Blaire Zabini || Draco Malfoy

65 - A True Gryffindor

"Fuck, what happened?" I gasped as Draco and I picked ourselves out of the rubble.

"Someone's blown the fucking castle apart," Draco seethed, grabbing my hand and helping me to my feet. "Shit, Blaire; are you okay?"

His eyes looked down at me in fearful horror and I realised my entire body was shaking. I scolded myself, desperate to snap out of it; I didn't have time to go into fucking shock.

"I'm fine," I said dismissively, looking around and trying to work out what was going on despite the sudden fuzziness inside my head.

There was no sign of the golden trio, and distant wails could be heard from up ahead.

"Shit," Draco repeated as the screams got louder and more blasts started issuing from overhead, "we need to get out of here; neither of us have wands."

But I didn't respond, too distracted by the noise up ahead; a howling sound, not unlike a wounded animal. I wondered what could possibly cause someone to make a noise like that. A sudden coldness trickled down my spine as realisation hit me. Death.

And despite not knowing who had died or who was suffering the pain from it; the continuing howl caused me to experience a gut wrenching twist behind my navel which left me feeling momentarily winded.

Fingers circled gently around my wrist. "Blaire?" Draco murmured softly, frowning down at me. "Did you hear me? We can't stay here."

Snapping myself out it, I nodded; and allowed him to guide us along the now dilapidated corridor, trying to ignore the dreadful feeling taking over inside of me.

We tripped and stumbled our way across the rubble until we reached the end; Draco carefully peering his head around the corner.

"Damn," he cursed, looking back at me as a spasm of fear flitted across his face. "Death Eaters everywhere. Stay close to me," he ordered, sounding fierce and unafraid; yet clammy and trembling fingers giving away his fear. "They might not attack if they recognise me as one of them."

We pressed ourselves against the wall as much as we could, with Draco leading the way; the both of us furtively looking around for straying jets of wand light.

I felt like a walking target and I hated having no means of defence. Amazingly, however, we managed to make our way along without anyone even seeming to acknowledge us; all of them too involved in their own duels.

It was, however, not the Death Eaters we needed to worry about.

No; it was the fucking spiders.

"RUN!" Draco shouted as eight long hairy legs attached to a huge bulbous body came crashing through a window right next to us.

It seemed to target us immediately; scuttling down the corridor in the wake of our path, it's many blinking eyes looking hungry for meat.

We pelted onwards as fast as we could but we were no match for its many legs which carried it forward a lot faster than we could ever run.

A scream of pure terror stuck in my throat as a thick hairy leg suddenly clamped around my middle, my hand wrenched from Draco's as I was lifted up off my feet into the air, towards a mouthful of dripping fangs.

Shit, I was going to end my life as fucking spider food.

I heard Draco bellow my name over and over again and my last thought before I closed my eyes was how horrible this was going to be for him.

"STUPEFY!"

I could have wept with relief as I was released from the spider's clamp, but I made an 'oof' sound instead as I painfully smacked facedown onto the cold hard castle floor.