Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Puzzle

Conny woke slightly later, her face sticky in a pool of blood. She groaned and blinked, trying to see anything, but it was mostly black, save for five tiny lines of light from a grate high in the ceiling. She tried to stand, but her hands and feet were bound. Crumbs. Of course. Malfoy. She really needed to employ a good pixie and a bad pixie to stand on her shoulders and remind her not to be such an idiotic arse. Taunt a death eater, why don't you Conny, in a room full of his mates inside a painting. Fool.

She wiggled and flipped onto her back, using her hand to sit up. Her head was spinning, but she saw, in the dimness, that there was a smear of blood across the floor. So she must have woken up and dragged herself to where she was now. Gods. Conny's mind raced. There was no way she could hop her way out of these tunnels.

"Oh, hang on." She muttered, her voice all cracked. "You're stupid, Conyeri. Dad gives you superboots and you spend more time forgetting them than using them."

She wiggled her toes inside the comfortable, perfectly fitting carom boots and prayed that they were as awesome as she remembered. Slowly, she shuffled into position and rocked backwards, forwards, backwards again, gathering momentum until – hup! – She sprang to her feet, wobbling precariously, but then found her footing.

"Mad skills." She grinned, hopping over to the slivers of light and looking up. Oh, Merlin's tampons, the sky was a darkening blue… which meant that it was sunset, and the feast would be in full swing. She didn't have much time at all. She didn't have a wand, either.

"This would be a great time to accidentally transform into a bedside table." She told herself, half expecting it to work. She only really did that when she was scared at being caught somewhere she shouldn't be, though. Damn. "Hopping it will have to be."

She was about to set off down the tunnel when there was a curse from above. She hopped out of sight of the grate, into the gloom, as a very disgruntled-sounding Crabbe pulled off the grate. He called up above to Macnair- they must be lowering the crate into the tunnels. The hoist and pulley system they'd made creaked and protested; Conny could hear the wood bending and warping under the weight of the crate. It came closer to the grate, and it looked like things were going to go fine for them until, with a sickening snap, the pulley broke.

"Shit!"

The crate crashed to the floor of the tunnel. It was packed with straw, which flew everywhere like sinister confetti. Crabbe peered down, and hastily bolted the grate back into place, cursing like a sailor.

The debris shifted. With what sounded worryingly like a growing hiss, planks and straw moved off the back of something scaly and winged.

Conny wasn't curious enough to wait around to see what was scaly and winged at the same time. She twirled around, took a last look over her shoulder, and started hopping as though her life depended on it.

The monster in the crate, however, wasn't at all concussed by its fall. Conny hopped and hopped, her carom boots helping her balance and sending her launching across the grimy, slippery floor. She heard behind her a scrambling of long, sharp claws in the smashed wood, and the ruffling of wings. The thing seemed to smell for a minute, then unleashed a high, piercing cry, like it was sad, and then, snorted in anger. It began to bound after her, its body slapping against the ground, cawing and snarling.

"Ohcrapohcrap." She huffed, nearly skidding into a storm drain. "Merlin's sterling silver nostril-hair, crap on toast."

She'd said the words out of pure fright, and they made no sense, but, as she narrowly missed a claw to the leg, she was reminded of something. Puzzles. Conny liked puzzles. She'd been thinking about them earlier, and had specifically remembered enjoying the cryptic crossword. One in particular stood out, maybe because the clue had the word silver in it, maybe something else…

Her chain of thought was interrupted as the monster whipped out its long, serpentine tail and lashed her ankle.

Conny fell with a thump to the floor, the wind knocked out of her lungs, and cried out in pain. She knew it was fruitless, but she tried to scramble up… and found her feet unbound.

The tail had snapped the rope binding her ankles.

Conny jumped to her feet, suddenly in her element, and stamped her right foot down hard on the ground, zooming forwards, away from the monster's next strike. She bounced off the wall in a corner of the tunnels, changing direction swiftly, getting a good head start now that she had her feet free. The cryptic crossword clue came swimming to the front of her mind.

Queen of the Indian silver's young. Four down. A giant, winged snake from India who laid eggs made of pure silver, and would kill every living thing in its way to get them back.

The Occamy.

