Draco inspected the scrap of paper carefully, looking out for any additional markings that might tell him more, but there was nothing else to be revealed. It hadn't been in his pocket before he left the penthouse -- of that he was quite sure. That meant that someone had to have slipped it to him at some point during his excursion to Diagon Alley. He tried to remember all the instances in which someone might have had the chance to do so; most recently, he had come into some kind of contact with a handful of people at Flourish and Blotts, including the irritating Weasley girl, who had come marching up to him, eyes all ablaze with accusation, for no good reason. He felt fairly sure she hadn't been the culprit, however, as she was the kind of person far more prone to shouting at him on the spot than arranging for a clandestine meeting so she could shout at him in secret. Ruling her out didn't make it any easier to pin down the note-dropper, however. It had been rather busy on Diagon Alley, both in the cobblestone street and eventually in the bookshop, and he couldn't recall anyone who had caught his attention as being overtly suspicious.
Ordinarily, Draco might have just given the whole thing up as a mistake, a note accidentally fallen into the wrong place, like forgetful pygmy puffs who nuzzled up to person after person, thinking each successive one was its owner. The message meant little to him, after all, as he'd never heard of any place called The Wembley Arms, nor had he ever had the desire to visit a place as common and dull as Ealing sounded -- but considering his current circumstances as a newly-minted spy, which still seemed rather outlandish if he thought about it for very long, he should probably start learning to expect the unexpected, and roll along with every situation as it came.
There was also the regrettable fact that he had long been ingrained with a nasty curious streak that had gotten him into hot water a number of times, and this note was just the kind of thing that would eat away at him until he managed to pick through it and know everything there was to know, even if it meant finding out that there was nothing to know after all.
His first order of business, then, was to find out where exactly The Wembley Arms was located, followed soon after by looking up how to get there as inconspicuously as possible. Draco looked around the living room, sizing up his options as though they were laid out in front of him on the coffee table; Blaise was off gallivanting somewhere and having the kind of adventures only the Zabini heir could think up, while Elba, by the sound of it, was busying herself somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen. Turning his head in that direction, Draco wondered if the elf might be able to do the research for him. After all, his day out had been short-lived and unfortunate, and he wasn't entirely keen on doing it again, not to mention possibly having to explain to random nosy parkers why he was exchanging perfectly good money for worthless Muggle currency, consulting maps of Muggle England and looking up how to use that 'tube' thing, the virtues of which Burbage had once endlessly extolled. This bit of Muggle Studies he had retained in his memory banks, as her enthusiastic chronicle of its workings had struck him at the time as being not much more than a glorified metal death trap, which, in his estimation, also served as an apt description of almost all other forms of Muggle transport.
Wishing for the first time in his life that he had kept his Muggle Studies textbook instead of hurtling it into the ocean that summer his family had holidayed by the seaside, Draco called for Elba. Blaise wouldn't mind him using the elf for non-household jobs; after all, the one house rule only covered women, dental hygiene and sweets, so by all accounts, Elba was Draco's to use as he pleased.
The next morning's front page of the Daily Prophet didn't feature him after all, which was happy news. Saved the trouble of stewing over a biased write-up and unflattering photo, Draco instead spent his morning filling up a very large owl order form for Flourish and Blotts, depleting much of their Muggle book stock, while the afternoon was occupied with bouts of antsiness as the hour drew closer for him to depart for Ealing. One part of his mind told him he was mental for thinking of going in the first place just because some anonymous note told him so, while another bit of his brain told the first bit to shut up because he was a spy now and this was what spies did. Yet a third voice snidely suggested that neither of them had any idea what real spies did, seeing as Draco hadn't done anything remotely involved with intelligence work other than getting ambushed by other agents all the time. For this reason, Draco had carefully neglected to mention his evening plans to Blaise, though he made the mistake of swearing Elba to secrecy when he sent her out on the research mission; precisely because he had told her to keep it quiet, she was acting far more fidgety than usual, as if someone had set off a switch to 'vibrate', and was given to the occasional burst of nervous giggling.
