Chapter One
It was a hot, steamy night, and the air smelled like coffee, jasmine and food from the restaurants down the street. Jazz floated out of the bars. Masses of people swirled around and into the open-aired café, talking and laughing.
I sighed and wiped the sweat off my face. I’d had a long night at the Café Du Monde, carrying trays of coffee and the little French doughnuts called beignets. The work was fast paced and the customers would not stop pouring in. My back and leg muscles ached to the point of cramping, and all I wanted to do was go back to my little apartment and blast the air conditioner. It was toward the end of my shift, about 1:00 in the morning, when my manager, Dan, caught my attention.
“Hey, Miriel, see that kid on the bench? I think he stole the tips off one of your tables.”
“Great. That’s just what I need.” Honestly, customers weren’t supposed to leave the tips on the tables. I really didn’t want to deal with it, but the look on Dan’s face told me that he expected me to. Probably so he wouldn’t have to confront anyone himself. Coward.
I walked over to the figure seated on the bench. The bench was bolted onto the sidewalk, facing the street. The lamplights poured down golden light. It first struck me that the teenager was so pale, that he seemed to gather the light to himself, and it glowed on his pale, silvery hair and pointed face. He was hunched over, watching the people go by.
“Do you have a problem?” I asked. “You haven’t been stealing tips off the tables, have you?”
“I have no idea what you mean.” His accent was British and cultured.
“Are you okay?” I touched his shoulder, but he flinched and jerked away. He turned his face up to me. His cheekbone was bruised, and his lip was split.
“You look awful,” I finally said. I sat carefully on the edge of the bench with a sigh, glad for an excuse to sit down for a moment. The poor guy’s face was expressionless, but his eyes managed to look exhausted, angry, afraid and miserable all at the same time.
I’d seen that look many times before. “What happened to you? Did you get mugged or something?” I was used to seeing homeless kids and runaways at the Covenant House, a homeless shelter in New Orleans run by nuns. Sometimes I had gone there to get boxes of food when I ran short of money. I glanced over his clothes. They were expensive, black slacks and a gray, silken shirt. He didn’t exactly look like a runaway, but still, you never know.
“My father is here looking for someone,” he told me. “I got separated from him in the crowds. I was distracted looking in a shop for a moment, and when I looked up he was gone. Then these drunken idiots pushed me down and punched me. I broke my...” Between his fingers he held what looked like a broken stick with pieces of thread poking out the end of it. I could actually feel the anger rolling off of him like a wave of heat.
“Mardi Gras was only a couple of weeks ago,” I said. “People are still all worked up over it. The French Quarter can be kind of dangerous at night. Do you want me to call the police? They could help you.”
He hesitated for a moment, as if he wasn’t quite sure exactly what I meant. Finally, he shook his head. “No. That would just make him angrier. We were in this area yesterday when I lost him. I should run into him sooner or later.”
“Why would your dad get angry because you called the police? He’s probably worried sick about you.” When he didn’t answer, I tried another question. “What’s your name?”
“Malfoy. Draco Malfoy.”
“Really? That’s your real name?”
His mouth tightened in annoyance, but he didn’t say anything. His stomach rumbled.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
He suddenly seemed to see me for the first time. After hesitating a moment, he nodded.
“Wait until my shift is over. I’m almost done. I’ll get you something.”
I put away my work apron and debated with myself what to do. He must have been a couple of years younger than me. Even though he looked like he might be at least a foot taller than me, his build was quite slender. He didn’t look dangerous.
The air seemed to tingle along my skin, like static electricity rubbing up against my arms and at the back of my neck. I had a curious feeling come over me as I stood there watching the boy on the bench. It wasn’t a feeling of familiarity or of deja vu; rather, it was an elusive feeling of connection. I felt compelled to know him. I sensed that he would somehow become important to me. The sensation was intense for a moment, and then it faded.
“Well, Draco,” I told him, “I usually don’t invite strange guys to my place, but I have something to eat at my apartment. It’s not too far from here.”
He slid off the bench and began to follow me down the street.
