Chapter Text
Leave it to Potter to 'tame' the stupid beast. Really, if it weren't for the applicability to Potions, this class would have been a waste. With the oaf teaching it, it already was. Really, what was the cretin thinking, putting these over-sized hideous chickens in front of third-years? Father would be furious when he heard about it.
Draco fought down the urge to gag as several students whooped and hollered over Potter flying overhead. Knowing Potter and the oaf, he'd probably already snuck side-lessons or something. Or gotten Granger to give him tips. Embarrassing, really, that the mudblood still showed up both Potter and Weasley in classes, not that anyone expected anything substantial from a Weasley.
Only some measure of class kept Draco from rolling his eyes when the beast came crashing down to the ground again. Unfortunately, Potter was still in one piece. Couldn't he even get horribly maimed by one of the oaf's pets properly? The only reason he'd even gone along with the wrong sort in the first place was that the universe refused to teach him a lesson. Stubborn Gryffindor streak did the rest.
I bet the oaf overfed them. Or something to make the hippogriffs more pliable. Though with Hagrid as the professor, even that sort of foresight probably only happened by accident. The oversized moron crowed over Harry like he'd done something grand. Everyone else looked like they were half-ready to take a page out of Potter's book (not that, as far as Draco could tell, Potter ever read one). That was never a good sign.
Just you watch, Draco thought. The chicken's probably tired out from Potter showing off on it. He wasn't taking a page out of Potter's book, nonetheless. This was Draco's book, not Potter's.
Potter and company were off a ways, still being preened over by the oaf, no doubt. So Draco strolled over toward the hippogriff. He walked tall, poised, ready for the overgrown vulture to scrap before him like a house-elf. The beast's silvery-grey head snapped to look at him, eyes sharp and bright.
For exactly one moment, the eyes seemed too intelligent. For exactly one moment, Draco almost reconsidered. Being a thirteen-year-old boy won out. But not in a way it would with Potter. Draco did such things far better. Still, it made for a mental backstep - Draco decided abruptly to try talking to it first. What was its name again? Beaky? He hadn't been paying attention, but Draco could work with it.
"I bet you’re not dangerous at all, are you?" That was friendly, wasn't it? The oaf always went on about his ugly monsters not being dangerous, so it stood to reason this one might like that sort of a line.
Wait, Crabbe and Goyle are watching. The next words came almost as reflex. "Are you, you great ugly brute?"
In the split second that followed, Draco reasoned that the giant hideous murder-chicken would probably like being called ugly. Wasn't that the manner of thing mudbloods and house-elves and beasts tended to romanticize?
The monster - Beaky - clawed the ground, eyes flashing. Draco stepped back.
"BUCKBEAK!" bellowed Hagrid.
What happened next, Draco would only process in hindsight. The hippogriff whirled around. There was a heartbeat where Draco thought the beast meant to just walk away, before its hooves whipped up straight toward his head. In his last moment of awareness, Draco heard people screaming.
In hindsight, one of the screams was probably him.
Darkness. At first, the echo of screaming rang. Draco's throat felt raw, at least until he didn't feel it at all. His body felt wrong, distant, like he was floating inside it with his eyes and ears closed, tethered by the thinnest of threads.
Oddly enough, Draco didn't feel any pain. It was almost more unsettling than agony would have been. But he didn't feel anything at all, either. Am I dead? The thought came oddly calm. Father will be furious. It was almost surreal, the calm that cushioned like shadow around him.
Leave it to Potter to ride the death-chicken, while Draco went and died to it. I am not finished! I demand to haunt Potter's lot! he thought, in case anyone listened. Then again, if he became a ghost at Hogwarts, he might have to spend more time with the Bloody Baron. Actually, death would be preferable.
"I have a better idea," said a voice Draco didn't recognize, in the darkness.
Who are you?
"We'll meet eventually," giggled the voice, decidedly feminine. Draco couldn't tell if it was older or not. It had a strange, timeless quality to it. "Bye-bye, now!"
Strange, Draco thought, before a dizzying sense of vertigo swooped up over his numbed senses. What? The fall - for it felt like falling - sped by in flashes: a tree with wide arcing branches, smelling of honey and meadowsweet. A musty, awful-looking derelict building, straw scattered around the outside. A tunnel with no exits, walls glittering with precious metals. And then, a red... was that a top hat? The red fabric rushed up to meet him.
Draco's scream came back into being, full and loud and shrill, as he fell the last few meters through the air to land atop a well-rounded stout man in a red top hat. Something snapped, and Draco hoped it wasn't a rib. The stranger let out his own screech of startling, hands scrambling and sending Draco rolling to the grassy ground below.
