Chapter 28: Hello, Old Friend
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
They went to dinner with everyone else, but none of them felt like eating. The greatest hallmark of their low spirits was Ron, who took three piddling bites of his beef wellington, pushed it away, and said, “Can’t, my heart’s not in it,” with the grief of a dying prince. Draco quietly Vanished his plate out of dignity, and Hermione did not even bother to fill hers, but drank four cups of coffee with sugar and nibbled a bonbon until she jittered like a screaming kettle.
After dinner, they went straight to Myrtle’s bathroom. Harry had stuffed the Cloak down the front of his robes (“Congratulations, mate, you’re finally out of training bras,” said Ron) and Hermione carried a laundry bag of old robes that had been left behind in the laundry rooms.
The potion had congealed to a sort of brick roux at the bottom of the pot, burbling and glutinous. When Draco gave it a testing stir, it clung to the stirring wand like a thick mud. Black smoke rose in tight coils like crimped hair. Every so often a bubble floated to the surface and caved with a wet plorp.
Myrtle floated above them, her chin pillowed in her hands. “Eugh! Yee-uck! What is that? It smells sim-ply aw-ful.”
She was absolutely right, but Draco ignored her. “Weasley, you’ve got the goblets?”
Ron pulled out a set of glass tumblers from the Great Hall that had found their way into his bag.
“Good. Potter, the hairs?”
“Got them,” he said, fumbling out a few vials from his pocket. “I tried to keep track of which one was the woman. I’m sorry, Hermione, I think it’s this one, but I can’t be sure.”
Draco ladled helpings of potion into each glass and held one up to the light, flicking it with his fingernail, until the portion leveled out. “A hair in each,” he ordered.
The first frothed and turned a sour snot green; the second waxed yellow like bile. The third turned the color and consistency of sour milk, and the final glass was a deep reddish brown, like clay.
“Yum yum,” said Ron grimly. “Some nightcap.”
Hermione shook out the laundry bag on the floor. “I Transfigured some Ministry robes,” she said nervously. “They’re a bit shabby, but between the fabric and a bit of patch-up sewing, they should hold for the night. They don’t have the crest, though, so I hope nobody looks too closely.”
“They won’t,” said Draco. “Our faces will be proof enough. Potter, who’s each hair from?”
“Me? Oh, I don’t know.”
Draco, who was still holding the ladle, reminded himself strongly that he did not believe in corporal punishment. “You collected them,” he gritted out. “How can you not know whose hair you were yanking?”
“How was I to tell? I don’t know any of them! You and Ron were off with Daphne.”
“You didn’t think to check— no, never mind. There’s no use now. We know one of them’s Orpheus Greengrass, I suppose; we’ll just have to hope that another isn’t Sibelius Nott, since he happens to be still lurking around the castle.”
They each took a glass. Ron and Harry took the blue and green, respectively; Hermione reluctantly accepted the yellow, and Draco took the red.
“Remember, it has to be all of it,” he ordered. “Otherwise you won’t get the full two hours. When we’re done transforming, we’ll have to move quickly. And remember, you’ll be acting as purebloods, so you have to really sell it: keep your noses up, keep your back straight, and if anyone asks you what you’re doing, the answer is always who’s asking.”
The others nodded solemnly.
“Well,” he said bleakly, “sláinte, as my father would say.”
He threw back his Polyjuice Potion in a long double-pull without coming up for air. It tasted like rotting fruit, a sweetness so intense it tipped into sourness. He gagged and forced himself to swallow, which, aside from staring down Quirinius Quirrell and apologizing to Hermione Granger, was a dead ringer for the hardest thing he had ever done.
Polyjuice was a fast-acting potion; inside a minute, his guts were writhing as intensely as a pair of copulating snakes. A searing burn emanated from his stomach out to the surface of his skin, which began to bubble as if it were hot wax. Ron said thickly: “I think I’m gonna be sick,” and ran into the nearest stall.
“Yeah,” said Harry, “Me too — uh oh—” and he flew into the one beside him.
“Don’t throw up,” Draco ordered, speaking thickly through the horrible quakes of nausea that were rolling up from his throat. “If any of you throw up, after I — ugh — spent a month on that bloody potion — ah —”
He dropped to his knees. His legs were growing, his hands thickening, the nails widening in their beds. His robes stretched taut and split at the seams; he shucked them hastily, along with his pants, before he split those, too. A final peal of nausea drove him to the sink, gasping; and then it was over, as suddenly as it began.
Myrtle, in the background, was wailing. “Horrible,” she cried. “Oh, you horrible, horrible boy — you vomited on me!”
“They’d better not have,” said Draco, in a voice he didn’t recognize. It was deep and throaty, with a twang of London, rather than his usual Wiltshire drawl. He brushed back a sheaf of mousy brown hair around his eyes and checked the mirror. In doing so, he had to swallow a sigh of grief: gone were his fine white locks, his father’s eyes, his mother’s graceful nose; in their place were the cartoonishly square features of Garrett Goyle. A box of a jaw jutted under a hard, deep brow, and his hair was longer on the top than on the sides of his head; he recalled that Garrett usually wore it in a topknot.
Despite the hideous downgrade in appearance, he grinned. It worked. It had worked. He, Draco Malfoy, had brewed a N.E.W.T.-level Dark potion on a portable cauldron in a corner of a girls’ bathroom — admittedly, with help from Hermione — and it worked perfectly.
“I’m a sodding genius,” he breathed, touching his weathered cheek. In a better world, he would’ve had time to dash down to Snape’s office and boast till he was blue in the face.
“You three alright?” said a thin, elderly voice. In the mirror, Draco saw Brutus Travers hobble out of the bathroom stall, wearing Harry’s glasses. He was holding a lump of tattered clothes tactfully in front of his unmentionables. “Er, Malfoy, is that you?”