Rissa had mentioned that Malfoy had been on holiday in India. She'd seen the silver egg. Malfoy'd given it as a gift to Caradoc, smuggled it in along with its mummy. That must have been what they were talking about. The tunnels were weak… under, she'd bet her last galleon, the place where Caradoc's chair at the feast was. And Caradoc had taken the egg into the feast?

Conny didn't have time to consider the rest, because she crashed headlong into something pink and squishy.

She slammed hard into his chest, sending them both smashing against the wall with a sickening thump-crack-click combination. Conny groaned, trying to move herself up, but her ankle was well and truly gone now. Crap. She pushed the pink thing off from on top of her, only to find that she recognized the mop of auburn hair that adorned it. Jon?

"Jon?" Her mouth echoed her thoughts, but she couldn't follow that through as the Occamy roared just around the corner. It was catching up. "Crap."

She hauled Jon to his feet, wincing as the pain in her ankle multiplied by about seven billion.

"Wall… my… wall… stick." He jabbered, his eyes wild and wide, looking at her but not really seeing. Oh gods, had Jon… had he fallen victim to the fwooper's song? Was he mad?

"Jon!" She slapped him hard across the face. That usually worked on hysterical women in the movies. He shook his head, blinked a couple of times, and then looked at her, bewilderment clear in his features.

"Co…nny?" He croaked, straightening up, helping to take her weight as she balanced on her good leg. "What's going on?"

"No time to explain now. Put my shoes on."

"What?"

"Put my damn shoes on!" She hissed, and Jon obediently removed her carom boots and replaced his own leather boots with them. "You're going to have to carry me, my ankle's bust."

"Carry you where?" He asked. The Occamy snaked its long neck around the corner, its plumage and hackles raised, its huge, gaping jaw wide.

"Away from that."

"Ah." He wasted no time in sprinting off, as Conny hopped on his back. Piggyback, she reached into his pocket for his wand, finding the light, soothing yew there. Since there were no wards down here, she could use as much magic as she liked.

"Flipendo!" She cried, blue magic fizzing from the tip of Jon's wand, bouncing off the wall and hitting the Occamy in its side. The creature didn't even notice. Its hide must be thick as nails. Could Caradoc's legend not have involved something simpler? Like, he was afraid of squirrels or something? Why did it always have to be snakes?

"Stupefy!" She tried, but she hardly knew the spell. Stunning was beyond even her ability at the moment. It came out as a sort of wonky blob of red light that dribbled onto the floor. "Crap, crap, crap on toast."

"Swearing at eet won't 'elp!" Jon yelled, huffing and puffing, rounding a corner. "Try something specific!"

"Specific?" Conny cried desperately, almost laughing. "Of course, all those spells to kill giant snake-birds we looked at before we got here! How could I have forgotten?"

"Sarcasm eez ze lowest form of wit!"

"Death is even less funny! Run, Jon, run!"

Jon diverted through another tunnel, veering left, sending the Occamy slamming into the wall behind him. It paused and whined, shaking its body before coming after them again. Conny fired a few more curses at it, but her aim was sloppy and her ankle was pounding. The wounds on her face had burst open, sending fresh trickles of blood down her face and obscuring her vision.

Hang on. "Jon! Head towards the great hall!"

"Why?"

"Just do it!" She cried, trying the curse of the bogies on the Occamy, but its scales just reflected the curse back at her. Conny ducked and felt nauseous as Jon changed direction again. She hadn't quite realized how must centripetal force her carom boots exerted on a normal human being.

Jon skidded suddenly to a halt. Conny's gaze snapped back to forwards, and she realized that they were at a dead end.

"Last stand?" Jon asked, taking his wand back and whirling around to face the Occamy.

"Nope." Conny panted, clinging to his back. "How much do you trust my problem-solving skills, Jon?"

"Quite a lot."

"That's good enough." She said as the Occamy leered at them, taking its time in stamping towards them. Its claws were very long and very sharp. Its mouth was full of glinting teeth, its wings huge and feathered, rustling ominously in the darkness.

"Con-"

"Shush." She hushed him, staring at the Occamy. It squeezed through the passage into the small, circular room that was the dead end. It was a little larger and had a higher ceiling than the rest of the tunnels, with piles of rubble and chunks of rock littered on the floor. The ceiling was rough, like it had been blasted.

