Wishes of Happy Birthday and Everything that is the Best are to be handed to the Birthday Girl, my friend Nims! (Also known around here as ObsidianButerfly). I hope your cake tastes great and you enjoy your birthday story (chapter 1) :D

Of story: it's a gift story written as a combination of requested details and added interpretations; eventually Draco/Hermione as per Nims-chan's wishes. As the beginning may indicate, it changes the events from book 7, because she wanted Draco "to have some backbone" ;) It will be continued until it ends. Enjoy.

The world seemed to slow down. Across the room, at the far end of the raised wand, a pale face framed by hair which just for once failed to be a shade fairer. The all-too-familiar face, twisted with disbelief, helpless fear and growing rage. In his ears, the humming of blood just did not overshadow a strangely distant sound of crying.

'You will not -'

'I will not let your life be threatened.'

'Don't you understand -'

'I understand better than you think.'

'Everything could be for-'

'I do not need forgiveness from one who takes my family hostage!'

'Are you mad?' The man's features contorted in the effort of pushing his yells through a throat drying with panic. 'Who are you siding with? Where's your pride!'

'Do you take pride in grovelling submissively at the feet of a man who discards our lives at whim!' He was shouting now, and he hadn't intended to do that. He gritted his teeth and steadied his outstretched arm, which had begun to shake.

'How dare you talk to me like that! How dare you point your wand at me!'

'Well apparently I do, but if you wish to discuss where you went wrong, we can do it later,' he said, forcing cold calm into his voice and fighting to ignore the intensifying sobs. 'One clue, though: you never asked me to pick a side, you just tagged me along. No reason I couldn't do that, then.'

'I am your father, boy!'

'And I am your son, and I'm getting you out of this, because no one else will!'

'What are you talking about? We're lucky if we're not due certain death as it is! And you're making it worse every second! What the hell is wrong with you?'

He hesitated; and then, there was a snap. And then everything went really fast.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

They had been brought to his house, of all places. Because he had his headquarters there; one of his multiple little ways to express disapproval of Lucius Malfoy, imprisoning him and his wife in their own mansion and making them run around like elves with their heads cut off after whatever the honorary guest willed request. It was honestly awful to look at, and Draco had been almost relieved to return to Hogwart. Almost.

The atmosphere in the castle was hard to take, too. While he was free from the sight of his parents running errands for the Dark Lord, he had to withstand a pantomime of fear played all around and partly centering on him as an official Death Eater; occasional additions of toadying were thrown in by those who hoped to get on with the oppressors, rather unsuccessfully. Other Death Eaters, when they paid him any attention at all, contrived to remind him with discarding looks and derisive grins of the Malfoys' general disfavour and Draco's failure in his mission the previous year. It was not a comfortable position to be in, and the senior Slytherin was finding himself missing the old days of simple, everyday picking on Gryffindors and continuing the good tradition of cut-throat rivalry between the Houses without that hateful constant upper hand. The last year and a half had been, to Draco, a period of constant dread, pressure and bitter disappointment; having finally been allowed to join the ranks of Death Eaters, which he had been brought up to view as an honour, he was being mistreated and met with wide disregard.

This was really not, he felt, what he had been prepared to aspire to.

He had nightmares, too, terrible swarms of darkness in his dreams, oozing terror in the colours of helpless, humiliating obedience, whispering his name in the voice of the old man he had not been able to kill and mocking with red eyes: you are a coward, you are pathetic, you can't do a thing, you are at mercy of one who knows not the meaning of the word… and again: come to the right side, we will protect you… do not let me down and I will let you live…. we will hide your mother… you must redeem your father's faults… again and again and Draco would struggle in midst, fighting for breath, and wake up in cold sweat to a dormitory which would be all too carefully silent.

There had been quite a lot growing, ripening and coming together within the youngest Malfoy over the last year, and then suddenly there were Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger right in front of him, brought to his house by a band of Snatchers.

'It might be Potter,' said Draco slowly, as if weighing each word and its consequences, while his mind buzzed with dozens of makeshift ideas and improvised plans. 'I'm not… exactly sure it's them…' he continued, purposefully ignoring the captors' impatient glares.

