Friendship, Loyalty, and Love

Chapter 11

Aufigio!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Dean, watch out!" Seamus cried, seeing a bright red light streak towards his friend. He dove sideways, knocking them both to the ground then rolled quickly and came up crying. "Acerbus!"

The Death Eater dodged sideways as his partner readied a spell. Seamus couldn't hear what the man said, but spotted the spell coming towards the two of them.

"Speculum Contego!" Dean's voice came, and Seamus glanced over, noticing the other boy had made it to his feet. "Thanks Seamus," he said shakily, before striking back at their attackers. "Glacio obrigesco!"

The Death Eater let his shields soak the spell. Seamus grimaced as the two men advanced on them again.

"We're going to have to work carefully if we want to get out of this one," Dean said, breathing heavily.

Seamus nodded, then said, "Dean, you know that boxing move we talked about?"

"Yeah, I getcha," Dean said. "On three..." He nodded once to set the time and they both turned and fired at once.

"Adurere!"

"Confractum!"

They shot to either side of one of the advancing Death Eater. Their attacker flinched away from Seamus' bright fire spell, directly into the more hard to spot spell Dean had cast.

"Aargh!" The Death Eater cried out, collapsing to the ground and clutching at his left arm, which now hung at a sickening angle. His partner's cry distracted the remaining Death Eater for half a second too long.

"Dormio Letum!" Seamus' spell struck the man, and he fell back, cast into a death-like sleep. Seamus glanced over at Dean. "We should go," he said, looking strained. Facing the two Death Eaters again he pointed at the one which was still up and muttered "Languoris." The Death Eater collapsed sideways as the spell hit him. The crunch as he fell onto his broken arm almost made Seamus sick.

"Hold on a second. Accio Wands!" Dean called out, and the two Death Eater's wands came flying towards them. "Adurere." They burst into flame and were quickly consumed, dropping to the ground. "All right," he said. "Let's go."

The fight had taken almost three minutes, and Dean and Seamus were far from unscathed. Dean had a shiny burn blister on his arm and a cut along his cheek from spells he'd been unable to block or dodge quickly enough, and Seamus was ignoring the twinges in his ankle from a miss-step.

They turned in the direction Ron and Hermione had gone, hoping to catch up with their fellow Gryffindors before they ran into any more trouble, but before they'd gotten very far they spied a flash of magic in the distance. Looking worriedly at each other they broke into a run, wands ready.

***

The door to the study burst open. "Potter!" Lucius Malfoy roared, wand and gaze sweeping the room. But the first thing he saw was his son. A fleeting look of confusion flickered across the man's face, but was soon replaced by an icy calm. "Draco." It was a cold statement, neither inquiring, nor scolding,

"Father." Draco's reply was just as emotionless. Harry's eyes flicked back and forth between the two, wondering how this confrontation would play out.

Lucius' eyes suddenly looked away from his son, as though dismissing him, and glanced over at where Harry was sitting. "Harry Potter," he said smoothly. "I'd ask to what I owed the pleasure of your visit, but..." His smile was cold and Harry's eyes narrowed in return.

"They've gotten away by now," he said quietly.

"I think that would be a very optimistic view of the situation," Lucius said. "But even if they have, you won't." The man raised his wand slowly, taking aim.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Father." Draco's voice startled his father, and the wand faltered in its movement. Glancing away from Lucius, Harry saw Draco's wand was pointed directly at his father's heart.

"Draco," once again Lucius' voice was cold and uncaring as he said his son's name. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, there are some things I thought you should know, Father." The boy's casual tone took Harry by surprise.

"And I take it they can not wait?"

"No Father, they can not."

"Very well." Lucius very carefully took aim directly between Harry's eyes, then turned and gave his son a slow, judging look. "Go ahead," he said.

"First, I think you should know I'm not doing very well in Arithmancy."

Harry blinked, very confused.

"Second," Draco continued, "I've been doing some spying, and I think the Gryffindors know you have taken Granger hostage and may be planning to come rescue her."

What the hell... Harry's gaze tore away from the wand promising a painful death and flipped over to his companion. Draco was standing casually in the middle of the room, the look on his face almost indolent. His posture was relaxed, but the wand held rock steady at his father's belied his casual stance, and his cold eyes were a disturbing contrast to his slight smile.

"Next, you should know that they figured this out some time after I gave them your letters to read." Draco's smile widened slightly, and his eyes narrowed.

"Finally, and this might be the important one, I've decided not to join the family business." His voice had remained calm and conversational through out this recitation.

"Well, some of this probably could have waited, but if you insist..." Now Harry knew where that damned drawl of Draco's came from. Lucius' tone said 'I don't care,' and 'how silly to bring this all up now,' and 'you just don't matter', all at once.

