Chapter Twenty
"The Dark Lord has taken over Malfoy Manor," Malfoy started.
"I'm going to stop you right there," Ron said, turning away from the window. "I don't care what else you say, but if I hear you say Dark Lord one more time, I'll hex you through the wall. We don't worship that bastard. He's not a lord. He's a half-blood, an old man, the biggest prick on the planet, and nothing more. His name is Voldemort or Riddle."
Malfoy looked at Ron, clearly stunned at Ron's outburst. Malfoy turned to Harry, who shrugged.
"He's not wrong," Harry replied. "You're going to find that people are going to feel better about what you say if you leave the Dark Lord talk behind."
"I understand," Malfoy said, although Harry could tell he was uncomfortable with the idea of using Voldemort's name. "Lord Voldemort, as I said, has taken over Malfoy Manor. I was present at the Manor for two days after The D-Lord Voldemort occupied my home."
"What did you see during that time?" Hermione asked.
"Not as much as you would like," Malfoy replied. "For the most part, I was confined to my room. However, during the few times that I was able to leave, I noticed a few things. First, Lord Voldemort has clearly taken up residence inside the home, utilizing the master bedroom and its attached study as his own private quarters. Second, there was clearly something important in the dungeons."
"What do you mean?"
"For meals, I was escorted from my room to the dining room. Lord Voldemort views the Death Eaters as a twisted family and requires everyone in the house during meals to eat together."
"Really?" Harry asked.
"It's his way of torturing those who fail him publicly," Malfoy replied. "If you mess something up, you get invited to dinner where...where he'll torture you until you pass out. Then, he'll levitate you and throw you onto the table to remind everyone else how he punishes those who fail him."
"Merlin," Hermione muttered.
"Anyway," Draco said nervously, "between my bedroom and the main dining room, there is a set of stairs that lead down into the dungeons below the house. During the two days that I was there, I was escorted to the dining room six times. Each time, there was someone standing in front of that door. When I escaped, I Stunned the two Death Eaters that guarded my room and then made my way to the dungeons. At three in the morning, there was someone still standing guard outside that door."
"You're saying that it was being guarded from Death Eaters?" Harry asked.
"It was being guarded from everyone," Malfoy responded. "The only person that I saw go through that door was Lord Voldemort himself."
"What did you see when you escaped?" Daphne asked. "You said you went through the dungeons, correct?"
"I did," Malfoy replied. "Obviously, it was the middle of the night and dark, so I couldn't see much. But I did notice that there was something large in the corner of the dungeons, covered in some sort of sheet or fabric."
"And you didn't look at it?" Harry asked.
"Pardon me, I know that I should have been curious, but I was in the middle of a prison break and was just slightly more concerned with not dying than peeking under the cover."
"Fine," Harry replied, gritting his teeth. "How many people are there during the day and at night?"
"Based on the number of people there at meals, there's probably about a dozen present during the day. At night, I'd say that there are less. Malfoy Manor is incredibly well-warded, so he's not really concerned about anyone breaking in to harm him."
"Good thing," Ron muttered, "since, you know, that's exactly what we're trying to do."
"What else do we need to know?" Harry asked.
"Well, the house itself may be decently well guarded, but the property is not," Malfoy replied. "Also an advantage since we're going to need to break the wards before we can enter."
"Why?" Hermione asked.
"Unlike most inherited properties, Malfoy Manor does not simply pass its protections on to their heir when the head of the house dies. Therefore, when my father died-"
"When you killed him, you mean," Ron pointed out.
Malfoy glared at Ron and for a moment, Harry wondered if they were going to have it out right then and there. Instead, Malfoy ignored him.
"When my father died, the protections remained in place. That should have meant that there was no one alive who could have altered them. However, my father was apparently an even bigger sycophant than I thought. I had wondered how Rabastan Lestrange had gotten in without anyone allowing him entrance to the house."
"Your father gave Voldemort the ability to alter the wards of Malfoy Manor," Harry realized.
