Thicker than Blood

Chapter 10: The Final Breach

They reached the second floor and the entrance to Professor Dumbledore's tower without meeting another soul. The clinging darkness did not lessen, nor did the terrifying chill of despair that numbed Hermione's limbs and poisoned her thoughts. But she managed to keep moving, driven by fear of what might happen to Harry if she gave in to the despair. The Dementors must not be too close, or she would not be able to run at all, she reasoned. It was therefore safe to travel the corridors and absolutely necessary to reach Dumbledore.

Hermione dragged Crabbe up to the gargoyle that guarded the entrance, just as the statue came to life and leapt to one side. She stepped back abruptly, treading on Crabbe's toes in the process, and pulled out her wand. When she saw Professor Moody's scarred and dreadful face peering at her from the torchlit opening behind the gargoyle, she let out an audible sigh of relief and let her wand fall to her side. Moody stumped out of the stairwell and planted himself in front of the two students. It was impossible to tell from his face whether or not he was angry, so Hermione didn't try.

"What are you two doing in the corridors?"

"Please, Professor," she cried, "we need to see the Headmaster! It's very important!"

One of the things Hermione liked best about Professor Moody was that he didn't ask awkward questions. He simply fixed a person with that magic eye of his, stared at her like he was stripping her skin off, then made a decision. In this case, Hermione was quite sure that he was reading the letter clutched so tightly in her hand. After a brief moment, he nodded once and turned to wake up the gargoyle again with the proper password.

Hermione shoved Crabbe to get him moving. The Slytherin boy seemed frozen with fear, and it took Hermione a moment to realize why. Crabbe's most vivid memory of Moody was the day he'd turned Malfoy into a bouncing ferret. This event had left a deep impression on him and imbued him with an almost reverential fear of the old Auror. Of course, it had endeared Moody to the rest of the school in a way that nothing else could have, but Hermione was a fair enough person to admit that Crabbe had reason to be leery of him. She refrained from yelling at Crabbe when he hung back from Moody, merely planting her shoulder in his back and throwing her weight against him to get him moving, uttering a muffled "Oof!"

Crabbe obediently edged into the stairwell and flattened himself against one curved wall to make room for Hermione. His face, white with fear of the Dementors and Moody combined, still managed to look awestruck at the sight of the long, cylindrical tower sliding past them, as the stairway carried them smoothly upward. At the top, they halted before a heavy oak door. Hermione knocked politely.

"Come in!"

The door swung open under its own power, and Hermione reached for Crabbe's hand to pull him into the office with her. She found Professor Dumbledore alone, pacing the circular room with a cat-like intensity she had never seen in him before. She squeezed Crabbe's hand a bit more tightly, for reassurance this time, and ventured, "Professor?"

Dumbledore halted his pacing and turned smiling eyes on them. "What can I do for you, Miss Granger?"

She held out the letter to him, wishing she had put it in her robe instead of holding it so tightly in her sweaty hand. It was now a disreputable wad of damp parchment and blurred ink. "I thought you should see this right away."

"Indeed." He crossed the room to take the letter and absently waved both students into chairs by the desk. His face did not change as he read. When he'd finished, he lifted his eyes, still smiling, to fix on Crabbe. "You received this in today's batch of owls?"

"Yes, Headmaster," Crabbe mumbled. Then he summoned his courage to add, "I'm sorry I didn't bring it sooner. I wanted to show it to Malfoy... Draco, I mean, not the other Malfoy... because he might want Mr. Malfoy - the other one - to find... uhmmm..." Swallowing nervously, he flushed and let his confused explanation die off.

"I quite understand. You did your best, I'm sure, and in the absence of Mr. Malfoy - Draco, that is - you did well to enlist Miss Granger's help."

"Do you think the Dementor attack is the rescue Pansy mentioned?" Hermione asked, her curiosity getting the better of her caution.

"That remains to be seen. Professor Moody is leading the staff in a sortie to drive the Dementors back from the walls..."

"They aren't inside?"

"Not that we know of. But they are overloading the wards and causing dangerous power fluctuations." His keen eyes peered at Hermione from over the tops of his spectacles, and he was no longer smiling. "I am sure you see the implications of this, in light of Miss Parkinson's letter."

"I don't," Crabbe mumbled.

"It is possible that the Dementors are deliberately drawing the power of our wards to their location, so that someone might slip through the wards undetected at another spot."

"Malfoy!" Hermione gasped, then added, reflexively, "Lucius, I mean."

