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He ran.
The sounds of shouting and magically-induced explosions had faded into silence, which made his ragged breathing and slapping footsteps seem unbearably conspicuous. But as the echo of his sprint bounced eerily off of the great blocks of stone that comprised the Hogwarts corridor, he was distinctly aware that he was quite alone. His heart hammered violently inside his chest.
The stone floor stretched out ahead of him and then spiraled upwards in a foreboding flight of stairs. He paused at the first step—to catch his breath, he told himself—and found that he was trembling from head to foot. From far down the hall behind him came a crash; the battle was forcing its way to the tower. Aware and a little unnerved that his next actions would upset the wizarding world in the most extreme ways possible, he faltered.
Suddenly the fact that he was alone seemed less of an advantage than he would have thought. Yes, he thanked the gods that no one was present to witness his heinous deeds or attempt to foil them. The slightest opposition might have extinguished his resilience. However, the emptiness sent chills up his spine and he would have been grateful for a little support. For once there was no one breathing down his neck, no one threatening him to carry out his plans. He was, indeed, alone. And petrified.
Another explosion sounded—closer than the last. In a matter of minutes the battle would reach the stairwell, and what would the Death Eaters think to find their leader cowering in a corner? That knowledge was the best incentive he could muster, so with a deep breath he dashed up the steps two by two, finally crashing headlong into the tower and bellowing “Expelliarmus!”
********************************************
Harry stood, frozen beneath the invisibility cloak and watched the horrifying scene unfolding before him. Dumbledore was weak, wandless, and completely vulnerable in his position on the floor. Malfoy was towering—or quaking, rather—over him. His wand was pointed straight at Dumbledore’s chest and it was shaking violently.
A surprisingly composed conversation was taking place between Malfoy and the Headmaster. So far the pale-faced git had revealed his intentions, accomplishments, and methods without advancing upon the Dumbledore or flicking his wand. He was sweating and his hair, tinged with green from the glow of the dark mark, stuck to his furrowed brow. And the more Malfoy talked, well, the more he talked. He seemed to be saying things without thinking them through, his usual jeering drawl and biting sarcasm stripped away. He seemed afraid and unprepared, almost reckless. It was as if he were stalling.
A crash sounded from not far below; the battle was drawing nearer.
“Let us discuss your options, Draco,” suggested the headmaster calmly, as if he were drawing up a schedule for the next semester. What little color there was in Malfoy’s face drained instantly.
“I haven’t got any options!” he choked. “I’ve got to do it! He’ll kill me! He’ll kill my whole family!” Was that despair in his voice?
Dumbledore’s eyes were bright despite his weak state.
“Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely that you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Nobody would be surprised that you had died in your attempt to kill me—forgive me, but Lord Voldemort probably expects it. Nor would the Death Eaters be surprised that we had captured and killed your mother—it is what they would do themselves, after all. Your father is safe at the moment in Azkaban…. When the time comes, we can protect him too. Come over to the right side, Draco… you are not a killer….”
Malfoy stared at Dumbledore, turning over his words.
“But I got this far, didn’t I?” he said slowly, “They thought I’d die in the attempt, but I’m here… and you’re in my power…. I’m the one with the wand…. You’re at my mercy….”
“No, Draco,” said Dumbledore quietly. “It is my mercy, and not yours, that matters now.”
Malfoy’s hand shook and lowered a fraction. Echoes of footsteps drifted up the stairs and he turned toward them. For a moment he stood there, staring at the door and looking as if all the burdens and decisions of the whole world rested on his shaking shoulders. He spun back to Dumbledore.
“Help me,” he said in a small voice that sounded remarkably like a whimper, his pleading eyes devoid of any bravery, or for that matter, any evil at all.
“To your right, hurry,” Dumbledore ordered urgently, though his voice sounded somewhat huskier than usual. Harry thought he detected a wetness in the Headmaster’s eyes that hadn’t been there before as he sank a little lower on the wall.
