Carpe Noctem (DRARRY)

Chapter 9- Queers and Fears (and Stan)

______________________________________

Chapter 9- Queers and Fears (and Stan)

~Draco's POV~

Well, fuck.

Those were his first thoughts, understandably, after he got a hold of himself. He was stuck in a train station, with no way of leaving except the Knight Bus, which Lucius always said was a horrific muggle-esque way of travel, filled with vagrants, drug abusers, and the like.

So he dragged his suitcase along, awkwardly carrying the cage of his owl under his other arm with it pecking at his fingers from time to time. "Stop it, beast!" Draco hissed at it, only to have it hiss back. Seeing as he never really liked owls, his father had taken it upon himself to give Draco the biggest one in the store: a Eurasian eagle-owl.

People were staring at him strangely due to it, and he had half a mind to throw the bird in one of the sticky trash cans dotting the station with nothing but a good riddance. He paced, thinking, and nearly bumped into several people in his endeavours.

There's no choice. I have to call the Knight bus, even if it's full of untouchables and bums.

Draco swallowed and made his way out of the crowded station with much trouble. At the street corner, everyone was in such a rush to get to wherever they were going they didn't notice him raising his wand hand by the curb.

A flash, and then- there. Appearing suddenly. A bus- triple-decker, looking fairly innocent except for its outdated bright plum paint-job and obnoxious orange letters above the windshield proclaiming Knight Bus front and centre. It almost pulled past him, then backed up with a terrible screeching sound.

In the crowd, Draco seemed to be the only person that could see it- naturally. Muggles wouldn't be able to see it: eyes skipping from the street right past the bus to the highway beyond.

A man stood at the back of the bus, dressed in an unbuttoned jumper and sensible brown trousers. He snatched a piece of paper from inside his jacket, leaning on the side of the bus as he read from it sarcastically. "Welcome t' the knight bus: emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. My name's Stan Shunpike and I'll be your conductor for this mornin'."

Draco gawked, staring with a slack jaw, and the conductor rolled his eyes impatiently. "Well, come on, then! We're not waitin' for the grass t' grow!"

Nodding and shutting his mouth indignantly, Draco climbed onto the bus. It had seats, but not like a normal muggle bus, or even like the Hogwarts Express- they were, apparently, not bolted down. Witches and wizards crowded most of them already, but there was one left overturned in the back that Draco righted, and then sat himself on.

"Ah, ah, ah! You gotta pay, mister! Eleven sickles! Where d'ya wanna go?" Stan asked, clicking his tongue against the top of his mouth, winking, and holding out a top hat rim-side-up that had materialized in his hand... Puzzling, because it appeared to be about three times too small for his head.

Unclasping his suitcase on his lap with a little tap of his wand and digging around for the box with his valuables, he found it underneath two wrinkled t-shirts, and next to a leather book with... No title at all...

Ignoring this completely, and completely done with this shit, he simply grabbed a gold Galleon from the box and chucked it into the hat. "A cheap hotel... Wizard, not muggle, obviously. Preferably respectable, and with indoor heating."

As much as he wanted to splurge on a grand hotel, he didn't have any muggle money, and it would be wise to save his galleons... As Draco doubted he would be getting any from his father in the foreseeable future.