen to Harry when the Weasleys turned up, but unable to think of an alternative that wasn't equally obtrusive, Hermione simply nodded and gave him the most encouraging smile she could muster. The instant her father and brothers were gone, Ginny turned to Hermione.
"Most Muggles aren't accustomed to seeing people come out of their fireplaces, are they?" she asked. Hermione shook her head.
"No," she moaned. "No, they're absolutely not." Ginny nodded. She went quiet for a moment, and then, abruptly, her face lit up with anticipation.
"What?" asked Hermione, vaguely alarmed.
"When you send letters by Muggle post," she said slowly, voice shaking as though she were trying very hard not to laugh, "er...how many stamps are you supposed to put on?"
"One," said Hermione at once, now definitely alarmed. "Why?" In response, Ginny doubled over with laughter.
"Why?" Hermione repeated, but Ginny simply shook her head, too far gone to speak.
Scarcely twenty minutes had passed when the kitchen exploded with laughter, and moments later Ron, Fred, and George erupted through the doorway accompanied by Harry, who was grinning ear to ear.
"That wasn't funny, Fred!" Mr. Weasley's voice exploded from behind them, and a moment later he too appeared in the door, panting slightly and covered in a truly arresting amount of white dust. "What on earth did you give that Muggle boy?" Startled, Hermione caught Harry's eye.
"What happened?" she mouthed. He gestured helplessly at Fred and George, wiping tears of laughter away from his eyes.
"I didn't give him anything," Fred retorted. He made a great show of patting his pockets frantically, then gasped as though he'd been shot. "Oh, blimey, I've dropped my toffee!"
"Not again, Fred!" cried George in anguish. "Third time this week! There won't be any left at this rate!"
"Enough!" shouted Mr. Weasley. "You dropped it on purpose, you knew he'd eat it-"
"How big did his tongue get?" asked George eagerly, and Hermione nearly fell out of her chair in alarm. To think, a half-hour ago, her biggest concern had been Mr. Weasley's hat.
"It was four feet long before his parents would let me shrink it!" cried Mr. Weasley. "You wait until I tell your mother-"
"Tell me what?" Mrs. Weasley had appeared, no doubt attracted by her husband's shout. "Oh, hello, Harry, Dear," she added, beaming at Harry. "Tell me what, Arthur?"
Sensing that nothing good could possibly come of this, Hermione stood.
"Ron, why don't you show Harry where he's sleeping?" Ron looked at her as if she'd gone mad.
"Harry knows where he's sleeping," he said incredulously. "In my room, he slept there last-"
"We can all go," Hermione interrupted, unable to believe Ron's stupidity. Ron jumped as though she'd thrown icy water over him.
"Right!" he exclaimed. "Er-let's go, Harry." He led the way up the rickety staircase that zigzagged through the house to the upper floors. Ginny threw down her comic at once and followed, seemingly as eager as they were to avoid the ruckus downstairs. As they reached the second landing, a door flew abruptly open, nearly smacking Ron around the head. He cried out as Percy half-emerged, glowering down at them all.
"Hi, Percy," said Harry, grinning.
"Oh, hello, Harry," said Percy stiffly. "I was wondering who was making all the noise. I'm trying to work in here, you know, and it's rather difficult to concentrate when people keep thundering up and down the stairs."
"We're not thundering," snapped Ron. "We're walking. Sorry to have disturbed the top-secret inner workings of the Ministry of Magic." Percy drew himself up to his full height.
"I will have you know-" he began hotly. As Ginny interrupted her brother, Harry caught Hermione's eye and grinned.
"What happened?" Hermione whispered to him. He laughed and shook his head slightly.
"They tried to get in using Floo Powder," murmured Harry.
"I know," Hermione winced.
"Yes, well, but the Dursleys have got an electric fireplace," Harry explained in an undertone. Hermione gasped.
"Oh, dear."
