✓ | RECKLESS AND BRAVE | Draco Malfoy

82 | DRAPETOMANI

     "Harry, we need to — "

     A grinding noise of locks clicking and bolts unlocking interrupted Tessa, and they all turned to see a door by the left side of the street fling open. "Potters, in here, quick!"

     Tessa didn't even stop to think as she hurtled through the threshold at once with the other three. She moved past a tall figure, his face concealed from the shadows.

     "Upstairs, keep the Cloak on, keep quiet!" he said in a gruff voice, storming out into the open street and slamming the door behind them.

     "Wait a minute," Tessa blurted out, blinking confusedly at the familiar place. "Isn't this the Hog's Head Inn?"

     Harry nodded at her in confirmation before pulling her over behind a counter through a second doorway up a staircase. They entered a sitting room, warmth seeping through Tessa's skin from the small fireplace. Above it hung a painting of a blonde girl smiling sweetly.

There was someone shouting on the streets outside, followed by several more as an argument unfolded. Tessa tugged them all over to the window since the Cloak was still draped over them. Looking over, she saw the Hog's Head's barman bellowing furiously at the Death Eaters.

"So what?" he roared lividly. "So what? You send dementors down my street, I'll send a Patronus back at 'em! I'm not having 'em near me, I've told you that, I'm not having it!"

"That wasn't your Patronus!" a Death Eater retorted angrily. "One of them was a stag, it was the Potter boy's!"

     "Stag! Stag! You idiot — Expecto Patronum!" the barman exclaimed as something enormous bursted forth from his wand and galloped away before disappearing.

     "That's not what I saw . . . ," the cloaked figure said with uncertainty before perking up, "But that doesn't explain the panther! That one was definitely the Potter girl's — !"

     "Imbecile!" the barman snapped hotly. "Do you think you're the only people alive in this street? Obviously someone would've went out to inspect the commotion and was frightened to see the dementors."

     "Curfew's been broken, you heard the noise," another Death Eater said roughly. "Someone was out in the street against regulations —"

     "If I want to put my cat out, I will, and be damned to your curfew!"

     "You set off the Caterwauling Charm?"

     "What if I did? Going to cart me off to Azkaban? Kill me for sticking my nose out my own front door? Do it, then, if you want to! But I hope for your sakes you haven't pressed your little Dark Marks and summoned him. He's not going to like being called here for me and my old cat, is he, now?"

     "Don't you worry about us," another hooded wizard snarled, "worry about yourself, breaking curfew!"

     "And where will you lot traffick potions and poisons when my pub's closed down? What'll happen to your little sidelines then?"

     "Are you threatening — ?"

     "I keep my mouth shut, it's why you come here, isn't it?"

     "I still say I saw a stag Patronus!" the first Death Eater stubbornly cried out.

     "Stag?" the barman repeated incredulously. "It's a goat, idiot!"

     "All right, we made a mistake," the second Death Eater admitted frustratedly, throwing his hands up in defeat. "Break curfew again and we won't be so lenient!"