Enslavement

Chapter 6

Voldemort Victorious

The third day of their stay at Malfoy Manor, and naturally there developed a regularity about things. It was something remarkable to Harry that in no matter what situation he found himself - and he thought this was true for every person - there was always some way his mind would break down an experience of whatever nature and simplify it so his mind would slog through it with as much constitution left as possible. It was this marvellous coping ability - only this - that could explain the resilient spirit of humanity. It was something he came to understand clearer and clearer with every passing challenge, and that to Harry, of course, meant every year.

This nascent regularity was what headed off the unkindly edges around his outlook and toned down the untoward hues around the vista of his day as he stepped out with Ron and Hermione into the backyard: they had just been ordered by Malfoy through Tibby to groom and feed the "Giffies" and "Phiggles" in the stables, animals the likes of which they had never heard but were about to see.

It was evident at breakfast that Snape's words had been weighing on Malfoy's mind heavily, and on his mother's, Harry would later discover. There was also a trace of spite undoubtedly borne from his encounter with Harry the previous night. Possibly unable to think of any less a wholesome place to have them eat their breakfast, Malfoy had first, with the sort of abandon and whimsicality of a child, attempted to make them eat down in the dungeons with the rats and its familiar sordidness and uglinesss. But he was struck and stopped by his mother's words.

"I won't allow you to be like your father. Over my dead body, my son."

And so they had eaten while staring at the wall of the dining room. Now walking out into bright morning daylight minutes later, scanning the surrounding countryside, and trying not to mind the uncomfortable draft going through their robes in the morning air, they observed that the plot they walked on was vast such that they could not tell where the boundary between it and the rest of the countryside began; there was neither sign of a cobble road nor another house nearby, but just stretches of grass in patches of different colours. Harry suspected some kind of anti-Muggle charm in the perimeter that made the manor and surrounding area invisible to Muggles.

To their slight left was a small hill, and quite a distance off in front of them the land slowly dipped into wilder territory, of the odd rock and bush backed by a long line of trees the preface of a forest. Just by viewing this Harry had an inkling of Draco's childhood, like the tinkle of the first coin in a can. In their immediate surroundings were well-tended gardens, a large greenhouse, and to their right, a stable.

"Let's go over to the greenhouse just quickly!" said Hermione excitedly. She veered off course and pranced over to the greenhouse, from where, as she stared through the glass, she squealed, "Ooh! There're so many different colours and flowers in here! I think I can see a snakeshead fritillary! Wow. What a royal contradiction that is, hey, Harry! It's part of the lily family but it's called a snakeshead!"

"Yeah. Groundbreaking contradiction, Hermione," Harry called to her. "Come on then."

She tore herself away from the glass plane through which she had been staring and came over.

Two hours later they had grown friendly with some of the oddest creatures they had ever encountered. Suffice it to say the Phiggles were much cuter than the Giffies. Harry suspected the latter were descendent of hippogriffs or something, because though their mouths were shaped like those of horses, they were as hard as a bird's beak, much like two cups each inverted onto their brims. Secondly, instead of hooves, their feet resembled those of ostriches, with a longer middle toe bearing a large deadly talon, also not unlike the hippogriff. They missed the wings, however, but kept a little of the plumage - boasting a seamless blend of bronze and gleaming chestnut fur along its body. Their nature seemed suspicious but not distrustful without reason as Ron came to find out.

Contrastably, the Phiggles were much smaller in comparison. The simplest way to describe them was as ponies dappled with white spots. Even the youngest ones had a small tuft of hair on their head, its colour a shiny, inky black much like Harry's hair. Their strangest, eeriest, but most captivating trait was their pure silver eyes - with no whites or irises, but just two chillingly piercing silver balls. And the gracefulness with which they bent their heads down and munched on the hay, the elegance with which they cantered outside the stable, and the ethereal shine of their coats against the sunlight, turning them from white-spotted grey to gorgeous silver, put to Harry's mind everything he knew about unicorns. Phiggles were just second best to perhaps the most beautiful animal Harry had ever laid eyes upon. But they were just as innocently overly trusting.

