An Interrupted Christmas
Wednesday, December 11th, 1996
It occurred to Harry as he leaned back in his seat during one Transfiguration lesson, admiring the snow that had always blanketed Hogwarts with such beauty when it came, that he and Draco really needed to get on with it and announce to the school they were attending Slughorn’s Christmas Party together, as right below the window he could see a group of giggling girls halt in their tracks and turn to point up at him, waving and blushing and not because of the cold.
He brought this up to Draco at dinner in a whisper, so that Ron and Hermione wouldn’t hear across from them, too engrossed in their own conversation (“What do you mean you didn’t buy dress robes?” “It’s a party, Hermione! Aren’t parties supposed to be for having fun?”) only for the blonde to drop his fork and stand up abruptly.
“What’re you -”
“You want to tell them?” Gently he took Harry’s hands in his and helped him to a stand, looking all too calm to be suggesting what he was suggesting. “Let’s tell them,” he said and before Harry could stop him he had ascended onto the table and turned to address virtually every student at Hogwarts, cupping his hands around his mouth as he shouted out to them.
“To anyone who wants to ask Harry out to Slughorn’s Christmas Party, forget it! He asked me, he’s going with me, so if you would leave the two of us alone we’d very much appreciate it, thank you.”
He bowed his head and started to step down when a loud voice called out from the Slytherin table, “Prove it!”
He shot his head up to quickly glare at Pansy with pure mirth while she only took a sip from her goblet, ignoring him as if she’d never said a word. He made a mental note to not let her get away with this easily, before hopping off the table and smirking at his friend.
“Well, what do you think?”
Harry sighed deeply, resigning himself to a life where nothing was secret, so why not dispel all rumors or whispers and just kiss him right here?
So it was that he stepped forward and grabbed Draco’s face between his hands and kissed him deeper than he ever had before, and Draco did the same, hands traveling down to embrace his waist and lift him up on his toes slightly. For a moment the boys allowed themselves to think they were outside where they had danced together again, or in the sky above the Quidditch pitch, or secluded in the cozy Burrow or Common Room.
But then someone (Harry had a feeling it was either Seamus or Dean) wolf whistled, and the two broke apart, looking around with embarrassment they hadn’t prepared for to see the Great Hall had exploded with raucous as some whistled as Seamus/Dean had, others began to applaud politely, others whooped, but some girls exploded in tears and fell against their friends in grief.
Romilda Vane in particular looked like she wanted to burn Draco alive with the wand in her hand, but Harry didn’t care much what she thought, instead casting his eyes around for his ex and Ginny, whom he knew had always harbored a huge crush for him in years past -
Only to find Ginny beaming and applauding with the others beside Luna, and he understood she had long since gotten over childhood crushes, and Cho looked quite happy for him, giving a double thumb’s up when their eyes met.
Draco’s eyes landed on Anthony Goldstein, and a clear understanding was passed between them as he recalled when they’d broken up over Draco’s clear preference for Harry. Both ex’s saw that this was the pairing meant to be, and were more than happy for the pair.
However, when the now clearly boyfriends sat back down at their table after a low and dramatic bow from Draco, they had to meet the shocked eyes of Ron and Hermione, and gulped as they realized they hadn’t told them either.
“We’re -” Harry was caught off from a single thought by Hermione standing and flinging herself at both of them to link her arms around their necks in a huge and, over her bushy head of hair they glimpsed Ron stretching his neck up and giving a double thumb’s up with a crooked grin.
“You aren’t… mad?” Draco squeaked, caught off guard, and Hermione, remarkably, laughed as she sat back down, wrapping an arm around Ron’s shoulders.
“Oh please, we kept our relationship a secret from you both first. If anything, we deserve it.”
And so it was that Harry and Draco commonly became known as “boyfriends” around the school, going out occasionally and enjoying getting to spend time with each other and have fun doing it, for once.
What no one noticed that night, however, was that up at the staff table Flitwick and McGonagall were smirking and accepting coin from a grumpy looking Sprout, a protesting Trelawney (“The wind must’ve blown the wrong card out of my deck!”), and a confused Hagrid (“I thought I changed my bet…” “Can’t go back on your word, Hagrid.”), all the while Snape sneered at them, Slughorn laughing and declaring he should, “Have a little fun, once in a while, Severus! You don’t think I placed bets on student relationships when you were in school?” Which got him a truly murderous look from the former Potion’s Master he failed to notice.
