It was too good to be true, this moment of unblemished happiness and she really should've known better.
As usual, it was Blaise who grounded her back in reality. The worry in his eyes halted her steps, mid-dance, causing Draco to step on one of her feet. "I'm sorry, Lex! Are you..." the pale 'prince' trailed off when he noticed Blaise.
"She's gone, Alex." Another couple made a mad, last minute dodge of Blaise when he stopped with them in the middle of the dance floor.
"Who, Tania?" she frowned. "What did you do-"
"Nothing!" he looked about ready to tear his hair out. "She was happy! She was laughing. I went to get her a drink while she rested from all the dancing. When I came back she was gone."
"Well, did you-"
"Yes! The witnesses all said she left with her brother."
Alex stiffened and shivered against Draco's arm. "What brother?" she breathed anxiously. Blaise just shook his head.
Draco glanced between them. "What's wrong with Tania Dethart and/or her brothers?"
Alex looked up at him. "You've met Falon Dethart haven't you?" It was an entirely rhetorical question. He eyed her with exasperation.
"Come on," Alex grabbed both of their arms and pulled, "let's go find Mark."
Draco's expression darkened with a suspicion and jealousy that was entirely unbecoming. Fortunately Alex didn't notice, wading through the dancers and dragging the boys along behind her.
Blaise ignored the dirty looks they were getting, trailing along obediently. "Lex, umm..."
"He's either with Hunter or knows where he went," she tossed over her shoulder.
Draco's face cleared first to relief, then chagrin. Several long minutes were spent in fruitless searching before Blaise dug in his heels, stopping them all against one wall. "Alex, this isn't working!"
She didn't have time to do more than frown before Draco drew his wand.
"Donovan Baddock. Point me."
The length of ebony spun on his open palm to point unerringly towards the drink table. Blaise was off like a shot.
"Blaise. Blaise!" Alex called, racing after him. Draco kept pace, one arm around her waist, and together they barely caught him before he was lost in the crowd. "What's the hurry?"
"I...I don't know," he admitted softly, "I can't help thinking something is wrong! She wouldn't have just left like that. Not without having you or someone at least express her regrets." He didn't slow or even look over his shoulder as they power walked.
"Not of her own free will," Alex finished or him. She shivered again. "If I ever get my hands on that bastard..."
"Hey," Draco's arm tightened a little on her waist. She glanced at him. "What do you know that I don't?"
"We don't know anything." Alex explained under her breath, "They're all too clever and closed mouthed for that. We have suspicions only and that nothing good."
She was going to say more but Blaise spotted their prey.
"Baddock!" he snapped, his voice tight. The duo leaving the drink table pulled to a stop and they saw Mark's companion.
"And Hunter. Oh dammit!"
"Nice to see you again too, Bellmonte," Hunter drawled.
"Shut it!" Blaise snarled. "Tania's gone. She left with 'one of her brothers' while I was getting her a drink. And since it obviously wasn't you..."
Hunter paled. "Oh shit!" Everything from murderous rage to despair to terror crossed his frozen face.
Donovan tentatively broke the silence. "Hunt..."
"Mark, make my apologies to Raya?"
"Of course," his friend said instantly. "What else can I do?"
"Uh..." Hunter cast around, appearing to be at a complete loss.
"Can you keep people out of the dungeons?" Alex asked.
"Yeah," Hunter nodded, "round up the guys."
"Done. Let me know how it turns out." Mark vanished into the press of bodies.
They wasted no time.
"I've got a starting point to narrow the search a little," Blaise put in, almost on top of Mark's parting words.
"From there we can use the tracking spell," Draco almost physically interposed himself between the two boys, who were eying each other like two alpha males from different packs.
Hunter growled, "lead on, Zabini," and they were off again.
They moved, if it was at all possible, even faster through the room this time. Hunter and Blaise were out front, practically racing, though Hunter had no idea where they were going. Draco and Alex trailed them at just under a run, shooting quelling glances at anyone who dared object to being run over by the two boys.