Malfoy blindly scampered towards the corner, and to Harry’s alarm the invisibility cloak flapped away to expose him in his stationary state. At the sight of Harry, Malfoy balked.
“You—” he sputtered, but Dumbledore interrupted.
“There’s no time! Get under the cloak!”
Draco hesitated warily, but when a shout sounded from just outside the doorway he leapt to Harry’s side and the cloak swung back to cover both of them.
For a moment Harry could hear Draco’s ragged breathing and sensed his trembling, but then the other boy became still and Harry knew that Dumbledore had silently hexed him as well. There was no time for further thought or even time to consider what had just happened as Harry gazed helplessly upon the four strangers that had bowled into the room.
A lumpy-looking man with an odd lopsided leer gave a wheezy giggle.
“Dumbledore cornered!” he said, and he turned to a stocky little woman who looked as though she could be his sister and who was grinning eagerly. “Dumbledore wandless, Dumbledore alone! But where’s Draco?”
“Good evening, Amycus,” said Dumbledore calmly, as though welcoming the man to a tea party. “And you’ve brought Alecto too . . . charming. As for your leader, I’m afraid he has been snuffed, to put it lightly. Though recent events have left me very weak indeed, and I must say he was stronger than I expected.”
“You mean, he’s d—dead?” Amycus stammered as Alecto’s jaw dropped.
“Yes, quite,” answered Dumbledore.
A large man with matted grey hair and whiskers stepped forward, his unusually long tongue flossing his sharp teeth.
“Where’s the body, then?” he growled in a rasping bark of a voice like none that Harry had every heard.
“Is that you, Fenrir?” asked Dumbledore.
“That’s right,” rasped the other, and then deviously, “where’s the body?”
“Oh, here and there,” said Dumbledore nonchalantly with a wave of his hand. “You know how messy these things can be.”
At precisely that moment the door again burst open and there stood Snape, his wand clutched in his hand as his black eyes swept the scene, from Dumbledore slumped against the wall to the roomful of dark witches and wizards.
“Where’s Draco?” he immediately snarled.
“Well that’s the problem, see,” said Amycus, “the boy seems to have been, erm, exterminated.”
Snape appeared stunned for only a second before tensing with grimness. He gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face.
“Right… shall I kill him, then?” Amycus asked, pushing the sleeves of his robes and pointing his wand at Dumbledore, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration.
“No!” shouted Snape, much to everyone’s surprise, and Amycus was about to retort when someone else spoke Snape’s name quite softly.
“Severus…please…”
The sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading.
Snape said nothing, but walked forward and pushed Amycus roughly out of the way. The Death Eaters fell back without a word, and even the werewolf seemed cowed. For an instant Snape and Dumbledore shared a look that in itself seemed to be a battle, and Harry could have sworn Snape’s eyes had flickered their direction right before he rose his wand and pointed it directly at Dumbledore.
“Avada Kedavra!”
A jet of green light shot from the end of Snape’s wand and hit Dumbledore squarely in the chest. Harry’s scream of horror never left him; silent an unmoving, he was forced to watch as Dumbledore was blasted into the air. For a split second, he seemed to hang suspended beneath the shining mark of the Dark Lord, and then he fell slowly backward, like a great rag doll, over the battlements and out of sight.
*********************************************
As the Death Eaters vanished through the door, Harry realized he could move again. What was now holding him paralyzed against the wall was not magic, but horror and shock. Instinct kicked in and he threw the Invisibility Cloak aside as the brutal-faced Death Eater, last to leave the tower top, was disappearing through the door.
“Petrificus Totalus!”
The Death Eater buckled as though hit in the back with something solid and fell to the ground, rigid as a waxwork. Harry stumbled toward the door, but stopped when he remembered Malfoy.
He spun around, wand out, ready to defend himself or duel if necessary. But instead of winging a curse at Harry, Malfoy was collapsed on his hands and knees, shaking.
