Chapter Eleven.

In which Weasley and I spend twelve hours in crate.

 
The rest of the day was spent conferring with Crabbe and Goyle about the plan for getting out of the country. They could not, of course, accompany us into Britain, being under the same threat of arrest as I, but they were able to handle the public aspects of the arrangements while Weasley and I argued about the rest.

"I am not," I told him flatly, "traveling in a Muggle machine."

"You've ridden in cars before," he said, "we took that Metro thingy around Washington on Tuesday. This isn't any different."

"Muggles. Can't. Fly."

"Look, my dad showed me one of these things when I was a kid—" He started scribbling on a spare piece of parchment, something that looked like a cross between a crucifix, a bus and a hummingbird in a Full-Body Bind. "—and they go up...somehow...but look, they've got wheels, they land, too—"

"I don't want to ride in any sort of air bane and that's final."

He glared at me, and then looked at Millicent as if she were going to help. She shrugged her massive shoulders at him and went back to chopping up a slab of pork as big as my torso. "Malfoy," Weasley said, "the Confederation is probably observing every Portkey and fireplace in Britain—not that I'd want to spend that long in the Floo—and we can't Apparate that far. The only Muggle means of getting there are air banes or ships, and a ship would take a couple of weeks."

"How long does an air bane take?"

He consulted the pieces of paper that Goyle had owled from Mobile. "Well—depending on which way they go—ten or twelve hours."

"Twelve hours on a flying bus with you," I muttered. "Super."

"You've survived spending the past week with me," he muttered.

"That was before you became such a drama queen."

Weasley walked out of the room; I sighed. Why couldn't he have waited to get hung up about sex until we were out of mortal peril?

Either way, quite a lot of owls were sent back and forth between the Lucky Lizard Alligator Farm and Mobile, and Weasley eventually deigned to inform me that there was a flight leaving early in the morning which would put us down in a place called Heathrow at midnight, British time. Given how our best-laid plans had been working out as of late, I immediately went around back and began practicing hexes.

And, true to form, things began to go wrong about dinnertime. Once again, Weasley sat as far away from me as physically possible, and between bites he interrogated Crabbe and Goyle. "So the flight leaves at six-thirty, yes?"

"Yep."

"And there's only the one...whatchamacallit...overlay?"

"Yep."

"Where are the tickets?"

Crabbe looked at Goyle. Goyle started at Crabbe.

"Er—"

"You see—"

Weasley's eyes went dangerously narrow. "I know you need tickets," he said, "I've seen them."

Crabbe and Goyle looked at Millicent, who ignored them.

Suddenly a tremendous voice boomed through the whole house, rattling the glass in the windows and causing all of us to start. "RONALD WEASLEY. RONALD WEASLEY, WE KNOW YOU ARE ON THESE PREMISES."

Weasley's face went oatmeal-colored. "Fuck me."

I ignored the opening in favor of panic. "How the hell did they find us?"

"COME OUT QUIETLY WITH YOU HANDS OVER YOUR HEAD AND NO ONE WILL BE INJURED."

Goyle suddenly grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the table; Crabbe has seized Weasley by the collar. For one hideous moment I thought they had sold us out and were going to hand-deliver us to the Enforcers—instead they dragged us to a back door I hadn't examined closely during our stay.

"IF YOU DO NOT COME OUT, WE WILL BE FORCED TO COME IN AND GET YOU."

The door opened directly onto the stagnant water, deep in shadow. Goyle whistled softly, and a second rowboat appeared and bumped right up against the house.

"YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES, MR. WEASLEY."

"How did they find us?" I demanded as I climbed into the boat.

"Fuck if I know—"

"Shh!" Crabbe held a finger to his lips while Goyle prodded the boat with his wand. "Lay low," he whispered. "Everything we need is in the truck already."

"How the fuck are we going to get to the truck if we're surrounded?" I hissed back.

Goyle snorted. "Can't surround a house built in a swamp."

I sighed and hunkered down low in the boat. Weasley hunched over beside me, knees jamming into his chest and one hand locked around his wand. "I can Disillusion us," he hissed up at Goyle. "We'd be camouflaged—"

"Don't need it," he replied.

Weasley ground his teeth, but, for once in his miserable life, didn't argue.

Crabbe and Goyle may not be the smartest men in the world, but this was their property, and they had lived here for the past four years; they guided the boat into deep shadows and through weed-choked channels buttressed by shaggy fallen limbs. The lights faded, and for a few minutes we were moving through near-total darkness; then Goyle lit his wand dimly, and the boat bumped up against a soggy bank where an extremely dodgy-looking truck was parked. It was painted primer-brown where it wasn't rusted through, and something large and ominous was strapped into the back under a blue tarpaulin. As we scrambled out of the boat, screams erupted from the swamp behind us.

"What the hell was that?" Weasley asked.

Crabbe grinned. "It's an alligator farm, isn't it?"

"Oh. Oh, hell."

We piled into the truck, and Goyle coaxed the engine to life; I was certain the rumble-roar of it would draw attention to our location, but we lurched up onto the road unmolested, and eventually Goyle even felt safe enough to turn on the headlights. Weasley fumbled the air bane schedules out of his pockets. "How long will it take to get to Mobile?"

