Draco Sinister

Chapter Eleven - The Sleep of Reason

The sleep of reason brings forth monsters.

***

"I need your help," Sirius Black said.

Without a word, Snape shut the door firmly in Sirius ́ face.

***

It was so clingingly wet in the corridors under the Burrow that Ginny felt as if every breath she took filled lungs with water. She could hear Ron, Hermione and Charlie behind her, splashing through the puddles that became increasingly deep, Ron muttering under his breath as he went. They were talking, but she didn ́t join in. She was concentrating on following the very slight, very insistent tugging sensation in the center of her chest, pulling her forward.

"So what exactly happened to Helga Hufflepuff?" Charlie was asking.

He was holding his wand high above their heads, lighting the path in front of them. Of all of them, he was the driest, since his tough dragonhide trousers kept off the water.

"Slytherin killed her," said Hermione, who had given up trying to stay dry and was splashing through the puddles as if she enjoyed it.

"He killed Godric, too. And Rowena, but that wasn ́t on purpose.

Not," she added hastily, "that that makes it all right. I ́m just saying."

"He seems to have regarded homicide as not just a job, but a hobby," said Ron, still keeping a watchful eye out for spiders.

"Well, he was a general," said Hermione. "He had his own army. He killed people all the time. I suppose he just," she shuddered, "got a taste for it."

"Not to mention," put in Charlie, "that when you can flatten entire cities at a whim, a tendency towards quiet reflection and seeing-things-from-the-other-fellow's-point-of-view is seldom necessary."

"Thatś true," Hermione agreed.

Ginny suddenly paused, and the rest of them paused with her. They were at a place where the corridor split off into a triple-branched fork: left, right, and straight ahead.

"Whatś up Gin?" Ron demanded.

"I can ́t quite feel which way to go," said Ginny, a little anxiously.

The tugging feeling seemed to have gone for the moment, and she suddenly felt cold and rather damp.

"Well, you must have some idea," said Ron, a bit peevishly.

"Ron," said Charlie, warningly.

Ginny shook her head. "No, I..."

"Well, letś go straight ahead then," announced Ron, walking past her. Ginny hesitated for a moment, and was about to follow after him when, having taken no more than twenty steps down the corridor, Ron suddenly vanished.

***

"And you trust her?"

Draco rolled his eyes as Harry hissed in his ear. They stood side by side, flattened against the wall of the wide stone corridor outside their erstwhile prison cell. Fleur was down at the end of the corridor, peering anxiously around the corner.

Harry shivered. Malfoy Manor was old, so was Hogwarts, but this place was ancient; age seemed to
seep, like cold, from its very stones. It was dim, too - torches burned in brackets on the wall, but not very many and not bright. He knew now from Fleur that they were at the castle in the forest where Hermione had been held prisoner; Draco had even claimed that he recognized the corridor they were standing in from his previous visit, but then he had stopped, blinked, shaken his head, and announced, "Itś the same castle all right, but it looks...different."