Word count: 2,111

A/N: A Murtlap is a small rat-like creature described in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. It has growths on its' back similar to those of a sea anenome, which apparently can be used to make one more resilient to spells. For the sake of this history, the thing was named but never studied extensively, so those properties are unknown - also kind of useless, given the state of society.

Arabella couldn't recall her store ever being this quiet before, though she supposed it must have been at some point. It had been derelict and void of life when she'd first procured it, after all; not even rats deigned to infest it. There had been no sign of invading pigeons in the rafters upstairs, only cobwebs. And even those had been abandoned, the spiders apparently having decided to vacate the locale.

Now it was more lively, certainly. In their separate displays, a husky pup and a Persian kitten tormented one another from opposite sides of the glass. The parrot was feasting contentedly, pleased with her meal of corn and sunflower seeds. One of the kneazles was snoozing quietly, the dull hum of its' purring audible even from the counter across the room.

Staring at the stock order sheet before her, Arabella tried to come up with some idea of what she should write, but her fingers were too tight around her bright blue pen. She could feel the grooves of the raised brand name denting her skin, wrinkled as a prune. She wished she could harness the vitality of youth, bottle it and sell it to the masses. Maybe then the young and powerful would be wise.

She sighed, the sound cutting through the silence as she shook her head. Wise youth. She knew who that was, who she was hoping for the world to evolve to be. Hermione Puckle. The girl was seventeen, burdened and an incredibly quick study. She'd spun a perfectly reasonable story about fighting with her parents and taking off at a sprint in whatever direction would get her as far away as was humanly possible.

Arabella Figg, though, knew better than to trust the girl.

She'd given Hermione more than enough time to give into the temptation of aging tomes that shouldn't have existed. If she gave in, then she could be an activist. If the girl could be an activist, all the better. They needed more open allies than they had - far more.

She hadn't spotted the signs of magic until after she'd introduced Hermione to the operation that really kept her employed. They were there, though, blindingly plain in retrospect: tasks completed a little too quickly even for an efficient person, words in a dead academic language uttered under her breath. The pages of the book on local wildlife described things that weren't supposed to exist: dragons and werewolves instead of pigeons and stray cats. It should've been obvious to her from the start: after all, the kneazles took instantly Hermione, and she to them, in a way only a magically gifted person could. Even the grouchy old orange hybrid, the one who tended to attack absolutely everyone on sight, liked having her around.

So, when Hermione said that she wanted to help rescue Draco Malfoy, Arabella had been torn. On the one hand, the girl reminded her of her long-gone little sister, Alina, who was somewhere in Sweden last she'd heard, subsisting on her arrogant confidence.

On the other hand, though, they really did need all the help they could get. No one else locally could do it without risking their life and cover, and it had been decided that the underground network needed the young wizard. He inspired the other members of his generation to do what had to be done: consider, for example, what Hermione was willing to risk, and she had never so much as glanced him at that point. And he was a criminal, too, though the guards who had arrested him didn't know the half of it. He'd been arrested for teaching magic, but he'd done so much more than that, and cost them a considerable amount of effort - not to mention risk.

Arabella's mind was made up for her before she could deliberate much more. One of the travelling elders, an older member to their cause, had sent a message that brokered no argument. Three scribbled symbols on a piece of paper that appeared out of nowhere on top of her warped wooden jewellery box. The meaning was clear.

I'm caught. Help Draco. Fast.

That had been weeks ago, and there had been no second contact. He was hiding, caught, or worse, dead. Arabella prayed that Hermione could provide the temperance Draco Malfoy needed, lest they be doomed to repeat the failures of the past.

Arabella should have been worrying about herself.

"Please! Please, have mercy."

"Tell us what you know about your son, Narcissa."

"Nothing! I don't know anything."

"I want to help you, Mrs Malfoy, I really do. I can't be any help at all, though, if you insist on the lying."

"Ow!"

"Honestly, Mrs M, this isn't that bad. It's just a little poker."

"You're letting it heat in the fire!"

"Oh, so I am. Ah, well, can't be helped. Here, let me - there we go."

"ARGH!"

"Very good, Mrs Malfoy, I see you're coming along quite nicely. Like any worthwhile meal."

"Wh - what? I don't under - understand. You can't - can't eat me. That would breach -"

"Breach what, dear woman?"

"Some - some convention. The one from that African town - the one with the -"

"Witch cult?"

"That's not fair."

"No, it isn't. It's barbaric to feast upon the flesh of any human, particularly children. Yet that's what they do, isn't it? Your kind. And yet you're all so damn proud of your sinful power, aren't you?"

"This is a religious thing? You're a fanatic? But -"

"Not a fanatic, no. But enough about me, Mrs Malfoy. I'm afraid you aren't giving me the information I want. You're not proving very useful."

"I don't know anything, alright? Why do you insist on not understanding that? Ow!"

"Mrs Malfoy, I can assure you that I am doing everything possible to make this easier."

"Liar. Lying liar who lies."

"Cute. Again."

Her screams sliced through the air, even though a spark of light came into existence immediately. Hands scrabbled against something that rattled on the fringes of darkness, and Hermione lurched backwards, her chest heaving. "There's something there!"

"Yeah, Hermione, there probably is. And it's probably got a tail, too. Rats usually do."

"Very funny, but it's not a filthy rat, Malfoy. I worked in a pet store, I'm not afraid of some tiny disgusting creature."

"Really? And I'm supposed to believe that?"

