Magic Never Dies (Harmione)

Chapter 26

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Someone had beaten them to it, and it wasn't Voldemort.

However he had gotten down into the Chamber it wasn't the way Harry had managed it last time; the sink in Myrtle's bathroom was still firmly in place.

Malfoy, however, was waiting. Draco Malfoy, the other boy Myrtle had befriended in a toilet. Harry had a brief, uncomfortable flashback to another bathroom; Malfoy's face streaked with tears and contorting as he attempted to Crucio Harry, the crimson blossoming of blood when Harry had countered with the Prince's Sectumsempra on Draco, desperate and unaware of the havoc it would wreak.

But he'd do it again in a heartbeat now if Malfoy didn't move, and he could see that Draco knew it too.

"I knew it was too good to be true," Myrtle lamented, swooping from above Malfoy's white-blond head toward Harry. "They said you were dead, but I knew."

"Well, look who it is," Ron sneered. "Voldemort's naughty lap dog."

"Don't, Ron," Harry heard Hermione say softly, and he knew that she could see the shadows in Malfoy's eyes too.

"Excuse us," Harry said, indicating the sink.

Draco's wand arm quivered and Ron let fly with a stupefy; the Slytherin dodged it and hexed back. Ron shielded himself and Hermione and the hex rebounded on Harry who shuddered once like a wet cat and resumed his progress toward the sink unharmed.

Draco paled significantly but his silvery eyes gleamed. "We need to talk," he said, and cast a muffliato toward Ron and Hermione. His time on the run with Snape had clearly produced more than just potions, then.

Harry waved his wand vaguely and undid it. "Anything you have to say to me, you say to them as well. They're my friends."

Malfoy gave a Snape-worthy sneer. "That's always been half your problem, Potter. No taste in companions."

"Perhaps you could cut the obligatory Slytherin shite and get on with it, 'cause I've got things to do," Harry reminded him. "Are you trying to stop me from getting into the Chamber or not?"

"He's got my mother down there," Malfoy said quietly, "and he's going to kill her if either my father or I don't bring you to him alive and alone."

"Don't listen to this rubbish, Harry. Even if a word of it were true, his mother made her bed a long time ago," Ron warned him.

"If you think I'm actually going to surrender myself to you or something you're out of your mind, Malfoy. Look at it this way. I'm so bloody tired of all this that I'm going down there anyway. Only I'm going on my own terms, and Ron and Hermione are coming with me. If he kills me, your side wins. If I kill him, your Mum lives. She'll probably end up in Azkaban with you and your Dad, but you'll still be one big happy family together. So why don't you just get out of my way, okay?"

Draco stepped aside.

Harry looked at him suspiciously. "Come on, Malfoy, I don't have time for this. What are you really up to?"

The very first magical boy he ever met all those years ago, in Madam Malkins in Diagon Alley before ever even coming to Hogwarts, gazed at him steadily. "It's been a long time coming, Potter, but if you're still noble enough and stupid enough to feel that you have to go down there on your own who am I to get in your way?" Draco said. "I envy you that... not what's going to happen to you, but actually wanting to... face it. Finish it. Good luck, Po... Harry. Whichever way it goes, I don't imagine I'll see you again."