WOLF STAR RISING
RETREAT
Reluctance – Rag doll – Retreat
Unseen; a crimson tattoo seeped into black, darkness rippling from the eye sockets of a skull until it permeated to the twin tips of the forked tongue. Draco Malfoy hissed like the snake inked on his skin, and clapped a hand to the burning pain on his arm. It was the signal he'd been waiting for; torn between anticipation and dread. It was time. He'd been preparing for months.
He wished he could put it off.
The brand seared him once more, spurring him into unenthusiastic, yet oddly frenetic motion. Climbing up the spiral staircase of the Astronomy Tower, he prayed there were no midnight sessions. No one had passed the alcove he'd been lurking in for the last hour, but you never knew. The portraits he went by murmured and jeered at him – did they know? No…How could they? He reached the peak of the tower in minutes. How many, he had no clue. He was moving sluggishly, but time was speeding by so fast…
The heavy teak door leading to the roof and battlements was locked. A strong breeze wormed through splits in the weathered wood and made the wall torches gutter, their light a flickering frenzy. It was a hint of the icy winds blasting outside - summer may have been approaching, but Scotland hadn't noticed yet. Stalling for a moment, Malfoy wrapped his robes a little tighter and took a great, shuddering breath. He was running off nervous energy, hardly believing what he was about to do. He felt trapped and disconnected at the same time. He told himself it was because he hadn't slept in a week.
Alohomora!
The lock clunked, the wind grabbed the handle and the door crashed into the parapet. Draco flinched back in fright, surely someone heard that? Hurrying through just before it slammed shut again, he ran to the wall opposite and stretched his neck over a gap. How far away was he now? How long till he arrived? If he shot the spell too soon other teachers would appear; if it was too late then he might not land here.
The stiff breeze stung his eyes and he couldn't see a thing. This was worse than trying to find the Snitch in a thunderstorm. Because this time if he failed…
Plagued by doubt, the pale teenager scanned the sky for several long minutes.
When he could bear the tension no longer, Draco strode to the centre of the roof and pointed his wand straight at the sky. It wasn't the stroke of midnight, that was long past; but for an instant the wind dramatically billowed through his robes. He bit his lip, then slowly opened his mouth and practised the charm silently.
He nearly didn't do it. Then he imagined his parents under the Cruciatus Curse.
"MORSMORDRE!"
Years of spellwork made the incantation slide off his tongue, the R's rolling, the M's heavy; dark undertones. An oily smoke blossomed instantly from the tip of his wand, rich with fat green glows, rising ponderously towards the night in a thick mushroom cloud. It was like looking up into a vast, soft emerald. The lights coalesced: a glittering skull hung in the air, with pulsing luminance. A writhing serpent of fireflies lolled from the insubstantial jawbone, and the empty eye sockets were blacker than midnight.
Its twin in crimson was branded onto the inside of Draco's forearm. The Dark Mark. Voldemort's signature. Tonight, it doubled as bait.
Under the lurid green glow of one of the most feared symbols of the century, wizardkind's swastika; buffeted by the gale howling around Hogwarts, awaiting the worst thing he'd ever done; knowing that somewhere in the distance Rosmerta of Hogsmeade was alerting the Death Eaters hundreds of miles away in Knockturn Alley to start filing into Borgin and Burkes…Malfoy's nerve snapped. He hurtled down the staircase, mind grasping at straws – he could hide in the Room of Requirement, he could wake up all the teachers, he could run to Hogsmeade and escape on a train, go anywhere…
Staggering as he reached his alcove, Draco snatched the Hand of Glory from a recess and sprinted down the corridor in its discriminating light. Just as he set foot upon a staircase leading down to the fifth floor, it separated from the landing with the thundering grumble of animated stone. He leapt back with a muffled yell.
"This bloody castle's trying to kill me!" he hissed, nearly losing his grip on the Hand. Clutching it tighter, he looked at it, really looked at it; just for a moment. That was someone's mummified hand, sawn off halfway up the forearm. Curious, he touched his wand to one of the fingers.
When it twitched his face turned green. If only there was some place he could dump it, or incinerate it, but he needed it for now. It might save his life.
Malfoy shook himself and headed towards a different flight of stairs, one that didn't move but had a trick step halfway down. He'd just jumped the gap when there was a movement in front of him. He pulled up short and quailed.
"You did it, hnah! We're in! I wouldn't have thought a brat like you could do what no one else has ever managed, but here we are! The Dark Lord will be pleased with you – very pleased. But why are you here now?"
