So I've been writing this over the course of about three months now, and I've really enjoyed it. Its a little bit angsty, and low on plot in regards to the war situation - very much centred around the Draco/Hermione dynamic and the way it changes and develops. I hope you lot enjoy reading it as much as I loved writing it. Its going to be in four parts, and I'm in the process of writing a sequel, but I'm not sure how long that will be. Let me know what you think.
Dee xx
Crawling across the floor to Granger, he pulled her into his arms, cursing at how limp she seemed against him. In a single movement, he hoisted her up over his shoulder backwards, one arm around her legs dangling over the front of his body. He closed his eyes tight shut, concentrating hard, turning on the spot. Within a slither of a second, they had completely vanished.
They slammed hard into the ground somewhere, grass cold and wet beneath his torn black blazer. In a fit of coughing, having been winded by the landing, he rolled over slowly, tensed up a little, back arched, panting to get his breath back.
It was spitting, rain misty and cool in the wind, blowing against his face, sharp and unforgiving. He drew in as deep of a breath as he could manage, stumbling to Granger and pushing a bunch of her blood-stained hair from her face. She was covered in dirt and sweat, and despite the weather, the heat of battle was still with them, burning across his forehead, mixing with the forceful spray of the rain.
He opened her eyelids with the tips of his fingers and took her pulse, checking her vitals. She was weak and unconscious, but still alive. If anything, Hermione Granger was resilient. He swallowed the doubts pushing at his gut and fumbled for that blasted bag of hers in the pocket of her jacket, tapping it with his wand and muttering the spell to erect the tent, fixing it into the ground as best he could, quickly casting all the protection spells that he had the strength for.
He then rushed back over to her, threading an arm under her legs, and lifting her upper body, hoisting her up and moving as fast as he could into their shelter, placing her down with no real finesse onto the makeshift furniture. Immediately he pulled off her jacket, cursing at the amount of blood sticking to her white top. He hated blood, couldn't stand the stuff. But if he helped her now, if he touched her whilst she was like this, then it would mark a monumental change in him; she was a mudblood and he would be throwing away all misconceptions of that.
Surprisingly, it only took him a second to hiss out a line of choice swear words and yank up her top, grimacing at the site of the deep gash going across her flat stomach. He glanced back up to her paling face, forcing himself to stop shaking.
Grabbing his wand with a firmer grip, he siphoned off the blood so that he could get a proper look at what he was dealing with. He began to slowly drag the tip of the wood across the gash, uttering incantations in perfect Latin, eyes closed, letting all the magic he could muster run through him. It was exhausting, but the adrenaline drew him on and after a couple of minutes he opened his eyelids and huffed in relief, falling on his buttocks, back leaning against the rotting old coffee table. His hands were soaked in Hermione Granger's blood but he just couldn't bring himself to care. He was in for a long night and for the moment, he could not allow himself to sleep.
She woke up choking, stirring as the breath caught in her throat and her face screwed up in agony, her body hunching in on itself. He moved to her automatically, one hand on her bicep, the other cradling the one side of her face, checking her vitals once more.
"Breathe Granger," he snapped, brushing the hair from her forehead again and helping her into a sitting position.
"Y-you," she struggled through the convulsions in her chest, drawing in retches of air as deep as she could "you – you d-defected," she attempted to talk some more, her eyes full of confusion and fear as he cast a spell to clear her lungs for her, immediately making it easier for her to respire.
"Well done," he drawled maliciously, handing her a cup of water and gesturing fiercely for her to drink the entire thing.
"W-where are we?" she gasped between gulps.
"Near Princetown," he replied blandly, sitting on the sofa next to her hip where she was still laid out slightly, pressing the back of his hand against her frown once again, just making sure that her temperature wasn't drastically escalating. It was a little on the too-warm side, but not dangerously so. Regardless, he took the cup from her when she'd finished, placing it on the table and passing her a cold compress. She laid it between her brows and tried to relax her body.
"Harry told you to take us into exile?"
"I decided on it, Granger. Potter was otherwise engaged and he is much more important to this war than I am, so the unfortunate job of saving your ass fell to me," he explained distastefully, taking the hem of her t-shirt and lifting it again. She tried to stop him for a moment before he glared at her, silently communicating that it was for her own good and that there was hardly any need for her to be insecure of her damn stomach right now, and she lowered her gaze, allowing him to take a look at her injuries.
The gash had healed over on the surface but when he lightly pressed two of his spindly, long pale fingers to where the laceration had been, she winced and bit down hard on her bottom lip. Obviously it was still healing inside, so he cast an incantation that his mother had taught him, to speed up the process. She hissed as the magic took effect, ignoring his impatient huff of irritation.
Up near her ribs, most of the bruising had gone down, but there were several spots of smaller, angry red surface cuts where she'd landed on the floor, forced to it by an explosion. Contrary to what he'd said, Granger had held herself well in battle, taking out most of the opponents she'd met almost immediately, it was just when Weasley had let an unchecked deatheater release a shit load of feindfire that had caused Potter to push her out of the way. She'd hit her head on a rock and landed stomach first on a pile of rubble.
"You should be fine by the end of the week," he assessed, not looking at her face as concentration possessed his features and he muttered healing spells at the smaller injuries that he'd missed when he had first brought her here.
"Right," she said, sitting up a little further as he dropped her t-shirt again and poured himself his own glass of water from the jug he'd made up "tell me why I shouldn't detain you right now and take you to headquarters"
"One," he sighed with a bored expression "you can barely walk; your body is too weak and you'll pass out, so I doubt you could even make a decent attempt at 'detaining' me"
She narrowed her sore eyes and determinedly stared straight at him.
"Two," he continued "headquarters is gone. The deatheaters probably destroyed it before they got to the battle ground, I doubt there's anywhere that's completely safe anymore Granger," he pointed out "this is real now, we're at war. We're also in hiding, along with the rest of your precious Order of the Phoenix"
Three weeks. It had been three weeks now, and throughout the entire stretch of time, it had not stopped raining. They had received no news apart from a small, crumpled piece of parchment from Harry reading nothing but the words 'stay hidden'. Since then, they'd been moving every couple of days, scoping out the most secluded parts of the British countryside.
There was an unrest in Hermione's soul that made her both sad and nervous. Every part of her body felt loose and disconnected. The silence that occupied their tent was deafening, the only real sound that filled her days being the continuous downpour from the cinereous sky, landing on the thin shelter above their heads. The isolation was both comforting, and maddening and she didn't think she had ever read so much in her entire life.
