Saving Each Other

Chapter 5: Reconnaissance

Draco awoke the next morning under sleeping bag he had conjured the day before. Ginny had opened it up so that it was larger. Ginny was next to him, her back to him, still sleeping. Draco’s mouth formed a broad grin as he thought, Waking up next to her is even better than I thought.

After waking up a bit, Draco decided to get up and get breakfast for both of them. He let Ginny sleep until he had conjured up a breakfast of toast, bacon and pumpkin juice. Then he went over to the sleeping bag to wake her, and then realized that he didn’t really know how to go about it.

“Err,” Draco said. “Wake up.”

Ginny stirred a little in her sleep but didn’t wake up.

Draco cleared his throat and tried again, this time poking her as he said, “Wake up Ginny.”

Ginny’s eyelids fluttered open and he sleep fuzzed eyes focused on him. She yawned while he said, “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” she said in return, smiling a bit.

He grinned at her and pointed to where he had set the food he had conjured and asked, “Hungry?”

“Starving!” Ginny answered and followed Draco over to the food.

Ginny finished before Draco did and sat politely waiting for him to finish. When he finished his last piece of bacon he turned to Ginny.

“We need to plan. We need to be able to help Dumbledore take down Voldemort when he gets back. We don’t have a whole lot of time considering that today is Sunday and he gets back Monday morning. I think that this morning we should do some reconnaissance, you know find out where he’s keeping the teachers and students and stuff. Then when the time comes we can break them out,” said Draco.

“Sounds ok, but how are we going to sneak around the castle without being seen,” Ginny asked.

Draco gave her an irritatingly cocky grin and said, “By being very, very quiet.”

A half an hour later Draco and Ginny were standing outside the door to the castle waiting for someone to come in or go out. They had cast Invisibility Charms on each other in addition to Disillusionment Charms just in case they were in a position where they couldn’t recast the Invisibility Charm right away. They stood in complete silence for only 15 minutes before a Death Eater arrived on broomstick from a patrol. Draco and Ginny stood far back from the door as he entered then slipped in after him before he shut the door.

The change inside the castle was dramatic. The entire atmosphere was different. It was heavier, more oppressive and overall seemed darker. They waited until the Death Eater had left the entrance hall leaving it empty, then Draco spoke.

“We should probably hold hands so we don’t lose each other,” he whispered, mentally crossing his fingers.

“Ok,” Ginny whispered back and she felt around for Draco’s hand. When she found it she clasped it in her own.

Draco reveled in the sensation until a slamming door and running footsteps brought him back to reality. Ginny and Draco flattened themselves against the wall as a Death Eater ran past, an envelope in his hand.

Draco waited until the Death Eater had passed, then tugged on Ginny’s hand as he moved off to follow the Death Eater. The Death Eater headed straight for Professor McGonagall’s office. This puzzled Draco at first but then he realized that Dumbledore had probably magically sealed his office before he left. The Death Eater opened the door and proceeded in. The door remained open just long enough for Draco and Ginny to slip in after him.

A high-backed chair faced the fireplace and after the door had closed, the chair turned around and Voldemort came into view. Ginny’s hand gripped Draco’s tighter in fright, so Draco gave her hand a reassuring squeeze in return. Voldemort’s chilling voice filled the room as he issued orders to the Death Eater.

“Go and check on the prisoners, and have the Inner Circle gather in the Transfiguration classroom at noon.”

“Yes master,” the Death Eater said. He bowed low and left the room with Ginny and Draco trailing silently after him. They followed the lone Death Eater down to the dungeons to one of the largest cells. He peered in and nodded to the guards standing outside. He turned back towards Draco and Ginny and went back down the hall to the very opposite end of the dungeons and looked in two more doors with guards, then left the dungeon area. Draco pulled Ginny as far away from the guards on both ends as he could so they could talk.

“We have to see who’s in each of those cells,” Draco whispered in Ginny’s ear.

“Ok,” Ginny whispered back.

They moved back to the first cell the Death Eater had visited and, making sure they didn’t bump the guards, peered in. It was packed with every boy student in Hogwarts, they were laying down, obviously Stunned into submission by the Death Eaters. Ginny made a small noise when she saw her brother and Harry near the entrance.