-*-*-*-
Friday, December 20th
Draco had gotten very good at hiding his apprehension with Voldemort growing ever closer to learning he held the wand he seeked around his friend’s, but even Ron had to take notice of how he never went out on the grounds in his free time to practice with the wand anymore, and seemed to not carry it with him either. The trio of Gryffindor’s decided amongst themselves not to point this out, however, as when Draco was holding hands with Harry or leaning his head on his shoulder, he did look purely happy, and they didn’t want to alarm him with reminders of his impending doom if it was real.
Sometimes, it even felt like it was to him, but only briefly.
Nevertheless the day of Slughorn’s party dawned bright and snowy, with the Save Sirius/Save Draco/Save Cedric Crew (okay that name’s not even creative) deciding to have a snowball fight in the morning before all departing to get ready, save Neville and Pansy, who had not managed to get invites or dates, despite Pansy using all the charm she possessed on Slughorn.
“I thought you hated stuffy events, Pans,” Draco pointed out, adding a freshly rolled snowball on his stack of ammo in the preparation break his team of he, Pansy, Ginny, and Luna had been given (Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville making up the opposite team).
“Of course I do,” she shot back, removing her gloves to check her immaculate manicure. “I would be going for the drama. Instead I’ll be stuck out here with Longbottom -”
“Er - Pansy - You could go back to your Common Room, that’s what I was going to do…”
Pansy whipped her head around to Neville, eyes wide with horror. “And why would I - why would we do that?”
Neville lifted his shoulders, tilting his head. “Because I don’t have anything else to do?”
Pansy puckered her lips and waved a hand. “Scratch that, I’ll be spending the night at Hogsmeade showing Longbottom how a teenager’s Fridays are supposed to be spent.”
Neville looked quite horrified as to what that might entail, but nodded and squeaked out an “Okay,” anyway, Pansy beaming.
-*-*-*-
Hours later, the friends who were attending the party all departed from their Common Rooms, Harry and Ginny watching Ron and Hermione banter with smirks and chuckles as it was quite absurd to see her try and refix the tie under the robes she’d picked and bought for him whilst they walked arm-in-arm. To Ron’s credit, he did look quite dashing, and what his girlfriend had gotten him was nothing like the horrendous get-up he’d worn to the Yule Ball. Meanwhile Hermione looked very pretty, as she had then, but perhaps more humble than the bombshell outfit from two years prior, with her afro meticulously braided - done by Lavender, strangely, despite her jealousy. Harry really didn’t understand women - and tucked back into a bun, and her robes now a shade of light purple, flowing and cut just above her ankles to reveal a pair of sparkling gold heels, matching her gold jewelry.
Harry had put a great deal of effort into trying to comb down his hair but otherwise was wearing the same green robes he’d worn to the Yule Ball, transfigured to fit how much he’d grown, but Ginny looked very stunning in a flowing robes of a sort of see through satin material, decorated with various flowers, strands of her hair braided in a sort of flowery crown around her head. She looked like the perfect princess for Luna Lovegood.
Speaking of, they reached the Great Hall where Harry and Ginny were meant to meet their dates, and sure enough their Luna was staring with her wide eyes up at Ginny, a light blush on her cheeks, looking surprisingly not as out of sorts as usual in spangled silver robes, though Ginny had perhaps requested she keep on her radish earrings, despite how they clashed terribly.
“Harry?”
Harry turned, and felt his stomach do somersaults before plummeting to the floor, his jaw falling with it.
Draco Malfoy ascended the steps from the dungeons, swishing the cape flowing out from his shoulders to the side, giving them a view of the crisp suit underneath outlining all his best features, the shirt cut in a v-neck so that his necklace from Harry draped over his bare skin. And then there was his hair, the familiar scent of vanilla from Harry’s amortentia already drifting from it and reaching his nose, wavy curls now poofed out and flowing naturally for the first time they’d ever seen. All of his outfit was colored a dull silver, though the cape sparkled in places and Harry swore he saw sparkly eyeshadow hanging on his eyelids.
“Woah,” was all Harry could say and, with a snort, Draco grabbed his arm and linked it with his.
“You look nice too, Potts,” he scoffed, though in Harry’s opinion his date didn’t just look nice. If Ginny was stunning, Draco was positively radiant.
They turned and the group of six headed up the marble stairs for Slughorn’s office, Ginny whispering to Luna there was supposed to be a vampire coming, and Luna telling her about how some bloke at the Ministry was supposedly a vampire to her.
They reached and entered Slughorn’s office and could hear music and laughter from just outside, but once they entered, it became clear Slughorn knew exactly how to party. The office was larger than most teachers’, either due to an enlargement charm or at Slughorn’s request, and decorated with emerald, crimson, and gold drapery hanging from the ceiling, giving the appearance of being in a tent, not helped by the red light cast by a lamp at the center, or the crowdedness of the room, which overall made the whole place rather stuffy.
