Chapter 21: Into the Sky

Hermione opened her eyes. It was nearly pitch dark, and something was jabbing her painfully in the center of her back, something dry and rough and-oh! Her hand brushed against what felt horribly like feathers, and she recoiled at once. Turning her head, what she saw sent a bolt of pure, mind-numbing panic through her like a pike. It was feathers. Buckbeak's feathers. She was sitting with her back against a tree at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, and it wasn't pitch dark. The full moon had risen, casting a milky glow over her surroundings...and over Harry, who sat beside her, as deeply asleep as she herself had been until seconds ago. She shook him roughly, hands trembling so much it took a great effort to maintain a grip.

"Harry." When this didn't work, she smacked him around the head. "Harry!" He jerked awake at once, at first massively disoriented, and then his face dissolved into sheer horror.

"No," he moaned. Hermione said nothing. "No!" cried Harry, leaping to his feet and turning around in a comical circle like a dog chasing its tail. "Hermione, no, we can't-it's not-" he broke off and glanced down at his left wrist, which normally bore his watch. Tonight, however, it was empty. "What time is it?!" His voice went up nearly an octave at the end. Hermione wasn't sure whether she'd ever seen him quite so pale, and it frightened her to the core.

"I don't know," she whimpered, holding up her own left arm. Her watch was gone, as well. Madam Pomfrey, damn her, must have removed them. Harry let out an agonized howl behind her, and she didn't try to stop him. If it was true...if they'd missed their chance…Buckbeak's yellow eyes bored holes into hers, and she turned away, unable to take another second of his scrutinizing gaze. And then, she saw it. A dark shape, around the height of a man, was gliding down across the grounds, unmistakably heading toward the Whomping Willow. Hermione's heart leapt into her throat as she realized it was Snape.

"Harry," she hissed. "Harry! Harry, it's okay, Harry-look!" Silence. She could feel him trembling as he came up beside her, squinting to follow her gaze. After a moment, he gasped.

"Is that-?"

"It's Snape," Hermione whispered. "It's all right." Harry took a deep, shuddering breath beside her. Before she had time to think better of it, Hermione laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. "We're all right." Harry slumped back against the tree, eyes wide open this time, staring up at the sky above.

"He asked me to come and live with him." Hermione jumped, but recovered quickly and joined Harry by the tree.

"Er-what?"

"Sirius," Harry went on, not looking at her. "After...well, just before Lupin transformed? He told me…" he trailed off and sighed slightly. "He said he's my godfather," he finished, so quietly that Hermione had to strain to catch his words. At once, she felt as if someone had clamped a vice grip around her heart. She wracked her brains for something, anything to say, but nothing came.

"There was...er...after the Quidditch final?" Harry went on, and for the first time, he turned to face Hermione. "I was going to tell you-" he broke off and shook his head slightly. "I dunno," he groaned, head sinking into his hands. Hermione frowned, thoroughly confused.

"Harry, what is it?" she asked, after a moment. When Harry raised his head again, he looked very serious.

"He...tells you things, doesn't he?" he asked. "Malfoy, I mean. Like, he...trusts you?" Hermione recoiled slightly as if Harry had thrown a vat of water over her. She couldn't imagine where this was going, and the intensity of Harry's gaze was making her dizzy.

"I-er, I-yes, I suppose he-yes," she stammered. "But Harry, what's that got to do with...well, anything?" Harry ignored this.

"And...well, if he told you anything…" he grunted in frustration, seeming to struggle with his words. "If he told you anything...anything I'd need to know. What would you do?"

"Harry, I don't...for heaven's sake, what do you mean?" asked Hermione, now a bit scared in addition to her confusion. Harry sighed deeply.

"You didn't tell me his father sent the diary. Last year." His tone wasn't accusatory, simply matter-of-fact.

"I...didn't know myself," said Hermione weakly. "He never told me until the start of term, and I...well, it didn't seem…" she trailed off. Harry's eyes had doubled in size, and he was staring at her as if he'd never properly seen her before.

"Oh," he gasped, then began nodding vigorously. "Oh. All right, then." It occurred to Hermione then to wonder how Harry knew this, but she swallowed the question.

"Harry, what's this about?"

"After the Quidditch final, I was going to tell you I thought it was him. The one who let Sirius into the castle, I mean." Harry said this very fast, as if he were embarrassed to be telling her, and the words felt like a slap across the face.