"First, we'll get you a tutor for Arithmancy. Malfoys do not fail. Second, I do think you need to work on your information gathering skills. I have been aware of this fact for, oh, minutes even."

Ah, Harry thought. And that's where the smirk came from too.

"Third, that was unwise of you Draco, and fourth..." Lucius paused. "I do believe you will need to rethink your fourth point."

"And why is that?"

"Because I am not going to let you give up the 'family business', as you so quaintly put it."

"If you try to stop me - if you so much as move - I'm going to kill you." Draco's tone was colder now - less controlled but somehow more self assured.

"I'd like to see you try." Lucius' smirk changed to a vicious little smile that left Harry trembling faintly, and it wasn't even addressed to him.

"Well then," Draco said quietly, "give me a reason."

"You know you'd never be able to get me before I killed him." It was another one of those cold, simple statements that drove into Harry with it's pure, emotionless evil.

"Maybe not, but if you do you'll never get a shield up before I kill you."

Harry shivered. He was very aware that he was incidental to this confrontation, and that if it continued in this fashion he'd have no chance to affect its outcome. Harry hated feeling helpless. Time to add a new factor to this euqation. His wand slipped from its hiding place in his sleeve into his hand. The motion of his arm raising suddenly and fixing his aim on Lucius snapped the man's attention back to the boy. Harry knew he could never rival either Malfoy in the cold and uncaring stare department, but he gave it his best go anyway. "Put the wand down Malfoy," he said.

***

"Expelliarmus!" Dean heard Ron's cry as he and Seamus dashed towards the gate where they could make out their two friends trying desperately to hold off a trio of Death Eaters. A fourth was already on the ground.

"Damn it Ron!" He heard Hermione. "Looks like another spell the damn wards protect from. Lentitudo!"

Hermione must've taken the wand from the downed Death Eater, Dean thought. He saw Hermione's opponent falter but not fall, and Ron preparing to try again against the second, but it was clear that Ron hadn't noticed the third Death Eater sighting at his exposed side. Dean raced towards his friends, but Seamus' spell reached the dueling group first.

"Dormio Letum!"

The third Death Eater went down, and Dean saw Ron blind the one he'd been distracted by with a well-placed light spell.

"Nebulae Letum!" The Death Eater facing Hermione cried, and a pale, gray vapor began to pour out of his wand toward the girl.

"Expurgare!" Hermione called desperately, and the gray mist began to disappear, but slowly. "Don't breath it in!" she cried shrilly, before falling silent, covering her mouth and nose with her hands.

The Death Eater pointed his wand at her again, looking to take advantage of her inability to defend herself, but Dean stopped him. "Silentium!"

The Death Eater lost his voice and Seamus put both him and the blinded down with a shouted "Languoris!"

Ron rushed to Hermione. The gas had mostly dissipated, but the girl was coughing quietly.

"I'm all right," she reassured between small coughs. "I didn't breath in much..." she was cut off when he pulled her into a tight hug.

Dean destroyed the three remaining Death Eaters' wands, then looked over to where Seamus was using a diagnostic spell on Hermione, with Ron looking on worriedly. "You guys ready to go on?" he asked.

"Yeah," Seamus affirmed. "You're going to be ok," he told Hermione.

"Where did you learn that?" Ron asked.

"Picked it up while studying attack and defense spells with Dean," he shrugged. "Seemed like it'd be useful."

"How're we going to get away from here?" Hermione asked.

"We'll take the broomsticks," Dean said. "Come on, they were this way." He led the others around the curve of the wall.

***

Lucius Malfoy's eyes were dark as they fastened onto Harry. "What did you say?" He could have been asking Harry about the weather for all the reaction he showed.

"I said, 'put the wand down, Malfoy'."

Lucius' reply was still bland and uncaring, but his eyes flashed with something dark and frightening. "And why should I do that little Potter, why should I do that." He wasn't asking a question, and he wasn't expecting an answer. Lucius clearly didn't care what the hell Harry was doing.

"If you don't..." Harry started, but Lucius didn't let him finish.

"Don't bother Potter," he said. "Whatever paltry little distraction you think you may be you should know, you provide no threat here. You have no part in this discussion, so be quite and let your betters talk." And Lucius turned back to face his son.

"If you don't put your wand down now you'll regret it," Harry said. It was rather lame as threats went, but he was running by the seat of his pants and didn't have time to come up with elaborate threats and cutting one liners.

"No I won't little boy, now be quiet." Malfoy didn't even bother turning to look at him this time. "Draco," he started, and now it was Harry's turn to cut him off.