For all her disastrous attempts at affecting nonchalance, however, Elba had also been enormously resourceful, supplying Draco with a wad of Muggle cash, a handful of coins and a small map with colour-coded route options; the elf had also given him very thorough directions on how to find the correct underground stations and how to travel safely on the trains, which had really been his biggest concern.
Draco set off to The Leaky Cauldron quite a bit earlier than he needed to, just so he had something concrete to do before he drove himself up the wall. Moving swiftly through the bustle of patrons and waiters, who only belatedly noticed him passing through and therefore had no chance to gasp within his earshot, Draco pushed out of the front doors and found himself on a busy street, blocking the seamless flow of foot-traffic, surrounded by Muggles with places to go and no time to get there. Checking Elba's map as he inserted himself into the stream, he quickly found the Charing Cross station and its ticket office.
There was a gaggle of tourists with cameras and waist-pouches hovering about the ticketing area, and judging by the giant fake sunflower marked 'AF Tours' she was holding in the crook of one arm, the woman who stood just in front of him in the ticketing queue was their leader. Draco tried to watch the transaction carefully, which was slightly difficult, seeing as the woman was directly in his way. As she moved out of the line, Draco stepped forward to the ticket office.
"One to Ealing Broadway," he said clearly, hoping that was enough information.
A pink paper ticket emerged out of a slot, and tearing it off, the ticket officer said in a bored voice, "Four pounds."
"Right," Draco muttered to himself, fishing a fistful of coins out of one pocket. He picked out and dropped two coins onto the counter, feeling confident. This wasn't so difficult, and he was perfectly capable of managing a double life.
Looking at the coins and then up at him, the ticket officer screwed her mouth into a condescending frown. "This is four pee," she said, using two fingers to push the coins back towards him.
Behind him, the tour guide was handing out tickets to everyone in her group, the action accompanied by a loud and cheery pep talk. "You can't come to London without experiencing the tube at least once! Now, we'll take this train to Piccadilly Circus and transfer from there to Knightsbridge, on the blue Piccadilly Line, and then it's just a short walk to Harrods," she said in a voice that suggested she was talking to very small children, and if the group's response was anything to go by, one would not be faulted for assuming that they just might have been excitable toddlers. "Now, it might sound a little complicated, but the underground system is actually very easy to use."
Draco took it as a personal insult, scowling as he fumbled with his paper money. Finally finding a five pound note, he managed to escape with his ticket in hand, and hung back in the rear of the tour group for a moment, pretending to check his watch as though he was waiting for someone while he surreptitiously observed each person feed their ticket into the barrier machines. When he was satisfied that he had the motions down, Draco followed suit and passed through without difficulty, much to his relief.
Reaching his destination without further incident -- he'd felt quite happy with himself making the transfer to the correct line on his own, not to mention finding himself emerging alive after riding half an hour in the life-threatening contraptions -- Draco checked his map again and headed towards The Wembley Arms, which turned out to be a rather nondescript, though large, pub. There were tables and chairs set out for alfresco dining but as the sun was beginning to hang low in the sky, the temperature had cooled considerably as well, and the seats were left empty. The pub's windows were slightly frosted, whether by special window treatment or just by years of having gone uncleaned he didn't want to guess, and though he could make out some shapes and shadows within, Draco couldn't quite tell if there was a crowd inside or not.
Having found the place well before six, Draco wondered what to do with himself now. He hadn't narrowed his note-dropping suspects list down much farther since the night before, so he wasn't sure who or what to expect. There was also the very good chance that the note hadn't been at all intended for him and he had just come on a self-inflicted wild goose chase. Just standing outside would probably seem suspect, not to mention rather uncomfortable if he had to stand there for a while, so he decided to brave the unwashed masses indoors.
