8. Tit For Tat
His mother's trial was held two days later.
She came back with an almost smug expression on her face.
"It's incredible what sort of sentimental softies are in charge now," she said. "But of course, I won't complain."
She had a suspended sentence, too.
...
Soon, there was more moderately good news. His father's stay in Azkaban would not be prolonged. Instead, he'd be put on probation for ten years after his release from prison.
Then, the bad news came.
It was delivered by the Head of the Bailiff Office, Theresia Higgs. She turned up with several members of her staff and a number of other Ministry officials to confiscate the manor along with the surrounding estate. Her eyes shone with glee when she detailed to his mother how everybody who had participated in or benefited from the Dark Lord's reign was liable to pay reparations. She still called the Monster That Must Not Be Named a lord.
As it turned out, the Malfoys were not allowed to keep more than a fixed, outrageously small sum of Galleons and one trunk each of personal belongings.
Draco was too stupefied to say a word. His mother negotiated, no, she begged until she got permission to pack a trunk for her absent husband as well. Higgs clearly enjoyed every second of it. Had there not been the risk that the bystanders became suspicious she would have prolonged his mother's humiliation even further.
The rivalry between the Malfoys and the Higgses was age-old. Draco knew indulging him had only been one of his father's considerations when he had bought seven brand-new broomsticks for Slytherin. The other one had been kicking Terence out of the team.
...
After Higgs and her throng had Disapparated, Narcissa Malfoy hurried away to write an elderly relative, one who she thought might be able to help at such short notice. They had been given no more than twenty-four hours to pack and leave.
Draco went out into the garden.
He ran his fingers along the long, smooth stems of the white irises. Once he had planned to cross them with purple ones. He had been curious to see the outcome of the experiment. Would the seedlings turn out to sprout pink flowers? Or would they be bi-coloured in some way – chequered or striped? Or would one colour overwrite the other? Reading theory about plant breeding in a textbook was fine, but he had wanted to see for himself.
This had been only two years ago, and yet it seemed as if in another life.
However, this other life had not been completely different. He would have had to conduct his experimental breeding on the sly. Neither of his parents had approved of his professed interest in Herbology. They considered Herbology a field of study that was suitable for the inferior, for Hufflepuffs and squibs. Being a Malfoy, he was to take up nobler sciences.
...
His mother filled her trunk with gold. She gathered family heirlooms and every piece of jewellery she could find in the house until she realised that she would never be able to move the accumulated weight without magic. She nearly had a fit.
He sat in his room, trying to decide what he should leave behind. There were so many things he couldn't take along – his Quidditch robes, his Nimbus 2001, his school books and his notes, his cauldron, the various small keepsakes collected during his time at school. They were mere souvenirs without much material value – perhaps except for the set of action figures of the Irish and Bulgarian Quidditch teams that replayed the match of 1994 – but they carried memories, even good ones in some cases.
He sat there, toying absently with a small, silvery ludoscope – one of the few items that had escaped his father's regular scouring sessions. His parents had always made sure that his playthings were appropriate in every respect. Before he got a cartload of new, expensive toys for his birthday or for Yule, a number of old ones, ones he had grown "too old" for, had to go. He had never been very successful at choosing hiding places. His father had found the green, cuddly dragon as well as the lullaby box, the crayons, the bouncing pumpkins, and the funny book about a gang of Chizpurfles infesting the home of a slack witch.
Suddenly, with a violent start, he realised that the toy in his hand – a gift from his grandfather – was a piece of intrinsic magic. And it wasn't the only enchanted thing in the room... The whole Manor was jam-packed with magical equipment of some sort or other! Why hadn't the Ministry bothered to confiscate such items right away?
The initial shock gave way to a horrible suspicion: It was a trap. A squad of Aurors would rush in here at three o'clock in the morning or at the very next moment, grab something almost at random, declare it a proof of rule-breaking, and carry him off to Azkaban...
He let out a shuddering breath. If this was indeed the plan, it was craftily thought up, Slytherin-like, and impossible to fail. The new Minister did not come from Slytherin, but it didn't matter whether he was involved personally. There were enough Theresia Higgses around who were perfectly capable of carrying out their own little schemes of vengeance.
The worst was that he could do absolutely nothing about it. Without a wand, he couldn't destroy or Vanish the incriminating objects. And moving certain things to some out-of-the-way chamber would only prove that he had touched them, or worse, that he tried to hide them from the authorities.
He felt tired. Although the worst fears had ceased with the monster's demise, there were now new ones. He wouldn't be safe until the five years of probation were over. Maybe not even then.
