Chapter VII: Slytherina Audacia

A/N: I'm baaaack! Did you miss me? You better have, cause I have an awesome, action-packed chapter coming your way! Hold on to your hippogriffs, folks, this is gonna be a bumpy ride!

This chapter title translates to Slytherin Courage.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to the Harry Potter book series. sighs pathetically But I do own a pack of Nightmare Before Christmas playing cards! (which are kind of hard to read but…oh well, they're still amazing)

In this chapter: The cause (or causes) of Ginny's scream, Malfoy to the rescue, and Between a rock and a vampire.

Draco could feel his heart pumping uncomfortably in his throat as he neared the clearing where he and Weasley had set up camp.

"Nox," he whispered as soon as he could see where he was going by the light of the moon. He crept cautiously through the trees, trying to make as little noise as possible. When he reached the edge of the clearing and could see what was happening, he very nearly decided to turn around and run away as fast as possible. But he couldn't leave Weasley. Even if she had been quite a bit of a nuisance, she was still the only person who had ever bothered to befriend him.

Besides, he reminded himself, It's not like you can leave this godforsaken place without her. So instead, he hid among the numerous shadows of the forest and watched the scene through a gap in the trees.

Weasley was lying on the forest floor, unconscious, while a group of vampires stood nearby, talking quietly together. Draco counted them silently in his head and came up with fifteen. Far too many for his liking. A sudden horrible thought struck him and he quickly looked back at Weasley. He breathed a silent sigh of relief when he couldn't make out any bite marks on her neck and hoped desperately that he wasn't mistaken. As far as he knew, there was no cure for vampire bites.

Quickly, he brainstormed about possible escape routes, but could think of absolutely nothing. Even if he managed to somehow get Weasley out of the clearing without the vampires noticing, they wouldn't get far, especially with Weasley unconscious. The best thing he could do now was to stay hidden and find out what the vampires were planning to do. As he turned his attention back to the vampires, he realized they were having a mild argument.

"No Peral!" one of the vampires was saying in a commanding tone, "I can't sacrifice the hunger of our entire clan to your frivolous needs. We shall have no more newcomers until we feed." The rest of the group murmured assent to this statement, nodding their heads solemnly. The vampire who had spoken was obviously the leader. His waxy face was so sunken and wasted that it no longer resembled anything remotely humanesque. His hair was jet black and very long and his eyes glowed with a demonic red gleam in the dark.

"But Slef!" cried a female vampire who Draco assumed was Peral. She was almost as ancient as the vampire who had first spoken, with strange dark blue hair and glowing orange eyes. "This girl is a witch! Did you not feel her power a few moments before? We haven't come across such a find in hundreds of years and you would waste it to satisfy your greed? If you must feed on something, find the boy who was with her, he can't have gone far. But let me have her, I beg of you! She would be a great asset to us, just think of all the spoils we can obtain with her power!"

Slef seemed to consider this option for a moment before bowing his head to Peral in reluctant acceptance. "Erringa, Crospe," he said, gesturing to two other vampires, "Bind the girl and stand watch. Everybody else, follow me." And he glided off through the trees directly opposite where Draco, who couldn't believe his luck, was hiding. Draco watched carefully as the two remaining vampires tied Weasley to a large tree and stood with their backs facing her, staring intently through the forest.

Carefully, Draco edged around the clearing, trying to be as silent as possible. He managed to get about halfway to Weasley's tree before something bad happened. The first vampire (Draco thought her name was Erringa) suddenly jerked her head around to the noise of his foot crunching a twig. Draco experienced a moment of terror when the vampire's eyes widened at the sight of him, but before she had time to react, Draco had said, "Stupefy!" and she had crumpled to the ground. The other vampire stared from his fallen companion to Draco in shock, making it incredibly easy for Draco to hit him with another stunning spell.

Jogging quickly to the tree, he cut through the ropes binding Weasley to the tree with a severing charm and she immediately collapsed into his arms. "Weasley," he said urgently, shaking her roughly, "Weasley, wake up! Please wake up!" Her head lolled hopelessly from side to side. Draco couldn't think of the incantation for the reviving spell, but he didn't think it would help anyway since she had been knocked out instead of stupefied.

He looked up momentarily, listening for the other vampires, but he could hear nothing. Either they were too far away (which is what he was hoping) or they were moving too silently for Draco to hear. He looked back down at Weasley, a hopeless sort of grimace forming on his face. Sighing, he slipped his arms under her body and heaved her up with far too much strength, resulting in him nearly toppling over backwards.