Soon enough, at the speed they were going, it became clear where they were headed. A strange arrangement of tables and potted trees created a quiet little corner. It was somewhat hard to get into, thanks to the placement of tables, but as Blaise and Tania had discovered it made a good place to rest and retreat from the rigors of dancing and social interaction. Several other couples were using it for that purpose when the four of them literally burst onto the scene.
All the other students, however, were from the older grades and all of them were paired off and in various stages of making out.
Needless to say, no one noticed the four Slytherins.
"They said she went down there, somewhere..." Blaise pointed at a small door. It led into a small antechamber that, in its turn, led off in three directions.
Stairs spirals upwards on the right and two hallways branched away on the left. One of these stayed on the first floor. The other angled down into the dungeons.
"Stay by the door," Draco directed, balancing his wand across his palm again. He frowned and his eyes unfocused in the tell-tale sign of unspoken magic. "Tania Dethart...Point me."
Once again the wand spun. Father until it was a black blur then slower...slower...until at last it stopped...pointed directly at the wall.
"Drac-"
"Shh." Draco waved a preemptory hand at them. "Now we know she's on this floor and it'll keep shifting to track her as we move."
Alex nodded. "Good one. You'll have to show me that one later, Draco. Let's go." She linked arms with the blonde, making sure not to bump his wand hand and they strode out the level hallway. The sound of a fast scramble behind them preceded Hunter and Blaise catching up to the duo.
Slowly the light and noise of the Great Hall fell away behind them. It soon became difficult to see and, if the hall hadn't been perfectly straight, the floor perfectly level, no doubt someone would've tripped.
The length of ebony wavered and shifted in the semi-darkness. Draco, the only one who could se it at this point, jerked to a sudden stop and then started again. Dashing down a side hallway.
It all happened too fast for the rest of the group to follow. The other boys had to backtrack several steps and Alex barely managed to turn with him in time. She pivoted on one foot, her other leg swinging out to maintain her balance and hitting the stone corner. She winced at the jar and had to take a tiny sideways hop to keep from falling. The motion shook Draco, who glanced over as she whispered, "Sorry."
He looked at her soberly and shook his head. "No, Lumos."
A thin beam of light shot out from the tip of his wand, making it even clearer where they were going towards.
"Good thinking, Draco." The new light beam let the two boys race ahead impatiently.
"Thank you," Alex mouthed. She would've smiled, but the leaden weight of worry in her stomach prevented any such acknowledgement of his sweetness.
Draco smirked a little, to himself. She fought the desire to roll her eyes.
The wand shifted again and Draco called out, "Left!" just to make sure they caught the change.
Alex glanced at the darkness that seemed to close in behind them the instant the passed. That clenched, panicky feeling was still making the muscles in her neck and shoulders tense up.
"You do realize," her escort said quietly, "that we're heading for the outer wall of the castle."
"Yeah..." she bit her lip, "there aren't that many rooms this way. Could they be outside?"
In front of them, the sound of feet pounding against stone slowed to a stop.
Draco and Alex pulled up next to the boys at a four-way intersection of halls.
"Which way, Malfoy!" Hunter hissed, his breath ragged more from emotions than the run.
"I..." Draco shrugged and shook his head.
"Malfoy!"
He grimaced. "What do you want me to do!" Draco demanded, pointing.
The beam and the wand pointed directly at one corner, not even a little off center.
"Dragon shite!" Alex muttered, trying to think of a way out of this.
The most obvious, was, of course, to start calling for her. But that was too stupid to comprehend. If Falon got spooked he could kill her out of desperation.
Then, against the plan, wishes and better judgment of the rest of them, before anyone could stop him, Blaise opened his mouth...
"Blai-"
"Don'-"
and yelled, "Tania!"
Silence for one breath...two...
Faintly, muffled almost beyond recognition by the thick stone of the castle, a scream of pain reached their ears. They took off left, Alex hauling up her skirts to keep up.
It wasn't pleasant to run full out in heels. That didn't mean it wasn't possible. Jolts of pain shocked up her legs with each foot fall, however they, thankfully, didn't have that far to run.
This hall paralleled the rooms that were on the outer wall, from front to back, and it dead-ended against the wall itself. A small woodened door then led out into a small, secluded courtyard. It was used rather often during the summer for secret make out sessions. It wasn't used at all the rest of the time.
