Wars of the Labyrinth

They moved into the city in the late fall, greeting its population halfway through their annual depression. It froze again and the garbage trucks refused to drive for a week, letting the human waste pile up on the curb, the stench clouding the streets like smog. There came a petition, commissioned by a thirty-year old housewife with a newborn. She went from door to door on a Sunday afternoon in a light, pink dress robe and slippers, begging her neighbours to sign, because she's been slowly losing it ever since the diaper bin filled up. In those first few months, those who could afford it fled the city, most probably to never return again. Complete apartment blocks inhabited by young couples and rich men and kids emptied out. Only then did the trucks begin their daily rounds again.

The trouble never reached his street; it was too respectable, too important to neglect. Patrons and lawyers, fathers of the city huddled together in a row of houses you could count with your fingers and family names you couldn't fathom to pronounce. In the late hours of the day, the trucks came and went in silence.

He never woke up before noon.

It was a strange sort of habit, Blaise supposed. Not wanting to wake up in an empty house and therefore, always waiting for mother to wake first. The whole day, in fact, seemed to exist out of silly rituals - peculiar quirks that were only there to avoid certain awkward or uncomfortable situations. He hated the discomfort in such circumstances and would go through great lengths in order to avoid it. Blaise would, for example, be out of the house before lunch. But indeed, not because the city air granted him such satisfaction; no, but simply for he never bothered telling mother he rather disliked lunches and that his stomach wasn't built for consuming wayward food at any random time during the day. And doing such now, after so many years, simply seemed too... well, awkward for him to follow through.

Though once out of the house, the line between the awkward and supposed calm was less commonly breached. With well-bred ease, Blaise strolled about through busy markets and roads where the slosh didn't violate the cracks between the poorly paved sidewalks. He passed businessmen with money on their mind, working mothers with newly purchased coffee machines, and he carefully avoided the streets the December cold easily reached and where the trash stood feet-high, out of place like Roman pillars in a jungle. He'd buy five different newspapers and tuck them under his arm, safe for the long walk down Dolfsbury Road.

Dolfsbury itself was relatively a very short street, the actual name belonged to the road before the very first bridge, and it changed names with every other bridge that crossed one of the city's many canals. But twelve names for one long trottoire seemed pointless and so Dolfsbury became its overall given name.

After the eighth bridge, Blaise's trip usually came to a stop; ended with a large, vulgar sign hanging from a water pipe that indicated beer was sold in the establishment in question. A few rusty chairs stood on a pavement, deserted because no one but teenage tourists with shirts of dead icons and a quest searching for their wild side would dare sit there; there weren't many tourists in the winter anyway. He'd go in, take a seat in the back, drink a cup of coffee while encircling with a pen in each and every one of the papers the shows and events he could attend that evening. Blaise rarely made it to all of them, but he didn't mind-- anything to keep him busy.

The Brown Basket was a small, narrow joint with an old hearth in the back that was only used for unsanitary handlings which had nothing to do with central heating. Next to it was a single table for six. That's where Blaise usually sat until dusk fell and his nightlife could once again resume, with wild shows of the can-can and singing men in cat costumes.

Between the table and bar, the regulars were fiddling with the joysticks of the fruit machines as usual. There was Dominique, a loud, small Corsican that only left from the jingling of the cherry, cherry, pear, when he needed borrow some money. When asked for the reason he chose to spend his days losing money, he simply pulled the stick, letting it play its happy tune, saying--"Listen to that! Do you know a happier way to lose money?" Next to him stood quiet Albert, nicknamed Boeing for the aerodynamic shape of his head. His son, a boy no older than the age of sixteen and already his spitting image, always came with--whether it was the weekend or a regular school day, to learn the ways of gambling from his old man.

In the nave, the alcoholics clung to the poles of the bar like sailors to the mast of a sinking ship, yelling on about how we all are castaways of circumstances in the end, as though they'd already reached it. From time to time, a stranded tourist would end up sitting in the wrong section and was chained to his seat for hours as the drunks saw their chance to polish up the revised version of their lifelong story against a fresh pair of ears. And woe the person who'd dare disturb their inner monologues!

Near the street side, left to the door where a small podium was built into the wall, punk bands tried to attract the audience that never showed up. Two or three children that belonged to the landlord played with GI Joe and He-Man action figures in an improvised cardboard castle before the toilet door, undisturbed because they knew no one ever went in, since one of the pipes busted about a year back.

Most of the regulars Blaise never got to know; they were much older or much weirder than he was. But he knew enough to realise that bad things were bound to happen when Cide, the Greek, put a brown package on the fireplace and left, when not a minute later one or another red-eyed junk picked it up with a wry smile on his face. There were a few Wizards there, too, though he made sure to avoid any contact. At the door stood Einar, an old Squib who illegally sold Fizzing Whizzbees for an exorbitant price to underage Muggles who were looking for an adventure and magic pills. Gordon was one of the many victims hanging from the bar. He claimed to be an ex-member of the Order, and to have been banned and locked away under charges of treason just before the war, only to be released afterwards when they turned out to be false, to find his family gone. Most fancied him to be off his bloody rocker.

