A Promise Worth Keeping

Chapter Ten

There was a clatter of metal against china. Malfoy lowered the pages of the Daily Prophet where he'd been curling his lips over the Editorial, and looked at his son. Draco was sitting at the breakfast table, a most unattractive scowl on his face, spooning sugar into his teacup.

"I suppose if you deposit the entire contents of the sugar bowl in your tea it might sweeten your temper, but I doubt it, Draco," he remarked.

The boy scowled even more, but put the spoon down.

Malfoy raised his newspaper again, and smiled behind it. Clearly his wife had decided to inform Draco of his departure for Durmstrang the following year rather than Hogwarts. Merlin but she was predictable. Did she really think that childish tantrums would make him relent? He took a sip of tea. Actually, he supposed, she must do, otherwise she wouldn't do it. He put the paper down again and took another piece of toast from the toast rack. Carefully spreading some thick-cut marmalade on it he looked blandly at his wife.

Narcissa Malfoy did not look happy. "When do you expect to hear from Karkaroff again, Lucius?" she asked defiantly.

"Karkaroff?" he asked, affecting surprise. "Why would I be hearing from him?"

She glared at him suspiciously. "About the arrangements for Draco."

"Karkaroff won't be in touch about arrangements for Draco," he replied, taking a bite of his toast.

"Well whoever is deputised to make arrangements then." Her tone was now acid.

"Oh you mean McGonagall."

His wife clattered her cup down on the saucer and glared at him. "You changed your mind then?" she asked in a furious voice.

"Yes," he drawled. "Can't really send him to Durmstrang - wouldn't do politically, you know." He finished his toast and stood up. "I'm unlikely to be in for dinner."

He went down to the dungeons where he was researching esoteric tracking spells, but so far with limited success. After spending another fruitless hour searching he Apparated up to the library in disgust. He was beginning to wonder if he would ever find the brat before Sirius Black caught up with him. He sat down at his desk and considered other options. It was looking as if he was going to have to browbeat Avery into telling him how the Ministry were getting on. It was always useful to know how successful or otherwise the competition was being. And then, of course there was Dumbledore.

He owled Avery, but three hours later still hadn't heard from him. Malfoy's temper began to go downhill. Avery was starting to show a distressing amount of backbone; it really was time he was shown where he stood in the scheme of things. At this rate he was going to have to start cultivating McNair again and the man was such a boor.

At two thirty in the afternoon, Avery finally deigned to appear. "I can't stay long, Malfoy," he said hurriedly.

Malfoy reflected that the man now always seemed to preface his visits with this statement. He was getting predictable. Leaning back in his chair, he steepled his hands and gazed at Avery's less than prepossessing form. "Really?" he replied. "Why's that?"

Avery had the temerity to look annoyed. "I do have a job to do, you know, Malfoy," he complained. "I can't just disappear for hours on end without saying where I'm going. People'll start asking questions."

"I wasn't aware that I had asked you to disappear for hours on end without saying where you were going," Malfoy sneered. "I had been giving you credit for some creativity. It was obviously misplaced."

Avery began to look uncomfortable. "You know what I mean. It's, well, it's getting bloody dangerous."

Malfoy examined his fingernails minutely then looked up. "Ah, we come to the real reason at last. You're afraid." He examined Avery as minutely as he had examined his fingernails. "Who are you afraid of, Avery?"

Avery started to bluster. "Look I can't go around asking questions about the Potter boy. It's nothing to do with me anymore. Milton and his crew will wonder what's going on."

Malfoy sighed. "You don't feel that it's perfectly natural for you to be curious as to what's happened to The Boy Who Lived?" he gave the phrase a sarcastic intonation. "Especially as you were involved in the investigation of that prison place the Muggles sent him to."

Avery started to fidget. "Well…"

"After all I'm hardly expecting you to march up to Milton's office and demand an explanation. That would be quite idiotic."

Avery looked as if he had imagined that was precisely what Malfoy had been asking him to do.

"I do know how the Ministry works, you know. All you people do is gossip in the canteen. It's impossible to keep anything secret. Even Fudge knows that. So why aren't you gossiping in the canteen, Avery? You must know how to do it. After all you wouldn't have heard about Sirius Black being interrogated and then escaping otherwise."

"That was confidential to my department. Nobody talked about that in the canteen," Avery muttered looking at his feet.

Malfoy shook his head with affected sadness. "You're a snivelling coward, Avery. You always were. I don't know why He Who Must Not Be Named put up with you." His voice dropped, almost to a whisper, "Have a think about this as you go crawling back into your dung heap of an office. I know who you are. I know where you live. I especially know what you did and to whom and that you were most certainly not under Imperius when you did it. Unless you make a concerted effort to get the information I'm looking for, I'm going to have to make sure certain information about you finds its way over to Milton's office."

