They travelled south by bus.
Prior to that, Draco had cast a glamour charm on his face, changing his hair and eye colour to brown and altering his features ever so slightly; glamour charms only went that far. Once it was done, Draco examined his reflection in the display window of a closed shop. Merlin, he looked hideous. So it only stood to reason his face was unrecognisable at first glance. The new clothes they'd bought were left behind at the hotel, leaving Draco no choice but to transfigure each of his garments. Now, he wore a dark green T-shirt with long sleeves, the odd muggle trousers Ruth had called jeans, and a pair of tastelessly "normal" shoes.
His black cloak had been transformed into a muggle backpack, into which they placed the money, the guns, the wands, and the two vials found in the pouches: some healing potion and a bit of Polyjuice. Draco didn't dare add his mother's bracelet to the pile. No matter how scorched and scratched it was, he wouldn't take it off.
Ruth, on the other hand, couldn't do much about her appearance, with the new clothes gone and Draco unable to perform any charms on her. Luckily, they managed to cross the city unseen, two shadows moving soundlessly from one dark corner to another.
They boarded the bus at daybreak and spent the next five hours surrounded by stinky riffraff and crammed into two tiny seats, the fabric of which was torn in many places. It was unbearably hot, and Draco could only curse under his breath at not being able to cast a cooling charm on himself. He felt unwell, and each time the bus jolted over a bumpy road, his nausea grew stronger. Ruth was sleeping beside him, unbothered by the smell of sweat, the uncomfortable seats, and, least of all, her companion's foul tongue.
London was the final destination, but they had agreed to get off at Colchester, which was still quite far away. Even so, suffocating, sweating, and feeling increasingly nauseous, Draco couldn't wait any longer. He called Ruth's name, and when she didn't wake up, he shook her, perhaps with more force than necessary.
"We're getting off here. Tell him to stop," Draco said, glaring.
Ruth, still sleepy, called out to the bus driver and asked him to stop. The man in his sixties, bearing a striking resemblance to Filch, grumbled but still pulled over and let them out onto a deserted roadside.
Once the bus had left, Ruth asked, suppressing a yawn, "What's wrong? It's not Colchester yet."
"If I spent one more minute on that awful bus, I'd retch all over you."
"Well, you could have—"
Whatever helpful suggestion she was about to make, Draco's murderous stare convinced her to keep it to herself.
They walked down the road in silence, and it wasn't long before they spotted a white board that said, "Welcome to Norwich, a fine city".
Ruth stopped, looking thoughtful. Then she said, "We should avoid big cities—or any cities, for that matter. I believe there should be farms east of here. Let's head in that direction."
"What do you think could possibly compel me to live on a farm among filthy pigs and equally filthy muggles?" Draco's voice was laced with poison.
Ruth's sleepiness vanished in the blink of an eye. "Oh, I forgot," she said, her voice as venomous as his, "your idea of going into hiding is lounging in expensive hotels, smiling at every camera, and introducing yourself to everyone."
"It's not my fault we were attacked!" snapped Draco. "Those deranged assassins were after you, not me! The people I'm hiding from would never have thought of, nor would they lower themselves to checking some muggle camera in some muggle hotel."
"You keep saying that word as if it's some kind of insult."
"Well, it's certainly not a compliment."
Both of them were positively fuming. Draco's heart pounded in his chest, resounding in his ears. He felt a reckless impulse to turn around and continue his journey on his own. Judging by the expression on Ruth's face, she was thinking exactly the same thing. However, the rational part of Draco insisted that such an action would be foolish. He still hadn't obtained all the information necessary for surviving in the muggle world, which turned out to be full of its own perils.
Though, on second thought, that same part of him whispered, it didn't have to be her. Information could be extracted from any unsuspecting muggle. Legilimens, Obliviate, and it would be done. But that line of thinking suddenly felt... wrong. Wrong? No. No. No. Just because Draco no longer wanted to serve the Dark Lord didn't mean he was turning into a bloody Weasley. No, the reason he wasn't walking away was purely pragmatic. He could spend hours reading someone's mind, but without knowing what to look for, he might easily overlook something crucial. And how could he be sure that the stranger he chose wouldn't turn out to be a muggle version of Loony Lovegood? Ruth was probably the best source of information he could find: not only did she know everything about the muggle world, but she had also spent years in hiding. That experience was invaluable, and it wasn't like he could use Legilimency on her, not until she came of age, which, if Draco remembered correctly, would be soon, at the beginning of August. Then he could do it. Unless he decided that her advice, given in good faith, would prove more useful.
