He'd whispered the name unbelievingly, almost like an accusation, before he'd actually made a confident identification. His mind could hardly move beyond acknowledging that the likelihood he was hallucinating probably wasn't great enough to conjure up something like this. He suddenly felt more tired than he had in his entire life. There was plenty of justification for that.
"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" It even sounded like Harry Potter. And no obvious evidence was popping up to contradict that this was indeed Harry Potter.
"What are you doing here?" Draco shot back. It came naturally, and was good for regaining his bearings.
Taking a deep breath he took stock of the present situation. For the moment his happy little escort was apparently incapacitated, seemingly thanks to the Boy Wonder. He could tally that up as a plus. He looked around quickly, but found no signs that there was anyone else here. Surely though, Weasley had to be nearby as well. "What is it, were you following us or something?"
"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" Potter repeated, but this time it was cold enough to remind Draco exactly who was holding both wands. With a sinking feeling he wondered if his situation had really altered all that much.
"We were traveling and accidentally came here—we had no idea there were Death Eaters," he said, not really seeing any benefit to be had by lying, "They surprised us and they brought me out here—Much as I appreciate the help, Potter, it would've been nice a few minutes sooner. What were you doing anyway, following her?"
"Following who?" Harry asked, but there was something in his voice that said it wasn't a completely innocent question.
"Granger," Draco breathed, their dilemma in its entirety coming back to him, "She's still with them. They still have her—back at the town and she wasn't hurt when they took her. They said they wouldn't hurt her but—" he realized that he was blabbing and noticed Potter's doubtful expression, "Hermione Granger, she was with me—but you know that! She came to you a couple days ago—she talked to you, didn't she?"
"Yes." Potter shifted slightly. "She's getting pretty desperate if she's tagging around with you now," he added bitterly, "But I suppose she needs someone to mess with. It's too bad she didn't stick with House Elves. I bet you fill the position just great. Has she been mothering you too?" He spat the word like it was a curse.
"Not so much," Draco returned angrily, "But then again, she's been a little shaken up recently. Can't imagine why."
Potter laughed none too gently. "If she can't handle what she asks for, that's her problem. She's nothing but a miserable manipulator."
Draco glanced back towards the town impatiently, not really in the mood at the moment for Potter's whining. They really didn't have time for this. But he had to be careful since Potter was the one holding the cards. For whatever reason Draco couldn't fathom, however, Potter wasn't hexing him into oblivion. In fact, they were having something a deaf person might call a civil conversation.
"Listen, Potter," he briefly contemplated giving formal thanks for the whole saving him bit, but decided that would be pushing it, "There's not a whole lot of time. They said they were going to take her to the Dark Lord—the Dark Lord. Just because she knows you—and they'll be doing it soon." He nearly said that they might have already, but he didn't even want to think about that. "We have to get her out of there before they move her, or we'll never be able to catch them."
Harry stared back at him emotionlessly, and Draco remembered the feeling he'd had not long before that maybe this time wouldn't be like the others. Maybe the Golden Three wouldn't all kiss and make up.
"Potter," he was almost pleading now, "We have to help her. She's your friend."
Potter was staring at the ground now. A long moment passed before he nodded slightly. When he looked back up there was a hesitation, but only for the barest moment.
Draco hardly had the mind to catch his wand when it was thrown to him, and even then he could only stare back at Harry.
"What do we do about it, then?"
Draco noticed that Potter didn't immediately lower his wand, but it was far more leeway than he could've expected.
Draco pursed his lips and looked back towards what little they could see of the town, more to show that he wasn't going to betray this surprising amount of trust than anything else.
-----------------------------------------
"I don't know—most of them must have left already," Draco muttered as he looked down through his wand. Suspended at the end of it was a floating sphere of magnification fixed on the town's main street, which was full of a kind of activity that had been absent when they'd first arrived. There was still the disturbing issue, however, that most of the Death Eaters were no longer in sight. It was entirely possible that most of them could be inside the buildings, but he wasn't all that keen on bringing that up to Potter. "I count seven."
"There's eight," Potter lowered his own wand, which Draco noticed had mostly remained on where Hermione was being held at the far end of the street.
"Fine, eight," Draco conceded, not especially in the mood to quibble, "That's still not all that many. Most of them must have left already."
He noticed that Potter was regarding him skeptically now.
"So what do you propose we do?" he asked Malfoy quietly.
Draco hauled in a tight breath, knowing that this was the time to push. "We take them straight up the middle. They're disorganized and not much to boast about. If we hit them fast and don't give them a chance to use their numbers—we can take them."
The uncertainty, or even the argument Draco had been expecting didn't come. Potter nodded like he had been thinking the same.
"Any special way we should do it?" Potter asked as he stood up, perfectly heroic expression already set on his face. Malfoy found he didn't particularly mind that at this point.
