Chapter eighteen
Stag and Unicorn
/
Angela walked into the Slytherin common room first, with Draco right behind her.
"So… We´re alone here. Can you finally answer me?" Draco barked grumpily.
She turned to him almost immediately, loose hair flying around her head with that move.
"And what do you want to hear?" she lashed out at him.
Draco flinched in surprise. He really did not expect such a violent reaction.
"Yes, they´re back! Those damn prophetic dreams returned!" she continued to shout. "Yes, I have the pills. I even keep taking them. But I didn't do it last night, so I have only myself to blame for this mess… I'm sorry you got caught in it too and thank you so much for keeping quiet in front of Snape. Satisfied? Or did I forget something?!" she finished in a broken voice and with a stifled sob she slid into the nearest armchair.
A stifling silence took over the room for a moment. Angela was shaking and hiding her face with both hands. Draco crouched down to her with a serious expression and surprisingly gently took her icy hands into his.
"Sorry," Angela whispered. "I don't know what got into me."
"It´s okay. You take it too seriously," he replied calmly and moved her hands away from her pale face. "It'll be fine again, you'll see," he tried to persuade her.
"No, it won't be," she shook her head, opposing him hoarsely. "It's getting worse and worse. I can understand why it happened today. I haven't taken any pills against dreams for about a week. I… I thought it was gone. But before that... Before that, I took them every night and kept dreaming regardless. I think they´re not working anymore…"
Not knowing what to say to comfort her, Draco squeezed her hands sympathetically, then let go of them and sat across from her.
"Don't you have a cigarette?" Angela asked suddenly.
He widened his eyes at her: "You've never smoked," he noted, already pulling a small box from the back pocket of his jeans.
"I guess it´s about time to start," she guessed gloomily, reaching for one.
Draco lit hers up first, before using it on his own as well with a Muggle lighter, which Angela noted slightly surprised, and they both leaned back comfortably in their armchairs. After a few unusual inhales, the nicotine smell came naturally to Angela. Her aunt had been smoking for many years, so she was used to that specific fragrance.
"What did you dream about today?" Draco asked quietly.
Thoughtfully, Angela blew a cloud of smoke above her and used her wand to open the only two distant, small windows of the common room wide open.
"I don't really know," she answered slowly. "I don't remember the dreams well if someone wakes me up," she remarked, looking at Draco.
"And what was I supposed to do with you?" he defended his actions. "Let you leave the castle barefoot?"
"Take it easy, Draco. I don't blame you. I just informed you about this fact," she responded curtly. She had obviously calmed down. "About that dream… I'm in the night forest, and I know for sure that it's the Forbidden Forest. I even had this, or similar dream once before. It's cold. The trees are without leaves and I can see the stars through their crowns, but the moon is not shining. I don't know if I'm walking or standing or what I'm actually doing and then I see something. Something bright silver in the distance. I recognized it today, but I don't remember what it was. I just know it was wailing. It was crying desperately like a little child…" she finished the last sentence, her voice shaking a little.
Draco was silent, lost in thought.
"The thing is, I´ve never had such dreams before," Angela said a little louder. "They were almost always about my surroundings or about someone I knew, but this one… I don't even know if it's a prophetic dream or just an ordinary one… I feel really weird about it."
"Well, if I were you, I'd take it out of my mind, at least for now. We have more important things to attend," Draco remarked meaningfully.
Angela slowly nodded her head: "Has your mother written anything to you yet?"
"She said – soon," Draco replied.
For a moment, there was silence between them again. The white smoke rising from their cigarettes drifted lazily in the air toward the windows.
"When did you start having those dreams again?" Draco asked questioningly after a while.
"Shorty after I moved in to your family´s house."
"And… Did you have a dream about, well… About me?" he asked hesitantly.
"Yeah," Angela replied in an unchanged voice, amused when she caught a momentary glimpse of horror on Draco's face.
"What was it?" he blurted out quickly.
"Actually, I knew you'd catch Daria falling from her broomstick. That's what I dreamed of at the end of October."
"Really? Interesting… And the fact that we would win the game…"
"No, not that," she denied quickly.