The Occamy skulked forward, closer, until they could smell the blood on its breath. It smelled them, its nostrils flaring, drinking the smell of their fear in, until…

It smelled its egg above.

The Occamy exploded into action, a shrieking flurry of feathers and fury, launching itself at the ceiling. Only a few inches of limestone separated it from its beloved egg, and there was no stopping its horrible yowling bid for vengeance. With a great swipe of its claws, the Occamy rent the ceiling in two, tearing a lump of rock out. Light cascaded in from above, startling Conny and Jon, and pooled in the dusty chamber. The Occamy gathered itself for its second push, ready to kill anything and everything between it and its egg.

-0-

Bors pushed the egg towards Caradoc, and Lucy immediately knew something was wrong. In the hidden pocket of her dress, her wand began to writhe, and no sooner had she exchanged a significant glance with Rissa than the ground gave an ominous rumble.

"Earthquake?" somebody asked, but Lucy knew that Wales didn't get many earthquakes. She whipped her wand out, as did Rissa, and Tilda in the far corner. Knights' and guards' hands went nervously to the handles of their swords, but nothing seemed to follow. An old, portly gentleman from Dorset even chuckled slightly as called for another round.

Then, a giant snake burst from the floor behind Caradoc's chair.

"Holy Merlin." Slipped out of Lucy's mouth before she could stop it. Bors thrust the box into Caradoc's hand and ran for the exit, the whole hall transfixed by the creature.

Rissa was the first to act. "Flipendo!"

The blue light bounced off the winged snake, breaking a lantern in the corner. So that route was out.

Caradoc opened the box. Inside was a large, perfect, solid silver egg.

The monster screamed and lunged at him, its talons bared, its mouth twisted and wide in an unearthly shriek, fangs slick and red with blood and poison. Althea was the quickest, and pulled a wand out of nowhere, thrusting a shield charm up between her husband and the monster. Lucy was about to run towards the fray when Rissa grabbed her arm and pulled her away.

"Where're we going?" She demanded, watching the monster use its long serpentine tail to slice four soldiers in half.

"To follow Sir Bors." She hissed, grabbing Gil from where he was starting dumfounded at the creature, his hands shaking. "Come on, Gilderoy."

"B-b-bb-but-"

"You said that Malfoy's men are housed just above Caradoc's quarters. It seems strange that they would go out of their way to arrange this, and not to be up to anything there."

"You think the snake-monster is a distraction?" Asked Lucy.

"No. I believe that Malfoy may be attempting to kill two birds with one spell."

"I don't get it."

"Think, Lucy! For once in your life. Malfoy wants to finish off his nemesis, Caradoc, who eloped with his sister. What do men and women who elope often do?"

"Have sex."

"Precisely. And what does sex lead to?"

"Chlamydia?"

"And?"

Realisation dawned on Lucy. "Babies. Caradoc's got a baby."

-0-

"Give me a leg up."

"No way."

"Jon, I swear to Circe I will kick you so hard you'll have to use the girls' bathroom to pee the rest of your life if you don't help me up."

"It's too dangerous."

"So are bumper cars." Conny spat. "Give. Me. A. Leg. Up."

"No."

"Now." She insisted. Jon sighed and squinted up at the hole in the ceiling. While he was looking, a goblet, a plate of burnt pigeon, and a dead body fell through from the battle against the Occamy above. He looked at Conny, then at the hole again, then at the dead, mangled lord of wherever, and cursed.

"Okay." He lifted her up by her good leg and with a spring, used the magic of the carom boots to send her skyrocketing towards the hole. She fell just short, but reached out and grabbed onto the outside, pulling herself up into the great hall. Jon jumped up after her, propelled straight through the hole to land neatly in the middle of the battle.

"Merde." He muttered, diving for cover as the Occamy's tail whooshed inches away from taking his head clean off his neck. "Conny!"

She ducked from the tail and scurried over to him under the table. "Yep?"

"What do we do?"

"Kill it."

"'Ow?"

"If not with magic, then with a really big spiky thing. Like a sword."

"And we're both excellent swordsmen, non?" Jon said, rolling out of the way as a talon slammed down through the table right next to him. "We're dead."

