Be Careful
7: How Hard You Fall
By Anne B. Walsh
Draco wove a complicated pattern around the members of the Green Team, shifting his weight to turn the broom without thinking about it any more than he thought about where to put his feet while walking. He'd missed Quidditch more than he dared admit.
Let Potter have his high ground. I prefer to be down in the thick of things. Nine times out of ten, people will let you know where the Snitch is faster than you'd see it yourself…
A squeak from the other end of the pitch. Draco dodged a Bludger and a Weasley in the same motion and flung his broom that way.
Just like that.
Lyssa shrieked, threw the Quaffle straight up in the air, and flew across his path in what looked like blind panic, but Draco would have bet money she'd done it on purpose. No sister of Harry Potter's would be a bad flyer.
Plus, she's just called his attention—if the way he dotes on his friends is any indication, he'd be the most overprotective big brother that ever was…
No surprise, a glance over his shoulder showed him Harry diving and gaining fast. Eyes back ahead—there, a shimmer of gold just ducking behind Neville—
"MOVE!" Draco bellowed, and Neville swerved violently to the left but managed to stay on his broom. The Snitch jittered in midair for a second, then shot off towards the Green goalposts, Draco on its tail, Harry on his.
The world narrowed to a tiny, glittering ball and its wild gyrations. Up to the left, down in a dizzy spin, right and forward straight as a spell, it didn't matter—Draco shifted his weight yet again, locking his legs around the back of the broom, freeing his hands for the catch—he could barely see the Snitch now, but the whirring of the wings would let him find it even in the dark—
The Nimbus jerked and shuddered, as though it'd caught a Stopping Spell. Draco spun in place and snarled. Harry had both hands locked in the twigs of Draco's broom and was pulling hard enough to make veins stand out on his unmarked forehead. His face was set, hard and desperate.
Anger flooded Draco, even as he recognized the ploy from his own third year. "What's wrong, Potter?" he shouted, placing his hands carefully back on the broom handle. "Can't win by playing fair?"
"Don't be an arse!" Harry shouted back. "Look where you are!"
"I was within a second or two of winning, until you decided to cheat!" Draco leaned back towards Harry, as though he had no thought but yelling at the other boy, but his mind was whirring. Wait until he's not expecting it… wait… wait…
Harry stared, loosing his grip slightly. "You think this is still about—"
Now!
Draco flung his entire weight forward and to the right, wrenching his broom around in an end-for-end turn. Harry, still holding the twigs and not paying attention to his own seat, yelled in shock as the move simultaneously jerked him off his broom and yanked his hands free from Draco's.
We're only about twenty feet up, he'll get off with a few broken bones, but that'll teach him not to foul me—
Except—Harry's grip hadn't been entirely broken—he was still clinging one-handed to the twigs of the Nimbus, which was now tilting alarmingly backwards—
Merlin's pointed hat—
Draco threw himself forward on the broom, pulling it back to something resembling horizontality, and had an instant in which to appreciate the ridiculous nature of the flying seesaw he'd just assembled before his foot slipped.
I'm too far forward, none of the charms work on this part of the broom—
Draco tried to regain his balance, but Harry chose this moment to make a try for the handle as well, and the Nimbus jerked out from under Draco's sweat-slick palm, startling a yelp from him.
I don't want to find out what happens if you fall in a dream and don't wake up before you hit the ground—
Too late now. His last finger's grip came loose from the handle, brushed something cold and soft, and then he was falling.
His only consolation was that the broom's rebound leap had jolted Harry loose as well.
So we both get hurt. And then he beats me up for getting him hurt.
Got any more bright ideas, Draco?
He hit the ground. Only it wasn't the ground—it was too soon, and it didn't hurt enough, it felt like a taut net rather than hard dirt and grass—
He dropped the final five feet from whatever he'd landed on first to the actual ground, knocking the breath out of him. An instant later, Harry landed on top of him.
Ow.
