Out of Time

Chapter 22

Regaining sensibility, Draco leaps to his feet, unconsciously favouring his right leg. That kneecap will be black and blue tomorrow, but it's the furthest thing from his mind. He has to get Crabbe back. He has to modify his memory, imperio him completely if he must - he saw nothing, he knows nothing, Draco didn't lose his fucking mind over Hermione.

He yanks it open and Crabbe is... not there.

Now his breath grows short for a different reason. He has no idea if this works. Crabbe could be splinched, or even dead. And would that be the worst thing?

...No. It's a horrible thought but he has it.

Then where is Crabbe? That's his next order of business.

With a growing sense of dread, Draco thinks the cabinet did work and Crabbe is currently in Borgin & Burkes. If memory serves, Montague had existed between the two cabinets in a sort of half-splinch without the blood loss. If anybody had thought to check the cabinet (if anybody else even knew it existed at all), they'd have seen part of Montague. But they didn't, so they hadn't. And there's no part of Crabbe anywhere in sight, which makes Draco think all of Crabbe is in one place.

It's a starting point.

Draco shuts the cabinet door again and forces himself to count to a slow five before opening it. It's the slowest five-count of his life and he has no idea if it's actually slow or not. Time is doing odd things. But if Crabbe was still in the cabinet, he should have returned here. And he didn't. So Crabbe is both in one piece and capable of exiting the other cabinet under his own power.

Draco doesn't allow himself further indecision. He has to get to Crabbe and obliviate him. Now. It's no time for latent apprehension about the cabinet's functional integrity; if Crabbe left, then Draco will, too. He steps into the cabinet and pulls the door shut behind him.

It's... odd. It's less compressing than apparition and less disorienting than the spin of the Floo. His stomach and brain exchange a sharp disconnect, where his intestines insist he's in motion and his eyes refuse the concept. But there's no pain and no suggestion of splinching. Good...?

It works. He really fixed it.

Fuck.

His stomach demands proof that he's once again on solid ground and Draco practically flings the door open. He doesn't care if someone's right outside it as he violently carves out a space inside the cramped shop.

Crabbe and Borgin are grinning at him wildly from the middle of the floor. The expression is bizarre on Crabbe - not least because Draco half-expected Crabbe to throw a punch at him after how he ended up here. Borgin sees something across the shop and darts away, leaving Draco to figure out what to do.

Now he'll have to obliviate both. He can manage this. He takes a deep breath and tries to prepare himself. He needs to seem like his arrival here is deliberate, and not in the sense that he came here on a panicked impulse to fix a catastrophic error in his temper.

"I can't believe you did it, Malfoy!" Crabbe is busy enthusing, the instigating fight in the Come and Go Room long forgotten. "I was about to come back and tell you but I didn't know if you'd follow me, and what would happen if we both tried to use it? So I waited. Borgin can't believe it either!"

Draco gives a smile that's more of a grimace. He really needs to take Crabbe back to Hogwarts and obliviate him there. Otherwise, how can he explain the return trip? He supposes he could always do it twice. But he can't let Crabbe see him obliviate Borgin, either.

Fuck it. He pulls out his wand to stun Crabbe, obliviate Borgin, levitate Crabbe into the sodding cabinet with him, and finish off this horror show in the Come and Go Room with the best modified memory charm he can cast.