It only takes Draco a few seconds to spring to action.
He jumps down and snatches his flowers, sprinting down the corridor toward the Eighth Tower.
A Veril, Draco thinks excitedly. Hang on, Blaise. I will find you.
He's just turning the corner that leads to the Center Courtyard when he spots a glooming body walking sloppily towards him, and he internally gasps when he realizes who it is.
"Xabros!"
The boy stops in his tracks and rolls his eyes up, confusion widening his eyes and making him cower at the sight of Draco running towards him. The blond only yanks his sleeve and drags him along with a short, "No time to explain, follow me."
"Woah--Hey! Where are we going?"
"Tower!"
Xabros runs alongside him willingly, surprisingly without explanation. He hollers at Hermione when he sees her walking out of the library as they cross the entrance to the Great Hall. He gives her the same short explanation Draco had given him, and Hermione follows wordlessly next to them.
Upon coming to the Eight Tower Portrait, only three out of the four Guardians are resting in it, and Draco has to catch a few shaky breaths before he pants out, "Trollnut. Molasses."
"Young Master Malfoy has spoken," Gyana squawks excitedly. "Let the portrait door open!"
"You found something?" Leal curls his paws around each other, like he was about to get a tasty treat. "You have a clue?"
"Leave the boy be, Leal," Baira purrs softly, shaking his mane. The portrait swings inwards and they all stumble in quickly. Draco takes off immediately towards the Gryffindor Entrance.
"Ron!"
Running the cramped staircase has become second nature to him, as he spent most of his time in Harry's dorm rather than his own when Headmistress McGonagall had told him it'd be best if he moved back to the Slytherin Tower.
He wastes no time in bursting through the door, eliminating the alarms he had set there himself with the wave of his wand. He looks around, and when his eyes spot the blue book he moves to get it, dropping the bouquet in its place, sprinting out the door once more.
He only gives a short, "Wait here," as he passes the American and Hermione, taking two steps at a time towards Blaise's bedroom.
But Ron had heard the commotion and is already two steps down from the top. "Draco? Is everything alright?"
Draco takes Ron's collar and swings him to and from, yelling, "I know how we can find them! I found something! We have to--Come on!"
The Gryffindor's eyes remain emotionless, and Draco's harsh tug only moves his shirt askew. "Don't," his voice is low and raspy. "Don't tell me unless you're absolutely sure. I can't handle losing him twice."
"Ron," the blond gasps, and suddenly he feels very out-of-character because all he could think to do is hug him. So he does. "I promise you. I wouldn't do that to you. I found a way."
Ron's eyes bore into him intensely once he pulls away, but Draco does not back down.
"I found a way."
After a short nod, the blond drags him all the way down to the common room, where Xabros and Hermione are trying to figure out why there were dragged here. Xabros is the one that spots them.
"What happened?"
"I was talking with Luna, about Blaise and everything that's happened, and she mentioned something," he inhales and sighs, gives them an assuring smile. "I know how we can find them."
*******
"A Veril?"
Hermione's puzzled face is covered by her wind-blown curls as they walk briskly towards the Headmistress' office. She makes another face after a bout of silence.
"They're banned. And not to mention nonexistent. They were destroyed."
"Technically," Ron points out, his voice is flat but he's keeping up with the conversation. "They never made it on the list of Dark Artifacts. It worked too similarly to a Pensieve, and the way it worked was too fishy to be introduced to the public. Still, a few were sold, and now they're kept as collector's items. And even then, they were banned because the memories can be altered by the owner of the memory."
"Brilliant," Hermione splutters while Draco eyes him proudly. "Ron."
"Luna said that Headmistress McGonagall let her use hers when she wanted to see her mother from time to time."
"Okay," Xabros snaps from the back. Everyone pauses and turns to him in confusion. "What the actual hell is a Veril? And why do we need it?"
"Blaise has Seer blood in him," Draco mumbles, and both Hermione and Ron whip their heads to look at him as they continue walking. "But it was a risk for him to know, so his mother cast a spell for him to forget his visions as long as he was awake.
"A Veril," he says to Xabros. "Is a device much like the Pensieve. But instead of extracting the memory from the host, all that must be done is focus on a person who has acquainted the host, and the Veril will display any and all memories that involve the host. Neither the host or the person are harmed or bothered."
"You're saying memories, but that depicts the past. If Blaise has visions, those depict the future, which in this case the Veril wouldn't be any help."
"That's where there's a loophole," Ron looks enlightened, like he's figuring something out as he speaks. The sheer excitement and surprise on his face is a welcoming sight. "When Renata cast the spell on him to forget the visions once he's awake, they became a part of the past. The only problem is that, if we're to use the Veril to see his premonitions, he has to be asleep. That's the only way to get to them."
"I'm still confused. Why are we trying to see your boyfriend's dreams?"
The redhead flushes but rolls his eyes, nonetheless. "Because, you idiot, if Blaise is a Seer then that means he saw who took him and where, he just doesn't remember. If we can get access to his memories, we can find out where he is."
Xabros' eyes widened comically. "And Jo might be there, too."
"And, Harry," Draco adds. "And, Neville. And my mother. And we might also find whoever started this whole mess."
A sudden look of determination crosses Ron's eyes as Draco turns to him, and with a single mutual nod, the redhead starts the trek back up to Headmistress McGonagall's office.
"And we can end this. Once, and for all."
*******
"Entry is not granted without the password."
Ron groans somewhere behind Draco, and he can just picture the Gryffindor with his forehead in hands, head tilted to the ceiling. "And to think we're saving lives," he mumbles.
"You don't understand," Hermione says. "It's an emergency. It involves Harry Potter!"
