"What's she doing now?" Draco said.
Harry leaned out into the aisle.
"She's holding up a rope. It's got metal ends. She's putting them together. Oh, it's a seatbelt. She's showing us how the seatbelt fastens."
"But we already have ours fastened!" Draco said, pulling on the tightening strap to demonstrate.
He ignored Draco, who'd spent twenty minutes squirming under the belt before finally calming down. Harry tried being patient, tried reminding himself that Draco had probably never worn a seatbelt before. Still, sitting next to him was like sitting next to a screaming child. He knew it wasn't the child's fault, but it was still grating on his nerves.
"What's she doing now?"
"She put a yellow thing over her head. She's blowing into a… Oh, it inflates. It's like a balloon."
"What does she mean 'in the unlikely event of a water landing?' Do these land in the water? You said we'd land in London!"
Harry tried to think of something calming or knowledgeable to say, but nothing came to mind. He'd never heard the term "water landing" before.
"She means if we crash," said the woman in the window seat.
Both Harry and Draco stared at her. They thought she'd fallen asleep. Clearly a seasoned traveler, she'd put on a neck pillow, eye mask, and headphones the moment she'd sat down. She hadn't moved since.
"A crash?" Draco said, turning to Harry.
"It doesn't happen often," Harry said. "Planes are safer than crossing the street."
He wasn't sure of that fact; it was just one he'd heard when he was a kid. Still, it seemed to mollify Draco.
"Why aren't we moving yet?" Draco said.
Harry tried to calm his frustration. He wished he could have been with anyone on the plane besides Draco, but he hadn't had any choice. He'd sent a dozen owls to the Durmstrang Headmaster; none had been returned. Finally, he'd asked Draco. The Malfoy family had significant history with the school, and the Headmaster had grudgingly seen them and given Harry what he wanted.
Everything had gone according to plan, until their portkey failed. Expecting a trip of a few moments back to London, they found themselves on a deserted beach, touching a broken sand pail in vain. It was only now, a day later, about to take off, that Harry wondered if they'd found a different pail.
"I've never been on an airplane before, either," Harry said.
Draco stared at him, incredulous.
"But you grew up around muggles. You said you never even saw a flying broom until you were 11. How did you get around?"
"They had a car."
"But… But what if you had to go over water?"
"We didn't. Not much. There are bridges. Boats."
Draco gave Harry a pitying look. "What's she doing now?"
Harry did deep breathing exercises. He had six hours sitting next to Draco. It wasn't going to be easy on him, but he reminded himself it could have been worse. He just couldn't think of how it could have been worse.
"Oh, we're moving," Draco said. He tried to lean over the woman at the window to open it, but she lowered her sleep mask and fixed him with such a fierce stare that he pulled his arm back.
As the plane taxied, Draco smiled. This was familiar to him, not unlike riding a horse.
The smile disappeared on take off. As the engines roared to life, he gripped the armrests in panic. Harry put his hands in his lap. The woman at the window turned her back to them.
"Something's wrong" Draco said, eyes wide. "I read about muggle engines. They explode inside. They explode petrol. They're like dragons. This isn't safe. The engines are exploding."
He reached over the woman again to open the window. This time she didn't protest.
Enviously, Harry realized she'd fallen asleep.
Seeing the wing of the plane and the engine not belching fire, Draco relaxed. A little. Then he winced in pain.
"There's something… There's something wrong with my ears!"
He clutched the sides of his head and started wailing. The woman, without taking her mask down, reached up and pressed an orange button above them, then went back to sleep. A moment later, a flight attendant came by.
"Ma'am, during take off we're not supposed to be-"
But Draco didn't let her finish.
"My ears! They're exploding!"
"It's just the change in cabin pressure," she said calmly. "It'll take a moment for your ears to adjust. Do you have gum or maybe a lozenge?"
Draco and Harry both shook their heads.
"Here's a trick that I learned from SCUBA training. Pinch your nose and blow against it.
Hard."
She demonstrated. Draco imitated her, turning pink from the effort. Harry tried not to laugh.
"Is that better, sir?"
Draco nodded. She left. Draco watched her go.
"What's SCUBA?"
"Diving," Harry said. Draco still looked confused. "In the water. They swim with big metal tubes of air on their backs."
Draco stared at him.
"They don't have bubblehead charms," Harry said, shrugging.
The plane shook for a moment. Harry and Draco both went for their wands simultaneously. Then, remembering they didn't have them anymore, gave each other nervous looks. The pilot, in calming tones, explained they were "experiencing turbulence," but that didn't make them feel any better. It was uncomfortable being so helpless in such a dangerous situation.