"I guess you warm up to them if you allow yourself to," observed Ron, stroking a Giffy along its back.

"I still prefer these cute little things!" squealed Hermione (precisely why Ron preferred the Giffy), as she beamed at a young Phiggle, which seemed so mesmerized with her affection it was trying to climb her to close the gap between it and her.

Ron's words came after he was viciously thrown onto his back when he tried to mount one of the Giffies. Unfortunately either it hadn't been in the mood or it was more inclined to handle Harry's range of weight because he mounted it successfully. Now what was left was not to be caught by Malfoy while appearing to enjoying themselves.

"Why does everything always go your way?" grumbled Ron, in a good-natured way. He was still friends with the Giffy he attempted to mount at the end of their stay with them. "What's so special about you and your scrawny little arse?"

They followed Tibby towards the manor after she appeared - looking frantic for a moment they had been playing with the animals, and riding them! - and told them Malfoy wanted them back in the library tackling the B's this time.

"Maybe because this scrawny little arse actually warned the bloody thing I was going to climb it," replied Harry uppishly. "You just all of a sudden jumped on it from the back. It didn't see you coming! What would you have done if someone did that to you?"

"Bollocks. It's not the first time animals seem to like your scrawny little arse more than any other person on this planet. Or maybe except for Hagrid."

"I happen to agree your scrawny little arse has some lucky effect on animals, and people of course," said Hermione softly, muttering as though the words were a little painful to utter.

"Come off it," hedged Harry, blushing. "Speaking of this scrawny little arse, I think Malfoy wants it."

There was a small clicking noise from somewhere.

When Harry turned to Ron, he found him holding his neck and with tears in his eyes: Ron had whipped his head so quickly to Harry that he had cricked his neck. Harry snorted in mirth.

"What?" said Ron, in a calm way, as though his disbelief had overcome his pain.

Hermione started looking hot under the collar. "Sorry?"

"He came to my room last night. Got a weird vibe from him," Harry responded, grimacing as though he had a bad taste in his mouth.

"Harry..." said Ron breathlessly, clutching his chest as though he had just run a mile. "You don't just bloody drop this kind of shit like that... What the fuck does he want your scrawny little arse for? Getting private visits from him now, are you? I suppose the first time he was there he thought Hermione and I were in the way."

"Shut your cakehole, all right?" snapped Harry. "I was just going along with the joke with the scrawny little arse thing which you started. He was just being an arse again as usual."

"You haven't answered the question: what did he want?" Ron asked, scrutinizing Harry closely and rubbing his neck.

"Nothing," replied Harry exasperatedly. "He came to repair my glasses finally. And he had some shit to say as always."

After a moment Ron drew back, releasing his suspiciousness on Harry. "Hm. They're fond of their little speech performances Malfoys are, aren't they? Remember our first day here? He had two of them, both in the afternoon. Oh and just who could forget that grand one by his father after the Death Eaters stormed in?"

Harry certainly hadn't.

There had been something less than absent about the silence in the Great Hall. It was so absolute it felt simultaneously thick and non-existent as if in its stead was only a vacuum. All eyes were fixed on the figure in front with the white-blond hair and the dark robes, a clashingly profound contrast.

"Good evening... Hogwarts," greeted Lucius Malfoy, savouring the name nostalgically. "Well, suffice it to say it's been a while. And nothing seems to have changed one bit..." He gazed around the Great Hall, at the floating candles, the High Table, and the little square opening at the top for owls to deliver their morning packages. "Forgive us; we're so deeply sorry you're right in the middle of this little tug-and-war we like to play with each other every so often. Unfortunately for you your headmaster is a terrible spoilsport and likes things to go his way no matter what. But this time we thought we'd outsmart him... Oh, Draco, you're just in time."

