Chapter 26
Drake awoke the next morning determined to try to 'forget' about him and Ginny, but if you would have cared to ask him about it he would have given you a look of someone who doesn't quite seem whole and tell you to shove off. Secretly he felt as though someone had taken a key to his heart and locked it up with most of his sanity too…
In spite of his internal struggle he noticed his hair had been practically shaved except for the top but it had grown into a thick fuzz of hair. He'd had his bandages removed, except for his ribs, during the night. He decided that he didn't like the bowl look having his top hair still long gave him so he took his wand and shaved his top hair down till it was only a little longer than the sides and back of his head. He then combed the top bit over messily. He rubbed his chin and realized he had grown a bit of a beard and moustache while he was asleep.
[Who cares?] He shrugged as he thought to himself.
The trio found Ginny beyond consolable seemingly that night and woke up the next morning to find her not caring about Drake anymore.
"What in the world is going on with her and Drake?" Hermione asks.
"You don't think the attack could've had anything to do with them dating could it?" Harry says giving a look at Ron.
"WHAT?! Why're you looking at me? Did you not see me in the Hospital Wing?" Ron says indignantly.
"We aren't accusing you. Weren't Fred and George acting odd up until Drake was attacked?" Hermione says.
"Hey! They wouldn't do this." Ron protests.
"Like Bill couldn't be the turncoat?" Harry challenges.
"Well… I was wrong about that…" Ron says awkwardly. "They did want to pull a prank on Drake but they said they wouldn't hurt him."
"Lots of people say things they don't mean Ron." Harry replies.
"Oh shut up Harry." Ron grumbles.
"Wait a minute! I told Drake during that week they were being suspicious to watch his back around them because I could tell in their mind as jumbled as it is that there was something bad they were going to do and relating it to 'the one who is dating our sister'. Hmm." Hermione says. "Unless you have any other sisters or your sister was cheating on Drake, which I doubt the way she practically lived beside him until he woke up and whatever it was that happened between them yesterday, it could only be Drake."
"Oh alright I gave them my schedule. They'd know he was on the way to DADA and they know the school better than anyone." Ron blurts out. "Happy now?"
The Night Before
"Dammit George you see what you've done? You knew the nightmare would result from your extra attacks didn't you? And you knew he'd keep the Go Away's in his head. Are you insane or something?" Fred yells at his brother. "Did you see her? You want to protect her but apparently you have crushed her."
"So?" George says not like himself though he hasn't seemed like himself since Ginny and Drake thing started.
"You fix this. You fix it or I'll leave you in as bad a shape as him." Fred threatens. Getting in to bed and shutting the curtains of his four poster bed.
The Morning: Present Time During Trio's Talk
"See Fred she's over him must have shunned her something bad…" George smirks at his twin in the corner.
"This is your fault. You'd better make Drake sane again I hear he was acting like a mentally scarred weirdo last night when he woke up." Fred says.
"What'll you do if I don't?" George taunts.
"What I told you last night." Fred says.
Drake put himself through some physical therapy to make sure his legs would still work after not using them for a week. It was sort of hard to walk at first, but Drake did some stretches and he was able to walk fine.
Drake decided he would start back exercising in his secret room. [Yeah that'll be good. Something to keep my occupied when there aren't classes so I forget about practically anything else…]
[What does he think? I'm a disease?] Ginny thinks bitterly at breakfast glaring towards Drake at the opposite end of the table. [I don't want this anymore…] Her mind mocks him. [Well, that note said to stay away from him… but I think it's just a trick. Just something fake… Who cares about him? Not me. What'd I ever see in him? I don't know but that's over.] With that she finished her breakfast and left.
Time passed to a week into December. Drake kept to his regimen and though you couldn't really see any change in his physique when Draco crossed him and got punched in the face Draco could tell he was certainly punching harder or stronger. Draco wouldn't consent to signing the forms so he was never questioned with Veritaserum. Ginny and Drake avoided each other like the plague and Drake was only seen in classes or studying in the common room. Ginny was often in the library during breaks and her free time and was also scarcely seen other then in classes or common room.
[Oh it's so beautiful out here by the lake alone. Especially with this fresh snow fall.] Ginny thinks then hears something rustling from the Forbidden Forest and a sort of loud roar.
"Ok Drake. We've cornered you now. What is wrong with you?" Ron says pinning Drake down in the snow.
"Hush! Hush!" Drake says getting a concentrating look on his face and looking towards the Forbidden Forest.
Ron grabs his chin and makes him look him in the eyes.
