Seek

Harry dreamed of trolley stops encrusted with gargoyles who all wore Snape\'s face and shifted disconcertingly in the corners of his vision as he rode through city streets pregnant with mist on a trolley made of biscuit tins and crisp wrappers held together with chewing gum.



He had woken surprisingly well-rested.



Now he was caught somewhere between delighted and annoyed.



His invisibility cloak was totally useless.



The press of people in the street market was just on the polite side of oppressive, leaving barely enough room for a perfectly visible person to walk without danger of collision. He had had the impression that he had fallen into something of a tourist trap until he realized how many people around him were greeting one another with familiarity and noticed the number of produce stands tucked in among those that sold masks made of cutlery and wallets made of tape.



He\'d bought one of the tape wallets for Arthur, who loved duct tape beyond all rational justification.



Two of the stalls that he passed left him tingling in the subtle way that told him there were small magics at work. The first sold ornaments filled with a liquid that shifted like memories but was utterly mundane, he had been alerted by the well-being charm woven into the metal grid the charms hung from. The second had been a weak anti-theft spell, just enough to make a snatcher think twice, cast over a table of leather cuffs fashioned from old belts. He had avoided the first stall and approached the second with his magic heavily dampened and his face glamored to buy something for Graham.



The he simply wandered, his glamor firmly in place, through the press of muggles taking in the colors and smells.



Now he was bemoaning the use of his cloak because, of all the things he had encountered in the market, the strangest was sitting not ten yards from him.



Malfoy.



The blond was sitting in the covered dining area on a rusted folding chair eating a pastie and chatting with two young women Harry was certain were muggles and the dark-haired witch Harry had seen him with the day before. His hair was again covered in a black cap, and he appeared entirely at ease there in his muggle jeans and long-sleeved t-shirt, a dark coat hung casually over the back of his chair and a paper cup of some liquid steaming gently on the table in front of him. At the front of the tent-like structure a man plucked the strings of a battered guitar while an old woman made a saxophone wail, and against this backdrop Malfoy sat talking with his unlikely companions like a man at ease in his own home. The sight struck Harry still, and he stood transfixed by the quiet smile on Malfoy\'s face until the blond threw his head back and laughed, a gesture so devoid of the scorn Harry had always seen it soaked with that he was jarred into motion. He backed away, turned, and lit for the restrooms.



His heart was pounding. It had been such a near-miss. He had been headed to the pastie stall festooned with its terrible Union Jack banners directly across the court from Malfoy. The same stall, he found himself thinking, where Malfoy had undoubtedly got his lunch as well. He might have walked right into the other man if he hadn\'t paused to listen to the sax and caught a glimpse of that hair escaping its confinement. Since when did Draco Malfoy eat cart food? For that matter, since when did he dress like a muggle, or ride common transport, or live in an apartment complex, or laugh with muggles, or smile as though he took joy in something other than someones disgrace?



"Christ, who the fuck am I looking for?"



His glamored face stared back at him in the lavatory mirror, brown eyes and brown hair he could just see through, expression lost.



"Whoever it is, dude, you\'re not gonna find him in here," said the dreadlocked guy washing his hands at the next sink.



Harry concurred.



-



He was following Malfoy now. The blond had been saying his goodbyes to his entourage when Harry left the bathroom, and now he seemed to be making his way back towards his building, walking up and out of the riverfront district where the market was staged. The blond was fairly easy to follow. Once out of the maze of shops and stalls Malfoy had put on what seemed to be his old house scarf against the wind blowing down the streets. Harry followed that glimpse of green and silver-gray from almost a full block back.



Malfoy stopped in an open square in the center of the city. He approached a group of men standing on the northwest corner around a few public chessboards. Harry found himself a seat at the cafe that occupied the corner across the street, ordered a cup of tea, and watched Malfoy through the glass. The blond had walked into the group as though he belonged there and had begun a game whilst Harry had ordered. Malfoy\'s back was to Harry who could only see the face of his opponent, a much older man who watched the board intensely between his moves, so when the man\'s face fell in defeat twenty minutes later after having gone progressively redder and redder Harry was surprised to see a cigarette in Malfoy\'s mouth when he turned to receive congratulations from the rest of the crowd. The blond was smiling broadly when his partner came\' round the board and pressed a few bills into his palm, and the exchange ended in the sort of rough back-slapping Harry associated with his own male friends. Harry paid for his tea and left the cafe, circling into the square at it\'s eastern end in time to watch Malfoy gather up a set of chess pieces into a Crown Royal sack that he slipped into a jacket pocket, before he continued on his way west. He was pleased that when he walked past the old men a minute later they were still ribbing the loser of the match.



"I don\'t know why you keep bettin\' him Lloyd, he always wins."



"Kid\'s got talent."



"It\'s only cause he\'s British man."



"Oh, bullshit. It\'s because you can\'t play!"



The casual tone of admiration for Malfoy set Harry\'s mind roiling. Apparently the old men were fond of Malfoy, regarded him as a regular presence. It was apparent, too, that they were Muggles. He was dealing with a Draco Malfoy who had relationships with muggles.



He followed Malfoy the rest of the way to his apartment building and was watching him enter the courtyard from a better angle this time. He hadn\'t cast a spell the day before. He had an electronic key on a ring of more mundane ones, and what Harry had taken for the motion of wandwork had actually been Malfoy swiping his key.



Harry mentally winced at the idea of the energy expended to shield such a sensitive bit of electronics that rode around all day in the pocket of a wizard.



He retreated to his hotel for the rest of the afternoon to write postcards, and to try to read while distracted with the thought of a Draco Malfoy who would bother.



[A/N - All the places decribed in this story thus far are real. If I have to make somewhere up, I\'ll try to mention it. I think I may reintroduce our boys in the next chapter!]