Chapter 7
Draco apparated them to a valley surrounded by tall mountains capped in a dense fog. The trickle of a nearby stream sounded through the dense pine trees to their right.
“Well, this seems as good a place as any. Where are we?” she said surveying the area.
Shrugging he said “Somewhere in the mountains of Appalachia, its centrally located enough. Lets find an area to set up camp for a few weeks. Did you say you had a tent?”
She nodded and patted a hideous small sequined bag hanging across her torso. He hadn’t seen it before since it was partially hidden under her giant cardigan. Was she hiding a tent in that ugly bag somehow?
“Why a few weeks?” she asked as they looked for a spot of flat land that didn’t have a tree or rocks sticking up from the leaf litter. It was proving rather difficult to locate a spot for a tent that wasn’t directly out in the open.
“Well, I’ll be contacting the team we have left and they’ll meet us here. Then once they arrive we will plan what’s to come next” he glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes to gauge her reaction to his plan for what was to come. She appeared to either have not heard him or not care. It seemed she was going to be rather difficult to bring round to the idea of being the key to the Dark Lords downfall.
“We can set up the tent here” she gestured to a flat bit of ground between two large pine trees about 20 feet to his left. There was plenty of tree cover should anyone on broom be flying by and the pine needles carpeting the ground should muffle their movements outside. It was a rather nice location, he had to admit, with the stream burbling pleasantly nearby it was damn near idyllic. An excellent place to spend a few weeks, he gave himself mental kudos for choosing the location. Really he just picked a spot on a map and hoped it was habitable but his superior skills must have overridden chance and they ended up in this picture perfect location.
She began pulling all the makings of a small muggle tent from inside her bag. What a clever witch, there was an undetectable extension charm on the bag! He was marveling at her intelligence and resourcefulness when he realized that the tent looked like it would house a single person, maybe two if they were sleeping very close to each other. He could feel his skin start to heat at the thought of spending the night tucked in close to the beautiful and stunningly bright witch in front of him.
Deciding to ignore the feelings racing through his mind and body he asked “Shall I set up some wards? I’m excellent at wards, not to wax my own wand but no one has ever bested my warding skills.” He brushed some near invisible dust off of his cloak and looked to see if she was giving him an awed expression.
She wasn’t even looking at him as she absentmindedly replied “fine, that’s fine. Ill look over everything once you’ve finished your part and I’ll add to it if necessary.” She waved a hand at him and began setting up the tent.
He felt rather deflated but began setting up a series of complex wards, notice-me-nots, muggle repellant charms, and various curses that would only activate should a witch or wizard pass through the outer wards. He finished the last spell with a complex wrist flick and wand twirl as she was coming up behind him.
She lifted her wand to inspect his work and he saw her eyebrows raise in shock (awe?) and just like that, he felt rather good about himself again.
“Wow, these are very good. I haven’t seen some of these used before, is that a tetrahedral bond on the anti-apparition ward? I assume that’s to strengthen it? Hmmm… I do wonder if that bond could be applied to other larger wards or even containment charms to make them less volatile.” Deep in thought she twirled her wand through her fingers as she stared up at the wards that were all now lit up with runic signatures.
He was staring, he knew, but he couldn’t not stare when she was reasoning out something. He had always been fascinated by her mind, even in school, it had been so hard to keep his eyes off of her when she was working through a spell. She was the sun and every other person orbited around her brilliant mind.
“What?”
Shit, he had been staring too long and she was now looking at him like he was mental.
“Ah… um, I was just wondering if my work was up to snuff is all?” He winked at her “it’s ok to praise my efforts, I promise I wont let it go to my head… much”
“its perfect and you know it” she said with a scowl “now, get out of my way while I set my hex bombs.”
Whew, in the clear then. He really must stop staring at her, she was beautiful and absolutely dazzling which was getting him into trouble. Just between him and himself he could admit that he did at one point have a crush on her back in their school days but they were both adults now. He could definitely be a professional, get her through all this vanquishing of evil and then they could part ways. Wait, did she say bombs…?
“What in the bloody hell are hex bombs?” These sounded rather destructive should he step outside for a piss in the middle of the night only to be blown apart by a conflagration spell.
“I invented them” she said smugly raising one eyebrow as if to let him know she was the superior magic wielder “they are various hexes and jinxes housed within a hare trigger containment charm meant to immobilize or otherwise detain intruders long enough for me to either dispose of them or apparate away if I’m in dire need.”
“Hmm, quite handy. Are they placed randomly or in a pattern around the perimeter? What if I intend to take a midnight stroll, how would I know where to step to avoid being hexed?” He really wanted to avoid finding himself in a compromising position in the middle of the night. He had a very good suspicion that he would need to escape living in close quarters with this witch who was already becoming too fascinating.