He was pleased to discover that The Wembley Arms' clientele was not as unclean as he assumed, few as they were. There were two old men chatting and puffing on pipes in the back corner booth, and two loners sat apart at the bar, nursing beers and watching an indecipherable sporting event on a large television set mounted high on the wall behind the bartender. Draco eased himself onto a barstool, keeping his eyes on the television as though he actually knew what the little fellows in white were doing.
Something exciting appeared to have happened, however, as one man sitting a couple of stools away suddenly cheered, and cuffed Draco on the shoulder, mistaking his fake interest in the goings-on as ardent fanaticism. "Yeah! Did you see that googly? Got 'im right out!"
"Oh. Yes. Rah," cheered Draco, not quite sure if the man had been speaking English. Lowering and pushing forward the smacked shoulder, he tried sneaking a glance to the point of contact to see whether he needed to have it cleaned.
The bartender ambled up, flipping a slightly stained dishtowel over his shoulder and saving Draco from having to decode any further sports-speak. "What'll it be?"
"Whatever you've got on tap," he replied, hoping it wasn't total swill. A sip of his dark ale was a pleasant surprise, and he took another, feeling more Muggle-ish already.
A middle-aged couple entered the pub, and headed straight for a booth, talking the whole way. They completely ignored his existence, which Draco took to mean that neither of them had slipped him the parchment. As he continued to try to make heads or tails of the game going on in front of him, Draco was only vaguely aware of the door opening again some time later, letting in a small man with windswept, dark brown hair. Draco did notice, however, when the man took a stool next to him.
"I'm glad you got my note," he said quietly, his eyes facing forward at the television.
Draco looked at his profile, and could find no apt words for his features, which were so generic that they were almost instantly forgettable. Had he been asked to describe the man's appearance, Draco would have only been able to come up with something along the lines of, "He has two eyes, a nose and possibly a mouth." Narrowing his eyes, Draco asked, "Do I know you?"
The man chuckled softly, his eyes cast downward in self-deprecation. "I get that a lot. Let's get a booth, shall we?" He stood, and then gestured to the bartender to bring him the same drink Draco had, and, with their glass steins in hand, moved to a more secluded area of the pub. Once they were settled -- Draco towards the outer edge of the seat just in case bolting became necessary -- the man gave him a sideways smile. "To answer your question: yes, you do know me. Does this help?" he asked, sweeping his messy hair into a side part and turning the smile into a boyish, enthusiastic grin.
Draco's expression hardened in recognition. "Creevey!"
Ordinarily, Draco might have just given the whole thing up as a mistake, a note accidentally fallen into the wrong place, like forgetful pygmy puffs who nuzzled up to person after person, thinking each successive one was its owner. The message meant little to him, after all, as he'd never heard of any place called The Wembley Arms, nor had he ever had the desire to visit a place as common and dull as Ealing sounded -- but considering his current circumstances as a newly-minted spy, which still seemed rather outlandish if he thought about it for very long, he should probably start learning to expect the unexpected, and roll along with every situation as it came.
There was also the regrettable fact that he had long been ingrained with a nasty curious streak that had gotten him into hot water a number of times, and this note was just the kind of thing that would eat away at him until he managed to pick through it and know everything there was to know, even if it meant finding out that there was nothing to know after all.
His first order of business, then, was to find out where exactly The Wembley Arms was located, followed soon after by looking up how to get there as inconspicuously as possible. Draco looked around the living room, sizing up his options as though they were laid out in front of him on the coffee table; Blaise was off gallivanting somewhere and having the kind of adventures only the Zabini heir could think up, while Elba, by the sound of it, was busying herself somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen. Turning his head in that direction, Draco wondered if the elf might be able to do the research for him. After all, his day out had been short-lived and unfortunate, and he wasn't entirely keen on doing it again, not to mention possibly having to explain to random nosy parkers why he was exchanging perfectly good money for worthless Muggle currency, consulting maps of Muggle England and looking up how to use that 'tube' thing, the virtues of which Burbage had once endlessly extolled. This bit of Muggle Studies he had retained in his memory banks, as her enthusiastic chronicle of its workings had struck him at the time as being not much more than a glorified metal death trap, which, in his estimation, also served as an apt description of almost all other forms of Muggle transport.