"That sort of negative thinking will hamper your future career."

"Death with 'amper my future career!" He cried, pulling her out of the way as the Occamy dispatched another two guards. "We need to kill eet!"

"Hang on! I'm thinking!" Conny screwed her eyes up. "The Occamy lays silver eggs and protects them ferociously. It values them above all else. It's from hot countries… it flies. I've got it!"

"What?"

"We take its egg and lead it out of the castle."

"Then what?"

"Then… we'll see." Conny said, a plan half-forming in her mind. She lunged out of her hiding place and found Caradoc, surrounded by his elite guards, cowering with the box with the egg inside clutched to his chest. Althea was holding a weak shield up around them, and the soldiers were being picked off one by one.

"Llewellyn!" Conny yelled, catching the young guard's attention.

"It's dangerous! Get ye out, t'safety!"

"Llewellyn, you can't hurt it with your sword! Please, listen to me!"

Caradoc turned his head to face her, the shouting between them having caught his attention. "What should we do?"

Surprised by the fear in his voice, Conny paused. "Caradoc, you need to follow me, out of the castle. I have an idea to kill it!"

He nodded, clutching the box, Althea's shield charm wavering. "Meet you in the forecourt!"

She nodded, and she and Jon pelted out of the great hall, zigzagging through the halls until they emerged into the forecourt. Out of a separate door, Caradoc and Althea came running, surrounded by their guards, the rampaging Occamy hot on their heels, fruitlessly trying to flap its stunted wings. Conny and Jon joined Caradoc and Althea panting and sweating.

"What now?" Caradoc asked, his hands shaking. Conny looked at the fountain, a statue of the king, now all frozen up, of course. It was the very middle of winter…

"I know. We have to lead him across the moat."

"The moat's frozen."

"Yes, but the Occamy is about eight times our weight. If it stands in the weakest ice in the middle, it'll fall in. the freezing water will gets into its wings and drag it down. It's a tropical creature."

"You're serious?"

"As a History of Magic essay." Conny winked. Confusion gripped Caradoc's tired features, but he said no more, nodding. He yelled at his men, who broke into a run. The group of humans sprinted across the forecourt, through a gate, and out to the drawbridge. It was up. Good.

"Come on!" Caradoc called, as he reached the moat.

"We'll go first. We're lightest." Conny and Jon stepped onto the ice. Not a sound. Jon supported Conny as she limped to the other side, wincing as her ankle turned a worrying purple. "Okay! Come over!"

Caradoc and Althea were next, nervous as the Occamy started catching up, flinging a solider who'd tried to slash at its neck away. They reached the other side quickly. "Come, men! Cross the moat!"

His guards didn't need telling twice. They scrambled onto the ice, which groaned and cracked under their weight. They couldn't go all at once; they'd be too heavy. Still, they were frightened, and they crossed the ice as quickly as possible, the Occamy reaching the bank.

"Now! We're all across!" Caradoc held up the egg, uncovered, having sensed that the Occamy was after it.

Except not all of the soldiers had managed to get off the ice yet.

"Llewellyn!" Conny cried, reaching out, but he'd fallen over. The Occamy, incensed, leapt onto the sheet of frozen water, sending cracks spiraling across it. Llewellyn's eyes widened and he made a small, sad noise, before, with a huge splintering sound, he disappeared into twenty feet of freezing water. The Occamy flailed and tried to latch a talon onto the sheet of ice, but it broke off. Its wings, heavy with icy water, dragged it down the to bottom of the moat.

"Llewellyn!" She said again, not quite believing it. He would resurface. He had to.

"I'm sorry, lass." The captain of the guard put his hand on her shoulder. "Chainmail's heavy, an' he canna swim."

"No!" She bawled, feeling tears in her eyes. He'd only been trying to help… he'd asked her to be his girlfriend… he'd been the only nice person she'd found in this stupid world!

"This is all your fault!" She screamed at Caradoc, who stood back, shocked. "You had to go and run away from life in a painting! You stupid, selfish man!"

"Hang on a minute." He protested, glancing around. "I'm not sure what you're talking about…"

"Don't lie! You created this painting, you enchanted this phase! You made all these people come into existence! You created life and death! And you made yourself the lord over it all! Just like He Who Must Not Be Named!"

