分卷阅读49（2 / 2）

“You know, Hermione said something strange today.”

Draco lazily looked over at Harry with an expression that clearly stated he didn’t care what Granger had said. Harry ignored the look and continued anyway.

“She said that the attacks seemed random, all over the place, almost as if they weren’t coordinated at all.”

“So?” Draco drawled. “They still cause terror and mayhem, what’s the difference between coordinated attacks or spontaneous ones?”

“It just doesn’t seem like something Voldemort—” Draco flinched “—would do. It would seem to me that he would plan out the attacks for a maximum effect, or to send a message, or something. I couldn’t picture him just telling the Death Eaters to go off and have fun with random carnage…”

“The fact that you can picture the Dark Lord at all is rather freaky.” Draco murmured “But I have to agree with your point. If we can’t see the message behind the attacks, then I assume he isn’t finished writing it out yet.”

Harry sat in the dark for a long time thinking about what Draco had said. He knew that there was some guiding force behind these attacks, he just knew it. But there was no focus. It really seemed that Voldemort just took a map and pointed to a random town or village and said “attack there” or something like that. The only attack that might have given any message at all was the first attack, the one on London itself. That was more the “I’m here and waiting to destroy you” type of attack he could…expect…from Voldemort. But these other attacks…Now Harry couldn’t start to say he knew the name of every town that existed in Britain, but he’d never even known some of these places existed. So why they’d garnered Voldemort’s attention was beyond him.

But maybe Draco was right. Well, Harry knew that there were more attacks to come, but maybe the point of this particular slew of attacks wasn’t obvious yet because a few of them were missing…As horrible as that logic was, it did have a ring of truth that Harry couldn’t ignore. And if there were some attacks missing, and they could figure out the pattern or message first…then maybe something could be done to stop the attack before it started.

Gently easing himself out of the sleeping blonde’s hold, Harry worked his way out of the bedroom. A map. He needed a map, a very detailed one.

Draco awoke the next morning to find Harry curled under him…somehow. The other boy didn’t even stir as Draco moved out of bed and made his way towards the bathroom, didn’t make a sound or a movement when Draco came back out, or show any signs of waking when Draco crossed back through the bedroom. He must be really tired, Draco thought. Wonder how late he was up?

Draco would have then gone down to breakfast, but he saw something on the table near the couch. It was a map…with ink splotches on it. Was this what Harry had been up to last night? Harry obviously hadn’t drawn the map, unless he was a geographical artistic genius that no one knew about, but he might have added the ink splotches. But why?

Draco looked at the map more closely, tracing the path of the ink blotches up the isle with his eyes. These were the location of all of Voldemort’s attacks. They formed a semi- circle that traveled almost the entire length of the isle. His own words came back to him from the night before. The attacks were centered around something…but not London or any other important city…But if one were to extend the circle out into the ocean where there were no places to attack, one could find the diameter and from that find the center. Draco did so, his finger coming to rest on one point of land. His stomach dropped as his mind registered where the attacks were focused around. Even though there was no marking on the map for the building was unplottable, it was a place Draco knew well. It was Malfoy Manor.

Chapter 27: Letter in Blood

As the first week of February started, Hermione rolled into studying-for-exam mode with a relish that Harry and Ron wouldn’t even try to match. They suffered in silence through her insistence that they create study-guides for themselves so that they could prepare for the exams that were only months away. Ron, on Wednesday, was persuaded to start his own list of things to study. Harry believed this was not for the good of his exam grade, but for the good of his budding relationship with Hermione. Harry, of course, was safe from Hermione’s cajoling. He would merely say that Draco had them covered.

And Draco was also studying, although a whole lot more passively than Hermione was. His idea of studying involved going over the material a little each night before bed until the exams actually came, instead of constantly working to re-memorize everything in one sitting at the library. Of course, Draco didn’t care if Harry studied or not. But since Draco and Hermione never compared notes on Harry’s study habits, he slipped through as if exams were the months away that they were.

Harry was getting used to Draco falling asleep after he did, the light from the blonde’s wand slightly illuminating the room.

“What is it tonight?” Harry asked as he slid into Draco’s bed.