Draco, realizing that he was perilously unrobed, immediately hocked a set of robes over his shoulder and wrestled on some pants. “It’s me,” he said, unsettled by the deep pitch of his own voice. “Potter, looks like you got Travers. He’s a retired veteran from the Bureau of Curse Breakers. He used to be on track to become an Unspeakable, but he resigned to join the Dark Lord. He mostly does philanthropy now.”
“I’m a former Death Eater?” said Harry, repulsed.
“Barely. Travers was old when my father was gestating, I daresay he never cast more than a Stinging Hex in the Dark Lord’s name — oh, there you are, Weasley. You remember Orpheus.”
Ron crept out of the stall, tottering around like a newborn giraffe on his newly-elongated limbs. Watching Daphne’s father smack his head into the stall crossbar was, admittedly, very funny, though Draco had to execute a sharp pivot to avoid getting intimately acquainted with the Greengrass family jewels. “Granger, you alright?” he called.
“Yes,” said a low woman’s voice. “Can you — can you pass my robes over the stall, please?”
They did, and she emerged, a round-faced blonde woman in the shape of a pear, with sallow cheeks and stubby fingers. Draco almost didn’t recognize her without all the work she’d had done.
“Did you boys manage to… oh, you’re tall,” she said in alarm, craning her neck. “Goodness. Didn’t I grow at all?”
“Not much,” said Draco frankly. “Constance Crabbe is a short woman. If we see anybody, I’m Goyle, and that’s Travers and Greengrass.”
“If we all know each other, oughtn’t we be using our first names?”
“Not in front of other people. Besides, you and I had a fight about a year ago, and I don’t think we’ve spoken to each other since.”
“Oh, dear,” she said, tucking her wand into her robes. “Won’t people be confused, seeing us together, then?”
“Possibly,” he said, with a flat look at Harry, “which is why it would’ve been ideal for Potter to ask me before he went around filching follicles willy-nilly. But it can’t be helped. Come on, we’re burning minutes. Are we all presentable? Robes on? Good, and don’t forget — Weasley, what did I tell you about the tie?”
They cracked the door of the bathroom, checked that the coast was clear, and set off.
“Stop doing that with your hands,” he muttered to Hermione.
“Stop what?”
“Fiddling with them. Constance Crabbe went to finishing school, she knows better than that.”
“Oh. How’s this? Better?”
It wasn’t. “For Merlin’s sake.” He grabbed her hand and clamped it down on his arm, where it couldn’t distract either of them. “There. Hold on, and don’t look so worried. These people don’t have to worry about anything, remember? Your biggest problems happen in the Society pages of Witch Weekly.”
Her fingers dug into his forearm. She lifted her chin and flattened her mouth into a puffy pout.
“Not bad, but make it richer.”
She lifted her nose.
“Even richer.”
She lifted it more.
“Perfect.”
They went down the marble staircase. The way out of the castle took them past the Defense the Dark Arts classroom, and as they passed the door, Harry lagged behind.
Draco was the first to notice. “Travers,” he said warningly, and when Harry didn’t reply, he hissed: “Potter!”
“He’s stuck in there with the aurors,” said Harry, lingering outside the classroom with the pie-eyed longing of the hopelessly orphaned. “We look like we’re Ministry. We could walk in and tell them to leave.”
“Potter! No! The plan! Stick to the plan!”
“Sorry,” he whispered, and then he vanished into the classroom.
“You’re retired!” Draco shrilled at the closed door. “You can’t give orders! You’re not an employee, you— you—”
“But I am,” said Ron quickly. “I’ll run in and back him up.”
“No!” Draco was whisper-shouting at the top of his register, which hurt his throat. “Weasley! Stop! You don’t even know what department you work in!”
Ron gave a roguish little half-shrug, which looked utterly bizarre on Orpheus, and followed Harry.
There was nothing else for it. He let go of Hermione’s arm and hurried after him.
Harry was locked in argument with a pair of aurors at the door to Lupin’s office. “And I’m saying I need to talk to him,” he croaked, in a not-terrible impression of a crotchety old man. “I don’t care what you have him doing, I have important business! Business I can only discuss with the suspect!”
“Roger that,” announced Ron, striding up the aisle. “Travers and I have an important message.”
Draco wanted to concuss him with something. Roger that?Roger that?
“We’re under orders from the Minister’s Chief of Staff,” said one of the aurors, a mean-looking fellow with a prominent wand holster on his hip. The spikes on their coats made them seem taller. It wasn’t that Draco was intimidated, he was just observing a good design choice. “We don’t move until dawn.”
Draco shouldered Harry and Ron out of the way. ““And who do you think sent us here but Lord Nott? He requires both you in the Astronomy Tower,” he snapped. “At once. It is a matter regarding—” What would Nott care about? “—the escaped convict. Sirius Black.”
“Why wouldn’t he send for us?” said the other one, with all too reasonable skepticism.
He pitched his voice into its most nasal register. “Do I seem like I dribble my hours away contemplating the motivations of Lord Nott?” he snapped. “Is it for you or I to question the right hand of the Minister? I have done my duty, sir. You do yours.”
The aurors glanced at each other. Their expressions were uncomfortably knowing.
One auror reached out to touch Draco’s arm. “Sir—”
The door burst open, and in flew Constance Crabbe, breathing as if she had just done two laps up and down the grand staircase. “HELP!” she screamed, pointing at the doorway. “Help! Help! Please, help!”
“Mrs. Crabbe,” exclaimed one of the aurors. “What’s wr—”
“DEMENTORS IN THE CASTLE!” she shrieked. “Dementors in the castle — they must have seen Black!”
“What! Where?”
“I don’t know where it is now,” she screeched. “It was headed for the dungeons! Are you just going to stand there, or will you do your job?”
One of the aurors swore. “I told Nott he shouldn’t have brought those overgrown blankets to the castle. Never send a creature to do a wizard’s job, I said.”
“Yeha, well, you go and take care of it. I’ll handle the werewolf.”
“Fine. Tell Lord Nott where I’ve gone.”
The first auror jogged out of the room, leaving them alone with the other. Draco wracked his brains. Harry mouthed, ‘Now what?’ at him from behind the auror’s back, and he made a furious face back. What was he supposed to do?