What in Merlin's... The ground smelled earthy and dirty and awful, but at least Draco could sense it at all. Had the death chicken sent him flying? Draco braced for laughter and gawking, body horribly sore all over from the fall. And head... intact?
Draco pressed a hand to his face as he sat up, feeling his very bloodless, unharmed features. Mother will be relieved. The thought of Father he ignored for the present.
A blustering voice sounded from the man in the top hat. "Hey!" he howled down at Draco. "The owner of this farm died a while back! You can't just come-" A beat. "Wait..." The man looked up, then back down at the still very dazed Draco. "Where did you come from? And what are you wearing?"
Farm? Did the beast kick me so hard I've landed in some peasant village? Draco sat up, wincing a bit more than was necessary as he favored his ribs and looked around. It definitely looked like a farm. Calling it a farm was technically possible, if requiring considerable imagination. The buildings looked like they'd been assembled by someone who'd heard farms described secondhand.
There was some house - at least, Draco assumed it was a house, though it could as well have been a sty several meters away. Further off, other 'farm' buildings. A barn, a few various ugly sheds, a massive and horridly weedy overgrown field. And a tree...
Draco paused. He'd glimpsed that tree in falling. A massive oak, branches stretching out toward the heavens in a regal, ancient way. Pity it was a peasant tree. Worse, Draco glimpsed a massive crawling hive of buzzing insects in a low intersection of the branches.
"Are you alright?" asked the stranger.
Right, the provincial. Though to look at him, he seemed well-dressed. Draco stumbled to his feet, eager to not be sitting on the dirt like a vagrant any longer. "I am Draco Malfoy," he said importantly, offering a hand.
The stranger blinked at him, then seized his hand eagerly and began shaking it enthusiastically. "Oh, excellent! Draco Malfoy!"
Draco blinked back. In truth, Draco hadn't expected this near-peasant to recognize it. It wasn't concerning yet. But the man's excitement seemed oddly misplaced.
"I'm Mayor Thomas," said the man. That relieved Draco - the man having some authority and good dressing meant he surely must have some sense, yes? But then Thomas excitedly continued - still shaking Draco's hand, to his mild disgust. "You say you're Draco Malfoy?"
Draco pulled his hand back, eyeing the mayor skeptically. "Yes. I have a need to write home. Just wait until my father hears about-" he started, annoyed at Potter for getting him into this mess.
Thomas heedlessly, excitedly went on: "The old farmer here died, yes. It was about six months ago, I reckon. I was cleaning out his place when I found his will. In it, he said, 'I'm leaving my farm to Draco Malfoy'. And, well, strange name no doubt, but you're him?! Since he left you the farm, it's yours if you want it."
Draco stared at him.
The mayor leaned in, eyes hyperbright. "Well, what do you think?"
"Why would I want a farm?" Draco blurted, rather scandalized by the prospect. "Where am I?" he added in belated dawning bafflement.
"Oh, that's easy enough. This is Mineral Town. Or rather-" The mayor nodded to a dirt path leading north. "That's Mineral Town."
After a slow, patient - for him - stare, Draco prompted, "Where is 'Mineral Town'?"
"There," said the mayor, looking at Draco in brief concern.
Alright, that was enough. Screw the bloody Statute. Father would help make an exception for him. Draco pulled out his wand, intent on a locational spell or-
Draco pulled out half of his wand. The other half tumbled from his robes to land on the ground with a soft thud.
Mayor Thomas glanced down at the fallen end, then at the half in Draco's hand, no recognition in his eyes. "Oh dear, did you break your... stick?"
My STICK?!
The mayor's thin eyebrows pinched, then his eyes widened. "Oh! Worry not, I have a fountain pen here for the deed!" And he began fishing out that and some papers from his vest-pocket.
A thin hair draped from the jaggedly broken end of the wand segment Draco held. He stared at it in aghast.
"Here we are," the mayor said, setting the papers on a nearby wooden crate that looked terribly broken and full of splinters. "You just sign here and the farm is yours."
"Why would I want a farm?" Draco squeaked again, still staring at his wand.
Thomas scratched his head, looking genuinely unsure. "Well, I suppose you could stay at the inn until you decide, though Doug charges by the night and isn't hiring at the moment. You'd have to pay out of pocket. Do you have any money for lodging?"
The wand was thrust back into Draco's robes as a problem for later. He started to pull out a galleon, but then: What if he robs me? The thought of being trapped in a Muggle town without a wand began to settle more fully on Draco's mind. And Muggles used different money, didn't they? His father had mentioned it and Draco himself had glimpsed such bills once.
The mayor took his silence for a no and offered him the fountain pen. "The house is cozy," he reassured Draco brightly, nodding to the tiny ugly building. "No electrical outlets, of course, so you'll have to make do with what you can keep in a pantry for now."