'Don't mock around, boy' growled Greyback, baring his teeth threateningly. 'Is that Potter or not?' But here and now was not the top of Astronomy Tower, and Draco had come some way since then.

'It's Mr. Malfoy to you,' he hissed, eyeing the werewolf coldly, 'and don't forget your place at least when you're in my house.'

The young wizard thought he could catch a glimpse of pride passing through his father's face, only to be replaced by an expression of eager inquiry.

'But is this Harry Potter, Draco?' asked Lucius, barely able to contain his excitement. 'Just think – if we were the ones to capture Potter – everything would be forgiven! We could-'

'I hope we're not forgetting who brought-' Greyback began quickly, but he was interrupted mid-sentence when a new person entered the room.

'What's that? What's happened, Cissy?' demanded Bellatrix, standing in the doorway with that theatrical effect Draco had come to associate with her. 'Who are these people?'

The witch approached the prisoners, still maintaining the affected air, and scrutinised the forlorn trio from under her heavy, dark-outlined eyelids.

'But surely this is that Mudblood Granger?' she asked, lifting the girl's chin to get a closer look at her face which, Draco noticed, bore an expression of not so much pure fear as agitated nervousness with slight indications of growing panic.

'N-no -' she tried, but stopped when Bellatrix slapped her with open palm.

'I'm sure we're not interested in what Mudbloods gabble about. Unless, perhaps, you want to tell us about your little friends?'

'That's – Bella,' Lucius interrupted, 'we think it might be Potter with her.'

'Potter?' This time it was his aunt's face that lit up with that pathetically hopeful excitement which was beginning to make Draco sick. 'Are you sure? Well, then, the Dark Lord must be informed at once!' She dragged back her left sleeve, ready to press the Dark Mark imprinted on her arm, when her brother-in-law caught her by the wrist.

'This is my house, Bella, and I shall summon him-'

'Take your hands off me-'

Typical, the young Slytherin thought, at the same time fighting to ignore the cold itching on his own left arm and scanning the room in a desperate search for inspiration – how to stop them, what to do, how to postpone-

'STOP!' shrieked Bellatrix. She had noticed a sword held by one of the Snatchers; not widely known for her patience and tendency to calmly explain her reasons, soon enough the witch rendered unconscious all of them except for the werewolf, whom she ordered to take the prisoners down to the cellars. Draco was given the task of 'moving this scum aside', to which he complied, despite his mother's indignant protest, by levitating the unmoving Snatchers out of sight; however, instead of 'leaving them in the courtyard for Aunt Bella to finish', as suggested, he locked them in another cellar, first collecting their wands. He wasn't entirely sure what he intended to do, but he felt spare wands would definitely prove useful.

He had just stepped out of the makeshift prison when a terrible scream tore through the dusty, ill-lit air, through stone walls and elegant carpets; an awful, gut-twisting screech of unbearable pain -

For a split second Draco felt a wave of weak sickness well up somewhere inside him; images of wickedly grinning Bellatrix wielding a wand in one hand and a knife in another, licking her lips at the sight of blood, flashed before his eyes. He was well aware of his aunt's fancy for careful, steel-cold cruelty, and now the thought that Granger girl, one he knew from that normal life back at Hogwart, was being tortured in his house… it made him feel as if any hope for regaining that lost normality was outright ridiculous and what, really, could he do –

'HERMIONE!'

The second scream, this time from the new prisoners' locker, snapped the Slytherin back awake. This was time to act, damn it, at the very last, and if it had worked so many times for those pathetic Gryffindors, all the more should he, Draco, succeed in his endeavour. Everything might have gone too far, but with certainty that surprised even him he knew, as the decision crystallised inside him, that he would save her.

Shaking off the momentary paralysis, the blond hurried down the corridor to where the scream had originated from, unstopping even as subsequent yells came from above and ahead of him until he reached the locker's door. There had been light seeping from under it, yet it disappeared as his footsteps approached the small prison.

