33. City Life
Draco did his best to stay out of his flatmates' way. Marc snubbed him anyway. Dwight made two or three feeble attempts to invite him to merry-makings of some description or other, but Draco declined, pointing out that people would most likely have more fun without him. Dwight, although trying to be polite about it, wholeheartedly agreed.
Marc soon became a nuisance in general terms. The bathroom was a mess whenever he'd been in. He slept till noon and stayed up till three in the morning. The latter might have been tolerable if it hadn't been for the infuriating noise coming from his room until long after midnight. The oaf steadfastly maintained the noise in question was music. Dwight even agreed with him on that, but Draco seriously doubted it. They were Muggles and had probably strange notions about arts, but the incessant rhythmic stomping resembled troll combat more than anything else, let alone music. The landlady seemed of a similar opinion; she threw Marc out long before Halloween.
A lean man in his late twenties moved into the vacated room. He had Asiatic features and introduced himself as Mr Wang.
Mr Wang was a pleasant neighbour. He was as quiet as a mouse and left the bathroom always in an immaculate state. He greeted Draco with a very small bow as often as they met, be that seven times a day. Since Draco was no stranger to formal politeness, he had no problem with returning each greeting by inclining his head, this way indicating a bow without actually bowing. They got along.
Dwight moved out soon after Marc – not because he was forced to but because he had found, as he put it, a place with a more relaxed atmosphere.
Draco didn't miss him, and the room remained vacant.
...
The changes in the neighbouring rooms notwithstanding, Draco couldn't bear spending much time inside. It wasn't claustrophobia. It was something else. Even though the problem had plagued him for months by now he couldn't put a name to it.
He went for walks. Bad weather didn't trouble him – his room got warm quickly after turning the widget of the heating device to show three or four dashes. Wet clothes were dry in the morning, and he could take nice, warm baths.
Just north of his new lodgings there was a park with many old trees. Hind Green was nice, but not large enough for long, exhausting walks. So, Draco ventured further away, keeping mostly to the quieter streets. The big, busy streets could only be crossed safely in places that were equipped with green and red lights. He learned to distinguish between green lights for vehicles and green lights for humans, and he also learned to heed certain signs painted onto the asphalt. Soon he knew the shortest as well as the safest way from his lodgings to the marina or the nearby citadel.
A few oversized roads were so extremely busy they couldn't be crossed at all. Apparently, even the Muggles had realised that and had dug tunnels underneath them. But the total opposite existed as well – there were streets where no cars were allowed. Draco discovered a whole cluster of such quaint alleys near the marina. The area was appropriately marked as pedestrian precinct.
He liked it there. He could melt into the crowd; nobody bothered him. The houses were old and handsome and begged to be sketched. There were pubs and many little shops that had tastefully – by Muggle standards anyway – decorated shop windows. These shops were specialised, as it was proper, on a select range of goods – for example on clothing, perfumes, confectioneries, or second hand books.
In stark contrast to the shops in the pedestrian precinct was another type of Muggle facility. Regrettably, such a store was situated next to Hind Green. The building, resembling a monstrous, whitish-grey barn, looked already appalling from the outside. It had no windows. Instead, large advertising panels were affixed to the long walls, boasting in capital letters, WE SELL EVERYTHING. That claim could well be true because inside there were shelves upon shelves filled with a mind-boggling variety of goods. There were briquettes and brioches, shoes and shovels, pears and pans. There were all sorts of bottles and boxes, big or small, painted in glaring colours and marked with strange brand names. This so-called shop was a maze of narrow, criss-crossing alleyways that were more often than not blocked by big stacks of more goods. The worst about the whole affair were the employees. They expected you to do their job and called that "self-service". Draco went in there only once. That was experience enough.
So, if he needed something, he went to the pedestrian precinct. He took care he knew the opening hours and exact location of essential shops and also memorised street names and names of buildings.
Buying a few sketching supplies, a second towel, and a bar of soap went well. However, when he bought a sandalwood-scented shaving stick, he learned that the phrase "amazingly low price" was a euphemism for "abysmally bad quality". Whatever had been used for making that shaving stick, sandalwood had had nothing to do with it. So, he became wary of advertisements. He also learned to be careful with selecting places to eat. Dishes called Prawn Ambot Tik or Goa Pork Vindaloo tasted every bit as exotic as their names sounded.
...
After weeks of pondering, he decided to buy a new pair of trousers. He needed something to wear if he didn't want to sit around in his room until the landlady returned the laundry. Besides, the only pair of trousers he had at this point in time had undeniably become threadbare. Why they had worn thin so rapidly was a bit puzzling. Madam Malkins often emphasized how she used only cloth of the highest quality and how she always made sure the articles she sold would please their owners for a long time. On the other hand, if the witch had placed Durability Charms on his trousers, he would have broken the bloody Code of Conduct by wearing them for the past months... This was really vexing – did he have to be grateful for Malkins making promises she didn't keep?
