He'd become rather dependent on his broom now that he was small, travelling by foot would just exhaust him and he was already tired out by the swimming from earlier. He placed it by the side of his trunk and then sat down on his knees and began rifling through his trunk. He had six years of textbooks stacked up tidily in one of them as he was unwilling to throw any of them out due to the sheer abundance of memories associated with them. They even smelled of Hogwarts he thought as he bent his head inside and closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

A stray piece of parchment caught his eye as he pulled out and began to close the trunk; it was his half of the parchment pair he had with Lupin. He pulled it slowly from his trunk, a brief glimmer of hope lighting in his chest; he could get out of here, Lupin! He could tell him where he was.

He turned it over and saw that the last message had been erased and instead was Lupin's tidy hand now scrawled across the page with slight tremors in the usually perfect lettering.

'Where are you? Are you OK? Are you alive? They're going to kill me when I die. Harry! I knew I should never have let you go. Should have apparated out straight away. Merlin Harry! Promise me you're OK.'

The words were followed by a rather interesting mess of ink where a quill appeared to have been scratched randomly into the parchment till it had broken. He felt a rush of guilt as he realised that they must all be worried sick about him, while he was sitting happily in the sun that's not actually a sun. Pulling out his quill and inkpot from another bag, he quickly scribbled down a quick answer of, 'I'm alive. I'm OK. I'm safe. Kind of.'

Something inside him told him not to disclose his actual location though why was beyond him. Maybe he could find his own way out next time Malfoy left the house… or not-a-house-actually-a-huge-mansion-place-of-residence. The idea of the Order making a rescue attempt on the Manor when the Malfoy's didn't even know he was there seemed slightly ridiculous.

'Where are you?'

The reply came up below almost immediately, Lupin must have kept it with him as soon as they'd realised Harry had gone missing.

'Doesn't matter.'

'What do you mean it doesn't matter? Where are you Harry? We need to get you out and safe.'

'NO! I'm fine and safe here.'

'Tell me where you are.'

'Safe.'

'You're shirking you're responsibilities Harry.'

Harry pulled back from the parchment as if he'd been burned, 'shirking your responsibilities', the words seemed imprinted at everything he looked at, even his closed eyelids.

'What's wrong, little one?'

"I'm running! I have to go back! Everyone's depending on me. Gods! I need to get back! I'm going to let down the whole world! Everything's going to collapse." He stopped sharp suddenly stilling as horrible thought hit him and he groaned aloud.

"Dumbledore will be so disappointed with me."

'You've haven't even been here for a day' she said calmly completely unflustered by his outburst. He looked at his watch; only 7pm, it was true he hadn't even been gone a day.

"He almost KILLED him!" he hissed angrily at her suddenly annoyed at Malfoy for putting him in this position. He pushed away from his trunk and grabbed the parchment and his quill shoving them into his pockets before grabbing his broom and striding away. That is; he was striding away until he suddenly found himself surrounded by cool smooth scales pressing in on him.

'He did what he had to.'

"NO! You don't understand. He destroyed any chance I had of defeating Voldemort. I NEED Dumbledore and now he's gone. Malfoy will never change. He's still that arrogant little dark loving prat he always has been and I hope it kills him." he shouted angrily close to tears as he struggled furiously against the snake cursing and pushing violently as he tried to get away. "Let me go," he hissed finally in desperation as he collapsed weakly and let the coils support him.

When she didn't say anything he let his head flop to the side and examined the closest scale to him, watching the light bouncing off the shiny surface.

"I'm sorry" he whispered softly, "I got angry for no reason. But I really do need to get back."

'I know little one. However are you sure it might not be prudent to stay?'

"What does that mean?"

'Think of where you are, and think of what you need to do.'

At the end of her cryptic answer she uncoiled and let him fall gently to the floor before pushing his broom towards him,

'Come.'

Obediently he climbed onto his broom and followed her as she went back towards Malfoy's room.

"Isillia? Isillia darling, where are you? I slept all day! Why didn't you wake me?" the sound of Malfoy's voice got louder and louder as they passed through the tunnel. He paused in the shadows and looked at his watch, it was already 19:30, but seeing as he's woken less than 2 hours ago he felt very awake. He realised Malfoy must have woken up a bit earlier also as he was showered and dressed and looked much better than yesterday, the circles under his eyes had almost disappeared and he was talking in between bites of an apple. Harry found himself watching entranced as Malfoy's sharp white teeth sank into the deep red apple, something about their contrasting colours had him unable to look away.

He heard Malfoy suddenly yell and topple down to the floor only inches away and his heart suddenly caught in his throat in terror as the apple rolled towards him until he realised that Malfoy's eyes were screwed shut and his teeth were bared in a mask of pain. He watched Malfoy's right hand move to push back his left sleeve as he threw his head back and gulped in huge breaths. Harry's eyes were immediately drawn to Malfoy's slim pale forearm and the harsh black dark mark that marred its perfection, currently standing out from the skin as if it were stuck on, not tattooed on. Malfoy's gasps began to soften and Harry realised he was probably going to apparate, and quickly launched his broom and flew as fast as he could to Malfoy's pocket.