Be Careful
95: What You Risk
By Anne B. Walsh
Draco cast a longing glance over his shoulder at the beautiful day outside as he started down the stairs to the common room. Granted, he would have a chance to live it over again, and in a far friendlier place than this, but it still seemed a shame to waste such a sunny afternoon on working inside.
But I promised. Story and her not-a-boyfriend want to learn how to make a Shield Charm last, and I said I'd teach them this afternoon. He smiled to himself, turning the final corner. Talk about leaving things to the last minute. The thirtieth is tomorrow.
"Bald Mountain," he said to the stone wall, which slid obediently aside.
The common room was deserted, except for Daphne Greengrass, who looked up from her book as he walked in and frowned. "Where's Story?" she asked.
"I was just going to ask you that. We were supposed to meet about now to go over Shield Charms." Draco assumed his best innocent look, copied from Abby. "You should always use protection, you know."
Daphne appeared not to have noticed the pun. Instead, her frown was deepening. "But I thought you'd sent your friends for her. They came and said you were ready..."
"Sent my friends? Which friends?"
"Crabbe and Goyle, of course—"
Draco cursed, making Daphne blanch. "When?" he demanded. "When was this?"
"I—I don't remember—"
"If you ever want to see your sister alive again, you'd better remember!"
"Alive? What—" Daphne gulped and looked at her wristwatch. "About twenty minutes ago, I think," she said shakily.
"Twenty minutes. Fantastic." Draco tightened his hand around the grip of his wand. "They could be anywhere by now. Wish I had some way to find out—"
His knuckle brushed against a cool curve of metal.
Neville was on his way back from the Hog's Head when he felt his Galleon heat up. He tugged it out and squinted at the message in the dim light of the passage.
NL: Urgent. Use Map. Find Astoria Greengrass. Ref
He sped up, drawing his wand as he went. Within seconds he was through the door and at his own hammock, pulling the Marauder's Map from the pouch where it hung. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," he said, touching his wand's tip to the center of the tattered parchment.
Astoria Greengrass. Why do I feel like I should know that name?
"Perfect!" Draco shoved the Galleon back into his pocket, along with the items he'd Summoned from his dorm while waiting for Neville to respond, and seized Daphne's wrist. "I don't care what you feel, you're coming with me," he said, holding her gaze with his own. "You can tell them later I put you under Imperius, and if you try to fight me I will, but I can't do this alone and you're the only help available."
"What is it you think you have to do?" Daphne quavered. "Is Story in trouble?"
Draco kicked his usual sarcasm aside. It wouldn't help him now. "Yes," he said firmly. "She is. And I'm going to help her."
"Then I'll help you." Daphne reclaimed her arm and drew her own wand. "Show me where."
"This way." Draco led his yearmate out of the Slytherin dorms, storing for later his half-formed musings on the strange nature of family ties.
Two flights of stairs and an endless series of hallways later, they stood outside a closed door. Loud laughter was audible from within, mixed with angry, muffled shouts. As both noises died away, a third replaced them, one which made Draco grit his teeth and Daphne stifle a gasp. Someone beyond the door was breathing in the unmistakable pattern of "please dear God don't let me cry right now."
"Story," Daphne hissed. Draco nodded, acknowledging her expertise in the area.
"Had enough yet?" piped up a boy's voice, reedy yet confident, and Draco's lip curled as he recognized Theodore Nott's tones. "Going to admit you played that nasty prank back in January? Or do we have to stimulate your memory a bit more?"
"And what about my revenge on Ginny Weasley?" added Blaise Zabini. "She shouldn't have got away from me, or out of the castle at all. Are you going to confess to helping her?"
"How about the way none of the nasty Muggle-lovers seem to mind their detentions?" Pansy Parkinson threw in.
"Or them all getting away before Professor Carrow could question them properly about Harry Potter?" rumbled Millicent Bulstrode.
Follow my lead, Draco mouthed at Daphne. She looked puzzled, but nodded, and Draco unlocked the door with a tap of his wand and stepped inside.
