FicWad

Chapter Six: Dirty Business & Dirty Secrets

Before I knew it, my time in St. Louis was over and I found myself in another plane, in another place, and in another climate. Dreading the plane ride, I was surprised to find that this one was relatively quick in comparison to the one across the pond. Following Alex out of the air terminal, I looked around me noticing how much different the state of New Mexico looked from St. Louis.

After getting into a massive black automobile that Alex called a Hummer, we rode in relative silence for about an hour until we reached the city of Santa Fe or that is what sign read at least. It looked like it could be a nice city even though it did not appear to be as large as St. Louis. My comparative thoughts were interrupted by Alex.

"Home sweet home." And indeed it would be my home for the next two years according to what my mum told me before I left. I automatically knew not to expect anything like the manor, but other than that I had no idea what to expect. The house blended well with the other homes on the street with the clay looking substance being the outer look of choice. It lacked the sometimes ostentatious style of the manor, but it was more than enough room for two blokes to live in.

Just as I was about to compliment Alex on his home, I felt a sense of great unease enter me and I wanted nothing more than to get as far away from the area as much as possible. To add injury to insult, it seemed the closer we got, the uneasiness increased until it was unadulterated fear and terror almost making me feel like a caged animal. "Alex, get me out here. Something is not right."

Alex turned and looked at me with those blues assessing me until something clicked. He then stopped the vehicle and pulled out a pocketknife. That was the last thing I needed to see with all that irrational fear and terror running through me. Almost frozen in fear, I watched the pocketknife as it pricked the tip of his index finger yielding a generous drop of blood. He then grabbed my hand before I even had the chance to jerk away and smeared said blood on the back of my hand. The terror and unease immediately ceased. /Wards/. "Sorry, I forgot about that specific ward." Alex stated as he continued to drive towards the house.

"How the Hell can you forget about your wards? And what was that anyway?" I asked resisting the urge to clean the blood off my hand now that the terror had abated.

Alex glanced over at me as he finally pulled up to the front of the house. "Pardon me. I don't have that many wizards over and most of the wards are harmless to non magical persons. Anyways, you've heard of muggle repelling wards right?" I nodded in response. "Well, no one said it couldn't be made to work in the opposite direction."

"Are you telling me that you have what is essentially a wizard repelling ward?"

"No, it's just a ward to repel blonde bastards who ask too many questions." He responded turning to me with a smirk.

"Well, it must not work very well since it forgot about you. But really, what use do you have for this type of ward and how come it extends out so far? Other houses are within this ward."

"I know. This is the only one that extends out this far. If the wizard by some chance gets his wits about him and realizes it's a ward, he or she won't know which house or which area to start in on to remove it. The presence of wards themselves can attract attention even if they are used as a means of protection. This ward keeps people from noticing the more powerful wards surrounding my house. In addition, this would give me time by causing some confusion. We can continue this inside." He answered getting out of the automobile.

Getting into the house, I took a quick glance around knowing I would have more than enough time to look around later. Since I was living here, I needed to know about the wards. "But why the anti-wizard ward?"

Glancing at me as he sat what few bags he had down by the stairs, he said "Like I said, I really don't interact with wizards much. Most of the people that know me, know me as having little to no magical potential hence the reason I couldn't do magic."

Taking one slow blink trying to process the implications of his statement, I restated "So you are saying that you have been posing as a muggle?"

"No. I'm saying that for all intents and purposes three fourths of a year, I am magicless."

"What? How?" The response I got was a shrug as he turned to go up the stairs.

"How else? Potions. Come up stairs so you can pick out a room. After you get settled, we can go back to show and tell."
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As we climbed the steps, I couldn't help but wonder what I hell I was doing. It's been almost ten years. It's been damn near ten years since I left England and since I left Wizarding society behind, well at least the British one. Sometimes I wondered was I crazy as Hell for doing this. My shit was relatively together now and no one could trace me if their life depended on it, magical or mundane. However, there was no way in Hell I could ever deny Cissa. She was there when no one else was. And Drake himself, I could still remember the small shadow that used to follow me during those summers. That shadow almost matches my height now and has encountered some unpleasant things. But I know for the most part, he's still clean and part of me wants him to stay that way no matter how naïve that wish may be. A clean Malfoy. An innocent Malfoy. It almost sounds like a fuckin' oxymoron. From the history I know about the family, a clean Malfoy is essentially a dead Malfoy. And that I of all people should know.

