HI! So, it turns out, a lot of people are actually pretty happy to see Malfoy, which is all kinds of awesome, because I'd kind of been simultaneously dreading and looking forward to posting this chapter ever since I finished it in March.
A HUGE Thanks to all who've reviewed; I may not get around to replying to everyone, and my replies are often a week late, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate you taking the time to leave me a review any less. You're all awesome (well, except for that one person who literally just left a comment on chapter 1 saying "Tony/Hermione is retarded". Because really the only thing coming off as retarded there was them [seriously, who even does that? Is that seriously a thing? Word's cannot describe how perplexed I am by that comment], but lets not dwell on that) And don't let anyone else tell you otherwise.
To DREAMWEAVER, who is a guest, but has left me several awesome reviews that I haven't been able to reply to. I've left a reply to all your very valid notes, which were never forgotten by me as the author. It's simply been a case of trying to find the right place to put the information in the story, and unfortunately it has yet to come up. SO, for those interested in WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PREVIOUS VEIL TRAVELLERS, read my A/N and the end of this chapter. That said, I'm going to leave you in the dark still about why the Veil has no set location. I know why, and at some point, you will too.
Part One: Great Expectations
Chapter Twenty: Water, Water Everywhere
Draco Malfoy's first thoughts when he passes through the Veil are- most eloquently- holy shit, I'm fucking FALLING!
His next thoughts are: WHY THE SHIT IS THERE WATER EVERYWHERE?!
Needless to say, Draco hadn't been expecting to find himself falling from four meters into the ocean. In fact, it was probably number one hundred and fifty-three on his list of possible outcomes of stumbling through the Veil- if he'd ever bothered to make one. Which he hadn't. For a time, he is simply too shocked by this turn of events to do anything.
Then he sucks in a breath of air. He instantly regrets this decision.
Salt water, vile and cold and now clinging at the back of his throat and burning up his nose.
He chokes, limbs pushing the sea water away on instinct. More replaces it- as water is wont to do- but it keeps his head above the water. He draws in another gasping breath, trying to quell the coughing fit that springs up in response to inhaling the ocean. His eyes sting uncomfortably, unused to the salt.
He forces down his growing panic, which is quickly trying to overtake his confusion, and takes stock of his situation.
His throat now hurts like a bitch, thanks to his attempt at breathing underwater. His eyes hurt like a bitch, for more or less the same reason. His cloak is soaking wet; unsurprising- all of him is soaking wet, given he's trying to stay afloat in the ocean. It's currently trying its best to drag him down to whatever godforsaken pit of despair resides at the bottom of his swimming hole. Fucking wool gets bloody heavy when wet- he'll make a note to remember this the next time he falls through an inter-dimensional portal. He's also freezing, because wherever he is, it's bloody fucking cold. By some sheer bloody miracle, he's managed to keep a hold on his wand. He struggles to tuck it back into its holster strapped to his forearm through the multiple layers of clingy, floaty fabric before he does actually lose the thing. The waves- great hulking beasts that continually threaten to dump him under again- do nothing to help his cause.
He tries to rub away the water from his eyes, desperately treading water to stop himself from sinking (he's loathe to let go of his cloak, but fears he might have to soon). It helps a little, but he's still forced to squint. He feels like that prat Potter. His vision clears itself slowly.
Nothing but endless ocean. The sun lies heavy on the horizon, but he can't tell if it's dawn or dusk.
Shit fuckin' fuckity fuck.
This is not good. Not good at all.
Draco Malfoy, saviour of the boy who wouldn't fucking die, destined to perish by drowning.
What complete bullshit.
He lets out a scream of rage, loud and anguished and slaps at the water for good effect. Malfoys do not die of drowning. It's not dignified enough.
Then again, Malfoys also don't throw torture victims into inter-dimensional portals before quickly following suit either (even if he hadn't actually planned on doing so). So there's something to think about. Which he does, actually. For all of two seconds, but really he'd rather just have his tantrum here in the middle of fucking nowhere where no one will see him drown.
It's upon this line of thought that his foot touches something decidedly solid.
