Come Find Me, Hermione

October 31st, 1999

Diagon Alley glowed beneath a two-faced, Waning Gibbus moon. Lanterns floated, patrolling the streets, pumpkins swayed in bright lit store-fronts, and the children of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry flooded the streets and stores demanding candies or risk the retaliation of tricks.

In the spirit of unification, the Professor of Muggle Studies had organized the Halloween event with local Wizarding Communities in Diagon Alley.

There was, of course, much giggling and glancing, as the wizard-born children looked to their Muggle-born counterparts to see if they were doing this trick-or-treat thing right.

Just getting off work, Draco Malfoy sneered down at an article about, well, himself.

‘Renowned Curse Breaker for Gringotts Wizarding Bank seeks to undo the dark magic of his past by eliminating confiscated cursed items for the Ministry of Magic. Items once owned by Death Eaters!’ Rita Skeeter had even obtained a picture of Draco—likely from his mother.

In actuality, this ‘dangerous young bachelor’ was headed down Diagon Alley to meet Aunt Andromeda at her favorite bookstore before progressing to supper at a little French hole in the wall.

But instead of the usual easy stroll down Diagon Alley, Draco was trapped in a mad parade of children, forced to trail behind a group of second-year Hufflepuffs.

Draco recalled Hermione dubbing this particular group of friends M&M’s—Magical Minis—back during their ambiguous 7th/8th year at Hogwarts. The nickname had been enthusiastically received.

Most of Draco’s class returned to school last year, given what a disaster the previous year had been in terms of education. As a result, his year also had the most passed N.E.W.T.s in Hogwarts history.

The M&M’s weren’t difficult to identify as they were all dressed up—literally—as M&M’s, in all six colors.

Draco only knew this because he had to supervise the puffs detentions so often, and M&M’s had become a favorite snack the Muggle-born firstyears started requesting from their parents.

Personally, Draco didn’t get the appeal. The color-coated chocolates had nothing on a Chocolate Frog. They didn’t bounce, change colors, or even taste great.

Heedless of anyone else walking in the street, the six puffs blocked Draco from passing and returning to his aunt with a hot Pumpkin Butterbeer from The Leaky Cauldron.

Even when he tried to do something nice the universe still poked at him, shredding at his patience, and the minuscule veneer of niceness he had been cultivating under Aunt Andromeda’s suggestion.

He cleared his throat, raising one aristocratic pale brow, and gazed severely down at the M&M’s expecting them to scatter at his looming. But not one of them glanced back.

“Wicked, Lucy, are you saying the adults have to give us candy or we get to put a spell on them?” Bax Brown asked the girl in yellow. Draco recalled his name, mostly because, coincidentally, Mr. Brown was currently outfitted as the brown M&M.

“Well, the trick part isn’t usually done anymore,” The Yellow M&M, Lucy, replied with a toss of her blond ponytail.

“Blimey, then why should they give us free candy?” The Red M&M elbowed the Orange to the side.

Lucy rolled her eyes at the Blue M&M in solidarity over the boy’s stupidity.

“Because, they want to see our costumes, of course,” Blue M&M sniffed, “didn’t you read the chapter on Muggle Holidays?”

“Bonkers, Muggle’s are,” Brown shared a shrug with Red.

Draco was going to hex them if he had to stand around any longer, waiting for them to move.

Instead, he took a self-commiserating gulp of Aunt Andromeda’s Pumpkin Butterbeer and grimaced. About to spit the sugar syrup up on the backs of the M&M’s heads, he paused, face contorted.

No, he was still a Malfoy, he was better than spitting on second-years. Aggravatingly enough, Malfoy meant something, even if only to himself now. Draco swallowed the revolting drink. Though the Black in him thought a good spray of spit would be sure to clear the second-years out of his path. Draco sniffed at the Pumpkin Butterbeer with a sneer. Revolting, sweeter than treacle. He scowled at a floating limbo line of ghosts and shifted the basket of Pumpkin Soup in his other arm.

