Chapter 5: Scenes of Terror
"Ladies and gentlemen, kindly welcome the Irish National Quidditch Team! I give you-Connolly! Ryan! Troy! Mullet! Moran! Quigley! Aaaaand-Lynch!"
Deafening cheers and applause overwhelmed the stadium as seven green blurs swept onto the field, arranging themselves into a pyramid which shifted seamlessly into a pair of interlocking circles revolving in opposite directions as they raced around the pitch. Draco tried, at first, to follow one of the Chasers and work out how they did it, but their speed and agility rendered this impossible and within seconds he contented himself to simply sit back and marvel.
"And now, the Bulgarian National Quidditch Team! Please welcome-Dimitrov! Ivanova! Zograf! Levski! Vulchanov! Volkov! Aaaaaand-Krum!"
"That's him!" shrieked Pansy somewhere in the vicinity of his left ear. "That's him, it's Viktor Krum!"
"Shh!" snapped Draco at once, without taking his eyes off the field.
"Yeah, be quiet so Draco can see better," snickered Blaise.
"Shut up!" Draco repeated. The Bulgarian team was performing a series of highly impressive and dangerous-looking stunts he was burning to try as soon as he got his hands on his broomstick.
"Yes, silence!" cried Theo impressively. "Do not disturb the delicate inner workings-"
"Oh, for fuck's sake." Draco tore his eyes away from the field for the first time to give Theo the nastiest look he could summon under the circumstances. It wasn't easy; the thrill of watching fourteen simultaneous virtuosic feats of broomwork and the anticipation of even more was making it nearly impossible to banish the grin from his face.
"Whoa!" cried Daphne, pointing. Draco turned sharply just in time to see the Quaffle burst onto the pitch along with two Bludgers and, though it vanished the instant he glimpsed it, a flash of gold that could only be the Snitch. Troy seized the Quaffle at once, and then it was Mullet, Moran, back to Troy, seamlessly intercepted by Dimitrov, Levski...every time Draco blinked, the Quaffle had changed hands. He was riveted. When he watched Quidditch at school he spent the games imagining himself the Captain of each side and picking apart their strategy for flaws. Now, all he could think was that he'd cut off his left arm for half the dexterity of the Irish Chasers. They wove effortlessly about, seamlessly adapting their formation as the Bulgarians attempted, with increasing desperation, to break their ranks. Bludgers whizzed through the sky with more force than he could've imagined possible, matched in speed only by the players who evaded them. And then there was Krum. No one in the Wizarding World could escape the news of Bulgaria's new rising star, the best Seeker the Quidditch world had seen this century, but the rumors left Draco laughably ill-prepared for the real thing. Krum made him doubt, for the first time in his life, that wizards actually needed broomsticks to fly. He flitted and wove and spun through the air as though he weighed nothing-as though he himself were made of air. Draco was half-expecting him to evaporate the moment the match ended, never having existed in physical form to begin with. That was the only explanation for the ease with which he flew. He could hear the crowd roaring and shrieking and groaning about him and supposed he ought to pay attention to the rest of the match, but he couldn't. He was leaning as far forward as the stands would allow, eyes singularly fixed on the Bulgarian Seeker; some deeply irrational part of him wondered whether, if he just followed Krum with his eyes, he might absorb a fraction of his skill and grace.
"He's seen it!" cried Daphne, and her finger nearly jabbed Draco in the face as she pointed. "He's seen the Snitch!" On the field, Krum had suddenly shot into a dizzying steep dive, the Irish Seeker Lynch scarcely half a centimeter behind him. The Chasers scattered as the two Seekers plummeted into their midst, pelting toward the ground with hair-raising speed.
"They're going to crash!" exclaimed Theo.
"They're not!" cried Blaise.
"Lynch is!" The words had scarcely left Draco's mouth when Krum pulled a hairpin turn and swooped elegantly upward. Lynch, meanwhile, hit the ground with a sickening thud that reverberated all the way through the stadium. A loud groan rang out through two-thirds of the stadium, and the referee called a time-out as a hoard of mediwizards gathered around Lynch.
"What happened?" cried Pansy, leaning over the edge of the stands, looking horror-struck.
"Oh, he'll be okay," said Blaise absentmindedly, scanning the air above the field. "Why didn't he just catch the Snitch, though? Bit stupid, now Bulgaria's never going to catch up."
