By The Light Of A Dying Flame ~ Drarry Fanfic

Chapter 32: Draco

Draco had severely underestimated what it would mean to be part of a battle. Maybe that spoke to his own ignorance, his disconnect from the war, the misguided thought that he never would have been expected to fight. He was just a teenager; but, so was every other student here. They were all just children fighting someone else's war.

But none of that mattered now—not when he was running through hallways, ducking to avoid curses and crumbling stones, flinging himself out of the way of shattering windows, hurling spells blindly. He forced himself not to stop by every fallen body he saw to search for his mother's face, for Blaise and Theo. The adrenaline, the thought that he may be dead any moment, kept him from thinking about the fact that he'd essentially just killed one of his best mates. It had to be worth it; this all had better be bloody worth something.

Harry led the four of them through the corridors, sending them through hidden passages Draco had never known about. He was grateful for the smoky haze that choked the air, as it made it difficult for Death Eaters to distinguish Harry from the other students. Draco recalled the chilling way Voldemort had called for Harry to be brought to him at the start of the battle, as if that would have stopped the carnage. He watched Harry's back as they ran, the way his dark hair stuck to his neck with sweat, the way his already brown skin was slowly darkening with dust and grime. Draco knew that at the end of all this, Harry would have to face Voldemort, and only one of them would come out of it alive; it took every single ounce of his strength not to grab Harry and Apparate them somewhere Voldemort would never find them.

They finally spilled out onto the grounds, the sloping hill that led down to the Whoomping Willow filled with bodies and people running. A dark mist seemed to linger towards the bottom of the hill, throngs of black waves shifting back and forth, absorbing all the color of the night.

"What is that?" Weasley asked, his breath releasing in sharp punches of frosted air.

As they drew closer to the strange, shifting darkness, Granger stumbled, her face draining of color. She grabbed Weasley's arm, pulling him to a stop. Harry and Draco came to stand beside them, and they all stared numbly at the place where the Whoomping Willow should have twisted up toward the sky.

A throng of dementors had swallowed the tree. They swarmed the bottom of the hill like inverted ghosts, draining the air of warmth. Draco shivered, an iron taste filling his mouth. He had spent the better part of a year in a house surrounded by dementors, never able to truly feel warm, the periphery of his soul ragged and raw. He was already shivering, as if instinctually, goose flesh crawling across his arms.

"The only way out is through," Harry said quietly, and he resumed his descent, the borrowed wand out in front of him.

Granger and Weasley exchanged a silent look before following. Draco watched them, a roaring filling his ears, his fingers beginning to numb. "Don't be a coward," he whispered, before lifting one foot and taking a halting step forward.

The trio cast their Patronuses, warm light flooding the area around them as they bounded ahead, scattering the dementors and cutting a path towards the tree. Yet the dementors were riled, fueled by the death and bloodshed of the battle—they overwhelmed them, and each of the Patronuses shuddered and disappeared almost as soon as they were cast.

"It's no use," Granger said, her voice wavering. She wiped sweat from her brow even as her teeth chattered from the cold. "There's too many of them."

Harry's green gaze cut across the expanse of dementors, the sharp line of his jaw cast with determination. He was spinning the laurel wand in his hand, his breath wreathing his face in tendrils of white. "We go through one at a time," he said, another stag leaping from the end of his wand as he cast his Patronus. The stag hurled itself at a dementor that had broken from the wave and was gliding closer to them, before dissolving into mist. "The others can cast long enough to get one person to the Willow."