The most she communicated with Malfoy, was when they took it in turns to make meals. Every other day, it was her go to venture outside within the bounds of their protection spells, wrapped in the giant rain jacket she'd brought with her, and either dig out fish from the river to cook, or stun small animals to skin and roast. That, she thought, was when she was most at peace. The feel of the water on the skin of her face and the sharp, earthy smell of cold. She felt a certain tranquillity from the way her breath could be seen in uneven chaotic swirls in the air and the crunch of twigs beneath her hiking boots, the soft feel of the land below the soles of her feet. Malfoy, surprisingly, had no problem with splitting the work.
Every other morning, he woke at six am like clockwork. He always padded around the living area of the tent in his underwear for thirty minutes, eating whatever they had rationed for breakfast, before washing himself. Then he dressed in a pair of jeans (which had nearly given her a heart attack the first time, because Malfoys didn't dare wear muggle clothing), a woollen turtleneck, and a black hard-shell jacket with a worn down marmot label. She supposed that he must have caught onto her idea and stolen some clothes when they'd made a midnight trip to a muggle village supermarket, although they had nearly been spotted by some deatheaters patrolling the area, so since then they'd been pretty much forced to live off of nature. She never really watched where he went, but he always came back with something. In fact, four days into their first week of solitude, Malfoy had ducked back under the cover with a small deer over his shoulder, and a makeshift bow and arrow over the other.
She hadn't taken Malfoy for the archery type, although, when she really thought about it, the elite and wealthy in the wizarding world weren't much different to that of the muggle world, and hunting had always been a tradition amongst their ranks – so, when she considered it properly, it wasn't really that much of a surprise that he would know how to hunt without relying on magic.
Today, however, it was her turn. And, the same as usual, her body clock dragged her from her nightmares around 7 am. The sun was once again shielded by ominous clouds, the thunder crackling and rumbling through them almost effervescent. She took satisfaction from waking up to it every morning – it was strangely monotonous, yet ever changing and arrhythmic. Calming, yet quietly thrilling. She pulled a soft top over her head, followed by her favourite maroon jumper, and her most fitted, thick pair of denim jeans for maximum movement and warmth.
From there, she went to the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea to warm her stomach and bring her brilliant brain to life so that she could be more alert. Just before she was about to leave, Malfoy came padding in from his own sleeping section of the tent, shirtless as ever, and ashen faced. Mornings weren't really his thing, but he always rose early, regardless of the way they didn't agree with him. Perhaps the both of them had such repetitive body clocks because of years of being up every sunrise for school.
"If I'm any more than an hour," she said neutrally, not meeting his eyes as he sat hunched on the small sofa in the middle of the room "pack this up and come looking for me"
He simply nodded at her stonily before she shrugged into her jacket, lifted the hood, and drew her wand, stepping out, once more, onto the stormy moor of Devon.
Sniffing, she shrugged the hood of her jacket further over her head where it had slipped slightly. Surprisingly, it wasn't windy, but the bitter cold made up for the lack thereof, and the air was laced with a sort of sharp smell, yet it was more the underlying cause of such continuous weather that had her being extra careful.
She had read a lot about dementors in her third year, following their appointment on the grounds of Hogwarts, and she smirked to herself as she stepped largely through the piles of mud and shrubbery, surrounded by tall trees.
She had put up quite a fuss upon hearing about that ruling, sending multiple angry letters to at least twenty ministry officials, who had all been baffled as to how she had acquired their contact details and had begged McGonagall to get her to stop. Honestly though, Hermione had always been extremely aware of Dumbledore's terribly irresponsible behaviour as a headmaster; what person, in charge of over a thousand young people, allowed soul sucking demonic creatures to be placed on school grounds? It was a rather insane concept, and one she had never been able to put logical reasoning behind.
And she was chillingly in the know about the way the dementors, free of their government limitations now, were making it rain all the time. She wondered if it could be felt by everybody, or whether it was just a magical folk thing, but it was as though with every breath she took of the outside world was contaminated somehow, with a niggling, bitter hint of lingering despair. One she had only ever felt when encountering such creatures.
A lot of the time she spent outside in the mornings, was dedicated to simply walking. It felt so much better to have the blood pumping through her body, her heart beating a little more laboriously in her chest, her breath in the air as she moved athletically, hyper aware of where the lines of their wards ended. But she knew this place, although their stay here would be short, she had been here once before, as a child. They were about a mile west from The Two Bridges on Dartmoor, and she was currently moving towards a space of open land in which she'd have to dillusion herself to cut across, where she could access a small river named Stepping Stones.
She wouldn't mention her little escapade to Malfoy, he'd only yell at her for putting their safety in jeopardy, and this was her own private little thing that she needed to do herself.
After about half an hour of walking, and sprinting across a long public road, she crouched down at the bank of the Stepping Stones and reached out to touch the water, at a higher level than usual, due to the rain, watching the disturbed surface as the sky thundered above her. She dropped backwards onto her buttocks, pulling her knees up to her chin and softly closing her eyes, breathing deeply, remembering.
As a six year old little girl, her mother and father had brought her up here on a warm summer's day in August, where they had scattered the ashes of her grandmother. It was one of her most vivid memories, despite its morbid and saddening nature, and more than anything, she needed to feel that memory now.
She needed to feel the warmth of the tears mixing with the drops of rain rolling down her face, resembling the slither of that hot sun on her younger skin. To try and picture that little pink summer dress she had been wearing and the way her mother had platted her hair for her, despite the curls, as always, escaping and tickling her cheeks in the soft summer breeze. She needed to feel her soul floating away from her, just for a moment, and connecting with the slight hint of perfume her brain remembered on the air. Once more, she wondered if her magical powers allowed her a deeper calibration with nature, because she could have sworn that there was a touch of her grandmother's remaining presence around her, at this place, eleven years later.
But she had been allowing herself this moment for too long now, and with one more deep breath, she opened her eyes and unfurled her arms from her legs, standing and taking one last look at the landscape, before sliding her frozen hands into her pockets, and turning, walking back. She would stun a couple of squirrels on her return trip to the tent, and that would be her job done for the morning, she did not want to go back and explain to Malfoy that she had spent her time outside sitting by a river and crying.
"Malfoy," she said hesitantly the next morning as she watched him move around, lacing up his tight leather boots over his jeans as he prepared his bow "do you think that I might come with you this morning?"
