Turas Fada

Chapter Three

Trust the Malfoys to be so paranoid that someone's going to break in, Harry thought with annoyance, as he looked up at the tall iron fence, topped with wicked looking spikes, that completely surrounded Malfoy Manor. He and Lavender had decided that strolling through the front gate would just be way too obvious. So they had circled around to a spot screened from the house by a crop of evergreens. Here they could hopefully slip through without being detected. The only problem was how to go about slipping. Who would want to get into this creepy place anyway?...Well, besides us.

"Okay," he said, after studying the barrier for several minutes. "I think I can probably scale this and then help you up. If we're careful, we should be able to avoid the spikes." Without waiting for a response, he started climbing. He was afraid if he gave Lavender time to think about it she would panic, he had gotten the feeling that she was afraid of heights.

The going was much more difficult than he had imagined. After what seemed like hours of arm-breaking labor, with the top not seeming to get any closer, he looked down to see how far he had come, only to find that Lavender had disappeared. With a feeling of shock, quickly turning to panic, he searched the ground below frantically for signs of her.

A pointed cough from in front of him, inside the Malfoy grounds, made him whip his head around. And there was Lavender, standing with hands on hips, foot tapping the ground impatiently, looking up at him with eyebrows raised. Harry's jaw dropped. "How did you--"

"I climbed through the bars. Now, are you done with your little show of masculine bravado? I can assure you I'm quite impressed. So now you can just hop on down and join me over here, if you don't mind. As much as I was loving watching your rippling, manly muscles as you struggled futilely there, we really haven't got all day." She finished off this little speech with an exaggerated eye role. Cheeks burning with a mixture of embarrassment and annoyance, Harry dropped to the ground and squeezed through the bars.

"Well, that was easy," he said, as he stepped onto the Malfoy grounds.

"I think you spoke too soon." Lavender spoke in the calm, emotionless voice of someone who knows they are in great peril but the reality of the situation has yet to really sink in. With a feeling of apprehension, Harry turned to see what Lavender was looking at. His apprehension vanished, only to be replaced by terror.

"A chimaera," he breathed, horrified. The monster stood before them, lion head growling menacingly, goat hoof pawing the ground, and dragon tail lashing about threateningly.

"Goody."

The chimaera was still a few hundred yards away, but it was closing the gap between them far too quickly for comfort. Bowing to the inevitable, Harry got out his wand and waited for it to get into range. A quick glance at Lavender showed that she had done the same. She looked much calmer than Harry had expected. She seemed more the type to shriek and faint than stand quietly waiting for the chance to start throwing hexes. Then he remembered how she had been one of the only other students to stay out and help with the blast-ended skrewts in fourth year. Maybe there was more to Lavender than met the eye...But he couldn't think about that now, or there might soon be much less of both Lavender and him.

As soon as the chimaera came in range of his wand, he threw a stunning spell at it, always the first thing to come to his mind. Lavender threw one at the same time and the two spells hit the monster simultaneously, freezing it in its tracks. They grinned weakly at each other.

"Well, that wasn't too har--" Lavender began, but as she said it the chimaera seemed to shake off its paralysis. With a roar it continued its charge, looking more murderous than ever. "Freak."

They hurled spell after spell at it, but all with the same result. No sooner than they would start to think it had worked, it would shake it off and come at them again. Before long it would be on top of them. If it got within striking distance, they were as good as dead. There was no way they were going to be able to fight it off, Harry thought despairingly, wiping sweat from his brow. They were going to have to make a run for it. If only I had my invisibility cloak! But it was packed in the very bottom of his knapsack and the chimaera was not going to just sit around and let him rifle through his stuff.

"We're going to have to run," he told Lavender. She nodded, looking grim and frightened.

"If only you had your invisibility cloak," she said, eerily echoing his own thoughts. He shook his head.

"It's packed too deep."

She bit her lip and her hand went unconsciously to her rings, a nervous habit of hers that he had noticed. Her face lit up.

"That's it!"

Confused, Harry found himself looking at her hands. She was fiddling with a ring on her right hand set with a large, sparkling diamond. The ring turned once--twice--three times, under her agitated fingers--and both the ring and its wearer disappeared. For a moment Harry forgot about the chimaera. He stared at the spot where Lavender had been, mouth open.