"So that last goal, you just…"
"I just tried my luck, yes. And it worked," Angela smiled with satisfaction. However, her eyes still showed sadness and concern.
"Is there anything else you dreamt about me?" muttered Draco, glancing at her through the billowing cigarette smoke.
Angela doused hers, used her wand to make the butt disappear and looked at Draco's focused expression.
"No."
Draco relaxed a little and threw the butt out of the open window with a precise throw. Angela conjured a strong breeze to blow all the smoke out of the room and closed the windows.
"Just by the way," she turned to Draco before leaving. "You shouldn't leave those butts lying all around. Don't think that one day someone won't notice."
Draco just snorted in annoyance and got up from the comfortable armchair as well.
When two second-year students entered the room ten minutes later, there was no smell of smoke anymore. Just unusually cold air.
/
The detention time for everyone from the unusual morning meeting in the Entrance Hall came on Monday evening. The Gryffindor part of our delinquents approached Snape's office in obvious annoyance, trying not to imagine what was ahead of them.
"Daria, what were you even doing there?" Ron suddenly asked curiously on the way. "I get that Harry was there. He's always somewhere you expect it the least, but you?"
Too ashamed to admit she was just curious, Daria took a deep breath and gritted through her teeth, "Am I asking what you were doing there?"
"No," Ron admitted reluctantly.
"See what I mean?" she hissed.
They ran down the last set of stairs, through a long, cold corridor. When they turned into another one, where they could already find Snape's dungeon lair, they saw Malfoy and Rosier walking toward them from the other end.
"Well, well, the worse part of us is coming, as well," Ron said teasingly. "Hey, you've got to be kidding me, Malfoy!" he mocked aloud as they met in front of the feared door. "You two were assigned with a punishment from Snape?"
Angela and Malfoy stabbed his red-haired friend with such identically haughty looks that it made Harry freeze. The Slytherins didn´t not even consider Ron worthy of an answer.
Hi, Angie. Do you know that I have a terrible desire to kiss you right now? In order to stop you from sulking like that, Harry sent a conciliatory message to Angela.
Angela put on a much more pleasant expression and winked at him.
Daria, seeing that none of the present was willing to knock, pushed her way between them and pounded hard on the door herself. She had not been to Snape's for detention yet, so she wanted to open it right away, but Hermione quickly grabbed her hand.
"Wait," she whispered in explanation.
Only after an invitation to enter came from within did she let go and Daria opened the door. Hermione and Ron walked in behind her, Harry then gave way to Angela and ended up almost bumping into Malfoy, who followed closely behind. He let him pass, without any reaction and entered the lion's den last, closing the door behind them.
/
With a satisfied smirk, Snape glanced over the mostly disgusted and concerned group of students. He let them sweat for a while and finished writing something in the thin book in front of him. Then he lazily snapped it shut and stood up. He walked around his desk, slipped between them, magically opened the door again, and stepped out. The students looked at each other in astonishment.
"What are you waiting for?" Snape called icily from the corridor. "We're going."
Some restless animal settled in Harry's stomach. He began to feverishly ponder what horrible tasks could Snape prepared for them. Their rueful group soon arrived at the entrance gate. Snape opened it and walked out without looking back.
The night sky was overcast, it was drizzling, and in addition to the darkness, there was also an unpleasant fog everywhere. Almost everyone immediately shivered from the cold. Ron began to send quiet curses on Snape's head between his teeth.
"He didn't even let us know it was going to be outside. It's terribly cold and we're not dressed at all," Hermione hummed unhappily.
Daria looked back at her in agreement. Harry remained sullenly silent, watching the backs of Angela and Malfoy. It was still light in Hagrid's hut, but they circled around it and stopped at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
"So," Snape began sickeningly sweetly, pulling six cloth pouches from the depths of his robes. "Your task will be to collect as many of Paris quadrifolia, aka crow's eye berries as possible. You all know what it looks like, don't you," he drawled. "When they´re collected while the moon is new, which is today, though I seriously doubt you´d notice that in your cheeky ignorance, their poison works best. It mostly grows near the edge of the forest, so you spread out lengthwise and don't go deeper than one hundred meters," Snape explained with sickening satisfaction, gradually tossing a bag into each of their hands. "If by any chance someone thought that it could be beneficial for them to get lost for a while and move on further to the forest, I strongly warn you that the border against Apparition ends nearby and I will definitely not guarantee your safety in that case. Is that clear to everyone?"
