Draco had come home.
Today was not a long holiday, merely a weekend. He was the only one who had returned, because he had come back to celebrate his mother's birthday.
I wonder if those strange people have left the manor, Draco thought.
How am I supposed to see their faces? When I saw those strange people during the summer holiday, they wore hoods, so I couldn't see their faces. If they're attending Mother's birthday banquet too, they can't keep their hoods on throughout the whole party, can they?
Besides celebrating his mother's birthday, Draco had returned today because he wanted to find out the identities of those strange people he had seen at the manor during the summer holiday.
Draco stepped out of the fireplace and hurried toward the outside door.
Malfoy Manor was enormous. The fireplace connected to the Floo Network was not in the sitting room, but in a Sundries Room on the third floor.
Maybe I should go straight to the side hall and see whether those strange people are there... No one should expect me to come down from upstairs, Malfoy thought.
The side hall on the second floor had two entrances. One led to the second-floor sitting room, while the other led to the corridor by a seldom-used stairwell.
The last time he had tried to eavesdrop, he had been discovered when he went through the sitting room. Those strange people had stopped talking the moment they saw him.
The door to the stairwell corridor was usually closed. With a door between them, even if that group of strange people was discussing matters in the side hall, they would have a hard time noticing him.
Draco entered the stairwell corridor and crept quietly toward the side hall door.
*An unfamiliar voice! Those strange people