"He did what now?" Ron asked.
Malfoy nodded glumly. "Voldemort has altered the wards so that I can't get back in. However, since I am a Malfoy, there are certain protections that even Voldemort can't change. For one, I still remember where the house is."
"I take it that's not common?" Hermione asked.
"Malfoy Manor, like most Pureblood estates, is Unplottable to all but the members of the family. It's one of the few protections that is built into the family rather than the home itself, meaning that Voldemort has no authority to remove it."
"Won't Voldemort know if we've removed the wards?" Ron asked.
"Not if we do it right," Harry replied. "Dumbledore and I did it in Hungary. He had no idea we were there."
"Didn't you say that it took you several days?"
"Yes, but we hadn't been expecting the wards. We didn't know what they were, how they were constructed, or the correct order to remove them. We had to experiment with each one, one at a time. It was like picking the world's largest magical lock. In this instance, I'm hoping that Malfoy at the very least knows what kind of wards we're looking at."
"Generally, yes. There's your standard Anti-Muggle wards, Anti-Apparition wards, a couple that prevent someone from entering at speed, another that goes underground and prevents people from digging their way in, there's the one that protects against flying carpets, and-"
"Merlin, just how paranoid was your father," Ron asked.
"Most of these have existed for generations."
"Let me rephrase: how paranoid was your family?"
"Well, considering the nature of my family's illicit activities over the last several decades, my family had every right to be paranoid when you considered that an unexpected visit from the Ministry would lead to a rather lengthy stint in Azkaban."
"Alright, let's say that we get through the wards," Harry said. "How many ways into the Manor are there?"
"The exterior of the house has probably about a dozen different entrances. However, I'm assuming that you would like to use a slightly more subtle entrance."
"Yes, assume that," Harry said. Even in a situation where Malfoy was clearly needing their help, he still somehow managed to sound arrogant.
"There are two secret entrances that lead into the dungeons. I imagine that the one that I took out of the Manor will likely be blocked at this point. That one would have been easier as the entrance is actually outside of the wards. Assuming that one is closed to us, there is one other entrance that leads to the dungeons. That one is...less accessible."
"Define less accessible."
"Malfoy Manor sits atop a cliff, looking out over one of the largest lakes in all of Britain, larger even than the Black Lake. The first entrance that I had mentioned goes from the Manor away from the cliff towards the forest that surrounds the house. The second entrance...is built into the base of the cliff."
"That's not so bad," Ron replied. "We just conjure up some boats and sail across the lake."
"There's two problems with that plan," Malfoy countered. "First, the entrance is not on the surface of the water. When I said the base of the cliff, I meant the base of the cliff. As far as I know, the entrance is about forty meters underwater."
"Oh."
"What's the second reason?" Daphne asked.
"There's a water dragon in the lake."
"A water dragon?" Harry repeated.
"Yes. You see, we are not the first people to think of utilizing the water to attack Malfoy Manor. Hundreds of years ago, another family attacked the Manor and took it. When my family retook the Manor, the head of the house declared that no one would ever sail across the lake again. He nearly bankrupted the family in order to purchase a water dragon."
"What the hell does a water dragon even look like?" Ron asked.
"Imagine a regular dragon. Now, remove the wings and give it a large singular fin along its back. The water dragon that currently lives in the lake is roughly the size of the Hungarian Horntail that Potter fought."
"Are there any other ways into the manor?" Harry asked. The last thing he really wanted to do was try and go toe-to-toe with a dragon.
"There are. However, they all require approaching the manor by land. While we'll be able to remove the wards, there are certain enchantments on the ground that will give us away. Even if you use your Invisibility Cloak, they'll know we're coming."
"Which we desperately want to prevent," Harry sighed. "You're telling me that the only way into the manor is across a lake with a dragon in it?"
"There are no enchantments on the lake. My family has long considered the dragon protection enough."
"I hate everything about this," Ron said, marching out of the room.
