Disclaimer: Oh yes, of course they're mine. Just as the sun is made of ice
and money grows on trees. Miss Rowling? If you wish to sue please find
someone else, I can't even afford a lawyer let alone a settlement.
Warnings: Another sort of cliffhanger. Only 2-3 parts and then the Epilogue!!!!!!! Ah misery :)
Golden Daffodils
--------- I wandered lonely as a cloud.
Part 26
"Beulah, please! Come on, you have to! You know I wouldn't ask unless it was vital!"
"I'm really not supposed to Draco, dear. Not without the password, you know that. I don't want to lose my job."
Draco was arguing with the Fat Lady about her not opening the portrait and letting them into the common room. He didn't know this week's password to Gryffindor Tower as he had been unconscious during the weeks staff meeting when all the passwords were shared in case of an emergency.
"Beulah Custance Pinkstone! If you don't open this damn door, right now, I'm going to hex you until your thin!"
"You wouldn't dare! You know it, and I know it! So please, dear, don't bother with the threats."
Draco sulked and crossed his arms, knowing full well he wouldn't hurt the painting, but he was still annoyed. "But I'm a professor! Can't you make an exception, just this once! You know I not going to hurt him!" He tried as a last resort.
The Fat Lady made a face that indicated she was thinking about it.
"Please Beulah, it's very important. I swear it is."
"Oh, very well, if they ask me why I did it, I'll just say you were on teacher business." She swung open and Draco strode in quickly, Blaise and Justin hurrying after him.
"Thank you." He hollered back.
Ron looked up his chess game with Seamus and frowned. "What do you want? You shouldn't be here, teacher or not."
"Where's Harry?"
"Well actually, while we're speaking of him, what the hell did you say to him in the infirmary? He's been odd ever since. All sulky and depressed." Ron crossed his arms defiantly. "What did you do to him this time? I swear, if you've done something .... "
"WHERE IS HE?"
The redhead blinked in shock. "He er, received a letter from Sirius and went to go read it in private. Um, he's in our room. Come to think of it, he's been gone for awhile now."
Draco wasn't listening by this point, he had headed for the stairs the second he heard where Harry would be. It didn't take him long to reach the right door and he pushed hard, trying to open it. It was locked. Deciding that he could fix it if necessary, and that there was no time to be standing around yelling until it was unlocked, he placed his palm against the wood and a second later the entire door disintegrated into a pile of ash on the floor. He quickly walked in and looked around for Harry.
The room was empty.
"SHIT!" Draco stomped the floor and felt one of the stones crack. "FUCK! I'm gonna kill that bastard!"
"Funny." Said Ron's voice from behind him. "I saw him go up. I don't think anyone saw him come back down either."
Draco stopped the instinct to punch the redhead just in time. "Blaise. I need you to run back down to the dungeons, get the mirror that's in my trunk and bring it back here. It can't come floating through the castle floors, the enchantment on it is very old."
There was no sound of movement and he spun around. "I MEANT NOW!"
Blaise jumped, nodded hastily and raced away.
"What's going on?" Justin asked gently. "Where's Harry?"
"He's gone."
"Where to?"
"To wherever the hell Lucius is."
"You don't know that for sure? I mean, how could he have gotten him?"
Draco stopped for a second on that one, until he turned to Ron. "You said he got a letter?"
Ron nodded, panic starting to rise on his face.
"Perhaps we should go to Dumbledore?" Hermione broke in. "Tell him, what's happening.
"There's no time for that. Hermione? Here's a puzzler for you. Can paper be enchanted into a portkey?"
"No."
"Wrong."
"No. All paper in the world, apart from some hand made types in smaller, poorer countries, is made with a potion mixed into it. It's impossible to turned into a portkey." She said back bitterly. "The law was passed in 1932 when the rate of disappearances increased dramatically. Dark wizards using innocent looking letters to bring their victims to them and all."
"And what would you think if I told you that an inferior potion was being used, and had been ever since that law had passed? One that made the paper almost unchangeable? Where you could make a portkey, so long as you knew the right way? What would you say if I told you that it was decided they use that inferior potion because it was a lot cheaper to make?"
Hermione bit her lip. "I'd say we were in trouble if Lucius knows how to do it."