So he took a deep breath—or rather, five deep breaths—and spoke again, this time in a calmer voice, "Why are those people after you anyway? What did you do?"
It wasn't exactly an olive branch, but then he was never good at that sort of thing.
"None of your business," Ruth bit out.
Draco clenched his teeth but chose to stick to his reserve. "Well, at least tell me who the hell they are. You owe me that much after last night."
The look on Ruth's face indicated she didn't think she owed him anything.
"That could take a while." Her tone was still sharp, but at least the open hostilities had ceased. After a pause, Ruth straightened and added, "It would be more efficient if I explained it all while we walk towards the farms."
The mudblood's bullheadedness astonished him. The nerve! Who did she think she was? Draco was about to ask her that when the voice of reason reminded him that it was her world and she had plenty of relevant experience, so there must have been a grain of logic to her plan. It wasn't easy to choose rationality over his ego—his poor ego, battered and bleeding—but just this one time, Draco allowed himself to budge.
"Fine," he gritted out. "Do make sure to cover every detail."
Ruth led the way.
As Draco listened to her story, his irritation slowly gave way to morbid curiosity, then concern, then outright horror.
Last night's attackers were part of a private organisation called the Centre for Anomalous Research and Control (CARC). Ruth had spent half her life running from these people—they'd been hunting her ever since they'd witnessed one of her accidental magical incidents—so naturally, she and her brother had gathered quite a lot of information about them.
To the outside world, CARC appeared as a shady institution with vague, unclear objectives. While it wasn't a secret organisation, not many people knew about it, and those who did glean a few details often dismissed its activities—dealing with rare and unusual phenomena—as "utter rubbish". Their reputation served as a great cover. The organisation's true activities were kept meticulously hidden from public knowledge.
CARC's actual purpose was "the study and containment of anomalous phenomena, supernatural occurrences, and unexplained events". This basically meant hunting down individuals like Ruth—whom they called "mutants"—and conducting experiments using their captives as lab rats.
The CARC facility was an isolated and heavily guarded complex. It included laboratories, archives, and containment cells, which were disguised as a psychiatric ward. From the rumours Ruth had heard, these cells contained the strangest of beings—people like her, people who could turn into wolves, vampires, and many other creatures. Ruth said she wasn't sure how much she believed these rumours, and her eyes turned to Draco in a silent question. He made no comment. His throat went dry, and his face was growing paler and paler. Ruth understood she wouldn't be getting an answer and continued her explanation.
CARC's team was made up of several key groups. The most important members of the organisation—the ones who had founded it back in 1977—were those few muggle researchers who had stumbled upon magic (and actually believed it was magic). Another crucial part of the team was the Containment Unit; they liked to call themselves the Wardens. These operatives were responsible for capturing and bringing in new mutants. It was the Wardens who had attacked them the previous night.
On the surface, CARC appeared to be operating independently from government oversight. However, it certainly had some connection to law enforcement, though Ruth wasn't sure of the specifics. What she did know was that anyone flagged by CARC found themselves listed as wanted criminals. This forced Ruth to stay on the run and avoid police officers at all costs. This was why she couldn't leave the country. If a mutant was spotted and reported, it would be the Wardens who would come for them, not regular police. It was clear that CARC had some sort of deal with the police, but Ruth doubted the officers were privy to CARC's real objectives.
Draco found it frightening how much sense it made. CARC was founded in 1977, during the First Wizarding War, a time when the Dark Lord was at the height of his power and Death Eaters were killing muggles for sport. The Ministry couldn't possibly have cleaned up all the attacks and modified all the memories.