A Death Eater with an odd laugh; Macnair or somebody, he'd never learnt the names, had loomed in front of him. The Hand may give light only to the bearer, but it didn't make the bearer invisible, or stop them from walking into people. Only the man's prattling had covered the younger person's look of shock and disappointment.
"I, I was coming," sputtered Malfoy, his tiny hopes of escape trampled; "to see where you all were – the cabinet should be instantaneous, what's the hold up?"
The Death Eater tapped the side of his nose, to be accurate, the blackened cavities in his skull mask; and answered in an irritatingly smug tone. "Weeeell, there are a few of the Order buzzing about, Dumby's old guard from the last time; they're slowing us down a bit. But we can swat them in no time."
"Er – good. What about –"
"You, on the other hand, are meant to be up the tower. See, our Master informed us of the whole plan just before we left," he prodded Draco's thin shoulders. "Get back up there and do your bit. Hnah, hah! Be a lie if I said quite a few of us weren't jealous. I heard old misery guts Snape was fuming when he heard he wasn't first pick."
There was nothing he could do, with a Death Eater blocking one path and the other stairs gone AWOL. The dingy torchlight hid his blanched face as he turned and trudged back up the hallway. Beneath a blanket of numbness, Malfoy seethed at being thwarted by such a stupid, annoying, pathetic little man!
"Move, hnah, a bit quicker, brat. We'll show ourselves around the school."
Speeding up marginally, he marched straight into an Auror emerging from a secret passageway. With a wand prodding his forehead before he could even blink, Draco stepped back and hoped he looked innocent. He whipped the Hand of Glory behind his back and continued to edge away. He needn't have bothered.
"Get to your House and hide!" ordered the stranger, shoving the pureblood to one side and advancing on maybe-Macnair. "Hey! Come here and fight, you Dark git!"
Seizing his chance and cursing the fact he'd forgotten Uric the Oddball's shortcut, Malfoy tore down the corridor searching for another stairway. A resounding KRACK echoed behind him, and he hit a dead end. Whirling around, he ran up the hallway yet again, leaping over a body (Eater or Auror was indiscernible), pounding back up the spiral steps to the Astronomy tower…and now the paintings were on to him, they didn't murmur and jeer but shouted and cursed, the more timid characters fleeing to other portraits as he passed.
The wind pushed hard against one side of the door whilst the pale-haired leader of the invasion heaved at the other. After a brief shove-o'-war, the human won; bursting out onto the roof and panting in weariness. Then it caught his eye. Bathed in the eerie emerald light of the Dark Mark, propped against the parapets, was a broomstick.
Before his face could break into a relieved grin, his gaze travelled left and met a second broom – isn't that Potter's Firebolt? – and finally he saw.
Professor Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, (Order of Merlin, First Class; Grand Sorcerer, Chief Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confederation of Wizards, Chocolate Frog Card, etc, etc), in all probability the most powerful wizard in the world; was standing there…survival instincts kicked in and he yelled "Expelliarmus!"
As Dumbledore's wand went spinning over the battlements, snatched up by the wind and tossed far away into the lake; Draco wondered if he might have a chance of surviving this. When the old man made no move to attack, he straightened out of his battle-ready stance and looked again at the two brooms. One generic yet high quality, the other a Firebolt. It had to be Potter's, and Potter had an Invisibility Cloak. That meant he might be struck without warning.
"Who else is here?" Demanded Malfoy, scanning the rooftop fruitlessly.
"A question I might ask you. Or are you acting alone?" questioned the Professor, his tone disapproving as though he knew exactly what was going on. He probably did.
"No, I've got back-up. There are Death Eaters in your school tonight." There was more than a touch of triumph in that statement.
Invisible, absolutely immobile under some cousin to the full Body-Bind, Harry Potter stared in shock at his long-time rival. Death Eaters!
"Well, well," murmured Dumbledore, vaguely impressed "Very good indeed. You found a way to let them in, did you?" He leant into the parapets, unable to support himself.
"Yeah," panted Draco, eager to stall. He'd say anything, just to waste time. "Right under your nose and you never realised!" No one realised! Not him, not Snape, not even Crabbe and Goyle, and they were the ones helping me out!
"Ingenious. Yet…forgive me…where are they now? You seem unsupported."
