Mouth dry, Charlie fumbled for his wand and began frantically muttering the incantations that would create an opening in the wards large enough for him to crawl through.
'Alohomora…pariei transe…'
The opening gaped before him and he threw himself through it, rolled, and came up on his feet, staring around him. His mouth felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton. It was utterly against all rules as well as all common sense for anyone to enter the dragon pen alone and unprotected. Dragons were untamable, vicious, and given the opportunity, would happily attack even the wizards that fed them.
Whispering a protective incantation, Charlie began edging slowly towards the center of the pen, moving as calmly as anxiety and stark terror allowed. He could see the intruder more distinctly now, could see a clearer outline of arms and legs and pale silver-blond hair -
Draco.
Charlie clapped a hand over his mouth to keep himself from shouting out Draco's name.
What the hell is he doing, is he trying to get himself killed?
Despite his astonishment, Charlie's feet kept moving, carrying him closer to the center of the enclosure and closer to Draco. Charlie could see him clearly now in the clear silver moonlight. He seemed to be simply standing very still in the middle of the circle of dragons, who rose above him like breathing statues, their scales streaming starlight. He had his hands in the pockets of his trousers and was rocking back on his heels, head tilted back, gazing up at the enormous creatures that towered above him as if they were nothing more than extremely tall and extremely interesting rock formations.
Charlie sucked in his breath as he ducked inside the circle of dragons and edged over to Draco. He reached out and put a hand on Draco's shoulder, willing the boy not to cry out in surprise.
Draco didn't. He didn't jump or look startled either, only turned and looked at Charlie with wide, dark, incurious eyes. 'Hello, Charlie,' he said, in perfectly normal tones.
'Hello yourself,' Charlie croaked, reached forward and seized hold of Draco's arm. Using the muscles that came from toting heavy equipment every day, he yanked the boy towards him, grabbed him around the middle, and commenced dragging him backwards.
To his surprise, Draco put up very little resistance as Charlie hauled him away from the dragons, who watched with what looked like detached interest. They reached the gap in the wards and Charlie ducked into it, pulling Draco behind him by the arm. Once they were through, he let go his grip on the boy's arm and shoved him as hard as he could against the nearest tree.
The back of Draco's head hit the tree trunk with a force that looked like it must have hurt, but he didn't change expression, just put up his left hand and rubbed at his throat. 'Hey, Charlie,' he said calmly.
''Hey, Charlie?' What the hell are you doing here, Draco? More to the point, what the hell were you doing?'
'I wanted to see the dragons,' said Draco, unfazed. 'I wanted to see them one more time.'
'You wanted to see the dragons? Good God, can't you come up with anything better than that? If you wanted to look at the dragons why didn't you stand outside the bloody wards and look at them?'
'They wouldn't have hurt me,' said Draco, still weirdly calm. Then he grinned. 'Dunno about you, though.'
'They wouldn't have hurt you? You're just a walking lunchbox to them, you stupid kid. You're like a sandwich on legs. God, if I hadn't just woken up, I'd beat you to a pulp myself for trying something like that. Lucky for you I'm too tired.'
Draco gave him an angelic smile. ''Did they look like they were going to hurt me?'
Charlie stared at Draco, not really wanting to answer that. He looks different, he thought suddenly. Physically he was the same of course, but there was something — like a light inside him had been switched on, something that burned through his skin like lamplight through a shade. The air around him seemed to crackle with suppressed electricity. 'Er,' said Charlie, feeling suddenly even more worried, 'Draco, are you feeling all right?'
Draco's smile didn't fade. 'I feel good,' he said, taking his hands out of his pockets and looking at them as if they were weird alien objects. 'I feel like I could do anything. Anything at all. Do I look different?'
'No,' said Charlie, decidedly. 'You look tired, is what you look. You look done in. When was the last time you got any sleep?'
'Sleep?' said Draco, and now there was a faint note of alarm in his voice. 'A decent night's sleep, oh I haven't had one of those in ages.
Maybe two weeks.'
Charlie sighed. 'What you need, my boy, is some sleep. You can have the couch in my tent, I'll give you some blankets, and then we'll owl Sirius in the morning — '
'No,' interrupted Draco sharply, his smile gone now.
'No what?'
'No, I don't need to sleep on your couch. Sleep is the last thing I need. I don't want to dream — I can't dream. One more will finish me off.'
Charlie blinked in confusion. 'One more what?'
'One more dream.' Draco had begun walking away from the enclosure, towards the trees. 'You wouldn't understand.'
'Look here,' said Charlie, reaching out and grabbing hold of Draco's sleeve, turning him around so they were face-to-face. 'What kind of pills did you take? Blue, red or green? Oh, or did you take the whirly black kind that look like licorice allsorts? George took one of those once and spent a week thinking he was a motorbike.'
'I don't think I'm a motorbike,' said Draco irritably. 'Look, would you just let go of my jacket? I'm perfectly fine.'
