"You're going back to school in a week," Lucius said from the doorway of the library.

Draco looked up, then looked past him for Snape's reliable oily head.

"He's gone back to the castle, my boy," Lucius purred. "Important Hogwarts things to attend to."

Draco swallowed drily. "What do I care?" he replied rebelliously. "Something I can help you with, Father?"

Lucius smiled, glancing down at the wand in Draco's hand. He'd gotten some control back since the disastrous situation with Rowle, but he wasn't near confident. He'd rather hoped he'd be spared from having to defend himself for the rest of his time at home. He tightened his grip, and his father looked back up at him, smile turning forced.

"Our Lord insists you put in just one more mission before you're allowed to go back. He seems to think you might still be a bit too squeamish."

Draco frowned and did some calculations. Chances he could tell his father what he thought of that idea without him going spare again, as compared to the chance that he wouldn't survive defying the DL? Draco sighed. "Yes, fine. What am I meant to do this time?"

"You look a little less eager than you ought," Lucius said shrewdly, narrowing his eyes in speculation. "Shall I try to beg him off for you? Not sure I'd survive it, but I'm sure you won't mind either way."

Draco quirked a brow and watched his father from the corner of his eye. He had that wild-eyed look about him again, but his words seemed at odds with his manner. He was... petulant? Irritated that Draco might not mind if he kicked off. Well, what did he expect? Draco tilted his head. "Better not. Mother'd be difficult to get on with if you died. She seems to be quite fond of you."

Lucius frowned darkly, lighting up a flare of dread in Draco's suddenly uneasy stomach. Stupid! Snape was gone, Mother had no idea the monster she'd married, and Voldy-wart would have rejoiced to find his loyal slaves had chastened themselves by killing each other.

But Draco's father didn't move a muscle for almost twenty seconds, after which Draco bravely said, "Well,I'd best go find out what I'm to do," and backed away toward the door of the library.

"I'm not finished with you!" his father called. "Draco, come back here this instant!"

His father's desperate cry echoed after him as he fled down the corridor toward the drawing room, where V liked to proclaim dramatic things in front of a fire even in summer. It struck him moments into flight that a much healthier frame of mind would be to fear the Dark Lord more than his father, but it didn't stop his feet pattering on toward certain doom.

As luck would have it - someone else's luck, he decided, not his own - Mouldy-wart wasn't in attendance, again. He was often off somewhere these days, not that Draco was complaining. He gave them stupid little missions to do whatever, but they were run by older, less hideously disfigured people, though in some cases not by much. Draco loitered around trying to blend in and wondered vacantly whether they'd be going to Grimmauld Place, because he'd been hearing the name here and there but hadn't yet been told why there seemed to be a shift of DEs at his mum's cousin's old house at any given hour. He had half a mind to tag along on one of those missions anyway, just to see.

For now, however, he had a very important task to do: tag along on this mission and try not to get killed by the Good Guys, the Bad Guys, or by Being Stupid, and try not to actually do anything, because he was having a hard time getting the strange, terrified face of a Burbage-Ollivander-Rowle-Muggle-Family creature out of his head lately, and didn't want to add to the menagerie.

It was Pansy's father, Mr Parkinson, leading the meeting, and Draco vaguely wondered where Pansy was before deciding her dad probably cared too much about her to get her mixed up in something so dangerous, unlike his horrible crazed lunatic of a father. The man carried on at the front of the room, giving them all a good show of not saying much with a very lot of breath before hastily talking about Flying Muggles and how they were going to go visit the largest Muggle Aeroport in Britain.

Flying Muggles was like saying Graceful Sea Lions. You'd never expect to see one, and you'd imagine if you could, they'd look really terrified at what was happening to them without their permission. But if Mr Parkinson was convinced, and Mouldy-wart had given okay on it, Draco's interest was piqued. He'd always thought Muggles made up some very entertaining contraptions on the rare occasions he'd had reason to be exposed to them. He was keen on a rare trip to the Zoo, even if it did mean dressing in Muggle clothes and riding in a Car and not Apparating or flying themselves.

