hd inspiration for xanateria (1)
Author: oldenuf2nb
Recipient: xanateria
Title: On Falcon’s Wings (Part 1 of 3)
Pairing(s): Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy
Rating: Hard R
Summary: Draco Malfoy has spent the six months after that fateful night at the top of the Astronomy Tower in hiding from both his father, and his father’s master. Now that he has been discovered, his life is all but forfeit. So, what does that have to do with Harry Potter and his newly discovered power, and what does Severus Snape know that could send Harry to the rescue?
Warnings (if any): Adult language, slash, frottage, violence, character death (not Draco or Harry), mention of possible underage sexual activity
Total word count: 23,800
Disclaimer: This story/artwork is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author’s notes (if any):xanateria, I hope I’ve given you something you’ll like, if not just exactly what you requested. Herein, you will find romance, a top!harry and a bit of snarky sarcasm. They aren’t Hogwarts teachers (sorry) but hopefully the plot will make up for that. Enjoy!
Beta(s): a mighty penguin. Thanks so much! You’re my hero!
On Falcon's Wings Part 1 of 3
The night that Draco Malfoy’s life changed forever had been routine enough that it bordered on the mundane.
Lulled into a false sense of security, he’d been reading a Potions book while lying on the braided rug before the fire in Severus’ dungeon quarters. When he’d heard an unexpected noise outside of the heavy oak door, his fair head had lifted and he’d listened intently, but when nothing more occurred, he’d gone back to concentrating on the small Latin text.
Moments later, the heavy door had crashed into the wall, and Draco had whipped around, grey eyes wide and mouth slightly open as his heart had plummeted in his chest. Amycus Carrow and his sister stood in the doorway and when they spied him lying on the floor, the expressions on their faces would have vied with a child’s on Christmas morning for sheer delight.
“Well, well, well,” the woman said with a sly grin, wand pointed at Draco’s heart as she sauntered into the room. He could not remember her name for the life of him, but the expression on her fat face struck fear into his pounding heart. “Something tells me our dear Head hasn’t exactly been forthcoming about his activities.”
“If it isn’t young Malfoy,” her brother sneered, following her into the room. “Dear boy, your father has been looking for you for months.”
Draco swallowed nervously, and the movement wasn’t missed by the ugly man. His leer widened. “What, not anxious to see daddy? Bet you’re even less anxious to see Your Lord, aren’t you boy? But he’s just… itching to see you!”
They laughed together, and the sound made Draco’s skin crawl. He sat up slowly, shifting back until his spine was against the sofa, and he tried to move his hand as furtively as possible towards the back pocket of his trousers where the hilt of his wand was exposed. Just as his fingers touched it, the fat woman waved her wand in a negligent manner.
“Expelliarmus!” she said, almost as if she was bored, and Draco felt his wand jerked from his pocket before it sailed across the room and into her chubby fist. “Now, what exactly did you think you were going to do, boy? Curse me? Hex me?” Her black eyes narrowed, and she licked her fleshy lips. “I think you need a lesson for even thinking you could best me. Crucio!”
Pain exploded in Draco’s body, emanating from his chest, shooting down each arm and leg. He knew he’d jerked flat onto the rug, knew that he was twitching as if caught in an electrical current, and he knew that he was crying out, no matter how desperately he hadn’t wanted to make a sound. It was like being stabbed with a hundred red hot knives, and he bit his lip and tried to silence his cries, but the sound tore from his throat. Above his own hoarse screams he could hear the hated siblings laughing; laughing at his pain, at the way he flailed about.
“Stop that immediately.”
The austere voice cut through the sound of laughter, harsh, unforgiving, and Draco had never been so relieved to hear anything in his life. Instantly, the pain slipped away and he lay limp and gasping upon the rug.
“Severus…” he managed through his ravaged throat.
“Oooo, ‘Severus’, is it?” the male Carrow crowed. “Pretty cozy for a professor and a student, isn’t it, Snape? You let all of your students address you so familiarly, or just the ones that you’re hiding from their parents?”
“Do be quiet,” Severus Snape said darkly, striding into his quarters, placing himself between the Carrows and the spot where Draco still lay on the floor.
“You’ve some explaining to do, Snape,” the woman said vindictively. “And I don’t believe that the Dark Lord will be impressed with your reasoning this time. You told him that this boy had escaped after the first assault on Hogwarts; that you’d lost him in the Forbidden Forest. He’s had a price on his head for months, and you’ve had him all along.” Draco looked up from the boot clad feet, up the planted legs to the square shoulders beneath the curtain of inky hair, and he saw Snape’s square shoulders stiffen almost imperceptibly.
“No,” Draco wheezed, pushing himself up onto his elbows. “No, he did lose me in the forest. I… I was hiding…”
“You look pretty put together for someone who’s been hiding in the Forest, boy,” Carrow said harshly, taking in the spotless khaki trousers and the snug grey cashmere jumper. “Well fed, healthy, lying there like you owned the place…” His eyes narrowed as they lifted back to Snape’s face. “Quite fetching, actually.” His sneer widened. “Had a change of preference late in life, Severus? I mean, he is pretty…”
“Do be quiet, Carrow,” Snape said darkly, his lip curled. “Your attempts to be amusing weary me.”
“We’re waiting for you to explain the boy’s presence,” the ugly woman snapped. “Why is he here, instead of being held for the Dark Lord?”
“He is being held for the Dark Lord, you imbecile,” Snape hissed sharply in retaliation. “He’s from the country now, if it’s any of your business. I’m keeping the boy here until he returns, when he will be dealt with accordingly.”
Draco knew that Severus was bluffing; he had no intention of turning him over to the Dark Lord, ever. In the months since that night at the top of the astronomy tower, they’d discussed many things and Draco now knew far more about his illustrious Headmaster than he’d ever imagined might be the case. He’d known the man had hidden depths but even he had never expected that his godfather was brave enough to be playing at double spy, reporting the Dark Lord’s movements to the Order of the Phoenix. He swallowed heavily as he watched the siblings exchange a skeptical look.
“I don’t believe you,” Carrow finally said flatly.
“I don’t care what you believe,” Snape retorted. “Your opinions could not matter less to me. What I would like to know is how you managed to dismantle my wards and invade my private quarters.” This was asked with a healthy dose of barely restrained fury, and for a moment, Draco thought that the ruse to change the subject was going to work. Carrow’s eyes darted quickly; his sister’s doughy face began to flush.
“We just thought,” she began, sounding more conciliatory, when Draco felt Carrow’s eyes come back to him.
“No!” he shouted, cutting his sister’s explanation off in mid word. “No, that boy is a fugitive from the Dark Lord’s justice, he’s been hunting for him with nearly the same zeal he’s put into hunting for the Potter brat, and you’ve had him here all along. You will tell us why, or we’ll get the answer from him!” He pointed his wand at Draco, and the room seemed to explode in a flash of red fire.
“Imperio!” Carrow shouted, and Draco steeled himself, but the expected lethargy never came. Snape had raised his wand as well, shouting “Stupefy” at precisely the same moment, and the lumpy man went down like a fallen tree. Snape whirled on the sister, but as he lifted his wand the spell she had screeched slammed into him, and Draco flinched as a spray of something wet splashed across his cheek. He winced and lifted his hand in to his face, then stared in horror when his fingers came away covered in blood. Not his, he realized: Snape’s.
The man was down on one knee before him, one hand still gripping his wand as the other clutched at his chest. His head was forward, and Draco could see blood staining his hand, as well.
“Oh, God,” he cried, coming up to his knees, making as if to move to Severus’ side. “Oh, God, not that…” He remembered his own encounter with the Sectumsempra on a wet bathroom floor, remembered watching in horror as his own life blood spilled onto the tiles. If Severus hadn’t come in, he’d have died. But Draco didn’t know the counter curse, didn’t know how to fix it… He started to clamber forward, but as Carrow’s sister bent over her brother and cast Ennervate, bringing him slowly to consciousness, Snape turned his head and pinned him in place with his black eyes.
“Remember what I said,” he whispered harshly, blood speckled face very pale, eyes intense. “Remember what I said, Draco.” He paused, his frame shuddering. “I’m sorry,” he wheezed.
“Severus…” Draco whispered, reaching out with his trembling hand. An expression of regret passed over Snape’s stark features, but he lurched to his feet, turned in place, and vanished with a loud popping sound.
Draco went completely cold with the sudden realization that Snape had left him, left him to the mercy of the Carrows, and by extension the Dark Lord, his eyes widening in horror.
“Fucking hell!” Carrow shouted, pointing his wand at the air where moments before Severus Snape had stood. “How did he do that? You aren’t supposed to be able to Apparate from the grounds!”
“It doesn’t matter,” his hideous sister responded, her eyes gleaming. “That spell will kill him in a matter of minutes. Besides,” she pointed her wand at Draco, who valiantly fought not to bring up his dinner. “We’ve the fatted calf.”
As the siblings advanced on him, Draco understood just what Snape had been apologizing for.
********
Harry Potter sat on the bunk in the tent that he shared with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger in the middle of the Forest of Dean, the snitch that Dumbledore had left him in his hand held up to the lantern light. He shook it, heard the faint clattering of something secreted within, and grimaced once again. He knew it was the resurrection stone, knew it with every fiber of his being. Since they’d returned from Luna’s father’s house he’d gbeen more sure than ever that the Deathly Hallows should be their goal, were even more important than the Horcruxes, but he couldn’t get Ron, and especially Hermione, to agree with him. In fact, he was fairly certain that his fixation on the Hallows was the reason they’d gone for a walk this evening on the pretext of needing to ‘talk’. She thought he was obsessed again; obsessed the way he’d been with Malfoy during their sixth and final year at Hogwarts.