"I am not like him!" Caradoc retorted, his nostrils flared. "I fought against him in the war. I was in the Order. I know better than you just what evil is capable of."

"Then why could you do this?"

"We… we had to get away. The war never really ended, for us. Because Lucius never… he never forgave me." Althea said quietly, sadness brimming in her eyes. Conny's heart thumped in her chest. She shouldn't have shouted. She'd just been so angry that Llewellyn had been created to die…

A high, cruel chuckle reverberated around them. From the other side of the bank, Lucius Malfoy watched their exchange, his face grim.

"How… touching." He sneered, his wand raised. "Quite the little ruse, Caradoc. Not quite good enough, though. As predicted, no mudblood could outwit me."

Caradoc growled at him, his wand out, ready to duel.

"Take your taint back to your scumbag lord, Malfoy." He spat. "Oh, wait… Wasn't he defeated? I don't quite remember."

"You dare speak of him!" Malfoy asked. "Shut your filthy mouth, Dearborn. And take your grubby hands off my sister."

"You are not my brother, Lucius." Althea said boldly. "I will never come back."

"You have been tainted by him! He had clouded your vision and weakened your magic! Come back, and you can remember what real power is! The power our pure blood gives us!"

"You're a fool, Lucius. I'm not coming back."

"If you will not come voluntarily, I will take you back myself!"

"Try it, toff." Caradoc challenged, his wand held high. "I don't know who you are, but I need your help."

"What?"

He gestured to Althea. She whispered to Conny and Jon. "The nursery. We have a baby. Malfoy can't have him. Help him?"

Conny and Jon nodded. Jon scooped Conny up and dug his heels into the snow, ready to send them flying back inside the castle.

Malfoy saw. Malfoy knew. His eyes widened, and he snarled.

"I'll race you, Dearborn. If I win, I'll kill your child."

It's a trap, Conny thought dimly. Malfoy's men are already there. They'll have killed him already… there's something waiting… a trap…

-0-

Lucy skidded around a corner, nearly dislodging an ancient vase on its pedestal. Gil followed behind her, with Rissa sort of skipping, holding up the many layers of skirts that made up her costume. It would have been funny if they hadn't been busy trying to stop a baby being killed.

"Left here." Gil panted, his bulk hindering him in this instance, compared to the two relatively fit girls. They went up a small staircase, and emerged onto one of the lavishly decorated corridors of the Lord of the Castle's quarters. They were oddly empty, because the commotion in the great hall must have been audible from everywhere, and the guards who'd been hanging around in their droves had left. They passed paintings that they recognized… well, Lucy recognized the signature on them, having slept in the bedroom at the Inbetween House all Easter right next to it. Caradoc had painted these. They were beautiful; poetic… he was a really good painter. They didn't move, because that would be conspicuous, but there was still an unearthly beauty to them. Lucy wondered if any of them led to other worlds, other places where Caradoc and Althea could hide.

A world inside a painting, inside the world inside a painting. Lucy couldn't quite wrap her head around that one.

"Wait!" Gil grabbed the back of her dress, yanking Lucy behind a statue. "There."

They peered around the corner, seeing the two guards in front of Caradoc's personal quarters. Crap. They must be Malfoy's men.

"Bors must have already gone in. He could be killing that baby right this second!" Lucy hissed.

"I think Bors is under the Imperius Curse." Rissa whispered to them both. "It is… a specialty of the Death Eaters'."

"Is there anything we can do to snap him out of it?" Lucy asked. "You know, appeal to his better nature?"

"In my experience, a slap around the face can work." Rissa grinned, impishness ablaze in her usually glassy grey eyes. Lucy'd often thought that Rissa's family, the Mothleys, looked a lot like the Malfoy family- they were different lines of roughly the same origins, though, as the Malfoys had come over from Russia a few hundred years before a Mothley set foot in Folkestone. They both came from the House of Karov, after all. It was interesting, though, that when that spark was in Rissa's eyes, when a smile graced her pretty face; she looked nothing like the Malfoys. Maybe those few hundred extra years in Russia did them good.

"What about the guards? They've got swords and wands, we don't stand a chance."

