"How about a spot of fencing practice?" Lucius Malfoy went on. "Test your mettle, boy."

Great, thought Harry, who had never even seen a fencing match. He does believe I´m Draco, and heś still going to hack me into bits.

"All, right, Father," said Harry, striving for Dracoś drawling tones. Mr. Malfoy was looking impatient, so Harry swung his legs over the side of the bed and nearly yelled when his feet touched the ground — it was like ice. Mr. Malfoy didn´t appear to be worried about his son freezing his toes off, however — he hurried out of the room, and Harry, still barefoot, followed.

He found himself nearly running to keep up with Lucius Malfoy as he stalked down a long corridor lined with Malfoy family portraits. There were a few hags, some very pretty women who were definitely veela — which was probably where Malfoy got his fair hair — some rather pale men who were probably vampires, and a rather unpleasant-looking wizard who was pictured riding an enormous spider whose bridle was fastened around its poison-dripping pincers. Yech, thought Harry, what a horrible lot.

Lucius Malfoy opened a huge stone-bound door with a wave of his wand and went inside, followed by Harry. He found himself in another huge room; this one had a smooth stone floor and was decorated with tapestries which depicted various scenes of wizard battle. Angry-looking wizards ran at each other, using their wands to decapitate, disembowel, and set fire to their victims. As Harry watched, mouth open in horror, a goblin with a long, flaming sword chased a screaming wizard right across one tapestry and into another.

Lucius, following Harryś gaze, nodded, looking pleased, "Yes, I just got the tapestries cleaned, the blood was starting to look quite dull and not at all shiny.

Shall we begin?" And he tossed Harry a long, pointed rapier, which Harry looked at dully. "En garde!"