Finally, he pushed all qualms aside and walked into a shop where they sold, according to the placard in the window, clothing for outdoor activities.
The shop owner – or rather shop assistant – wasn't much older than Draco and quite enthusiastic. He suggested right away a variety of trousers that were "absolutely in" and a "definite must-have this season". It took Draco a considerable effort to refrain from telling the annoying git to shut the hell up.
Tuning out the shop assistant's silly prattle, Draco hurried to try on some of the less ugly trousers. The pair he chose was made of nine tenths cotton and one tenth polyester according to a curious printing on the inside of the waistband. Draco hadn't the faintest idea what polyester was, but the trousers fitted him well, didn't have as many bulky bags as some others, and the fabric didn't chafe even though it looked sturdy enough to last at least as long as Madam Malkins's merchandise.
He also treated himself to a jacket with warm padding. It was longer than jackets usual were, yet not long enough to be a coat. The shop man called it a parka.
...
Needless to say, the purchases ate away at his valid money.
That was why he started to comb the streets systematically for bank houses and post offices. He still had the little leaflet from the friendly shop owner at Trethwyn, and it indeed proved helpful. As promised, the companies listed there changed up to a thousand pounds without any trouble. Draco made sure the sum was never exactly one thousand in case that might look suspicious. He changed nine hundred and eighty or nine hundred and sixty-five, and the story about the grandfather saving up a little bit of money for his grandson usually met with understanding.
...
34. Lissy
He already heard the clamour from afar.
As he reached Hind Green Close, he detected the source of it. Shouting riotously, two small boys threw stones into a sandpit.
They were aiming at a screech owl! The bird hopped awkwardly on the spot but didn't take flight. Draco, acting on impulse, rushed forward.
"You!" he yelled. "What do you think you're doing?"
Utterly startled, the boys dropped their stones.
"We're scaring the evil bird off," the taller one said defiantly. "That's our playground!"
"Owls aren't evil!" Draco spat.
"Granny says they're in league with witches," the boy said, stamping his little foot.
Draco hesitated. What did Muggle children know about witches?
"Have you ever seen one?" he asked irritably.
"An owl?" the boy asked back stupidly, pointing a dirty finger at the bird sitting in the middle of the sandpit.
"No, a witch!"
"No!" both boys cried, horrified.
"No?"
"Only on the telly," the younger boy admitted, not daring to meet Draco's eyes. "But no real ones. Granny says witches come and hex boys who are naughty."
"And you think throwing stones at a helpless bird is not naughty?" Draco asked, finally comprehending the absurdity of what he was doing.
Was he really trying to lecture two Muggle brats about – well, about what? How owls were useful for carrying letters? Muggles had personnel for delivering mail and newspapers; he had seen them doing their job. And the punch line was that, if the witch in question were his mother, if she caught anyone attacking her owl, she'd be sure to hex them good and proper.
"You stay put!" he ordered the boys, not knowing why he bothered.
Cautiously, he approached the owl. It carried a letter indeed; he could make out the parchment fixed to its leg even from several yards distance.
"It's alright," he said soothingly because, when he got nearer, the bird raised its leg so high, it almost toppled over. "I'm Draco Malfoy. The message is for me, right?"
Owls couldn't nod, but the soft hooting noise clearly meant yes.
He picked the bird up and examined it. The owl was female and quite young. He had never seen her before. Her injury seemed to have been caused by a beak rather than a stone. It wasn't too bad but probably painful.
He removed the letter from her leg, slipped it into his pocket, and walked back to the boys. They looked completely awestruck.
"You dare touch it?" the younger one breathed.
"She's injured," Draco said curtly.
"We didn't mean to!" the older boy hastened to say. "We just wanted to scare it off... We can't play when it sits in the sandpit. Granny says owls are bad omens."
"You can't blame the owl for bad news," Draco murmured, all of a sudden overwhelmed by distressing memories. The monster had done exactly that – it had fed Father's stately eagle owl to Nagini because the poor bird had delivered unwelcome news. Draco didn't even know what the message had been about.
Seeing the younger boy's anxious face, he rallied. "Look, you don't throw stones at a mail servant just because they brought your parents a letter with bad news, do you?"
The boys exchanged bemused glances. After some hesitation, they shook their heads.
Draco wasn't convinced that he had got the point across but decided to let the matter rest.
"I'm sorry, owl," the younger boy suddenly addressed the bird in Draco's hands, and the older one also mumbled something that could pass for an apology.
"Is it yours?" the younger boy asked, now slightly more confident. "Does it have a name?"