Draco's father always said that muggles were so stupid they wouldn't believe in magic even if you levitated half of London. How could Draco believe that so absolutely? Of course, some muggles knew the truth, and of course the most sensible thing for them to do would be not to let wizards find out.
Draco had always thought of the muggle deaths that occurred during the Wizarding Wars as collateral damage, nothing more, like furniture smashed in a couple's fight, like animals caught in a crossfire. But he should have known better. He should have known that they would notice and fight back. Or was it only self-defence in their eyes?
The wizarding world was hidden well. No wizard or witch who lived there would ever get caught by the Wardens, and those who ventured into Muggle Britain almost always adhered to the rules imposed by the Secrecy Statute. Besides, Draco had never heard of wizards disappearing in the muggle world. No, it wasn't those people getting captured. It had to be people like Ruth—people who didn't know about magic, outliers who got stranded among muggles.
Draco was willing to bet that CARC didn't know anything substantial about Wizarding Britain, otherwise they would have tried to infiltrate it by now. That calmed him down. Why he got so worried, he didn't know. They were only muggles, after all.
"Sweet Merlin, those people are weird," Draco said when Ruth had finished talking. "Do they always carry a blasted whip with them?"
"I don't think so. I've never seen any of them use one before. That was quite creative of him," Ruth replied darkly. "Usually, they just use guns and tasers."
So, that's what the black torture stick was—a taser.
Luck was finally on their side. After hours and hours of trudging along the dusty road, they spotted a piece of paper pinned to a wooden pole. It was an advertisement for a small farmhouse available for rent. The paper included directions to the house and a number: five digits followed by another six. Draco asked Ruth what it meant, but she said not to bother, since they didn't have something called a "cell phone," and she didn't know where to find a "phone box". Sometimes it felt like she was speaking a foreign language.
Half an hour later, they stood at the weathered, waist-high wooden gates of the farmhouse. Ivy crept up its stone walls, and the roof, made of uneven, moss-covered tiles, looked as though it could collapse at any moment. In the distance, a dilapidated barn added to the dreary scene.
Just as Draco and Ruth were about to push open the gate, the front door of the house swung open to reveal a sturdy-looking man, wearing a flannel shirt with rolled-up sleeves that exposed his strong, sun-browned forearms.
He was followed by a family of four. The petite mother smiled at him, while her tall husband carried a young boy on his back. A teenage girl trailed behind them with a look of boredom on her face. The man escorted them to the gate, still smiling and chatting warmly. He promised the family he would be in touch soon, and they departed.
Only then did the man turn his attention to Draco and Ruth who'd been awkwardly standing there the whole time. His smile faded slightly as he took them in.
"The farm viewing is still ongoing," the muggle told them. "But the choice has probably already been made. You shouldn't waste your time."
He made a move to close the gate, but Ruth quickly placed a hand on it, preventing it from shutting.
"We'd like to see it anyway," she insisted. "We'll offer you more money than that family did."
The man's eyes narrowed, and his lips pressed into a thin line. "It's not only about money," he replied, scowling. "I'd prefer to rent my late father's farmhouse to a family, you see."
"Could we at least take a look?" Ruth pressed on.
After a moment, the man relented with an exasperated sigh, pushing the gate open wider to let them in. As Draco and Ruth followed him to the house, she whispered, "We need this house."
Draco, still puzzled by its appeal, whispered back, "I can make him rent it to us. I know a magic trick or two."
She stared at him, wide-eyed.
"Nothing violent," he added indignantly.
Ruth gave him a hard look, then swallowed and nodded. She cleared her throat and addressed the man, who was already opening the farmhouse door. "I'm sorry, I need to make a phone call. I'll join you in a minute. Could you speak with my cousin instead?"
Draco nearly choked. Cousin?
With a suspicious glance, the muggle agreed and let Draco in. They entered a small kitchen, and the man looked out the window at Ruth's slender figure retreating toward the barn.
"You're just wasting your time," he said without turning to Draco. "I've already made up my mind."
Without hesitation, Draco raised his wand and cast a memory-altering charm on the man. He erased all traces of suspicion, implanting false memories of renting the house to a muggle family of three until December—a good, trustworthy family. Finally, he instilled an urgent need to return home. As the man remained in a trance, Draco took all the money from one of the stolen muggle wallets and thrust it into the man's hands. He then lifted the spell and stepped back into the dark corner.