"I heard something. A roar." Drake says trying to turn to look at the forest. "Too close to the edge of the forest to be good."
"What happened to make Ginny so shocked and crushed from you one day and hating you from it the next?"
He looks up blankly at Ron. "Uh…. I…." He frowns and pulls the parchment out of his boot. "Crapweasel." He mutters.
'HELLO CRAPWEASEL' The paper writes. 'LONG TIME NO SEE'
'STAY AWAY FROM GINNY OR ELSE IT'LL HAPPEN AGAIN'
The parchment then shows an animation of everything that happened to Drake and it says 'Stay Away From Her Or Else' it even shows that there were two people attacking him.
"I can't remember who they are but I'll be ready if it happens again but it won't cause she hates me now. They achieved their goal… they split us up." Drake says miserably. "Whoever the two are they win…"
"Oh shut up show her this." Ron says and then they all hear a loud….
"RRRRRROOOOOOAAAARRRRR!" The creature growls leaping out at Ginny.
"AH!" Ginny screams. "HELP!"
"Holy hell." Drake yells shoving Ron off him and taking off towards the creature on the other side of the lake. They run after Drake. "Hermione go tell the headmaster about this and you two come with me!"
Hermione runs off and the others are running around the lake as fast as they can but the creature is practically on top of Ginny.
"This is too dang slow we're sliding." Drake says still moving while he freezes the lake over. "Ok run on now." They all run on the lake and slip about twice as fast right into the creature. And what a creature it was.
It was like a griffin but not. It was a lion about as tall as Hagrid standing on its back paws which were like and eagles feet but bigger and his hands were the same with huge, gleaming, razor sharp talons. That was about the only way he was birdlike except huge wings which were line with fur at the top. He had a lions head and body with a big bushy mane and tail. He opened his mouth in a roar and revealed a 'mouth full' of sharp pointed teeth.
"Oh my…" Ron mutters shocked.
"What is that? A griffin?" Harry says.
"Not exactly its more of a… Lion mix." Drake says. "I think or some sort of genetically advanced griffin… let's call it a Griffgal for lack of anything else. "
"WELL GET IT AWAY!" Ginny shrieks.
"Ok." Ron says and calls up a tornado to blow it away but that only makes it madder and it flies up out of it with those huge wings. "Ok I'm out of ideas..."
The Griffgal lands on top of Ron and smacks him hard onto the hard ice of the lake and Ron looks knocked out. Harry steps up and Drake steps between the beast and Ginny.
Harry and Drake eye the beast… Harry unleashes a huge bolt of lightning down on the beast about as thick as a tornado… The beast appears hurt but mad too and slashes at Harry's chest cutting in sort of deep and Harry flies back on the snow and blood is running out of the wound in his chest.
Drake starts to run at Harry to help him but the beast advances on Ginny and Drake jumps in between them looking like a dog protecting someone it loves from a snake or something. Drake has a snarl on his face and he freezes the Griffgal's wings. The beast strikes out with his talons again and Drake runs back taking Ginny with him and sets her down then makes like an ice dome over her which is clear.
Drake then circles the beast and makes sure no one is looking or around and transforms into a huge cross of a Hungarian Horntail and a Swedish Short-Snout dragon. He continues circling the beast in that form. Drake has a horn-tail and bronze horns which mirror the spikes on his tail, but he has the appearance and color of a Swedish Short-Snout being a silvery-blue. Drake swings his long tail at the Griffgal knocking it into a tree.
Although Drake isn't much taller than the Griffgal in his dragon from it is scared of him. Drake lowers his head and rams his horns into the Griffgal like a bull and the Griffgal falls and Drake turns into his human form and takes the ice dome off of Ginny.
Drake then runs over to Harry who has accumulated a small pool of red around him contrast with the other wise bright white of the snow. Drake pulls his own cloak off and wraps it around the wound and ties it with his scarf. Ron is still out of it and Drake's ice is starting to get thin in the middle where Ron flew to.
Drake takes a few steps back and runs full speed at Ron and the ice and slides fast as before if not faster pulling Ron up as the ice cracks open and the crack follows behind Drake's feet. "This is what I'm talking about. If you have to fight evil Dark Lords good to get some action like this." It starts catching up with him as the whole ice disappears with Drake still ten feet off shore carrying Ron.
