A/N: I do not own or profit from Harry Potter.

I'm not sure this would work. But, I figure that the muggle government still has the birth/tax records of wizards, therefore they'd know they exist…so a muggle could technically find the street address of a wizard home, no? Maybe not…

Chapter 13: Less than Home

"Aud..."

Audrey gave him a look.

He fell silent.

"Please. Look, this is really important to me. This Malfoy person may know something that I don't. Maybe he'll tell me."

"Yeah, but you're not supposed to know."

"Davis. Hush."

Davis hushed and stared out the window.

"Besides, you're with me. It's not like I'm alone or anything."

"Aud." He turned back to her. "This guy could've murdered your Dad. What makes you think I could take him?" He gestured to his lanky frame. "I'm not exactly Jet Li here."

She gave him another look. "He dumped me twenty years ago. He's probably old now. And he didn't do the murder by brute force, there were no wounds on the body. I'm not expecting you to fight Jackie Chan. Plus, we'll be careful. He doesn't need to know who I am or why we're here. We'll just be casual."

Davis looked away, shaking his head. "I dunno, Audrey..."

They were both silent for some time. Audrey spoke abruptly. "You do have your knife, right?"

He gave her a look this time.

.

Audrey followed the address from the book. It was a remote place in Wiltshire. There was a small town not far away, where their train had stopped, but the house was beyond that.

Davis followed Audrey reluctantly. "Audrey. What kind of a guy lives in the middle of the boonies like this when there's a totally okay village right over there?" His pointed finger indicated the way they had come.

Audrey shrugged. "Look, the house is somewhere on this road." She told him. "Maybe the guy runs a pig farm or something."

"Yeah, bull snot. This is a swamp." He retorted, less than enthusiastic about their outing.

She ignored him and kept tramping down the road. After a few minutes she stopped and waited for him to catch up with her.

"What?"

"That." She pointed. There was an odd cloud of fog covering their visibility just ahead.

"Audrey, this is stupid. Let's just go."

"No." She started forward. "The house could be in that fog."

"And why, pray tell, would there be fog around the house and nowhere else? Why would you build a house where there's fog? And...swampiness?"

"I don't know, maybe he likes privacy!" Audrey replied. They entered the thick cloud and Audrey felt the mist settle on her skin. It was slightly eerie. She reached out for Davis and grasped his wrist.

And then stopped abruptly, and felt him come to a stop with her.

Two great gates stood in front of them, with a wall disappearing in either direction. A huge M was set into both gates. They looked solid, and they were shut tight.

"Is he a billionaire?" Davis asked the air.

Audrey licked her lips, though they were already wet from the dew, and stepped forward. "We'll just ring." She decided. "If no one answers, we'll go." She too, though was a little intimidated by the apparent status of whomever lived inside. Percy had made it sound like living with this Malfoy would be a bad thing. In spite of herself, she stepped forward and searched the iron gates for a bell or a buzzer.

Davis seemed to read her thoughts. "Are you sure this is the right Malfoy?"

"Davis, there was only one listed in the phone book. And he didn't have phone number, so this address is the only place to find him." She stepped away from the gates. No bell. She stared through them, infuriated by the glimpse of a driveway, hedge, and garden they offered, just beyond her reach. She reached out to shake the heavy gates in frustration.

Her hand went through it. She stared a moment, then tried it again. "Davis."

"I see." He was beside her now, staring, equally perplexed, and equally fascinated.

She ran her hand through the gate several times, like smoke. Like fog. They looked so solid, so real.

"It must be some trick of the lights." He gestured. "You know, like in the movies, where they make a light-simulated image of a real thing."

She dropped her hands. "Why not just build a set of real gates?"

"Must've cost a fortune." He agreed.

She stared at the gates a moment longer, passed her hand through them again, then tugged her handbag up onto her shoulder and stepped through them and onto the other side. "C'mon Davis. There will have to be a bell at the door."

Davis followed her onto the drive, less hesitant than before. "Audrey, this is still weird. If anything, it's weirder."

"I get that, but we're here, let's not go back." She found herself whispering. The fog rolled around them, making the hedges blurry.

"Audrey, anyone could be in here. There could be dogs. There could be a man with a shotgun."

"Davis!" She hissed, trying to deny that she was equally spooked. "If there is a man in this fog, he's just as blind as we are. Now stop..." She stopped abruptly as a loud bang rang out, momentarily followed by a crunching sound.