"What?" she cried at once, and then, shaking her head to clear it, "er...I don't...why?" Harry looked away for a moment, then shrugged helplessly.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I…" he swallowed hard. "He threw the match. The final? The Cup was Slytherin's, but he...threw it away. On purpose." Hermione wracked her brains for a connection between the two, but for the life of her she couldn't see it.

"Harry, I'm sorry, but I still don't understand," she admitted. Harry sighed.

"I know it sounds..." he trailed off. "And I know you're not...exactly interested in Quidditch, so…" Harry paused, seeming to gather his thoughts. "The way he was playing, it wasn't...he wasn't going after the Snitch. He was trying to keep me away." Hermione frowned.

"Is there...a difference?"

"Yes," said Harry firmly. "Because the second Gryffindor had enough points to win the Cup, he…he practically shoved it into my hand. And, I...I took it." Harry's eyes dropped down to the forest floor at these words, and Hermione thought she'd never seen him look so utterly humiliated. Hermione, however, was thoroughly bewildered.

"Harry, I'm sorry," she repeated. "I still don't see what this has to do with Sirius."

"I already said it was stupid," Harry snapped.

"Er-you didn't, actually." Harry froze.

"Well, I meant to." He took a deep breath. "I just thought...if he wanted to make sure Gryffindor was actually in their common room for Sirius to find...y'know, avoid another accident like Halloween…" at last Hermione understood, though this seemed such a tangential connection as to be almost ludicrous. "And now, I just...well, now that I know Sirius is…" Harry swallowed hard. "I know it probably wasn't him," he nearly whispered. "But if it was...now that I know who Sirius really is...if it was him, I've got to know." Hermione felt her heart shatter in her chest.

"Harry, I...I really don't think Draco had anything to do with it," she whispered. Harry nodded slowly, almost robotically.

"Yeah, I know he probably didn't." There was a pause. "Hermione?"

"Yes?" Harry looked profoundly uncomfortable.

"His dad...he's not...very nice to him. Is he?" Had time travel affected Harry's head in some strange, hitherto undocumented way?

"Er...no," she said quietly. "I don't think he is, no." Harry looked away again, and went quiet. She couldn't say how much time had passed when he turned back to face her, horrorstruck.

"Hermione," he hissed, nudging her rather sharply in the ribs. "Look. It's us, we're…" Hermione followed Harry's pale, trembling finger, and gasped. In the clearing beside the Whomping Willow, their earlier selves stood tremulously among a horde of dementors-there had to be dozens of them, Hermione realized, and even from a distance her breath shuddered to a halt as her heart froze in her chest. Beside them, the crumpled heaps of Ron and Sirius lay helplessly discarded on the forest floor, and she and Harry were crumbling before her eyes.

She turned to Harry, fighting back tears, but he was gone. Panic roared inside her once again, and she cast about frantically, but it was as if he'd vanished into thin air.

"Harry!" she cried, but the air was so cold that it swallowed the thin, pathetic sound at once. Beside her, Buckbeak gave a judgemental sort of sigh.

"Harry!" Nothing.

"HARRY!" Still, she was rewarded only with the bitter stab of ice piercing her lungs.

And then, to her abject horror, she saw him. Harry had charged forward to face the dementors, wand raised, face set in rigid determination. She tried to call to him, plead with him to come back, but then-

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" His wand exploded, and out of it burst a dazzling beam of light, not a feeble jet of silver mist but something solid...like an animal. Hermione put up her hand to protect her eyes, and through her fingers she saw the silver-white shape charge across the clearing toward the dementors, toward the lifeless bodies of their earlier selves. The animal reared up on its hind legs, and almost at once the dementors scattered. They faded away into the night, and moonlight returned to the clearing, though it paled in comparison to the light emitted by this enormous...horse? No. Unicorn? No, not that either. As the animal made its way back across to Harry and bowed its head, Hermione gasped. She understood, and judging by the trembling of Harry's fingers as he reached out his hand to touch it, so did he.

"Prongs," he murmured. But before Harry could make contact, the creature evaporated. There was a moment so full and so fragile Hermione feared breathing lest she shatter it, and then Harry turned back to face her.

"You-you just…" Hermione hadn't realized she was crying until she tried to speak. "You saved our lives," she gasped.