"Believe what you want, Draco, I couldn't care less. Just help me up, git."

"Fine, fine," Draco agreed distractedly, keeping his wand raised and using the pool of light it cast to trace shapes in the eerie gloom. He repeated the spell to Zabini, knowing he'd repeat the casting regardless of any ill will between them. He could see things moving in the shadows, and despite his teasing, prayed that they weren't rats, were anything but rats. Vile little beasts, skittering through shadows and streaking across perfectly decent light pools that his tiny group continuously failed to hold steady.

And why was that? Maybe they were a little tired, but -

"What the hell is that?"

"Christ, Zabini, want to startle me some more?"

"Oh, like her screaming didn't make me you piss yourself."

"Zabini!"

"What?"

"What are you yelling about?"

"Oh. Yeah. Lumos. That."

"Oh my God."

"Holy fucking -"

"I read about these!"

Both Draco and Blaise turned to Hermione, torn between exasperation and bemusement. "You read about that thing?"

"Mrs Figg had books about it. You were reading it, Blaise, that book you were looking at in my apartment, Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology. It's all about things that don't exist, remember? Creatures that are thought not to be real, at least by non-magical people."

"Muggles."

"Them, yes. But it isn't a rat, Draco, you were right."

"I noticed," the blonde hissed. He hated rats, actually, he hated quite a lot of things. But this thing was like a rat with bizarre wriggling spines on its' back. "But what is it?"

"Oh. The book called it a Murtlap. Supposedly they used to exist in coastal areas."

"Coastal?"

"Why are you suddenly pleased?"

"This tunnel ends at the coast. Well. Close to it. Or at least this part of it does. Come on, move faster, if we're almost there -"

"Don't step on the -"

"Fuck!"

"- Murtlap. Ouch." Hermione winced in sympathy. "Are you alright? Can you walk?"

"I'm fine." Draco was not, in fact, fine. A blinding pain had shot up his leg, something he'd never felt before. Even being chased by guards, ramming headfirst into a wall, being attacked by a muggle who thought himself superior, none of them felt like tiny daggers stabbing into his foot.

"Malfoy."

"What, Zabini?"

"You are bleeding. You do realise that, don't you?"

"It fucking bit me. Of course I'm bleeding!"

"You should sit down for a moment. I'm serious, Draco. I don't know what will happen if you just let it fester."

"Fester? Hermione, it isn't infected."

"So far as you know. Its bite could be poisonous, a tooth could be lodged inside it, the spines could be toxic. Face it, you've got no clue."

"Do you even know how to be optimistic?"

"Optimism isn't going to save us, Draco, so sit down."

"On the Murtlap?"

He said it to be resentful, but it succeeded in giving her a second of pause. She sighed, shaking her head. "Blaise, help him walk, will you? Maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe they don't like sunlight."

"We're in England. It'll be raining anyway."

"Blaise Zabini, you help him walk this second or I will show you exactly what my understanding of dark magic is."

"Whoa, no need to get violent, I'll help him. But one of you owes me."

"For Gods' sake, would you stop with your damn favours?"

"You get real shitty when you're in pain, Malfoy," the Italian sneered. Despite his hostility, he did move to support the other wizard. He wasn't stupid, after all; he did recognise that the bizarre couple he was travelling with was his only chance to get out of London alive. He was so close now; there was virtually no good reason to turn his back on them now. Not when the exit was less than a kilometre away.

Daylight was blinding after two days in the dark of the tunnel, and like Hermione had hoped, not a drop of rain fell. Still the sky was dark, clotted with something heavier than cloud.

"Smoke," Hermione hissed, tightening her grip on her stolen wand.

"What burned?" Blaise was dumbfounded. Why would their miraculous escape route end in flame? If it hadn't been found out, then -

Oh.

Draco, already pale and still in pain from the Murtlap bite, growled aloud. He hunched his shoulders and leaned away from Blaise, hissing in pain. Both wizards lurched forward, to a the fringes of the largest pool of ashes they would see in their lifetimes.

"The muggles did this."

"What is it?"

"It's a stop partway through, that's all. A - what are they called? Way-stop? It's one of those. A way-stop for witches, wizards and other magical people, things fleeing London. It's supposed to be anonymous. Undiscovered. Safe."

"Somebody found it."

"Obviously."

"Draco, don't get mad at Blaise. Seriously, just don't bother. It isn't worth it. Let me look at the bite now. Please."

"No. I have to check -"

"Check what?"

"That they got out! This place should be safe for people like us, don't you get it? If they got to this -"

"Who lived here? Who watched them?"

"The Weasleys. I guess. It's a servants' property. The family is huge, the muggles they serve don't want them sleeping in the house. Six...seven kids. I think most of them are gone."

"What are their names?"

"Um. Molly, Arthur, they're the parents. The kids... a set of twins. Uh, Ron, he's my age. And Ginny. She's...well. Unique."

"You don't know the others?"

"I don't remember their names, no. I've never even met them, now, have I?"

"How should I know?" she snapped sharply, then cleared her throat. "Excuse me. Sit down, Draco. Blaise will look for whatever's left. Now let me look at the bite."

This time, he didn't argue. He stayed silent, flinching as she ran her fingers over the open wound, worse than he'd thought it was in the cave. The pain was sharp now, distracting. He stopped thinking about what the loss of the Weasley's would mean for the networks' efforts.

Then Blaise came back, his normally dark face pale, saying it all without the need for words. Someone's body lay among the ashes.

"Somebody is going to pay."