Draco Dormiens

Chapter Eight: Malfoy Blood

There was light, and it moved beyond the skin of his eyelids like darting points of fire. Harry groaned and opened his eyes.

He was in Draco's bedroom, lying spread-eagled on the bed—he couldn't have laid any other way, since each of his wrists was tied to a bedpost. His head ached with a dull, booming pain as if someone were striking a gong behind his temples.

"Hold still," said a voice.

Harry whipped his head to the side and stared. It was Narcissa. She was holding a large, bone-handled saw. Harry shut his eyes again. I'm having a nightmare, he told himself. And it's a really dumb one.

He opened his eyes, but Narcissa was still there. She had applied the edge of the saw to the ropes that bound his left hand to the bed and was sawing away at them. She was very pale, and her eyes were twitching from side to side in that weird little tic Harry was beginning to get used to. He did wish she wouldn't do it while holding a saw so close to his artery, though.

"Narcissa," he said. "I mean, Mum. What..?" His left arm came free, and he turned on his side to watch her slicing away at the ropes on his right.

"Your father," said Narcissa haltingly, "doesn't want you trying to get into the dungeons to get to your girlfriend." She held up a hand at the panicked expression that flashed across Harry's face. "She's fine. He put her in with Sirius Black." Her eyes twitched again. "Sirius will look after her."

His right arm came free. Harry sat up and started massaging the blood back into his hands. The last thing he remembered was being knocked to the floor by one of Lucius' Death Eaters. "They didn't hurt Hermione, did they?" he asked. "Because Lucius was about to..."

"Oh, he would have killed her," said Narcissa woodenly. "He did the Cruciatus Curse on her to try to get her to tell him where Harry Potter was. But she wouldn't."

Harry went from feeling numb to feeling like he was going to throw up. "What happened?"

"Your father," she said (he realized she never said Lucius' name, she had never, in his memory, said it once), "says that Harry Potter was there. Apparently he has an Invisibility Cloak of some sort. He revealed himself and," she showed no emotion as she said this, "the Death Eaters took him."

Harry struggled to sit up. He put his numb hands on top of Narcissa's hands, which were as cold as ice. She was still holding the knife. "Mum," he said. "Please believe me, this is really important. I know it's hard for you, but...is Harry still alive?"

She nodded. "Where is he?"

"In the fencing room," she said. As she spoke, two huge tears slid out of her eyes and down her thin face. Harry felt horribly sorry for her, but his mind was on getting to Draco. He slid off the bed, tested his legs (they worked) and raced out the door. Narcissa watched him go.

***

In her dream, Hermione was in Diagon Alley. She was with Harry, and they were shopping for socks. This was a new one on Hermione—she had never dreamt about sock-shopping with Harry before. Harry made frequent appearances in her dreams, usually looking a lot better than he did in real life and sometimes wearing nothing but socks—but this dream didn't seem to be tending in that direction. This Harry was fully dressed and looking very serious.

They weren't getting far with their sock search. All the stores seemed to be boarded up, dark and empty. People on the street hurried past without looking at them, eyes on the ground. Hermione tried to take Harry's hand, but he shook his head.

"I've got to sit down," he said. "It hurts."

"What hurts?" she asked.

Harry drew his jacket open. She looked down and saw that the black handle of a ten-inch knife was protruding from between his ribs. His white t-shirt was turning red with blood and blood was pattering down onto his shoes like rain. "The knife," he said. "It's not mine, you know. It's Draco's."