"There's someone coming out of the castle," said Harry huskily. "It's Macnair. The executioner. He's gone to get the dementors." Hermione followed his gaze, and sure enough, a dark shape was making its way down across the grounds. "It's time, Hermione."

It was. She brushed away her tears and took Buckbeak's rope once again in her hand. Together they untied him and watched, hearts pounding, as he stood and ruffled his wings.

The flight to the seventh floor took scarcely a minute, and either of them could've done it in their sleep. Their brooms fell with a clatter to the floor of the battlement, and they took off at once toward the castle windows. Draco had never realized just how large they were, but they towered at least six feet over their heads. He couldn't remember ever feeling so small in his life.

Three minutes to midnight. They crept along the battlement toward the end, counting the windows-there was Professor McGonagall's office, Professor Binns...why he had an office, Draco would never work out...reaching the end, Ginny stopped cold. She turned around, suddenly stiff and white as a sheet.

"Er…" her mouth hung open for a moment, but she closed it and shook her head, looking horror-struck. Something tore through Draco, cold and sharp and enough to root him to the spot.

"What?" he breathed. "What?" he added, when Ginny didn't answer. Ginny squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head again, more violently this time. The sharp, cold sensation turned warm, then hot, first burning, then boiling him from the inside. He wrenched himself from his spot and tore after Ginny, simultaneously desperate to see what she saw and fearing he couldn't look. Ginny let out a strangled squeak as he drew nearer, and the breath left him all at once as he peered in the window.

Professor Flitwick's office was empty.

No. It wasn't, he just hadn't looked properly. It was dark. His head felt unbearably light and he clutched at the cold, rough stone, scarcely able to feel it against his hands. Great black splotches bloomed in his field of vision, growing larger the harder he fought to see into the darkened office beyond the windowpane. He wrenched his eyes open as wide as they would go, desperate to see around them, but it was no use. His head was spinning off his neck, floating away even as his body, now filled with something denser and heavier than lead, sank into the very core of the earth. It wasn't empty. It couldn't be empty.

"Draco, I…" Ginny's voice might as well have been coming from the other end of the universe. "It's...it's just now midnight. I…" she drew a deep, shuddering breath. "I'm sorry, I...I'm...so sorry."

She couldn't be sorry, because the room wasn't empty. If he could only look properly…

"Draco…" he scarcely recognized his own name, and he couldn't see anything at all any longer. He clawed blindly for the window-if he could only get it open, then he could see…

Ginny seized him and attempted to pry him away from the wall. He fought her with everything in him, but she gave a great yank and they fell, hard, to the stone floor. The shock ripped the black haze covering Draco's eyes in half, and Ginny's chalk-white, horror-struck face loomed over him. She took his hands in hers, and suddenly his left stung. No, it burned. Unspeakable pain throbbed from a cut in the center of his palm. It wasn't deep, but some ghastly sort of magic seemed to have made it the epicenter of the pain roaring through his body. He couldn't feel the dry ache in the back of his throat, couldn't feel his lungs deflating even as they fought to draw in air. He couldn't feel the lethally sharp pieces of his shattered heart tearing into his insides. Instead, he could feel the cut on his hand.

Buckbeak landed with an almighty thud on the cobblestones just beyond the courtyard and Harry and Hermione slid off at once. Hermione's knees gave way the second she hit the ground, and Harry caught her before she fell.

"Sirius, you'd better go, quick!" Harry panted. He was stiff with a deathly urgency that tightened his grip on Hermione painfully, and she wriggled herself free.

"What happened to the other boy? Ron?" choked Sirius.

"He'll be okay. It's only a broken leg, Madam Pomfrey can mend it in about a second. Quick, go!" But Sirius didn't move, merely continued to gaze down at Harry as though memorizing every precious inch of his face.

"How can I ever thank-"

"Go!" Harry and Hermione shouted together. Still, Sirius didn't move.

"We'll see each other again," he breathed. "You are-truly your father's son, Harry…" He wheeled Buckbeak around and, with a clatter of hooves and a whoosh of enormous wings, they were soaring off into the open sky. Harry and Hermione stood rooted to the spot, hearts hammering, breathing coming fast, as Sirius and Buckbeak became smaller and smaller, fading gradually into the night sky, and then a cloud drifted across the moon and they were gone.

