If Malfoy had simply bought the necklace that Borgin had been so desperately trying to offload, Harry might not have felt so suspicious.
Or rather, Harry would have been suspicious in the expected way: Draco Malfoy buying a curse artifact from a Dark objects dealer was the sort of thing that was concerning but comprehensible, filed neatly into the pattern of Malfoy family behaviour.
But a tool for picking locks?
'What was Malfoy planning?'
Harry's mind raced through possibilities with urgency.
Instinctively, he thought of the door. The one that had flickered in and out of his dreams all summer.
Ever since last summer, since he had witnessed Voldemort and the Dark witch Cliodna's murder of the Muggle caretaker, and then those subsequent glimpses into Voldemort's mind that had followed, Harry had become absolutely certain about one thing: everything he saw through that was real.
Behind that door—wherever it was, whatever lay on the other side of it was something Voldemort desperately wanted.
But Voldemort couldn't go himself. So he'd given Malfoy his orders?
Harry's eyes narrowed behind the Invisibility Cloak; his gaze fixed on the back of Draco's head at the counter.
The more he thought about it, the more the pieces fit and all of it made sense.
"You require… a device capable of breaking through powerful protective enchantments."
Borgin repeated the requirement back as if tasting it, the pained expression on his face made it plain enough that he had nothing of the sort in stock—but he was a businessman, and a businessman of his particular variety could never be caught admitting to an inventory gap, something so damaging to his reputation.
"I have indeed encountered such alchemical devices before—"
Borgin's sunken, cloudy eyes darted about in their sockets with the spinning type of Mad-Eye Moody's magical eye.
"You've encountered one?"
The eagerness got the better of Draco before he could stop it—his voice rang out and through his composure, hope was breaking through despite his evident intention to keep it controlled.
"You have one here? Show me immediately. Whatever the price—I'll pay it."
Borgin found solid ground beneath him at last after several minutes of navigating uncertain terrain. He straightened his hunched back with some effort and the servile smile he'd been wearing with such effortful maintenance softened into something more composed and assured.
"Of course I've encountered them, young Master Malfoy. I have certain….. channels that most dealers in my field would envy. Certain master craftsmen of considerable and not entirely public fame in the trade."
He paused. "Oh, but I'm afraid I don't have any such devices in stock at present—"
"Are you making a fool of me, Borgin?"
Draco's expression hardened immediately, the hope that had briefly surfaced was being reclaimed by the coldness in his tone. A dangerous light flickered in his eyes.
"How could I dare make a fool of you, most esteemed young Master Malfoy!"
Borgin threw up both hands in protest.
"You yourself, having need of such items and understanding their applications, must surely appreciate the situation—every piece with that kind of specialized function garners an extraordinary price from those who can make them, and I'm afraid such makers don't produce to stock.
As a rule, I don't carry specialized alchemical devices unless a client specifically requests one in advance and I can commission it with their deposit supporting the cost. The capital outlay alone would be quite ruinous otherwise."
Harry watched Borgin's performance with growing interest. But something was stirring in the back of Harry's mind as well.
'An alchemical device capable of breaking through protective enchantments, of opening any locked door …'
He rather thought he might have encountered something like that himself, actually.
"If what you say is true—"
Draco delivered Borgin a long, suspicious stare that evaluated every layer of what he'd heard for signs of deception.
"—and I were to commission one through your channels, how long would it actually take to produce and deliver?"
"One month!"
Borgin answered without any hesitation at all with such speed that it showed he'd had this answer ready long before the question was asked, as though he'd anticipated this conversation.
Almost at once, however, his expression grew troubled again.
"But oh, as I mentioned just a moment ago, arranging a commission with such a craftsman requires... a certain confidence on my part that the order will actually be completed and collected—I'm afraid, young master, that you would have to provide a deposit before I could proceed.
Otherwise, if the item is completed to specification and you no longer require it, or circumstances change, my humble shop could hardly absorb that kind of financial loss—"
Borgin wrung his hands and smiled his slick, practiced smile over the top of it.
"A month."
The timeline clearly didn't satisfy Draco. But after a moment of internal calculation, he gave a curt, accepting nod.
"Fine. One month. How much?"
"Five hundred Galleons as a deposit to commission the work, and another thousand upon delivery—"
Borgin's eyes gleamed with gold-fever; the words came out without a second thought.
And then Harry witnessed, firsthand and at close range, just how casually the Malfoy fortune moved through the world.
Without any calculation, without any hesitation, Draco simply tossed a coin purse onto the counter.
"There's a thousand Galleons in there," Draco said flatly. "If your merchandise meets my specifications exactly, you'll receive another thousand on top of that when I collect it. But if you dare deceive me—"
He stepped forward, narrowing the distance between himself and Borgin, looking down at the shopkeeper with an expression that left absolutely no room for the smile Borgin was still attempting.
"—you'll pay for it dearly."
Watching Borgin mop his brow with one hand and thump his chest in exaggerated assurance with the other, Harry knew that it was time to go.
He was wedged between the curtain at the shop entrance and the narrow passage leading to the counter—the only viable route out. If he didn't move before Draco finished his transaction and turned to leave, he would be directly in Malfoy's path.
Bang—
A sharp, unexpected sound from somewhere in the dim interior of the shop, the middle distance, where the cramped shelving was thickest, drew both Draco and Borgin's attention toward the passage with sudden alertness.
A large black cabinet, sitting at an odd angle against one wall, had apparently tilted slightly. Or something near it had.
Malfoy's eyes narrowed. He studied the passage in silence for a moment.
"Probably just a rat, young Master Malfoy," Borgin said, craning his neck to peer down the aisle briefly for a moment.
Draco said nothing further about it.
"Remember what you've promised, Borgin."