She weighs next to nothing, he thought, looking at her face curiously. Odd…he had never noticed how thin she was before. Tearing his eyes away from her unconscious form and silently berating himself for thinking about her unnecessarily, he started to jog down the path, deciding against the Lumos spell, as it would probably give him away.

Jogging through the dark forest while carrying Weasley proved to be very difficult for Draco, even with the occasional relaxing charm to help him catch his breath. He had no idea where he was going and wasn't even sure if he was on the path anymore, but he was too preoccupied to care. The vampires were bound to find out that Weasley was gone very soon and would be able to find them all too easily, whether if they were on the path or not. The only two things Draco could do was to find a place to hide (thus far a complete failure) or stand and fight (which would probably result in his death and Weasley getting turned into a vampire).

Draco shuddered, trying to force that thought out of his mind. Hopefully he would be able to find a place where they could hide until the sun rose, forcing the vampires back to their daytime lair.

A few moments later (or so it seemed), Draco heard a distinctively agonizing cry coming from the clearing. Heart thudding painfully, Draco broke into a full out sprint, trying to put as much space as he could between the hunting vampires and himself. Suddenly he stumbled over something in the dark and very nearly fell over. Cursing violently, he turned around to see what he had tripped on. It was a boulder.

That's odd, he thought, staring at the huge rock, What's a boulder doing in the middle of a forest? He turned away, shrugging the thought off, and nearly tripped over another large rock in his path. Looking around, he noticed a large patch of darkness to his left. He squinted at it, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness, and realized with a sudden surge of hope what it was: a large rock hill complete with a path running around it to the top.

He jogged along the new path, hoping against hope that he could find a suitable cave. After stumbling on several loose stones and nearly falling back down to the forest floor, he decided it was in his best interest to walk with his right hand leaning on the hill for support. This new method seemed to work much better and just when Draco thought he was getting the hang of mountain climbing, his hand, groping for a handhold on the side of the hill, met with thin air instead, causing Draco to fall sideways into a narrow fissure in the hillside. His body rolled over about three times before coming to rest near a cave wall with Weasley a few feet away. Somehow, the fall hadn't woken her up and she still seemed to be out cold with her mouth slightly open.

Draco smiled slightly at her undignified position before he jerked his head to the cave entrance in horror. The sound of many sets of light footsteps was filtering through the fissure, making Draco sure that the vampires had finally tracked him down. Thinking quickly, he rapped himself and Weasley over the head with his wand, using the Disillusionment Charm. The vampires wouldn't be able to see them so long as they didn't move.

He picked Weasley up and sat her against a wall slightly removed from the entrance. Even if she wasn't concealed, the vampires wouldn't be able to see her unless they stuck their heads in through the opening. Carefully sitting down beside her, he tried to be as silent as possible, praying that the vampires wouldn't discover their refuge.

He heard them moving outside the entrance, walking quickly. He held his breath and counted the sets of feet that moved past. One…two, three…four, five, six…seven…eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve…c'mon…one more… The last set of feet moved slowly past the opening and just when Draco was about to breathe a sigh of relief, they stopped.

"Moemnt," hissed a voice right outside the cave, "Call a halt. I think I found something."

Oh no, thought Draco in panic. He could hear the vampires calling softly to one another through the line as the tramp of feet gradually stopped. Then the only thing that could have made the situation worse happened. Weasley woke up.

Draco heard her moan softly and he glanced over in time to see her eyes flutter open. Since he was already in a panic, he did the only thing that made sense to him at the time. He pulled her over with one arm so she wouldn't move and covered her mouth with his other hand so she wouldn't make any more noises. She immediately started struggling rather violently, trying to get out of his grasp.

He heard one of the vampires (probably Slef, the leader) moving closer to the cave, so he leaned down and whispered in her ear as quietly and desperately as possible, "Weasley, it's me! Stay very still and we might get out of this alive!" She immediately stopped thrashing not a moment too soon. The next second, Slef had stuck his horribly distorted face into the fissure, looking intently around the cave. His eyes passed over the huddled forms of Draco and Ginny, obviously not seeing them.

"I see nothing," he said in irritation to the vampire that had stopped the line.

"I'm sure there was something," insisted the vampire. Slef passed his scarlet eyes over the cave again and, to Draco and Ginny's horror, stepped closer, looking right at them. Just as Draco was sure that he would find them by tripping over them, he stopped within an inch of Draco's outstretched foot, surveying the area with his horrible eyes.

