Broomsticks and Alibis

Chapter 18

Draco ran hard, his breath coming in pants, as he hurried between the thick trees and dense foliage. He couldn’t even see the lake anymore, but he moved with speed deeper into the Forbidden Forest, the knowledge that certain formidable creatures hailed there not even a factor as he sped, leaping over the dead fall that lay on the forest floor. With his heart beating in his chest, he stopped to catch his breath. A groaning, low and strained caught his attention. He spun around, his silver eyes finally becoming used to the blackness that surrounded him. The trees creaked loudly as they swayed gently in the breeze. The air was thicker in this part of the forest, and cold, like he had walked into a crypt.

“Ginny…Took Ginny,” a voice wailed from behind a tree just in front of Draco. He raced to the voice, as he knelt before Harry Potter.

“What happened? Are you alright?” Draco asked with urgency in his tone.

“Help me up…Ginny…I have to save Ginny!” Draco flung Harry’s arm over his shoulder and pulled him to his feet. When he let go though, Harry fell backwards smacking his head on the ground. He curled into the fetal position and grit his teeth, before pointing.

“Crucio-ed me,” Harry grimaced. Draco knelt this time and assessed his wounds. He had been more then hit with an Unforgivable curse. He had been whipped across the torso, many times by the looks of it. His face was cut and bloody, his nose probably broken and his arm appeared to be fractured, by the way it hung at his side, limp and unmoving.

“You’re hurt pretty bad mate. Which way did they go? I’ll come back for you.” Harry pointed again as he cried out, the pain still ripping through his body as he knelt on all fours, too weak to stand up. Suddenly footsteps, close by. Draco held his wand out in front of him, ready to attack whomever or whatever made its presence known.

“Draco! Is that you?” It was Hermione and Draco ran to her side.

“I told you not to come! You shouldn’t be in here.”

“You shouldn’t be in here either! Harry is that you?” Hermione ran to Harry’s side. He kept repeating Ginny’s name, clearly frightened. There was no time to lose, not if they ever wanted to see Ginny again.

“Hermione, you have to take Potter back. He needs medical attention. Whoever did this really worked him over, and must have taken Ginny.

“Stunned me...” Harry moaned through labored breaths.

“I don’t know how I can, Draco. He’s injured pretty badly and even a levitating spell would be a problem. The trees are too thick, I’d never make it all the way out dragging Harry behind me.

“I have to save Ginny!” Harry shouted now through the pain.

“Draco’s right Harry. You can’t be any help to anybody until we get you to Madame Pompfrey. You could die out here and then you wouldn’t be any help to Ginny at all. I have to take you back. I’ll send help Draco. Now if I could just figure out how…” Hermione saw something shimmering in white through the trees before them.

“Is that what I think it is?” Draco said.

“Its a Unicorn! I’ve never actually seen one of them. I mean I knew they were supposed to live out here but…” Hermione stopped when Draco approached the majestic beast. It snorted at him and reared but Draco conjured a rope and lassoed the wild beast’s neck. He pulled it to Hermione and Harry and then lifted Harry onto the back of the beast. It tried to get away but then relaxed once Harry’s arms slumped around its neck.

“Get on Hermione. You can fly Potter back,” Draco said leading his wife by the arm.

“What if it doesn’t like us on its back?”

“Unicorns are noble and good creatures right?” Draco said and Hermione nodded. “Your safe with Saint Potter on its back. He’s a bloody do-gooder. If I were on it, you might have need to worry. Just get on.”

“I can’t fly Draco.”

“Hermione do you trust me?” Draco said impatiently.

“Yes,” Hermione said hesitantly.

“You didn’t during the wand fight. You said you would trust me the next time. This is it. Now get on. Fly Potter back and gather the Aurors.”

“Okay. I can do this,” Hermione coaxed herself onto the back of the gentle animal. It’s hair was soft, not like the coarseness of horses hair. It stirred, but allowed her to climb onto it. She held tightly to the mane and Draco handed her the rope. She patted Harry on the back and soothed his cries, and then in an instant, Draco smacked the Unicorn in the rear and it took flight. Hermione screamed, her voice echoing in the distance now as Draco forged ahead in search of Ginny and whatever had snatched her. He must have been walking for minutes, but it felt like hours, as he crept quietly through the brush, aware of his every surroundings. Without warning a crack of a tree branch, then hooves pounding the ground, and then pain as he fell against the ground. Draco clutched his head, making sure it was still there as his temples throbbed. A warm liquid trickled down his face, blurring his vision. And then he was being hurled into the air, caught in something he knew not what it was. It lifted his body high into the canopy of the woods. He could hear gruffs and growls beneath him. He twisted his body inside his confines and then it dawned on him what had happened. He was high in the trees, caught in a giant net. He wriggled to break free, the blood flowing freely down his face and neck from the huge gash above his eyebrow. A pack of ravenous centaurs stood below him pawing at the ground.

