'Ask you what?' said Harry, looking even warier now.
'If Voldemort tortured me to get me to tell him where you were,' Draco said.
'You've been wondering. So ask.'
'Don't,' said Hermione sharply. But neither of them was listening to her. They were looking at each other, green eyes locked on gray.
'Well,' said Harry. 'Did he?'
'No,' said Draco.
There was a long silence.
Draco said, 'You saved my life, Potter.' He jerked his chin toward Hermione. 'But I saved her life. Which in my mind makes us even.'
There was another silence.
'Fine,' said Harry at last. 'We're even.'
Hermione looked from one of them to the other. Harry was still pale and shaking, but Draco looked as calm and collected as though he'd just been through nothing worse than a bad haircut; although his face and clothes were still very bloody.
'Draco,' she began, but he didn't even look at her.
'I don't want to hear from you, Granger,' he said shortly.
Draco bent down and picked up his wand from the floor where it had fallen. Then he straightened up and jammed it into his pocket — he was still wearing Harry's clothes, frayed robes and all. He didn't look at Hermione as he did all this, didn't see her face wretched with misery. 'See you at school, then,' he said and walked away.
Hermione seized Harry's arm. 'Harry-he can't go-' Harry just looked tired. 'Let him go if he wants to, Hermione.'
She shook her head violently. 'We'll never get off the grounds without him — there are seventeen hexes on the front door alone and only he knows how to take them off-' Harry turned to Sirius. 'Get him,' he said.
Sirius dropped down into canine form and leaped after Draco. He lunged onto his back and brought him crashing to the floor. Draco rolled over, yelling, and Sirius sat on his chest. Harry got to his feet and, followed by Hermione, approached them slowly.
'Call off your dog, would you, Potter?' said Draco, eyeing Sirius with immense dislike. 'I hate dogs.'
'You want to be a bit nicer to someone who's just helped save your life,' said Harry.
'I thought we were even,' replied Draco.
'I didn't mean me,' said Harry. 'I meant Sirius.'
'Oh, shut up, both of you,' Hermione interrupted in great agitation. 'We need to go. Draco — you have to come with us, we'll never get off the grounds without you.'
'And this is my problem because…?'
Draco's drawl was back. The drawl Hermione remembered, that she hated.
Sirius suddenly resumed his human form, stood up, and yanked Draco sharply to his feet. 'I'll tell you why it's your problem, my boy,' he said, and snapped his fingers. Narrow ropes appeared out of the air as they had for Voldemort earlier and whipped themselves around Draco's left arm, binding it tightly to Sirius' right one. Before Draco could react, Sirius had reached out, plucked his wand out of his robes, and pocketed it. 'Because I'm making it your problem.'
Draco looked so angry that his eyes were nearly black with fury. Then he grinned at Harry and Hermione. It was a mean, mirthless sort of grin. 'If that's the way you want to play it,' he said, 'Fine.'
'Why won?t you just come with us because you want to?' demanded Hermione, her voice cracking. 'We haven't done anything but try to help you-' 'My father says he isn't my father any more,' said Draco. 'The Dark Lord wants me dead, and when I get back to school, I'll probably be expelled. If the point of this all was to show me how miserable it is being you, Potter, then it worked.'
Harry's eyes flashed with anger. 'None of this was about you, Malfoy, in the first place.'
Draco looked like he had been hoping Harry would say that. 'Of course not,' he sneered. 'Because everything's about you, isn't it, Potter? None of our lives would have been in danger if it wasn't for you.'
'Harry can't help being who he is,' said Hermione in a trembling voice.
'Maybe not,' said Draco, 'But he could help dragging his friends into his messes over and over again. What're you going to do, Potter, when you slip up and one of them dies? It's just a matter of time, the only question is whether it'll be Weasley, or the Dog Man here, or even Granger-' 'Shut up, Malfoy,' said Harry in a deadly voice.
'I don't think Granger needs a lot of encouragement to die for you, either,' Draco went on, eyes glittering, 'I heard you down in the tunnels, you two: Say it, Harry, say it-' 'Shut up!' screamed Hermione, and Draco laughed.
'He's just trying to make us angry enough so we'll let him go off without us,' said Harry in the same deadly voice. 'Well, it won't work.'
And he walked away. Halfway to the doors, he stopped, bent down, and picked up one of the swords that had fallen out of the smashed display case. He slid it through his belt, and turned and looked at the other three. 'We're going,' he said.
'Now.'
It was going on midnight, and the sky over Malfoy Manor was an inverted black bowl spangled with sequins. The grounds were black and silver and deadly. Of course, if they hadn't had Draco with them, they would have
