Summer in the City

Chapter 5

Harry and Draco were sitting on the floor of the Potions laboratory, heads bent over a sheet of paper, reading.

Harry had devised a truly effective method of communication between Padfoot and themselves. They had used one of Harry's notebooks and had written the alphabet inside it, making sure the letters were big enough for Padfoot to touch them with his nose. When it was ready, all Padfoot had to do was to point at the letters, while Draco put the words together and jotted down the dog's message. It read -

YOUR DAD DED SORRY I DIDNT KNO WAS BEST FRIEND AT SKOOL TOGETHE MOONY TOO THINKS YOU DED BUT NOW I SEE YOU ALIVE HAPPY MUST FIND MOONY IN HOSPITAL.

"So, um, Padfoot says your daddy is, er,dead," Draco said slowly. "Look, I know that sounds really stupid. I mean, how could a dog like Mr. Padfoot, even if he's magical, make claims and allegations of your father's state of, er, health."

"He's telling the truth," Harry said, silencing Draco with an impatient wave of her hand. She stood up, closed the copybook and started pacing around the lab. "My dad and mom died a few months after my first birthday, and I don't remember them at all. It's all right, really. I don't keep it a secret."

Draco watched her make a show of smoothing the notebook out and putting it on the worktable. He wasn't sure what was the right thing to say to someone whose parents were dead. Therefore, he settled on not saying anything.

"I guess it's lucky that Padfoot stopped at the end of each word, at least," Harry sighed. "Now we only have to deal with his spelling."

"He's a dog, you shouldn't expect him to spell like an academic," Draco said, secretly glad that they'd steered away from Uncanny Topics.

"He isn't a real dog," Harry said, smiling a little. She seemed to have regained her spirits. She pointed at the paper. "Look, it says best friend skool togethe. I bet Padfoot used to be human, a long time ago. Right, Mr. Padfoot?"

They both looked in Padfoot's direction, only to find him snoring peacefully in the middle of a soapy puddle.

"Oh, how sweet," Draco said in a falsetto voice.

"I think the potion has finally kicked in," Harry observed. "Just like in Mundungus's case. Funny."

"Are you suggesting Mr. Padfoot is an alcoholic?" Draco asked in mock outrage.

"It's more than just a suggestion, I guess," Harry said, laughing. "Great, no more questions tonight. He seems tired. We should let him sleep. It's not that we don't have anything else to do. We have to clean up this mess, before Severus checks back on us. You take care of the floor; I'll take care of the cauldron."

Draco groaned, but eventually hauled himself to his feet and grabbed the mop.

"It's going to take ages to clean this up without magic," he said, eyeing the floor critically.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Exactly. So, the sooner you begin, the better."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Why don't you just shut up?"

Suddenly, he felt the mop's handle give an excited buzz in his grip. He stared at it incredulously. What did I say to make it go - oh. Up.

Slowly and carefully, he let go of the handle. The mop was floating in the air. Draco quickly grabbed it again, before it could have shot up to the ceiling.

Draco felt his lips twist into a smirk. "You know, Harry, you were right. The sooner the better. All I needed was a flying mop -"

"You're mental," Harry said. "Mops can't fly."

She fell silent as Draco rose gracefully in the air. Draco grinned at her, and pulled up the handle, tilting the mop into a vertical position.

The floor was clean within ten seconds.

"I don't know about other mops," Draco drawled, not even trying to mask his smugness. "This one certainly can fly."

When he looked at Harry, the girl had a greedy expression on her face Draco had never seen before. "Hop down, Draco, I want to try it, too."

Draco suspected she would fail miserably, even on a Firebolt, but he didn't know how to tell her gently. Instead, he opted for the aggressive approach. "You don't have the balls for it, Julia. Or should I call you Harriet?"

Harry replied with a string of complicated oaths that even her greasy git of an uncle would have admired. At the same time, she jumped towards the mop. "I'm gonna get you back for this!"

Draco knew that he was much, much faster than Harry. He knew moving the handle a few inches would be more than enough. Besides, the poor little bint had glasses, for Merlin's sake. She didn't have a chance.

He was really surprised when Harry actually caught the handle, and jerked it out of Draco's grip.

"Are you insane, Harry?" he shouted, clutching himself, trying to regain his balance at the same time. "You've crushed my most private parts!"

Harry's only reply was a wild laugh. Draco snarled at her. "Just wait until your crown jewels are back from Neverland, I'll show you what it's like to have a mop's handle jammed into them!"

Harry rewarded this eruption with an unrepentant grin. "Mind your own crown jewels, Draco. I'm learning to fly here. Hop down."