Davis glanced down at the gravel beneath their feet. "Aud!"

"Someone's coming!" She realized at the same time. Both dove for the curve in the hedge, threw themselves down behind it.

The crunching of feet on gravel drew nearer, and Davis seized Audrey's arm, dragging her along a side-path through what looked vaguely like a garden. Both were crouching low, and neither looked back to see who had come out.

Audrey stopped after a few turns through the overgrown maze. "Davis, if we're here to see him, why are we running?" She stood up. "I want to see him."

"Well, I don't." Davis pulled her back down. "You're the one who jumped for the hedge first. You know we shouldn't be here. And you're still whispering at the same volume I am."

She peered over the hedge at the shape of the house. "Davis, this is ridiculous. I'm standing this close to the house of the man who might be my father. I'm going in." She rose and started down the path she hoped would take her to the house. "I know this is probably really stupid, but I have to try. I will try."

After a moment, he caught up with her. "Yes, this is stupid, but I'm going with you anyways." He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans as the house became clearer. It was a lavish mansion, built of stone, with a terrace standing out in front. The two mounted the terrace, crossed it, and paused in front of the doors. Huge, double doors they were, with a heavy silver knocker set into one. Audrey hesitantly raised her hand and let the knocker fall.

There was a long pause after the thud, and no answer. Audrey glanced up at Davis, who was deliberately saying nothing.

Audrey knocked a second time. This time, the door creaked open just slightly. Audrey glanced up at Davis.

"Let's just stick our heads in." He advised. "Try calling out...wait, no, I'll stick my head in."

She stepped back and glanced over the gardens as he poked his head through the door. The view was very different from the terrace. The hedges were definitely overgrown, and there were weeds in the flowers, untrimmed bushes. A few statues posed gracefully in the distance as untamed vines clung to them.

"Aud." She turned back to Davis. "Look at this." He pushed the door open and took a few steps in. Audrey followed.

The inside must once have been as lavish as the outside. The floor was of marble, leading up to a carpeted staircase. There was a chandelier fixture above their heads, and vast frames on the walls. Both stood silent in the middle of it all. There was dust coating the carpet, and no chandelier where the fixture hung, and the frames on the walls were oddly empty.

"Maybe he moved." Davis muttered.

"But who..." Audrey moved a little forward, placed one foot on the red carpet of the stairs. There was dust on the banister as well, she discovered. "Who was that in the garden?"

Davis followed her without a word, both of them having forgotten about calling out by now. They crept through the house, peering around them. "Davis, I think you're right. I don't think anyone lives here. It's huge." There wasn't a light on in the house. There weren't even light fixtures in most of the rooms, only brackets and candlesticks on tables and walls. A few mirrors hung, several of them cracked, giving out shattered and eerie reflections. The air was stagnant.

"Aud." Davis tugged at her sleeve and pointed at the wall. She followed his gaze. There was a painting, of a window with a chair before it. A great, wooden carven chair, with a table beside it, and a single rose. Audrey studied it. There was no one in the portrait. Just an empty chair. She glanced further along the wall. Come to notice it, there were many like it. Couches, seats, gardens, sitting and waiting for someone to come and occupy them. But there were no people in any of the paintings.

"Weird." Davis studied them. "Why paint a bunch of sittings without a subject to sit in them?"

"I don't know." Audrey moved on, wishing abruptly that Percy were here. He'd understand this. He'd know what it meant, even if he didn't tell her all of it. Just having someone who knew and wasn't worried by it all was a comfort. "Do you know what this reminds me of?"

"What?"

"Miss Havisham's house from Great Expectations."

"Yeah. Know what it reminds me of?"

"What?" She crossed a wide room covered in ghostly white sheets, turned a full circle to make sure no one was waiting to jump out at her.

"The West Wing from Beauty and the Beast."

"Good one."

They turned a corner and jumped at the same time as a wall covered with a gilt mirror showed them their own reflections. Audrey put her hand to her chest and caught her breath. The her in the mirror looked small and pale. She might have elected to try and find a door out, or even climb out a window, had she not heard a distant mutter.

Both spun and stared back the way they had come.

"Did you hear that?"

"Like a whisper."

"Maybe it was us."

"I don't think so..."

