Captured By A Dragon

Chapter Four: Collisions

The morning of September 4th arrived with a cool breeze and plenty of sunshine. Draco was lying in his four-poster, completely unaware that the first Quidditch Match of the year would begin in a little less than an hour. He was snoring very loudly until Goyle strode over to Draco's bed and smacked him in the face without remorse.

"Wake up, Snoring Beauty," he said in a tired voice, smacking him again, this time even harder than before. With a jolt Draco awoke just in time to grab Goyle's wrist and glare at him with a look of pure venom.

"Thanks," he said through grinding teeth. "I'm awake."

Without a single expression on his pudgy face, Goyle toddled away and collapsed into his own bed; clearly he had only gotten up to wake up Draco and have a peaceful sleep-in.

Draco slowly got out of his bed, stretched, and looked out of his grimy window, staring out at the Quidditch Pitch. He had only just remembered that he would be facing Potter after breakfast, and silently grimaced at the thought. Having had lost every Quidditch match he ever played against Potter, he was in no mood to repeat it. After getting dressed, he walked alone to the Great Hall, noticing he was probably one of the last to arrive; everyone was already seated, eating toast and eggs and chatting excitedly about the upcoming match.

He spotted Blaise motioning for him to come sit down, so Draco walked over to the Slytherin table and took a seat next to him.

"'Morning," he said rather grumpily to Blaise. He promptly stuffed a muffin into his mouth and Blaise turned to talk to him.

"Draco," said Blaise with a serious look, "committing suicide by suffocation is so five minutes ago, so you might want to tone it down a bit. You're embarrassing me."

Narrowing his eyes at him with a kind of half-grin, Draco swallowed the rest of his muffin. "Ha, ha, ha," he said, his head bobbing from side to side dramatically. Then his eyes went back to normal and, laughing, he grabbed a few strips of bacon to put on his plate. "Well, actually..."- he reached for another muffin -"now that you mention it..."- he put the entire muffin inside his mouth -"thas nah suh abah idi."

Blaise chuckled, shaking his head, and turned back to his plate without another word. Draco swallowed the muffin with difficulty and, almost as if instinctively, looked over at the Gryffindor table to see whether Potter was feeling as ecstatic as he was about the match.

Unsurprisingly, he was talking with Weasley and Granger rather eagerly. It seemed to Draco that he knew there was no need for nervousness; Gryffindor would undoubtedly win. He looked more along the Gryffindor table and saw Ginny talking with Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan. She was looking rather bored with the conversation, and turned to her empty plate. She then looked up, and when she saw Draco's eyes on her, she gave him the most hateful glare he had ever seen. He hastily cast his eyes away from her and made sure not to look back.

He didn't know why, but for some reason when she glared at him, it made him so much more uncomfortable than when Potter did so, or anyone else for that matter. There was something about her anger that was so...

"I'm going back to the common room," Blaise said, getting up from the table. "Got to finish some homework before the match...."

"I'll go with you," said Draco almost immediately after Blaise had spoken, and he got up as well. He knew that Ginny was probably still looking at him, and walked a little faster than he normally would out of the Great Hall.

&&&&&&&&&&

Ginny was furious with Malfoy. She had never gotten a detention in her years at Hogwarts, and this wasn't even intentional. If she had just gone to the library the next morning, for Merlin's sake, she would've been laughing at Seamus and Dean's jokes at that very moment, not giving Malfoy her livid eyes like she had been for the past fifteen minutes.

But no, Ginny had no reason to laugh at jokes. She was too angry with Malfoy to even notice that Neville was stuck to his seat with magical glue and already had a nice big hole in his trousers.

While everyone laughed around her, Ginny looked up to see that Malfoy was staring at her with a kind of glazed look, as if he was thinking about something. He didn't even look away until Ginny, who began to feel angry with him again, narrowed her eyes at him with loathing.

Draco averted his eyes and Ginny smirked in victory. Serves him right, she thought to herself. She watched him as he got up quickly from the table and left with Blaise, not even glancing back at her.

Putting her head on her hand, she wiggled her wand a bit and amusedly watched her fork do a kind of dance on the table before someone to her left said, "Ginny, are you all right?"

Ginny turned toward the voice and saw that Hermione was looking at her, her head tilted, her face rather concerned. Ginny sighed heavily; she thought to herself dolefully that Hermione was usually always the last one to hear gossip, so she would have to just tell her herself about what had happened with Malfoy.

Before she knew it, Ginny had launched into the whole story about Snape's essay, sneaking into the boys' dormitory for Harry's Invisibility Cloak ("You didn't!" said Hermione with a shocked expression on her face), and everything that followed.