There was a set of more footsteps. This time Harry looked away from Lucius towards the back, where he saw coming down the aisle between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw table two figures dressed in the same dark cloak every Death Eater wore, the one figure taller than the other and whose footsteps were clearly high heels clicking on the floor. The two walked over to and stood in front of Lucius.

Lucius took the smaller figure by the shoulder as he said to the taller one, "Come on now, Cissa, you can take the mask off. This is a moment of glory for Our Lord - there's no need to hide identities so you can still return to the life you live during daylight. Death Eaters..." Lucius turned to the men along the walls. "...this is it - there is nothing left to fear. Your normal lives are no longer necessary. We have the world!"

There was malicious cheer all around the Great Hall as the Death Eaters concurred and took off their masks. People who held jobs and were perhaps husbands and fathers revealed themselves in their belief of the certainty of the triumph of their master.

Lucius lifted the mask off his son and wife, who stood with a deadpanned stare at the doors. Lucius seemed to restrain himself from demanding any more from his wife and held his son in front of him. Harry never saw any of this, and neither did the rest of the school as they were both horrified at the man next to the straggly-haired woman, their own teacher, Professor Snape.

"As I was saying," continued Lucius, "we thought we had to make your headmaster play ball and outsmart him in the process. Draco, I was just about to let you keep watch of Potter there, Dumbledore's secret weapon; this time we're taking no chances."

He gave Draco's shoulders a pat and a squeeze before he released him, watching his son stride over to Harry.

"Stand up," Malfoy ordered Harry, a wand in his hand.

Nowhere near recovered from his shock at seeing Snape in full Death Eater regalia, Harry looked away and at Malfoy standing before him. He thought Malfoy must have seen his non-compliance coming. For one, Harry thought the rest of the school almost expected it of him on behalf of their quiet defiance. For another, the opportunity to try to humiliate him in front of his father and see what he would do would almost be masochistic to pass up.

He glared up at Malfoy, unmoved.

Fortunately for Malfoy his father was still speaking meanwhile.

"...That little chat Severus and I had of recruiting an army of Death Brothers, and today it has come to fruition. Coordinated simultaneous attacks on the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts will certainly go a long way to secure the Dark Lord's dream. Soon enough you will call him your Almighty Lord, for then he will rule all the world. But for the immediate moment, his worry is far less epic..." And here Lucius switched his gaze over to Harry and his son. "...In fact, as small as five feet and seven stone."

"It's high time we cut the loose ends!" barked the straggly-haired woman, suddenly animating to life from her position. That she did, the dark bags under her eyes making them pop out maniacally, arms swinging loosely. She went over and hung onto Lucius' shoulder, swaying back and forth on her feet as though it were emblematic of her unpredictable, loose, and insane nature. "Don't worry, dear Draco, you won't have to worry about him for long: when the Dark Lord comes it will be the end of the legend of the Boy Who Lived!"

There was a great upswing of rapturous noise as the Death Eaters cheered victoriously.

In a bored, drawling voice, Lucius said, "Your aunt's words should embarrass you, Draco. Control your subject. This is good practice."

It couldn't have been clearer to Harry that Malfoy was terrified and in two minds of what to do. But whatever his clarity, Harry didn't see the strike coming but later felt the ringing sting to the side of his face.

"I said stand up!" yelled Draco, as he with similar suddenness to his aunt, took initiative. When Ron, Dean, and Seamus jerked and nearly stood up in their seats, the Death Eaters behind them shot them with spells. They bellowed in pain but returned to their seats, the sleeves of their robes smoking.

"No, in fact get on the floor. Get on the floor!" commanded Malfoy. He grabbed Harry by the collar and threw him down, training his wand on him. "I want you to sit right in the middle." He dragged him over to the middle of the aisle between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff table and made him sit still. Harry breathed heavily through his nostrils as he glared up over the wand in his face at Malfoy. But he felt that much powerless.

"No, bring him over here, son," said Lucius. "I'm sure the rest of the Hall would like to keep him in view, for a source of comfort of sorts..." Lucius' lips twitched. "... And of course for the easiest presentation to the Dark Lord."