"Granger," he replied in a bland voice, paying the majority of his attention to yanking the laces tight around his calf muscles "there's a reason we take it in turns. It wouldn't make any sense if we both went out hunting on the same day"
"Yes," she spoke, nibbling her bottom lip from where she was curled up on the couch "but I – well, I suppose I'm quite fascinated with that bow and arrow. Why do you use it?" she asked awkwardly "when you could just stun the animals?"
"Why are you so interested anyway, Granger?" he sighed, finally stopping what he was doing with his shoes, and looking at her properly. The dark lines under his blue eyes were more prominent this morning, and there was still an angry graze across his cheekbone that was healing from the battle they'd been in just three weeks previous.
"I've always been interested in archery," she countered, ignoring his harsh tone as usual "I just suppose we'd get more done if we hunted together, and this way, I can watch and maybe learn something. You always manage to catch the bigger animals"
He stood, throwing his pack of arrows over his left shoulder and picking up his bow, looking down at her for a second before an irritated look of defeat fell over his shoulders and he huffed.
"Fine, hurry the fuck up, I don't want to be at it all day," he shot and she grinned widely, placing her mug down on the small, battered coffee table, jumping up to full height and pulling her own garments on, snatching up her wand from the arm of the chair and following him out of the tent, making sure all of their wards were extra tight and well-cast before trekking off into the forest behind him.
"I see what you mean," she whispered, slightly breathless as they crouched behind a tree, watching a badger moving about amongst the shrubbery about twenty feet in front of them. Draco lifted an arrow from behind him and settled it in place, his strong arm pulling back and holding still, incredulously steady as the rain persisted to hammer down around them, drenching their clothes "there's an honesty to it," she breathed "like we're taking up our primal instinct to hunt and mixing it with the controlled precision of the modern day need for perfection"
He paused for a moment, head turning towards her, looking her directly in the eye with a furrowed brow and a slightly confused expression, droplets of clear water trickling down his sharp, pale cheekbones, before he turned back to the creature, all of a sudden releasing the arrow with no warning. She gasped slightly as it whooshed through the air in such a straight, almost beautiful line, before embedding itself, undeviating, into the badger's eye, impaling its skull, killing it instantly.
A moment of animated quiet lay between the three of them in which all that could be heard was their slightly heavy breathing, and the cascading of the heavens. Then, whilst Hermione stared wide eyed, hands over her mouth in shock, Draco simply stood athletically back to full height and trudged over the clearing. He climbed up the short, muddy bank, lifting the animal into his lap and pulling the arrow out.
When she had gathered her wits, she mirrored his movements, heart pounding in her chest as she sat down beside him on her knees, the wet ground percolating further through the fabric of her trousers, the chirping of a couple of birds in the trees above them ringing in her ears.
"It's dead," she whispered, lips, nose, and freckled cheekbones reddened furiously from the harsh hyperborean nature of the weather.
"No shit, Granger," he replied unemotionally, once again returning to his full height and placing the lifeless animal over his free shoulder. He glanced down at her, presumably considering something, before holding out a hand to her from where she remained below him at his feet. She looked at the pale, spindly, scarred fingers for a moment, her heart skipping a beat beneath her rib cage as she realised the significance of such an action, before she took it roughly, and allowed him to pull her up to his level.
She watched him some more over the course of the following days, which stretched into more weeks. Instead of staying in her sleeping quarters, she tended to move now into the main living section of the tent, curling up on the sofa with another one of her books on horcruxes whilst Malfoy gutted the animal of the day or drew in the giant sketchbook with the muggle pencil that she guessed he must also have acquired from their little supermarket escapade at the beginning of their exile. She still found it hard to adjust to how incredibly at ease he seemed to be with muggle objects. If he wasn't snappy and resolutely quiet, maintaining a moody and irritated disposition in regards to her presence, she may even have begun to question whether she was living with Malfoy at all, and whether he was, in fact, some sort of imposter.
She was also surprised with herself.
Despite the fact that in their three month travels, they'd had distressing rows over twenty times (yes, she was keeping count), she trusted him. She trusted him so much sometimes, that it terrified her because she still forgot, occasionally, that etched into his wrist in writhing, effervescent black ink, was a skull and snake, a forever reminder that the distinguished blonde aristocrat that had somehow wormed his way into her life without meaning to, was a deatheater. Or a defected one at the least.
"Alright Granger," he huffed in annoyance about 125 days into their predicament, closing his scrapbook shut loudly and sitting forward on the moth-eaten sofa opposite her on the other side of the coffee table "I give up. What the fuck is a horcrux and why are you so damn obsessed with reading about it?" he demanded, causing her to raise her eyebrows in surprise. Fuck. She'd been so busy losing herself in the isolation and the written words and the way the rain continued to hammer brutally on outside, that she hadn't even realised that they hadn't had a conversation about what the overall situation with Draco's previous master was. Really, she thought, he needed to know about the horcruxes and how to kill him – but, her objective, logical mind reminded her that whilst he seemed to be defected, he was still a Malfoy, and a Slytherin at that. Who was to say that all this wasn't still just some plot for him to gather information on the Order and report back to Voldemort when he was done with her?
"I – I hadn't even realised," she said, blinking as it registered with her properly "I suppose I should have told you a few days into this, but I somehow just assumed that you would know. The thing is," she hesitated, closing her own book, although she didn't move from where her legs were tucked up underneath her, the thumbholes in the sleeves of her woollen red jumper and the relaxed way in which she hadn't tied her hair up that morning creating such an overall comfortable atmosphere, that she could probably almost feel as though they were back at Hogwarts lounging on the armchairs in front of the warm, roaring fire listening to the rain on the old, resilient windowpanes of the school.
Of course, the dank smell of damp age and the stains of god knows what on the fabric of the old white structure held up by magic and long black poles stuck in the ground, took away from that. This tent was far from warm and comforting, and resembled more of a sad old hut than anything. That was another thing that had surprised her, Malfoy never complained about not living in the lap of luxury or washing in an old white basin lined with a thin layer of lime scale. He simply accepted it, and went with it, doing what was required of him.
"The thing is, I don't want to regret telling you, it's kind of classified information," she continued.