“Sod this,” said Ron suddenly, and took a running leap at the auror.
“Weasley! NO!”
The auror’s shielding ward flared to life, and caught Ron with a crackle of white energy. He was thrown back against the wall, and the auror whirled on him, his wand high. Draco spat a curse and drew his wand, fired a Stupefy that fizzled against the same ward, and then two more Stunning Spells that ricocheted ineffectually against the stone walls. Hermione and Harry followed it up with charms of their own, but the auror’s warding was excellent — they were trained to deal with far worse — and his returning Stunner very nearly caught Ron in the chest.
Their one saving grace, thought Draco hopelessly, was that the auror had no bloody idea what was going on. “What the hell,” he bellowed. “What the actual hell, Travers? You were at Tracy’s birthday party—”
“And it was bloody awful!” roared Ron, shooting a Knockback Jinx that the auror cast off with barely a twitch. “I’ve secretly hated you for years!”
“Have you gone mad?”
“On the contrary! I’ve finally come to my senses!” He shot a Disarming Jinx at the same time as Harry, and with a slash, the auror dissolved both into harmless sparks — but in so doing, left himself open for Hermione’s Flipendo, which sent him bowling over the table and into the back wall.
He staggered upright almost at once, but Draco was quicker: he cast his wand at the bookshelf behind him and snapped, “Carpe retractum.”
The bookshelf keeled forward with a thunder of falling books and magical knickknacks. The better part of Remus Lupin’s considerable library descended on the auror’s head, and the iron-and-wood frame followed it with a tolling THUD and the unmistakable crack of bones.
The auror did not move.
“Bloody hell,” said Ron, in tones of awe and commingled fear. “Did you kill him?”
“Ron!”
“I was just asking!”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Harry assured him.
“I hope not,” said Draco crossly, “but you two didn’t give me many options. At best, he would’ve Stunned you and hauled you in for questioning; at worst, you would’ve gotten a first-hand introduction to the ghoulish universe of spells they teach you in auror training.”
Hermione dashed to the office door and jiggled the handle. “Alohamora,” she murmured. It clicked open. “Oh, thank goodness. We’re lucky they didn’t hex it closed; we don’t have time to try ward-breaking, and I’m still a novice at Runes.”
“We didn’t have time for any of this,” Draco snapped, as they hurried out of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. “We had two hours! Two! You’d better hope that everything goes as smooth as butter with Padfoot.”
Which, he would later admit, was the sort of idiotic fortune-tempting that made him, too, partially responsible for all that would transpire.
They descended a winding staircase and jogged along the narrow hallways leading towards the entrance. In this part of the castle there were few windows, and the torches burned low, leaving wide shadows on the stone floors. The hallways were mercifully empty, since most of the students had retired to their commons.
In an alcove by the door, however, their luck ran out. A pair of students were engaged in heated whispering under the sconce, and with horror, Draco recognized both of them.
Daphne and Theo were bickering as though it was their last night on earth to air out their grievances.
“—right, I don’t care what they say! He’s a Hogwarts professor—”
“—course he is, but there are things—”
“So tell me!”
“I can’t! It’s more complicated…” This was muffled. “…want to end up like me.”
“Don’t you try to tell me… more pain in my life than you’re capable of imagining.”
“—don’t want you to be… would have done worse…. think he’d do to you?”
“I don’t care! And I don’t care if he is , anyway! Blood purity, blegh… Half the purebloods in Slytherin… out of a paper bag!”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do! Oh, but I do! I would rather live in a box and snog a muggle than than have to marry some rat-faced incestuous pureblood prat—”
“Don’t say that. Daph, don’t you say that ever.”
There was a scuffle, and a squeak. Then a pause. Draco held out his arm, sequestering the four of them behind a corner.
When silence fell, he crooked his fingers, and they swept into the hall.
Daphne and Theo whisked their wands away from each other’s throats and hid them behind their backs.
“Dad?” said Daphne.
“Mr. Greengrass,” said Theo, with a cool mouthful of snide. “Mr. Goyle. Mrs. Crabbe. Lord Travers. What brings you to the castle tonight?”
Daphne stepped forward before Draco could answer. “Is Astoria alright?” she said, rigid with dread. “Dad?”
A beat of silence.
Draco angled his wand behind his back and covered a Stinging Jinx with a sneeze. Ron yelped.
“She’s fine! She’s fine. She’s alright. Er… resting,” he said, massaging his rear. “Listen, we’ve got to go… kiddo. We’re here on Ministry business. Top secret.”
“Oh,” exclaimed Daphne. “You mean you… you’re going to—”
Theo hauled her back by the elbow, a movement made brutal by haste. “Daphne’s had a long night, Mr. Greengrass. I apologize most sincerely for her impoliteness. I’m taking her back to the dorms so she can rest.”
“Don’t touch me! Dad, is it true? You’re going after—”
Theo’s strength surprised him: he hauled her up by the waist and bundled her down the nearest set of stairs. “We’ll be off, now,” he said loudly, over Daphne’s yowl of fury. “Give my regards to your families. I sincerely apologize for disrupting your evening.”
“Theodore,” said Draco. Theo blinked.
“Your eye looks brutal, boy.”
“Ah, yes. I walked into a hippogriff,” said Theo crisply. “It was my own mistake, sir, I was looking for your son.”
Ron developed a suspicious rasping cough, and Hermione thwacked him punishingly on the back.
Draco drew his wand. “Come here,” he ordered.
Theo turned the color of maggots. “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean it.”
“Come here, boy.”
“My father is in the castle. I’ll tell him — I swear, if you hurt me, he’ll know—!”
He threw up his hands as Draco pointed his wand at his face. This made Draco vaguely sad for reasons that he had no desire nor time to examine.
“Episkey.”
The ring of purple around Theo’s eye receded, replaced by a clean pucker of healed skin. It wasn’t the best job in the world — Draco wasn’t a dab hand at healing spells — and there was still some bruising around the socket, but it was much improved, and it no longer made Draco want to gorge by looking at it.
