The Final Countdown

Draco:

"I acid-breathe on the dragon," Ronald said, and rolled. His character leaned back and sprayed green vapour all over the animated figurine of a Hungarian horntail.

"Looks like the acid began to destroy the dragon's scales, but it's still fire-proof," Hermione said. "My character is going to persuade the dragon to let me heal it."

Across the train caboose, Harry made a cough that sounded suspiciously like "ambitious". Hermione smirked, then groaned. She'd rolled a two. "That's a no," Draco said, as the Hungarian swooped towards Hermione's character. "Roll to get out of the way."

Outside, the green fields were rolling away. They were fast approaching the city, and the Hogwarts Express would soon be stopping at the station.

Hermione took quite a bit of damage on a seven and Draco pulled off his robes to reveal a new university-type hoodie in shades of black and yellow with an H on the back. Rosalie shook her head. "I can't believe you didn't overheat," she said.

"I'm not taking this off," Draco declared. "Ever." He got up to stuff his robes into his trunk.

The whistle blew and everyone began to pack up their game pieces. Hermione cradled her character in her hand. "It'll be okay," she told it. "I'll heal you next round." She placed the figurine in her pocket.

"Your character is out cold," Harry said. "It'll be a miracle if the dragon doesn't eat you up."

"Oh, well, hopefully my miracle's name is… what's your character's name again?"

"Snitches Stitches," Harry replied, still looking a little too proud at the name.

The train stopped and Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Draco, and Rosalie all pulled their trunks down. "Your parents aren't going to be here," Harry said to Ronald and Ginny. "Because you're coming with us and Fred and George are off to Diagon Alley?"

"Yeah," Ginny confirmed. "It'll be odd going back to the house without them."

Instead of going straight to their AirBnB, they had decided to drop by and visit Sirius for a few days, who had Rudolphus and Lucius and Narcissa with him in his home. The three were confined to certain parts of Number 12, Grimmauld that had no fireplaces or exits. Lucius and Narcissa kept to themselves. Rudolphus had tried and failed to escape once, and was now being kept in two rooms with no escape.

They'd only just started wheeling their trunks down the train's corridor when a boom shook the platform and the train rattled. People began screaming outside.

Ginny was the first to move and she ran to the window. "There are Death Eaters on the platform!" she said. "They're attacking the train!"

Draco's blood thickened. He jumped to the window to peer out beside her. "What are they doing? In broad daylight? The ministry will be on them in no time!"

"They don't care about the ministry – they care about us!" Rosalie said. "Draco, they know you and me and Harry and Hermione are coming!"

"Three have boarded the train," Ginny said. "What should we…"

"Disillusionment charm!" Hermione said. Harry had snapped open his trunk and was already pulling his invisibility cloak out of it. "Maybe if they can't see us, they'll go away?"

"Problem with that," Ginny said, still looking out the window. "Sirius detransformed."

"In front of everyone?" Harry pushed through Ginny and Draco to the window.

"He's an animagus?" Draco demanded. "I thought we were meeting him at his house?"

"Oh yeah. We forgot to tell you about that." Harry looked out the window, then back to everyone else.

"Disillusionment charms," Hermione said. "Harry, get under that cloak. When the Death Eaters come up the aisle, we'll ambush them."

"But the people out there are dying!" Harry yelled. His bravery began to colour his ears red. Draco groaned. Why did he always have to make a fight out of everything? Why, oh why?

"Ministry's arrived," Ginny said.

"Harry," Hermione shook his shoulder. "Cloak. Now!"

Harry turned and threw the cloak around her shoulders. Hermione's body disappeared from view entirely. Wow, that thing was very effective. Then Harry kissed her forehead and ran towards the back of the train, where the death eaters had come in. Ronald ran after him.

"You idiot!" Hermione yelled after him. "No, they're looking for you! You stupid-"

"Draco," a voice came from behind him. Draco grabbed Hermione's neck – because she was the only person in front of him and that was the easiest part of her body to find with that cloak – and shoved her to the ground. A green curse soared over both their heads. Draco whipped his head around.

"Are you trying to kill me?" He yelled at his Aunt Bellatrix, behind them. "I'm your nephew!"