The Zoo, as Draco'd been calling it, was a dizzying and exhilarating experience from the outset. Had he thought King's Cross was busy and horrid? He'd been mismanaged. King's Cross was nothing compared to Heathrow Aeroport. After a childhood of countryside and tutors and vacations to still more decadently remote countrysides, even Hogwarts had seemed a little overstuffed when he was a First Year. But this? Was starting to turn his stomach into knots even as he gazed at the expansive lobby area in wonder.

"All right lads," Mr Parkinson mumbled nervously. Draco barely knew him as anything other than Pansy's pater, but he hadn't seemed the nervous sort. Perhaps he was as overwhelmed as Draco felt. Distantly, the face of Burbage wailed in his mind, crying, "Should have took my class!" like a horrible comical ghost with poor grammar. Draco agreed with her; Muggle Studies would have been helpful when trying to decide how to kill as many of them as possible, could have helped them blend in or know where their weak points were. As it was, they stood out like dreary strange religious nuts among the brightly- coloured Muggle population - which, he supposed, they were.

"Hang on," he murmured, pulling one of the company to a stop and thus the rest of them, who'd clumped together instinctively for protection against the hordes of cheerful cows. "We look suspicious. Why don't we have a better plan? We need more information!"

"We don't need a better plan," the one he'd snatched onto hissed irritably. "It isn't as though they'll be able to defend against us."

Draco made a face. What was wrong with these people? It was folly to assume too little about the enemy. If his father'd been running things, there'd certainly have been a more detailed plan of action. Lucius never left anything to accident.

"Right," he replied dubiously, glancing around.

"Now you're making us look suspicious," the same DE said nervously, smacking him on the shoulder.

Draco scowled at him and looked over. "Look, Mr Parkinson-"

"That's enough, young Malfoy," Parkinson interrupted. He smiled knowingly, which put panic in Draco's chest. He didn't like people knowing more than he did - it meant he was soon to be unpleasantly surprised.

"No, I really don't think it is," Draco spat back, leaning in close. "What do you think we're going to do? Walk right up and-" He broke off as a security agent in a Muggle uniform of Authority walked by. He smiled a little apologetically at the man, hoping he thought they were all just religious nuts having a little spat, and triumphed when the security agent lifted a hand in greeting before passing on by. Draco sighed in relief.

"And just what do you think they'll stop us with, Draco?" Mr Parkinson looked at him with pity, and Draco bristled at the use of his given name during a '"business meeting".

"How should I know?" he shot back. "Animals defend themselves. Muggles aren't different. If they're as horrible as you say they are, they've certainly discovered how to hurt each other." The notion that learning violence should be more evolved tickled the back of his mind; Wizards had been fighting horrible glorious wars for centuries over this and that. Was that evolved? Superior? Certainly confirmed the whole Might is Right theory; Wizards had the Might. "We should rethink-"

"There's nothing to think about." Parkinson jerked his chin and the others followed, somewhat reluctantly, Draco thought. He'd nearly gotten through to some of them, he could tell. A minor success, but success nonetheless.

So the "plan" was to hang about waiting for Aeroplanes to lift off, then blast jinxes at them to bring them down. When they'd gotten closer to the Aeroport, it was clear that plan'd been far too small; 'Planes were quite large, as it turned out. Draco'd been trying so hard not to pay attention to what they were doing there - killing people - that it only occurred to him once they were trooping nervously down long corridors gawking that there was a decided lack of sweeping up on brooms and blasting away in their bare-bones plan. But Parkinson must have known something ahead of time; Draco did the rough maths in his head and took only moments to realise that 'Planes that big which got that small in the sky must have been going at least three times the speed of the fastest model broom. So the new plan, such as it was, was to try to board a 'Plane and blast the engine before Apparating out. As Draco hadn't had his Apparation test yet - far too busy when his Sixth Year classmates were having a laugh splinching themselves, and why did anyone care whether he'd get in trouble about it? - he was supposed to stay on the ground and keep a watchful eye.