He stood up maybe a bit too quickly, mostly due to surprise. It seemed that this was almost too easy, not that he'd really expected a lot of protest from Potter once he'd seen reason. Hurriedly looking once more through his wand, he broke the magnification spell and shook his head in answer to the question.
"Take the left," Draco murmured, feeling his pulse begin to beat frantically as doubts of his less than enviable condition sprang back to mind. "I'll take the right."
And Potter was already walking, sparing him only a distracted nod. He was moving off to the left quickly enough that Draco had to jog prudently to stay even with him. All the while he was praying feverishly that they wouldn't be seen right away, which would make everything a whole lot trickier.
His limbs still ached, and his shin made walking more difficult than usual, but the adrenaline that was coursing through him was enough to make him heady with the rush. He unconsciously wiped almost incessantly at his face, even though he'd already gotten rid of most of the blood. With each heartbeat, the fear seemed to get harder to push down, like it was a physical thing rising up inside him, or even hungrily following at their heels. He even glanced back quickly behind his shoulder, but this time there was no wandering sentry to give them away.
When he looked back up ahead at the Death Eaters still frantically darting across the street, heedless of their approach, he noticed two of them quickly run over into a building that stood on the left.
"Two of them just ran over your way," Draco pointed out as loudly as he dared.
"You just worry about your side." Potter shot back.
Draco was already way ahead of him in that regard. Trying to walk past the limp he was nursing, even though nobody was watching him, he tore his eyes away from the left and concentrated on the few men remaining on his side. Taking the variables into account, he designated the nearest Death Eater as top priority, the farthest one away coming in second. Draco had an odd feeling that Death Eater might fall back near Hermione. Not only did he and Potter have to worry about their combined retaliation, but if any one of them grabbed Hermione and apparated this would all be for nothing.
Glancing over, he caught Potter raising his wand. Gritting his teeth and doing likewise, he conceded that this was probably close enough, though it would be hard to hold off the farthest ones away at this range.
He couldn't describe it. He couldn't even decide exactly how he felt. He was on the verge of being terrified, yes, but there was so much more to it. If it wasn't fear, there was definitely something else moving with them, confidently as it seemed. Maybe this was power, or what power could feel like. It made giddy, idealized notions flash through his mind, always just ahead of grisly images of the possible outcomes. Somewhere in all that tumult there were even some thoughts of what it would be like for him and Hermione to go with Potter after this was over. But he didn't allow those thoughts for very long, especially those that strayed to less favorable outcomes.
The smaller Death Eater that he'd marked as priority number two looked up and subsequently rose to his feet very quickly as his eyes met Malfoy's. Before the man could give a warning, however, Potter shouted something and the middle of the street was suddenly engulfed in a blinding white light like before. This time the distance and an arm raised in front of his eyes helped to block most of it. Draco was surprised to be able to clearly see the ball of light this time, though it extinguished itself after only a few seconds. After that it remained suspended in the air, slowly fading.
Wishing he had something impressive like that, Draco threw out his own wand when the light had mostly faded and fired a quick stunning spell, knocking down the smaller man who'd first seen him. It wasn't exactly as impressive, though his estimable aim in this instance nearly made up for it.
While the air whipped down the street, presumably due to Potter's spell, voices of panic were raised alongside Potter's voice bellowing out a constant barrage of spells. Draco was beginning to think that this was too easy. The remaining two men on his side were blindly stumbling around, but when he looked over he saw that things weren't progressing quite so favorably on the other side.
One of the Death Eaters there was holding an unusual form of shield that Draco couldn't name and was letting Potter's spells harmlessly ricochet off it. Without thinking, Draco perpendicularly changed directions and came at the Death Eater from the side, blowing him off his feet before he could redirect his shield.
Apparently the men on this side hadn't been looking directly towards the blinding spell when it had gone off. Now he realized, back in the woods, that Potter may have waited until they'd all been watching Draco's wand for a reason.
Draco turned and saw that the lead Death Eater from before was now uncertainly facing both Potter and him, but a moment later the two men that Draco had seen before ran out of the building. It took only a moment for them to take in the situation and shift the odds.
For a moment there was a furious outpouring of fire between the two new arrivals and Potter, who handled it commendably from what he could see, but Draco was too distracted with the lead Death Eater to take in the details.
Ducking low and sprinting as quickly as he could up the middle of the street, his hopes of keeping Potter and him from staying one easy target to lump fire onto turned out to be mostly successful as the lead Death Eater turned his attention towards him with a sneer. On sheer nerve and another ample squirt of adrenalin, he dug his feet into the broken pavement and his will to stay alive, so that he managed to keep just ahead of the stream of curses directed at him, even as his lungs began to burn and his muscles began to pull him down.
"Incendio!"