"He never saw the Snitch to begin with," Draco explained, eyes drifting over to where the Bulgarian team stood, heads together, clearly deep in conversation. Krum stood slightly off from the rest, looking aloof and perhaps a bit bored. On the ground his posture looked stunted, slightly awkward, as though he were more at home in the air. Something about this struck Draco as incredibly poetic, and he found that the Bulgarian Seeker drew his eyes just as irresistibly on the ground as he did on a broomstick. He jumped when the referee's whistle split the air, bringing an end to the time-out and summoning the players back into the air.
The game resumed, quicker and dirtier this time. Ireland was ahead by nearly a hundred points, and the Bulgarian team was getting desperate. Every few minutes, it seemed, the whistle pierced the air announcing another penalty to Ireland-excessive use of elbows here, a deliberate collision there, Beaters on both sides acting swiftly and without mercy, until-
SMACK. The Irish Beater Quigley heaved a Bludger at Krum, who didn't duck quickly enough. The Bludger hit him squarely in the face with a force that Draco felt deep in the pit of his stomach. Blood spurted everywhere, visible even from the stands. Krum, in defiance of every natural rule Draco could think of, pressed on with scarcely a waver in his elegant arc through the air. Draco craned his neck to look down at the referee. What he saw sent a hot surge of annoyance through him, so fast and unexpected that he nearly lost his balance. The man was looking the other direction, wholly indifferent-and for that matter, so was the crowd, eyes all glued to the Irish Chasers as they drove the Quaffle seamlessly up the pitch. Had Draco imagined the Bludger? No, a second look confirmed the startling amount of blood running down the Bulgarian Seeker's face. Furious, he turned back to face his friends.
"Why don't they-"
"Look!" Blaise interrupted, wide-eyed, face flushed with feverish anticipation. "Look at Lynch!"
The Irish Seeker had pulled sharply into a dive, and this time it was clearly the real thing. Lynch was scarcely more than a green blur as he pelted down the field, the Irish crowd got to their feet with roaring applause, but Draco was looking for Krum. For a horrible half-second he couldn't find him, and just as panic rose in his throat Krum swooped in out of nowhere, hot on Lynch's trail. How he could see where he was going was beyond Draco; blood was flying through the air in great flecks behind him, and as he drew level with Lynch he looked like the illustrations of Medieval dragon slayers in their History of Magic books: heroic, untouchable, something beyond human. Draco wasn't sure he'd ever seen anything more beautiful in his life, and then…
"He's got it!" Daphne was screaming. "I don't believe it, it's all ov-"
Her words were swallowed by a second ear-shattering crash as Lynch flew straight into the ground. Mediwizards descended upon him once more, and twenty feet above him, Krum raised a graceful hand into the air. It was just possible to make out the glint of gold from between his fingers.
"He shouldn't have caught it, the idiot!" groaned Blaise for the umpteenth time. "Ireland was about a hundred thousand points up-"
"I think he was brave," Pansy interjected. "You wouldn't have even known he was injured, would you-"
"I didn't say he wasn't brave," countered Blaise. "I said I reckon he should've saved his bravery till the rest of his useless team caught up, is all!"
"That's just it, he knew they'd never catch up," snapped Draco. "So he saw an opportunity to end it, and he did. On his own terms." He paused. "He's brilliant. He's...he's an artist."
Theo snickered. Blaise smirked.
"If I didn't know better, Draco, I'd say you're in love."
It was hours later. They'd met a pair of American witches after the match, a few years older by the look of them, who hadn't quite managed to get through their supply of wine and were looking for someone to take it from them before their long journey home. It tasted much nicer than firewhiskey, and this time he didn't feel as if he were underwater. Instead, his mind seemed far less cluttered than usual, and every thought that passed through it was either the funniest or most brilliant he'd ever had.
"Yes, what'll your mother do without me?" he retorted. Pansy shrieked with laughter, and Blaise tossed a small pebble in his direction, which missed by several feet and ricocheted off a nearby tree and into the bushes below.
"It'd be a lot more on his terms if he'd actually won, is all I'm saying," Blaise pressed on.
"It's sort of poetic though, isn't it?" mused Pansy, gazing mistily up at the moon overhead. "It's like Draco said, he knew it was going to end, so he ended it his own way." Blaise shook his head wearily.
"You're both queer," he said flatly. Draco turned away at once, hoping fervently that the heat rising to his cheeks didn't show on his face. Something about that word, spit so casually out of Blaise's mouth, made his stomach clench and his blood freeze, though try as he might he couldn't say why. Pansy, on the other hand, squared her shoulders and glared.
