Chapter 19: The Meeting

Draco

The tea house is not crowded at this time of day; perhaps it's never crowded in a small town like this. The waitress is arranging pastries behind the counter. It doesn't look much different from a Wizarding tea house, Draco supposes, except everyone's wearing funny Muggle clothing and the waitress is balancing an enormously laden tray of cups and dishes in her arms instead of levitating it neatly behind her.

This flits through Draco's mind in a moment, but then he sees Mother sitting at a round table in the back. She's chosen a spot away from the window, half in shadow. She is impeccably dressed in peach-coloured robes, and Draco briefly wonders if the Muggles will think them strange; what a ridiculously backwards concept.

He approaches her, trying not to rush across the room. Mother's back is straight and her eyes are weary. The closer Draco gets, the more anxiety is spelled on her features: the tightness of her mouth; the shadows beneath her pale blue eyes; the stiffness with which she holds her tea cup.

He is walking towards her, one step after the other, when she looks up and spots him. She stands abruptly, and as he takes the final long strides to the table, his mother crushes him against her chest.

"Oh, Draco, Draco," she whispers. Her perfume overwhelms him. She pulls him back by the shoulders to look into his face for a long moment, her thin eyebrows bunched with worry, her eyes roving hungrily, desperately over his face.

It only lasts a moment. Then, she is seated again. Her eyes are wet, but there are no tears. Draco's heart is pounding. He insisted on meeting in a public place, but now he doesn't know how to say everything that needs to be said in this tea house, where anyone could be hiding, listening. So instead of saying anything, he sits down and puts his hands on the his lap, twisting his fingers together.

The waitress, a short, simpering woman, approaches their table right away. "Would you like a menu, lad?" she asks, and her eyes flicker over their robes with interest. "Aren't those just the loveliest costumes," she says. "Very Medieval, just like one of those fairs on the telly."

"I'll just have tea," Draco says with a frown. His mother is eyeing the woman as if she is a half-sentient beast. Looking put out, the waitress recedes behind the counter.

His mother places her cup back on the saucer, and he doesn't miss the way her hand trembles. He thinks she'll remark on the setting, can even visualize the disdainful curl of her lip at being at a Muggle establishment. But she says nothing about it. "You look well, Draco. You're comfortable?" she asks. Her tone has shifted to something distant and calm, and her eyes flick nervously across the room. They are being watched. Draco is suddenly sure of it.

"I'm fine, yes." He needs to be choose his words carefully. "I'm safe," he finally adds. "I trust that Professor Snape has passed on my...message?"

His mother's gaze flickers. In his peripheral vision she can see her wand is out, beneath the table, and her lips move near-soundlessly to cast a Muffiato charm. "Draco," she says. "We must talk plainly, for there is not much time. Your father is home, he is recovering, and we are prepared to help you return to us." She looks at him significantly. "Return to the Dark Lord."

Draco feels the blood rush from his face. "Mother, that's not..."

"I know you were frightened, and who can blame you? You're just a boy, after all. I think our Lord doesn't understand how young you still are, to test your loyalty in such ways."

"It wasn't a test Mother." Draco says quietly. "I was meant to fail. I was meant to die."

She shakes her head with a jerk, as if to flick away the notion. "You came so close to victory. And you may not have killed Dumbledore yourself, but the man is dead, is he not? The mission has been fulfilled. We are so proud of you. So proud."

Draco stares at his mother, trying to keep his face from twisting in horror. His heart is pounding. "What did Snape tell you?" he asks. He hadn't minced words that night, with Snape, at the foot of the grand staircase. I'm not a Death Eater, he'd said.

"He told us everything, Draco. Everything that happened that night, how you were overwhelmed with fear. And we don't blame you! Of course, we don't."

Draco stares at his mother. His mouth opens but no words form.

"Severus could see you did not have enough depth of feeling in you to cast the Killing Curse. You tried, but it wouldn't come. It's what he told us."

"Mother..." Draco finally manages, but she keeps talking, her eyebrows bunched in concern now. It's the way she's always looked at him when he fell short of a task his father had set out for him. When Slytherin didn't win the Quidditch Cup, or when his marks weren't quite the top of his year. While his father would sneer and throw scathing remarks, his mother would always look at him this way, her face a mask of sympathy. "It's not your fault, Draco," she says now. "You tried your best, but it was an impossibly difficult task. Severus had agreed to help you through it. Unbeknownst to the Dark Lord," she whispers, and immediately looks over her shoulder. "He made an Unbreakable Vow, Draco."