Dumbledore twinkled at her for a moment, then glanced down at the letter again, his face somber. "I must speak with Professor Moody, and I think it best if I supervise the removal of the Dementors myself. Then a sweep of the dungeons. I want you two to remain here until I return. The hallways are not safe, and Mr. Crabbe certainly cannot return to his common room." He paused for a moment, then flicked his wand at the desk. A plate of sandwiches and a pitcher of pumpkin juice appeared, along with dishes and cutlery for two. "I'll return as soon as I can."

With that, he whisked himself out the door, and Hermione was left alone in his office with Crabbe. He plunked himself down in front of the sandwiches and began to eat, seemingly without another thought for the two boys in the hospital wing who might, even now, be in mortal danger from Draco's father. Hermione watched him eat for a moment and shuddered. She could not feel the sickening cold of the Dementors in this room, protected as it was by Dumbledore's power, but she still didn't feel right. Her stomach was doing some very unpleasant things.

"Can't you think about anything but food?" she demanded, crossly.

Crabbe gave her a startled look. "I haven't eaten since breakfast. Besides," he waved a half-eaten sandwich at the room around them, "what else are we supposed to do?"

That was second or third time in the last few days that Crabbe had made sense. Hermione found it unsettling. "Try to figure out what's going on, maybe? Or come up with a way to help Harry?"

"Why does Potter need help? Malfoy's not after him. Lucius, I m..."

"I know who you mean!" she snapped. "Never mind, just go ahead and stuff your face."

Crabbe very pointedly put down the sandwich, then he twisted round in his chair to look at her. "Why does Potter need help? Come on, Granger, spill. I showed you the letter. I came with you to see Dumbledore. I proved I'm not trying to hurt your precious Potter or let the Death Eaters into the school. So quit treating me like I've got the Oozing Purple Rot and tell me what's going on."

Hermione thought about that for a full minute, turning over the implications of everything Crabbe had said or done since the beginning of the siege, and could come up with no good excuse for keeping him in the dark beyond her native distrust of Slytherins. But Crabbe was right. He had not behaved like a Slytherin lately, only like a friend. And who was she to begrudge Malfoy his friends, no matter how repellant she found them?

"Okay, I'll tell you." And so she told him everything - or nearly everything. She left out the disturbing shift in Harry's loyalties, and she said nothing about the kiss she had interrupted. But she got the impression that Crabbe knew something of Harry's growing attachment to Malfoy, anyway. Maybe his visits to the hospital wing had, like hers, come at awkward or revealing times. Or maybe he simply wasn't as stupid as he appeared.

When she had finished, he gazed at her with an expression that she was learning to call thoughtful and said, "So Malfoy switched to Potter's side."

"More like Dumbledore's side."

He shook his head. "Potter's."

"It's the same thing, isn't it?"

"Not to Malfoy. He doesn't give a rat's arse for Dumbledore."

Hermione's eyebrows scaled up in surprise. "And you think he does give a... rat's arse for Harry?"

Crabbe got suddenly cagey. "What do you think?"

She felt a sharp flare of resentment toward the sneaky, subtle Slytherins who were currently plaguing the life out of her and snapped, "That he doesn't mean it!"

"Huh?"

"He didn't stay because he wants to do the right thing, or because he means to fight You-Know-Who, or even because he really cares about Harry! It's all a game. Another way to get to the Famous Harry Potter."

Crabbe cocked his head to one side, looking like a very large and clumsy bird. "You think he'd let the Dark Lord stomp his brain bloody as a game?"

"How should I know what idiotic things he'd do?" Hermione retorted.

A simmering anger began to rise in Crabbe. His voice took on an edge that she had never heard in it before. "Right, I forgot. We're Slytherins, so we don't think like real people! There's no way that someone like Malfoy would defy his father, let himself get called a traitor by both sides, and almost die three or four times in a couple of days, just because he decided to do the right thing. Because he wouldn't know the right thing if it ate his face off, would he? No, the only reason for doing something like that would be to hurt Potter, because we all know the whole sodding world revolves around Perfect Bloody Potter!"

"Crabbe..."

"That's why I stayed, too, isn't it? That's why I showed you that letter. Because I'm in on the plot to keep Malfoy close to Potter where he can mess with him, and if his psycho-father takes Malfoy out of here, who'll be left to make Potter's life a living Hell? Me? Nah, I'm too stupid for that job. We need somebody really clever, somebody who's smart enough to get himself killed just to spite the Gryffindors!"

"I'm sorry, Crabbe!" Hermione shouted. He paused, caught off guard, and she repeated more quietly, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"Really?"