Theo stared at him, agape.
“Do you mean to catch flies?” He swept his hand at Theo. “Make yourself scarce.”
Theo didn’t bother with thanks. He dashed down the stairs after Daphne, leaving them free to exit the castle unobserved.
The sun had set, and the sky glowed with the cool blue light that always lasts for twenty minutes or so after nightfall. The trees rose in a black wall to the west, and the moon sat full and gleaming over the turrets of Gryffindor Tower. A dementor drifted across it, giving a distant, lonesome moan.
More of its kind floated in a train of ghostly black silhouettes over the lake. Two drifted in the arms of the Whomping Willow, and a handful scuttled along the mist-clad grounds near the Forbidden Forest.
“Patronuses,” whispered Hermione. “Harry, Ron — Draco, if you can—”
“Expecto patronum,” said Harry, and a fountain of incandescent white mist poured from his wand. It wasn’t corporeal, but it bloomed like a flower around their left flank, while Ron’s incorporeal protected their right.
Draco, swallowing, drew his wand and thought of dinners on his private beach with Theo and Pansy. “Expecto patronum.”
It didn’t work, but he knew it wouldn’t. He couldn’t picture Theo’s face without seeing the black eye.
“That’s alright,” Hermione said bracingly. Her attempt hadn’t worked, either, and he took comfort in that. If Hermione couldn’t do it, it usually wasn’t worth doing. “Two should be enough; they shouldn’t come near us, anyway, unless we provoke them. Come on.”
They made it to the foot of the Whomping Willow, whose branches shivered idly across the clear night’s pergola of stars. Hermione bent, hunting for a twig to poke the knot-hole. She let out an exclamation.
“Ron! It’s Scabbers!”
Ron gaped at her. “What are you talking about?”
“He’s here! He just came out of the Whomping Willow — ow!”
She snatched her hand back, nursing a bead of blood on her finger, and something small and furry raced between her feet. But Ron was too fast for the animal: he swept down, and plucked the fleeing rat out of the grasses. With a frantic squeak, it began to writhe in his hands.
“Scabbers!” said Ron, with more astonishment than relief. “What are you doing here?”
Scabbers looked terrible, which, considering that he was a rat, was really saying something. He was thinner than a rail, balding in wide patches (Draco had not been aware until this moment that rats could go bald), and he writhed in Ron’s hands as though in his death throes. Draco wondered if it hadn’t been a mistake not to let Crookshanks at him.
A rustling came from the base of the Whomping Willow, startling them all, and a black dog came tearing into the moonlight with a deafening snarl. Draco actually leapt back at the slavering snap of its jaws, even knowing it was Sirius: the ceaseless growls that tore from the creature’s chest made his guts turn to jelly.
At the sight of them, he gave another monstrous snarl, and dropped into a crouch, preparing to lunge.
“Sirius!” Harry gasped. “Sirius, it’s me, Harry — we took Polyjuice — we’re not Ministry, we’re your friends! We have to get you out of here!”
But Sirius paid no attention to Harry. His yellow eyes fixed unerringly on Ron. He prowled forward, his growl increasing with every step.
“Sirius?” said Ron weakly. He crept back. “C’mon, Sirius, it’s me… Ron… I know I’m ugly at the mo, but it’s temporary…”
“Sirius,” Hermione interrupted, “we’re here to rescue you. We have to get you somewhere safe. The Ministry’s searching the grounds.”
She reached out, and he snapped his jaws at her. With a squeak, she whisked back her hand.
“What’s wrong with him?” she whispered. “Is he alright? Doesn’t he recognize us?”
“Maybe he doesn’t, as a dog,” said Ron. “Maybe he can’t understand what we’re saying. My mum told me once that Animagi lose parts of themselves in the transformation…”
“Did she say how to make him transform back?” whispered Harry.
“Yes, there’s a spell for that,” said Hermione, wringing her hands, “but we haven’t learned it. McGonagall told me about it after the lesson on Animagi… it’ll be on the O.W.L…”
“Good to know,” said Harry flatly. “Remind me to put that on my study guide, if I’m alive tomorrow.”
“Don’t snip at me! I’m just as scared as you are!”
“STOP!”
All four of them spun around. Even Sirius stopped growling. Draco gave a thin groan of horror.
Daphne Greengrass was limping down the lawn at top speed, and quite possibly breaking a land speed record for the use of a cane. Her jaw was rigid with determination.
“DADDY!” she shouted, tripping down the uneven slope. “I want to speak to you! You must listen to me!”
“You’re joking,” wondered Harry.
“Ron, do something,” hissed Hermione. Ron made an outraged choking noise, which, Draco supposed, did technically satisfy her request, just not in a particularly helpful way.
As she drew up on them, she staggered in the wet grass. “Dad,” she said, breathless from exertion, “they’re going to go after Professor Lupin. You have to stop them.”
Ron’s jaw fell open.
“Now, I know what you’re going to say,” she said, her finger rising to forestall an answer that absolutely had not been coming. “I know. I’ve heard all the rumors, don’t ask me how, but Daddy, you must listen to me. He’s good. He taught me a glamour charm for my scar and he showed me how to use my cane properly, and he’s the only Defense professor I’ve ever had who’s let me do the exercises and everything — let me finish! I don’t care what they say about him. I don’t care! He’s my professor and if you let them take him away I will quite simply never speak to you or Mummy ever again until I die!”
Ron greeted her declaration with a weak: “Fair enough, then.”
She had been filling her lungs for a sequel. At his acquiescence, they emptied, abruptly, with an amusing whoosh. “Good,” she said fiercely. “So you’ll speak to Lord Nott?”
“Sure,” said Ron thickly. He was struggling with Scabbers, who was meanwhile going completely beserk, twisting and flailing in his hands. “Sounds great, honey. Now, would you get back to the castle? We’re kind of busy with something here—”
He gave a shout and dropped his rat. A ring of bloody toothmarks scored his hand. Scabbers tumbled into the grass.