"What's that got to do with anything?" she snapped.
"Well, you're going on about poetry and everything…" Pansy folded her arms and raised an eyebrow.
"And?" Blaise rolled his eyes.
"Oh, come off it, you know I don't literally mean-"
"Use a different word, then!"
"Theo!" cried Daphne suddenly. "Be careful!"
Draco, Blaise, and Pansy abandoned their argument and looked around warily. Theo had been attempting, for the past hour or so, to build a fire with a book of matches they'd discovered along with the wine. Evidently he'd succeeded at last, for the carefully arranged sticks in front of him had burst into towering flame and he'd leapt back, fingers badly singed.
"It's fine!" he insisted, appraising his hand and wincing slightly. "Everything's fine!"
"What the hell did you do?" Draco asked, studying the flames and torn between interest and apprehension. As near as he could tell, all the matches did was emit a tiny breath of flame for a half-second or so; he couldn't imagine they'd be capable of the sudden, roaring blaze before them. Theo looked uncharacteristically sheepish and, after a moments' hesitation, showed them a tiny silver bottle they'd apparently missed in the witches' packet.
"I found this," he admitted. "And I thought…" he trailed off with a deeply endearing half-shrug. Pansy's eyes grew huge; Draco and Blaise looked at one another and burst out laughing.
"Well," gasped Blaise, recovering after a few moments, "at least we'll be warm."
At that moment an explosion rent the air, louder and closer than any they'd heard in their lives. There was a moment of pure, crystalline silence, and then shouts burst forth from beyond the trees-dozens, perhaps hundreds, some terrified, some deep and authoritative and steady, others chanting and cackling with glee. Shouts and snatches of singing from the Irish celebrations had rung through the trees all evening, but this was different; something about the timber of the voices sent a chill down Draco's spine, and a half-second's glance around at his friends told him he wasn't alone. Daphne peered through the trees for a moment, then turned furiously back to Theo.
"This is why you shouldn't play with fire!" she snapped.
"You can't possibly think I did this," Theo replied, looking utterly bewildered. He'd scarcely finished speaking when another explosion rang out, this one even louder than the last. A jet of flame fifty feet high roared into the air from somewhere frightfully close, and a woman's scream, high and filled with gut-wrenching terror, sounded from just beyond the trees.
"C'mon!" snapped Draco, seizing Pansy's wrist and dragging her deeper into the forest.
"Where?!" cried Blaise, scrambling to follow.
"Away from that!" yelled Draco, over a third explosion.
"We don't even know what that is!" shrieked Pansy, voice much higher than normal.
"No, but it doesn't fucking sound good, does it?!" cried Theo from somewhere behind. Draco tried to pick up his pace, but his head suddenly felt as if it were moving independently of his body. Trees swayed sickeningly in front of him, multiplying and making it impossible to tell which were the real ones. Judging by the clumsy thudding, panting, and swearing behind him, the others weren't faring much better. They came to a stop just inside a small clearing and stood huddled together, dizzy and breathing as if they'd just run a hundred miles instead of a hundred feet. The screaming had grown distant and muffled, but more fires glowed through the forest now like the big, reddish yellow eyes of some angry, just-awakened beast.
"What's happening?" hissed Blaise, face several shades paler than normal.
"Shh," breathed Theo. He was staring, wide-eyed and horror-struck, at a spot just beyond the clearing.
"What?" whimpered Daphne. "What can you-"
"MORSMORDRE!" It was obviously a spell, but the incantation wasn't one Draco knew. The voice was hoarse and guttural, as though its owner wasn't altogether used to using it.
For a split second, nothing happened. And then, something vast, green, and shimmering erupted from the trees not twenty feet from where they stood, weaving its way through the treetops to glow eerily against the ink black sky. Pansy's fingernails dug into Draco's hand; the sting was a welcome reminder that he wasn't alone in the forest, and he squeezed her hand in turn.
"Whoa," Blaise gasped, staring, wide-eyed, as the green blur materialized into a colossal skull, a serpent protruding from its mouth where a tongue would normally be.
"What is that thing?" breathed Daphne, likewise transfixed. Draco didn't know, but it simultaneously riveted him and made him feel ill. He was desperate to look away, but it held his gaze more effectively than anything he'd ever seen in his life.
The wood around them erupted with screams, and this time they all shared the same high note of panic.