Avery gulped and turned an unattractive pasty colour. "Malfoy, you wouldn't…" he began then trailed off, apparently convinced by the expression on Malfoy's face that to the contrary, yes, he would.

The next afternoon he received an owl from Avery asking him to meet in the Hanged Man, an unpleasant dive in Knockturn Alley. In the interim he'd received a frantically scrawled note that assured him that Avery was 'working on it'. Malfoy assumed the public venue for the meeting was Avery trying to protect himself. Rather amusing really, as if any of the clientele of that pub would even blink if he put the Cruciatus curse on Avery in front of them all.

Avery's note had said four, so Malfoy turned up at twenty past. Avery was sweating visibly although the place wasn't exactly warm. Malfoy sat down, holding up his half pint of Marchpane's Bitter to what light there was and squinted at it, frowning. He put the glass down on the table, untasted. "So," he said without preamble, "what do you have for me?"

Avery gave a nervous smile, "You're not going to like this, Malfoy," he said.

"I never realised you had any talent in the field of Divination, Avery," Malfoy remarked.

"I don't," Avery began puzzled, then, "Oh. Right. Anyway, I was talking to this bloke from Magical Law Enforcement, and it seems they're all stumped about where the brat is."

"Really? All of them?"

"Completely. They even went as far as finding out what the Muggle authorities think happened and following that up, in case there were any leads there."

"I hardly think we need consider Muggle opinion in this matter," Malfoy sneered.

"Well, of course I wouldn't under normal circumstances," Avery responded hastily. "But this bloke said that sometimes they look at what they're up to - it can give you a different perspective."

"Has this er, 'bloke' ever worked with Arthur Weasley by any chance?"

Avery looked shifty. "He, um used to."

Malfoy snorted as if that explained everything, but waved a hand saying, "Well go on then, what stunning insight did this Muggle lover have for you?"

Swallowing hard, Avery said, "Well, the Muggles of course have no idea how the boy managed to get out of this prison place. They don't think anyone else was involved, but can't see how the boy did it on his own. However, what they are convinced of is that he's made his way into London and is living on the streets somewhere. Apparently it happens a lot. They've tried to find him, but haven't had any success yet."

Malfoy hated to admit it, and certainly wouldn't out loud, but this actually sounded quite plausible, given that he knew it was unlikely that the brat had been kidnapped by Death Eaters. "And what did your 'bloke' think about this?"

Avery shrank back into his chair. "Well, the longer time goes on, the less likely they think the Death Eater thing is true. They're actually starting to think the Muggles are right."

"But I take it that the Ministry have had no more success than the Muggles have in finding the boy in London?"

Avery nodded glumly. "That's right," he said, "none at all."

Malfoy frowned. "So what about Sirius Black? How are they getting on at finding him?"

"There's not been a sign of him since the night he escaped. They're mostly pretty pissed off that Fudge won't let them announce it. If more people were looking for him they might stand a chance. They're convinced he hasn't found the kid though. They reckon we'd know all about it if he had."

Malfoy was forced to agree, whether Black had been secretly working for the Dark Lord or not. Avery seemed to have run out of things to say, so he remarked, "Now see, that wasn't so hard was it? The man gave a sickly smile in response. Malfoy stood up and looked round the bar in a disparaging fashion. "I don't know why you drink in here, Avery, this beer's off."

Later, back home, he paced round the library trying to think things through. Unfortunately, when the house elf announced dinner he was still no further forward. Then over dinner, Narcissa's wittering on about Christmas arrangements reminded him that he would have another opportunity to observe Dumbledore at the Hogwarts Christmas drinks party on Thursday. While he rather suspected he could observe Dumbledore until the cows came home before he saw anything the old man didn't want him to see, it would be a good opportunity to see if anyone else there was less discreet.

In the meantime, however he decided to see if there was anything more he could do in the way of finding a suitable tracking spell. While the collection of grimoires and magical objects he had secreted in his private library would almost certainly earn him a term in Azkaban were they ever found, they had proven inadequate for his purposes. Certainly there were tracking spells, but none of them was appropriate to the current circumstances requiring as they did, the person being tracked to use magic.

There was nothing for it but to pay a visit to Borgin and Burkes, who could generally find most things one wanted, for a price of course. The shop displayed the usual stock of junk acceptable to the authorities, when he entered the following morning. Borgin only sold from the special stock to trusted customers. Malfoy gave the bell on the counter a tap and waited impatiently for Borgin to appear.

After a short wait the shopkeeper finally did. Since this happened every time he visited the shop, Malfoy knew this was simply a ploy to develop the atmosphere. Personally he found it irritating.