Sirius lunged, knocking Ron and Harry aside. Draco stumbled back with a cry, and the rat screeched, burrowing into the long grasses and fleeing as fast as he could. “Sirius!” Ron bellowed, chasing them. “Sirius, stop! That’s my rat!”
“Sirius?” Daphne said. Her eyes were so wide they could fit moons in them. “As in Sirius Black?”
Draco seized Daphne’s arm and shook her. She squealed in fright. “You need to go back to the castle, now,” he snapped. “You’re in danger.”
“Mr. Goyle?” She could not have been more confused if Albus Dumbledore had appeared on the back of a unicorn. “Lord Travers? What are you all doing?”
“Ministry business,” said Harry, the Boy Who Lived To Be Unhelpful.
With a triumphant roar, Sirius pounced on Scabbers, who gave a scream and darted back under his legs. The dog’s gnashing jaws closed once, twice, over the place where he’d been, and a moment later, the rat sprinted out from between his paws. And then—
Then, something happened that made Draco wonder if the whole night had been an awful dream.
As if caught in an Engorgement Charm, the rat began to grow. A head shot upward from its tiny neck like an inflating balloon, and four limbs sprang from its tiny sockets. The fur shrank into its skin, and a thin crop of colorless hair sprouted around a wide bald patch on the head. The rat finally took the shape of a short, thick-waisted man, though something rodent-like remained in his narrow face and watery eyes, which darted here and there between the four of them.
He threw back his head and gave a mighty caterwaul.
“HELP!” he screamed. “HELP! HELP! IT’S SIRIUS BLACK! HE’S TRYING TO KILL ME! HELP! HELP!”
“Stop him, someone’s going to hear,” hissed Hermione, and Draco, his wand moving before she even spoke, threw a Silencio at him. But the damage had been done. As one, every dementor on the grounds began drifting towards the Whomping Willow.
Draco, in reflecting on his life and the many opportunities he had to die in it, would have preferred almost any of them to this.
For surely it would have been better, he thought, as the swarm of dementors descended on them, to die in a quidditch game, saving Harry Potter’s life; or to die in the Forbidden Forest, with one quick flash of a Death Eater’s spell; or to die in a vault below Hogwarts, at the hands of the Dark Lord himself; or anything, really, rather than to have his soul ripped out and eaten in the company of a murderer, his cousin, and four of his doomed friends.
When the dementors started moving, a spell of horror had frozen them all to the spot. Sirius was the first to act. He transformed back into a man, erupting in a riot of black hair and shabby robes.
Daphne let out a scream.
“That’s Sirius Black!”
“Enchanté,” snarled Sirius, whipping out his wand. “Patronuses, now, all of you, if you want to live.”
He whirled his wand in a familiar hand movement, and a familiar quadruped beast erupted from its tip. It landed, snarling and corporeal, on the ground before them and paced restlessly as the dementors drew closer. Harry and Ron cast their own, too, and their clumps of white joined the beast.
One of the dementors, testing its limits, gave a groan and dive-bombed the patronus, flinging itself against the silver beast. The beast snarled and lashed with its claws, and the dementor screeched as the light fell on its withered skin.
It swept away as quickly as it had come, and the others formed a ring just out of the Patronus’s reach. Draco watched his breath turn to fog in the air before him, and his skin tingled with the beginnings of a familiar chill.
“Testing us,” said Sirius grimly. “Stay strong… oh no you don’t!”
The rat-man had been slinking back towards the Whomping Willow. Sirius whirled and snarled a curse that made ropes burst from the end of his wand. They snared the man and knocked him to the ground, where he fell, thrashing and moaning.
“No! No, help me,” he wailed. “Harry… please, help me… he’s going to kill me, like he killed J-J-James…”
“Really, Peter?” Sirius strolled forward, twirling his wand through his fingers. “Begging for help from a child? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised; you always did like to hide under James’ skirts.”
“You’re Peter Pettigrew,” said Harry, astonished. “You… you betrayed my parents.”
“Yes,” said Sirius grimly. “And he’s going to die for it.”
Harry startled. “What?” he said. “Sirius, no—”
Pettigrew shrieked and struggled against the ropes.
“Sirius,” said Hermione urgently. “Your Patronus.”
It had disappeared when he cursed Pettigrew. Without the silver beast to protect them, the only Patronuses were Harry and Ron’s thin incorporeals, and the dementors were beginning to test them. They crept forward to the radius of light cast from Harry and Ron’s wands, hissing and probing the barrier with their shriveled fingers. They were much closer than they had been when Sirius was there.
“In a moment,” said Sirius. His eyes were glued to Pettigrew as if they were the only two creatures alive. “It’ll only take a moment.”
With a squeal, Pettigrew transformed back into a rat. The ropes fell slack around his body, and he skittered away into the grasses. Sirius gave a roar of anguish.
“Sirius! Sirius, no!”
But it was no use. He leapt forward and transformed into a dog, and took off at a gallop after Pettigrew, baying furiously.
“No!” roared Harry. “Sirius! Stop!”
When no answer came, he whirled on the others. “He’s going to kill Pettigrew,” he blurted, tight with panic. “He’s going to become a murderer, and then the dementors will come for him—”
“Who cares about him?” snarled Draco. “They’re about to come for us!”
The dementors had sensed the vulnerability in Harry and Ron’s patronuses, and now swept closer, pressing into a tight ring. His throat closed over.
“Expecto patronum!” cried Harry. “Ron, come on! Expecto patronum!”
“Expecto,” said Ron thickly, “expecto — expecto…”
But he couldn’t do it. The dementors were closing in.
“Expecto — expecto patronum —”
Ron dropped down on his knees in the grass. Fog was closing over them, thick and white, and it was hard to tell what was natural and what wasn’t. Draco could no longer feel his fingertips.
“Dad?” said Daphne, in a very small voice. She sank to the ground beside Ron and put her hand on his shoulder. “I don’t like this. Please — tell them to go.”
