Disclaimer! I do not own any of the characters in this story, these all sprang from JK Rowlings mind. I am not profiting from this in anyway. I do not wish to be sued, all I have is a beat up Dodge Neon, the trash in the back seat, a drawing pad, and a small library of books I've collected over the years. It doesn't add up to much. D:
Authors Notes: I've been made aware that I have not put enough character development into the making of this, I thought I had but when I re-read it I realized the person was right. I shall endeavor to correct that mistake from this moment on. The Malfoys can be a royal pure blooded pain in the ass to write so please have patience with me. Thank you for reading, it means a lot to me. Please Review so that I know how to improve, but be gentle. My skin is not very thick, and this is my first fic.
Chapter 1
The Inferno
Spinning.
She was five again and spinning dizzily in the falling snow.
Any moment her mother would come to the door.
Any moment she would hear the call to come inside, and wipe those muddy boots off if you please.
And then she blinked.
The snow was turning gray, why was the snow turning gray?
There was so much heat, it shouldn't be this hot during the winter.
The snow would melt, and then Dad wouldn't be able to make the snowman with her.
They wouldn't be able to have the annual family snowball fight.
She blinked again, her eyes wouldn't stop watering.
She had hay fever not snow fever.
She wished that the heat would stop pressing on her skin.
Mum should have the tea on by now. What time was it?
She should go in.
One step forward.
Two.
Why couldn't she walk any faster?
She blinked for the third time.
But when she closed her eyes it was as if she had shut them for seventeen years.
Mum. Dad. Happy. Hogwarts. Mum. Dad. Still loving.
Anger. She had been mad because Mum and Dad didn't approve of Hogwarts.
Understanding. Reconciliation.
Love.
Love.
Listening to Mum. Running an errand.
She dropped the eggs she was carrying.
She opened her eyes.
And screamed.
***
Draco looked up as his father entered the room. He of course sat poised as a prince on his best behavior. His spoon was halfway to his cracked egg. Lucius looked agitated. He threw his cane at the nearest house elf. "Coffee, strong. Now."
"Something troubling you, Father?" Draco resisted the urge to quirk an eyebrow, as his Godfather so often did. Severus Snape's habits were not ones that he particularly wanted to pick up on. Though he had to admit the man had a hilarious sardonic look.
Lucius accepted a delicate china cup being offered to him by the tiny creature. "Severus has just informed me that the mudblood's home is the next target."
Draco immediately abandoned the pretense of being interested in his egg and set his spoon down on the marble counter with a sharp clink that comes from making every movement with a certain degree of decisiveness. "Do you mean, the Mudblood? Miss. Ganger?"
Lucius had his back turned to Draco regarding the Malfoy grounds that could be viewed through the breakfast room window. He turned his head enough to give a sharp nod. "He was quite certain."
"It will be a blow to Potter. His immediate reaction will to be estrange himself from all those that would fight along side him."
"My son, your flair for stating the obvious is quite appalling. Perhaps we should have sent you to Beauxbatons after all." He was rolling up his sleeves, and Draco could just see the tip of a snake like tattoo. "Severus wants us to see what we can do about delaying in time to get the Granger's away or even stopping the murder period."
Draco snorted. "Oh yes, that'll go over brilliantly." He pushed his coffee away, now having fully lost the desire to feel anything hit the pit of his stomach. "Sometimes I think you two enjoy seeing which of us you can get cursed the most often." He ran artful fingers through his hair. "I assume you promptly told him no....Father?" Lucius did not turn around. "Oh, for the love of the Gods! Father!?"
Lucius turned and Draco was brought up short. " Of course I said there was nothing we could do. We're not supposed to know about this, which obviously shows the Dark Lord's increasing paranoia. Nothing would change were I to say something, except we might possibly lose a source of information."