"While I think he's being a bit dramatic, I have to agree," Daphne said, standing. "I want to kill Voldemort as much as the next person, but trying to fight a dragon is a fool's errand."
Daphne then joined Ron in walking out of the room, leaving Harry, Hermione, and Malfoy.
"You're sure about this?" Harry asked.
"As certain as I can possibly be," Malfoy said. "I have seen the dragon in action. I would not encourage you to face it if there was any other viable way in."
Harry stood and walked over to the window that Ron had previously looked out. Outside, the world was moving along as usual. Inside, Harry was considering fighting a dragon for the second time of his life.
"Hermione, can you show Malfoy to Regulus' old room?" Harry asked. "Then grab Ron and bring him back here."
"Sure," Hermione said, motioning for Malfoy to follow her.
Was there no other way? Surely there had to be. Harry knew that trying to draw Voldemort out wouldn't work. He'd tried that already to disastrous results. If he was being honest, he knew that sneaking into Malfoy Manor was their best bet.
That didn't mean that he had to like it.
Once Ron and Hermione were back in the room, they sat down together.
"So?" Harry said after neither of them spoke.
"So what?" Ron asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, so what?" Ron repeated. "This is an insane idea, but we're going to do it, right?"
"I think what Ron means is-"
"No, I'd like to hear from Ron what Ron means," Harry said, turning back to Ron. "What exactly did you mean?"
"It's not like we're going to get a choice," Ron growled. "I can see it in your eye. This is your plan and we're going to do it. Hermione and I aren't going to let you fight a dragon on your own, so we're going to go with you."
"You always have a choice," Harry fired back. "Besides, I have no interest in fighting a dragon. I've already done it once."
"And yet-"
"And yet nothing," Harry snapped. "Did you even want to hear what I was going to say or did you just assume that I was going to try and kill the dragon with The Sword of Gryffindor?"
"It wouldn't be the first time that our plan amounted to jump first, ask questions later."
"Would you two quit it?" Hermione barked. "Harry, did you have a plan?"
"I have the start of one," Harry said, pointedly looking away from Ron. "But until we know more about the wards, I can't come up with a better plan."
"What do you have so far?" Ron asked.
"We need to break down those wards. That's the first concern. If we don't get through the wards, then whether or not we can deal with the dragon is a mute point."
"That doesn't sound like a plan."
"I said that I have the start of one!" Harry shouted. "Merlin, what the hell is the matter with you?"
"Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Draco Malfoy is the source of all of our information?"
"What's your point?" Harry asked. "Is this some schoolyard bullshit? 'Oh, we can't trust Slytherins.""
"No, no, it's not that at all," Ron replied. "If I was so worried about Slytherins, I would have been complaining about Daphne this entire time. I trust Daphne; I could give a damn that she used to be a Slytherin. This has nothing to do with Gryffindors or Slytherins and everything to do with the fact that that slimy git made our lives miserable for years and now you want to follow him into the bowels of hell because he says that Voldemort might be there!"
As he spoke, Ron rose from his chair until he was standing over Harry, shouting at him. When he was finished, Harry smiled at him.
"You done?" Harry asked.
"Yeah," Ron said as he sank back into his chair. "I'm done."
"I don't like it either, you know."
"I know."
"Do you think that I want to rely on him?"
"I know you don't," Ron admitted. "And I know that I don't have a better idea. I just...I don't like this. We need to be careful. We need to take every opportunity to protect ourselves."
"We will," Harry assured him. "We're not going to break in tomorrow or the next day or even the day after that. We'll keep working on trying to figure out exactly what Voldemort's doing. We'll hope that he slips and that one of the Aurors notices something. Meanwhile, the three of us will be working with Malfoy to try and bring down the wards. Once we think we have that covered, then we address the dragon. Deal?"
"Deal," Ron nodded.
