The train station was dark by the time they reached it. Lucius could immediately tell that this particular stop wasn't a main one; there was one bench, the waiting area was outside, and most of the lights weren't working. They were the only people there and the Pureblood felt uncomfortably exposed. The night had turned cold and Lucius was forced to zip the jacket he'd been given but the thin, flimsy material couldn't keep out the biting wind.
A storm was coming in and if they didn't get out of it they could easily get sick. The last thing he needed was a cold. Fenrir looked just as miserable as did Hermione who was also wearing borrowed clothes. Potter had pulled up his hood and the contrast between the green and his hair was striking enough to cause attention. Lucius forced himself to look away from the two and focus on the rampant thoughts running through his head.
Merlin.
Lucius didn't believe Potter's ridiculous story for a second and he felt an inexplicable anger towards this Papa Odie character. Who could be so callous as to allow a rumor of that magnitude to continue? And why didn't Dumbledore put a stop to it? He didn't consider the fact that Dumbledore couldn't put a stop to a rumor that was true, even if he wanted to. But it seemed impossible for Merlin-the Merlin-to be alive. And yet...the Dark Lord was alive despite all odds and all Magics.
His head hurt and it wasn't because he had yet to eat that day. He looked over at Potter as the boy sat down on the bench and started searching through the bag they'd been given. Soon enough he came back with a plastic container filled with what Lucius recognized as the famous beans from Willow Point. He was hungry enough to not be completely disgusted by the thought of eating cold beans in a nearly abandoned train station.
How far I've fallen.
All he could really think about at the moment was home and what the House Elves had cooked up for tonight's dinner. Something infinitely better, he was certain.
"Mr. Malfoy?"
He snapped his head towards the sound of Granger's voice. Her arms were crossed across her chest in an attempt to ward off the cold. Her grey jacket was buttoned, the threadbare pink shirt underneath offering no protection against the sudden wind. She was looking at him with some amount of concern but he couldn't tell if it was genuine.
"Yes?"
"Are you alright?" she asked. "You haven't eaten all day. Want some beans?" He couldn't help but smile a little at her kindness. In fact, he marveled at it. Hadn't he once tried to kill her and all the other Muggleborns? Shouldn't she hate him? He knew he would.
"I could eat," he said politely knowing he could never even fake wanting the beans. Potter had already handed a fork to Fenrir and the two of them were sharing the container. When the boy saw them approach he reached into the bag and pulled out another plastic container.
"There's forks in the front pocket," he said and Granger went about pulling out the appropriate items. She handed him a plastic fork and he felt the full impact of his circumstance as he stood there sharing cold beans with a Muggleborn. He wondered if his life would ever go back to what it was. He may not wish to go back to the Dark Lord but his life as a Pureblood Lord hadn't been bad. Balls and banquets, gowns and jewels, and champagne and caviar seemed like an unattainable dream at this point.
He shivered again. He wished the storm would just come already; the cold was beginning to pierce into his bones but he never even thought to cast a warming charm. He didn't even register the oddness of this particular cold until Potter suddenly sprang from his spot on the bench, wand in hand, and a panicked look on his face.
"What's wrong Harry?" Granger asked. And that's when Lucius heard it.
The small, lingering screams of people he'd hurt and people he'd watch be hurt. Muggles mostly from the days Death Eaters would walk into small villages or onto farms and slaughter everyone there. He only heard these screams when Dementors were around. How long had they been following them?
"Expecto Patronum," Lucius barked, his voice calm and his mind ignoring the screams reverberating in the back of his skull.
Fight it.
A lizard poured smoothly from his wand and calmly waited by his foot as his eyes tried to pierce the thick darkness around them. The thick trees across the tracks shifted and he heard the tell tale cracking of tree veins breaking as the water inside them froze and expanded. Flinging his wand up and forward the lizard sprang from the platform and hurled straight into the trees. They heard an inhuman shriek and then silence.
After several minutes of simply waiting, Lucius felt the temperature begin to rise. Within minutes it was too hot for his jacket and he stripped out of it, not caring that it fell to the ground.
