Naturally, Draco had no way of knowing what that Mundungus had said to Alastor Moody and the others.
But for Draco right now, what mattered more was how Harry Potter had managed to learn the dark magic Sectumsempra, along with the deeply irritating stare Alastor Moody kept fixed on him.
As far as Draco was concerned, he had every reason to suspect that if Nymphadora had not stopped him, that old Auror, deep into the final stages of paranoia, might have attacked without the slightest regard for whether Harry Potter lived or died.
For all anyone knew, in that old Auror's eyes, trading Harry Potter's life for a dark wizard with limitless potential would be a deal worth making a hundred times over.
Somehow, Draco could read that barely perceptible meaning in the other man's gaze...
Still not lowering his wand, Draco tilted his head.
"It seems our Professor Moody has no intention of stopping."
"..."
Even though Draco had never attended a single one of his classes, he still used that form of address to remind them of certain things. Hearing it, the blue light in Alastor Moody's magical eye flickered on and off, while his wooden leg began to ache faintly.
Although he had long since stopped caring about reputation, that failure had still left a thorn in his heart.
It was humiliation.
And worse still, those words had come from an enemy...
Pushing Nymphadora Tonks aside, Alastor Moody swept a cold look over Fleur Delacour and the others gradually drawing nearer.
"Clumsy rhetoric. If that's all you've got, it won't be enough to make me lose my composure, young Malfoy."
"Is that really so, our... Professor Moody?"
They had originally thought that once Fleur Delacour appeared, the conflict between both sides would not continue.
But as magic began to rise around Alastor Moody and Draco, things seemed to be heading in a very bad direction...
...
Compared with the obedient Fleur, Nymphadora at Alastor Moody's side seemed a good deal more troublesome.
Their disagreement only made Alastor Moody's ugly face, already enough to make a child cry, look even more terrifying.
And the more it came to that, the less willing Nymphadora was to give way.
Because she knew exactly what this man was capable of...
"Move aside. Don't force me to act against you, Tonks!"
"You've gone mad, Moody! Don't tell me you don't know how important Harry is to Dumbledore."
"He's old, Tonks."
Draco had absolutely no interest in their sudden argument or the meaning behind those words.
He nudged Harry Potter, who seemed about to stand up, with the tip of his wand, and his serious voice rang out.
"Sectumsempra... where did you learn it?"
"What do you mean?!"
Harry Potter had indeed learned how to cast Sectumsempra, but he knew absolutely nothing about where the spell had come from.
Not understanding what Draco meant, he assumed Draco was simply humiliating him.
Especially with that condescending gaze looking down on him, it made his oversensitive heart twist, and for a moment he wanted nothing more than to get up and punch Draco in the face...
Noticing the completely genuine shift in Harry Potter's expression, Draco seemed to understand something.
"I see. With your level of scheming, you probably wouldn't be able to hide anything from me anyway. So it seems you really don't know."
"What exactly are you trying to say?!"
"Calm down. As a 'prisoner,' you shouldn't vent your emotions so carelessly."
He bent down and prodded Harry Potter's forehead with the tip of his wand.
But that gesture, which sounded like advice on the surface and was really a provocation underneath, not only failed to calm Harry Potter down, it made his emotions explode even further.
His out-of-control magic made his robes billow outward.
But before Harry Potter could raise his wand again, Draco, right in front of everyone's stunned eyes, fired off a spell.
"Stupefy!"
A red flash burst from the attack spell.
And hit Harry Potter dead on.
At that range, there had never been any chance of missing...
At that moment, everyone could see it clearly.
Because he had been hit from so close up, and because he had never expected Draco to really attack, Harry Potter's unconscious expression was still frozen in the anger of the previous instant. He had not even had time to react.
His whole head snapped back at a wildly visible angle.
His eyes rolled upward, and spit dribbled from the corner of his mouth.
All of it clearly showed that the Stunning Spell had worked.
His body arched back, and both knees hit the ground.
Anyone who did not know what had happened might have thought this was some kind of performance art from Harry Potter...
...
Even Alastor Moody had not expected Draco to strike so suddenly.
Fleur Delacour, however, was the first to react. She hurried forward and surrounded Alastor Moody and the others, afraid she might not be able to help Draco in time.
But what no one, Nymphadora included, had expected was that Alastor Moody did not fly into the rage they had imagined, nor did he immediately hurl several spells at Draco.
Instead, he merely cast a cold glance at Harry Potter's upturned pale eyes, then stopped paying him any further attention.
Because Alastor Moody knew perfectly well what he needed to do right now...
They looked each other in the eye.
Unaffected by emotion, Alastor Moody coldly said, "You're even more troublesome than I imagined... young Malfoy."
And bolder than I imagined too.
That was the part Alastor Moody did not say aloud.
In the end, after sweeping a glance over the people around them who seemed to have noticed the disturbance and were starting to approach, the air in front of Alastor Moody suddenly warped, and his figure vanished from everyone's sight.
That was Apparition used for rapid movement.
Draco made no move to stop him or chase after him. He only silently turned his gaze toward Nymphadora Tonks, who had been left behind...
Faced with that kind of abandoning-her-companion behavior, Nymphadora looked rather helpless, and her hair changed to blue in an instant.
"You've become not cute at all, Draco."
"..."
"All right, all right. Your anger should be gone by now, right? So can you hand over that reckless little brat Harry to me now?"
Everyone present, including the Alastor Moody who had just left, knew perfectly well that Draco had shown mercy just now.
Otherwise, things never would have developed this "peacefully," and Alastor Moody would not have left so decisively.
Of course, the bigger reason was that Nymphadora had refused to cooperate with him at all.
And just as Nymphadora was waiting for Draco's answer, the professor responsible for student safety on this trip finally arrived at the scene.
"What happened here? Wait, I remember you... you're Tonks, aren't you?"
The one who recognized Nymphadora was Horace Slughorn, who could clearly remember every outstanding student...