That night, just after midnight, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Draco, and Malfoy Apparated a spot just beyond the wards at Malfoy Manor. As much as Harry hated to admit it, Malfoy hadn't been wrong about the size of the lake or the water dragon. The massive home on the cliff on the opposite side of the lake was tiny where they stood, but the creature that swam just below the surface was anything but, leaving massive ripples in the water as it swam by.
"Merlin," Ron muttered the first time the creature got close. While it never lifted its head out of the water, Harry saw enough of its size to know that he wanted nothing to do with it.
That night, they spent most of their time simply identifying the wards that were in place. Since Harry had the most experience with breaking or removing wards (removing would be preferable in this case as breaking them would immediately let Voldemort know that they were there), he took the lead. For several hours, Harry stood at the edge of the lake, waving his wand in very specific patterns in an attempt to determine the best way to approach the process of removing the wards.
In the end, one night wasn't going to be enough to determine exactly how to break through the wards. In fact, it took them more than a week just to identify all of the wards, let alone begin the process of determining how to bring them down without alerting Lord Voldemort to their presence.
With the fact that a large percentage of their work was being done at night to make it more difficult for them to be spotted, Harry and the others could feel the weight of their sleepless nights on their bodies. When they returned from Malfoy Manor, they wandered around Grimmauld Place, looking for a place to sleep. They slept for a few hours before Daphne, Ron, and Hermione returned to the Ministry for part of the day. Hermione admitted that she'd fallen asleep in her office more than once since they'd started with their midnight ward-breaking sessions.
If Hermione was sleeping at work, Harry could only imagine what Ron was doing.
While they were doing that, Harry returned to Potter Manor each day in an attempt to nail down where Voldemort would go back in time, although he'd had little success. Rather than continue to beat his head against the wall with the specifics of how Voldemort would do it, Harry had taken to researching the areas around the half-dozen locations that they had identified as the prime locations where Voldemort might create the rift.
Unfortunately, that had been a dead end so far as well. While Harry had learned a bit more about Great Britain than he'd ever cared to learn, he found nothing that specifically spoke to a historical reason why Voldemort would choose one location over the other. Not that Voldemort was particularly interested in history. He cared for Hogwarts and the history of Slytherin, but beyond that, he never looked back, never learned from the past like everyone else did.
It was why there was a part of Harry that was still uncertain about where their research had taken them. While everything pointed to a rift that would take him further back in time than anyone else had safely traveled, the idea of it made Harry nervous. The reason was simple: if Voldemort was going back in time, that meant that he was capable of admitting his mistakes and if he was capable of admitting that he had made mistakes, then he was capable of learning from them. That would make him a vastly more dangerous enemy, one who was aware of his faults and actively sought to fix them rather than a madman who believed that every one of his failures had come down to luck.
One day, just after Hermione and Ron left for work, Harry was sitting in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place, sipping his coffee and praying that something would keep him awake through the day when out of nowhere, Malfoy took a seat across from him. Malfoy had not been particularly social during his time at Grimmauld Place. According to Daphne, he'd spoken to her a few times when she'd gone into work late, but neither Ron nor Hermoine had reported speaking to him at all.
Of course, Harry shouldn't have been surprised. Two of the members of the house hated him and the other two tolerated him and those numbers fluctuated based on the time of day.
"Yes?" Harry said, staring at his coffee.
"I...I want to thank you."
Of all the things that could have possibly come out of Malfoy's mouth, that was the furthest from the top of the list.
"Excuse me?"
"You didn't have to listen to me. You didn't have to let me help. You've done both of those things. So, thank you."
"Don't thank me," Harry said firmly. "You had valuable information. You still have valuable information. If you didn't, you wouldn't be here."
"I'm aware," Malfoy replied. "When I left Malfoy Manor, I considered running. I considered getting on a boat or taking the Floo to France and just leaving. I know that my family's time in the sun is over. I know that I will never again be wealthy or respected."
"Since you never deserved either of those things, that seems only fitting."
"Yes, it does," Malfoy admitted. "I was a bully, the next in a line of great bullies."