Above him, Harry echoed the sentiment out loud, and then swore. "How did we—no, never mind, it doesn't matter, we just have to get back in." He rolled off Draco and grabbed his shoulder. "Come on, Malfoy, get up—"
Draco forced his lungs to work, pulling in a great, wheezing breath, and flicked an obscene gesture at Harry. "You go," he said, shoving at the hand with what attention he could take from getting enough air. "Go, if you're so worried—"
"What is wrong with you? Don't you even—" Harry stopped short. "No, you don't, do you? And—hell. Here they come."
Halfway through his first decent breath, Draco felt his chest muscles seize up again, but this time with the painful spasm of intense cold. The lights from the pitch behind them faded almost to blackness, and a pang of worry shot through him.
"Here they come." A "they" that brings cold and darkness and—
Oh, no. No. Please no.
Draco levered himself painfully up onto his forearms and froze dead still.
This would be why we weren't supposed to fly outside the lights.
Tattered black robes rustled in a wind no one else could feel, hoods turned to register his movement. A dozen dementors floated only a few feet from him, and more materialized out of the darkness even as he watched, boxing him and Harry in, keeping them from running anywhere but back towards the house—
The house. I know they have wards, I fell through them. If we can just get back, we'll be safe—
Draco shoved himself upwards and got his feet under him, coming up just beside Harry, who had his wand out and ready but hadn't cast anything yet. "You going to help, then?" Harry muttered.
"I can try." Draco fumbled inside his robes and found the proper pocket. His hands were shaking, either from cold or from nerves, but he closed his fingers firmly around his wand and pulled it out, bringing it up to dueling position. "I know the incantation, but I've never been able to do it properly."
"You really aren't from around here." Harry turned slightly, putting his left shoulder against Draco's right. "Back to back, Patronuses together, then run for the wards. With two to hold them off, we ought to make it. Ready?"
"Give me a moment." Draco tried to ignore the small voices gibbering in terror at the back of his mind, instead casting about for a good memory. Happy. Something that made me happy. The happiest I've ever been.
Opening his eyes to sunlight and a smiling face, a child's counting rhyme and no words of shame for tears… perhaps not a dream come true, but at least a dream to which he could return, a place to hide when the world came crashing down…
"Ready."
"Good." Harry's right side tensed as he brought his wand up to begin the spell. Draco raised his own wand, holding tight to the moment he'd known the dream was his to keep—
"Expecto patronum!" Harry shouted, slashing his wand down in a loop. Draco copied him a second behind, throwing his disbelieving joy of a few hours before into the incantation.
I get enough of you lot when I'm awake, he thought fiercely towards the dementors. I don't need you in my dreams. Bugger off.
A silvery bird erupted from the end of his wand, wings spread wide and beak open in a silent screech of defiance. Draco goggled at it. Did I just—
"RUN!" Harry shouted, grabbing his arm and pulling him a few steps.
Good idea. Draco abandoned amazement and sprinted for the sparkling shield he could now dimly see, a double shadow stretching in front of him from the silvery light of two Patronuses behind. Harry was at the shield, through it, with no more trouble than running through a waterfall—one of the shadows faded, Harry's Patronus must have sensed it was no longer needed—Draco threw himself forward at the shield—
The taut-net feeling again, a shock of pain up his left arm, and then the shield rebounded, throwing him backwards and to the ground. He retained just enough presence of mind to fall right this time, half-rolling and coming up on one knee with his wand out, but the light within his Patronus was flickering badly, and the dementors were crowding up where it wasn't—
Why can't I get through? Was it because I pulled Harry off the broom? No, it's the Mark, it has to be—the shield must be set to repel anything evil, and there's enough Dark magic in the Mark to qualify—
The bird Patronus vanished. The dementors pressed in.
