reservation, it was Wormtail — but the sight was still sickening.
'Do you know what his plans are?' she demanded, her eyes fastened on Wormtails pudgy, fearful face. He was sweating profusely, as he usually did when he was afraid, the sweat seeming to come from a deeper place than his pores, as if he actually sweated fear. 'What does he want with Harry?'
Wormtails eyes widened. 'Hes got Harry?'
Ron almost seemed to be vibrating with rage. 'Don?t pretend like you don?t know,' he snarled. 'Its your fault — all of this is your fault.'
In response, Wormtail, his face striped with sweat and dirt, glared back at Ron, and spit on the floor at his feet. 'Go on and torture me if you want,' he said, his voice still squeaky. 'I can?t get away. I can?t stop you. Do it.'
Ron didn?t move, just stood where he was, waves of anger pulsing from his body. Hermione put her hand on his arm. 'Ron, come on,' she whispered. 'Hes not worth it. We?ve got to go.'
Hermione put her hand on his arm. 'Ron, come on,' she whispered. 'Hes not worth it. We?ve got to go.'
Ron allowed her to lead him away, although he glared back over his shoulder at Wormtail as they went. Her heart ached for him — she knew he had felt somehow as if Wormtail was his responsibility, as if he should have known about Scabbers and done something. And it just wasn?t in Rons nature to torture a man who was chained up and couldn?t get away, no matter how foul or evil that man might be. He was probably blaming himself for that, too. She was about to say something to him, something reassuring, when Wormtail spoke from behind them.
'Its the Orb you want,' he said.
Hermione spun around, Ron beside her. 'What?'
'The Orb.' Wormtails round chin was sunk into his fat neck, his eyes glittering with what could have been malice, or could have been fear. 'If you can get to that and open it before he manages to fill his bargain with the demons — you might have a chance. Thats the last thing he wants.'
Rons hand was tight on Hermiones wrist. She remembered Rowenas quiet voice, telling her about the Orb, its powers. 'Where is the Orb?' she said, her voice unsteady. 'Where is he keeping it?'
'When you were first here, do you remember that he took you to a room with a tapestry in it? Its in there. Find it, open it — if you can figure out how — you might have a chance.'
'And how do we know you?re not lying?' she demanded.
Wormtails eyes flashed briefly. 'You don?t.'
'Bastard,' Ron hissed under his breath, and Hermione began to lead him towards the door again, her back prickling with revulsion and fear. When the door had closed between them and Wormtail again, she unfurled the cloak, and threw it to Ron. Then she reached around her throat, and took off the Lycanthe. She placed it in the palm of her hand. 'Ultima thule,' she said, and the Lycanthe swung around to point north.
'What are you doing?' Ron demanded.
'The room he was talking about was in the west part of the castle. I remember seeing the sunset out the window while I was looking at the tapestry.'
'Hermione,' protested Ron, shaking his head so that his red hair fell into his eyes. 'You don?t believe him, do you? Hes probably leading us into a trap. If he wants us to go west, I say we go east.
West is probably some room full of guards or something.'
'We?re got the cloak,' said Hermione, a little weakly. 'It wouldn?t hurt to check.'
Ron gave her a steady, searching look. Reluctantly, she nodded, and replaced the Lycanthe around her neck. 'Fine. We can go east.
Maybe I?ll start picking up some sign of Ginny in that direction.'
They wrapped the cloak around themselves, and headed towards the easternmost corridor. It twisted sharply to the right, then to the left, then to the right again, and just as they turned the last blind corner, they ran directly and without any preamble into the arms of a large group of gray-robed guards.
The dark opening in the wall closed up behind Hermione and Ron, and Harry felt a wave of fear wash over him. It had taken every bit of self-control he had not to try to stop them, and because his concern was magnified by the sight of them going, the sight of Hermione looking back over her shoulder briefly, her eyes worried and dark and fixed on his, almost undid him.
He turned away, fell back against the wall, leaning hard against it, and closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, the first thing he saw was Draco, looking back at him, his gray eyes very wide and nearly transparent in the glare of the blue light.
Draco, chameleon-like, usually had the ability to look at home in almost any setting. Now, however, he looked extraordinarily uncomfortable, as if he very much wished to be somewhere else and in fact was imagining that he was somewhere else. He almost didn?t seem to see Harry at all, or at least his eyes didn?t focus on him properly until Harry moved, his hand going to his throat, taking the Epicyclical Charm by its chain, and drawing it over his head. He held it up, dangling it in front of Dracos eyes, and said, 'What the hell was this about, Malfoy?'
Now Draco reacted. He smiled, his eyes on the Charm. 'Happy Birthday?' he suggested gently.
Harry blinked, surprised. He had forgotten that it was his birthday in two weeks. The fact that Draco had actually remembered this was also disturbing, but not in any way that he wanted to tackle at the moment.
'You couldn?t have maybe gotten me a watch?' he said irritably instead. 'Or you, know, maybe not cut a big hole in my arm? In honor of the occasion.'
'Its not that big a hole in your arm,' Draco pointed out.
'What was that? Was that an apology? Oh, wait, no, that was just you being obnoxious some more.'
