Better Angels

Better Angels

Chapter 10

Diagon Alley

"Zenobia's joining the Slytherin team, don't know if you heard." Draco was sprawled on his couch, swirling some watered wine in a glass.

"I hadn't."

"It's really good for her--but she was my best player, so I'm kind of--" He gestured broadly with the glass.

"I see." Draco had been chattering about his team and his party for a quarter of an hour. Severus had headed him off from any more significant topics. If he could put some distance between them, look after Draco without getting emotionally involved, that would be best for everyone. Dumbledore had more important things to do than soothe his spy's wounded feelings.

It was, he supposed, a testament to the value of his work that Dumbledore had bothered--but he shouldn't have to.

"Yeah. Too bad she's not a Seeker, that's what they really need. She actually suggested I ought to make a bid to get my spot back. But even if I could, the kids would see that as a betrayal, don't you think? As they should."

"Yes." There was that troublesome loyalty again. Snape had once speculated that the Malfoy family name was derived not from mal foi--usually translated as bad faith--but mal foie, in recognition of an ancestor with liver disease. Now he wondered if both theories had some truth. Honor was like a disease with them.

"Zenobia's....I hope she stays out of trouble."

"As do I."

"Is her family...maybe you can't say."

"They're involved. Peripherally."

"Could be worse, I guess."

"Yes." He ventured, "I'll...if I can keep her out of trouble, I will."

Draco nodded. "I s'pose it's up to her, really."

"The Dark Lord prefers his recruits enthusiastic. And her parents don't seem likely to drag her in."

"Good. I like to think the idea that half her former teammates would be considered unworthy to live will give her pause, if she ever gets asked."

"You may be right." The smallest things could tip the balance, sometimes, perhaps not between good and evil but between evil and indifferent.

"I want to try to get more Slytherins next year. Zenobia's making the House team from the Dragons ought to help."

"Quidditch diplomacy?" Severus asked wryly.

"Exactly."

This conversation was edging close to topics he'd rather avoid. "You haven't been out of the castle since Christmas," he observed.

"True."

"And we never replaced your wand. I thought perhaps we should make a trip to Ollivanders."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "Okay."

"We're both free on Thursday afternoon." The suggestion was a peace offering; he hoped Draco would see it that way.

"Cool. You think it'll be safe, then?"

"Yes--if we stay in Diagon Alley it should be all right." Knockturn Alley would be another story.

"Okay. That'll be...fun."

#

On Thursday after Herbology, Draco lingered in the entrance hall, waiting for Snape. He was a little excited about going out in public for something other than a trial or a prison visit, but also a little nervous. The Professor seemed to think it would be all right, but he worried about being recognized. Or worse.

The Professor arrived, wearing his cloak and a harried expression. "I ask for one afternoon off, and suddenly a million urgent matters require my attention," he groused. "Ready?"

"Yes."

They floo'd to the Leaky Cauldron. Draco dusted himself off, remembering the last time they'd been in a pub.

"Ollivander's first?" Snape asked.

"Are we going somewhere else?"

"I have some shopping to do."

"Well, let's get the wand out of the way first."

The wad shop was empty of customers. The bells on the door jingled as they entered, bringing the wand maker out of the back room.

"Mister Snape," he greeted them, "And young Master Malfoy."

It was creepy, Draco thought, the way he always recognized his customers. He hadn't been in the shop since he was eight.

"The boy needs a wand," Snape said crisply.

"Mm, yes. I was sorry I couldn't fix your old one."

Draco shrugged. "It's all right."

"What have you been using since then?"

"This." Draco took his--Snape's--wand out of his sleeve.

"Hm. Ash, ten and a half inches, dragon heartstring." He looked up at Snape. "Your old wand."

"Yes."

"It's a fine wand. I don't know why you gave it up."

"It didn't suit me," Snape said tersely.

"If you say so. Have you found it unsuitable, Mr. Malfoy?"

"No, it's fine," he said, sliding a glance at Snape. There seemed to be something going on he didn't understand--but with Snape, there usually was.

"Well, we'll try some other dragon heartstring wands for you," Ollivander decided, summoning a few boxes from his shelves.

Snape sat on a chair looking bored and wary While Draco tried a dozen of so wands. He had reasonable results with all of them--he'd never been fussy when it came to wands, as some wizards were. Father had dismissed the notion of the wand choosing the wizard as so much arrant superstition--though the family shopped at Ollivander's anyway, since he was the best. But Ollivander seemed unhappy with the reaction of the wands to Draco.

"Let's try something in unicorn hair," he decided.

Draco tried another half a dozen wands.

Then Ollivander put his old wand in back in his hand. "Give that one a wave for me."

