They get down from the tree much the same way they came up it, and ensure the Aurors won't be moving any time soon.

Granger aims an Impervius Charm at her feet, then Draco's and Blaise's, and they splash back across the river.

They're almost to the edge of the forest when Blaise says, "Should we try shooting up sparks, or—"

He's cut off by a pathetic whimpering that stops them all in their tracks.

"Was that—" Granger starts, and then they hear it again.

"Human," Draco answers.

Granger's eyes are wide and frightened. She holds a finger to her lips, and both Draco and Blaise nod.

They creep through the trees towards the sound, careful to keep their footsteps light. Blaise keeps checking over his shoulder, making sure no one's following them. Draco understands the urge; he has the distinct feeling they're being lured into a trap.

They're almost back to the moor now, and Draco is growing steadily more anxious about their deadline. He stops when they can see dark figures through the line of trees. The people are crowded in a circle around several large animals that thrash in their binds.

He recognises a few of the people who are standing, including Chieftess Gore. The witch has her wand trained on the writhing bodies, strong red ropes of light shooting out to restrain them. Aurors flank her sides.

Draco hears the whimpering again.

He searches desperately among the people gathered for the source.

It's a woman, held in place by a firm grip. He notes her golden blonde curls with alarm. The woman's entire body is shaking. Though her hair curtains her face, he's nearly certain it's Lavender.

Draco checks immediately for the others and finds Scorpius first.

Scorpius has his arms wrapped around his body as he stares at the proceedings, nearly hidden behind the Aurors. No one seems to be restraining him.

A wave of black hair cascades down someone's back, maybe Parvati. She's on her knees, and he cannot see if she's bound or not. He looks desperately for Harry — Heffley, whomever. Finally, he sees Heffley's pale face clearly in the back, and a bit of the tension in his chest eases.

Granger's got her eyes on a flash of ginger hair peeking over the heads of even the tallest of the wizards, so that must be Weasley.

Draco looks for a hint of teal anywhere in the crowd, but he does not find it.

Where's Teddy?

Draco looks again at the scraggly forms in the centre of the makeshift circle, at their furry grey backs and long snouts. Wolves. Their movements are weak and tired, as if they've been struggling for a long time. He cannot make out any faces, nor can he see much of anything at all.

One more figure joins the group and says, "We haven't got much longer."

A few of the wizards look towards the sky, the stout, waning moon almost directly overhead.

Draco glances again. It's not waning. The moon is perfectly, unambiguously full. He thinks of Madam Pomfrey's first letter, 'I'd love the name of a powdered moonstone supplier ... friend of young Mister Lupin ... I have all the other ingredients on hand.' He thinks of Luna's, 'Please respond before midnight.'

The last time he saw Teddy flashes in his mind. Drawn out, tired, looking like he might faint ... Draco's eyes snap to Lavender again.

He knows what's in the paperweight.

"Please," Lavender wails. He's sure it's her now, by her voice. "Please, he's not done anything wrong."

"You're grating on my nerves, woman. Shut it before I silence you," one of the wizards growls.

Lavender quiets, but her hiccuping sobs are still audible.

"I'm telling you," a skittish-sounding man says, "we've got to do it now. We've only a few minutes until the moon's overhead and—"

"Don't tell me how long we've got!" Gore snaps.

Draco smells something in the air again, metallic and rusty. He looks at Granger and Blaise. Granger is biting her lip. Blaise's eyes are hard, glinting like jet stone, locked on Gore.

A voice, strained and gritty, speaks up from near the back of the circle. Draco knows that voice. Thomas Heffley.

He fights the rush of gratitude that threatens to overwhelm him. Harry's okay. And his Polyjuice is still keeping him safe in disguise.

"You're overestimating the strength of your enchantments," Heffley wheezes. "There are eight wolves, only a few dozen of us. At least let my friends run."

"I've already given you a warning. Don't mouth off." Gore shoots a bolt of white light at Heffley.

Heffley groans as it strikes him in the chest. "You're gonna have to do ... more than that ... to keep me quiet."

"Think you're so tough, do you?" Gore asks. She smiles as she raises her wand, then pivots to point it at the wolves.

"I'd think twice about that if I were you," says a voice.

Draco's eyes jerk to Heffley, but he's not the one speaking.

Harry, or someone who looks like him, appears from the back of the crowd, his wand pointed directly at Gore.

Draco falters. If that's Harry, then who's wearing Heffley's face?

"Step away from them," Harry says. "All of them."

"Afraid I won't be doing that," Gore returns, but her voice is too high. Draco can hear the hysteria seeping into her words, the warning rattle of a viper about to strike for its life. "In just a moment, we're going to be less than a metre from one of the most dangerous species in the wizarding world. I'm not planning on letting them free."