“Well, I was right about that, wasn’t I?” he thought, his jaw firming. He’d been right about all of it, and he turned his head and stared at the opening of the tent, which moved slightly in the evening breeze. He’d been right about Malfoy…
Unbidden, an image of the fair haired boy filled his mind, and Harry’s brow furrowed. For the hundredth time, he wondered what had become of Malfoy after that fateful night at Hogwarts. His glimpses into the Dark Lord’s mind had shown him the anger when Malfoy had been unsuccessful, and the fury at his disappearance, but nothing else. Malfoy had vanished like a puff of smoke on a stiff breeze, and in moments when Harry wasn’t fixated on his new infatuation with the three legendary Hallows, he could not help but remember the tremor in Malfoy’s hand as he’d lowered his wand, the tears that had filled his grey eyes. Harry had not told a living soul, but his heart had gone out to the boy that night, and even after months of suspicion about his activities, and after he’d let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, Harry had wanted only to help him, save him…
He shook his dark head and went back to studying the snitch, his thumb moving over the spot where the faint inscription caught the light of the lantern. “I open at the close’. The ‘close’ of what, he pondered yet again, turning the small ball in his hand. There was no opening, so there could be no close…
A sound from outside the tent made him lift his head, certain it was Ron and Hermione returning form their ‘walk’. He smirked a bit at that. Perhaps they’d finally been able to admit that they had feelings for one another, maybe gotten some snogging in… Again, he shook his shaggy, dark head. Might go a long way towards making Hermione easier to live with, that. But he doubted she’d come around yet; she was still plenty aggravated at Ron for running off the way he had, no matter how many times he’d tried to apologize. Harry might be ‘obsessed’, but Hermione was downright obstinate…
“Potter…” A ghostly whisper reached his ears through the tent’s opening.
A chill, like a finger of ice, slipped down the length of Harry’s spine and he surged to his feet, shoving the snitch into his pocket and grabbing Hermione’s blackthorn wand from her cot.
He swallowed heavily but maintained his silence, taking one, then another tentative step towards the tents opening.
“Potter!” It was louder this time, and desperation laced the deep, savaged voice. Unable to deny his curiosity, Harry took the few steps that separated him from the outside, still gripping the wand before him in his hand, and looked out into the canopied darkness of the forest.
At first, he could see nothing; all was in heavy shadows. But then something moved and Harry stiffened as a figure lurched toward him from the gloom.
Fury roared through him as he recognized the man, and he clenched his teeth and lifted his wand.
“Expilliarmus!” Snape wheezed before Harry could utter a sound, and Hermione’s wand flew from his fingers and into the old Potion Master’s hand. “Silencio!” he hissed when Harry would have shouted, “Incarcerous!” when Harry turned to run. The heavy ropes wrapped themselves around him, and he fell heavily to the ground, his heart in his throat. Bested by the man yet again, Harry could only stare up at him in impotent fury, sure he was about to be taken to Voldemort, sure his mission would never be realized. He could only hope that Ron and Hermione would get away...
“There isn’t time for this,” Snape gasped, his hand going back to his own chest, and it was then that Harry realized that the hand not holding both wands was gripping the ruined front of his tunic, and that blood was pouring over his hand. In the dim light that reflected from inside the tent Harry could see the ashen, grey pallor of the thin, drawn face, see the horrible wounds that transected his chest. He recognized them, and his green eyes widened. “I must speak with you, but if you are going to behave… like an insufferable brat… we will get nowhere.” Snape’s voice sounded dry and ravaged as he fought for air, and Harry stared. “Will you cease trying to hex me? I promise you… the job has already… been admirably… done. I don’t have long…” He dropped heavily to one knee near Harry’s side. “Please, Potter,” he whispered, his eyes pleading, and Harry felt his heart turn over hard. “Please. There isn’t time… for this, and we must speak.”
Hesitantly, his eyes searching the black ones before him for duplicity but finding nothing but desperation and even fear, Harry nodded.
“Finite Incantatem,” Snape uttered, and the ropes disappeared and Harry could speak, and he opened his mouth to do so when the slender man began to collapse sideways towards the ground, black eyes rolling up into his head. Harry lurched to his knees and caught his shoulders.
“What’s happened to you?” he asked, holding the man upright.
“Cursed…” came the breathy response. “Just… get me somewhere… where I can sit…”
It was a struggle, but Harry managed to get him to his feet and a long arm over his own shoulders, and they lurched gracelessly through the tent’s opening. Once they were inside, all of Snape’s strength seemed to ebb away at once and he collapsed heavily to the threadbare, faded carpet. Harry shoved him onto his back, his eyes widening when he saw the horrendous extent of his gaping wounds.
“Hermione,” Harry said quickly. “We need Hermione…”
“No!” Snape’s hand curled, claw-like, in Harry’s faded jumper and held him in place. Harry looked into eyes wild with desperation. “There isn’t… time…”
“I don’t know what to do to help you!” Harry cried, trying to fight his way free. “I don’t know how to stop it…”
“It can’t be stopped, Potter.”
“But, you stopped it before… with Malfoy…”
“The counter curse can only be performed by a party other than the caster and there’s no time, I tell you!” The sheer despair and desperation in the man’s tone finally penetrated Harry’s fear and horror at the pulsing wounds on the slender chest, and he looked up into the black eyes. “You must listen to me, Potter. You must… listen…” Harry dampened his lips with his tongue as Snape stared and fought for air.
“I’m listening…” he finally said faintly, and Snape’s shoulders settled back against the carpet with a heavy sigh.
“I know… you’ve no reason to trust me… I can only tell you… that Albus knew what he was doing… he bid me do it…”
Harry’s fury returned in a rush. “He bid you kill him? I’m supposed to believe…”
“Potter, he was dying,” Snape gasped wearily, and Harry went very still, staring. “He’d been dying, ever since the cursed ring…”
“You know about the ring…” Harry’s voice was faint with surprise.
“Who do you think saved him that night? I know about them. The ring, the locket, the cup, the diadem, the diary, the snake…”
Harry felt all of the blood drain from his face as he stared down into Snape’s ravaged eyes. “You know about…”
Snape nodded heavily, dampening his own blood speckled, dry lips. “I know. Now listen to me…” He paused, fought for air. It sounded wet as it seeped into his lungs. “You must… save Malfoy…”
Harry frowned. “What?”
“Don’t stop me again! There isn’t time…” Snape’s eyes began to roll up, but he fought for consciousness. “Malfoy… has been seized. He’s been taken… to a holding of his father’s. A ruin, near the far northern border… about 80 miles from Hogwarts… due north…”
“Why in the hell would I want to save Malfoy?!” Harry cried, stiffening against the hand that held him. Snape's grip tightened, and for just a moment, his black eyes sharpened.
“I’ve been in your mind, Potter,” he said, deep voice pinning Harry in place, intense gaze stripping his heart bare. “I’ve seen,” he wheezed. “I know.”
In spite of the dire circumstances, Harry felt his face begin to fill with color. “I don’t know what you’re…”
“Boy, I don’t care,” Snape interrupted wearily. “It doesn’t matter to me. But I’ve seen into his heart, as well…”
Harry went very still. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying…” Snape paused to dampen his lips again, and when he resumed, his voice was almost gentle. “I’m saying… that I’ve seen into his heart. You must save him. You need him for what is ahead. And you don’t understand, Potter. You don’t know what they’ll do to him…”
Harry frowned again. “His father won’t let…”
“His father won’t lift a finger,” Snape shook his head. “He’s too frightened, they’re all too frightened.” His hand tightened again and he yanked Harry forward, until their eyes were just inches apart, Harry’s wide and very green, Snape’s narrowed and inky black. “You. Need. Him.” he repeated emphatically. “And if you don’t get to him… soon, there won’t be enough of his sanity left to save.” Harry felt a chill of fear skirt over the surface of his skin.
“What… what are you saying?”
Snape’s eyes rolled shut wearily. “You know what I’m saying.”
Harry sat for a moment longer, then pried Snape’s fingers from his jumper and lurched to his feet, going to his bunk and grabbing his rucksack. He shoved his invisibility cloak into the bag, and turned back again, shrugging it over his square shoulder. “Where is he again?” Harry asked, green eyes sharp as he took a long black cape from the foot of the bunk and swung over his shoulders.
“Castle Ardvreck,” Snape answered raggedly. “It’s right on Loch Assynt. You can Apparate to…”
“I’ll find it.” Harry cut him off. He dragged a blanket from his cot and came to Snape’s side, covering him carefully. “Ron and Hermione should be back soon. She’ll know what to do…”
He shook his dark head. “It doesn’t matter,” Snape said, his energy visibly fading. “Just save him, boy. I promised his mother…”
Harry nodded. “Tell them where I’ve gone. Tell them to send reinforcements as quickly as they can.”
Snape nodded. Before Harry went to stand, Snape looked at the wand he’d tucked into his denim pocket, and frowned, grabbing Harry’s arm. “That’s not your wand,” he said flatly. Harry’s mouth flattened into a straight line.
“Mine was broken.”
Snape caught his breath at the revelation, then lifted his hand and held out his own. Harry stared at it in incomprehension. “Take it,” Snape ordered, and the Harry stared, stunned.
“What?” he gasped. “No, you’ll need it…”
“I’ll not need it where I’m going and it will be infinitely preferable to that one,” he answered with a weary sort of dry humor. He didn’t lower his hand, and hesitantly, Harry took the wand. Immediately, he felt a surge of power rush through his arm, and his eyes widened. He didn’t know if it was his imagination, but he thought he saw a moment’s warmth in his old professor’s fading gaze. “I’d have been surprised if it hadn’t responded to… her son…”
His eyes drifted closed on that enigmatic comment, and Harry frowned. “Sir? What…?”