Singing and mandolins could be heard from the corner at the farside of the room, and two elderly warlocks were filling the space around them with smoke. All of this was complete with around for House-elves moving between wizard and witch legs with trays of food. Hermione was frowning at them sympathetically within seconds.
“Harry, m’boy!” the kids looked around and saw Slughorn squeezing through the crowd of people to reach them, holding a sloshing goblet of red wine and wearing a velvet hat which matched his smoking jacket. He beamed at all four of his Slug Club members, “Hermione, Draco, Ginny, nice to see you all as well,” he took a brief double take at Draco and Ginny, but otherwise made no show that the events at the Hog’s Head had ever happened.
Slughorn then grabbed Harry’s arm tight another to break, dragging him further into the room and away from his friends, who waved awkwardly before disappearing in the crowd themselves. At least he could still feel Draco linked on his arm.
“Harry, I’d like you to meet Eldred Worple, an old student of mine, author of Blood Brothers: My Life Amongst the Vampires - and, of course, his friend Sanguini.”
So it was the party commenced, Slughorn dragging Harry to meet with various ‘important persons’ who all seemed eager to introduce themselves to the Harry Potter, whilst Draco clung to his date’s arm and watched awkwardly. Part of him enjoyed it all, missing slightly the life of a posh pureblood, but back then people had beamed at the heir to the Malfoy Bloodline. Now they caught sight of his signature hair and eyes and leaned in to Harry to whisper a question as to who he was, frowning when he told them his name.
The boys at last managed to sneak away when one of Slughorn’s former students decided to toast him, and they retreated back behind the stage where the singer and mandolin players were performing, squatting and breathing sighs of relief, grinning at each other as they did so.
“Have you just escaped too?” They looked up and over to see Marietta Edgecombe sitting on the floor across from them in turquoise robes cut above her knees, a cape draped over her shoulders, matching makeup smudged and hair all frizzy, as if she had just wrestled out of Devil’s Snare.
“What do you mean?” Draco asked her, Harry blinking in surprise, still taking in her presence and wondering briefly why she wasn’t with her best friend Cho, who Cedric had of course taken to the party.
“Well,” She tucked a lock of strawberry blonde hair behind her ear, where it stuck to her sweaty cheek. “You know Cormac McLaggen? Sorry, of course you do, you turned him down for the Quidditch Team. It’s all he ever talks about… He’s in my year and pretty popular, and when he asked Hermione Granger to the party she said she was going with someone else so he asked me and I said yes. Cho said it was a bad idea,” she cast a worried look at the party. “I’m beginning to think she was right…”
From how Hermione had described her brief conversation with Cormac at Quidditch trials and his behavior at the subsequent Slug Club meetings, the boys both knew Cho was certainly correct in this situation, but Draco plunged on before Harry could say something ridiculous he’d regret.
“How about you try to join the party? Maybe show him you can have fun without him?” Marietta looked over at the festivities with clear longing, fiddling with the trim of her robes.
“I don’t know… He might get angry -”
“Then we’ll punch him,” Harry stated bluntly, already looking for a reason to with the arrogant bully for his continued mockery of Ron. Draco and Marietta both laughed, the latter getting to her feet with a flushed smile.
“I’m gonna go find Cho,” she said, then turned and dashed off with a quick wave, Draco waving after her. When he turned back to face Harry, it was to see him smiling in a sort of affected admiration. Blinking confusedly, Draco blurted, “What?”
“Nothing,” Harry said, shaking his head and standing as well, helping his date to his feet, knowing he’d never understand if he attempted to explain how proud he was of his friend's improvement from bully to kind helper. “Nothing at all. Mead?”
They headed for the bar, about to turn and enter the throng of the party in search of Ron and Hermione when Harry nearly rammed into Professor Trelawney, standing alone with the stench of cooking cherry draped over her as much as her ever-present shawl.
“Harry Potter!”
“Oh,” Harry mumbled. “Hi.”
As a Professor he’d never met and seemed to fulfill every prejudice Draco had learned about her droned on and on about “The Chosen One” Prophecy to Harry, he found himself squinting at her, and as she ranted, drunk and unaware of it, Draco took advantage of her unfocused ness and whispered, “Does she not know she made the prophecy?”
“Nope,” Harry said, popping the ‘p’ and giving Draco an exhausted look that spoke of three years stuck with this woman’s teaching. “She does this.”