Wishing for the first time in his life that he had kept his Muggle Studies textbook instead of hurtling it into the ocean that summer his family had holidayed by the seaside, Draco called for Elba. Blaise wouldn't mind him using the elf for non-household jobs; after all, the one house rule only covered women, dental hygiene and sweets, so by all accounts, Elba was Draco's to use as he pleased.
The next morning's front page of the Daily Prophet didn't feature him after all, which was happy news. Saved the trouble of stewing over a biased write-up and unflattering photo, Draco instead spent his morning filling up a very large owl order form for Flourish and Blotts, depleting much of their Muggle book stock, while the afternoon was occupied with bouts of antsiness as the hour drew closer for him to depart for Ealing. One part of his mind told him he was mental for thinking of going in the first place just because some anonymous note told him so, while another bit of his brain told the first bit to shut up because he was a spy now and this was what spies did. Yet a third voice snidely suggested that neither of them had any idea what real spies did, seeing as Draco hadn't done anything remotely involved with intelligence work other than getting ambushed by other agents all the time. For this reason, Draco had carefully neglected to mention his evening plans to Blaise, though he made the mistake of swearing Elba to secrecy when he sent her out on the research mission; precisely because he had told her to keep it quiet, she was acting far more fidgety than usual, as if someone had set off a switch to 'vibrate', and was given to the occasional burst of nervous giggling.
For all her disastrous attempts at affecting nonchalance, however, Elba had also been enormously resourceful, supplying Draco with a wad of Muggle cash, a handful of coins and a small map with colour-coded route options; the elf had also given him very thorough directions on how to find the correct underground stations and how to travel safely on the trains, which had really been his biggest concern.
Draco set off to The Leaky Cauldron quite a bit earlier than he needed to, just so he had something concrete to do before he drove himself up the wall. Moving swiftly through the bustle of patrons and waiters, who only belatedly noticed him passing through and therefore had no chance to gasp within his earshot, Draco pushed out of the front doors and found himself on a busy street, blocking the seamless flow of foot-traffic, surrounded by Muggles with places to go and no time to get there. Checking Elba's map as he inserted himself into the stream, he quickly found the Charing Cross station and its ticket office.
There was a gaggle of tourists with cameras and waist-pouches hovering about the ticketing area, and judging by the giant fake sunflower marked 'AF Tours' she was holding in the crook of one arm, the woman who stood just in front of him in the ticketing queue was their leader. Draco tried to watch the transaction carefully, which was slightly difficult, seeing as the woman was directly in his way. As she moved out of the line, Draco stepped forward to the ticket office.
"One to Ealing Broadway," he said clearly, hoping that was enough information.
A pink paper ticket emerged out of a slot, and tearing it off, the ticket officer said in a bored voice, "Four pounds."
"Right," Draco muttered to himself, fishing a fistful of coins out of one pocket. He picked out and dropped two coins onto the counter, feeling confident. This wasn't so difficult, and he was perfectly capable of managing a double life.
Looking at the coins and then up at him, the ticket officer screwed her mouth into a condescending frown. "This is four pee," she said, using two fingers to push the coins back towards him.
Behind him, the tour guide was handing out tickets to everyone in her group, the action accompanied by a loud and cheery pep talk. "You can't come to London without experiencing the tube at least once! Now, we'll take this train to Piccadilly Circus and transfer from there to Knightsbridge, on the blue Piccadilly Line, and then it's just a short walk to Harrods," she said in a voice that suggested she was talking to very small children, and if the group's response was anything to go by, one would not be faulted for assuming that they just might have been excitable toddlers. "Now, it might sound a little complicated, but the underground system is actually very easy to use."