"We've got to get out of here," hissed Theo. He was the only one not looking up at the shape in the sky; in fact, he seemed to be deliberately avoiding it, as though it might burn him if he allowed it to touch his eyes.
"Why?" asked Pansy, half-panicked, half-bewildered. "What is that thing?"
"I don't know," said Theo impatiently, now tugging Daphne's elbow with one hand and prodding Blaise in the back with the other. "I just...I don't think we want to be found here."
No one could argue with this, and so, moving as quickly as they dared, they re-traced their steps back through the forest, past the remains of Theo's attempted fire, but once they reached the edge of the trees they paused, listening. No shouts reached their ears, no explosions, not even a murmur of voices or a rumble of frantic footsteps. Whatever had happened, it seemed, was over as suddenly as it had begun. With one last quick, terrified glance around at one another, they stepped out into the open field.
It was nearly deserted. Several ruined tents sat smoking, their ashy tendrils mingling with the green shape in the sky. Up ahead, two very frightened-looking Ministry wizards were distributing Portkeys to a small cluster of people, mainly families and children. Lacking any earthly idea for an alternative, they joined the group. Blaise and Pansy left almost at once, but as Daphne bid them a slightly unsteady goodnight and took up her Portkey, Draco froze. He couldn't go home, not now, not after what they'd just seen and not with the last vestiges of the wine making the world spin and tilt just enough to be vaguely unpleasant.
"What's up?" asked Theo, scarcely above a whisper. Draco swallowed hard.
"Er…" he heard, even before he said it, how childish he sounded. "My parents aren't at home."
Not that they'd be an enormous source of comfort if they were, but the idea of lying awake alone in the Manor set his teeth on edge.
A hint of confusion flitted across Theo's face, but it was gone in an instant, replaced by a warm sort of understanding.
"Right," he said softly, and took Draco's shaking hand in his shockingly steady one. "C'mon." Unspeakably grateful, Draco allowed himself to be led to the Portkey and conveyed, unpleasantly as ever, to a darkened alley somewhere in London. Theo glanced briefly about, then crept to the edge and peered into the street. Satisfied, he beckoned to Draco, looked up at the street signs, and sighed slightly.
"Damn," he muttered. "We're nearly to Hammersmith." This meant nothing to Draco.
"Is that bad?"
"It's just further than I'd like. Bastards. C'mon."
London looked quite different, Draco thought, at some untold hour of night with hardly a soul about, particularly when he couldn't erase the glowing skull from his mind or shake the associated feeling of dread. Every house looked crumbling and vaguely haunted, every shadow whispered of the grisly doom awaiting them within its depths. No small part of him wished Theo would take his hand again, as if he really were a child who needed help crossing the street.
"Theo?"
"Yeah?"
"What...I mean, do you…" he sighed slightly. "Did you recognize that thing? Back at the match?" Theo was quiet for a few moments.
"Yes," he said finally, scarcely above a whisper. Draco didn't have to look at his face to know he looked pale and terrified.
"Right," said Draco after a moment, when Theo didn't elaborate. "So...you do know what it was, then?"
"No, I was telling the truth when I said I didn't." Draco frowned.
"I don't understand."
"Er…" Theo hesitated. "That man at the party? The one with the firewhiskey? That's what his tattoo looked like." He gave Draco what was clearly supposed to be a self-deprecating sort of half-smile, but the fear clouding his eyes remained as strong as ever. "It scared me a bit. I don't know why." Draco nodded.
"Yeah," he muttered. "It scared me a bit as well." A bit, he thought wryly, being the most ridiculous understatement he could remember uttering in his life.
Nearly twenty minutes later, the streets had widened noticeably, the dark alleys had evaporated, and the houses looked as if their ghosts had long since been banished, or at least relegated to some forgotten corner of the basement. Some of his fear had ebbed away, replaced by vague disorientation. Every few minutes he thought he recognized something-a park, a house, a building-only to be quite sure, moments later, that he'd been wrong.
"Where are we?" he asked finally.
"Knightsbridge," said Theo over his shoulder. Draco frowned, thinking, but once again drew a blank.
"Where's King's Cross?" he asked, after a moment. "And the Leaky Cauldron?" Theo looked vaguely amused.
"Er-nowhere near." He considered for a moment, then pointed off to their left. "King's Cross is that direction, and the Leaky Cauldron's...that way. I wouldn't fancy walking to either." He came to a stop in front of two stately white stone houses, which, to Draco's absolute astonishment, slid apart at once to reveal a third, previously invisible house between them. He turned to Theo, shocked, to find the latter grinning, clearly amused.