For once, the boys were glad to see Slughorn approaching and saving them from the clutches of the drunken Divination Professor.
“Ah, Sybill,” he said in a loud voice, probably having to due with the most certainly new glass of mead in his hand and the half eaten yet still quite large mince pie in his other. “we all think our subject’s most important! But I don’t think I’ve ever known such a natural at Potions!” he hooked an arm around Harry shoulders, practically ripping him apart from Draco, who only laughed as Harry glared openly at him, knowing both adults around them would be too drunk to notice.
“Instinctive, you know - like his mother! I’ve only ever taught a few with this kind of ability, I can tell you that, Sybill - why even Severus -” Draco laughed even harder as Slughorn stretched out an arm, and had hooked Snape by the shoulders and brought him towards Harry out of nowhere, causing Harry to looked terrified for his life.
Then he recalled how Harry had actually been rubbish at Potions and was technically cheating his way through, and choked on his own laughter.
“Stop skulking and come and join us, Severus!” said Slughorn, like he had a choice. “I was just talking about Harry’s exceptional potion-making! Some credit must go to you, of course, you taught him for five years!”
To the boy’s horror, Snape narrowed his dark eyes at Harry. “Funny, I never had the impression that I managed to teach Potter anything at all.”
“Well, then, it’s natural ability!” Draco and Harry both couldn’t suppress a well-hidden sigh of relief at Slughorn’s brushing off of those words. “You should have seen what he gave me, first lesson, Draught of Living Death - never had a student produce finer on a first attempt, if not for Draco here, who I dare say has skills near identical to Harry, I don’t think even you, Severus -”
“Really?” In an instant, all that relief was replaced with a rush of frozen fear, as cold as the curious glare Snape was now targeting both boys with. “Near identical, you say?”
“Remind me what other subjects you’re taking, Harry?” Slughorn continued, not seeming to notice Snape had spoken at all.
“Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Charms, Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures…”
“All the subjects required, in short, for an Auror,” Snape sneered as he said it, but Harry didn’t hesitate for a moment in stepping out from under Slughorn’s arms, and walking forwards.
“Sure, but I was actually considering being a Professor, Professor.”
“Really?” Slughorn exclaimed, beaming. “Of what, may I ask?”
“Defense Against the Dark Arts,” Harry proclaimed with the faintest grin, making Snape’s sneer turn into a glare of pure hatred, Draco now struggling so hard to not start applauding his boyfriend behind him.
“And a great one you’ll make too!” was all Slughorn could say.
-*-*-*-
Hours later, the groups of friends were throwing open the doors to Slughorn’s office and flooding out with the rest of the occupants at the end of the party, swaying on their feet in tipsy states from mead and firewhiskey Slughorn should not have been allowed to give them and Snape would surely take advantage of telling McGonagall about, but not at all minding as they were, after all, tipsy.
Harry had taken solace in drinking as a way to actually find enjoyment in the festivities without going mad getting introduced to important people he didn’t care about, whilst Draco, having more experience drinking himself, purely enjoyed the act. Ron however was finding endless thrill in feeling a part of a group of special and important persons, taking advantage of anything that got presented to him, cake, drink, or otherwise.
“Slughorn should do these invitee parties more often,” he declared once they had broken off from the crowd on the way to their dorms, biting into a mince pie. “‘S muh or inclusif.” Hermione slapped him for speaking with his mouth full, despite swaying on her feet and therefore not being the most upstanding person tonight either.
Everyone stopped short, however, when they suddenly heard a pair of voices coming from beyond the Entrance Hall doors, and there indeed were Neville Longbottom and Pansy Parkinson, no doubt returning from a night of the latter showing the former how teenagers were “supposed” to act.
Clearly, they had had just as much fun as the Quartet plus Ginny and Luna, as they had their arms wrapped around each others shoulders, laughing at some joke the other had said, whilst stumbling and swaying on their feet.
“Harry! ‘Ello friends!” Neville exclaimed, releasing a hiccup immediately after and saying something slurred afterward no one could understand.
“Pansy…” Draco said slowly, watching the pair with a horrified face. “What did you do?”
“What I said I would, Dracky!” She exclaimed, waving an arm in a three hundred sixty degree angle instead of a simple gesture. “We are now,” she bowed her head. “Teenagers.”
Draco slapped a hand against his forehead while Ron and Harry broke out into laughs, Hermione and Ginny giving each other matching exasperated looks and stepping forward to help Neville up the marble staircase, luckily too, as Pansy was stepping aside, about to let him fall flat on the floor.