"Really. I know Malfoy didn't stay to hurt Harry. And I know you're trying to help by giving Dumbledore the letter. But tell me something, Crabbe."

"What."

"Why did you really stay?"

"My dad is a Death Eater."

"I know that."

"So I grew up with them. I saw what they are. And I don't want to be that."

Hermione broke out in the first real smile she had given him in six long years. "Good for you, Vincent."

The door swung open, cutting off their conversation, and Dumbledore strode in with a group of teachers at his heels. Hermione bounced out of her seat and would have scuttled away, but Dumbledore waved her back into her chair. The other professors largely ignored her.

"Maintain your sweeps of the dungeons, Alastor," Dumbledore said, as he crossed the room to the desk. "See that all entry points, above and below ground, are guarded and monitor the wards closely for a breach."

"Did any of the Dementors actually penetrate the wards?" McGonagall asked.

Moody answered her. "Not that I've been able to detect. They were all placed at ground level, around the periphery of the castle, and I was able to strengthen the wards by drawing power from other areas..."

"Which left those areas vulnerable," Snape growled.

"I detected no movement through the wards," Moody said.

Dumbledore held up a hand to still the rising hubbub caused by a room full of nervous and angry adults. "I trust your judgement in this, Alastor, but I insist on proper precautions. We know that Malfoy intends to enter the dungeons at some time this evening, and we cannot allow him to reach the upper floors."

Snape flicked a surly glance at Crabbe, who began to squirm uncomfortably in his seat. "Headmaster, I must point out that Malfoy's instructions to Crabbe may be a diversion. An attempt to focus all our attention on the dungeons, while the rest of the castle is virtually ignored."

"He didn't know Crabbe would give Professor Dumbledore the letter!" Hermione protested, drawing all eyes to her and earning her a burning glare from Snape.

"He doesn't need to know," Snape said through his teeth. "It costs him nothing to try. I repeat, the letter may be a diversion, just as the Dementor attack may have been a diversion intended to cause weaknesses in the wards."

"We will not neglect the upper castle, Severus," Dumbledore assured him. "At this point, we have no reason to believe the wards were crossed. All possible approaches to the castle are guarded and the wards are intact. The Dementors have withdrawn from the grounds, and we can expect Sirius to launch his counter attack at any time after full dark."

Hermione glanced at one of the tall windows that ringed the walls. The sky outside was dark, but not with the smothering darkness of the Dementors. Stars were beginning to appear above the stone towers of the castle. She sighed inwardly at the sight, and the knot in her stomach loosened. Sirius was coming. They would not have to survive another night under siege.

"We will patrol the upper levels as well, with special attention to the hospital wing. After I have coordinated all of this, I will join Poppy there to keep an eye on young Mr. Malfoy myself." Turning to Hermione, he said, "Miss Granger, Mr. Crabbe, I think you should go to the Gryffindor common room and stay there until I send for you."

"But... but..." Crabbe stammered.

"You cannot go back to the Slytherin dungeon, and I have no other place to put you, Vincent. I'm sorry, but I'm afraid it has to be the Gryffindors."

Crabbe swallowed audibly and shot a panicked look at Hermione. She shrugged, hoping her face didn't betray her own doubts as to his safety in the Gryffindor common room.

Two minutes later, they were hurrying through the corridors at Professor McGonagall's heels. She escorted them as far as the last bend in the hallway, then she sent them on their way with strict orders to stay inside, no matter what fantastic plan might come into their heads. She had dungeons to patrol and couldn't take time out to round them up again. Hermione led a terrified Crabbe up to the Fat Lady's portrait and halted there, chewing her lip.

"All right, Crabbe, you'd better let me do all the talking when we get inside."

"This is a really bad idea. Why don't I sit out here? I was okay before. Nobody bothered me."

"Just stay behind me and..."

At that moment, the portrait swung open and Ron climbed through the hole. He gave Hermione an exasperated look and groaned, "There you are! Neville was going to send out a search party, and that cat of yours has gone completely bonkers... Here! Come back, you bloody great monster!"

This last was shouted after the fat, ginger body that bounded out of the portrait hole and streaked away. Crookshanks' answer was to turn and hiss at Ron, yellow eyes glowing manically.

"He's been like that ever since the Dementors..."

"Oh no! The Dementors!" Hermione suddenly clutched at Ron's arm and began pulling him down the corridor after Crookshanks' slinking form. "Hurry up!" Crabbe followed, and together, the three of them raced after the cat.

