Draco didn't waste a single moment once the hall turned black as pitch. He could see Potter and Longbottom searching blindly about them and didn't bother to suppress his smirk as his he tightened his grip around his mangled Hand of Glory.

He stood, pulling Ginny to her feet, and she cried out at the unexpected contact.

"I've got you," he breathed in her ear before hauling her away from the men, who were currently attempting to reverse the Instant Darkness Powder Draco had dropped. Morons should have learnt their lesson the first time, he thought smugly.

To her credit, Ginevra managed to stick to his side like spello-tape, though her wide-eyed gaze seemed shaken as she stumbled into the darkness. He pressed on, only pausing to set up a few obstacles for the Aurors, intent on completing his task before worrying about the condition of his cargo.

As Draco pushed on through the darkness, he quickly assessed the situation with the Aurors. After the initial breach they would only send in one or two teams, wary of spreading the already meagre arsenal of Aurors too thin. Since the hospital had multiple exit routes for emergencies, two teams were the far more likely option, and he was sure that the second team would reach the security breach at the Janus Thickey Treatment Ward and discover her missing soon. After they found the incapacitated Healer they would call for further reinforcements, in case the threat proved to be mortally dangerous.

He mentally checked the progress of their escape, and scowled in displeasure. Not close enough to the exit to make a clean get away before reinforcements arrived, but Draco knew he had an advantage; the best wizard to outsmart an Auror was another Auror.

Feeling slightly mollified, his scowl faded once they reached one of the minor stairwells. He scanned the area, confirming that no Aurors were waiting for them within, then dragged Ginevra inside. Blinded by the sudden brightness of the stairwell, she was pliant enough until he started to pull her upward. "The exit's downstairs," she observed flatly.

We do not have time for this. "I'm aware of that," he replied impatiently, giving her another push. "Trust me."

To his amazement, she didn't say another word and began climbing. Her curious acquiescence made him narrow his eyes at her rear as he followed, and he forced himself to quell the urge to investigate that reaction further and turned his attention to the task at hand.

Draco didn't doubt that Potter, even in his infinite stupidity and poor judgement, would be able to put two and two together and implicate him for this. Luckily he had a contingency plan for the event that would force his hand, although that wouldn't stop the Aurors from raiding his apartment and Malfoy Manor at the first opportunity.

Unfortunately, Malfoy Manor was the exact place he needed to be. The Ministry had pulled his ancestral home apart at the conclusion of the war, but there were still undetectable places that even he didn't know of. Once the Aurors arrived for another search, they would monitor the estate for any visitors - the two of them just had to beat the Aurors there. Time was of the essence.

Ginevra felt like she'd been hit with a Jelly-Legs Jinx, and she wondered if she might be climbing an infinite staircase. Her muscles were burning from the effort, and the only things keeping her going was the adrenaline rushing through her veins and the comfort of Draco's footsteps right behind hers.

She wasn't sure how much longer she could go for, was afraid that her legs would give out and ruin Draco's plan for their escape. When he suddenly stopped, she practically collapsed against the railing in relief.

To her consternation, it was only long enough to cast a spell.

"Expecto patronum," he muttered, and she looked on with wide eyes as tiny wisps of silver flourished from the tip of his wand, tangling together until a bright, white bird soared from the residual smoke. The bird circled the narrow stairwell briefly before coming to rest on Draco's forearm, its enormous wings tucking close either side of his body as it cocked its head at its master intelligently.

Ginevra felt a jolt of dismay as she looked upon the regal hunting bird, oddly deflated by the idea that this Draco's Patronus was not her fiancé's silvery mink. It was a silly thought, and she knew it was ludicrous of her to expect that it would be the same - that he might not be so different, after all.

"The Seekers are chasing the Snitch," he told it, and the bird opened its mouth in a silent caw before he thrust it into the air and it took off in a burst of brilliant smoke.

She didn't have time to consider what had just happened further before they were off again, and when she was slow to follow he grasped her hand and tugged her along behind him.

His touch sent sparks shooting up her arm. The action was so easy, so... intimate. She bit her lip, trying to recall the last time Draco had held her hand before stopping herself short. This was neither the time nor the place.

Draco turned his head to give her a measuring look, as though he knew exactly what she was thinking, and her breathing became laboured as they rounded up to the next flight of stairs. "We're almost there," he told her, surging forward with new energy that had her stumbling to keep up. The man's stamina knew no bounds.

She was about to give a breathless reply, but her quippy response died in her throat when Draco burst through a door and they arrived on the rooftop of the building. London glittered below them in the dark, and she sidled to Draco's warm body as the cold air licked at her mostly bare skin beneath her hospital gown. He looked down at her, and when his hot breath caressed a cheek she fought to suppress a shiver.

"What now?" she asked, her mouth dry as Draco spelled the door behind her and she looked intently anywhere but the view.

He watched her carefully, his expression grim. "We jump."

Ginevra was petrified.

"Hurry!" Draco ordered, but her legs refused to move.

He grabbed her hand, clearly determined for her to get her to the edge of the rooftop, but she dug her heels into the ground, hardly flinching as the rough concrete scraped against the bare soles of her feet. "I-I can't," she barely managed to stutter.

Her skin felt impossibly hot despite the freezing wind whipping at her furiously as she stood, shaking, looking anywhere but the view.

