Be Careful
47: Who You Choose To Save
By Anne B. Walsh
"The ships have been pre-flighted," announced Professor McGonagall from the top of the staircase in the entrance hall. "We have a good quarter of the students loaded already, along with all the littler ones. Including those who are being obdurate, and with whom we could use some help."
This last was patently directed at Danger, who had just emerged from the corridor which led to the kitchens. "Dragon again?" she asked with a sigh.
Professor McGonagall nodded.
"Mitsy, would you mind?" Danger said to the house-elf beside her. "I'd rather not climb all those stairs in this condition if I can help it."
The house-elf caught Danger's hand in her own, and both of them disappeared with a pop.
"That looks like something I should remember," Draco said to Ray, following his counterpart out the front doors. "Not only can house-elves Apparate at Hogwarts, they can Side-Along."
"They're accurate, too. Put you down within six inches of where you wanted to be." Ray squinted into the twilit distance, pulling his cloak closer around himself. "Oh, that's not good, that's not good at all…"
"What isn't?" Draco peered in that direction as well, but saw nothing except the rippling air that often happened in the summer when a piece of ground overheated…
But it's nearly December. It's cold out here. That can't be heat haze.
He looked again and felt his heart sink. And it's not.
It's whatever you call it when so many dementors get together in one place that they start affecting the local weather patterns.
"Personally," said Ray, heading for the slightly tumbledown cabin on the outskirts of the Forest, "I think I'll just call it ‘oh damn we're in a lot of trouble now’."
"Sounds like a good name to me." Draco made a private resolution to stop thinking so loud. "Is this the mustering point, then?"
"What do you think?" Ray waved to the crowd of students and teachers standing around the cabin, looking around them nervously, some fingering their wands, others with their eyes closed to recall happy memories.
"I think yes, but I also think I could be wrong. That's a hobby of mine, you know."
"Being wrong is a hobby of yours?"
Draco shrugged. "What can I say. Comes with being born on the Dark side."
Ray snickered. "Do you have cookies?"
"What?"
"Never mind, Muggle joke. I'll explain later. Come on, the assignments draw is on the front steps…"
She giggled to herself as she dabbled her fingers in the bowl of water. The fools were so simple, so trusting! They left their equipment where people could get at it, and they trusted that no one would tamper with it!
No one ever made that mistake with me twice.
The image in the bowl cleared, showing the pale-blond boy stepping up to pull a slip of paper from the rapidly rotating drum. Her giggles escalated madly as a black-haired man standing nearby compared his slip to the boy's.
Yes indeed, what a great coincidence that this pair is joined for their work. And what a greater coincidence it will be when another pair joins them…
Dragon sat in a corner and pouted.
I am not being ob-whatever-Cousin-Minerva-said. I just don't want to stay on this stupid little ship. Dragons can fly on their own—they don't need ships to keep them safe from dementors—
So why don't I go down to the grounds and help the grownups? They'll be glad to have a big strong dragon there!
He waited until his mum and Myrtle were both looking the other way. Then he slipped out the door.
I'm Dragon Charlie. I can do anything.
Even be my own Patronus and chase those nasty dementors away.
Light-footed, he tiptoed down the halls, headed for the secret passages. There were a pair that went straight up and down from the entrance hall. They were the quickest. He'd be down on the grounds before anybody noticed he was gone.
Nobody fear. The Dragon is here.
And maybe I can find Draco. Two dragons are better than one.
He trotted out the door into the fading light.
Abby, chattering away with her friends, suddenly gasped as a picture flashed onto one lens of Gina's glasses.
"Mother!" she cried, spinning around. "Mother, where's—"
Her mother was gone. Myrtle, across the room changing a baby's nappy, looked up at the cry. "She had to go down to the doors, dear," she called. "To help manage the crowd. I'm sure she'll be back in a moment."
A moment isn't fast enough—Dragon's out there and no one knows it—
"Did you See?" Gina asked in a whisper as Abby turned back with a growl of frustration. "Is it something bad? Does someone get Kissed?"
"Not if I can help it," Abby said, starting for a seemingly innocuous wall panel.
She knew the secret passages of Hogwarts as well as would be expected for the child of a Marauder and an Heir.
Her little brother was not going to get away with this.
Of all the students and all the otherworld professors to get all the ward assignments… Draco frowned. He knew he was fracturing the quotation, but it didn't make even the little sense that a usual quote-mash should.
Whatever. I find it highly ironic that I've been assigned watch-duty with him.
Professor Severus Snape was rolling his shoulders, one after the other, apparently getting loosened up for Patronus-casting. He'd barely acknowledged Draco when they'd found they had the same assignment, and hadn't spoken a word since then.
Draco gave the man a half-contemptuous look. There is no way in hell you are good enough for my mum. Especially not when you won't acknowledge she exists. I understand she's not your One Great True Love, but come on, man, you don't even have the excuse my Headmaster does, that your One Great True Love is dead! She just picked somebody else, and they look awfully happy together—
He snorted to himself. Wonder if it bothers him that he has to teach their kid in Potions. Make that kids, Lyssa tested into the advanced section, didn't she? And she looks just like her mum…
A loud cough broke him out of fantasies which were on the verge of turning into graphic nightmares. "Yes, sir?"
"The boundaries of our section are clearly marked in silver," Professor Snape informed him without preamble. "Walk until you reach the mark, then return to this spot. Cast a Patronus at any disturbance. Call if you are overwhelmed."