"Hour. Hour and a half."

He squinted at the writing by wandlight. "There's a flight leaving for London at eleven...lands at Gatwick...we've plenty of time, even having to get tickets first."

Crabbe and Goyle looked at each other again, and my stomach sank. "Crabbe," I asked, because he was the worse liar of the two, "are we going to need tickets for this?"

"Er...no."

Weasley scowled. "What? No. Look, I know we need tickets, I've seen them—"

"Crabbe," I asked patiently, "is this going to be another South Africa?"

"...yes."

I threw my head back and sighed. "Wonderful. Just wonderful."

Weasley looked at us warily. "What do you mean, another South Africa?"

"You'll find out when we get to Mobile." There are times when it's everyone's best interest to withhold information from Weasley, including his.

We didn't talk for the rest of the drive to Mobile. It had been a mistake to come to Alabama, I realized, because it was nearly as obvious as Britain—O'Guin could feasibly have staked out the home of every Slytherin exile on the continent on the off chance I would seek them out. That was the difference between running from a criminal gang and running from the government. Though if they had been watching the farm when we arrived, it had taken them an awfully long time to strike—and if they hadn't seen us go in, how could they be so sure Weasley was with me?

Goyle abruptly veered off the road on the edge of Mobile and drove the truck over open grass, towards what looked like a brightly-lit office complex with the world's biggest parking lot. Then a roaring, rushing, rumbling sound filled the air from above, and something bloody enormous descended over us, blotting out the waning moon—

—and then it was past, swooping down onto the parking lot, while my brain struggled to accept how anything that size was permitted to stay in the air without flapping. It hit the pavement and rolled to a long, slow halt while I tried to rein in my breathing.

"I am not getting on one of those things."

Weasley swallowed hard; even he looked a bit alarmed, and this had been his bloody idea. "It's too late," he said weakly, "they'll find us if we stay here any longer—"

"You said that air banes were small!"

"I—well, I mean, I've heard of—but I'd never seen one like—that—before..."

I buried my head in my hands. "We're going to be killed."

Goyle followed a stout chain-link fence along the edge of the air bane lot, leaving us to endure a whole series of launches and landings. He eventually stopped the truck just opposite an air bane that clearly wasn't moving for a while: it was surrounded by piles of cargo and luggage, well away from the terminal. This gave me something new to be annoyed about as we all climbed out of the truck.

"Er...Goyle?" Weasley was saying. "We need to, er, actually go into the port building to get on the air bane...I'm really quite sure of this..."

"Not getting on that way," Goyle said, and pulled the blue tarpaulin off the thing in the back, which was exactly what I'd been afraid of: a large wooden crate with the words FRAGILE THIS WAY UP stamped on the sides. Weasley stared at it as if he'd never seen one before.

"I don't suppose you brought anything to read while we're in that thing?" I asked.

Crabbe grabbed a large jug of water and what looked like a small picnic basket out of the back of the truck while Goyle wrenched the lit of the crate off. "Millie made sandwiches."

"Lovely."

Weasley miraculously re-discovered his voice. "You're sending us to England in a crate?"

"Yes."

"A crate?"

His voice was reaching registers no man past puberty should hit; I flinched. "Weasley, how do you think I got out of South Africa?"

"...in a crate?"

"Well, a trunk." I glanced inside the crate; there wasn't so much as a cushion to sit on. "But it's the same principle. Hiding in plain sight."

He buried his face in his hand, and for a moment I was afraid he'd get hysterical. But, eventually, he sighed heavily and peered into the crate. "How are we both going to fit, though?"

"We'll just have to be a bit friendly," I said, and watched him cringe.

We climbed into the crate; it was a terrible fit. As it was only about three and a half feet on each side, and Weasley was over six feet tall, he took up most of the volume with his legs. I managed to wedge myself in perpendicular to and partially underneath him, and then Crabbe passed in the water and the sandwiches. "How do we know when it's safe to get out of this thing?" Weasley asked.

"You can hear," Crabbe assured him. "We checked."

"But what about people hearing us?" I asked.

"We charmed it," Goyle said, with a hint of pride. "Soundproof from the outside, airtight, watertight."

"Watertight?" I asked. "Why is it watertight?"

"Just in case..."

"In case of what?"

Goyle lifted the lid of the crate over our heads. "We'll get you on the air bane," he said. "Good luck."

As the lid came down, Weasley suddenly started. "Wait—Goyle, don't close that yet—" He tried to push it off, but they must've charmed the nails back into place; he pounded with little effect. "Damn it, we're going to be stuck in here for twelve hours, it can't be airtight!"

"Haven't you ever heard of air-refreshing charms?" I asked.

Weasley lit his wand, apparently just so I could see the evil look he was giving me. "It's the middle of the night, Malfoy. We might want to sleep eventually, and I fancy waking up again when I do!"

"We'll sleep in shifts, then," I declared, trying to settle back against the splintery wall. "Mine starts now."