“Pansy,” Luna said with a tilt of her head, eyes wider than ever. “I don’t think you’ve been drinking, I’m sure you all have just accidentally stumbled upon the poison Cornelius Fudge distributes to anyone who suspects his plot to eliminate the goblin species.”
And with that they all ended the night laughing harder than ever.
-*-*-*-
Saturday, December 21st
The group were quick to regret their sheer amount of drinking in the morning as they stood in the frosty air outside of Hogwarts Station, holding trunks and animal carriers but not wholly understanding how they even got there with how much their skulls were pounding. Also, Harry was positive the sun was a good deal brighter today.
“Couldn’t they postpone when the train leaves,” Ron groaned, leaning his head back and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Aren’t we supposed to be having fun in going home for the holidays?”
“We are in a war,” Draco mumbled, foolishly thinking his overly sensitive and overprotective friends wouldn’t hear and being proven wrong in seconds when he felt a soft bit of warmth on his near frozen cheek and turned to see Harry smiling at him.
“Only seven hours,” said Draco, “And you’ll see your Godfather again. Wonder if he and Lupin have finally gotten over themselves and -”
“Draco stop that, that’s rude,” Hermione snapped and he whipped his head around to her in surprise.
“To gossip about other people’s love lives? We talk about everything else in people’s lives, don’t we?”
There was a long pause as the four thought over the excessive snooping they’d done in people’s personal lives, from First Year learning every detail about Nicholas Flamel to nowadays Hermione’s persistent research over who the Half-Blood Prince could be.
However, after about a minute had passed the kids looked at each other and laughed, albeit awkwardly.
A few minutes later the train whistled and kids began to pile on as the doors to the various cars opened, the Quartet climbing onto the cubby as they always did, this time able to settle in cozily in a compartment all to themselves as Ginny was introducing Luna (her official girlfriend) to her other friends and Cedric and Cho were… somewhere.
Draco watched Harry and Ron carefully as they set up Ron’s wizard’s chess set for an annual game-on-the-train, Hermione cozied up close to the window with the final book in the set of books on Anamagi Harry had gotten her last Christmas.
“How about,” Slowly, Draco slid down from his seat to sit beside Harry on the floor, placing a Knight on its correct square. “I’ll try this time?”
Ron glanced up at him warily, and Harry looked over, surprised. Even Hermione was now peering over the binding of her book, eyebrows raised.
“Could I, Ron?”
Harry beamed, his best friend’s real name coming from his boyfriend’s lips at last.
“Of course, Draco,” Ron said, grinning, and cracked his knuckles in front of him. “But don’t try too hard. It really is pointless to try and beat me. Not even McGonagall could.”
While Draco at first doubted the truth to this claim and still went into the game with his usual on-brand confidence, this was proven a huge mistake within ten minutes of Ron destroying his pieces, and within twenty, he’d been beaten.
“Let’s go again,” Draco persisted, stretching a hand out as Ron chuckled and high-fived his Gryffindor friends. “Best two out of three?”
Another half an hour, another sweep of the board.
“Best three out of five?”
Two his credit, this game lasted an hour, where at this point Harry had sat back on the cushioned seats and started reading the book on defensive spells Sirius had gotten him last Christmas for the hundredth time and, by the end of the hour, was tossing Prongs’s ball up at the ceiling and catching it when it bounced back, on repeat, bored. The stack of books Hermione had burned through sat beside her.
By the end of Draco and Ron’s fifth game, the stack was as high as her.
“Maybe we could -” Either Harry or Hermione occasionally chimed in, fewer and farther between as the minutes dragged on and their hope for excitement died with it. They hadn’t even had a chance to order candy as both boys had waved away the trolley witch everytime she made her rounds.
Though the gradual increase in how long each game was taking was a clear sign of Draco’s increase in tactic, and Ron’s in stress. The closer their skills came, the more he got worried he’d slip up and give Draco the perfect opportunity to sneak through his defenses. But he hadn’t slipped yet, so maybe they’d still make it the next four hours to London…
That is, if a sudden shake of the entire train itself hadn’t blown all of the pieces on the board every which way.
“No!” Draco cried, springing to his feet and gripping at his hair. “I was so close that time!”
“Oh, thank Merlin,” Ron sighed, resting a hand on his chest, relieved, if only for a moment, that the game was over.
The others, however, didn’t feel so relieved, as they cautiously rose to their feet and eyed their surroundings in apprehension, alarmed and scared of what, or who, could’ve shaken the train that much.
“Do you think we hit something?” Hermione asked no one in particular as she hugged her book to her chest, and Harry crept cautiously to the window, pressing against it and looking up and down the tracks. They were still moving at a normal pace, and the fields around the tracks were all covered in frosted grass far as the eye could see.