“There isn’t time now,” Snape answered, dragging his eyelids back open. “Go. Draco can answer all of your questions… go…”
Harry felt torn between doing what his old nemesis was bidding him to, and waiting for his friends to return, but some of Snape’s urgency had gotten through to him because he handed the man Hermione’s slender, vine wrapped wand, then climbed to his feet. With a brisk nod, he turned towards the flap then paused and turned back, his eyes going to Snape’s, which were still watching him. “I’ll bring him back,” he said firmly.
“Just get him out,” Snape responded faintly. “Then let him help you do what you have to do.”
Harry nodded, and was gone.
The sound of Apparition was fading when Snape looked around the interior of the tent, searching. He could feel his lifeblood seeping into the floor beneath him, and knew he didn’t have long…
Across the tent there was a small table, and he spotted a pile of parchment and a quill. “Accio!” he said breathlessly, half surprised that Granger’s wand had responded to him. The parchment and quill landed on his chest, and he lifted them, fighting to clear his hazing vision as he wrote in jagged lines;
“Potter has gone to Castle Ardvreck in Northern Scotla…”
The words trailed away as his consciousness faded, and the parchment and quill dropped from his hands as they fell limp on his chest. Moments later, a stray breeze lifted the square of parchment and sent it skittering under Potter’s camp bed, hidden in shadows…
********
He was cold. So cold he couldn’t feel his toes or the tips of his fingers any longer, and from what Draco could tell in the dim light, his nails were starting to turn a faintly alarming shade of purplish-blue. He clutched his hands together, trying to still their trembling, but the effort was in vain. He could feel himself shaking, even faintly hear the sound of his teeth chattering and there didn’t seem to be a thing that he could do to stop it. The Carrow’s had not allowed him to so much as fetch a cloak before they’d grabbed him and dragged him from Snape’s dungeon quarters, hauling him up the stairs. There had been magical restraints on his wrists, and they’d hit him with the Imperious so that he would not struggle. He remembered seeing McGonagall’s shocked face as they’d passed, and some of his housemates. He didn’t believe he would ever be able to remove from his mind the memory of Pansy’s ashen face, or the smirk on Theo Nott’s.
They’d paused briefly to speak to someone; MacNair, he thought but he hadn’t really been able to concentrate on the conversation at the time, and then they’d herded him to the front gates, each grabbed an arm, and he’d been treated to the unpleasant sensation of Side-along Apparition. When they’d arrived at their destination, Draco had recognized it at once with a thrill of terror; Castle Ardvreck. He’d only been there before once, and he’d prayed regularly never to have to go there again. This time, his prayers had gone unanswered.
His first visit had occurred just after his fourth year. He’d been 14 years old, and he and his parents had hosted what he’d thought was merely a Death Eater party of sorts. His mother had sent him to his suite just after sunset with strict instructions that he was not to leave his quarters, but he’d never been much good at following orders. After it had been fully dark, he’d slipped from the safety of his warded room and slinked through the halls, looking for the party.
He’d heard tales of Death Eater Revels, but he hadn’t really believed them; not until that night. It was the first such get together since the Dark Lord’s triumphant return and the minions were in high spirits. There was a great hall at Ardvreck, vying Hogwarts for size if not grandeur, and they’d all been gathered there.
At first, he hadn’t really understood what he was witnessing. There were people there, chained together, clearly Muggles. They looked terrified, but he could understand that. It was his first glimpse of Voldemort as well, and he was fearsome looking creature, for that really couldn’t be called a man. He was giving some sort of speech, his voice ringing through the cavernous space but he’d not understood a word of it; it had been in Parseltongue. The sound of the sibilant language made him feel strangely light-headed, but the adults seemed more affected; he saw his father, on his hands and knees, his beautiful mother beside him, her hands clasped before her as she looked on the Dark Lord with something very like awe. He talked for a long time, and his supporters were rapt at each sibilant hiss, reacting with cheers and moans, and Draco was starting to feel uncomfortable before the first captive had ever been unchained from the others and brought to the center of the large circle. Clearly Imperioused, the young girl, not much older than himself, had looked vague and sheeplike as she was led. Like a lamb to slaughter, he’d thought at the time. He’d had no idea how right he’d been.
His childhood had ended that night, while he was hiding on those stairs.
He’d lost his dinner long before they’d finished with the poor, broken creature, and he’d stumbled to his rooms in a blind agony of horror, unable to get the visions of what they’d done to her from his mind. He’d never told his parents what he’d seen, but he’d been pretty sure that his mother, in that uncanny way that mother’s had, had known. She’d done everything in her power to keep him away from Voldemort after that. It had ultimately been unsuccessful; when his father had failed in his mission at the Department of Mysteries, Draco’s fate had been sealed. He’d been called before Voldemort and marked within weeks, set on his mission to kill Dumbledore in order to redeem the family name. He knew now that he’d been a fool; Voldemort had never expected him to succeed, and he hadn’t.
And now he was back at Ardvreck, the scene of many of his nightmares, with Alecto Carrow whispering in his ear of the horrors and torture that awaited him. Still cursed, he couldn’t do more than listen, knowing she spoke the truth.
“You’re so pretty, little Malfoy,” she hissed as they dragged him towards the castle doors. “The Dark Lord may want first crack at that pretty arse himself; he’s a thing for young boys, did you know that? We all know you’re a flaming pouf; your father tried to hide it, but we know. Wonder how pretty you’ll look once the men have split you in two and cut off your bits…”
Even cursed, he’d wept.
The only thing that had saved him was that Voldemort was not in the country.
He watched the blue moonlight shine into the cell through the ragged hole in the wall near the ceiling, saw a few flakes of snow drift in on the breeze to join the pile against the wall. There was a slop bucket, its contents frozen solid, and a dead rat, frozen just as thoroughly, lying on its side. Draco pulled his knees to his thin chest and wrapped his arms around them, trying to generate some body heat. The khaki trousers and thin jumper that had been more than warm before a fire were no protection from the bitter cold of the in the dead of winter, and he found himself wondering how long he could survive his captivity. And then another thought occurred; perhaps it would be better to freeze to death before Voldemort returned. At least then, he could merely go to sleep and not wake up, not die being literally torn apart… He’d seen the way that MacNair had watched him, even before this latest debacle. He knew what the man wanted…
He shuddered, and a tear began its way down his face, only to freeze on his pale cheek. He was doomed. They’d kill him after making sport of him first, and he was such a coward that he’d die screaming. His shakes mounted, and he bit his lower lip, closing his eyes, willing the tears back. He wished he had just a trace of Snape’s courage, or resolve. The thought of the man brought another memory, the memory of the last thing he’d said to Draco before he’d disappeared before him.
“Remember what I said, Draco. Remember what I said.”
He’d not needed reminding; the words were seared into his mind. They’d been in Snape’s chambers late one night, when Severus had been training him in Occlumency and had stumbled across his shameful secret while threading through his mind. Draco had been horrified that he’d discovered it, and had turned toward the fire, his face in his hands. The feeling of Severus’ hand on his shoulder had at first startled, for the man was not affectionate, then comforted.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he’d whispered, so softly that Draco had barely heard him. “Love is never something to be ashamed of. And know this, Draco; remember this.” Draco had turned and stared into his black eyes then, seen the intensity. “You aren’t alone in your feelings.”
Draco had started to speak, but Snape had merely shaken his dark head. “There is no need to speak of it, just know that you aren’t alone. And if anything should happen to me, you must go to Potter. Trust Potter. He’ll protect you, I know it.”
Draco had desperately wanted him to explain himself, but Snape had never said another word about it. Until the night he’d been taken, just before he disappeared.
For all the good it would do him, Draco thought in despair. ‘Go to Potter, trust Potter’. How? He slipped his hands into his armpits and turned his face towards the wall. He’d die without ever seeing those green eyes again, and it was that thought that finally battered his teetering resolve into dust and brought sobs.
*******
Harry stood on an outcropping of rock, staring up at the imposing façade of Castle Ardvreck. Icy wind whipped around his head, caught at his longish hair, blowing it into his face, whipping his cloak around his legs. It was miserably cold here, with the wind blowing right off of the Loch, and he was grateful for the heating charm he’d cast before he’d Apparated to Hogwarts. The trip to this northernmost, rocky shoreline had taken hours the way he’d had to travel, and it was night once again. During the last part of his journey, he’d not felt the cold at all. It was one of the perks, he thought with a wry grimace, of his newly discovered ability. Imperviousness to the cold, eyesight so enhanced that he realized, for the first time in his life, how bad the eyes behind his spectacles really were…
He stared at the castle for a moment longer, realizing that at this distance, he couldn’t really tell where the guard was and how many of them there were. He studied the ruins, still strong near the center, collapsing at the edges, as if the elements were eating away at the structure from the exposed corners in. Most of these old places had a dungeon, and if Malfoy were being held there, Harry wasn’t sure how he would get to him. But then his eyes settled on the tower, one upper corner collapsed toward the sea side, juxtaposed over the full moon. If Malfoy were there… well, there was only one way to find out.