Draco follows her gaze, but only sees Muggle patrons huddled around their tables, nobody he recognizes. He wonders where Ginny is. She stayed outside, and didn't tell him exactly where she would hide. He looks back at his mother and frowns. "There's more to it, Mother," he says. His heart is beating too fast, and he tries to find the words, struggling to set things straight. It would be easier to allow her to believe her version of events, so much easier. The words catch in his throat, and he swallows thickly. A sheen of cold sweat breaks out on his brow.

"I know you ran away. You hid. It's understandable, my love."

"No, I-"

"Severus tried to soften the message. He told the Dark Lord how afraid you were of the repercussions, how you hid in the castle instead of following him to the Apparation point. The Dark Lord is angry with you; I will not pretend otherwise, but his anger has faded over these many weeks. I am sure we can explain, we can set things right. Draco, I know you have regretted this action many times over."

"No! I haven't!" He's finally found his voice, and it's louder than he intends. His mother's eyes widen.

"Draco, stop," she hisses.

"I was worried about you, Mother. I spent so many nights unable to sleep, thinking he'd tortured you for my mistakes."

She pales, but doesn't contradict him. Doesn't say anything for a breathless moment. Finally, she says, "That's not the point, Draco."

"That's the only reason I'm here," he insists, quietly this time. "I want to know that you're not hurt. I need to protect you, Mother. Maybe the Order of the Phoenix can help you, as they've helped me."

A dark expression seeps into his mother's delicate features. She frowns lightly, barely perceptible, but Draco can sense he'd made a mistake bringing up the Order. He shouldn't have said it like that, but he was getting desperate. He felt like they were having two separate conversations, side-by-side, and he needed their paths to overlap somehow. But he has miscalculated.

"Here we go, my dears!" He's jostled by the sudden appearance of the waitress. She is holding a pot of tea and a small assortment of tiny containers and packets. "Sorry for the wait," she says, placing everything down in front of him, miniature packets of sugar and jelly and Merlin knows what other Muggle concoctions. "Would you like a refill, Madam?" she asks, turning towards his mother. Narcissa Malfoy looks slowly towards the woman and turns up the corners of her mouth. The result is a wholly unpleasant smile, one that drips with disdain. "No thank you," she says.

The small woman recoils, her own grin faltering.

As she steps away, Draco opens his mouth again, but suddenly there is a burst of noise and the entire tea house trembles. He whirls to look behind him, towards the door, but he's thrown backwards before he can get a good look at anything. He hits his head on the counter and a whip of pain erupts across his skull. There are confused shouts, a scream, and through a haze of debris, he sees Ginny rush inside with her wand drawn. He fumbles for his own wand, and grips it in sweaty fingers. He shoots a hex at an old women who is morphing before his eyes into Alecto Carrow. His heartbeat seems to have slowed, pumping laboriously, and he watches his hex fly in slow-motion across the room. Alecto Carrow is lifted off her feet and crashes into an ornate commode filled with tea settings. Glass explodes across the floor. It all happens in one slow-motion instant.

He tries to scurry to his feet, whipping his head around and around (Where has his mother gone? Where is Ginny? Did she call the Order? Are there more Death Eaters?), and he is about to raise his wand again, when he hears a soft spell at his left: Petrificus Totalus. His arms and legs snap together, and he falls again, rigid, his head knocking against the floor. This time, he can't move.

His eyes are locked straight ahead, he can only see the ceiling, and the smoke and debris. His mother hovers above him. She is frowning, the compassion gone from her face. He knows, suddenly, that she is the one who hexed him. She bends down, takes his arm, and Draco feels the squeeze of Apparation.


Ginny

Ginny has a splitting headache. She opens her eyes to darkness. She's cold. She's on a hard, stone floor, and the air smells musty and stale.

She brings one hand to her head and splays her fingers. Her head is pounding so hard, she's sure her hands will come away bloody, but there is nothing there but a small, painful lump. She sits up and looks around. As her eyes adjust to the dimness, she can see stone walls, empty shackles in one corner. Her hand reaches inside her robes and comes back empty. They've taken her wand.

A spike of fear rushes through her. She's not just hurt. She's been taken captive, and she doesn't know where. She could be killed. Worse, she could be used to draw Harry here, to this dark place, into a hive of Death Eaters.