“I don’t think -”
Before he could finish that thought, the train shook again, and he was blown backwards, now landing on top of the discarded pieces Draco was attempting to pick up. Hermione yelped this time, already jumpy from the first shake, and this one was much rougher, sending them all - except Harry, who just fell backwards - slamming into whatever was around them.
“What in Merlin’s name is the driver doing!” Ron yelled, jumping to his feet and yanking open the compartment door as both Harry and Draco now scrambled for the window. Looking back and forth up the aisle of the train car Ron could see several other compartments were open too, kids standing in the doorways with haphazard appearances from the two shakes. Harry and Draco, however, saw something much worse.
Harry hadn’t thought to look up the first time, but now that Draco did, he squeaked out a sound of alarm and Harry followed his gaze, barely saying “Wha -” before gasping, then immediately holding his breath as if that would stop the massive dragon perched on the top of the Hogwarts Express from knowing they were there.
The boys slammed the window shut and Harry spun around, exclaiming, “It’s a dragon.”
“What?” Ron flew around, eyes wide with horror, and Hermione turned pale as a sheet, looking blankly out the window. Ron pushed past the boys to press against the window and get a look at the great winged beast as well, groaning and sliding down to the floor when he saw the same thing they had. “You’ve got to be kidding me…”
“Harry, what’re we gonna do?” Hermione asked, shakily coming to a stand, eyes following her best friend as he paced in anxious circles around the compartment, Draco having retreated into the corner, hand in his pocket, fingers rotating Dumbledore’s wand.
“Only thing we can do: beat it. Draco and I can go out there; we’re the only ones who’ve fought a dragon before. Hermione, Ron,” he pointed at his two loyal best friends, then out of the compartment at the confused students flooding the aisle, “Try to direct as many as possible out of the train car. Hopefully they won’t get hurt if they aren’t beneath the dragon.”
The two nodded like soldiers, then ran off into the aisle, Ron’s shouts to follow him and Hermione calming tones easily heard in the solemn silence of the half-empty compartment.
Harry watched the kids start to pour out of the aisle, following Ron and Hermione, only for a moment before spinning around and running back for the window, throwing it open and checking briefly to see the dragon was still up their, flapping its wings and roaring, before turning and stretching a hand out to Draco.
“C’mon, we have to move before it -”
Draco looked up at the waiting dark fingers, and the train shook again, this time quite violently, but used to it now, the two boys stayed grounded, and he immediately took the other’s hand, letting him help him out the window.
Outside, Harry and Draco gripped the edge of the window and shuffled along the train car until they reached a ladder to the top, climbing with shaky and slightly slippery hands (from sweat) before collapsing on their hands and knees at the top of the car, but still gripping on tight, the window harshly blowing past them threatening to blow them off, as they came to a shaky stand at the top of the caboose.
“Can you transfigure it?” Draco shouted out above the wind, and Harry, whose hands had been up in front of his face as a brace against the wind, lowered them to squint at the dragon, immediately feeling relieved to see it was simply a Swedish Short-Snout, one of the more smaller dragons he knew of.
A second later, the two boys ducked in opposite directions, sliding across the roof of the car and nearly falling off the train, if it wasn't for their quick thinking, and harsh grip on the trap door at the center of the roof's bars. Thanks to that, the jet of fire shooting from the dragon’s mouth only heated the faces of the two boys, who locked eyes, both horror struck.
Harry forced a chuckle, giving Draco a crooked grin, “Just like old times?”
The dragon reared back its head and roared once more, preparing for another blast of fire, and Draco flicked his wand, a silent order flying through his brain and into the stick of wood (Accio Firebolt) in the compartment car. “Just like it, Scarhead.”
Harry beamed, then turned and pointed his wand at the dragon’s heart, concentrated solely on a transformation spell repeating itself infinitely in his brain, whilst Draco, in an impressive show of trust, kicked off the train car and fell back onto his broomstick, zooming into the sky and drawing the dragon’s attention upwards.
This of course gave Harry plenty of time to concentrate solely on the spell, thinking of all both McGonagall and Hestia Jones had taught him throughout Transfiguration.
However, when he finally sucked in a deep breath and bellowed out, “Ferrifors!” the spell merely blasted into the dragon’s thick skin and it released another great roar, singing the tip of Draco’s broom.
“I can’t do it!” Harry cried, dragging himself up to kneel on the roof of the train car, shaking from the effort of the spell but mostly from clinging onto the trap door for that long. “It’s too big!”