"Granger, I apparated your severely injured body from a battle ground, nursed you back to health, and lived with you for the past three months, trying to survive in the most disgusting and undignified conditions," he spoke in that voice he always used when he was trying to control his temper "I can kill you in your sleep whenever I want to, but for some unknown reason, I don't. If there's something that you aren't telling me, that I probably need to know, just fucking say it," he demanded, although he met her eyes with a level of neutral respect that solidified her decision for her.
"If you betray me Malfoy, I'll slit your throat myself," she sighed, wrapping her arms around herself and snuggling further into the sofa, gesturing for him to get comfortable "you won't like it," she said darkly, before she began telling him the story that she didn't even really full understand herself.
Three days later, they got their first assignment. It was a piece of parchment magically protected from the rain with a shielding spell, written in a code developed by the Order of the Phoenix back in the first wizarding war in case of interception. It was a code the deatheaters had never been able to crack, and Hermione couldn't help the smug smirk on her face as she read the code to a frustrated Draco as he leaned closely over her shoulder, trying to make sense of the old symbols and drawings.
"Harry wants us to raid a deatheater hideout holding muggles hostage. There should be no more than five of them," she grinned, physically feeling the irritation and distaste radiating from her tent mate. He scowled, although he didn't move away, still staring at the foreign writing on the parchment, trying with all his might to try and figure out whether she was lying to him or not.
"There's no point Draco, this code is only coherent to the people who know how to read it. The deatheaters have never been able to decode it, therefore, you, as a result, will not be able to read it," she teased, amusement sparkling in her eyes as she read the message in her head a few more times, making sure that she had the details right.
"Fuck off Granger, I'm practically a member of your little secret club now, you may as well teach me this stupid code," he snapped, finally moving away from her. For a moment, she was disappointed by the lack of body heat and the absence of his form behind her's, his breath no longer tickling the left of her face. But she forced herself to push it to the back of her mind and rolled her eyes, folding up the parchment and taking it to the wash basin that they usually washed their dishes in, levitating the parchment and setting it on fire, watching it turn slightly as the flames turned it to black and white ash. She placed the basin back on the makeshift kitchen counter, turning to him as she leant against it.
"Fine," she said "I'll teach you how to read and write the code, if you do this assignment with me"
"Well I hardly have any other choice, do I?" he scoffed grumpily, moving to stand about a meter in front of her, his arms crossed over his chest "you're going to do it whether I want to go with you or not, and if I don't, you're going to get yourself killed, which is really not in my best interests at this point in time. When does Potter want us to go in?" he asked, leaning against one of the solid black poles that kept the tent upright and fixing her with a mildly annoyed, yet slightly curious expression, one he surveyed her with quite often of late, especially since she'd filled him in about the horcruxes and everything else that the Order had been working on to aid the defeat of Voldemort.
"Wednesday morning," she replied regally and with a slightly uneasy look "he says that's when there won't be anyone outside guarding the sight. There'll just be the deatheaters inside and the captives," she informed with a deep, uncertain sigh. He frowned as she nibbled thoughtfully on her chapped, chewed up bottom lip.
"What deatheaters are going to be there?" he wondered.
"Why do you ask?" she retorted, slightly suspicious. He rolled his eyes at her, tutting.
"I'm asking because I lived with these people for a year Granger, I know their fighting styles and tactical weaknesses. Did you think The Dark Lord was just going to recruit a bunch of people who had no idea how to use their bodies or wands in combat?" he raised one eyebrow, watching her bristle at his mild insult on her intelligence.
"No," she retorted, pouting slightly "but your lot aren't the brightest bunch of organised criminals, are they?" she continued "I sort of just assumed that they all mostly got in on good blood and bad reputation"
"You're not wrong about the stupid thing, especially the older ones who spend too much time talking about all the evil things they're going to do, rather than actually doing them. Not that I wasn't one of those idiots of course"
"You've killed people though," she spoke, her voice slightly more careful now as she looked at him with an unreadable expression "I've seen it"
"I've killed deatheaters, Granger," he answered, for once, with no anger behind his words – he was ashamed of a lot of the things he'd done, but at least he could say that he had never taken the life of an innocent; he'd been too much of a coward for that. Somehow, he found it much easier to snap the necks of his fellow deatheaters, than those of defenceless, battered muggles. Perhaps that said more about his personality than he was willing to admit, but that was the way it was, and there was no going back now "I've never killed a muggleborn or a muggle. They tried to get me to, but I never could"
"That's not a bad thing Malfoy," she said, her voice suddenly softer now, her ridiculous brown eyes gentler as she pushed off of the counter and took a few casual steps towards him "you didn't want to kill innocent people, that doesn't make you a coward. It makes you a half-decent person"
Typical Granger, simplifying everything. It was a whole lot more complicated than that. She was too quick to see the good in people, and it was profoundly irritating. Just because he had never killed a muggle or someone of lesser blood than him, did not mean that he hadn't even contributed towards the mindless torture of them. Just because he'd never pointed a wand at a muggle's forehead and spoken the cruciatus curse, didn't mean that he hadn't stood back and watched without doing anything about it. An inactive bystander could be just as much to blame as the person perpetrating the act of violence. And in the beginning, he had beaten them.
After taking the mark, he'd been out of his mind. The agony that followed such a violating and raw experience had left him full of fury and hate, and he had beaten several muggles and muggleborns until they were slurring as they begged for him to stop. He had washed their dirty blood off of his pale hands and used dittany on his knuckles. He caught Granger looking at his hands now and again, obviously coming up with theories for all the scars, the cogs turning in her frustratingly brilliant brain. There was no way any of it was ever that simple.
"Where is it that we're supposed to be raiding?" he asked, ignoring her attempt at reassurance, alarm bells ringing in his head. He had a habit of getting attached to people who saw the good in him, it was a rare talent, and there was no way he could let himself get attached to Granger. It would destroy him. Or much worse, destroy her. She blinked a couple of times, obviously annoyed and disappointed with him, before swallowing and drawing in a deep, stressed breath.
"It's a broken down shack near Bodmin moor, two miles west of the prison. We need to be prepared. I think we should train in combat tomorrow; we're supposed to be taking out Yaxley, Dolohov, and Travers," she informed, pointedly not looking him in the eye now, a wall slammed up between them. He nodded, moving back into the living room and opening his sketchbook out on the coffee table, taking out his pencil and sitting forward. Granger frowned and sat opposite him, also sat forward.