God. I have never been more off my game than I have been these past two weeks riding the line between keeping as much information as possible away from Anita and her "friends" yet not scaring the piss out of Draco since he doesn't know much about me. Hell for all I know, they may think I'm bipolar now along with sociopathic, especially after that conversation with Jean Claude at the circus. Even worse, I don't want to think about the questions circulating in Drake's head now. These are big questions that I'd been putting off for the past two weeks and I know he hasn't forgotten them. The most important question of course is my occupations. I had no issues telling him about Ted. Ted is legal and is doing what is essentially a public service. Death however, was not so easy. It could be compared to Abraxas's activities, but I got paid and truly didn't care one way or another about the target. Abe and Lucy did it for free and took great pleasure. Hell, who am I kidding? I live for the rush, but my targets are never defenseless.

Anyways, I knew one thing. No matter how I did it, Drake was going to have to learn about Death since hanging out with me could potentially get him killed just as quickly as being in the vicinity of Mr. Riddle or what was left of him. There was just no way to get around it. He will know almost everything there is to be known about me, so an Occumency refresher isn't an option; it's a mandate.
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After having Drake choose a room, I gave him some time to settle in and explore even though the time was more for me. Two and a half hours later, I found myself sitting in the sitting room no more ready than I was a week ago. Looking at my long cold coffee, I decided I was going to be out of character and just say fuck it. Put it out there and deal with what comes. I was in no mood for cloak and daggers tonight.

Just when I was about to call Drake, I realized that I hadn't taken the unbinding potion yet and that was something I really didn't want to do in front of him. Reaching into the small expanded pocket attached to my belt, I pulled out a 2.5ml bottle that could be mistaken for eye drops if the liquid wasn't purple. Looking at it, I wondered why I still carried it with me at all times. It wasn't like I was ever going to use it on a job. For about five minutes after taking it, the person is high off of their own pent up power and that is something I can not afford in my line of work. That would be a dumb ass way to go out. Big bad infamous Death died because he was essentially stoned off his ass and staggered into a line of bullets coming his way. Anita would probably raise me just to laugh in my face. Pushing those thoughts aside, I knocked back the potion and in seconds I was flooded in power and intoxication. Everything was foggy to me and the only sensory stimulation I could make out was the wards of the house responding to me and acknowledging me rather than just that tingling sensation I encountered when bound. After a few minutes, I lifted my head out of my hands and waited for everything to level out. Once sure I was in relative control of my faculties, I went ahead and retrieved the wand strapped to my inner calf. Sometimes I fleetingly wondered how much energy I released when I took the unbinding potion, but now I knew I would definitely have to look into it when Drake came down the stairs with a perplexed look on his face. "What was that?"

I was halfway tempted to ask 'What was what?' when I realize that he had almost as information to give to me as I had to give to him. I decided to throw him a bone. "Me unbinding."

With those words, Drake's eyes raked over me until they rested on the empty bottle and the wand sitting on the coffee table beside me. He actually stared at the wand longer than usual. His eyes came back to mine. "That was you. I thought it was the wards."

I gestured to the seat on the opposite side of the coffee table. "The wards at one point did respond to me. I wouldn't think you would have noticed."

He looked at me straight on. "I noticed. It was like encountering waves on a beach." I raised my eyebrow at that. "The first one was like someone dumped gallons of water on me. A wild splash. Unrestricted. Had force, but for the most part went through me. The second one was larger and more uniformed. It actually seeped through me, inspected me, and continued on almost as if it found me lacking. I take it found what it was looking for."

"We wouldn't be sitting here otherwise." I responded allowing a smirk to form. Let's just say that it would not have been pretty had magical energy been released and there was no connection found to me via magic or blood.

"And you were going to tell me this when? I didn't know whether or not the house shielded underage magic like the manor. That was the only thing that stopped me casting any spells." He said looking at me like I was a few screws short.

"I'll add you in first thing tomorrow and I want you to get another wand before you use any magic. For your own information, you have full access over here with you being sixteen." Seeing the grin that he was fighting to hide, I had to rain on his parade. "You're still not an adult, but you do have the full ability to use magic."