The dragon roared once more and took flight, Draco narrowly ducking under its wide wings as it turned and stretched open its jaws, looking ready to bite down on the edge of the train car.
“Harry!” just in the nick of time, Harry grabbed a hold of Draco’s outstretched arm and climbed onto the broom behind him, the dragon gripping the caboose with its large and all too pointy teeth mere seconds later, lifting the train off the tracks.
Through the windows left open in the panic of students running for any safety they could find, Harry and Draco could clearly hear their classmates’ screams as they struggled to keep up with the train still perilously moving forward in spite of the dragon yanking it back. The next moment, it had thrown the train sideways into the grass, tilted on its sides, the screams mounting to a crescendo before dimming as half the passengers (or more) no doubt lost consciousness.
“Ron! Hermione!” Harry shouted instinctively, leaning forwards but Draco pushed him back roughly, lowering the broom down into a patch of snow, pressing a finger to his lips. It didn’t take long for Harry to see why, as suddenly the air was filled with the sounds people apparating all around them, cracks bellowing through the air. Everywhere Harry looked he saw figures in black cloaks, hoods up with skull-like masks poking through, approaching the fallen train.
Death Eaters.
Harry and Draco held their breath, Draco waving his wand down the both of them to cast a nonverbal disillusionment charm, and watched carefully as a tall, slim figure strode up close to the dragon, who had come to a loyal seat beside its handy work.
From within their robes they withdrew a silk scarlet bathrobe, and beside Harry, Draco released a very small gasp. It was his bathrobe, which was exactly why he immediately stumbled backwards in the snow when the dragon no doubt sniffed his scent off of the robe, and hurriedly cast the charm over his broom before dragging Harry onto it and kicking off into the sky.
The dragon followed him, roaring and releasing a jet of flame he narrowly missed with Champion instincts.
A figure close to the one staring down at the robe in their hands stepped forward and shouted, “We know you’re hiding here, Draco! Come out and play with Auntie, we won’t bite.”
Not being able to help himself, and knowing his scent was already given away to the dragon, so what would voice do, Draco shouted back, “You must be mistaken. Last I heard I don’t have an Aunt!” He glared down at the figure holding his robe, knowing no one would see either way. “Or parents, for that matter…”
“Draco,” as he ducked out of the way of another flame, a man beside the figure with his robe stepped forward and pulled down his hood, removing his mask. His father looked up at the sky, eyes darting around with desperation to try and see his son. “Come down here, and the Dark Lord will be merciful.”
“That’s right!” Bellatrix cawed, throwing back her own hood and mask, grinning madly up at the sky. “You’re already one of us,” Draco’s arm burned. “It would be so simple to come down here and take your place amongst us.”
“Lestrange!” One of the other Death Eater’s called out from where he knelt beside the tracks Harry and Draco had foolishly left in the snow. “There’s two sets of footprints here.”
“Potter,” Bellatrix growled, glaring at the snow and Lucius watched her with wide eyes, no doubt worried about what working with Harry meant for his son. Well, honestly, he better get used to it, because Harry wasn’t leaving Draco’s side anytime soon.
“Draco I know you think that boy is your friend,” Lucius spoke up to his son surprisingly calmly. “But think of all the pain he’s caused you since your name came out of that Goblet. What good has this foolish union between you two ever done? What happened to the loyalty you bore to us, your family?”
“Draco,” Now it was his mother’s turn to step forward, eyes finding him easily as she removed her hood (the only one not in a mask, the only one not a Death Eater), as she always seemed to find him, despite it all. With tears running down her cheeks and grief in every tired line of her face, Narcissa reached out a hand to her son. “Come home.”
The disillusionment charm fell away, much to Harry’s horror, as Draco let it, sinking down to his mother’s level, so that he could look her, and his father in the eye as he spoke with a bravery that only came from his ‘foolish union’ with Harry Potter.
“You never should have burned me off that tree.”
“GET HIM!” Bellatrix’s cries came too little too late as with Seeker’s instincts and speed Draco rose back upwards into the sky, and Harry reached deep within a pocket in his robes, withdrawing a coin he always kept there, just in case. And now? Now seemed like the most perfect moment, if there ever was one.
Seconds later, tumbling out of the train came thirty members of the H.O.O.D. and any other Hogwarts student pissed off enough about the interruption of their journey to fight, raising wands and firing some lousy, and some really impressive spells at the stunned and equally enraged Death Eater’s, whose objective of simply blowing Draco off his broom now became muddled.