Draco took it as a personal insult, scowling as he fumbled with his paper money. Finally finding a five pound note, he managed to escape with his ticket in hand, and hung back in the rear of the tour group for a moment, pretending to check his watch as though he was waiting for someone while he surreptitiously observed each person feed their ticket into the barrier machines. When he was satisfied that he had the motions down, Draco followed suit and passed through without difficulty, much to his relief.
Reaching his destination without further incident -- he'd felt quite happy with himself making the transfer to the correct line on his own, not to mention finding himself emerging alive after riding half an hour in the life-threatening contraptions -- Draco checked his map again and headed towards The Wembley Arms, which turned out to be a rather nondescript, though large, pub. There were tables and chairs set out for alfresco dining but as the sun was beginning to hang low in the sky, the temperature had cooled considerably as well, and the seats were left empty. The pub's windows were slightly frosted, whether by special window treatment or just by years of having gone uncleaned he didn't want to guess, and though he could make out some shapes and shadows within, Draco couldn't quite tell if there was a crowd inside or not.
Having found the place well before six, Draco wondered what to do with himself now. He hadn't narrowed his note-dropping suspects list down much farther since the night before, so he wasn't sure who or what to expect. There was also the very good chance that the note hadn't been at all intended for him and he had just come on a self-inflicted wild goose chase. Just standing outside would probably seem suspect, not to mention rather uncomfortable if he had to stand there for a while, so he decided to brave the unwashed masses indoors.
He was pleased to discover that The Wembley Arms' clientele was not as unclean as he assumed, few as they were. There were two old men chatting and puffing on pipes in the back corner booth, and two loners sat apart at the bar, nursing beers and watching an indecipherable sporting event on a large television set mounted high on the wall behind the bartender. Draco eased himself onto a barstool, keeping his eyes on the television as though he actually knew what the little fellows in white were doing.
Something exciting appeared to have happened, however, as one man sitting a couple of stools away suddenly cheered, and cuffed Draco on the shoulder, mistaking his fake interest in the goings-on as ardent fanaticism. "Yeah! Did you see that googly? Got 'im right out!"
"Oh. Yes. Rah," cheered Draco, not quite sure if the man had been speaking English. Lowering and pushing forward the smacked shoulder, he tried sneaking a glance to the point of contact to see whether he needed to have it cleaned.
The bartender ambled up, flipping a slightly stained dishtowel over his shoulder and saving Draco from having to decode any further sports-speak. "What'll it be?"
"Whatever you've got on tap," he replied, hoping it wasn't total swill. A sip of his dark ale was a pleasant surprise, and he took another, feeling more Muggle-ish already.
A middle-aged couple entered the pub, and headed straight for a booth, talking the whole way. They completely ignored his existence, which Draco took to mean that neither of them had slipped him the parchment. As he continued to try to make heads or tails of the game going on in front of him, Draco was only vaguely aware of the door opening again some time later, letting in a small man with windswept, dark brown hair. Draco did notice, however, when the man took a stool next to him.
"I'm glad you got my note," he said quietly, his eyes facing forward at the television.
Draco looked at his profile, and could find no apt words for his features, which were so generic that they were almost instantly forgettable. Had he been asked to describe the man's appearance, Draco would have only been able to come up with something along the lines of, "He has two eyes, a nose and possibly a mouth." Narrowing his eyes, Draco asked, "Do I know you?"
The man chuckled softly, his eyes cast downward in self-deprecation. "I get that a lot. Let's get a booth, shall we?" He stood, and then gestured to the bartender to bring him the same drink Draco had, and, with their glass steins in hand, moved to a more secluded area of the pub. Once they were settled -- Draco towards the outer edge of the seat just in case bolting became necessary -- the man gave him a sideways smile. "To answer your question: yes, you do know me. Does this help?" he asked, sweeping his messy hair into a side part and turning the smile into a boyish, enthusiastic grin.
Draco's expression hardened in recognition. "Creevey!"
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