"Okay," he spoke, in planning mode "Yaxley and Dolohov hate each other. They've been at loggerheads for The Dark Lord's attention since before we even made a move on the ministry, they'll be distracted trying to one up each other. Travers is quick on his feet but he's dumb and young, he was barely passed through training but his father is high up in the inner circle, so he was given the mark anyway," he explained clearly and carefully, noting it down in bullet points in his neat, looped handwriting. She nodded along, understanding that apart from the codes, he knew more than her when it came to this kind of thing. He had inside knowledge.
"Yaxley has a busted left knee, he injured it in the first war when he was seventeen, so he's learned to move mostly on his right leg. If we take that out, he'll get clumsy. But he fights dirty, I've seen him bite and claw in combat before, and he has very few limits. Dolohov is slow, but he's bulky and if he gets a hit in, it'll fuck you up quite badly and make it harder to hurt him much after that. With Travers, the trick is diversion. It's easy to make him think you're going to attack him from the left so he'll angle himself accordingly – like I said though, he's dumb, but fast, so you have to be quicker than him. Best bet, get him on his left, hex him straight away on the right. Once he's confused, it's pretty easy to take him out. Granger, are you listening to me?" he said in a slightly sharper voice, looking her directly in the eyes again.
"Yes," she said, nodding.
"This isn't a joke, we're talking about trained killers here"
"You're a trained killer," she said "and if you think I haven't killed anyone before, then you're naive. Don't think I'm some sort of fragile flower Malfoy-"
"Granger," he stopped her, staring at her blandly "I think you're a lot of things, but the one thing I'll never compare you to, is a fragile fucking flower. Relax, I know you're capable," he spoke "I'm capable too, but if I don't pay attention to things like the way my opposition fights, I'll also get my ass kicked, and this will all be for nothing. Now," he said, going back to his notes "because Travers is the quickest and fittest, they'll put him out front. You can take him if you want, he bores me and you're faster than me," he admitted, and she smiled slightly, nodding again as her face slowly started to become more animated than it had been in weeks. She had a purpose now, something to plan for. If Draco was being honest, he felt the same.
"I'll take Yaxley, I've been wanting his head on a plate since he tried to rape my mother last year-"
"What?" she exclaimed, unnerved by the casual nature with which he said that sentence.
"Calm yourself, Granger, there are several people I want to kill for very similar reasons. Head in the game"
"This isn't a game, Malfoy," she growled, red faced. Oh shit. He knew that expression. She was gearing up to yell a lot and throw things. For someone who was so patient and infamous for her compassion, Granger was fucking terrifying when she was really angry. It was a good thing. She could use it, if she learned how to focus it properly.
"Yes it is Granger," he growled back, becoming more and more pissed off by the minute, and her inability to control her emotions was not helping the situation "this is The Dark Lord's game and we're nothing but players. Tomorrow, we take out his pawns, his pieces. Its salami tactics, surely you've been taught about that in your muggle schools," he replied, finding himself getting closer the more worked up he got, mirroring her body language.
"You can think of this war as a game if it makes it psychologically easier for you to bare Malfoy, but people are dying. People are being raped and beaten and murdered-"
"Don't you think I fucking know that?" he hissed, snapping, his body immediately standing up, for once unable to keep a check on it as she shot up with him, eyes narrowed, face flushed, her hair frazzling out like a goddamn cat. No, not like a cat, like a lion.
She was being naive again, and suggesting that he wasn't clued in on the reality of the war just because he had previously been on the side of the oppressors, was quite frankly one of the most vicious ways that she'd insulted him so far.
"I have seen this war," he said in a sharp, low voice. They were closer now than he'd originally realised, his breath fanning unevenly over her heated face "don't you dare assume that I don't know about this war because I'm not some poor oppressed little muggleborn-"
He was cut off mid-sentence because her hand collided with an echoic slap across his right cheekbone, the imprint of her hand leaving a trail of burning calefaction radiating from his pale skin, like fire whipping in waves of ferocity over brumal ice, momentarily chipping away a part of it, melting it slightly.
"Fuck you," she spat, reaching her limit "you have no idea what it's like. It must have been so fucking difficult for you, inflicting pain on innocent people because of the blood that runs through their veins. It must have been so terribly difficult for you, listening to the screams in the middle of the night whilst you were laid in your soft, warm bed. It must have been so damaging for you to be cradled by your loving mother whilst you sobbed and begged for it all to end. It must have been so traumatic for you," she sneered, practically fuming, the lanterns lit around the tent flickering and roaring with the force of her rage sparked magic "we are all soldiers, Malfoy," she seethed, her voice low and rough, eyes full and glassy with unshed, splenetic tears "this is not a game. This is our life. Don't dress this up like chess to detach yourself from it. That is what genocidal, blind followers do when they commit acts of despicability. Check your privilege Draco Malfoy. You are better than that. Or at least," she spoke bitterly, taking a step backward "I thought you were"
There were so many things about Draco Malfoy that intrigued Hermione. For one, she could not for the life of her understand why she was so comfortable with him, when he'd attempted to kill their headmaster only months previous, and had treated her as nothing but dirt for seven years, along with the fact that he had stood by and watched whilst she'd been tortured on his drawing room floor. But too many other things confused her as well. She seemed to be obsessed with watching him. Obviously she never did it so that he would notice, but there was something so captivating about him. Like an ugly, abstract piece of art that became more and more aesthetically bearable the more she learned about it.
She was the worst for it in the mornings when he wondered around in his underwear.
There wasn't a sexual aspect to her observations, it was just that he had such a strangely built body. Well, in comparison to the bodies she'd seen in her short time of actually looking at the partially naked human form anyway. Ron was built, bones strong, sinew thick around muscle and fair skin. She'd enjoyed being with Ron because she liked to connect the dots on his skin and map out pictures with the tips of her fingers.
Malfoy was so very different. He was thin. All of his bones were at least a little bit visible under his ghostly pale skin, and there were no natural marks; no freckles or beauty spots or birth marks. His shoulder blades stuck out, but at the same time, were cushioned by wiry, smooth looking muscle, the kind that came from playing Quidditch for years. His hips were prominent and the V that shaped them looked thin over the bones. His arms were strong and just as pale as the rest of them, but then again, his arms had never been particularly skinny, along with his legs. He had a smattering of blonde hair at the bottom of his stomach, but other than that he was mostly bare, his collar bones two long, upside down arches branching all the way across his clavicle. His ribs lined his diaphragm clearly when he moved, but his stomach was, though thin, filled in with a web of toned tendon, covered by a cadaverous carapace that all seemed to move fluidly and with a grace that was almost ironic.
