He had to do it. Now. He had to prove himself…
His eyes widened; it was taking every effort to wrench them away from the figure facing him. The old man was saying something, but his ears were filled only with the rushing, pounding noise of his own pulse.
“Come over to the right side, Draco… you are not a killer…”*
I have to. Now. Now!
He sat bolt upright, icy droplets of sweat sliding from his skin. He was shaking so violently that he could barely breathe. His hands ran through his sodden hair, clawing at his skull, as he forced open bloodshot eyes.
The couple upstairs were arguing again, their voices raging and screaming in a strangely muffled way through the low, cracked ceiling. The sound of several heavy vehicles slowly creaking into life interrupted the argument, along with the clang of something metal from the tiny kitchen next door to Draco’s room.
He scratched at the back of his neck, his breathing finally slowing down. He’d left the light on while he was asleep, the movement from the flat above theirs was causing the single, dingy bulb to swing slightly. The boy placed a shaky foot onto worn brown carpet, the old springs of his bed creaking as he shifted his weight to stand up. The door was only a few feet from where his bed was positioned against the white-washed wall, and next to the chipped paint of the threshold was the light switch.
Draco clicked the switch downwards, closed his eyes for a moment, then leant against the wall.
The shadows of the box room lengthened only a little, the bulb barely having supplied more light than the tiny window. In one corner was heaped an assortment of second-hand clothes: t-shirts and jeans too big for him, a dusty black jacket and various pairs of darned socks. He scratched at his neck again, feeling a tiny lump on his skin which had not been there the night before, and which stung whenever he touched it.
Draco… you are not a killer…
The metal noise rang out from the kitchen again, then a bang at the door.
Draco pulled on several items of clothing, hardly noticing what he was picking up. He fancied he could hear the inebriated snoring of Craig, the door to the drunkard’s room padlocked shut as the handle had long been broken. Draco padded along the darkness of the hallway, the stains on the carpet barely noticeable to him now, as were the scrawls on the walls left by the last people who stayed here. Neither of his three new companions had bothered to cover them up when they moved in.
He shivered, and scratched again at the lump on the back of his neck. He was now sure it was a bite.
Half of the kitchen door was obscured by a faded poster depicting a broad-shouldered man in a black leather coat. Something shining and silver was held in his outstretched hand, a blurry, rain-streaked background barely visible now, as was the bold lettering at the base of the picture. Over the years the beady black of the man’s eyes had blanched to a coffee-stain brown, and now was a violent red.
Draco turned his gaze from the man’s face, the eyes all too familiar. He pushed open the door and saw the watery blue of the Tuesday morning.
Draco… you are not a killer…
He let out a groan of distress and clamped his pale hands over his eyes.
“Stop! Stop! Stop! Leave me alone!”
There was a loud grunting sound from Craig’s room, then the sound of a sharp intake of breath from the boy standing in the cramped, dark kitchen. Then silence.
He didn’t care about his flatmates, he hardly ever saw them. Craig was likely to be out cold all day, while Alice had a job in a paper shop Tuesdays and Thursdays. Frank was God-knows-where selling God-knows-what. They never bothered him, left him to sit in his room and stare at his shabby hide-away.
He stared down at the scuffed blue linoleum of the floor, smudged with dirt, it looked like it hadn’t been cleaned for years. Various dishes and cracked mugs were piled unceremoniously into the filthy sink, the tap still dripping. A part of him wanted to run, screaming. All this disgust, this squalor. He was a Malfoy! He didn’t deserve this…
Something brushed against the window and he almost leapt out of his skin. A large black crow, dusty with the city air, squawked twice, snapped his beak at a passing pigeon, then flew off. He breathed out slowly - no owls here.
“…this Tuesday morning we’ve got some classic golden oldies for you…”
The radio was on, quietly fizzling out the last of its battery power on a rickety shelf too high up for him to reach. He sniffed, scratched at his neck for a third time.
“And it’s thanks to Clifford from Manchester…” the old man’s voice grumbled on. Draco shuddered for no apparent reason and sat down on a gimcrack wooden chair. “…you’ve chosen The Great Escape by Marillion; well, that’s one we haven’t heard for a while, Cliff…” The boy drummed his fingers on the plastic tabletop.
He was safe, at least - wasn’t he? Muggles couldn’t have known what had happened, no-one in this world knew. Certainly not the half-wits he was sharing a ‘house’ with. He’d braved one visit to a shop down the street, keeping his hair covered with a baseball cap, just to buy some clothes. The young woman serving him had suppressed a laugh at his wizard’s robes, his leather shoes. He hadn’t cared.
The kitchen table was littered with left-over newspapers, the ones that Alice would bring home at the end of a day’s work in the shop. Most of them were trashy nonsense, but Draco had taken to reading the more serious articles just to make sure their hadn’t been any sightings of anything magical near where he was. He had told himself that the moment anything at all suspicious occurred, he would leave.
The radio buzzed in on his thoughts, a drawling voice singing over steadily crashing cymbals: "Standing in the open road… waiting to be recognised…"**
He shifted a few leaves aside and found the smudged front page of The Times, the curling insignia totally unrecognisable under layers of coffee stains. Something that looked like half a piece of very badly burnt toast was lying over the centre picture.
He lifted the sheet out of the pile so that the toast fell off, revealing a square, black and white image of a boy.
A boy with very pale skin, a pointed face and hair that looked white due to the poor contrast of the picture.
A boy wearing long black robes, with a gloved hand gripping his narrow shoulder.
A boy that was smirking.
"Just when I thought I’d seen the last of you!… You come here, scratching at my door…"
Instantly he dropped the sheet to the table and stood up. The chair toppled over behind him and he nearly fell over it in his haste to get as far from the picture as possible. Yet he never dared take his eyes from the narrow silver ones staring up at him.
His breath was coming in short, violent gasps. What the hell was he doing on the front of a Muggle paper?!
He scanned the whole page, his eyes blurring the column in their hurry to read:
They know. They must know!
Draco leant back against the wall, glassy beads of sweat slipping over his forehead, his eyes stony cold and wide open. They were looking for him. All over the country there were people looking for him. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t part of the wizarding world anymore, didn’t matter that he was hundreds of miles away from Hogwarts.
There was a clunking sound from behind Craig’s door, then another grunt. “What if they’ve already seen this…” he was muttering to himself now, almost hysterical. “A substantial reward - they’re desperate enough… They’re not so stupid as to fail to make the connection… What if they turn me in…?”
The radio burbled a guitar solo, the vocalist screaming over the top to be heard: "So tell me more… about the love that you rejected! Tell me more… about the trust you disrespected..!"
He had no choice. In one movement he tore the front page into tiny shreds, throwing the pieces into the murky dishwater. That wouldn’t be enough - Alice worked in a paper shop, she was bound to have seen this already. He slapped a hand over his mouth, breathing fast.
Stumbling out of the kitchen, he heard another unintelligible sound from Craig’s room. There was a rattling at the lock.
He dived back into his tiny bedroom. “I’ve got to get out of here!”
*dialogue from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling.
**all lyrics from the song The Great Escape by Marillion. Great track.