Doth walk in fear and dread
And having once turned round walks on
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread."
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ~ S. T. Coleridge
Draco slammed the door to the flat behind him and pelted down the dingy dirty corridor to the grass outside. He dare not stop, dare not look round; his breath came in quick, hoarse gasps and his legs ached - he had not so much as walked swiftly since living in that house, and now his body seemed to be screaming in protest. He reached the street where the taxi had delivered him from the hospital barely a week ago, and dodged round the nearest corner. There was a main road leading straight in front of him, and another leading to his left. A short, dark alleyway cut a square in the wall to his right.
By the time they figure it out… I'll be long gone.
He felt safe in the knowledge that they wouldn't Apparate after him, that at least would give him a head-start. The alleyway beckoned to him and he swerved right, dissolving into the darkness.
He carried on running for what felt like half an hour, dodging and twisting through narrow, rain-washed streets, trying to make his route as varied as possible. Once or twice he had to pause for breath, a sharp pang in his side, but the threat of being caught was constant in his mind, and he never stopped for more than a few moments before running again.
The fact that his face had been plastered across every newspaper in London was still fresh in his mind, and that kept him out of shops and away from busy roads, preferring to skulk down alleys and through deserted backstreets. Hermione's wand had been shoved in his trouser pocket, but he knew that the only way they could find him was if he used magic, so he daren't lay a finger on it until he was back in magical territory.
"I need a disguise," he muttered to himself, as he slumped behind an ugly granite plant pot in a paved courtyard. "A proper one."
Footsteps on the cement behind him. He didn't even bother to look, just got up and ran.
He ducked under the low branches of a tree in the next courtyard, and ran through an open door to his left. He was amongst a collection of tower-blocks, each crammed with run-down flats and shabby hallways. The corridor stank of rotting garbage, and there were some suspiciously dark stains splashed over the granite floor. Draco tried to stop himself from sneering, and dashed up the gimcrack stairs.
If I just wait here… They won't find me. They won't think to look.
He sat, crouched in a dark, malodorous corner for over three hours.
His head nestling in his hands, he peered down the staircase, scarcely blinking, expecting any minute to see Potter, Weasley… or Hermione come running towards him. Only Hermione wouldn't, would she? She wasn't well enough. But she had been well enough to wander into the kitchen and make herself a drink, something that should surely have been the job of those looking after her. She had been well enough to remember to take her wand to the kitchen, but then too distracted to take it away with her. Too distracted to realise that leaving a fugitive, who desperately wanted to run away, alone in a room with a wand and an easy escape route was practically showing him a way out.
Another hour passed. Twilight was beginning to descend over the grimy council estate, shadowing the flats with murky purple light, sending sheets of rain down with it.
His stomach rumbled. He had not been lying when he had announced he was hungry, and the feeling had only intensified since leaving the house. He had no idea where he was, no idea how far away Diagon Alley would be from there. He stood up, and moved quietly down the stairs, his ears pricked, constantly listening. He reached the open door to the courtyard and peered outside.
Someone with long, dark hair was standing directly opposite him, feet slightly apart on the paved slabs, blood-shot eyes lined with dark make-up. He suddenly realised why the buildings had felt so familiar.
He stared at her. "Alice?"
She was shaking her head, now advancing towards him. "Drake? If that is even your name…" her voice sounded cracked and there was a slight hint of annoyance in her tone. "What are you doing here?" she asked. "Where have you been? Who were those people in the hospital - they knocked me out, Drake! The police came and they'd gone and no-one believed me! They thought I'd been trying to cause trouble!"
A strange and unfamiliar feeling was welling inside Draco's stomach, and he suddenly recognised it as guilt. "Alice…" he didn't quite know what to say. She was very close to him now, and he could see the deep circles round her eyes. Her hair was as matted and messy as ever, and her clothes smelt strongly of alcohol. For a second he felt totally repelled by her, but there was something in her honesty that made him feel more sympathy towards this battered street urchin, than he had ever felt towards Potter and his high-and-mighty friends.
"I'm - I'm -" he fought to get the words out. "I'm… sorry. Those people, they were looking for me. They'd have found me quicker, as well, if you hadn't helped me."
"Yeah, well… you can keep your gratitude." Her words were damning but her tone was not. She wasn't looking at him, but staring at the floor instead. "I tried to hide you, and they found you. That's it. They took me into custody - called me some fancy name about helping you commit a crime. Only let me go 'cause some big beefy guy came in and told them to. I've no idea who he was." She paused, then looked into his face. "What did you do?"
He took a deep breath, then heard footsteps behind him on the stairs. Panic flooded into his voice; "Not here," he said.
"What the Hell are we going to do?!" Harry cried "He's gone again! We finally catch him and we can't keep him here for more than five days! You know what's going to happen now, don't you? They'll get him, and then we're in trouble…"
"They might just kill him," Ron said quietly. "That'd solve our problems."
Harry shook his head, "No, they're not that stupid. There's a reason they didn't kill him when they went to the hospital; Voldemort knows about his astral projection, that's why he wants him. Or He just wants to punish him Himself. Either way… he knows things about us now, he could tell Voldemort anything."