"Mr Malfoy, what a pleasure to see you," said Borgin in his usual ingratiating fashion. "How can I help you today?"

"I'm looking for a spell, or an object it doesn't matter which, that will enable me to track a person who does not use magic," he said ignoring the pleasantries.

Borgin looked thoughtful. "By someone who does not use magic do you mean a Muggle?"

Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "Certainly not."

"That should certainly make things easier then," Borgin said. "However, I don't think I have anything that might suit you in stock." He gave a slight smile as Malfoy exhaled impatiently. "Was this urgent?"

Malfoy hated giving the man any kind of advantage over him, but admitted, "Unfortunately, yes." Then as another smile flickered across the shopkeeper's greasy face for a moment he added, "And of course, the sooner you supply something, the more I am willing to pay for it." Always appeal to their avarice, he thought.

"It may take several days," Borgin warned. "And it won't be cheap, however long it takes."

"I didn't suppose it was likely to be," Malfoy replied. "You can notify me at the Manor when you have something."

The shopkeeper gave another ingratiating smile and Malfoy left. He was thinking no wonder the man looked pleased, as there would doubtless be an astronomical mark-up on anything he supplied.

Over the next few days his impatience steadily grew. He heard nothing from Borgin or Avery. Finally, on the sixth of December, his attention was diverted by the Christmas drinks party at Hogwarts and he presented himself at the school with the other Governors. Every other time he had attended one of these functions, it had been tedious beyond repair. This evening however, he found himself interested in what was going on. There was Flitwick drinking some revoltingly sickly looking cocktail with a sparkler in it. McGonagall it seemed shared his own taste for Amontillado. And Snape. Now where was Snape, he wondered, suddenly realising that the Head of Slytherin House wasn't present.

"I trust that Severus isn't indisposed," he said to Flitwick, picking up a cheese straw from a tray.

"Not as far as I know," replied the Charms Professor and looked round. "Probably working on some potion and lost track of the time," he commented.

Malfoy gave a perfunctory smile and moved on. He used the cover of taking another cheese straw - they were actually rather good - to watch the room. As he did so he thought about the Potions Master. Snape was by all accounts, one of those who'd managed to convince Crouch he was a reformed character. Until now he had always assumed it had been an act, that he had pulled the wool over Dumbledore's eyes so successfully that he was in charge of the education of the next generation of Slytherins, combating the Headmaster's nonsensical ideas about the Dark Arts. Suddenly though he wondered. Was it possible that Snape had been telling the truth, that he really was a reformed character?

He wished he knew the man better. He'd only really begun to get to know him at all when he joined the Hogwarts Board, and they hardly spent time reminiscing over the jolly time they'd had torturing Muggles when they were Death Eaters back in the old days.

"You're looking very thoughtful, Lucius," remarked Dumbledore coming over. The Headmaster's eyes had that irritating twinkle that suggested some sort of amused omniscience. Malfoy detested it.

"Am I? I was just thinking, Albus, you could make a fortune from the compulsive eating spell that's on these things." He waved yet another cheese straw in the air.

Dumbledore's twinkle grew more pronounced. "There's no spell on them, Lucius. There couldn't be, they're a Muggle product. Rather good though don't you think?"

Malfoy grimaced and put the cheese straw back onto the tray. "It's amazing what Muggles can manage to do without magic," he commented.

Just then, the door opened and Snape stalked in. From the looks of him, he'd come straight from his potions dungeon and hadn't even bothered to change.

"My apologies for being late, Headmaster," he said to Dumbledore. "I couldn't get away earlier."

Dumbledore waved a hand dismissing the apology and replied, "Not at all. Why don't you get yourself a drink?" He turned to Malfoy as Snape walked over to the drinks table, and said, "Severus has been working on a special project for me."

"Really." Malfoy didn't even attempt to sound interested. The man could at least have made an effort tonight. He sniffed fastidiously.

Two glasses of Amontillado later, he found himself next to Snape once more. "Malfoy," the Potions Master said.

Malfoy gave a faint smile. "And how is Slytherin House doing this year?" he asked.

Snape's lips curled. "No worse than in other years I suppose."

Merlin but the man was enthusiastic! "Well let's hope next year is an improvement."

For a moment Snape looked blank, then comprehension dawned. "Of course, your son."

Malfoy smiled. "I did consider letting Karkaroff have him, but decided in the end that Slytherin would be a more appropriate place."

"I do believe the Sorting Hat has the final choice over which House a child enters, Malfoy." Snape's tone was dry.

Malfoy had never seriously considered that Draco might be sorted into any other House but Slytherin, but he acknowledged the Hat's supremacy in that area, before continuing, "It's rather looking as if the school is going to be missing a famous face next year though."