He put the ludoscope on his bedside table and walked over to the window where he leaned his forehead against the cool pane.
It had started to rain. The slow drizzle touched the old oaks gently. A grey veil of raindrops obscured the landscape normally visible in the background on clear days. The peacocks had fled to their shelter.
Azkaban or not – he would never stand here again. The vista from his window, though not magical, was one of the things he had to leave behind.
He turned back to the room, now knowing by what guideline he had to pack his trunk. The question wasn't what he wanted to keep and what not. He had to distinguish between what he was permitted to keep and what not.
He opened the wardrobe and sifted through its contents – jumpers and knitted waistcoats, scores of shirts, several pairs of black, woollen trousers... underpants, vests, socks, pyjamas. His favourite polo-neck pullover, chocolate brown and made of fine cashmere, went into the trunk first.
...
9. The Hidden Treasure
It was nearly midnight when he carried his school notes down to the kitchen. He put them, page after page, into the flames. He felt terrible doing it, but he couldn't allow anyone to see them. The Aurors had already ripped Merlin-only-knew-what secrets out of his soul. He couldn't allow anyone to find out more.
The parchments were littered with tiny sketches, hidden in folds or so inconspicuously strewn in between the lines that they were almost undetectable from afar. There were the one-liners scribbled in the margins, there were – mostly on separate sheets – the comic strips featuring Minna McGoggleall and Dumbass D'Ore. Pansy had always found them very amusing. There were the countless little pictures of herbs and flowers he'd doodled during tedious History lessons. They all had to go because he was afraid they might give away more of him than the Veritaserum-induced trance had done. He had sometimes been reckless enough to doodle irises instead of Venomous Tentaculas.
There was a portrait of Victor Krum, only one inch in square but fairly accurate. Seeing it burn hurt. Thinking back to the Triwizard Tournament hurt. He couldn't explain why, but it hurt. Cedric Diggory had been a pure-blood. Remembering this little fact, a fact he had hitherto diligently ignored, hurt.
There were hardly any doodles on the notes of the past two years; he had been too busy or too scared to indulge in idle pursuits. He burnt them anyway. His other notes he would have preferred to keep, but these ones he wanted to go.
The last picture devoured by the flames was one showing Daphne Greengrass in the prefect's bathroom. He had walked in on her accidentally – the Carrows had put up a Universal Unlocking Jinx that counteracted all Colloportus Charms throughout the castle. He had been out in a split second, mumbling only a quick sorry instead of paying a formal apology, but the image of Daphne climbing into the bathtub had stuck in his head. He had let it out – in a state of heavy inner turmoil – around three months later. It had been in the evening of the day on which Pansy had broken up with him. He hadn't understood back then. He still wasn't sure how to interpret the strange speech Pansy had made in between lunch and the start of the first afternoon lesson.
He tossed a few billets and coals into the fire to stop it from dying down. A bit of dried resin burst into a sudden jet of flame.
He winced at the sight.
...
He traipsed back to his room, halting after every other step. Trying to sleep now would be entirely foolish. After having stared into a fire for hours, he'd only dream of vicious, Chimera-headed flames that chased him down a never-ending aisle.
He noticed that he had been standing outside his grandfather's study for several minutes.
He gave a minute shrug. Why not say good-bye?
He went in and sat in the plush chair behind the desk – something he had very rarely dared to do although he had found himself in this room almost frequently in the course of the last year. Mostly, he had sat on the floor in the corner behind the door. Only here he had felt comparatively safe, safer anyway than in his own room where his aunt – carefully forgetting to knock – had barged in at the oddest moments. Wormtail had been sent up to him under some pretence or other about three times a day. Other Death Eaters had dropped in to ask whether he was doing fine. As if they had ever cared...
Greyback hadn't come in. He had loitered on the stairs.
In here, however, no-one had come. It was no bathroom with a depressed ghost sobbing in a u-bent, but people avoided it all the same.
The room breathed wealth and refined taste although a twelfth-century oil painting above the mantelpiece was the only article that served no other purpose than that of decoration – the furniture was made of polished oak, the colour of the velvet hangings matched perfectly that of the upholstery, and the floor was covered with an expensive Persian carpet. The books were invariably bound in dyed dragon-hide and had golden lettering. Everything was first class. His grandfather's writing utensils – quill holder, ink vessel, parchment-knife, and parchment-weight – were specimens of utmost elegance. They sat right in front of Draco, neatly arranged in the middle of the desk. They were made of pure gold and covered with a thick layer of dust.
It took his tired brain quite some time to find the last observation intriguing. The parchment-weight was a solid block of gold, nine pounds at a minimum. There was no way his mother could have overlooked it – unless she had overlooked the door to her late father-in-law's study first.