Mother had owl’ed him a gallon for lunch, obviously expecting him to give the rest to Andromeda without directly giving her sister anything. The two siblings were discreetly speaking once more through indirect gifts of food carried back and forth on Draco’s time. Narcissa’s gifts seemed to get heavier with every requested delivery, perhaps antagonistically heavy, Draco surmised, because he had taken up residence in Andromeda’s spare room.

He and his parents had a complicated relationship at present. Narcissa and Lucias may publicly embrace the new world of tolerance, forgiveness, and blood equality, but in private . . . Draco needed space to reconcile the dissonance in his skull. And Malfoy Manor still reeked of dark magic despite all Mother’s efforts in redesigning certain spaces.

The M&M’s had fallen behind him in some store’s candlelit doorway. But there were plenty of other students and holiday decor clogging up the walkways. Carved pumpkins caroled, but were soon drowned out by shouts of, “Geminio.” The spell ran rampant through the flocks of children, as most failed to correctly execute the duplicating spell. Blasted chocolate frogs, Sugared Butterfly Wings, Acid Pops, Licorice Wands, Pepper Imps, and Fizzing Whizzbees soon smoked throughout the street.

Draco smirked, perhaps this Trick-or-Treat thing wasn’t so bad. He cast several protective spells without thinking, far too used to blocking the splatter and spit that accompanied dwelling with a baby at home.

Draco saw the M&M’s had not been spared. The Green girl sprouted candy wings in her hair, and both Red and Brown sparked Fizzing Whizzbees from their ears.

Smug and still clean, Draco re-joined his Aunt and took a turn holding Teddy Lupin in his arms, high above the screaming rush of sugar saturated first-years.

Draco had never wanted a sibling, but Teddy Lupin was magic. Only one-and-a-half, and the little boy had already been caught levitating instead of crawling. And everything they fed him, he wanted turned green before he would eat it.

A Slytherin in the making. Draco pressed a light kiss to Teddy’s brow.

I’m always going to be here for you, he vowed silently. Teddy would be a Slytherin with a chance. A heroic family name. And an uncle with enough inheritance money to make sure he succeeded.

The night seemed a glorious success. The Muggle-borns, for once, able to educate their wizard friends in a school activity.

But then the clock struck SIX.

A whisper blew through the street. Children paused in their lines, in their chatter, their chewing, even their feet stopped their clatter. As one, they turned, looked back up the alley and towards Gringotts.

For a moment, all the night seemed to hold its breath. Children were paused mid-conversations—now silent, smirking and staring. Then they began to hum. The hum became a chant, canted. Even the caroling pumpkins joined in.

Trick-or-Treat?

A Snitch to snatch?

Or cold coin for a snack?

Make us sick, or make us sweet.

A feat, a flight?

Golden wings in the night!

Galleons’ a’gleam!

Sickles and Knuts join the parade,

What a grand escapade!

Wizarding wealth, taken by stealth.

Fun and fame and blame,

your own fairy light touch.

Chase your Galleons, your Sickles, your Knuts!

Take to your broom, sad doom,

the rich heavy with gloom!

For those who need more,

I say,

Fund the poor!

It was the creepiest thing Draco had ever heard, and he’d had to listen to Voldemort croon to Nagini while the vile snake gagged down a body.

The children’s young voices roared through the street, smug with glee.

“Oh, how lovely! A show!” Andromeda clapped one hand lightly against her wrist as she daintily held up her drink.

“I don’t think that’s what’s happening, Aunt.” Scowling, Draco handed Teddy to Andromeda and bent to inspect the chanters closest. They met his eyes, as though fully conscious, but each face reflected identical expressions, and there was nothing childish about the cunning cut of their lips.

