Chapter 9 "To Catch a Carrow"

It was finally Friday morning and Tracey was feeling rather nervous, like anyone would. After all now they'd be taking step from merely being an annoying thorn towards outright war. That's IF they got caught. An if Tracey chose not to dwell on. Voldy would…And even if Voldy didn't, Snape would just rip her into tiny little pieces and use them in some disgusting potion.

Draco and Millicent were already sitting at the breakfast table, the girl merely nibbling on a piece of toast while Draco tried bravely to force a coffee down his throat. Blaise had yet to show up.

"Hey, Trace. How did you sleep?" asked Draco conversationally.

Tracey sat down and chose a muffin from the tray. It was about the worst possible moment to look nervous or unhappy. Even now, when Hogwarts was no longer in any way a safe place, Friday nights were slightly better. At least then one could look forward to two blessed days of no classes.

"Pansy snores," replied Tracey noticing that the annoying girl was suddenly giving her tired face a curious glare. "Like sleeping next to a freight train."

The girl huffed indignantly and turned back to chatting with Daphne Greengrass. On any other day Tracey might have felt sorry for Daphne, who would clearly much rather have just spent her morning in peace, but at least Pansy wasn't glaring a hole in her skull. She smiled instead at Draco. "I'm hoping my…evening…will be more eventful."

Draco emptied the coffee cup. "Yeah, good luck with that." His dark eyes fell on Alecto Carrow at the staff table. The woman was reading the Daily Prophet. "We should get to potions. Wouldn't want to be late for old Sluggy."


The day didn't get much better. Tracey barley managed to focus and nearly blew up her potion, only managing to stop it when Millicent grabbed her hand as she tried to add a wrong ingredient the fourth time.

"Get it together. You are making everyone else nervous too." The girl smiled at her. "We'll be fine."

Tracey took a deep breath. "I will feel better once it is done."

"Sure about that? Because I think that is when the hard part begins!"

They exchanged a glance and Millicent began stirring the potion and Tracey diced up some pumpkin. "Last chance of backing out." she remarked.

"You know I wouldn't do that, Trace."


They were doing it in the evening after Carrow had finished with her detentions. As the previous Friday had shown, Alect Carrow would be dealing with those until about eight. Then she'd retire to her own quarters. Draco and Zach were waiting outside of those quarters under Malfoy's cloak of invisibility. Surprisingly they didn't even bicker. The silent was in fact deafening between them.

Well, that was not entirely true. They had had one short conversation about what would happen if Alecto Carrow accidentally tripped on the invisibility cloak. Zach had suggested that then Draco would have to survive the blow to his reputation and admit they were kissing. Damn the stupid Huff. But at least he was a pure-blood…

Tracey had promised to get the rest of the girls and then set up everything in the unused potions class. Millicent would be keeping an eye on the brother. And of course poor Blaise would be missing all the fun…That thought made Draco almost snicker. They might have been on the same side but there was no harm surely in a bit of gloating?


It was in fact Blaise Zabini's final day of detention which he just happened to spending together with Ginny Weasley. Horace Slughorn had had something to do which meant he was now under the watchful eye of the transfigurations professor. It could have been worse he guessed. They were in the process of practicing some spells useful in transfiguring stuff into medical equipment. A thing professor McGonagall insisted was an appropriate punishment at this time. Subtle. For a Gryffindor at least.

Nevertheless Blaise did his best. Who knows when this stuff would be used on him…and then professor McGongall was summoned by the headmaster. She gave the two young criminals a stern look and an order to keep working while she was gone. At first Blaise kept his nose down, trying not to look at the Gryffindor girl. But after McGonagall's steps had faded in the hallways, the redhead looked up at him.

"So, what's the game, Zabini?"

Blaise shrugged. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Weasel."

"I mean what were you up to last Friday?"

"Why snogging you behind a tapestry of course. Do you not remember? I would have thought I was rather more memorable than that…" replied Blaise as he kept his eyes on a piece of cloth that was very reluctant to become a set of bandages.

Ginny growled. "You are up to something."

Blaise resisted the urge to smirk at that. Oh yes, if all was going well then…He wondered if there would ever be songs sang about it. The heroics of the Slytherins. He'd like that. If there was an ode about him.


Of course what was unlikely to be featured in any odes was the part where Zach and Draco were starting to feel the chill of the old castle halls as Alecto Carrow failed to show up.

"Today of all days that bitch is late…" whispered Zach under his breath. Draco gave him a glare and he rolled his eyes. "What? I've seen enough badgers get hurt."

"Didn't peg a Huff for wanting revenge."

Zach rolled his eyes again and almost laughed at that. "Well, we are all about loyalty, aren't we? You hurt one of us and the rest of us will feel the obligation to come down on your head like a ton of bricks."

"Learn something new every day-" At that moment they heard footsteps in the distance and both boys became very still again.

Alecto Carrow strolled around the corner and straight to the door that led to her quarters. She whispered the password and slipped in. Her brother was nowhere to be seen and Millicent had not raised the alarm.