They hummed in agreement, yet grumpily.
"Now I'm going to divide you into pairs. So…"
Snape wondered how to separate them so they would not try to kill each other or make another mess.
"Potter will go with Rosier, Malfoy with Prescott and Granger with Weasley. I'll keep an eye on you," he added menacingly.
Harry tried not to show how pleased he was by Snape's choice, and he focused on Occlumency just to be sure, on the other side Daria was glad it was so dark because no one saw how she turned horribly pale and pressed her lips in anger.
"And of course I want the berries whole. No squishy nonsense," Snape added, finally falling silent and folding his arms ostentatiously across his chest.
Hermione and Ron went into the forest from where they were standing, Draco and Daria went to the left and Harry and Angela to the right. Snape walked a little further to the tall tree to get a better view. He knew very well that soon everyone would light their wands.
"And they'll still be looking for eternity," he mused mischievously to himself.
Naturally, he was right. After a while, six bright lights dimmed by the mist began to move through the darkness along the edge of the forest.
/
"That slimy moron couldn't think of a bigger stupidity!" sputtered Ron enraged, looking all around the ground in vain.
"Shut up, Ron," Hermione chided him. "Maybe he can still hear us."
"I don't care," snapped the redhead grumpily.
"Look, there's just one over there," Hermione pointed under one of the smaller trees and bent down to a tall and slender plant with berries on its top.
"One!" Ron rolled his eyes. "At this pace, we'll be picking it up till morning!"
"If you're just going to keep complaining, then yes!" Hermione retorted, standing up.
"Well, I'm already searching," Ron hummed, raising his wand a little higher to get a better view.
Suddenly, a couple of meters in front of them, something made a loud hissing sound. Hermione winced.
"What was that?" she whispered in terror.
"I don't know," replied rather pale Ron. "We'd better stick to the edge of the forest as much as possible, shall we?"
"It goes without saying," Hermione hissed impatiently.
There was a sound not far from them, as if something large was passing through the air.
"If anything, start screaming," Ron smirked despite his fear. "Snape can't afford to let something eat us here."
"Very funny, Ronald," snapped Hermione, and they both resumed their search, ears straining.
/
Harry and Angela were more successful. They already had about a dozen berries in each bag. However, those now lay unnoticed on the ground, their glowing wands hanging in the air not far from them, moving from side to side.
Harry was leaning his back against the tree, warming his cold hands under the sweater on Angela's back. She clung to him, resting her head on his shoulder. They enjoyed the rare moment of silence and solitude.
"Don't you think it's somewhat too quiet around here?" Angela suddenly spoke up.
Harry scanned the immediate area with his eyes.
"Hmm, maybe. But this forest is better off quiet."
"You're probably right..."
"I'm glad I can be alone with you again for a while," Harry held her tighter. "If only Snape had known…" he chuckled to himself satisfied.
"Yeah," Angela giggled. "That would have caused him a heart attack."
They started to kiss tenderly and let the wonderfully warm feeling flow through their bodies...
There was a soft gliding sound not far from them. They slowly moved away from each other and looked around.
"I don´t know how about you, but I think something is over there," Angela whispered, reaching for her wand, which flew into her hand all by itself. Harry cautiously bent down for their pouches, and grabbed his wand out of the air as well.
"Harry, look," Angela said, unusually frightened. In the light of her wand, the thick steam could be seen coming from her mouth.
"Damn…" he murmured.
"I doubt the temperature can drop so low in a minute without any reason," she whispered, still looking around.
They looked at the other with an equally worried look, stood with their backs to each other and waited. The sliding sound sounded again. There was a soft rustling of leaves on the ground and then… it was gone. The thick clouds of misty air even stopped coming out of their mouths.
"They're gone," Harry said confidently.
