Save The Date (A Drarry FanFiction)

Chapter Twenty Four (X)

X

Draco almost tripped over his feet as he went flying out of the darkness and into the dim light of what he assumed had to be the new land they had found. "Quick!" Bones yelled as he scrambled to a halt beside him, then whirled on the spot to launch himself at the wooden door they had just come through. Draco got the idea pretty sharpish, and threw his hands against the back of it to slam it shut. It wouldn't stop the mayor and his skeletons for long if they decided to follow, but it might slow them down a bit.

"Will he know we've come here?" he panted, his whole body trembling. He wasn't even sure where 'here' was at the moment. As he glanced around, all he could tell was that they were in a sort of wooden room, with sunlight streaming through the slats and no doors to lead them out, however there were several dark holes in the walls that looked big enough to crawl through. After his experience in the basement though, Draco couldn't say he was overly keen to do that.

"He'll know we're in a second tier holiday land," Bones said, scampering up to the holes and sniffing them one by one. "He has several to choose from, but let's not hang around until he finds us standing here with our arses hanging out. Okay," he tapped a paw on the inside of one of the dark openings, and his claws pinged against what was obviously metal. "This one."

"This one?" Draco repeated dumbly, his heart still thumping so loudly in his ears he couldn't seem to form much of a coherent thought.

"Yep," Bones told him with a grin, then slid forwards on his belly and vanished from sight.

Draco whimpered. No one was around to hear it, so he really didn't care how pathetic it sounded. He didn't want to dive into another unknown place, but as he looked over his shoulder and figured a throng of killer skeletons and a psychotic mayor could come bursting through at any second, he weighed up his options and decided that Bones hadn't steered him wrong so far, so he might as well just take the plunge.

He fed his legs down the tube first, holding onto the lip of the entrance to brace himself as it felt like it started sloping downwards immediately. There was nothing for it, he was just going to have to go for it.

He inhaled loudly, then shoved his body inside.

His stomach dropped as he slid down at an alarming rate, twisting and turning in the almost total darkness He cursed as he banged his head several times and let out a scream as the slide veered lower at an even more acute angle, until it finally, mercifully, spat him out into the bright, warm sunshine.

He went head over heels and landed flat on his stomach. "Urgh," he grunted, compos mentis enough to be grateful that he was, for now, still alive.

"You alright there?" Bones chuckled, licking the side of his face where it had squished into the ground. At least the dirt was dry and the green grass made it a fraction softer.

"Yes," Draco mumbled into the earth. "I'm just peachy."

He sat up and found himself in a brightly lit forest, leaves on the large trees twitching merrily in the balmy breeze. It was much more pleasant than the forbidden forest he and Harry had found themselves in the night before, that he had to admit. Although he wasn't quite sure where he was still. By scanning the memories he had inherited from his brief stint as the Prince of Halloween Land, he was able to discount several possible worlds, but that still left a number he could choose from.

He thought back to that morning when he had been prince, and instead of enquiring as to where they were, he asked a different question as he stood to his feet and brushed the woodland debris from his black trousers. "Bones?"

"Yes, Your Highness?"

Draco flinched at the teasing remark. "About that," he said, unsure where to start, or why he cared at all. "Um, my mother, in Halloween Land? What happens to her now I'm gone?"

Bones had been sniffing around, inspected several tree trunks, but he paused to frown up at Draco. "What do you mean?" he asked without aggression, but not exactly kindly either.

Draco sighed. "Well, will she miss me?"

Bones looked surprised, and it was then Draco noticed that he was once again dressed. Although this time, instead of his bat wings, his little black body was clothed in a green tunic with brown belt, green bowtie at the back of his neck, and most ridiculously, a small green top hat that he definitely hadn't been wearing at the start of the slide in the tree house they had arrived through.

He didn't get a chance to comment on the new getup though, as Bones replied to his question. "Miss you?" he repeated. "Sorry mate, she's not even going to remember you. It'll be like you never existed. I guess, until some other poor lad finds himself pulled down there, then he might become the Prince like you did."

"Oh," said Draco as they began to walk. He mulled on the idea for a while, then came to the conclusion that was probably better than her grieving for his loss. But he had all these memories swimming around – only half formed, but they were there all the same. A glimpse of dinners with his parents, and how he had comforted his mother after his father's passing.

But that wasn't real, he told himself sternly. His real mother was back in the Living Land, in their house in Wiltshire, recovering after their unspeakable time with the Dark Lord and putting her life back together. He had thousands of memories of her, far more vibrant than the wishy-washy efforts from Halloween Land, and he vowed not to worry about anyone there again. They would go on with their lives, and he was going to find Harry so they could carry on with theirs, in the real world.