"Yeah. So they all got stuck, and Mr. Weasley had to blast half the living room apart to get out." Well, that certainly explained all the dust.
"Will they be all right?" asked Hermione. "Your aunt and uncle?"
"Who cares?" laughed Harry. Hermione shrugged slightly and fell silent. As Percy's door slammed and they began walking again, Hermione poked Harry in the back.
"Was there anything about a letter?" In answer, he grinned and handed her a folded bit of paper from his jacket pocket. She unfolded it and immediately stifled a shriek of laughter. It was covered, front and back, in postage stamps aside from the top right corner, into which Mrs. Weasley had squeezed Harry's name and address.
"Don't get rid of that," she murmured to Harry, passing it back as they all piled into Ron's bedroom at the top of the stairs.
"Wouldn't dream of it," Harry muttered back.
Draco hated suits. Not wearing them, that was fine. The trouble with suits was that they made everyone look identical, and therefore made it much harder to avoid people he didn't want to talk to.
And there was no shortage, this evening, of people he didn't want to talk to. If one more half-drunk Ministry official asked him his age, he'd walk through the picture window in the library to an untimely death sprawled beneath the topiary on the grounds. That would give them something to talk about other than how very small he'd been the last time Mr. Penrose had laid eyes on him-which, incidentally, had been earlier this summer. Champagne must taste like heaven, if adults willingly guzzled so much of a substance that made them embarrass themselves in front of children.
Which reminded him, he hated champagne. He'd never had it, but he hated anything that made grown women lean so close to his face when they told him how very nicely he was growing up.
He hated his father, at the moment, for knowing so many ghastly people. And where was his father, anyway? He'd made Draco sit through a thoroughly torturous conversation with the Minister about the opening of a new wing at St. Mungo's-as if his father cared about old wizards with Dragon Pox; Draco supposed he just liked having his name on things-and promptly vanished. Draco would give anything to do the same, but no, he still had his mother's watchful eye to contend with.
And so here he sat, hating suits. And champagne. And his father.
He was accumulating quite a list. Now he thought of it, why hadn't he ever bothered to make a list? He'd been remiss. He narrowed his eyes slightly, scanning the room with a renewed sense of optimism.
Were high-heeled shoes as unpleasant to wear as they looked? He'd have to ask Daphne, whenever she bothered to show up. Regardless, they were offensively loud on the marble floor, and that alone earned them a place on his list.
Fish. Caviar, for fucking certain.
Sailing. Draco had never been sailing, but what's-his-name from the Department of Such-and-Such was talking loudly and pompously about it to a woman twenty years his junior fifteen feet away, so it must be absolutely wretched. Besides, why would anyone sail when they could fly?
Daphne, for being-he checked his watch-nearly an hour late. Rationally, he knew she had exactly as much control over when she arrived as he did, but he was in a foul mood, and he was making a list, and therefore she belonged on it.
"When were you going to tell me that you live in a bloody palace?" said a familiar voice behind him. Draco abandoned his list at once and turned, with a grin, to see Blaise and Theo standing before him.
"What're you two doing here?"
"Daphne invited us," said Blaise casually. "Theo's very taken with your house." Draco laughed.
"You shouldn't gawk," he told Theo, who was staring in wide-eyed astonishment at a stained-glass window Draco hadn't given half a glance since he was ten.
"Aren't you supposed to compliment peoples' homes?" he retorted, without looking at Draco.
"Yes, but not like that, it's gauche." He paused. "Actually, you're not supposed to tell me, you're supposed to tell my mother." Theo frowned and wrenched his eyes away from the window.
"Why?"
"Because manners are a very sexist thing," said Daphne's voice, as she and Pansy appeared as if from nowhere.
"You're very late," Draco admonished at once.
"Sorry," said Daphne, not sounding sorry at all. "Astoria waited until ten minutes before we were set to leave to tell Mum she was too ill to go. She hadn't dressed or anything, so it was either leave without her or force her to go and arrive even later." Draco laughed.