Draco, surprised by the turn of the conversation, didn't answer at once. The boy apparently took this as encouragement and suggested to call the owl Lissy. The older one objected by saying Lissy was a name for budgies. They quarrelled until the younger one broke into tears.
"Stop that," Draco said, feeling embarrassed for no good reason. "Will you?"
"Why can't we call it Lissy?" the younger boy sniffed.
Draco was at a loss. Pointing out that the bird in all likelihood had a name already would hardly improve matters, especially because he couldn't tell what this name was.
"You can keep watch," he said instead. "I'll go and fetch some food for her."
Nursing her back to health was the only thing to do. He'd lost Merkur, almost a year ago, and judging from the way the bird had been half eaten, he'd lost him to Greyback.
He placed the young owl on the topmost bar of the irregular, wooden structure standing alongside the sandpit. He wasn't sure as to what its original purpose might have been; he'd only ever seen Muggle children climb it up and down.
Then he ran down the narrow pathway behind the houses that led to the ugly, oversized shop. He didn't like the place, but it was near. Rather than one of the lazy employees, he asked an elderly customer where to find raw meat and pet supplies, and she kindly told him.
...
When he returned with an empty cardboard-box, a bag of hay and two small packages of chicken liver – it had taken him a while to find something that wasn't thoroughly frozen – the boys were still there. He hadn't expected them to be.
The expressions on their little, round faces alternated between fascination and revulsion while they watched him feeding small bits of liver to the hungry owl.
"It's not cooked," the younger boy said at last. "That's icky, mum says so."
"Owls eat mice," Draco said. "And they don't fry them first."
"Is this mice?" the boy asked, eyeing the package suspiciously.
"No, it's not, but she cannot hunt with her injured shoulder, and I have to feed her something."
He stopped, however, before the owl had eaten her fill and put the remainder of the liver at the bottom of the large cardboard-box.
"Come on, you'll stay with me until your wing is better," he murmured, taking her down from her high perch and placing her in the box as well. He padded the box with hay. Closing the lid, he whispered, "The landlady mustn't see you or she'll have hysterics."
"You're taking it home?" the younger boy enquired.
"Yes, I am," Draco answered, looking the sprog up and down. The child's curiosity, his eagerness, and his... trust almost compelled him to give answers where there no questions had been asked. It was the strangest encounter he'd had in the Muggle world thus far. "And you can tell your grandmother," he added, "that witches may come and hex people who talk ill about owls."
...
He sat the box on the tiny balcony. Well, "balcony" was a bold overstatement. The whole contraption was three feet in length and less than one foot in width. Since the glass-panelled door leading to this would-be balcony had been concealed by a curtain upon his arrival, he had only discovered the questionable feature the following morning.
He had asked the landlady about its purpose. She had shrugged and said such doors were probably the result of a bored architect's whim, but that she didn't mind because having them was good for airing the rooms.
Having the narrow space between the door and the wrought iron of the railing was definitely good for keeping injured owls. The bird could sit there protected from the cold winds by the cardboard and from the rain by the slightly projecting roof until the wound had healed. Draco would provide suitable food; he would find some Muggle stuff that could replace proper owl treats.
When he had made sure the owl was as comfortable as possible under the circumstances, he took the note out of his pocket.
There was a short postscript written on the outside.
"I named my new owl after the place where she was bred: Lisboa."
So the bird's name was Lissy after all Draco thought with something like amusement.
However, no sooner had he glanced at the actual letter than the faint smile slid off his face.
...
35. An Ultimatum
"Draco,
There will be a formal dinner at Great-aunt Lucrecia's on December 25th. I expect you to attend,
Mother"
Time and again, he had postponed going back. He had already paid the rent for next month, diligently avoiding any thought about returning to Runcorn's cottage. In particular, he avoided thinking about the "welcome" he'd have to expect from his father's great-aunt.
But not showing up for a Yule dinner would be inexcusable behaviour in his mother's eyes. Running off without a word had already been bad enough.
He hadn't seen her in months.
Did he miss her? The answer was yes and no.
As a child, he had felt content and secure when he was around his family. He had been convinced in his heart of hearts that nothing bad could ever happen to him while he was with his parents. He had perceived their protection as universal, their power as infinite.
The feeling of security had crumbled to nothing now. It hadn't happened in one go, it had happened bit by bit, and the process had started a long time ago.
One morning all those years ago, he had been denied seeing Grandfather because the "disease was infectious". Soon after, there had been no Grandfather to see anymore. He had disappeared from Draco's world without saying good-bye.
Draco, aged five, had not understood how a member of the Malfoy family could possibly catch a deadly disease. It had seemed an outrage to him that the world should be so badly organised. The problem had bothered him a great deal, and he had finally come up with the explanation that someone had made a horrible mistake by somehow handing the illness to his grandfather. He had presented those findings to his parents, and they had been angry with him.
