The Dream Trilogy Book Two: Tread On My Dreams (A Harry Potter FanFiction)

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

Try as he might, Harry couldn't make his legs move fast enough. Draco had torn back into Honeydukes like something demented, bolting back into the cellar and down the trap door, up along the shadowy tunnel that led back into the school. Harry was trying to keep up, but man that boy could run. 

"Draco!" he called out. "Slow down, you don't know what's up there!" But Draco didn't slow down, nor did he reply. Harry looked over his shoulder to make sure the other three were keeping up behind. They didn't look happy, but he could see them at least. 

How could he have been so stupid, how? A diversion was the oldest trick in the book, what had he been thinking? He only hoped the officials from the Ministry had had more wits about them, and that's why they all disappeared from Hogsmeade in such a hurry. 

Surely no one could get into the school though, he consoled himself, it was impenetrable. But the panic that had seized Draco, the desperation, made him very worried indeed. Dumbledore wouldn't let anything happen though, or any of the other teachers, he knew it. Didn't he? 

The journey back must have taken less time than it had taken the five students to get to Hogsmeade, but it seemed to take twice as long. Harry kept imagining a thousand different ways that Death Eaters could have penetrated Hogwarts' defenses, but each seemed as unlikely as the last. It's just a false alarm, he repeated to himself, everything's going to be fine. 

He burst back into the corridor from behind the statue of the one-eyed-witch with his wand raised and eyes dizzy with adrenaline. Draco was pacing back and forth, head snapping in every direction. "I can't hear anything," he said. "Where are they?" 

Harry caught his breath, and looked back down the tunnel to make sure Sarah, Hermione and Ron were on their way. "Maybe there's no attack?" he suggested rubbing his right knee which was twinging. Small beads of sweat were dotting on Draco's forehead, making some of his hair stick up, but other than that he showed no sign that he'd been running for the best part of forty minutes. His face was wan though, his eyes fervoured and his feet and hands twitchy.  

"It's happening again," he breathed, rocking back and forth. "It's happening again." 

Sarah was the first to tumble back into the corridor, followed by Ron and then Hermione, who propped herself against the wall as soon as she was out and tried not to gag. "What's going on!" demanded Sarah, sucking in lungfuls of air with her hands on her hips. "Is someone attacking the school, they can't be!" 

"YOU!" shouted Ron, taking a run at Draco and slamming him into the wall. 

"No!" yelled Harry, leaping instantly to pull them apart. Draco seemed too shell-shocked to do anything except hold his arms up in defense, but Ron was smashing him against the wall repeatedly. "Ron!" He managed to yank the two boys away from each other, and tried to get his best friend to look at him. "We don't even know what's happening!" 

Ron stabbed a finger at Draco, who had slumped up against the wall and was trembling from head to toe. "It was him!" yelled Ron. "He shows up, leads us away and the bloody Death Eaters get in!" 

"Ron I lead you down to the town!" Harry shouted back, giving the boy a shake to help him focus.  

"And," said Sarah, squaring up to him as much as she could, being a foot shorter. "We just showed up from an alternate universe, how did we have time to talk to any Death Eaters?" 

Ron had stopped struggling against Harry now, but he didn't trust him enough to let him go just yet, he knew how hot-headed his friend could be. Ron narrowed his eyes. "He says he just came from another reality, how do we really know?"