"I'm sorry," Hermione wailed. "Harry - I really am -"
"Hermione, I'm not blaming you," he replied, but there was every trace of blame in his voice. "It's just - the only thing keeping him from running again was his wand, and that's what he got from you -"
"If you think" Hermione began, tears in her eyes, "that I don't regret that, Harry -!" She broke off, sobbing into her hands.
Ron moved over to the couch where she was sitting and put an arm round her. "Come on, mate, let's just think about what to do now." Ron face displayed a defeated expression which suggested that he'd had enough of his friend's temper for one day.
"I - I don't know," Harry said, turning away from the other two and beginning to pace round the room. "We can't go after him, he'll be too far away now. Besides, London's huge - he could have jumped on the tube and gone anywhere."
He continued to mutter to himself as he moved ceaselessly backwards and forwards across the carpet. Hermione was now leaning on Ron's shoulder, her tears leaking onto his t-shirt. She sniffed loudly, and reached into her pocket for a tissue.
Ron was frowning. "Hermione…" he began slowly. "Didn't you say you thought there was a Muggle girl helping him?"
The girl gulped. "Um… yes, yes I think so."
"Then…" Ron continued, and this time Harry turned back to listen to him. "Perhaps we could find out who she is, maybe he's gone back to her." Harry moved towards him, his eyes narrowed slightly. "I mean, he can't have been in the hospital the whole time, he was somewhere else first, so maybe he was with her, and that's where he's gone now."
"But how do we find her?" Harry asked, with a mildly impatient tone.
"Try the hospital," Hermione snivelled. "She probably came to visit him, they'd know who she was."
"Right," Harry nodded. "Hermione you stay here. Ron, try and get a message to the Order, maybe they've got another way of tracking him." He moved towards the door. "I'm going to the hospital."
Draco pulled the hood of his jacket lower over his eyes. He could now see nothing but the tabletop, white with flecks of grey, and the cheap, red seat he was perched on. His head was bent over the table, directly across from Alice who was speaking to the plump, bleach-blonde waitress holding a notepad.
"And some chips…" she was saying, hiding her nervousness (if she was experiencing any) excellently. "Do you do Coke?" he heard her enquire, and kept his head down. Just tell her to go away, Alice…
The woman nodded and scribbled something on her paper, then glanced at the hooded young man with his head bent so far forward it was virtually lying on the table. She gave the unpleasant girl with the matted hair a wan smile, before walking back towards the creaking door to the kitchen. "Young people," she muttered.
"Why'd you keep her here for so long?" Draco hissed. "She could've seen who I was."
"Shut up," Alice said.
"Don't tell me to shut up!" Draco snapped, still talking slightly under his breath. "It's bad enough me being out in the open -"
"I told you," Alice explained shortly. "I can't take you back to the flat, Frank and Craig know who you are now, between them they managed to read that article and figure it out. I've got to keep my distance from 'em now, an' all, because they think I had something to do with it."
"You did," the boy muttered.
"Yeah, but they didn't have to know!" she retorted. "Wanted me to find you, get money off you - or for you - or something…" she trailed off, and rubbed a bruise just above her right eye.
Once again, Draco felt a pang in the pit of his stomach. This girl had nothing, not even proper clothes to wear, but for some reason she was helping him when she could quite easily exchange him for a lump sum which would solve all her problems. Her stared down at the graffiti scarring the table, and his appetite gnawed at his insides.
The café was tiny, a cramped smoky little room with white walls and a linoleum floor. There were plastic benches sticking out on either side like ledges from the rock face of a ravine, their little plastic tables hovering between them. At the opposite end from the grimy front window, there stood the wooden counter with a display of mouldy sandwiches and behind that, the metal worktops housing various coffee-makers and deep-fat fryers. The whole thing had the air of an embellished take-away shop.
A radio was crackling somewhere in the ceiling, little grates sifting the sound as it warbled out. "I play the street life, because there's no place I can go…"*
"How long d'you reckon the food'll take?" Alice said conversationally, but Draco was not in the mood for speaking. The girl had lent him this hooded jacket to cover his conspicuous hair colour, and he was taking full advantage of the fact that its hood was a little too big for him, pulling it right down so it almost covered his entire face.
"You can talk to me, you know," Alice said, then added in a lower tone, "They didn't give a description of your voice in that article."
Draco grunted, momentarily reminding himself of Crabbe, which was not a pleasant experience. He sat up a little straighter, and heard someone open and close the door from the street outside. There was a sudden rush of traffic, then quiet again as the door slammed shut.
"You let the people see, just who you wanna be…"
The waitress came back and slid a plate in front of Draco, who picked at it unenthusiastically. He was certainly hungry, but the slab of battered fish and soggy chips lying before him did little to intensify his appetite. He looked up to see if Alice's food was any more appealing, and then ducked down into his chair, his head nearly level with the table.
"…attempted masquerade…"
Alice frowned at him, but he merely made a hushing sound and peered out from under his hood. He pushed himself upright again, taking great care to keep his face as well hidden as possible, and leant right over his food. He grabbed a chip and stuffed it into his mouth, his eyes constantly flicking to the other side of the room.
Hermione Granger had just walked through the door.
*All lyrics from the song Street Life by Randy Crawford.