Finding Elvis

Chapter 1 - Finding Elvis

"It's a good one, yeah." The oddly familiar voice drew Harry's attention, from the row of gardening books he'd been staring at, to the conversation in the aisle behind him. "The next one in the series is better, though."

"I haven't got that far," said a young woman. "Just read the one about the Barrows. This one's..."

"Brilliant stuff," a man's voice came back, pleasant, light baritone. Harry frowned. Where had he heard that voice before? "You'd swear you were at the Stones, honestly."

"You've been?"

"I grew up near Wiltshire - you can't not go to Stonehenge and learn all about it."

"Yeah, my dad's family's from around there," the young woman said absently, and turned a page. "Think she'll like it?"

"Yeah, I'd get it. Good light summer reading. The next one's even better, it takes place at the Tower of London."

"Thanks. I'll come back for the next one if she likes this one, then," she said, dismissing him.

"Let me know if you need anything else," the man said, to a polite mmhmm from the woman, and Harry turned around, hearing his footsteps receding. That voice... he watched the man walk to the cash register; he didn't look familiar from the back. The man turned and Harry was still mystified. Didn't recognize him at all. Tall, slender, light brown hair cut short, white shirt, dark slacks, glasses, maybe mid-to-late-thirties, working in a bookstore...

Had he seen that face before? Maybe. Maybe not. More like it reminded him of a face that he should know... a narrow face, yes, it was familiar, it was very, very familiar, but he hadn't seen it in a very, very long time... Harry quickly felt for magic - no, nothing, there was no hint of anything at all in this building or anybody in it. Other than himself, of course. That didn't mean anything - not all magic could be felt - but this looked and felt like a completely ordinary Muggle bookstore in Cardiff, filled with clients and a few employees, and one sales clerk busily sorting through sales slips and beginning to really annoy the hell out of Harry.

The phone rang, and the sales clerk picked it up, still sorting slips. "The Book Cellar, Dave speaking," he spoke into the phone, propping it against his shoulder to keep his hands free and continuing to sort slips.

Dave. Still didn't ring a bell.

Harry came closer to the counter, pausing to cast a quick cover spell on himself - nothing big, just a slight blurring of his face, a variation on Obliviate that made it difficult for anybody to remember his features long enough to identify him. He wondered at himself a little, because why would he need to hide from a sales clerk, but something was telling him danger - no. Not danger, just caution, beware, don't show your hand too quickly, and he chided himself and was about to end the spell when the sales clerk looked up.

"May I help you?" he asked, still on the phone but evidently on hold, his light brown eyes meeting Harry's in polite enquiry.

Draco Malfoy. Harry's eyes widened in shock and at that moment the clerk glanced away from him and raised one hand at him, a 'just a second' gesture, as whoever was on the other side of the phone evidently came back to their conversation. "Yeah, still here." Pause. "No, no, we got that shipment, but the new Adeles are missing." He glanced back at Harry, slight smile of apology and 'I'll be with you in a moment' expression on his face. "Frank, we've got four on back order." Pause. "That's the third time, mate. No, I know, it's just she'll go on a rant about - tomorrow? Good." Pause. "See you tomorrow then. Thanks." He hung up, looked up at Harry. "Sorry about that, may I help you?"

Harry shook his head, suddenly completely unsure and glad that the call had distracted the sales clerk long enough for him to get his bearings. No, obviously not Malfoy, just someone who looked remarkably like - and sounded like him, too. Feeling a little foolish, Harry grabbed at the first thing that came to mind. "Do you have a gardening section?"

The clerk smiled, pointed to the left side of the store. Where Harry had just come from. "Thanks," Harry mumbled, walking away, feeling even more foolish than before. Draco Malfoy, working in a bookstore. He almost chuckled.

Draco Malfoy. Dead... what, almost fifteen years? He would've been amused at Harry blurring himself for a Muggle bookstore sales clerk.

Harry shook his head, a little amused himself, noting once again how after so long the war dead and wounded didn't make him feel that sad any more. Fifteen years it had taken, to no longer feel that angry sense of loss whenever he thought of Cedric Diggory, Ginny, Arthur and George Weasley, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall... and all the others, dead and living, who'd been lost so long ago.

