Deceiver's Web

Muggle eyes slid away from Draco when he entered, never alighting upon him, never seeing. It had taken him months to get used to that. Being invisible. Now he hardly noticed, except to be glad that they never seemed to come close enough to actually touch him. To touch him, even accidentally, would have been to admit that he was real. Muggles will never see what they do not believe. How contemptuously easy, then, for a wizard to draw a curtain across their mind's eye. And thus... another man stepped out of Draco's path, unseeing.

It was a common pub, indistinguishable at a glance from a thousand others; he had long since given up trying to keep track of the names. It was easier to remember them by street name and number, anyway. This is 117 Whitfax. The time before it was 56 Bootblack Row, and before that... I can't remember. And at this bar, as he had at all the others, sat Potter.

He always gets here first, Draco thought, not for the first time. ...Old habit? "Potter," he said neutrally, sliding onto the stool next to the man, silvered hair whispering along the collar of his finely tailored robes.

"Malfoy." The Auror's clothes would have been unremarkable in any Muggle gathering, though they always seemed ill-fitting. More to do with the wearer than the tailor, I expect. His old foe had grown into a tall and gangly man in the few years since graduation. Untidy, too, just as that ridiculous mop of hair had been threatening defiantly since they were children. "Were you followed?" he asked, staring unconcernedly into his glass as though the actual answer were irrelevant. There was a hint of blue shadowing his gaunt jaw.

"Of course. Same as you." Draco shrugged. "It's a Ministry man. Nothing I can't clean up after I leave." He caught the grimace on the other man's face, and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Memory charms, Potter, memory charms. I know better than to kill a Ministry agent."

For the first time since he had sat down, Potter looked at him. Scowled at him. "So you've said. And said. I still haven't decided whether or not I believe you."

"And I still haven't decided whether or not you're a fool," Draco said lightly. "As soon as you know your decision, I have the feeling I'll know mine." He rubbed the new close-cropped growth of beard that ran along his jaw. "As it happens, that's not why we're here. Your list?" With those two small words, there was a rasp of steel in his soft, drawling voice.

"If you want this list, you'd better hope yours performs better than last time," Potter said warningly. "Three of the people on your last list were killed or captured by Aurors before I even had time to make it back to headquarters and report. And one of the other four was made a rather gruesome example of by Voldemort the day after, while arrest papers were still being drawn up." One hand rested on his breast pocket, though he made no effort to retrieve the paper ostensibly inside. "We had to grow the rest of her body back from the pieces, just to identify her."

"Bella never did know how to stay out of trouble. And that knife cuts both ways, you know," Draco pointed out. "One of the minor officeholders on your list was stabbed by a Muggleborn whore in Soho the night we planned to take him. They had danced the dance before, it would seem. A little money, a little lust, and far too much to drink; and he raised a hand and belt to the girl perhaps once too often. It was a very neat job, too," he added, thoughtfully. "Right through the heart. We might have found a use for her later, but she ran out into the street afterwards, naked and bloody and screaming her head off for the authorities. And that sort of thing we do frown on." He smiled innocently, knowing full well how much his counterpart hated hearing what happened to the names he put forward. Perhaps he should be thankful he doesn't know what Lark and Arron did to the girl, when they shut her up. Though he'd likely think I ordered it. "What would your superiors think," he wondered aloud, inner eyes still seeing the girl's huddled form, "if they knew what you were doing to get these names?"

Potter said nothing, though his eyes flashed with anger. Yes, you do hate what you do, don't you? But what I offer is far too much for you to pass up. "Enough talk, Malfoy. Let's make the exchange and be done with it." He slapped the list down on the bar, (right into a small ring of beer on the countertop, Draco noticed in irritation) making the bartender eye him warily. The man never once flicked an eye Draco's way. He never would.

