Of Sight and Sound

Draco felt like he had been running forever. His heart was pounding and his lungs burning. He couldn't remember ever being more frightened in his life. He felt so vulnerable, almost at the complete mercy of Harry Potter.

He had absolutely no idea where he was being led; having completely lost his bearings once whatever Potter had thrown at him had crashed into his face. He found it nothing short of a miracle that the famous boy-who-lived had managed to stay alive as long as he had; he was so thick at times.

Potter, who had been dragging him along by the arm, finally slowed his mad flight. Draco stopped to catch his breath, hands on knees.

He tried to collect his senses. Sounds assaulted his ears. Wind, rustling braches and leaves, his and Potter's ragged breathing and various eerily unidentifiable sounds. The wind was less cutting where they were. The cold night air smelled of damp earth and decaying leaves.

Draco knew where they were now. That fool Potter had led them straight into the Forbidden Forest.

A string of curses escaped Draco's mouth. All of them directed towards Potter. He wished they weren't falling on deaf ears. Potter deserved to actually hear the tongue-lashing he was getting.

Back in the cockatrice pen he had amused himself by flinging insults at the unhearing Potter without having to worry about retaliation (even if the idiot had looked up and questioned what he was doing, again in that loud voice). But the novelty quickly wore off. If Draco Malfoy was going to insult someone, he wanted him or her to hear it.

He shook his head in disbelief. Lost and blind in the forest with none other than Harry Potter was not how he envisioned spending a Friday night. He should be sitting in front of the fire of the Slytherin common room, marveling everyone with his various witty comments and clever evil schemes.

This night was a nightmare brought to life. He just could not believe Potter led them into the forest. The school would have been the smart (and logical) choice. This just confirmed what Draco always thought; Potter wasn't all that bright to begin with. Why hadn't the other boy just closed the gate to the pen to begin with? Why had he thrown something at a blind person with little more preparation than "here, hold this."? The perfect Gryffindor couldn't be that stupid. Could he?

An unpleasant, random thought struck Draco then.

What if Potter was trying to kill him? Make it look like an accident....

He was about to push that thought away as complete rubbish. Model Gryffindor, boy wonder, the great Harry Potter would never think of harming an ant let alone murdering a fellow student. Would he?

Draco gave his head a shake. It wasn't like Potter could have planned this. Getting put together in potions, turning Snape orange, getting detention together, serving it outside, temporarily losing one of their senses, disturbing and being chased by fearsome beasts, hiding out in the forest where many an accident could befall one of them. Unless they were psychic, no one could have planned that.

It must have been Draco's current vulnerability and underlying fear impairing his mind because he couldn't let that thought go.

So maybe Potter didn't plan this whole mess, but he could simply abandon Draco here. Stumbling around completely blind, many unspeakable things could happen to him. He could stumble upon one of the forests more unsavory residents and wind up as a snack. He could wander off a cliff, plummeting to his death. Or he could simply walk around in circles until he faded away to nothing.

'No, Potter wouldn't do that.' Draco tried to reassure himself. 'He didn't abandon me in the cockatrice pen, why would he leave me here?'

But even as he thought that he realized he could no longer hear the other boy's breathing. In fact he could hear no sound that would indicate anyone (well, any ~human~ anyway) was nearby. No rustling of clothing, no footsteps on leaf covered ground.

Draco let his panic overwhelm his good sense. Screaming for Potter at the top of his lungs, running around, frantically waving his arms. Not caring if he alerted hungry monsters to his whereabouts. He was in full terror mode.

He hit the ground before he even realized that he had fallen.

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Just when Harry thought his night couldn't get any worse.

Spending a Friday night in detention was bad enough. Spending it with Malfoy, outside in the cold, rendered deaf and now lost in the Forbidden Forest had turned it into some sort of twisted nightmare. He felt like he had taken a step from reality into some bizarre alternate universe.

As he took in his surroundings he reflected on his and Malfoy's flight from the cockatrice pen.

Okay, so maybe the forest hadn't been the best location to flee to. But it wasn't like he had had much choice.

Once he had managed to get out of the pen, after he had doubled back to rescue a desperately flailing Malfoy whom he had nearly forgotten, most of the cockatrices had woken up and were hot on their tail. He didn't get the chance to close the gate to the pen properly. Unfortunately the gate opened towards the forest, and with a small herd of raging cockatrices between them and the school Harry had taken the only path open to them.

Harry looked around, shock still and holding his breath, keeping his eyes trained for any sign of danger. He could still see the moon, as most of the trees had lost their leaves.

After his fair share of journeys into the Forbidden Forest Harry knew of some of the creatures that lived there. It was bad enough being there with all your faculties, but to be without one of your senses and wandless (and cloak-less for that matter) would almost certainly end with disaster.

It was not a cheery thought to know he wouldn't know if even the loudest of creature were upon him until it was in his face. That's why he planned on keeping Malfoy close by. He still needed the other to act as his alarm. And he knew his nemesis was pretty helpless in his current state.