"What is the legal age over here?"

"Eighteen, which is the same as the mundanes."

Draco frowned. "Mundane?"

"For some reason, I never liked the word 'muggle' and mundane is the common expression that they use over here." There was something about the word that rubbed me the way. There could be only so much coincidence that they would pick a word that is almost synonymous with fool or idiot in the dictionary. Not saying that mundane was a shining compliment either, but I would rather be boring than a fool. Tired of talking already, I felt it was time to dig into some of the meaty questions like this Lord Malfoy shit. "Draco. What's this garbage about me being Lord Malfoy?"

The little bastard looked at me with a smirk before digging into his pockets. "My, aren't we excited?" He set a trunk that was the size of a pack of playing cards in the middle of the floor and looked at me. "Will you do the honors?" I picked up the wand and mumbled the engorgement spell until the trunk was back to its original size. Draco then searched through the trunk for a few minutes until he found what he was looking for. He came out with two pieces of parchment and a small wooden box. I knew what was in that box and I did not want it.

Unrolling the first parchment, Draco began. "When I first found out you were alive, it was more than obvious due to me being underage and Lucius getting himself locked up that it would go to you as a proxy until the issues with father and I were resolved." He glanced over the parchment which turned out to be long as hell, before he handed it to me with a smile. "However, imagine my surprise when mother and I looked at the family tree and went through some family documents and bylaws only to find out that Lucius had been acting in proxy and was still acting in proxy until this year for you."

I glanced through the family tree and saw a living breathing nightmare. There in bold letters under my father's name and a red 'unknown' in the space representing my mother was my name with Lord in front of it. Oh shit. I heard Drake continue on in the background. "With Uncle Gabriel being the first borne, he was the heir. Even though he never became Lord, he was first in line and you took that place as his son when he died. Technically, you have been Lord since 1987. Lucius was technically a proxy after Grandfather's death in 1983. With your presence, Lucius never has been Lord Malfoy and never will." I could almost hear the 'and neither will I' behind that sentence.

"Are you sure you looked at all of this correctly?" God, how weak did that sound? "I would have sworn that Abraxas would have disowned me as soon as he knew my existence. He can't have a filthy half-blood fuckin' up his illustrious line. There has to be a clause in there somewhere. There is no way in hell he would allow a half-blood to become family head." I noticed Draco looking at me a little wary. I hoped I hadn't slipped too much, but I knew I had. For all that I've done and all that I've seen, I have excellent control over myself and emotions...except when it comes to Abraxas Malfoy. I reigned myself in since Draco didn't know dear Grandfather like I did and looked at him with dead eyes for an explanation.

Draco looked pensive. Did he not know? "Half-blood?" There was a slow blink and then he shook himself out of it. "Since you were born in America, most of the evidence of your existence remains in America. The only magical record of your existence in Britain would probably be in Gringotts. As you know, the Malfoys do not have an account manager due to a lack of trust in the creatures. Essentially, he would have had to acknowledge your existence in order to get you disowned." And that would defeat his purpose. Instead of private shame, it would have been public shame and a reduction of power for him. So there was an alternative reason for silently planning to get rid of me other than just great dislike and prejudice.

Draco passed me the wooden box and we lapsed into silence. Opening it up, I was not surprised when I was greeted with the Malfoy family ring in all of its perverse glory. For all I know, this ring might not even accept me. I did not sign up for this. Closing the box, I studied Draco. All of this affected him as much as it did me. From what I heard by way of my exchanges with Cissa, this is what Lucius had been grooming him for every since I had left. The alienation. The pressure. All for nothing. I could even remember him hiding so he wouldn't have to get to some of his lessons. As I watched him stare into my pseudo fireplace, I actually wondered how he felt about all of this. But it wasn't my business. I know if it was me, I sure as hell wouldn't be in a talkative mood. I also wasn't going to even try to read him at this point because I didn't know who I was looking at times.

However, all of that introspection would be for nothing because I had absolutely no interest in the position. Closing the box, I handed it back to Drake. "When peace comes back to England, this is yours. I will relinquish any rights." He made a move to protest, but I stopped him. "I don't want this. This is not pity Draco. With the exception of you and Cissa, I want nothing to do with the family let alone running it. This belongs to you."

