Chapter 21: Escape

Ginny rushes forward, and she has reached the narrow stairway leading up to the blinding light when she hears a great crash behind her, the sound of some heavy thing falling. She knows she should keep going, but she swivels her gaze backwards. Snape is standing like a great shadow, and MacNair is crumpled beneath him, unmoving. Her eyes lock with the Potions Master's. He doesn't move. She sees something on the ground, halfway between her and the body of the Death Eater.

It's his wand.

She doesn't know why, but she feels safe doubling-back. She grabs the wand, a knobby oak, and shoves it into her robes. She looks at Snape, and he hasn't moved. She can't see his face at all.

The mound of flesh on the floor begins to stir. MacNair won't be down for long.

Ginny turns and hurries away, taking the steps two at a time. She emerges into a lavishly decorated drawing room. A handsome antique settee is pressed against one wall, and a great, glittering chandelier hangs overhead. The room smells of mildew and old money. She stares, momentarily awed by the grandness of the room, the light of the many-candled chandelier throwing golden patterns on the furniture. Then, she shakes off her daze and darts across the room, across the honey-coloured floorboards and thick carpets. She finally reaches the door on the other side and throws it open, just as Snape and MacNair emerge from the dungeon staircase. The door to the dungeon blends seamlessly with the wall around it. It closes behind them and appears to vanish entirely.

Ginny slips into the corridor and runs, turning one corner, then another. Huge oil paintings whir by at her sides, the carpet giving way to flooring, giving way to marble which her shoes slide across as she rounds another corner. Snape said this was Malfoy Manor. The portraits confirm this – they have the same sharp, aristocratic features that she's studied so well over these last months, a little of Draco in all of them. Or is it the other way around: a little of all of these haughty witches and wizards residing in Draco?

She tries several doors along the corridor. Two are locked, and one swings open to a dusty room with furniture beneath white sheets. Ginny braces her hands against the wallpaper, her breath rushing out of her, her heart beating wildly. MacNair must be right behind her, but she feels like her lungs are on fire, and she's lost. She needs to stop. She grasps MacNair's wand, closes her eyes, wipes the sweat from her forehead. She visualizes the Burrow and tries to Apparate. Merlin, in her state she might Splinch herself and bleed out, arrive missing a limb. But nothing happens at all. The Manor must be protected with anti-Apparition wards. Of course it is.

A noise. A lumbering in the corridor, just outside.

Ginny makes a desperate sound, between a gasp and low groan, and she takes off again, holding her chest. There's another door at the end of the room, and she rushes across, throws it open and stumbles through. It's another long corridor, identical to the last save the colour of the wallpaper, the pale, blond faces in a different era's costumes. She barrels down the carpet, still clutching the wand, running through curses in her mind. She throws one glance backwards, sees the door open, and MacNair bursts through with a roar once he sees her, puffing heavily, limping. Snape is behind him. Though uninjured, he doesn't walk much faster. They're slower, but they know the Manor. Ginny could be running in circles for all she knows.

Her feet still carrying her forward, she turns around just in time to collide with someone short and solid that wasn't there a moment ago. She braces herself with a cry, and the old house-elf from the dungeons leaps out of her way as she careens forward, the long roll of carpet bunching up beneath her.

Ginny struggles back to her feet.

"This way, Miss," says the elf, grasping her arm, guiding her into one of the rooms. It's an office with a heavy desk and dark wooden shelves lining the walls. The elf grasps the fleshy part of her arm and drags her to one of the bookcases, tapping it so it opens into a hidden staircase. "It will take out to the grounds, Miss, east of the stables and west of the gardens."

"Thank you," Ginny breathes. She rushes into the dark opening, the stone steps uneven, trying to quell her sense of claustrophobia. But the stairs only grow narrower as she descends, and the passageway dimmer. She draws out the oak wand and murmurs "Lumos," and is relieved when a faint light appears. The wand is cooperating well enough in spite of its master.