"We've got the element of surprise. And Lucy won the dueling competition last year."

"Because a very sudden tickling charm is so going to work." Lucy rolled her eyes. "The longer we sit here, the higher chance the baby dies. I say we try a full body-bind."

"Petrificus Totalus? That's a hard spell." Gil said, worried, since he wasn't that good at spells.

"I'll give it a go. Riss, you get one, I'll get the other? And Gil, you get ready to take their wands."

"Okay."

They leaned around the corner, seeing the guards still standing there. "Oh three. One… two… thr-"

"HWWAAAARRGHHH!"

The ceiling next to the guards exploded. They jumped about a foot in the air, fumbling for their wands, but Lucy and Rissa took this as their cue to strike, and simultaneously yelled "Petrificus Totalus!"

The two guards, mid-gesture, froze, their skin shuddering, deathly pallor coming over their faces. They stood, stock still as statues, and then fell over, clattering on the floor.

Coughing, Conny and Jon pulled themselves out of the rubble. "Before that happens again, Jon, I'm going to teach you how to properly use those things."

"Eet's not my fault! 'Ow was I to know zey'd go zat far?"

"Tch." Conny coughed, dislodging plaster and chips of stone from her nose. "Thanks, by the way, Luce."

"Don't mention it." Lucy said, slightly shell-shocked, and gave Rissa a quick high-five. "Bors is already in there. We think he's imperius'd."

"Aw, crap. Just when things were starting to look easy." Conny said. "I don't have my wand."

"Or half of your blood, from the look of those cuts." Gil said, wincing. "Are you all right?"

"Peachy. C'mon, we need to go."

"Stand at the back, Conny. You said it yourself, you do not have a wand." Rissa advised.

"Nonsense. Someone lend me theirs." She demanded, sticking her hand out. Nobody obliged. "Oh, come on. Like any of you can curse better than me."

"If we wanted to turn Bors's cufflinks into threadworms, we'd give you our wands. My family have the criminal empire, I get to do the cursing."

Conny sighed. "Have it your way. Let's go."

She obediently but somewhat begrudgingly stepped into formation behind Gil and Jon, Lucy heading up the charge with Rissa.

"Into the valley of death rode the six hundred…" she muttered. "Malfoy'll be here soon. He and Caradoc are posturing."

Lucy reached out for the doorknob. Conny superstitiously crossed herself. It turned slowly, and the door creaked open to a dark, still, room. They shuffled over the periphery, wands outstretched, Conny having stooped down to take the wands of the two petrified death eaters from their clenched hands.

"I hate when things are too quiet." Gil whispered, "It always feels like something's about to jump out at you."

"That is the number one worst thing to say in a dark, eerie room, Gilderoy." Rissa said, a tremor in her voice. It seemed they'd found her bête noire.

"Go past the pile of presents… there's another door. That must lead to the nursery."

They inched forwards, the tip of Lucy's wand glowing with lumos and casting blue shadows over the walls. Rissa was clutching Lucy's other hand as though her life depended on it, obviously scared to death. They opened the other door, and behind it stood Bors, still as the petrified guards, a bundle of cloth in the crook of his elbow, his other hand holding a knife a hair's breadth above the baby's throat. It was asleep.

Bors' wide, pale eyes looked up at them. His jaw was clenched, his hands trembling.

"Please, get away!" He choked, looking at the baby. "I cannot stop myself. I am under some sorcery! My limbs move without my mind's volition."

"It's okay, Sir Bors." Gil stepped forward, bowing. "Fight it! Your noble mind is stronger than any sorcery!"

"We're not in a Dungeons and Dragons roleplay, Gil." Lucy rolled her eyes, stepping closer. Bors violently shuddered, his knife slowly descending, the baby yawning and cooing in his warm grasp.

"Please." He begged, a small dribble of blood escaping out of the corner of his mouth. "It hurts so."

Lucy took another step forwards. "Hold on, Borsie. You've got a baby boy in your arms. If you killed him, God'll be pretty pissed off at you."

"This Sorcery is work of the devil!" Bors cried, wincing, the knife juddering in his hands.

"We'll run with that. Cast out the devil, and embrace God! Fight the compulsion, hand me the baby."

