Harry fumed silently as he paced the Gryffindormon Room. Draco had been missing for over fifteen hours now; how long exactly wasn’t known because Harry didn’t know when Draco left.

Harry fought back the yearning to hit something, knowing that were he to let out his rage, his two friends would be more scared of him than they already were. As it was, his behavior resembled a caged animal to them.

It was all just so stupid! Sure, if a student was petrified the whole school went on bloody alert, but if a student was just missing, there were protocols! Was Draco really missing? Bloody hell, Harry was so sick of hearing another teacher ask that to the rest of them.

Snape had gone to Dumbledore immediately and while Harry was sure that Dumbledore believed them, there was a bunch of legal stuff set in place for just this asion.

So after rounding up all the teachers at four in the morning, they had begun searching the castle. All of it. Every room. And Harry had been sent back to his dormitory to wait! Then, when everyone realized Draco really wasn’t in the castle, as Harry had been telling them, they had to search the bloody Forbidden Forest because apparently Draco had permission to go there because he needed someplace to go be a Veriae for a while where no one could see him, or something like that.

And of course, the centaurs hadn’t taken kindly to a group of people gallivanting around in their forest, even if one of those people had been Hagrid, who knew his way around pretty well. Of course, they found that Draco wasn’t in the forest, after three hours of searching. Harry could have told them that but they didn’t listen, of course.

So now they were thinking that maybe Draco really wasn’t in Hogwarts. So they had to go check Hogsmead! Harry, of course, knew that Draco wouldn’t be found there. He knew where Draco was. So did Snape and so, he suspected, did Dumbledore.

“Harry, are you OK?” Hermione asked cautiously as she saw her friend had stopped pacing.

“Do I look like I’m OK?” Harry shot back immediately.

“Looks like you’re worried sick,” Ron observed.

“We should have stopped this searching hours ago!” Harry exploded. “If he’d done something stupid like going to Hogsmead, then he would have been back by now anyway!”

“And he wouldn’t have left in the middle of the night,” Hermione added.

“Exactly!”

“So what are we going to do about it?” Ron asked.

“What can we do? They obviously don’t want us involved,” Hermione pointed out. “You shouldn’t even be here, Harry. They told you to go wait in your rooms in case he came back.”

Harry waved a hand at the Marauder’s Map on the table. “I would have known if he came back,” he muttered.

“But if they go to find you and tell you that they actually believe you, you won’t be there,” Hermione continued.

Harry sighed. “Yeah. You’re right. I’ll see you later then.”

“They’ll find him, Harry.” Hermione tried to beforting.

“Yeah, even if they have to send Dobby to go open the door to Malfoy Manor for them,” Ron joked.

Neither of the two saw Harry stop and smile slightly as he left themon Room.

Dobby was, as always, ecstatic to see Harry Potter.

“How can Dobby be helping you, Harry Potter?” he asked brightly.

“I need your help Dobby, and it’s very important.”

The House Elf practically squealed his joy at being able to help.

Harry crouched down low in a corner to talk to Dobby so that the other House Elves in the kitchen would not overhear. “Could you still get into Malfoy Manor if you wanted to?” he asked.

Dobby’s ears drooped a bit but he nodded. “I could, Mr. Harry Potter sir.”

“I need to get into Malfoy Manor, Dobby. It’s important. I need you to connect one fireplace in Malfoy Manor to a fireplace here. Can you do that?”

“Oh I can, Mr. Harry Potter sir!” Dobby was again happy to help.

“Connect it to the Room of Requirement’s fireplace then.” Harry grinned and the two parted ways.

Harry walked back and forth in front of the Room of Requirement. I need a fireplace and floo powder, he thought forcefully as he paced.

Opening the door revealed an empty room except for a large, ornate fireplace, filled with logs and yet unlit. On the mantle above the fireplace was a large pot filled with floo powder. Perfect.

A small pop sound to his left indicated Dobby’s return.

“It’s all done, Mr. Harry Potter sir. I is connecting you to the fireplace in old Master’s study.”

“Perfect, Dobby.” Harry went to grab a handful of floo powder.

“Mr. Harry Potter sir!” Harry turned back to Dobby. “There are bad people in that house, Harry Potter, VERY bad people.” The elf’s eyes were wide and Harry realized immediately what the elf was talking about.

“I’ll make sure they don’t see me,” Harry promised, cloaking himself in his invisibility cloak before stepping into the fireplace.

“Malfoy Manor!”

In a flash of green flames, Harry Potter was no longer at Hogwarts.