"That's brilliant."
"Don't tell her that. Have you seen Mr. Penrose?"
"Twice, and Mrs. Rowle, after her third glass of champagne." Daphne winced.
"Well, Draco, I'm just heartbroken to have missed it."
"Don't worry, you haven't. I told her you turned down her nephew for a date." He'd done no such thing, but watching Daphne's eyes grow wide with abject horror was worth every minute he'd spent in Mrs. Rowle's heinous company.
"What would you do that for?" shrieked Daphne. Draco shrugged.
"You were late."
"I hate you."
"Where is this Mrs. Rowle?" Blaise interjected. "I'll tell her I'm the one you turned down her nephew for." Theo snorted. Pansy and Daphne shared a look Draco couldn't quite read. He obviously wasn't supposed to see it, for Pansy shook her head sharply in his direction the moment Daphne turned away.
"You won't," countered Daphne. "Mrs. Rowle's nephew is nearly seventeen." Blaise went pale.
"Besides," Draco added, "the idea is to get through the evening having spoken to as few adults as possible."
This was rendered difficult, it transpired, both by Astoria's absence and by the presence of three unfamiliar people Draco and Daphne's age. They knew from their time at school that adults were normally quite taken with Theo, and evidently, Ministry officials weren't immune.
"Be ruder, would you?" said Daphne crossly, as Mr. and Mrs. Bole finally left them alone after a fifteen-minute lecture on gardening, which Draco suspected would've taken five if Theo hadn't asked a question.
"I didn't realize she'd know the answer," he said defensively. "It sounded like a load of nonsense to me."
"It doesn't matter whether it's nonsense or not, it's boring!" snapped Daphne.
"I wonder," said Blaise thoughtfully, "what firewhiskey tastes like?"
"Blaise," gasped Pansy, eyes doubling in size. Theo, on the other hand, followed Blaise's eyes toward a group of middle-aged men smoking cigars at the other end of the room.
"I'll bet I can get us some," he said thoughtfully. Blaise scoffed.
"No way."
"Seriously, Theo, no one's going to think you're old enough-" Pansy began, but Theo waved a hand dismissively at the both of them.
"Give me five minutes. Ten, at the most."
"Theo!" cried Pansy, but he was gone. "You're not going to allow this?" she snapped, turning sharply to face Draco. He shrugged. Mostly, he was very curious to see what Theo was going to do. It had never occurred to him that the company of adults could be advantageous before. Daphne rolled her eyes.
"Relax, there's no way they give him any." Draco, however, watched as Theo said something to the nearest of the men, who considered him for a moment and, to Draco's astonishment, shook his hand.
"Bet you ten galleons they do," he murmured to Daphne. She shrugged and nodded.
"All right, then."
"You're not supposed to bet girls!" Blaise admonished.
"And just what's that supposed to mean, exactly?" shrieked Pansy, drawing herself up to her full height and turning sharply to face him.
"You just aren't," Blaise rushed on, though he'd taken a wary step away from Pansy as though afraid she might eat him.
"And why on earth not?" snapped Pansy. Blaise opened his mouth to answer, but Draco held up a hand to forestall him.
"Don't dig yourself a hole, mate."
"Digging himself a grave, if he doesn't shut up," Pansy muttered. Blaise made an indignant sound in his throat and Daphne laughed.
"Shh," Draco hissed. Theo was back, his face infuriatingly impassive.
"Well?" demanded Blaise. With the barest hint of a smirk, Theo reached into his pocket and extracted a silver flask. Pansy gasped as if she'd been cut, Blaise grinned and rubbed his hands together in anticipation, and Daphne heaved an enormous, put-upon sigh and shoved ten galleons into Draco's outstretched hand.
"Choke on it," she snapped.
"Your faith is inspiring, Draco," said Theo quietly, with a wink that stopped Draco's breath in his chest. He averted his eyes at once.
"No," groaned Pansy.