The chimaera would not be forgotten, however. With a roar it charged him. Just then, Harry felt a soft invisible hand slip into his and before he could blink, he had disappeared.

"Now run!" Lavender's disembodied voice hissed urgently into his ear. There was no time to think, the chimaera was still bearing down on them. They ran.

*****

We seem to be doing this a lot, Lavender thought, as she sprinted across the Malfoy lawns, hand in hand with Harry.

"Okay, I think we've lost it," Harry sounded slightly out of breath, but it was hard to tell with disembodied voices. Lavender hoped he was, all of this running was making her realize just how out of shape she was. Dang Harry and his Quidditch training, doesn't he ever get tired? Maybe next time we have to run for our lives I can ride piggyback. Anymore of this physical activity and I just might die.

They had stopped under the concealing branches of a large pine, right next to the manor walls. Lavender slumped exhausted against the trunk.

"Um, Lavender," Harry said. "Are we going to be invisible for the rest of our lives, because that could get kind of awkward."

"Oh, no! Sorry, I forgot." She reached for her ring, only to find, with some surprise, that she was still holding Harry's hand. She dropped it quickly, glad that he could not see the color that was irrationally flooding her face. Three turns of her ring in the opposite direction, and they both popped instantly back into view.

"Okay, next time we get the weapons out before we enter the evil lair. I was sure we were chimaera chow there, for a second."

Lavender looked at him incredulously, "Please tell me you didn't just say chimaera chow."

"It's nerves, okay? Almost dying can do that to you. What did you do there anyway?" Harry looked at her questioningly, changing the subject. She grinned and held up her hand.

"My ring," she said, wiggling her index finger so he knew which one she was talking about. The large jewel winked in the light shining through the branches. "It's a diamond. Diamonds can render people invisible. Well, if they're made right, at least."

"Wow. Do all of your rings do something?" he asked looking with wonder at her jewel-bedecked fingers.

"Of course!" Lavender said, in mock indignation. "What kind of self-respecting witch would I be without magic rings?"

Harry grinned, then turned to look at the foreboding granite walls jutting up just beyond the branches of the tree. Evil seemed to emanate from the very stones. What on earth had caused him to suggest they break into Malfoy Manor? This was looking more and more like a suicidal experience, and for what? But he knew perfectly well what for. For some reason he had gotten this weird desire to impress Lavender.

Well, jolly good job, Harry. Girls are always real impressed when you get them killed. They just love that. Putting his hands in his pockets, he sighed and contemplated the seemingly impregnable fortress. There was no way they could go through the front door, or any door, for that matter. That would really be suicidal. And chances were the bottom floor windows were also pretty well hexed against intruders. But the windows in the upper floors...now there was a possibility. He voiced his opinion to Lavender, who took it much better than he had expected.

"Oh goody!" she said, bouncing up and down a little and clapping her hands in excitement. "Do we get to use the grappling hook?"

Harry looked at her disbelievingly. "Don't tell me you're actually excited about breaking into Malfoy Manor now, after we were chased by a monster. You're supposed to be the one with good commonsense here. I have all ready taken the foolishly brave role."

Lavender smiled guiltily. "I can't help it. Criminals are so cool! I've always kind of wanted to be one..."

"Great. Where's Hermione when you need her?" Harry asked the tree in despair. Lavender's smile faltered.

"Fine. I'll try and have more commonsense. Is the grappling hook in your bag or mine?" she said, sounding slightly hurt.

"Mine," he told her, as he swung his knapsack off his back and started looking through it, confused by her sudden mood swing. "Here it is," he said finally, pulling the grappling hook from the bag.

The wizarding grappling hook looked a lot like a muggle grappling hook. Except that this one had wings, so instead of having to throw it, it could just fly to where ever it was supposed to be. Wizards are awfully lazy, Harry thought with amusement, as he unwound the long cord. He couldn't remember exactly why they had bought the grappling hook, but it was fortunate they had. It had probably been Lavender's idea. She was probably planning some housebreaking from the very beginning, he thought, with a mental eye roll.

