[Discontinued] When Shadows Collide, The Game Begins

Chapter 31

Hagrid had been less forthcoming than the boys had hoped. His shadow ringed eyes wouldn't stop shifting to Draco, and every so often he would mutter 'Bloody Malfoys' just loud enough for Draco to hear. Harry was fed up with it, but every time he prepared to protest, Draco would catch his eye and shake his head.

"Look, I really shouldn't be tellin' you this," said Hagrid, when at last he decided a child with no power and no claim to his family wasn't a deadly threat, "but there's something wrong with out Hermione. I mean, Hermione? Consorting with Slytherins!" Harry raised an eyebrow and Hagrid coughed. "Consorting with the bad ones, I mean. Anyway-" he waved his hands "-Dumbledore noticed, of course, and brought her to his office. I don't know what she did to him, I know she's a powerful witch but it should have taken more than that for what happened next..." Hagrid trailed off, looking gloomily at the crackling fire.

"And what did happen next?" asked Harry, forcing down his frustration.

"Oh, well, that's where it gets a bit odd, y'see. For a while, nothing changed, not really. Security tightened up a bit, but it had to, with all the threats. Oh just the usual stuff. 'Ex'-deatheaters threatening to pull their kids out if the school didn't change its ways, a few other families actually doing it... I don't know why some muggleborns left. There's nowhere safer than Hogwarts, that's what I've always said. Under Dumbledore, no one could hurt a fly." Draco hid a laugh under a cough. "As I was saying, Hogwarts was as safe as ever, and then muggleborns started getting some rough treatment, worse than usual. From the teachers as well as the students. The school started to split, right down the middle... It's strange though. Even friends started to fall apart. Hogwarts grew cold... And Dumbledore... He's just been watching it happen. I can't say much more..." His eyes shifted to the closed window. "But there's something not right about what's going on... And what's even stranger is Hermione is at the top, still, as if she was a pureblood."

Harry and Draco exchanged looks, before getting up from the table and draping the invisibility cloak around their shoulders.

"Thank you, Hagrid. We'll be off now," said Harry. Before Hagrid could protest, he had pulled the cloak over his and Draco's heads and pushed his way through the front door. Without exchanging a word, Harry and Draco began running across the moonlit grounds. There was not a sound to be heard aside from their sharp breaths. Not even a hooting owl, nor trees rustling in the breeze. It was as if all of time had stopped around them and they were running in an empty world.

In a few minutes, the two had reached the castle walls. After stopping to catch their breaths, they started toward a small side door. Until Draco stopped.

Harry looked behind him, about to urge his friend on, before he saw what he was staring at.

A bird, in flight, its wings halfway through a flap, held still in the air as if sculpted in glass. The clouds behind it were stationary also. The only thing that moved were the rising and falling chests of the two boys as they gasped in shock.

"I thought chronomagic was a myth," breathed Draco.

"You thought wrong." A voice boomed across the grass. A deep and distinct voice. Across the grass.

Dumbledore was striding toward them, his wand raised, with a ghostly glow spiralling from its point, surrounding the old man. Harry pulled off the invisibility cloak and shoved it in through his belt before drawing his own wand.

" Finite Incantatem ," he whispered, sending the spell with the intention to impact Dumbledore's wand. That was all magic was. A word to focus and an intention to deliver. The runes he had carved all those months ago shone gold, and the light arced through the air, colliding with the glow of Dumblerdore's spell. The headmaster laughed, flicking his wand carelessly and sending the gold arc into the night.

"Now, that really isn't allowed. A student, experimenting with magic? You're more dangerous than you're worth, Harry Potter." Again, Harry felt the pain behind his eyes, the pain of legilimency, only this time it felt different, as if there were a second mind underneath Dumblerdore's, trying to gain control. With two conflicting minds, the attack was easy to push aside, but in the corner of his eye, Harry saw Draco twitch in pain.

"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" he yelled, charging forward. His gun was in his hand before he could think, his finger on the trigger before he took two steps, a bullet ripping through Dumbledore's rib cage before he had even taken a breath. The old man fell to his knees, and his wand dropped from his hand. The bird resumed its flight and Harry spun on his heel, running back to Draco mere seconds before he collapsed.

"You shot him..." Draco said weakly. Harry cradled his friend's head. "For me."

"I would do anything for you," replied Harry. "Besides, it wasn't fatal. We need to move. I know it hurts, it feels like you've been branded inside your head, but that gunshot would have attracted unwanted attention." Draco nodded and, with Harry's help, got to his feet. Once more, Harry pulled the invisibility cloak over the two of them, and they vanished against the dark castle wall.

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AN: Yeah so about that three year break,,, Umm I started uni among other things