"How-how'd you get them to-" Blaise broke off, shaking his head in disbelief. Theo shrugged.
"They were talking about the World Cup," he said casually. "Only they didn't seem interested in the match, they were talking about-" he broke off. "Doesn't matter. I just listened a bit and then said something I thought they'd like, and they did." He paused, now frowning slightly. "They were sort of weird, though. Scary, almost. I only saw it for a second, but I think one of them had this tattoo…" A shadow flitted across Theo's eyes then, as though he were deeply apprehensive about something and couldn't say why. It was gone almost at once, and he shook his head slightly. "Never mind. We'll need to move," he added, after a moment. "Before our benefactor realizes the...generous donation he's made this evening."
"No!" Pansy repeated, head sinking into her hands.
"Oh, relax, would you?" snapped Blaise.
"Shut up, both of you," sighed Daphne, and ushered them through the crowd and out onto the terrace. Theo made to follow, but Draco caught his arm and held him back.
"What sort of tattoo?" he asked in an undertone. There it was again, that shadow. Deeper this time, less like apprehension and more like real fear.
"I dunno," he murmured. "Like...of a snake, I think? But I can't say for sure, I scarcely saw it." Draco frowned. A tattoo of a snake...well, he supposed those must be common enough. What, then, was this cold pit suddenly doing in his stomach? He shook his head to clear it, and when he looked back at Theo, the fear was gone.
"Weird," he said simply. "Let's go, they'll think we've met Mrs. Bole again."
They were scarcely thirty seconds behind the others, but by the time they reached the terrace Pansy had arranged her face into a look of disdain which didn't quite hide the anxiety making her eyes flit back and forth, memorizing the people around them, searching their faces for signs of suspicion. Daphne and Blaise appeared to be arguing, though they stopped the instant they noticed Draco and Theo. Blaise turned sharply away and snatched the flask from Theo's hand.
"Hey!" snapped the latter.
"Oldest first," Blaise retorted, but he'd scarcely finished speaking when Daphne snatched it away from him.
"We're not children, and it's not sweets."
"Well, what do you suggest then?" snapped Blaise.
"I suggest," Theo broke in, snatching the flask back from Daphne, "that you both shut up-"
"Thank you," interjected Pansy, and Theo gave her a faintly disdainful look before continuing.
"-because I'm the reason we've got it in the first place-"
"Would be, if I hadn't brought you here," Daphne muttered.
"Oldest first," Blaise repeated. Daphne retorted angrily, but Draco wasn't listening. He waited for a particularly careless gesture to bring Theo's hand back toward him, then snatched the flask away and unscrewed the cap before anyone realized what had happened.
"Youngest first," he said with a smirk, and drank.
It took everything in him, the moment the liquid touched his tongue, not to recoil and spit it out. It burned him from the back of his throat all the way up into his nose as though he'd inhaled a load of water, and the taste...well, surely nothing so unearthly bitter could possibly be meant for human consumption. He choked, actually involuntarily choked, as the liquid burned its way down his throat. His mouth felt unbearably dry, as though he'd been chewing the world's worst-tasting chalk for the past hour.
"That's revolting," he gasped, shoving the flask into Blaise's outstretched hand. His friends burst into raucous laughter around him, but he scarcely heard them. He was gazing around at the adults flitting about the terrace with a newfound respect laced with revulsion. What on earth compelled them to willingly ingest this?
"Oh, fucking hell!" cried Blaise, and Draco looked around just in time to step aside as he stumbled back, gasping and sputtering.
"This was your idea," said Pansy snidely. She no longer looked anxious; she was watching the scene with amusement bordering on relish.
"It can't be that bad," said Daphne uncertainly, eyes flitting from Draco to Blaise and back again. Theo snatched the flask from Blaise, took an experimental sip, winced, then frowned thoughtfully.
"It's...not," he said slowly. Blaise recoiled as if he'd been slapped.