Davis grasped her hand and tugged her through a door, then half-shut it and waited with their backs to the wall. Audrey leaned forward so they could both peer through the crack in the door.

A slight rustling noise came near. Light footfalls. Then a shadow fell over the door, and a slight figure came into view. It had it's back to the door, traveling the way they had been going. Audrey peered at it.

Long, silver-blond hair fell to the woman's waist. She was wearing some sort of a long gown in a pale color, with full sleeves and a skirt that trailed against the dusty carpet. She was a reasonably tall woman, though slender in frame. Audrey stared at her receding figure as she traveled slowly down the hall.

"Okay, if that was not a Disney princess, I don't know what." Davis whispered.

"I was going to say she looked like a ghost." Audrey stared after the woman long after she was gone. There had been something oddly haunting about her, whomever she was. If only she could have seen her face...

"Did you see her dress? And her hair? Total Disney princess, Aud."

Audrey grasped his hand and pulled him back into the hall. "She lives here. This place isn't exactly a fairytale castle, Davis."

"Let's get out of here."

"Agreed."

It proved to be easier said than done. The house was as much a maze as the gardens had been, a maze of dusty finery and abandoned luxuries. Just when Audrey thought they might have found their way through to the front hall again, a door slammed.

Davis tried a nearby door and found it locked. Footsteps came up the grand staircase, and both crouched behind a large vase, just peering out to see.

The young man was tall. And blond. Audrey abruptly recognized some of her own features in his face. Their chins came to the same point, but his face was narrower, his features sharper, and his hair was a pale platinum blonde. She sucked in her breath.

"Brother." Davis mouthed in her ear, and she silently swatted him back as the lone male disappeared through a door. So. People did live here.

Davis rose and both started for the stairs and then the door, when Audrey realized Davis was going the other way, the way the young man had gone. She waved frantically, daring not speak, but he gave her a look and knelt to peer through the keyhole. She reluctantly knelt beside him, and he offered her the better view. She peered through the keyhole.

The young man was visible, standing before a fireplace of some sort. The fireplace wasn't visible through the tiny peephole, but the flames flickered against his hair and his...dress? Audrey squinted. He was wearing some sort of a long garment with full sleeves that was mostly hidden by an even longer cloak. It was medieval style, with silver fastenings and a hood, worn down.

Audrey glanced at Davis, who had stuck his knife blade under the door to try and get a reflection of the room on the other side.

"There's someone out there." The young man spoke, startling Audrey back into attention.

"Perhaps it was the wind." A weak, wispy voice replied. It was a female, but Audrey couldn't see her.

The young man aimed a derisive glance at the carpet. "The wards went off, Mother. Only a person could do that."

Audrey could have smacked herself in the face. An alarm system. Of course.

"And the Anti-muggle ward went off." The young man continued, and Audrey's ears perked up. Anti-muggle? More queer words, now becoming familiar. "There's a muggle in our estate."

"He can't have got in without help." The wispy female replied. "The gates wouldn't have let them in. Didn't you set the muggle-repelling charm?"

"Of course." The boy sounded vaguely tired.

There was silence. Then, from the woman, "Do you think they could get in here?" She sounded quiet, and scared.

"Perhaps." The boy responded quietly. His hands were moving over a slender stick of wood. Audrey peered at it, wishing she had a better view. Percy had a piece of wood like that. It had hung out of his pocket once or twice, and it had lain on the counter when they'd had breakfast that last time she'd been to his flat. She felt her impatience mounting. What was it with these people? Percy knew about them, he would understand all about them.

She needed to talk to him. Tugging Davis' sleeve gently, she started down the stairs, grateful that they were carpeted marble rather than creaking wood.

She reached for the door handle and tugged. It didn't budge. She tried the other door and tugged again, glancing back up the stairs to the door through which the boy had gone. Davis was with her now, tugging at both handles. There were no locks to be seen.

The two faced each other.

"We're stuck!" He hissed.

She glanced back up at the door. "We'll break a window if we have to." She pulled him into one of the front rooms branching off of the hall. They both ducked behind a horsehair sofa for a conference.

"Audrey, this reminds me of a horror movie now. This is creepy."

"Don't be stupid." She tugged out her phone.

It wouldn't work. She fiddled with it, tried to turn it on or check for a signal, but nothing worked.

They were, indeed, stuck.

.

Percy kept his hood up long after leaving the prison. He definitely needed someone, anyone to go to, to talk to, to feel the warmth of human company and chase away the dementor's shades.

