was acting. 'Was it worth it, Weasley? Was she?'
It was worse than any insult he could have thrown at either of them. Ron went an agonized white, and his voice broke as he replied, still looking past Draco at Harry. 'What do you think, Malfoy?' he whispered.
Draco was silent. His silence said everything he could have needed to say.
Pansy's sobbing crescendoed to a shriek that could have shattered glass.
Harry stared at her and stared at Ron and a sick feeling began to spread through his stomach. He raised his eyes and met Draco's gaze over Pansy's head, and he didn't know what he would have done or asked Draco to do after that and he never got a chance to know, because at that moment the double doors to the Hall opened and Lucius Malfoy came walking in.
'What do you mean they aren't working?' Hermione demanded, half-hysterical, of the harried-looking man behind the desk at the Leaky Cauldron. 'How can they all not be working? I've tried three times to reach Malfoy Manor, and I can't! There must be something wrong with your fireplaces! Do something! Get a — a chimney sweep!'
The desk clerk looked amused. 'One with an enormous broom, I suppose?'
'Don't you try to be clever with me!' Hermione shrieked, so forcefully that he quailed before her.
'Look, Miss,' he said. 'There's nothing wrong with our fireplaces here.
There must be something wrong with the remote fireplaces at the Manor.
Obviously, they're blocked. Someone in the Manor must be blocking all Floo connections.'
'But why would they do that?'
The clerk shrugged. 'I really couldn't tell you.'
'Well, what can I do?' Hermione wailed. 'I have to reach Ron or Draco, and they're both there, and it'll take forever to get an owl, they're all booked up taking Christmas presents!'
The clerk looked as if he obviously regarded this as Somebody Else's Problem. 'Can't you Apparate wherever you're going?'
'No! I haven't got a license, and besides, there are anti-Apparition charms there.'
'Well, why don't you fly then?'
'I haven't got a broomstick…' Hermione suddenly narrowed her eyes at him. 'Have you got a broomstick?'
'Er,' he said. 'You want to borrow my broomstick?'
Hermione crossed her arms and glared at him. 'The future of the wizarding world might depend on me getting to Malfoy Manor,' she said.
His eyes widened. 'Really?'
'Well, no,' she admitted. 'But I'm very worried about a friend of mine.
Please let me borrow your broomstick? Please?'
The clerk appeared to waver.
'If you don't,' she added, 'I'll tell the manager you drill holes in the doors so you can watch people getting undressed in their rooms.'
His eyes popped. 'You wouldn't.'
'I would.'
He glared at her. 'You must be a Slytherin,' he said.
Hermione smiled. 'I'm not,' she said. 'But thanks for saying so.'
The clock continued to tick and Ginny stared at the tiny hourglass in her hand as the minutes went by.
It had not been easy getting her Time-Turner back. In fact, it had been very difficult; but, in the end, not as difficult as perhaps it should have been. If she had been the sort of person people paid attention to, it would have been impossible. But they ignored her, and so she could slip away.
And slip away she had, at the crucial moment. And it had gone unnoticed by everyone, even Draco, sharp- eyed Draco who saw everything. And she had put the Time-Turner back on its chain and kept it hidden and only Seamus had asked about her new necklace, and he didn't know enough to be suspicious.
She had planned this. She had been planning it for weeks. So why was she so nervous? It wasn't as if she hadn't gone back in time before. You've gone back hundreds of years, she told herself. This is only five. What are you afraid of?
She shut her eyes, and slowly raised the hand with the hourglass in it. She heard the sound of a rushing wind and people shouting — they're looking for me, she thought in terror, although later she would realize that what she had heard was something quite different.
Quickly, she flipped the Time-Turner over, and the world disappeared.
'Greeting, everyone,' said Lucius Malfoy. 'How kind of you all to come to my homecoming party.'
Someone cried out; a champagne glass dropped and shattered on the floor. Otherwise, the room was deathly silent. Harry would have expected himself to be more shocked, but instead he felt merely a weary sense of inevitability. Then again, he had known Lucius was alive. Everyone else must have thought they were looking at the ghost of a man dead for six months.
'Oh, my God,' Pansy whispered, distracted from her weeping. Her eyes were huge. 'Oh, my God, Draco — your father just walked in.'
'Yes,' Draco said, woodenly. 'Yes, I had noticed that.'
Harry wanted to lay a hand on Draco's shoulder but didn't dare. It seemed like the sort of thing that would be unwise to do in front of Lucius. Not that Lucius didn't know they were friends. But still. Harry felt as if his thoughts were being strained through several layers of cheesecloth. Perhaps it was the result of too many shocks, one after the other. He watched with a disconnected horror as Lucius made his leisurely way into the room. He was not alone, either; at least ten Death Eaters in their signature black and hooded robes were with him. Two of them had their hoods down; Harry recognized them as the Mayor and the bailiff of Malfoy Park.
The occupants of the room backed away as Lucius and his entourage passed by them. Harry could not blame them. Very few of them would have their wands with them, and Death Eaters were terrifying at the best of times. Sirius was white-faced with shock, and had hold of Lupin's arm; the Weasleys were crowded around him.
There was a raised dais at one end of the hall, surrounded by a gold railing. It was where the band had performed at Harry's birthday party.
Now Lucius reached it, mounted the steps, and turned to face the crowded Hall with the Mayor and the bailiff at his side. The rest of his Death Eaters had broken away and spread themselves out against the wall. More Death Eaters were coming in through the open double doors and joining them.
The room was surrounded.
Lucius leaned against the railing and smiled. He was impeccably dressed -
elegant black suit, black cloak, expensive shoes, hands ringed with silver.
His gray eyes roamed over the crowd, appraising them as he might have appraised the quality of a painting. 'To quote a Muggle writer,' he said, 'Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.'
Pansy made a choked little sound in her throat; it could have been a giggle or a sob. Draco stared grimly at his father. His eyes were unreadable.
'I'm sure very few of you are delighted to hear it,' Lucius said. 'However, it remains the truth. I am alive, and I have returned home. As I imagine that my son knew I would. Didn't you, Draco?'
Harry whirled around and looked at Draco, who had gone a chalky sort of color and was staring disbelievingly at his father. 'But you were going to -
I thought — the wedding,' he choked out, his voice cracking.
Lucius smiled. It was a bright, malevolent smile. 'Stupid little boy,' he said. 'did you never realize that we knew you could see us? Did you truly think you could spy on me without my knowledge? Did you think to set yourself against the Dark Lord and all his powers?'