"Let's continue on," he said, turning away and walking back out of the cave, "There's nothing of interest in there." Draco waited until the last set of feet had passed their haven before releasing Weasley and breathing a deep sigh of relief.

"What's going on?" asked Weasley quietly, rubbing the top of her head, which was sporting a bruise that was slowly turning a lovely shade of purple. Draco assumed that it was the reason she had been unconscious when he found her. Her fingers accidentally brushed the sensitive area and she flinched in pain. Try as he might to suppress it, Draco felt an immediate stab of concern for her.

He hesitated then, pointing his wand at her bruise, said, "Hold still."

"What?" Weasley began to ask but stopped when Draco murmured, "Sana capitem" and she felt the bruise disappear in seconds and her headache vanish. She felt the area where the bruise had been gingerly, but there was nothing.

She looked at Draco in surprised gratitude, smiling gently. "Thanks," she said, "How do you know healing spells?"

"I thought they might come in useful, so I looked them up in the library," he said, trying to brush off her thanks. He still wasn't quite sure why he'd healed her in the first place. He could've just left the bruise; it wouldn't have killed her, so why? Wasn't he supposed to be angry with her anyway? He didn't really feel like he wanted the answers to those questions right now, so he pushed it to the back of his mind and quickly filled her in on what had happened while she had been unconscious.

"Wow," said Weasley, looking at him in surprise, "That was pretty clever with the Disillusionment Charm. How did you think of that?"

"Actually," said Draco, "You gave me the idea. That's what you were using that day in the library, right?"

"Yeah, I was," she answered, seeming surprised that he had remembered. "Not bad, Malfoy," she said, grinning at him, "You might make a decent wizard after all."

Suddenly they heard the tramp of many feet coming back down the hillside path. "Oh no," muttered Draco, "Now that they've been to the top, they'll know that there's no other place we could hide besides in this cave. We have to hide, quickly!" He looked wildly around the cave, trying to find a secret passage, a dark corner, anything to help them.

"Look there!" said Weasley, pointing to a narrow ledge about six feet above the cave floor that was so heavily shrouded in shadow that Draco hadn't noticed it before. "If we can get up there, they'll never be able to find us."

"Okay," said Draco, reaching up to the ledge and pulling himself up. He quickly scanned the rest of the ledge. "There's enough room for you," he said, "C'mon, Weasley!"

She took a running start and managed to grab hold of the edge, but then quickly lost her footing on the slippery cave wall, falling down to the floor with an almighty crash that Draco was sure the vampires had heard.

"I can't make it!" she said desperately, "I'm too short. What now?"

He quickly jumped down and without a second thought, hoisted her within reach of the ledge. She frantically scrambled for a handhold, trying to pull herself up. When she finally managed, she settled herself and, noticing Malfoy was staring at the cave entrance, said, "C'mon, Malfoy, climb up! What are you waiting for?"

He glanced at her for a moment, making sure she was safely settled on the shelf. "Stay there," he said, looking her straight in the eyes to make sure she understood him completely, "Whatever you do, don't move, okay?"

"Malfoy," she said uncertainly, "What are you doing?"

"Okay?" he asked, his voice taking on a frantic desperation. The vampires were almost to the cave entrance. He could hear them dislodging stones as they hurried to the source of the noise. Any second now, they were going to hurtle through and find them.

But suddenly Ginny, who had been watching his face closely, realized what he was about to do. "Malfoy, no!" she said wildly, "Don't!" He looked back at her for a moment, smiling. A real smile. Not one with a hint of sarcasm, not one with a sneer, a true smile, like he was actually happy to be in her presence.

"Thanks Weasley," he said softly. He turned back toward the cave entrance. His mind was made up. No matter how foolhardy his plan was, he was going to see it through. And as strange as it may sound, this thought gave him a new type of strength he had never experienced before. With this newfound boldness flowing through his veins, he ran out of the cave, yelling with all his might, leaving Ginny staring after him with her mouth open.

A/N: So, I know most of you are asking, "What the heck is Draco doing?" Don't worry, dear readers, all shall be explained in the following chapter, the exciting conclusion of Draco and Ginny's adventures with the vampires.

On a negative note, I fear that Draco is now so far out of character that there will be no way to bring him back to reality. Do you think he's really that bad? Or am I just being pessimistic? You're the readers and I would love to get your input!

I have one made up spell in this chapter: Sana capitem (the one Draco uses to heal Ginny's bruise) which literally means, in Latin, heal the head.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading and review! 