Drake starts to sink due to exhaustion from using too much power on freezing the whole lake relatively very thickly and the ice dome over Ginny and from becoming his Animagus form. Ron wakes up in the freezing cold water and grabs onto Drake's wrist, Drake had gone down that far, and swims him up to the shore with difficulty and spitting water out. Ron pulls out his wand when on shore and casts a spell to warm them up and then tries something to get the waters out of Drake's lungs which only makes his wand sprout bubbles.
Drake starts coughing up water. And then it's staying in his mouth sort of drowning Drake so Ron flips him on his side and the water runs out. Drake coughs up a lot of water again and starts to sit up wearily. "What did I do?" Drake asks.
"You saved my life… and I saved yours… so we're even I guess… and you saved Ginny apparently since Harry is laying out cold… so I guess you saved him too… and the Griffgal is dead… I think it's dead…" Ron says. "I'm not sure how though I was out of it. Sorry. Ginny seems to be happy with you again."
Ginny comes running around to Drake and Ron. She hugs Ron and then hugs Drake more like in the room when she was comforting him after telling of his father being evil his mother leaving and then what he did to the American Minister of Magic and almost all of his family. Drake gets a haunted scared look on his face like he wants to tear out of her grip, yet doesn't, and is fighting tearing away though that seems to be the more prevalent feeling. Drake is shaking with the effort to not rip out of her arms or maybe the cold... Then Drake seems to beat it and hugs her back for a moment then Hermione and Dumbledore with Falcore, Alexander, and Andre with them.
"Wow." Alexander says seeing the dead creature. "Accio corpse." The Griffgal flies up at him and lands in front of him. "Wow! What is this? A Griffin? No. Lion/eagle? Hmm?"
"We call it a Griffgal." Drake says.
"Interesting." Dumbledore says. "What would that black lump be on the far side of the lake?"
"Harry Potter." Drake says. "I'll fetch him don't bother." Drake turns the lake into ice again and takes a run at it and when he gets on the ice he just collapses and slides face first to the middle and Andre runs out after him sliding on the ice grabbing Drake as he goes. "Working out pays off." Andre slides all the way to the other side in the same go and garbs Harry too and takes a faster running start sliding fast across the ice which is cracking open behind him but he is more successful than Drake and gets onto shore before the ice fades and sets Drake and Harry down in front of the headmaster.
"Alrighty." Andre says getting looks from everyone. "That was fun… But down to business. This one here is exhausted due to freezing the lake twice and killing that thing." Andre says pointing at Drake then the Griffgal. "This one has a chest wound. Planned healing… Let… er… make the exhausted one stay in the hospital wing, and give the one with the chest wound to Alexander." Andre proves that last point by picking Harry up and giving him to Alexander before wandering over to the Griffgal being fascinated of Magical Creatures. "Wow... This is a Griffin Hippogriff Hybrid sort of thing or a lion and eagle mixed genes then added a Griffin/Hippogriff to that… Who could do that? Wow! Awesome creature. Too bad it was demented…"
"Yeah too bad." Alexander says rolling his eyes. "I don't think I will EVER understand you Andre."
"Of course not you don't want to." Andre says. "When you don't want something you don't try to get it."
"Well you're smarter than I give you credit for." Alexander says. "But I got to run. Got to get a seemingly dying boy to the Infirmary." Alexander then hurries towards Hogwarts.
"Man… People shouldn't breed new creatures for evil… or at all, for that matter, as it is illegal… not good. Well I'm going to study this fellow. See what makes him… him." Andre says lugging the Griffgal to Hagrid's hut after putting a spell on him. "Such a waste of life…"
"What's with him? That thing tried to kill us! All that dude does is 'What a waste of life"?!" Ron mocks.
"What did I do to kill him?" Drake murmurs weakly. "I can't remember must of hit my head on the ice too hard. "I remember everything up to when I jumped between the beast and Ginny… then blank. I'm going to sleep." Drake says shivering. His lips look blue. Ron is shaking too and both are in soaked clothes.
"Brrrr… So wet. So cold." Ron mutters and goes to sit down. Falcore grabs up him and Drake and rushes towards Hogwarts everyone following.
Ginny looks scared and Hermione is biting her bottom lip nervously.
"They have taken a 'dip' in the lake I am guessing Drake went down farther than Ron and probably swallowed water… Then… Ron swam them to shore. And Drake has been draining himself… Might be Hypothermia. Or could just be a little too cold and they'll be alright but we're getting them in anyway." Falcore says in his usual perceptive way. "I think Ron is alright probably going to have a cold or bad flu… but Drake fell into the lake after shedding his cloak and scarf for Harry and though that means less clothes to soak up cold water he's been in the cold longer with little cover and freezing water in the little covering he has. Whereas Ron has a special cloak on which would keep the water mainly in the cloak." By the time Falcore finishes his analysis they're in the hospital wing. "And well, to finish up why Drake is probably Hypothermic at the moment is because Drake has been overly tired lately what with his internal struggle and all that, and hypothermia is likely in people who are overly tired and there are others but you get the point."