"Really, now," he said coolly, surveying the scene with disgust but no surprise. Crabbe was holding a shivering, half-conscious Story upright in the center of the room, while Graham Pritchard fought with Goyle in a back corner. The fourth year might be small, but he was giving a good accounting of himself. Most of the rest of the Slytherin seventh years were gaping at the intruders, though Zabini showed signs of recovery.
He always was a quick one. Better talk fast.
"You seriously thought a fourth year could have done all that? Seriously?" Draco shook his head pityingly. "And we're supposed to be the clever ones." He snapped his fingers at Crabbe and Goyle, who, obedient to years of training, released their captives. The younger Greengrass girl sagged into her sister's arms, and Pritchard darted forward to help Daphne with her burden.
Excellent. They're all together.
Now to do what a good trickster never should.
Repeat myself.
"Miss Greengrass had nothing to do with any of the things you mentioned," he said, thrusting a hand into his pocket. "All of it was done by someone else."
"Who?" Nott asked with deep suspicion.
Draco smiled sweetly. "Me."
He flung a handful of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder into the center of the room, and grasped Pritchard's sleeve in the same motion, hauling the other boy and the two Greengrasses out into the hall as pandemonium erupted in the room. Slamming the door, he threw three different Locking Charms onto it, the last one a tricky thing sealed with a rune that he'd learned from Hermione.
Still, it won't hold them long, not when they all have wands. They'll be out of there soon.
We'll have to use the time productively.
"Your other friends," he said to Pritchard, who had backed away a few steps to let Daphne work on Story. "Where are they?"
"The library, most likely. We're quiet, so Madam Pince lets us stay there." Pritchard held up a hand and watched it shake with morbid fascination. "I thought they were going to—"
"They might still, if we don't work fast," Draco interrupted. "Where's your wand?"
Pritchard grimaced. "They broke it. Story's too. Jumped up and down on them, and laughed."
Daphne looked up, her face set in hard lines. "Take mine," she said, holding it out. "I don't deserve it. I should have listened to her, I should have believed her when she said they were dangerous..." Her voice squeaked on the last word, and she turned away, covering her face.
"Give it to her, then," Pritchard said quietly. "If you want a way to apologize."
"But that still leaves you without one," Daphne objected, looking back around. "She won't be ready to fight for at least an hour, you can use it until then."
"No, he's right," Draco said, pulling the Galleon from his pocket again. "Give it to her. It might speed up her recovery." He turned to Pritchard. "How many of you are there?"
"Counting Story and I? Twelve. Did you really—"
"More or less." Draco laid his wand against the Galleon, working out the message in his head.
NL: 13 fugitives, he sent finally. Can you take? Where is door? Ref
"Thirteen," he muttered aloud. "Hope that's not unlucky."
"Thirteen what?" Daphne asked. "He just said there were only twelve—oh!" She broke off with a little squeal of understanding, which provided Draco a moment of perverse pleasure. Ditzy his Housemate might be, but stupid she wasn't.
"You'd better stun me," she said as Story began to stir. "That way I can claim you tricked me and I didn't understand what was going on."
"I can do that." Draco aimed his wand, only to be cut off by the heating of the Galleon.
We can take, he read around the edge. Sixth floor across from boys' loo.
Draco chuckled to himself. "So salvation lives across the hall from the Toilet of Doom, does it?"
"I thought you might want to know," said Pritchard delicately. "You're not making any sense."
"Yeah, I know. Sorry." Draco massaged his forehead for a second, pulling himself together. "All right, time to work. Daphne..."
Daphne promptly sat down with her back against the wall. "Gently, please," she said. "And in the chest, not the face."
"Yes ma'am." Draco Stunned her, and took an instant to lay her down comfortably on the floor as she slumped. "Pritchard, you and I need to get Story to the library. From there, you take her and your friends up to the sixth floor. Find the boys' loo and wait there. Someone should be along to help you find a place to hide."
"What about you?" Pritchard objected. "You can't just go back to the dorms after you pulled us out of there. They'll be after you worse than they were after us."
"Oh, I'll be along. But someone's got to slow this lot down." Draco nodded at the door, his hands being full of a woozy-looking Story. Pritchard got his shoulder under her other arm, and they hoisted her between them and started down the hall. "When we get to the library, I'll give you a couple things that might help you get there safely."
Things I never thought I'd part with.
