Thestrals felt only limited pain. Draco had had the foresight to snatch up a whip from the stables as he passed it, and he cracked it repeatedly over Viper’s head, urging the beast on faster. Whether because of this or the vicious way he dug his boots into the animal’s side, the journey to Malfoy Manor seemed to take far less time than it had previously: he reached there by mid-afternoon. He noticed in passing that there appeared to be far more people camped in the fields behind the Manor than there usually were, but his own concerns consumed him too much to spare it much thought.