In one amazing dash both boys headed forward through the door before it clicked shut. Draco had his wand out and cast a silent stupefy on instinct. The body fell with a soft thump on the floor and Draco looked back to see Zach still pushing off the invisibility cloak.

"No hurry, Smith. I have everything under control."

"Yeah, yeah very funny-" the boy's eyes fell on Alecto Carrow on the floor. "Awh, Malfoy, why the hell did you do that for?"

"So she would not put up a resistance, why else?" Draco frowned, not sure what Zach was getting at.

Zach sighed:"Yeah, but now we have to carry her…"


"Look, lay off, Weasel. We've already established I was with you. I suggest we leave it at that." Blaise was starting to get rather bored of the girl and it was showing in his spell work. Damn, he had to work on staying unemotional.

"Alright, and what would I get if I had my friends follow your little pit of snakes?" pressed the redhead. Where the hell was professor McGonagall when you need her? Did no one in this castle even give a damn about the students anymore?

Realistically of course Blaise knew that this was in no way an emergency. But he found it especially hard to keep his emotions in check and he really didn't need a damn weasel to annoy him even more.

"Cursed. You'd get cursed. Happy?" He noticed the final bandage had turned out more an old ugly rag. "Look, Weasel, in case you haven't noticed, we are living in a very fragile time where secrets, even tiny little ones, can fuck everything up. So how about you keep your mouth firmly shut and maybe just maybe there will be more pain relief potions for you in the future." He had to warn Tracey and the crew later because the bloody rodent seemed to have no intention of just letting this go...


The interesting thing about spells is that sometimes they work perfectly well when the caster in concentrating. If however the concentration of the caster is broken abruptly, they might end equally quickly and leave one in a rather awkward position.

One of these spells was for example mobilicorpus which Draco and Zach were currently using to move the trunk that contained the unconscious body of Alecto Carrow around Hogwarts. Of course if our little friends from Slytherin had followed their nature and become friends with the brightest witch of their age so it might possibly benefit them, then they'd have maybe been privy to a rather nice charm to use on a bag and make it fit one Carrow while looking like a small stylish purse.

As it stood though, they were not friends with the girl due to the unfortunate circumstances of her birth on Draco's part and due to him being a git on Zach's part. So now instead they were levitating a trunk covered with Draco's cloak of invisibility in front of them and it was only thanks to their luck that Draco already had another trunk that had been spelled this way for the purposes of keeping the woman.

"I told you not to stun her there." stated Zach yet again as he made his way down yet another set of stairs.

"Oh I'm sorry, you had a better idea you didn't share with the class?" quipped Draco.

Zach shrugged as much as the trunk would allow. "Imperius? You are a death-"

"Shut up, Smith!" Draco felt a sudden surge of anger and turned to face the boy. Rather unfortunately though this meant he couldn't watch where he was going, resulting in him tumbling down the final stairs.

A good tumble is however just the right thing to make someone brake their concentration and as he fell at the bottom of the stairs, so did the trunk in a soft thud. It also happened that the invisibility cloak was made of a rather silky fabric so it floated off the trunk elegantly and into a heap on the ground. All in all a most amazing set of coincidences...

Just then they heard footsteps from behind the corner. Quickly Draco scrambled to his feet and tried to grab the cloak but he couldn't get to it so instead he opted to try and look less guilty.

"Act natural," murmered Zach under his breath, "It'll be fine...". Draco figured this was as much mischief as the boy had ever been up to.

A moment passed and the rather regal figure of professor McGonagall appeared from around the corner. Seeing the two boys she came to a halt and eyed them with sudden suspicion. Then her eyes fell on the trunk at Draco's feet…

"Mister Malfoy, mister Smith, what are you doing here? What's in the trunk?" she demanded in a stern voice.

"Ehm…" Draco's mind raced as he found himself for the first time completely at a loss. "It is-"

"Alecto Carrow."

The woman's eyes snapped onto Zach who was looking back at her as calmly as he could from the top of the stairs, polite smile on his lips. For a few seconds they stared at each other. Then, to Draco's amazement professor McGonagall's glare lessened a bit and she relaxed.

"It is almost curfew, gentlemen." With that she swept past them and walked away. Draco could later have sworn he heard her murmur "Everyone thinks they're a comedian…" Still, it seemed that the thought of a Carrow squeezed into a small trunk put a small smile on the face of the stern woman.


"How could you possibly have known that would work?" asked Draco as they placed the trunk down in the potions classroom and Lisa locked the door behind them.

"What, the truth? She wasn't going to search the trunk for a Carrow and look like an idiot," replied Zacharias with a shrug.

"So you CAN BE sneaky?"

"Nah, just picked that up from a movie." *

They pulled the trunk open and looked down at the unconscious woman. "Damn, she looks ugly." Zach shook his head. "So who's the lucky lady who gets to go first?"


*The movie in question is a children's adaption of "The Three Musketeers" where the heroes are carrying the Duke of Buckingham around in a trunk in the palace. When stopped by a guard who demands to know what is in the trunk, d'Artagnan replies "The Duke of Buckingham" which causes the guard to walk off laughing.