"Did you see that?" Harry whispered, as he saw light flashing from the window. For a moment, he was afraid, that there was a duel going on outside, but then came the familiar rumble of thunder, and his shoulders sagged in relief. His senses were on high alert. Hermione had told them to come quickly, but Malfoy was still scanning the books in the library
"Come on, come on, come on" He mumbled, as if hoping the book would jump out of the bookshelf with a little encouragement
"Are you sure we're not wasting our time here?" Harry hissed impatiently. "Hermione's Floo call sounded pretty urgent."
"And what good will we be, if we go there, without actually being able to do anything, because we lack information? Hermione said it came from her scar, correct?"
Harry huffed, and went back to looking out of the window.
The sky outside was black, which was to be expected, considering the hour, but something was wrong with the clouds. For one, there weren't supposed to be any. The sky had been clear, when he left the Weasleys'
The clouds were heavy too. They blinked with pink and purple hues. He narrowed his eyes in suspicion.
In the distance, he could see lightning, striking in pink, purple and blue bolts. They covered an enormous area, and were moving fast across the city of London. It wasn't long before the lightnings got too close for his liking.
"Malfoy, you really need to hurry now!" He called urgently.
"Aha! Victory!" Draco shouted, waving a thick book above his head.
At that moment, the window exploded. Harry jumped away, to escape the glass, that was flying in all directions. Lightning was still striking out in the street, and he could hear screaming from outside. Large parts of the city were completely dark, obviously having lost their electricity.
They started running down the hall, back to the study.
"I don't get it. The protection on the house should withstand an attack!" Harry yelled at Draco.
"Yea? Did you take freak thunderstorms into account?"
"This is not some freak thunderstorm" Harry replied ominously.
"Whatever it is, it should be prepared for Hermione's wrath, no one should treat a library like that."
"That's it!" Harry yelled, and slammed Draco into the wall. "What the hell is going on?"
"Easy there. You really want to do this now?" Draco calmly replied.
"Yes! Exactly, right now!" He growled
Draco sighed "After the war, I contacted her. I knew, what my – what Bellatrix had done to her, and I knew the knife she had done it with. He ran a hand over his face. "I knew her wound wouldn't heal on its own, so I asked if I could have permission to research it. We met up some times, for me to check out the wound, and one thing led to another –"
"One thing led to another?" Harry interrupted, horrified.
Draco burst out laughing. "Oh, Merlin! Friendship, mate! Friendship!"
"Friendship?" Harry asked dumbfounded.
"Merlin, you should see your face! Yes, friendship, you really have nothing to worry about from me on that agenda." He chuckled.
His laughing was interrupted, when a huge explosion outside, reverberated throughout the house.
They ran the rest of the way to the study, where Sparkles sat, on the back of a chair, puffing up his feathers against the threatening sounds. Harry grabbed the bird, and held it against his chest, ignoring its indignant hooting.
He threw some Floo powder, yelling "House of Ten" and walked into the fire, Draco following shortly after him.
…
On the other side, they were met by a guy with light brown skin and curly black hair. He was looking at them with wide eyes and a huge grin.
"Whoa! I mean, seriously? She stuck her head in the fire, I saw that, but I basically do that every day, so there wasn't much novelty in that, I mean, she told me, that there would be people coming out, but being told, and seeing for yourself are two different things, and you even brought an owl! A dam owl!"
He was speaking a mile a minute, with just the tiniest hint of an accent, that indicated, that maybe English wasn't his first language. Harry and Draco just looked at him wide-eyed. It wasn't until then, that the guy really looked at their faces.
"Dude." He said, taken aback as he stared at Harry. "You look exactly like… Never mind! I'm Leo Valdez!" He exclaimed.
Harry was broken out of the stupor, this hurricane of a man had put him in. He released Sparkles, who flew to sit on a lamp, with a disgruntled hoot.
"Harry Potter, and this is Draco Malfoy" Harry introduced them, shaking Leo's hand.
"We were supposed to see Hermione, is she here?" Draco asked urgently.
"Yes! Sorry, she's right through here" Leo apologized, leading the way to the dining room.
…
"Yo, Percy, I found your clone" Leo announced, as they entered the dining room.
Around the room, were several people. Seated at a large table were a couple, sitting closely together. The girl was dark skinned, with hair as curly as Hermione. Her boyfriend was a huge Asian guy, who looked like he could kill them with his bare hands.
Next to them, a blonde girl sat, sending Leo a glare, obviously disapproving of his joking at a time like this.
