Chapter 4: Thick Blood

TW for gore and violence.

Updated 7/17/18


Thursday, October 17th. Continued.

They arrive in the backyard of Andromeda's house and Hermione steps away from Malfoy's still-prone body, dropping his wrist like his skin has burned her. Her chest is heaving, but Andromeda is already walking out towards her, her wand raised and the house lit up behind her, bright yellow.

"Where have you been?" Andromeda is always calm, always composed, and always cold in a way that Hermione at once fears and admires. Her voice rings clearly in the still night air. Hermione can't tell if Andromeda even knew she left in the first place but she betrays no surprise now.

"I figured out the code. Well, enough of it to be getting on with. The Death Eaters were moving a thing. Tonight." And with this, Hermione Granger wins the Most Informative Speech of the Year award. "They had a prisoner."

Andromeda Tonks approaches the body on the ground at Hermione's feet. "Who is it?" she asks and there is no anger, still, although Hermione is sure that someone will have anger for her later. She was very stupid. Very rash. She could have gotten herself killed. Worse than killed, even, if they had tortured information out of her.

"Draco Malfoy," Hermione's eyes follow Andromeda's down to Malfoy's battered face, mangled and expressionless, still stunned. The patches of coagulating blood along the jagged lines of broken skin shine orange and gold in the light.

The older witch considers this for a moment, simply staring at Malfoy's calm features. She looks like she is calculating the weight of each bruise, the net worth of shredded skin. "Narcissa's son?" she asks eventually, and suddenly Hermione wonders if she is looking for her sister in the battered lines of Malfoy's face.

When was the last time she even laid eyes on her sister? This might be the first time that Andromeda is seeing her nephew and he is all but unrecognizable.

"Yes," she says eventually because there are no real words for this sort of situation. Hermione rubs her thumb over the base of her wand.

"You shouldn't have brought him here," Andromeda is still staring down at him, etching the image of him into her brain.

"Sorry?" Hermione's voice is high when she answers and she rocks forward on her feet because she is sure that she has misheard Andromeda's words because her expression is too tender to mean that she is turning him away. Where will he go if he cannot stay here?

"He is a Death Eater and he probably has a trace on him. Take him to Azkaban immediately. I will send word to Dawlish that you will be bringing him shortly."

"Azkaban?" Hermione echoes. She is trying to keep up with what is happening, but she can't understand. "No," she says because maybe she wasn't clear the first time. She tilts her chin down and speaks out loud and clear, just so there is no confusion. "He was their prisoner. Look what they did to him!" She gestures with her left hand at Malfoy's face, which is still leaking blood onto the grass.

"And he is also a Death Eater," Andromeda repeats. She is calm, and this is starting to annoy Hermione, just a bit. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a shadow move, but Andromeda doesn't seem to notice it because she is still staring down at Malfoy with an almost loving expression. "How they deal with their own is no business of ours."

"This is insane!" Hermione counters and her voice is loud and she is gesturing at the air between them. "He's hurt!"

"No." Andromeda's eyes rise to Hermione's face and the cold composure in them stops Hermione before she can say another word. Andromeda's hands are clasped in front of her, around her wand. Her knuckles are white. "This is a war. He is the enemy. Dawlish will let the Aurors on guard know that you are on your way."

Hermione shakes her head. She has to calm down. Shouting won't accomplish anything except making her look more childish than she is. "I've never been to Azkaban before. I can't take him there."

"To the ministry, then. Kingsley should still be in his office. It isn't too late yet. I would offer to take him, but I am on healer's watch until Nymphadora and the others return. Excuse me." She turns and heads back to the house. The conversation is very clearly over.

Hermione takes three deep breaths through her nose. Of course, she shouldn't have brought Draco Malfoy here. She was a fool to think otherwise. But what else could she do? He is laid out as still as a corpse when she takes his wrist and apparates them both to the ministry.


The Atrium is empty when she arrives and she doesn't know where Kingsley's office is. Since the assassination of Rufus Scrimgeour on the night of Bill and Fleur's wedding, the ministry has kept the movements of the new minister as quiet as possible to avoid another attack. Thank god the Death Eater coup for the ministry failed. Hermione doesn't know what they would do if it fell.

Malfoy is laying on the ground at her feet, but his wrist is still in her hand. His fingers twitch.

Gingerly, Hermione sets his wrist on the ground at his side. She takes a step away from him and points her wand at his chest.

