Lucius looked astonished. 'What-why?'
'Harry Potter is in the house,' said Narcissa, with perfect truth. 'He is coming up here now.'
This woke Draco up. He bolted upright and stared at his mother, who didn't look back at him. Something odd was going on, he was fairly sure of that. It didn't seem likely to him that the Death Eaters would have asked Narcissa to bring such a powerful and important magical object up to Lucius without them. Not unless they had a reason she wasn't stating.
Lucius was obviously suspicious as well, but didn't want to say anything in front of Voldemort. He had already shown once today that he couldn't control his own family, and likely wasn't keen on making that point again. Instead, he lifted lift his left arm to his face and spoke into the Dark Mark: 'Wormtail. MacNair. Come.
Bring them all.'
Instantly, all over the room, Death Eaters began to Apparate: Wormtail, MacNair, Zabini, Rozier, Parkinson, and many others. People Draco had known since he was a child, had visited, whose children he had played with. None of them looked at him, sitting bloody and wretched-looking on the floor.
Voldemort turned from the window. 'Harry Potter is here,' he said, flexing his long fingers. 'He is outside this room.'
His voice lashed the Death Eaters like a whip. They stood to attention, staring around them. Draco saw Narcissa back out of the group quietly and leave the room through the back entrance.
There were footsteps in the hallways, clearly audible. The double doors opened.
First one, then the other. Draco was gripping his hands together tightly, although he didn't realize it.
Sirius came in, in the form of a dog. There was total silence. Hermione followed him, looking very pale and unhappy. And after Hermione — came Harry.
A sort of sigh rippled through the Death Eaters, like wind in branches.
Harry was even paler than Hermione, a sort of ashy white color, but he looked resolute. He wasn't wearing his glasses, which had the effect of making him look younger than he was. There was dried blood on his hand, still, and on his robes — some of his own, and some of Draco's.
'I'm here,' he said.
Voldemort stood in the center of his circle of Death Eaters and laughed. 'And I know why,' he said. 'You have come for him,' and he pointed at Draco.
'Yes,' said Harry.
'He isn't worth it, Harry Potter,' said Voldemort. 'What do you think he has been doing here all morning while you were busy rescuing your canine companion? He has been telling us everything. Ever since I ended the spell that bound you two — and I really must find out how that was done, it was most ingenious — he has been singing quite an interesting song.'
'I don't believe it!' snapped Hermione. 'You're lying! You could have figured out Harry was here without Draco saying anything at all!'
Voldemort turned his poisonous gaze on her. 'You must have enjoyed your little interlude with young Malfoy in the wardrobe a great deal,' he said, 'to defend him so staunchly.'
Color flooded Hermione's face. Draco tried to catch her eye, but she wouldn't look at him. 'Then-then you tortured him,' she said, but more uncertainly.
'I cannot imagine why I would wish to torture him for the information that he spent a sordid half an hour in a wardrobe with a stupid girl,' said the Dark Lord.
'No. He told me willingly, told me everything. '
Hermione said nothing, but tears had begun to flood silently down her face.
'It hardly matters, in any case,' said Voldemort, turning back to Harry. 'I hold all the cards, you hold none. I would hardly believe you could be so irredeemably stupid as to come here thinking you could fight me. Only I knew your father, boy…and it is just the sort of thing he would have done. More stupid than brave, the both of you.'
Harry held up his wand. 'I have this,' he said. 'You don't dare duel with me while I have this.'
'No,' Voldemort agreed, and snapped his fingers. Ropes sprang out of the air and wrapped themselves tightly around Harry, binding his wand arm to his body.
Voldemort walked up to him, plucked the wand out of his hand, and threw it on the floor. 'And now you don't have it any more.' He stood up and looked thoughtfully at Sirius and Hermione. 'I could kill your friends,' he said softly into Harry's ear. 'But it would be so much more fun to let you do it.'
Harry said nothing, only looked at the Dark Lord with hatred.
Voldemort snapped his fingers again and the Lacertus flew out of Lucius' grasp and landed in his own outstretched hand. Despite being so thin, the Dark Lord was very strong. He spun the Lacertus in one hand as if it had been a baton, then lifted Harry's arm- the one that was not bound to his side — and shoved the Lacertus down over his wrist as if it had been nothing more than an enormous, ill-fitting glove.
Harry screamed out loud. The ropes binding him fell away, and he crumpled to the ground, not yelling any more but writhing as if the arm were white-hot and burned him. Draco could see the metal rippling and twisting as if it were melting, fitting itself to Harry's own flesh, spreading white-metal tendrils all up and down his arm like vicious bracelets.
Draco clapped his own hand to his arm in sympathetic pain. He didn't know he was doing it, but he did it just the same.
Finally Harry sat up. And even the Death Eaters gasped. Harry's arm had become a thing of metal and blades and ugly death. The silver of the Lacertus arm had spread far enough over his body to grip the left side of his chest. There was a sort of halo of black light around him — a reverse-halo, glimmering and dark. His skin glowed white under its negative light; his eyes glittered like emeralds. He looked inhuman.
Draco heard Hermione choke on a dry sort of sob.
'Harry,' said the Dark Lord in a purring sort of voice. 'What are you?'
