Out of Time

Chapter 25

Part 2

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap

-The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot

Draco hears her scream for the second time. The first was a word ('Run!'). The second is just an anguished wail. He has no idea what's happened in the past four seconds. He could puzzle it out with more than four seconds to do it, but what he knows for certain is what his eyes show him.

Dumbledore, dead on the floor; Crabbe's father nearly tackling him with pride; the stunned and horrified silence that crests into a wave of screaming hysteria.

"It's done!" Snape's baritone bellows. "Everyone out!"

He can't quite overcome the din but enough people hear him to start moving. The Death Eaters cleave into two groups, one heading for the mammoth wooden doors of the Entrance Hall and the other heading back to the seventh floor corridor.

"This way, you fools!" With his wand, Snape leashes a lasso around Avery's foot and yanks hard.

Avery topples shoulderfirst to the ground and the others near him skid to a halt, changing course for the main entrance and joining the rest to flee. Crabbe Senior steers his son out with one hand clapped to the back of the boy's neck. Draco supposes regular education is done for Vincent Crabbe.

He's still numb.

No one gives a second thought to the three bound Death Eaters against the wall. Draco certainly isn't going to bother.

Snape heaves him from his reverie by the sleeve of his shirt. "Move, Draco. Zabini, you too!"

Leaving. They're also leaving. They have to, he's beginning to acknowledge. Dumbledore is dead. The Death Eaters won this battle and now it's time to retreat... with the winning army. The army he's a part of.

No more regular education for him, either.

He casts a look over his shoulder as Snape practically flings him towards the exit. Hermione's there, of course, back out in the open. Tears are streaming down her tortured face as she turns in a slow, dazed circle. Draco thinks for a moment she's looking for him, but she cups her hands over her mouth and screams, "Harry!"

That git? Where the hell was he? Draco's brain is too slow to absorb the complexities here and it makes him pliant. Snape shoves him again and the relative chill of the night air hits his face next. In the distance are figures, scattered like ants but all heading in the same general direction: to the gates and a functional apparition point.

Blaise is at his side, panting with effort. "Where are we going?"

"I... don't know. Wherever Snape tells us to, I expect. His home?"

Draco shakes his head to clear it but this doesn't work. How did everything go so wrong tonight, in a matter of hours? And this... this is his fault. He shoved Crabbe into that cabinet. It had been an accident, but he hadn't been able to arrest or avert a single thing since. Everything had tumbled downhill with increasing ferocity. Is it still? How will he know when this nightmare is over? Will it ever be?

He hadn't even been able to keep Hermione from being in the middle of it tonight. The only thing that did go in his favour was that no one ever knew she was there and that she wasn't injured in accidental crossfire. At least he was able to see her standing before he was forced out. She was whole and unhurt. Even if she was devastated, she was physically alright.