While Malfoy forcefully moved Harry over, Bellatrix Lestrange was busy down his mother's throat.

"Still think you're on some high moral pedestal staring at the wall like you're not here?" she jeered. "You've got the cloak on, may as well bloody act the part! Ha!" And with a last caw of ridicule, she took off from her to join more festive spirits.

Harry was forced into position before the row of Death Eaters, just in front of the empty space which must have been reserved for Lucius. He stared at Malfoy's mother after being jostled by Bellatrix and thought what another tragedy of humanity, only with a different tag number along the line: a mother forced to wear dark robes like the next Death Eater and murderer. She appeared she would have liked to be anywhere else but here.

Harry occasionally stared up at Malfoy standing next to him, sometimes for no reason at all and sometimes long enough just to catch his eye and then look away in disregard as though he couldn't care less if Malfoy stood and breathed next to him. In plain attempt to reinforce his authority over Harry, Malfoy jabbed his knee into his side, but Harry felt the pain in his scar.

It was a masterful entry. He gave no clue or warning. He awaited no moment of introduction or dramatic silence. Voldemort walked into the Great Hall at a time when anyone's attention could have been anywhere, on the person they were murmuring with fearfully, on Harry after he suddenly screamed out in pain, on a straggly-haired woman capering around the tables and teasing students and randomly bursting into a shout or cry, on the person they thought to be their teacher but instead a perfidious greasy-haired Death Eater, or on Lucius Malfoy bragging about world domination. This quiet, unfathomed entrance made its moment of notice a far more personal and more frightening experience. Students screamed as all in the Great Hall turned and cast their eyes on Death Eater number one.

"My Lord, you make it," fluttered Lucius. He looked around with wild adulation in his eyes as though he didn't know what to do himself or asking himself why no one else seemed as touched by his lord's presence as he was.

Voldemort strode slowly until his steel-tipped boots stood inches from Lucius. He cast his eyes across the Great Hall, his red slit eyes taking in the students in front of him, his Death Eaters along the walls, and the teachers they had hold of. And then, inevitably, the moment of horror came, and Voldemort turned his eyes behind him at Harry. He smiled.

When Voldemort next turned his eyes on Malfoy, Malfoy's body stuttered and stilled as though he were a slab of ice. Voldemort looked away and at the students before Harry heard Malfoy release his breath.

"Welcome," Voldemort proclaimed, in his high, clear voice, "to a new ear - the era of Lord Voldemort. This is nothing of a surprise to me - I've seen this day, I've seen this happen, so many times in my head it grew to become a fierce obsession. You've done well, Lucius and Severus."

"My Lord," the men breathed, as they went to their knees.

"Stand," Voldemort commanded, and so they did.

"I don't doubt you must feel betrayed," Voldemort said to the school. "Severus has been an old servant of mine longer than he has taught here, so ingenious as to fool who many see as the greatest man of the modern era. But I will show you, as Severus as shown you..." Dumbledore was carried into the Great Hall in ghastly chains that wrapped around his beard and midnight-blue robes. "...that this great man is nothing more than just a man, a simple overgrown foetus blindly gifted the epithets he has fooled everyone into thinking he deserves. Can Dumbledore breathe fire? Can he fly upon the air? Can he, like no other man alive, live forever?"

A pair of Death Eaters brought Dumbledore across the Hall and propped him in front of the school.

There came a muffled shriek from McGonagall as she watched him. Her Death Eater stuffed her gag deeper into her mouth.

"Dumbledore..." breathed Harry.

When Voldemort looked behind him, Malfoy jumped into action and smothered Harry's actions so swiftly it was as though he thought it would be the death of him.

"Ah yes, Harry, you have a soft spot for your dear old headmaster of course, no?" Voldemort cooed, smiling between him and Dumbledore.