"What... are we doing?" Ron panted, when Hermione started down the marble staircase at full tilt.

"The Dementors! He was acting just like that in dungeons, when the Dementors first came!" Landing hard on the slick floor at the bottom, her feet skidded out from under her, but Crabbe caught her arm and gave her a shove forward. She caught her balance and took off, following Crookshanks' bottle-brush tail like a banner. "There's something in the castle!"

Neither boy said anything more, needing all their breath for running, until they found themselves on the third floor, standing in front of a statue of a hunch-backed witch. Hermione watched the cat scrabble at the statue, snarling and yowling as if in pain, and she felt something like a whimper rise in her throat.

"Oh, God."

"What is it?" Crabbe asked.

"The tunnel from Hogsmeade... something got in through the tunnel. Come on!"

"Where..." Ron did not get his question out, because Hermione was already running down the hallway toward the main staircase, as fast as her legs would carry her. "Where are we going?" he managed to gasp, as he caught her up at the bottom of the stairs.

"The hospital wing! Hurry!"

"What?"

"Malfoy's here! We have to get there before he does!"

"We'll never make it," Crabbe grumbled, though he did not slow his pace.

"He doesn't know where Draco is. And he'll have to go slowly... sneaking around... Come on! Run!!"

They leapt down the last flight of stairs to the first floor and took off down the length of the main corridor in a headlong dash for the door. Crabbe reached it first and threw it open. Hermione slipped in past him, calling at the top of her lungs, "Harry! Harry, are you all right?!"

"Malfoy!" Crabbe bellowed, loudly enough to make Hermione wince.

"What's going on?" Harry demanded, as he stepped around the privacy screen and stared at them in bewilderment.

Crabbe shoved past him without acknowledging his presence, knocking over the screen in his haste. "Malfoy? Are you okay?"

Hermione could see Draco sitting cross-legged on the bed, looking every bit as confused as Harry.

"Of course I am." He frowned at Crabbe, then gave a shout of protest when the bigger boy grabbed him by the arm and hauled him to his feet. "Gerroff!"

"Your dad's coming."

"Something got into the castle through the Hogsmeade tunnel," Hermione explained, breathlessly, as she slammed and bolted the door. "I don't know how Mr. Malfoy knew about it but..."

"Wormtail," Harry stated, flatly. He had a cold, angry look on his face that frightened Hermione almost as much as the unknown evil running free in the castle. "Wormtail must have told him."

Turning to face the door squarely, Hermione raised her wand and began forming a locking spell to seal it. Behind her, Ron was chattering at Harry about the Dementor attack, and Crabbe was asking Malfoy where his wand was. Hermione shut out their voices and concentrated on thinking of the strongest spell she knew. It wouldn't be enough to stop Lucius Malfoy, but maybe it would slow him down a little.

The words of the spell had barely left her lips, when she felt the door shudder. Fear tightened in her chest, and she stepped back. Clutching her wand in one sweating hand, she lifted it and threw all her strength into the locking spell, desperately trying to hold it against whatever force challenged her.

"Harry! Look out!" she screamed.

Her words were swept away in a tremendous blast of power and heat. The door exploded inward. Every candle and torch on the ward went out, plunging them into total darkness. Hermione was plucked off her feet and hurled to the marble floor, as a vicious, searing pain lanced through her leg. She lay there in a heap with hot blood coursing down her leg, stunned, unable to collect her thoughts, until she heard a sound so dreadful that it brought her up with a start, oblivious to the pain in her body.

It was Harry, screaming, "No! No, you can't!"

Before she could get her hands under her to sit up, Hermione heard the crash of splintering glass, and Harry's screams turned from frantic words to an endless, mindless cry of pain.

"Harry!" she sobbed, but he didn't answer, only screamed and screamed as though his heart were being torn out of his chest.

Thankfully, she still had her wand in her hand. Pushing herself upright, she swept it around the room, calling, "Incendio!"

The candles sprang to life, and in their warm light, she saw Ron sprawled on his back a few feet away, Crabbe dumped face down on the empty bed, and Harry curled up tight on the floor with his wand clutched uselessly in his hand, his face a mask of pain and that unbearable noise coming out of his throat. One of the tall windows had been smashed, showing the night sky beyond. Draco was gone.

All these details registered in Hermione's brain in a split second, and cold certainty came to her almost as quickly. They must stop Malfoy before he reached the outer wards, and there was only one way to do it. Closing her eyes, she pictured the Gryffindor common room and the Firebolt lying on the table by the door, where Harry had left it when the first attack came.

