What If

Ron watched in horror as a Death Eater stepped out of nowhere and came to a halt right in front of his wife and Malfoy. He didn't think twice. With Ginny at his heels, he stepped out of the shadows and pointed his wand at the hooded figure.

"Leave my wife alone!" he shouted when Ginny shot a wild hex at the Death Eater.

But it was too late. Other hooded men appeared out of thin air - Ron assumed of the shield. Soon they were outnumbered as the Death Eaters surrounded them. They couldn't do anything apart from praying for their lives.

The Death Eaters' circle closed on them. For a split second all four of them thought that it was the end. They closed their eyes and waited for the green light to hit them.

But then...

"Stop!" roared a chubby Death Eater. "Isn't that the traitor Malfoy boy?"

Draco opened his eyes to see every wand was pointing at him. The Death Eaters were observing him before the chubby one roared again. "Tie them up! Maybe it's a more valuable catch than we thought. Lucius will be glad."

Apparantly the others (just as Draco) didn't think the same, but obeyed anyway. Thick ropes appeared out of nowhere and bounded the four captured wrists together.

Draco and Ginny were on the edges, the Weasley spouses in between. Slowly the Death Eaters started to move. When they reached the shield two of them grabbed both Ginny and Draco's shoulders, so when they went through the transparent wall, neither of their captives burnt alive.

As the strange group neared the huge fortress, Hermione lightly poked Draco.

"What?" the blonde whispered.

"Reach into my back pocket."

Draco looked more confused if possible.

"Ahh!" Hermione sighed. "There's my wand in my pocket. Grab it!"

"But... Weasley-"

"Oh, just do it, quickly! Don't mind my husband!"

Finally Draco awkwardly complied and tried to get Hermione's wand without accindentally touching her butt. When he succeeded he looked at the girl questioningly. "And what now?"

"Wait." she whispered back. "When we reach the gate say 'skotino topous' when I say so!"

"Skotino topous?"

"Yes. That's an Ancient Greek incantation. If you cast it in a closed area, the room will be completely dark for a minute. Thus we'll be able to escape."

As the chubby Death Eater, who led the group stopped in front of the huge gate, Draco gripped Hermione's wand a bit tighter.

They got in. Hermione looked around and when the doors were shut behind them, she whispered a quiet 'now' to Draco.

"Skotino topous!" Draco shouted and everything went dark.

The Death Eaters started to shout and they seemed to run up and down desperately. At that moment Draco felt a strong tugging on his wrist. Hermione started to lead them away, he assumed.

"What the bloody hell?!"

"Shut up, Ron! We need to get away, we don't have much time left."

And with that Hermione started to run. Well, tried to run, but it was rather difficult as their wrists were tied together and they couldn't see a thing.

"I think we are in a broom closet." she said when they all got into a narrow place.

And as Draco was groping, he had to admit, she was right. They had to be in the closet near the Great Hall that was used for storing unused brooms at Hogwarts.

"Quickly! We have to find the door and shut it before the darkness is gone!"

So both Ginny and Draco, who had a free hand, started to grope. Soon enough Ginny whisper shouted "it's here!"

"Does anyone know a good locking charm, so if the Death Eaters tried to search for us here, they couldn't open?"

"Yeah, I know one." and with that Draco casted the old spell that his father had taught him.

Just as the lock clicked shut, dim light started to creep in the small crackings of the wooden closet. The Death Eaters' desperate shouts died away. Until they realized that their captives had gone, and they started to search for them furiously.

The four escapee waited in silence until all the desperate Death Eaters left the 'Entrance Hall'.

"Now what? It's totally not what we planned!" Ron complained.

"I know, right? We have to figure out something."

"Well... I think it's much easier now. Originally we wanted to defeat the Death Eaters outside the shield. But now we are in, we just have to find my father and duel him only. If we won over him, the other Death Eaters won't attack us."

"Yeah, when you put it like this-"

"But it's very risky!"

"Ron, we want to fight a Death Eater. Maybe more of them. It's always risky."

"I know! It's just... We are inside a transparent shell of which neither of us can go through without burning to death, except Malfoy, who have to experience pain that's almost as bad as dying. So if we can't defeat Lucius, we'll be trapped here forever... Not to mention that we have to defeat Lucius!"

"And?"

"And he's your father."

"No, he isn't."

"What?"

"Well, he disowned me, didn't he? And so did I disowned him. Mentally. Back in sixth year. Anyway, I don't care what happenes to him. It'd be an honour to kill him, moreover."

For a couple of seconds all four of them stayed quiet. They could hear the Death Eaters' distant voices still nervously discussing what would Lucius Malfoy say when they tell him they lost his 'traitor son and his little friends'.