Where are they? Good grief, where are they? I really have to do this alone? His colourless eyes nearly bulged out of his head for a moment; he seriously considered hopping on one of those brooms and bolting. "They met some of your guard. They're having a fight down below. They won't be long…I came on ahead. I-I've got a job to do." Just a job.
"Well, then, you must get on and do it, my dear boy," stated the soon-to-be Ex-Headmaster softly.
Malfoy could only stare. No, moaned his mind in horror, no I can't, I mustn't, I couldn't. Inconceivably, Albus was smiling.
"Draco, Draco, you are not a killer."
How dare he! How dare he say that as if his opinion is final! I may not be a killer, but the Dark Lord is, and I have to do this! But although the words were full of resolve, his spirit was not, and he settled for ranting at the stupid old fogey, who was now sliding down the ramparts inch by inch. "How do you know?" It was childish, he blushed, but continued. "You don't know what I'm capable of; you don't know what I've done!" I've passed the initiation into the Death Eaters, willing or not, I still have. I've organised this
"Oh, yes, I do," argued Dumbledore mildly. Infuriating, the way he could peer right over your shoulder whilst appearing utterly oblivious. "You almost killed Katie Bell and Ronald Weasley. You have been trying, with increasing desperation, to kill me all year. Forgive me, Draco, but they have been feeble attempts…so feeble, to be honest, that I wonder whether your heart has been really in it…"
"It has been in it!" cried the teenager vehemently. "I've been working on it all year, and tonight – " He was interrupted by a muffled yell, it echoed around the castle, followed by a piercing shriek. He stiffened, nervously glanced round. It brought him back to the present and he realised they'd been conversing for several minutes. Still no one had come, Potter hadn't popped out of nowhere with his hero routine, and Draco still hadn't murdered the Professor or escaped on a broom.
"Somebody is putting up a good fight," he was sounding conversational, the git! "But you were saying…yes, you managed to introduce Death Eaters into my school which, I admit, I thought impossible…how did you do it?" When there was no reply but silence, Dumbledore added, "Perhaps you ought to get on with the job alone. What if your back-up has been thwarted by my guard? As you have perhaps realised, there are members of the Order of the Phoenix here tonight too. And after all, you don't really need help…I have no wand at the moment…I cannot defend myself." Beneath his Cloak, Harry was astounded that the Headmaster was encouraging his assassin; even if Malfoy did appear almost as petrified as himself!
He's Dumbledore, and I know there are wandless magics, he could do anything to me – why doesn't he?
"I see," continued the man kindly, now slid so low his long beard brushed the granite. "You are afraid to act until they join you."
"I'm not afraid! It's you who should be scared!" snarled the one who looked in charge of the situation, yet was not.
"But why? I don't think you will kill me, Draco. Killing is not nearly as easy as the innocent believe…so tell me, while we wait for your friends…how did you smuggle them in here? It seems to have taken you a long time to work out how to do it."
In a minute they'll be here. I have to go now! Or he had the option of calling them, they would jump at the chance to do this for him – hadn't Macnair said so himself? Still Draco found himself unable to act. He wondered for a moment if Dumbledore was manipulating him in some way, blocking his desire to kill the old fool. But when the thought of actually casting a killing curse filled Draco's mind, he nearly threw up in revulsion.
Gulping acid back down to his stomach and gasping for fresh air, Malfoy trained his wand at the Headmaster's heart. "The Vanishing Cabinet," he explained, reasoning that he would do it on the last word. Then don't stop talking, whispered a tiny voice in the back of his mind. "When Montague got trapped in it I realised there was a path between Hogwarts to Borgin and Burkes…all I had to do was fix the Hogwarts one, which was difficult enough;" he dithered at the end of the sentence and kept speaking, "and then there was a path for the Death Eaters between Knockturn Alley and the Room of Requirement."
The young man steeled himself and stepped forwards to end Dumbledore. But, with an exhalation that was half groan of pain; his victim made a reply.
"That was clever…very good, a very clever plan…and, as you say, right under my nose…much better than your other, pitiful attempts. Enchanting Rosmerta was a terribly low move."
"Why do you care? Why do you care about that when I'm about to kill you?"
"I do care," wheezed Dumbledore, his chalk white face green-cast under the Dark Mark. "I care about people, Draco, as you do not appear to, perhaps because in your life none have truly cared for you. But as for being about to kill me, I am more defenceless than you can have dreamed of finding me, and still you have not acted…there is little time now, so let us discuss your options, Draco."
