Draco Malfoy sat hunched over, nearly folded in half—with his head pressed against the glove compartment—as he gritted his teeth, trying desperately not to touch his Dark Mark.
"What's wrong?" Ruth asked him. He didn't answer.
When his arm finally stopped burning, beads of sweat were trickling down his forehead. It had never lasted this long before. So, they had discovered his disappearance. It was a good thing the Dark Lord had no way of using the Dark Mark to check if his followers were alive or dead.
With a deep sigh, he blinked and found the car sitting still on the roadside. Ruth's dark eyes were staring at him intently, her hands gripping the wheel.
"What was that?" There was no concern in her voice. Not for him, at least.
"The Dark Lord," he said.
"Can he torture you from a distance?"
The question almost made him chuckle.
"That wasn't torture. That was a summons."
"You're not going back there, are you?" She frowned.
"Not if I want to keep my head."
Two huge cars roared past them, filling the air with a foul odour—worse than any potion gone wrong. Draco wrinkled his nose and glanced out the window. Green plains stretched out in every direction.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"We passed York an hour ago. Almost in Hull now."
Good. They were far enough away for him to snap out of panic mode and think clearly. His brain hadn't been functioning properly before, which could be blamed on lack of sleep, Bellatrix's Cruciatus and, well, miraculously surviving a magical explosion. That was bound to disorient him. Now that he'd gotten a few hours of rest, he could finally comprehend the sheer mess he'd gotten himself into and scrutinize every single action he'd taken so far.
What was he thinking—falling asleep inside this disgusting muggle vehicle in front of a mudblood who had every reason to want him dead? Had he gone mad? It was beyond foolish. Not just that, but the entire plan—going into hiding with a mudblood? His parents would be mortified. His parents, whom he had selfishly left to fend for themselves in the face of the Dark Lord's fury.
He tried to calm down, assuring himself that no one could blame the incident on him. It wasn't his idea to go after muggles; he had no choice but to go. Besides, no one would know what really happened there. Their speculations could never lead them to the conclusion that Draco had killed everyone and escaped. His parents wouldn't be punished for the last night's events. In fact, they should be safer now. If he stayed, the Dark Lord would keep assigning him missions that Draco would fail, and each failure would put his parents at risk of torture and death. Draco had been their pressure point, and they had been his. They were safer now that he was gone.
But even if all of that were true, he had still condemned them to a world of hurt. They would mourn him. There would be a new grave in the family graveyard, and it would bear his name. Last night, his parents had lost their only child. Draco wanted to jump off a cliff, if only to ensure that their grief wouldn't be in vain. It was too late to go back now. He had to proceed with his plan. He'd go back for them someday; he'd find a way to rescue them. This, he vowed.
Less urgent worries aside, why hadn't Ruth attacked him in his sleep? Was she truly so intent on pursuing that suicidal quest of hers that she chose to tolerate the lesser evil—which had to be him in her eyes? She didn't actually think she could succeed, did she? Perhaps, knowing nothing about the Dark Lord or the Death Eaters, she simply didn't understand the danger. She'd probably reconsider once he told her a bit more.
"Why did you stop?" He turned to her.
"You looked like you were having a seizure." Ruth shrugged. "Besides, we're running out of fuel, and I think it's best to abandon the car now."
Draco didn't hide his confusion.
"We did steal it," she said slowly, as if talking to someone dense. Draco didn't like it one bit. "The police will be looking for it."
The "police", he guessed, were the equivalent of Aurors in the muggle world. If so, then it did seem sensible to get rid of the vehicle now. But then...
"And what do you suggest we use as a means of transportation instead?"
"We'll figure it out tomorrow." Ruth sighed. "For now, I suggest our legs."
Without warning, she reached her hands toward him, and he instinctively pressed himself back into the seat. After giving him a strange look, she opened the glove compartment and fumbled around. There were a few bits of green paper and some dirty orange coins, which she promptly hid in the pockets of her weird dark-blue trousers. That, Draco ascertained, was muggle money. How uninspiring.
"There, should be enough for a night in a very cheap inn," she said as unenthusiastically as he felt. "Let's go."
Draco struggled to figure out how to open the door, so Ruth opened it for him, not bothering to hide her irritation. Her attitude had, in turn, irritated him.