Pantry? Distantly, there was something concerning in Thomas's words that didn't quite hit Draco yet. "Electrical outlets?" he repeated as Thomas wrapped and guided Draco's fingers around the pen. It felt ungainly, the instrument. What would Father do?
"For your appliances, of course."
My what? The conversation was taking on a surreal quality. Draco began to suspect he was still unconscious. Soon enough, he'd wake up, being carried up to Madam Pomfrey by the dirty half-giant.
Draco looked down at the document - Father always said to read before signing anything. The deed appeared distressingly brief, however. He didn't see anything concerning, anything easily twisted. If anything, the paper looked overgenerous. No taxes, no stipulations. Everything of the farm his to do with as he pleased - could it not be a farm, to start? - and nothing withholding in regards to improvements upon it. There wasn't any language about wards or legacy curses or the like, not that Draco expected such from a Muggle document.
It probably wouldn't hurt to sign it. Free land was free land, and he had to sleep somewhere. Draco Malfoy would not be found sleeping in the street like a beggar.
Something still itched at him about Thomas's earlier words, even as he signed.
"Great!" Thomas crowed as the last letter of Draco's name etched upon the parchment - no, not parchment. Muggle paper. Draco tried not to wrinkle his nose. The mayor went on, pleased. "From here on out, this place is yours! It won't be easy, but if you try hard, you can do a job to make him proud!"
"Who?" Draco asked, after a bemused beat.
Thomas beamed. "The old farmer, of course."
Why would I want to make some dead Muggle peasant- "Who?" Draco repeated dismissively.
Thomas patted him on the head, reminding Draco that this man - whose appearance of reasonable authority had plummeted every moment since the first - had just sold land to a thirteen-year-old. Truly, Muggles are barbaric.
Making one last effort for sense, Draco asked, "Is there a library in Mineral Town?" It was the only thing he could think of that might offer some semblance of direction-finding. Muggles had to have libraries, didn't they? And if this was the sort of leadership this town had to offer, then Draco had low expectations of anyone else being remotely helpful in getting back to Hogwarts.
Why hadn't someone come yet? Weren't they looking for him?
"There is!" Thomas exclaimed. He pointed to the dirt path again. "It's on the far north side of town, near the clinic." The rounded man blinked down at Draco, considering something. "You did take a bit of a tumble. The clinic is free for a check-up, if you-"
"No, that will be fine," Draco said, even if a part of him would prefer professional care to this 'farm' arrangement. Dignity won out - he would not be poked and prodded by Muggle barbarians. Besides, if this was what passed for a mayor here, Draco had no hopes for the quality of the town's Healers.
"Alright then." The mayor showed no distress at Draco's dismissal whatsoever. And then it was Draco's turn to be distressed, as Thomas turned to head toward the town.
"Where are you going?" Draco snapped, trying to sound furious instead of terrified. What if there were beasts on the farm? What if Muggles showed up with pitchforks and torches? The man may have been insane, but he was Draco's insane Muggle acquaintance.
Thomas looked back and pointed at the sky. "Evening soon. I'm off for other rounds, now that I don't need to look after this place any longer."
Suddenly, the mayor's eagerness for Draco to sign made distressing sense. "But what about me?" Draco sputtered.
"You'll get on well! There's tools in the house-"
Excuse me?
"-and water in the well-"
Not likely.
"-and Zack will be around tomorrow evening if you have anything to sell."
What?
Mayor Thomas adjusted his coat. As he started to turn around, that earlier itch in Draco's mind resolved in a glance toward the house-sty.
"Wait, what am I supposed to eat?" Draco said, voice going shrill. I don't see any house-elves!
"Oh?" Thomas glanced back, not appearing nearly concerned enough for Draco's tastes. "Well, if you haven't got any money, you'll have to manage, I suppose." He gestured southward, beyond the great field. "I hear there's herbs in the hills that make for a refreshing salad, on a budget."
"On a WHAT?" What, did he look like a Weasley?
But the mayor simply hummed as he traveled north along the path. Draco waited for him to turn back with a laugh and say this was all some elaborate prank. Perhaps there would be servants emerging from the bushes, or Father showing up, or a proper house shimmering into view.
Draco was left standing there, broken half of his wand still lying in the grass beside him, signed deed still on the ratty crate. The sky above glowed a soft orange hue. The heat on Draco's face mixed with the heat of the sun, making for the prickle at the corner of his eyes to feel more like sweat than tears. "You can't just-!" he started to yell, but the Muggle mayor didn't turn back.
Louder, he yelled, "Just wait until my Father hears about this!"
His voice echoed out across the farm and into the wider valley. And nothing and no one answered. Nothing save for something that rustled through the overgrown field, moving steadily toward him.