Harry turned and found an area near the edge of the woods, trees close together forming a sort of protected inlet, and shook the rucksack from his shoulders and hid it beneath the thick fall of pine needles at the base of the trees. Satisfied that it was fully hidden, he turned then and stalked back out into the open, standing under the light of the full moon. He dropped his head back and closed his eyes, taking several deep breaths, filling his lungs with the cold, salty air, concentrating as he’d learned to do. The first time he’d utilized this power had been an accident, the result of being thrown from a second story window by that bloody snake. He hadn’t meant to do it; his instincts had simply taken over as he’d been airborne. In fact, when he’d awakened from the subsequent illness and Hermione had told him what he’d done, he hadn’t believed her. Of course, her answer had been to dig though that bottomless bag of hers and find a book that had information in it. There had been a spell, an incantation… he’d never for the rest of his life forget what that second time had felt like. Now, with Hermione’s help and more concentration than he’d thought himself capable of, he could do it at will…
Centering himself, aware of each bone and muscle and sinew in his body, he visualized his inherent nature changing, morphing from human to something else, changing the basic fabric of his body from the hard, coiled strength of a young man to the lean, aerodynamic shape that would carry on the currents of the wind. He bent his knees and jumped, and before his feet could reconnect with the hard earth he felt the change course through him, felt his arms become wings, felt the wings catch the air and he was lifting, leaving the craggy ground behind. The wild freedom that had always come with flying flooded through him as, without benefit of broom, he flew across the face of the moon.
********
Draco had slipped into a fitful state of half slumber, his arms wrapped around his knees, his head back against the wall. His tears had turned to icy strips of frost on his cheeks, but he was so cold now that he scarcely felt it. Nor was he aware that his slender frame was shaking with the affects of the frigid breeze that blew into the cell through the hole near the ceiling. When a small pebble fell from the crumbling corner and landed sharply on the floor, he jerked awake instantly, his shoulders going rigid beneath the thin jumper. He stared towards the heavy door, fearful that his reprieve was over, but there was no sound from the hallway, and he peered around the gloom of the round room, grey eyes wide.
Another small rock landed on the stone floor, loud in the silence, and Draco’s whole body jerked. Fearfully, he lifted his head and stared at the break in the wall nearly fifteen feet above his head, his heart in his throat when he saw something at the edge, back lit by the moon. He pushed back against the wall reflexively, suddenly very much afraid that what was looking down on him was a Dementor, that somehow some had been sent there from Azkaban, and that they had come to suck out his soul. But the shape moved, and Draco forced himself to calm. It wasn’t big enough to be a Dementor. It moved again, a hopping motion, and Draco exhaled heavily. It was a bird; just a bird.
The creature sat on the crumbling section of wall, staring down at him for what felt like a very long time. It held almost preternaturally still, it’s proud head cocked to one side, as if taking his measure. The impasse lasted until Draco managed to draw in enough air to speak.
“Hello,” he said very softly, his voice raw. The sound scarcely carried. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hello.” This time he sounded more himself. The bird’s head cocked in the opposite direction, almost the way a dog’s does when it perks up its ears to listen. After a pause, the bird stretched its wings in an impressive show of wingspan and drifted directly into the cell, landing on an outcropping of stone that had a heavy metal ring hanging from it. Draco had not wanted to explore, even in his own mind, what the purpose for that ring might have been.
The earlier clouds had shifted, and there was a shaft of pure moonlight drifting through the opening in the roof. It splashed across the bird’s elegant head and back, lighting it almost as if it were under a blue tinted spotlight. Draco stared at it, not afraid, his eyes taking in each fine feature.
The bird’s head was black, shiny in the moonlight. About its neck was a golden ring, almost like a collar, its color bright against the black plumage. There was a faint mark on its head above its right eye, and there were spots on the bird’s plump breast, black marring a golden brown color. It was a gloriously beautiful creature, proud and watchful, its onyx black eyes staring, full of keen intelligence.
“Well,” Draco breathed after a watchful moment on both of their parts. “You’re a very handsome thing, aren’t you?”
Had he not known better, Draco would have sworn that the creature eyes flickered with amusement. Clearly, even a day was too long for him to be alone, if he was attributing human emotion to a bird. He licked parched lips.
“You’re a peregrine falcon, a hunting bird,” he went on quietly. “My father used to have hunters, when I was a boy.” The bird cocked its head yet again, as if saying, “yes, go on.” “It was a long time ago,” Draco said sadly. “A very long time ago.” He studied the handsome animal. “What are you doing here? Don’t you belong to someone? You’re valuable, you know. You should probably fly away before this lot figure out you’re here. They’d like as not try to roast you.” The bird ruffled its wings, and Draco felt the beginnings of a smile pull at the corner of his lips. “I’ll bet you’d put up a hell of a fight, wouldn’t you? They’d not take you as easily as they took me.” The reminder of where he was rolled over him in waves, and Draco let his head fall back against the wall again. “No, I didn’t put up much of a fight at all. But then, I’ve always been a terrible coward.” He closed his eyes and turned his face toward the wall. “So, this is probably a fitting end. “
A sudden, frigid gust of air blew into the small space, following the lines of the walls, ruffling the bird’s feathers and Draco’s white blond hair. He shuddered as it cut through his jumper and into his muscles.
“Merlin, it’s cold,” he said, teeth clenched against the shakes. “So bloody, fucking cold.”
He heard a rush of wings then and opened his eyes, unsurprised and yet vaguely disappointed to see the bird lifting on the wind and soaring out through the hole into the night sky. He sighed heavily. “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to keep me company, either.”
********
Harry had learned many things about being an Animagus over the last few months. Not only was his eyesight miraculously improved while in his other form, but the hunting skills of the predator were sharp within him. Soaring over the desolate moors near the crumbling castle, he searched the ground for small game, finally spotting a rabbit and taking it with silent stealth that still stunned him when he thought about it. He knew that his methods sickened Hermione a bit; after all, the talons were designed to kill and did with lethal efficiency. He couldn’t help it if sometimes, when he transformed back, there was still gore on his hands.
He made his way back to the spot where he’d secreted his pack, flew into the cover of the trees before completing his transformation, and both skinned and cooked the rabbit with a few quickly muttered spells. After his experience of the last few months, he knew that he’d never go hungry while in the wild again.
He ate as much of the rabbit as he could, then cleaned his hands with a few muttered words, pulling the rucksack from beneath its covering of pine needles and debris, reaching within to pull out a piece of oiled cloth. Wrapping the half of the rabbit he’d not eaten in the soft material, he tied it shut briskly and began to put it into the bag when he paused. He knew Malfoy couldn’t have been up there longer than a day, at the most. Snape had come to their camp site the night before, straight from the attack he’d suffered at Hogwarts when Draco had been taken. It was now just over twenty-four hours later, so one day. If they’d not fed him, he must be hungry. Harry stared to the lumpy parcel in his hands thoughtfully. He could always catch another; perhaps he should take this to Malfoy?
Resolved to do so, he remembered how the other boy had been shuddering from the cold. Reaching into the pack again, he withdrew a bulky jumper and cast a warming spell on it. It would last until daylight, at least, and that was some protection from the cold. He wrapped it around the leftover rabbit and tied it firmly with the sleeves. He started to shove the pack back into its hiding place, when a thoughtful frown creased his forehead. Reaching into the bag one more time, he withdrew a scrap of parchment and a pencil.
He wanted to write… something. Some message of hope, some small thing to give the boy strength until re-enforcements arrived, because unless Harry was greatly mistaken, Draco was as beaten as he’d ever seen him. He’d never admit aloud how his heart had clenched when he’d seen the other boy, sitting on that unforgiving wooden pallet, shaking in the cold, so downtrodden as to be almost unrecognizable. For just a moment, Harry had found himself wishing he could somehow goad him into… something; some reaction, some anger, anything to replace the despair that was so clear in every line and angle of his handsome face. Snape’s voice came back to him, echoing through his mind. “I’ve seen into his heart, too, Potter. You need him.”
Harry took a deep breath, and put the stub of pencil to the paper, scribbling quickly before tucking the note into the sweater and shoving the pack away. Moments later, he was striding from beneath the over hang of the trees. He crouched down and tied the bundle firmly around his ankle, then looked toward the moon and pushed off hard with his legs. Moments later, he was lifting on the wind.
********
Draco had been unable to go back to sleep again after the bird had made its exit. He stared across the room, not seeing the stone wall but the vision of that young Muggle girl at the Revel years before, and he was trembling as much in fear now as in cold when the soft rush of wings reached his ears and the falcon drifted gracefully back through the hole in the roof. Immediately, Draco could see that something bulky was attached to the bird’s leg, even though the size and weight didn’t seem to bother the animal.
He flew directly to Draco, landed gracefully on the rough bunk near his feet, and looked up at him, waiting.
“What is it?” he asked, then scoffed at himself. Like the bird could answer. “No one knows that I’m here,” he muttered. “No one… except maybe…” his heart began to pound jarringly hard in his chest, and he caught his breath as he reached for the bulky parcel tied around the bird’s leg. The moment his hands came into contact with the fabric, he felt warmth and nearly wept when he recognized the soft buzz of a warming charm. Untying it quickly, he recognized that it was a jumper tied around something else that was also warm. Within moments, the tantalizing aroma of cooked meat was drifting upwards from whatever was wrapped in oiled cloth. He quickly yanked the warm jumper over his head and as his hand slid through the sleeve, he felt the unmistakable stiffness of a piece of parchment. Mouth dry, heart pounding, he caught it in his hand and pulled it out. There was scribbling across the face of it. He had to turn it toward the soft moonlight in order to read it.
“The meat is rabbit. Snape told me where you were. I’ll get you out, I promise.”
Draco wrapped his arms tight across his chest, holding the note crushed in his hand as tears filled his eyes. There was someone out there who knew, someone who cared, someone who promised to get him out. For the first time in twenty four hours, he felt something other than despair.