His eyes open and stare at the ceiling before wheeling in a slow circle around himself, taking in his surroundings.

"We're in the Atrium at the ministry," she says, although he probably doesn't need her to say it. Her voice echoes around her even though she was trying to be quiet. She looks around, too. The shadows are long in the corners around the black fireplaces and she tries not to imagine what could be lurking in those dark spaces. She remembers the dark cell and the body and the monster in the corner and she takes a step back towards Malfoy without realizing it. "We're waiting for someone."

"Who?"

His voice startles her. She didn't think he would speak, had forgotten that he could. His voice is shoes scraping over dirt, and it is deeper than she remembers it being, and she wonders if it's because he's older, because he doesn't talk much now, or because he's been injured. It could by any of them but it doesn't really matter which.

She opens her mouth to tell him the truth about why they are here—that Andromeda turned them away and now he is going to prison and it is in no way her fault at all—but then there are footsteps. Several sets of them, and there are loud voices that she knows but doesn't believe. She is afraid, suddenly, that something has gone terribly wrong and no one has yet realized it.

"Untie me," he hisses so quickly she has to replay his words in her head to understand their meaning.

She must give him a look that says quite clearly how insane he must think she is, because he gives her an even look and says very calmly, "Fenrir Greyback and six of his werewolves are coming up the stairs at the end of the hall. They are unkind to witches. My body will slow them down for a few minutes, at most, but they will persist until they find you. They can smell you as clearly as I can and they are faster than you are. I will not attack you. I do not want to die by the hand of your great black friend, Mudblood. I am more useful alive than dead."

She only has a second to decide and she doesn't have time to piece together his words, but he is clearly not on good terms with the Death Eaters and the enemy of her enemy must, hopefully, be her friend. Under normal circumstances, his use of the word Mudblood would be enough for her to leave him there to rot, but his voice is so pathetic, slurred around broken teeth and a badly broken jaw. She whispers Diffindo and tries to aim at the thick knot in the rope at the side of his thigh, but her hands shake so badly that the spell also cuts through the dark fabric of his pants and the skin beneath them, too. He lets out a sound that might have been a sigh and then he is on his feet.

Hermione doesn't have time to apologize or scream before he is upon her, one hand clamped around her mouth and the other gripped around her wrist so hard that she can feel the bone bending under his fingers. "Don't make a sound," he breathes into her ear. His breath smells like iron and rot. Her neck aches from straining against his grip and she realizes he is dragging her backward away from the staircase and the voices. She stumbles along, her feet begging for purchase, but it doesn't matter because he is moving her whether she wants to go or not. She tried to raise her wand against him, but of course he keeps her wrist pinned to her side as they move.

Then, suddenly, he is not moving anymore and she realizes that they are in an alcove that she has never noticed before. It must be a storage closet whose door has been left open, a disinterested part of her brain pipes up distractingly. Once they are in the closet, his pins her against the far wall and pulls his hand from her wrist. He keeps his other hand clamped firmly across her mouth, though, and breathes, "Not a noise, no matter what," against her hair.

Of course, her first instinct is to punch him in the face, tie him up, and then disapparate both of them somewhere safe, but Malfoy isn't paying any attention to her. He is half-turned turned toward the open door like a dog scenting the air and the voices are getting closer. Light is streaming into the cupboard and his face is as blank as a doll's, his eyes fixed out of the room onto something she can't see. Hermione's back is pressed against the wall and Malfoy has positioned himself directly between her in the door. Probably to keep her from running out and giving them away, she thinks savagely. As if she would ever do something as stupid as that!

Someone hoots in laughter and there is the scuffling of shoes across the stone. Someone breathes heavily. Hermione realizes he lied to her. There is a flood of feet across marble.

"Come on now, Mister Minister," Fenrir's voice is more wolf than human. "Where's your sense of fun?"

Kingsley answers, but his voice is too quiet for Hermione to hear him, even though she holds her breath and strains her ears to listen.

There is a round of jeering laughter and something slaps against the ground. Hermione struggles against Malfoy's grip, but his hand across her chest is like an iron bar. She tries to scream against his hand, but cannot make a sound. She bites at him, tastes the tang of iron, but still he doesn't move.

"Now, that wouldn't be in good sport, would it, Mister Minister?"