Draco was sorry for Daphne. He was more sorry for himself, Hermione, and Ron, and a little bit less for Harry, who he held partially at fault for getting them all into this mess; but really, he felt terrible for Daphne, who would have done better to listen to Theodore Nott. She had chosen rather the wrong night to become a better person. She would have lived longer if she had stayed selfish.
And so, probably, would he.
“Potter,” he began, drafting a sermon on the many ways in which he would hunt Harry’s spirit across the afterlife. It clocked in at one hundred and thirty-two words, and seventeen were expletives. But Harry said, “Shut up for a second, I need to concentrate,” and Draco was so offended by his audacity that he actually did it.
Harry closed his eyes and screwed up his whole face. “Do you remember New Year’s?” he said. “New Year’s Eve, in the Shrieking Shack? With Remus, and Sirius on his violin?”
“Of course I remember it,” Draco said tartly. “It was the last New Year’s of my life, and I spent it in that hovel. I’m considering coming back to haunt it.”
“I never thanked you for coming.”
A strong contender for the saddest thing Draco had ever heard in his life, and coming in just under the wire, as it was about to end. “You poor imbecilic mutt,” he said, aggrieved. “You don’t have to say thank you for that. Have some self-respect.”
Harry smiled. His eyes were still closed.
“You’re such an ass,” he said. Then: “Expecto patronum!”
A dazzling silver animal burst from the end of his wand, enormous, with long legs and a forked coronet of antlers that protruded almost a meter over its head.
It cantered forward, regal and blazing a silver brighter than moonlight, and the dementors parted before its touch with a terrible shriek. They could not bear to touch it. Its hooves left no mark in the soft mud.
“Prongs,” whispered Hermione, nonsensically. Draco absently patted her arm. Poor thing was going mad from shock.
It lowered its head and broke into a gallop. The dementors peeled back at its approach, whirling in raggedy circles like a flock of alighting vultures. It galloped in a loop around the hemisphere surrounding them, sending dementors spilling into the night; then it whirled and cantered back, scaring off the few that had crept back in its absence to try and get at the children. It reared up on its legs, towering over them, and struck out with one powerful hoof. The dementor it caught howled, clutching its body, which — Draco stared — had started to smoke where the Patronus touched it.
“A full corporeal,” said Ron hoarsely. “Blimey.”
“Thanks,” said Harry faintly. “I’ve never… I mean, I didn’t…”
“Don’t let’s get excited,” said Draco warily. The other dementors were swooping in, and they had started to flank the Patronus on either side, boxing it in. It fended them off as best it could, but it could not be in two places at once.
“Ron, can you do one?” pleaded Hermione. “To help it?”
“I — I can try, maybe, but it’s damn hard to concentrate—”
“I know, but please — it’s struggling, anything helps—”
For the sheer number of dementors was taking a toll on Harry. A pale sheen like death had descended on his face, and long bolts of cold sweat dripped down his hair and cheeks. He was maintaining the Patronus with a viselike grip on his wand and gritted teeth, but with every new dementor, another peal of cold rolled down Draco’s back, and a fresh wave of despair broke over his head. He couldn’t imagine holding onto a happy thought, now; he couldn’t imagine being happy ever again. Had he ever been happy? It was hard to remember.
“Come on, Harry. You can… you can do it, just think… think about Sirius. Think about Lupin…”
A white light bloomed through the fog. At first he mistook it for the stag, but the stag was all but gone, its flickering remains struggling against the encroaching hands of a dozen dementors. The light in the distance was brighter, stronger, even cleaner than Harry’s stag. It swelled into shape as it came nearer, and the four legs of another horse-like animal resolved into focus.
Galloping over the wide lawn, trailing strands of silver like gossamer, came a pure white doe. Its hooves left little starbursts of white over the lawn wherever it stepped, and its wide eyes shone with an unearthly magic light, like the eerie bloom of Lumos.
It leapt into the horde of dementors and shattered them effortlessly. The creatures shrieked and split away, steam rising from their melting cloaks. The doe rounded and made another pass, tearing into them with savage intensity, as the cold receded from Draco’s trembling frame.
Now Harry’s stag found its second wind. It reared up and galloped after the doe, sweeping another row of dementors back from the Whomping Willow. The sky filled with the ragged hems of fleeing monsters.
“Is that yours?” Hermione asked Draco.
“No,” he breathed, pushing the sweat-damp hair off his face. It was so cold he could feel crystals of frost tangle around his ears. “I don’t know whose it is.”
“Don’t know, don’t care. Whoever it is, I’m going to kiss them,” Ron declared. He hauled himself upright, bringing Daphne with him, though she was in a bad way: she sagged on him almost entirely for support, her face utterly leached of color. “Let’s hurry, before they find something else to do. Daphne, er — can you stand?”
“Yes, Daddy, I… I’m sure I can… but you sound ever so strange,” and then keeling forward, she passed out.
He caught her.
“Balls,” said Ron. “That’s one more thing to worry about.”
“Poor thing,” said Hermione. “She was just trying to help Lupin.”
The grounds were very dark now; the only light came from the distant windows of the castle. The moon shimmered behind a thatch of clouds. Hermione said, “Lumos maxima,” and her wand cast a wide beam.
“Shall we go find Sirius?” she ventured nervously. “He must be somewhere out there, on the grounds.”
“Sod Sirius,” Ron said savagely, adjusting Daphne in his arms. “He left us there with the dementors. I hope they do get him, mangy old git.”
“Don’t say that, you don’t mean it!”
“Yeah? Where’s he, then? While we risked our skins to get here.” He shook his head. “Scabbers,” he muttered. “Scabbers, my rat… Peter Pettigrew… I let him sleep in my bed… eugh…”
“We’ll have time to reflect on the latent horror of your childhood later,” said Draco. “What we ought to do is get inside. We only have an hour left on the Polyjuice, if that.”
“But Sirius is still out there,” said Harry.
“So? I’m with Weasley.” He jerked his chin at Ron. “If it weren’t for that doe, he’d have hung us out to dry. And frankly, we couldn’t find him even if we wanted to; he could be anywhere in the grounds, including the Forbidden Forest. There’s not a chance.”