Part 2
Recipient: xanateria
Title: On Falcon’s Wings (Part 1 of 3)
Pairing(s): Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy
Rating: Hard R
Summary: Draco Malfoy has spent the six months after that fateful night at the top of the Astronomy Tower in hiding from both his father, and his father’s master. Now that he has been discovered, his life is all but forfeit. So, what does that have to do with Harry Potter and his newly discovered power, and what does Severus Snape know that could send Harry to the rescue?
Warnings (if any): Adult language, slash, frottage, violence, character death (not Draco or Harry), mention of possible underage sexual activity
Total word count: 23,800
Disclaimer: This story/artwork is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author’s notes (if any):xanateria, I hope I’ve given you something you’ll like, if not just exactly what you requested. Herein, you will find romance, a top!harry and a bit of snarky sarcasm. They aren’t Hogwarts teachers (sorry) but hopefully the plot will make up for that. Enjoy!
Beta(s): a mighty penguin. Thanks so much! You’re my hero!
On Falcon's Wings Part 1 of 3
The night that Draco Malfoy’s life changed forever had been routine enough that it bordered on the mundane.
Lulled into a false sense of security, he’d been reading a Potions book while lying on the braided rug before the fire in Severus’ dungeon quarters. When he’d heard an unexpected noise outside of the heavy oak door, his fair head had lifted and he’d listened intently, but when nothing more occurred, he’d gone back to concentrating on the small Latin text.
Moments later, the heavy door had crashed into the wall, and Draco had whipped around, grey eyes wide and mouth slightly open as his heart had plummeted in his chest. Amycus Carrow and his sister stood in the doorway and when they spied him lying on the floor, the expressions on their faces would have vied with a child’s on Christmas morning for sheer delight.
“Well, well, well,” the woman said with a sly grin, wand pointed at Draco’s heart as she sauntered into the room. He could not remember her name for the life of him, but the expression on her fat face struck fear into his pounding heart. “Something tells me our dear Head hasn’t exactly been forthcoming about his activities.”
“If it isn’t young Malfoy,” her brother sneered, following her into the room. “Dear boy, your father has been looking for you for months.”
Draco swallowed nervously, and the movement wasn’t missed by the ugly man. His leer widened. “What, not anxious to see daddy? Bet you’re even less anxious to see Your Lord, aren’t you boy? But he’s just… itching to see you!”
They laughed together, and the sound made Draco’s skin crawl. He sat up slowly, shifting back until his spine was against the sofa, and he tried to move his hand as furtively as possible towards the back pocket of his trousers where the hilt of his wand was exposed. Just as his fingers touched it, the fat woman waved her wand in a negligent manner.
“Expelliarmus!” she said, almost as if she was bored, and Draco felt his wand jerked from his pocket before it sailed across the room and into her chubby fist. “Now, what exactly did you think you were going to do, boy? Curse me? Hex me?” Her black eyes narrowed, and she licked her fleshy lips. “I think you need a lesson for even thinking you could best me. Crucio!”
Pain exploded in Draco’s body, emanating from his chest, shooting down each arm and leg. He knew he’d jerked flat onto the rug, knew that he was twitching as if caught in an electrical current, and he knew that he was crying out, no matter how desperately he hadn’t wanted to make a sound. It was like being stabbed with a hundred red hot knives, and he bit his lip and tried to silence his cries, but the sound tore from his throat. Above his own hoarse screams he could hear the hated siblings laughing; laughing at his pain, at the way he flailed about.
“Stop that immediately.”
The austere voice cut through the sound of laughter, harsh, unforgiving, and Draco had never been so relieved to hear anything in his life. Instantly, the pain slipped away and he lay limp and gasping upon the rug.
“Severus…” he managed through his ravaged throat.
“Oooo, ‘Severus’, is it?” the male Carrow crowed. “Pretty cozy for a professor and a student, isn’t it, Snape? You let all of your students address you so familiarly, or just the ones that you’re hiding from their parents?”
“Do be quiet,” Severus Snape said darkly, striding into his quarters, placing himself between the Carrows and the spot where Draco still lay on the floor.
“You’ve some explaining to do, Snape,” the woman said vindictively. “And I don’t believe that the Dark Lord will be impressed with your reasoning this time. You told him that this boy had escaped after the first assault on Hogwarts; that you’d lost him in the Forbidden Forest. He’s had a price on his head for months, and you’ve had him all along.” Draco looked up from the boot clad feet, up the planted legs to the square shoulders beneath the curtain of inky hair, and he saw Snape’s square shoulders stiffen almost imperceptibly.
“No,” Draco wheezed, pushing himself up onto his elbows. “No, he did lose me in the forest. I… I was hiding…”
“You look pretty put together for someone who’s been hiding in the Forest, boy,” Carrow said harshly, taking in the spotless khaki trousers and the snug grey cashmere jumper. “Well fed, healthy, lying there like you owned the place…” His eyes narrowed as they lifted back to Snape’s face. “Quite fetching, actually.” His sneer widened. “Had a change of preference late in life, Severus? I mean, he is pretty…”
“Do be quiet, Carrow,” Snape said darkly, his lip curled. “Your attempts to be amusing weary me.”
“We’re waiting for you to explain the boy’s presence,” the ugly woman snapped. “Why is he here, instead of being held for the Dark Lord?”
“He is being held for the Dark Lord, you imbecile,” Snape hissed sharply in retaliation. “He’s from the country now, if it’s any of your business. I’m keeping the boy here until he returns, when he will be dealt with accordingly.”
Draco knew that Severus was bluffing; he had no intention of turning him over to the Dark Lord, ever. In the months since that night at the top of the astronomy tower, they’d discussed many things and Draco now knew far more about his illustrious Headmaster than he’d ever imagined might be the case. He’d known the man had hidden depths but even he had never expected that his godfather was brave enough to be playing at double spy, reporting the Dark Lord’s movements to the Order of the Phoenix. He swallowed heavily as he watched the siblings exchange a skeptical look.
“I don’t believe you,” Carrow finally said flatly.
“I don’t care what you believe,” Snape retorted. “Your opinions could not matter less to me. What I would like to know is how you managed to dismantle my wards and invade my private quarters.” This was asked with a healthy dose of barely restrained fury, and for a moment, Draco thought that the ruse to change the subject was going to work. Carrow’s eyes darted quickly; his sister’s doughy face began to flush.
“We just thought,” she began, sounding more conciliatory, when Draco felt Carrow’s eyes come back to him.
“No!” he shouted, cutting his sister’s explanation off in mid word. “No, that boy is a fugitive from the Dark Lord’s justice, he’s been hunting for him with nearly the same zeal he’s put into hunting for the Potter brat, and you’ve had him here all along. You will tell us why, or we’ll get the answer from him!” He pointed his wand at Draco, and the room seemed to explode in a flash of red fire.
“Imperio!” Carrow shouted, and Draco steeled himself, but the expected lethargy never came. Snape had raised his wand as well, shouting “Stupefy” at precisely the same moment, and the lumpy man went down like a fallen tree. Snape whirled on the sister, but as he lifted his wand the spell she had screeched slammed into him, and Draco flinched as a spray of something wet splashed across his cheek. He winced and lifted his hand in to his face, then stared in horror when his fingers came away covered in blood. Not his, he realized: Snape’s.
The man was down on one knee before him, one hand still gripping his wand as the other clutched at his chest. His head was forward, and Draco could see blood staining his hand, as well.
“Oh, God,” he cried, coming up to his knees, making as if to move to Severus’ side. “Oh, God, not that…” He remembered his own encounter with the Sectumsempra on a wet bathroom floor, remembered watching in horror as his own life blood spilled onto the tiles. If Severus hadn’t come in, he’d have died. But Draco didn’t know the counter curse, didn’t know how to fix it… He started to clamber forward, but as Carrow’s sister bent over her brother and cast Ennervate, bringing him slowly to consciousness, Snape turned his head and pinned him in place with his black eyes.
“Remember what I said,” he whispered harshly, blood speckled face very pale, eyes intense. “Remember what I said, Draco.” He paused, his frame shuddering. “I’m sorry,” he wheezed.
“Severus…” Draco whispered, reaching out with his trembling hand. An expression of regret passed over Snape’s stark features, but he lurched to his feet, turned in place, and vanished with a loud popping sound.
Draco went completely cold with the sudden realization that Snape had left him, left him to the mercy of the Carrows, and by extension the Dark Lord, his eyes widening in horror.
“Fucking hell!” Carrow shouted, pointing his wand at the air where moments before Severus Snape had stood. “How did he do that? You aren’t supposed to be able to Apparate from the grounds!”
“It doesn’t matter,” his hideous sister responded, her eyes gleaming. “That spell will kill him in a matter of minutes. Besides,” she pointed her wand at Draco, who valiantly fought not to bring up his dinner. “We’ve the fatted calf.”
As the siblings advanced on him, Draco understood just what Snape had been apologizing for.
********
Harry Potter sat on the bunk in the tent that he shared with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger in the middle of the Forest of Dean, the snitch that Dumbledore had left him in his hand held up to the lantern light. He shook it, heard the faint clattering of something secreted within, and grimaced once again. He knew it was the resurrection stone, knew it with every fiber of his being. Since they’d returned from Luna’s father’s house he’d gbeen more sure than ever that the Deathly Hallows should be their goal, were even more important than the Horcruxes, but he couldn’t get Ron, and especially Hermione, to agree with him. In fact, he was fairly certain that his fixation on the Hallows was the reason they’d gone for a walk this evening on the pretext of needing to ‘talk’. She thought he was obsessed again; obsessed the way he’d been with Malfoy during their sixth and final year at Hogwarts.
