entrance, staring over towards him. Everything seemed to be happening both very quickly and very slowly, and he realized suddenly that he had left his sword there on the balcony, he could see the moonlight gleaming off its silvery hilt, just behind where Ron was standing. He reached out a hand, willing the sword to leap into his grasp as it once had.
Nothing happened.
He tried again, not even sure how to try, it had always been so effortless before. He reached out his hand, extending his fingers, and willed the sword to come to him.
Nothing happened. He heard his own despairing exclamation ring in his ears, and then even that was driven away by the freezing mist that was rapidly dropping down over his vision. He could try a Patronus spell, he thought, but then he?d never tried that before around a real dementor, never contended with the glacial force of them that seemed to suck all the will and energy and hope and -
Rons voice cut through the mist. He was shouting something, hoarsely. Dracos name. Draco looked up slowly, and saw Ron running toward the balcony. He seized the sword from where it lay, and spun around with it in his hand. His face contorted with pain, he swung his arm back, and threw the sword hard through the air.
There was a brilliant flash of light, and by its illumination Draco saw the sword winging towards him, slicing the air; he reached up, and caught it by the hilt. He swung it down and forward, weight and intent behind it as his father had taught him, and drove it hard into the body of the dementor standing in front of him, just where its heart would have been if it had had one.
There was another flash of light, this one even more brilliant and greenish in hue. Draco staggered back, half blinded, as the dementor screamed. And screamed. It was the first time he had ever heard one of these notoriously silent creatures make any sound.
And what a sound: a long soulless breaking scream of pain and rage.
Clutching at the hilt of the sword buried in its body, the dementor staggered backwards and toppled to the ground, writhing, as Draco stared in fascinated horror.
Immediately the other two dementors turned around. They made no sound, but began rapidly moving towards him, and he saw as they moved a still figure lying on the ground behind them.
Ron.
He darted forward to seize at the sword buried in the body of the dead dementor, but the dementors creatures were too quick. They swerved in front of the corpse of their companion, cutting off his access, and as they glided towards him, silent and terrible as an oncoming wave. He took a step back, and another step, and fetched up against the wall again with his breath coming hard in his ears and his hands shaking. He turned around and hopped up on top of the wall. He was looking down at the advancing dementors now, and below him the wall dropped sheer as a cliff to the treetops below.
The stars and the moon beat down with a blinding silver light, and all time seemed to slow down to this one sliver of a second, pinned between the earth and the sky.
He closed his eyes, and thought desperately back to the short Patronus lesson Harry had given him in the forest. A happy memory. He hadn?t had one then, and buggered if he had one now, he thought bitterly. He heard Harrys voice in his head. Then make something up, Malfoy. He tried to force his mind around the dream he?d created for himself back in the forest, but the faces he tried to conjure up — Harrys, Hermiones, Sirius? — seemed to take a long time to form and solidify and the cold was getting more and more intense. He held out his hand. Expecto Patronum, he whispered, and then, louder, 'Expecto Patronum!'
He opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was wings. Huge green-gold wings that blotted out everything else. For a moment he thought his spell had worked, and then he remembered that the Patronus he had conjured had been silver, and then the wings fanned backward and dropped, and he saw the entirety of the creature he was looking at.
And he almost fell off the wall.
A dragon was hovering in mid-air just at eye level in front of him, its wings beating with steady power. It was dark green in color, with whirling golden eyes, and wore trappings of green and silver. And on its back sat Ginny. He almost didn?t recognize her, she looked so fierce and intent. The powerful wind from the dragons wings blew her fiery hair behind her like a scarlet banner. In her left hand was a pair of golden reins, and she held them as if she knew exactly what she was doing.
She held out a hand. 'Get on!' she called, the wind tearing the words from her mouth. 'Draco!'
He jumped without hesitation, and, clasping her hand, scrambled up onto the dragons back. He slid his arms around her, which would have been quite pleasant in some other situation, and shouted into her ear, 'Your brother! We have to go back for your brother!'
Ginny half-spun around, her face white. 'I only saw you! Ron?
Where is he?'
In response, Draco reached around her and grabbed her hands where they clutched the reins. He hoped fervently that riding a dragon was like riding a horse, which he did know how to do. He yanked the reins hard to the right, and the dragon, to his delight, responded by swerving into a steep, banking dive.
Ginny screamed but stayed bolt upright as they flew low over the tower, the dragon bellowing — in rage or outrage, Draco couldn?t tell — as its wings scraped the crenellated battlements. He was leaning forward around Ginny now, staring down, scanning the flat top of the tower for Ron.
He found him, and he was no longer lying limp on the flagstones. He was standing, cradling his arm against his chest, and backing away slowly from the two advancing dementors. He looked up and gawped as the shadow of the dragon fell over him.
Ginny was staring down at her brother in horror. 'Ron!' she screamed.
Draco flung himself sideways, and reached out his hand.
'Wingardium leviosa!' he cried, and Rons feet left the ground.
Draco wasn?t any better at the spell than he had been when he?d used it on Hermione back at the manor mansion — Ron shot into the air like an arrow from a bow, and Draco nearly fell off the dragon as he caught the back of Rons jacket and hauled him bodily down from the air. He landed awkwardly on the dragon, in between Draco and Ginny, and gave a stifled yell of pain. The right sleeve of his shirt was soaked with blood.
As he landed, the dragon bellowed in protest at this new addition to its load, which gave Draco an idea. 'Ginny!' he yelled. 'Can you make it breathe fire?'
'Yes!' she shouted back, left hand white on the reins, her right hand behind her, clutching onto her brother. 'I think so!'