"Trust me, he does. It was one of the little secrets he stole while he was working close to the Ministry." Draco's voice was almost a snarl. "Shit! I should have seen this coming. The security on him should have been tightened anyway. Threat or no threat! It's Harry fucking Potter for god's sake, I'm sure he has a million enemies!"
"You couldn't have known." Justin said soothingly. "Don't blame yourself."
"This was exactly the reason I had all of Sev's mail screened."
"So, now you think Lucius has him?" Hermione was starting to look as if she'd run for Dumbledore any second but Draco didn't care.
/Damn it all to hell. I should have told Blaise to meet us in the Old Astronomy Tower. Now we're going to waste time getting form here to there./ "Well, I'm praying he's just crept out to go meet some pretty boy, but it's not looking good." Draco hissed through his teeth. /Fucking Blaise, fucking Harry, fucking Lucius. Yeah, let's blame him./ "Where the bloody hell is Blaise?"
"It takes awhile to get to the dungeons and back, he'll be here soon." Justin tried to pat him on the arm but Draco shrugged it off and walked over to Harry's bed.
Examining it for awhile he finally found some black strands of hair and picked them up off of the pillow.
"What do you need those for?"
"The mirror." He answered shortly. /If I can just get the image, I can call for a Trade Off. Shit, I've never tried Swapping before. Why the hell didn't I ever practice it? Oh yeah, the high danger level. Sev would have killed me, if I had survived. Dumbledore almost didn't survive. Oh shut up, I'm not Dumbledore./
A few minutes later and exceedingly puffed Blaise raced back in and collapsed on to the floor after handing the mirror over. Draco wasted no time in putting the hairs into the compartment. "Show me."
The darkness cleared to show Harry. Tied to a chair. Draco knew of only one wizard who would tie someone up with real rope instead of using magic. Without letting go of the mirror he turned and started to run out of the Gryffindor Tower. He vaguely heard everyone following, especially Blaise, who whined about more running. He nearly ripped the Fat Lady in his rush to get out. Turning left he headed for the hallway that would lead him to the Old Astronomy Tower.
After the few twists and turns he finally made it up. Holding the mirror up, with the image facing out, his lips started to move with no sound. The wind picked up as a strange screeching noise started to howl.
The others had finally caught up and were forced to put their hands over their ears. The noise only seemed to get louder and a blinding flash from the mirror burst out, shattered it. Draco threw the mirror away, but the image remained where it was. The screeching reached an unbearable level and then stopped just as quickly as the image disappeared.
Another noise started up and everyone turned to look at the Owlery as all the birds flew out and away.
/Fly, thy wings, for you shall be called./
"Draco?" Hermione's voice made him look around. "I, er, hope you're not initiating what I think you are."
"Well, that would all depend." Draco spat back sarcastically. /Honestly, bloody know it all./
"Please tell me you're not doing a Change Over."
"I'm not doing a Change Over." Draco automatically responded.
"Are you CRAZY? Swapping is highly dangerous!"
"What the BLOODY HELL is going on?" Ron shouted.
Hermione tried to pull Draco away but he planted his feet. "He's doing a Change Over, Swap or Trade Off, whatever you want to call it. He's sent all the winged creatures out to look for Lucius and Harry and when one finds them, he trades places with it." He sent Draco an accusing glance. "Every single winged insect, non-flightless bird, or anything else with wings that can fly, including Selena," She pointed to where you could just see Selena rising from the forest where she had been visiting the Centaurs, and heading off. "Is now out and about looking for them."
"In England?
"In the world. Every single one in the world is now out, searching just as far."
Draco looked to then and smiled stiffly. "Shouldn't take long. Justin? Go tell Sev. He won't be happy."
"You're not supposed to leave the grounds, Draco." Ron argued.
Draco gritted his teeth. "Would you rather I just left Harry to Lucius?"
"Well, no."
"Then shut up." Draco then snapped his head back to stare out. "Found them!" The wind picked up again.
Hermione gasped and dragged everyone away from him as he raised his arms and started to mutter something. "They'll lock you up Draco!"
"I don't care!"
"Even Dumbledore failed this part of the spell! The Trade Off is almost impossible! In the last two hundred years. the only creatures who ever succeed in switching places is trolls when they were tested on! All they did was stand there as others did the incantation! You won't make it! You'll probably die!"