And he was covered in scars. Along his spine, there were lines of pale, bumpy, disturbed flesh that looked as though they'd been inflicted with a knife. In some places they were barely visible, older, thinner. Lines that resembled nail marks drew their pasty imprints from the sides of his back, around to a few centimetres of his front as though someone had wrapped their arms around his waist and dragged their fingers across his skin on their way back out. Of course, there were the sectumsemptra scars on his chest, a lot less alarming than what they had been when first inflicted, but visible all the same. Hermione supposed he'd have them for the rest of his life, however long or short that may be.
And then there was his face. As thin as the rest of his body, though definitely broader and less pointy than it had been before he'd finished puberty – his jawline was squarish, his nose angular, his cheekbones defined and sharp. His lips were unblemished and almost impossibly soft looking, only one or two shades up from the rest of his pallid complexion. His eyes were a terribly striking colour of clear crystal blue, though not soft and calming like water – more cold and calculating, like ice. Everything about him appeared as though it should be algid, yet he was always, almost without fail, warm to the touch. He was also constantly flicking the hair from his face. It was getting slightly longer now, yet remaining the smooth and silky blonde it had always been.
"Malfoy," she asked the following day as he padded around the kitchen drinking his morning coffee, a think they'd stocked up on with abundance when they had first taken from the supermarket at the beginning of their venture "why haven't you killed me yet?"
He snorted as he turned to look at her where she was sat on the couch in the small, smelly lounge. He leant against the weak countertop and wrapped his free arm around his middle, the other occupying a mug of hot liquid that was slowly bringing him more and more into the harsh reality of the day.
"Beats me," he remarked in a low, slightly croaky voice, made quiet with the night's troubled sleep, rolling his half lidded eyes when she fixed him with a reproachful look "I'm defected Granger. I publicly disobeyed and betrayed my master and I did it to save your life. For one, it would just make this whole ordeal for nothing," he managed, although his tongue dragged on a couple of syllables because he was still half asleep "and two, I have nowhere to go if the Order kick me out of their ranks as well, and I don't think they'd want me very much if I stuck a dagger through your heart"
"Nice to know I'm held in such high esteem," Hermione replied distastefully, eyebrows raised a little as she drank her tea.
"Would you like me to spurt an elaborate declaration of love for you, Granger?" he teased, his small, sleepy smirk slightly wonky and half-assed.
"I'm quite alright without one thank you," she replied with a tiny, breathy chuckle, shaking her head at him and going back to reading over his notes about the deatheaters fighting techniques. They were going to do some training today, once they'd caught tonight's dinner and mapped out a way of actually getting anywhere near the place without being shot dead.
"I thought so," he mumbled pitifully, rolling his tongue around his mouth to get rid of the morning taste and blinking the sleep out of his eyes. Honestly, he was supposed to be some sort of terrifying ex-deatheater. Right now, he just looked like a tired Labrador.
"Where are your scars from?" she asked, and he immediately looked impatient, fixing her with a warning look.
"Granger, we came to an understanding yesterday after our little tiff in which you seem to think you firmly put me in my proverbial place, which is also now apparently equal to yours. I have agreed to make a conscious effort to be less narrow minded and a lot more co-operative. That doesn't mean I'm going to bare my fucking soul to you," he snapped, more awake than he was letting on, judging by the eloquence of his speech "where do your scars come from," he muttered under his breath grumpily "fucking stupid question," he continued to mutter as he sipped his drink with one hand, ordering the dishes in the wash basin with the other.
She took that as a hint to go back to her reading, although it didn't dissipate her curiosity. She just felt that perhaps, if she knew Malfoy better, then she wouldn't feel constant strong urges to hex him or scream at him in fits of rage, thus making their forced time together much more bearable. Alas, he continued to shut her out, she continued to read, and outside, tempestuous as ever, it rained.
She ducked under the draped shrubbery and tapped Malfoy's knee from where he was crouched on the same level beside her, nodding as they pushed up slightly and made quick, silent work of the ground, creeping soundlessly around the back of the large, derelict cabin. Harry's letter had been correct in its claim that there would be no external guards on this particular facility today, and she was grateful for it, unsure as to whether they would survive a fight against more than a few extremely accomplished death eaters.
She whispered an unlocking spell and dismantled the wards under her breath, waiting to hear the click of the mechanism in the old wooden door before she pressed against it slightly and it fell open a few centimetres. Keeping her wand clutched tightly in her hand by her hip, Malfoy followed her into the room.
It stunk of damp and rust and uninhabited nature. There were vines poking through holes in the walls, breaking up through the floorboards, wrapping themselves around the old structure, slowly strangling it.
Once they were sure there was no one around or watching them, they moved to the centre of the room. Malfoy bent and opened the hatch they'd been looking out for, pulling it up from the ground.
The both of them cringed and momentarily covered their noses when the stink of sewage leaked from the deep hole that the latch had revealed, but quickly recovered. Hermione climbed over first, taking a hold of the ladder and beginning to move downwards, trying to ignore the fact that the metal she was holding onto with every step, was covered in lime scale and coated her fingers with a gooey substance. She sniffed at it for a second on their way down, making sure it wasn't poisonous or harmful. She didn't recognise the odour or texture, so it wasn't within her repertoire – and her repertoire was pretty goddamn extensive.
On the final pole, Hermione athletically lowered her legs down first, hanging for a second to get a decent landing in range, and then jumped, bending her knees in the process to lessen the impact. Malfoy dropped in quietly behind her, and she grimaced once more at the overwhelming smell of urine.
They moved as discreetly as they could, despite the way the thin layer of water beneath their feet splashed slightly with every step, echoing softly and dimly around the circular tunnel. All the while, her eyes scanned the perimeter, ears pricking at the slightest sound; anticipating attack.
Soon, along one of the tunnels, they could see flickering light up ahead reflected on the wet surfaces of the walls, and immediately they backed up against one of them, Draco poking his head around the corner for a moment to get a look of the situation. He moved back, nodding at her, confirming that his suspicions about the positions of their opponents had been correct. She nodded in reply and closed her eyes, breathing in deeply for a moment and gathering her power, building up as much as she could.