"We don't have time for this, Weasley. They're coming," he yelled as the wind picked up, threatening to carry his voice away.

Ginevra blinked furiously as tears welled up in her eyes. He expected her to jump, as though it was no big deal.

She stepped back, pressing her back against the solid door behind her, fighting to calm her racing heart. "Merlin, the air is thin up here. Where are we, the Himalayas?" she snapped, breathless as she attempted to stop herself from hyperventilating.

She saw him staring intently at her from the corner of her eye, his brow furrowed. "You're afraid of heights?" he asked after a moment, his voice almost incredulous.

"No," she snapped at him, "I'm just really, really circumspect."

"You're afraid of heights," he said again. She almost caught a shadow of a smile at the corner of his mouth, and if her head hadn't been spinning before, it certainly was now.

It wasn't long before the frown returned. "How can you be afraid of heights? You play Quidditch."

"Me, play Quidditch?" Ginevra scoffed, slightly relieved at the change of topic. "Please. There isn't an Imperius Curse strong enough to get me on a broom."

For one agonisingly long moment he regarded her silently, and Ginevra realised she'd said too much. But somehow, with nothing but open air before her, she couldn't bring herself to care.

"Weasley," he said, but she hardly heard him through the rushing in her ears. She closed her eyes, and she half-persuaded herself that it was almost as though they weren't standing on the roof of a very tall building. His hand slipped under her chin, and he gently tilted her face toward his, but her eyes remained tightly shut.

"Ginevra," he said her name softly, contemplatively. "Look at me, Ginevra."

Something about his tone made her open her eyes once more. His eyes were boring into hers, and in that fleeting moment she thought he might have been less distant... perhaps as though he understood her, at least a little.

She shook her head, refusing to give the idea any further consideration. She was acting like a naive, fanciful twit. He's not the same. He's not my Draco, Ginevra reminded herself as thunder pounded in the distance, echoing her racing heart.

But it was so hard to convince herself of that as Draco looked down at her, radiating his quintessential confidence and composure. Even as his scarred and calloused fingers were so unfamiliar, the cool grey eyes she knew even better than her own struck an innate sense of deep longing for home. They were mesmerising, and she found herself utterly spelled by him, mimicking his movements as he backed away from her.

"Nothing will harm you so long as you're with me, Ginevra," he said softly, and she believed him.

Right until he shoved her off the roof.

Harry bolted up the emergency stairs of St Mungo's with Neville hot on his heels. They'd been stuck in that damn corridor for far too long, and even then they'd only just managed to escape the blinding powder once Proudfoot and Dawlish had shown up. Then, once Ginny had been tracked as far as the stairwell, they'd had to make the decision to split up. To Harry's irritation the more senior Aurors had pulled rank, opting to take the more likely route of escape downward. Harry just had to get to the roof as quickly as possible so he could hurry down to the lobby of the building and sort this mess out when she was caught by the other team.

He gritted his teeth at the thought that he was heading the wrong direction, so instead chose to mull over the events that had taken place minutes before.

Harry was smart enough to put two and two together, and if he was a betting man he'd bet his entire Gringotts vault that Draco bloody Malfoy was responsible... And, as much as he hated to admit it, if there was one thing a slimy git was good at, it was slipping by unnoticed - it was why Malfoy always got assigned the solo, covert operations - at least, that was the official story Dave Gudgeon, the head of the Auror office, fed the team during weekly meetings. Harry was entirely sure that the real reason was that no one wanted to work with him.

None of this was making sense. Ginny was perfectly fine yesterday - her usual, lovely (if not a little snarky) self. Then this morning she woke up and she was... well, a racist bint, if he was going to be perfectly honest.

And now she'd apparently gone totally mental, if the current situation was any indication. How long had he been coming home with stories of everything he'd had to deal with as an Auror? All the attacks, the maniacs, the brutal arrests... and then his girlfriend went and pulled a stunt like this, running at Draco Malfoy's beck and call to boot.

He hadn't missed the way Gudgeon had purposefully avoided his gaze when he'd been called in for damage control, or the pitying sidelong glances his co-workers had given him as he was leaving the office. But then, Harry supposed it was better that he be called in to handle the situation than hear about it tomorrow after Merlin-knew-what had gone wrong.

All he had to do was help catch Ginny and her mystery kidnapper before they fled the building. He'd find her, return her safely to her ward to continue her treatment, and it wouldn't be long before she was back to normal. He might have to take some time off from work, just to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn't try anything again. He'd been working almost non-stop since he joined the Aurors, so he doubted his supervisor would mind too much.

He just had to take care of this minor problem, and everything would be back on track.

That's when he heard it; their footsteps echoing from above, a steady staccato beating in time to his racing heart, until the noise was cut off by the heavy slam of a door.

I have to save her before it's too late, he thought, he made short work of the few flights of stairs separating him from Ginny.

When he got to the top, he'd been anticipating another obstacle in the door, so he and Neville quickly disarmed the charms that Malfoy had put in place. The door itself merely needed to be beaten down, it seemed.

She was there, just on the other side of that door. Harry could feel it as surely as the laboured pull of his lungs or the straining of his well-used muscles as he heaved against the door, and the thought seemed to give him the extra burst of adrenaline he needed to break through.

The door flung open, and Harry rushed forward just as Malfoy pushed Ginny over the edge, their bodies tumbling through the open air, and Ginny vanished before his eyes, just out of his reach.