Shackles Pt.7

DRARRY SLASH! You no like, you no read!

Draco clutched his wand tighter in the darkness and whispered, "Potter, what now?"

"Lumos maxima," Potter said, and illuminated the space around them. "Get my back, we don't know what else is out there."

"I can see almost the whole room now." Draco tried hard to see into the dark corners that were not quite visible under the light of Harry's spell.

"It's that almost bit that I'm worried about," Harry input shortly.

Draco shifted until he and Harry were back-to-back, and feeling the slight heat of Harry's body radiating next to his was comforting. He scanned the room again.

"The door is over there."

The two of them moved as one unit towards the door, Harry first to watch the door and Draco facing the rear, guarding them from behind. Harry tried to open it, but the doorknob refused to turn.

"Alohomora," he whispered, and the door opened.

As they stepped through, the light followed them, but it was easy to see that this room was much larger than the previous. The light didn't allow them to see even most of the room.

"Do you think our light could be giving us away?" Draco asked in a soft voice.

"If there's anything out there, it might not necessarily need light to find us, while we probably need light to find them," Harry responded, eyes sweeping the darkness.

"If there is a wizard out there–"

"Cast Homenum revelio," Harry instructed and Draco did so, feeling silly for forgetting.

"Nothing," he reported, even though Harry could see for himself the results.

They inched forward, although nothing of the room they were in gave away their position within in. The door they'd come from was already lost in the dark.

"Give me a moment," Draco knelt, while Harry stood over him, guarding him. He quickly sketched a glowing red rune on the ground. Then, holding out his palm, he quickly muttered the "Point Me" spell.

"Right, let's go," Harry said, realizing without asking what he was doing. "Will we be able to see that rune from far away?"

"Even better," Draco smiled grimly. "I can feel it. It will fade in an hour. If I cast another one, the feeling of the first will be diminished. This way we can try and keep track of where we've already been."

"Right."

They traveled in silence for a while, taking even, cautious steps. All Draco could hear for the longest time were their own footsteps and Harry's breathing next to him. Then he heard a noise. It sounded a wet, rattling, breath.

"What's that?" he whispered to Harry, fighting the urge to get even closer to Harry.

"I don't know. Homenum revelio," Harry said.

Nothing.

"Not human then. Great." Harry bit his lip.

The next thing that became apparent was a strong smell of the most awful stench that Draco could remember. It smelled like rotting meat and decay. It didn't take long for them to see it, as the creature couldn't sneak up on them.

"Harry..." Draco whispered, catching sight of a massive shape appearing out of the gloom.

The thing was about ten feet tall, and the first thing that Draco saw were the huge, curved antlers raking outward from the creature's skull. It had a long jaw full of wickedly sharp, yellow teeth and the head was covered in long, thick hair. The rest of it was vaguely humanoid, although its limbs were obscenely long and looked as if it were made of rough skin stretched over bone giving it a skeletal appearance. Its arms ended in long claws. As it came forward, the temperature of the room dropped drastically to the point that Draco could see his breath in front of him.

"What is that" Draco barely got the words out, barely able to function.

"Let's go! Stupefy! Impedimenta! Diffindo!" Harry yelled, firing off spells in quick succession, all the while pulling the two of them backwards.

The spells had very little effect of it as it followed them, slowly, as if stalking its prey with the certain knowledge that they could not escape. The action of running and shooting spells brought Draco's brain back online. He remembered what was going on, and muttered, "Serious words are going to be had once this is bloody over!"

With the return of his rationality, he tried to remember reading anything about something like this. Even as they retreated, he could feel the air getting even colder. It was most definitely below the freezing point now, and when Draco blinked, his eyelashes started sticking together, and the few locks of hair hanging in front of his nose started to ice up at the ends. He tried to put it together in his mind.

Monstrous creature, smelled like death, antlers, gaunt, brought winter along behind it... not anything from a warm climate then. Finland? No, their winter creatures were relatively peaceful. Russia? Lots of creatures that brought cold, but mostly water spirits and nymph-like creatures. Canada...

"It's a wendigo!" he said suddenly, although he'd never seen an illustration of one before.

"Culicidifors!" Harry yelled without a second thought.

The creature exploded into tiny pieces, and it took a moment to realize that the wendigo had burst into a cloud of mosquitos. Mosquitos, although annoying, posed no danger to him.

"How did you know which spell to use?" Draco gasped.

"I read it in a book I have on Defence against Dangerous Magical Creatures. Wendigos are one of the few Class 5 species out there, so I made sure to know the spell. I guess it should have occurred to me to figure out what the damn thing looked like too. Good thing you're here."

And then another figure appeared on the edge of the circle, although this time Draco recognized it immediately.

"Lumos Solem," Draco cooly pointed his wand into the vampire's face, and a burst of sunlight caused the vampire to recoil, incapacitated for the moment.

Meanwhile, it appeared that Harry had also run into some trouble, although nothing he apparently couldn't handle.

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry yelled, and a moment later his silver stag was galloping off into the darkness, attacking a shadowy, flat shape that squirmed and flailed as Harry's Patronus stomped on it.

"Lethifold," he reported to Draco.

The lights came up, and suddenly the whole area was illuminated. The vampire was still curled on the ground with his hands over his eyes, and presumably temporarily blinded. That was just as well, since there were five Blast-Ended Skrewts coming towards them, using their exploding ends to propel themselves forward faster.

"I thought these things were done with!" Draco cried. "Hagrid only had the one left, didn't he?"

"He must have made more then, or someone copied him," Harry replied grimly. "I fought one in the Triwizard Tournament. Only the underbelly is vulnerable."

"That's great, that's just bloody dandy," Draco snarled. Pointing his wand at the nearest one, he hissed, "Levicorpus!"

It was yanked into the air and began flailing around making terrifying hissing noises.

"Hurry up and hit it!" Draco felt the strain of holding up such a large creature and felt sweat beading on his forehead.

"It's flailing around so much, hold it still!"

"I can't make it hold still, just hurry up!"

"Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy!" In spite of his previous words, two of three Stunning spells hit the underside, and Draco let the limp form of the first Skrewt land on the backs of one of its brethren. Alarmingly, this distracted the second one sufficiently, as if ripped into the soft underbelly presented to it and began to devour it.

"Oh, ew," Draco's face twisted. "That's disgusting. Come on, Potter, we still have four left!"

"But that one's distracted!" Harry protested.

"Yeah, until it's finished, then it'll want to finish up with dessert! Let's go!"

The two of them ran around the Skrewts, taking advantage of the fact that they couldn't seem to turn around very easily. Draco picked them up with Wingardium Leviosa once it became apparent that the spell worked better for keeping them immobile. He was forced to drop them a few times sometimes when one of the other Skrewts got too close and almost managed to grab him. By the time they were finished, the Skrewts were incapacitated, and Draco and Harry none the worse for wear, if a bit singed.

As soon as they had finished that, an entire army of Doxies appeared.

"Doxies? What kind of insult is this!" Draco snapped. "Immobulus!"

They all froze.

Draco, who was unaccustomed to being sweaty, dirty and covered in soot, looked down at his robes in dismay. Harry smirked over at him as he pouted.

"Scourgify," Harry said simply, clearing away the dirt with one wave of his wand.

"Are we done yet?" Draco sighed dramatically, glaring around in annoyance.

The two of them made their way to the door, with Draco still watching their back in case of the return of any nasty creatures. They made it safely to the door, and both stared at the handle in mistrust.

"We have to go on."

"Yes."

The door opened to a barrage of Stunning spells.