"How sweet of him," said Granger.
Stick. Plop.
"I guess I'll find some truly romantic way to thank him," said Granger.
Stick. Plop.
"What's he got against
Stick. Plop.
The icy wind howled around them.
One might have thought it would feel safer to have ground under your feet again.
But if that ground was a slanted roof tiled with rough slats, which had rather a lot more ice on it than the stone walls, and you were running across it at a high rate of speed...
Then you would be
"
"
"
"
The distant figure was dodging and scrambling as it ran, and not a single shot hit, but they were gaining.
Until Granger slipped.
It was inevitable, in retrospect, in real life you couldn't
And also inevitably, because it happened without the slightest thought, Draco spun and grabbed for Granger's right arm, and he
There was a hard, painful impact, not just Draco's weight hitting the rooftop but some of Granger's weight too, and if she'd hit just a little bit closer to the edge they could have made it, but instead her body tipped again and her legs slipped off and her other hand grabbed frantically...
And that was how Draco ended up holding onto Granger's arm in a white grip, while her other hand clenched frantically at the edge of the rooftop and the toes of Draco's shoes dug into the edge of a roof tile.
"
"Draco," whispered Granger's voice, and Draco looked down.
That might have been a mistake. There was a lot of air underneath her, nothing but air, they were on the edge of a rooftop that had jutted out from the main stone wall of Hogwarts.
"He's going to come help me," whispered the girl, "but first he's going to
It should have been the easiest thing in the world.
She was just a mudblood, just a mudblood,
She wouldn't even be
...Draco's brain wasn't listening to anything Draco was telling it right now.
"Do it," Hermione Granger whispered, her eyes blazing without a single trace of fear, "do it, Draco, do it, you can beat him yourself
There was a sound of someone running and it was coming closer.
The voice in Draco's head sounded an awful lot like Harry Potter teaching lessons.
...
It was taking a bit of an effort for Daphne Greengrass to keep herself quiet, as Millicent Bulstrode retold the story in the Slytherin girls' common room (a cozy cool place in the dungeons running beneath the Hogwarts Lake, with fish swimming past every window, and couches you could lie down in if you wanted). Mostly because, in Daphne's opinion, it was a perfectly good story already without all of Millicent's
"And then what?" gasped Flora and Hestia Carrow.
"General Granger looked up at him," Millicent said dramatically, "and she said, 'Draco! You've got to let go of me! Don't worry about me, Draco, I promise I'll be all right! And what do you suppose Malfoy did then?"
"He said 'Never!'," shouted Charlotte Wiland, "and held on even tighter!"
All the listening girls except Pansy Parkinson nodded.
"Nope!" said Millicent. "He dropped her. And then he jumped up and shot General Potter. The end."
There was a stunned pause.
"You can't
"She's a
