The Disappearances of Draco Malfoy

Chapter 31: The Captive in the Open Cell

Ron was still struggling when they dragged him into the narrow stairwell behind the tapestry. Draco knew that Ron's arms would bruise, so tightly were he and Harry clutching to keep him back from the threshold.

"Let me go—I want to fight them—"

"Ron, listen—" Harry grunted.

"LET GO OF ME!"

"Please, Ron, please!" Hermione seized the fist that clutched his wand. "We can't go back out there! We need to get to the snake, we need t-to kill Nagini!"

"I don't care—I want to do something, I want to kill Death Eaters—"

Shouts rang down the hall. Draco, Harry, and Hermione aimed their wands at the tapestry and began to brick up the entrance, but Ron continued to twist in their grasp.

"We'll have to fight them to get to the Room of Requirement!" Hermione said. The tears in her eyes spilled over, and she wiped her face with her torn sleeve. "We will fight, but we can't lose sight of what we're supposed to be d-doing!"

Draco forced his agreement through numb lips, hardly aware of what he was saying. Waves of shock were still humming through him. He knew that if he lived a hundred and fifty years, he would never forget the sight of the Weasley twins lying in the ruin of the barricade.

Now you know, said a small, blank voice in his mind. Now they knew exactly how outmatched they were.

The entryway closed, Draco lowered the Elder Wand. He remembered thirsting for this weapon back in winter, really believing that if he'd had it, he'd have shown the Death Eaters who was in charge. But when it had come down to it, the wand hadn't transformed him into some legendary duellist. He'd had to throw himself out of the way of curse after curse, not knowing whether Protego or Parasalvus had the power to block them. In those last chaotic moments, he'd been trying with the rest to fortify the barricade with elementary spells like Reparo and Duro.

Draco felt anew what all four of them were: teenagers armed with the kind of defensive knowledge that teachers like Gilderoy Lockhart and Dolores Umbridge had imparted to them. They couldn't fight like soldiers, and so they would die like children.

"Do it, Harry," Hermione was saying. "Look inside him! Where is he?"

Harry's eyes slid shut, and a minute later he was gasping out, "He's in the Shrieking Shack. The snake's with him, it's got some sort of magical protection around it."

"What kind of protection?" Draco said.

Harry wiped a trickle of blood from the side of his face. "I don't know. An enchantment. It's like a glowing cage."

Draco closed his eyes. Even their plan seemed ridiculously childish now. Opening a secret door in the Room of Requirement and pulling Nagini through? What had they been thinking? Of course she would be under the strongest protections Lord Voldemort could conjure. Nothing would distract the Dark Lord from his final Horcrux anymore.

"It's not good enough," he said. "We can't just burst into that place. He'll kill us all before we can figure out how to break the enchantment."

"It has to be good enough," said Hermione with desperation. "It's our only plan."

But just then, as Draco wiped a scrape on his cheek and his robes pulled up his arm, he caught sight of the Dark Mark on his left forearm—and an idea struck him hard.

"It's not our only plan," he breathed. There was a secret way, a back door, something they hadn't considered. They didn't need to get anywhere near Voldemort. Nor did they need to stand on the front lines and watch all their allies die.