"You have time to flee. Don't pretend your fear is the problem. I'd like to know the real reason you won't let them go."

Gore's eyes dart right and left, to the wizards restraining her captors. Blaise raises his pocket watch for Draco to see. One minute to midnight.

"So, wait," Gore tells Harry. "Just don't get any ideas about interfering. "Incarcer—"

"Expelliarmus!" Draco shouts, finally stepping out. Granger and Blaise are right behind him, and they don't hesitate to start firing curses.

"Stupefy! Depulso!" Blaise brandishes his wand with flair, and the wand Draco just knocked out of Gore's hand skitters into the forest.

"Everte Statum!" Granger calls, but she has to jerk her hand away at the last second. The wizards they're fighting aren't fools. The ones who are busy restraining the people in the circle use their captives' bodies as shields, forcing Draco and the others to try and aim around them.

A Stinging Jinx hurtles towards Draco's head, and he conjures a smokescreen to obscure him from view as he ducks out of the way.

"Don't let them go!" Gore roars, and for a moment he thinks she's talking about him, but then he sees it.

The bodies at the centre of the circle have begun thrashing again, their heads stretching and their shoulders curling over as they fight against their bonds.

That's why Draco's not expecting Harry to shout, "Relashio!"

The werewolves break free, and the Aurors scatter.

Gore is still there, scrabbling for control, and she has her wand back. She's firing hexes every which way, and Draco's friends' bodies have been dropped carelessly on the ground amongst a pack of werewolves.

"NO!" Granger screams, and several of the wolves go hurtling back. "Protego! Alarte Ascendare!"

"Where are your wands?" Blaise shouts to Parvati.

"Gore has them!"

Blaise is on the retrieval. Draco is focused on the wolf barreling at Scorpius.

"Deprimo!" he yells, running as fast as he can towards them. His spell blasts a hole in the ground, and he advances while the werewolf is scrambling up the side. "Flipendo!" The werewolf rears like it's been struck, but it's not enough to knock it backwards.

Scorpius is frozen. Draco doesn't know if running would help him escape or get him caught. Every thought in his brain is focused on only one thing.

Scorpius doesn't have a wand.

Blurry forms fly past him. There's a moment when he thinks he sees Luna, but he doesn't have time to figure out why.

There are still a few more metres between him and his son. The wolf charges again.

"Impedimenta!" Lavender's voice cries — the wolf is flung back so hard it hits a tree, Draco has half a second to feel relief before he's hit from the side with so much force that he feels several ribs break.

Draco tumbles to the ground, and he and the werewolf roll over each other until he's pinned beneath it — but he gets his wand jammed up against the creature's snarling throat. It slashes across his chest desperately.

Draco told himself earlier that as long as the wolf had no prosthesis, he'd be able to kill it if it came to that, but now that he's here, he knows he can't.

Even if this isn't Teddy, it might be someone just as innocent as him.

Draco casts the strongest Stupefying Charm he can, which gives him just enough time to rip the paperweight from his pocket and pour the contents between the werewolf's slack jaws.

Draco's spell wears off just before the wolf nearly snaps off his hand. The wolf shakes its head wildly, then seems to realise where it is.

Slowly, it backs off of him.

They stare at each other for a long moment. The wolf's eyes are amber-yellow. They don't look away from his until a howl comes from their right, and then the wolf bounds away, a mountain of grey fur pelting towards one of its own, which is pinning Ron under its weighty paws.

Draco's wolf sinks its teeth into the other wolf's scruff, wrenching it away and throwing it onto its back. Blaise is there to grab Ron by the arm and haul him under a Shield Charm just as quickly. Draco knows it's a more powerful enchantment than almost anyone else would be capable of, but it won't last long if it takes the brunt of any werewolf attacks.

Gore is still in the middle of the grass, the last Ministry stalwart, but she's squirming in a puddle of her own blood, gasping, and trying to reach for her wand, which has been flung half a metre away. Her throat has been slashed across by a mighty set of claws, and he'd be surprised if she can ever recite an incantation again.

Despite himself, Draco takes pity on her. He cannot stand, but he Levitates the wand into Gore's grip, trusting her self-preservation instincts to win out.

He doesn't wait to see if she disappears or not. He's still focused on the wolves.

At first, Draco doesn't know what's happened, except that most of the snarling and screaming have stopped. Then he looks up and sees the werewolf he gave the Wolfsbane Potion to, biting and snapping at the heels of the others, shepherding all but one into the forest. The wolf looks back at them before it enters the trees, as if to say, 'That one's yours.'

Draco sees Scorpius not too far away, and he desperately wants to move, wants to assure that he's okay. Scorpius is standing, still breathing, pointing his wand at Teddy beside the others — Draco's the one torn open on the ground — but he's not scared for himself, and his heart is still beating a mile a minute.