Weasley sighed and tried to shift his weight; he banged his head on the lid and sat on my kneecap. Then the crate suddenly lifted, and we were tossed up against each other while, presumably, Crabbe and Goyle snuck us over to the air bane. We could hear them huffing and cursing, and I resisted the urge to suggest a bloody levitation spell.

I learned immense sympathy for my clothes from this experience: the jostling, thumping, dropping and banging against other unidentified bits of cargo must be exactly what the contents of my suitcase endure when I travel. At least my head wasn't consistently thumping against the lid of the crate with every small movement, as Weasley's was. Crabbe and Goyle dropped us, and then a group of Muggles carried us and dropped us, presumably inside the air bane. It was very stuffy inside the crate and there was no way to get comfortable. And then the air bane moved, and the whole crate shuddered, and a near-deafening mechanical drone filled the air. When it stopped, Weasley and I glanced at each other.

"I don't think," I said, "that we'll be getting much sleep."

He managed to extract his notes from his pocket and read them over again by wandlight. "This flight has a layover in Memphis and one in Frankfurt....we should make it to London by tea time."

"Wonderful."

We sat in silence. Weasley refused to look at me. As an experiment, I raised my leg slightly and rubbed my knee against the back of his calf. He abruptly tried to fold his legs under himself and ended up kicking me in the chest. "Ow!"

"Sorry."

"What exactly is your problem?"

"Don't," he said. "Just...don't."

"Weasley," I said, "this trip is going to be uncomfortable enough for the both of us without your neuroses coming along for the ride."

"I don't have any neuroses," he snapped.

"What, you don't call being in denial—"

"I am not in denial." He took a deep breath. "Look, Malfoy, I don’t want to discuss it. It was a bad idea, it'll never happen again, so let's just forget it ever happened in the first place, yes?"

I rolled my eyes. "I was just trying to make conversation, you know."

"You want conversation?" He tried pulling his knees to his chest, as if that would be more comfortable. "Why did you really cooperate with the ICW?"

"What?"

"You heard me."

I folded my arms and stared into the corner. "I told you, I wanted to make a deal with the Ministry. Dies was exporting to Britain and I thought if I helped them out, they would cancel my warrants."

"You decided to cross one of the nastiest gangsters in America for that?"

"Is that so hard to believe?" I asked.

"From you? Yes."

I turned my back on him as best I could under the circumstances. "Britain is my home, Weasley, little as you and your friends may like it. The Manor is there—assuming the Ministry haven't razed it to the ground yet—it's where I grew up, where my parents are buried. Is it so hard to believe that I might want a chance to return there during my lifetime?"

Weasley didn't say anything for a while, so I glanced back at him; he was shadowed oddly by the wandlight, and I couldn't read his expression. "No," he said, "guess not."

"So there you are."

"I reckon so."

The air bane eventually took off half an hour late: it is a horrifying thing to experience from the cargo hold. The noise of the engine was too loud to speak over, and once we really got into the air—after what Weasley informed me was a brief stop in Memphis—the temperature around us dropped alarmingly. We took turns casting air-refreshing charms, eating sandwiches and trying to rest. At five o'clock in the morning we finished the last of the sandwiches and Weasley transfigured the empty basket into a serviceable chess set, but I lost interest with that along with the fifth or six consecutive game. Eventually we settled into opposite corners of the crate, huddled around ourselves, thinking our own thoughts. It was all quite dramatic and angsty and I recommend anyone who likes that sort of thing to post themselves across an ocean by air bane. Hopefully we shall never see you again.

I will admit to dozing off just as my watch, which was still set to Eastern Time, read nine o'clock. I was jostled awake again almost immediately by the stop in Frankfurt. I listened to the Muggles shuffling the contents of the cargo hold and tried not to dwell on our ultimate destination too terribly long, and noted when the air bane launched again that Weasley appeared quite sound asleep. I cast another air-refreshing charm, and remember distinctly thinking, I suppose I'd better let him sleep, he'll need to be alert when we get to London.

The next thing I knew, I was landing on top of Weasley as our crate was quite rudely dumped somewhere. The empty jug smashed against the side of the crate, and my foot was caught in a checkered picnic basket full of chessmen. Weasley jolted awake and swore. "What the fuck—"

"Must be in London," I said, feeling curiously light-headed. Air, I thought, I need air...my wand had fallen out of my hand. "Wand," I said.

"I haven't got your wand," Weasley muttered, "now gerroff."

"Wand," I said, "charm."

"I know—"

We fumbled and struggled, gasping in the stale air inside the crate. "Can't they read the fucking arrow?" I muttered, trying not to sit on Weasley's ankles as he groped for his wand along the wall.

"Malfoy, now is not the fucking time—"

The lid of the crate, which was now the side, suddenly burst off. Weasley, who had been leaning against it, topped backwards onto sun-soaked pavement. I, who had been leaning against Weasley, landed on top of him. For a moment I simply gasped for breath in the clean air, before I registered the all-too-familiar voice above me.

"Place your hands where I can see them. You're...what the fucking hell?"

I froze; underneath me, Weasley looked up past my shoulder and smiled the smile of a very nervous man. "Er...hello, Harry."

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