Draco walked down Knockturn Alley. Montague was still but his side. But the two boys were silent. Each to absorbed in their own thoughts to be much of a conservationist.
Draco was feeling significantly worse that he had before visiting Mr. Borgin.
It was infuriating.
He had been so close. So close. Just a breath away from figuring out the first half of the problem.
If he had two Vanishing Cabinets, he could set one up inside Hogwart's castle and use them as a passage way for the Death Eaters, passed all the magical protection, straight into the middle of the school.
It would have been a perfect plan.
So simple yet so effective.
It would have been perfect.
It would have been.
If Mr. Borgin had the second cabinet.
Draco kicked the ground half in frustration, half in hopeless anger.
Draco was so concentrated on his own despairing thoughts that by the time the two boys step back onto Diagon Alley, he had still not notice Montague's still slightly petrified expression.
That was until Montague, who was not watching where he was going, ran head first into an open door.
"You okay there?" Draco asked slightly amused but his smile died when Montague stood up, his anxious eyes trained on Draco's face.
Before Draco had a chance to ask what was the matter, Montague began to talk.
"That was it," he said, his voice tight and constrained. "That was the cabinet."
"What cabinet?" Draco asked thoroughly confused.
Montague swallowed, an apprehensive look still flitted across his face, which seemed odd on such a large, usually confident Slytherin boy.
"The one." Montague began. "The one, the Weasley's—" He did not finish his sentence and began walking again.
But Draco understood. Montague thought that the Vanishing Cabinet in Borgin and Burkes was the same one the blood-traitor Weasley twins had shoved him in last year. He had Apparated out after being stuck in some sort of weird limbo place.
But he had Apparated into the U-bend of a toilet and had spend the rest of the year in the Hospital wing, incapacitated and completely mental. In fact he had been out maybe two weeks when Draco had met him on the way to Borgin and Burkes.
"No, Montague. Your wrong, Mr. Borgin said that Cabinet was in there for ages and despite he's a daft old git he does know everything he's got in the shop of his."
Montague stopped walking. "No that was the cabinet. I wouldn't have forgotten that." He shuddered. "It was truly awful. You have no idea. I was stuck in this limbo space. Just floating completely trapped. If I had not Apparated out, I would have probably stayed there until I died or my brain turned to mush. It was dark and empty and cold. I couldn't see anything. But I could hear. Well sometimes. Sometimes I could hear what was going on in Hogwarts. Other times I heard old Borgin's voice. It was terrible."
Draco shuddered at the thought.
Montague continued speaking, "I know that was the cabinet. The very one."
"That's not possible. That your cabinet is still at Hogwarts."
But Montague shook his head. "It was that one, I'm positive of it. That or it's an identical copy."