She can't start turning to disapparate and she can't get her arm up to hex him. She kicks him instead, brings her hands up to claw at his arm, raking away thick tracts of skin, but he doesn't so much as look at her. Gone are the days when an ounce of pain would send Malfoy squealing for his father. Her face is wet with tears. She curses him over and over in her mind and wishes she had left him with the Death Eaters in the wood.

There is a scuffle of footsteps and the sound of skin connecting with skin. Someone swears, but others laugh.

"We've got a fighter, hey boys!" Greyback crows.

Hermione closes her eyes, willing the tears to stop. What are you doing? she silently prays, Someone, anyone help him!

This is the point when the Order of the Phoenix is supposed to sweep in and save the day. Here is when the Aurors swarm through the fireplaces and kill Greyback and his monsters. Where is Lupin? Where is Dumbledore? Where is god or justice or the triumph of good over evil? Kingsley Shacklebolt, the minister of magic, who rubbed circles on Hermione's back when she vomited onto the floor, who handed her stacks of code to decipher, is being taken away by werewolves. Where are Harry and Ron?

A scuffle breaks out in the Atrium and Hermione freezes when someone shouts, "He's got my wand!" Hope roars wild in her chest.

"Expecto Patronum!" Bellows Kingsley, "Find Arthur," he snaps out as someone collides with him, "The ministry has fallen!" The last syllable is cut off as he smacks to the floor and Hermione winces at the sound, "They are coming!" There is a flash of white light as Kingsley's Lynx rushes past their closet.

Greyback swears loudly, "The Dark Lord isn't going to like that. Come on!" There is the sound of something heavy dragging across the floor. Hermione can see the green light of a fireplace coming to life across the hall. "The Manor!" growls Greyback. Six voices do the same and then the atrium is silent.

It is only when he steps forward into the Atrium without her that Hermione realizes Malfoy has released her.

Hermione snaps into action. Her mind is filing away new information, processing changes, and looking up material even as she chases after Malfoy and stops a foot behind him as he bends stiffly at the waist, examining something that she hasn't seen yet. Questions are tumbling one after the other out of her mouth. "Can we follow them to the manor? How did you know how many there were? Where are they taking him? What are you looking at? Are you working with them? Answer me, Malfoy!"

He crouches down and when she walks right up behind him, she sees that it is blood in a pool on the floor that he is staring at. "Whose is that?" She asks before she can stop herself. She thinks she knows, but she doesn't want to assume anything, especially now that nothing seems as stable as it did half an hour ago. She imagines that the floor she is standing on is ice, only she didn't realize that before she heard it start to snap under her feet. She rubs her wand with her thumb in small, nervous circles.

Malfoy looks up at her. "Do I look like a tracking hound to you, Granger?" There is a cool scorn in his voice that she recognizes; a smug lilt to his aristocratic accent and she grabs on to the sense of comfortable antagonism that it awakens in her.

"Then how did you know how many there were? How did you know they had K-Kingsley? Why did you lie to me?" The words choke out before she can stop them. Then, again, the question forces itself out, "Where are they taking him?" Like she doesn't already know. Like there is hope for him.

"I am not an oracle, Mudblood," and his pale gaze slides past her and around to the fireplaces. "What I know and what I don't know are not known for naught."

She furrows her brow and raises her wand at him. "How did you know how many there were before you saw them, then?" she asks and her voice is cold. This is important. This might be an answer that she can use. She just watched their best hope get taken away by a pack of werewolves. She doesn't want to be fucked with. Not now. "Did you know?" He must have; she can't see any other explanation for the way he dragged her into the closet and kept her pinned against the wall.

"I know many things. You'll have to be more specific." He eyes the tip of her wand the way one watches a fly on a windowsill.

"Don't play dumb, Malfoy. You know what I'm talking about." and she isn't sure that she could tell him out loud if she wanted to. The words she needs to say don't exist. Not in any language she knows, anyway. How does one sum up the witness of atrocity? One doesn't, of course, and that is the most violent part of it—the part that can't even be put into words.

"What, pray, do you think you will do with that wand that will make me answer you?"

The question catches her off guard, but he hasn't moved from his place on the floor and suddenly she realizes that she must look like she's threatening him. Then, she wonders if maybe this isn't such a bad thing, since he dragged her across the floor not five minutes ago. Hermione is in a place where paths fork. She has two options: She can be sure that the information she wants from Malfoy comes and quickly. She's never cast an unforgivable before, detests dark magic as a rule, but this is a war, and she has never had trouble mastering spells in a pinch. The boy—man, monster—on the ground in front of her is the first one to teach her hatred, the first one to infect her with a slur that she has spent the last seven years trying to rip out of her own veins, the one who set up Dumbledore to die. If there was ever someone beyond redemption, who was not worth her mercy, it is him. But she has a second option, too, and soon as she knows that she has a choice, she is doomed to make the right one.