From the moment they'd arrived at the Varna Airport, everything felt like it was out of their control. They wandered aimlessly around until they found someone who could point them to a ticket counter. The line to the counter was so long, it took them an hour to get to the front. Once there, they were presented with a bewildering array of choices. Where did they want to travel? What kind of seats? Did they have any baggage? Were they sure they had to fly that day?
Draco, who'd never set foot on muggle transportation before, was paralyzed. Harry decided for the both of them and regretted it every moment since. Draco couldn't stop complaining.
"I don't know why they had to take our wands," Draco said. "It was uncalled for. Like we were criminals or something."
After they were scanned at the security checkpoint, something both Draco and Harry found endlessly amusing, an agent pulled them aside into a private room. He presented them with metal boxes for their wands, which would then be put in the luggage area under the plane. Draco protested. The security agent was firm. They would not be allowed to fly until they complied.
Harry almost balked at that point, but there weren't many choices left for returning to England. The floo network didn't work internationally. Brooms were impractical over long trips over the ocean. Apparating great distances was dangerous.
Their only other choices were either to book passage on a ship, which would take days, or to wait until they could find someone qualified to make them a new portkey. They chose to fly. How bad could it be?
"You know," Draco said, "I'm beginning to think the middle seat isn't the best one."
"You're the one who said you wanted the 'friendship seat.'"
Draco tried to find a comfortable position. "Beginning to think they made that name up to trick people into sitting in them."
Harry bit back several sarcastic replies and took out a tiny, folded piece of parchment. On it was a short list, five names written in a precise hand.
"Is that the list?" Draco asked.
"Yes," Harry said, biting back more sarcastic replies.
"Glendale's dead," Draco said, leaning over to look. "Summoned a manticore. Wasn't prepared."
Harry grunted acknowledgment.
"I know him," Draco said, pointing at another name. "Complete idiot. Not sure why Headmaster Orfanou would put him on the list."
"It's not that much of a list," Harry said, scowling. "I would have thought, with all your family's influence at Durmstrang, they might have given us more to go on."
Draco shrugged. "Maybe they don't have many graduates capable of casting a…" He trailed off for a moment. "Viktor Krum?"
Harry nodded. The last name on the list was Viktor Krum.
Draco leaned back, bumping the other passenger again. She didn't seem to notice.
"I mean, he was in the Triwizard Tournament and all, but he didn't strike me as that great. Great quidditch player. Mediocre wizard."
"I didn't see much of what he did, except for the second task. Transformed into a shark," Harry frowned. "Well, half transformed. He needed my help to finish the task."
"You'd think someone capable of a multi-layered spell would have done better."
Harry folded the list and put it back in his pocket. "You have any contacts at Beauxbatons?"
Draco shook his head. "You looked into Hogwarts students, didn't you?"
"As well as I could. Hogwarts doesn't have a list of the best students and most of the professors we knew are gone. I tried the ghosts, but none of them were teachers. Well, except for Binns."
"Binns!" Draco laughed. "Never remembered anyone's name. Used to call me Bacon."
Harry smiled. "He called me Perkins, although now he calls me Harriet."
Draco looked like Christmas had come early. "Harriet?"
"'Why, you're the greatest witch I've ever known, Harriet,'" Harry said, making his voice wheeze like a ghost's. "'And I've known a lot.'"
"Now you're just making it up."
"I'm not! Hand to Merlin."
"'Harry Potter is the greatest witch I've ever known.' We should put that on a pin."
"Better than 'Potter stinks. Support Cedric Diggory.'"
Draco grimaced a little. "We were little shits back in school, weren't we?"
Harry was going to point out that Draco was more than a shit, but the flight attendant returned with the drinks cart. Harry asked for water. The woman at the window didn't stir when asked. Draco, having found the fold out beverages menu, spent a remarkably long time looking at it before asking for a beer.
"That'll be eight pounds, sixteen," she said.
"It says it's free. See?" Draco said, pointing at the fine print.
"That's for first class passengers only," she said.
There was only a slight stiffening in Draco's posture. His lips tightened just a little. Harry had never been so afraid of him.
"I am a first class passenger," he said evenly.
"Yes, of course you are, sir. But the free alcoholic beverages promotion is for holders of first class tickets."
"First class tickets?" he said, turning to look Harry straight in the eyes.