"We've got to have ways of hiding houses from Muggles in cities as well, haven't we?" Draco, who had never once considered this, shook his head slightly to clear it.
"Are there others?" he demanded. Theo shrugged.
"A fair few, I think. It was mostly old Wizarding families living in them, though, so I reckon they're mostly empty now." With a brief glance about to ensure the street was fully deserted, he opened the door and led Draco into a house that drove the last two hours' events clean out of his mind. The entryway opened straight into the living room, and although it was dark he could tell that, come morning, light from the picture windows spanning the wall opposite would leave no corner of the house untouched. A delicate spiral staircase rose up at least two stories above, and everything looked exquisitely mysterious, as though some beautiful secret awaited him in each corner and behind every door.
"Whoa," he breathed. Theo, however, was frowning slightly at something in front of them.
"Mum?" he called, taking a few steps into the living room. "Are you there?" Silence. After a moment, Theo shrugged slightly and turned back to Draco.
"I can't believe you were going on about my house," said Draco frankly. Theo smirked.
"You're not supposed to tell me," he said wryly. "You're supposed to tell my mother."
They laughed. The relief of simply being inside, away from the World Cup and the dark London streets, was unspeakable. Perhaps, Draco thought, they really had worked themselves up for nothing.
"What d'you suppose was going on?" asked Theo, frowning slightly. He didn't look quite as scared as earlier, simply curious. "The shouting, I mean." Draco shrugged.
"Maybe the Ministry came along to tell the Irish to stop celebrating, and they took it badly." Theo laughed.
"Probably." Draco glanced out the window, and found himself transfixed. London sprawled out beyond the glass, glittering and massive and every bit as entrancing as the view from his own bedroom window.
"It's better at night," said Theo, as if reading his mind. "You can't see how filthy the city is." Draco turned halfway, unable to entirely abandon the view from the window.
"You've lived here all your life?" He could imagine no such thing. Cities were places you visited, explored for a week, and then your parents announced that it was time to go, whether you liked it or not. Theo, however, shrugged.
"Yeah. I mean, it's where Mum's lived all her life, so-"
"'All my life,' is it?" said a voice from somewhere above. Theo's eyes doubled in size.
"Christ, I'm sorry," he whispered. Draco frowned.
"What for?"
"You'll see."
"I'll have you know, Theodore, that I'm only thirty-three. I could leave tomorrow, thanks very much, or have you already made plans to have me killed?" The woman who entered the room then could only be Theo's mother; they looked little alike aside from their hazel eyes, but Draco could see in an instant where Theo had inherited his smirk and his faintly haughty mannerisms.
"I wouldn't have you killed, Shannon," Theo replied at once. "I'd do it myself, that's just not the sort of thing you entrust to anyone else." If Draco had spoken to his mother like this-let alone called her by her first name, she'd-well, she wouldn't have to do anything, would she? His heart would give out on the spot. Theo's mother, on the other hand, simply looked amused.
"Well, you were always practical," she said smoothly, and then her expression softened as she looked him carefully up and down. "You're not hurt, are you? The most unbelievable article in the Prophet this evening-but of course they're still letting that Rita Skeeter cover their most pressing stories, so there's no telling what's actually happened-" she broke off as her eyes lit upon Draco. "I'm sorry. I'll admit things do occasionally slip my mind, but I'm really quite sure I've only got one son." Theo rolled his eyes slightly.
"This is Draco, Mum. And no, no one's hurt." It was scarcely perceptible, but her eyes narrowed for a split second as she appraised him.
"Lucius Malfoy's son?" Draco frowned slightly and risked a glance at Theo, who shrugged.
"Er-yeah," he said uncertainly. She studied him for a moment longer, then nodded ever so slightly.
"All right, then."
"Who's Rita Skeeter?" asked Theo.
"Well, if you don't know, my morals won't allow me to tell you," said his mother, in a tone of half-mocking severity.
"She writes for the Prophet," Draco explained. "I don't think the Ministry likes her very much." He chose not to add that his father sometimes found it amusing, at breakfast, to read aloud long portions of her nastier articles, particularly those concerning Arthur Weasley and his ilk.
