Harry sighed, turned around, and faced Draco, who saluted him.
Feeling silly, Harry copied the gesture, not too awkwardly.
The moment Draco moved, Harry moved too. He had a feeling Draco was helping him again, although he couldn't see anything in Draco's expression to support that. Draco looked calm, concentrated, a little bored, even as whatever Harry was doing with his own weapon caused him to retreat. Harry followed after him, hearing the clang of metal on metal with a certain sharp pleasure. Draco raised his blade
— Harry pushed it aside with his own, stepped forward, suddenly realized his feet were placed wrong, and moved to correct them.
Before he had finished this, the flat of Draco's sword banged into his shoulder. It hurt, too.
'Ow,' said Harry grouchily, stepping back.
Draco pushed a strand of sweaty white-blond hair out of his eyes and frowned. 'Come on Potter, a reasonably trainable hamster could have completed that move. I left you an opening bigger than Millicent Bulstrode's — '
'My feet were wrong,' snapped Harry, even more grouchily.
A grin quirked the corner of Draco's mouth. 'Yeah, I noticed that.
Well, it does take a certain amount of grace to learn to fence.'
'I've got grace,' said Harry, stung.
'Remember, Potter — I've watched you dance. The whole school had to watch you dance, fourth year. Graceful is not your middle name.'
Indignantly, Harry opened his mouth to reply — and was cut off as another loud grinding noise emanated from the corner of the room.
Both the boys whirled around, holding their swords. This time, the dark space grew larger than it had before, large enough for a person to walk through. Harry and Draco stood frozen, looking at each other.
Draco spoke first. What should we do?
Protect ourselves. Stand back to back.
Draco put his hands on his hips. And that would accomplish precisely what?
Harry shrugged. I don't know. It's what they do in movies.
There was a flicker of movement in the dark space, and suddenly a figure emerged into the room. Harry and Draco didn't move. They just stared. The figure wore long robes of indigo blue, over which was swathed a hooded black cloak that hid the newcomer's face. It was possible to see that the intruder was small, but too slender to be Wormtail, and the hands that extended from the sleeves of its dark robe were both human.
Harry heard Draco's voice in his head. This can't be good.
He was inclined to agree. Suddenly, the dark space vanished, the wall reappearing, and the intruder turned to face the two boys; it put its two pale hands to the sides of its hood, and drew the hood back.
Hair like a cloud of silver threads spilled out, framing a familiar porcelain face. Dark blue eyes raised themselves haughtily, black lashes sweeping low. 'I would 'ave thought,' and the light voice was icy, 'that you two would 'ave been working out some clever escape plan by now, seeing 'as you are both Magids, and not too 'opelessly stupid. But no, 'ere you are, banging away at each other with silly great swords.' The red mouth frowned in disgust. 'Boys.'
There was a clang. Draco had dropped his sword in amazement.
'Fleur?' he demanded, shock having stripped the drawl from his voice. 'What are you doing here?'
They had been down in the cellar for about thirty minutes before they reached the door. Ginny was leading the way, her wand out and glowing, Charlie behind her. Then came Hermione, who had discovered that she could use the Lycanthe a bit like a torch — it glowed when she lifted it in her hand. Then came Ron, muttering slightly, but looking around with great interest. It really wasn't so much a cellar as a warren of tunnels and passages. It was a good thing, thought Hermione, that Ginny seemed to know where she was going or they'd all be lost.
Hermione also noticed that the ground seemed to be sloping increasingly downward as they went, and that, as Ginny had said, the walls were getting wetter and more covered in moss, the air colder and filled with a dampish white mist.
Ron suddenly gave a startled yell, and Hermione whirled around.
'Ron! You all right?'
Ron, looking greenish in the light of the Lycanthe, was staring down at his foot with a look of horror. 'Spider,' he said in a choked sort of voice. 'Crawled up under my trouser leg.'
Hermione rolled her eyes. 'Honestly, Ron!' she snapped and dropped down to her knees at his feet. She yanked up his trouser leg and removed the offending arachnid from his ankle. It was a very small spider, pale gray and rather cute. 'Look,' she said, waving it at Ron, who hopped backward. 'It's just a teeny little spider! It was probably just looking for somewhere warm.'
Ron glared back at her. 'You don't understand. You never had to go into the Forbidden Forest and nearly get eaten by a spider the size of a Mini, just because Harry's an idiot.'
Hermione stood up and made a face at him. 'Harry's not an idiot.'
Ron just looked at her.
She sighed. 'Oh, all right, he is. But not all the time.'
'Hey!' came Charlie's voice from further down the corridor. 'Come here and look at this!'
'What is it?' asked Hermione, coming up to Ginny, and immediately saw what the problem was: the passageway ended in a huge stone door. Well, not a very useful door, as it had no knob or other way of opening it, but it was still, quite evidently, a door. All along the front of it were carved deep grooves and scratches, weaving themselves into a mesmerizing design.
'Dead end,' said Ron behind her, sounding gloomy.