Draco delivered his parting words, then turned and walked toward the door.
Malfoy's decision not to investigate the sound any further was an enormous relief to Harry, who was simultaneously silently cursing his aching knee.
He pressed himself flat against the curtain entrance, back against the cold glass of a cabinet displaying a collection of severed hands in various states of preservation, and held as still as he was capable of holding.
Draco walked straight past without a flicker of visible suspicion.
This time, unlike his entry, Harry didn't follow immediately on Malfoy's heels. He stayed exactly where he was, back against the cabinet, and waited.
Footsteps were fading. The curtain was swinging. Silence returned to the tent or what passed for silence in a shop full of objects that occasionally made sounds on their own initiative.
"Pfah! Stupid little brat!"
The moment the footsteps outside had fully faded and there was no possibility of Draco still being within the range, Borgin, liberated at last from his long and clearly taxing performance of respect drew himself up and spat on the floor with feeling.
"All that posturing and not half the cleverness he fancies himself to have. Far worse than that tightfisted father of his—"
Borgin muttered another insult under his breath that Harry couldn't quite catch.
The impulse to laugh was nearly irresistible. Harry bit the inside of his cheek.
Then Borgin shuffled back behind the counter. He couldn't resist the obvious: he tore open the coin purse Draco had left on the counter with eagerness and fished out a gold Galleon—one coin from what was clearly many, holding it up to the pale light that came through the curtained entrance.
He turned it, examined both faces, tilted it against the light. The expression of a gourmand contemplating a rare and expensive ingredient was not entirely wrong as an analogy.
Several minutes passed in this communion between Borgin and his gold.
Only once he had drunk his fill of the sight did Borgin toss the coin back into the purse with a satisfied sound. He stuffed the purse into the depths of his robes, glanced about in every direction with the guilty expression of a petty thief checking his surroundings, and hunched over back to his natural curvature before retreating into the private area behind the counter.
Harry recognized his moment.
He moved to the curtain on light feet, lifting one corner carefully with two fingers and slipped through and out into the open air.
The bright light hit him first. Then the rush of clean air made him exhale with relief and blinking against the contrast.
'What would Ron and Hermione make of all this?'
A sudden urgency swept over him. He couldn't wait to share what he'd just seen.
He was just about to set off when—
"Potter!"
The voice behind him made every hair on his body stand on end simultaneously.
Before he could even complete the turn toward the sound, a sharp gust of air swept past his ear and then, like a veil being torn from before his eyes, his vision cleared completely.
The Invisibility Cloak was gone from his shoulders.
Harry's instincts did not wait for his mind to catch up. His hand flew toward his sleeve, toward his wand before the thought had even formed.
The person behind him had anticipated exactly that movement.
A wand pressed against the back of his skull with surgical precision, cold and unmistakably steady. Not shaking. Not urgent. The wand of someone who has been in enough dangerous situations to hold their weapon still when it matters.
Harry froze.
"Turn around slowly, Potter—"
The voice behind him was low and full of controlled warning.
"—and don't even think about reaching for your wand unless you're looking for trouble."
Harry pressed his lips together. In a few seconds, his hammering pulse had steadied. He turned around, slow, and looked at the frost-covered expression before him.
"What are you going to do about it, Malfoy?"
Harry's voice came out level. He kept his gaze steady on Draco's face.
"We're not allowed to use magic outside school. If you touch me with that wand, you'll be in front of the Wizengamot before you know it. And galleons won't get you very far with a Ministry run by Amelia Bones, will it—"
The threat went without visible effect.
Draco still had his wand levelled at Harry's nose, unmoved, his face was unreadable in a way that was distinctly different from his usual performance of disdain.
"Did you have to go sticking your nose in, Potter?"
Draco's gaze locked onto Harry's green eyes. His voice was soft and unreadable.
"Generally, no—"
Harry held his ground.
"—unless I happen to stumble onto something underhanded and illegal."
"So then—"
Draco's eyes narrowed slightly. He didn't look the way Harry had expected, not guilty, not rattled. His gaze was restless, though—shifting in small movements, as though something behind it hadn't fully settled.
"You heard everything, did you? How much?"
Harry was about to answer, when something struck him as off.
He studied Malfoy with sudden, sharpened suspicion.
"When did you actually spot me, Malfoy?"
Hmph!
A cold smile appeared on Malfoy's face.
He raised his hand.
And there was Harry's Invisibility Cloak, held loosely from his fingers.
"You thought having this meant I couldn't see you?" The contempt in Draco's voice was real if measured. "That's pathetic, Potter. You clearly learned absolutely nothing from Professor Watson's lessons."
He observed Harry's still-confused expression with a faint trace of satisfaction.
"Didn't you notice? Look at the ground."
Harry looked down—at the beaten-earth lane outside Borgin's tent. At the compacted earth that was not cobblestone, not any surface that a person walked across without leaving a record.
At the clear, unmistakable footprints in the soft earth.
Harry's expression darkened immediately. He could have kicked himself.
He could have kicked himself. He absolutely should have checked the surface. He'd known that footprints were an Invisibility Cloak's classic vulnerability. And he'd forgotten it in the hurry to keep up with Malfoy.
"Looks to me like you didn't learn all that much from Professor Watson either, Malfoy—"
Harry salvaged what dignity was left and kept his voice level.
"—since when did he teach us to apply what he showed us to threatening people at wandpoint in public shopping areas?"
He held Draco's gaze without flinching.
"And another thing—"
His eyes sharpened with focus.
"—I'm fairly certain Professor Watson's lessons on advanced magical applications didn't cover thievery either. What do you actually want a lock-breaking device for, Malfoy?
With the Malfoy family fortune, you're hardly hard up enough to be going around playing burglar for the pocket change, are you?"
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