Draco would like it to be on the record that he did not shriek like a little girl. No he did not. Nor did he scream and swear and imagine the great killer shark that was likely to continue toying with him until it decided to put him out of his misery and just fucking eat him already (although really, at least being eaten by a shark sounded cooler than drowning. It's a much more Malfoy way to die at any rate).
No. Draco does not do these things. And he will wipe the memory of anyone who claims that he did.
Instead, like the normal, rational person that he is, he realises that the solid thing that both his feet are now touching is in fact land.
Honest.
He turns- feeling quite stupid now- to survey the scene before him. Never has he been so relieved to see a beach. This one is quite nice too; as beaches go at any rate. Golden sand, lit up by the sun (still not sure if it's daybreak or dusk though), great cliffs in the far off distance, red and gold and lined with black-brown rock at its feet. He can just see the waves, crashing against them mercilessly in a mess of spraying water and foam. The beach ahead is cut off by what he'd have to call scrubland, dominated by long grass and some kind of strange tree with greeny-grey foliage. Its leaves hang down, long and sinuous; melancholic like a weeping willow. He can't see past the tree-line. The beach appears empty, save for a few curious seagulls that watch him in a way reminiscent of the numerous matriarchs of pureblood households he'd met when he was a teenager (borderline predatory, eager to take something from him- generally his hand in marriage to their niece or granddaughter).
He ignores them in favour of getting out of the ocean.
It seems more than happy to get rid of him, sending several choice waves to push him forward, far enough along that he can properly stand. He staggers out, cursing. His woollen cloak hangs from his shoulders like a dead weight, restricting his airways and clapping against the back of his legs in a half-hearted attempt to trip him up. It weighs a bloody tonne. His shoes squelch and sink in the soft sand with every footstep. Disgusted, he tugs them off, discarding the destroying things on the empty shore.
It feels like it takes an age to reach dry land (though really it's just the point where dry sand meets wet). He undoes the clasps of his cloak as he stumbles forward, feet still catching in the sand and lays it down flat on the ground before collapsing wholeheartedly onto it (because there is no way he is getting any closer to that shit than he needs to be). The soft surface offers at least some modicum of comfort, marred only by the assorted flotsam that's been deposited there on the last high tide.
The sun glares down at him weakly when he turns himself over. He contents himself to lie there, regaining his strength and collecting his muddled thoughts.
The air is irritatingly cold.
Actually, scratch that. Now that he's stopped moving, the air is fucking freezing. And undoubtedly spiteful, if that gust of wind pummelling sand grains and cutting straight to the bone is anything to go by. His brain tells him to cast a warming and drying charm (and possibly a cleaning charm too, because all that salt is making his skin feel grainy and unclean) before he goes and dies of hypothermia, but decides not to be any more helpful than that, because he can't for the life of him remember the way to actually perform the charms. Nor does he have the energy to do anything more than just lie there for a little bit longer; at least until he regains a bit of his strength.
"Man that must have been one hell of a party."
He's up with his wand drawn before he can even register what's happening.
The man (who had by some miracle of fate managed to sneak up on him- and no, he had not fallen asleep, not even for the briefest of moments) raises a hand in placation. Only one, because his other one is occupied with some strange oblong board thing, which is easily a head taller than either of them. A dog of some indiscernible mongrel breed with mottled blue-grey fur sits at his feet. Its stumpy tail wags uncertainly but it has to sense to stay where it is.
"Righto," the stranger says slowly, flicking straight blonde hair out of his eyes with a practised move. He doesn't seem offended in the least by Draco's threatening stance, "Well. For a moment there I thought you were gonna draw a knife on me. Or a gun." Blue eyes flick down curiously to his wand, faintly amused.
Draco lets his wand arm drop, but doesn't stow it away yet. The man looks friendly enough, even though he doesn't know what he plans to do with that board thing.
"Where am I?" he demands, completely ignoring rule number one of being incognito and unmemorable. Because fuck it, he's a Wizard, and he can always wipe the Muggle's memory afterwards.
"Tallow Beach." The man, who has a strange accent that he can't quite pin down, doesn't seem phased at all by Draco's question.
"Ah huh," he replies, as if that makes any sense to him, "And where exactly is Tallow Beach?"