"You robbed me!" Aunt Bellatrix screamed. Her face was bright and bloody red – rivalling Harry's with Godric's energy flowing through him. "Where is it? Where is the cup?"

"Well, if you kill me now, I'll never be able to tell you, will I?" Draco yelled back. Bellatrix screeched and threw a fiery red curse at him. He dodged and it sailed past, into the door. Hermione whipped the rest of the cloak over her head and disappeared. Draco hoped she would have the good sense to not get hurt.

Then a twenty-pound book came flying out of the compartment across from where they'd sat and took Bellatrix across the face. Rosalie flew out of the compartment, where she'd evidently been knocked aside. She seized Draco's hand. "Come on!" she yelled and began to pull him away.

Ginny hit Bellatrix with a stupefy while she was down and the three of them began to chase in the direction Harry had headed. Out on the platform, curses were flying and students were being popped out left, right, and center. Draco couldn't see any bodies – living or dead – but saw the flashes in the windows they passed.

Rosalie stopped behind the door before ducking into the next carriage and leaned against the wall to stay hidden in the porthole. She was breathing hard. "This…" she huffed for breath. "…is so much worse… than Italy!"

"What happened in Italy?" Ginny asked, then paused. "Oh, they've seen us. Duck!"

Draco took Rosalie and Ginny on instinct alone and turned them away, shielding them both with his body. The door in between carriages was blown off its hinges. It blew right past them. Draco turned and yanked his wand out of his pocket. "Diffindo!" he shouted and sliced off the wand hand of a death eater barging towards them. Rosalie shrieked when the hand, still constricting around a wand, clapped against the floor and fell open. The wand rolled away.

Ginny had apparently gotten the Death Eater with the Bat Bogey hex, though his mask was still on and Draco couldn't see the full effect. He assumed it wasn't pretty and seized Rosalie's hand and hauled her forward. Unfortunately, two more death eaters appeared at one end of the train car and a third appeared behind them with a "boo!" that ruined a surprise entrance that could have been deadly.

Draco faced the two and Ginny Weasley faced the one. There was no hesitation. Draco was aiming to kill if he had to because he needed desperately to get Ginny, Hermione, Harry, Ronald, and Rosalie out of here. And Sirius, if he could manage it.

"Woah!" One death eater said. Draco didn't realise why until he raised his hand and realised he was covered with yellow light. The physical personification of his loyalty. "Bombarda," he said, and blasted the death eater in front of him into pieces.

The other one began to duel.

Draco deflected two blasts of red light and almost dodged another before he remembered that he could not afford to dodge. Not with Rosalie and Ginny behind him. He barely managed to put up a shield charm before the red light would have pierced Rosalie's leg.

Ginny sounded like she was having success behind him, if the bat noises and the strangled yelps of that death eater were anything to go off of. He didn't dare turn around as he deflected and shielded and occasionally fired off a spell of his own. If was only after Ginny began firing spells behind him that he moved his stance to give her room to fight as well.

The death eater used a spell to pull the door of the nearest compartment off its hinge and in between him and them. Then, behind it, he began to cast a spell with a lot of slashing marks. Draco had seen that spell before. He paused, but Ginny cast bombarda at the door. It shattered into fine dust. Just in time for the death eater to finish his spell.

Draco knew in his gut it would be bad and whipped his wand forward. "Silencio!" he shouted.

But even though no sound escaped the Death Eater's mask, a streak of purple flames appeared in the air. Draco seized Rosalie and Ginny and crashed to the ground with them. When the flames passed over their heads, the sweat on his neck evaporated.

Someone gave a horrible cry behind them.

Draco spun in horror and could see no one. But he had heard it, and he was terrified it was too late already.

The man in the mask in front of them – Antonin Dolohov, Draco knew, raised his wand again. "Expelliarmus!" Ginny yelled beside Draco. It was her quick thinking alone that saved them from whatever Dolohov's next curse would have been.

The wand was no sooner soaring away than Dolohov was summoning it back with a wordless accio charm. Again, the wand was raised, but Draco threw his hand up. "Backfire!" he yelled.

Dolohov aimed for him and Draco braced himself to be blown away. And then a slicing spell burst out the back end of Dolohov's wand and cut the bottom right of his mask right off. Dolohov's face was knocked away and when he turned back, his lip was bleeding.