"You happen to be a bit more than a source of information for me. Try and remember it on occasion." Draco was tracing the pattern of the French wall molding with his eyes while speaking, his sharp grey eyes focused and intent, obviously seeing beyond his mother's taste in home decor. "But we can be there to pick up the pieces. How long do we have, we might be able to move them in time."
"Sev is finding out so--"
He was stopped mid -sentence as a letter shot out of the fire place. It sliced through the air past the elder blonde's nose. Draco caught it deftly between two fingers, glanced at the front and proceeded to open the letter without delay. "Shit." He threw the letter to his father.
Lucius glanced at it. "Grab an emergency kit, lets go."
Draco turned and barked a command to the house elf waiting on the breakfast room. Father and son proceeded post haste to the front doors of Malfoy Manor. Two house elves awaited them at the large double doors, one carrying Draco's robe, boots, and the medical aid kit. A black bag, sealed shut and containing strong to mild sedatives, bandages, a small box compartmentalized with various medicinal herbs... The other elf held Lucius's cane and cloak out to him.
"Severus will have made the Order aware in due course, prepare yourself."
Draco nodded sharply and as they proceeded out the front doors, and down the path to the edge of the apparating barrier he felt a deep sense of foreboding creep over his body.
***
The knowledge of the present time slammed into Hermione as if she'd been hit by a bloody double decker and she drew her wand from her hair. She kept it there on occasion while in the muggle world. Most just thought it to be an ornate hair stick.
She felt the locks of her hair drop to her shoulders, still slightly heavy from the shower she had taken in the house that now blazed in front of her. But she took no real notice of the errant thought, she was already running at full capacity into her burning home.
"Mum!?" Her breath was coming heavily, though she knew she had run for quite a bit more than this before."Dad!?" Shock, her mind told her. She didn't care.
"MUM DAD! WHERE ARE YOU!?"
The burning of the wood was so loud it was ridiculous. "MOTHER!? MUMMY PLEASE!" They were not here. She couldn't find them. Mum should have been in the kitchen. She ran up the groaning staircase, ignorant of the inferno closing in behind her. "MUM!"
The pastel flowered wallpaper was visibly aging in front of her eyes as she fell into a coughing fit.
She leaned heavily on the wall, sagging towards the ground. It's the smoke, her mind told her. Crawl. Cover your mouth. She did as her logic bade her. She covered her mouth and nose with her tee shirt and crawled towards her parents bedroom.
She fell into a second coughing fit. When she was finally able to look up she stopped dead on her knees. The ring, the simple ring that was the symbol of unity for her family was glittering brightly in the orange light. The hand on which it still rested lay limp, falling from her parents bedroom door.
"No no no nononuahhh- no." She heard a voice crying. The word repeated over and over again as she crawled closer to her mother's delicate hand. The world around her had gone strangely quiet and her vision had dimmed considerably. All she could see was that ring. She reached forward to her mother's pale hand and clasped it in her own trembling ones. It was cold despite the fire that she knew was raging all around them.
The most awful smell reached her nose, and she slid closer to the doorway, the heat blazed out of it and she recognized the scent. It was burning flesh. She'd smelled it before at great Aunt Muriel's cremation. The incense set out hadn't quite done the trick the family had been hoping it would.
"No no no no no no no..." She tugged at her mothers hand. 'No no no no no no. Mummy no no no'. As she slid her face close to that cold, cold hand she saw through the doorway, her fathers arms protectively hugging her mothers waist, his eyes staring at her while his lower legs burned.
She felt her mouth salivate and then she threw up. It took her a moment to figure out was wet and dripping down her chest, she still had her tee-shirt pulled up over her nose.
'No no no no no no no,' She weakly protested.
And then she knew no more.
***
She opened her eyes, the orange blaze even stronger.
Someone was leaning over her, she couldn't see. Cold hands slid around her shoulders, and under her legs, her skirt fluttering out of their way, as though they had commanded it.
***
Grey eyes. Someone spoke her name, but she couldn't focus. She stared listlessly back. They were beautiful she thought. Like diamonds.