"I-I'll be right back. Okay?" Silence. "I've just got to-well, we can't leave your broom…" She could. It didn't matter. "Just...just promise me you'll stay here. Promise me you won't move."

Ginny didn't need to look so frightened. As if Draco could move. He couldn't have said how he'd got down from the roof. Knowing it was the least he owed her, he tried to nod, but his body wouldn't cooperate. Ginny's face drew in tighter.

"I'll be back right away," she said abruptly, and rose once more into the sky. Draco watched her go, and the air around him felt colder and colder as she faded away. All at once, the pain in his hand evaporated and filled his body again, burning like poison. He tried to scream, but it was all trapped inside. It was all rightly his.

It was the pain of that Muggle family who'd suffered god only knew what at the hands of an eleven-year-old boy who couldn't even be bothered to stick around to learn their fate, let alone help them. It was the pain of that couple in Sirius's story, doomed to relive the worst act Draco had ever heard described aloud for all eternity. It was the pain Ginny must have felt all last year, wrestling with ghastly crimes committed during long, frightening gaps in her memory.

It was the pain of the last twelve years of Sirius's life. Pain he'd never feel again. Pain he'd lost, along with every other bit of himself.

Draco vowed then to carry their pain for them until he died. He'd tried everything else, hadn't he, to attone? This was all that remained. This, and the cold.

It was stronger now, heavy as stone, swallowing him up like the wave of freezing water and ink in the dreams he'd fought so hard to banish all summer. His attempts to draw breath yielded nothing, and as he fell, sputtering and choking, to the sodden grass, he saw them.

Dementors. Dozens of them, hundreds, circling, layering one behind the other, blocking out the light from the moon. The woman descended from the top of their ranks, revolving sickeningly in midair, wrenching his very soul up toward her with the unspeakable pleading in her blue eyes.

He reached out to touch her, his chest tore open once again, and everything went black.

He was lying on something very soft. His eyes were open, or so he thought, but everything around him looked white and foggy. His body was heavy, and he struggled, for a moment, to move his fingers. When a few seconds of increasingly frantic attempts yielded nothing, he gave up and tried to listen to his surroundings, but he'd either gone deaf or he was lying somewhere very quiet. Was he dead?

But no, feeling was coming back into his limbs now, pins and needles shooting through his body as though it had been frozen and brought here to thaw. Involuntary he gasped, and the sound brought a high, stone ceiling hazily into focus above him. He frowned. It wasn't the hospital wing.

"Good, you're awake," said a warm, familiar voice, and all at once, he knew where he was. It took everything in him to sit up, and when he managed it, he could tell his guess was correct. He was on a sofa in Professor Lupin's office.

What happened, he tried to ask, but his mouth didn't seem to work. Lupin gave him a kind smile.

"Here," he said softly. "Eat this." It was like biting into a candle. He couldn't taste the chocolate at all, and when he miraculously managed to swallow the first mouthful without gagging he pushed the rest firmly aside. Even so, the ground felt more solid underneath him and his vision cleared at once.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Dementors," said Lupin shortly, and suddenly, the rest of the evening came rushing back to him, knocking him onto his back again.

"Sirius, he-" Lupin calmly held up a hand to subdue him.

"Sirius has once again escaped," he said softly. "He will have to go back into hiding, but he has proven his innocence….at least, to a few." He gave Draco a small smile. "You'll want to eat more of that chocolate, you know." The thought made him feel sick.

"I can't." Taking a proper look around the office, Draco realized it was in disarray. Stacks of books littered every available surface, clothes hung out of an open trunk, as if...as if he were packing. "You're not...leaving?" This came out as a thin, pathetic sort of whimper, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

"I'm afraid so." Draco frowned, but stopped almost at once. It made his head hurt.

"But-why?" How long had he been unconscious? Had he missed something?

"It seems, at breakfast this morning, that Professor Snape accidentally let slip that I am a werewolf," said Lupin wryly. "This time tomorrow, owls will start arriving from parents who do not want a werewolf teaching their children. After last night…." he shuddered. "I see their point. That must never happen again." He had missed something.

"What do you mean?" he asked, sitting up again. "What do you mean, after last night?"

"I am not at liberty to discuss it, I'm afraid," said Lupin grimly. Draco's insides turned to broken glass.