"Oh dear," the man murmured, still dazed and not looking at Draco. "I have to go home. How did it slip my mind?"
And out he went.
The first thing Draco needed to do was place protective enchantments around the grounds. He told Ruth to go for a walk so he could work without triggering the Trace. Once she had taken some money and left to buy groceries in a nearby town, he realized it wouldn't be as easy as he'd thought.
Draco's mother had taught him several protective enchantments, and he remembered a few that could be used to secure a specific area. However, the first spell that came to mind, Protego Totalum, was meant to stop any intruders from entering the grounds. For the spell to be effective, Ruth had to be inside the protected area at the time of casting, but that would still count as performing magic near her, even if they stood at opposite ends of the farmyard. The second spell he remembered, the Fidelius Charm, was notoriously difficult to cast. Although he recalled the incantation, he couldn't remember the precise hand movements or any other instructions, for that matter. That left only one spell he could safely cast without barring Ruth's entry or triggering the Trace: a simple Muggle-Repelling Charm. It was starting to really get on his nerves how Ruth's presence restricted his magic.
An hour later, she returned with groceries. To Draco's utter bewilderment, the food was packed in a plastic bag. Plastic!
They went into the kitchen. Ruth offered to make some eggs and suggested he tell her more about the wizarding world in the meantime: it was his turn to share information. Draco looked at the muggle kitchenware and resigned himself to the fact that revulsion would now be his daily companion, while sumptuous meals and comfort would not. Sinking into a creaky wooden chair, he accepted Ruth's offer.
She moved to the door and pressed a small button on the wall near it. When nothing happened, her gaze went up to the ceiling.
"Seriously?" Ruth sighed in disappointment.
She exited the kitchen and came back a minute later, looking annoyed.
"What's wrong?" Draco asked her.
"There are no light bulbs in this house. I reckon the man would have warned us about that if he'd had the chance. I'll need to go buy some tomorrow."
"What's a light bulb?"
Ruth raised her eyebrows, looking more tired than surprised, and didn't answer, leaving the room once more. She returned with three candles and lit them all with a box of tiny wooden sticks. Draco guessed that these "light bulbs" were muggle sources of light, which, by the looks of it, were usually somehow connected to the cords hanging from the ceiling.
As the sun was setting behind the window, Draco began talking. Structuring his thoughts was difficult, as the wizarding world was something he had always known. He tried his best to make his explanation coherent and avoid jumping from one topic to another. So, he told her about the International Confederation of Wizards, the British Ministry, Merlin and Morgana, the Founders, and then Hogwarts itself.
"I still don't understand why you never got your letter," Draco said, interrupting himself. The sun had already set, and they sat by candlelight, slowly eating their fried eggs. "When was your first magical incident? Was it, by any chance, after you turned eleven?"
"No, it was much sooner," Ruth replied. Her eyes grew distant. "I was a very angry kid. Always threw tantrums. My father was such a saint—never got tired of replacing all the exploded light bulbs, glasses, windows."
Then why didn't she receive her Hogwarts letter? Did it get lost? The mystery remained unsolved, and Draco was about to move on to magical creatures—he had meant to tell her that, yes, vampires and werewolves were real, of course they were—when Ruth asked him to talk about the war.
Draco had hoped she'd abandon her suicidal quest, but alas, it was not meant to be. He began his tale by telling her about the Sacred Twenty-Eight, the most powerful and ancient families who'd built Wizarding Britain. Then his voice turned sour, as he spoke about uneducated and uncultured muggleborns who had invaded their world like a plague, stolen their jobs and begun changing wizarding customs without any regard for tradition.
"Many disapproved of it, but only two people in the history of the entire wizarding community dared to rally against the invasion," he said. "The days of Gellert Grindelwald have long passed, so, for the sake of saving time, I will only speak about the Dark Lord."
Draco paused, deliberating on how best to broach the subject of the Death Eaters with someone of her blood status. Finally, he decided to simply tell her the truth—both about the Dark Lord and his own stance. Even so, the next words that came out of his mouth didn't sound nearly as confident as they had before.