And Malfoy. Never a friend, never somebody he'd been close to, but somebody he wished could have lived to see the post-war era.

Not to be. Malfoy had been on both sides of the war, then avoided it as much as possible for a while, apparently done some spying that was never fully explained to Harry, performed one final heroic deed, and disappeared. Not in a blaze of glory, but into oblivion.

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"Did anybody ever find out whatever happened to Draco Malfoy?" Harry asked Emma Sprout the next day, over lunch after their staff meeting.

"Draco Malfoy? Do you mean beyond the official 'missing, presumed dead' line?"

"Yeah."

"Don't think so. Plenty of rumours, but I never heard anything solid. Why?"

"Just wondered."

"He was in your year at Hogwarts, wasn't he?"

"Yeah."

"So he would've been coming in as I left." Harry nodded. "Yeah, well the National Quibbler had bits for a while." They shrugged together. "Who knows what was true back then. All anybody ever knew for sure was he gave up his magic and then disappeared."

"But the killing three Muggles thing, the double-agent working with Zabini..."

"No, that was never proven."

"And the sightings-"

"Our own personal wizarding Elvis Presley," said Emma, whose sister had married a Muggle and who loved obscure Muggle cultural references. Harry chuckled. "Why?"

"Saw somebody who looked like him the other day."

"Owl the Quibbler!"

Harry smiled. "No, I just wondered if he had family or something."

"The Malfoys? It was an old family, but not a very big one. Tended to have only one or two kids per generation, I don't think there were any close cousins. Where did you see him?"

"Cardiff."

"You mean Velleywold Village, or Cardiff proper?"

"Cardiff. At a bookstore."

"Didn't know we had a bookstore in Cardiff."

"Muggle store."

Emma smirked. "Draco Malfoy's long lost twin, shopping at a Muggle bookstore? Somewhere in hell Lucius Malfoy is screeching hexes at you."

Harry smiled. "Worse; working at the bookstore."

"Well now the entire family for seven generations is screeching hexes at you, Harry. Including Draco, if I recall anything about him."

"He did lose his magic. There were rumours he'd gone to the Muggle world."

"Rumours, Harry. Come on. A Malfoy, live among Muggles? He'd rather have lived under a permanent Cruciatus curse."

"I heard he'd changed by the end of the war."

"Hadn't we all. But not that far. He may no longer have advocated the killing of all Muggles just on principle, but he certainly wouldn't have wanted to live as one of them."

"You never know."

"As one of who?" asked Annette Smithers, another of their colleagues, sitting down. Harry moved over for her.

"Draco Malfoy. Live as a Muggle."

"What?"

"Harry thinks he saw Draco Malfoy's long lost twin living in Cardiff and working in a Muggle bookstore," Emma told her.

"Owl the Quibbler!" Annette said immediately, and Harry and Emma chuckled politely.

"I didn't say it was him. Just looked like him."

"Platinum hair, silvery eyes, pretty face, right obnoxious bastard?"

"Actually, no. Brown hair and eyes. Glasses. Very polite."

They both blinked at him.

"His face. Looked like Malfoy," Harry said, starting to feel foolish again. "And, and his voice. But not... really." He waved his hand, indicating the subject wasn't that important and giving them leave to change topics if they wanted to.

"All right," Emma nodded, and changed the subject. "Oh, did either of you talk to Hecuba about the new shipment of Veritaserum from Velleywold?"

"No. What's happened now?" asked Annette.

"It's gone missing."

"Third time. Damn. Harry, you're at the Conference in Velleywold off and on for the next month or so, aren't you? Why don't you track Hecuba down, see what's happening? Maybe she'll take you seriously, god knows she doesn't care what we say." Harry frowned, banishing thoughts about the bookstore sales clerk for the moment and focussing his irritation on yet another problem with Velleywold Village Supplies.

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Harry sighed as he checked back into his hotel room in Cardiff. It was grey and ugly and always raining and here he was, at yet another high-powered yet pointless conference about things he really didn't care about any more.