"Backfire again!" Dolohov aimed again, and his own wand shot out of his hand as if he'd been hit with Expeliarmus. It was summoned back without a problem and Dolohov smacked the bottom of his wand against his hand.

"Stop working!" Draco shouted at the wand, rising to stand. "Ginny! Get Hermione!"

"Where is she?"

"Underneath the invisibility cloak!" Draco shouted.

"Right, one problem with that," Ginny said, backing down the hall and dragging her feet in the hopes to catch something invisible. "It's invisible?"

"The trajectory of her voice indicated she was to the left," Rosalie said. "Accounting for the echo in this room, I predict she was fifteen feet behind us." She moved to the four door back on the left of the train car and ripped the invisibility cloak of an unconscious Hermione. "She's here! Out cold."

"Wake her up!" Draco shouted. "We need her to open a doorway out of here!" Dolohov's wand still wasn't working, so he tossed it and began to cast wandless spells. But wandless and nonverbal… it was hard work for him. Draco figured it was only a matter of time before Dolohov got physical. He'd already erected a shield charm in between them.

"Hermione!" Rosalie called. "Please wake up! They want to give you a… a Merlin award! Order of Merlin, right! A Nobel Peace Prize!"

"Ennervate!" Ginny said, and Draco heard a deep breath from Hermione. And immediately after, a deep cry of pain.

"Ow! Oh my gosh! Ah!"

Draco had never heard Hermione hurt before and the sound ripped him up inside. He drew back his wand and yelled, "stupefy!" The spell burst out of his wand and carried Dolohov out of the train car.

Draco spun and jumped to the compartment where Hermione lay sprawled across the floor, holding her stomach. There was no visible wound except for a gash on her face that had probably come from her fall unconscious. He hurried inside, pulled her feet in, and pulled Ginny and Rosalie in before locking the door. "Colloportus!"

"What do we do?" Ginny asked. "We can't get out of here – we still don't have Harry or Ron!"

"Draco." Rosalie put a hand on his shoulder. "I have potions in my trunk that could heal her. We have to go back."

Draco shook his head. "My aunt's back there," he said. "If she's awake, she'll kill you."

"Draco, she's hurting! She could be dying! Please, she's my best friend!"

Draco pitched a glare at the ceiling. "Can both of you fit under the cloak at once?" he asked.

Ginny picked up the invisibility cloak and held it up to the light. Draco had never seen one before. It looked as if she were holding woven stardust. Ginny looked at it and nodded. "Yeah, we can," she said.

Draco shook his head and took Rosalie's hand. "Merlin help me," he said. "Rosalie, if you don't come back, I'm breaking up with you."

Rosalie laughed and kissed him. "It doesn't work like that, stupid," she said.

"I'm so serious. If you have a scratch on you-"

"I'll come back. I love you."

It was the first time she had told him that.

Rosalie stood up and Ginny tossed the cloak over them. Draco got a glimpse of her in her wizards robes, Ravenclaw crest, and the prettiest shade of blue eyes to ever be put on a person. Then she was gone. "Alohomora," Ginny said. The compartment door opened and closed behind them.

Draco held Hermione's hand as she clutched her stomach and breathed. "We need to find Harry," she whispered. "We need to get out of here."

"If you rest," Draco said, "Then can you get us out of here through a doorway?"

"Maybe," Hermione said, which Draco figured was as good as he was going to get.

He stood up. "I'm going to cast a Disillusionment spell on you," he whispered. "And I'm going to get Harry. Don't you dare move from this spot, you got it?"

Hermione laughed and coughed and curled up more. Draco took out his wand and tapped it on Hermione's head. She began to blend into the carpet. He shut the compartment door and locked it for good measure.

Then, he began looking for a way off the train.

Outside, most of the students had departed. From what Draco could see, only three had fallen. A seventh year and a fourth year he did not recognise from other houses. And then the little Creevey brother.

Draco stared at the body of little Creevey and his heart ached. A Hogwarts student had died on his watch. And there was nothing he could have done.

As he looked at the body, he felt himself growing taller. Heavier. Stronger. At a certain point, he stopped moving by himself and he started moving in sync with Helga Hufflepuff. And she was angry.