"It must have been following us," Fenrir said, also noting the sudden upswing in the night's temperature. The Dementor must have been getting steadily closer over the last couple of hours for the two Death Eaters not to have noticed it. They had worked around them often enough in the last war to know the effects that the Dementor brought with it. Either someone expected Potter and Granger to be as well versed as they were, or that Dementor had been after them. He wondered how quickly McNair had managed to tattle on them. Probably as soon as he'd awoken.
"Harry, how did you know it was there?" Granger asked. Lucius recalled Potter reacting first. How had he known?
"I heard her scream," he said, his breathing was uneven and it occurred to Lucius that a Dementor was probably a bad thing for the kid to be around. It was likely to cause him more pain than it would someone else. "I heard my mother scream."
The silence was definite.
Until the train whistle blew.
00000
Potter had been right about them having a compartment of their own. Unfortunately it wasn't much of a compartment in Lucius's opinion. He had travelled by overnight train before. Purebloods did it all the time for leisure but those compartments had beds, chandeliers, and fireplaces. This compartment had two sets of bunk beds bolted to the metal walls and were so close that Lucius was genuinely concerned about Fenrir's ability to move around.
He settled himself on one of the bottom bunks leaning back so that his shoulders rested on the wall and his face was shrouded by the shadows. As the train began to move again Fenrir sat next to him and the two teens sat down opposite them.
"Where is the train going?" Fenrir asked again. Lucius didn't know why he was asking for the umpteenth time considering they had yet to tell them anything. Trying to pull concrete information out of these Gryffindors was like pulling teeth. But to his surprise Granger finally deigned to answer.
"Aberdeen," she said as she stood up and pulled open a small door to an even smaller cupboard near the exit. On the inside was a small mirror and the girl used it in order to see her hands work her hair into a braid.
"Seriously?" Greyback asked dubiously. "Merlin lives in Aberdeen?"
"No, just outside of it," Potter replied not picking up on the werewolf's tone at all. "In an abandoned motel off of an unpopular motorway. Papa likes his privacy."
"Huh," was all Greyback had to say to that. "Is there a particular reason we couldn't just Apparate there?"
"Papa Odie's wards wouldn't allow it," Granger said. "Besides, you don't Apparate to the motel. That's just not how things are done."
Lucius didn't bother to weigh in on the conversation. He was still feeling the effects of the Dementor despite the Muggle chocolate candies Potter had passed around. He could also feel the effects of exhaustion. He had barely eaten, barely slept, barely stopped moving and fighting for days. All he wanted to do was sleep a full night. He didn't want to talk about Merlin or anything else that was happening.
"How are things done?" Fenrir asked and Lucius knew he was genuinely curious.
"Muggleborns walk to Papa Odie's," Potter told them. "It's a pilgrimage, you see."
"Yes, you've mentioned that," Lucius said. "So the train is for emergencies?"
"Yep," Potter said. "Muggleborns-especially Sleepers-run to Papa Odie when Purebloods start killing people. It happened during the last war, with Grindelwald, and all those other Dark Lords with a complex."
Lucius snorted. It was mainly to remind everyone that there were, in fact, two Death Eaters in the compartment no matter how traitorous they may be. Both Potter and Granger seemed to realize it as well. Potter immediately clamed up, figuring that it was a terrible idea to tell these two people how anything in their world worked. Lucius didn't want or need to be responsible for any secrets the Muggleborns had. He was likely to be captured and brutally killed before the year was over.
The kindness and help the people of Willow Point had given to them was not something either Lucius or Fenrir actually deserved and the both of them knew it. Lucius didn't want to see the place decimated. So he willed Potter and Granger to just shut up.
Thankfully, Granger was as quick on the uptake as always.
"We should go to bed," she said, closing the cupboard door, locking the compartment door, and finally turning to face them. "Tomorrow we see Papa Odie. We should be rested for that."
Nobody said anything but everyone complied.
