Draco said nothing — although whether he replied to Harry silently or not, she did not know and didn?t want to venture a guess — but he slipped past Ginny like a shadow, silent and lightfooted. She followed him, and Harry came behind.
Going back down the narrow stairs that led into the Manor felt wrong -
like heading into a prison. Ginny gave a little gasp as Harry closed the tower door behind them and the stars vanished; now they were in a dim and confined space of leaping torchlight. She followed Dracos straight and slender shadow as he made his way down the stairs. At the foot he turned sharply right and ducked down a corridor; he pushed a tapestry aside and there was a door behind it.
'Secret staircase,' he said quietly, and put his hand to the doorknob. It opened smoothly under his touch. He exhaled a breath of relief and held the door open so that Ginny and Harry could pass through.
This second staircase was even narrower, and there was no torchlight at all. A dim phosphorescent glow came from the walls. There was a dank smell, as if they were standing at the bottom of the sea.
'I have my wand,' Ginny said quietly, 'I could Lumos..'
'No.' Draco caught at her hand. Something hard banged against her fingers; she looked down, and saw a clear adamantine cuff around his wrist. 'No magic here.'
She nodded. Harry led the way, turning sideways to get around the first narrow turn of the spiral staircase. Ginny twisted around and looked up at Draco; he looked distant and distracted. Not sad the same way Harry did, but in a more contained manner. He was thinner these days and it had given him a harder edge: there was something metallic about his beauty now, as if the potential for cruelty there had evolved nearer the surface. 'Tell me you?re all right,' she said, in a very soft voice.
'I?m all right,' he said. His voice was cool and affectless.
'I seem to recall having rescued you from a tower before once,' she said, as lightly as she could, hoping to make him smile.
The half-lidded eyes opened wide for a moment; he looked directly at her.
'And I seem to recall telling you once that I didn?t want to be saved,' he said. 'Especially not by you.'
'Are you two coming?' Harry hissed from around the corner. Without looking back at Ginny, Draco turned and went after him. Biting back a furious response, Ginny followed him. Half-blinded by the darkness and the sting of tears, she stumbled after squeezing through the narrow turn and reaching the top of the stairs. A hand gripped her shoulder and righted her; it was Draco.
'Steady on,' he said.
She yanked her arm away angrily. 'Don?t touch me,' she snapped.
Harry, waiting on the landing below, looked weary. 'I am not even going to ask,' he said.
'Better not to,' Draco said. It seemed to Ginny that behind his closed expression, a faint grave amusement had quickened.
'Don?t you laugh at me either,' she said, knowing she sounded unreasonable.
'Wouldn?t dream of it,' Draco replied, and took the stairs two at a time, landing lightly next to Harry.
'Ungrateful bastard,' Ginny muttered under her breath, and went down the stairs carefully. The boys, waiting for her on the landing, were already deep in discussion when she reached them.
'Where does this passage go?' Harry was asking.
'Under the moat,' Draco said. 'It lets out in the rose garden. It should, anyway.'
'All right, assuming we can get outside,' Harry asked, 'what then? If we walk to Malfoy Park, where can we go from there? Keeping in mind that its night, its freezing, and only Ginny can do any magic.'
Draco shook his head. 'We can?t go anywhere from there,' he said.
'We?re in the middle of nowhere, and the Park isn?t safe. The Bailiff and the Mayor are in charge there, and they?re both washouts as far as we?re concerned. They?re in my fathers pocket. Everyone in town is.'
'Where are your broomsticks?' Ginny asked, slightly sulkily.
'At school,' Harry said, pushing his tangled dark hair out of his eyes. 'But there must be plenty of broomsticks here at the Manor…'
Draco shook his head. 'Not my fathers broomsticks,' he said. 'It wouldn?t be a good idea to take them. The valuable artifacts here tend to be charmed. Trust me on that.'
Harry bit his lip. 'Can we take one of the carriages, then?'
Draco shook his head. 'No, they?re equally my fathers property and…'
His head snapped up, his gray eyes lighting. 'I?ve got it.'
Harry looked at him in surprise. 'What?'
'Am I the only one that remembers that there are two perfectly good broomsticks stuck up a tree outside the Cold Christmas Inn?'
This piece of information seemed to catch Harry so off guard that it startled a smile out of him. 'Bloody hell,' he said. 'Good thinking.'
Draco smiled back modestly. 'I?m a genius, basically,' he admitted.
Harrys cheerful expression wavered into a frown. 'But they?re uncalibrated,' he pointed out.
This did not faze Draco. 'As to that,' he said, and drew something out of his pocket. He waved it triumphantly in front of Ginny and Harry.
'Finally, a piece of good luck,' he crowed.
Ginny looked at Harry. 'Are you seeing what I?m seeing?' she asked.
'You mean a paper aeroplane?' he replied.
'Yes,' she said.
He nodded.
'There is no need to talk about me as if I?m not here,' Draco said, sounding injured.
'Yes there is, if you?re planning on us all boarding that paper aeroplane and flying it back to Hogwarts, theres a great deal of reason to talk about you as if you weren?t here,' Harry said.
Draco threw the paper aeroplane at him. It hit Harry on the forehead.
'They?re the calibration instructions, pillock,' Draco said. 'Sirius gave them to me this morning.'
Harry caught the aeroplane and tucked it into his robe pocket. 'Well, now you tell me,' he said, and actually smiled at Draco — it was almost a real smile, and Ginnys heart lifted just a little.
'Besides I know perfectly well that you can?t fly an aeroplane without whatchamacallit,' Draco said. 'Batteries.'
'Thats right, I forgot,' Harry said. 'You?re a genius, basically.'
Draco made a face. 'Well, at least I?m not a — '
'AHEM,' Ginny interrupted. 'Aren?t we supposed to be in some kind of hurry here?'
Both boys assumed identical guilty expressions. 'Right,' Harry said.
'Draco — you lead again.'
Draco nodded. Ginny hung back a little as they began to descend the stairs once more, watching the two of them walk ahead of her. In the dullness of the faint phosphorescent light they were only shadows, neither dark nor fair: it was next to impossible to tell which was which.
'Sirius, if you don?t eat something, I?m going to empty the remainder of the spaghetti in this pot onto your head.'
Sirius looked up and gave Lupin a faint smile. 'Sorry. Mind wandering again.' He shrugged at the concerned look on his friends face. They were facing each other across the rough plank table in Lupins kitchen: this small house was the one he repaired to when not teaching at Hogwarts. It was, like Lupin himself, simple, plain, elegant, and slightly gray around the edges. It needed a new coat of paint. One might have said the same about Lupin, as well.
They?d Apparated back to the house after their sojourn at the Ministry in order to pick up some wolfsbane potion for Lupin (the moon would be full in five short days) and to retrieve some of his other possessions: old books and papers from their more active days as spies. Lupin seemed to have sensed without needing to be told that Sirius did not want to go back to the Burrow and face the anxiety of the Weasleys, so, recollecting aloud the old wives? tale about Apparating on an empty stomach, he had pushed Sirius down into a kitchen chair and