Malfoy had only that bare warning before he dropped to the ground just below the roaring torrent of heat and fire that plumed above him. For a moment he lay still on the pavement, blinking furiously and not daring to move. His eyes darted to the right through the twisting air to catch a glimpse of Hermione sitting bound not nearly as far away as he would've guessed, her eyes wide as she twisted to see what was happening.
But the flames shrank almost at once from their initial deployment and continued almost blindly in the direction Draco had been running, whether because the Death Eater hadn't completely avoided Potter's blinding charm or because he'd temporarily misplaced Malfoy in the massive volume of flames. A few seconds later Malfoy caught a glimpse of the Death Eater through the whirling flames.
"Expelliarmus!" Draco shouted and watched with dismay as the man's wand flew away, leaving the man gaping but otherwise untouched.
Leaping to his feet up into the still blistering air and furiously running at the man, Draco really didn't know if he intended to shoot a spell point blank at the man, strike him physically, or both. Jumping onto the sidewalk, he landed hard enough for everything to hurt even worse. The Death Eater was spinning around almost comically in place, trying to locate his wand.
Draco had a split second to honestly confess to himself that he was in no shape to physically take on anyone when he crashed into the Death Eater. His momentum pushed over the other man and somehow Draco managed to end up on top.
Anger and surprise defined the man's face as his hands shot out for Draco's. Consequently, Draco's wand was pushed away just in time for his stunning spell to harmlessly hit the ground just above the man's shoulder. Snarling as he twisted his body for leverage, Draco tried to push his wand over the man's body, but was finding his shrinking reservoir of strength to be woefully inadequate for the task.
The Death Eater growled something and brought his knee up into Malfoy's unfortunately very tender side, throwing Draco to the ground beside him. He barely had time to see the look of triumph on the man's face before whispers of something rushed just over their heads.
Almost immediately the building front near them exploded outwards, flinging debris everywhere. Draco pulled away from the man and looked over in shock at the building front, and then to the opposite side of the street where the two men that had been blinded before were now pointing their wands towards him. He'd nearly forgotten about them.
He scrambled towards the Death Eater beside him even as the man was attempting to sit up, clutching his bleeding arm in shock. A second later a volley of stunning spells whipped at them, and Draco pressed himself against the Death Eater, who fell to the ground unconscious.
Pulling himself tighter against the motionless body as other spells flashed just bare inches over him, he threw his wand over the man's chest and began to throw out a blanket of his own stunning spells. Chasing one of the Death Eaters with them as the man slowly strafed to the right, he finally succeeded in hitting that Death Eater before shifting his concentration to the other one, who was moving down the street, towards Hermione.
"Malfoy, stop him!" Potter yelled from somewhere down the street behind him.
Draco barely caught this before a pair of feet fell near his head and pounded past him towards Hermione. By this time Draco's Death Eater had almost completely abandoned returning fire as he also continued for Hermione.
Pulling himself to his feet and fighting the panic at letting them get through, Draco had a split second to choose which Death Eater to shoot at before he saw the first one turn his wand towards Hermione.
Draco felt his chest clench as the Death Eater fired a hasty spell that flashed past Hermione's face just before Draco's desperate line of stunning spells reached him. The majority missed, but one clipped the Death Eater in the leg and dropped him.
Nearly stumbling over the rutted pavement, Draco turned his attention to where the other Death Eater had stopped and was showing more gall, being locked in a livid fight with Potter.
A pair of pops behind him caused Draco to turn to find that two more Death Eaters had apparated into the middle of the street, maybe fifty feet away. His wand rose unsteadily as he cast a shield charm just as their fire came at him, though they seemed more distracted by whatever Potter was doing. Even as they ran at Draco, forcing him to keep up his shields, the nearest one raced past him, leaving the other to circle more slowly in the same direction.
When that Death Eater had mostly gotten around Draco, he looked nervously over to where the other Death Eater had run towards Potter. Draco did the same, and found that Potter had taken care of the previous Death Eater and was now holding the new one off as he also haphazardly dashed towards Hermione.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Draco whipped his head around just as the flash of green flared through his shield and by his ear. In that moment he was truly afraid, but it passed painlessly, and by instinct he took advantage of the gap provided him.
"Silencio!" Draco shouted and only waited long enough to see that it had silenced his Death Eater before taking off towards Potter, not exactly sure himself what he was doing.
There were a furious few seconds as Potter neared Hermione, fighting his remaining Death Eater to a stand still before getting a binding spell through, causing the man to fall to the ground.
Harry didn't even glance in Draco's direction as he closed the last few steps to Hermione and grabbed her arm. There was a slight moment where nothing happened, and then they both apparated away with a pop.
"No!" Draco screamed. He ran pointlessly towards the spot they'd disappeared from for a few more seconds before forcing himself to stop.
Whirling around, he found that the remaining Death Eater had gotten rid of his jinx and was in the process of raising his wand towards Draco.
"Crucio!" Draco shouted.