They walked down the road for some time—with their hoods pulled up, Draco suppressing a flinch every time a car passed by, while Ruth averted her gaze in an attempt to conceal her face—until, just short of reaching Hull, they came across a long, two-story building on the right side of the road. The sign on its roof—peeling and faded—said "Roadside Inn". The inn was a tired, concrete block, shaped like a three-sided box with the fourth side absent. Its walls had obscene pictures and words painted on them. Near one of the many doors, a woman with the most dreadful makeup Draco had ever seen stood in a shockingly short skirt, exhaling smoke. Another door flew open as a man stumbled out and retched, deepening Draco's frown of disdain. Muggles were disgusting.
With his eyes widened slightly in disbelief, Draco watched as Ruth turned toward the building. Before he could stop himself, he grabbed her arm, only to release it immediately as if burned. She stopped and looked at him questioningly.
"You can't mean to spend the night here," he said, horrified.
She looked resigned. "We won't find anything cheaper. And, on second thought, I'm not even sure we can afford a night here."
"This place is worse than the Burrow!" he exclaimed, his frustration betraying more emotion than a Malfoy should.
Ruth didn't ask what the Burrow was. "Well, excuse me," she said with an empty laugh, "all my money and possessions burned down with... everything."
It was at this point that Draco wondered why she didn't seem more shocked by the impact of her accidental magic. Perhaps she was just as disoriented as he was. She, too, had one hell of a night, after all. And while Draco managed to get a little sleep, she did not. It reflected in her slightly hazed eyes and heavy steps.
"Do you have nowhere else to go?" he asked, calmer now. "No home to return to?"
"My home burned, too. You saw it."
For a moment, Draco was confused until a horrible realization dawned on him. "You mean to say that metal box was your home?"
Ruth's lips tightened. "It was a campervan," she said. "A home on wheels."
Draco was speechless.
"And if you must know," she continued, her voice turning rougher, "no, I have nowhere else to go. No family, no friends. My parents are dead. They have been for a long time. My brother, he... he was all I had."
The silence that followed was an uncomfortable one. Draco wanted to change the subject and blurted out the first thing that came to mind, only to realize it wasn't the best direction for the conversation. "Do you know if your parents were wizards?"
"No, they were not."
That settled it then. All hope Draco had of not really betraying his family's values was gone. But that didn't mean he had forsaken every last one of his principles.
"I am not staying here," he said firmly.
Ruth sighed and rubbed her temples.
"I guess you also don't have any money on you," she said. "Well, do you have anything valuable to sell?"
Her eyes scanned him. Draco searched his pockets and found only broken remnants of the Lestranges' wands. He had taken them to make it seem as if all the wands had been destroyed; it would raise suspicion if only his wand was missing. But they were useless to him now, so he tossed them into the grass.
Draco shed his robe and examined the pockets of his trousers. They were empty. It turned out that his golden cufflinks were the only thing he could sell. He tore them from his shirt sleeves and handed them to her. The sun shone brightly, so it seemed reasonable not to put his robe back on. The wand, tucked away in its holster, he hid beneath the robe to keep it out of muggles' prying eyes.
"That's good." She took the cufflinks and nodded. "This should cover a few weeks in a decent hotel."
"I want the best conditions this dull city has to offer."
She raised her eyebrows. "That's less than a week then."
"It doesn't matter," he said.
If everything went according to plan, in a few days he would part ways with her, equipped with all the necessary knowledge.
They soon reached Hull, a loud and bustling port city. Overwhelmed by the cacophony of strange sights and sounds, Draco felt utterly out of place. Muggles hurried about, dressed in the most peculiar attire. Some of the fashion items were vaguely familiar: a few misguided mudbloods in Hogwarts wore something similar, embracing or even flaunting their inferior status. Many passersby wore trousers similar to Ruth's—made of stiff, coarse fabric in varying shades of blue—often paired with simple, sleeveless tops in either muted or garishly bright colours. He couldn't help but sneer at them. Ruth's face, on the other hand, was devoid of all emotion. He might have thought she was Occluding if he didn't know better.
As they continued walking, they passed countless shops selling very odd items. It took two hours to find a shop where they could sell the cufflinks for a fair price. Ruth handled all the negotiations while Draco focused on avoiding eye contact with muggles, as well as any physical contact. Fortunately, muggles didn't seem to pay him much attention.
