𝐌𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖𝐒 𝐁𝐄𝐒𝐓

Chapter 30

Previously:

Harry made his feelings known through the medium of song. Draco and Harry went to Scrimgeour for help. Oliver made his feelings known in a more direct fashion.

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Mother Knows Best

Chapter Thirty

Stranger

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That Tuesday, for the first time since coming to Hogwarts, Harry woke up with the intention of skipping school. It wasn't an easy feat, considering it was a boarding school, and Harry would no doubt be catching hell for it from a variety of concerned parties, but this was too important to pass up.

He'd contacted Moody.

In a desolate patch of woods on the outskirts of Merlin, in the same direction heading out toward Malfoy Manor, Harry drove Remus' nondescript Honda onto a dirt road that led exactly three miles to where Moody had designated them to meet. And, okay, so he didn't exactly have permission to take Remus' car, but Harry figured, if you were going to fuck up and inspire anger and disappointment in someone you loved, it was better to do so in one fell swoop rather than dragging it out and letting it fester over the course of however long you planned on fucking up.

He'd texted Remus before leaving so that Remus would know it hadn't been stolen. By a stranger, anyway.

Three miles into the woods at exactly eleven in the morning, the dirt road abruptly ended. Harry put the car in park and turned to look at Draco, who was scanning the trees surrounding them with a rather skeptical look on his face.

"Are you sure this is it?" the blonde questioned, raising a doubtful eyebrow at him.

Moody's number had been stored on Draco's phone and, naturally, the blonde used this to his advantage. He'd refused to hand it over until Harry promised not to go off anywhere potentially dangerous without him. Thusly, Draco had been present for half of the conversation Harry's hand with Moody, which had gone pretty much like so:

"Who is this?" Moody had growled in lieu of a greeting.

" Um," Harry had stalled, the sheer unfriendliness of Moody's voice giving him pause, "My name is Harry Potter. Is this, er, Moody?" Draco had laughed at him silently until Harry flicked his ear.

Moody didn't answer his question. "Is this a secure line?"

" Secure…? It's a cell phone," Harry answered, staring kind of disbelievingly at the ceiling. "Rufus Scrimgeour told me to call you. About Tom Riddle?"

And Moody had hung up.

It wasn't until about midnight that Draco's phone had buzzed with a text message with very specific directions to where Moody had apparently decided to meet them.

"Pretty sure," Harry answered with a shrug. He'd followed Moody's instructions to the letter, and this is where they'd ended up, in the middle of the woods in a car Harry hoped Remus wouldn't report as stolen.

Draco rolled his eyes and messed about with the radio, anything to disrupt the eerie silence of the woods. "We should've taken my car," the blonde grumbled for the umpteenth time. "At least it has a decent stereo system."