"Weeee!" Lavender exclaimed, her good mood restored, despite herself.

Holding the grappling hook, Harry ducked out from under the tree and went to stand by the wall. Lavender followed him.

"How do you work this thing again?" he asked, looking at the lifeless metal hook in his hands.

"I think you just tell it where you want it to go and it...goes," she said, waving her arms in demonstration.

"Okay, um...go to the roof...grappling hook!" he said, feeling very stupid to be talking to a hook. The grappling hook sprang immediately to life, soaring out of his hands and to the roof of the manor in a furious flurry of metal wings. "Guess you were right. Now we just have to climb up to the third story--"

Lavender groaned.

*****

Lavender dangled helplessly off the side of Malfoy Manor. The ground was a dizzying two stories below her. Her arms burned and her desperate grip on the rope was quickly weakening. I'm going to die! She thought, panicked. If she lived through this, she was never going to watch a con movie again! The movies had not prepared her for the queasy feeling in her stomach at seeing her feet dangling in midair, or for the fact that her arms felt like they were about to fall off.

"Help!" she moaned, feeling her hands slipping and feeling sure death was only a freefall away. Then a strong arm grabbed her under the arms and hauled her up onto a broad window ledge. Lavender collapsed against the window and waited for her heart to stop thundering and return from her stomach to its proper place in her chest. When she looked over at her rescuer, Harry was grinning widely. She frowned.

"What, exactly, is so funny?" she asked, crossly. "I was seconds away from death there! Do you find that amusing!"

"Did you really think I would let you die?" Harry responded, laughing. She looked slightly sheepish.

"Well, I actually kind of forgot you in my terror."

"So I guess that shows how much I mean to you, if you can forget me that easily! I'm lucky you remembered me when the chimaera was chasing us!" he teased.

"You know that's not true! You mean a lot to me!" They both suddenly realized how close they were sitting and scooted quickly apart. "Should we go inside?" she asked finally, breaking the awkward silence that had descended.

"Yeah." Harry got out his wand and was preparing to open the window when Lavender put a hand on his arm to stop him.

"Wait, don't use magic. The Malfoy's are bound to have guards against it, even up here. Let me do it." Taking a bobby pin out of her hair, she went to work on the lock. "I doubt they will guard against something like this. That's one of wizards like the Malfoys biggest weaknesses. They never guard against non-magical things," she explained.

"Where did you learn how to do that?"

"Like I said, I wanted to be a criminal, I watched tons of con movies. Which I just swore off in my near-death moment back there. Shame." The lock popped open and the large double window swung inward. They slid silently from the window ledge to the plush Oriental rug below. They were inside Malfoy Manor.

The room appeared to be some sort of sitting room. The ornate rug they were standing on was a complicated design in green and silver. There were several arm chairs and a love seat, all of which were obviously very old, very ugly, and very, very expensive. And they all had either silver or green cushions. In fact, everything in the room that could be either green or silver was.

"Creative color scheme," Lavender commented. "Honestly, I don't see what the Malfoy's big obsession with Slytherin is, anyway. I mean, I'm proud to be a Gryffindor and everything, but I'm sure as heck not going to go decorate my entire house in red and gold when I leave school. That's just sad." Harry snickered.

"Okay, where do we go now?" he asked her.

"How would I know? I've just been here once for a Christmas party! I didn't tour the house or anything!"

"Great! This place is huge! We could be lost for days! We need a guide!"

A loud crack behind them made them both spin around in terror. Relief washed over Lavender, it was only a house elf. Though why he would apparate in his own house, she had no idea. Harry did not seem to be as relieved. He looked totally floored.

"Dobby?"

Lavender looked back and forth between the boy and the house elf feeling very confused. "Harry, how do you know the Malfoy's house elf?"

"What are you doing here?" Harry asked the elf urgently, ignoring Lavender.

"Oh Harry Potter sir!" the house elf, Dobby, presumably, exclaimed joyfully. "Dobby is here to help Harry Potter! Dobby heard Harry Potter needed a guide to Malfoy Manor and Dobby can be that guide!"

"What do you do, snoop into my mind?" Harry's look of shock had turned suddenly to one of suspicion.