It took all of his restraint to keep from taking advantage of Malfoy’s vulnerable position and hex him into oblivion. Instead he gritted his teeth and thought of Dumbledore’s promise to protect the boy. He would decide later whether or not that decision had been as foolish as it seemed.
“C’mon,” he growled, yanking Malfoy to his feet by his robes.
Malfoy stumbled and stood, a good inch or two taller than Harry, but somehow he seemed smaller. His face was whiter than ever before and he looked at Harry with an expression of—fear?
“We need to hide you,” Harry said, his voice a touch softer. He gripped Malfoy’s forearm and nearly dragged him out of the tower, stepping over the unconscious death eater on the way down. Despite every instinct that screamed to chase after Snape and avenge Dumbledore, he ran straight for the Room of Requirements.
They reached the correct hallway and halfway to the door Malfoy stopped. Harry tensed, ready for a fight.
“It’s too late to change your mind,” he snarled, but Malfoy did not try to escape. Instead, he turned and vomited on the floor. Harry turned his head in disgust and waited until Malfoy was finished, then pulled him forward as the blonde panted and wiped his mouth.
They reached the door and Harry stomped past it three times, thinking, I need a holding cell for Malfoy, all the while in his head.
He yanked the door opened and was satisfied to see a dark stone room with nothing but a cot against one wall and a toilet in the corner. Sitting on the cot was a heavy metal key.
“In!” Harry barked as he pushed Malfoy into the room, surprised that he had cooperated this far without so much as a backward glance.
“Are you coming back?” Malfoy asked quietly, weakly.
“We’ll see,” Harry retorted, pocketing the key and moving toward the door.
“You can’t just leave me here! He promised I’d be safe!” The panic was evident in Malfoy’s protest.
Harry stopped in the doorway and looked in utter contempt upon the prisoner that was his burden. Pure hatred heated his face and spewed out with his words.
“Safe, not comfortable. And thanks to you, he’s not even here to see to that,” he spat with as much malice as his character could muster, and slammed the door shut, locking it forcefully with the key.
He ran.
The sounds of shouting and magically-induced explosions had faded into silence, which made his ragged breathing and slapping footsteps seem unbearably conspicuous. But as the echo of his sprint bounced eerily off of the great blocks of stone that comprised the Hogwarts corridor, he was distinctly aware that he was quite alone. His heart hammered violently inside his chest.
The stone floor stretched out ahead of him and then spiraled upwards in a foreboding flight of stairs. He paused at the first step—to catch his breath, he told himself—and found that he was trembling from head to foot. From far down the hall behind him came a crash; the battle was forcing its way to the tower. Aware and a little unnerved that his next actions would upset the wizarding world in the most extreme ways possible, he faltered.
Suddenly the fact that he was alone seemed less of an advantage than he would have thought. Yes, he thanked the gods that no one was present to witness his heinous deeds or attempt to foil them. The slightest opposition might have extinguished his resilience. However, the emptiness sent chills up his spine and he would have been grateful for a little support. For once there was no one breathing down his neck, no one threatening him to carry out his plans. He was, indeed, alone. And petrified.
Another explosion sounded—closer than the last. In a matter of minutes the battle would reach the stairwell, and what would the Death Eaters think to find their leader cowering in a corner? That knowledge was the best incentive he could muster, so with a deep breath he dashed up the steps two by two, finally crashing headlong into the tower and bellowing “Expelliarmus!”
********************************************
Harry stood, frozen beneath the invisibility cloak and watched the horrifying scene unfolding before him. Dumbledore was weak, wandless, and completely vulnerable in his position on the floor. Malfoy was towering—or quaking, rather—over him. His wand was pointed straight at Dumbledore’s chest and it was shaking violently.
A surprisingly composed conversation was taking place between Malfoy and the Headmaster. So far the pale-faced git had revealed his intentions, accomplishments, and methods without advancing upon the Dumbledore or flicking his wand. He was sweating and his hair, tinged with green from the glow of the dark mark, stuck to his furrowed brow. And the more Malfoy talked, well, the more he talked. He seemed to be saying things without thinking them through, his usual jeering drawl and biting sarcasm stripped away. He seemed afraid and unprepared, almost reckless. It was as if he were stalling.