"I haven't got any options!" cried Malfoy, the words spilling out of him, an avalanche that had been waiting to fall all year. He blanched as white as Dumbledore, wand hand shaking uncontrollably. "I've got to do it! He'll kill me! He'll kill my whole family!"
Unable to express his emotions physically, Harry's mind raged within the following silence; this was what Malfoy had been hiding all year? His thoughts flew back to the memory of Malfoy crying in Myrtle's bathroom – No one can help me…I can't do it…it won't work…and unless I do it soon…he says he'll kill me…
Malfoy…so much for you being so proud of your Dark family; it's not helping you now, is it?
"I appreciate the difficulty of your situation with Voldemort." Dumbledore was saying. Draco winced at the sound of the name. "But now we can talk plainly…I can help you, Draco."
The pale boy, head and hands starkly white against the black school robes and backdrop of the night, found it hard to believe in deliverance by the crumpled, sickly old man before him. But he lowered his wavering wand, unconsciously. "No, you can't," whispered Malfoy, "nobody can. He told me to do it or he'll kill me. I've got no choice."
"We can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine…come over to the right side, Draco…you are not a killer…"
You are not a killer…the statement sank into Draco's bones like a self-fulfilling prophecy, steeped with more foreboding than Trelawney at her most depressing. He shuddered, and realised that the words were, irrefutably, the truth. But he couldn't avoid this task.
"The game's changed, Professor;" declared Malfoy, taking another step forwards and unveiling his left arm. The Dark Mark was blazoned into his pale skin, a hideous black beetle dominating his forearm. "He can hear us if we mention his name, he can send orders and punishments through this link; if he wants to kill us…we die. He's stronger than before. And no one fights him, because they're all prancing around waiting for precious Potter to save the day. You can't hide me, idiot, until you can remove my mark. And that can not be done. It's impossible."
"My poor, dear boy…why ever did you choose to join the Dark Lord, if those were the consequences?" Albus was almost on the floor, looking about to die even without the Death Eater's assistance.
Draco's face twisted in fury. "Your poor dear boy? The only reason you're making an effort for anyone other than your puffed-up Gryffindors is because I'm pointing a wand at you!" The wand in question swooped back up and aimed immovably at Dumbledore's head. He would blast it off with Sectumsempra; Nearly-Headless Nick could have a companion. How dare he!
"Choose?" he hissed, wild-eyed, "What choice was there? You think I asked for this? You think someone said, 'join us or die'? If you keep underestimating your enemies I'd better just give you a mercy killing! In front of the Dark Lord there are no choices!"
Although Dumbledore felt a thousand times worse than he looked, he still wasn't quite prepared to ask for a mercy killing. "Draco, is it an underestimation to believe that someone from a Dark family, who has swaggered and bullied from his first steps, who has been badly raised and spoilt by uncaring parents; might yet retain the innocence and pureness of heart that prevent people from murdering? I am not underestimating you; I have great hopes for you."
"Pure and innocent? I'm no pure and innocent…" remarked Malfoy icily, opening his mouth to, at long last, cast.
There were tears on Albus's cheeks, he shook his head sorrowfully and closing his eyes murmured, "Yes, you are. You have no idea how tiny you are in the face of the world's evils, you think…you think you make the difference…"
Draco quelled his panic, resolved his nerve and whipped his wand out in a wide gesture. But, before he could speak the spell, there was a thunder of footsteps on the stairs and four Death Eaters crashed through the door. They stalked forth, malevolent grins on their masked faces as they saw the brat, Lucius's brainless kid, standing over the Headmaster of Hogwarts with a spell just about to leave his lips. No doubt about it, they were impressed. The two must have been fighting all that time, and Malfoy's miniature had won!
A thickset man leered lopsidedly, and gave a wheezing laugh.
"Dumbledore cornered!" he said, turning to a stocky, widely grinning woman who looked like she might be his sister. "Dumbledore wandless, Dumbledore alone! Well done Draco, well done!"
"Good evening, Amycus," said the cornered, wandless, lonely one calmly. Even though his chance with Draco was now lost. "And you've brought Alecto too…charming…"
Alecto loosed an angry little titter. "Think your jokes'll help you on your death bed, then?" she jeered.
"Jokes? No, no, these are manners," replied Dumbledore with faint surprise.
"Do it," growled the unmasked stranger standing nearest the imprisoned Harry. Incredibly tall, gangling but well muscled, the man's Death Eater robes stretched tight across his broad chest and shoulders. His voice was a rasping bark; so grating on the ears it made the listener cringe. Stinking pungently of sweat and dirt, mould and blood, his presence was like a punch to the gut.