“What was that?” asked one of the guards. Draco grabbed Ginny and pulled her to the opposite wall right before the guard stepped in front of the door and looked in. They held their breath, trying not to make the slightest sound that would give them away. Draco could feel Ginny next to him, trembling slightly. Finally the other guard spoke up.

“Probably just one of the kids,” he said.

“Yeah, I suppose,” the first guard said, and returned to his place beside the door.

Draco mentally breathed a sigh of relief and he tugged Ginny in the direction of the other two cells. The other two cells contained the girls and the teachers, likewise Stunned and lying unceremoniously on the floor.

Draco and Ginny went back up the steps to the entrance hall and went into an open empty classroom to talk and recharm themselves invisible.

“We need to see if our common rooms are still open,” said Draco. “They might be useful in the battle to come.”

“Ok,” said Ginny. “We’ll meet back here in fifteen minutes, then get out and back to the cave.”

“Ok,” said Draco.

“Be careful,” said Ginny as she walked out the door and hurried off up the staircase as quietly as she could.

Draco grinned. Maybe she doesn’t think I’m so bad after all, he thought as he headed off towards the entrance to his common room, his wand in hand.

Five minutes later, Ginny was at the portrait hole to the Gryffindor common room. She looked carefully in every direction before she turned back to the portrait and gave the password. The resisted a shout of joy when the portrait swung open to admit her. She stepped inside and looked around, seeing that everything was as she had left it. She went back to the portrait hole and it swung forward. She stepped out and was immediately greeted by a Death Eater saying, “Who’s there?”

Ginny ducked to the side as the Death Eater stepped forward to check for a person emerging from the portrait hole. She stopped when the Death Eater stopped and held her breath. She stayed frozen for five minutes while two Death Eaters scoured the Gryffindor dormitories and the hallway for her. She was scared but knew that there was no way they could see her with the Invisibility Charm in use. That was why it came as a total shock to her when one of the Death Eaters looked in her direction and said, “I think I see something.”

Ginny stood rigid as the Death Eater moved closer, squinting, trying to make out if there was anyone there.

“Macnair, look what I found,” said the Death Eater.

Macnair came out of the Gryffindor tower and went over to the other Death Eater. The first Death Eater pointed right at Ginny. Ginny’s eyes went wide as she realized that the Invisibility Charm must have worn off. Just as the Death Eaters started to raise their wands Ginny whipped her own wand out and shouted, “Invisibilus!”

Ginny dashed down the stairs as fast as she could, hexes and spells missing her by only centimeters at times. The Death Eaters were shouting for reinforcements as Ginny ran around the corner to the staircase. She stopped and hid in a side corridor while her pursuers ran by then continued on down to the empty classroom where she was supposed to meet Draco.

“Draco?” she whispered when she was inside.

“I’m here,” he whispered back. “Let’s go.”

“Wait! We can’t go out of the entrance hall. We’ll have to find another way out,” Ginny whispered to him as fast as she could.

“Why?” Draco asked.

“It’s a long story, just trust me!” Ginny said.

“Ok,” said Draco and felt around for Ginny’s hand. When he found it he clasped it and gave it a reassuring squeeze and said, “We’ll find a way.”

They left the empty classroom and headed down the corridor, away from the shouts that were issuing from the entrance hall. They checked the windows first and found that there were guards along all of them and they would surely hear them land in the crunchy snow. Ginny was then hit by a sudden inspiration.

“I know how to get out of here,” she whispered suddenly.

“How?” asked Draco, still peering out of every window they came across, hoping to get lucky. But every window he looked out of had a guard watching the length of the wall the window was located on.

How many of these guys are there? Draco found himself thinking.

“The underground cave where we arrived by boat our first year,” said Ginny. “If you can conjure some gillyweed for use like Harry used in the Tri-wizard tournament, we can swim to the other side of the lake, get out there where no one’s watching, and get back to the cave.”

“If we don’t freeze to death first,” Draco shot back.

“You got a better idea? If so I’d bloody well like to hear it!” Ginny retorted.

Draco thought about it for a second then pulled her off in the direction that would take them to the underground cave and, hopefully, their escape.