Hermione felt her jaw sag. 'But hes…hes dead.'
'Yeah,' George said briefly. 'Looks like he didn?t get that memo.'
'Are you sure it was Lucius?'
George looked exasperated. 'Maybe not. Maybe it was Dracos other tall, blond, evil, cackling, Death Eater father.'
Hermiones hand flew to her mouth. 'Did he hurt anyone?'
'No,' George said slowly. 'Not exactly. He put a Whirlwind Charm on the guests….everyone was flung out of the manor, scattered for miles. We?ve just started regrouping.'
'And you landed here?'
'No, I landed in the middle of a group of carolers on Hampstead Heath.
Gave them a right scare. Then I Apparated back home, and everyone was there, except Ron and Ginny of course. Poor little sods, can?t Apparate.
It?ll take them forever to get back. Anyway, Dad sent me here to look out for latecomers, warn them off…'
'So everyones all right?' she asked. 'Harry and Draco, too?'
George reached out a hand to her. 'Come on, Hermione…lets head back to the Burrow. Charlies there, he can explain better than I can.'
Hermione remained motionless. 'George, just tell me.'
'Neither of them are dead.' Georges voice was flat. 'Now just come with me, will you please?'
He held out his hand again, and this time she took it.
'Checkmate,' the Dark Lord said.
Ron kept his eyes fixed on the half-empty chess board. The board itself was made of onyx and travertine, the sides ornately carved with scenes of court life and battle. The pieces were hewn out of whole jewels: clear rubies and dark emeralds. The knights had solid gold eyes. The board and its pieces were probably worth half the Burrow. Maybe more than half.
The Dark Lord sat back in his chair. Ron heard the scratching of his nails against the piece he was holding, and shuddered. He had not looked up at his opponent once during the entire game, but the brief flashes he?d caught of the bone-white hands with their long black nails had been more than sufficient to throw him into a panic that felt akin to nausea.
'You let me win,' the Dark Lord said.
Ron wouldn?t have thought that the fear could get worse; apparently, he?d been wrong. He?d been gripping the pin that held his cloak together tightly with his right hand; now his hand clenched around it so convulsively that it cut into the soft flesh of his palm.
'I said,' the Dark Lord repeated, 'that you let me win. Didn?t you, boy?'
Rons voice came out in a whisper. 'I?m really just not all that good at chess,' he said. Gathering together all his Gryffindor courage, his raised his chin and met the Dark Lords gaze. Red eyes like coals stared back at him from a flat, snakelike face. The Dark Lord had no eyelids. Ron felt ill.
'I mean, I?m all right. But I?m nothing special.'
'Where chess is concerned, perhaps not,' Voldemort said. 'It may, perhaps, given your native skill and your lack of training, be impossible for you to beat me. What is important, however, is that you try.'
Ron couldn?t believe it. Was Voldemort giving him a pep talk? 'I just don?t see…how I could be much of a challenge for you.'
Voldemorts lipless mouth curled into a smile. 'Oh, but you are,' he said.
'If not, perhaps, in the way that you might think.' He waved a hand at the chessboard; instantly the pieces rearranged themselves and the board was again ready for play. 'Well shall play again now. And this time, if I am not fully satisfied of the sincerity of your attempts to defeat me, I shall remove all of the skin from your right hand. Slowly.'
Ron swallowed hard.
'Shall we begin again?' the Dark Lord asked.
Going back in time had never hurt before, but this time it did. Ginny spun the Time Turner over; the world and Malfoy Manor rushed away from her. When it returned, in a burst of light and color, she fell forward onto her knees on the smooth flagstone floor and rested there several minutes, as waking-up pains raced through her nerves like little points of darting fire.
When they subsided, she got to her feet and looked around. Some things changed only a very little with the passage of time; Malfoy Manor was one of them. The difference between the present day and five years in the past was negligible. The same high, beamed ceiling, the same leaded windows paned in blue and green diamonds. The same heavy dark green velvet curtains that hung along the walls. There was no fire in the grate now, because it was spring. The books…Ginny stepped forward and looked at the books; they were what was different. Most of these books had been removed from the Manor before she had ever been inside it. Heavy, rich- looking old books, many obviously of great value and very rare — Oh, how Hermione would have been overjoyed to get her hands on them! Wishful Ways for Wizards and Dreadful Deeds for Dragons jostled against each other on a low shelf next to The Unstrung Harp, by C.F. Earbrass. A higher shelf held The Book of Counted Sorrows, the Black Tome of Alsophocus, The Book of Eibon, the Necronomicon (the ownership of which was said to merit a years term in Azkaban — it held all the secrets of raising the dead) and a dozen others, all of which looked equally morally questionable. Other shelves held fiction and even plays: the six plays Shakespeare had written and never released in the Muggle world were there, even The Weird Sisters? Bane, which remained unfinished.
Ginny, while nowhere near the book lover that Hermione was, was appreciative nonetheless of the rarity of this collection. She let her hand trail over the spines of the books, the bracelet on her wrist clinking and chiming as the charms struck together. The window above the desk was open, letting in air that smelled of grass and the faint sound of wind tangling in leaves. Over the sound of the wind, the fainter sound of footsteps in the hallway was audible, and growing ever louder as they neared the library door…
Ginny felt her heartbeat pick up. She glanced around, hurriedly — the Time-Turner provided a handy enough escape route, but it hardly made her invisible, and she did not want to be seen. She ducked behind the nearest velvet curtain just as the door to the library opened.
The sense of claustrophobia pressing in on her was immediate and intense. The weave of the curtain was so thick as to be almost impenetrable: she tapped lightly against it with the wand she?d concealed up her sleeve, and murmured, 'Fenestrus.'
A tiny hole the size of a Sickle opened in the curtain. Ginny peered through it, holding her breath.
A house elf had entered the room, carrying a feather duster and muttering to itself. 'Must have everything spotless for Master Lucius…the Master does hate dust… Noddy doesn?t want to get in trouble like Dobby, bad silly naughty Dobby, doesn?t want to have to shut his ears in the oven door — '
The house-elf broke off with a squeak as the sound of wheels on gravel wafted through the open window. Ginny tensed, hearing carriage doors slamming and voices calling out. They?re home.
The next few minutes passed in a blur. Ginny held her breath behind the curtain, waiting until she heard footsteps in the hallway, waiting as they grew louder, waiting as the door opened. She shut her eyes tightly.
'Master!' the house-elf squeaked.
Ginnys eyes flew open, and she pressed her right eye to the hole in the curtain. Up close now, she could see how disheveled Lucius was — his shoes were half-polished, his hair tousled, his face white and masklike with fury.
And in his left hand, he was clutching -
A book. A small, shabby black book with a tattered cover.
'Noddy, you stupid creature,' Lucius snapped. 'Did I not specifically state that I wanted a fire always lit in this room?'
'Y-yes. Noddy is very sorry, Master — '