You could stay at home in London, he reminded himself. You could just floo back and forth every morning and night. Nobody's forcing you to stay here.

Although really, what difference did it make? Living in one empty set of rooms versus another. Here at least he would get a chance to socialize with the others who were attending the Conference. Well... except that he didn't much care for any of them and he'd ended up booked at an inn that wasn't even technically in Velleywold Village. The clientele here was almost exclusively Muggle.

Besides, he kept getting called back and forth for those pointless debriefs in London. How did the Conference go yesterday, Mr. Potter? Anything new, Mr. Potter? Anything different from what you told us when we asked you for a report three days ago? No? Thank you so much, Mr. Potter. We'll see you in two more days so that you can tell us that nothing new happened again.

He stared out the window, bored and wishing for something to read. He'd planned on buying a gardening book the other day, to see about growing some ferns that were useful a number of potions, but he'd gotten distracted by the Malfoy-lookalike sales clerk and had left without buying anything.

He frowned absently at The Book Cellar across the street.

What the hell.

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"May I help you?" a young female sales clerk asked as he looked at the books again. "Our Hobbies clerk is sick today, but is there-"

"Um, no. No thanks," Harry said, slightly startled. "No. I can find what I'm looking for. Thanks." He busied himself looking for books with ferns and fronds. Hm... that one looked interesting...

"Yeah, hold it open, would you?" a breathless voice behind him said, and Harry turned around. There was Dave, a large box balanced precariously on one hip as he struggled to hold the front door open. The young woman swiftly caught the door and held it and he sidled past her, came in as far as the counter, and dropped the box onto the floor.

"Ugh. That was awkward. Thanks," he smiled at her, flipped open a pocket knife, knelt down and sliced the box open. Quickly he felt down to the books, nodding. "Good, all there."

"The Adeles?"

"All four - actually, eight."

"Oh, good. Did you give Frank hell?"

"No, honest mistake."

"Third time," she shook her head.

"New baby."

Harry shook his head at himself, amused. Definitely not Malfoy. He glanced back down at the gardening book.

"He can't hide behind that excuse forever, that baby's two months old." Dave shrugged, not bothering to argue. "Are you doing the inventory?"

"Yeah, may as well. Oh, can you get that?" he said as the phone rang, and the woman picked it up.

"The Book Cellar, Nor - oh, yeah, he's here," she held the phone out to Dave. Harry turned his attention firmly down to the book in his hands as Dave took the phone.

"Jilly?" Harry looked up with a jolt. Dave was still talking. "Yeah, listen, the new shipment came in ... Yeah, I know ... No, I can still pick up dinner. Curry? ... Sure. No, their gulabjamon's foul - why don't you make some?" Small pause, and he chuckled. "All right, I will. Bye, love." He hung up and passed the phone back to the other sales clerk, kneeling down to work on the shipment once more, checking a list against the contents of the box.

Jilly. Not Ginny. Jilly. Not Ginny Weasley, also dead these fifteen years.

Or was she? Harry suppressed a hysterical giggle as he pictured a Quibbler headline screaming "Long-Lost Heroes of the War Malfoy and Weasley Found in Muggle Love Nest!!"

Harry bit his lip, looked down again. No, not possible. Malfoy, maybe. Malfoy may have mysteriously disappeared, but Ginny Weasley was certainly and certifiably very dead. He'd been to her funeral. Seen her body.

Malfoy, though... he looked back at the clerk, now busily typing something in to a computer, a slight frown of concentration behind his glasses.

No. The hair and the eyes, maybe that could have changed. Malfoy could've done a spell on himself - well, no, he couldn't have, but he could have asked somebody else to do it, after his own magic was gone - but he couldn't have changed himself. No matter what the war had done to any of them, it would not have changed Draco Malfoy into a man who could work for a living, at all. Let alone work efficiently and apparently contentedly, and at a bookstore, of all places. A Muggle bookstore. Talking on the phone, picking up Indian food, working a computer, helping clients find books, talking about inventories... that had absolutely nothing to do with Malfoy as anybody had ever known him.

Coincidence, that's all it was. An astonishing one, but a coincidence nonetheless.

