Distortion (Book 2 of The Corruption Sequence)

Chapter 5 - Banshee

Malfoy was a few feet in front of him between the two Aurors and they were walking down the corridor. It was the same scene he had dreamed before. There were two people coming from the other direction and the Aurors each had hold of one of Malfoy's arms to prevent any attempt at escape. It was a perfectly calm scene and yet Harry felt as if his life would be in danger at any moment.

It wasn't until the woman, who looked like an ordinary file clerk, walked past the small group and stopped that anything strange happened. Then everything seemed to slow down as Harry watched her drop the papers she was carrying to reveal a drawn wand. She turned on the spot and pointed it straight at Malfoy and the syllables of the killing curse dropped from her mouth.

There was nothing the two Aurors could do as the green flash lanced straight at their charge. Both were thrown aside as spell collided with wizard.

"You'll not buy your way out of this one, Malfoy," the woman said resolutely as her victim crumpled to the ground.

Harry sat up, breathing hard and with an overriding need to wail his distress into the night. It was so strong that keeping it inside physically hurt. He suddenly knew what the dream was: it was a premonition of death and the banshee in him knew the truth of it. For long seconds he stared into the darkness, unable to bring himself to do anything as the image of Malfoy engulfed in green flame played over and over again in his mind's eye.

Someone he was connected to was going to die and the banshee wanted to scream his distress into the world, but he was not just a banshee and he did not have to impotently wail his grief over the countryside. Pulling himself together as well as he could he moved to the door and began banging on it.

"I need to talk to Dumbledore," he called through it, desperate to do something to change what he had seen.

He managed to control himself enough to step away from the door knowing that the wards would indicate to those outside that he was no longer close. He expected his guards to open up and find out what he needed, but he waited for a good few minutes as nothing happen. Walking back to the barrier between himself and the outside world, he banged again.

"Open this bloody door," he demanded, not liking the fact that he was being ignored one little bit.

"We can't do that, Mr Potter," a voice replied eventually, "our orders are no one in and no one out. Go back to sleep."

Harry boiled over and lunged at the door. His hand connected with the handle and he felt the wards trying to fight him off, but he was not about to let them win. There were some very serious locking charms and powerful barrier magic between him and the outside, but he didn't remotely care. Letting the banshee's instincts and a collection of other talents rise to the surface, he twisted the handle viciously and wrenched open the door. The Aurors on either side of the door jumped back instantly, drawing their wands and rounding on him.

"Albus Dumbledore or Minerva McGonagall, now!" Harry bellowed at the startled Ministry employees and then he stepped back into the room and slammed the door very loudly.

If that had not woken up the whole manor, he didn't know what would. His first impulse was to wipe the opposition out of the way and go and find Dumbledore himself, but he knew that would probably end up with people injured or killed and he did not want any more death on his conscience. Knowing that whatever happened would take a few minutes he began to pace.

He was only just holding on to himself when the door finally opened to reveal the headmaster and Remus. Remus looked as if he had just woken up, but Dumbledore appeared as fresh as a daisy.

"What is it, Harry?" the headmaster asked calmly as Remus shut the door behind them.

"Malfoy," Harry replied firmly.