Only, they required billets to board and little books with their photos in, and none of them had Muggle money for billets or little books with photos in - Draco could have shouted at the lack of planning. But the mission could still be a success. Caution, distraction, charm. "Listen," he said softly as the eight of them approached the gate. "I'm going to try to get on, if one of you will split the gate woman's attention. I won't be able to stay on, but that's all right." Hadn't he been trying very hard not to do anything?

"All right?" Mincer replied doubtfully. "But how will-"

"I have a plan. Trust me."

To his surprise, Mincer did and relayed his instructions to Parkinson as though he'd come up with the idea in the first place, which was irritating but had the happy side effect of Parkinson agreeing to the idea. Draco warmed up his Charming Face, trying to decide between worried son and eager beau. Worried son had the advantage of him being able to subtly flirt with the gate mistress, who looked in her early twenties, but eager beau would mean that a) he wouldn't have to flirt with a Muggle girl, and b) he'd have a better chance getting on - there were more things between lovers that had to be passed on in person than there were between parents and children.

"Excuse me," he said politely to the girl. Despite what Snape had said, he was capable of not being horrible.

She looked up at him expectantly, and he realised after a moment she was waiting for him to hand her his billet.

"Oh," he recovered, looking apologetic. "I haven't got a ... see I was meant to meet my girlfriend before she boarded, but I'm afraid, er, rather..." He trailed off, raising a brow at the man at the service counter who'd just erupted into vociferous argument, on cue. Atta boy, Mincer. He looked back at the girl with his brows together, a half-smile on his lips. "I don't mean to cause you any trouble."

She carefully did not roll her eyes at the argument going on behind her and leaned in. "I'll just ring the flight attendant and ask if she'll come back out for you, then? What's her name?"

Draco frowned. Ring in? Oh, telephones. Damn and double damn. "Oh, she said she was stuck in, next to the window. She's nervous with 'Plane travel, you see." He hoped that was common enough a fear the girl would understand it. It would have been for him, had he been a Squib trying to fly in an enormous machine that should have never been able to get off the ground.

The girl made a sympathetic face. "Still, without a ticket..."

Draco looked around in disappointment, faking it only a little as he tried to salvage the ruse. Down at the end of the aisle leading to the Aeroplane, items had been piled for - well he imagined they weren't allowed and would be sent along later. Among them, a fold-up pram. "She's with our small child, actually," he lied wildly. "Please, it'll be such a pain to have her come out with-" Pink soft toys, tiny ruffled bonnet. "-her. Will you help me?"

The girl looked from him to over her shoulder at the impressively irate Mincer, drawing, Draco hoped, the proper comparison between a patron whose temper abused service representatives and himself, who was nothing but conciliatory and polite. It'd drive her to want to reward him, since she couldn't punish the other. Let it never be said that Draco Malfoy didn't know how to get to people.

The girl smiled at him fiendishly then. "I think we can do something about that," she leaned in to say. "Flight takes off in ten minutes. You'll need to be back before then, or security will escort you." She jotted a noted on a slip of paper. "Show this to the dark haired attendant if you're stopped. She's a girlfriend of mine."

Draco took it with a grateful smile and swept hurriedly down the corridor, cataloguing away the details of the experience. He rounded the corner and was met with a portal to the beastly machine, looking too small for the size of the rest of it. He could see through the plastic windows in the corridor, how it extended like a lumbering torpedo, wings splayed out to either side. He'd have thought they'd have some give, look more like birds' wings; surely it hadn't escaped Muggle notice that wings ought to have joints in them so that they could flap and gain height. He'd have to find a book about it after the mission.