In the end, Ruth was right. The money they received—one thousand pounds, which was muggle currency—was enough to afford two rooms in a hotel that didn't look too shabby and included room service.
The muggle woman behind the reception desk, dressed in much more appropriate clothing—a white shirt and a knee-length black skirt—handed them two very small keys and instructed them to go to the fifth floor using the lift and then turn left. She asked them when they would like dinner delivered to their rooms, to which Ruth replied, "as soon as possible". Despite the woman's pointedly polite tone, Draco noticed the suspicious look she gave them, and one had to admit, they did look suspicious: a girl in very dirty casual clothes standing next to a boy dressed entirely in black, with tears on his sleeves where cufflinks used to be. But Draco couldn't care less. They were only muggles.
He and Ruth had gone to the fifth floor. Their rooms were not difficult to find. Pausing at their respective doorsteps, they exchanged tired glances. Draco felt very awkward and didn't know what to say.
"See you later?"
He hated how unsure he sounded.
"I think I'll go to bed right after dinner and will not wake up until morning," she replied.
Ruth did look as if she could barely stand. They said no more to each other, turning away in perfect unison, unlocking their doors and disappearing behind them.
Draco found himself in a dark room, slightly smaller than his own bedroom. He took out his wand and swished the curtains open, letting daylight in. In the centre of the room stood a large bed without posts or curtains, adorned with an array of silky pillows arranged rather elegantly at the head. Flanking the bed were nightstands with polished wooden surfaces, each topped with a brass lamp. On one nightstand was a strange rectangular device connected by a cord to another part lying on top. The device featured numbers from 0 to 9 arranged in a circle. On the other nightstand was a small vase with a single fresh flower.
Next to the bed stood a mahogany armoire with mirrored doors. On the opposite side of the room was a dressing table with a large mirror and a comfortable armchair. There were also other devices Draco wasn't familiar with, including a large black rectangular object, which was placed on its own table.
It wasn't luxurious by his standards, of course, but he supposed it was passable. Life in the muggle world didn't have to be all that difficult. He could simply find a pair of wealthy muggles, put them under the Imperius Curse, and use them as his personal house elves.
Draco walked around the room and then opened the door to what turned out to be a bathroom, with marble countertops and floors. It had everything bathrooms usually had: a sink with a mirror, a bathtub with an ornate brass faucet, and a separate glass-enclosed shower. The other door Draco saw probably led to a cloakroom. Nothing stank or looked dirty, at least in the semi-darkness. The bathroom had no windows and no torches he could light. Did muggles prefer to bathe in darkness? He noticed a disk-shaped lamp on the ceiling but couldn't figure out how to make it work.
"Lumos," he said.
A ball of light escaped the tip of his wand and hovered in the air, illuminating the room.
Feeling extremely dirty despite a thorough Scourgify, Draco decided to take a bath right away. He closed the door behind him and locked it with a quick Colloportus. After magically cleaning the bathtub at least three times, he turned on the faucet and winced. The water was cold. Damn these muggles. Every faucet he'd ever encountered in the wizarding world was charmed to always produce warm water. Turning off the faucet, he brandished his wand and filled the bath with warm water himself.
Did muggles have a way of doing all this without magic? Or did they bathe with freezing cold water in the dark? That last image fit with the savage ways he had heard about so often, but he found himself doubting it now.
Draco shed his clothes, and only then did his eyes catch a gleam of gold. The bracelet! It must have been enchanted to feel feather-light and natural because he had completely forgotten about it. He took a closer look and let out a shocked gasp. The bracelet's surface was no longer smooth and shiny. The runes inscribed on it were twisted and bent out of shape. Some sections were scorched and blackened. The gold, though still shining in places, was tarnished and scratched. What had happened to it? Why did it look burnt?
Then it dawned on him. It was a bracelet carefully carved with protective runes. His mother had given it to him for protection.
Let no harm come to you.
Be careful, Draco. Be safe.
That explosion would have killed him if it weren't for his mother's bracelet. It had taken the brunt of the blast, suffering the damage in his place. A shudder ran through his naked body. He would have been dead if it weren't for her. How was it possible to feel warmth in his heart at the same time as chills were running down his spine?
Draco closed his burning eyes and vowed again. He would get his parents out. He would save them.
That evening, as he fell asleep in an unfamiliar bed in a strange new world, Draco held the scorched bracelet close to his heart.