"Don't sound so proud."
"I'm not," Malfoy whispered. "I spent my childhood living in a bubble. All I knew was Malfoy Manor, then Hogwarts. For the first fifteen years of my life, I was told two things: a Pureblood was better than a Mudblood-"
"Say that word again and I'll kill you right here and now," Harry snarled.
"Of course, of course," Malfoy said, raising his hands apologetically so that he looked like he was surrendering. "Two things: Purebloods were better than everyone else and as a Malfoy, I was better than all the rest of the Purebloods. I was a Pureblood, which made me the best, and a Malfoy. That made me the best of the best."
"Is there a point to this story?" Harry asked in annoyance.
"It took me until The Battle of Hogwarts to realize that I was wrong."
"It took you that long?" Harry scoffed. "Merlin, how stupid are you? It should have taken you ten minutes regardless of how indoctrinated you were. It was clear from day one that Hermione was better than ninety percent of our class including the Purebloods. I'm a half-blood and once we got past pointing our wands in the right direction, I was always better than you."
"Yes, you were."
Harry furrowed his brow. "Did you just say-"
"Yes, you were better than me," Malfoy said intensely. "You have always been better than me. I used my father's power and influence to balance the odds and it never mattered. You were better than me and you always will be. Is that what you want to hear?"
Harry smiled. "I never needed to hear it from you. I still don't. You don't get it. Your opinion only mattered when your father pulled strings for you. Beyond that, you were a moderately talented child with more than moderately influential friends."
"I wanted to make my father proud," Malfoy stated. "Can you imagine what it was like to have Lucius Malfoy for a father?"
"I can't," Harry admitted. "But that doesn't matter anymore, Draco. It's been four years since he died, almost five. Four years since I gave you the choice to make something of yourself and you've done nothing. Honestly, I don't blame you for what you did as a child. You grew up with a father who loved the idea of his son more than the son he was raising. But, when I left you in Azkaban, you knew that your father was a terrible man. I saw it in your eyes. You knew that the man that you had grown up worshipping was a tyrant, a sadist, and a bad father. You knew all that and yet, you've spent the last four years hiding in your fancy house feeling bad for yourself while the rest of us are trying to put an end to Voldemort and the Death Eaters."
"You probably know as much as anyone else that would inform on Voldemort and you've said nothing. You could have literally given us access to the Death Eaters and you did nothing. So you loved your father and wanted to make him proud? So what? That was the shit that we dealt with when we were twelve. This is the real deal here. I could give a damn about Lucius Malfoy. He's dead and he's been dead for a while now and while he's probably still living in your head, that doesn't matter to me. What are you going to do with the opportunity presented to you? Four years and you've done nothing. Right now, it looks like I cashed in a lot of favors to get you out of jail for nothing. In fact, if you had gone to jail, the Ministry would have taken possession of Malfoy Manor. If you had stayed in Azkaban, Voldemort wouldn't have been able to use your home as his new lair."
"He would have just found somewhere else."
"You're missing the point. You came to me, not because you are desperate to end Voldemort, but because you want your house back. You didn't come here because you wanted to help. Hermione is here of her own free will. She wants to help. Same with Ron and with Daphne. You're here so that you can get your house back. One of these things is noble, one of these things matters. The other does not."
Harry stood and downed the remainder of his coffee.
"What do you believe in? I know what I believe in. I believe in a world where everyone can live equally regardless of their birth. I believe in a world where people are free to live their lives away from the constant wizarding war that we've faced for the last forty years. I believe that I will do anything to protect those that I love. What do you believe in?"
Malfoy thought about it for a second and then looked up at Harry, a disheartened look on his face.
"I don't know."
"Answer that question. Then maybe, just maybe you'll find something worthwhile to do with your life."
Finally, on the first of May, Harry and Malfoy finally figured out exactly the order which they would need to bring the wards down in order to avoid detection. While that was good news, and something worth celebrating, it simply led to another question, one so eloquently articulated by Ron after several consecutive nights of interrupted sleep.