It's only a second later that Harry is sliding to his knees beside him. He's half Heffley, half himself, his face stretching, and his hair darkening as he speaks.

"Fuck, Malfoy, fuck. We need to get you to St Mungo's. We've got to—" Harry runs a frantic hand through his hair, making it stick up. "Can you even Side-Along like this?"

Draco's vision is blurring, but he can still see the lightning scar branching out across Harry's forehead. He remembers that night they spent searching for Teddy after his first transformation. Draco hadn't seen him since the Death Eater trials. Harry recounted before the Wizengamot what had happened at the Manor and throughout the final battle — every misdeed Draco had accrued. He'd laid it bare at their feet and then effectively disappeared from the public eye. People spoke about Harry differently once he was a man. If he ever ventured out into the world, their eyes tracked him with vicious hunger, with lust or a greedy desire to uncover every secret he had — Draco couldn't blame him for hiding.

They'd avoided each other as well as they could that night, until Draco saw that Harry had dropped his glasses, and he was patting about foolishly on the ground. "You could just Summon them," he'd said. Harry had looked up at him, then kept feeling around the grass like he'd said nothing at all. When Draco saw him again after they found Teddy, he'd been sure Harry would be angry, but instead, he'd met Draco's eyes for just a split second, cocked his head, and nodded.

Now, Draco says, "Where are your glasses?"

"I don't give a damn about my glasses, Draco."

But he looks so strange without them.

"You can't Apparate," Draco says. "There's ... something's keeping us here."

Harry packs Draco up into his arms and lifts him. Draco thinks Harry's running, because the movements jostle him roughly against Harry's chest.

Draco keens as Harry nearly slips and struggles to keep hold of him.

"Take me to Pomfrey, not St Mungo's," Draco begs.

Harry exhales shakily. "This is a lot of blood. We can't close werewolf injuries without powdered silver and dittany. Even if I get out of the moor so I can Apparate away, I still can't get past Hogwarts' barriers. So how am I going to get you there in time?"

"The tunnels," he gasps. "Time is different there."

Harry speeds up, and Draco can't think of anything but the pain.

They get past the wards without issue, because they are not the enemies the wards protect against.

Harry slides down the wall of the hole, and then they are in complete darkness, and he's still running.

"How do we get to Hogwarts once we're outside of the moor?" Harry asks.

Draco can still feel the edge of the little pyramid in his hand. He whispers, "Portus," and, for a moment, the darkness is broken by a swath of blue, and Draco can see Harry's eyes, wide and desperate.

The Portkey doesn't activate, so he knows that whatever is keeping them in the moor is stronger than a simple Anti-Apparition Charm.

The world rocks, and Draco shudders at the sensation. But Harry doesn't stop running, doesn't even slow until light finally shatters the darkness.

"Please!" Harry calls. He makes a popping noise several times in a row. "Please, which tunnel will get us out of the moor the fastest?"

They break into the main cavern. Harry spins right and left, searching for help from anyone.

Draco hears Pop's voice, low and indistinct, muttering something Draco can't make out.

"Please," Draco hears Harry promising. "I'll do anything. I'll do anything."

"You'd have to bring my brother back," Pop hisses.

Draco doesn't know what Harry says next, but then it's dark again, and time slows and stretches around them, trying to swallow them up. Harry clings to him, keeping Draco from disappearing, but Draco feels like he'll never see the other side of this.

He has to. Draco has to make it to Pomfrey. He has to tell Harry ... something ... What was it again?

The Portkey activates.

Draco feels the familiar hook-jerk sensation in his navel, and they leave the ground. The darkness swirls into a blur around them. Harry's arms hold strong beneath him, but the wind rocks them into each other painfully. The paperweight pulls them forward until, at long last, they slam into the floor of the hospital wing.

"Pomfrey!" Harry shouts.

"Loud," Draco says.

"Sorry, sorry. Hey, come on, don't close your eyes yet, okay? Luna! Where's Madam Pomfrey?"

Draco doesn't hear the reply.

"Stay with me, Malfoy."

"You called me Draco, before."

"I'm sorry."

He hadn't meant for Harry to apologise. What was it that Draco wanted to say to him? He knows he has to find it, but the memory curls away faster than the edges of a dream.

"Hey, hey." Harry's hands are on his face. His eye is so green. The other whirls around in the goggle as it scans the surrounding area. "Look at me. Pomfrey!"

Now Draco's got it. "I still haven't thanked you for the tea."

"For what?"

"The tea. I can't remember if I should."

Draco doesn't know what Harry says in reply, because he cannot keep his eyes from slipping closed any longer.