00000
The station they arrived at was just as dinky and rundown as the one they'd left. The morning was bright, warm, and if Lucius had been an optimist he would have taken it for a good sign. But today he was going to walk into a Muggleborn compound with a powerful man that even had Dumbledore fooled. Whether or not he was really Merlin didn't much matter at this point. The situation was dangerous and no amount of good omens would quell the rolling of the stomach as he watched Fenrir down the rest of their beans.
Potter and Granger led them off of the platform and soon enough they were following a winding, narrow dirt road through the woods west of the city.
"Is this actually Aberdeen?"
"Not really. But it's pretty close. We're on the edge of Cairngorms National Park," Potter replied. "Werewolves run around these woods a lot so Fenrir should be alright for the full moon." Fenrir looked a little surprised at the mention of his impending transformation. Lucius doubted the man had fully forgotten the coming full moon but it certainly wasn't at the forefront of the other man's mind.
"Good to know," the werewolf said.
They walked for a while in silence. The sound of breaking twigs and Potter's suddenly labored breathing were the only things that connected Lucius to the world. He was buried in his head, as he seemed to so often be of late. There was nothing left to say; his life would never be the same and he was struggling to understand the terms under which his future would take place.
His thoughts were interrupted when Fenrir suddenly stopped, turned around, and growled. Lucius also turned and the two teenagers immediately had their wands in their hands.
"What is it?" Lucius whispered trying to follow Fenrir's gaze towards whatever may be there. All he saw though was woods, underbrush, and dirt. There was nothing there.
"I don't know," Fenrir replied his body relaxing and the tension draining from his body nearly as quickly as it had come. "Nevermind. Just an animal."
The werewolf turned away and the group took it as a sign to continue along. Granger's wand was stored away but Potter walked with his still gripped tightly in his fist. The girl kept glancing at him as if he would suddenly topple into the dirt and Lucius was wondering if perhaps Potter's scar was hurting him again. He wondered how painful it was. Was it a minor ache or the equivalent to a migraine?
He didn't ask.
"Are we close?" Fenrir asked a few hours later when they stopped for a quick break. They didn't have any more food or water and Lucius was starting feel thirsty to the point of being uncomfortable. He was legitimately worried that by the end of the day they would all be dehydrated.
"Maybe another hour," Granger said. "Everyone ready to push on?"
They continued and by nightfall they had reached the end of the little dirt path. It opened into a clearing that had been meticulously cleared of tree sprouts, weeds, twigs, and other forest litter. In the center sat a single wooden post that must have been ten feet tall and six feet in circumference. On the ground surrounding the post was a ring of river rocks. They had been polished and each one engraved with an ancient rune symbol. Lucius immediately recognized a few. One said water, another said reincarnation. The rest he couldn't see or couldn't understand.
Granger and Potter led them across the clearing and through the thick woods on the other side. There was no path here and they carefully had to pick their way through the waning light. But soon enough they stood at the edge of the woods and Lucius got a good view of Papa Odie's current home.
The parking lot was cracking apart and grass, weeds, and shrubs were growing up. The two story, abandoned motel was a faded and dirty sky blue; part of the roof on the east side of building had crumbled in. There was a large battered sign at the bottom, west corner that read 'Office' in faded red letters. The sign hung from only one chain and blew softly in the wind. There were two lawn chairs beneath it, both occupied.
As they crossed the parking lot towards the office, Lucius got a good look at both of them. The man nearest them was lanky, perhaps starved. He had the trace of muscle mass but the muscles themselves had long disappeared. He hadn't bothered to wear a shirt in the heat and Lucius saw a tangled web of tattoos covering every inch of his torso and arms. He couldn't tell what they were from this distance but he knew that there was hardly any skin left.
The man had brown dreadlocks that reached to his bottom ribs. His blue jeans were ragged and dirty. His boots were propped up on the steel fire pit in front of him. He was puffing away on some sort cigarette.
The other man was just as clear to him but he was honestly surprised to see him there. When their little group drew level, it was the second man Lucius greeted first.
"Severus."