Chapter Text
“I don’t get it, why can’t we just apparate back to camp.” Fred groans as they march in one line, Ron leading, Fred in the middle and Draco behind them. He had given his coat to Fred, because the teen had set out to secretly follow them in just a tee shirt.
“Because we can’t.” Draco can’t deny that he is a bit irritated at the moment, but it was mostly because, with Fred here, the issue became all the more alarming. “Geisterstrassen limit magic, they’re highly unpredictable and could house any number of magical creatures.” Dark magical creatures. “The only way to escape this place is to find a stream and follow it until you break out.” He explains after composing himself again. He shouldn’t worry. They can handle this.
“They didn’t teach us anything about this at Hogwarts, how do you know about it?” He turns back to look at Draco, then almost trips, but Draco catches him.
“Eyes forward and don’t slow down.” Ron comments harshly, but Draco can’t even fault him for it. This is no place for a teenager.
“I learned about it from my father.” He says rather quietly, hoping Ron would keep his comments to himself.
“What about you, uncle Ron?” Fred asks after a few silent moments.
“We had a German dragon tamer on the reserve.” He responds curtly and this time it does irritate Draco, but he says nothing.
They keep moving, the cold seeping into Draco’s bones as they start losing light. None of them speak, except for the occasional question from Fred. As soon as they get out of this thing, Draco would really like to know why Fred chose to follow them, but for now he just needs to make sure the kid is safe.
Ron suddenly halts his pacing and Fred bumps into him, almost crashing both of them down. Draco manages to stop in time before he makes the situation worse.
“What? What is it?” Fred calls out as he rubs his forehead. “Why’d you stop?” He asks.
And Draco is so unimaginably happy that Fred is asking that.
“It’s—” Ron starts, but Draco cuts him off.
“It’s nothing, Ronald just can’t walk straight.” He bites out and Ron, after a hesitating second, replies in his usual fashion, but Draco misses the reply entirely as a pair of Thestrals pass them by.
They continue walking for five more minutes and more Thestrals pass them. He had once made eye contact with Ron and saw the same uneasy feeling there that Draco felt in his gut. Fred doesn’t need to know. Not now, and hopefully not ever.
“How much longer is this going to take?” He asks, visibly shivering despite the coat. Draco tried his warming spells a few times, but they didn't take effect. This place is just too shrouded in dark magic.
Ron stops, takes his own flimsy jacket off and hands it to Fred.
“No, it’s fine, I don’t need it.” Fred says as he sees his uncle in only a t-shirt.
“Just shut up and take it.” There’s a horrible looking burn scar all over his right arm. Draco has never seen it before. He isn’t even sure if it had been there a few years ago when they first visited.
“I said I’m fine!” Fred lashes out, louder than Draco has ever heard him. “Don’t act like you give a shit about me now.” Draco opens his mouth to… to chastise him? Does he even care that Fred is speaking this way to his uncle? Probably not, but he does not have time to neither speak nor make up his mind, because he’s suddenly filled with such an overwhelming feeling of despair. The familiarity of it almost makes him want to hurl.
“What—” Fred calls out before Draco shoves him out of the way of an aggressive Dementor attack. Draco pulls out his wand to cast a patronus, but instead of his playful otter, only a white glowing smoke seeps out of his wand. It’s enough to keep the looming Dementor away from him and Fred. But probably not for long.
He sees Ron struggling the same with his Patronus, but what the idiot red haired doesn’t see is the dark creature advancing on him from behind. Draco can’t move because his body is covering for Fred, but he closes his eyes and concentrates on the happiest day of his life.
He sees Scorpius gently holding his newborn baby sister, looking in awe at her and leaning down to kiss her cheek, and it ignites a little flame in his almost frozen chest. He uses that fire to cast a Patronus again, this time it fully manifests and it chases the dementor away from Ron’s face. All three of them swirl up and away through the trees, the otter chasing after them.
“Fred, are you okay?” He turns back to the shivering teenager behind him. The boy looks petrified. White in the face and chattering his teeth.
“Here.” He fumbles through his pockets until he finds a little chocolate treat that he kept on hand for his daughter. “Eat this.” He unfoils it and basically forces it onto Fred.
“Fred! Is he okay?” Ron asks as he joins them, he too is completely white and shivering, but Draco doesn’t have any more chocolate. He doesn’t even immediately realise that he’s trying to comfort the other man.
“He’s fine, they didn’t touch him.” Draco says. “Are you…” He swallows, unsure if he should actually ask. “Let’s get moving before they come back.” He says instead and helps Fred get up off of the ground.
They start walking and thankfully they find a river before anything else attacks them. It shouldn’t be too long now before they escape this plane, hopefully. Draco really feels bad for how intensely Fred was trembling now. But just as he blinks away from the boy in front of him, he sees movement out of the corner of his eye. Something rushes towards them and before Draco can react it runs into him and shoves him into the icy cold river. He tries his best to react as he sees a fiery blow hit whatever went down with him in the river, but his body feels like it’s made of lead now. Bones heavy with the icy hell of the water.