"Byron Bay." He's starting to get annoyed now. This man is not being helpful at all and Draco's not sure if it's because the man is being deliberately obtuse or if he's just plain stupid. And okay, sure, maybe the man doesn't quite understand the true meaning in Draco's questions, but really that should be no excuse.
He tries again, "And what country am I in?"
Now the stranger looks confused. And maybe a little concerned, "You alright mate? You bang your head or something?"
Remembering his previous statement about a party, Draco decides to use it as an excuse. He grimaces and rubs his head, faking the remnants of a hangover, "I think it was a pretty wild night. I can't remember anything I did."
The guy looks sceptical and a bit wary, "When exactly did you land in Australia?"
"Australia?" he echoes, appalled, The fuck?
The man raises an eyebrow, more amused than anything at his swearing, "Where did you think you were? The fucken Holyland?"
Well at least now the guy's accent makes sense. Not much else does, unfortunately.
"I thought Australia was meant to be hot." He replies accusingly. As if to prove his point, a gust of icy wind blasts through them. Draco's regretting not drying his clothes now. The Australian doesn't seem to notice it, protected by some strange kind of skin-tight rubber suit that's been rolled down to his waist, leaving his chest bare. The arms of the suit flap about lazily in the wind.
He snorts, "Right. And we all ride kangaroos to fucken work and keep emus in our gardens for eggs too."
Draco nods slowly. He's pretty sure the stranger is taking the piss out of him, but it's not like it's the most farfetched of stories. Hogwarts escorted its students to the castle with thestral-drawn carriages after all.
The wind blows again and he scowls. The Australian turns sympathetic, "You got any spare clothes mate?"
His scowl grows deeper. No, he doesn't have any more clothes; he'd only thought to nick the golden duo's bags from their house before coming to find them (and okay, so there might have been a five day interval between the finding of the bags and the finding of their owners. So sue him, he'd had other things to do). He certainly hadn't thought to take anything for himself- if it had all gone to plan, Granger and Potter would have been locked away in Russia by now, never to see wizarding Britain again, whilst he lorded it over the general populace. It had never bloody occurred to him that fucking Nott would set his cloak on fire and make him fall through the bloody Veil (which had been a stroke of genius on his part; what better way to get rid of the pair than to send them to another fucking universe? And if it didn't do that… well, they'd be gone either way).
"No," he finally grinds out, calming his fraying nerves to send the man a sheepish smile, "I hadn't really expected to be going for a swim."
The Australian nods sagely, blonde hair flopping around like a dog. "Must have been one party. You must have gotten fucken shit-faced."
Draco doesn't know what 'shit-faced' means, but he's quite sure he could guess. He gives the man another sheepish smile for good measure, and shrugs.
"C'mon, I've got some spare clothes in the car." As much as Draco appreciates the hospitality, he hopes they're nothing like what the man's wearing now, because there is no fucking way he is wearing whatever that thing is. Muggles are bloody crazy.
"Thank-you." He says instead. The man smiles and turns around, following the set of footprints etched in the sand. He follows, grimacing at the sand that's flicking up his trouser legs. He's already starting to hate Australia.
"So what's your name?" the Australian asks as they walk down the sandy path his old footsteps had led to. It's lined on either side by long grass and those weird looking trees. They leave nasty looking spiked nuts on the ground that he tries his best to avoid.
"Draco." He grumbles, before he realises that he should have probably used an alias.
His guide snorts in disbelief, "What kind of name is that?"
He sends a scowl at his heavily tanned shoulder, wiry muscles rippling as he moves. "A good one."
"Sounds bloody weird to me. Your parent's hippies?"
The hell are hippies?
"Sure." He'd rather not come off as ignorant, "What's your name then?"
"Davo."
He lets out a startled laugh, "And you say mine's weird."
"It's David, really. But only the 'rents call me that."
"Hnn." A nickname. Right.
A pause. David watches him struggle in the soft sand thoughtfully. "Those must be some pretty shitty friends to leave you passed out on the beach in winter."
He can feel his face visibly darken as he remembers the scum of the Earth he'd been infiltrating for the last eight years, "Trust me," he eventually grinds out, kicking at the sand angrily, "They're not my friends anymore."