"Please don't go." He realized only as the words left his mouth how very much he meant them. Tears sprang to his eyes and he bit them back hastily, hoping Lupin didn't see. Lupin gave him a gentle, almost tender look.

"I must insist you eat more of that chocolate, Draco," he said softly. "It was after seven o'clock this morning when I found you. You could suffer the effects for weeks if you don't."

It took strength he didn't know he had, but he managed a few more bites before he was sure he'd be sick. Lupin studied him for a few moments.

"Do you know, I never told you I admired your boggart," he said conversationally. Draco nearly choked.

"I ruined the lesson." Lupin laughed.

"Oh, yes, but I admired it nonetheless. A dementor suggests that what you fear the most is...well, fear. That's very wise." Draco frowned. That wasn't remotely right.

"No," he said softly, simultaneously wondering why he didn't shut up and needing Lupin to understand. Lupin raised an eyebrow.

"No?" Draco shook his head and bit his lip. Shut up, insisted a little voice in the back of his head. Shut up now. Taking a deep breath, he brushed the voice aside.

"Something happened to me when that dementor came on the train," he nearly whispered. He stared up at the ceiling, knowing he couldn't speak if he looked at Lupin. "At first I thought it put something inside me, but now...now, I'm not sure, I..." his throat threatened to close, and he swallowed hard. "I think...it was already there?" he couldn't manage more than a hoarse whisper. "I...I'm not...sometimes I can't...there's something inside me, and it won't...I can't feel what I should be. What I want to." He inhaled sharply and only just managed to stave off tears.

"It scares me," he whispered. "Something's...wrong with me."

Lupin made a sudden motion as if to hug him, but seemed to think better of it immediately. Draco waited until his heartbeat slowed and the lump dissolved from his throat before he looked at Lupin.

"Was it Sirius?" he asked. "Your friend who played with the Snitch in the courtyard?" A shadow crossed Lupin's face then, but a split second later it was gone.

"No," he said softly. "Not Sirius." Draco wracked his brains, but Sirius had never said a fourth name. A few moments of silence, and then a knock at the door shattered the air between them. Lupin crossed the room to open the door, and Draco willed his heartbeat to slow.

"Ah, Miss Weasley, good morning," said Lupin pleasantly. "Is your brother well?"

"Madam Pomfrey says he'll be cleared to leave this afternoon." Ginny sounded like herself again, and hearing her voice, Draco felt human enough to sit up. "Er-sorry to barge in like this, Professor, but I was wondering…"

"That's quite all right, Ginevra," said Lupin kindly. "Mr. Malfoy will be just fine. As soon as he finishes his chocolate," he added, with a pointed look back in Draco's direction. Draco, however, suddenly had other priorities. Unable to stop himself grinning, he craned his neck to catch Ginny's eye behind Lupin.

"Ginevra?" he mouthed. She rolled her eyes and shook her head violently, but she, too, was smiling.

"Are you well enough to have breakfast with me?" she asked. At that moment, Draco wasn't sure anything had ever sounded better. He stood experimentally, and when his head didn't immediately start to spin, he nodded.

"Yeah. Let's go." He forced another bite of chocolate down his throat, earning himself a knowing smile from Lupin. The corridors were drenched in golden sunlight and largely deserted. Draco supposed everyone was outside, able, at long last, to enjoy the grounds.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"Half-past noon," said Ginny. Draco nodded, and as he glanced out the window, something that had lain buried underneath last night's chaos came drifting to the surface of his mind.

"Er...what were you doing?" he asked. "Last night with Astoria, I mean. Before I ran into you." Ginny went scarlet and turned away slightly.

"Nothing," she said matter-of-factly. "I mean, we were just…" she trailed off and shook her head, seeming to think better of whatever she was going to say. "Nothing." Draco recognized the tilt of her head, the flush of her cheeks, the eyes torn between a glow of happiness and a shadow of humiliation. He himself had worn it earlier this year, any time he looked at Hermione. Suddenly, he was filled to the brim with affection for Ginny, and it physically hurt to stop himself throwing his arms around her.

"Right," he said instead. "Okay. Anything you say, Ginevra."

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" she cried, and they chased one another, laughing, down the stairs and toward the Great Hall. It hadn't happened the way he'd hoped, but still, Draco was happy. Sirius had escaped. Though shadows lurked as always in the back of his head and the pit of his heart, this morning he could almost forget they were there. This morning, he could breathe.