Suffocating In Darkness

Chapter 5

I spent a lot of the last week of the holidays pondering the meaning of Malfoy's behavior in Knockturn Alley. What disturbed me most was the satisfied look on Malfoy's face as he had left the shop. Nothing that made Malfoy look that happy could be good news. To my slight annoyance, however, neither Lyra, Oliver, Ron nor Hermione seemed quite as curious about Malfoy's activities as Harry and I were; or at least, they seemed to get bored of discussing it after a few days.

"Yes, I've already agreed it was fishy, Harry," said Hermione a little impatiently. She was sitting on the windowsill in Fred and George's room with her feet up on one of the cardboard boxes and had only grudgingly looked up from her new copy of Advanced Rune Translation. "But haven't we agreed there could be a lot of explanations?"

"Maybe he's broken his Hand of Glory," said Ron vaguely, as he attempted to straighten his broomstick's bent tail twigs. "Remember that shriveled-up arm Malfoy had?"

"But what about when he said, 'Don't forget to keep that one safe'?" asked Harry for the umpteenth time. "That sounded to me like Borgin's got another one of the broken objects, and Malfoy wants both."

"You reckon?" said Oliver.

"Yeah, I do," said Harry. When nobody answered, he said, "Malfoy's father's in Azkaban. Don't you think Malfoy'd like revenge?"

Ron looked up, blinking.

"Malfoy, revenge? What can he do about it?"

"That's our point, we don't know!" I said, frustrated. "But he's up to something and I think we should take it seriously. His father's a Death Eater and--"

I broke off, my eyes fixed on the window behind Hermione, my mouth open. A startling thought had just occurred to me.

"Minnie?" said Lyra in an anxious voice. "What's wrong?"

"Your scar's not hurting again, is it?" asked Ron nervously.

"He's a Death Eater," I said slowly. "He's replaced his father as a Death Eater!"

There was a silence; then Ron erupted in laughter. "Malfoy? He's sixteen, Minnie! You think You-Know-Who would let Malfoy join?"

"It seems very unlikely, Minnie," said Hermione in a repressive sort of voice. "What makes you think--?"

"In Madam Malkin's. She didn't touch him, but he yelled and jerked his arm away from her when she went to roll up his sleeve. It was his left arm. He's been branded with the Dark Mark."

Everyone looked at each other.

"Well..." said Ron, sounding thoroughly unconvinced.

"I think he just wanted to get out of there, Minnie," said Hermione.

"He showed Borgin something we couldn't see," Harry pressed on stubbornly. "Something that seriously scared Borgin. It was the Mark, I know it--he was showing Borgin who he was dealing with, you saw how seriously Borgin took him!"

They exchanged another look.

"I'm not sure, Harry..."

"Yeah, I still don't reckon You-Know-Who would let Malfoy join..."

Annoyed, but absolutely convinced we were right, Harry and I snatched up a pile of filthy Quidditch robes and left the room; Mrs. Weasley had been urging us for days not to leave our washing and packing until the last moment. On the landing we bumped into Ginny, who was returning to her room carrying a pile of freshly laundered clothes.

"I wouldn't go in the kitchen just now," she warned us. "There's a lot of Phlegm around."

"I'll be careful not to slip in it." Harry smiled.