Ginny swallows heavily. She swallows again, and her eyes sting. What happened?

It's all a flurry of movement in her mind, a giant misstep.

She reaches back in her mind, sorting through her memories. They'd stepped out of the pub, and Draco turned his face to the sun. She squeezed his hand. He went ahead, and she was careful to be inconspicuous, following at a safe distance.

Draco went into the tea shop. She slipped behind the building, into the back lane. She stood next to the rubbish bins. She remembers the sweet, rotting smell of rubbish. She had a view from a side window and she watched Draco's face as Narcissa Malfoy spoke. His mother looked regal and wholly out of place in the little shop, amidst the small-town patrons. Her long hair shone in straight curtains down her back, and her robes were expensive, perfectly tailored. As she spoke to Draco, Ginny watched his jaw twitch, his head shake slightly to negate something.

A waitress blocked her view.

It's why she leaned away from the window, took a look around. Her eyes drifted to the gravel lane, and swung towards the main road. And there was a Death Eater, twisting around the tea shop, heading towards the front doors. An actual Death Eater, Walden MacNair, she recognized his face from the Ministry wanted posters: the bald head, thick neck, mottled skin.

She should have alerted the Order right away. She should have Apparated home to get her parents, Harry, Hermione. Anyone. They should have had a better plan to begin with; they should have prepared an enchantment to alert each other quickly, like the DA coins from last year. But they hadn't prepared, and everything had gone wrong, and Ginny had been stupid and thoughtless.

What happened?

Ginny closes her eyes, leaning her palm against the cool stone wall of her cell. How could she have been so stupid?

Her feet had just driven her forward, after MacNair. Just to have a look, to make sure. In an instant, he'd hurtled through the door with his wand drawn. Ginny rushed forward. Why did she do that? She remembered a sudden swell of confidence, storming into the tea house, in the midst of the action for once, throwing hexes. She struck MacNair from behind with a curse that knocked him down, trussed up, against the wall. She'd been practicing. But he hadn't been alone.

She was grabbed from behind. She struggled, and through the debris, she saw Draco on the floor staring up helplessly, his body rigid. She struggled, watching as his mother Apparated him away. He vanished. She struggled, flailing her arms, reaching for her fallen wand; she screamed, she kicked at whoever was holding her, and then she felt a sharp pain on the back of her head and that was the end of it.

She could be anywhere now. Only Hermione knows about the meeting, and she won't start worrying for hours. Ginny told her she was sneaking out, but she never gave her the full details of the meeting. At the time, she'd felt like she was protecting Draco's privacy. She told Hermione about the inn. And she told Hermione not wait up, that she would be back in the morning. Cover for me, she'd said. I'll be fine, Hermione. Stop obsessing. Ginny groans. She made all the wrong moves, took no precautions. She imagined Draco would be emotionally wrecked after the conversation with his mother, and Ginny wanted to give herself time to stay, to strategize or comfort him in the little room at the inn, without worrying about raising alarms back home, without rushing back to quiet Hermione's concerns.

Remus had warned them, but she never considered it a serious threat. Draco's own mother wouldn't harm him, would never risk giving him up to He Who Must Not Be Named. Would never risk turning in her own son, lest the Malfoys suffer even more at the hands of their Dark Lord. Surely not.

So she'd rushed ahead, unprepared. Stupid.


Draco

He opens his eyes to a thick beam of afternoon sunlight streaming across his pillows. Draco turns over, squinting. There's a pounding in his head, but for a moment he can't recall why that would be. His hands bunch at a thick down-filled comforter. He frowns, the feeling of disorientation clouding his mind. He's at Grimmauld Place. No, he's at the little inn.

He sits up quite suddenly. This is not the inn. This is not the bed in the inn with its threadbare quilt and suffocating floral aroma. His eyes dart back and forth in panic, his heart beginning to pound in time with his headache. Familiar heavy curtains are pulled back from a large ornate window. His own bed. His wardrobe. His Quidditch posters. His bedroom.

He inhales sharply, air hissing through his teeth. Draco scrambles out of the large, four-poster bed. He's wearing silk green pyjamas. His robes are gone. His wand – it's gone as well. Draco rushes to the door and pulls on the heavy, bronze door handle. It slips through his sweaty fingers, and he pulls again, but the door does not give. It's locked from the outside