If only Harry could see Dumbledore's face, to see the expression on it, to know whether they were safe or doomed. In spite of everything he had seen, of how certain their seizure appeared, he felt that the one entity to decide his emotions - whether he had hope or not - was the expression in Dumbledore's face. But he couldn't see it wrapped in Malfoy's arms.

"I'll bloody kill you, Potter, if you move again!" whispered Malfoy. His voice wobbled and distorted like a vinyl jumping on a record player. Harry had never heard Malfoy sound so terrified.

For a moment Harry heard nothing but footsteps, and he sat in chilling trepidation. Apparently feeling the same, Malfoy looked back and saw Voldemort coming nearer. He loosened his hold on Harry, who felt the both of them shaking in their boots.

"Let me see him," commanded Voldemort.

When Malfoy attempted to haul him up to his feet, Voldemort halted him with a dismissive gesture, which Malfoy was only glad to see as he scurried over to his mother without shame, but not before he was transfixed by Voldemort's address to him.

"Young Malfoy... Be in no doubt that for providing us access into the castle your reward will come, and it will be great..."

Voldemort, with no wand but just his hand, brought Harry's face to his own.

"The Boy Who Lived..."

Voldemort dropped his hand and slowly backed away, and with each step he took backwards, Harry's foot took one forward. Harry stared into that pale flat face powerlessly, feeling as his feet worked with no need of his volition. Voldemort released whatever power he had over Harry when he stood level with his headmaster. At that point Harry jerked as he nearly fell to the floor with the return of his bodily control. He stiffened his legs and stood straight next to Dumbledore.

Voldemort then took a step back as he surveyed Dumbledore, the expression on his face exultant. Beaming evil stood in front of Harry, and he thought he had seen nothing more disgusting. Voldemort whipped around to the rest of the Hall.

"Today I'm victorious against the great Dumbledore! Hogwarts will be mine! There will be no need for a House beyond that of my ancestors - only one shall suffice!" This bellowing hiss swallowed the Great Hall, ringing in the students ears. Voldemort opened his mouth wide and stuck his tongue out, and with the fire that erupted from there the three other House banners one by one wilted in flames.

"Hermione, we should be dusting them, not reading them?" Harry said, in a way that asked for confirmation.

"I'm only browsing," Hermione replied in delay, while reading a book raptly.

"By this rate we won't finish B by this evening," complained Harry.

"And it's so infuriating that these books don't even need dusting!" said Ron angrily. "They're spick-and-span clean! Argh!"

"Tell me about it," murmured Harry.

"What could he do to us if we didn't, though?" mused Ron. He was working himself up into a fit. He finished a book, pulled out another, and swiped a duster once at it before shoving it into its place on the shelf.

"Hm, let me see. Er, maybe the Cruciatus Curse?" suggested Harry wildly.

Both Ron and Hermione snorted.

"What?" Harry asked them.

"He would like to think he's that bad," Ron said, smirking sagely. "Wimps like him don't know how to be really evil. Being mean doesn't count. Please. Making us dust books? He's not in the leagues yet, mate."

"Agreed," said Hermione. "Malfoy is nothing more than a schoolyard bully - he's not Death Eater material, you can count on that."

"What makes so you sure?" Harry asked them.

Ron and Hermione sighed in an all-knowing way as though they were of one mind, or one couple.

"He's just a nipper at the end of the day, Harry, like the rest of us," replied Hermione. "He's under huge pressure to act the part. Obviously he's going to try to - he's got no choice. You could almost feel sorry for him."

"Pfft I don't," scoffed Ron. "Thinks he can strut around giving orders as if he's virtually not under them himself? Stuff it. Serves him right, it does."

It was easy for Ron and Hermione to say these things, but Harry thought if there was anyone to appraise Malfoy's virtue outside of his family, friends, and Slytherin House, it was him. And though what Ron and Hermione said rang true for the most part, Harry thought he knew another side of Malfoy. A side of him that was deeply desirous of proving himself to anyone in a position higher than his own. It could be at times soft-handed and at others cruel. They all had witnessed it whenever he had been around his Head of House, Snape. Harry had seen this when Voldemort had walked through the gates of Hogwarts and taken it prisoner.