He did. It seemed no different from any of the others, but Ollivander's face brightened.

"That's the one," he said.

"I think he wants it back," Draco said, gesturing to Snape.

"Hm? No, keep it if you want it."

"Are you sure?" It had been his idea to come and get Draco a new wand.

"Yes, yes, keep it. I don't care." The Professor looked distinctly uncomfortable.

"All right then." Draco, feeling bad about taking up so much of the wandmaker's time and not buying a wand, purchased a case for the old wand.

"What was that about?" he asked, once they were outside of the shop.

"What was what about? Do you want to stop in here?" Snape indicated Quality Quidditch Supplies.

"Sure." Draco allowed himself to be distracted. He examined the new Nimbus line--his 2001 was still perfectly good, but there was no harm in seeing what they'd changed in the latest models--and purchased a couple of strategy manuals. Owl order was all well and good, but there was nothing quite like being able to see the goods in person before buying.

"It's my peacetime wand," Snape said abruptly, as they left the shop.

"What?" Draco said gormlessly.

"Your wand. I used it in school, and between the wars."

"Oh." That was...odd. "I'll give it back when the war's over, then."

He shrugged. "You don't have to. It's just a superstition. There's nothing wrong with this wand." He slid it out of his sleeve.

But the way he looked at it suggested there was.

"It's just that I've killed people with it." He tucked it back in his sleeve. "It seems...obscene, somehow. To use it for ordinary things."

But he did--if Draco had his non-killing-people wand, he was using the other for everything. "Are you sure you don't want this one back?" he pressed. "We can go back to the shop--"

"No, I want you to have it."

They went into the Apothecary shop, and it was Draco's turn to be bored while Snape demanded that any number of obscure things be taken down from high shelves so he could disparage their quality and argue over their prices. When he did condescend to buy something, he had very strict requirements for how every item was to be packaged. Draco wandered around the shop, poking into things for a short time, but the novelty of not being told to stop touching things quickly wore off, and he say down on the floor to read one of his Quidditch books.

Finally, the Professor finished making his purchases.

"Where to now?" Draco asked.

"The bookshop, unless you..."

"That's fine." He had enjoyed the history book Dumbledore had give him for Christmas; he'd check out the muggle studies section in the shop.

Flourish and Blotts, unlike the other stores they had visited, was crowded. Draco suddenly decided to stick close to the Professor, instead of going off by himself.

Snape headed directly for the Dark Arts shelves. There wasn't much there that Draco wanted to look at--besides, he was half sure that if he picked up something called How to Kill Your Enemies Twice, a reporter would happen along and snap his picture.

But a display of lurid paperbacks caught his eye. Poison-green lettering on the covers screamed Married to the Dark: Memoir of a Death Eater Wife. Fascinated and repelled, he picked up a copy. "A chilling portrait of one woman's descent into Darkness and her inspiring journey to redemption." he read on the back cover.

Snape turned. "Draco, have you--you don't want to read that."

"No, really?" he asked.

"It's a reprint of a book that came out right after His first fall. Hardly better than pornography."

"She wasn't really--"

"Of course not." He turned back to the shelves.

Draco, compelled, turned to the index at the back of the book and looked up "Malfoy."

A moment later, he shrieked like a little girl and dropped the book.

The Professor turned to glare at him. "I told you not to read that."

Draco opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish.

Snape picked up the book and put it back on the display. "The orgy chapter?"

He nodded.

"That didn't happen."

"Still...I'm not sure I can ever close my eyes again." His father...Lord Voldemort...Aunt Belatrix...

"I told you not to read it," Snape repeated unsympathetically.

"Why did you read it?"

"Trying to figure out where she got the information she didn't out-and-out fabricate. Some people thought she really was the wife of an escaped Death Eater."

"But she wasn't?"

"No. She just had access to some court records she shouldn't have. The secretary to somebody important in the Ministry was her sister. Or sister in law? I've forgotten."

"Oh." He still had a very unpleasant mental image. "He hasn't really got a snake--"

"No. For Merlin's sake, you know better than to believe everything you read."

Draco decided to refrain from touching things until Snape was finished in this corner of the store.

Two elderly witches wandered into the Cookery section, which was right next to Dark Arts, with a small section on poisoning in between.

"--one of those Death Eater brats," one said to the other in a carrying voice.

"Should have given them to decent people to raise," the second witch opined, just as loudly.

"Would you have wanted to take one?"

"My Harold would have beaten the bad right out of him."

Draco edged closer to Snape.

"Sanctimonious old bitch," the Professor snarled under his breath.

"You can't take the evil out of that sort. Don't think what Dumbledore thinks he's playing at, taking them at that school of his. Ought to be drowned at birth."