She looked at him sidelong, eyebrows drawn in suspicion “Why would you need to take a stroll alone in the middle of the night?” her eyes narrowed “Meeting someone? Secret communications?”
“No!” bollocks, he was trying to earn her trust not look even more suspicious. Time to backpedal “I was just worried how close to the tent they were going to be, and maybe I should be notified of the placement pattern? We may be here a little while and I like to be outside to train” there, that sounded less like he was doing something covert and he would have to train so it wasn’t a total lie. He would also need her to train with him but that was a topic for another time.
“They’ll be placed far enough away from the tent to have plenty of room to train or run laps if that’s your cup of tea” she said with a sniff. “and I suppose I can show you how to detect them and then you can kindly fuck off so I can place them in peace.”
She showed him the spell to detect her bombs and then turned away in dismissal.
He strode towards the tent intending to peek inside just to see if there was, by some miracle, enough room to lay down without touching her and smelling her… he would have to take a lot of jaunts outside if he had to lie there smelling her all night. Pulling aside the flap he poked his head inside and was shocked, and pleasantly surprised, to find a magically expanded, albeit shabby, wizards tent. There was a small kitchenette to his left with a cooktop, sink, and refrigerator. On the other side of the kitchenette was a small table to sit and eat at. Directly in front of the kitchenette and table was a small (there’s clearly a theme here, he thought, small… as if the former owner couldn’t think of expanding any more than absolutely necessary) and extremely worn loveseat with two hideous maroon and beige paisley wingback chairs. The furniture looked comfortable though he wasn’t sure if they looked sturdy enough to hold more weight than the waifish witch currently ignoring his presence. At the back of the tent he found several bunk beds curtained off for “privacy” and in the far left corner of the tent there was the tiniest bathroom he had ever encountered. He would surely have to stoop to wash his hair and would have to be very careful when washing his hands as it appeared that the toilette was situated almost directly in front of the sink with barely a foot of room between the two.
“Yikes…” he whispered, no room to even turn around let alone have a quick morning wank before coffee. Oh dear god, he hoped she had coffee…
That thought led him to start rummaging through the cupboards in the kitchen to see what provisions she had. He was just shifting around the tins of beans, toast, and various crisps when she walked into the tent and stopped in her tracks at seeing all her cupboards open and him sorting through her non-perishables.
He looked up at her aghast “you don’t have coffee?!”
“What are you doing?” her eyebrows were raised and she seemed rather shocked to see her crisp bags being fondled.
“Did you know there is not one vegetable in this entire tent? And, again, no coffee?” He distinctly recalled her being a bit of a health nut back at Hogwarts… weren’t her parents some sort of muggle healers of teeth or some such nonsense? He recalled her always on about how Weasley and Potter should be eating better during meal times. Yes, he absolutely knew he saw her shoving various vegetable dishes at them during meal times. The lack of veg he could almost understand but the absence of coffee was too much for him.
“Well” she crossed her arms defensively and her eyes were looking anywhere but at the kitchen where no less than 15 tins of beans were stacked on top of the counter “I’ve been stealing most of what I have and the selection has been rather lackluster if you must know.”
“You mean to tell me that you have not only been stealing your food, but you haven’t even been stealing good food? What have you been surviving on for the last 7 years? Beans on toast? And please tell me the coffee is hidden under a bunk to keep it safe?”
With a slight frown she said “I don’t drink coffee, and yes, that’s about the gist of it. I occasionally get some eggs and pick wild onions. I also found an apple orchard last fall that proved to be nice for the month that I had stayed in that location. I’ve managed to stave off scurvy at least.” She had visibly deflated with this admission and her face had gone flat like she was just so tired of even trying.
He was incensed that anyone, especially her, who he had been hunting for so long had been eating beans on toast in this depressingly shabby tent devoid of all caffeine. If he had just found her sooner he could have… no, there’s no point in what if’s, he must remedy this. He could see the lost look on her face now like she had begun to just give up the will to do anything more than the bare minimum. Though may be if she had coffee life wouldn’t seem so daunting each day.
“I’ll pop out tomorrow morning and get us some more substantial and vitamin enriched provisions and coffee. This is absolutely disgraceful and I wont live like this. Usually Theo and Nate do the cooking but I can manage decently well on my own. Though, it wont be anything special, just meat and veg, but it wont involve beans or toast.” He began stacking the beans on the highest shelf he could find, probably best to keep the depressing legumes out of sight out of mind.
“Theo?” she questioned as she made her way to the couch. She sat down and curled up at one corner grabbing torn and fraying blanket hanging from the back to drape over herself.
“Yeah, Theo… Theodore Nott, you may not remember him much from school but he’s a good friend. He and his boyfriend Nathaniel McGill Usually cook when I’m at our base location.” That reminded him he needs to send out a message to everyone to start making their way here. Pulling out his mobile he had just started a group chat on their network when he heard a gasp from the couch.