Ministry officials were battling retreating Death Eaters at the other end of the train and Draco could see Godric with them. He wondered if Godric was fighting with Harry, or for Harry. Sirius Black was not visible, but Ronald was on the far end of a ministry official, casting stupefy spells that could use a little more aim than power.

Draco cupped his hands up by his mouth and shouted, "Death Eater wands, stop!"

And in an instant, all the spells firing from the death eaters stopped. Each of them did the same thing Dolohov did – pounded the wand into their hands. It reminded Draco of Rosalie tapping the mouse viciously on the table if it didn't work. Or Harry with the remote for the telly in Wigan.

Draco ran up behind Godric-Harry and said, "Hermione's been hurt! We need to retreat!"

Godric turned, and Harry seemed to lose the connection to him. In an instant, his black-haired friend was back. "She's hurt?" he demanded. "How?"

"Dolohov got her-"

"Silencio!" One of the death eaters hit him with a silencing curse so strong it bound his tongue to the roof of his mouth for a moment.

A red curse was coming. Draco shoved Harry out of the way and blocked it. But blocking was about all he could do. He tried a nonverbal disarming spell, but couldn't get it to work. Panic began to rise within him, but he had to buy time for Rosalie, Hermione, and Ginny, so he kept going.

Harry shot back a few curses, but it was clear he was distracted now. "I'm going to go find Hermione!" he shouted after only five shots. "Start retreating if you can!"

"Why don't you shout a little louder?" Draco thought. "I don't think they heard you!"

And indeed, the death eaters began to push back with more ferocity. Draco took slow steps back. The ministry aurors did the same. Twice, Draco attempted the counter curse for the silencio charm. Twice he failed.

With each person hit on his side, he knew his time was dwindling. If he wanted to get out alive, the time was now.

But Ronald was still fighting and Hermione was still hurt and Rosalie was still on the train, so Draco blocked curses harder, waiting for one he wouldn't be able to block.

The death eaters pushed them back. Two ministry aurors went down. Three death eaters went down. One had a busted arm but had figured out Draco was a weak link in the chain. "Aim for the fat lady!" he called to his companions.

Something exploded in the train. Had someone cast bombarda? A death eater fell, yelling. Then another explosion, though nothing happened.

Then a cutting curse hit his side, and Draco fell. In the pain, he was no longer able to focus on the self-sacrificing loyalty and he felt himself shorter, thinner, paler, and Draco again. The death eaters cried out in surprise. "It's Draco!" Someone shouted. "Draco, he's the fat old lady!"

"That fat old lady was Helga Hufflepuff, idiot," said Alecto Carrow, whose brother was probably sitting in a measly ministry holding cell somewhere. "Draco! What are you wearing? How did you meet Hufflepuff?"

There had been a temporary ceasefire while the Death Eaters pointed at him and the ministry officials regrouped and tightened ranks. Draco took his hand from his hip. The cut was not deep and it would be fine. It had not touched his new jacket. Draco was grateful for that, even though it didn't matter tons. Clothes were replaceable; people were not. He made his way back to his feet, wand still in hand, and finally managed to perform the counter curse to the silencing charm.

He swayed heavily to his wounded side, took a few deep breaths, and watch the ministry officials as they finished shuffling to better fighting positions. "I'm wearing Muggle clothes," he called back to Alecto. "Because they're comfortable and look great. And I've changed houses now. I'm not a Slytherin. I've always been a Hufflepuff."

In his head, it sounded quite courageous. Quite noble. But the death eaters burst out laughing. "Why are you laughing?" Draco demanded. "Most of you probably are as well! The Sorting Hat has been putting people into the wrong houses for a long time. You all are blind followers. What better house for blind followers to come from than Hufflepuff?"

"We are Slytherins," Alecto said. "The greatest of the greats."

"The greatest of the greats is a Muggleborn girl with more ambition than Slytherin himself! You've not got a single ambition other than being bootlickers!"

"And we are fulfilling Salazar Slytherin's dream of a world without Muggles and Muggleborns."

"I've met Salazar Slytherin!" Draco yelled. "And he said he was wrong!"

"Better wrong than a Hufflepuff." Many of the death eaters laughed at that. "A weak little goody-two shoes."

"I am powerful!" Draco said, though he couldn't quite feel it with his wounded hip. "And none of your wands work! Stupefy!"

