"Draco! What are you doing here?! Answer me!"
The roar came from behind the dozen or so Death Eaters, from another cloaked and hooded figure who shouldered his way to the front of the line.
It was a big voice, but everyone in the aisle could hear the fear trembling beneath the bluster.
Needless to say, it was Lucius Malfoy.
Draco's appearance in the Hall of Prophecy had clearly left him thoroughly rattled—and not only him. The Death Eaters who had come with him were every bit as bewildered.
Though their wands were still pointed at Harry and the others, they couldn't help turning their heads to look toward the far end of Row Ninety-seven, where a thin, pale figure stood shaking in the candlelight with a staff clutched in his fist.
"Draco… my dear boy. Have you thrown in with Potter?"
Another Death Eater was asking—a woman, the murderous aura was clear in her voice. She did not shout. Her question was soft silky, and it was far more frightening than Lucius's roaring.
The woman who had questioned him was Bellatrix, a deranged Death Eater whom even his own parents preferred not to cross.
"N-no! I… I'm carrying out the Dark Lord's mission—"
Draco hastened to defend himself, and in his flustered hurry he lifted the staff in his hand as proof.
Hissss
In the dim light the staff gave off an air of mystery. Seeing it, quite a few Death Eaters drew in sharp breaths and exchanged looks in silence.
"But that staff… The Dark Lord sent you to steal that staff?!"
Lucius froze.
For a moment he seemed to forget how to breathe; then an indescribable fury swelled up from deep in his chest, hot and choking, nearly burning away the last of his reason. His fingers tightened around his wand until the hood could not hide the tremor in his arm.
The Dark Lord had sent Draco to steal the staff from Bryan Watson!
Watson, of all people, the one name even the bravest of them pronounced with care. It was… it was sending his son to his death!
"When did this happen?! When?!"
Even Harry could hear the clenched teeth in Lucius Malfoy's words!
"This summer!"
Draco wasn't quite stupid enough to cry out "Father" in front of everyone, but the pressure that had been building inside him for so long was finally beginning to crack.
His hoarse, shrill voice sounded like two rusty musical saws trying to saw each other in half. Tears of despair welled in his grey eyes.
"He came to me… He said my father had made a terrible mistake… Hu-hu… He said only if I got the staff would he forgive it… Otherwise—he'd kill…"
He could not finish.
Lucius might as well have been struck by lightning. He stood rooted to the spot, dumbstruck, the hood hiding whatever his face was doing.
Harry's lips moved. He looked over at the sobbing Draco, and found that he didn't know what to say.
"And what mistake would that be, Lucius?"
One of the dozen or so Death Eaters asked it lazily, clearly intrigued.
"Shut up, Rookwood—it's none of your business!"
Lucius snarled—and, in the same breath, exposed the man's name as well.
"Well done, Draco…"
Bellatrix obviously brightened, like a child who has been handed a present.
"Well done indeed! This staff—stolen from right under that fool Watson's nose… A formidable task. I daresay the Dark Lord will reward you handsomely!"
"You shut up too, Bellatrix!"
Lucius snapped at her again, then turned to look at his cowed, silent son. Beneath the hood, his eyes were threaded with red.
"Then why are you here?"
"I sent him a message…"
Every one of Draco's syllables was laced with heavy sobs.
"A few days ago, when I got the staff… I told him to come and take it… He said, if one day… if Professor Watson and Dumbledore both left Hogwarts, then… I should come here. He'd arrange everything… someone would… would meet me—"
"We're the ones who came to meet you, Draco!"
Bellatrix wore the look of one basking in reflected glory. She walked toward Draco with a rolling, eager step, her glee barely hidden, her voice sweet as syrup:
"Come now, my dear. Give the staff to me, and I shall present it to the great Dark Lord myself!"
Before Draco could finish hesitating and make up his mind, Lucius cried out.
"Don't give it to anyone!"
Lucius's roar stirred unease and resentment among the Death Eaters. After all, if it drew the notice of whoever was on watch, that wouldn't be any fun!
But Lucius was oblivious to his colleagues' glares urging him to hush. He covered the distance in three long, furious strides and seized Bellatrix by the arm just as her outstretched fingers were about to close on the staff:
"Don't even think of seizing Draco's glory, Bellatrix… Draco, the staff stays in your hands. Give it to no one!"
As Bellatrix hissed in outrage, a terrified Draco nodded like mad, hugging the staff to his chest.
"Harry—"
Just as Harry was listening, rapt, Hermione at his side softly touched his wrist. Before he could come back to himself, the prophecy orb in his palm had been taken from him.
"You—"
Harry's eyebrows shot up, but Hermione was already holding out another crystal ball.
This…
While Lucius Malfoy raged, Harry flicked a quick glance over his shoulder at… the friends behind him. Every one of them held a prophecy orb. Fred was winking and mugging at him, and waggled the hand that gripped his broomstick…
"Remember what I said—don't give the staff to anyone… except on the Dark Lord's orders!"