Alexander bustles over reminiscent of Madam Pomphrey and checks out Ron and Drake. "Hmm. Hypothermia… Don't worry I can treat it. I've been meaning to try this out on real patients instead of the simulation…" Everyone looks at him funny. "Anyway, don't fret never failed on the simulations. Got to figure out what their exact temperature is."
Alexander mutters a spell. "Hmmm. Interesting." Numbers appear above their heads. "Ron is 93.4. Drake is… Whoa… 90.1… That's the most extreme I've seen even with my simulations."
"Oh tricky, tricky. I love a trick though. I'll fix Ron first with the original. Fervefacio Penitus." Alexander says. "It'll take a little bit to thoroughly warm him just watch the numbers." Alexander says. "Now what was that cure I learned in Japan. In the city of… well it was like a Hogsmeade of sorts in Japan… What was it called? Ah yes. Majikku… Magic… Nice place studied several medical books there while studying Imperious… I found a nice old one got to bring it back… actually I got one old medical book and a book of old of illegal curses, Russia's was GRAND, from every country I went to while I was studying Imperius. Anyway, time for the spell. Atatameru Naibu. See he's warming up already." Alexander says and indeed he was he was at the temperature of Ron 93.4.
"Ok. Vacate the room Hermione and Ginny we got to change their clothes…" Falcore says and Hermione leaves.
Falcore, Alexander, and Albus change the wet clothes on Ron and Drake into warm cloaks and sweaters instead of the wet robe and long sleeved shirt Drake had on, which would include a nice fur-lined cloak but that was now bloody, and the cloak and robe and Weasley sweater Ron had on.
"Ok time to fix Harry. His wound was plugged well enough that I could wait a little and examine it with a X-Ray spell I picked up in America while there for a couple of years with Drake who was on probation… anyway, this is from Japan too. I found that the wound was between his ribs and almost nicked his lung… luckily it didn't. Spell time. Iyasu Haibyou." Alexander says and Harry wakes up.
"Ungh. What happened?" Harry says.
"Oh now I remember… Are they okay?" Harry says looking at Ron and Drake.
"Yes. They'll be fine, case of Hypothermia and Drake's was rough, but they will be fine." Alexander says and soon enough Drake's temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Alexander explains that since Drake's case was more severe the spell he used works faster.
"Ick… Ah… Oh… That's going to be sore for a while." Drake says sitting up and stretching then rubbing his head. "What did I do? Did I change…? Oh no! Yes I did… and in front of someone… that was supposed to be a secret… and don't give me that look Harry. This is a secret I'm supposed to keep."
Harry still eyes him but says. "What happened to me? I thought I was a goner after that thing sliced my chest."
Drake smiles an innocent smile and seems to blush. "Well, I didn't make any moves to rush to your aid right away though you were in more trouble than Ginny. The thing went at her when I was going to you so I jumped between it and Ginny and then… er… after avoiding it's claws… changed… and well disposed of the beast after putting an ice dome over Ginny. The verdict? I'm drained and fell in the lake trying to get Ron off before the ice went away. I don't control it after I make it. Anyway before I fell in the lake and swallowed water in my lungs, I shed my cloak and scarf to plug your wound. Then Hermione came back with these 3 and Andre, who's obsessing over the Griffgal at the moment, and you were still on the other side of the lake maybe bleeding to death and so I refroze the lake. When I went to get you though I guess the hypothermia caught up with me and I sort of went face first on the ice sliding for a bit then I was out of it and don't remember much then and I woke up here. I think that's right."
"Yes it is." Ginny says her and Hermione have been standing in the doorway. "Thanks Drake. I could have died if you'd have gone to Harry, though I thought you would. Why didn't you?"
"You know." Drake says in a low, exact tone without much emotion. Then he stares into her eyes for a minute until it is apparent it has clicked.
"Thanks." Ginny says and leaves.
"Well, you boys will need to stay here until Monday. You should be glad it's a Friday." Alexander says as Ron is awake. "Get some rest Hermione can come back… Goodbye."
Everyone says goodbye and then Harry and Drake fall asleep and Ron lays back soon falling asleep too.