And then Draco was moving. Hermione ducked in front of him yet again and marched with a determined expression on her face towards Travers, whose eyes widened upon seeing her, taking on a defensive pose. Within seconds, as she drew closer, she shot a killing curse at him, which he blocked. Just like that, she was moving like lightening, ducking, blocking curses and jinxes, a sheen of sweat shining on her forehead in the torch light. Behind them, Draco had given up trying to match Yaxley with his wand, and was locked in a vicious fist fight with his former comrade, their little dance moving so fast that he couldn't get a kick in where he needed to.
The moment Hermione got a chance to duck again, she sent a fast jinx at Yaxley's left knee, although she barely had a slither of a second to bathe in satisfaction before she was being disarmed. In retaliation, she was forced to duck again, dodging curses as she marched right up to Travers now, really pissed off, panting as she cracked her neck and slammed her elbow into his face, taking advantage when he buckled by stamping on his hand, forcing his wand from his grip. His fist smacked her full pelt in the gut and she was distracted for a moment, which allowed him back to his feet, nose bloody, freshly angry. She continued to fight him, trying her best to remember Draco's training, although it had been extremely last minute. She recalled a singular phrase, one that had stuck with her above all other vulgarities that he'd spewed in the process of graphically teaching her how to fight with her hands. 'When in doubt, snap the bastard's neck'.
Out of breath and growing increasingly furious with the bruises and mild breaks adding up in and on her body, she growled one last time, blocking a punch again and kneeing Travers in the testicles, wrapping her arm around his neck, keeping her foot pressed down hard on his leg so that he couldn't stand, ignoring his hands desperately gripping for her to release him. And then, closing her eyes once more, feeling the weight of murder already settling dreadfully into her bones, she yanked hard, the loud crack echoing and resonating around the tunnel. Travers dropped like a puppet to the ground, and immediately she turned to see Draco standing over Yaxley, breathlessly muttering the killing curse, before a wave of heat and green light blew the hair from her face, and there was silence once more.
A few feet away, Dolohov laid limp and thoroughly lifeless in a pool of his own blood.
And slowly, the reality of it began to ring alarm bells in Hermione's head, her eyes filling with harsh, hot tears, her mouth dropping open, a lump in her throat choking her as she struggled to articulate and process what she had just done.
And then Draco's hands were holding her face, trying to get her attention as she let out a sob, her hands shaking violently, her brown eyes wide and terrified and devastated.
"Granger," he snapped, his voice sounding far away, as though he was shouting underwater "Granger, for fuck sake c'mon, snap out of it," he spoke again and this time, her eyes flickered to meet his as the tears spilled over and dripped down her dirty, sweat stained face "Granger," he breathed, pressing their foreheads together hard "we have people relying on us; innocent people. Come on"
And then she remembered. She remembered that behind one of the doors on the sides of the walls along the tunnel, there were muggles with potentially life threatening injuries and trauma. People that needed them to keep it together right now. People that needed saving.
She shut her eyelids tight for another moment, trying to concentrate on Draco's warm, pale hands smeared in blood and his head pressed against her's, trying to draw strength and reality from the solidarity of it. And then she swallowed hard, nodding once. He let go of her face and took her hand, pulling her along, pulling every door open, the metal slamming back against the stone and whispering softly along the walls.
And all of this was only the beginning.
It was three in the morning before they'd finished patching up the muggles they'd rescued. The two children were curled up on the mattress Draco had pulled from his bed and put near the sofas in the lounge, bundled up in four layers of blankets and pillows, wrapped tight in two of his jackets. The younger one, Lucy, was sucking her thumb and wincing a little in her sleep. It triggered a deep anger in his chest, although it was of the soothing sort that assured him that he was slowly becoming a better person. At least now, without his father's hands around his neck and Voldemort's voice whispering in his ear, he could recognise that the torture of all these innocent people was wrong and insanely genocidal. And he despised himself for ever being associated with such a movement.
Leant against the countertop in the makeshift kitchen of the tent, he watched Granger, exhausted and silent, as she tended to her own injuries now that she was sure the people they'd rescued were okay.
She looked different like this. Sluggishly, she took the little remaining bandages that they had left, and began wrapping her left forearm.
Her hair was obscenely wild, the curls bigger and messier than he'd ever seen them. Her brown eyes were hooded and lined with dark shadows, her bottom lip split where she'd taken a punch to the face. She was sporting an angry red gash across her right cheekbone where a gathering of freckles dusted over her cheeks and nose, and there was still a thick line of blood matted on her skin beginning to the left of her hairline and ending near her jawline.
Looking at her properly now, he noticed the scar stretching a large section of her chest, disappearing beneath the low cut vest she was wearing, fading now, but still obvious. He noticed that she had a button nose, an oval shaped face, and a softly rounded chin. He noticed that she sat with one leg out further than the other, possibly from an old altercation, but more likely a recent injury. He noticed that her arms were strong, that she had the slender body of somebody who, despite spending so much time reading books and eating, exercised regularly and could move fast. She wasn't angled or short, nor was she large and overbearing. She was soft lines and curved edges, imperfect and unapologetically gentle. To those who were passing her in the street, or who had never encountered her for more than ten minutes, she was stunningly average and discreetly invisible. She fit neatly into a studiously plain box marked 'bookworm'.
But to those who had known her for years, she was much more complicated than that. Her imperfections had begun as her weaknesses, her insecurities. Insecurities that he had cruelly and ruthlessly exploited throughout their childhood. As a frumpy, bucktoothed, frizzy haired little know-it-all, she had been defensive and uptight and shaky. Yet somehow, in her adolescence, Granger had turned her imperfections into armour and strength, accepted them, embraced them, and found ways to utilise them. It wasn't as though her less-than-typically-attractive features hindered her wicked intelligence and incorrigibly quick wit in any way, something that he continued to be both impressed and irritated with, even in their young adulthood.
And it wasn't as though she was particularly ugly in any way, shape, or form. At least not now he was no longer blinded by intense hatred and disgust for her. Looking at her now, from a neutral point of view, he could see how Weasley found her so endearing. Her honey brown eyes and the occasional smile that tended to light up the entirety of her face, and the flush that rose to the surface of her cheeks when she was furious, was almost electric. Whilst her hair could be wild and thick to alarming levels sometimes, it was her trademark. There was simply no other type of hair that would look right on her. And at the very least, he could admire, that aside from the teeth she had shortened during their third year, all the other physical appearances he had mocked her for, had lasted. She had come into herself gracefully and shamelessly, and if anything, he could respect that.