Snape snapped his book shut and wheeled around. "Madame, I couldn't help but overhear."

She looked him up and down and muttered something Draco couldn't catch.

"I, as you may have guessed, make rather a hobby of drowning small children. Tell me, do you prefer to put them in a gunneysack with some rocks, or to tie lead weights directly to their limbs?"

The witch gaped at him.

"I find that the former muffles their cries most effectively. But perhaps you prefer a more hands-on approach, and simply hold them face-down in the watering trough?"

"Well! I never!"

"What a shame. I so seldom encounter anyone willing to publicly admit to an interest in infanticide." Putting his book back on the shelf, he said, "Come, Draco."

They left the Dark Arts section and went up to the second level of the store.

"That was brilliant," Draco said.

"Thanks," Snape said shortly.

"Given the choice between being drowned at birth and having the bad beaten out of me by her Harold, maybe my parents weren't so bad," he mused.

"They're idiots. Don't worry about it. Do you want to look at anything?"

"Muggle Studies."

They went to the muggle studies section and browsed for a while.

"Here, this is a useful book." Snape handed him Passing: A Wizard's Guide to Living in Muggle Britain. "Not very analytical, but it's informative."

Draco paged through the book. It had sections on using muggle restaurants, shops, and hotels, as well as muggle entertainment, cookery, and technology. There was even a chapter on automobiles.

"Hey! I'm old enough to drive!"

"You are not."

Draco showed him the page. "Sixteen, it says. I've been sixteen since January."

"I don't care what it says, you are not old enough to drive."

"Do you know how to drive?"

"Yes."

"Then you can teach me!" He took down a book full of pictures of cars.

"I will not."

Draco ignored him. "First I'll need a car. You don't have a car, do you?" He'd never seen one around the school.

"No. And you cannot buy a car."

They appeared to come in different varieties. Sedans, station wagons, minivans... "I want one of these," he said, pointing at a low-slung black number. "Sports cars. Only silver."

"Cars are very expensive. And there isn't just the price of the car, you also need insurance, registration, and petrol. When you come into your estate, then you can have a car if you want one."

"I want one now."

"Too bad."

"I bet loads of kids my age have cars," he said stubbornly.

"On the contrary. Very few young people have their own cars."

"Then why is sixteen the driving age?"

"Most learn using their parents cars."

"Father doesn't have any cars. Didn't have."

"I know."

"And you don't either, so how am I going to learn to drive?"

"Once you're out of school, you can take driving lessons."

That seemed like a long time to wait. "Why can't you teach me now?"

"Because we don't have a car for you to learn on, and it would be pointless to buy a car now when you don't go anywhere. And you're too young." He held up his hand. "I know the book says you're old enough. But that's the age for muggle children, do have been around cars their whole lives. You'll be safer if you wait until you're older and have seen more of the muggle world to learn to drive."

Draco still thought he was being unreasonable, but he knew that was Snape was convinced his safety was involved, he wouldn't budge.

Maybe he'd ask Dumbledore. If he released the money for Draco to buy a car, Snape would have to teach him to drive it, if only to stop him practicing on his own.

"Albus will not let you buy a car while you're still in school."

Damn. He considered reminding the Professor that he was a Poor Abused Orphan, but somehow he didn't think even that would get him a car.

"I'm still going to buy this book," he said, holding up the car guide.

"Fine. You can buy any books you like."

Taking Snape at his word, he picked out several more books. "I think I'm ready," he said once he'd chosen all the books he wanted. "Do you want to look at anything else?"

"No, I'm finished."

"Good, then all we need to do is have somebody attack me, and then the trip will be complete."

Snape nodded acknowledgement. "A journey out of the castle does seem unfinished without an encounter with either Ministry goons or Dark minions, but perhaps we'll skip it this time."

"I hope so."

After they had paid for the books, Snape insisted on buying him an ice cream. He accepted, pointing out that he considered it a poor substitute for a car.

"I'm going away again this weekend," the Professor said, poking at a dish of vanilla.

"Oh." That was why he had arranged the trip, then.

"Yes." They ate in silence for a while, then Snape added, "I leave Saturday morning. Should be back Sunday."

"Okay. Be careful." Draco hated it when he went away on Death Eater business. Even though he hadn't come back injured in months, he couldn't help worrying.

"I will. Stay out of trouble."

"I'll try."

"Don't leave the castle."

He said that every time. "I know," Draco said. "Be careful."

"You just said that."

"Well, don't forget."

"I don't know...maybe I'll be there and I won't be able to remember, did Draco want me to be careful, or to stop on the way home and pick up milk?"

"I could write you a note."

"Only if you sign it "Dangerously Mad.'"

"Hah-bloody-hah."