This chapter is un-beta'd, Poor Boomie is too busy dealing with real life. I could have waited but am impatient, so please be kind about grammar/poorly arranged sentences/etc!

Chapter Five: Flight

Draco was very grateful for the post-exam revelry taking place in the common room when he entered, because his housemates could not have been more distracted. The low table in front of the ornate fireplace was covered in the remnants of party food; crisp crumbs and scraped bare dip bowls sat haphazardly next to a few squashed eclairs, the only remaining sweets on a large platter that would have been piled high when it was liberated from the kitchen hours before.

All manner of empties littered the rest of the table, butterbeer and pumpkin juice being most prevalent, but there was at least two bottles of Ogden's that Draco could see, and a nearly finished Genovian Gin was tucked into one corner, half disguised by a crumpled crisp bag. The first time he had experienced this night had been brilliant, drinking and laughing and snogging Kevin in the dorm before the others came to bed.

It had not been until the following day that Kevin had called off their tryst, just after breakfast when the news of Voldemort's return had filtered through the hall from the few who received newspapers. The names of the arrested Death Eaters had begun to leak out at that time too. Kevin, Slytherin through and through, had been pretty quick to distance himself from Draco and his incarcerated father to ensure his own social survival. Though Draco supposed that his recent conversation with Kevin out on the front steps meant that the boy had been planning on ending it anyway, this gave Draco a depressing kind of closure; it wasn't his family's image that Kevin had been keen to avoid, it was just that he didn't like Draco very much anymore.

Tonight however, Draco did not have time to wallow in dejection, stupid Kevin getting in his head without even trying. Draco scowled as he dodged through the celebrating crowd, avoiding eye contact with everyone. He actually had to duck under a seventh year's flailing arm as the boy gave an enthusiastic demonstration of his impressive DADA N.E.W.T. practical to a cheering audience. It was definitely a boisterous party.

Draco managed to reach the corridor to the sleeping quarters without notice, or without being waylaid at any rate. A voice he thought belonged to Pansy Parkinson called his name across the room, but there was no one following as he entered the relative quiet of the corridor.

Having given it little thought Draco was surprised by the walloping strength of the emotion that hit him as he opened the fifth years dormitory door. His breath left him in a sigh of fondness for the familiar and secure sight; Four beds with green velvet hangings, his own, second from the door seemed to beckon him. The trunks that stood at the end of each bed were all shut, but with sleeves and scarves trailing out of them, school books shoved on top, clearly dropped without care because they wouldn't be needed again this term.

Blaise's bed was the only one made properly, he was such a finicky bugger. Both Greg and Vince had never eveb bothered to pull their covers up, always rolling out of bed at the last moment and leaving their sleeping places in a total shambles. Draco's own bed was not quite as messy, but his fifteen-year-old self thought it house-elf work to make one's bed, so he did little more than tidy it on a daily basis.

The ghost of a smile touched his face at the thought of the self-important boy he'd been. That boy would have been horrified to learn that Draco had been performing most of the house-elf duties at Mundungus Fletcher's flat. It was part of his job with Dung to make all the beds, take the linens to be laundered, and fetch dinner and grocery items. Thankfully his wand had still been powerful enough for cleaning spells, the idea of scrubbing the grotty toilet in that flat by hand was almost enough to make him want to go back to prison.

The sounds of the party in the common room were muted as Draco shut the door and moved further into the room. Then, as he approached the slightly crooked silver-grey bedspread covering his bed, Draco remembered very clearly that the morning of his final exam he'd been woken by a nightmare. It had been something pointless about his father's disappointment if he did not do well in his O.W.L.'s.

Draco sank onto his bed, overwhelmed by the bleak irony - his father had never even seen his results. Perhaps he would this year… though could Draco even see him? If the Dark Lord accused him, Draco, of treachery, then it was unlikely that there would be time for father/son bonding over school marks. Only a swift cruciatus as a warning to the others and then the inevitable Avada Kedavra.

Draco glanced around the room, he wasn't completely sure why he'd followed Snape's order to wait in his dormitory, but he was so confused by this whole situation having someone tell him what to do had been a sort of relief. Even if that person could possibly be receiving orders at that moment to come and finish Draco off.

Draco shook his head, there were too many what-ifs, it was giving him a headache. He decided to turn his attention to something less grim, and scooted back on the bed, drawing the curtains as he went. He pulled his wand out eager to test it, to see if it fit this time, rather than the one he had known until yesterday. He reached out, fossicking in his nightstand for something to test his magic on, and found an old dog-eared timetable from the previous term. That would do nicely. He held it gingerly by one corner and pointed his wand at it, focusing hard.