“We can’t just leave him—”
“Can so,” said Draco coolly. “And I will. I already volunteered to die once for my scurrilous rat of a cousin, tonight, and I shan’t be doing it again. Nor will you.”
“You’re leaving?” said Harry, shocked. Draco bristled.
“No, we’re leaving,” he snapped. “All four of us are going back to the castle. I don’t care if I have to Stun you and drag you in by your ankles. I’m not letting you kill yourself for a man who wouldn’t do the same—”
“Draco, please,” said Harry. Seeing earnest anguish on Travers’ wrinkled face made for a killer dose of cognitive dissonance. “He’s my godfather. He’s the only family I’ve got. What if — what if it was your mother?”
In terms of dirty shots, this was somewhat like bringing a rusty knife to a game of checkers. He might have expected that from Theo, or Pansy, or even Hermione, when she wanted something badly enough, but Harry Potter didn’t go fumbling for ammunition in his family history. It wasn’t his way.
“What do you mean, if it was my mother?” he snapped. “It doesn’t — she’d never put us in this position. She wouldn’t. My mother wouldn’t leave me. Ever.”
Harry shrank into himself. Another rusted knife, straight through the gut, and Draco was only a little sorry for it. Served him right, didn’t it. Teach him to start fights he couldn’t win.
“We have to do something,” said Hermione quietly. “We should get Daphne back to the castle, at least. She didn’t sign up for any kind of rescue mission.”
“If you want my vote, we carry her up, then go to Dumbledore,” said Ron. “He could do something about Pettigrew, at least.”
“That is an excellent idea, Weasley.”
“Actually — yes, it is,” said Hermione. “Of course, we’ll be in so much trouble, but maybe if we explain…”
“Trouble?” repeated Ron incredulously. “You think? We’re to tell him he’s got a murderer and Sirius Black loose on his grounds, and you’re worried about losing House points?”
“House points? If we’re lucky! Breaking curfew, attacking an auror, improper use of a Polyjuice Potion — even if it was all for a good cause, I expect we’ll be in detention forever. Speaking of which, do they let you study in detention, if you get your lines done early? I hope they do. Maybe Professor McGonagall will answer questions about the exam; then at least it wouldn’t be such a waste of time.”
“You cock-eyed optimist, you,” said Draco.
Together, they hurried back up the path to the castle. As they passed Hagrid’s hut, they heard voices. A cluster of wandlights emanated through the fog from the pumpkin patch.
“Oh, damn,” hissed Hermione, drawing them back. They ducked behind the massive swell of one peach-pale pumpkin, which comfortably hid the five of them, such was its size. “Who’s there? Draco, can you see?”
Draco, un-enamored of his conscripted scouting duties, inched his head up over the pumpkin. A group of men stood amongst the squash blossoms, speaking in low voices. In front was Sibelius Nott, his hood drawn low over his narrow face. Beside them stood another Ministry official and a hooded wizard holding a long silver blade. The fourth had his back to Draco, but he was unmistakeable: it was Hagrid.
“Where is the beast?” said Nott.
“He’s — he’s in the paddock,” Hagrid croaked.
Draco whisked his head out of sight as footsteps crunched up the garden path, and he swept his hand down. The four of them ducked.
“You retain the right to hear the official notice of execution,” Nott was telling Hagrid. “You and Macnair will both sign it. Macnair, remember: one clean stroke, no dallying. The last lawsuit was bad enough…”
Draco mumbled a curse under his breath.
“What? What is it?” whispered Harry, who was at the back of the party, and could not hear.
“They’re killing something,” he replied. “One of Hagrid’s creatures, I couldn’t hear which. Could be any of them, really—”
“Fang?” gasped Hermione.
“No, I don’t think so.” Fang trotted in Hagrid’s wake, his tail between his legs. “He said it was in the paddock.”
“Bet it’s Buckbeak, then,” whispered Ron unhappily. “He keeps the hippogriffs out there, remember?”
Sure enough, Nott’s voice drifted back to them. “It is the decision of the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures that the hippogriff Buckbeak, hereafter called the condemned, shall be executed on the sixth of May; sentenced to execution by beheading, to be carried out by the Committee’s appointed executioner, Walden Macnair… as witnessed below. Mr. Hagrid, please sign where directed.”
“Well, let’s get this over with,” said the Ministry man. “Mr. Hagrid, perhaps it will be better if you go inside.”
“No, I — I wan’ ter be with him… I don’ wan’ him ter be alone.”
“We should save him,” Hermione whispered wildly. Draco snapped his head around and stared at her like she’d proposed a quick game of draughts. “We could do it now — just run along behind the paddock, and let him go!”
“Are you daft? They’d see us!”
“Not if we were quick!”
There was a rustling of pages. “Macnair, you will sign where directed, as well.”
He fought the urge to pin her down and sit on her until all endangered creatures and deadly foes had safely passed them by. “We’ve taken on enough lost causes tonight,” he hissed at her.
“And at least this way it wouldn’t be for nothing!”
He was preparing to summarily demolish her argument with a yet-to-be-identified piece of logic, but he was interrupted. Somewhere in the distance there came a long, throaty howl.
“What’s that?” demanded Macnair. “Are there wolves in the forest, Hagrid?”
“You don’ get wolves up in these parts,” said Hagrid haughtily. “They don’ take well to the weather, an’ the centaurs don’ like ’em.”
“Centaurs? What centaurs?”
“Blimey, yer green. Biggest population of centaurs in Europe lives righ’ in these here woods,” said Hagrid indignantly. “Even my firs’ years know tha’.”
Nott lifted one spindly finger, a silent order for peace. They obeyed him. The howl came again, even closer. He gave a small, horrible smile.
“It’s not a wolf,” he said. He drew his wand. “Macnair, Exavier, with me. Hagrid, we’ll be back for the beast shortly. Retreat to your domicile and lock your doors.”