Draco surmised they were under a spell. One that incorporated a curious use of the sticking charm to catch the ear, and stay in the mind. A repetitive charm too, and the trigger must be time based. And . . . Draco stepped out into the street to see further, as this spell only seemed to be affecting the Trick-Or-Treaters, it had probably been administered through a candy. The caroling pumpkins must be impressionable enough to pick up on the massive psychic energy sweeping through the street. (He expected to need the use of a pensive to remember the poem, but later found the words scourged into the stone steps of Gringotts Wizarding Bank.)

As the children’s voices quieted from their roar, down Diagon Alley glass could be heard shattering. Through the misty, yellowed glow of floating lanterns and half bright moonlight, a glittering flock rolled through the air. Small as Snitches, and just as fast, the birds broke through Gringotts Bank’s glass windows. Or rather, escaped through them. The glittering flocks converged in droves, an entire hoard. Like bees from a nest, they sored through the streets, to the sound of desperate goblin cries.

They bulleted into wizard hats, sparked off rooftops, and flew beneath sugar smudged noses.

Draco Malfoy stepped from a shop shadow and snatched a golden coin from the air before it could smack him in the eye. Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts flit through the air on Snitch wings.

This isn’t good, Draco stared wide-eyed at the glittering night sky. Not birds, but wizard currency. Riches blotting out the stars.

A robbery.

“Galleons!” Teddy Lupin cried his first words. His green hair turned golden as the coin in Draco’s grasp. Baby strong fists tore at the shivering wings of the coin.

“Oh!” Andromeda chuckled, bouncing Teddy the baby pumpkin in her arms. “He spoke his first word! And what a large word!” She cried approvingly, not appearing to care a wit what was happening to Gringotts bank.

“You’d best see what’s happening with everyone’s money, Draco.” Was all she had to say about the matter.

Draco scowled. His aunt had no sense of urgency. And Galleon?

Draco was distracted from the disaster in the sky. His teeth shifted on edge. Not Andromeda, not Grandma, not Uncle or Draco, not even Godfather Potter! Draco would even have tolerated something sickly sweet, like Lupe, Andromeda’s one-year-old wolfhound.

The enormous mutt had been acquired in some misguided sense that the boy needed more love in his life. As if three sets of Godparents from the Order, and a clan of Weasleys inviting Andromeda and Teddy to nearly every event—including birthdays and Muggle celebrations—weren’t enough!

Growing up at the same age—orphaned mutt and child—was Andromeda’s questionable decision to try to give Teddy something close to what he lost in the Wizarding War.

And now Draco dealt with gray fur on all his black cloaks and trousers, smears of drool—both baby and dog—and chewed holes in any shoe he dared leave out.

Living with Aunt Andromeda and Teddy had restored a great deal of the fun to Draco’s soul. He remembered how much he enjoyed being pampered and fussed over as Andromeda fussed as much over his health as Teddy’s. This was in part because he had been a wan, depressing thing when he first came to ask her forgiveness. To tell her how sorry he was about her daughter Tonks. How he wished he’d had the chance to get to know her. And that he was learning just how much rubbish he’d accepted from his childhood.

Andromeda, who had grown up under very similar conditions, and who had not had her parent's lives dangled above her head, found it very easy to forgive her young nephew. For often, she had found, people changed the most in their early twenties. Coming to find they had opinions of their own-as she herself had.

“Galleon!” Teddy crowed again and fought Draco for the coin. Failing to rip it free, the child stuck both coin and Draco’s leather clad fingers in his mouth. Baby slobber spritzed off the coin’s frantic beating wings. Draco absently deflected the slobber with a wand-less, wordless counter spell.

He felt his rage simmer at Teddy’s enthusiastic chomping and gumming of the gold.

Well, perhaps Galleon was better than Potter.

He pried the coin away with an indulgent smile.

“Sorry, Teddy,” Draco cooed at the baby boy. “This appears to be evidence in a crime. Uncle Draco has to go back to work.”