"I…" Bors cast his eyes down. "I cannot. I want to, but I cannot!"

Jon cleared his throat, pointed his wand at the knife, and decided to take matters into his own hands. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

The knife wobbled in Bors' grip, and shocked, he let go of it. Jon shakily levitated the knife up, up, out of his reach.

"There we go. Gimme the baby, Borsie." Lucy stood in front of him, nervous, her hands outstretched. "C'mon. There's a good boy."

Bors extended the bundle of blankets, snarling, hacking up a globule of dark, sticky blood. Oh gods, Conny thought, he's killing himself. Such a noble knight, to physically resist the imperius curse, was actually tearing him apart from the inside.

Lucy took the baby, quickly stepping back from Bors. He clutched at his chest, convulsing, the whites of his eyes shining out in the gloom. He collapsed to his knees, retching, throwing up dark spots of blood onto the carpet. Conny turned away. She couldn't watch a man die. Gil, Rissa and Jon turned with her, their faces aghast, but Lucy didn't turn. She watched Bors until his last, wretched breath, clutching the baby in her arms.

The knife Jon had been levitating fell to the floor by his side, sticking out of the floor, sickeningly clean compared to the bloodied carpet. The hard thunk it made masked another noise, the noise of Lucius Malfoy bursting through the door, his hair messed up and his wand outstretched, murder in his eyes. He saw Conny and faltered.

"The problem with children these days is that they will not die." He snapped. "I may have lost Dearborn and Althea, but I will erase their halfblooded child from this world."

"Wouldn't want to taint that famously pure Malfoy bloodline, ey, Lucius?" Lucy bluffed, cradling the baby protectively.

"You're not one to boast about bloodlines. Half-caste, big-mouthed, stealing other peoples' possessions- no doubting that you're the infamous Lucy Ra."

"Congratulations. You obviously got the brains." Lucy replied icily. "Face it, Malfoy. You've lost. Caradoc's gone, along with your sister. And we're all standing between you and their kid."

"Standing between me and him? Don't flatter yourselves. You're just five children."

There was a loud thud, and Malfoy's face drooped for a brief moment, before he fell to the floor, out cold. Behind him, Tilda stood with a saucepan, looking very pleased with herself.

"Six children." She corrected, grinning lopsidedly. "That was more cathartic than I had imagined."

"Tilda!" Conny cried, jumping over to give her a hug. "Where've you been?"

"I had a hunch." She shrugged. "Althea and Caradoc are gone. They disappeared into a painting… and then I burned it."

"You WHAT?"

"They're safe now."

Conny looked to the baby and back. "Are you serious? They left their son behind!"

"They did? Shame."

"Tilda! This isn't like leaving your card behind the bar! It's a baby! And they can't come back now!"

"They're safe."

"You said that." Gil put in, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. The buzzing in their ears was getting insistent now, grating, and unbearable. As the adrenaline of the fight and flight wore off, they began to wince in pain.

"We've got to get out of here. Baby or no baby."

"We take the baby?"

"I… I suppose, yeah." Conny looked at him. He had Caradoc's nose.

"Okay. Cool, let's go. I'm going to go mad if this bloody buzzing continues any longer." Lucy said, putting her wand away.

"So?" They all turned to Conny.

"What?"

"So, let's get out."

"Er- come again?" Conny asked.

"How do we get out?"

Conny made a face. "Crap."

"Crap is not the correct answer." Gil said nervously, eyeing Malfoy's prone body.

"Um, I've a confession to make."

"Please tell me it's that you keep a pair of Az's pants in your bedside table or something." Lucy crossed her fingers.

"Um, no. It's that I sort of… didn't really think about getting back out again."

There was deathly silence.

"WHAT!" Lucy shrieked, waking the baby, who proceeded to cry, adding to the growing cacophony. "We spent months preparing! We made potions and costumes and learned spells and you even scratched stuff onto some metal things with a compass! But you didn't think about getting us out?"

"Not really, no."

"Conny, you are the stupidest clever person I know." Lucy whined, rocking the baby. "Shut up, baby, go back to sleep. Auntie Conny's just being a prat."

"And Auntie Lucy isn't helping." Gil reminded her. "Let's think about this. Malfoy must have been prepared to go back."