"Temper, temper." Draco swiped the sodden list from the bar and dropped a small folded square of parchment into the Auror's open palm. His eyes scanned the list quickly, and he gave an appreciative whistle. "Vintemann? Now there's a tasty morsel. What did he do?" A napkin on the bartop proved ideal for swabbing up the moisture on the parchment before the ink could run.

"He's been embezzling funds from St. Mungo's for years. Normally, in chaotic times like these, the ministry is willing to overlook the crimes in exchange for putting the person to work for us. But this one..." He shrugged. "He tried to take the money and run. Close to a hundred thousand galleons worth." The look on Draco's face must have betrayed some of his astonishment and disbelief: a tidy portion of that stolen sum might well have been donated by his father. "Nervy bastard, isn't he? We recovered the largest part of the money when Lowell and Balonn tried to take him in a run-down Belfast flat last week, but he managed to Apparate out, and that's the last we've heard of him."

Draco smiled unpleasantly, carefully sliding the still-damp list into the inner pocket of his robe. "You'll be hearing of him again, and soon," he promised. "A man that greedy has other appetites, I'll wager; I'd be surprised if we couldn't track him down within the week." Still, charges or no charges, Alfred Vintemann was a public figure held in high esteem: the Dark Lord would be pleased.

Unfolding the little piece of paper, Potter mirrored Draco's own movement from moments before. "Jacob Nordenthal?" he asked quietly, not seeming even to see the answering nod. "I had dinner with him yesterday, in his home." As he spoke the words, he absently refolded the list and pocketed it, then stared at his empty hands as though wondering what they were. The Auror sounded tired, tired, tired. Not furious, as Draco had expected. "He talked about the way things used to be, before the war, and we drank to the good old days..." Trailing off, he looked up. "Are you sure?" His brows drew together over his piercing gaze.

"Positive." Draco met the taller man's eyes glassily. "He's been ours almost from the beginning. Never killed but once, though he's been useful in other ways. Lately, though, he's been heard to say that he wished things were different. That maybe we should make seek peace with the wizarding world." He grimaced, picking at the bar with a manicured fingernail. "Very foolish of him. Jacob has always had a big mouth."

Curiously, Potter's face grew angry. He doesn't like to hear me speak of the man in such familiar terms, he realized. He realized, as well, that his sullen counterpart was getting that look of stubbornness and guilty silence that he must have thought passed for cunning. "You can't save him," Draco said firmly, his voice a shade more harsh than he had intended. "Disloyalty is not tolerated." There was no need to state by whom. "If you don't take him down, I shouldn't doubt that we'd get the order tomorrow. And there's no place you could put him that one of us couldn't reach." Potter looked willing to dispute the claim, but Draco plowed on. "If you're really his friend, then consider this: one way or another, he doomed himself from the outset. At least you can give him the gift of mercy. Do you think Macnair or Torm would do the same, Potter?" The mention of the two sadistic killers had ended the argument, Draco knew. He could see defeat in the slump of the other man's shoulders. Oddly enough, it only made him more angry. "You were always so quick to accept the other names I gave you; names of people you didn't like or didn't care about. I guess it's a bit different, finding out that not every killer walks around with a black mask and skull-and-serpent mark. Well, wake up, Potter," he hissed. "Not every villain wears the Mark, and not every woman is a maiden. I have a feeling you'll like my next list a lot less."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Potter said, a shade too loudly, voice simmering with anger. When Draco shook his head and refused to answer, he snorted in derision, and turned to face the Death Eater fully. "If any of these names have been lies, Malfoy," he promised, pointing, "you'll wish Voldemort had burned you alive and strung you up by what was left. I'll not kill any man on just your say-so."

"Could you say that bit about the Dark Lord and killing for me a bit louder please? The three Muggles in the corner booth look like they want to hear it again. " He gave an irritated toss of his head. "Didn't they teach you anything about not attracting attention in that Auror nursery school you went to?"