But you do what you have to.
The other ten of Pritchard and Story's group were uniformly younger than the two fourth years, and all seemed rather in awe of Draco. When he spotted a familiar face at the back of the group, Draco knew why.
"I remember you," he said, pointing at a dark-haired first year boy. "You were bragging at the Opening Feast, about how much magic you knew and how well you'd do this year."
The boy gulped and nodded. "My gran's a Muggle," he confessed. "I thought maybe if I talked really big, nobody would ever bother to find it out."
"That never works the way you want it to," Draco said, putting on his professional older-brother look. "Trust me. Now, what's your name?"
"It's Negran, Michael Negran."
"We call him Mike," added a first year girl, smiling shyly at the boy, who made a face at her.
Draco had to be very stern with himself, but he did manage to keep from smiling. "Come here, Mike," he said. "I have something for you."
Mike came forward and received with all due reverence the wrinkled hand clasping its stub of candle. "It's a Hand of Glory," he whispered. "I always wanted one of these."
"Light your friends safely up to the sixth floor and into hiding, and it's yours to keep." Draco held up his own hand. "My word on it."
"Wow." Mike took a quick step back, as though still not quite believing his luck.
"What about the rest of us?" asked Pritchard, nodding around at the group. "What do we do?"
"Go hands-on-shoulders after Mike, as quickly as you can." Draco held up the packet containing the last of his Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder. "I'll be bringing up the rear and spraying this around, so they won't be able to see where we've gone. With any luck, though, we'll be in hiding before they ever find us. Let's go."
As the little group organized itself at the door, Draco held out his own wand to Pritchard. "Take it," he said. "If they catch anyone, they're going to catch me, and I'd like to know they can't break this. I'm sort of attached to it."
"But how'll you fight without it?"
"I have my ways." Draco grinned. "Trust me. They won't know what hit them."
Neville, shepherding the last of the new fugitives into the Room of Requirement, paused to listen to the noise coming from down the hall. It sounded like the entire staff of St. Mungo's trying to catch a small, hyperactive, hungry rabbit.
Never mind how I know what that sounds like.
Shutting the door behind himself, he ascended the staircase to the Room, where the new arrivals were babbling hysterically to anyone who would listen.
"—caught up and he told us to run—"
"—fighting all of them alone—"
"—doesn't even have a wand—"
"—have to help him, please—"
"Hang on a tick, help who?" Michael Corner's voice rang out over the noise. "Draco Malfoy? You want us to go out and help him?"
"He helped us," said the oldest of the boys, drawing himself up proudly. "He tricked eight people to save my life and Astoria's. Now he's fighting those same eight to give us time to reach here."
Neville glanced at the Map, which he hadn't turned off. The tiny dot labeled "Draco Malfoy" was almost invisible beneath other dots labeled "Vincent Crabbe," "Gregory Goyle," Blaise Zabini," "Millicent Bulstrode"...
Around the Room, the murmuring began.
"...been a bastard since we've been at school..."
"...pureblood and proud, always has been..."
"...a Slytherin, we know what they are..."
"...never was a Malfoy who was any good..."
Neville shut his eyes for a moment. I need my voice to carry, he willed the Room. I need everyone to hear me, and I need it now.
"I don't believe what I'm hearing," he said, using a conversational tone but somehow, by the magic of the Room, clearly audible to all. The murmuring died away. "You want to judge him on what he used to do? On his family? His House? His blood? That's how they think! Death Eaters! And the last time I checked, we're not them!"
He stared around the room, meeting some people's eyes, watching others look hastily away. "Draco Malfoy has helped us all year, even when we didn't know it. There are people in this room who owe their lives to him. I'm one of them. That's why I'm going out there to try and do the same for him. The rest of you... do what you like."
Turning away, he started back down the stairs at a run. Before he had gone more than five steps, there were feet thumping the stair treads behind him, and by the time he reached the hallway door, Neville could hear the entire able population of the Room of Requirement at his back.
Now let's just hope we're not too late.
Author Notes:
I was going to leave Neville's great moment until tomorrow but it demanded to be written now. So here it is. Now I am off to bed. Please give me lots of lovely reviews to sustain me through a trying day at work tomorrow. Thank you.