and ask a few people in the evening, but, as I said yesterday, don't expect too much. It's possible that no one I know will have any idea who it's about.
-I'll be grateful to you anyway.- Bleist smiled again.
Draco walked slowly down one of the side streets towards home. The conversation with Jeviev had allowed him to calm down the previous evening and now he was just a little more mopey and distracted than usual. He didn't look ahead but stared stubbornly at his own feet. Although in the morning he had seen in the mirror that the black eye Pirce had given him was only slightly reddened he did not want others to know. He had noticed for some time now that minor cuts and bruises disappeared faster in his case than in others. At first he thought it was just a coincidence, then he tried to hide it so someone wouldn't find out and Pircea's gang had another reason to bother him.
He did not see his pursuers at the Academy that day, which filled him with a sort of unpleasant premonition that it would have been better if they had turned up for lessons as usual after all. He was aware that it would mean another round of humiliation and jokes, but he had got used to it, and was more afraid that they might have come up with some other way to harass him. It had happened before, and it usually took the form of ambushes, so he had quickly learned from his mistakes never to return by the same route.
Today he didn't pay attention to where he was going, he just let his legs carry him on their own. A nightmarish mistake.
At one point he heard several dragons land somewhere behind him in the alley he had just passed. He reacted momentarily, almost reflexively. He turned into the nearest of the winding alleys and set off ahead, choosing the shortest and safest way home, in his opinion. Every few steps he looked back vigilantly and searched with his eyes for the