The attendant didn't stop him, as they both appeared to be in a hurry, but even if she thought he was simply a passenger, he still only had ten minutes before security agents bumbled on board to arrest him. Laughable as that threat was, he didn't want to endanger the mission by drawing suspicion. He'd hoped the corridor led outside, because he'd seen moving staircases on the paveway, but this Aeroplane was apparently too large for such a thing. All the same, he thought he could manage it.

Hope died a moment later when he realised the windows couldn't open. Of course - he imagined that high up, going that fast, open windows would be unpleasant, not to mention deadly. He sighed and looked around the cabin. He could Imperious someone to do some nefarious deed once the 'Plane was up. There were a couple of beefy looking fellows. Or there was the youngish, pretty red-head - oh, but she had an infant and it'd be difficult-

Draco mentally smacked his palm to his forehead. What did he care whether it'd be difficult? She'd be dead within the hour.

The weight of the thought only hit him moments later: it wasn't so casual as all of that. It couldn't be. The young woman looked up at him with a concerned smile because, he imagined, he'd gone that unattractive grey colour again and probably looked like he'd fall over any moment.

"Nervous flier?" she said in an American accent. "Don't worry. Once we're in the air, you won't even- Ohh, what's the matter? Oh shhh..." she cooed. It took Draco a moment of staring to realise she wasn't talking to him any more, and was instead addressing the child, who'd begun clucking in want.

"Fine, I'm fine," he muttered, moving past her toward where the sign said the lavatory would be. It ended up just being a closet of sorts, but the design was rather clever. If he'd had an incendiary, he could have tossed it in the bog and been done with it. Really, it was as though these Muggles didn't know there was a mad Dark Lord out to rid the earth of them all. Draco leaned forward on the sink, looking at himself in the mirror. It was so like Sixth Year, only instead of a few months, he had... probably about six more minutes to come up with a plan. Oh, and his hair was a bit longer. But other than those things, and the fact that instead of just one person, he was trying to kill a hundred, it was just like Sixth Year.

He still had that coin. He'd kept it in his pocket as a reminder that no matter what everyone else had said, he hadn't failed. The charm on it wasn't simple, but now that he'd done it several times, it could be done pretty quickly. Could he modify it so that rather than simply get warm, it actually did something? Say... burst into pyrotechnics on command? He thought he could. It was a simple matter of Charms, which he hadn't been stellar at in school, but had got a lot of practice at extracurricularly.

Hurriedly, he pulled the coin from his pocket, and another coin to make the trigger. A few muttered words and a careful swish of the wand later, and he'd - he hoped - made a pretty innocent-looking instrument of destruction. With three more minutes to spare, he created the sister coin that he'd take with him and on a whim dropped the first into the toilet. No sense chancing some last minute crewman finding a strange piece of money and making off with it before the 'Plane took to flight. He bopped the flusher and stepped out into the cabin again to rush down the aisle even as two security guards started toward him.

"Sorry, so sorry," he said, grinning sheepishly. He didn't have to force it; he'd meant to be on and off and having taken up almost all of his time was a little embarrassing. Small aisles notwithstanding, one of the security agents let him pass so they'd be on both sides of him, and as they passed the young red-haired woman with her child, he smiled lovingly and said, "I feel so much better now. Have a safe trip!" blessing as he did the charm that kept his dangerous life in balance. In one movement he'd given the guards a reason for his attendance at the toilets and made them witness to his finding his "girlfriend," in case they were questioned. Flanked as he was, he was forced passed her before her presence could do his morale any more harm. They trooped three across down the corridor, and he broke free of his guards to rejoin his team and let them in on the plan.

Mincer swiped the coin from his palm when he presented it. "What's the charm to make it go, then?" he wondered, turning the coin this way in that despite it looking like any other coin that hadn't been charmed to do disastrous acts.

"Fugit Incendio," Draco replied, pleased with himself.

"Fugit," Mincer's business partner, Apatome chuckled, taking the coin from Mincer to look at it. "Clever."