"Yes, sir." Draco turned to his duties, his mind still gnawing on the apparently unsolvable problem.
Mum wants him. He wants Harry's mum. Harry's mum and dad are perfectly happy together. Unless a couple people turn into somebody else, or one of them changes their mind, I can't see how this can come out well…
Beside him, the wards rippled.
"Expecto patronum," Draco whispered, thinking of the rush of giddiness he'd felt when he'd realized the book in his hands, full of marginalia in his Headmaster's handwriting, was the answer to how Harry Potter had suddenly become a master potioneer the year before.
The silver bird erupted from the end of his wand. Draco twitched it, bringing the creature back towards himself. "What are you?" he murmured, holding out his wrist. "Come on, perch for me, let me get a look at you…"
The bird obediently perched.
Draco looked, and felt his stomach sink.
The bird began to flicker.
"Oh no you don't!" Draco tossed the bird (he knew what it was now, but didn't want to tempt fate by even thinking it out loud) into the air and concentrated with all his might on happy thoughts, happy memories.
Trying out for Quidditch just for the hell of it, thinking there was no way I could break into an established team, and then finding out each House fields three full teams apiece, plus a Fun Team that's just out there to do tricks and make the little kids laugh, except that every now and again they actually win a game, and one year the Hufflepuff Fun Team went all the way and took the cup…
He'd qualified for the second-tier Slytherin team; their first game was in two days, against the third-tier Ravenclaws. Idly he wondered how Ray and Luna sorted things out when their Houses had to play against one another in Quidditch…
And there I am, back on the topic I didn't want to be on. Draco continued walking his section of ward, his Patronus soaring overhead. Luna Lovegood—the one from the world I was born in—the one I think I'm—
He stopped himself before he could even think it. The Patronus was bad enough. If he let himself think it, he'd be lost.
She's got a life of her own. A dad. Friends. Quests for weird animals and things like that. She'd have to be crazy to give it all up to get interested in me.
He carefully censored the thought which was trying to point out something about Luna's general level of sanity.
She plays along with my little games either because she doesn't realize I'm being mean to her, or because she doesn't want to get hurt. That's all. That's the only reason she does it. It does not, it cannot mean anything else. I won't let it. And I don't even know if her form is the same as Ray's Luna, which means it could be totally meaningless that my Patronus takes the shape of—
"Draco!" shouted an exuberant small boy's voice. "I knew I could find you!"
Draco whirled. "Dragon? What are you doing down here?"
"I came to help!" the five-year-old proclaimed proudly. "Because dragons are strong against dementors!"
"Dragons are going to get themselves spanked if your mum finds out about this." Draco scooped the boy up in his left arm. "Hold still, now, I have to tell Professor Snape where I'm going, and then we'll get you back to the castle—you really shouldn't be out here—"
"Charlie!" shouted a frantic girl's voice.
"Regular little family reunion here." Draco sighed as Abby pelted into view. "Abby, go back to the castle—I'll take care of Dragon, you run back before they launch the ships without you—"
She peered eagerly into her bowl.
Perfect. Perfect. The two brats who control it all, along with another half-breed abomination. Such disgrace to a line that once was great… She shuddered. But no matter now. Get rid of them and the prophecy is void, and my little friends can move in and do what they do best without hindrance…
An insultingly lazy flick of a wand collapsed the wards at their weakest point, directly behind the children's backs.
Draco froze in place as the air around him went icy cold. Abby whimpered once and darted to him, throwing her arms around him and holding on. Dragon stiffened and buried his face in Draco's shoulder.
I need you back now, Draco thought towards his Patronus, which drifted down with lazy grace to fly circles around the three of them. That's good, just keep that up…
But what he could see by the light the silvery owl cast was not conducive to maintaining her for longer than a few more moments.
The wards had been breached. Dementors glided through at a steady rate of two a second. A few of them were moving out onto the grounds, but far, far more of them were crowding around Draco, Abby, and Dragon, their rasping breaths seeming to suck light and hope out of the world, until Draco's flickering Patronus was the only source of either.
If it goes out and I can't get it back, I'll kill them before I let them be Kissed. Draco tightened his grip on Dragon and hooked his wand arm around Abby's head, keeping her face pressed against his side. Bad enough just to have their souls be lost—a million times worse now that I know what actually happens—
He glared out at the dementors. These two are mine. You can't have them. Not as long as I stand here.
But his chest was tight from the cold, his legs didn't want to keep holding him upright, and his Patronus was flickering worse and worse as the effects of so many dementors in one place made themselves known—
"Boy!" shouted Snape's hoarse voice from somewhere nearby. "Do you have Defense with Riddle?"
What does that have to do with anything? "Yes—do you think you could—"
"Did he give you the lesson on how to kill dementors?"
"Yes—but I don't see what—"
"Do you remember the incantation?"
"Yes, but—"
"That owl's about to go out, boy, I can see that," Snape cut him off. "And I can't guard myself and get to you three in time."
Understanding caught up with Draco at last, and his owl vanished as he went to one knee in shock. He can't be about to—
"Get ready!" Snape shouted, and a great feline Patronus, stripes of brighter silver down its flanks, charged between the dementors, who fell back before it. Draco gasped in a grateful breath as it circled him closely, swiping insubstantial claws at encroaching black robes. Then he lifted his head and looked down the aisle the silver tiger had opened.
Snape stared back at him, his expression unreadable as the dementors closed in. "Don't miss," he spat, just as a gray hand closed around his throat.
Shivering harder than he'd known was possible, Draco lifted his wand.