"Whatever," said Harry. "Just don't be too quick to think you know him."

"Okay, we're not saying we know him, Harry," objected Hermione, looking Harry up and down in appraisal; she seemed to newly appreciate Harry's words more profoundly than Ron did. "We're just trying to figure him out as we have known him during school."

"Come off it. He's not a complicated bloke to understand," said Ron rather blockishly. "What are you sneering at?" he sneered, at a portrait hanging on the side of a shelf in another aisle.

"I don't see why you even attempt to fathom the Malfoys," sniffed the man in the portrait. He was advanced in age, sported chain spectacles and a white beard upturned on either sides much like Phineas Black, the patent pointy nose and long hair starting from a sinister-looking widow's peak, and a severe, piercing look about his yellowish eyes. "Our constitution shouldn't be disgraced by the likes of your blunt appraisals. A Weasley, I assume?"

"Well you're certainly not above stereotypes!" retorted Ron. "Not everyone with ginger hair and freckles is a Weasley, bloody hell!"

"Really, Rawlin, why do you bother?" drawled another voice from where Harry couldn't see, perhaps a portrait on the side of the shelf on whose books they were working.

"Forgive my weakness to temptation, Waldorf," said Rawlin, his nostrils flaring at Ron as though he were something he would find on the seat of a toilet. "I couldn't let him sit there as he tried to put observations on this family with his simpleton mind. Honestly. If we're going to be judged at least let it be by someone worthy."

"You stuck-up little frock!" Ron roared. "I can't believe this. Is the entire Malfoy family as arrogant as Malfoy? I have to be qualified to judge you?"

"Let's move away," muttered Hermione.

"Let's," agreed Harry. The both of them put the books away and pushed Ron down their row until reaching near the end of it and into another aisle. As they moved they heard one of the portraits speak.

"I smell something..." harrumphed Waldorf.

"Mudblood, no doubt," Rawlin spat.

Hermione shook her head but said nothing. They went to their knees and began afresh on a new section of books beginning with A.

"That wasn't exactly surprising," Harry said. Ron grunted in assent.

"I think today's the day I'm justified in hating every single bloody Malfoy that lived or died."

"But they can't all be that bad," argued Harry. "Look at Malfoy's mother."

"Technically, being a woman she's not a Malfoy," Hermione informed him. "Unless she's Lucius' sister, which would be disgusting."

"Well," said Harry, taking a breath, "then don't mind us if we do paint the Malfoys with one brush."

"Never really did," replied Hermione.

"Don't listen to them, Hermione," soothed Ron. "They're just rotting bigots now... Oi, shouldn't--"

POP!

"--Tibby be coming round right about now...?"

"Tibby is to tell the slaves it is time for lunch," announced Tibby, hovering in the aisle.

"No need telling me twice!" enthused Ron, hauling himself up to his feet and stretching. "Onward."

The fact that they didn't see Malfoy often except during a meal and controlling their movements and lives through Tibby made Malfoy seem a remote and unsettling enigma. Hence Harry felt a meal was something of an event. They found Malfoy and his mother engaged in light conversation over their lunch. Though their plates were full, apparently they had waited for their arrival. Or perhaps Malfoy's mother had made them wait for them in spite of her son's protest as Malfoy glared at them from the other end of the room.

And this was what characterized Malfoy's nature as Harry knew it since the moment Harry met him, and that which made it impossible for anyone - let alone Ron and Hermione - to think they knew of what he was capable: Malfoy oscillated - he built and broke himself constantly. This was just another example. While his absence made him appear mature, mysterious, threatening, and strangely ubiquitous, his childish actions such as glaring at them at a meal reduced this and made him seem... fathomable... like them... typical... certainly someone lesser to the Lord of the Manor. It reminded Harry of his old school days when things had been normal - relatively.