"Oh, sir!" called the gate mistress, hurrying toward them smilingly. Draco turned, ready to bask in yet another ruse unspoiled. Things were going very well. Mission carried off, no loose ends to get tangled in, and none of his team seemed to be secretly trying to kill him. "I am sorry security took you out so soon. I tried to keep them back a little. You have the most darling little girl."

Draco stared, smile waning just a little. "Yes, she is, isn't she?" he replied drily.

"Cor, Dray, you don't have a daughter do you? Might young for it, I thought," Draper said quizzically.

"You don't...?" the gate mistress murmured, suddenly blanching in doubt.

Draco widened his eyes even as Mincer smacked Draper across the back of the head. In the same moment, Apatome laughed his big horsey laugh and turned on the spot. The loud crack of his Apparation did more than turn heads; the Muggle population who weren't in uniforms of authority wailed as one, throwing themselves to the ground. Draco crooked a brow. Sure, it was loud, but it was just Apparation. It wasn't as if the person who was clearly not there any more were going to - oh shit, he had the coin. Dread sank into Draco's stomach; the instant it touched bottom, he realised that while his plan had been good, he'd never intended to carry it out. But the coin wasn't in his pocket any more, and the lives of a hundred people weren't in his hands any more, and those were the least of his worries.

Bearing down on them were nearly a dozen of Britain's finest sort of lawmen, the Aurors of the Muggle world. Come to... shout at them? Surely not -

"Put your hands down, then," one of them called nervously. Draco looked over at Mincer, who had his wand out.

"They've done something!" cried the gate mistress from the floor where she'd flung herself, looking up at Draco in stung betrayal.

"Ha!" cried Mincer, and gestured with his wand. In the next moment, another loud crack signified that--

No one had Apparated out. Draco counted again. Still seven of them, counting himself, except that Mincer was on the ground, groaning and rolling around, clutching his shoulder. He looked back at the security force, all of which had drawn their own sorts of weapons. Incensed, the rest of his team appeared to want to make a fight of it, and he reasoned there was no point in hiding themselves from Muggles any more. He pulled his wand, bit back a cry at the strike of pain the movement caused, then looked back down at the girl before dropping to his knees.

"You have to get everyone off the 'Plane," he hissed, grabbing her arm and yanking her to her knees. "Do it, don't ask why, don't even look for anything - you won't find it. Just get everyone off, now."

"Let the hostage go!" shouted one of the security force agents, having noticed him.

Draco turned, then felt the swift sinking sensation of having been kneed in the stomach before he doubled over. He counted again from the corner of his eye - three down now, only himself and three others remained in the fight, even though he wasn't in the fight, and couldn't-

"What are you doing!" hissed Mr Parkinson, looking after the girl who'd taken off at a run back to the gate to, presumably, call the Plane back. He took aim. Draco was faster.

"Impedimentia," he hissed, the effect weak because of his horrible form. But he hadn't wanted to incapacitate the older man anyway, just buy the girl some time. He looked at the tide the fight was taking, blood spattered on the floor. Members of his team were groaning or lay unmoving, and he didn't care even a little. They hadn't listened to him and deserved what they got for assuming Muggles hadn't figured out how to defend themselves.

Mr Parkinson twisted a look of revulsion at him. "What have you done?" he hissed, pointing his wand at Draco.

"Nothing you'll remember. Obliviate!" And that was just about as much as his poor badly healed wrist could take. Cupping it to his chest, he turned on the spot and fled, because being a coward was better than being dead. Maybe by the time Voldy learnt that no Muggle Aeroplanes had broken up in the sky over London, he'd be safe at school in the castle. And if not, well... he'd just explain that he had to flee because he couldn't fight, and then he'd let his father explain why.

The notion almost cheered him up, half collapsed as he was at the gates of the Manor. "Mum," he croaked to the gate. He was almost certain he'd be well enough to walk up to the house himself in a few minutes, but putting on a show of how hard he'd tried to stay and fight past his ability seemed like a good idea, as did the notion of sitting in the grass against the cool comfortable stone pillar of his own gate to his own house.