"You're forgetting something Hermione!" It was almost impossible to hear anything with the wind howling.
"WHAT?"
Abruptly the wind stopped, everything went silent and Draco looked over. "I'm not human."
Then, to the three students watching, Draco seemed to turn into a butterfly.
----------
He smacked into the ground on his knees. /God damn those butterflies, can't they think to fly higher when I'm doing that?/ He picked himself up and looked at the building he had landed in front of. It seemed perfectly normal. He closed his eyes and opened them again.
Protection spells dripping off it from every single point. He knew if he dismantled them Lucius would know he was here so he thought quickly about what to do. He scanned the inside and found Harry and Lucius, roughly at the centre of the ground floor. The Dagger of Cadamine was sitting on a table of some sort, well out of Lucius' reach, a fact that Draco was thankful for.
He was well aware that he would probably lose if he had to go up against Lucius without magic. But if that's what it had come to, he probably would have tried anyway. /Too god damn stubborn and reckless for my own good./
He set a timed disabling spell, so that in two minutes it would disarm the spells surrounding the building. That would give him enough time to get to where they were, so Lucius wouldn't be ready for him. Until then he could just slip through the spells as if they didn't exist.
/Voldemort really shouldn't have taught me that one./ He walked through quietly and got to the door where he could just make out the conversation.
"Don't worry, Potter. Draco will come to save you." Draco scowled at the sound of Lucius' voice.
"I wouldn't bet on it if I were you." Draco heard Harry spit back.
"Nonsense. He'll come and try to rescue you."
"Why?"
"Because, as much as it pains me to say it ..... he loves you."
"HA! Yeah right."
"Trust me, boy, if he loves you, he'll come."
Draco cringed and gritted his teeth.
"Well, do I have some news for you then, Lucius? Your son doesn't love me, he hates me, and I honestly can't say that I blame him right about now. I think I messed everything up, I didn't mean to, but I did it anyway. That's a bit of bad luck for you now isn't? I guess you'll just have to kill me, stop all this dallying about."
Draco rolled his eyes at Harry last comment and moved to open the door.
To Be Continued.
Warnings: Another sort of cliffhanger. Only 2-3 parts and then the Epilogue!!!!!!! Ah misery :)
Golden Daffodils
--------- I wandered lonely as a cloud.
Part 26
"Beulah, please! Come on, you have to! You know I wouldn't ask unless it was vital!"
"I'm really not supposed to Draco, dear. Not without the password, you know that. I don't want to lose my job."
Draco was arguing with the Fat Lady about her not opening the portrait and letting them into the common room. He didn't know this week's password to Gryffindor Tower as he had been unconscious during the weeks staff meeting when all the passwords were shared in case of an emergency.
"Beulah Custance Pinkstone! If you don't open this damn door, right now, I'm going to hex you until your thin!"
"You wouldn't dare! You know it, and I know it! So please, dear, don't bother with the threats."
Draco sulked and crossed his arms, knowing full well he wouldn't hurt the painting, but he was still annoyed. "But I'm a professor! Can't you make an exception, just this once! You know I not going to hurt him!" He tried as a last resort.
The Fat Lady made a face that indicated she was thinking about it.
"Please Beulah, it's very important. I swear it is."
"Oh, very well, if they ask me why I did it, I'll just say you were on teacher business." She swung open and Draco strode in quickly, Blaise and Justin hurrying after him.
"Thank you." He hollered back.
Ron looked up his chess game with Seamus and frowned. "What do you want? You shouldn't be here, teacher or not."
"Where's Harry?"
"Well actually, while we're speaking of him, what the hell did you say to him in the infirmary? He's been odd ever since. All sulky and depressed." Ron crossed his arms defiantly. "What did you do to him this time? I swear, if you've done something .... "
"WHERE IS HE?"
The redhead blinked in shock. "He er, received a letter from Sirius and went to go read it in private. Um, he's in our room. Come to think of it, he's been gone for awhile now."
