It’s surprising how easily persuaded the Dark Lord’s followers are that Draco has been in hiding for the last few months. He has a good story, of course, and it’s true that the Malfoys have so many properties that he could have been at any one of a dozen of them, in the British Isles or France or Italy. He opts to claim he’d been in a stone cottage on Sardinia that almost no one knew about. It had come into his grandfather’s possession through some sort of deal with the Zabini family, and as far as Draco knows, it hasn’t been used in decades. He and Lupin paid it a quick visit to be sure the story was plausible and to arrange a few signs of recent habitation in case anybody checks.