A crash sounded from not far below; the battle was drawing nearer.
“Let us discuss your options, Draco,” suggested the headmaster calmly, as if he were drawing up a schedule for the next semester. What little color there was in Malfoy’s face drained instantly.
“I haven’t got any options!” he choked. “I’ve got to do it! He’ll kill me! He’ll kill my whole family!” Was that despair in his voice?
Dumbledore’s eyes were bright despite his weak state.
“Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely that you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Nobody would be surprised that you had died in your attempt to kill me—forgive me, but Lord Voldemort probably expects it. Nor would the Death Eaters be surprised that we had captured and killed your mother—it is what they would do themselves, after all. Your father is safe at the moment in Azkaban…. When the time comes, we can protect him too. Come over to the right side, Draco… you are not a killer….”
Malfoy stared at Dumbledore, turning over his words.
“But I got this far, didn’t I?” he said slowly, “They thought I’d die in the attempt, but I’m here… and you’re in my power…. I’m the one with the wand…. You’re at my mercy….”
“No, Draco,” said Dumbledore quietly. “It is my mercy, and not yours, that matters now.”
Malfoy’s hand shook and lowered a fraction. Echoes of footsteps drifted up the stairs and he turned toward them. For a moment he stood there, staring at the door and looking as if all the burdens and decisions of the whole world rested on his shaking shoulders. He spun back to Dumbledore.
“Help me,” he said in a small voice that sounded remarkably like a whimper, his pleading eyes devoid of any bravery, or for that matter, any evil at all.
“To your right, hurry,” Dumbledore ordered urgently, though his voice sounded somewhat huskier than usual. Harry thought he detected a wetness in the Headmaster’s eyes that hadn’t been there before as he sank a little lower on the wall.
Malfoy blindly scampered towards the corner, and to Harry’s alarm the invisibility cloak flapped away to expose him in his stationary state. At the sight of Harry, Malfoy balked.
“You—” he sputtered, but Dumbledore interrupted.
“There’s no time! Get under the cloak!”
Draco hesitated warily, but when a shout sounded from just outside the doorway he leapt to Harry’s side and the cloak swung back to cover both of them.
For a moment Harry could hear Draco’s ragged breathing and sensed his trembling, but then the other boy became still and Harry knew that Dumbledore had silently hexed him as well. There was no time for further thought or even time to consider what had just happened as Harry gazed helplessly upon the four strangers that had bowled into the room.
A lumpy-looking man with an odd lopsided leer gave a wheezy giggle.
“Dumbledore cornered!” he said, and he turned to a stocky little woman who looked as though she could be his sister and who was grinning eagerly. “Dumbledore wandless, Dumbledore alone! But where’s Draco?”
“Good evening, Amycus,” said Dumbledore calmly, as though welcoming the man to a tea party. “And you’ve brought Alecto too . . . charming. As for your leader, I’m afraid he has been snuffed, to put it lightly. Though recent events have left me very weak indeed, and I must say he was stronger than I expected.”
“You mean, he’s d—dead?” Amycus stammered as Alecto’s jaw dropped.
“Yes, quite,” answered Dumbledore.
A large man with matted grey hair and whiskers stepped forward, his unusually long tongue flossing his sharp teeth.
“Where’s the body, then?” he growled in a rasping bark of a voice like none that Harry had every heard.
“Is that you, Fenrir?” asked Dumbledore.
“That’s right,” rasped the other, and then deviously, “where’s the body?”
“Oh, here and there,” said Dumbledore nonchalantly with a wave of his hand. “You know how messy these things can be.”
At precisely that moment the door again burst open and there stood Snape, his wand clutched in his hand as his black eyes swept the scene, from Dumbledore slumped against the wall to the roomful of dark witches and wizards.