And so began a fight halfway between London and Scotland in the middle of nowhere between a bunch of students and Death Eater’s, though it didn’t last long, as all Bellatrix had to do after getting unexpectedly tackled to the snow by the Creevey brothers was whistle harshly at the dragon and it was spreading it wings, turning his jaws to set its sights on the students.
“No!” Harry screamed, pushing Draco so he got the message to plunge forwards to the ground, but it looked like they wouldn’t make it in time to throw up a big enough shield as the dragon’s throat glowed orange.
Then, unexpectedly, a wizard pushed through the crowd of kids and bellowed, “NOBODY MESSES WITH MY TRAIN!” pointing his wand forward and producing a massive protego that shielded all of the kids (and the train), the flames colliding against mesmerizing blue instead.
Harry and Draco’s pause of astonishment at the train conductor’s actions, however, cost them their perch in the sky, as they missed the dragon’s tail swishing straight for them, knocking them out of the sky and sending them tumbling away from each other into the snow.
Grunting, Draco struggled to his feet but when he looked up he saw at least four Death Eater’s crowded over him. Bellatrix pushed through them all, glaring and outstretching a hand, her crooked wand in the other glowing with anticipation for a Crucio, surely.
“The wand, Draco.”
Of course, the wand. Voldemort knew he had the wand.
“Fuck off,” Draco growled, and flicked out Dumbledore’s wand, seeing no point in keeping it hidden in his pocket now, pointing both at the five Death Eater’s and shouting out, “Reducto!” blowing all of them backwards, the ones caught on Dumbledore’s wand side much farther and harsher.
“Pst, boys!” Draco and Harry, firing Expelliarmus wildly at the crowd of Death Eaters approaching them, turned and saw the conductor had opened up a small crack for the two to slip through, Hermione and Ron standing on either side, beckoning them forward.
The boys eagerly ran towards and through it into safety, crashing into their best friend’s arms, as the Death Eater’s spells bounced off worthlessly.
“NO!” Bellatrix screamed as she collided against the blue shield, banging her fists against it like a child in a tantrum, as the kids on the other side grinned and mocked her.
“This isn’t over,” a burly looking Death Eater stepped up beside her, laying a hand on her shoulder. Harry and Draco turned away from their friends to glare at the Death Eater’s all staring back, hungry looks full of the want to kill in their eyes. “You’ll have to come out of your little safehouse eventually, Malfoy,” the burly Death Eater spat, “and then we’ll get that wand, even if it takes spilling some pure blood to do it.”
“Whatever the Dark Lord wants he gets,” Bellatrix agreed, then pressed closer to the shield, narrowing her eyes onto Ron and Ginny stepping closer to him, who both glared back defiantly.
“I hope you’re missing your big brother, Weasley’s, you should hear how he cries for you. ‘Don’t hurt my family, please, I can’t live without them!’” She threw her head back and cackled sickenly as Ron stepped forwards, fists tight at his sides, looking ready to punch her. “Well let me tell you something, you filthy little blood traitors,” she bent down her head, curls falling over her face, casting it in a menacing shadow. “If he doesn’t talk soon, he might just die, then I suppose he wouldn’t mind if we killed all of you -”
“That’s enough, Bella,” Lucius pushed through the crowd, hand tight around his wife’s who was still staring down at the robe in her hands, stone faced. Both refused to look even near their son. “We have to go. You don’t want to keep the Dark Lord waiting, do you?”
Bellatrix sneered, glaring quickly back at the Weasley’s for good measure, before disapparating with a sharp crack. The other Death Eater’s soon followed, the Malfoy matriarch’s the last to leave, Narcissa pressing close to her husband, a pair of gray eyes and a pair of blue briefly meeting beyond the shield to lock with a much younger, much more pained perfect mix of both, before they two disapparated, and Draco was left alone once more.
Hanging his head and gripping tight to the rapidly bleeding wound in his arm from where the dragon had wacked him out of the sky, Draco stepped closer to Harry, pressing his face into his cloak so that no one could see his tears.
“Can we go home? Please?”
Harry forced a weak, wobbly smile and hugged onto him tightly, staring up at the sky with tears in his eyes most certainly not from the lingering stench of soot in the air as the shield fell away, the dragon rose into the sky, flapping its wings, and departed out across the fields, growing steadily smaller and smaller.
“Of course we can, Draco…”
He would be lying if he said he didn’t desperately want to run into Sirius’s arms too, but he wasn’t crying from missing him, but from the thought that the boy in his arms who he loved so foolishly would never get to run into any father’s arms, or really go home again (he, heartbreakingly, knew exactly how that felt), no matter how many times he told him he could. Which was why Draco clenched Harry even tighter, releasing a sob that made the whole world weep.