She takes the stairs as fast as she can while taking care not to trip over her own feet, one hand trailing the stone wall. The air is humid and growing colder. Then, the steps begin to rise again, bear to the right. The passage evens out for a while, and then the jagged stairs reappear, carrying her downwards. She has to stop and catch her breath. Finally, she sees the staircase tapering off into a door up ahead, set into the stone. There is no handle, so she pushes it with all her strength. It doesn't budge.

Ginny lets forth a string of profanity that Fred and George would be proud of. She draws the wand, funnels her desperation into the spell, and shouts "Reducto!" The door bursts open, and cool, night air rushes inside. It's drizzling.

She runs forward across a great, dark lawn. Her lungs are burning, but she doesn't stop. Her feet slip on wet grass and she flails her arms to keep her balance. The moonlight is weak and she sees nothing but a great expanse of darkness. She pauses again, tries again to Apparate, but she must still be on the Malfoy grounds.

Behind her, the Manor is a huge patch of darkness punctuated by torchlit windows, grey smoke expelled from chimneys pluming against the vast night sky.

Catching her breath, she tries to get her bearings. Where is Draco? Should she try to find him? It seems crazy to save him from his own parents, from his own home, but she feels in her gut that she can't leave him here.

A sudden shout and commotion. She swerves around to see figures coming at her. More than MacNair and Snape – there are at least five of them. She's sure she catches a glint of pale hair – Lucius Malfoy. She wonders if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is near, and panic begins to crawl up her veins. They could kill her now and nobody would even know. She has tried not to think about MacNair's hot breath on her face, the gleeful menace in his eyes, but it floods back to her now and Ginny takes a shuddering breath. Calm. She needs to stay calm. She grips the wand tighter, veers sideways in a sudden motion, and shouts a hex. She hears a cry and feels the heat of their retaliation, but doesn't stop to see who she's hit.

Hexes flying behind her, Ginny rallies her strength and runs with everything she has left back towards the Manor. As she approaches, she smells manure on the wet wind, hears the whinnying of horses. The stables.

She changes course and heads for the stables, not knowing why, only that they seem more contained and less dangerous than the sprawling Manor. She has a crazy thought of leaping onto a white stallion and thundering down the lawn to safety, but she's never even ridden a horse before. She's never even seen a horse up close, and despite the stereotype about girls and horses, she didn't particularly care for them.

She throws aside the wooden barn door and steps into the dim humidity. There's nobody inside save the animals, hidden in shadow within the stalls, just glints of sleek coats, flashes of white eyes. Ginny hears them snorting, stomping softy against the straw and dirt that line the floor.

She wipes the rain from her face, her heart beating wildly. They're coming. She can't hold them off, not with any hex, not when there's so many of them.

She lights her wand, sweeping it across the stalls to see the animals, the damp wooden walls, tools piled into one corner and straw stacked against another. Brooms. Ginny passes her wand back over, fearing she'd imagined them in her desperation. Old brooms, one of them small enough for a child, the others looking dusty and abandoned. There's a Nimbus 2001 tangled up with a Comet 260.

Ginny grabs the Nimbus. She swipes her hair back, wet streaks on her forehead, and mounts the broom. She grips the handle with both, feeling better already, feeling the hum of her magic as she levitates a few feet in the air. This, she knows.

A burst of magic hits the stable door from outside, jolting her into action. Fear mingling with adrenaline, she clutches the broom and she shoots out of the stables. Curses fly at her but don't land, she's too fast. She can hear Lucius Malfoy shouting about his horses, can hear the animals screaming in panic, and she rises further into the misty rain, into the darkness, the lights flickering from the manor. Barely enough to see by.

She could soar higher and disappear into the clouds, but she turns around and skims sideways on the broom. She doesn't know how she'll find him, but she won't leave without Draco.


Draco

He should have given Loply precise instructions. House elves are never good at acting independently, especially when they are pulled in contradictory directions.

It's been ages, unbearable ages, since the elf popped away with a crack. She'd promised, vaguely, to help the imprisoned girl. To make sure she is not hurt, since even Lucius Malfoy wanted her kept safe for the Dark Lord. But the elf has not returned, and Draco is sure she's simply gone back to the kitchens by now.

