'Give me your hand,' said Harry.
'Why?' said Draco, suspiciously.
'Just give it to me,' said Harry impatiently. With the expression of someone who no longer much cares what happens to him, Draco put his hand through the bars, and Harry took it. It was the first time in his life he had ever touched Draco Malfoy voluntarily, and later he would have cause to remember the moment, but right now he was in too much of a hurry to think about it. He scrabbled into the pocket of his jeans with his other hand, took out the knife Sirius had given him for his 14th birthday, and flicked open the blade.
Then he slashed it viciously across Draco's palm. Blood spurted out of the cut, drenching the sleeve of Draco's shirt.
'Hey!' said Draco, trying to yank his hand back. 'What're you doing?'
But Harry had now turned the knife on himself, and cut his own palm open. He dropped the knife, extended his hand, and seized Draco's bleeding one, pressing the cuts tightly together.
'I'm touched that you want to be blood brothers with me,' said Draco, peering down at their bloody, interlocked hands. 'But is this really the time?'
'Shut up, Malfoy,' said Harry, who was grinning like a madman. 'Come on, think about it. Malfoy blood. Only someone with Malfoy blood in their veins can open the trap door.'
Draco's mouth fell open. Then he leaned forward, and gripped Harry's hand as tightly as he could, so tightly his knuckles turned white.
'What're you doing?' said Harry, laughing.
'What does it look like, Potter? I'm trying to bleed faster.'
Harry approached the trap door nervously and put his right hand, still sticky with his own blood and Draco's, on the handle. Nothing happened. There was no screaming and no alarm. Emboldened, Harry yanked the door open and crawled down into the space below.
He wondered how long they had before Lucius and the others came for Draco.
Draco — he was actually thinking of him by his first name now, something he would never have thought was possible. Especially since it made him physically ill every time Hermione said the word Draco. I know you don't like Draco, Harry, but he's changed.
Changed. Maybe he has changed, Harry thought, rounding a cobwebby corner. He had been convinced it was all the Polyjuice spell, but was a spell like that really powerful enough to counteract an entire lifetime devoted entirely to self-interest and compel someone otherwise not heroically inclined to risk his own life for the life of a girl he hardly knew? Harry wasn't sure. What he did know was that, for whatever reason, Draco had saved Hermione from torture and probably death.
That put Harry in debt to Draco. He didn't want to be like Snape, doomed to a lifetime of guilt and resentment; he wasn't going to let Draco Malfoy die while he owed him anything.
He was at the dungeon gate now. He lifted his bloody hand and closed it around the lock, which came away as if it had been made of spaghetti. He dropped it, pushed the gate open and hurried inside.
Sirius and Hermione were sitting together on the stone bench at the cell's far end, Sirius looking…well, extremely serious as he explained something to her, Hermione nodding and still looking ridiculously pretty in Narcissa's satin dress.
She seemed to sense that Harry was there before he even said anything; she leaped to her feet and ran across the cell, thrusting her arm through the bars to catch at his hand.
'Harry…you're okay?'
'Yeah…ow!'
He winced as she squeezed his slashed hand. She saw the blood and gasped: 'Did Lucius…?'
'No. It's not all my blood,' he said. 'Some of it's Draco's.'
She turned greenish. 'Is he all right…is he hurt?'
'They beat him up, but not too badly. They're saving him for Voldemort,' said Harry tensely. He turned to Sirius. 'Do you know anything about Imprisonment spells?'
Draco lay on his back, looking up at the ceiling. He supposed his should be writhing around in panic, but he wasn't. An icy sort of peace had descended on him and he felt almost nothing.
Harry was in the tunnels under the house now. Draco shut his eyes; he could find Harry better in the darkness. It was a little as if there was a cord of invisible light connecting them, with him on one end and Harry on the other — sometimes it tugged at him, demanding his attention; other times, it was very hard to find Harry at the opposite end. Right now it was easy; he could almost see him. Weird visions, he thought. I'm having weird visions. But it kept him from feeling as if he was alone.
Hermione was with Harry now. It hurt to think about her, like the pain of a broken tooth. But she was alive, and that was at least partly because of him. He wasn't sorry he had done what he had done. He had always sat back and watched Harry doing the ridiculous heroic things that he did and wondered not only why he did them, but how. Now he knew. You just did what you had to do: there was only one choice that made sense, one way to go, and you took it. It was enviably simple. He wondered, though, would the choice seem so effortless if he didn't have Harry in his head?
When the door of the fencing room opened, Draco thought for a moment that he was imagining it. He turned his head slowly.
It was his father.
And Lucius wasn't alone. A very tall man in long black hooded robes was with him. He was wearing red gloves and carrying a wand. He walked quickly across the room and over to the cage. 'Liberos,' he said, and his voice was a horrible, hissing thing.
The bars of the cage vanished and Draco sat up. He suddenly felt naked, unprotected. The tall man came