“Draco!!” He hears Fred call out as he finally emerges his head above water and sees Ronald holding on to the teenager. Fred was clearly ready to jump in the water right after him.
“Get out of there before you freeze to death, you stupid git!” Ron yells at him and Draco moves to swim to the river bank when he feels a sharp pain in his right ankle. He must have twisted it going down.
“Oh for the love of— move it!” Ron sends another fiery blow towards a Quintaped headed their way.
Draco manages to get out of the water, but as he crawls up on the bank, muscles barely functioning, he realises that there would be no walking on that ankle. And even without the Geisterstrasse, he doesn’t think he would be able to heal himself with how violently his muscles are shivering.
“Malfoy! We need to leave!” Ron barks at him, but as he gets closer he seems to notice Draco’s condition. “Shit! Take the sweater off and take my jacket.” He quickly removes his jacket and throws it at Draco before he fires at another Quintaped. “Hurry up, the way out can’t be much further off—”
“Take Fred and leave.” Draco says and he throws off the sogging emerald sweater with the golden D on the front. “I’ll catch up.” Maybe the idiot didn’t notice Dracos ankle.
“Just get the fuck up and let’s go.”
“What’s wrong, Draco?” Fred asks in a small voice, clearly seeing straight through Draco’s hard shell.
“Fred! Get your idiot uncle and go!” He raises his voice despite how wrong it feels, it makes Fred take a step back, but then suddenly Ron is there, pulling at his arm.
“Get up! Put weight on whichever leg doesn't hurt and the rest of the weight on me.” He hoists Draco up with more strength that Draco would have given him credit for. “Take your wand out Fred, and fire a Stinging Hex at anything you see moving towards us. School rules don’t apply here.” He orders and Draco sees Fred immediately follow.
They move significantly slower than before as Fred constantly fires at numerous shadowy creatures.
This isn’t going to work, they’re too slow and the Dementors could be back at any second. Fred definitely can’t cast a Patronus and Ron hadn’t managed a cosporeal one either. And, in his current condition, Draco can’t even move his arm properly to cast anything. His body is still violently shivering. He’s dragging them behind.
“W-weasel, this isn’t working. Leave me behind and take Fred out of here.” He doesn’t know what he’ll do afterwards, but he’d never endanger Fred’s life just to save his own hide. Why isn’t the idiot listening to him? Draco grits his teeth. “You know I’d leave your pathetic ass behind in a heartbeat.” He says as menacingly as he can. Ron’s pacing slows down a bit and Draco can only hope that it worked, his vision has started to darken at the edges. He won’t be able to maintain consciousness for long.
“Somehow…” Ron says, hoisting Draco’s body tighter against his own and starting to move even faster than before. “I don’t actually believe that.” Draco hears as his vision darkens further. He tries to stay conscious for as long as possible and he hears Ron and Fred yell at each other. He feels a slight change in temperature and then he hits the ground. He blacks out completely when he hears Fred call out to him as something warm envelopes his body. A warming charm, he thinks, with his last strands of consciousness. Either that or the gentle touch of death.
___
He slowly opens his eyes. The brightness of the room makes him think that he might actually be dead. Is this that Heaven thing that his mother in law kept telling Scorpius about? Would he even go there after death? Perhaps.
“Where does this one go?” He hears his son ask.
“This one is called a Rook, it can only move up and down, or sideways in a straight line, but it’s free to move however many squares it wants.” Ronald’s voice replies.
“Does that mean I can take Fred’s pawn?” Scorpius asks again, all excited.
No.
Hell. He is in hell.
“You can, but I wouldn’t do that. You see, if you move the Rook here, then Fred can use his Bishop to take your Rook. So it’s not really worth it. It’s a move that neither gets you a valuable piece, nor advances you in the game.” Draco takes a deep breath. “Always remember to think a few moves out. Look at the whole board instead of just a few pieces. Sometimes the best way to win a game is to take a step back and analyse the situation you’re in. Never let the other player trick you into playing a dumb move.” Oh for the love of—
“Dad! You’re awake!” Scorpius rushes over to him and climbs on the bed to wrap his arms around Draco’s shoulders.
“Hmm.” Draco hums through a dry throat. “Where’s your mother?” He asks as he sees the other two people in the room.
Fred and Ron, both sitting down at a table in the corner.
“She said she was going to take Lyra home to grandma, then come back, but I didn’t want to leave.” He says cheerfully. “Uncle Ron said he’d keep an eye on Fred and I until she comes back.” Merlin’s beard did that sound wrong. “I’m so happy you’re okay, Fred said it was really cool and that he got to throw jinxes at things. Is that true?” Draco wants to laugh, but his throat feels too dry.
“It’s true and it was very brave of him, but I hope Fred never has to do that again.” He looks at the boy who seems fine enough. Unlike Ron and himself, he was still wearing his own clothes and not the hospital gown. “Do you think the both of you could go out and bravely hunt down a nurse and ask for a glass of water?
“Sure.” Fred says and quickly gets up. “Let’s go, Scorp.” He rushes the confused younger boy out of the room, leaving him and Ron behind in an eerie quietness.
“Good job, Weasley.”
“Shut up, Malfoy.”