David nods sagely, "If it was me, I'd bloody deck 'em."
Draco sends him a grin, all teeth, "Oh, don't worry about that. They'll get exactly what's coming to them." He'd made sure of that at least. With or without his presence.
The dog barks suddenly and races ahead of them. David doesn't bother calling the idiot creature back and Draco muses quietly for whatever creature the mongrel's set its sights for. He wishes this path would bloody end.
"So where're you from?" He scowls some more at the godforsaken sand.
"England."
David rolls his eyes and sighs heavily, "Yeah, I'd figured as much from your accent. Whereabouts are you from though?"
"What's it to you?" Draco's suddenly nursing suspicions that his companion might not be an ordinary muggle. Or was this how normal people were supposed to act when encountering a stranger? He didn't know- life after the wizarding war had hardly been what one could call normal.
David glances at him, perplexed, "I'm just curious, mate." Maybe just normal then.
"Wiltshire."
"Hnn… I don't know where that is."
Why do I even bother?
"It's in the south-west."
David nods, watching his dog run about the undergrowth on either side of their path gleefully, "Is it nice there?"
"I guess." No wonder Muggles were bloody pests. Was this how all of them were?
"What brings you to Byron?"
Sweet mother of Merlin make this end.
"My brother's wedding," he lies, "He met some Australian girl years ago."
"Buck's night?" he asks sympathetically. Draco nods.
"I must have passed out and they dumped me out here as a joke."
David sends him a sidelong glance, "Shit joke."
"Yeah, well I never said they were good people." No, the men and women he'd been associating with for the last eight years were hardly what anyone would call 'nice' people. Wastes of space; banes of his existence; psychopaths and down-and-out Shitheads more like.
"Do you want a lift?"
Draco swallows his pride to answers the affirmative; as much as it pains him to admit. He had no idea really where he was, and no idea where the closest town was to even apparate to. Then again, he was also accepting charity from the muggle in the form of clothes, so how much lower could he honestly get? If Granger and Potter were here, they'd be laughing their asses off at how far he'd stooped in so little time; Draco Malfoy, sodden, bedraggled and asking a muggle for a lift in some Godforsaken corner of the Earth, with no immediate ability to fix the situation.
Speaking of the Golden Duo; where the fuck were they? The pair had only been seconds ahead of him- he should have landed virtually on top of them.
Had the idiots drowned?
His steps falter at the thought and he casts a disconcerted glance back down the path. The beach isn't visible here; the path was on a steady decline, leaving the ocean hidden behind the sandy forest.
But no. Surely not. They'd been in rubbish shape, sure (okay, so Potter had been more or less unconscious and Granger was barely lucid, but hell, it was Potter and Granger; they had the survival instincts of a cockroach), but he'd landed close to the shore. If the pair had drowned, their bodies would have washed up pretty damn quickly. And even if Draco hadn't seen them, something tells him his Muggle companion and his mongrel dog would have.
"You okay mate?" David finally notices he'd stopped, some distance ahead.
Draco nods, ruthlessly pushing down the rising concern and gives him a sheepish smile, "It's nothing," he lies. He moves to catch up with him.
And immediately regrets it as he lands on another one of those bloody miniature pine cones. He growls in frustration and hops up and down in aggravation, nursing his throbbing foot. David gives him a sympathetic grimace.
"She-oaks are a pain in the ass, right? Do you want my thongs?" Draco stiffens, staring at the man incredulously. He's not quite sure whether to feel insulted or confused.
"The hel- what?!"
A look of realisation spreads across the Muggle's face and he laughs, "Thongs," he reiterates, shaking one of his feet in the air, "Flip-flops. Jandals. Those things you put on your feet when you can't be bothered with real shoes."
"Why on Earth would you call them thongs?"
David shrugs, glancing down at his feet contemplatively, "Dunno. We just do. Guess they kind of look like a g-string for your feet, if you think about it."
Draco is infinitely proud that the only sign of his amusement at that statement is a quirk of his brow, "I have no answer for that." He finally replies, ruthlessly pulling back the smile that threatens to appear.
The Australian shrugs again, "Do you want them or not?"