"Yes. And free alcohol is only one of the perks. You can board earlier, get bonus miles with each flight, and the first class cabin has extra leg room."
"There's a first class cabin," Draco said, his eyes boring into Harry's with a burning rage.
"Are you telling me we are travelling," and Harry felt his insides turn to water, "in MUGGLE
STEERAGE?!"
If the flight attendant was confused by the terms, she didn't show it. Her smile didn't even falter.
"You know," she said, handing him the opened bottle, "since this is your first aviation experience, I'll just comp it. Thank you for flying with us."
"I… Uh… Thank you," Draco said, glancing at Harry.
He scowled at the flight attendant's retreating back.
"What?" Harry said.
"Charity," Draco muttered, pouring his beer into the small plastic cup.
"She did something nice for you."
"I accepted charity. Do you know what the heads of the other great wizarding families would say if they saw me?" He took a sip and winced.
"What they would say if they saw you got a free beer?" Harry said.
"It's a pity beer. A pity beer from a muggle while taking public transportation in a cheap seat. If anyone saw, I'd be a laughingstock."
"No, you wouldn't," Harry said, "because you'd tell them you were going on a great adventure. You challenged yourself. Like camping or sailing around the world for a year. You decided to try traveling as a muggle. Flew in a plane. Drank from a plastic cup. Lived to tell the tale."
Draco smiled at the idea and looked around the plane with a renewed optimism.
"What are these square things?" he said, pointing at the screen in the seat in front of him.
"I think they're TVs. You turn them on and they show you things. It's like watching a play." Harry figured out the buttons and picked a random movie. A few moments more (and some help from the woman in the window seat) and they figured out how to use the headphones. Draco frowned at the show.
"Why does it flicker like that?" he said. "Every few seconds, it blinks and you're looking at someone else."
"Oh, yeah. They move the view around every now and then. I guess it's to help you focus on what's important in the scene."
"It makes my head hurt."
Harry's head snapped up at the sound of arguing coming from the front of the plane. Two women were standing, facing each other. One of them - a freckled, red-haired woman - was practically snarling. The other woman - blonde with protuberant, blue eyes - stared back with sad horror.
"I saw you!" she said. "I saw you two together. That was supposed to be me. It was supposed to be me!"
And the blonde woman burst into tears and ran. She ran up the aisle to where Harry sat. She stopped and looked down at him.
"I got her number," Draco said.
Harry's mind reeled. Draco was just sitting next to him, but the seat was empty. A blonde woman had run down the aisle crying. Now he was a blonde man. He glanced down the aisle to where the freckled, red-haired woman had become the flight attendant who'd given Draco his free beer.
Harry had lost time again.
"What?" Harry said, staring at him.
"She gave me her number!" Draco said, holding up a cocktail napkin.
Harry looked at the number. It was odd: it didn't have enough digits. Perhaps it was a foreign number.
Harry moved his legs aside so Draco could slide in. As he passed in front, warm droplets dripped on Harry's hand. He stared at them.
They were red. A thin trickle of blood was dribbling down Draco's face.
"Your nose is bleeding," Harry said.
"Ah!" Draco yelped.
He started to use the napkin to staunch the blood but stopped himself, not wanting to lose the number. He pinched his nose and leaned back, waiting for it to stop.
"You're too anxious," the woman at the window said, still slumped against the window. "You need to calm down for it to stop."
Harry helped Draco put the headphones back on and restarted the movie. It quieted him and gave Harry a moment to think.
He'd relived another memory. He thought he'd finished them all. At least, he thought he'd finished all the Luna memories. However, that was clearly Ginny yelling at Luna. There was something he didn't know.
Draco, still watching the movie while pinching his nose, became increasingly annoyed.
"Is he supposed to be a wizard?" he said, his voice a nasal squeak. "He's trying to do magic with a cane. How does that make any sense?"
Harry ignored him. He wrestled with the idea of going back to see Luna again. It hurt to think about. He'd disgusted her. It was the only explanation. She sent him that letter, that chilly brush-off just after he'd left.
"That's not what goblins look like!" Draco said.
How had he been so blind? He should have asked her what she wanted instead of trusting his instincts. He'd been with Ginny for so long, he didn't even think to check in with the woman he was making love to. Now he'd destroyed a relationship he thought was going to be beautiful and important.
"Since when do dwarves live in caves?" Draco said.
Harry sighed and kept his mind blank for the rest of the flight. Draco's nose kept bleeding the whole time, even until he and Harry got their wands back and apparated home.