“Where’s Draco?” he immediately snarled.
“Well that’s the problem, see,” said Amycus, “the boy seems to have been, erm, exterminated.”
Snape appeared stunned for only a second before tensing with grimness. He gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face.
“Right… shall I kill him, then?” Amycus asked, pushing the sleeves of his robes and pointing his wand at Dumbledore, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration.
“No!” shouted Snape, much to everyone’s surprise, and Amycus was about to retort when someone else spoke Snape’s name quite softly.
“Severus…please…”
The sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading.
Snape said nothing, but walked forward and pushed Amycus roughly out of the way. The Death Eaters fell back without a word, and even the werewolf seemed cowed. For an instant Snape and Dumbledore shared a look that in itself seemed to be a battle, and Harry could have sworn Snape’s eyes had flickered their direction right before he rose his wand and pointed it directly at Dumbledore.
“Avada Kedavra!”
A jet of green light shot from the end of Snape’s wand and hit Dumbledore squarely in the chest. Harry’s scream of horror never left him; silent an unmoving, he was forced to watch as Dumbledore was blasted into the air. For a split second, he seemed to hang suspended beneath the shining mark of the Dark Lord, and then he fell slowly backward, like a great rag doll, over the battlements and out of sight.
*********************************************
As the Death Eaters vanished through the door, Harry realized he could move again. What was now holding him paralyzed against the wall was not magic, but horror and shock. Instinct kicked in and he threw the Invisibility Cloak aside as the brutal-faced Death Eater, last to leave the tower top, was disappearing through the door.
“Petrificus Totalus!”
The Death Eater buckled as though hit in the back with something solid and fell to the ground, rigid as a waxwork. Harry stumbled toward the door, but stopped when he remembered Malfoy.
He spun around, wand out, ready to defend himself or duel if necessary. But instead of winging a curse at Harry, Malfoy was collapsed on his hands and knees, shaking.
It took all of his restraint to keep from taking advantage of Malfoy’s vulnerable position and hex him into oblivion. Instead he gritted his teeth and thought of Dumbledore’s promise to protect the boy. He would decide later whether or not that decision had been as foolish as it seemed.
“C’mon,” he growled, yanking Malfoy to his feet by his robes.
Malfoy stumbled and stood, a good inch or two taller than Harry, but somehow he seemed smaller. His face was whiter than ever before and he looked at Harry with an expression of—fear?
“We need to hide you,” Harry said, his voice a touch softer. He gripped Malfoy’s forearm and nearly dragged him out of the tower, stepping over the unconscious death eater on the way down. Despite every instinct that screamed to chase after Snape and avenge Dumbledore, he ran straight for the Room of Requirements.
They reached the correct hallway and halfway to the door Malfoy stopped. Harry tensed, ready for a fight.
“It’s too late to change your mind,” he snarled, but Malfoy did not try to escape. Instead, he turned and vomited on the floor. Harry turned his head in disgust and waited until Malfoy was finished, then pulled him forward as the blonde panted and wiped his mouth.
They reached the door and Harry stomped past it three times, thinking, I need a holding cell for Malfoy, all the while in his head.
He yanked the door opened and was satisfied to see a dark stone room with nothing but a cot against one wall and a toilet in the corner. Sitting on the cot was a heavy metal key.
“In!” Harry barked as he pushed Malfoy into the room, surprised that he had cooperated this far without so much as a backward glance.
“Are you coming back?” Malfoy asked quietly, weakly.
“We’ll see,” Harry retorted, pocketing the key and moving toward the door.
“You can’t just leave me here! He promised I’d be safe!” The panic was evident in Malfoy’s protest.
Harry stopped in the doorway and looked in utter contempt upon the prisoner that was his burden. Pure hatred heated his face and spewed out with his words.
“Safe, not comfortable. And thanks to you, he’s not even here to see to that,” he spat with as much malice as his character could muster, and slammed the door shut, locking it forcefully with the key.
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