Alecto raised her wand to block, but his spell went right past her wand, no rebound. It hit her square in the chest and knocked her out. "Diffindo! Stupefy!" He got two more, missed a fourth. The ministry officials were working hard too. But for some reason – Draco couldn't tell if it was his inexperience or focus or whatever else – he could only stop their wands for a spell, maybe two. The death eaters realised this and so began casting in multiples. And as the battlefield grew more noisy, his voice became less effective.

More bangs rang out from the train. The ground shook. Draco was struggling to stay standing.

Ronald took a cutting curse to the ear and when he came up, his hair was matted with blood. But he continued to fire as if there was no tomorrow. Draco could respect that. Way to go, Weasley.

Then all of the sudden, all the death eaters stopped fighting and disapparated. The last of the ministry's spells flew through the air they'd just been. They and Ronald and Draco bunched up, back to back, and waited for them to reappear. They seemed gone though. Why were they gone?

"Think it's over?" One auror asked.

Draco waited. And waited. Then he broke off from the group and jumped back on the train. "Potter?" he croaked. "Augamenti." He drank some conjured water from his wand, then called again, "Potter! Where are you?"

No answer, so he went to the next cart. "Harry?"

Third cart and the cart he'd left Hermione in. He counted doors down and stopped in front of an emptied room. He carefully stepped inside, stepped around on the carpet everywhere, and then patted down the seats. "Sonorus," he cast, growing anxious now. "Harry! Hermione! Where are you?" His voice echoed up and down the hall.

The door opened at the left side and a big, black, shaggy dog came in. Draco pointed his wand to it. And it popped up onto its back legs and grew until it was his relative Sirius Black. "She was here?" Sirius asked.

"She's supposed to be!" Draco said.

Sirius turned back into the large dog and sniffed around. He sniffed each corner, up and down the hall, and then shook his head and turned back into his human form. "Disapparated. Still fresh, but I can't track it. Harry was here too."

The dread in Draco's gut grew. "They can't apparate," he said softly. Sirius thought about that, and hung his head.

And if they couldn't apparate, then they couldn't have left for a reason so simple as to take Hermione to the hospital. They had been taken. From right under his nose.

"Where's Rosalie?" He croaked.

As if in answer to prayer to the divine, the door to the right opened. Rosalie and Ginny appeared in the doorway. Rosalie's wand was in her hand. Ginny's was raised up about Rosalie's head. Draco about collapsed from relief when he saw her. "You're safe!" he said.

Rosalie immediately deduced the meaning behind his words and looked to the empty compartment. "Where's Harry and Hermione?" she asked.

"Someone's disapparated with them in tow," Draco admitted. "Rosalie, I couldn't have done anything else. I was holding off the Death Eaters, and-"

"I know it's not your fault." She gave him a weird look. "You're loyal. I never need to question you."

She ran her fingers through her hair. "And I'm smart." She took a deep breath. "Are we sure someone took them? And not that they went to St. Mungos?"

"They can't apparate yet," Draco said. "I mean, Hermione may have studied it, but she was in no condition to have moved. And Harry couldn't have."

Rosalie nodded and breathed. "Then we need to get back to Hogwarts," she said.

"What?" Sirius asked. "We need to figure out where they are!"

"We need to get to Hogwarts," Rosalie repeated, "And we need to get the horcrux detector."

Draco was only seeing part of the vision. "We can't search the whole of Britain!" he said.

Rosalie clicked her tongue and sighed. "We don't need to. The machine covers about twenty miles. If I can boost it to fifty, then all we need to do is have Dobby or Kreacher pop us to different points ninety-five miles apart from each other. And then when we get a signal, I can triangulate the signals and we can find him."

Draco did not know what triangulate meant, but he did know that Rosalie had a better idea than he had. "Well," he said, "you are the genius."

Her mouth crooked up. "I certainly am, Malfoy."

"Dobby!" Draco called out.

"Kreacher!" Sirius said.

There were two pops. Both elves appeared, bowing low to the ground. "Thanks for coming," Rosalie said, kneeling down. "We need to get to Hogwarts, and then to a lot of other places, fast."

The next chapter will be called Rosalie Revealed, and is hopefully one that you'll all take well.