She lowers her wand, but only just so the point is fixed on his still-blue toes. She doesn't do it for him—she'll never do him any favors if she can help it. She doesn't do it because he is worth saving—he isn't. She does it because he is not worth ruining herself over and she doesn't want the stink of dark magic on her for the sake of someone like him.

"I won't do anything to you," she finally says, "I just don't want you to grab me again and I don't trust you."

He considers this for a moment and doesn't answer.

"But please, Malfoy," she grinds the words out between clenched teeth.

"You may ask one question." His eyes are off of her again and she doesn't know what he's looking at, but his gaze is flicking back and forth like he can read secrets on the walls behind her.

She doesn't need long to figure out how she'll spend her one question. "How did you know how many were coming?" she repeats. Malfoy's posture changes so that he is turned slightly away from the dark corner directly behind Hermione and she feels a prickle along the nape of her neck that she associates with being watched. She flicks her eyes back to the corner but doesn't see anything in the shadow.

"I guessed, Mudblood," he says distractedly, and then he is looking at the blood again, dipping his fingers into it. "Ask your dark friend if you want to know more about that."

He doesn't answer anything she says after that, although she asks again and again what does he mean? who is he working for? why was he a prisoner? what the hell does he mean by dark friend? Does he mean Kingsley? If so, this is racist in a whole new way that he has never mentioned before.

"We should leave," he stands so suddenly she takes a step back and her breath catches in her throat. If he notices, he doesn't give any sign. "We are not safe here."

"Well, obviously," she huffs. She doesn't know where to take him, though. She knows she was supposed to take him to Azkaban, but that was before things got quite so complicated. For now, though, she doesn't know what to do. She can't take him back to Andromeda's, and she hasn't been to any of the other safe houses that are currently in use. She has to contact Lupin before she does anything else with Malfoy. She has to tell them about Kingsley so they can mount a rescue and set things straight once and for all. "Come here," she says and holds out her arm. "I know where we'll go."

He loops his hand around the cloth of her jumper like he doesn't want to touch her. Like she is contagious. She grinds her teeth together and her lips thin.


When they arrive at Grimmauld place, it is as silent as death, which is exactly what she was hoping for. He doesn't complain when she raises her wand and stupefies him before running up to the second floor to look for first aid supplies because she can't leave him broken up but she can't leave him on his own, either. He isn't exactly trust-inspiring. When she returns with an armful of bandages, he is precisely where she left him, and she lets out a shaky breath before she ennervates him.

"Here," she says, and shoves an armful of cloth at him. He inspects the bundle warily before he takes it and then pulls out the metal first aid kit that she was lucky enough to find in the bathroom on the second landing. "There's a bottle of dittany, some wound cleaner, and some bruise cream, too. I don't know much about healing spells, past some basics, but those should take care of the worst of it." Hopefully, she doesn't say. "You probably shouldn't, uh, shower until your feet are a normal color again," she is reaching back in her head for everything she has ever learned about first aid magic. "They look a bit frost-bitten to me. I'll fix your face for you if you want."

He gives her a look that says quite plainly that he would rather not, but he nods.

Her wand is out and between her fingers, and, "Let's start with your mouth," she suggests. "Go on, open up."

He gingerly, grudgingly, opens his mouth.

She tries not to gag. It is not that he is simply missing teeth. There are jagged chunks of tooth still embedded in his gums and other spaces where there are no teeth left at all. All things considered, though, the damage is much worse to his top teeth than to his bottom ones, and his right bottom molars are almost completely undamaged, although they are as pink as his gums. Hermione has seen a mouth or two in her time. She can remember summers spent reading in the chair in her mother's office, leafing through Dental Reference Books and asking questions about gum disease. She tries not to think about what her parents would say if they could see Malfoy's mouth now. Every time she thinks about them, a knife twists in her chest and she must repeat to herself that they are safe in Australia like it is a prayer.

The stench of rot is overpowering. She looks away from him and breathes through her mouth. She steels herself, looks back and says "Episkey," with a wave of her wand. The split in his lip mends and a chunk of tooth is pushed out of his fast-repairing gum line. He prods it into his palm with his tongue and opens his mouth again.