Ron noticed that Hermione had been quiet for a long time; her quill was paused over the word she had been writing three minutes ago.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Ron, what way would you leave the Gryffindormon Room if you were going to the dungeons?” Hermione asked.

“Well I’d go left to the stairs.”

“So would I. But Harry went right.”

Ron suddenly had a bad feeling. “But where would he go?”

“Let’s go have a chat with Medusa.” Hermione stood and the two made their way towards the dungeons.

Draco cautiously arrived at Malfoy Manor, calling on the numerous wind currents in the area to shield him from sight as he touched down on the lawn. Flying from Hogwarts to Malfoy Manor took a long time, even with the help of the wind and water currents making clouds to hide him. It was also very tiring. Draco had to stop three times along the way to rest and regain his strength, lest he fall out of the sky for lack of energy. But he had planned for this, which was why he’d left so early in the morning and had not planned to get back until Sunday evening.

It was just about time for supper. If all was well, he’d just slip inside and surprise his father for a meal, get reprimanded for doing something so foolish, and then they’d talk about these attacks. Draco knew though that all was not so easy as that. The letters had warned him of this. But what was wrong…that was what he was here to find out.

The wards around the Manor recognized him, he noticed as he felt the subtle touch of Veriae magic, his father’s addition to the wards. Stepping up to the large double doors, he waited for the wards to admit him. Silently, the door unlocked and he slipped inside.

All the lights were on inside the Manor. Strange, Draco thought. His father never left all the lights on. Malfoys were creatures of darkness, and his father was quitefortable with only one candle lit in the entire house, thank you very much. Draco had inherited this taste from his father. The only one who constantly left all the lights on in the rooms of the house was…Narcissa.

Draco’s lip curled in disgust as he walked silently down the hall, dropping into a corner when he heard two female voices talking.

“—have to have him write another letter tonight.”

“'Cissy dear, don’t worry. He can barely move, much less use those Veriae powers.”

“—nothing can go wrong tonight—”

“—Initiation—”

The voices got quieter as the two women walked away, leaving Draco fuming. He knew those voices. Narcissa and his aunt, Bellatrix. Something strange was going on here, Draco thought. But he had to find his father without being seen. If Bellatrix was here, then who knew how many other Death Eaters were here as well. So Draco headed for one place that no self-respecting Death Eater would bother going: the kitchens. The House Elves could tell him what was going on.

Ron and Hermione ran through the halls, oblivious of the rule that said they couldn’t, heading to the kitchen. They waited impatiently for the portrait to open and raced inside as soon as they could fit through.

“Dobby!” Ron panted. “Where’s Dobby?”

“Hello friends of Harry Potter!” Dobby waved to them from where the House Elves were mixing raspberries into pie mix.

“Dobby, Harry’s in trouble!”

Dobby’s eyes widened to a size they did not think possible and in an instant he disappeared. Ron groaned and Hermione sighed at this action.

“Well, there goes that idea,” Ron muttered.

“Attention! Will all students please return to theirmon Rooms immediately!” McGonagall’s voice sounded through the school.

“We have to tell Dumbledore,” Hermione spoke, her tone leaving no room for discussion, not that Ron would have protested anyway.

Harry rolled out of the fireplace and just missed hitting the leg of a mahogany desk.

“What was that?” a gruff voice asked.

“What was what?” another answered.

“I thought I heard something.”

“I think you’ve gone crazy.”

“Shut up.”

Harry pulled the invisibility cloak tighter around himself as he edged towards the open door. The two Death Eaters began to argue as he slowly slipped out. Harry ducked into a dark corner just outside the door. If Snape was right and the Death Eaters hadn’t rerouted the floo system, he should be somewhere in Lucius’s wing…which was on the opposite side of the house as Draco’s. Now that he was actually here, he didn’t really know exactly what he was going to do. Somewhere in this house was Draco, Lucius, a whole lot of Death Eaters, and maybe Voldemort. He had to find the first two without running into the second two.

“Master Draco!” a House Elf squealed as the boy slipped into the kitchen. The boy hushed the House Elf, listening to see if there was any movement in the hall before turning back to the creature that was cowering at his side.

“Speak quietly. What has happened?”

“Oh it was awful, Master Draco!” The House Elf, buried her face in his robes as she sobbed. “They sent these things to attack Master Lucius, Master Draco, big black creatures that make the air freeze!”

“Is my father alright?” Draco recognized the description of a Dementor.

“They is ordered not to hurt Master Lucius, Master Draco. That was for

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