"But how come they didn't attack us?" Angela did not understand.
"I don't know… Which way did they go?" he suddenly wondered.
"Probably to the left, why… Merlin, no," Angela breathed out.
"Let's go," Harry stated firmly, trotting off in the direction where he suspected, rather than saw, more wand lights.
/
Snape perked up. Through the fog, he could see the two outer lights quickly approaching those in the middle. Before long, four lights merged into one piercing the darkness. The two furthest to the right, where Malfoy and Prescott had gone, could hardly be seen. He smirked and lazily made his way toward what was sure to be a Gryffindor assembly.
/
Hermione screamed in horror and pointed her shaking wand in her friend´s face.
"Calm down, Hermione!" Harry protested. "It´s me."
"I-I'm sorry," she blurted out. "Was it what I think it was? It passed right by us a moment ago."
"Quite certainly," Angela replied her, appearing behind Harry. "And there were a lot of them."
"They were moving on," Ron remarked.
"Yes, where Malfoy and Daria are," said Harry.
The four looked at each other.
"But if they were runaway Dementors, why didn't they attack us?" Hermione asked shakily.
"I have no idea, but I don't like it," Harry replied. "What are they even doing here?"
"Someone should go to get Snape," Angela said. "Hermione, could you…"
"I'm not going alone!" the Gryffindor protested not very bravely.
Somewhere in the distance ahead of them, a girl's scream echoed through the forest. Everyone winced.
"Daria," Angela gasped and dashed off.
"I'll go with Hermione for Snape," said Ron, grasping his girlfriend´s hand. "Be careful, Harry."
Harry just nodded and hurried after Angela.
/
Draco and Daria searched for the crow's-eye plants in a sultry silence, sinking deeper and deeper into the forest lost in thought. They looked at each other from time to time, but avoided eye contact at all costs.
Daria saw another plant near one of the bushes and walked over to it. As she ducked to it, hidden behind a tree, Malfoy's hand appeared at the same time from the other side. They both stopped and pulled back.
"Take it," Daria muttered, standing up.
"No, it´s yours. The lady has priority," Draco replied with a hint of irony.
Daria frowned: "Keep these remarks to yourself, will you?"
"I hope I didn't offend you," he snorted.
"What do you still have against me!?" snapped Daria. "Do you have to keep mocking me?"
Draco just raised an eyebrow.
"Bah, what am I even trying for? This isn't worth it," Daria declared, piercing him with a look.
"What do you mean by that?" Draco asked coldly.
Daria smiled sourly: "Just that a dull guy like you cannot understand one basic thing."
Draco's eyes narrowed, but he remained silent.
"Being born in a pure-blood wizarding family," Daria continued mockingly, "certainly does not elevate you above others, and you have no right to insult them endlessly. You're nothing but a spoiled rich brat who…"
Draco grabbed her arm and Daria fell silent.
"You know nothing about me, girl," Draco hissed icily. "You have no right to judge me here, so please shut up your cute mouth before it comes to any harm."
Daria struggled to break free from his grip: "Let go, it hurts!"
"Did I make that clear enough?" Draco asked as if he had not even heard her.
"That's what I thought! Threats are good for you, aren't you?" Daria barked firmly, but there was a little soul in her. Malfoy's eyes were so cold and hard… "Indulging a girl who's here alone with you!" she finished in an accusing tone.
Draco´s expression turned very upset, but he immediately let go and turned away from her, much to Daria's surprise.
"What are you afraid of?!" Daria sputtered as she rubbed the sore spot on her arm. "Why don't you look me in the eye when I'm talking to you! You cannot bear when someone tells you the…"
Daria didn't finish her intended sentence. Draco suddenly turned to her with a wild expression in his eyes, in one jump he approached her again, took her in his arms and kissed her hard and passionately on the mouth.
At first Daria froze completely, but then a wonderful sensation began to spread through her body from head to toes. She felt Draco's heart pounding and stopped fighting back. She yielded to him, her wand ending up somewhere on the ground and she slipped her hands into his soft hair.