Harry hefted the gardening book in his hands, paid for it, and left.

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"Heard you saw Draco Malfoy in Cardiff the other day," Paracelsus Green said two days later over lunch.

Harry looked up in slight surprise. "No, not really, just somebody who looked like him."

"And sounded like him, Emma said." Harry shrugged. "How do you know it wasn't him? People were saying they'd spotted him for years afterwards."

"Yeah, but... at a bookstore?"

"It's been fifteen years, why not a bookstore? I mean, face and voice both like Malfoy? That's a rather odd coincidence, don't you think?"

"You'd think he would have done something about it, then," Harry said. "His face and his voice, if he really wanted to hide."

"How?"

"Muggles have surgery for facial reconstruction."

"And how would he have paid for it? He didn't have anything, by the end."

"Still, don't you think he could have found a better place to hide than a Muggle bookstore, working with customers?" Harry asked.

"Better place to hide?" Celsus repeated. "It's been fifteen years and nobody's spotted him there yet, have they? I'd say that sounds like a fairly good hiding spot." Harry chuckled and nodded. "Besides, he didn't have to hide."

"What?"

"No reason to. Nobody was after him, not after the war," Celsus said.

"There were still Death Eater splinter groups for a few years. And plenty of our lot never really believed he came over." Celsus frowned. "I'm not even sure I do, still."

"He came over, Harry. I was there."

Harry shrugged. "That never seemed a very Malfoy-like thing to do. It still doesn't."

"No, but we were all acting oddly. You wouldn't have thought Fred and George Weasley would go to work in the Ministry, but they did. Nobody was more surprised than Neville Longbottom when he became Potions Master after... well. But it was war, Harry. People did odd things."

Harry shrugged again.

"I was there," Celsus repeated. "If it hadn't been for Malfoy, we'd've... I don't know what we would've done, but we sure as hell wouldn't have been able to stand against Blaise Zabini and his merry little Death Eating band."

"Now there's a man who stayed true to himself till the end."

"Yeh," Celsus gave a mock salute with his butterbeer mug. "Blaise Zabini, may he rot in pieces." Harry raised his own glass to Zabini and didn't say anything about Malfoy.

"Harry, Malfoy did it. What he did may not have been the final glorious act, but it definitely set up the final glorious act and made it possible, and he did it knowing exactly what it would cost him." Harry gazed at Celsus curiously. Celsus frowned. "What?"

"Why are you trying to convince me of this? What does it matter?"

Celsus shrugged. "I don't know. I suppose even fifteen years later it still bothers me that people don't give Malfoy the credit he was due."

"What, there's people who have little shrines to him-"

"I'm not talking about the idiots who carried on about him like he was an even more dashing and mysterious version of bloody Gilderoy Lockheart. I'm talking about the people who knew him and actually fought in the war. The people who said that he disappeared because he had actually betrayed our side and-" he stopped, pressing his lips together. "I was there. I know what I saw. Zabini had no idea that Malfoy was there before he stepped out into the open. And Malfoy stood against him, and Zabini pointed his wand at him and Malfoy just bloody well let him, to buy time for the rest of us. I didn't see everything that happened, but I know what Malfoy looked like before he stepped out, and we all knew they were using that bloody Enmagio curse, we all knew what he was going to lose." Celsus shivered. "And then afterwards... Harry, you can't fake that. He just... he looked so lost. And, I mean, no, that's not... he looked like he was telling himself he was fine, but he wasn't."

"He'd had a bit of blood loss, though, I heard he was-"

"That wasn't it. It was... he... he blinked at one point, shook his head, and I said something like 'Are you all right' and he said, 'Feel like I'm... deaf, or something.' He, he said it was a bit like feeling one of his senses gone, but he didn't know which." Celsus shuddered at the memory.

"Come on, that was in the articles about Enmagio-"

"Because it was true."

"So he could've just read it in an article-"

"You think he faked losing magic?"

"No, just-"

"Just what?"

Harry shrugged again. "I'm just saying that him describing something that had been described before is not proof that everything he said was true. Maybe, maybe he'd already worked out with Zabini that-"

"You can't fake that sort of thing, Harry!"