Draco wasn't listening by this point, he had headed for the stairs the second he heard where Harry would be. It didn't take him long to reach the right door and he pushed hard, trying to open it. It was locked. Deciding that he could fix it if necessary, and that there was no time to be standing around yelling until it was unlocked, he placed his palm against the wood and a second later the entire door disintegrated into a pile of ash on the floor. He quickly walked in and looked around for Harry.
The room was empty.
"SHIT!" Draco stomped the floor and felt one of the stones crack. "FUCK! I'm gonna kill that bastard!"
"Funny." Said Ron's voice from behind him. "I saw him go up. I don't think anyone saw him come back down either."
Draco stopped the instinct to punch the redhead just in time. "Blaise. I need you to run back down to the dungeons, get the mirror that's in my trunk and bring it back here. It can't come floating through the castle floors, the enchantment on it is very old."
There was no sound of movement and he spun around. "I MEANT NOW!"
Blaise jumped, nodded hastily and raced away.
"What's going on?" Justin asked gently. "Where's Harry?"
"He's gone."
"Where to?"
"To wherever the hell Lucius is."
"You don't know that for sure? I mean, how could he have gotten him?"
Draco stopped for a second on that one, until he turned to Ron. "You said he got a letter?"
Ron nodded, panic starting to rise on his face.
"Perhaps we should go to Dumbledore?" Hermione broke in. "Tell him, what's happening.
"There's no time for that. Hermione? Here's a puzzler for you. Can paper be enchanted into a portkey?"
"No."
"Wrong."
"No. All paper in the world, apart from some hand made types in smaller, poorer countries, is made with a potion mixed into it. It's impossible to turned into a portkey." She said back bitterly. "The law was passed in 1932 when the rate of disappearances increased dramatically. Dark wizards using innocent looking letters to bring their victims to them and all."
"And what would you think if I told you that an inferior potion was being used, and had been ever since that law had passed? One that made the paper almost unchangeable? Where you could make a portkey, so long as you knew the right way? What would you say if I told you that it was decided they use that inferior potion because it was a lot cheaper to make?"
Hermione bit her lip. "I'd say we were in trouble if Lucius knows how to do it."
"Trust me, he does. It was one of the little secrets he stole while he was working close to the Ministry." Draco's voice was almost a snarl. "Shit! I should have seen this coming. The security on him should have been tightened anyway. Threat or no threat! It's Harry fucking Potter for god's sake, I'm sure he has a million enemies!"
"You couldn't have known." Justin said soothingly. "Don't blame yourself."
"This was exactly the reason I had all of Sev's mail screened."
"So, now you think Lucius has him?" Hermione was starting to look as if she'd run for Dumbledore any second but Draco didn't care.
/Damn it all to hell. I should have told Blaise to meet us in the Old Astronomy Tower. Now we're going to waste time getting form here to there./ "Well, I'm praying he's just crept out to go meet some pretty boy, but it's not looking good." Draco hissed through his teeth. /Fucking Blaise, fucking Harry, fucking Lucius. Yeah, let's blame him./ "Where the bloody hell is Blaise?"
"It takes awhile to get to the dungeons and back, he'll be here soon." Justin tried to pat him on the arm but Draco shrugged it off and walked over to Harry's bed.
Examining it for awhile he finally found some black strands of hair and picked them up off of the pillow.
"What do you need those for?"
"The mirror." He answered shortly. /If I can just get the image, I can call for a Trade Off. Shit, I've never tried Swapping before. Why the hell didn't I ever practice it? Oh yeah, the high danger level. Sev would have killed me, if I had survived. Dumbledore almost didn't survive. Oh shut up, I'm not Dumbledore./
A few minutes later and exceedingly puffed Blaise raced back in and collapsed on to the floor after handing the mirror over. Draco wasted no time in putting the hairs into the compartment. "Show me."
The darkness cleared to show Harry. Tied to a chair. Draco knew of only one wizard who would tie someone up with real rope instead of using magic. Without letting go of the mirror he turned and started to run out of the Gryffindor Tower. He vaguely heard everyone following, especially Blaise, who whined about more running. He nearly ripped the Fat Lady in his rush to get out. Turning left he headed for the hallway that would lead him to the Old Astronomy Tower.
After the few twists and turns he finally made it up. Holding the mirror up, with the image facing out, his lips started to move with no sound. The wind picked up as a strange screeching noise started to howl.