Once again, she threw all her power into the spell, praying that it would be enough. "Accio Firebolt!"

Ron was sitting up, staring at her dazedly. His face was white with panic, his eyes huge and horrified. "Hermione, you're bleeding."

She glanced down at her leg and the enormous sliver of oak driven up into it like a blade. Blood painted her skin and soaked her robe. She knew it was serious, but her brain refused to register anything beyond the danger to Harry. "I know. Ron, get Harry on his broom and go after Malfoy!"

"What?!"

"Harry's broom! I summoned it!"

Ron shot a helpless glance at Harry, who had not moved except to draw his body into a tighter knot of pain, and swallowed convulsively. "He can't fly."

"No, but you can! Oh, Ron, please! Will you think about it?! Malfoy can't apparate while he's on the grounds, and he came on foot! He'll have to carry Draco as far as the outer wards, so you'll have time to catch him! You have to get there in time, or Harry..." She swallowed once, painfully, as tears of desperation began to slide down her cheeks. "Where's the broom? Where is it?!"

It was Crabbe who answered her. He lumbered up to where she lay and pointed to the shattered window. There, sailing gracefully toward them, was Harry's Firebolt. It stopped in front of Ron, waiting for him to mount.

"Hurry, Ron!"

He obediently swung a leg over the broom, moving as if in a daze, his face so white that the freckles stood out like burning cinders against it. Then, without Hermione needing to ask, Crabbe lifted Harry and hoisted him onto the broom, settling him in front of Ron and helping the other boy get his arms securely around Harry's body. Stepping back a pace from the laden broom, he gave Ron a wallop on the back and bellowed, "GO!"

The Firebolt shot out of the window and was gone in an instant. Hermione gave one more sob and collapsed back on the floor, the tears now running freely down her cheeks.

Harry could not move, could not breathe except to scream out his pain and despair. He felt his broomstick between his knees, but he could not make his hands open to catch hold of it. Ron's arms held him in place, and Ron's body curved over him to rest against his huddled back, keeping him from tumbling off the broom in his helplessness. They were flying. Flying so fast that the wind almost whipped Harry's glasses from his face. And somewhere in the tortured recesses of his brain, Harry knew that they were flying to save Draco.

He fought down the sickness and panic in him and hunched a little farther forward, giving Ron room to maneuver the broomstick. Somehow, he managed to get his hands around it without dropping his wand, and he vaguely realized that they must be getting closer to Malfoy. The link wasn't stretched quite so agonizingly, and if he tried very hard, he could pull air into his lungs without sobbing. When he opened his eyes, he saw the Hogwarts grounds blurring past at incredible speed. Ron was flying the Firebolt flat out, faster even than Harry had ever flown it.

"I see them!" Ron cried, his voice whipped away by the shriek of the wind.

Harry struggled to push himself upright, fighting the crippling pain in his chest, and peered down at the darkened grounds. He had barely enough time to spot a figure dressed all in black, hood thrown back to reveal long pale hair, holding an inert body in his arms and running as fast as the extra weight would allow, before Ron threw the Firebolt into a screaming dive. Harry clutched madly at the broomstick and fixed his eyes on the fleeing Lucius Malfoy, lids narrowed against the rush of chill air in his face.

They were getting closer - Harry could feel the pain in his chest easing and the strength coming back into his limbs - but not fast enough. Malfoy was only yards from the wards and the edge of the Hogwarts grounds. If he passed through the wards, he could apparate. And Draco would be lost.

As Harry watched, helpless, Malfoy reached the wards. He raised his wand to force his way through, but in the moment that he was distracted, Draco came alive in his arms. One carefully timed blow to his father's head, and Draco tumbled to the grass, free. He landed in a crouch, ready to run, but his father was too fast for him. Malfoy's hand shot out and caught his left wrist, even as he fired a green bolt of power at the wards and tore a great hole in them.

"Faster, Ron! Faster!" Harry screamed, and Ron obediently leaned into the dive.

The ground rushed up at them at killing speed, much too fast for Ron to avoid it. He had never flown a Firebolt at full speed and did not know what it was capable of, but panic made him reckless and lucky. At the last instant, he swerved sharply to the left, sending the broomstick plowing into the grass and dumping both the boys off of it in a tangle of arms and legs.

Harry picked himself up and turned to find Malfoy. He was through the wards, still clutching Draco's arm in an iron grip, but Draco had sunk the fingers of his right hand into the soft earth and held on with a strength born of desperation. Malfoy could not pull his entire body through the wards. Even as Harry's eyes found them, Malfoy tried to apparate. The spell hung in a glittering net about him, blurring his outline, but it could not take him so long as he kept hold of Draco and Draco was inside the wards.