"'E told Althea 'e was going to bring her back with 'im." Jon pitched in helpfully. "So 'e must 'ave some way of escape."

"Search him, then." Gil suggested.

Lucy handed the baby over to Rissa, who took it, looking startled. She rolled up her sleeves. "Stand aside, people. I'm in my element."

Lucy knelt down and, careful not to touch him, lightly ran her fingers over the contours of his coat and trousers. She seemed to decide on the right side of his ribs, because she then went to grab the knife from beside Bors. She deftly cut the fabric, revealing a chock-full secret pocket of his coat.

"Hey, Conny, here's your wand." She handed it over. Conny felt much more secure with her wand in her possession, and the maddening song seemed to fade slightly. "Hmm… what am I looking for?"

"Picture, photograph, something like that." Conny said, thinking. "Any creative medium the we brought with us that embodies a scene would theoretically have a spatial link back to the real world."

"So I'm looking for a clay model of a dining room?"

"No. Probably a photograph."

Lucy rummaged through the pocket, but found nothing. She continued to completely remove everything hidden or kept on Malfoy's body, while around her, the rest of them shifted impatiently, rolling their shoulders or tap-tap-tapping their feet on the floor. The baby restlessly squirmed in Rissa's grip, so she handed it to Conny, who wasn't much better. She pawned it off to Jon, who, curiously, seemed to calm the baby down.

"I really can't find anything on him." Lucy shrugged. "Maybe we should check upstairs, where his stuff is."

They agreed, and quickly ran up to the guard tower. The whole castle seemed disturbingly deserted, blurry, almost… quiet, but threatening. Shadows reared in every lull of light, around each corner seemed a hovering presence. It was far too isolated, so strange… people flittered in and out of the edges of their vision, ghosts, never daring to go too close, but always watching… waiting. They felt hungry.

Conny, thoroughly spooked, shivered. "Hurry up."

"I'm going! Merlin, you're more impatient than Corfax before a feast." Lucy looked through their bags, through the husks of crates that were emptied.

"Hey, look." Gil pointed to the floor. "Bloody footprints. Malfoy's men were at the feast, or around there… but, the footprints come in the door and then just end."

They followed his chain of thought. "So all his men had a way out of here. There must be something!"

They all started rummaging about, the buzzing harder, more insistent discordant, like an out of tune violin screeching, like being wrung tightly out. They tore pillows apart, ransacked packs, even prized floorboards up.

"Nothing. Sodding nothing." Gil croaked, a muscle in his eye twitching. "We're going to die."

"Don't talk like that." Conny tried, but her voice came out quiet as the din rose to a huge, discordant symphony, sharps and flats resolving into a grating, haunting melody, prickling at the edges of their consciousness, the ghosts gathering, swaying to and fro, hungry-eyed specters.

"I know!" Rissa shouted suddenly, her voice a distorted wail. They grabbed each others' hands and Rissa pointed to the baby. Jon, confused, looked at him. Rissa opened the blankets, and surely enough, a small square of parchment floated out. Conny snatched it in mid-air, her vision blurring, focus screaming inwards and outwards, and held it up to the light. On it was, in crude ink, a door. A drawing of a door. That was it.

That was good enough.

"Grab… on!" She yelled. There was barely enough paper for everyone to hold it by their forefinger and thumb, but they managed it. Think, Conny. The activation spell. Remember the… remember…

So many ghosts.

Hundreds. In the room. Watching. Waiting. It was maddening. They were getting closer, their milky eyes looking at her, reaching out, and singing. They sang so prettily… such a lovely voice, for a ghost…

Lucy slapped her around the face.

"What the hell!" She yelled automatically, realizing suddenly that she had been teetering over. Oh gods. Focus, Conny. Forget the ghosts. The ghosts… who sang so loud…

"PERCLAUSTA!"

The ghosts exploded with hate. The edges of the room began to fade within their whiteness, ashes and smoke, wisps of being. The colours ran, brown smudging over the white, white walls. Conny was hurtled upwards, physically pulled like a puppet on strings. They could be going anywhere. She felt the fwooper's song take one, last, desperate dig into her brain, like the clash of a hundred thousand cymbals, the pounding of the bass drum, and then it vanished, leaving blissful quiet.