"Well...Dobby just knows when Harry Potter needs help..." the house elf replied evasively, shuffling his feet guiltily. "But that is not important, Harry Potter sir! Dobby can help you! He can guide you! You will not be lost!" he added cheerfully. Harry let out a resigned sigh.

"Okay, okay. I'll let it go for now. We do need your help. So...thanks Dobby." He chuckled as the elf threw himself around his waist in an enthusiastic hug.

*****

With Dobby as their guide, they went through all of the rooms on the third floor. There was nothing there of any interest. The majority of the rooms seemed to be unused guest rooms. As far as Harry could tell, there were no hidden clues to the whereabouts of Lavender's parents lurking in any of them. The second floor sounded more promising. According to Dobby, that was where all of the family's private apartments were.

The first door they came to led to Draco's rooms. A feral grin split Harry's face at the thought of breaking into Malfoy's rooms. Lavender caught his look.

"I think maybe I should do these rooms by myself," she said hurriedly. "This place is so big, we're going to have to split up if we want to get anything done. Besides, I don't think I trust you in Malfoy's room. We're here to find clues about my parents, remember? Not slash cushions and write obscene remarks on furniture. How about you go on to Lucius' rooms and I'll meet you there?"

Grumbling, Harry allowed Dobby to lead him further down the hall leaving Lavender to slip alone into Malfoy's suite.

*****

Nothing! Lavender hoped Harry was having more luck in his search than she was. It was starting to look like they weren't going to find anything. She fought down the despair that threatened to sink the hope that had been buoyed by her surety that here they would be able to figure out where her parents were. As a last resort, before going to find Harry, she decided to try Malfoy's closet.

Before lighting the room, she closed the door firmly behind her, just in case. "Lumos", she murmured, then caught her breath as the room was illuminated. Malfoy's closet was enormous! A thorough search took some time, but in the end the only thing of interest she found was a pair of leather trousers. She would have to remember to tell Parvati about that. Parvati was mad about the Slytherin. Lavender had to admit he was quite hot...for an evil git.

She looked around the closet (if a room that big could really be called a closet) one last time, but there was nothing she had not checked. She reached for the doorknob, but before she could touch it, it turned on its own and the door swung open. Freak. Lavender thought, as her stomach dropped into her trainers. Now I'm screwed.

Her eyes traveled slowly up the expensive black button-down shirt before her, pulled tight across broad shoulders. Then, with a growing sense of dread, she looked up at the chiseled jaw and cheek bones, straight nose, and steel gray eyes, opened wide in shock, the mouth, usually twisted into a smirk, expressionless, and silver blond hair falling sexily into his face.

Draco Malfoy, malicious twit extraordinaire.

She was definitely screwed.

"Oh shit. There's a Gryffindor in my closet."

Lavender's mind was in a panicked whirl. She could think of no reasonable way to explain her presence. In desperation, she did the first thing that crossed her mind. With one swift movement, she closed the small space between them and planted a kiss squarely on his lips. To her surprise, his lips parted immediately under hers.

Reasoning with herself that just a peck would not really be much of a distraction, she let him deepen the kiss. They went on in this way for several minutes. Snogging Malfoy really wasn't as bad as she had expected. In fact, she was enjoying it a little too much. He was quite a good kisser. Reluctantly, she broke away.

"Sorry, I just couldn't help myself," she said, by way of explanation. Then, grinning, she skipped off down the hall. Parvati was going to be so jealous!

*****

Odd, that, Draco thought, as he adjusted his jade green tie in front of the mirror, pondering that Gryffindor's peculiar lust for him. He examined his reflection critically. Well-toned body, sculpted features, perfect hair.

"Mmm..." the mirror purred. " You look simply ravishing!"

She had a point. He grinned at the boy in the mirror with rakishly good looks staring back at him. Poor little Gryffindor. She must have been hopelessly smitten with him. Not that he could blame her. If he'd been a girl he would have been mad with lust for him too, and would probably have gone to desperate measures to snog him. He was just that hot. With a self-satisfied smirk, he straightened his shirt. He gave no more thought to the girl who was now slinking stealthily to his father's rooms.