I'm not strong enough to fight evil. I'm not even strong enough to stop myself from being stupid. I'm weak, I always have been…
His wand fell from his hand, and he collapsed, gasping for breath against the cold lapping in waves against him. Any second, one of the dementors would bend over him, lower its hood with its rotting hands, fasten its mouth onto his—
Not like this—not like this—please, somebody help me—
A flash of light around him, and the world shook itself into a new, oddly familiar configuration. Everything was too big, colors looked odd, smells and sounds were far more interesting than they should be—
A blur of motion to one side caught his attention. He rolled onto his feet, and was only mildly surprised to find that he had four of them instead of two.
This way! yowled the patch-furred cat who skidded to a halt at his side. Follow me!
He bounded after her, following her wild dodges this way and that, seeing streaks of silver light overhead and hearing shouts in voices he didn't quite understand but knew he should have—a great curved something loomed overhead, he shrank away instinctively, but the cat was running towards a tiny hole close to the ground, and he could smell safety on its other side—
He shot through behind her, and the hole snapped shut almost on his tail. Heavy footsteps pounded past, and a huge hand reached down and scooped him up. A memory of pain and humiliation poured over him, and he squealed and writhed, trying to bite at the prisoning fingers—
Stop that! the cat hissed from her perch on a nearby giant's shoulder. Friends!
He promptly shut his mouth, gritting his teeth against the jarring thuds of his captor's footfalls. This made no sense—why did he think he recognized it—
Light flashed around him again, the world returned to its proper size and shape, and Draco hit the ground hard, half-cushioned by Harry's grasping hand on his shoulder. He flipped over just in time to see Hermione explode out of the form of the calico cat who'd led him back through the shield and stumble backwards into Ray's arms.
An Animagus. She's an Animagus. And I understood her. So I must have been—
A man cleared his throat beside them. Guiltily, Draco turned to look.
Ray and Hermione's father, the man he would have called Professor Lupin if he hadn't known better, stood beside them, his arms crossed and one eyebrow raised. "An interesting choice of tactics," he said. "Who did the transfiguration?"
"I did, sir," Harry said. "It was the first thing I could think of."
"And you opened the wards, Reynard?"
"Yes, Father." Ray's voice was neither submissive nor angry, but he did sound distinctly worried. "I'm sorry I didn't ask first. There wasn't time."
"There wasn't time." The elder Beauvoi repeated the words carefully. "As it happens, you're right. There wasn't. However, if there had been…"
"I'd have asked." Ray lifted his chin. "Even if I am nearly of age now. And the heir."
His father raised the other eyebrow to match the first. "That and a Galleon will buy you a new set of robes. When I throw you out on your ear for being a young fool. If you'd made a mistake opening the wards, or let them close even an instant too soon—"
"But he didn't, Father," Hermione interrupted. "He didn't, and we're all safe now."
Her father turned to face her. "When I want your opinion, young lady, I will give it to you. I assume you took it upon yourself to fetch our guest because your form was the one which fit through the opening?"
"Yes, Father." A more polite tone Draco couldn't have imagined, but there was a definite hint of a smile on Hermione's face. "Ray's might have fit too, but he couldn't change forms while he had the spell going."
"And there wasn't time for anyone to take it over from him."
Three heads nodded.
"And meanwhile…" Lord Beauvoi looked up and around at what Draco now realized were the rest of the Quidditch players, still on their brooms, most of them very pale. "The rest of your friends threw Patronuses, which pass through our wards as readily as anything without evil intent, to keep the dementors back while Hermione and Draco were returning."
Nods and murmurs of "Yes, sir" greeted this, but Draco barely heard them. His mind was fixed on four words.
Anything without evil intent.
His heart took up residence somewhere around his knees.
I don't want to be evil. I don't know if I want to be good, at least not shining-warrior good, but I know I don't want to be evil. But they're not going to believe that, not when they saw it for themselves—
"Draco."
He jumped and looked up. Lord Beauvoi was on one knee beside him, smiling Professor Lupin's smile. "You may stop looking stricken. I don't bite." He paused, glancing at two points over Draco's head—Ray and Hermione, at a guess. "Not anymore, that is."
Everyone else seemed to find this hysterically funny.