"Now can we talk about the fucking dragon?" Ron groaned.
"Do we have to?" Hermione asked. "I'd like to get some sleep before I go to work."
"Tomorrow morning," Harry promised Ron. "Go to work and then go home and get some real sleep. We'll reconvene here tomorrow at eight to talk about the dragon."
Harry knew that everyone needed at least a day to recover and sure enough, when they returned to Grimmauld Place the following morning, everyone was in much better spirits, at least until Hermione mentioned the dragon.
"So, I did some research last night," Hermione said.
"Is that why you came to bed so late?" Harry asked.
"You're surprised?" Hermione asked.
"No, no one is surprised that after more than a week of sleep deprivation, you elected to study instead of sleep," Ron remarked, earning him a punch in the arm from Hermione.
"Anyway, I did some research. Water dragons are exceedingly rare. As of a few years ago, there were only a few dozen of them on the planet."
"Which of course means that one of them is floating in the lake guarding Malfoy's house," Ron murmured.
"Right. The book that I found said that they can grow to over one hundred feet in length. For comparison, that's twice as tall as the Horntail that Harry fought. However, unlike every other breed of dragon, water dragons don't have wings nor do they stand on their back legs. In the few instances where they do come on land, they walk on all fours. On land, they move quite slow. However, in the water, they can swim at speeds of over forty miles an hour. That's sixty-five kilometers per hour."
"How many kilometers across is your lake?" Ron asked.
"Five or six?" Malfoy replied.
Hermione leaned over the desk in the study where they were meeting and grabbed a piece of paper. After scribbling some numbers on it, she looked up at the rest of them, horror on her face.
"The dragon can cross the lake in about five minutes," Hermione said nervously. "The worst part isn't even the speed. Water dragons possess a row of razor-sharp scales that create a fin along their back, allowing them to cut through the water. They've been known to destroy Muggle shipping vessels simply by swimming into them."
"Is there any good news?" Harry asked.
"They don't spit fire," Hermione said plainly, "and, according to this, their sight is terrible. In fact, they think that most of the incidents caused by water dragons over the years are accidental because it's unlikely that the dragon could have seen its target. They track their food almost entirely by scent and they have a highly adapted sense of hearing which allows them to detect even the smallest movements in the water around them."
"So, we can't get too close to the water, because the dragon will smell us, and if we somehow figure out how to get past that little problem, we can't actually move on the water, because it will know exactly where we are?" Ron asked dramatically.
"That's pretty much it, yeah," Hermione replied.
"Great," Ron replied.
"Well, the scent isn't a big deal," Daphne replied.
"It's not?" Malfoy asked.
"No, it's not," Harry answered. "I know at least two different spells that we can use that should mask our smell."
"You do?" Hermione asked.
"There were times that we were tracking Voldemort to places deep in the jungle. We didn't want to give ourselves away, so we masked everything. You could have walked right into us and not even known we were there. The animals in the jungle only knew that we were there when the leaves around us moved, but they couldn't sense us coming."
"Alright. Did not know that," Hermione said. "I guess masking our scent isn't that big of a deal."
"That still leaves the fact that we can't move on the water."
"Can we fly over it?" Harry asked Malfoy, who shook his head.
"No brooms, no enchantments that allow you to fly unless you're specifically granted permission by the head of the family."
"But we can go fast, right?" Ron asked. "That's specifically tied into the wards if I remember correctly."
"That's right," Malfoy said. "Honestly, that might be our best bet."
"What might?" Hermione asked.
"Conjure a boat and enchant it to go really fast."
Everyone stared at Malfoy. Had he seriously just suggested that they attempt to outrun the incredibly fast water dragon?
"I don't think that's such a good idea," Hermione replied.
"Well, I don't hear anyone else suggesting something," Malfoy argued.
"What if we could create a storm?" Daphne asked.
"Why would that help?" Harry asked.