"For fuck sake Granger," he sighed, rolling his eyes as he finished strapping his own hand and wrist where he'd sprained it snapping Yaxley's neck "you're fucking that up. Here, let me do it"
Sitting on the coffee table in front of her, he took her arm from her and tightened the bandage slightly, enough to support the injury and protect it, but not so that it cut off the circulation. She simply allowed him to work, too tired, he supposed, to bother arguing with him. It wasn't as though they had much energy left to fight each other anyway.
When he'd finished with her arm, he summoned a bowl and filled it with water from his wand, muttering a heating spell and dipping cotton wool in it, beginning to dab at the blood near her hair. He probably could have siphoned it off, but right now he needed to be doing something with his hands. Right now he needed something to concentrate on so that he didn't lose his mind.
Trying to ignore the fact that this was the closest he'd ever been to Granger's face aside from in the tunnel, he cleaned her skin as gently as he could, trying not to wince at the deep cut where the blood was originating from. As he did so, he could feel Granger's eyes watching him softly, her brow slightly furrowed, breath even and slow, the small amount of space between them warm and pensive and quiet.
After whispering the few healing spells he could manage to seal the skin back together, he moved onto her cheekbone. This laceration was longer and deeper than the other one, and the skin around it was grazed and red. Vanishing the dirty water and used cotton wool, he summoned some more and cautiously started around the edges. She winced and hissed as the hot water began to clean it. He didn't apologise, but wordlessly, he held her chin still slightly with his other hand, thumb pressed to her jaw, fingers curved underneath it, making his dabs softer and more careful.
In his whole life, he had never imagined that this was where he would end up. He never could have imagined that he would be sat so close to Granger without trying to hurt her or inconvenience her in some way. He had spent the majority of his years waging such an intense, deep dislike for her heritage and blood; he would never in a million years have guessed that he'd be on the run, harbouring rescued muggles, wiping Granger's blood from her skin with no qualms or second thoughts.
Her blood was all over his fingers yet again. Years ago, the only way he would have allowed such a situation, would be down to an injury he had caused her. Instead, her blood was smudged across the tips of his fingers because… oh for fuck sake, it was because he wanted to make it alright. He wanted her to be okay. He didn't want to look at her and feel all this guilt and self-hatred. He wanted to do everything that he could to make it all up to her. He at least owed her this much.
Honestly, it was all well and good until he had focused on her split lip. It was red and still bleeding a little, and despite its lack of severity, it was this one that probably stung the most. But staring at her mouth made it almost impossible for him to sit still suddenly.
She had such an annoying mouth. He was unsure as to how a person's mouth could actually be annoying, but it just was. Her lips were full and curved and chapped, and there were always teeth marks where she'd been fiercely nibbling and biting at them in unconscious thought. Maybe it was because she expressed herself with her mouth so much, but her lips were one of the most notable parts of her, and to be quite frank, the way she constantly chewed on them, drove him crazy.
Swallowing tightly, he shifted a little and tried to refocus, one of his hands still holding her chin stationary, the other stippling the small laceration with the cotton. He really did not want to think about why the air around him had suddenly become a lot thicker and difficult to breathe. Not spending longer than he really had to on it, he finished cleaning it quickly, and almost rushed the healing spell.
"Thank you," she spoke as he vanished yet another lot of dirty water. He shrugged and shuffled his buttocks backwards slightly on the table, sitting forward still, arms resting on his knees, hands clutched together, legs open slightly. He wet his dry lips and squinted tiredly, bringing one hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb, huffing and stretching his arms above his head, closing his eyes and breathing out heavily when the bones and muscles moved and clicked, sore and aching.
"You were making a mess of it. No point in you being bed bound for days because of some fuck off awful infection when it could just be prevented"
"All the same," she repeated "thank you. I know… I know it's still difficult for you, touching me and – well, being around my blood"
"Don't be ridiculous Granger," he sighed, hanging his head and distractedly bringing one hand up to massage the back of his neck "even if it was difficult for me, it wouldn't make a difference. I've been a bigoted asshole towards you for most of our lives; what makes me uncomfortable when it comes to your blood, is irrelevant. As you so aptly informed me last week; my discomfort is nothing compared to the way that you have suffered"
There were another few moments of quiet in which the only sounds were their breath, and the soft, stifled snoring of little Lucy and her sister, Margo. The older muggles, Megan and Amy, were asleep in Granger's bed, curled up together, traumatised and clutching each other through their nightmares.
"Things are so different now," Granger's voice came minutes later, drained, wearied, and broken "I mean," she spoke, the crack in her voice causing his chest to contract slightly "I knew things were going to change. I – I just don't think I was prepared for it to be this drastic"
"None of us were Granger," he replied, shrugging again and lifting his head to meet her eyes this time "in a way, we shouldn't have had to be. There isn't really a way you can properly prepare yourself for war and mass death when you're seventeen years old"
Granger raised her eyebrows in agreement and sat back against the sofa, body slack and loose, eyelids getting heavier by the minute. A lethargy was settling in his blood, his skin feeling tight, eyes dry and itchy.
"Lay down if you're going to sleep Granger," he said blandly "you don't want to get a crick in your neck"
It was clear just how tired she was by the way she didn't make a snarky comment about him being concerned for her comfort. She very much enjoyed pointing out that he wasn't as horrid and cruel as he allowed everybody to think, so the fact that she silently turned her body horizontal and curled up, shaking a little from the chill of the winter rain and hugging her limbs inward, was a clue as to just how out of it she really was. She closed her eyes immediately, and without a word, he went to his room and gathered a couple of blankets, moving back into the living room and tutting at her.
She was already fast asleep, brow furrowed even in her dreams, lips slightly parted, breath steady and quiet. He placed the blankets over her body and crouched near Lucy and Margo, checking their breathing. In a moment of sadness and exhaustion, he reached out, gently pushing the hair from Lucy's young face, her tiny six year old body tightly tucked into her sister's. And the anger returned, stronger than before. These girls were just children, barely even aware of what was going on around them. And the deatheaters had beaten them bloody, tortured them, starved them. Two, scared, innocent little girls.
And for the first time, he was truly glad that he was no longer affiliated with the evil, disgusting bastards. Honestly, he hated his father more than anything, for forcing that life on him, for making it all he had known for seventeen years. For the first time, he didn't want to be neutral anymore. For the first time, he felt himself making a solid decision. He was now a member of The Order of the Phoenix, and he would be damned if he didn't fight to make sure every single malevolent fucker that he used to call his comrade felt the extent of the pain they were inflicting.