At that moment, Draco jerked away from her. He was breathing rapidly and Daria could not recognize what she saw in his eyes. There was desire, confusion, pain and happiness all at the same time…
Daria watched him confused with a gentle expression on her face, while a storm of emotions raged inside Draco. It was only after several endless seconds that he managed to regain control, even though he could still feel her lips on his…
They were both silent. No words were needed at that moment.
And then, Draco was the first to notice thick steam coming from his mouth. He quickly extended his hand with the glowing wand in the air.
"What…" Daria started, but Draco hissed at her to be quiet.
She suddenly felt incredibly cold. Something seemed to float through the air near them. Shakily, she bent down to pick up her wand and just then a tall figure in dark cloak with a large hood appeared at the edge of the light from Draco's wand.
Draco lost his breath for a moment, but immediately recovered and prepared to say the incantation. Daria screamed in terror, but Draco noticed that she was not looking in the same direction as him, but behind him…
"Behind—behind you," Daria stammered, her eyes wide.
Draco turned sharply and took a few steps back. Another Dementor was close behind him, extending his hideous claw instead of a hand toward them.
"Expecto Patronum!" Draco shouted, shaking, trying to push the horrible, screaming voices out of his head.
However, only a small cloud came out of his wand, which did stop even that one Dementor. Not to mention that more and more of them appeared behind him.
Daria was clutching Draco's arm convulsively, shaking all over and clearly not able to help him. Hastily, he looked around, while he was able to think rationally. He realized that he was unable to create a proper Patronus and he knew very well why. He could see no gliding figure to their left. He roughly jerked Daria to get her to move.
They staggered back from the sucking, hissing monsters. Draco ran away as fast as he could, but with the Gryffindor girl in tow it was no easy task.
They did not get far. Daria collapsed to her knees in the middle of a small clearing where, ironically, an abundance of crow's-eye plants were growing.
"Get up!" Draco was pulling her back to her feet.
Dementors began to close a circle around them. Draco tried to help Daria once more when a wave of cold washed over them and she passed out. Malfoy looked up at the tall figure towering over him. He never wanted to know what was behind that dark hood, but it looked like he was about to find out…
The dark figures of Dementors closed a dark and lethal circle around them…
Draco's wand fell from his hand. He stared into the endless darkness under the hood as if bewitched, silent tears streaming down his face.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
Two clear voices echoed through the clearing, reaching Malfoy as if from a great distance, one was of a girl and the other of a boy. Two beautiful silvery creatures ran toward the nearly dozen Dementors. A glowing stag and a unicorn ran between them and stood on either side of collapsed Malfoy and Daria.
In a few seconds that seemed endless to Angela, Dementors fled away in all directions and the air began to slowly warm again.
Deadly pale, Draco bent down to Daria. She was still unconscious and her breathing was shallow. The silver Patrons ran to their masters, who released them with relief. Shakily wiping his wet cheeks with sleeve of his rope, Draco sat down exhausted and Harry and Angela ran up to them out of breath.
"Are you both okay?" Angela blurted out with concern.
"I think so," Draco replied in an unnaturally raspy voice. "Prescott just passed out."
Harry was already leaning over her. "Looks like she'll be fine. We just have to get her to the castle," he said.
"Can you get up?" Angela asked quietly. Draco just shrugged.
She propped him up and Malfoy groggily got to his feet.
Meanwhile, Harry took off his sweatshirt and wrapped Daria in it.
"Where's Snape?" he barked nervously. "She should be on a stretcher. When we don't need him, he's always behind our ass, and when he should be here, he's happily hanging out somewhere, a damn slimy bat."
Angela had already been trying to stop him with her hand for about three seconds, but Harry was ignoring her.
"Get out of the way, Potter," came a voice just behind him at that moment, making Harry almost choke.
He turned to face Snape, who was looking down at him with an icy expression. Frightened Hermione and Ron appeared right behind him.
Snape conjured a stretcher for Daria with a wave of his wand, placed her on it and looked at Malfoy sharply.
"You can walk on your own?"
"Yes," Malfoy replied firmly as Angela continued to support him.
"Everyone, follow me," snapped Snape flatly.
None of them said a word, but considerable suspicion began to sprout in their minds.