Why?
...
He didn't get any sleep that night. Myriad memories were awake again and kept him awake in turn. At half past two in the morning, he fled his bed.
He got dressed and went jogging in Hind Green. The steady rhythm of slow running calmed him down somewhat. After about an hour he was at least able to focus on thinking of his mother.
Albeit the once prevailing feeling of all-inclusive safety had gone completely, she had still been a source of support even in the most difficult times. Other than his father's generalised demands for behaving as a true Malfoy should, her advice had often proved useful. Her guidelines had been detailed as well as practicable and had helped him in many a tricky situation.
He had never openly disobeyed her. And there wasn't only Yule; there was also her birthday in the week between the winter solstice and New Year's Eve.
He felt guilty for leaving the way he did in summer. It had been a coward's way out.
Then again, he was a coward.
He would like her to forgive him. He would like to see her. He had never intended to stay away that long...
...
Lissy quickly got better; he didn't.
Tending to the owl was his only actual task. Apart from that, he spent his days jogging. He started right after breakfast and continued until long after nightfall. All physical exercise notwithstanding, he tossed and turned sleeplessly in his bed at night. His thoughts ran around in circles. A faint voice somewhere at the back of his mind kept whimpering, Don't. Don't go. The louder voice droned on about manners, upbringing, and obligation. How could he refuse his mother's call?
The landlady made things worse by constantly dropping remarks about how nice, appropriate, and rewarding it was to see one's family during the festive season. She wouldn't leave the topic alone. After a few days, she explicitly asked when he would be going home for the holidays.
He wanted her to leave him be. What business did she have prying into his privacy? But for some strange reason, he couldn't bring himself to snap at her. Instead, he told her in polite tones, "I am presently contemplating a departure in the foreseeable future."
She made no reply but gaped at him in utter bafflement.
...
When Lissy had recovered enough to fly again, he still wasn't sure what to do. Besides, if he indeed decided to return to Great-aunt Lucrecia's, how was he to pull it off?
In the end, he composed a short note, essentially asking his mother to send the owl back with orders to guide him to the cottage because otherwise he might have difficulty finding the place.
Whether this would work remained to be seen. Lissy was rather young and didn't have much experience. Mail owls were said to help and protect each other. A flock of determined owls could scare any eagle off. Seen in this light, the injury she had suffered should be a rare exception. On the other hand, Lissy was a stranger and in all likelihood not too well acquainted with the native birds. Why had his mother bought an owl from Portugal?
He felt a fresh upsurge of qualms while he watched Lissy fly off.
Basically, he had sought solitude to come to terms with his situation, to mull the events of his life over, and to find answers. He hadn't made much progress. Would that change? How likely was he to find in January an answer that he couldn't find in December?
He hated his failing, and failing, and failing again. It made him want to scream. It made him want to kick things, to smash things.
Luckily, it was the pile of sketches that he grabbed first. He flung it across the room; the wad hit the wardrobe with a dull thud and fell down. A few sheets of paper that had separated themselves from the stack floated behind.
Before he could do any real damage to the furniture, he stormed out and ran to the park. There, he kept jogging until he was ready to fall asleep on his feet.
...
His nerves calmed a bit when he started to concentrate on practical matters.
He had to pack.
First were the banknotes, old and new ones carefully separated and wrapped in plastic. The Code of Conduct and his drawing utensils were next, but then it became apparent that his possessions wouldn't fit into the rucksack anymore, and carrying several plastic bags around was no appealing prospect.
He resolved to leave the sketches behind. This was advisable anyway because he didn't want his mother or the Great-aunt to see them.
There was a number of other things he wouldn't really need any longer, for example the towels and the dressing gown. Also, a number of his socks had developed holes. On closer inspection, everything looked worn. He had far better garments in the trunk that stood at Great-aunt Lucrecia's.
Maybe here was a solid reason for going back.
He longed for his dragon-hide boots. The Muggle trainers were pretty useless when it was freezing cold outside. He longed for his cashmere pullovers.
He recalled unwrapping the brown polo-neck pullover – the one that had become his favourite quickly after. That had been three years ago when his world had still been marvellously intact and functioning. His parents and he had celebrated the winter solstice in the customary way. There had been a sea of candles on the table – one for each ancestor known by name. There had been all the traditional dishes, and his mother had read to them passages from Nature's Nobility. Afterwards, Draco had opened his presents – there had been three pairs of high-shafted boots, a score of silken shirts embroidered with snakes or Hebridean Blacks, several books including an illegally printed copy of The Sempiternity of Dark Magic, a broomstick servicing kit, and an expensive, emerald-studded pocket watch with plenty of magical features.
He needed a gift for his mother.
...
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