'And you trust her?'
Draco rolled his eyes as Harry hissed in his ear. They stood side by side, flattened against the wall of the wide stone corridor outside their erstwhile prison cell. Fleur was down at the end of the corridor, peering anxiously around the corner.
Harry shivered. Malfoy Manor was old, so was Hogwarts, but this place was ancient; age seemed to seep, like cold, from its very stones. It was dim, too — torches burned in brackets on the wall, but not very many and not bright. He knew now from Fleur that they were at the castle in the forest where Hermione had been held prisoner; Draco had even claimed that he recognized the corridor they were standing in from his previous visit, but then he had stopped, blinked, shaken his head, and announced, 'Its the same castle all right, but it looks…different.'
Harry had decided it was better to ignore him if he wasn?t going to say anything helpful.
'And you don?t?' Draco hissed back.
'About as far as I could throw Hagrid. Come on, Malfoy. Shes an airhead, shes boy-crazy, what makes you think she could formulate such an involved rescue plan?'
'She was a Triwizard champion,' Draco pointed out reasonably.
'So was I, and you always tell me all my plans are crap.'
'All your plans are crap. You don?t think she might be a blessing in disguise?'
'Well, if she is, its a very good disguise.'
'Any disguise involving a push-up bra is A-okay with me. Unless of course we?re talking about Hagrid in disguise, and I just went to a very dark mental place here… Distract me, Potter. Say something.'
'Fleurs coming back,' said Harry, pushing himself off the wall.
Fleur smiled at them as she hurried up, her silver hair bouncing in thick waves on her shoulders. 'Allons-y,' she directed, gesturing that they should follow her. 'The 'allway is clear. Come on.'
'What I wouldn?t give for my dads Invisibility Cloak,' muttered Harry, as they raced along the corridor, sticking close to the wall, dashed around the corner, and followed Fleur as she yanked a large door open, and pelted inside. She closed the door behind them, and leaned against it.
They were in a narrow stairwell whose stone spiral stairs led down into darkness. It was so dim Harry could only see Draco and Fleur as vague shadowy outlines, both crowned with silver hair that shone like beacons in the darkness. He reached into his pocket and felt for his wand -
'No,' said Fleur urgently, grasping his wrist. 'No magic.'
'Why not?'
'There are wards up all over this castle. We cannot risk setting one off.'
'But its dark, Fleur. We?ll break our necks.'
Fleur said something in French that Harry strongly suspected meant that he was a toad-faced worrywart, and marched off down the stairs. Hesitating slightly, Draco and Harry followed. Sure enough after they had made three turns round the stairway they found a torch burning in a bracket high up on the wall. Fleur hoisted it down, and they went down the stairs in a line: Fleur first, then Draco, then Harry, the torch casting their eerily elongated shadows against the stone walls.
The staircase set Harrys teeth on edge. There were of course no handrails, and the rough stone was made for tripping on. He was fairly sure that at any moment he?d catch his foot and go careening headfirst into Draco. They were just making their tenth and he hoped final turn around the stairs when Harry heard Fleur give a little gasping scream. He craned his neck but couldn?t see over Dracos head; Draco exclaimed suddenly, 'Fleur, back up!'
She backed up quickly just as Harry came down the stairs and saw what had startled her.
They had reached the foot of the stairwell, which ended in a large oak door covered in intricate carvings of leaves, flowers, and twining vines. In the center of the door was a carved face: beaky-nosed and saturnine, with an upturned, narrow mouth. The eyes of the carving were alive, they darted from side to side, alight with sardonic amusement.
Draco took a step down the stairs. 'Ahem,' he said. The door looked at him. 'Do you talk?'
The door made a faint creaking sound. It sounded a little like rusty hinges, and a little like 'Maybe.'
'So you speak English?'
'Yes,' said the door, looking irritable. 'Now what do you want?'
'I want you to let us out,' said Draco, turning back to look at Fleur, who nodded.
'Are you sure you want to go out there?' the door asked, with soft malice. 'Its not very pleasant out there. Much safer in here.'
'We?re sure,' said Harry, who had reached the foot of the stairs now.
'You do know what you?re getting yourselves into — ' began the door, and then Draco moved, intentionally or not Harry couldn?t tell, so that the torchlight fell on the sword buckled at his waist. The door almost seemed to shrink back. 'I did not know it was you,' it said to Draco, and swung wide.
Dracos face had gone blank with surprise, but Harry didn?t pay much attention. Through the open door, he could see a strip of starry night sky and a narrow expanse of grass — outside, he thought, finally. He stepped through the door, and Draco and Fleur followed.
Bang.
Snape heard the door shut behind him and felt a savage satisfaction.
As the door had swung shut, he?d seen something change in Sirius? face, shock moving into incredulity into