“Wha’?” said Hagrid, bemused. “Where you lot goin’?”
“Hunting,” said Nott, and the three men set off into the night.
“Stop them!” hissed Hermione, as soon as the garden gate clicked shut. “Stop them, stop them! They’re going after Lupin!”
Draco said, “Fine, but what’s the pl—” and made it no further: Harry had taken off like a shot after the executioners.
“Harry! Harry, wait!”
Hermione took off running, too.
Draco turned to Ron.
“I’m going to kill him,” he said calmly. “I am. I’m going to tie him to the Whomping Willow and beat him with a Cleansweep until he’s broken every bone in his arms and legs, and then I’m going to feed him some Skel-Gro and beat him to death again. I’m telling you now so I don’t lose my nerve, later, once he’s said something sad and orphan-y. But I am going to kill him. Even if Granger gets cross with me. He’s not getting out of it, this time.”
“Move fast then, mate, because Nott’s ahead of you in the queue,” said Ron.
“A good point,” said Draco, “well made,” and he ran after Harry and Hermione.
In the shadow of the forest, they dodged skirts of dense black underbrush, and gnarled roots that surged unexpectedly from the gloom to snare their ankles. Sibelius Nott was hurrying at top speed, which for a man of his age was not very fast, and they closed the distance quickly.
“Stupefy!” hissed Draco, and a red bolt caught Macnair in the back. He went down without a sound — Hermione cast a clever Silencio on his falling body — and Sibelius, caught up in the thrill of his pursuit, never heard him fall. Then Harry cast another Stupefy that snagged the Ministry official in the shoulder, but Hermione’s Silencio went wide, and the man crashed noisily through the brush.
Nott whirled around. His eyes searched the underbrush for his comrades.
“Exavier?” he called warily. “Where are you?”
Draco ducked behind a tree, panting.
“Back up,” said Harry urgently. “They might see us.”
“Oh, God,” said Draco, mostly to himself. “Merlin. God and Merlin, together, buggering each other on a table — I attacked a Ministry official. Unprovoked. Potter, we both attacked a Ministry official.”
“I know that, thanks, I was there. Can you duck? Your head’s showing.”
“We’ve committed assault. That’s a crime. We’re juvenile delinquents.”
“What? Yeah,” said Harry distractedly. “Good thing you’ve got the lawyer from hell, otherwise we’d be in actual trouble.”
“Yes. No, you’re right, that’s true. Thank you for reminding me,” said Draco honestly, feeling much better.
Harry whacked him in the head. He made an outraged noise and clutched his skull, which frankly hurt not at all, but served as a handy metaphor for his pride.
“I wasn’t serious! We could’ve been done for just then with the dementors, and now you’re getting worried because you might get a citation? Blimey, you and Hermione deserve each other—”
“Both of you, shut up!” hissed the aforementioned girl. She, Ron, and Daphne’s thankfully still-unconscious body were crouched in a blackberry thicket. “Is he gone?”
Harry kicked Draco’s shin in a way that communicated how he, the tallest of them, should try and see.
“He seems to be,” he reported. “He’s gone off looking for Profe— Moony. Who, if he’s got any sense, has slunk off to the Shack by now, so he’ll be looking for a while.”
“Good,” groaned Ron, “because I’m just about to…” And he made a noise that Draco could have lived a glorious life without hearing, but now never could, having heard it.
Shades of Weasley red erupted through the sheaf of blond on his head, and the cartilage of his nose bent and sprouted into its normal shape. His face rippled and sank in on itself as if the flesh were melting plastic. Watching the transformation was horrifying in ways Draco hadn’t remotely contemplated while he was undergoing it, but fortunately he didn’t have to for long, because at that moment, a roil of nausea caught him in the gut, and his own face began to do the same.
“Damn — ugh — that’s our disguises gone.”
“They might as well, it would’ve been hard to explain to Dumbledore,” said Hermione, in the hoarse cadence of her real voice. Her real body was swimming in Constance Crabbe’s robes, and the high-collared blouse draped low around her collarbones, making her look like she’d been cast as a charming ragamuffin in Oliver Twist.
Harry was rifling through the pockets of his now-vastly outsized robes. “Anyone remember where I put my glasses?” he said helplessly.
She sucked a breath through her teeth. “I might have them. Check your pockets?”
“Wow, good idea, wish I’d thought of it—”
“Well, it’s your own fault for not keeping track of them!”
“Shush,” said Ron suddenly. Being shorter, he had shifted to carrying Daphne over his shoulder, which was an indignity Draco decided at once to conceal from Daphne all her life, as a gesture of respect. “You hear that?”
The grounds radiated the eerie quiet that only comes in perfect darkness. Bullfrogs cricketed under the lake, and wind whistled through the trees, but these were superficial noises, insufficient to melt the underlying veneer of silence that emanated from the forest and the empty lawns, the clouded sky, the curls of intruding fog.
“Patronuses?” whispered Hermione. She came to stand beside Harry and Draco.
“Yeah,” said Ron warily. “Yeah, let’s get those up again. Harry?”
Their spells died on their lips. A figure loped through the fog. In the billows of silken gray it was a silhouette, and then a sharper one — its progression from shroud to biped stirred first anxiety, then relief, then anxiety again — and then it sharpened to the point of distinction, and all relief died a cruel death in Draco’s roiling stomach.
It was eight feet tall, with limbs that hung to its knees and claws that hung well below that, stifle-jointed legs that moved strangely, as if it wasn’t accustomed to walking on two instead of four. The hunched length of its body was unnaturally skinny around the waist and flared into a haggard, skeletal ladder of ribs, layered in waxen gray skin. Atop its shoulders drooped a canine snout and a razored ridge of yellow teeth. Its eyes were the luminous, wild yellow of rabid dogs.
Its head hung low from a ghoulish long neck, swiveling from side to side. Its nose was twitching.
It was walking towards them.
Chapter going up a little early this week, because I’ve had more time to write. Update coming soon. Comments make the words go fast, so thank you to everyone who shed a little love on the last chapter!
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