Кассандра Клэр - Draco Dormiens

"I can't," said Harry's voice below her.

She looked back at Harry. He was very pale, the dirt and gashes standing out clearly on his white face, but he seemed strangely calm. "I can't," he said again, and she saw that he was right, his hand was slipping out of hers-she lunged forward, she was hanging half off the path now — and caught at his sleeve, seizing it in a death-tight grip.

"Harry," she said. "Harry, please."

But she knew it was useless. He couldn't pull himself up with his arm broken. He was dead weight on the end of her arm and her shoulder was agony now. She was aware of the whirring, grinding noise overhead again but she didn't dare look up.

"Hermione," said Harry.

He was smiling. How could he be smiling at a time like this?

"I do love you, you know," he said.

Or at least that was what it sounded like he said. The whirring noise was loud in her ears and she couldn't be sure.

"What?" gasped Hermione, numb with shock. "What did you say?"

Harry opened his mouth to reply. There was the sound of ripping cloth, and his sleeve came off in her hand, as it had to, as she had known it would. She saw his eyes widen in horror- and then he was falling, falling away from her, spiraling down into the impenetrable darkness below.

References: "Standard procedure," said Draco, "is to leap fifty feet into the air and scatter yourself over a wide area while screaming at the top of your lungs." -

Blackadder.

Lucius was still looking like someone had force-fed him a lemon that happened to be taped to an enormous brick. "Draco?" — The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Unconscious, Harry fell, and as he fell he dreamed. In his dream, he was at a garden-party at the Weasleys. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were there, and so were all the kids: Charlie, looking slightly burnt as usual, and Bill with Fleur Delacour, who he'd been dating for about a year now. Fred and George and Ron were playing Exploding Snap with Ginny at a green wicker table in the corner.

Draco Malfoy was there as well, standing under the shade of a spreading oak tree, wearing tennis whites and looking very pleased with himself. He was talking to a slender girl in a yellow dress and an enormous white hat.

Am I dead? Harry wondered. Is this Heaven? And if this is Heaven, why is Malfoy here?

The girl who had been talking to Draco suddenly turned, and Harry saw that it was Hermione. She came towards him across the grass, swinging a tennis racket.

He recognized the yellow dress she was wearing from a summer holiday he'd spent with her and her parents. He'd always liked it." Hi, Harry!" she called.

"Hermione," he said, coming towards her. "I think I'm falling."

"For me?" she said, looking thrilled.

"No, I mean, literally falling," he said. "Like, rushing through the air falling. In fact, I feel kind of sick."

The thrilled look was wiped off her face, to be replaced with a look of fury. "You are such an idiot, Harry Potter," she said, raised her arm, and hit him hard in the head with her tennis racket.

Harry yelled with pain. "What'd you do that for?" he shouted. "Honestly!"

"Hey!" said a voice in his ear-a voice that wasn´t Hermioneś. "Harry! Settle down!"

"Maybe the fall unhinged his mind," said another, worried voice.

"Harry?" said the first voice again, "Harry, come on, wake up," and this time Harry knew who it was. He opened his eyes and stared.

He was lying in the back seat of a car and Ron Weasley was crouched over him, looking very pale but grinning like a madman. George was in the driver's seat, and Fred was sitting next to him. Both of them had turned around in their seats to goggle at him, which might have been a problem if the car had been moving, but it wasn't because the car was just hanging there.

In midair.

Harry sat bolt upright. "What-what?" he stammered. "How? You? Here? Flying car?"

"That's right," agreed George. "Us. Here. Flying car."

"He seems to have an excellent grasp of the essentials, doesn't he?" observed Fred.

Harry tried again. "How did you-?"

"We caught you while you were falling," explained George enthusiastically. "It was the coolest thing ever."

"Good thing Dad upgraded to a convertible," added Ron.

"And I fixed your arm," put in Fred, twirling his wand like a baton. "No problem."

"But what are you doing here?" said Harry in amazement. "Don't tell me you were taking your dad's car for a midnight spin and you just happened to spot me toppling over a cliff."

"Not hardly," said Ron. "As to that…" He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, which he threw in Harry's lap. "I was going to be really pissed off at you," said Ron, "but since you've just fallen off a massive cliff, I'll give you a break."

Harry unfolded the paper wonderingly. It was a note, addressed to HARRY POTTER, and he had to scan it twice before the contents sank in. "It's the ransom note," he said, amazed. "The one Wormtail sent to me at school, telling me they had Sirius here." He looked at Ron in wonder. "How did you get hold of it?"

"Harry, you thundering great prat," said Ron in disgust. "I opened your mail, of course. What'd you think I was going to do? You and Hermione vanish, and then I get this mad note from her — remind me to show it to you- saying she's gone off with you on some sort of rescue mission and not to tell anyone. Well, naturally I knew something very bizarre was up, so when this nasty-looking black bird arrived the next day with a letter for you, of course I opened it."

"And a bloody good thing he did," interjected Fred.

"So I showed it to Fred and George right away, and we went rushing home and got Dad's new car that he bought with the money from the joke shop, which of course he'd enchanted to fly — and we blackmailed him by threatening to tell Mum, so he had to give it to us — and then we followed the instructions from the ransom note and came on here." Ron beamed. "And in the nick of time, I might add — we just managed to fly onto the grounds when we looked down, and there you were, dangling right off the edge of the cliff with Hermione holding on to you. It was a shock, I'll tell you. And then you let go and you fell, just hurtled down, mind, it was really terrifying, so George jammed on the accelerator and we rocketed straight down and swerved under you to catch you." Ron sighed in satisfaction. "It was better than the Wronski Feint."

Harry didn't share Ron's enthusiasm. Instead he put his hands over his face. "Oh," he moaned, "Hermione. Oh, no."

"You kept yelling for her while you were coming around," said George, in the tone of one imparting significant information.

"I had a dream she was hitting me with a tennis racket," muttered Harry between his fingers.

"Right," said Ron, who obviously did not believe him.

"We've got to get back to the path," said Harry anxiously. "Hermione and Sirius, they probably think I'm dead. And Malfoy-he ran off-" "That reminds me of another question I had," said Ron. "There was a lot of stuff in Hermione's mad note about Malfoy — what on earth was she going on about, Harry?"

"Just bring the car back up," said Harry. "I'll explain on the way."

It took a little while for them to rise back up to the top of the Pit. On the way, Harry described the events of the past few days to the other occupants of the car.

Fred and George were a very good audience, booing and cheering and yelling in all the right places. Ron, however, was a different matter.

"Hermione kissed Malfoy?" he demanded when Harry was done talking. "Draco Malfoy?"

"Just that once," said Harry. "That I know about," he added, crinkling his brow.