"Can I see the paper, then?" asked Theo, a tad impatiently. With a shrug, his mother handed him the evening's edition of the Prophet. He tilted the page slightly in Draco's direction. Splashed across the front page was a picture of the skull, with the enormous headline "SCENES OF TERROR AT THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP." Heads together, they read what turned out to be a quite lengthy and profoundly uninformative article full of phrases like national disgrace and lax security. A paragraph squashed into the bottom, however, contained the first piece of useful information.
If the terrified wizards and witches who waited breathlessly for news at the edge of the wood expected reassurance from the Ministry of Magic, they were sadly disappointed. A ministry official emerged some time after the appearance of the Dark Mark alleging that nobody had been hurt, but refusing to give any more information. Whether this statement will be enough to quash the rumors that several bodies were removed from the wood an hour later, remains to be seen.
"What's the Dark Mark?" asked Theo, raising his head slowly and frowning at his mother. "That's what she's called this snake thing, yeah?" The question left his mouth so seamlessly, so unabashedly, that Draco wondered whether he'd heard properly. For the first time since she'd entered the room, his mother's expression turned properly grave.
"Yes, and it hasn't been seen for over thirteen years," she said heavily. "Most people thought they'd never see it again." Draco's heart dropped like a stone.
"It's...his symbol, then?" he could scarcely manage more than a whisper, and wasn't sure whether he wanted the answer to the question. Theo's mother gave him a strange, probing look, then a single nod.
"I'll answer anything you like," she said softly, raising a hand slightly as Theo opened his mouth to speak, looking stricken. "In the morning. As neither of you seem to be hurt, what you need is a good night's sleep." She paused. "Will your parents worry, Draco? Do you need to send them an owl?" Draco gave a slight start. Now she mentioned it, yes, he did want to send an owl; just not to his parents.
"Er-yeah. I mean, if that's okay." He'd scarcely spoken when a pure white owl he recognized from Theo's letters descended as if out of nowhere and came to rest on the window sill, ruffling her feathers impatiently.
"Oh, shut up," said Theo, giving her a stroke.
I'm sorry, I know you said not to write to you at the Weasleys.
Are you all right? Please be all right.
Draco paused. It looked thoroughly incomplete, but what else was there to say? After a moments' thought, he added:
If you get into trouble, let me know and I'll send a flying car to fetch you. I hear that's very in with your crowd.
There. He slipped the note into the owl's beak and watched her soar off until she vanished.
"Er-Mum?" for the first time all evening, Theo sounded slightly uncertain. "If this...this Dark Mark thing...if it's You-Know-Who's mark…" he glanced at Draco. "Well, what would it mean if someone…" He didn't have to voice the rest of his question; Draco could see it written out in his eyes.
"In the morning, Theodore." More firmly this time.
"Right. Sorry."
By the time they turned out the light, Draco's head was spinning and he could scarcely breathe.
"It means they worked for him." He couldn't look at Theo, and couldn't manage more than a whisper. "It means something's happened. Something that's made it all right to come out in the open again." Theo's sharp intake of breath made his heart pound and his throat close.
"Christ, Draco." They were quiet for a few moments.
"They're in Paris."
"Er-sorry, what?" Draco swallowed the lump in his throat with difficulty.
"My parents? They're in Paris. Won't be back for days."
"What're you-" Theo stammered, then broke off with a gasp. "Oh, fucking hell, Draco!"
Fucking hell, indeed. He didn't realize how badly his hands were shaking until Theo took one and squeezed. The pressure comforted him, but it also loosened the knot in his chest enough to bring tears to his eyes. He bit them back furiously, but it was far too late. A single excruciating moment stretched on toward eternity, and then, ever so slowly, impossibly gently, Theo pulled him closer and held him as though he were some sort of treasured heirloom, too fragile to clutch tightly, too precious to let go.
"They're in Paris," he whispered. "It's okay."
The sky had begun to lighten ever so slightly by the time the owl returned.
Ha, ha, ha. Those went out of vogue years ago, everyone knows that.
I'm fine. Mr. Weasley got everyone out okay.
We're going into London tomorrow to get our school books. Meet us, if you can. I'd really like to see you properly before we get on the train to school.
Warm relief flooded him like honey, silky and sweet. The moment he saw her face, everything would be all right.
Yes. I'll see you tomorrow.
He hesitated for a moment, and then, with slightly shaking hands, took up the quill again.
I love you.
He stared at the words for what must surely have been an eternity, and then, more carefully than he would've imagined himself capable, tore them off the bottom of the parchment before slipping the rest into the owl's beak. With these last three words clutched against his chest, he slipped, at long last, into something resembling sleep.