As it was, she flew to his side quicker than a woman her age ought to have been able to move and didn't leave him a lot of time to recover, so that while it might have seemed like a good idea at the time, the childishness of having called for his mum didn't have time to dawn on him before she'd got out and only occurred to him once she was there, worrying over him.

"Draco!" she murmured, fluttering her hands over him in a motherly search for injury. "What happened?"

He waved her off. "I don't think we're supposed to talk about it," he replied, embarrassed. He let her appear to help him to his feet, the ache in his diaphragm starting to dissipate since he'd been allowed to sit and catch his breath unmolested. "Has Apatome returned?" Not that it mattered now. He could blow up the Pplane if he liked, but there'd hopefully be no one on it. And why did that matter? Because, he reasoned hastily, they didn't have evidence that all of those people were really Muggles; some could have been descended from Squibs who'd resettled in Muggle lands where they'd fit in better. There could have been Wizard blood on that plane.

Charity Burbage had been a Wizard. Harry Potter was a Wizard. What mattered more? Killing Muggles and preserving Wizard-kind, or killing anyone who stood in the way of power?

"A bit ago, crowing about his plan," she murmured, looking at him shrewdly. "But it sounded far too clever for him."

Draco flushed pink. "Er..." So much for not talking about their missions. "Parkinson doesn't know what he's doing. He'd have got us all killed. I'm not so sure he didn't - you notice I've come back alone."

"Come along then," his mother said, looking around them in suspicion. "I'll have Liddy draw you a bath. You look a fright."

Draco nodded and trailed her slightly, wrestling with himself. Out here, on the stone pathway which wended through the peacocks, it seemed so much safer than inside the Manor, and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to pitch a tent on the lawn and never go back in, bloody-minded peacocks be damned. "Mum," he said uncertainly.

"Darling?" she murmured, stopping to watch him carefully from the corner of her eye.

"Nothing. Never mind." They walked on again in silence for a few more moments before he broke it to say, "Mum, I - I'm glad nothing's happened to you. Or Father." Yes, he decided. He meant it. No matter how the stress had warped him, he loved his father. "I just wanted to say that, in case..."

She pursed her lips. "It's unlike you to be so morbid, darling," she admonished.

Draco looked at the pathway stones glumly. "What is like me?" he muttered, aware that he sounded like a petulant child. He huffed a sigh, shoulders sagging.

"What's the matter with you?" she said, sounding very much like she didn't need to hear his response to form an opinion of it. Draco imagined she knew him better than anyone else in the house, possibly including himself. He shook his head.

"Nothing. It's only two. Couldn't we go to Diagon Alley for my school supplies this afternoon?"

His mother looked at him incredulously. "You've only just got back from what I imagine was a fairly harrowing, dangerous mission, from which only two of you have so far returned, and you want to go shopping?"

Draco shrugged. "There's only a week 'til school," he suggested as his only valid excuse.

She tsked. "Your father's taking you tomorrow," she replied, frowning. "Don't think I haven't noticed your avoiding him. Have you had a row?"

"No," he replied immediately. "He's just been difficult to get on with, after coming back." Not a lie. "You haven't noticed?" He watched her carefully for signs she was hiding something from him that might require a little father-son chat wherein one of them gave the other what-for.

She sighed at him long-sufferingly. "If you've had an argument, you can come to me, darling. I know how to handle your father. He's not impossible, even now." She closed the gap between them and hugged her to him like he was eleven again, leaving home for the first time to go to school. "Oh, my darling," she crooned softly, stroking through his hair. "You're so like him."

##

"Is he very angry?" Draco mumbled, trying to make conversation with his strangely quiet father. He sneered at an ugly bust of some famous Witch from centuries ago staring out at them from behind a dusty shop window. They'd already got his books and sent them home ahead of them so they could wander about being father and son. The once bustling street was eerily deserted. He didn't know when everyone else had got their books or if they were even going to bother going back, but they appeared to be two of only a handful of shady peoples ambling about.