The heavy wood door slammed open thanks to attentions of three pissed Slytherin males. A second door directly across from this one thunked shut at the same time.
Falon had escaped out onto the grounds.
Hunter growled his fury.
"But where's-" Blaise went absolutely rigid. "...Tania."
At the sound of her name a thin whimper came from a darker patch of snow in the far corner.
"Ah, hell," Hunter whimpered himself in a voice choked with tears. He was at her side between one breath and the next, his hands hovering over her, but not daring to touch.
"I'm shite with healing spells," Draco said, canceling his Tania-finder spell and taking up a position where he could see both doors. If Falon dared come back...
Alex nodded, "Blaise-" he didn't move as she brushed past him to drop to her knees beside the other girl.
The snow drift was much deeper than she'd thought, completely covering her calves and knees. It was still snowing.
"Tania," Hunter murmured soothingly. He linked hands with Alex and they lifted her gently, just high enough that they could inch forward until their knees hit each other. Then they laid her back down so she was supported on their laps.
She whimpered again, pitifully, as they moved her.
Snow settled in her sticky dark hair. In fact, most of her felt sticky.
"Blaise, I can't see!"
The light of the moon and stars was completely blocked out by the thick could cover. She glanced back over her shoulder.
The boy she would've trusted with her life just stood there, unmoving in the snowfall.
"Draco! Please."
Looking at his dorm mate in concern, Draco spoke his spell. Spotlights with a steady, even glow appeared in the air above them.
Alex choked; it was both better and worse than she'd thought.
What she'd assumed to be bloodstains was, partially, Tania's gown, spread in taters around her. But there was still far too much blood. The smaller girl's body was covered in blood from cuts, boils and burns. There were several strange patched of skin where some curse or hex had gone wrong.
Hunter started to swear vehemently. Draco spared a glance from guard duty and his face darkened with a fury she was gratified to see. Tania's brother raised his wand, a healing spell on his lips.
"No!" Alex grabbed his wand hand.
For a long second, or a small eternity, Hunter looked like he was about to hit her.
"Don't be an idiot, Dethart," She snapped coldly to cover her fear, "You don't know all the spells he used any more than I do! You could kill her with the wrong kind of healing interacting with those unknown spells!"
"We have to do something!"
"Of course we do! Please, try and keep her warm, Hunter. I'll use blood magic to stabilize her so we can get her inside."
"How can you be so sure it won't react with the other magic?" he asked, though he didn't stop her from tracing a complex rune on Tania's forehead.
"Because," Alex shifted out of his way as Hunter pulled off his dress robes and wrapped his sister in them. "I'm using her blood. It'll be the same as if she's healing naturally...she's just doing it really fast."
Tania tensed then relaxed into true sleep as the rune of blood first glowed them faded into her skin. Alex's expression became strained around the edges.
"Mobilocorpus." Hunter whispered after a few minutes and some of the worst, purely physical damage began to fade. He rose slowly to his feet as Tania floated slowly, bonelessly up into the air.
Alex jerked to her feet, staggering a minute as the cold in her legs affected her balance. Her anger kept her upright, though, and she only stumbled once on her way over to Blaise.
"Blaise!" she snapped, slapping the frozen statue of a Slytherin across the face. "Get a Frickin hold of yourself! You're on point, Draco will follow behind. Make sure nobody sees us!"
She hadn't realized how much blood she had on her hands until she saw the bloody print on Blaise's cheek. Alex felt immediately guilty as he snapped out of his paralysis and gave her a look so full of anguish it made her want to cry. But he gave her no chance to apologize, taking point as she'd ordered, and moving out the door into the castle.
Alex winced and tried to ignore a headache as she took her place next to Tania's head.
"Ignis." A flash of flame incinerated the spot of snow that was soaked in blood.
"Don't forget the-" Alex never finished her reminder to Draco as the courtyard plunged one more into darkness of a starless night.
A/N: Wow, that was one long scene. I told you all hell broke loose. Yay for Plot twists.
Lots of yelling the next chapter.