My car hadn’t been running for quite a while. It was absolutely impossible to drive around the narrow streets of the French Quarter this time of year without getting killed, anyway.
“Why do you care so much?” Draco asked. His voice was sullen and laced with suspicion.
I shrugged. “I know what it’s like to be hungry.”
“I’m not poor,” he bit out. “My father is quite wealthy.”
“Why did you have to steal my tips then?”
“I have a little money, but it’s foreign. The banks here can’t exchange it.”
“What does your dad do?”
“He works as a consultant for um... the government. He’s on all sorts of committees, and he serves on Gringott’s bank board of governors. He gives a lot of money to charities. He owns a lot of businesses, including a publishing house. He’s written some books, as well, about the history of different families in the United Kingdom, and the Dark Arts-” He stopped suddenly as if catching himself.
“Dark Arts? What the heck is that?” For some reason all I could picture was a darkened art gallery.
“Forget it,” he snapped. “Just get me out of this bloody heat. It’s disgusting. It’s like walking in a bloody jungle.”
I was impressed. I might have suspected him of lying about his father, if it hadn’t been for that great accent and those expensive clothes. He even walked and moved with the smooth confidence of the rich. I’d seen that kind of confidence in the wealthy families of New Orleans, the ones who shopped in the expensive art galleries and antique shops. They always had that air about them, like they already owned everything.
My apartment was over my mother’s old shop. The shop was closed and the windows were dark. It still made my breath catch sometimes to see it like this. It had been a beautiful place when my mother had owned it; full of antique glassware and mysterious mirrors. But now it was just a tourist shop, full of t-shirts, Mardi Gras beads, shot glasses, and other tacky stuff. Usually, there was no way I could ever have afforded an apartment here, but the man who took over the shop let me stay in the rooms upstairs. He didn’t need them, and I think he felt sorry for me.
It wasn’t much, but at least it felt familiar. There wasn’t much furniture, but it was clean. Mostly there were just piles of books everywhere, overflowing out of bookcases and stacked on the coffee table.
“You live here?” There was a disgusted sneer on Draco’s face. He walked into the room, as if afraid of touching anything.
“If it’s not good enough for you, you can go back to sitting on the bench.” Spoiled brat, I thought. I tried not to think about what my apartment must look like to someone who probably lived in a mansion. I slammed the door closed and clicked on the small air conditioner in the corner.
“Where are your parents?” His pale face was flushed from the heat, and he wiped the sweat off his face with his sleeve.
I didn’t want to tell him that my mother had died, and that I never even knew who my father was. I just said, “I’m older than I look. I live on my own.”
“You look like a kid,” he said, collapsing on the sofa across from the cool breeze of the air conditioner.
“I’m almost nineteen.” I went to the counter of my little kitchen area and began fixing sandwiches. I gave him a glass of coke with ice, and he sipped it tentatively.
“It’s fizzy,” he announced, “and brown.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t have Coke in Britain.”
“My father doesn’t usually allow me to visit Muggle cities.” A defensive tone crept into his voice.
“Muggle?” Was that some kind of British slang? “You mean American?”
He didn’t reply. Instead, he leaned over onto the sofa cushion and closed his eyes.
“I have a lot of pizza in the fridge, if you want some of that as well,” I said. “I’m kind of a pizza addict. Sometimes I think that’s all I live on.”
He still didn’t answer me. By the time I finished the sandwiches, he was asleep.
“Hey, Draco.” I shook his shoulder. “Don’t you want to eat something?”
He mumbled something, but wouldn’t move.
I lifted his legs onto the sofa and left him there. I studied him as I devoured my sandwich. In better light I could see that under the bruises he was kind of cute in an elegant way. Full lips softened the sharp angles of his face. He didn’t have that awkward look that teenage boys usually have, when their hands are a little bit too large or their noses are too big for their faces. He slept quietly, cheek pale against the cushion, and he didn’t look innocent. He looked faintly troubled, as if sleep was something he had to concentrate on and get right. He looked... unprotected.