"Is that you, Fenrir?" coughed Dumbledore, squinting blearily across the wide tower roof.
"That's right," rumbled the other, emerald light glinting on his greasy, matted grey hair and whiskers. "Pleased to see me, Dumbledore?"
"No, I cannot say I am…" No more needed to be added to that statement, here was one of the few people in the world whom Dumbledore truly detested.
Fenrir Greyback grinned maliciously, revealing canines where human teeth should be. Someone's blood dribbled from his mouth down his chin, and he licked it up slowly, obscenely. "But you know how much I like kids, Dumbledore."
"Am I to take it that you are attacking even without the full moon now? This is most unusual…" there was one of Dumbledore's trademark pauses, whilst he trawled the depths of his knowledge for precedents; "you have developed a taste for human flesh that cannot be satisfied once a month?"
"That's right," said Greyback smugly. "Shocks you, that, does it, Dumbledore? Frightens you?"
"Well, I cannot pretend it does not disgust me a little," said Dumbledore with a weary shake of his head. "And, yes, I am a little shocked that Draco here invited you, of all people, into the school where his friends live…"
"I didn't," breathed Malfoy, voice soft and tight with barely controlled terror. He couldn't even glance at Greyback, the man who had threatened to bite him if his parents stepped out of line. "I didn't know he was going to come –"
"I wouldn't want to miss a trip to Hogwarts, Dumbledore," rasped Greyback. "Not when there are throats to be ripped out…delicious, delicious…" He purred the words 'ripped' and 'delicious' gloatingly; proud of being the most despicable savage known to wizardkind. He picked at his sharp front teeth with a long, filthy nail, leering at the silver-bearded man exhausted before them. "I could do you for afters, Dumbledore…"
"No." snapped the fourth Death Eater, his brutal-looking face brooking no argument. "We've got orders. Draco's got to do it. Now, Draco, and quickly."
But Malfoy's hand was trembling so badly he could barely aim. He stared down into his teacher's face, which had slid so far down the ramparts it became an indistinct splash of white against the dark stones. At that very moment, there were renewed sounds of scuffling from below and a voice shouted, "They've blocked the stairs – Reducto! REDUCTO!"
"I'll do it," snarled Greyback, quickly losing patience and moving towards their victim with hands outstretched and lips peeled back to bare those wolfish jaws.
"I said no!" shouted the brutal-faced Eater; there was a flash of light and the werewolf was thrown out of its path. He smacked the ramparts and staggered, snorting furiously.
"Draco, do it, or stand aside so one of us – " screeched Alecto, perhaps sensing that someone was hurrying up the Astronomy Tower that very second to thwart them. But before she could finish the sentence the heavy old door crashed open once more and there, framed, stood Snape. He paused momentarily, jet eyes sweeping the scene; then prowled forwards in a whirl of pitch-black robes, knuckles tight on his dark-wooded wand. The tableau of harassed Headmaster, shaking student, edgy Death Eaters and wild-eyed werewolf didn't even give him cause to blink.
"We've got a problem, Snape," said the lumpy Amycus, "the boy doesn't seem able – "
A faded voice interrupted him.
"Severus…" whispered Albus Dumbledore faintly, voice hoarse after the long conversation. He was doing something none of the people present had witnessed him do before – he was pleading. In spite of themselves, the Death Eaters seemed unsettled at hearing it.
But Snape was unmoved. In deadly silence he walked towards the crumpled once-saviour leaning against the parapet. When he thrust Malfoy out of the way his colleagues followed suit in falling back without a word.
"Severus…please…" breathed the old, old man who deserved to die in his sleep. There was a green tinge to his skin that had nothing to do with the Dark Mark crowning the tower and everything to do with the potion he had swallowed within the Horcrux cavern.
Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, revulsion and hatred etched deeply in the harsh lines of his face. But perhaps Dumbledore saw something else there, in his blind trust, for there was the ghost of a smile twinkling in his eyes as Severus extended his wand arm and levelled it directly at the Headmaster's heart.
"Avada Kedavra!" snarled the sallow-faced man, green erupting from the tip of his wand and leaping across the distance in a blaze of lightning, burrowing into Dumbledore's chest and evicting his life force.