From there, I moved the topic into what has been going on in England. Draco gave me the rundown of what's been happening the last few years from his point of view. When Draco described how Voldemort looked, I didn't know whether I wanted to laugh or cringe. It was no use thinking about the 'could haves' and 'should haves'. It didn't happen and that is all that matters. And Jesus, what he told me about the ministry made me wanted to deny my dual citizenship. "He had to show up in the middle of the Department of Mysteries in order for them to believe Potter. The dead kid he brought back with him didn't scream any signs? Were they all smoking from the same pipe when they elected Fudge?"

Drake looked pensive. "Speaking of government, how is it set up here?"

"It's set up like the mundane one with three branches: legislative, judicial, and executive. Instead of a minister, we have a president and he or she is elected on a staggered half term of the mundane president."

"In English please." That was the dry reply I received.

"A presidential term is four years for both presidents. If a mundane president is elected in 1996, the elections for the Wizarding president will be held in 1998 to ensure some stability in the country."

"How is the relationship between the two governments?" I had to smile at this. Time for another little surprise.

"It's a good relationship. It's so good in fact that the Wizarding government is thinking of coming out."

His head snapped to me with shocked spread all across his features. Black beckons. "What?! The International Confederation will never let them get away with it!"

"That Statue of Secrecy was drafted by the Confederation in 1427. That is over 200 years before the creation of the United States. Think Slytherin Drake. They acted in accordance with it voluntarily, but they never formally signed it because they were not formally acknowledged as a country until 1905. The Wizarding government here has been watching the interaction between the mundanes, vamps, and lycanthropes for almost twenty years. If mundanes can accept and acknowledge the vamps, we look rather boring and harmless in comparison. " I said before summoning two bottles of water and cursing my laziness.

Drake nodded in response. "Why weren't the states acknowledged until 1905? Didn't they start coming over the late 16th century?"

I handed him a bottle. "Think about it. Despite its lip service, the confederation had and still has just as many old wealthy purebloods representing their countries. What is going to be their reaction to a barely two centuries old country started by and mostly populated by mundane born wizards, disgraced purebloods, and Wizarding victims of primogeniture?" I heard silence in response. "Exactly."

We lapsed into silence again and found ourselves staring into the pseudo fireplace. It's almost unnecessary for a fireplace in this climate, but I did like the atmosphere it bought. There was no floo connection and there would never be any floo connection in a home of mine unless the room was damn near isolated from the rest of the house. Maybe it's my work talking again, but it's simply stupidity on the both the travelers part and the home owners part. I was in the middle of thinking about how many hexes and bullets a person could find themselves encountering when stepping out of a floo when jarred me with a question.

"Why did you leave?" Of all questions to ask, why did he have to ask this one? But I did say I was going to be somewhat honest. I took a drink of water beginning to wish I had something slightly stronger.

"England was never my home Drake and I didn't like how things went over there." That was the truth. I turned to Drake and saw a look on his face that clearly said 'And...'

"Let's just say that Voldemort was going to ask something of me that I would not give and I did not wish for Lucius or any of you to be placed in the middle. So I left." I finished glancing down at my hands. /My hands/.

"What was he going to ask of you? There are very few things that are worse then what he asked of me." You have no idea kid. There were plenty of things I was ready to disclose, but this wasn't one of them.

"What was with the panic attack at the circus?" I was not sitting in touching distance of Draco, but I could almost feel him stiffen at my words.

"Touché." His tone was bordering on glacial.

"We can drop it if you'd like, but you might want to take care of that. Reactions like that will put you at risk." Both physically and mentally. Taking a quick glance over at him, he was giving my fireplace a look that would definitely had his class mates moving more than a few spaces away. I would give it an eight on my scale. Deciding to bite the bullet, I asked. "Was that the first time you had one those?"

"One of what?" Okay. He wanted to go quid pro quo.

"An orgasm. No, a panic attack." I said shaking my head. Something had to be done about it or it would grow bigger and uglier. At the risk of sounding like some pop psych quack, he needed to either talk about it or focus it to something else.