"I know he was examined by a-"

"He didn't fake it!"

"Well some people said that he and Zabini had arranged it so that it wouldn't be permanent-"

"You believe that conspiracy drivel?"

"No, but-" Celsus shook his head at Harry, and Harry stopped and chose his words more carefully. "Look, I'm not saying it's true. I believe you, mostly. I'm just saying it might have been true. That they faked it and then he double-crossed Zabini and let him get captured-"

"So why didn't Zabini say so-"

"I don't know, maybe he thought Malfoy would spring him or-"

"-until the end, with the Dementors coming at him, Zabini kept his mouth shut?"

"-and then he disappeared because Zabini's followers were looking for him, or he just went to them and they didn't manage to spring-"

"-and then what happened to him?"

Harry shrugged. "He went back to them and just got eliminated in the infighting. You know they tore themselves apart, there wasn't much for us to do except count the bodies that weren't blasted to bits-"

"He didn't. He-"

"How can you be sure?"

"I'm sure. I didn't see all the details firsthand, but I was there right before, and I was there for a few hours afterwards, and there is no way you can tell me he hadn't lost everything. I can't imagine doing that, myself. When Zabini pointed his wand at me, I - I knew they were using Enmagio and I honestly thought I'd rather die. It would be like mutilation, like being half-alive. And Malfoy... he just took a deep breath and stepped out, because he knew he could fight Zabini off longer than I could, and, and... he just did it. He made an unbelievable sacrifice. And people still thought he only did it because there was a percentage in it for him." Celsus shook his head in disgust.

Harry was silent.

Celsus gazed off at the wall. "And after that... after that, I think he disappeared because he couldn't handle living in the wizarding world as a Squib. I never believed he went back to the Death Eaters."

"Well a lot of people believed he went off and killed himself, but somehow I can't picture Malfoy getting that dramatic without a proper audience," Harry said cynically, and regretted his words as Celsus frowned at him. He backtracked. "Sorry. But if he didn't kill himself and he didn't go back to the Death Eaters, the alternative is - you really think he... went Muggle? That he couldn't handle being a Squib, but could handle being a Muggle instead?"

"Absolutely."

"Absolutely?"

"Yes. It makes a hell of a lot more sense to me than any bizarre conspiracy theory."

"Makes no sense to me."

"You didn't know him," Celsus said.

"I went to school with him! Seven years, I'll have you know. I knew him."

"You didn't know him during the war."

"You didn't either. You got communiqués that you thought were from him, they could have been from anybody-"

"It was good intelligence. And I fought next to the man-"

"Ten days! Near the very end-"

"You get to know somebody in battle, you should know that, you-"

Harry put down his fork, tired of the argument. "Let's talk about something else, right?"

"I knew him," Celsus repeated stubbornly. "I know what I saw. And it's still upsetting that what he did before that, and the person he was before the war, coloured the way people saw his actions. Up to and including one of the bravest and most self-sacrificing things I've ever heard of anyone doing, even during the war."

"Right," Harry said, not wanting to argue.

"I know all the stories. He was a rude, mean, spoiled git who never worked a day in his life, and followed his father into the Death Eaters like a good little Malfoy and hated Muggles and Muggle-borns. I know all of that. But he changed and got past it. He risked a lot for our side. And he lost everything, for our side. And nobody who mattered gave a damn, just because of who he used to be."

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And here Harry was again, back at The Book Cellar. Not just blurring this time, but actually changing his features. He went to the young adults section; Dave seemed to know his way around it fairly well. What would he ask about, for young adults? He glanced around, getting his bearings and concocting a story.

It was rather hot in here, Harry noticed. No air conditioning despite the stifling summer heat. Rather unpleasant.

"May I help you?" Dave appeared next to him, startling him slightly.

"Oh - yes. I'm looking for a birthday present for my nephew - he likes this series, it's, um, it's about a horse, I think..." and the lies flowed easily. After fifteen years, they came back. Not that he'd done a lot of dissembling during the war, but there had been a few times when he'd had to think fast and talk faster.