Lucius said it bitterly to Draco. Then he turned and, in a towering temper, shoved Rookwood and Macnair aside and came around to face Harry and the others.
Staring at the handful of young wizards, whose faces couldn't help but tighten with nerves under his gaze, Lucius ground his back teeth until his jaw ached.
What in the devil's name was Watson playing at!
He and Dumbledore were hardly ignorant of the Dark Lord's covetous eye on this prophecy orb, and yet they had still let Potter and his pack of idiot friends walk out of Hogwarts and deliver themselves to its very door.
Even if Watson had caught Draco in the middle of stealing the staff… that wouldn't really have counted for much. But he had actually let Draco steal it…
'Wait!'
Lucius, who had been about to give some order, abruptly turned his head back again, narrowing his eyes at Draco.
"How did you get that staff, Draco? Watson had it tightly protected, didn't he? Tell me how you got past him."
"Professor Watson kept it locked in a cabinet in his office—"
Draco hadn't expected his father to care about that sort of thing at a time like this. After two seconds of blank surprise, he answered in a shaking voice,
"I waited until he was out, and used a dagger that could break through protective magic to open the door of his office… Then I drank a little Felix Felicis and got out of Hogwarts."
Harry gritted his teeth.
No wonder Malfoy's flight had gone so smoothly!
"What dagger? Where did you get it?"
"It was Sirius Black's… He gave it to Potter. I… I happened to overhear Potter mention it."
A few of the Death Eaters clicked their tongues in wonder.
"Where is the dagger?"
Lucius demanded sharply, then flicked his wand and summoned the dagger Draco had pulled from his pocket, plucking it out of the air with two fingers.
Under the dim blue light, Lucius turned the dagger this way and that and examined it. The Death Eaters were intrigued by a dagger that could breach the defences of Watson's office, and Bellatrix even let out a gloating laugh.
After staring hard at the dagger for a few moments, Lucius drew several ragged breaths. The fury in his chest swelled even worse than before.
Thud—
He tossed the dagger aside as if throwing out rubbish, and it clattered away across the stone, and he glowered at Harry.
"Hand over the prophecy orb, Potter, and you will be spared some of the pain."
"Accio Prophecy!"
Bellatrix suddenly shouted. Harry, fuming that Lucius Malfoy had thrown away the dagger Sirius had given him as if it were rubbish, didn't react in time. The prophecy orb tore itself out of his hand with a whoosh, flew down the aisle, and landed in Bellatrix's hand.
"Ha—"
Bellatrix's shrill laugh froze the moment it left her mouth, because Hermione had stepped out from beside Harry, a prophecy orb in her hand too… Ron, Ginny, Neville, the twins and Elune all silently held up the prophecy orbs in their own hands.
"Go on. You're welcome to guess which one is real."
Harry could hear Hermione's breathing coming fast, but she said it in a steady voice all the same.
"You little mongrels!"
Bellatrix bared her teeth, her mad eyes glaring out through the narrow slit of her hood:
"You certainly know how to play games…!"
"Little mongrels…"
Harry said coldly.
"Funny, coming from you. Do you know your master is a mongrel too? His father was a Muggle, his mother a witch… Oh, perhaps he never told you. His real name is Tom Riddle."
"Stupe—"
A red light shot from the tip of Bellatrix's wand, streaking down the aisle like a spear, and the rest of the Death Eaters likewise raised their wands, ready to strike.
But Lucius Malfoy sent the Stunning Curse off course. It struck the shelves a few feet to Harry's left with a flat crack, and several glass orbs toppled from their places and fell to the floor, shattering like ice.
Two ghostly figures drifted out of the shards, twining together and whispering in the gloom like two people talking in the next room, and at last dispersed like mist… Harry was dazed for a moment once more; the sight reminded him of the night Voldemort was resurrected—the echoes of those killed by that wand, which had poured from Voldemort's wand to help them escape and buy them time—
"Don't attack! You fools, we need the prophecy orb!"
Lucius Malfoy shouted at the top of his lungs, in agitation. But when he turned back to face Harry, his expression went flat and bored.
"You can see how things stand, Potter. A dozen wands against a handful of children. At least the Dark Lord believes you aren't so thoroughly stupid as to keep the prophecy from him… Hand it over, and none of you will be hurt."
"Is that so—"
The voice that had tormented his sanity inside Harry's head all night had vanished completely, as though a door had been closed on it, and in the sudden quiet his thoughts grew clearer and clearer.
He looked at the ring of hooded figures, at Lucius's bored expression, and a question that had been waiting at the back of his mind finally stepped forward.
Faced with Lucius Malfoy's promise, Harry gave a snort of derision.
"Then why don't you start by telling me how Voldemort could be so sure I'd come here tonight?"
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