The Last Lieutenant

Muggle Baiting

When Audra gets back from meeting with, its late enough that she doesn't bother sneaking in, just walks right in through the front door. She should have known better.

"A bit late out for a walk, isn't it?" The voice makes her jump, but a moment later she realizes that its only Draco, slumped down in one of the leather chairs and staring in the fire. He's not even looking at her, just watching the flames jump like he's deciding whether or not to dive into them. "What were you doing?"

"Nothing." Audra's normally a better liar, but she had been caught off guard, and she hadn't expected to come back and be interrogated by Draco, of all people. She hadn't even known she was here- he must have snuck away from Hogwarts. Audra couldn't wait to hear what crackpot cover story Crabbe and Goyle had to memorize this time. "What are you doing up?"

"Nothing." He turns the word into a snarl when he says it, making it clear that he thought her answer was a load of crap but wasn't going to press her. "You're awfully dressed up for a midnight stroll."

Audra didn't want to talk, but she didn't want to leave him sitting alone in the dark, either, so she throws herself down onto the floor beside him. "I went out with Emmeline." She felt herself go into a half shrug, hoping it would be enough. "That a crime?"

"Probably." Draco gave her a smile, and Audra snorted. Her time spent in the dueling ring seemed to be public knowledge. "Haven't seen that necklace in a while."

It only takes a second for him to nod down at her, but its enough time for Audra to figure out what he was talking about and what a huge mistake it was- Fred's fingers fumbling in the darkness, the chill of the chain being laid around the neck, the weight of it familiar and awkward all at once, her not-so-gentle reminder that he would have to take it back before the night was over.

But he hadn't. Taken it back, that was. And here she was, sitting here on the Malfoy's sitting room floor with a necklace Fred had gave her dangling side ways off her shoulders, a picture of her and Emmeline and Clary on one side of the locket and a picture of the twins on the other. Damning evidence, really, should anyone ask to see it.

"I felt like wearing it." Her fingers are tapping on the carpet and Audra forces herself to be still. Calm. Unbothered, like she was willing to snap the chain in half and throw it into the fire if he asked her to. And she would, if that was what it took. "Pretty, isn't it?"

She holds it out to him by the chain, letting the charm turn and twist, shimmering in the firelight. Hide in plain sight, her father had told her, and that's exactly what she was doing now.

Draco shrugged, rolled his eyes, already bored. "I suppose." He slipped off the chair and curled up on the floor beside her. "Nothing's working."

Audra doesn't ask him what he was talking about. She didn't have to, and really, she didn't want to know what he had done and what damage he had caused to people who had accidently got in his way. Those weren't her plans, which meant that they weren't her problems.

"One of them will." She stares into the fire and wonders what might happen if she reached out, how bad it would hurt to feel the sparks biting at her skin. If it might be better to feel pain, just so she can feel anything at all. "Just give it time."

When Mr. Weasley talked about incidents at his job, he always used the term muggle-baiting.

Muggle baiting, as in, people with magic screwing with muggles just because they could for fun. Shrinking keys. Exploding toilets. Invisible cats that melt away into thin air like they've found themselves in Wonderland. When he told those stories, Audra thought they were harmless, sometimes even funny, even though she could see how the sentiment behind them was wrong.