36. Truffles and Worries
He took one last stroll around the city. After several random detours, he reached the pedestrian precinct. The area had changed – two long rows of wooden market stalls had been erected. Fir trees in huge flowerpots and other festive decorations abounded. Countless signs in shop windows reminded people to buy appropriate presents or sufficient provisions. Muggles seemed to set great store by proper preparation for celebrating the winter solstice. At least, that was what Draco assumed. Actual references to Yule were seldom made.
He went to the confectioner's. Even though it was a Muggle shop, it looked impressive. Alluring smells wafted out as often as somebody opened the door. In the elegantly decorated shop window, there was a display of truffles.
Belgian truffles were his mother's favourite treat. Except for the last one, there had never been a Yule celebration without at least one silver tray of Poirot's Assorted Truffles.
He went in and inquired whether the truffles sold here were imported from Belgium. Doing so, he evidently put his foot right in it.
A shop assistant clad in a close-fitting, black dress and a frilly, white apron lectured him in a rather miffed manner, "They are homemade, young man. That means they are made here in the house. The recipe has been in the family for more than one-hundred and twenty years."
He bought one truffle of each flavour. Since they weren't Belgian in origin, he ought to determine their quality before he made a larger purchase.
To be away from all the hustle and bustle in general and in particular from the mixed smells of roast chicken, smoked eels, pancakes, and hot alcoholic drinks lingering between the market stalls, he strolled over to the little park near the citadel. There, he tried the truffles one by one.
They were delicious. He decided Irish Cream and Dark Stem Ginger were the flavours best suited to please his mother. After careful consideration, he also chose Port and Raisin because it seemed a delectable novelty to him.
An hour later, he was back in the shop in order to buy seventeen truffles of each of the selected flavours.
The shop assistant reacted even frostier than at their first encounter. She glared at him as if he was a twig short of a broom.
"That's fifty-one," she snapped. "Are you aware of the price?"
He glared back. What did the silly cow think – that he couldn't calculate, or that he couldn't pay? He hadn't felt all that tranquil lately, and a stupid, uncooperative Muggle was exactly what he didn't need right now.
Instead of answering, he put five up-to-date, mauve-purple pound notes on the counter.
"What are you up to? Do you want to impress your girlfriend?" the Muggle asked, glancing at the money. "Well, I hope she's worth it."
He took a deep breath. It failed to calm him.
"The truffles are for my mother," he said angrily. He really didn't see why he should owe her explanations. "I'd appreciate it if you stopped arguing and did your job."
She mumbled something unintelligible, but started collecting truffles into a large box padded with what looked like silk.
After a little while, she asked, "Does your mother want them gift-wrapped?"
The question gave him a start. How could he have forgotten? Obviously, he had a knack for overlooking minor details. His negligence had spoilt his efforts more often than not, and here he went again: Where would he find acceptable wrapping parchment in a Muggle area, and at short notice, no less?
"Well?" the shop assistant said, sounding impatient.
She had produced a silvery sheet from under the counter. The stuff rustled softly. It couldn't possibly be paper, and Draco had never seen plastic look that way. The material was smooth and flexible, and it was actually not just silver in colour but glittered simultaneously in every colour of the rainbow. The effect was quite dazzling.
"Yes, sure," he said softly, his eyes still on the mysterious material.
She wrapped the box with surprising skill and swiftness. She added a white, velvety bow before she put the shimmering parcel into a manila bag, which she then handed to him along with some small change.
"Merry Christmas," she said, her smile not quite reaching her eyes.
He thanked her with accentuated politeness and left.
Darkness was about to fall when he stepped out of the shop. The neighbourhood was already lit with thousands and thousands of tiny lights. They sat on the fir trees and framed market stalls as well as shop windows and doors.
The prospect of never coming here again suddenly bothered him. He couldn't tell why. Considering how this city had appalled him at first, he couldn't explain why he was now hesitant to leave.
Trethwyn he had left in a rush, and the truth was that he did miss the sight of the ragged cliffs and the smell of thyme and boxwood drifting in through the window. He missed swimming and strolling down the beach barefooted. Well, it was December and he wouldn't be able to enjoy such things even if he were there. But he liked thinking back.