"The water hitting the lake," Hermione said, clearly following Daphne's train of thought when no one else had. "It would create hundreds of thousands of small noises. If the dragon uses sound to move, then as long as we went slow, the rain could potentially cover us as we crossed the lake."
"Could potentially cover us?" Harry asked.
"The only way to know for certain would be to test it," Hermione said nervously. "It seems likely to work though. But, I don't know of a way to create a storm out of nowhere."
"I don't know how to do it, but I know where to look," Harry said.
During his travels with Dumbledore, Harry had taken to collecting books on unique schools of magic. While they were in India, Harry had acquired a book on the magical manipulation of the earth. However, Harry had never read all the way through the book. He knew that there was information on how to create small earthquakes, how to generate a tornado out of thin air, and a way to quite literally manipulate the water in the air.
It was that last skill that led Harry to believe that there would be something in the book about creating rain and he was right. After a couple of hours of research, Harry had identified the spell that he would need to use in order to create the rain. However, there were a couple of problems with using the spell.
First, it was a painfully complicated spell which involved a series of precise wand movements coupled with specifically timed incantations. Second, the book warned the reader that this spell required an incredible amount of magical power. That's because of the third problem: it didn't just create rain.
It created a monsoon. Harry looked through the book over and over, searching for a less powerful version of the spell, but he found nothing. If this was their plan, and after a day of searching, the others agreed that it was likely the best that they were going to get, then they were going to be forced to cross the lake in a conjured boat in the middle of the worst storm any of them had ever seen. Their visibility would be almost non-existent and there was a high chance that the storm would create choppy waters that would make it easy for them to be thrown from the boat. While there were some magical protections that they could take, they had to be careful about the amount of magic they used once they started their journey across the lake.
The last thing that any of them wanted was for Voldemort to realize they were coming.
It took Harry five additional days of practice, executing everything but the final incantation, before he felt comfortable with the timing and execution of the spell. On May 5th, they were finally ready. Each of them took the day off from work to rest and prepare.
Harry did his best not to get his hopes up. He knew that their first priority was to kill Voldemort, but he also knew that there was a strong chance that they would be discovered before then. In actuality, Harry just wanted more information on what Voldemort was doing. If they managed to get in and out and figure out a bit more about Voldemort's plan, then Harry would consider the mission a success, assuming they all made it out alive.
Of course, there was still the hippogriff in the room: Draco Malfoy. For two weeks, Ron had made it abundantly clear that if it looked like Malfoy had betrayed them, he would kill Malfoy without a moment's hesitation. More than once, Harry had been forced to nearly drag Ron away from Malfoy to prevent the two of them from getting into an actual fight.
That, coupled with the fact that Daphne hadn't spoken to Malfoy at all in the two weeks he'd been there, meant that the only person that Harry truly felt comfortable with at the moment was Hermione. At the very least, he knew that she was going to do her job.
After having spent two weeks at Grimmauld Place, Harry and Hermione left for a few hours during the day before they met up with Ron for dinner. They had intended to sit down, maybe read a book together, or even watch a movie on Hermione's television. Instead, they spent most of the day in bed, enjoying each other's company in a far more physical manner.
After the fourth time Harry made Hermione call out his name, they cleaned themselves up and then simply laid in bed and held each other, their exposed skin seemingly clinging to each other. Neither of them said that they were afraid. Harry knew that he was and he didn't need her to tell him. He could see it every time that he looked at her.
They had every reason to be afraid. Hell, the least dangerous part about what they were planning on doing was facing a damned water dragon. After that was when things got truly frightening. But Harry knew that they had done everything they could to prepare. While Harry had still never performed the spell intended to get them across the lake, he was confident that it would work. They had contingency plans ready if someone fell out of the boat or if the water dragon wasn't distracted by the rain. Once they got inside the Manor, everyone knew that Harry was the only one giving orders and everyone else was to follow them.