"Who?" his father replied airily.

Draco scowled. "You know who," he snapped, then felt giddy at the slight pun. You-know-who, is who.

"Ohhh," Lucius chuckled. "Right. That."

"Yes, that," Draco confirmed, knitting his brows in irritated confusion. He stole a glance around them to be sure his father's light-hearted mood wasn't due to some horrible trap he'd arranged and tightened his grasp around the wand in his pocket.

"I'm certain he cares not a whit, m'boy," Lucius advanced cheerily.

"Doesn't care?" Draco hissed in disbelief. "But, sending Parkinson, and-"

Lucius turned to him, finally realising Draco'd stopped and was no longer at his side. He looked at him kindly. "He only wants to kill you, Draco," he said calmly, a smile touching his lips. He shrugged affably. "That's all."

Draco went a little cold, although the sentiment wasn't new to him. His face twisted without his permission for a moment before he could reign himself in, and then he gazed impassively at his father before chinning to the nearest dark pub. He didn't have to look back to know his father was following; the sharp tap of his walking stick told on him.

The pub was closed, but Draco only wanted the dark of the doorway anyway. Once they were well into the shadow, he turned bright eyes on his father, feeling ridiculously emotional. "That's all?" he hissed. "It's only my life?"

Lucius grinned and lifted his brows, turning out toward the afternoon sunlight just beyond the shadows. "That's right," he agreed happily. "It's worth less and less to him every day."

A stone dropped into Draco's stomach and he had to swallow to keep from vomiting the lunch he hadn't been able to eat. He didn't care? After deciding at the threat of death that he cared for his father after all and was pleased neither of his parents had as yet been killed, after choosing to believe what he'd told Snape, that Lucius had simply come back from Azkaban different and strange and unable to control his baser emotions - after all of that. The man didn't even care that he was in constant peril, that it was due to his choices alone, that -

Draco pushed past his father back into the warm sunlight, hoping the presence of summer-turning-fall would bring life back into his limbs and lift the cold off his shoulders, but was pulled back into reality by his father's unerringly strong grip round his upper arm, jerking him to a stop.

"Draco!" he hissed in warning.

Draco froze, shoulders shrugged up to ward off a blow, something he regretted a moment later but realised was probably the proper reaction, cowardly though it might have appeared. Lucius snatched his hand back so quickly he could have torn Draco's sleeve if he hadn't remembered to loose his grip first.

"Draco," he said again, his voice hitching. Draco looked back in concern and a bit of befuddlement.

"I'm going to Orchid Paisley's Ladies' Boutique," he said shortly, storming off.

His father followed after. "Whatever for?" he rejoined incredulously.

"A gift for Mother," Draco seethed. "Someone who happens to care whether I survive your war."

"I care, Draco," Lucius said softly, looking injured.

Draco knitted his brows together and gestured widely at nothing in particular in confused exasperation. "It's still amazing," he said, voice strangled with emotion he couldn't disguise, "that I can't tell when you're lying through your teeth! Lucky for me you openly contradict yourself in your madness. Lucky for me you've forgotten which lies you've already told!" He stopped short to look about them in horror, desperately aware they'd been arguing quite publicly, despite his half-hearted attempt to keep to shadows for their personal squabbling. He put his hand to his mouth to compose himself, feeling wildly off-balance, and waved his father away with the other. That it stopped the elder Malfoy in his tracks didn't escape his notice, but it didn't merit a comment either. "I'm going. I'll meet you back at home," he whispered.

Lucius watched him, gnawing a lip in indecision, then he made a show of stalking off in the opposite direction even though Draco knew he could have turned on the spot. Father always did have a flair for the dramatic, something Draco apparently couldn't help but mimic.

-----

Note: I know shenanigans like this deal at the airport could never happen now, and i have no idea if it'd have been possible in Britain in the 90s, but for sure it happened in the States, so I'm just kinda going with it.