He hadn't been to many places besides Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley or Hogsmeade. Some ten years ago, he had nagged his parents into visiting Stonehenge – it was practically at their doorstep. However, the site had been an utter disappointment. The magic had faded completely over the millennia, and there had been nothing but a meaningless jumble of stones. In addition, the place had been teeming with Muggles.
Naturally, the place here was teeming with Muggles as well. But he was able to shrug that off. There were worse things in the world than Muggles.
He dallied in the pedestrian precinct until the merchants closed their shops and market stalls, and the better part of the lights went out.
When he finally returned to Hind Green Close, all windows in the house in were dark. As apparently everybody had already gone to bed, Draco took care to make as little noise as possible.
...
He didn't sleep much. Lissy had not yet come, and the soft, whispering voice at the back of his mind insisted this was a portent. The louder voice demanded to leave as planned because any further delay would surely result in being late for Runcorn's Yule dinner. He had to be there; he owed that much to his mother.
The next morning, the breakfast room was cold and empty. Plates, cups, and glasses sat neatly stacked in their usual places. But there was no food except a single cardboard box of orange juice.
He rang the bell, but the landlady didn't appear.
He had no idea where she might have gone. He had never bothered to find out how she spent her days apart from making breakfast for the lodgers and, occasionally, doing their laundry.
He poured himself a glass of juice and then another one. The only other edible stuff around was the cornflakes in their big, bottle-like glass thing. He wasn't particularly fond of cornflakes, and eating them with orange juice instead of milk would hardly be an improvement.
Far worse than having no breakfast was having no guide. Lissy still hadn't come.
An older and more practised owl than her would find him on a Muggle train as easily as anywhere else. But Lissy? He could only hope the young screech owl would meet him somewhere on his way to Runcorn's because his chances of finding the cottage without her help were small.
He felt more uneasy than ever about embarking on that journey. As so often, his means were no match for the task.
...
37. Train Ride
The landlady was nowhere to be found. It was a strange repetition of not being able to find Mr Penwith. Again, he wrote a note on the back of a sketch. This time, he put it on the desk in his room. She would find it sometime.
Three minutes later, he was faced with yet another problem: Where should he leave the keys? Putting them somewhere inside the house – in the breakfast room perhaps – meant he couldn't lock the front door, and once he'd locked that door he could not put the keys back in anymore.
But it was too late to bother with such conundrums. If he wanted to arrive in time, he had to catch a train before noon. Maybe he could figure out how the Muggle mail service worked and send the keys back.
...
The next trouble was an altered train schedule. Due to the holidays, it had been thinned out considerably. He left as planned, but the train only went to some neighbouring city. There, he had to wait for hours. The only positive aspect about the stop was having time for a decent lunch.
He grew more and more restless. By the time he finally boarded an eastbound train, he was in a dangerous mental state. Equally angry as scared, he was ready to blow up at the slightest disturbance. He hadn't felt like this in quite a while. In their younger days, Ronald Weasley, the obnoxious prat, used to evoke that sort of emotional turmoil in him. Where it stemmed from now, Draco couldn't tell.
Despite his explosive mood, the ride went well. When he left the train at the station where he had started his journey nearly seven months ago, it was long after nightfall. However, the stars were bright in the cloudless sky, and he could navigate with the help of the constellations. After all the mishaps throughout the day, that was a stroke of luck.
He walked briskly. There were three reasons to hurry. Firstly, it was getting late. Secondly, it was cold. The sharp wind coming from the northeast stung his face. The parka jacket he wore had a hood, and he could bury his gloveless hands in the deep pockets, but the trainers and thin trousers were no protection against the low temperature.
And thirdly, the exercise calmed him enough to think coherent thoughts. He needed to concentrate if he was ever going to find his way through the night on his own.
He tried to recall the details of his hasty departure half a year earlier. The sun rising behind him was the most distinct memory. The cottage was situated approximately two miles north to the broader lane, and he knew that a narrow path led there. Everything else was fuzzy recollections of single trees or little copses that he would hardly recognise again even if they were lush and green as they had been. There was bare, moonlit soil now where there had been fields of rapeseed and unripe barley.