Draco considers the offer for a long moment. On the plus side, there'd be no more of those godforsaken seed pods to stand on. On the downside, they were still flip-flops. And as unseemly as his sodden trousers and bare feet were, he couldn't quite abide by the indignity of wearing something as utterly plebeian as them on his feet.
"Ah- no. Thank-you." He finally replies, inwardly shuddering at the thought of wearing flip-flops in the first place, let alone one's he'd borrowed from a Muggle.
"Your loss Mate." My loss indeed.
Fortunately, the car park isn't much further; Draco can see black bitumen and white lines through the gaps in the trees. His gait takes on a stumbling shuffle as they carry on in an effort to avoid any more of those bloody nuts; it has the unfortunate side effect of allowing the sand to pass over and between his toes and catch in the hems of his trousers. He stoically ignores it, intent on pushing this episode of his life as far away behind him as he can.
The dog waits faithfully for the pair of them on the line that marks sand and bitumen, panting lightly as its tail wags slowly. Behind it sits an old pickup, white and muddy around the wheel-rims. David passes by him to place his board in the tray and pulls out a duffel bag- rummaging through its contents to unceremoniously dump certain clothes on the tray. He keep a tatty-looking hoody to himself, shucking it on and pulling up the zip. The bag is tossed back and he picks up the clothes he'd left out. They're crushed as hell, but Draco can't even bring himself to care.
"Here," David says, handing them over into his frozen hands, "There's a toilet block over there, if you want." He motions to a cement-block in the corner of the carpark that looks about as inviting as a 'room with the view' in Azkaban.
Draco can feel his top lip curling in disgust, "I'll pass, thanks." Merlin knows what kind of venereal disease he could contract just by walking inside. Muggles clearly needed to invest in self-cleaning charms- or the equivalent.
"Suit yourself," he shrugs and walks around to the driver's side of the cabin, leaning against the door to give him some modicum of privacy.
The dog stays where it was. Draco pulls a face at it in retaliation.
Its tail wags harder.
He sighs in resignation and turns his back on it, stripping his ruined clothes off quickly to replace them with the old, but mercifully dry t-shirt and jeans. The shirt is no struggle, but getting the jeans on (and his old trousers off) proves to be a struggle as the material sticks and drags on his dampened skin. The battle is only worsened by the sand that's managed to work its wall all through his clothes and scratches uncomfortably in his 'delicate' regions. He manages it though (but not without a small amount of cursing) and dumps his old clothes in the trash can. He's not interested in salvaging them, and it's not exactly difficult to acquisition himself some new ones as a wizard.
"Not keeping them?" David turns around at the sound of clothes hitting the metal bin.
"I've got more in my room," he lies easily, turning back around to face the man, "Thank-you for the clothes, though." It's a genuine expression; even though it's only jeans and a shirt, they're dry and it's making all the difference right now with that bloody wind blowing through the place.
David nods and gives him a smile, "No worries mate." He opens his door and slides into his vehicle. The engine roars into life after ticking over two-three times.
Draco assesses the car sceptically. He'd been in one- once- eight or nine years ago now, back when he was going through his 'muggle-curiosity' phase. It had been an overall mediocre and underwhelming experience- unlike the times when he'd tried the public bus and the Muggle's take on flying. Those had been downright horrific, and there was no denying that that one flight from London to Paris he'd taken in 2006 in an unfortunate bout of optimism was quite possibly one of the darkest times of his life- his stint as an unwilling Death Eater notwithstanding.
Whilst he hadn't exactly been impressed by his one experience in a car, he'll be the first to admit that it had been significantly shinier and trustworthy looking than David's car. In fact, his beaten-up truck looks as though it might break down or spontaneously combust the moment it went around the first corner.
David sends him a raised eyebrow from the driver's seat, "You getting in?" the man asks loudly enough to be heard outside the cabin, "It aint gonna bite."
Biting is the least of my worries.
Draco nods stiffly. He tries the door-handle gingerly; it's stiff and he has to press a button and pull the lever at the same time for it to open. The smell of wet dog and pine sap permeates the two-door cabin and he fights valiantly to keep a straight face. David slams his door shut, and plays with his radio as he waits for Draco to get in.
