For Will, the biggest headache right now was dealing with Voldemort's invitation.
He had wanted to get a Time-Turner from Dumbledore ahead of time, but Dumbledore had given him a Portkey instead—yes, a Portkey. It was a special one that could stick to the end of his wand, where it was practically invisible.
If Will ran into danger, the Portkey could take him straight to Hogwarts. He didn't find that terribly reassuring, but Dumbledore assured him that he had made it himself.
Then, one day in early August, Will's owl Awn delivered a letter from Draco inviting him to Malfoy Manor.
Malfoy Manor stood in Wiltshire. As the Malfoy family had continued to absorb the surrounding Muggles' land, their estate had kept expanding. It looked larger and grander than Sylvia's family estate, though it still could not compare to the Howards'.
The first member of the Malfoy family to come to England had been their ancestor Armand Malfoy.
Armand had used land granted to him by William the Conqueror to establish Malfoy Manor. The family's descendants had lived there for ten centuries since.
It was a fair walk from the estate gates to the castle. Along the way, Draco kept telling Will about Malfoy Manor and the family's past. He still thought it was all a source of family glory.
"Our ancestor Septimus Malfoy was very influential in the Wizarding World. Some people even said that the Minister for Magic in 1789, Unctuous Osbert, was Septimus's puppet.
"And another ancestor, Lucius Malfoy the First, nearly married the Muggle queen Elizabeth." Draco went on about subjects that had always fascinated him. (This was Elizabeth I, Elizabeth Tudor, who was born in the fourteenth century.)
Will's expression turned a little strange. *Isn't the prevailing story in the Wizarding World that Elizabeth kicked