Harry also felt kind of guilty. It hadn't been the smartest move to throw a heavy object at a blind person, no matter how delicate the throw was intended to be.

Speaking of Malfoy, where was he?

Harry's heart was in his throat for a few seconds until he located the other boy.

But it stopped when he saw what Malfoy was doing.

His Slytherin counterpart seemed to be having a fit. He appeared to be yelling as he ran, sightlessly waving his arms like a mad man.

Harry frantically searched for any sign of what could be distressing Malfoy so, but he could see nothing dangerous lurking around.

His eyes were drawn back to his companion when he saw him fall, face first, to the ground. Hard.

Harry rushed forward to help him.

"Are you okay?" he inquired. Not caring if he was keeping his voice level.

The expression on Malfoy's face showed that he was anything but okay. He wore a mixture of pain, annoyance, unadulterated fear and, curiously enough, relief.

Harry couldn't remember ever seeing such a.... well a human expression on his rival's face before. He actually forgot for a moment that he despised the other boy as he helped him to his feet.

Malfoy tried to take a step only to fall into Harry's arms, favoring his right ankle. His body tense and face wan with pain.

After sitting him back down and a bizarre pantomime Harry was finally able to decipher that Malfoy had injured his ankle from that fall. A quick look proving that it was indeed quite swollen.

Defeated, Harry sat down beside Malfoy on the cold ground, wondering what to do next. For the first time realizing how cold he was in his cloak-less state, the article of clothing abandoned in the cockatrice pen. His teeth chattered as he shook uncontrollably.

One thing was certain; they couldn't stay where they were.

Malfoy was defenseless; blind and injured he was a sitting duck. And Harry would surely freeze to death in the frigid night air.

When he voiced these concerns to Malfoy he was given a nod of agreement.

Harry got to his feet and hauled his companion up as well. He put his arm around Malfoy's waist while the other boy put his arm around Harry's shoulders.

Thus supporting Malfoy, Harry set off.

They only made it one step before Malfoy fell, taking Harry with him. The ankle was apparently worse then they had thought.

Harry tried desperately to interpret what Malfoy said next. He shook his head violently when it sunk in.

"No way, Malfoy." He said in what he hoped was a firm voice. "I'm not going to carry you."

Malfoy's expression seemed to say, "What choice do we have?"

They argued in their strange way for a few minutes before Harry finally relented.

Awkwardly positioning the other boy behind him, Harry hoisted Malfoy onto his back with an almighty heave.

As if being forced to carry his arch nemesis piggyback around the Forbidden Forest was bad enough, the other boy seemed to be impossibly heavy. Harry couldn't believe Malfoy weighed so much; they both appeared to be the same size. But the other's weight was making his knees buckle.

"Blimey, Malfoy! What do you eat? You weigh a ton!" Harry said aloud, forgetting to keep his voice level.

He was rewarded with a sharp kick to his left leg.

Harry contemplated just dropping Malfoy right there and leaving him to the residents of the forest. But again his conscience wouldn't let him.

With a sigh he headed back the way he hoped they had come. Praying that he and his rider would make it out of the forest without encountering any cranky cockatrices or various other baddies that lived there

'Well,' Harry thought, trying to be optimistic as Malfoy's added body heat and his exertion started to kick in, 'At least I'm not cold any more.'

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Professor Snape stalked through the silent halls of Hogwarts. It had been nearly two hours since he left his two detentionees out in the cockatrice pen. Surely they would be finished by now. He felt a pang of guilt for leaving them out there for so long, unsupervised in the cold. But quickly squashed it when he remember the humiliation his orange skin and wild dancing had caused.

He had finally gotten all his skin back to its normal colour, but had to endure ingesting several revolting potions to accomplish this. That just added more fuel to his enraged fire, squashing whatever doubt he was starting to have about the punishment he had doled out to the two culprits.

He growled aloud as the laughter of the students who had witnessed his embarrassment rang in his ears. He had no doubt that by the start of classes on Monday morning all the children would be aware of what had happened.

He had spent quite some time in front of his mirror earlier, trying to find the most effective glower to hopefully reinstate his fearsome image. He knew he had the right potency when the mirror screamed in terror before shattering.

The cold wind was biting now as he made his way towards Hagrid's cabin. Once he caught sight of the cockatrice pen he knew something was wrong.

He broke into a run, each step confirming his fear. The pen was empty of boy and beast.

The gate swung open in the wind. The only evidence that the pen had once been occupied was the trampled dirt, a discarded shovel and bin, and a cloak. Which on closer inspection he identified as Potter's.

Clutching the cloak desperately, his eyes followed the pattern of footprints. Any left by human feet had been covered over by that of the cockatrice. The remaining prints seemed to lead straight into the nearby Forbidden Forest.

He could only stand there in disbelief and horror before saying the first thing that came to his mind.

"Oh f---!"

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