The others had finally caught up and were forced to put their hands over their ears. The noise only seemed to get louder and a blinding flash from the mirror burst out, shattered it. Draco threw the mirror away, but the image remained where it was. The screeching reached an unbearable level and then stopped just as quickly as the image disappeared.
Another noise started up and everyone turned to look at the Owlery as all the birds flew out and away.
/Fly, thy wings, for you shall be called./
"Draco?" Hermione's voice made him look around. "I, er, hope you're not initiating what I think you are."
"Well, that would all depend." Draco spat back sarcastically. /Honestly, bloody know it all./
"Please tell me you're not doing a Change Over."
"I'm not doing a Change Over." Draco automatically responded.
"Are you CRAZY? Swapping is highly dangerous!"
"What the BLOODY HELL is going on?" Ron shouted.
Hermione tried to pull Draco away but he planted his feet. "He's doing a Change Over, Swap or Trade Off, whatever you want to call it. He's sent all the winged creatures out to look for Lucius and Harry and when one finds them, he trades places with it." He sent Draco an accusing glance. "Every single winged insect, non-flightless bird, or anything else with wings that can fly, including Selena," She pointed to where you could just see Selena rising from the forest where she had been visiting the Centaurs, and heading off. "Is now out and about looking for them."
"In England?
"In the world. Every single one in the world is now out, searching just as far."
Draco looked to then and smiled stiffly. "Shouldn't take long. Justin? Go tell Sev. He won't be happy."
"You're not supposed to leave the grounds, Draco." Ron argued.
Draco gritted his teeth. "Would you rather I just left Harry to Lucius?"
"Well, no."
"Then shut up." Draco then snapped his head back to stare out. "Found them!" The wind picked up again.
Hermione gasped and dragged everyone away from him as he raised his arms and started to mutter something. "They'll lock you up Draco!"
"I don't care!"
"Even Dumbledore failed this part of the spell! The Trade Off is almost impossible! In the last two hundred years. the only creatures who ever succeed in switching places is trolls when they were tested on! All they did was stand there as others did the incantation! You won't make it! You'll probably die!"
"You're forgetting something Hermione!" It was almost impossible to hear anything with the wind howling.
"WHAT?"
Abruptly the wind stopped, everything went silent and Draco looked over. "I'm not human."
Then, to the three students watching, Draco seemed to turn into a butterfly.
----------
He smacked into the ground on his knees. /God damn those butterflies, can't they think to fly higher when I'm doing that?/ He picked himself up and looked at the building he had landed in front of. It seemed perfectly normal. He closed his eyes and opened them again.
Protection spells dripping off it from every single point. He knew if he dismantled them Lucius would know he was here so he thought quickly about what to do. He scanned the inside and found Harry and Lucius, roughly at the centre of the ground floor. The Dagger of Cadamine was sitting on a table of some sort, well out of Lucius' reach, a fact that Draco was thankful for.
He was well aware that he would probably lose if he had to go up against Lucius without magic. But if that's what it had come to, he probably would have tried anyway. /Too god damn stubborn and reckless for my own good./
He set a timed disabling spell, so that in two minutes it would disarm the spells surrounding the building. That would give him enough time to get to where they were, so Lucius wouldn't be ready for him. Until then he could just slip through the spells as if they didn't exist.
/Voldemort really shouldn't have taught me that one./ He walked through quietly and got to the door where he could just make out the conversation.
"Don't worry, Potter. Draco will come to save you." Draco scowled at the sound of Lucius' voice.
"I wouldn't bet on it if I were you." Draco heard Harry spit back.
"Nonsense. He'll come and try to rescue you."
"Why?"
"Because, as much as it pains me to say it ..... he loves you."
"HA! Yeah right."
"Trust me, boy, if he loves you, he'll come."
Draco cringed and gritted his teeth.
"Well, do I have some news for you then, Lucius? Your son doesn't love me, he hates me, and I honestly can't say that I blame him right about now. I think I messed everything up, I didn't mean to, but I did it anyway. That's a bit of bad luck for you now isn't? I guess you'll just have to kill me, stop all this dallying about."
Draco rolled his eyes at Harry last comment and moved to open the door.
To Be Continued.