"Potter!" Snape almost spat.

The force of the other man's dislike was surprising and Malfoy wondered what the history was there. Presumably it had something to do with the brat's father. His curiosity was pricked, perhaps Avery would have some idea, he rather thought they had been at Hogwarts together. For the moment he merely said, "Yes, such a tragedy if The Boy Who Lived was in fact The Boy Who Died."

Snape gave a perfunctory smile. "As you say, a tragedy." He drained his glass. "Excuse me, I must speak to the Headmaster."

Malfoy watched the Potions Master walk over to where Dumbledore was standing by the fire talking to Professor Sprout. The three of them talked briefly and then Sprout wandered over and started talking to one of the other Board members. Malfoy refilled his glass and joined Professor Kettleburn, all the while keeping an eye on Dumbledore and Snape. Listening with half an ear to the Professor's rambling he watched them. However, there was no evidence that they were talking about anything other than some tedious potions project. He gave his attention back to Kettleburn. "So, Professor you were saying, Hippogriffs?"

Back home, he had to admit it had been a bit of a waste of time. Then the next day he had a visit from Borgin. This could only mean success. It had better mean success.

The house elf showed Borgin into the study. "I trust you have something for me, Borgin," Malfoy said as the shopkeeper greeted him unctuously.

"In a manner of speaking, Mr Malfoy," said Borgin, hastily adding as Malfoy started to reach for his wand. "If you would let me explain."

"You better had explain, Borgin."

A flicker of nervousness crossed Borgin's face. "I have been in contact with a colleague in Bucharest," he said. "This man told me of an item that may assist you. Unfortunately it is not immediately available."

Malfoy sighed. "I presume by 'not immediately available' you mean it belongs to someone else who does not want to sell. What is the item?"

"It is a most rare and valuable item, of a kind almost gone form the world -"

"Oh you can leave out the sales pitch, Borgin, just tell me what it is and what it does." Malfoy broke in, irritated.

"As you wish, Mr Malfoy," responded Borgin. "The item in question is known as a Drac Ochi which translates to Devil's Eye in English. It apparently works much like the common crystal ball used in Divination except that instead of the future one sees the person or thing that one seeks."

"Why is it called a Devil's Eye?"

"As with all the most powerful Dark Magic," said Borgin in his oily voice, "the rewards of using this are great, but the price is high." Malfoy didn't pretend to be stupid enough to think that he was talking about money. "The question is, are you prepared to pay it?"

"That depends what the price is, you dolt," he snapped. He found Borgin's histrionic speeches such a tedious affectation. But they probably had idiots like Crabbe or Goyle wetting themselves.

Borgin smiled. "It requires the blood of the seeker. The amount it requires varies of course and bears no relation to the size of the object."

"I see. Where is this Drac Ochi now?"

"It is currently owned by an order of wizardly ascetics who live in a remote part of the Fagarash Mountains in Romania. My colleague in Bucharest told me that they refused point blank to sell. There are, of course other ways of acquiring the object, but they do tend to cost more. And they take longer to arrange. Much longer."

Malfoy sighed again. "How much do you want?"

Without batting an eyelid, Borgin told him, "Not a sickle less than twenty thousand galleons."

Malfoy laughed, mainly to cover his surprise. "That much," he murmured, then said, "Three."

This time it was Borgin's turn to laugh. "I do appreciate a customer with a sense of humour," he said. "Twenty."

They haggled for some time before eventually Malfoy settled for twelve. It was still far more than he really wanted to pay, but needs must. He suspected the man in Bucharest would be lucky if he saw much of it. Unfortunately Borgin wouldn't budge from his insistence on half in advance. "How long will this take?" he demanded before the man left.

"As I said this is not the sort of thing that can be arranged in a few days." The shopkeeper assured him. "Everything has to be done through third parties, as the people in that region are very suspicious of outsiders. It will take at least a week, possibly longer to make the arrangements, Mr Malfoy."

Malfoy had to be happy with that, as he had no choice. For twelve thousand galleons it had better be worth it.

The weekend was interminable. To be so near to finding the brat…. He locked himself up in his private library and began to look for uses he could put the brat's blood to once he was dead. There were a number of potions that required blood to function, and the Potter boy's blood no doubt had some interesting qualities that would enhance them. Malfoy decided to approach Karkaroff to arrange a discreet sale. Borgin was getting a bit too much to stomach. It wouldn't do to be too beholden to the man.

However the following Wednesday he had another visitor who brought most unwelcome news. It was Avery, "Malfoy!" he exclaimed, rushing into the study, past the house elf that was attempting to show him in.

"Avery. What can I do for you?"

"You'll never guess, Malfoy, they've found the Potter boy!"