Still, he couldn't help but be afraid. After twenty years of waiting, Harry knew that he was closer to the end of his journey than ever. Would he be able to kill Voldemort when the time came? Would he die in the process? Harry wasn't afraid of death, although he wasn't particularly interested in giving his life to kill Voldemort. But, he also knew that if he was given the choice between surviving and ending Voldemort, he was going to ensure that the Dark wizard died.
Harry watched as Hermione eventually fell asleep, her brown hair falling over her eyes. They'd only be in a relationship for such a short amount of time, but to Harry, it felt like it was how things had always been. Things hadn't changed much for them, outside of the amount of sex that they were having. And yet, everything was different. Harry had always loved her, but it was different now. His love for her was different now. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe this was the same love that he'd always had for her; maybe it was just the fact that he was acknowledging it that was different.
In any case, Harry had always known that his journey might end in his death. Before he had truly understood the depths of his feelings for Hermione, he had accepted that. But now, knowing what he would be giving up, knowing what his death would do to her, he refused to accept that his journey would end that way.
He would kill Lord Voldemort and then...well, Harry would figure out what would come next when that time actually came.
Until then, he was headed in only one direction: towards Voldemort.
Just before midnight, after a particularly enjoyable dinner with Ron and Susan (who knew that they were doing something dangerous that evening, but didn't know exactly what that was), Harry and the others returned to Grimmauld Place where Daphne and Draco were waiting silently in the study.
Harry stepped into the middle of the room.
"Our first priority is to kill Lord Voldemort," Harry declared. "If we can't do that, then we figure out where he's opening the rift."
"And if we can't do that, then we send some Death Eaters to hell before we get out of there," Ron growled.
"Only if we can do so safely," Harry said. "There's only five of us. We can't fight an army."
About a week earlier, they had considered asking Tonks and the Aurors for help. However, as Daphne had pointed out, Voldemort was clearly still getting information from the Ministry and it was entirely possible that one or more of his sources were Aurors. Harry didn't like to admit it, but she was probably right.
That meant that there was no backup coming to save them. It was the five of them against whoever was in Malfoy Manor.
"We Apparate to the edge of the wards, just like we've done a thousand times. This time, we take the wards down. Once we've done that, I'll conjure the storm and we'll get across the lake."
"You make it sound so easy," Daphne remarked.
"No, it won't be. None of this is going to be easy," Harry replied. "Once we cross the lake, we enter the Manor through the hidden entrance at the base of the cliff. For this, there's no other choice but to move quickly. We use the Transfiguration that we all worked on to swim to the bottom of the cliff where we find the secret entrance. Once inside, we make our way to the dungeons."
"We'll quickly check out whatever is under that sheet if it's still there before we progress to the master chambers and the study where we expect Voldemort to be. We move silently and we silently Stun anyone who gets in our way. Once we reach the study, I kill Voldemort and we sneak out."
"That's it?" Malfoy asked.
"That's it," Harry said. "It's not going to be easy. Something is going to go wrong, but we'll think on our feet. If, for any reason, it becomes clear that we're not getting to Voldemort, we will immediately back out. We find the closest exit and we take it. Is that clear?"
Everyone in the room nodded.
"Once we leave here, you all do what I say. If I say, you hide. If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to abandon me, you do it, no questions asked. Is that clear?"
"Absolutely not," Ron replied.
"Ron-"
"No, I'm not putting up your sacrificial bullshit," Ron shot back.
"Ron!" Harry barked. "This isn't sacrificial. If I'm dueling Voldemort tonight, I'm winning. If I'm telling you to run, it's because I can't protect you."
"You think we need your protection?" Ron asked.
"Against four Death Eaters? No. Against eight? Probably not. But what if twenty show up? Or forty?"
"Well, if forty Death Eaters show up, I won't need you to order me to run."
"Fine," Harry chuckled. Trust Ron to make things difficult. "Are we ready?"
Harry looked around the room. He saw fear, but he also saw determination. He saw four other people who were committed to ending this. That's all he needed to see.
"Then let's go."