The target was blasted into the air, suspended for a split second as though his limp arms scratched at the sky; the vast glowing skull with its snake was laughing at him; and then he dropped slowly backwards…tumbling like a broken rag doll over the battlements and down the steep sides of Hogwarts's highest tower…
Malfoy was frozen in place; he couldn't have moved an inch for the world. However Snape was snapping out orders, seizing him by the scruff of his neck and marching him down the long spiral staircase of the Astronomy tower.
"Out of here, quickly," ordered Snape, dragging Greyback, Amycus and Alecto in his wake. But behind them the fourth Death Eater failed to appear. There was a muffled shout from above, a thud and the clatter of footsteps running down the steps. They accelerated. Down the dark, dust-choked corridor that Alecto had blown the ceiling out of, into a wider hallway where confusing, one-on-one, uncoordinated battle was taking place. The Dark wizards tailing Snape and Malfoy fanned out, Amycus heading towards the Weasley girl (apparently a berserker with a wand); Greyback making a point of stepping heavily on the other red-head who lay prostrate on the floor. And here's one I bit earlier, he thought with a savage grin.
Professor Snape and his Slytherin charge swept through the chaos unheeded, it occurring to neither side to attack him. Behind them the shouted hexes, squeals of pain and howling laughter of Azkaban-addled Death Eaters continued in unchecked cacophony.
Albus's corpse plummeted towards a wet, painful crunch against the ground now only eighty feet away. Hogwarts's most revered Headmaster was now no more than a departed speck plunging to a grave – not early, for he was rich in years, but one that most had expected to come much later.
Suddenly, with an indescribable feeling that instantly tingled through his belly and fizzed out into his limbs; he realised his eyes were shut. And as he opened them, forty feet remaining, about to be killed by shock or impact; he understood a single thing.
He was still alive…ALIVE!
At around twenty feet up from the ground, his descent began to slow as a multitude of enchantments activated around him, thickening the air, catching his weight, making his falling form decelerate; until with seven feet left to go he was drifting calmly down, and the health and safety charms of Hogwarts rested him upon the earth more gently than any feather could ever manage.
Blown away, utterly speechless, Dumbledore gasped and weakly struggled like a grounded fish; disorientated and mute within the flood of still being alive that surged through his being. He cried tears of bliss, and waited for someone to find him. Severus may not have killed him, but Voldemort's potion was willing to try…
Shock meant Draco took in nothing until he skidded in a smear of blood and had to stay upright somehow. Then he saw the shrieking students huddled against the walls of the vast entrance hall, some cowering behind raised arms. The Gryffindor hourglass had its bottom bulb shattered and a red rain of rubies was rattling onto the flagstones. Any other day Draco would have been delighted to see it, but right now he felt nauseous and Snape was roughly hauling him out of the slanting oak doors with their heavily battered hinges; and across the lawn they scrambled.
Sprinting over the thick grass, Voldemort's oldest and youngest Death Eaters attempted to make their escape. Malfoy was being unhelpful, everything had been just a whirl of different shades of green to him: whether the glowing emerald of Morsmordre, the pallid mint of an ill face or the dark grass green of the grounds at night – soon to be joined by whatever colour his own bile would show as. And now an obstacle was approaching from behind; at long last Potter had popped out of the woodwork and was tearing towards Snape with his stupid, famous face skewed in rage.
When Potter started throwing jinxes at Snape, Amycus dashed over to Draco and yanked him towards the gates. It took forever to reach them, a stitch was ripping into Malfoy's lungs by the time they slowed down and stumbled to a halt on the beaten-earth track to Hogsmeade. Amycus dug his thick fingers deep into Draco's arm and paused to catch his breath for a moment. "We'll disapparate…" he gasped, "…in a moment…"
An inhuman scream punctured the air. "DON'T…CALL ME COWARD!" screeched a voice so warped by anger neither of them could identify it. Amycus raised his heavy eyebrows in silent comment, took in a deep lungful of air and muttered to Malfoy, "Don't try to affect our destination unless you want us both splinched. I'm not the best at this…right. Go!"
With that, they twirled in tandem and after a single beat pocked out of existence.
Authoress: Alliriyan
Disclaimer: I do not own in full or any part Harry Potter, which belongs to J K Rowling.
A large percentage of this chapter was directly quoted/paraphrased from Half-Blood Prince and a large percentage was completely made up by me. Any referencing from this chapter would not be a good idea as it's all mixed up.
The purple button is calling you…succumb to its will…review…
I hope you enjoy this fic. Warning: I'm a slow writer! But good things come to those who wait! ; )