We lapsed into another silence with my offer to talk hanging out there. I sat there like I had all the time in the world and for the most part, I did. Every now and then, I would see him glancing over at me. He was more than likely weighing me to see if I could be trusted and probably trying to guess my reactions. Unbeknownst to him however, any feelings of embarrassment with me are wasted due pensive worthy memories of him running through the manor naked as the day he was born with a house elf in hot pursuit of the toddler. I had to bite back a smile at the memory of Lucius and his business partners' faces. Just as I was pulling myself away from those amusing thoughts, Draco finally answered.

"No, I had not. I was fine until that... she started speaking Parseltongue and it just came out of nowhere." He said looking at his hands just like any sixteen year old kid rather than that 'something more' that he had to portray most of his life. I actually thought he was about to clam back up when he decided to keep talking. "I just felt like I was suffocating. I felt like I was never going to escape, that the family as a whole was never going to escape. Seeing that lamia just made me think that no matter how far I go, no matter how far I run, I will never escape this madness. Hell, the madness is damned near tied with our name. Sooner or later, I'm going to have to face it down one way or another."

He then broke out in a laugh that sounded anything but pleasant before deciding to walk over to the window. "Face it down and do what exactly? What exactly can I do? I have little to no allies. Half of the population over there hates the family due to loyalties of father and grandfather. The other half will hate the family for my defection from those loyalties. Either way, the moment we emerge people are going to want us to fall and fall hard. I can't even protect my own mother. She's taken a stand in protecting me. Bloody hell, you are taking a stand in protecting me, almost a grown man. I have no idea how much I am disrupting your life with this. I have no idea where my mother is at, what she is doing, or even if she is safe for that matter. Almost everyone I care about is standing for me except for myself and I feel sickened and weak because of it."

He stopped and looked at me warily with a smile that looked more like a grimace. "Sorry. I bet I sound like a winy ponce, don't I?" I guess he had said too much on his part. It usually goes that way when to listener remains silent. I didn't know what he was thinking, but I wasn't going to judge him. I couldn't judge him even if I had wanted.

Thinking about some of the more angst filled TV shows, I figured that this would be the point where I was supposed to go over to him and say 'There, there or everything would be alright in the end.' No way. I've almost lost my breath too many times to use it on empty words. "No, you sound like someone who feels helpless. You sound like someone haunted by the past and by things you have no control over so much that they dread the future. You also sound like someone who is a few breathes away from calling yourself a coward and I can assure that considering the situation, you are anything but. There is a thin line between bravery and stupidity." This was all rubbing too close to home, but I knew he needed to hear it. "How can you stand when you don't know what you stand for or what you want? How can you stand when you lack the skills to keep standing?"

Again I received silence. I turned to Drake and saw him in a stance by the window that took me back almost twenty years. Giving into the need for something stronger, I went to the bar and pulled the fire whiskey. "Your mother will be fine; she's probably burying you as we speak. We should hear from her in about a week. Other than avoiding the Dark Tosser, did Cissa give you any other reasons for coming over here?"

I heard a snort before he responded. "She said welcome any additional training and to
embrace life." I handed him a tumbler that he knocked back. I watched him with faint amusement fight the grimace as the liquor burned his throat.

"How do feel about those requests?"

"What else do I have to do here?" I looked into his eyes and found something akin to cold determination. "A definite yes to training though. I can not be a sitting duck and if I go down, I will not make it easy for the bastards." And neither will I.

"And the embracing life? Draco Malfoy is dead. You, Mr. Willis, can do anything you please." I stated still swirling my own fire whiskey in the tumbler. I knew how revenge and fear could consume and had long put both to rest or at least thought I did. He needs to explore in order to find where he stands. Otherwise, he could become... unpleasant.

"Duly noted." Draco responded with a nod before he got a puzzled look on his face. "Getting back to the training, how do you go about finding good duelers over here?"

The British sentiment sprouts its head. "Dueling isn't everything, Draco. What can you do without your wand?" More silence. "Exactly. A rule of thumb Drake, you shouldn't just look at just spells. You may very well encounter some things that are resistant to our type of magic."

He looked at me with both curiosity and wariness. Smart kid. "And you know this how? Wait, you did say you were a bounty hunter of some sort. Are they like aurors?" Gods no! "What exactly do you do and can it help with my training?"

I couldn't get a better opening than that. I knocked my own glass of fire whiskey back and actually smiled, which Drake returned cautiously. Here comes nothing. "I never thought you'd ask."