"The Dark Lord had... ideas—ideas which initially appealed to my family's values. However, as time went on, it began to seem as if he was taking things too far." His Dark Mark itched as if it could sense the treachery. "You see, the Dark Lord's goal is a world free of muggleborns. A world where wizards don't hide from muggles but rule over them instead."
Ruth's frown got deeper, but she said nothing.
"The Dark Lord first came to power in 1970 and reigned until he was defeated in 1981, which was more of an accident than an actual defeat. The Order was losing that war and was only saved by luck and chance. Anyway, that period marked the First Wizarding War. For some time after that, there was peace. But several years ago, the Dark Lord came back. He was and is supported by many purebloods and halfbloods. Not all of them fight for him. Those who do, however, are called the Death Eaters."
Draco swallowed a lump in his throat and rolled up the sleeve of his T-shirt, revealing the ugly shape of the Dark Mark. "This is the mark of the Dark Lord's servants."
Ruth stared at it for a long moment. Her face revealed no hint of emotion. Then she looked into his eyes and simply asked, "Why did you join them?"
He sneered. "I'm afraid the Dark Lord doesn't take 'no' for an answer. He takes what he wants. He wanted me as punishment for my father's failures."
Draco didn't get any sympathy from Ruth, not that he expected it or even wanted it. Having lost interest in his Dark Mark, she leaned back in her chair. A crease between her eyebrows smoothed out. She asked another question, "And what does this, uh, Order fight for?"
"The Order of the Phoenix is just a bunch of mudbloods and blood traitors. They'd have us all breed with muggles."
"Breed? What are you, dogs?"
"I don't expect the likes of you to understand," Draco spat.
"Try me."
Her calm demeanour was driving him mad; he had expected her to sputter in rage and hurl insults, not sit there, looking down on him despite her unimpressive height, with an expression of inexplicable amusement. What was so funny? As a Slytherin, Draco believed it would be a disgrace to his house if he were the first to lose his temper. His voice turned cooler and his tone—superior and academic. "It is important to preserve magical blood, to keep it pure, not contaminate it with muggle filth. These blood traitors don't care about ancestry or legacy, but they should. In the ancient noble houses, there is honour. There's dignity."
"Was it honourable of that Death Eater to want to force himself on me? Was it dignified of that woman to torture me?"
"Their actions are... regrettable," Draco conceded. "But you shouldn't judge all noble houses by the actions of a few misguided scions."
"Why shouldn't I? You judged all muggles without ever meeting one."
Draco wanted to tell her that he'd met dozens of muggles over the past few days, and they had all proven his point, but that wasn't a strong argument. He had judged them long before getting stranded in the muggle land.
"Your biases concerning non-magical people stem from ignorance," Ruth said. "At least make an attempt at actually learning something about them, unless you enjoy making a fool of yourself every time you open your mouth."
"You have no right to talk to me like that!" Draco jumped to his feet.
She didn't even flinch. "Unpleasant, isn't it? Yet I'm only mirroring your attitude. If you want to be treated with respect, you need to extend the same courtesy to others."
Draco stood with his fists clenched and glared at her. His blood boiled. If he'd known she was this insufferable, he might have succeeded in casting the Killing Curse.
"You know what these Dark Lords and Death Eaters remind me of? The Nazis." Ruth tilted her head to the side, studying his face. "You've never heard of them, have you? The Nazis were a group of non-magical people—mostly Germans—who, much like this Lord and his followers, believed in the superiority of their own kind and the inferiority of another—Jews. They waged a world war that resulted in the deaths of over seventy million people."
Even through his rage, the number struck him. Seventy million? That couldn't be right.
"The similarities," Ruth continued her monologue, "between their leader, Adolf Hitler, and your Lord are truly remarkable. I'm not just talking about the desire to rule the world and the obsession with race. I'm talking about the means through which they sought to achieve their goals. For example... I've noticed you refer to non-magical people as filthy. It's interesting."
Draco blinked. She didn't wait for his answer.