Draco sits on his bed, his armchair upended and his curtains ripped on one side. The Dark Lord could arrive at any moment, and Ginny will be handed to him as a kind of token of Draco's accomplishment, a small triumph as penance for his cowardice. This is how his father wants to spin things, and he thinks he can push Draco into cooperating. Perhaps he'll even threaten Ginny somehow...but no. Father doesn't know about their relationship. If he suspected, he wouldn't have been so ambiguous about her identity. He would have used her from the start to ensure Draco's cooperation with fewer theatrics, as he called them.

Something hits his window from the outside, propelling him to his feet. Draco rushes to pull the curtains completely apart, staring through the glass into the pitch darkness. He can see his own face reflected in the window, but the rest is nothing but shadow. The bright lights in his room are making it impossible to see anything outside. Draco peers, squinting. There might be something, a shimmer of movement. He leans against the glass, cupping his hands around his face, peering. There's something – someone. In midair.

Draco backs away in sudden panic. Could it be the Dark Lord, returned, hovering outside his window? His deepest fear grown manifest?

As if to confirm the notion, something knocks against his window again. A forceful spell. The glass rattles, and this time a spiderweb of cracks spreads quickly from the point of contact.

"No," Draco whispers, eyes wide. He backs away until the backs of his knees hit his bed. Another burst of magic, and with deafening crack the whole, great pane of glass shatters on his green rug. Rain-soaked wind rushes inside. He crouches low and raises his arms to protect himself, shaking glass free of his hair, not feeling the bite of it cutting his skin for the panic coursing through him.

When he looks up, he sees a flash of red hair, a pale face with a million freckles and brown eyes blown wide, and his heart beats even faster, relief flooding out the fear. He rushes to her, takes her hands. Impossibly, she's on a broom. His old broom from second year.

"Come on," she says. "There's no time."

He swings one leg over the broom, gripping her waist, and they're plummeting into the darkness, the wind roaring in his ears.

He doesn't understand how it's possible, but there'll be time for questions later. "We've got to get past the Wards," he bellows.

"I know that! I don't know where to go. The grounds are enormous!" Her voice booms against the wind, irritated, exhilarated.

As his eyes adjust to the darkness, Draco spins his head around, trying to figure out where they are. "Veer left. The gates are just there, past that balcony." He pulls her closer against him, his arms around her waist, her hair whipping into his eyes as the broom swerves sideways.

The gates rush at them, but his chest is tight with worry.

He feels the hit even before the smooth glide of the broom begins to shake violently. Another curse streaks by them, alighting the darkness as the broom begins to spin downwards, his stomach lurching. Ginny screams, gripping the broom and maneuvering it, trying to descend safely, but they are spiraling to the ground too fast. She manages to land sideways as they hit the ground hard. Draco grunts with pain as they roll to the side. The curses are still flying. He grabs her hand and pulls her forward. "We need to run," he shouts.

He swipes the rain from his eyes, his body stinging now from the glass, from the fall. The grass is slippery as they race to the gate, visible a dozen feet away.

"Draco!" It's his father, the disbelief and rage radiating from his voice even at a distance. "You must stop at once!"

He clenches his jaw and runs harder, pulling Ginny along as her heavy breaths mingle with his own. He can hear hexes and curses behind them and feels naked without a wand, instead trying to shield Ginny with his body. The gate looms closer when he feels a flash of pain on his side, a sharp swipe across his ribs. Draco cries out, his feet buckling.

"No! Draco!" It's his mother's voice. He looks up, wincing, his hand closing over the pain on the side of his body. His mother's fair hair is blowing wildly in the wind. "Stop it! You'll hurt him!"

"Come on. We can't stop." Ginny's voice is warm against his ear. She hauls him up with both arms and he grunts, sways, less stable than before. "We're almost there," she says, urging him forward.

His parents and the others are gaining on them, and he thinks he might not make it to the gate, hears the curses being hurled, his mother's protests. Ginny pulls him forward, shouting hexes herself, but most of them landing wildly off. They crash into the tall black gates, which swing open at Draco's touch. Before the iron door can fall shut behind them, he feels Ginny press him against her, and the squeeze of Apparition sucks the breath out of him.