"It's not as easy as it seems!" Draco screamed as he obediently climbed off the mop, quieted it down and laid it on the floor. To tell the truth, he was a bit worried about Harry - or, more precisely, that greasy git of an uncle of hers, who was likely to fry Draco's goolies in a vat of pumpkin seed oil when he discovered Draco had to be involved in his niece's sudden, mop-induced demise.

Harry, unaware of Draco's thoughts about impending fate and death, just shrugged as she went to stand beside the mop. "It seems easy to me. You just have to say up - "

It's going to be alright, Draco thought. No one has ever managed to get their brooms into the air on the first try. She's bound to fail, and she'll be too discouraged afterwards to try again -

The handle smacked into Harry's hand, and a second later soared into the air.

"Bugger," Draco said, softly and with feeling.

Harry was clutching the handle, feet dangling a few inches above the ground. "This is brilliant! How do you make it turn?"

"It's really difficult. It requires a lot of concentration, and a kind of eye-and-hand coordination that bespectacled people don't have. Not that I have anything against your glasses. It's just that you don't even know how to sit upright on the mop, so I think that should come first," Draco said breathlessly.

He knew he was babbling a bit; Harry proved to be a real distraction to his reasoning. She had managed to swing one leg over the handle and pull herself into a sitting position. More importantly, her boobs spilled from under her T-shirt during the process. It was very hard not to look at them. Very hard. So Draco eventually gave up and just stared transfixedly.

Harry stopped in mid-air and bent over Draco, with an anxious expression on her face and a healthy flush all over her body. "Draco, are you all right? What's the matter?"

"I think," said a silky, all-too-familiar voice from the doorway, "that Mr. Malfoy is worried because he already knows that from now on, you shall have to wear a bra at night, Harry."

Harry and the mop landed on the floor with a thud. Draco whirled on his heels in the direction of Snape's voice. He almost stumbled during the process, as he was trying to put a greater distance between them at the same time.

"I wasn't looking at her tits," he began. "They were in the way while I was observing the shelves behind her."

"Maybe I should have administered you a double dose of Veritaserum," Snape mused, stepping closer to Draco. "You were much more tolerable when you weren't telling lies, Mr. Malfoy. Your lies are extremely boring."

"Did you charm the mop to fly, Professor?" Draco asked, backing down slowly.

Snape's eyes narrowed, looking even more menacing than before. Then he stopped, face impassive. A heartbeat later, he suddenly turned around, stepped over to Harry and picked the mop up. "I can't charm anything to fly. I don't have my wand anymore."

He helped Harry on her feet. "Are you injured?"

The girl shook her head mutely.

"Good," Snape said. "Show Mr. Malfoy upstairs and make sure he takes a hot shower, and has clean clothes. Do not dawdle. I want him and his precious dog out of my house in fifteen minutes. He's been disturbing our peace long enough."

"But he has nowhere to sleep!" Harry squealed in protest.

Snape merely lifted a hand at that, but it was enough to silence her. "This is not up to negotiation. I'm certain that by now, Aurors have been sent out to search for Mr. Malfoy. Which is probably for the best. He does not belong here."

"But -"

Snape waved his hand impatiently.

"Do as I said. After we bid farewell to Mr. Malfoy, I want you in bed as quickly as possible. Asleep. Without delays or late-night reading sessions under the blanket. It's two o'clock in the morning. You will be woken at seven o'clock sharp. I've decided it shall be best for both of us to make you spend the rest of the holiday with me in the museum. That way, your possibilities of getting into trouble might decrease somewhat."

An odd look crossed Harry's face. "Today is okay, but not tomorrow. I promised Hermione I'd invite her over to celebrate my birthday."

Snape crossed his arms over his chest, holding the mop as if it had been some kind of a weapon. "I couldn't care less. You'll call her and cancel the invitation."

"That's not fair! It's my birthday," Harry argued, "and Hermione is my best friend. I won't invite anyone else over."

"You won't invite Miss Granger over to begin with. You have Arabella and Mundungus. You have me. You have your family," Snape hissed. "Isn't that enough for you?"

"That's not the same," Harry said, irritated.

"Exactly - she's an outsider, just like Mr. Malfoy here," Snape snapped. "She doesn't know who you are. Whenever she graces us with her presence, she causes trouble. I don't know how much time we have until her intolerable nosiness lands us in grave danger. I don't want her here. Do you understand?"

Not even waiting for an answer, he swept out of the room, mop in hand.

"He's quite awful, isn't he?" Draco asked when he reckoned Snape couldn't hear him anymore.