Draco got up and walked around. At five o'clock on a bright June morning, there was enough light to perceive that the only dust-free object in the room was the magnifying glass. Also, the dust wasn't that of four weeks, gathered since Tribbs had disappeared. It was the dust of years.
He scanned the interior more intently, searching for something special, something precious that was worth the effort of concealing the entire room. A few golden tools, an old painting showing Stonehenge, a candlestick made of exquisite china... books, impressive in appearance but none of them about an extraordinary topic... His gaze fell on a plain, black suitcase sitting on top of the filing cabinet.
And he remembered.
His grandfather had ushered him in here and shown him that very suitcase. It had been filled with many little pictures. I made provision for you. You see, for a rainy day... The old man had spoken even more gravely than usual. Remember that, Draco. Don't tell anybody, but remember. A time might come when you'll need it.
His grandfather had given him complicated instructions concerning the suitcase and its contents. At any rate, Draco had found them complicated, especially because he was distracted by the question whether "for a rainy day" meant that the pictures were playthings he could use on days when the weather was too bad to go outside. He hadn't asked that question, tough. Making queries betrayed that he hadn't understood straight away, and that most often earned him a reprimand.
His grandfather had then told him to put his small thumbs on the locks and to press the lid shut simultaneously. Doing so had been very difficult, but he had not disappointed Grandfather Abraxas. The way Draco recalled it, the event had taken place only a few days before his grandfather's death.
Draco took the suitcase down and wiped the dust off with the palm of his hand. He coincidentally touched one of the locks and it sprang open of its own accord. Surprised, he touched the other one, which opened just as obediently.
The suitcase was filled with rectangular pieces of paper, just like he recalled it. Most of the paper rectangles were purplish in colour, and had the number twenty printed in both the upper right-hand and the lower left-hand corner. On all of them was a portrait of the same, dark-haired woman wearing a crown. And by now, he knew what they were.
He had heard talk, occasionally, in the common room. Students had furtively shown each other such or similar slips of paper. The depicted woman was said to be the Queen of the Muggles.
He sat back down in the chair, feeling somewhat dumbfounded. How could his grandfather possibly have foreseen a disaster that had been more than a decade away? And why had he told him, a five-year-old child, instead of the adults?
There was no immediate answer. After mulling over the problem for ten minutes, there still was none. But he knew what he had to do.
He hurried upstairs to his room and came back with a couple of pillowcases into which he transferred the Muggle money. The suitcase was definitely enchanted, and he wasn't going to take any chances.
...
10. Leaving Wiltshire
Five minutes before their time was up, his mother called him to one of the smaller, seldom used salons.
He found her hastily collecting wooden statuettes from the mantelpiece and sundry aside tables. While she wrapped them in pieces of cloth that looked suspiciously like silk, she asked him whether he had space left to store a few items for her. Without waiting for his reply, she thrust a capacious rucksack into his hands to hold it open for her so she could put in the little wrapped things. There were about thirty of them.
"See to it that this fits into your trunk," she instructed him. "The statuettes are two hundred and fifty galleons each."
"I hope there are no enchantments on them," he said hesitantly.
"Of course not! They are precious – original works of the famous Ligneus Poplar. I only just remembered them. Make haste; Higgs will be coming any second!"
He ran down to the entrance hall, taking two steps at a time. The three trunks already stood there. He opened his, threw several pairs of thick, woollen trousers and one pair of heavy boots out – if these works of art were as valuable as his mother said, he could buy new ones – and stuffed the rucksack in as it were.
He was barely finished when Higgs and her underlings arrived. They swooped down on the trunk packed for Draco's father like birds of prey.
Draco watched the commotion from a safe distance. He waited a few minutes before he took the three different Muggle bank notes he had selected earlier out of his pocket. He had to make sure the money wasn't jinxed.
Holding up the reverse sides he cautiously approached Baxter Selwyn. Selwyn came from a long line of pure-blood traditionalists, and Draco hoped that the elderly wizard knew less about Muggle money than he did.
"Sir," he said with due meekness for the occasion, "could you please check these? I know it's probably a bit silly – please don't tell my mother – but... they belonged to my grandfather. He collected such little pictures... occasionally he allowed me to come and look at them. I would like to have them as a... err, keepsake."
The man went straight for the bait.
"That's fine by me if you want to keep worthless junk," he sneered.
"Err... yes. But could you check for enchantments? I mustn't take any risks."