By the end of her story, Ginny realized that she was breathing hard with fury. To her surprise, however, Hermione seemed to be even more enraged than she was.

"That's awful!" Hermione exclaimed once Ginny finished, a look of deep disgust on her face. She glanced over at the Slytherin Table, perhaps wanting to give Malfoy a good glare herself, but then sighed when she could not find him, and looked back over at Ginny rather seriously. "Well," Hermione said, patting her arm, "I suppose that now you will do your homework a bit earlier, hm?"

Ginny scowled at her.

&&&&&&&&&&

Once breakfast was over, every student in the Great Hall started walking down to the Quidditch Pitch for the first match of the year. Draco, feeling less than enthusiastic, made his way to the changing rooms with Blaise after leaving the common room. Silently, they changed into their uniforms. Draco picked up his broomstick, which he had placed in the changing rooms that morning, and he, being the Slytherin Quidditch Captain, called his team to order.

"Well," he said. "As you all surely know, Gryffindor is the enemy. I don't care what you have to do. Shove them, kick them, bite them, poke them in the eye; just let your imaginations run wild. The Cup is ours this year. Now let's go!"

Without a word, his team followed him to the pitch and they mounted their brooms. Then they kicked off from the ground and started to fly in circles around the stadium. The Gryffindor team made its way out a few minutes afterward, and Draco noticed that Harry was giving him the most sinister glare he had ever seen.

Madam Hooch came out onto the field. "Captains, shake hands," she told them both, and, jaw clenched, Draco gripped Harry's hand as hard as he could and let go.

The whistle blew, and they were off.

"Gryffindor takes control of the Quaffle!" shouted Dennis Creevey, the commentator. "And it's the lovely Ginny Weasley who's taking it to the Slytherin goal posts, oh, no! Zabini takes the Quaffle and is on the way to the Gryffindor goals, block it, Ron! - And Weasley saves it!"

The stadium cheered loudly and Draco sighed heavily, still looking for the Snitch.

"And it's to Euan Abercrombie, WATCH FOR THE BLUDG - okay, he's okay, whew. Abercrombie dodges chaser MacDougal, he's going to make it! C'mon, Euan... Bletchley let it pass! GRYFFINDOR SCORES!"

The Gryffindor supporters erupted into yells and cheers while the Slytherin side booed. Draco was getting frustrated. This happened every Quidditch Match he had ever played in; first the Gryffindor team scores, and then only a few minutes later Potter catches the Snitch in some spectacular dive.

"Gryffindor in the lead ten to nil, Slytherin in possession now, MacDougal is making his way to Weasley in the goal posts... DON'T LET HIM SCORE, RON! MacDougal avoids the Bludgers that are wonderfully hit in his direction -"

"Creevey, no taking sides!" Professor McGonagall yelled at him angrily.

"Sorry, Professor, I have nothing against the bloke at all. No, really. Now the Slytherin chaser and Gryffindor keeper are one-on-one! YOU CAN DO IT, RON! Ahh... Slytherin scores."

Much of the stadium booed loudly.

"Gryffindor takes the Quaffle. McDonald passes to Weasley. Weasley passes back to McDonald... Pritchard almost pummels her! Ah come on, Hooch, call that one! McDonald is almost to the goal posts... Pritchard does pummel her this time!"

Graham Pritchard, another chaser, had knocked his arms into Natalie McDonald's face, whose nose began to bleed. Madam Hooch blew her whistle and granted Gryffindor a penalty shot, which Euan took. The Slytherin Keeper, Miles Bletchley, saved it and threw it back to Blaise.

Then - Draco saw it. The Snitch was floating a little to the right of Ginny's elbow. He quickly looked over at Potter; he was looking the other way. This was his chance. He urged his broom forward and he sped off, his right arm outstretched.

"Abercrombie takes the Quaffle from Zabini - GREAT SCOTT! MALFOY!"

The entire crowd gasped as they saw Draco speed across the pitch, a look of tenacity on his face. Harry's eyes widened and he sped off in Draco's direction. Ginny, realizing Draco was charging right at her, looked to the side and saw the Snitch. Quickly thinking, she positioned herself in front of the Snitch, her eyes tightened shut. Before Draco could swerve to the side -

A loud and sickening crunch sounded throughout the stadium and the two players, unconscious, slipped off their brooms...