“Ow!” he cried out when he felt a stabbing pain, something piercing the skin of his backside. Another whooshing sound and he saw an arrow fly past him as it stuck in the trunk of the tree in front of him. Another hit his side, but ricocheted off the heavy rope netting and then suddenly he was plummeting. He landed in a thorny bush and howled in agony as the prickly brush stuck into his arms and legs. Flaying his arms and legs wildly he managed to free himself from the plant, falling face forward into the soft spongy dirt.

“Caught by your own trap. Fitting for your kind.” Draco looked up to see the half-human half beast body of a centaur. It stood regally before him with its arms folded across its hairy, beastly chest.

“If you will just step aside I will be on my way. I mean you no harm.”

“You speak mistruths. For we have seen your kind rustling in the bushes, laying such traps as to capture our kind and to steal what is ours. Why do you perform such experiments? Do you not know that we could take the castle at such time as we wished?”

“I know not of what you speak. I am looking for my friend, that is all. I speak the truth.”

“You lie! Your kind have been coming here for years. Your Minister promised us we would be left alone, yet your people encroach upon our lands whenever you feel the whim. You set traps for us to fall in. You prod us with your instruments of pain and torture.” Draco suddenly remembered the experiments Flint and Avery had apparently been performing on the centaurs, as they tried to harness their power. Idiots. Now he was paying for their stupidity. What should keep me from sacrificing you and feeding you to the pack behind me?” It looked down at Draco with such absolute superiority. Draco felt small before the centaur. He knew the centaurs were not friendly creatures and they were extremely dangerous, yet he had to make them let him go. He had to find some way of getting them to release him. He was cornered with nowhere to go. It seemed hopeless, as the pack moved in closer to his now still body, as he lay on the dirt assessing his chances of an escape, and taking in the scene around him.

“I’m running for Minister! I can help you. Tell me what you want.”

“We want your kind to never step foot in this forest again!”

“Well it’s already called the Forbidden Forrest. We generally aren’t supposed to come in here.” Draco bit back his words no sooner then he had uttered them.

“Yet here you lay like a dinner before us.” Suddenly a row erupted amongst the crowd of hungry and snarling centaurs. They seemed to be fighting over Draco’s body parts. He heard one exclaim that they wanted his leg, while another fought for it. Draco gulped hard and then crawled away, slowly, as the centaurs broke into a scuffle, their hooves pounding and shaking the earth around him. Suddenly he heard a sound in the distance, and the pack of centaurs took off after it. It must be the Aurors, he thought to himself. Hermione must have made it back safely. He breathed a sigh of relief at that, as he climbed to his feet and continued forward.

His whole body hurt, but there was time for healing later. He had to find Ginny. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that he might find Potter’s girlfriend, strung up and lifeless, like the other girls. He fought the thought back as he trod through the thick vines and spider webs that were spun above his head. He lost his footing and slid down an embankment, landing at the bottom of a ravine. A yellow glow of lantern light shone just ahead. He could hear voices now. Perhaps he wasn’t too late.

“Why are we here? Did you do this to me you little cunt?” He recognized the voice. It was Pansy Parkinson. He would know that grating voice anywhere.

“I didn’t string you up like this bitch! Can you move?” Draco heard Ginny now. Oh thank god he wasn’t too late. He stepped into a lake bed of rocks, at the foot of the ravine. He must be in a dried river bed, he thought to himself as he carefully stepped over the small stones that impeded his way

“I’m bloody tied up you stupid bitch what do you think?”

“How did we get here? I was walking with Harry and then we heard something and oh my god my stomach hurts!”

“Mine does too!” Pansy said, her voice shaking now. “Where is Blaise? We were taking a evening broom ride and then we lost control of the broom.”

“Do you have your wand?” Ginny said.

“I don’t know. I can’t move my fucking hands to find out,” Pansy said.”Weasley?”

“What Parkinson?”

“Are we going to die…you know…like those other girls did?”

“No.”

“But we are strung up…and I think somebody cut my stomach, it really hurts and I think its bleeding.” Draco could hear the girls clear as day. He hurried, but the stones became larger as he crossed the dried lake bed. He pulled his body up with his arms onto each boulder, the next seemingly bigger then the previous, as he tried in vain to reach the girls.

“Don’t start falling apart now Pansy. It won’t help us to lose our heads. Harry will find us.”

“Crucio!” Draco saw the green light. For a moment it lit up the forest and he saw a hooded figure standing only feet from the two girls. They were tied to a low hanging tree branch, one next to the other, and Ginny was wriggling like someone who had been struck with a bolt lightening, the green light hitting her chest and then ceasing at long last. Darkness blinded him again. He stood crouched on the last boulder waiting for his eyes to adjust to the pitch black of night.

“Weasley! Don’t die and leave me here alone! I’m scared! Oh my god, please don’t hurt me. Please. I’ll do anything you ask just don’t hurt me.” Pansy was sobbing uncontrollably. Draco was limping, the pain in his buttocks shooting pain downwards through the muscles in his leg. He wiped the blood from his eye, his hair sticky and matted as he slowed his steps, knowing his dragging leg would alert the killer to his presence. He heard whacking sounds now like that of a broom beating against a rug and then cries as Pansy and Ginny both screamed out and then fell silent. The lashing continued as Draco stood behind the very clump of trees that they were tied to. He watched as the viciousness continued and then in a spontaneous moment, he jumped from behind the tree and yanked the broomstick from the torturers hand. One swift muggle baseball bat swing and he landed a blow to the head of the attacker. The figure fell to the ground and Draco dropped the broom and fumbled for his wand. He held the wand on his attacker.