Against his better judgement, he does. The dog jumps past him to sit contentedly in the middle seat before he can slam the door shut. It gives him a dopey grin, tongue lolling unpleasantly as it pants disconcertingly close to his face.
"Don't mind Tess," David says lightly, noticing his obvious discomfort and misconstruing it for something else entirely, "She wouldn't hurt a fly."
As if to confirm his statement, Tess barks in his face and tries to clamber clumsily into his lap, paws straying dangerously close to places they should never stray. She breathes her unpleasant breath right into his mouth. It takes a great deal of restraint to prevent him from cursing the animal from here to high heaven.
Draco is very quickly getting the impression that he should have just stayed at home.
Potter and Granger be damned.
Fun Facts for those who cared:
The former criminals that were sent through the Veil all those centuries ago- well, most of them didn't die. Most of them ended up in the Marvel-verse, alive, kicking and screaming (but no wands. I doubt the ministry would give them their wands when they were about to kill them), and most of them went on to wreak a whole lot of havoc, because of course, they WERE criminals- generally the worst of the worst. INCLUDING Mister Bolton- the man who commissioned the construction of Hogwort Castle. I made sure it was subtle, but if you read enough into it, you can figure out that he amassed a lot of money in a short amount of time because he manipulated people. With magic. And one of the reasons the castle was erected so quickly was because he more or less enslaved a whole lot of people for his cause. Plus I wouldn't discount the likelihood that he'd have slept with his daughters when they came along to ensure his magical gene was passed on. He may have been a sentimentalist, but he was thrown through the Veil for a good reason.
Furthermore, even though it's unlikely most of the people who went through the Veil survived long enough to reproduce (because lets face it, madmen and serial killers generally don't survive long enough to manage to make the babies, because people generally want to get rid of them… because they're psychopaths), there still would have been plenty who managed. Thus, it's very likely there are remnant magic-users out there in the Marvel-verse. Many of these people- due to their blood being diluted for so long- would find their magic manifesting themselves as singular mutations- say, many of the mutants- but there would still be a few throw-backs turning up here and there with full-blown magical abilities.
Why has no-one in Great Expectations come across them yet? Well, they just haven't been looking in the right places. Because I can assure you, there are plenty of historical accounts out there… I might even imply Jack the Ripper was a cast off from wizarding society. And SHIELD isn't aware of them because the Ministry stopped sending people through hundreds of years ago; long enough for the magic gene to be diluted, or completely bred out in some cases. And long enough to make many of their historical accounts come across as superstitious clap-trap.
I want to also say here, I've had a few people as about Stephen Strange who as some of you know was name dropped in Captain America 2. Doctor Strange is going to have his own movie, making him a part of the MCU. This means that currently, he is not actually the superhero Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme. Because I'm- as a general rule- trying to follow the MCU, I'm going to put my foot down here and state, for the record, that because- as of 2013 in the MCU- Doctor Strange has not become SS (even though he was name dropped in CA2), he will not be featuring in Great Expectations. This is partly so I can follow the MCU timeline (except for the whole ignoring Ironman 3), and partly because I'm not all that familiar with him, and partly because he'd just be one more headache to add to the slowly growing entourage of Great Expectations.
For those who were wondering, David's dog is a breed known as a blue-heeler. And the trees that Draco are referring to are colloquially known as she-oaks (genus Casuarina). The little seed pods they litter everywhere can probably measure up there on the pain scale as standing on a lego brick.
It's surprisingly difficult as an Australian to try to consistently use terms that are used in cultures anywhere but Australia. For example thongs (the underwear) are generally referred to as G-strings (thought the term 'thong' is seeing an appearance with the growing American influence) as the term 'thong' is kept for flip-flops. Furthermore, the world's pickup truck we call a ute- short for utility, apparently. I've never heard an Australia ever refer to a Ute as a 'truck'. Trucks are larger- I'd say the general rule of thumb between a truck and a Ute is that you can park a Ute easily in a car park. If it doesn't fit in that space, then it ain't a Ute, it's a truck.
And on that, I'll finally shut-up and you'll see me in a fortnight.
Ciao!