After two hours of walking eastward – the moon was already about to set – he thought that he must be getting near the spot where the narrow, hedged-in path to Lucrecia Runcorn's cottage branched off the main lane. He carefully inspected all hedge-like thickets of bushes and small trees to his left. A few times, he walked north for several hundred yards, but he always ended up in places that clearly belonged to Muggles – sheds and barns or assemblies of exceptionally bizarre vehicles.
He had no choice but to continue. He marched on, hoping Lissy would finally show up. Maybe his mother had told the owl to wait for him in the exact place from where the small footpath led northward. That would make sense, wouldn't it?
The longer he walked, however, the more grew his fear that he might have missed the correct path already. The suspicion became cruel certainty the moment he reached a broad road that was covered with asphalt. He had never been at that spot before.
As he stood there in the biting cold, pondering his non-existent options, it suddenly struck him that using an owl as guide might well be going beyond the limit set by the Code of Conduct. The passage read, The convict may employ owls for carrying messages. There was no word about employing the birds for any other purpose.
He tried to fight off the embarrassment he felt because of having asked his mother to break rules for him. He was such an idiot!
...
He went westward, meticulously scanning the area to his right. He was resolved to try out even paths that looked like deer trails provided they were leading in a roughly northern direction.
He was tired, but he trudged on. The wind, being too lazy to go around, blew right through him. He knew an effective wind-breaking charm. He knew spells to keep himself warm in icy winter nights. He had learned how to Apparate with promptness and precision. And what good did all that knowledge do him now?
At least, he didn't need a bloody Point-Me spell to tell the compass points. The twisting and turning of the lane couldn't faze him since the stars shone also for the disadvantaged who were deprived of a wand. The twinkling stars along with the planets told him that it was around four in the morning. He had come approximately a mile away from the asphalted road. If he continued at that pace, he might be back at the train station in a little more than a fortnight...
He wasn't going to give up he thought stubbornly. He repeated that thought at regular, two-minute intervals: He wasn't going to give up. His endeavours went wrong routinely, failing was what he did best, yes, but he was not yet ready to give up.
A small gap in the dried and crumpled vegetation caught his eye. There was no path but a tiny runlet that ended in the ditch beside the lane. The runlet was flanked by willows.
Maybe he shouldn't completely rule out the possibility that he had sprinted down a dried-out brook back in June...
The ditch was nearly two feet deep. As he stepped down into it, he noted a slightly lopsided signpost. The paint had faded, and he could barely make out the words, "Beware of Leeches" in the dim light of the stars. Being almost sure the sign hadn't been there an instant before, he stepped back. The sign vanished.
A warm, glorious wave of relief washed over him. Of course, Great-aunt Lucrecia would disguise the pathway to her home! Of course, she wouldn't content herself with putting up Muggle-Repelling Charms!
He had found the way to the cottage. For once, he hadn't failed...
He strode out with renewed energy. The willows soon were replaced with holly and deadly nightshade. He could already spot the cottage in the distance when a shadow swooped down on him. He cried out and flailed his arms as he believed for a split second that he was attacked.
There was no attacker, though, there was only Lissy, lying in a sad, little heap at his feet.
He knelt down and touched her. When she didn't peck him, he cautiously lifted her up. The bird looked dazed.
"Did I hurt you?" he whispered. "I'm so sorry..."
She ruffled her feathers tentatively and made a noise that wasn't quite a hoot.
"I'm sorry," he repeated. "Are you injured?"
The owl fidgeted a bit in his hands, and he noticed the letter fastened to her leg.
"For me?" he asked although that was obvious.
He let her sit on his shoulder while he unravelled the very carefully folded parchment. It contained a thin, golden necklace. It was finely wrought but had no pendant. Somewhat puzzled, he slipped it into a pocket and turned the parchment over in search for some explanation.
Willowway Cottage; 4:35 a.m. on December 25th
Draco,
The owl returned a mere five minutes ago from delivering a letter to your father. I apologise for keeping you waiting.
Mother
"Did you see my father?" he asked softly.
The owl hooted.
"How is he?"
The owl left his shoulder and flew in wide loops and zigzags around him. He was no expert on owl communication, but from what he knew about it, the flight pattern meant something along the line of, Don't worry.
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Author's note:
Thanks go to Nooka and Kevyn for beta reading.