Henry was speaking softly, his hand coming to rest on Draco's shoulder. Draco shuddered and pulled himself back from the precipice. Speaking of things that would spread around the student body like wildfire, his attacking a professor—someone who had just accused Draco's twin of blood prejudice—would do it even faster than accusations against Henry.
He managed to retract his wand, and started to tuck it away.
Adley nodded as though they were finishing up a conversation, and lunged forwards and grabbed Henry.
Draco cast.
He didn't even incant the spell. It surged up through his stomach and to his head and down his arm and through his wand as though it had been waiting all along for a way out. It hit Adley in a spray of conjured glass shards.
Adley fell back, screaming.
Draco stood there and watched without sympathy or pity as the shards whirled around Adley, slicing him, cutting him, hitting him so hard that he started to bleed in a dozen places. He fell over and lay there, twitching.
And Draco didn't care. What mattered was that he had stopped his brother from being kidnapped again.
"MR. MALFOY!"
Draco turned his head, not surprised that McGonagall was the one marching towards them. She always seemed to show up after the danger to a Slytherin or a Malfoy had passed. Henry pressed against Draco from behind, trembling.
"What did you do to Professor Adley?" McGonagall snapped, as she flicked her wand and cast a spell that banished the glass shards. Draco felt a faint sadness as he watched them turn to small, dewy shapes in midair and fade from sight. It was the first spell he had ever cast silently.
"I hurt him because he was trying to kidnap my brother," Draco said.
McGonagall blinked at him, and then at Henry, who looked shaky and was still pressing close to Draco's back. "Is that true, Mr. Potter—I mean, Mr. Malfoy?"
"He wanted to talk to me," Henry whispered. He sounded dazed. Draco took a step back and put his arm around Henry's shoulders, silently telling McGonagall that he was going to be there no matter what. "Draco threatened him to get him to back off. And then he lunged forwards and grabbed my arm."
"I will take care of this, Minerva."
Of course Dumbledore was marching towards them now. He flicked his wand and bandaged Adley's wounds—Draco was mildly amused to realize that McGonagall was so invested in scolding Draco and Henry that she hadn't done that—and then floated him onto a conjured stretcher. When he glanced at Draco, his face seemed to have turned to stone.
"You will receive detention, Mr. Malfoy."
"I'll serve it gladly, sir." Draco's voice was calm and distant, and he felt detached from even his ferocious need to protect Henry. He wondered if he was going into shock with much the same calmness that he had done everything else. "And what will happen to Adley?"
"Professor Adley, Mr. Malfoy."
"He attempted to kidnap my brother. What will happen to him?"
"I'm sure that Professor Adley didn't intend that."
"You'll take it seriously, sir, or I'll owl my mother and father and tell them that Henry was attacked. I'm sure they'll remove us from the school then." Of course, Draco intended to tell Mother and Father either way, but how he told them would make a difference.
Dumbledore's mouth locked tighter, his nostrils flaring. But he nodded and turned and walked away, with Henry and Draco following behind him.
Henry clung to Draco the whole way, as if he would never let go. Not one protest about how Draco had used a violent spell or how Adley might not have meant the grab the way it had looked like.
That, more than anything else, told Draco how frightened his brother was. He clung back.
Albus sat behind his desk and wearily rubbed his head. This was a disaster.
And all because Sirius couldn't control his desire to talk to Harry and just had to make a grab for his arm.
He raised his head and studied the people sitting across the desk from him. Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy sat in chairs flanking Harry and their son. Lucius's eyes were cold, and he looked as if he might try to lunge across the desk and strangle Albus.
But of all of them, it was Narcissa who worried Albus. She sat still, her hands folded in her lap, and smiled a little. If someone had walked into the room and hadn't known what had happened, she might have looked the perfect picture of a woman getting ready to have tea and a bit of a gossip.
Such perfect self-control was not typical of a Black or a Malfoy. Albus swallowed and turned back to Harry, whom he had to make his plea to.
"Professor Adley didn't mean to kidnap you," he said. "He only wanted to talk to you."
....
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