The only connection to the world, the one Blaise avoided so carefully in public, was The Squire, as many called him these days. The title however, indicating his blue-blooded heritage, was of as much use to him as an ice-cream stand certificate would've been in that time of the year. The Squire was to be found in the Brown Basket close to every day, whether alone or with Blaise, talking in a low voice of matters that were bound to "change the world" as they knew it.

There weren't many people left that knew The Squire by his given name, and even less that would still pronounce it were they to meet him on the street. Not that anyone would recognize Draco Malfoy in the current state he was in. When the war started, Malfoy disappeared completely; Blaise assumed he was in hiding, like himself and his mother were. But when the Order found him in an underground instalment below their late Potion master's house, the young man seemed to have completely lost his mind. Which wasn't an unreasonable thing, seeing as he must've been locked away for weeks before anyone found him, with Snape failing to return after one of the final battles.

From what Blaise understood, they had first placed him in St. Mungo's, declared him insane along with the likes of Rita Skeeter and Ronald Weasley. But he quickly escaped and was hiding ever since. Well, not so much hiding as no one actually bothered searching for him in the post-war fallout. Blaise didn't know what to make of it, let alone what to do with his former housemate. Often he had offered Draco to come and live with his mother and him, assured him that he'd be safe with them and that they wouldn't tell anyone about his whereabouts. Draco laughed and declined the offer kindly, but sternly. But why? Blaise wanted to know-- because, Draco explained, I couldn't possibly leave my people behind, D'Artagnan!

And that's when Blaise remembered: Draco Malfoy was indeed, completely off his rocker.

His appearance on its own was a dead giveaway to begin with. The Squire was known for many things; for example, the old ferret's felt he wore over his long cape, or his wooden cane fashioned out of a random stick. But most people knew him for the characteristic helmet he wore on his head; the round, iron helmet, custom-made fit only him.

Yes, Draco Malfoy was crazy.

"It's IT," he said. "The War. Many people mistook it for an abstract thing, but it is most certainly not! No, no it's not! It's alive, I tell you. It's very much fucking alive and - oooh, D'Artagnan, I was there. I was there when the war began, remember? Of course you do, my dear D'Artagnan, of course you do!"

Blaise sometimes wondered if Draco knew who he was. Remembered or recognized him - because he never called him by his name. No, it was always D'Artagnan, or whatever. Thing was, Blaise had never seen Draco talk to anyone else but him, so he didn't know if the boy called everyone after one of the Musketeers or whether he was the only one.

Draco claimed that when he was locked away, forced into hiding by Snape, he had the war with him. He referred to it as though it were an animal that lurked under your bed, this contagious virus that--

"Infects! It will, it will infect any person that comes near but--listen, listen, this is the interesting part! Are you listening, D'Artagnan? Thing is, when the War is defeated, right? When it ends - it ends altogether. WHAM! And it's gone! But I wasn't there, was I? No, they wouldn't let me be there, the fuckers. FUCKERS! I was locked. Locked me away and the war was locked with me, and it's still here--" he knocked on his helmet, grinning madly, "-- I know it is. But I won't let it get out, will I?" He leaned in closer, lowering his voice to a small whisper. "It's the helmet, it keeps it in place, you know? Keeps it quiet. So I won't let it out, no, I won't. Not yet!" He pressed a finger against his lips, smiling. "But I will. Someday, D'Artagnan, someday. My people will help me, my Avant Garde, they will, we'll let it loose and I won't be the only one. The War, it'll be in everyone! Everyone!" Draco balled his hand into a fist, holding up to his nose. "And then, I'll end it. I'll be the one to end it! Someday, D'Artagnan. Will you help me? I'll make you my lead man, you fucker, I WILL!"

Once, Blaise tried to convince him to take his helmet off. Draco panicked and asked Blaise whether he was out of his mind, knowing the catastrophic consequences of doing such a thing will have! Blaise got mad, because surely - this was Draco Malfoy! He must still be there, somewhere underneath the layers of iron, so he reached out, trying to knock off the silly contraption when Draco decided he had gone just about far enough and pulled out his wand on him. Blaise was mortified. He hadn't seen anyone's wand for years, and most certainly hadn't expected the guy who talked about his Avant Garde to still own his. So Blaise let Draco be, strangely comfortable with the silent kind of companion the old Slytherin made through the afternoon.

He hadn't bothered asking Draco about Snape, or Dumbledore, or even Harry Potter since that day. He wasn't even sure if Malfoy remembered Hogwarts to begin with--or at least, what was left of it. But if he still had his wand, remembered spells, then perhaps...

Sometimes Draco would ask for one of Blaise's newspapers. Blaise would give him the one with the least advertisements and Draco would silently nod and depart. But whether the boy used them to wrap fish or to actually read the news, was beyond Blaise's knowledge. He followed him one time, to see where Draco went when he wasn't in the Basket-- apparently Draco had squatted in an old, out of use movie theatre a few blocks from the bar, and Blaise relaxed a little, knowing he wasn't living in a box or some horrible shit like that.

Or something. Not that Blaise cared, or whatever.

Or whatever.