"So that's a plan, isn't it?" Ginny broke the silence abruptly. "We wait until night when there will be no one near. We find Lucius and-"

"Kill him" Draco helped her out.

"Well, yeah, or whatever. I'm sure the shield is powered by him, so if we defeated him, it would disappear."

"Sounds like a plan. I'm in."

"Me too" Ron nodded, then they all looked at Hermione.

"Well" she said slowly. "Okay. We'll do it."

***

The time went so slowly that the four hiding escapee'd already considered whether the clock's hands decided to go backwards just to annoy them.

But the night eventually came. The footsteps, whispers and occasional shouts died away. As Ron looked out a particularly wide (but not too wide to let them be seen) crack, he could only see darkness.

"I can't see a thing." he said.

"That's good, I suppose?"

"Yeah, let's go!" Hermione whispered and nudged Draco to cast the counter spell so they could open the door. When they did, the long-ago oiled hinges creaked loudly.

They froze in shock, but when nothing happened, they made their way out to the 'Entrance Hall'.

"Okay, my father's office's on the fifth floor."

"Let's go then!"

The four climbed all the steps to the fifth floor wondering inwardly how much they missed Hogwarts. When they reached a door that they knew as the Charms classroom, Draco silently stopped them.

"We're here."

"And what now?" asked Ron. "We can't just march in and shoot a hex at him, can we?"

"I think that's exactly we're gonna do!" Ginny laughed violently and stepped in front of the door.

"Well. Wait it's locked. I'll open it fo-"

"Bombarda!" the redhead witch shouted and the entrance blasted.

Draco was sure they will die. He didn't want to march into his sleeping father's room like this. He wanted to sneak in. To kill him silently. Not like this! But there was nothing to do now. The Weaslette jumped into the room as soon as the smoke disappeared and pointed her wand at Lucius.

The blonde man was smirking in his huge chair behind the vast mahagony table Draco just knew too well.

"Well, well, well. What a pleasant surprise, Ms Weasley!" he said, then glanced at the three figures behind her back and hoisted his eyebrows. "You have brought my son, I can see. It is really kind of you. Must have been exhausting to capture him and bring here to me. Now, with what should I reward you?"

"I didn't come to give you Draco!" the Weaslette shouted.

"You didn't?" sneered Lucius sarcastically. "It surprises me. Does this mean, Draco, that you befriended with the Weasleys and a... mudblood? Potter must have done a good job on you."

Hearing Harry's name made Draco feel miserable. He gripped his wand tighter but didn't say anything. He didn't want to piss his father more, but he couldn't move to disarm him either. So he just stayed there, standing numbly in the still slightly smoking doorframe his wand aloft, its tip pointing at his sneering father.

"I see." the blonde man said calmly as if there weren't four wands pointing at him. "In that case I am thrilled to se you all. But now excuse me" with that he hoisted his wand and pointed it at Draco. "Avada-"

"Stupify!"

"Expelliarmus!"

"Stupify!"

"S- Sectumsempra!"

All the four hex hit Lucius square in the chest before he could finish his curse. His wand flew high into the air before landing in Ron's hand, he then collapsed on the floor heavily. Right after his head hit the wooden floor with a loud thud, deep cuts appeared all over his body and dark red blood started oozing from the wounds.

It wasn't a pleasant scene. Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Draco stood frozen, watching the dying man horrified until a bright green lightning appeared, causing the fortress and the surrounding woods to swim in green light.

All four of them hurried to the window. As they looked outside, they could see as if a transparent shell was being ripped into small pieces by a vast green lightning. After a moment every small piece started to disappear into nothing one by one, leaving tiny smoking skulls and snakes behind. It was like a really strange firework display.

As soon as the smoking skulls incorporated with the nightly fog, a mysterious figure appeared in the sky. He was gleaming in green light. It seemed as if it was suffocating and torturing the man, because he was twitching in pain. Draco watched in horror as the green light transformed into snakes which circled the man's body violently, tighter and tighter as the time passed. And suddenly the realization hit Draco, just in the same time when the girls shrieked and ron roared terrifiey.

"HARRY!"

They all started to run, leaving the still bleeding, barely breathing Lucius Malfoy in his room. They ran down the stairs, ran through the 'Entrance Hall' not even noticing the terrified and confused Death Eaters. They ran out of the headquarters to the huge green field surrounding it.

As they glanced up, they could see Harry's figure still floating in the air, but gradually sloping. Both the lights and snakes and everything around his body disappeared.

He was just floating peacefully, unmoving. If he had wings, Draco would think he was a beautiful angel.