been terminally deadly. Bitter and vindictive he might be, but he was still a Malfoy, and knew how to get around the grounds.
Sirius walked ahead, pushing Draco slightly in front of him. Harry and Hermione followed behind. Harry was quiet with the quiet of exhaustion. They skirted a number of obstacles, including a nest of giant spiders which Draco pointed out and Sirius promptly Stunned with his wand.
Hermione was feeling wretched. It wasn't just that they were on the Malfoy family grounds, which was terrifying, or that Harry was still looking white and ill and she was afraid that the Lacertus charm, even in its altered form, had done him a lasting injury of some sort — it was also that Draco wasn't talking to her.
She had wanted to thank him for having saved her life, but she couldn't, because he wouldn?t talk to her. When she tried to approach him he waved her away. In fact he had only spoken to any of them once, to ask if Narcissa was all right. None of them had the heart to tell him about the Epicyclical Charm, even now, so Sirius hadn?t been able to give him much of an answer besides his word that Narcissa was fine. This, of course, only pissed Draco off further.
Hermione kept sneaking glances at Draco out of the corner of her eye. How could she have been so wrong about anyone? She had been sure, positive, that it wasn't the Polyjuice spell, it couldn?t be the Polyjuice spell…but the way he had looked at her, talked to her, back in the fencing room, it was as if the past week had never happened and he hated her again.
They had come to a low bridge over a narrow stream. Draco stopped dead. Harry, who hadn?t been paying attention, was about to step on the bridge when Draco reached out a hand and caught at his sleeve.
'I wouldn't walk on that if I were you, Potter,' he drawled.
Harry stepped back quickly and looked at Draco with suspicion. 'Why? What'll happen?'
'Standard procedure,' said Draco, 'is to leap fifty feet into the air and scatter yourself over a wide area while screaming at the top of your lungs.'
Harry looked at him, and Draco grinned his obnoxious grin again. For a moment, it looked like Harry might haul off and punch him in the eye. Draco kind of hoped he would, but was disappointed.
'Right,' said Harry, taking a deep breath. 'So its a bomb, then.'
'I wouldn?t know what you?d call it,' Draco replied, looking bored. 'I don't speak Muggle.'
'It's some sort of Explosive Hex, let's just go around it, Harry,' said Hermione, looking terribly unhappy.
'No,' said Harry, still regarding the bridge thoughtfully. 'Give him his wand, Sirius.'
Sirius looked doubtful. 'Harry-' 'Give it to him,' said Harry. He turned and looked at Draco. 'Take the hex off, Malfoy.'
'And if I don't?'
'Then we'll all walk onto it and take our chances,' said Harry. 'You can go first.'
Draco frowned. Sirius took his wand out and pressed it roughly into Dracos grip, keeping his own hand firmly on his wrist.
Draco pointed his wand at the bridge. 'Raptus regaliter,' he said.
There was a sharp flash of light. Sirius took the wand back and they walked out onto the bridge, Sirius pushing Draco ahead of him. Nothing happened, so Harry and Hermione followed.
Sirius had said almost nothing to Draco since he had told him that getting off the grounds was now his problem too. Now, however, he turned to him and said, 'What did they use on you, boy? Veritaserum?'
Caught off guard, Draco stumbled. 'What?'
'I saw your face when we came into that room, and again just now when Harry almost walked on that bridge,' said Sirius. 'You wouldn't have told Lucius bloody anything, you're much too proud for starters. You forget, I was around back in the day when Voldemort was going around torturing people and using Veritaserum like it was Pepperup Potion. I know what resisting Dark magic looks like.' He grabbed Draco's chin and forced his head up. 'Bit through your lip, didn't you?' he added, sounding approving. 'Very good.'
Draco wrenched his head away. 'What's it to you?'
'Not much,' Sirius admitted. 'But it might mean a lot to them,' and he gestured towards Harry and Hermione behind them on the path.
'They wouldn't believe me.'
'Try them,' suggested Sirius.
'No,' said Draco. 'They were so ready to believe that as soon as the spell was off me, I'd turn right around and stab them in the back,' he added with intense bitterness. 'Hermione looked like she was going to spit on me. They didn't even ask.'
'You didn't exactly offer, either.'
'If I was Harry,' snapped Draco, 'she wouldn't have to ask, she'd know.'
'You're not Harry,' said Sirius with brutal honesty. 'Not any more.'
Draco jerked his head aside so that Sirius couldn't see his face. 'Harry the hero,' he said in a tight voice. 'He gets to walk home with Hermione, and I wind up chained to the Dog Man.'
'Take a word of advice from the Dog Man, then,' said Sirius. 'You're not doing a lot to further your own cause at the moment. Just tell them the truth, Malfoy.'
'I'm not sure I'm a Malfoy any more,' said Draco. 'And I'm not Harry either. I don't know what I am.'
Hermione had begun to lose track of time when she heard Harry give a sudden whistle of amazement. She glanced up and saw what he was looking at — a huge chasm that bisected the ground in front of them. It was narrow, possibly no more than thirty feet across, but it looked very, very deep. It wound back and forth across the