"Emotions are such powerful tools, disgust especially. All throughout history, people depicted their opposition using such words as slimy, stinky, rotting, sticky... They inspired others to follow them by appealing to disgust. The Nazis, in particular, described Jews as foul, dirty vermin."
Ruth met Draco's hateful gaze with a cold smile and rose to her feet.
"It's funny," she said. "They were misguided on so many levels. The philosophy that they believed backed their ideology came from a philosopher who despised antisemitism, nationalism, and Germans themselves. Nietzsche would have loathed the Nazis had he lived to see their era, yet they used his book as their Bible!" Ruth let out a dry scoff. "I'm curious if you'd find his philosophy supporting or undermining your views."
With that, she walked away, taking one of the candles with her and leaving Draco standing motionless in the centre of the room. His head was a boiling pot of rage, confusion, and deep unease. Trying to shake off the feeling, he grabbed a candle and walked to the second bedroom, banging the door shut behind him.
He'd been humiliated. Lectured and scolded like a child. Rendered speechless and gawking. By a mudblood, of all people! The girl was forgetting herself, forgetting her place. He was a Malfoy, and this name still meant something, damn it.
Kicking a chair out of the way, Draco caught a glimpse of his reflection in the wardrobe mirror. The sight stopped him dead in his tracks. His face was twisted into an ugly, feral grimace, and veins were bulging on his forehead. He looked away and took several calming breaths.
Draco had meant to keep his composure, but that cursed girl made it impossible.
He didn't want to admit it, even to himself, but her impassive lecture about muggle war criminals had rattled him far more deeply than her earlier mockery, and he didn't know why.
It wasn't an outright insult, though he supposed it could be considered a slight—her implication that he was so naive as to be easily manipulated, much like the ignorant muggles from her history books.
Manipulated? Him?
Draco had always regarded muggles as filthy. It had never, ever occurred to him that this might not be a proven fact, but a mere manipulation tactic employed by the Dark Lord to gain supporters. Of course it hadn't. The theory was absurd!
Absurd, but not inconceivable, his inner voice chimed in.
Draco tried to brush the thought off, but it was already pulling him down a rabbit hole of doubt. Where had this belief come from? Had his father told him? If so, why had Draco accepted it so readily when he had never encountered a single muggle?
Were muggles really dirty? What was the evidence? He thought of the roadside inn and the bus. Those drunken, dirty, smelly people. The vomit. The obscene language scrawled on the walls.
Yet another image also came to mind: the hotel, the pristine room, the tray of delicious food with perfectly arranged silverware, and the muggle couples peacefully watching the sunset.
There were disgusting places and people in the wizarding world too, especially where poverty and crime prevailed. Take Knockturn Alley, for example. Dreadful place.
Perhaps—and it was a big leap of faith—not all muggles were filthy and repulsive. His tired, sleep-deprived mind tried to disprove this but came up empty.
Perhaps.
However, that didn't mean everything he'd heard about muggles was false. They were still stupid and ignorant, weak and talentless, pathetic and useless. It was beyond him how anyone could marry such a creature and then claim that a child born of that union was no lesser than one born of two pureblood wizards. Muggle-lovers were full of delusions.
But the Death Eaters' views no longer resonated with him either.
No matter how lowly and primitive, muggles didn't deserve to die. This, he knew.
That night, as Draco lay in his squeaking, musty bed, he thought about the two men he'd killed. Dumbledore had said Draco wasn't a killer. Well, Dumbledore was wrong. He was wrong about many things. Snape's allegiance, for instance.
Draco had killed, self-defence or not. Did that mean he might have an easier time casting the Killing Curse in the future? Draco didn't think so. The curse still demanded feelings of deep hatred. Muggle weapons didn't. That was what made them so terrifying, but also so appealing.
As Draco fell asleep, the empty eyes of the dead haunted him. Green eyes. Brown eyes. He gazed right into them, into the abyss. The darkness seemed to draw him in. He scrambled backwards and took in the whole face—brown eyes, brown hair, a gaping hole in the forehead. The edges began to smudge and warble. Draco stared long enough to see past the faltering glamour charm. Long enough to recognise his own features, hidden underneath.