Malfoy didn't have to point to the wall but merely looked at it and they knew they were to head there; Harry's feet even started moving there almost by themselves. They sat down in front of a stretch of carved stone and waited for their meal. Meanwhile they could hear the conversation behind them.

"I'll be visiting Martha after this. You remember Martha, don't you? I was used to dragging you to her house showing you off. She'll never forget you, especially after that little cute dance and song you performed for us."

"Mother!" they heard Malfoy grumble as his mother laughed softly.

There was a snap of fingers, and in front of them was a delicious lunch. Harry, Ron, and Hermione tucked in.

Malfoy's mother's visit to her friend was the first but certainly not the last. When Harry and friends returned to their rooms, she could be seen standing quietly on one side of the foyer staring through the open doors of the manor, perhaps over the hedges and capering white peacocks to the black gates far ahead. Nevertheless, after a few minutes of what seemed internal prayer, she ignored the doors and crossed the floor to some kind of chamber to the right. It looked like a stone shower stall. Whatever it was, Harry just knew Malfoy's mother never returned whenever she entered it. In his room he thought perhaps she was simply visiting more and more friends on a social call, or perhaps she was trying to forget Snape's visit and what he had told her.

And with these passing days and his mother's increasing absence from the manor, Malfoy's appearances grew more and more scarce. There was eventually no need to take meals in the dining room for any of them, and Malfoy withdrew himself to parts of the manor Harry and friends could not see or to which they had no access. Malfoy became a discomforting enigma all over again. Furthermore, the tasks given them turned increasingly demanding; soon Tibby had to replace or clean their robes daily after a day's toil. And what was more infuriating than anything else was that their hard work was not necessary! The garden couldn't have looked any better than it had looked before they touched it.

"I'm a bleedin' garden boy at home, I'm a bleedin' garden boy here!" moped Ron. "At least no gnomes..."

The floor couldn't have looked more sparkling.

"There must be an army of elves living around here somewhere to do this, maybe hundreds of them," fumed Ron.

"Doing hard labour ill-fitted for their capabilities!" seethed Hermione.

And the books in the library were no dustier than something Ron mentioned about McGonagall he claimed has been inactive for years that made Hermione shout, "Ron, that's your teacher!"

"Was," countered Ron quietly.

Malfoy growing lonelier and lonelier with his mother's longer and longer social sojourns was only natural and expected. What Harry wasn't expecting was the summon to his room. Harry hardly thought he could cheer Malfoy up.

The summoning of course came in the form of Tibby, who was sticking his small hand out for him to grasp while they sat on Harry's bed. Even after being warned of remaining separate in their own rooms, they had grown less fearful of a remote master whose surprise visits had grown increasingly improbable with the passing days. Hermione had been in the middle of another of her fits in which he depreciated them on their lack of knowing what was happening beyond the walls of the mansion.

"We're at a point where we have to guess what the date is!" she had seethed in frustration.

Harry looked at his friends uncertainly. The fact that they had heard nothing from Malfoy for the past two weeks made the sudden request for his presence very perturbing indeed.

"Good luck," wished Hermione, looking powerless.

"Kick him in the teeth for me," said Ron. Harry thought Ron predicted he and Malfoy were going to get into a brawl as had been very probable back in the Hogwarts days.

"Ron," chided Hermione.

Harry sighed. "Yeah, see you later." He took Tibby by the hand, and the next thing, he felt his body squeezed from both sides and his lungs compressed until he felt he couldn't take it anymore and was going to suffocate to death, but the iron bands burst free and air slammed into his lungs. He took a moment to orientate himself and catch his breath. He panted in front of a four-poster bed with a silk emerald duvet and curtains and pillows of Slytherin green and silver. Malfoy reclined on the bed with a magazine in his hand.

Harry's eyes whizzed around the room and took in a writing desk, a dressing table, a chest of drawers, and a large wardrobe on whose sides were two doors. The room was a replica of his own except slightly bigger and for the extra door.

"You wanted me?"

Malfoy put down the magazine.

"Potter."