The man snorted. Nevertheless, he waved his wand over the Muggle banknotes in Draco's hand. He shrugged and gave the trunk, including the rucksack and its contents, a cursory inspection as well. Apparently, he found nothing suspicious and turned away to join the debate whether Narcissa Malfoy's self-adjusting brassieres qualified as illegal use of magic.
...
Half an hour later, Draco and his mother sat in the coach Great-aunt Lucrecia had hired for them.
He avoided his mother's eyes. Something in her demeanour made him uneasy. He had stayed out off her argument with Higgs. Having to watch his mother, the epitome of poise and dignity, quarrel over a piece of lingerie had been... unsettling. The word bitchfight came to his mind. He wondered where he had picked up such vocabulary.
"Four horses and the driver!" she suddenly sighed. "This will cost us."
He said nothing.
"I'm sure she'll want her favour remunerated," she muttered under her breath. "Lucrecia is that kind of person."
He kept silent. He couldn't tell, anyway. The last time he had seen Lucrecia Runcorn had been four years ago when she had paid his father, who was her older sister's only grandchild, a short visit of perhaps half an hour.
However, his mother had determined that Great-aunt Lucrecia was the only family member they had still left to turn to for help or, more like, charity. The aged, widowed witch had responded straight off to his mother's plea: They were to come and stay at her home; it would be an arrangement beneficial for both sides. Maybe the latter meant she intended to charge them board and lodging.
He closed his eyes. He hadn't slept all night, his head ached, and it was hot and sticky inside the carriage. After a while, his body started aching too – the road was bumpy, and the suspension of the carriage didn't live up to the task.
He needed a break, a few days of rest, some time of calm and contemplation. He wanted no new alarms or worries, but time to let it sink in that what had happened and what was happening now was real – no prolonged nightmare, no foul spell playing tricks with his brain and causing ghastly illusions, but reality.
From when on had his life gone downhill? Surely a long time before Snape had propelled him down the stairs of the Astronomy Tower, yelling, run, Draco, run.
He certainly felt as if he had never stopped running since.
...
Great-aunt Lucrecia was more than a hundred years old and looked like a skeleton draped with expensive clothes. Draco wasn't fooled by that outer appearance, though. The casual flick of the wand with which she levitated all three trunks in one go spoke of remarkable magical power.
She gave Draco and his mother a quick tour around the cottage, all the while ranting about how with Kingsley Shacklebolt yet again a wizard of substandard lineage had been made Minister for Magic. She seemed unable to shut up for a single instant.
The room assigned to Draco was fairly large but jammed with antique furniture. His mother's room struck him as overdecorated. There were quilts and rugs and hangings wherever he looked, and their glaring colours clashed awfully.
A few minutes later – he'd had scarcely time enough to change into a fresh shirt – they sat at the dinner table. The stew was excellent.
"So," said Great-aunt Lucrecia after she had eaten two spoonfuls, "I heard a very interesting report about the young gentleman earlier today."
Draco looked up in surprise.
"Yes, yes, I do have my sources. How did my good friend Selwyn put it? Let me see... an inept youngster who is trying to play it safe. Exactly what he said. Very amusing indeed."
She looked anything but amused, and Draco went rigid as if hit by a Petrificus Totalus.
"Draco is still very young," his mother said. "I'm grateful he made it through the war alive and in one piece, so I won't have him taking foolish risks now."
"I thought so," Great-aunt Lucrecia turned to her. "I thought him to be a little mother's boy."
"I wouldn't put it like that," his mother said, her voice calm and controlled.
"Would you not? If so, you should perhaps reconsider your attitude towards him," the great-aunt said sharply. "You had better keep a close eye on him lest he get completely out of hand. Make sure he concerns himself with the right things!"
"Of course," his mother replied, giving him a warning look simultaneously.
"Instead of filling his trunk with gold and jewels, he bothered with worthless keepsakes," the great-aunt went on.
There was a subtle change in his mother's posture. "The statuettes are original art works by Ligneus Poplar," she stated, "and a gold-filled trunk cannot be moved without magic. As you surely know, Draco and I are forbidden to use wands."
"It didn't escape my attention." The old witch now radiated glee. "And I assure you I won't forget it, either."
His mother seemed to deem it wisest to let the insinuation pass. Great-aunt Lucrecia, however, wasn't done yet. "I understand you lost a tiny wee fight with Theresia Higgs this morning? She denied you your favourite lingerie?"
"The Head Bailiff took a great deal of pleasure in being overzealous," his mother answered stiffly.
"Big surprise there," Great-aunt Lucrecia commented with relish. "The slut used to hanker after a certain Lucius Malfoy in her younger days... Not that I can comprehend what she ever saw in him."
...
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