“Well, I was right about that, wasn’t I?” he thought, his jaw firming. He’d been right about all of it, and he turned his head and stared at the opening of the tent, which moved slightly in the evening breeze. He’d been right about Malfoy…
Unbidden, an image of the fair haired boy filled his mind, and Harry’s brow furrowed. For the hundredth time, he wondered what had become of Malfoy after that fateful night at Hogwarts. His glimpses into the Dark Lord’s mind had shown him the anger when Malfoy had been unsuccessful, and the fury at his disappearance, but nothing else. Malfoy had vanished like a puff of smoke on a stiff breeze, and in moments when Harry wasn’t fixated on his new infatuation with the three legendary Hallows, he could not help but remember the tremor in Malfoy’s hand as he’d lowered his wand, the tears that had filled his grey eyes. Harry had not told a living soul, but his heart had gone out to the boy that night, and even after months of suspicion about his activities, and after he’d let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, Harry had wanted only to help him, save him…
He shook his dark head and went back to studying the snitch, his thumb moving over the spot where the faint inscription caught the light of the lantern. “I open at the close’. The ‘close’ of what, he pondered yet again, turning the small ball in his hand. There was no opening, so there could be no close…
A sound from outside the tent made him lift his head, certain it was Ron and Hermione returning form their ‘walk’. He smirked a bit at that. Perhaps they’d finally been able to admit that they had feelings for one another, maybe gotten some snogging in… Again, he shook his shaggy, dark head. Might go a long way towards making Hermione easier to live with, that. But he doubted she’d come around yet; she was still plenty aggravated at Ron for running off the way he had, no matter how many times he’d tried to apologize. Harry might be ‘obsessed’, but Hermione was downright obstinate…
“Potter…” A ghostly whisper reached his ears through the tent’s opening.
A chill, like a finger of ice, slipped down the length of Harry’s spine and he surged to his feet, shoving the snitch into his pocket and grabbing Hermione’s blackthorn wand from her cot.
He swallowed heavily but maintained his silence, taking one, then another tentative step towards the tents opening.
“Potter!” It was louder this time, and desperation laced the deep, savaged voice. Unable to deny his curiosity, Harry took the few steps that separated him from the outside, still gripping the wand before him in his hand, and looked out into the canopied darkness of the forest.
At first, he could see nothing; all was in heavy shadows. But then something moved and Harry stiffened as a figure lurched toward him from the gloom.
Fury roared through him as he recognized the man, and he clenched his teeth and lifted his wand.
“Expilliarmus!” Snape wheezed before Harry could utter a sound, and Hermione’s wand flew from his fingers and into the old Potion Master’s hand. “Silencio!” he hissed when Harry would have shouted, “Incarcerous!” when Harry turned to run. The heavy ropes wrapped themselves around him, and he fell heavily to the ground, his heart in his throat. Bested by the man yet again, Harry could only stare up at him in impotent fury, sure he was about to be taken to Voldemort, sure his mission would never be realized. He could only hope that Ron and Hermione would get away...
“There isn’t time for this,” Snape gasped, his hand going back to his own chest, and it was then that Harry realized that the hand not holding both wands was gripping the ruined front of his tunic, and that blood was pouring over his hand. In the dim light that reflected from inside the tent Harry could see the ashen, grey pallor of the thin, drawn face, see the horrible wounds that transected his chest. He recognized them, and his green eyes widened. “I must speak with you, but if you are going to behave… like an insufferable brat… we will get nowhere.” Snape’s voice sounded dry and ravaged as he fought for air, and Harry stared. “Will you cease trying to hex me? I promise you… the job has already… been admirably… done. I don’t have long…” He dropped heavily to one knee near Harry’s side. “Please, Potter,” he whispered, his eyes pleading, and Harry felt his heart turn over hard. “Please. There isn’t time… for this, and we must speak.”
Hesitantly, his eyes searching the black ones before him for duplicity but finding nothing but desperation and even fear, Harry nodded.
“Finite Incantatem,” Snape uttered, and the ropes disappeared and Harry could speak, and he opened his mouth to do so when the slender man began to collapse sideways towards the ground, black eyes rolling up into his head. Harry lurched to his knees and caught his shoulders.
“What’s happened to you?” he asked, holding the man upright.
“Cursed…” came the breathy response. “Just… get me somewhere… where I can sit…”
It was a struggle, but Harry managed to get him to his feet and a long arm over his own shoulders, and they lurched gracelessly through the tent’s opening. Once they were inside, all of Snape’s strength seemed to ebb away at once and he collapsed heavily to the threadbare, faded carpet. Harry shoved him onto his back, his eyes widening when he saw the horrendous extent of his gaping wounds.
“Hermione,” Harry said quickly. “We need Hermione…”
“No!” Snape’s hand curled, claw-like, in Harry’s faded jumper and held him in place. Harry looked into eyes wild with desperation. “There isn’t… time…”
“I don’t know what to do to help you!” Harry cried, trying to fight his way free. “I don’t know how to stop it…”
“It can’t be stopped, Potter.”
“But, you stopped it before… with Malfoy…”
“The counter curse can only be performed by a party other than the caster and there’s no time, I tell you!” The sheer despair and desperation in the man’s tone finally penetrated Harry’s fear and horror at the pulsing wounds on the slender chest, and he looked up into the black eyes. “You must listen to me, Potter. You must… listen…” Harry dampened his lips with his tongue as Snape stared and fought for air.
“I’m listening…” he finally said faintly, and Snape’s shoulders settled back against the carpet with a heavy sigh.
“I know… you’ve no reason to trust me… I can only tell you… that Albus knew what he was doing… he bid me do it…”
Harry’s fury returned in a rush. “He bid you kill him? I’m supposed to believe…”
“Potter, he was dying,” Snape gasped wearily, and Harry went very still, staring. “He’d been dying, ever since the cursed ring…”
“You know about the ring…” Harry’s voice was faint with surprise.
“Who do you think saved him that night? I know about them. The ring, the locket, the cup, the diadem, the diary, the snake…”
Harry felt all of the blood drain from his face as he stared down into Snape’s ravaged eyes. “You know about…”
Snape nodded heavily, dampening his own blood speckled, dry lips. “I know. Now listen to me…” He paused, fought for air. It sounded wet as it seeped into his lungs. “You must… save Malfoy…”
Harry frowned. “What?”
“Don’t stop me again! There isn’t time…” Snape’s eyes began to roll up, but he fought for consciousness. “Malfoy… has been seized. He’s been taken… to a holding of his father’s. A ruin, near the far northern border… about 80 miles from Hogwarts… due north…”
“Why in the hell would I want to save Malfoy?!” Harry cried, stiffening against the hand that held him. Snape's grip tightened, and for just a moment, his black eyes sharpened.
“I’ve been in your mind, Potter,” he said, deep voice pinning Harry in place, intense gaze stripping his heart bare. “I’ve seen,” he wheezed. “I know.”
In spite of the dire circumstances, Harry felt his face begin to fill with color. “I don’t know what you’re…”
“Boy, I don’t care,” Snape interrupted wearily. “It doesn’t matter to me. But I’ve seen into his heart, as well…”
Harry went very still. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying…” Snape paused to dampen his lips again, and when he resumed, his voice was almost gentle. “I’m saying… that I’ve seen into his heart. You must save him. You need him for what is ahead. And you don’t understand, Potter. You don’t know what they’ll do to him…”
Harry frowned again. “His father won’t let…”
“His father won’t lift a finger,” Snape shook his head. “He’s too frightened, they’re all too frightened.” His hand tightened again and he yanked Harry forward, until their eyes were just inches apart, Harry’s wide and very green, Snape’s narrowed and inky black. “You. Need. Him.” he repeated emphatically. “And if you don’t get to him… soon, there won’t be enough of his sanity left to save.” Harry felt a chill of fear skirt over the surface of his skin.
“What… what are you saying?”
Snape’s eyes rolled shut wearily. “You know what I’m saying.”
Harry sat for a moment longer, then pried Snape’s fingers from his jumper and lurched to his feet, going to his bunk and grabbing his rucksack. He shoved his invisibility cloak into the bag, and turned back again, shrugging it over his square shoulder. “Where is he again?” Harry asked, green eyes sharp as he took a long black cape from the foot of the bunk and swung over his shoulders.
“Castle Ardvreck,” Snape answered raggedly. “It’s right on Loch Assynt. You can Apparate to…”
“I’ll find it.” Harry cut him off. He dragged a blanket from his cot and came to Snape’s side, covering him carefully. “Ron and Hermione should be back soon. She’ll know what to do…”
He shook his dark head. “It doesn’t matter,” Snape said, his energy visibly fading. “Just save him, boy. I promised his mother…”
Harry nodded. “Tell them where I’ve gone. Tell them to send reinforcements as quickly as they can.”
Snape nodded. Before Harry went to stand, Snape looked at the wand he’d tucked into his denim pocket, and frowned, grabbing Harry’s arm. “That’s not your wand,” he said flatly. Harry’s mouth flattened into a straight line.
“Mine was broken.”
Snape caught his breath at the revelation, then lifted his hand and held out his own. Harry stared at it in incomprehension. “Take it,” Snape ordered, and the Harry stared, stunned.
“What?” he gasped. “No, you’ll need it…”
“I’ll not need it where I’m going and it will be infinitely preferable to that one,” he answered with a weary sort of dry humor. He didn’t lower his hand, and hesitantly, Harry took the wand. Immediately, he felt a surge of power rush through his arm, and his eyes widened. He didn’t know if it was his imagination, but he thought he saw a moment’s warmth in his old professor’s fading gaze. “I’d have been surprised if it hadn’t responded to… her son…”
His eyes drifted closed on that enigmatic comment, and Harry frowned. “Sir? What…?”
