Seek

[A/N - Trying to crank you out a longer chapter here. Alas, no Draco yet.]

Harry's Ministry pass let him through most of the Wizarding security measures in the terminal. In the end he was subjected only to a single drop of Veritaserum to confirm his identity, and that had been politely mixed into a properly atrocious cup of tea. He had been given tea when he Ported into Virginia too, and found it ridiculous that American Wizards avoided serving coffee to their continental counter-parts.

While a harried looking young witch changed his currency Harry perused the pamphlets about local transit and thoroughly confused himself. "Isn't there a broom-launch here?"

The witch looked up from her terminal and scoffed, "Oh, yeah. We make a habit of putting those in here at the airport."

Harry winced theatrically, and asked instead for a restroom. He needed to change out of his robes if he was to get muggle transportation to the Potion Master's house.

---

His cab driver was of some mysterious Asian descent and Harry was careful not to muck up the little dash computer that gave the cabbie direction to the address that he had input directly from Harry's neatly printed slip of paper.

Getting the address had been easier than Harry had expected, and of course Hermione had found the simplest solution for him. He would have simply ported to Seattle and begun searching for Snape's college by sniffing out Apocatheries and asking questions. She had firecalled a friend of hers in the Virginia Commonwealth Muggle Affairs board and asked for a list of registered Potions Masters.

Alex Timmons had been the second name on the list, and contact information was bulleted neatly beneath the name. It had included the address Hermione had copied down for Harry, which he had given his driver, and toward which he was currently barreling in the back seat of a mouldy smelly death trap.

It took forty-five minutes to arrive at the modest home of Snape's colleague. The place was smallish, but nestled high in the hills, and Harry could tell from the street that the view from the back would be lovely.

There were children playing beneath a spreading apple tree in the front yard and Harry stood across the street in the dust of his taxi studying them. Two were piling gras clippings in a crook of the tree's roots, and the third was grinding an unripe apple to a fine paste on the paving stones of the walk.

Perhaps this was the wrong house?

Harry was sorting one handed through his cloak pockets for the his cellular when an older woman threw the front door wide and walked out of the house towards the children. He could feel the magic on her from where he stood. She spoke with the two grass-gatherers and sent the scampering to the next yard in a fit of giggles. Harry approached the house warily, in just enough time to hear the woman address the young girl busily reducing her apple to a pile of pulp. "And just what are you doing, young miss?" The woman voice was kind, and the girl replied simply.

"Mashin'."

"Go on home, April, and I'll see we get you a proper 'mashin' vessel soonest."

The girl looked up, bemused. "Why?"

"Because I've got a visitor here." The woman looked up to smile warmly at Harry, who stood at the foot of her cobbled walkway.

"M'kay Alex." The girl stood and studied Harry intently from beneath bobbed curls, then ran off after the other two children.

"Alex Timmons?"

Again, the woman smiled at Harry. "In the flesh. And you are?"

Despite her warm demeanor, Harry sensed a readiness for action. Her body language had already told him that her wand was holstered in the left sleeve of her blouse and he watched her scan the quiet neighborhood for witnesses.

"Harry Potter." Her eyes narrowed immediately, and he held up a hand to forstall questioning. "Severus Snape sent me."

---

"I was ... sorry to hear that he died."

Here, in Alex's sunlight kitchen with a cup of strong coffee in hand and the smell of sausage in the air, Harry felt a strange sense of melancholy. "I don't suspect he minded much."

"No," Alex Accio'd a small ceramic mortar and pestle from a high cupboard and turned to give Harry a long look of contemplation, "I guess he had been expecting it for years. Ever the pessimist."

"Hmm."

In the silence that followed Alex served him a plate of omelet and toast and seated herself across from him.

"Was it easy?"

"Harry swallowed his mouthful and replied honestly. "It was quick."

"Oh." She paused and watched Harry eat. "You're here about Draco, then?"

He looked up quickly and she quirked a graying blond eyebrow. "Yes." Harry swept his gaze through the kitchen and adjoining sitting room. "In fact, I rather expected to find him here."

"Severus had said this might happen." Alex sighed and sipped from her mug, which had a cartoon witch riding a broomstick printed on it in technicolor. His own was painted with steaming cauldrons and read 'BEST BREW' 'round the rim.

"His letter said we'd need Malfoy in Britain."

"After six years?"

"Almost seven."

"Draco isn't here."

"I know." He'd have felt Malfoy, were he in the house.

"Why did you come?" Alex was staring again, her eyes lingering briefly on the scar, then meeting his boldly. Harry began Occluding immediately, and saw the corners of her mouth twitch up.

"Snape said we'd need him."

"No, Harry. Why did you come?"

"Sn-Severus asked me, just before he died."

"Almost seven years ago," she remarked wryly, "why are you here now?"

"I've only just remembered."

"You're in the habit of forgetting the requests of dying men?"

Harry snapped then, "When you've heard so many, they get rather confused." He blushed at her look of disapproval. "Sorry. ... I've, um, been seeing someone for several years now, about the war."

"A therapist?" Harry blushed again but she continued, "Good for you dear."

"Yeah, well, a lot of things had got muddled. 'bout a month back I started dreaming about Professor Snape, and when I mentioned it to my ... therapist, she suggested hypnosis."

Alex looked skeptical and Harry leapt to Marsha's defense. "It's worked before, to help me remember details." Alex nodded and Harry went on quickly, "It came out in that session, I remembered Snape telling me to go to his house, you know, and find his secrets. And I did, and I found this journal -"

"That ratty old gray thing?" Alex smiled fondly. "He was forever scribbling in it."

"Yeah. Anyway, there was a bit in there that he'd told me how to read, and it said to get Malfoy."

"Did it say why?"

"Just that we'd need him."

Alex stood with another sigh, and motioned Harry down when he made as if to stand after her. "No, you eat. I'll find you Draco's address."

Harry nodded and, while she moved off down the hallway, tucked back into his breakfast with no little trepidation.

---

By the time Alex returned Harry had demolished the meal and moved to the window with the last of his coffee, gazing out over the glittering buildings to the water of the sound.

"What are you thinking, Mister Potter?"

Harry heard the smile in Alex's voice, and replied without turning, "That somewhere in that city is a boy who tormented me through my childhood whom I'm chasing down for a dead man. Who also tormented me."

"Well, you're wrong."

Harry turned to face her eyes bright with confusion. "What?"

"Draco is not here."

"Well, I know that."

"He's not in Seattle, Potter, not even in Washington."

Harry slumped with defeat. "I should have known this wouldn't be easy. Where's the little fer- where's he gone off to?"

"Down to Oregon about three years ago."

"Oregon?"

"Yes, Potter. You know, the state between Washington and California?"

"Oh."


[A/N - Thought I'd forgotten you, hm? No such luck.]