Draco stood by the door, aware of the hushed silence of anticipation on the other side, and opened it with a wave of his wand.

'Okay, Potter, Weasley,' he said, 'I know it's you. And you can turn the light back on, I saw it.'

There was more silence. Then, a voice spoke out of darkness, strained and unsure.

'Malfoy? What do you want?'

'Turn on the light, I said.'

With a quiet click a ball of warm light appeared in the air, marking out of blackness the figures of prisoners: old Mr Ollivander and Luna Lovegood, a goblin, Ron Weasley and Harry Potter, whose face had almost regained its usual proportions and looked only slightly pink and swollen around the eyes. The two Gryffindors eyed him suspiciously and then winced painfully as another series of screams reached their ears.

'Hello, Draco,' said Luna brightly.

'Hello,' he answered automatically, despite circumstances smirking inwardly at the two boys' expressions. 'Look,' he told them, 'we can stand here and talk, this is one option. Another option is this: I give you these,' here Draco presented a couple of wands he was holding in his left hand, 'and you go rescue Granger. Without attacking me.'

Undesirable No 1 gaped at the Slytherin in blunt disbelief.

'You're gonna let us go?'

'I figure I've just said that,' Draco sneered, unable to help himself. This was probably adrenaline; he could feel it running through his veins. 'Have you got time to be standing around? What's happened to Gryffindor bravery?'

The Gryffindors exchanged glances and reached for the wands, Potter still looking uncertain but determined and Weasley giving him a passing look that he probably thought was stern. They grabbed one each and ran upstairs; Draco looked after them and then turned to the other prisoners.

'Mr Ollivander, you can Apparate, correct? Please take them out of here,' he said, handing the old man the remaining wand and indicating the girl and the goblin. 'You do have somewhere to go, I hope? Although right now anywhere is safer than -'

'We want to help!' interrupted Luna. 'We'll fight too, with you and Harry and Ron!'

'No you won't. You're weak, Mr Ollivander is exhausted, and the goblin doesn't wish to get involved in wizards' wars. You have already been troubled too much, now disappear!'

'Draco-'

'Now!'

'-thank you, and good luck, I'm sure we'll meet again,' finished the Ravenclaw, taking the wandmaker's hand. 'Please, Mr Ollivander?'

The blond nodded impatiently, waved his hand in a gesture somewhere between urging them to leave and bidding them goodbye and watched the trio disappear; as they vanished he sighed and hurried after the Gryffindors.

It turned out they had already managed to turn render their situation hopeless again; upon entering the living room Draco was met with the sight of Bellatrix pressing her knife against Granger's throat and his mother approaching to collect the two wands from the floor. Knowing his only advantage lay in surprise and that the most serious enemy was definitely his aunt, the young men strolled towards the unsuspecting witch, inconspicuously raised his wand and thought the word which paralysed her completely. Snatching the unconscious girl from Bellatrix with one arm, he turned swiftly to immobilise Greyback as well. He caught the werewolf in mid-step, ready to throw himself at Weasley; the heavy body collapsed onto the floor. The two Gryffidors ducked his father's blows, grabbed the wands and jumped behind the sofa, sending a few sizzling curses in his parents' general direction.

'Protego,' called Draco, blocking a stream of light aiming for his mother; as she backed away and raised her wand he took her hand and pulled her to his side, ready to protect her, but silently asking her to cast no more spells. Still pressing Granger to his side, the youngest Malfoy turned to his father, who watched him in disbelief.

'Draco, what are you-'

'I'm putting an end to this. We will not summon the Dark Lord.'

'What-'

'On the contrary, we'll activate all protective charms this house possesses to keep him away, and then debate further course of action.'

'You want to oppose the Dark Lord? Right now?'

'It's about time we did,' said Draco, looking levelly into his father's eyes. Behind him, his mother gasped audibly.

'You know we can't-'

'We can and we will. Please,' he tightened the grip on his wand, 'I don't want to fight you. But it's our last chance. Please,' he repeated, forcing his right arm forward and fighting the feeling of choking weakness welling up in him.

The world seemed to slow down.