“Lumos!”

WHACK

The broom hit him across the legs and he found himself falling to the ground once again. A constant wave of pain shot through his body, as he fell on his wounded side. He scrambled on the ground for his wand, that he had dropped when he fell. He could see a hand reach out and grab his wand, retrieving it first and suddenly a facet of Draco’s domineering personality, a side to himself that he hadn’t seen in quite a while, took over. He saw a ball of twine lying on the ground at the base of the tree where Ginny and Pansy were strung up, their whimpers filling his ears. He reached for it, knowing that at any moment, the killer would hit him with a spell and his chance would be lost. Draco leaped at the figure, tackling it and with the swift motions of a sleek jungle cat, he pounced on top of the figure, throwing their hands above their head and tying them up, with speed and accuracy. In seconds, he had restrained the figure. Legs kicked him from behind and he turned and tied the twine tightly around its legs. He sat gasping for air over top of the attacker and then he reached for the hood, intent on revealing the killer.

“You!” Draco said in shock. Suddenly fireworks lit up the sky above. Blues and pinks and reds and oranges, raining fireballs from the sky. The light show Flint was working on, his bomb as it was must have been going off. The finale of the carnival Ginny and Hermione worked so hard to perfect and create, had reached its close. He could hear voices up the hill just past the ravine. He knew the Aurors were close on their trail. “Why did you do this? Are you totally insane! Why kill so many innocent people?”

“Nobody is innocent! They are just dirty whores! The killer responded.

“There, there, it’s quite alright. I have my wand on you, now get up slowly.” Another figure stepped from the trees and Draco recognized the man.

“We’re going to get you the help you need.” He said to the killer that was hogtied and squirming on the ground. Her turned his attention to Draco now. “Of course, we can’t have you knowing who it is that has been committing these vicious acts, now can we?” Draco didn’t care. Dandylion,Draticula and Lavender. They would pay. They would spend the rest of their miserable lives in Azkaban for these serialistic murders. He would grab the killer and make for the Aurors, wand on him or no wand. It didn’t matter. He yanked the bound figure up on their feet, disgust playing over his face. He caught a glimpse of Ginny and Pansy. They had obviously passed out from the torture they had received. Their heads touched each others and for a moment they almost looked like they were sleeping peacefully, their limp bodies hanging, as blood dripped form their stomachs.

“Obliviate!” Draco was hit with a spell and he fell to the ground. When he came too he was laying flat on his back staring up at the words,BITCH on Ginny;s stomach and CUNT carved and bloody on Pansy’s abdomen. The girls were writhing again. The whole scene was such nightmarish hell that Draco felt the urge to vomit and did so. He climbed to his feet and flashlights blinded him as he released Ginny and Pansy from their prison. He lifted Ginny into his arms and then allowed Pansy to rest against his chest as well. Both girls were hugging each other and crying into Draco’s comforting body. The aurors finally arrived and one of them shouted out.

“It’s Blaise Zabini. He’s just over here. Has his wand out too. Looks like someone overcame him.” Draco felt hands patting him on the back. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten here, or anything that had transpired. All he remembered was coming out of the carnival tent and holding Hermione. The rest was a complete blank.

“You did it Malfoy! You caught the killer. I’ll bet its smooth sailing now.”

Draco looked at Mad Eye Moody with a confused expression.

“You know…the Minister’s position. The election? I have to admit that I was wrong about you. Maybe the apple fell form far the tree on this occasion. I bloody hate when I’m wrong. You did good though, you earned it,” Mad Eye clapped Draco on the back and Draco felt a wave of pain shoot down his hip and leg. “You got yourself an arrow sticking out of your arse,boy!" Mad Eye plucked the sharp pointed arrow from Draco’s skin and Draco hollered loudly.

“BLOODY FUCKING HELL! DON’T EVER DO THAT AGAIN! SHIT!”

“I told you we would make it,” Ginny said to Pansy.

“I know. You were…braver then me. I’m glad we were together,” Pansy said reluctantly but sincerely.

“Yeah I know. Me too. Let’s not tell anyone we had this conversation though.”

“Deal,” Pansy said reaching out to shake Ginny’s bloody and swollen hands. Both girls would spend a few days healing in the hospital wing and at least for now their vendetta against one another was on hold.

“So, Blaise killed the girls?” Draco finally asked to one of the Aurors who was pulling the groggy and injured Blaise to his feet and cuffing him behind his back.

“Looks that way. We have to run diagnostics on his wand but it looks like an open and shut case. You shouldn’t have any problem getting a conviction. Found at the scene of the crime with two girls he has dated. I bet we can tie him to the other girls too.” Draco knew that they could. He tried to remember. Something didn’t sit right with him. If only he could remember.

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