"Put it DOWN Malfoy!" he roared, and the sudden volume caused Lucius to give a small, almost unnoticeable start.

Fast as lightning Lucius' wand had snapped sideways, away from Draco and towards Harry. "You little idiot," he said, his voice suddenly venomous, "you insignificant little worm, if you do not keep your ridiculous threats to yourself I will make you suffer a thousand torments before I turn you over to my master. You have corrupted my son, invaded my home, and now you interrupt me and dare to attempt to threaten me. You will stay out of my business and you will keep quiet, do you hear." Even though he hadn't raised his voice, the force of Lucius' tone struck out at Harry like a spell. Instead of staggering, or flinching away as Lucius would have expected, the black haired boy simply shrugged.

"I will not." Lucius' lost of control seemed to have bolstered Harry's spirits, for now it was his tone that was controlled and uncaring.

"Fine." The simple word was all the warning Harry had. "Crucio!"

"Speculum Contego!"

"Nigrosis!"

With a trio of light flashes the three spells shot forward, reaching out to their intended targets. The pale, silver light reached Harry first and surrounded him. It was followed shortly by a painfully bright red flash, which struck the sliver and rebounded to join dark gray streaking towards Lucius Malfoy.

The two spells struck the elder Malfoy, and with a cry he crumpled to the ground.

"You idiot!" Draco's voice rang out as he rounded on Harry. "What the hell were you thinking?" The blonde's false sense of calm was now entirely gone as he confronted Harry. "Were you trying to get yourself killed? Baiting him like that, and then you didn't even try to defend yourself, did you? No! You just struck out at him!" A wild hand shot towards where Draco's father lay on the carpet. "How stupid can you be?"

"It wasn't stupid," was Harry's quiet response.

"Bloody hell! Of course it was stupid. Normal people defend themselves when going up against more powerful and better-trained wizards. What the hell were you thinking?" Draco repeated.

"Well, I didn't have to defend, did I?" A small smile slipped onto Harry's face as he looked into the flashing gray eyes of the younger Malfoy.

"What do you mean?" Draco's volume dropped a touch, but gave nothing away. "You could have been killed."

"You did it for me," was Harry's simple reply, and it seemed to end Draco's rant mid breath.

Draco blinked, then suddenly spun around on his heel and began to move quickly towards the door into the hall. "Come on." He muttered "Adligo," as he passed his father and a dark band appeared around Lucius' middle, pulling his arms tight against his sides so he'd be unable to move them when he awoke. Harry hurried to catch up as the blonde practically stormed out of the study where the burning books were still letting off their painful cry. He wondered as he strode alongside the other boy why Draco's instinct had not been to attack his father, but to defend Harry.

***

"Do we take Draco's broom?" Seamus asked, snatching up his own broomstick.

"I don't think we can," Dean said. "We need speed, not spare baggage."

"Of course we donšt!" Ron's outburst startled the two boys. "If something happens to his bloody broom he can buy himself another one for Merlin's sake. Let's just get going!"

"What about Harry's broom?" Hermione asked, gesturing to the familiar Firebolt, and giving the boys pause. Hermione didn't have enough flying experience to be able to control the racing broom, but they hadn't brought another broom for her.

"Harry'll kill us if anything happens to it," Dean said.

"But if the two of them come back here they won't be able to escape with only one broom," Seamus argued.

"Yeah, but we can't escape with only three," Ron argued. "Here." He handed Hermione his broom and snatched up the Firebolt. "Let's go."

"But..."

"Malfoy's bound to have other brooms back there," Ron gestured towards the manor. "If he and Harry make it this far they'll have time to summon one of them at the least. If they don't make it here we need to get back to the school and get help fast."

Dean nodded, accepting Ron's point, and Seamus soon followed suit.

"You going to be ok on that?" the Irish boy asked Hermione.

"Of course." Hermione may have had a rough time in the past two days, but she wasn't ready to give up yet. "I know how to fly, I just don't like it!"

"Right," Dean nodded, forestalling any more bickering. "Let's just go." He hopped onto his borrowed broom and lifted up into the sky, quickly followed by the other Gryffindors.

***

Spell translations: Everything's in Latin this time folks.

Aufigio = Escape, flee

Acerbus = Painful

Speculum Contego = I shield with a mirror.

Glacio obrigesco = Freeze stiff

Adurere = to kindle, fire

Confractum = to break or destroy

Dormio Letum = Sleep death or ruin.

Languoris = Faintness, inactivity.

Lentitudo = slowness, sluggishness

Nebulae Letum = Cloud death

Expurgare = Purify

Silentium = Silence

Nigrosis = Blackness

Adligo = Bind