“There isn’t time now,” Snape answered, dragging his eyelids back open. “Go. Draco can answer all of your questions… go…”
Harry felt torn between doing what his old nemesis was bidding him to, and waiting for his friends to return, but some of Snape’s urgency had gotten through to him because he handed the man Hermione’s slender, vine wrapped wand, then climbed to his feet. With a brisk nod, he turned towards the flap then paused and turned back, his eyes going to Snape’s, which were still watching him. “I’ll bring him back,” he said firmly.
“Just get him out,” Snape responded faintly. “Then let him help you do what you have to do.”
Harry nodded, and was gone.
The sound of Apparition was fading when Snape looked around the interior of the tent, searching. He could feel his lifeblood seeping into the floor beneath him, and knew he didn’t have long…
Across the tent there was a small table, and he spotted a pile of parchment and a quill. “Accio!” he said breathlessly, half surprised that Granger’s wand had responded to him. The parchment and quill landed on his chest, and he lifted them, fighting to clear his hazing vision as he wrote in jagged lines;
“Potter has gone to Castle Ardvreck in Northern Scotla…”
The words trailed away as his consciousness faded, and the parchment and quill dropped from his hands as they fell limp on his chest. Moments later, a stray breeze lifted the square of parchment and sent it skittering under Potter’s camp bed, hidden in shadows…
********
He was cold. So cold he couldn’t feel his toes or the tips of his fingers any longer, and from what Draco could tell in the dim light, his nails were starting to turn a faintly alarming shade of purplish-blue. He clutched his hands together, trying to still their trembling, but the effort was in vain. He could feel himself shaking, even faintly hear the sound of his teeth chattering and there didn’t seem to be a thing that he could do to stop it. The Carrow’s had not allowed him to so much as fetch a cloak before they’d grabbed him and dragged him from Snape’s dungeon quarters, hauling him up the stairs. There had been magical restraints on his wrists, and they’d hit him with the Imperious so that he would not struggle. He remembered seeing McGonagall’s shocked face as they’d passed, and some of his housemates. He didn’t believe he would ever be able to remove from his mind the memory of Pansy’s ashen face, or the smirk on Theo Nott’s.
They’d paused briefly to speak to someone; MacNair, he thought but he hadn’t really been able to concentrate on the conversation at the time, and then they’d herded him to the front gates, each grabbed an arm, and he’d been treated to the unpleasant sensation of Side-along Apparition. When they’d arrived at their destination, Draco had recognized it at once with a thrill of terror; Castle Ardvreck. He’d only been there before once, and he’d prayed regularly never to have to go there again. This time, his prayers had gone unanswered.
His first visit had occurred just after his fourth year. He’d been 14 years old, and he and his parents had hosted what he’d thought was merely a Death Eater party of sorts. His mother had sent him to his suite just after sunset with strict instructions that he was not to leave his quarters, but he’d never been much good at following orders. After it had been fully dark, he’d slipped from the safety of his warded room and slinked through the halls, looking for the party.
He’d heard tales of Death Eater Revels, but he hadn’t really believed them; not until that night. It was the first such get together since the Dark Lord’s triumphant return and the minions were in high spirits. There was a great hall at Ardvreck, vying Hogwarts for size if not grandeur, and they’d all been gathered there.
At first, he hadn’t really understood what he was witnessing. There were people there, chained together, clearly Muggles. They looked terrified, but he could understand that. It was his first glimpse of Voldemort as well, and he was fearsome looking creature, for that really couldn’t be called a man. He was giving some sort of speech, his voice ringing through the cavernous space but he’d not understood a word of it; it had been in Parseltongue. The sound of the sibilant language made him feel strangely light-headed, but the adults seemed more affected; he saw his father, on his hands and knees, his beautiful mother beside him, her hands clasped before her as she looked on the Dark Lord with something very like awe. He talked for a long time, and his supporters were rapt at each sibilant hiss, reacting with cheers and moans, and Draco was starting to feel uncomfortable before the first captive had ever been unchained from the others and brought to the center of the large circle. Clearly Imperioused, the young girl, not much older than himself, had looked vague and sheeplike as she was led. Like a lamb to slaughter, he’d thought at the time. He’d had no idea how right he’d been.
His childhood had ended that night, while he was hiding on those stairs.
He’d lost his dinner long before they’d finished with the poor, broken creature, and he’d stumbled to his rooms in a blind agony of horror, unable to get the visions of what they’d done to her from his mind. He’d never told his parents what he’d seen, but he’d been pretty sure that his mother, in that uncanny way that mother’s had, had known. She’d done everything in her power to keep him away from Voldemort after that. It had ultimately been unsuccessful; when his father had failed in his mission at the Department of Mysteries, Draco’s fate had been sealed. He’d been called before Voldemort and marked within weeks, set on his mission to kill Dumbledore in order to redeem the family name. He knew now that he’d been a fool; Voldemort had never expected him to succeed, and he hadn’t.
And now he was back at Ardvreck, the scene of many of his nightmares, with Alecto Carrow whispering in his ear of the horrors and torture that awaited him. Still cursed, he couldn’t do more than listen, knowing she spoke the truth.
“You’re so pretty, little Malfoy,” she hissed as they dragged him towards the castle doors. “The Dark Lord may want first crack at that pretty arse himself; he’s a thing for young boys, did you know that? We all know you’re a flaming pouf; your father tried to hide it, but we know. Wonder how pretty you’ll look once the men have split you in two and cut off your bits…”
Even cursed, he’d wept.
The only thing that had saved him was that Voldemort was not in the country.
He watched the blue moonlight shine into the cell through the ragged hole in the wall near the ceiling, saw a few flakes of snow drift in on the breeze to join the pile against the wall. There was a slop bucket, its contents frozen solid, and a dead rat, frozen just as thoroughly, lying on its side. Draco pulled his knees to his thin chest and wrapped his arms around them, trying to generate some body heat. The khaki trousers and thin jumper that had been more than warm before a fire were no protection from the bitter cold of the in the dead of winter, and he found himself wondering how long he could survive his captivity. And then another thought occurred; perhaps it would be better to freeze to death before Voldemort returned. At least then, he could merely go to sleep and not wake up, not die being literally torn apart… He’d seen the way that MacNair had watched him, even before this latest debacle. He knew what the man wanted…
He shuddered, and a tear began its way down his face, only to freeze on his pale cheek. He was doomed. They’d kill him after making sport of him first, and he was such a coward that he’d die screaming. His shakes mounted, and he bit his lower lip, closing his eyes, willing the tears back. He wished he had just a trace of Snape’s courage, or resolve. The thought of the man brought another memory, the memory of the last thing he’d said to Draco before he’d disappeared before him.
“Remember what I said, Draco. Remember what I said.”
He’d not needed reminding; the words were seared into his mind. They’d been in Snape’s chambers late one night, when Severus had been training him in Occlumency and had stumbled across his shameful secret while threading through his mind. Draco had been horrified that he’d discovered it, and had turned toward the fire, his face in his hands. The feeling of Severus’ hand on his shoulder had at first startled, for the man was not affectionate, then comforted.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he’d whispered, so softly that Draco had barely heard him. “Love is never something to be ashamed of. And know this, Draco; remember this.” Draco had turned and stared into his black eyes then, seen the intensity. “You aren’t alone in your feelings.”
Draco had started to speak, but Snape had merely shaken his dark head. “There is no need to speak of it, just know that you aren’t alone. And if anything should happen to me, you must go to Potter. Trust Potter. He’ll protect you, I know it.”
Draco had desperately wanted him to explain himself, but Snape had never said another word about it. Until the night he’d been taken, just before he disappeared.
For all the good it would do him, Draco thought in despair. ‘Go to Potter, trust Potter’. How? He slipped his hands into his armpits and turned his face towards the wall. He’d die without ever seeing those green eyes again, and it was that thought that finally battered his teetering resolve into dust and brought sobs.
*******
Harry stood on an outcropping of rock, staring up at the imposing façade of Castle Ardvreck. Icy wind whipped around his head, caught at his longish hair, blowing it into his face, whipping his cloak around his legs. It was miserably cold here, with the wind blowing right off of the Loch, and he was grateful for the heating charm he’d cast before he’d Apparated to Hogwarts. The trip to this northernmost, rocky shoreline had taken hours the way he’d had to travel, and it was night once again. During the last part of his journey, he’d not felt the cold at all. It was one of the perks, he thought with a wry grimace, of his newly discovered ability. Imperviousness to the cold, eyesight so enhanced that he realized, for the first time in his life, how bad the eyes behind his spectacles really were…
He stared at the castle for a moment longer, realizing that at this distance, he couldn’t really tell where the guard was and how many of them there were. He studied the ruins, still strong near the center, collapsing at the edges, as if the elements were eating away at the structure from the exposed corners in. Most of these old places had a dungeon, and if Malfoy were being held there, Harry wasn’t sure how he would get to him. But then his eyes settled on the tower, one upper corner collapsed toward the sea side, juxtaposed over the full moon. If Malfoy were there… well, there was only one way to find out.