"If anything's going to attract attention, it'll be you with your ridiculous Muggle-wards," Potter retorted. "I have a feeling they'll think it a bit odd, me apparently sitting here having an argument with an empty barstool." He looked to the bartender, absurdly, as though expecting some sort of agreement. The man only blinked and looked swiftly away.

Shifting in his seat, affronted, Draco shrugged. "At least they won't remember my face, Potter. They'll never be able to place me here. I don't even exist to them." It irritated him, being on the defensive. "And you can laugh it up, right until one of them takes a--gun," he remembered the word almost at once, and felt an odd bit of pride, "and blasts you in some dark alley for your money or your shoes, or some other such madness. Muggles do that, you know. And I have a feeling you weren't meant for a heroic death," he added, with an ironic twist to his lips. "You've had far too many heroics as it stands. No, your death is going to be one of those let-that-be-a-lesson-to-you type of things, that Mad-eye Moody barks at the next raw batch of Aurors-in-training. Something about it being the enemy you discount that gives you a place of honor right underneath your monument."

If his words had any effect other than to annoy Potter further, he didn't see it. "Spare me the usual pureblood spiel. One day I'll find Voldemort's little book of sayings, and then we won't need to talk at all, will we?" He finished his beer and left without another word, putting a few scraps of Muggle money on the counter for his drink.

"Prick." Draco stared at the door after his foe for several long moments, a faint smile twisting his lips, until a small man with a black and rotten grin appeared at his elbow. "Did he see you?"

"Nah. I shouldn't think so." Derrick was dressed in the usual tattered overcoat and tweed that made him seem the quintessential begging barfly. "He didn't even glance my way. The bartender didn't seem to think anything was wrong with my disguise, neither. Though he did seem a bit surprised when I paid for my drink."

"That's because it isn't a disguise, Derrick. You always look like that." Draco frowned. "How many times have I told you to get your bloody teeth fixed, Jape?" The nickname had come early and easily; the dirty man did always smile as though someone else had just been the butt of a particularly cruel joke.

"Oh, probably eight or ten times, by now. You keep right on telling and I keep right on ignoring." Jape smiled too often, for a man with rotten teeth, Draco thought. "Besides, you should see the way it scares the muggle-lovers. Not everyone can shake the piss out of someone with a flash of pearly whites." After a moment's thought, he added, "Though you seem to do right well for yourself."

"Glad to hear it." Unlike many of the Dark Lord's lieutenants who ruled their cabals with an iron fist, including his own father, Draco never batted an eye at insolence. I want to command men, not sheep. Women, not cattle. So long as they obeyed his real commands, he let them have their fun. And it worked: unlike most of the other groups, he only had to make the Devil's Example, as it had come to be called, perhaps twice in the year, and he currently attracted more recruits than any other sect in the order. That much was to be expected. If they thought I was weak, they'd remove me in a second. But they know they're better off under me than most anyone else. In the last three or four years, I've shown them that much. My star is rising, not falling. "Did he see Istvan?"

Derrick snorted. "I didn't see Istvan. He's probably bringing in the Ministry snoop right now."

"Crabbe? Goyle?"

"With Istvan."

Draco nodded. "Spread the word; we'll split up and meet back at the cliffs. Istvan is to go straight there with his catch, but only once he's sure he hasn't been seen. Tell everyone to take their time and play it casual before they go their separate ways, too, in case we're being watched." He didn't think it likely, but being vigilant was often the difference between having a pulse and not. "Anyone brings a snoop with them to the cliff, or Dark Lord forbid, back to the hideout, it's their head."

"And here," he added, withdrawing a tiny bundle from his pocket, "I need you to put this under the floorboards of Jacob Nordenthal's home in Dublin. Right now. Get in and out as quickly as you can without being sloppy, you've only got an hour at most. And it needs to look like it's been there for a long, long time."

Another black and rotted smile, and the little man took the package, turned to the crowd, and was gone. And so, with a thump of displaced air like a small peal of thunder, was Draco.