Heaven Through a Window • Drarry •

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Saddlery

Draco went home and woke up Mother.

He knelt beside her and breathed, "I'm leaving," careful not to disturb his father.

Mother rubbed her eyes groggily. "What?"

"I'm going. Tonight."

She nodded and planted a long kiss on his hair. "Your trunk is in my dressing room. Don't tell me which safe house."

Draco nodded. That way was safer.

"Take Blue with you. And Digby. Send him with a letter as soon as you arrive safely. If I do not receive word from you in two days, I shall raise the alarm."

He kissed her on the cheek. "Thank you, Mother. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, my love. For heaven's sake, be careful."

Draco went to where his father was snoring and kissed him on the forehead. "Goodbye," he murmured to him.

He found the trunk and shrunk it to the size of a snuffbox. Blue was in her usual spot on the rocking chair in the West Parlour. Draco fed his useless lump of fur a Sleeping Draught and placed her in her crate, before cajoling Digby down from his perch in the owlery.

Draco's beloved horses were sleeping, and he took a minute to drink in the sight of them one last time.

It was not, after all, so easy to leave. Every second he breathed in the smell of Wiltshire, felt the English air on his face where his son once played, was so precious. To think that people had years and years, time to waste with their wives and children, so much time it dragged, and he was clinging to each second. He toyed with the thought that perhaps he could forget about helping Harry and start afresh somewhere else, but he knew in his heart that he couldn't do it.

He was too much of a coward to walk away. Too much of an idiot in love.

The game was over, maybe he could find Harry a new wand, perhaps find a shop in Place Cachée...

A new wand. A picture flashed in his mind of Harry burying a wand beside Dumbledore's white marble tomb.

It had to be...

Draco's trunk sat beside the great front door, animals inside and asleep, shrunk and weightless. He stuffed it into his robes, put on his travelling cloak, and swept down the driveway one final time. It might be months, even years before he could come back.

Wand gripped in his hand, Draco concentrated on the image of the great gates of Hogwarts, a frightful reverse of that moment when Snape Disapparated them to Malfoy Manor at the end of sixth year.

The bands of Apparition squeezed his ribs, for a moment he couldn't breathe, and then he landed in the Highlands with a loud crack.

It was colder up North.

Lights twinkled at the distant castle, and he took comfort in being not even a mile from his sleeping son.

He took a deep breath and placed a palm on the locked gates, and looked at the boars atop the columns. "I am Draco Malfoy. I mean no harm to the students, staff or magical creatures that you shelter. I do not intend to enter the castle." He sounded a lot braver than he felt.

One of the boars bared its teeth.

Draco squeezed his eyes shut. Then he stared up at them, hand clutching the gate, and the words flowed easily:

"I reaffirm my vow to keep pure my life and my art. Into whatsoever grounds I go, I enter to serve the sick and comfort the dying. I renounce all wilful wrong-doing and harm towards witch or wizard, sentient creature or beast. May I gain for ever reputation among all men for my life and for my art and remembered with affection thereafter. Yet should I violate my oath and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me. Please. Please help me."