her hand, smiling. “And that goes for Harry, as well.”
Muttering something about tragic lack of maternal concern, Draco kissed his mother’s cheek and headed down the steps with his bags. In a moment, Harry followed him. They kept the windows of the carriage open so they could look out and wave goodbye, long after the figures of Sirius, Remus and Narcissa had shrunk to the size of pinpoints and vanished, long after even the Manor was out of view.
At last Harry slid back into the carriage, collapsing into one of the thickly upholstered seats. Draco was still leaning out the window, saying something to the carriage driver. A moment later he dropped back into the carriage and began rooting around in his bag. “Have we got any chocolate?” he demanded. “I’m starving.”
“Those are our provisions! Leave them alone,” Harry said, kicking Draco’s hand away from the bag. “And what did you say to the carriage driver?”
“We’re going to Paris, Potter, not the Kalahari Desert. You can buy chocolate in Paris.”
“Fine, fine. But what did you say to the driver?”
Draco smiled more sweetly than the chocolate he’d liberated from the duffel bag. “I asked him to make a stop on the way to the coast.”
“A stop? Where?”
Draco bit into the candy bar. “You’ll see.”
It was afternoon by the time the carriage stopped with a jolt, shaking Harry awake. He yawned and turned toward the window.
A familiar scene met his eyes. The green lawns, the great gray staircase sloping up to the double oak front doors, the jumble of turrets and battlements rising high into the thin, clear mountain air. “Hogwarts?” he said incredulously. “Your stop was Hogwarts?”
“Yep,” said Draco, cheerfully. He had been lounging on his bench seat, reading through Lupin’s book of travel notes. Now he carefully tucked it back into the duffel bag and swung himself out of the carriage.
Harry followed him, looking around in amazement. “I don’t get it. Weren’t we just here? Are you nostalgic for school already? I thought that was supposed to take ten years at least.”
Draco, who was in the middle of asking the driver to wait for them, shot him an irritable look. “I have an errand here, okay? Hold on to your trousers, Potter.”
“My trousers aren’t going anywhere, Malfoy. But I feel compelled to point out that it’s summer holidays — no one’s going to be in the school, except maybe Dumbledore, and he won’t take kindly to us breaking in.”
“I asked him at the reception,” said Draco, heading for the stairs. “He gave me permission. Of course, you needn’t come with me if you don’t want to.”
Harry shrugged and followed him. “I suppose it’s too late to get expelled.”
“I love how you always look on the bright side.”
They had reached the top of the stairs; Harry was used to seeing them propped open to the sunset. It was odd to find them closed. He tried a knob, but it didn’t turn. “See? Locked,” he said. “I don’t think an alohomora is going to open this door, either.”
Draco shot him a long, dark look, then reached out and put his hand to the door. It slid open soundlessly. “I told you,” he said. “I have the Headmaster’s permission.”
Surprised past arguing, Harry followed Draco into the flagstone-floored entrance hall. The enormous hourglasses that normally kept track of House points stood empty. Draco passed them without a second glance and headed for the wide marble staircase that led upward. He was silent as he went, and Harry followed him silently, though the sense of being in the huge castle alone was unnerving. He noticed creaks in the floorboards he’d never heard before as they passed the statue of Lachlan the Lanky on the seventh floor, turned a corner, and found themselves in a long corridor that Harry didn’t recall. There was a single door along the west wall, and Draco went to it and threw it open. He stood in the doorway, staring into the room, as if he could go no farther.
Harry joined him in the doorway. The room they looked into was nearly bare, with a wall of unshaded windows. Dust motes danced in the air, gilded by afternoon light. The only item of furniture in it was a magnificent mirror on two clawed gold feet. The light struck the mirror at such an angle that the surface seemed to shimmer like water and the inscription over it was unreadable. Not that it mattered; Harry knew well enough what it said.
“I show you not your face,” he said, “but your heart’s desire.”
Draco said nothing. He was still staring at the mirror. A nervous pulse jumped in his throat.
“Is this what you came for?” Harry demanded. “The Mirror of Erised?”
“To look in it,” Draco said shortly. “Yes.”
Harry shook his head. “The Mirror isn’t a game,” he said. “It’s not necessarily pleasant to look at your heart’s desire, especially if it’s something you can’t ever really have.”
“And do you think my heart’s desire is something I can never really have?”
“I don’t know.” Harry thought of Lucius, and wished he hadn’t. “I don’t know what it is you really want.”
“Neither do I,” said Draco. He was leaning against the frame of the doorway, facing the room, but his gaze was elsewhere. “But I want to find out. In Slytherin’s castle he showed me a mirror of Judgement, that shows you what you’ve been, and what you might be. But I want to know who I am right now. I want to know if this past year has changed me.”
“You seem different to me,” Harry offered.
“Seem isn’t good enough,” said Draco. “Our heart’s desires don’t just tell us what we want, they tell us who we are.” He looked over at Harry then, grey eyes clear but unreachable. “You’ll wait for me here?”
Harry, feeling no need to stand in front of the Mirror himself, nodded once. “If that’s what you want.”