Then he flicked his wand up and murmured, "Incendeo!"

At once the paper burst into flames and Draco, surprised that it had been so easy, dropped the burning timetable in shock. It landed on his leg and he swore, flicking it off and hastily smothering it with a corner of his rumpled bedding.

With his heart racing from the sudden and short lived panic Draco stared at his wand. True relief and happiness filled him for the first time in what felt like years. His wand, the one he and his parents had bought at Ollivander's, the one Potter had wrenched from his hand so many years later and used to kill Voldemort. It had been returned to Draco after his release from prison but striped down, reduced to a weak imitation of the one he'd used so proudly before. And now, now it was back. It even felt different in his hand, warmer… though that could be because he was gripping it so tight.

But what was he to do now? Sit here and wait for Professor Snape? There was a possibility that he could convince Snape that he'd been acting in the Dark Side's interest, that everything he'd said to Granger was just a cover. He could say he'd heard a rumour that the Order were planning to use Potter as bait to lure the Dark Lord out, that the trap was going to be reversed… this was the most feasible thing Draco could come up with. Where he could have heard such a rumour was beyond him right then. But the thought of venturing out of the safe little space on his mattress was rather daunting so he stayed, with his knees drawn up to his chest and his new old wand held tight in his fist.

Draco sat this way as the sounds of his dorm mates coming to bed reached him, no one bothered to check if he was in bed or out, they were probably all boozed.

Draco's watch told him it was two thirty in the morning when the dormitory door finally creaked open, and despite his sudden fear Draco gripped his wand, determined to fight Snape if necessary.

The emerald bed curtains were parted at the foot of his bed and a sliver of dim light from the dormitory fell across Draco's legs. Then in barely a whisper he heard Severus Snape's curt voice, "Hurry Draco, we have little time."

This was not what Draco was expecting, though as he shuffled to the end of the bed with his wand still held tight he supposed Snape would hardly murder him in the middle of the dorm room.

Snape eyed Draco's drawn wand as he emerged, climbing clumsily from the bed while he kept his wand trained on Snape, but the professor said nothing, just chivvied Draco out of the room, down the corridor and out through the Slytherin common room. The party mess was still evident and Draco felt oddly removed from it all, these strange and constant reminders of his situation were playing havoc with his sanity.

Snape didn't speak until they were in the dark dungeon corridor, still close at Draco's side, his eyes flicked regularly to Draco's steadily held wand.

"I am taking a great risk tonight," he said, his voice was low and venomous as he checked the passage for late night eavesdroppers, "to aid a traitor."

"I'm not a traitor," Draco countered at once, the wall of his Azkaban cell back at the front of his mind as he took a risk and glared at Snape. Perhaps indignant defiance would be enough to convince the Potions Master he was still on his side.

There were no torches burning on the walls down here, but Draco didn't need light to imagine the fury in Snape's face as he spat, "No? You helped Potter leave the school, I'm sure your father -"

"I only did what I did to help my father." Draco interrupted firmly, thinking it strange that Snape was concerned about Potter leaving the school, rather than Potter not turning up at the Ministry. Was it possible that Snape had not known the Dark Lord's plan?

"You only interfered with the Dark Lord's plans to help your father?" Snape repeated, sarcasm suffused his disbelieving question, "Your father who supports him most faithfully?"

"Potter got away from them all, last year," Draco began, cursing himself for not being better prepared, and struggling to give a believable reason for his actions, "the Dark Lord underestimates him, if Potter had turned up at the Ministry, on his guard and better trained than he was last year who knows what would have happened."

Snape considered him for a long moment, long enough for Draco's eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. Here it comes, he thought, Snape is going to ask how I know about the plan.

But he was wrong. "You seem to think a lot of Potter's skill." Snape said carefully. Still suspicious but clearly confused by Draco's argument.

Draco shrugged and muttered, "Know thy enemy."

"And now you quote muggle texts?" Snape was looking at him as if he'd never seen him before, "What is going on?"

"Nothing." Draco murmured, the truth was he really did think a lot of Potter's skill, he'd seen him duel and beat the Dark Lord, it seemed churlish to say otherwise.

"We must get you out of here," Snape said briskly, setting off down the corridor once more, giving up on questioning Draco for now. "When word spreads, and it undoubtedly will, you need to be somewhere the Dark Lord can not find you."

Hope flickered in Draco's chest as he hurried along in Snape's wake. Maybe Snape was a spy for the Order after all. Aunt Bella had always been so convinced he was untrustworthy, perhaps she was right.