&&&&&&&&&&

Draco groaned. He could hear faint chattering of students walking throughout the corridors nearby. He opened his eyes slowly and looked around; he was in the hospital wing. His left arm was in bandages and he had possibly the worst headache he had ever experienced. He tried sitting up, but his right leg suddenly felt a sharp pain and he lied back down again, breathing steadily.

"You're not in the state to do that, Malfoy," a girl said to him from his left.

Malfoy jumped and saw that Ginny was sitting on his bed with her schoolbag. She had bandages on both her arms and small cuts on her face.

"Oh really? And why are you not in a bed?" he asked.

"Harry caught me just after I fell off my broom..." Ginny told him. "...And the Snitch, too."

Draco's lips thinned. "Figures," he said, looking away. "The one chance I got when he was looking away and you had to screw it up. Thanks a lot, Weasley."

Ginny laughed. "Oh, don't be a crybaby. I was doing what I had to for my team," she said. "You would have done the same thing."

"Would I?"

She gave him a look and they were quiet for a little while. "So... do you know what happened to me?" Draco asked suddenly. "I mean, I fell off my broom, wouldn't I have like two hundred broken bones?"

"Well," Ginny said. "I wouldn't know firsthand, since I was unconscious. Dumbledore probably saved you. He did the same with Harry in your 3rd year, remember?"

"Oh yeah!" exclaimed Draco. "Ha, that was hilarious."

Ginny raised her eyebrows and he cleared his throat. "Well, anyways," he said. "Why are you here? Feeling bad that you deliberately made me smash into you? Decided to pay a visit to your new favorite cripple?"

"Not at all," said Ginny, chuckling. "No, after I woke up, Dumbledore told me that he would appreciate it if I visited you. Partly because of last night, partly because of our... ahem... 'collision'."

Draco rolled his eyes. "That makes me feel so much better," he said sarcastically.

"Good," Ginny said. "That means I can leave." She smirked at him and grabbed her schoolbag, putting it over her shoulder. She walked over to the door, opening it, but just before she stepped out into the hall, she turned to him.

"Hey, Malfoy," she said, her hand still on the doorknob.

He looked over at her, his eyes half-closed. "Yes, abuser?"

Ginny grinned.

"Feel better."

&&&&&&&&&&

There she was. Ginny.

She was standing in an empty field, her flaming red hair rippling in the harsh wind. She had torn silk dress on, and she was barefoot.

Draco stood there, not knowing what to do. He looked around him and had no idea where they were, and didn't exactly want to know either. He turned to Ginny and saw that her face was completely expressionless, yet her eyes were narrowed with a certain fire. Suddenly, she started moving towards him.

She was getting closer... and closer... her eyes began to change colors. At first it was a slow change; from red to orange, from orange to yellow, from yellow to green. But then the changing became faster and faster... her eyes were blurring in a whirlpool of color and then - they turned white.

It started snowing. The temperature dropped Draco began shuddering, but it looked as though Ginny could not feel it. Her face showed no emotion at all, just the same blank glare. She stopped right in front of Draco, their noses centimeters apart.

"Her time will come," she said in a deep and misty voice, her eyes becoming brighter. Draco didn't know what to say. Should he even say anything? Would it do any good? Was this even real?

"And when it does, you must be prepared."

Draco's teeth were now chattering uncontrollably, and he felt as though he was going to drop down dead at any second. He thought longingly of his warm cloak back at Hogwarts... wherever that was.

"You must make sacrifices for her protection."

Frightened was an understatement of what Draco was at that moment... he was terrified.

"If you do not," Ginny continued, but it seemed like she was not Ginny anymore... "She shall die in the dragon's hands."

At that, Draco hesitantly spoke. "What do I have to do?" he asked in a shrill voice, scared out of his mind.

The woman (was it Ginny? She seemed so surreal) looked at him with a glimmer in her eyes, now both so bright that Draco had to shield his own.

"You must endure many challenges to guard her from the peril, but so be it." The woman looked at him deeply, gazing into his soul. She smiled for the first time.

"Take a chance, Draco," she said. "Do something right."

She vanished into thin air.

Draco sat up, panting. He looked around him. He was still in the hospital wing, and it was pitch black. The sharp pain in his leg was more pronounced than ever, and he grimaced at it. He lay back down, closing his eyes and thinking.

The dream he had just had... what was that all about? Did it actually mean something, or was it just a dream? If it did mean something... then what did it mean? Weasley was in danger? What from? What did he have to do with it? Who said that he cared, anyway? But if she actually was...

Trying to think about it made his head hurt even worse, so Draco cleared his mind as much as he could and drifted off into another not-so-peaceful sleep.