He'd thought of Audrey in Azkaban. Ridiculous. As if he could go to a Muggle and explain his problems to her. She wouldn't understand them, they were not her realm, not her sphere, not in her awareness. The conscious she lived in did not permit for him and his problems, or even his existence.

He couldn't go to Audrey, as much as he might like to fancy that she would listen and care and maybe think that was strong or brave to have survived...

No, he couldn't go, she didn't think of him that way, that was that. He would go to the Burrow. So there.

He landed at the Borrow near dinnertime, his visit to Azkaban having taken up most of his day.

Starting for the familiar screened door, he let his hood fall, wanted the darkness to wane, wanted to feel warm and at home again.

"Mother?" He called out once inside.

"Percy?" Ginny's red head appeared at the top of the stairs. She grinned a little and slid down the banister to meet him as it squeaked and trembled in protest. "Hi, Perce, you didn't say you were coming." She hugged him as only Ginny could and he hugged back, a little comforted as he buried his nose in her hair.

"I just thought I'd drop by. I was in the area." He murmured.

"Oh?" She drew back and looked up at him, perfectly aware that he had to be lying. The only reason to come into the area would be to visit the Diggorys, whose son's death was partially Percy's fault, or to see Luna in that crazy rook of a house that was half blown away. "Luna's come over for dinner." She said pleasantly.

Oh, damn. He didn't need that. The silvery girl who could stare right through anyone and tell exactly what she thought of them without fear of retribution simply because she was, well, Luna...and she was eerily perceptive. He didn't need her leaning over, sniffing him, and then announcing to his mother that he'd come within approximately six meters of a dementor five hours ago. No, he didn't need that.

Ginny was ushering him into the kitchen, tossing his cloak over a chair without comment on it not being the season for cloaks. She was talking about birthdays...oh, yes, he'd nearly forgotten. Both their birthdays were coming soon in August.

"What're you doing for your birthday?" He asked quietly, letting her ramble on half because he knew she liked to talk and half because he needed to hear it, to work the tension out of his system and feel like himself again.

She didn't have time for a proper answer before their mother appeared with Luna in tow.

"Percival." Mother cut off Luna's monologue on the bone structure of buttery spirits, coming forward to greet her son. "How are you?" Her surprise was obvious, understandable. He felt as she embraced him that he was being held at arm's length, being scrutinised. "What brings you here?" Because of course he'd never come over just for no reason. Because Percy didn't do that.

"I just...wanted to come over." He lied and they all knew it, and he felt himself sinking a little again. "I haven't seen you in a while."

"Then you should have come before." Luna responded in that detached tone of hers, smiling slightly, sweetly, to herself. Irritating child.

"Yes, well I'm here now." He nearly snapped at her, but she didn't seem to notice, only turned to the carrots she cradled in her arms like a child, and prepared to chop them for a stew. They ought to make those stupid earrings of hers into a stew sometime, he thought grumpily. Radish earrings. Ridiculous.

He was already out of sorts when the family clock changed to show that Father was home.

The graying head of red hair bumbled into the kitchen to greet his wife as Percy watched and the girls chatted. She whispered something into his ear, and he glanced over at Percy and then pretended he hadn't when his son met his gaze. Father had never been subtle. And now they all thought he had some sort of deep ulterior motive.

Truth be told, he did. He did have an ulterior motive. He just wanted to warm up a bit, then go see Narcissa Malfoy, then go find some of the house-elves he still hadn't questioned.

But he'd been here fifteen minutes, and he wasn't any warmer. He wasn't hungry, either. He actually felt...rather sick. He could still smell the dementor's musky odor. Couldn't the others smell that? He glanced at Ginny. Apparently not, though Luna was staring at him steadily...annoyingly...unfadingly...

Her eyeballs were boring into his skull.

He needed to go.

"I'd better be running." He stood up abruptly.

"But Percy, dinner's nearly ready..."

"Well, I already ate." He snapped a little irritably. Dementors, dementors swimming behind his eyelids, and Luna Lovegood could see them, see them and read his mind... He reached for his cloak even if he didn't need it. "I'll be seeing you." He pushed out into the hall, his mother following him though her protests fell on deaf ears. He ran into Stupid Potter at the door, sidestepped him and was off the porch and past the apparition wards before he knew it.