Harry shot Ron a frantic look and shouted, "Get him! Don't let Malfoy pull him through!" Then he took off running toward the hole in the wards.

Ron scrambled to his feet and pounded across the grass at Harry's heels. As they drew closer, Draco looked up, his face a white smudge in the darkness, and screamed, "Harry!"

Harry did not have the breath to answer. He ran past Draco without slowing, even as Ron launched himself across the last few feet, skidded on his knees to where Draco half lay, half crouched on the grass, and fastened both hands around the other boy's wrist.

"Hold on!" Ron shouted. "Don't let go!"

Harry plunged through the wards, his wand already in his hands and a curse forming on his lips. Lucius Malfoy turned startled eyes on him, seeming unsure of what he meant to do. But when Harry threw the curse, Malfoy did not hesitate. His wand flicked sideways and swept the power of the curse away as easily as he might an annoying fly. Harry tried again, and again Malfoy barely acknowledged the attack. Harry had never fought a battle like this. He had never taken the offensive and tried to batter his way through a trained wizard's defenses. And he found it so far outside the realm of his experience that he had no idea what to do except hurl every curse, hex or charm he could think of at the impassive Malfoy.

Malfoy tolerated it for a minute or two, then Harry saw him lift his own wand and point it at Harry's chest, and in that instant of mortal threat, Harry went into crisis mode. Time slowed to a crawl, sound faded to nothing but the faint rustle of the wind in the trees, and every movement became clear and deliberate. He saw Malfoy's lips form the word Crucio, and he instinctively threw himself to one side to hit the grass, rolling.

The curse burned over his head, singing his hair but leaving him untouched, and Harry had time to get to his feet before Malfoy even realized he had missed. Harry watched the man's empty grey eyes shift from his face to Draco's and his wand move. And in that frozen moment, Harry knew, as surely as he knew that he, Harry, did not have what it took to use an Unforgivable Curse on another human being, that Malfoy meant to turn the Cruciatus Curse on his own son to make him let go.

The wand was coming up, the word forming a second time on Malfoy's lips, when Harry lifted his own wand.

"Severus," he muttered, and a blade of glittering gold light shot from the end of his wand.

Malfoy saw it and smiled. He knew that he could repel this feeble spell as easily as the others. But Harry ignored Lucius Malfoy. Stepping close to where father and son were locked together in a battle to the death, Harry swung the golden blade up and brought it down with all his might on Draco's outstretched forearm.

As the blade bit, time started moving again and the world whirled back in on Harry with shattering force. A dual scream cut the air - half of rage, half of pain. There was a furious crack, and Lucius Malfoy disappeared, snatched away by his own unfinished spell. Draco was flung back through the wards by the pull of Ron's hands and the suddenness of his father's disapparation. He piled into Ron and the two boys fetched up on the grass in a heap of arms, legs, robes and startled faces. Harry staggered, momentarily blinded by the flash, still hearing screams and shouts echoing in his ears. His arm dropped and the blade vanished from the tip of his wand.

For a breathless moment, Harry just stood there panting, waiting for the echoes to die. Then he realized that the sounds he heard were not in his imagination. There really were people shouting and wands going off in the distance, and over it all, the sharp, imperative sound of a dog barking.

Harry shook himself all over and turned to find his friends. The hole in the wards was closing, but slowly enough that Harry could step through it easily. A few feet inside the wards, Ron and Draco lay in a sprawled heap on the grass, staring at each other with identical looks of blank amazement on their faces.

Harry sprinted up to them and dropped to his knees, still breathing hard. All three boys looked at each other in silence, at a complete loss for words until Ron's eyes moved to the singed, empty sleeve lying beside Draco on the grass. Then he drew in a ragged breath and said, reverently, "Bloody Hell!"

Before Harry could think of an answer to this, he heard the thud of heavy paws on the grass and turned to see an enormous black dog come bounding out of the shadows toward them. Ron looked too, and a smile of relief spread over his face.

"Snuffles!" he cried.

The dog loped to a halt at Harry's shoulder and, under the stunned eyes of Draco Malfoy, turned into Sirius Black.

"What are you boys doing outside the castle?" Sirius demanded, sternly. "Are you all right?"

Draco just stared at Black for a moment, his eyes gone strangely unfocused, then he gave a small sigh and passed out cold.

To be continued...