They left the castle and hurried down the long drive, the summer night air was still, and the sweet smells of grass and evergreen from the forest were at odds with the unsettled churning in Draco's stomach as he half-jogged along behind the swiftly striding Snape.

As soon as they reached the tall and imposing gate, which swung open soundlessly at Snape's wand's bequest, the professor grabbed Draco's elbow and twisted on the spot, pulling Draco with him into apparition. The squeeze and breathlessness was only brief, and when Draco opened his eyes he saw they had not travelled far. Before them was the badly hung door of the Hog's Head. Snape did not pause, dragging Draco along by the arm he still held, up the steps and through the rickety door into the pub.

The lingering aroma of smoke and old drink hit Draco like a like a falling stage-curtain as he scanned the deserted tap-room. In a far corner a tall, thin figure sat, a hooded cloak covering his head, his face hidden. Snape steered Draco through the maze of sticky tables towards this ominous person, and Draco was struggling to draw breath, panic filling him with every nearing step; had he been right about Snape's loyalties afterall? Was it Voldemort beneath that hood?

Surely not, Draco tried to reason with himself, Voldemort would not meet traitors in a pub, there would be too many chances he could been seen, and there was not nearly enough privacy for him to apply his special brand of punishment, before snuffing them out completely…but there was no one else here, the barman wasn't even in sight.

Despite wobbly knees and the fear that he was about to meet his end surging through him, Draco found himself being shoved into the seat opposite the cloaked man by Snape, who nodded and left without a word. Draco's determination to fight had fled long ago, and while he still held his wand it felt like little more than a piece of kindling as the hooded figure lifted its head.

The stuttering candle on the table flickered on a long silver-white beard and Draco felt a wash of relief so strong he actually worried he might faint for a second.

"Good Evening, Mr Malfoy," Albus Dumbledore said cordially from beneath the hood. "I believe you and I need to have a little chat."

Draco didn't know how to respond. Through his lightheaded moment of relief he supposed this was the only option, if he wasn't on the Death Eaters side then he was against them, but he couldn't bring himself to say it aloud.

"I've heard through the grapevine," Dumbledore continued, "that you made a rather surprising decision this evening." he fell silent then, linking his fingers on the table before him and giving Draco time to speak.

Draco took a breath, he wasn't going to tell Dumbledore he'd help him, or had helped Potter for any noble reason, Dumbledore wouldn't believe that anyway. Whatever Draco thought of the exiled Headmaster he knew the man was an excellent judge of character, and Draco's character did not include good deeds for Potter.

"I had to interfere," Draco started, "but it was only to help my-" but he cut his own sentence abruptly short, realising the magnitude of his mistake right then. If Dumbledore knew there were Death Eaters in the Ministry then they would be as good as caught.

"Myself," he improvised weakly, "I was only helping myself, because I don't think my father is right to ally himself with the Dark Lord, his regime will not stand, I don't want to be part of it."

"And yet," Dumbledore contradicted, "You know far more about the events of tonight than even my most informed spies," the old wizard leaned toward him across the table. The candlelight flickered over his up-lit lined face most unflatteringly, there was something very cold in those normally friendly eyes, and when he spoke his voice was hard, serious, and slightly foreboding, "I suggest, Mr Malfoy, that you tell me the truth, the whole truth. Because the alternative is you returning to your home where I'm sure Lord Voldemort will be eager to know why you have disrupted his plans."

Draco gulped, it sounded like Dumbledore already knew what Draco had saved Potter from, did that mean the Death Eaters had been discovered? Draco had no idea how he should handle this. Somehow he didn't think he'd be able to convince Dumbledore that he'd happened upon Potter and Granger in that office, and accidentally kicked them through the fire.

Perhaps sensing Draco's impending surrender Dumbledore added, a little more kindly, "It seems to me, that you have a great deal of knowledge about the catastrophe tonight could have turned into, I've never met a fifteen year old with such impressive … foresight."

It was almost as if he already knew… but how could that be? The blue eyes were twinkling at Draco from across the table and he got the impression that Dumbledore was quite as skilled as Snape at penetrating minds. In fact even more so, because it wasn't until it was too late that Draco recognized what was happening.

The chess match between Timworth and himself flashed through his mind, then he and Dung in the kitchen, then the alley he'd run into to get away from the mob of vigilantes. Dumbledore gave no indication that what he was seeing troubled him, he looked merely curious and Draco decided that the truth was the best option.

"When I woke up yesterday morning it was nineteen-ninety-nine. I didn't plan it and I don't know how it happened but I think a chess piece brought me back in time.