She turns her head to the left to breathe shakily before returning her attention to him, trying not to inhale in his face, lest she actually vomit. God, he smells horrible. "Episkey," she says again and she can hear his jaw popping back into place with a nauseating click. "Episkey," and his nose straightens with a series of small crunches as cartilage shifts over bone. "Episkey," and the thin stream of blood leaking from a gash on his sunken cheek sews itself shut and the cheek beneath it re-inflates.

After forty-five minutes and six more castings, his face is almost visible under a thick layer of bruising, although she still isn't sure she would recognize him. "I don't think I'll be able to do anything about the rest of your teeth, though," she adds apologetically. "I mean, I could grow them out, but maybe if you just rinse your mouth out with Dittany, it'll be better. So they aren't jagged, you know."

He nods mutely but doesn't move.

"Do you want to change?" She suggests. She glances at the clock. She has to contact the order to tell them about Kingsley but she doesn't want to do it in front of Malfoy.

He just stares at her blank as a board.

"Well, go on," she nods towards the bathroom door, "I'm not going to wait all night."

He finally goes to change and she floos Andromeda.

"Oh, Hermione," it is Tonks who answers. "I was so worried! Mum said you brought back a Death Eater? Wherever you are, don't move. Security has been compromised and the floo network isn't safe."

"I found Draco Malfoy. Some Death Eaters were taking him somewhere."

"That doesn't matter now. The ministry has fallen. Kingsley's been taken. We shouldn't be talking on this right now."

"I know. About Kingsley."

This seems to catch Tonks off guard. "What do you mean?"

"I was there." And she tells Tonks as much as she can about what she overheard from the closet at the ministry. "And so now he's changing in the bathroom."

"You left your back open to him?" Tonks roars her eyes suddenly wide with fear.

Before anything else can happen, Tonk's face has left the fire and she is standing beside Hermione her wand drawn. "Where is he?"

"I'm here, cousin." The smooth reply comes from the doorway.

Malfoy has clearly used a liberal amount of the bruise cream because his face is clear and he looks almost like the boy she knew in school. He is gaunt, and the hollows around his eyes make him seem more animal, more skeleton, than man, and his lips are still concave around an empty mouth of broken teeth, but he looks remarkably at ease in Ron's shirt (too long), Harry's pants (too short), and socks she found bunched under Ron's bed (but seem to fit him fine). Like he has owned every article of clothing all his life. Even broken, he retains a grace that she can only envy in a small corner of her mind that is reserved for such vacuous thoughts, even at times like this.

Tonk's wand is on him. "Give me a reason, Malfoy. A single one."

He just stares back at her. Hermione is invisible in the room behind the older witch. She eases her own wand out of her pocket. Later, she won't remember why she thought taking out her wand would accomplish anything. By this point, she is so thoroughly confused about Malfoy—she doesn't trust him, but she doesn't quite not trust him, either—that she isn't sure she would use her wand on him unless he decides to lunge at them.

"To what, cousin?" He asks, his head tilted gently to the side. His voice is lazy and he doesn't even look down at her wand. His eyes are on her face and they are dull as ditchwater but sparkling with something like fury.

"Don't call me that!" Tonks snarls. Her hair is turning black at the roots and her ears are sharpening into points.

He smiles like a shark, and his jagged teeth are brown in the glint of the fire. "But that is what you are, cousin. Blood, you know, is thicker than—"

And with that, Malfoy is bound where he stands and he smacks his head against a bookshelf as he falls to the left. The face Hermione so recently repaired slams so hard into the fireplace that bits of brick chip off.

Tonks does not spare a look for Hermione, but says very calmly, "I will take him to Azkaban and we will discuss your actions once I am back at the safehouse." As Tonks pulls the now-unconscious Malfoy into a standing position by his ropes, Hermione watches the thin cords of muscle stand out along her arms. She is so much stronger than she looks. Hermione marvels at her capableness. There is a snap as Tonk and Malfoy disapparate and then Hermione is alone in Grimmauld place.

There is something on the carpet that catches her attention and she stoops to pick up three wet pieces of tooth Malfoy lost when he fell. She pockets them because she isn't sure what else she should do with them and stares into the happily blazing fire, trying to collect her thoughts before she returns to Andromeda and Ted Tonks' house.