Behind the blonde girl, stood a guy, who looked so much like Harry, it was almost bizarre. Near another door opening stood two other girls, both with light brown complexion. One of them had hair, that made Draco want to force her into a chair at his mother's hairdresser. The other one was looking at him with an expression so fierce, that he was surprised he hadn't spontaneously combusted. Leo moved over to a pretty girl with light brown hair, standing in a corner.
On the floor, several people were sitting around a body. There was a man, with golden hair, and behind him sat a girl that might have been a Weasley, for her red hair, and strange wardrobe. On the other side of the body, closest to them, sat Hermione in the arms of who he had now identified as Nico. She had obviously been crying.
Hermione stood up from Nico's embrace, and walked to greet them. She gave Draco a hug first, to Harry's surprise.
"It's not your fault." He mumbled into her ear.
She then went to hug Harry, clinging to him like a lifeline.
"I hate this, Harry." She whispered.
"We'll figure this out, like we figure everything out. And I'm going to get the story about Malfoy as well." He drew back, to look at her sternly.
That's when she noticed the cuts on his face.
"Oh, gods, what happened?" She looked between the both of them.
"It's got to be on the TV. Do you have a TV here?" Harry asked urgently.
"Sure. Leo?" The blonde girl asked.
Leo went over to what appeared to be a control panel in the corner of the room. He pressed a few buttons, and a screen lowered itself from the ceiling.
The screen came to life, and Draco jumped, with a small yelp, making most of the people in the room look at him curiously. On the screen were moving images, like in a wizarding photograph, but with more vibrant colors, and with sound. It showed an image of London, illuminated by thousands lightnings, dancing across the sky. Several parts of the city were dark, and in some places, fires were blazing.
"… can explain this extreme weather phenomenon. Government officials are advising people to stay indoors. Many areas are currently without power, including The London Bridge Hospital. So far, the number of casualties is unclear, but is expected to reach double digits. We're following the thunderstorm closely, with regular updates…" Leo put the TV on mute.
Everyone looked at each other with horror and concern.
"Looks like our plans are moving up" The Harry look-alike said, looking nauseous.
"What plans?" The real Harry asked.
"That's really complicated, Harry, but at the moment, I think we should focus on him." Hermione said, gesturing to the body lying on the floor.
Draco went over to crouch next to the young man. He was handsome, in a casual sort of way. His shaggy hair was blonde, but more a cheerful yellow, than the white that was his own. His face would be tanned, if he wasn't so pale, and he had freckles over the bridge of his nose.
More importantly though, was that he was unconscious, and his breathing was shallow, so he had to break out of his revelry, and concentrate. He was a case – a patient, although he couldn't help himself from asking;
"What's his name?"
The man with the golden hair, sat in front of him, and Draco noticed, that he bore a strong resemblance to the guy on the floor. He gave Draco a gentle smile
"His name is Will"
Draco nodded.
"So, what happened exactly?"
"Remember how we discussed, that the curse on the knife was to prevent healing? Well, Will is the son of Apollo" She gestured at the man, who was apparently a god, making Draco raise his brows. "Will inherited healing abilities from Apollo, but he doesn't just heal others, he uses them to heal himself. Without them he's going to die" She finished in a small voice.
"So, we need to find a cure, and preferably yesterday? I don't mean to be insensitive, but if you're the god of healing, couldn't you, do it?" He asked Apollo carefully.
"This magic is beyond my abilities." Apollo looked contrite. "It's dark, in a way, that magic should never be. Hecate would be ashamed of this."
Draco snorted. "Her and me both. This curse was an invention of my ancestors. I intend to erase it from existence. First, we heal him, and then I'll hunt down, and destroy every record of it." He sighed, gesturing to the book he held under his arm.
"I brought the book, but it might take some time to invent a counter curse, and taking the demi-god thing into account, I don't know, when I might have a solution, but I'll get to it."
"Just save him, please. He's my son" Apollo whispered brokenly.
"I will do everything in my power, I promise" Draco swore.
"I haven't even asked your name."
"It's Draco."
"No surname?"
"Let's just go with Draco. My surname is not something to be proud of." Draco cleared his throat. "Is there somewhere we can move him?"
"This way." Hermione replied.
She held out her hands, and levitated Will, wandlessly.
Both Harry and Draco gasped in shock. They had never seen that kind of display of wandless power, so effortlessly.
She didn't acknowledge their disbelieving faces, but instead walked with through the doorway, near which the girl with the fierce glare stood. She was still glaring at him, but he got the feeling, that this might just be her neutral expression.
He followed Hermione hesitantly, bringing the book along with him.
I'm very happy, and extremely proud, that fifty people are following this story, which is way more than I expected, when I started writing it. I really appreciate it guys!
Now, please just spend a couple of seconds to write me a little review :)