Harry turned and found an area near the edge of the woods, trees close together forming a sort of protected inlet, and shook the rucksack from his shoulders and hid it beneath the thick fall of pine needles at the base of the trees. Satisfied that it was fully hidden, he turned then and stalked back out into the open, standing under the light of the full moon. He dropped his head back and closed his eyes, taking several deep breaths, filling his lungs with the cold, salty air, concentrating as he’d learned to do. The first time he’d utilized this power had been an accident, the result of being thrown from a second story window by that bloody snake. He hadn’t meant to do it; his instincts had simply taken over as he’d been airborne. In fact, when he’d awakened from the subsequent illness and Hermione had told him what he’d done, he hadn’t believed her. Of course, her answer had been to dig though that bottomless bag of hers and find a book that had information in it. There had been a spell, an incantation… he’d never for the rest of his life forget what that second time had felt like. Now, with Hermione’s help and more concentration than he’d thought himself capable of, he could do it at will…
Centering himself, aware of each bone and muscle and sinew in his body, he visualized his inherent nature changing, morphing from human to something else, changing the basic fabric of his body from the hard, coiled strength of a young man to the lean, aerodynamic shape that would carry on the currents of the wind. He bent his knees and jumped, and before his feet could reconnect with the hard earth he felt the change course through him, felt his arms become wings, felt the wings catch the air and he was lifting, leaving the craggy ground behind. The wild freedom that had always come with flying flooded through him as, without benefit of broom, he flew across the face of the moon.
********
Draco had slipped into a fitful state of half slumber, his arms wrapped around his knees, his head back against the wall. His tears had turned to icy strips of frost on his cheeks, but he was so cold now that he scarcely felt it. Nor was he aware that his slender frame was shaking with the affects of the frigid breeze that blew into the cell through the hole near the ceiling. When a small pebble fell from the crumbling corner and landed sharply on the floor, he jerked awake instantly, his shoulders going rigid beneath the thin jumper. He stared towards the heavy door, fearful that his reprieve was over, but there was no sound from the hallway, and he peered around the gloom of the round room, grey eyes wide.
Another small rock landed on the stone floor, loud in the silence, and Draco’s whole body jerked. Fearfully, he lifted his head and stared at the break in the wall nearly fifteen feet above his head, his heart in his throat when he saw something at the edge, back lit by the moon. He pushed back against the wall reflexively, suddenly very much afraid that what was looking down on him was a Dementor, that somehow some had been sent there from Azkaban, and that they had come to suck out his soul. But the shape moved, and Draco forced himself to calm. It wasn’t big enough to be a Dementor. It moved again, a hopping motion, and Draco exhaled heavily. It was a bird; just a bird.
The creature sat on the crumbling section of wall, staring down at him for what felt like a very long time. It held almost preternaturally still, it’s proud head cocked to one side, as if taking his measure. The impasse lasted until Draco managed to draw in enough air to speak.
“Hello,” he said very softly, his voice raw. The sound scarcely carried. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hello.” This time he sounded more himself. The bird’s head cocked in the opposite direction, almost the way a dog’s does when it perks up its ears to listen. After a pause, the bird stretched its wings in an impressive show of wingspan and drifted directly into the cell, landing on an outcropping of stone that had a heavy metal ring hanging from it. Draco had not wanted to explore, even in his own mind, what the purpose for that ring might have been.
The earlier clouds had shifted, and there was a shaft of pure moonlight drifting through the opening in the roof. It splashed across the bird’s elegant head and back, lighting it almost as if it were under a blue tinted spotlight. Draco stared at it, not afraid, his eyes taking in each fine feature.
The bird’s head was black, shiny in the moonlight. About its neck was a golden ring, almost like a collar, its color bright against the black plumage. There was a faint mark on its head above its right eye, and there were spots on the bird’s plump breast, black marring a golden brown color. It was a gloriously beautiful creature, proud and watchful, its onyx black eyes staring, full of keen intelligence.
“Well,” Draco breathed after a watchful moment on both of their parts. “You’re a very handsome thing, aren’t you?”
Had he not known better, Draco would have sworn that the creature eyes flickered with amusement. Clearly, even a day was too long for him to be alone, if he was attributing human emotion to a bird. He licked parched lips.
“You’re a peregrine falcon, a hunting bird,” he went on quietly. “My father used to have hunters, when I was a boy.” The bird cocked its head yet again, as if saying, “yes, go on.” “It was a long time ago,” Draco said sadly. “A very long time ago.” He studied the handsome animal. “What are you doing here? Don’t you belong to someone? You’re valuable, you know. You should probably fly away before this lot figure out you’re here. They’d like as not try to roast you.” The bird ruffled its wings, and Draco felt the beginnings of a smile pull at the corner of his lips. “I’ll bet you’d put up a hell of a fight, wouldn’t you? They’d not take you as easily as they took me.” The reminder of where he was rolled over him in waves, and Draco let his head fall back against the wall again. “No, I didn’t put up much of a fight at all. But then, I’ve always been a terrible coward.” He closed his eyes and turned his face toward the wall. “So, this is probably a fitting end. “
A sudden, frigid gust of air blew into the small space, following the lines of the walls, ruffling the bird’s feathers and Draco’s white blond hair. He shuddered as it cut through his jumper and into his muscles.
“Merlin, it’s cold,” he said, teeth clenched against the shakes. “So bloody, fucking cold.”
He heard a rush of wings then and opened his eyes, unsurprised and yet vaguely disappointed to see the bird lifting on the wind and soaring out through the hole into the night sky. He sighed heavily. “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to keep me company, either.”
********
Harry had learned many things about being an Animagus over the last few months. Not only was his eyesight miraculously improved while in his other form, but the hunting skills of the predator were sharp within him. Soaring over the desolate moors near the crumbling castle, he searched the ground for small game, finally spotting a rabbit and taking it with silent stealth that still stunned him when he thought about it. He knew that his methods sickened Hermione a bit; after all, the talons were designed to kill and did with lethal efficiency. He couldn’t help it if sometimes, when he transformed back, there was still gore on his hands.
He made his way back to the spot where he’d secreted his pack, flew into the cover of the trees before completing his transformation, and both skinned and cooked the rabbit with a few quickly muttered spells. After his experience of the last few months, he knew that he’d never go hungry while in the wild again.
He ate as much of the rabbit as he could, then cleaned his hands with a few muttered words, pulling the rucksack from beneath its covering of pine needles and debris, reaching within to pull out a piece of oiled cloth. Wrapping the half of the rabbit he’d not eaten in the soft material, he tied it shut briskly and began to put it into the bag when he paused. He knew Malfoy couldn’t have been up there longer than a day, at the most. Snape had come to their camp site the night before, straight from the attack he’d suffered at Hogwarts when Draco had been taken. It was now just over twenty-four hours later, so one day. If they’d not fed him, he must be hungry. Harry stared to the lumpy parcel in his hands thoughtfully. He could always catch another; perhaps he should take this to Malfoy?
Resolved to do so, he remembered how the other boy had been shuddering from the cold. Reaching into the pack again, he withdrew a bulky jumper and cast a warming spell on it. It would last until daylight, at least, and that was some protection from the cold. He wrapped it around the leftover rabbit and tied it firmly with the sleeves. He started to shove the pack back into its hiding place, when a thoughtful frown creased his forehead. Reaching into the bag one more time, he withdrew a scrap of parchment and a pencil.
He wanted to write… something. Some message of hope, some small thing to give the boy strength until re-enforcements arrived, because unless Harry was greatly mistaken, Draco was as beaten as he’d ever seen him. He’d never admit aloud how his heart had clenched when he’d seen the other boy, sitting on that unforgiving wooden pallet, shaking in the cold, so downtrodden as to be almost unrecognizable. For just a moment, Harry had found himself wishing he could somehow goad him into… something; some reaction, some anger, anything to replace the despair that was so clear in every line and angle of his handsome face. Snape’s voice came back to him, echoing through his mind. “I’ve seen into his heart, too, Potter. You need him.”
Harry took a deep breath, and put the stub of pencil to the paper, scribbling quickly before tucking the note into the sweater and shoving the pack away. Moments later, he was striding from beneath the over hang of the trees. He crouched down and tied the bundle firmly around his ankle, then looked toward the moon and pushed off hard with his legs. Moments later, he was lifting on the wind.
********
Draco had been unable to go back to sleep again after the bird had made its exit. He stared across the room, not seeing the stone wall but the vision of that young Muggle girl at the Revel years before, and he was trembling as much in fear now as in cold when the soft rush of wings reached his ears and the falcon drifted gracefully back through the hole in the roof. Immediately, Draco could see that something bulky was attached to the bird’s leg, even though the size and weight didn’t seem to bother the animal.
He flew directly to Draco, landed gracefully on the rough bunk near his feet, and looked up at him, waiting.
“What is it?” he asked, then scoffed at himself. Like the bird could answer. “No one knows that I’m here,” he muttered. “No one… except maybe…” his heart began to pound jarringly hard in his chest, and he caught his breath as he reached for the bulky parcel tied around the bird’s leg. The moment his hands came into contact with the fabric, he felt warmth and nearly wept when he recognized the soft buzz of a warming charm. Untying it quickly, he recognized that it was a jumper tied around something else that was also warm. Within moments, the tantalizing aroma of cooked meat was drifting upwards from whatever was wrapped in oiled cloth. He quickly yanked the warm jumper over his head and as his hand slid through the sleeve, he felt the unmistakable stiffness of a piece of parchment. Mouth dry, heart pounding, he caught it in his hand and pulled it out. There was scribbling across the face of it. He had to turn it toward the soft moonlight in order to read it.
“The meat is rabbit. Snape told me where you were. I’ll get you out, I promise.”
Draco wrapped his arms tight across his chest, holding the note crushed in his hand as tears filled his eyes. There was someone out there who knew, someone who cared, someone who promised to get him out. For the first time in twenty four hours, he felt something other than despair.
Part 2