Harry waved him off. "He can be a lot nastier when he's really angry. This was nothing. Believe me, in the end he'll let me invite Hermione over. He just needs a bit of pressure. Don't mind him. Let's go upstairs."

Draco followed Harry through the door where Snape left. They were in the front part of the shop again. The staircase that led to the cellar was still there. Draco could hear Snape's voice from downstairs, calling Mundungus Fletcher a lazy old bastard.

"How can we get upstairs?" Draco asked.

"Wait and see," Harry replied with a grin. "Watch out."

She pressed a white button on the wall. The button beeped, and blinked red. The ceiling right above Draco's head emitted a loud, creaking noise. He stepped aside just in time, as a massive wooden ladder hit the floor at the exact spot where he'd been standing.

Harry motioned Draco forward and upward. "Blokes first."

She seemed pleased that she had been able to surprise Draco. In fact, she was grinning ear to ear in the fashion of the proverbial Cheshire kneazle. Draco was too tired for this. The ladder's sudden appearance had scared him quite a bit. He swallowed his heart back, and climbed up the ladder.

Beyond the ladder and the trapdoor, he found a spacious kitchen, a sitting room and a row of bedrooms. Harry guided him to the farthest - and, as it turned out, most chaotic and untidy - bedroom. Once there, she shoved a huge towel and a toothbrush in Draco's hands.

"Here, go to my bathroom, take a shower, whatever. You can keep the toothbrush. I'll get you some food and clothes."

Once Draco learned how to subdue the vicious metallic hose and adjust the water to a bearable temperature, he showered quickly and without permanent injuries. When he left the bathroom, wrapped in the towel, a set of clothes was waiting for him on the rumpled bed. They looked all right, if you got over the horrid candy-blue colour of the jumper and the trousers.

Draco hesitated for a moment, but since Harry was nowhere in sight, he shed the towel and put on the clothes. He was buttoning his fly when there was a knock at the door.

He strode to the door and tore it open, ready to tell Harry off for intruding upon him while he was getting dressed. However, the words died on his lips as soon as his brain processed that his visitor was Severus Snape.

"I presume you are clean and ready to leave," Snape said.

A few seconds passed before Draco realised Snape was waiting for an answer. "Well, I don't think I have another choice, have I?"

"No, of course you haven't," Snape replied. Draco expected him to gloat over the clothes, or the fact that he was chucking Draco out of the house, but he didn't. He simply stood aside and motioned Draco forward, with a gesture similar to Harry's. "After you."

When they climbed down the ladder, the Fletchers were waiting for them, with a drowsy-looking Padfoot. Draco was glad the dog was awake - that meant he wouldn't have to carry him. Harry was standing by the entrance door. She was holding a backpack in one hand. With the other hand, she gestured towards the horrible blue trousers she gave to Draco.

"Those are my best unisex jeans. Don't you dare ruin them; I'll have them back as soon as I can lose a few pounds" she said.

"Harry, how many times do I have to tell you that it is normal to grow out your clothes?" Snape said, annoyed.

Harry ignored the comment and held out the backpack to Draco. "This is yours. I've packed you your old clothes, some more clothes, a bottle of Coke, and a few sandwiches. And, erm, there's a envelope with a few quid, it's not much -"

"Harry, please, may I have a look at it," Snape said. It wasn't a question.

Hary handed the backpack over to Snape. He went through the contents carefully. He spent a long time examining the envelope, leafing through the banknotes.

"Harry, where's the letter?" Snape's voice was casual, but his eyes bore into Harry's like daggers.

"What letter?" Harry asked, annoyed.

"Any letter you might have written to instruct Draco how to meet you again," Snape said.

Harry looked outraged. "I haven't written him any letters."

They stared at each other for a while. Finally, Harry started blinking rapidly and looked away. Snape smirked triumphantly, and handed the backpack over to Draco. "Here, Mr. Malfoy. I wish you a safe journey."

Draco glared at him, but took the backpack anyway. He had a strong urge to shout and cry, but he was determined not to humiliate himself in front of Snape.

"Thank you, Professor Snape," he said icily. "Harry, it was good to see you. Mrs. Fletcher. Mr. Fletcher."

"Oh, spare us the theatrics," Snape hissed. "Just go."

"Fine," Draco ground out. He turned around and marched through the entrance door, not looking back. "Come on, Padfoot, let's go."

Maybe it was a mistake that he didn't turn back. Maybe it was a mistake to ignore Padfoot's warning barks. But then again, he probably couldn't have stopped the vial that Snape hurled after him.

The small bottle smashed on the pavement. Before the purple, heavy fumes rising from the glass shards covered him, Draco could see the label for a second. There was a single word on it.

Obliviate.