Petunia practically pranced up the front steps carrying the Trojan horse gift bag. Posing carefully, she rapped smartly on the door. In a few seconds, a middle-aged woman with light brown hair answered the door and greeted Petunia.
"My name is Petunia Dursley, and I'm from next door," Petunia explained. "I thought you might like a little something to welcome you."
The woman's smile was positively predatory, but she spoke graciously, accepting the Trojan horse from her horse-faced neighbor without even glancing into the bag. "How nice of you!" she exclaimed. "Do come in. My name is Trixie White."
Shrouded in darkness, Harry stood near the gate of a large estate, which was located near a village situated deep in the Albanian forest. Narcissa's information had proven accurate and had led Harry to where Lucius and Draco were staying-a small castle owned by the Morina family. The Morinas were Albanian purebloods loosely affiliated with Lord Voldemort and anything that seemed Dark. They did not necessarily take orders from the Dark Lord, but most Death Eaters knew that those who served Voldemort could find lodging and aid with the House of Morina during their trips to or through Albania.
From what Harry could ascertain, Wormtail had made use of the Morina's hospitality before Voldemort's orders that he was to be taken prisoner and returned to England had spread widely enough to make Wormtail's travel difficult. For the Malfoys, tracking Pettigrew this far had been child's play-especially since the Morinas had contacted the Death Eaters as soon as they had realized that they had given aid to a fugitive. Their alarm had been sounded too late, however. Pettigrew had possessed the good sense to disappear well before any Death Eaters could capture him.
Shortly after the Morinas had contacted Voldemort, Lucius had arrived with his son and promptly theorized that Wormtail must still be in the area. The reasoning behind this decision was unclear to Harry. However, Harry did suspect that Lucius's reasoning was motivated by his desire to have an excuse to use the castle as a base of operations.
Retreating from the gate, Harry faded into the forest. In the shadow of a large tree, he cast a number of shields and protective wards around himself before casting the image projection spell and guiding his incorporeal form past the castle walls, across the courtyard, and into suite of rooms that Lucius and Draco were occupying within the heart of the castle.
Harry ascertained that Lucius and Draco were both sleeping as he passed swiftly through both of their sleeping chambers. He then moved to the main sitting room where the two Malfoys did their conniving. They had spread various maps of Albania on the table along with lists of and notes on local magical families.
In the past days, Harry's tracking charms indicated that the Malfoys had not left the castle once. Given that none of Lucius and Draco's papers had been moved from their position the night before, Harry concluded that the Malfoys had made no progress in tracking Pettigrew. He even wondered whether they had even given their assignment from Voldemort a second thought in the more recent days.
Seeing that there was no point in lingering, Harry cancelled the image projection spell and found himself back with his body in the forest outside of the castle. He removed the protection spells and disapparated from the forest outside the castle to a clearing just outside the nearby village.
Careful to stay within the shadows, Harry moved through the village toward the small pub in which he had been able to rent a room despite his inability to speak the local language. Just before emerging from obscurity and into the bustle of the pub, Harry cast a number of charms on himself. His face and skin aged and hair lightened to gray while the rims of his glasses became thicker and adopted a tortoise-shell design.
Harry was now the harmless novel writer here in Albania to scope out the territory for his latest wizard/vampire novel. While publishers had not quite yet gotten around to publishing his prior works, he was sure that the manuscript on which he was working would be his big break.
Then, mostly anonymously, Harry entered the pub, shambled toward the staircase, and made his way up to his room where he warded his sleeping chambers extensively with protection charms before retiring to bed.