"Not even Harry Potter can cross thresholds without permission," the eagle rasps. "Give me the password, or give me peace."
"Alastair," a teasing voice rings behind the students, and when they turn, they're found with a Headmistress and her all-knowing smile. "Your need to follow order is a tad...aggressive."
"It is what I was made for, madame."
"Yes, of course," she grins at the stone eagle, and then she turns to her students. "Now, what might you lot be doing out of the Common Room? I thought we talked about safety precautions."
Hermione rushes to explain but Ron's freckled and welted hand holds her shoulder. She turns to him in confusion, sees him nod over to Draco, and she understands.
"Professor," the blond starts. "Did Blaise ever ask you about...Banned Artifacts?"
"Why, no," her eyes twinkle. "He did not. I did, however, ask him."
Ron makes a confused sound behind Draco, but the blond is too busy staring at the Headmistress. There's something off about her. Something off, yet, familiar.
"Did you, by any chance, talk about a Veril?"
"Not only. I own one."
"May we see it?"
"Of course," the Headmistress grins. They part for her to go through, and she mumbles the password to the eagle standing guard, who groans as he twists to reveal the spiral staircase. She holds her hands behind her back as she climbs the stairs, and while the other are focused on hurrying to the top, Draco takes this time to study her mannerisms.
They're not her own.
Her shoulders are relaxed and hunched forward, as if she was hiding something, when usually the Professor's back is always ramrod straight. Also, Minerva McGongall always holds her hands in front of her, close to the open lapels of her robe where she keeps her wand.
Draco looks up when he sees her turn her eyes over her shoulder and give him a smile. It shocks Draco to his core and he falters in his step, making Ron behind him stumble into his back.
"Malfoy?"
"Pardon, I thought I saw...a margly beetle."
"Ugh," Ron groans, accepting the evasion. "Those blasted crawlers. They love hiding in the corners of the bed frames. Got stung by one o' them once, made me fall asleep in less than a second."
While Hermione spews random knowledge about margly beetles, Draco trains his eyes again on the woman walking before him. He gulps when he sees her dragging her feet, another norm of the previous Professor to which is unknown to the rest of the group behind him.
Minerva McGonagall wouldn't be caught dead dragging her heels.
"Professor," Draco starts, watching as she turns her chin over her shoulder again. "Do you fare?"
"Positively, my dear boy."
When they reach the office, they all scatter around the room and wait for the Headmistress to sit behind her desk. Ron makes a sound of confusion. "Professor?"
"In times of stress, I find a cup of tea to be most fitting."
They all watch as she taps her wand somewhere on the desk and a floating tray comes from behind her, the teapot already pouring liquid into the cup.
"Professor, the Veril?"
"Did you know magical creatures can tap into the magical currents around us," the Headmistress looks up and around her office at nothing in particular except to enunciate her previous point. "Quite remarkable, isn't it? For them to be able to pluck at connections we, regular wizards, cannot even see."
Three of the students are looking at her with confused eyes, none too unmannered to say anything to her. Only Draco stares at her, his chest hardening at the realization of what is going on.
"Magical creatures can do a lot more that use the energy around them," Draco grits out.
"I couldn't agree more. One of my older students wrote a book about magical creatures. Utter instigator, he was, loved exploring things. Newt Scamander."
Draco's left eye twitches.
"Was involved in quite a scandal, back in the day, for wanting to give freedom to a creature that most thought was dark and dangerous. A boy," the Headmistress' eyes zone in on Draco and he temporarily looses the ability to breathe. "No older than you lot, with the ability to wreak havoc wherever he went proven he was pushed too far.
"His name was Credence Barebone."
Ron is looking at the ground, his brows strewn together in concentration, Hermione just looks confused, and Xabros is poking a glass case next to him. Draco, however, never takes his eyes off the Headmistress.
"Credence had the misfortune of growing up without the utilization of his magical abilities. His adoptive mother thought it was a deformity within him, a disease. So, he matured without the knowledge that he could be so much more, all his magic suppressed within his core."
"An Obscurial," Ron murmured, looking up and making eye contact with Hermione. "The nineteen-twenty-six Obscurial scandal."
His brow furrows and he turns to Draco, who flattens his lips and looks away.
"Credence lived through to have a child. The first child to inherit the power of an Obscurus, ever."
*******
"What do you mean they know!"
"They figured it out, Kai."
"How," Kai roars, flipping a small table aside and pacing about the room. His anger swells in his chest when the boy's eyes just blink back in boredom at him, and he struggles to retain the beast within himself. His magic leashes out to whip at a random beaker. "How did they figure it out? I told you to lay a fake trail!"
"I did."
"And?!"
"I left a fake trail twice. The bond got in between it both times."
Kai scoffs.
"The Ravenclaw girl helped the boy, too. And he put the pieces together. Now they all know."
"No, no, no, no," Kai mumbles, gnawing at his thumbnail as he paces forward to the glass cases preserving his captives. He watches their chests rise and fall in their dormant state, the magic swirling around them. "I need more time."
"You have no more time left, Kai."
"Well, make some for me," he snaps, turning to glare. "Make yourself useful for once."
The boy sighs, drudging past Kai and swinging his hands. "I'll go let the others know."
"Make them do something useful, as well. I don't want Death Eaters lounging around the estate."
"Of course, Kai."
"And get me my book!"
The boy turns just before leaving. "Anything else?"
"Keep them off our tail. I need as much time as you can manage to give me."
Kai watches as the boy nods and clicks the door shut behind him, and he exhales, turning back to the sleeping bodies.
"It won't be long now. In a few days, the magic will be complete, and you all shall return to your lives.
"But for now," he sighs, walking over and running his finger along one of the glass casings.
"Sleep."