"You're mad, then," said Draco fervently. With an impatient sound in her throat, Daphne sipped, but spit it out again at once. Theo rolled his eyes, took the flask back, and sipped again.
"Yeah, it's kind of...sweet?"
"You're putting us on," snapped Blaise, though he seized the flask again, jaw set in determination. He drank until he gagged, then offered the flask to Daphne with a smug, challenging sort of smirk. She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"Thanks, but that was the worst thing I've ever put in my mouth," she said flatly. Draco took it instead and sipped, more cautiously this time. Perhaps if he went very, very slowly...then he'd have to taste the bloody stuff for longer, he realized. Instead, he held his breath and swallowed as quickly as he could. That was better.
A hand appeared out of nowhere and seized the flask, and he didn't protest.
"C'mon," said Daphne's voice from somewhere off to his left. "I reckon this could be really boring."
"Thank god," sighed Pansy. Retreating footsteps.
"Why do people drink this?" gasped Blaise in disgust.
Twenty minutes later-or perhaps an hour, or, hell, perhaps ten seconds-the flask was empty and Blaise's question was answered.
Blaise and Theo were talking about something. Every few moments Draco made a halfhearted attempt to understand them, but all he could seem to do was make their incomprehensible chatter louder. He didn't mind, though. He just liked knowing they were there.
Earlier, the world around him had felt sharp-full of crisp edges and precise angles, things that clinked and sparkled and people who moved in an unconscious, but no less meticulous, formation. Now, everything was pleasantly dulled. The air had just enough physical form to gently remind him of its presence, sweet and warm and soft. Precise angles rounded and swirled about in a way one might describe as chaotic, but to Draco it simply seemed like the natural order of things. Light appeared refracted as if he were underwater, sharp sparkles receding infinitely into the distance so that everything around him seemed to glitter. Draco himself felt as if he were floating, nudged peacefully about once in a while by a shift in the air around him, but wholly content to simply drift.
If sailing was anything like this, it must be wonderful. He had to try it as soon as earthly possible. Better yet, he could simply walk into the sea and the water would accept him. For as long as he liked, he could travel on the whims of the currents, free from the burden of choosing his own trajectory. Perhaps fish had discovered the secret to true happiness.
Yes, all right, he knew he'd drown if he did that. But would he? Had anyone actually tried?
"Theo?"
"What?" That, he understood.
"Can I live in the sea?" Blaise let out a snort of laughter from somewhere Draco couldn't see.
"You mean by the sea?" asked Theo.
"No," snapped Draco. He'd said exactly what he meant, dammit. "I mean in it."
"No, then."
"Why not?"
"Because you'd drown, you idiot," Blaise broke in. Draco sighed and looked away. They didn't understand.
A group of women flitted past him, blithely indifferent to his presence despite passing so close the champagne from the glasses clutched languidly in their fingers sloshed over the edge and nearly splashed him.
It was pretty, wasn't it, champagne? He knew there were different kinds-or at least, he thought there were-but it was all the same precise shade of crystal clear, silvery gold, the color of every kind of precious gemstone and metal rolled into one. It was dark outside, but still the liquid sparkled and glowed in their glasses, seeming simultaneously to absorb and reflect light.
He turned to Blaise and Theo to make this observation, but Blaise was gone.
"Where's…" He couldn't remember what he was going to say. Surely, Theo's eyes weren't always so green. With a slight smirk, Theo gestured off to his left. Blaise was there, a few feet away. The girls had returned. More importantly, Theo's hand floated back through the air with such impossible grace that Draco's immediate instinct was to reach out and catch it. He would've, too, but he'd never be quick enough. Instead, he followed it with his eyes until they made their way back to Theo's.
Was it possible for moonlight to radiate from inside a person?
"Did you…" what was he asking, exactly? "Did you eat the moon?" Theo looked startled for a split second, then burst out laughing.
"What?" He couldn't explain. But what else could possibly make any earthly creature look so beautiful?
Suits. Everyone should wear more suits.