"Yeah, I think I know the one you want, it's probably-" and Dave was taking the bait, and talking about something that Harry should probably listen to but that was the truly tricky part of dissembling, that you had to pretend to listen to this information you hadn't really wanted, or risk looking stupid. And somehow, keep your voice and facial expression interested yet casual while simultaneously recording the useless information and recording what you really wanted to know.

Which was?

Right. Comparing this man's speech patterns, voice, gestures, expressions, to Malfoy. This man was in his late thirties, which was about how old Malfoy would have been if he hadn't died at twenty-three. Ignore the hair and eye colour and the glasses and the frown lines and laugh lines that Malfoy's face never had a chance to get. Think back fifteen years - longer, actually, as he'd had little contact with Malfoy after Hogwarts. Think back to an ill-mannered boy of sixteen, think back more than twenty years, try to remember the face and the voice and the words he used - other than 'Potter' and 'Weaselby' and 'Mudblood' in various tones of derision.

See if that boy matches this man. Ignore the Muggle clothing and Muggle name and Muggle store and Muggle books that he was talking about. Ignore the fact that this man was being polite and informative about something as mundane as young adult books, when Malfoy had never been polite about anything, and Harry had had no direct experience with him being informative either.

Ignore the fact that Dave seemed perfectly comfortable serving him, where no Malfoy had ever served anyone, other than the Dark Lord, for generations.

No. There was no ignoring all of that. This had been a stupid waste of time.

"Right, then," Harry said, picking the last two books Dave had mentioned and hoping that made sense, as he hadn't really been able to pay terribly close attention.

"Will there be anything else, sir?" Dave asked, and Harry shook his head, heading for the cash register with him. Hopefully he'd find some use for the books - he could probably just drop them off at the nearest Muggle library as a donation or something. Did Muggles still have public libraries with books in them?

Dave put Harry's book on the counter next to another clerk currently serving a customer, and picked up the phone as it rang. Harry glanced at an envelope next to the cash register, addressed to a David Bergsen. Probably a paycheck.

Harry suppressed a smile. Dave Bergsen. You couldn't find a more Muggle name than that.

Dave finished on the phone as the other clerk finished with her customer and moved away, murmuring, "I've got my break Dave, can you-"

"No problem," Dave said, pocketing the envelope. "You're closing for me tonight, though." She looked at him blankly, "Jilly's sister's coming, remember?"

"Right. And I'll call about the air conditioning too, this is ridiculous," she moved out of the way as Dave took Harry's books and opened the register, pushing his books through. He waited a moment, frowning slightly at the screen, lifted his glasses and rubbed his eyes a little.

"Long day?" Harry asked.

"Yeah," he answered, settling the glasses back down, "long shift. Too warm in here." Harry nodded. It was actually quite stifling. "All right, fifteen euros even," he said as Harry took out his Muggle currency. "Book Cellar card?"

"No," Harry handed over the cash and Dave took it, absently pushing up his sleeves as he waited for the register to spit out Harry's receipt. Dave handed it to Harry along with his change. Harry glanced down as he took it, and felt his heart lurch.

The Dark Mark.

Dave was saying something. "...sir?" Harry shook his head, hoping - not hoping, no, what, this was too much coincidence, the Dark Mark was right there, Dave - Malfoy - Dave was saying something to him, and he had no idea what, and wait, slow down, he wanted to blurt out, go back a couple of seconds-

"I'm sorry, what?"

'Dave' repeated, a little amused, "Did you want them wrapped?"

"What?"

"The books? For your nephew."

"Right. Oh, right, yeah."

"Together or separately?"

"What?"

"The two books."

"Oh. Both - both together."

"Long day?" 'Dave' chuckled, and Harry made himself chuckle back.

"Too long."

"There you go, sir," he finished wrapping and handed him the package.

"Thanks." Harry left.

Draco Malfoy. Working in a Muggle store, with the Dark Mark still on his arm.

Well... not actually the Dark Mark. It was semi-hidden among various other tattoos. More snakes, a couple of knives, all quite skilful, rather artistic, but there was no mistake at all about what was at the center of it all.

So. He'd found Elvis.

Now what?