Diamonds.
She screamed and kicked and bucked, she hit the ground with a thud as did the thing holding her up. She struggled to reach her mother's hand again. The arms were encircling her once more. Pulling her away again. She gripped her mother's hand, as the pull took her, and the ring away from soft fingers. She clung to the grasp till the pull strengthened. And then the hand dropped back to the carpet. Lifeless.
***
Draco cursed in three different languages when they arrived on the scene to see the mudblood race into her destroyed home. There were no Death Eaters present. Though the Dark Mark flashed like a disgusting tag of hatred in the sky above the small house. The place was already an inferno.
His father repeated his sentiments a second later than he had spoken them and they raced up the small foot path after the idiot girl.
Draco immediately ran to the staircase just as a resounding crack echoed down it. His Father shouted him name.
"I'm alright! Check the first floor." The beam, which had fallen almost directly behind Draco, crackled like a mad hatter and Draco turned with focused determination. Only one way to go now anyways.
He raced up the rest of the narrow staircase and looked down the hall. She was there. He dropped to his knees as the smoke thickened and crawled after her. 'Oh yes, that has a nice ring to it. Crawling after Granger on my hands and knees.' He didn't smile at his inner monologue. Sev always said he had a twisted and inopportune sense of humor. At the moment he couldn't help but agree.
She was coughing, a deep wet sound thrusting out of her tiny throat. He grabbed her ankle but she didn't seem to notice.
"No no no no no no no." Draco lifted onto his feet, crouched down, he deftly pointed his wand at his throat. "Sonoraus. Father! I've got her!" His father's voice sounded in the air. "Outside!"
He glanced about them quickly. There would be no going back down the stairs and he could feel the heat coming through the other doors in the hall. That just left a dead end wall. "South wall's where we'll come out!"
Draco muttered the counter spell, and shoved his wand back into it's holster and crawled closer to the sobbing girl's head.
"Granger....Granger!" She couldn't hear him. She'd thrown up, and her eyes were staring vacantly at her father's face."
'Oh bloody hell.' That was going to give him nightmares and it was probably going kill her. The muggle man's face was lifted, staring at them while the lower portion of his body burned. There was another loud crack. He winced at the combined scents of burning home, burning flesh, and puke.
He rolled her onto her side, and slide his arms under her legs and shoulders.
"Granger- Her-Hermione." He stuttered over the unfamiliar taste of her name in his mouth. "Can you hear me? I'm lifting you to take you to safety." There was a sharp flicker of awareness in her eyes, he straightened holding onto her lightly, not wanting to frighten her.
And then she screamed. She bucked up so quickly that he lost his balance as the heel of her hand slammed into his nose. He heard a crack, not coming from the blaze around him., and he felt the slightest trickle of blood. She was pulling her weight back towards her mothers dead hands.
"Oh, for fuck's sake, Granger." He grabbed her again tightly. She was muttering something.
"Diamond. The ring. The ring." She was holding her mother's hand in her own. Draco slowly slide his arms back under her legs and began to lift again. She did not fight him. She just held on.
The place was beginning to fall down around them. He strengthened his pull on her, and she came with him this time. He pulled her arms around him, and she held on. With another quick movement he had his wand out of the holster again and he blasted a hole at the end of the hall. Clutching her like a rag doll he stepped to the edge. Lucius was running around the side of the building. He quickly applied a basic levitation charm.
Just as Draco's feet touched the ground there was another loud crack and then the center of the house caved inwards, the flames licking into the night sky.
To be Continued
ohmahgosh, can't believe the first chapters posted!
Thank you to my fantastic Beta Melanie. I'm afraid I may have lost her excellent services though, since I disappeared off the face of the earth. It was actually under a mountain of home work and actually work. She is simply all that is win though, I cannot thank her enough. Thank you once again for reading this short short chapter, I'm hoping to gain momentum here, and make them much longer in the future. Remember to review please please please!
sincerely,
Fidella