Save The Date (A Drarry FanFiction)

Chapter Twenty Nine

   Everyone was looking at Draco now. "I'm so sorry," he said, raising his hands as bile rose in his throat. After everything that had happened at Hogwarts, the last thing he had wanted to do was cause any more problems for innocent people.

"Don't be sorry," Tommy snapped. "Explain! What did you do?"

"Nothing, I swear," Draco stammered. This was awful, he could feel panic making his heart slam into his chest. He was going to get people killed, again. "I didn't mean to, it was an accident-"

"No, no," interrupted Bones sternly. "Tommy, stop, this isn't what you think."

"Then what is it?" Tommy shot back as the noises outside intensified.

Bones locked eyes with him. "He's trying to leave," he said simply.

Tommy frowned at him for a moment, before his eyes slowly widened. He looked up to the ceiling. "You mean...leave leave?"

Bones nodded, ignoring the commotion coming through the walls. At least it didn't look like the mayor was with them, Draco thought, but if he was somewhere else, did that mean he'd sent his skeletons to more than one land? Did he want to stop Draco that badly?

"He don't belong here, Tommy," said Bones gravely. "And I've only got a few hours to find his friend and send him home, otherwise he'll be lost, just like the rest of them."

Tommy puffed up his chest. "Say no more," he told them. "You'd best be going down in that case – far more lands to lose them in that way. You know where the cellar is, get on with yeh, and we'll make sure they don't come a following."

Draco shook his head, not quite sure he understood. "Why are you helping us? Me?" he asked. "What's in it for you?"

Tommy scoffed, and straightened the woollen waistcoat he had on over his shirt. "T'ain't about that," he said, clapping Draco on the shoulder. "It's about what's right and wrong. Go, find yer lad and get yerselves home. We'll make sure nobody follows yeh." He gave Draco a squeeze then let him go to address the rest of the pub. "Alright ladies and gentlemen, it seems we have ourselves a lock in!"

A mighty cheer rang out and the customers leapt to their feet, bellowing and screaming in feral delight.

Draco took a step closer to Bones.

Several people launched towards the door, dropping a hefty wooden bar across it and turning a number of different shaped keys along the side. A middle aged lady pulled a fiddle out from in between her legs under her many layered skirts, and started to play a wild jig. One bloke lifted a small shutter at the base of the pub wall, and no less than nine chickens came strutting out, followed by a parakeet and cockatoo, both of whom looked extremely disturbed and disorientated to be on the floor of The Old Craic, but, like most everyone within the walls at present, decided it was best just to accept the situation and embrace it.

A dwarf woman skipped over the backs of the chairs and sofas, merrily relighting the candles hanging on the walls with a black stick of wax whose flame glowed an eerie green that made Draco feel oddly at home. Several leprechauns started shelling and salting a variety of nuts into bowls at an alarming rate. Two young ladies initiated a game of Pictionary whilst two young gents cracked open an accordion case and launched right in with the fiddle's jaunty tune.

A plump lady with rosy cheeks laid on her rolly-polly belly and tugged a battered old game of snakes and ladders from underneath one of the tables, flicking the board out for those around her to join in. It took less than twenty seconds, as far as Draco's fleeting eye could tell, before drinking rules had been established, and the first pair of dice had been cast to a ruckus applause.

Where Tommy had vacated from behind the bar, half a dozen other people now filled his place, yanking down the arms on the pumps to slosh beer into the glasses hastily shoved underneath the streams. Corks were popped and tabs were pulled, drinks of every colour flowing into whatever vessels could be found. One chap had even set himself up at the end of the bar with an assortment of coloured bottles and was contentedly making fruity cocktails garnished with little umbrellas, humming along to the jig whose lyrics were becoming more and more explicit.

"Nobody in their right minds'll be trying to get past this lot," Tommy said affectionately as several couples linked arms and began to swing around the furniture. "Now go, before anyone sees you through the windows."

Draco's feet seemed routed to the spot. He'd already asked why this totally stranger was helping him, and he still didn't understand. But maybe he didn't need to just then. "Th-thank you."

"There'll be time later for getting all mushy Sunshine," Bones growled, nipping at the hem of his trousers. "Down the stairs, now!"

Draco took one last look at the rowdy horde, then quickly made his way down the bar towards the door stood ajar that Tommy indicated led to the cellar. Yet again he wasn't thrilled about heading down into a dark space, but he didn't want the skeletons finding him either.