Protection, Life, and Light

Hermione sat seated around the rough-hewn kitchen table with the other 4 residents of the house. The Malfoys, all regal-ness, sat stiffly in their seats as if the wood ran straight up their spines. Andromeda and Ted Tonks, on the other hand, canted towards one another with the easy affection of a long and loving marriage.

Their hands were stacked upon one another in full view of everyone and while Mrs. Malfoy twitched uncomfortably at the sight, Hermione warmed to it. In the isolation of the safe house where the dark clouds of war pressed in on them from every side, effectively trapping them in, Hermione longed for evidence of the good.

It kept her raging against the bad.

Tonks had popped over for a visit and was currently levitating tea things to the table. Draco sneered at the liquid. "I'm going to need something stronger than that."

Mrs. Malfoy tutted him as she proceeded to pour tea for her side of the table. "You won't because you won't be going through with this."

This, as she so nonchalantly referred to it, was the runic ritual Hermione had laid out to the household over a breakfast that occurred two hours ago…

This was their third pot of tea. Hermione sighed and gathered the shreds of patience still remaining. Much of that had been flushed away with their second pot.

"Mrs. Malfoy," she started before being cut off by Andromeda.

"I hate to say that I agree with Narcissa." The name was stiff on the woman's tongue, even three months into their co-inhabitation. Hermione still didn't know how they ended up here of all places on that fateful day.

"The magic you speak of is archaic, Hermione, and therefore temperamental. Not to mention the runes are permanent."

Draco exhaled impatiently. "It's not like I've ever made a permanent decision before," as he brought his left arm onto the table. The Dark Mark was exposed to the air, as well as much of his arm which exhibited the physical consequences of ignoring the countless calls by Voldemort.

The skin was less pale and more translucent, with minute black rivulets leaching out and away from the Mark and beginning to taint the rest of the arm. The ligaments and muscles were weak and trembled near constantly now; Hermione hadn't even seen Draco attempt the use of a wand or writing implement since before she left for Dumbledore's service 5 days earlier.

And then there was no denying the jagged red scar that bisected the skull of the tattoo. Hermione cast her eyes away from Draco's sole attempt at getting rid of the tattoo for good, his way.

The table had grown unnaturally quiet after Draco's cynical admission. Fingering her teacup, Hermione ran through her list of arguments again in her head so that she could better counteract the Black sisters' skepticism.

As she deliberated, though, two surprising allies rose to the fore. "Merlin," Tonks breathed. Her eyes flicked up to Draco's, displaying authentic sympathy. "You can't live like that." Then she turned to her mother, "He can't fight like that."

Ted put a hand on her daughter before she derailed. "I agree," he said to her and then gave a pleasant, unthreatening smile to his wife and sister-in-law.

"What's your suggestion if not the runes?"

It was a logical question to ask about a plan B. Both witches remained silent, stone-faced at the innocuous remark, and Hermione's heart swelled with hope. She looked to Draco whose mercurial eyes were already devouring her expression. She smiled and Narcissa caught it and the woman's reserve snapped.

"No. I'm sorry but I won't allow it. For all we know, he could lose the arm entirely or die!"

Draco slammed his right hand down on the table hard, pushing his chair back angrily. "Then I might as well apparate back to him the next time he calls, Mother, because I'm good as dead either way."

Clenching his teeth he said with finality, "Four to two vote. Now are you going to help Granger or not?"

Everyone looked to Narcissa who, after an eternity, just barely dipped her head in accord.

"Well," Tonks proclaimed as she vaulted from the chair on her way back to the kitchen, "we will definitely need that firewhisky now."

A few moments later, Hermione was huddled into Draco's side during the rare alone time they had before the ritual began. She had a million things she wanted to say to him, had to truly, but no words to encapsulate it all.

So she just laced her fingers through his and put her lips to the base of his neck, kissing the message there. Hoping he'd understand.

"You carry this burden as if it's yours. But it's not." Draco delivered the words sternly. "It's not your fault I'm carved up like this and it's not your fault I ran and obviously it's not your fault that the sonofabitch is torturing me through it."

He understood. He understood but he didn't and Hermione just went on planting her apology on his skin.

"Hermione," Draco said, a bit softer now. Forgiveness laced the word. Forgiveness and a nudge back to sensibility, back to the "now". Reluctantly, Hermione untangled herself from him and her self-hatred spiral just as the door to the room opened.

Tonks entered the room with her hands full of supplies, Narcissa on her heels. Tonks handed Draco a decanter.

"Drink up, Cuz," she ordered and then the pink-haired Auror reviewed the supplies with Hermione. As she triple-checked the tome in front of her, Tonks said lowly, "Dad is keeping Mum occupied. She refused to help- says we're playing with fire."

Hermione's hand hovered over the book before swallowing. "More like blood," she attempted to quip. Neither smiled.

The young brunette gripped the ink and turned back to Narcissa. "Mrs. Malfoy, could you imbue the ink with magic please? I think, being that Draco is your son, that his own core will respond most favorably to the magic it resembles."

The woman merely pursed her lips before taking the pot; shutting her eyes, she fingered her wand in one hand and the ink in another as she concentrated on her task.

Tonks closed the door then lit the incense, scenting the air with the spicy warmth of cinnamon. Hermione watched Draco consume the firewhisky in purposeful gulps, alternating with audible inhales of the soothing, cinnamon aroma.

When his eyes turned heavy-lidded, she gently dislodged the bottle from his grasp and assisted him on lying back onto the floor. His right arm was turned up. Tonks and Narcissa laid the supplies in Hermione's reach- salt, a knife, the imbued ink, the book, and a quill.

Hermione bit her lip as she watched Draco in his drowsy state- the ritual seemed ludicrous now that it was within arm's reach, but then he smirked at her.

"Get on with it, Granger," he mumbled and the breath puffed out of her on a strained laugh.

Picking up the knife, she hovered the blade over his forearm, muttering her way through the instructions that had been memorized a week ago.

"Runes, means to carve, and for the protection to be any good it needs to at least penetrate as far down as the Dark Mark. I have to carve, Draco."

Draco slurred, "We know this already," impatience heavy in a voice slowed by drink.

Hermione glared, then softened, then put the knife to skin.

I'm sorry.

She carved into his arm the straight lines of Algiz.

By the second line, Draco started cursing under his breath.

Blood ran down his arm in streams, pooling on the floor beneath him, mimicking the sweat trailing down the sides of her face. When Narcissa moved to vanish the blood, Hermione was forced to snap at her.

"No."

The woman gripped her wand, refusing to put it away, but also didn't move further.

Checking the book even though all of it had already been scored in her mind, Hermione studied the rune Kenaz.

"One down," she murmured to Draco, and he tensed as the knife kissed his skin once more.

The firewhisky had burned through his blood. Tonks moved to secure his shaking shoulders. A gut-wrenching groan shuddered out of him as Hermione finished the cut.

The blood ran darker, faster.

"I'm cold, Hermione."

She felt the tears catch in her eyelashes. Blinked them away.

"One more, Draco."

Inguz. The hardest one. The longest one.

"Hold him tight, Tonks," Hermione whispered as she began her final cutting. The knife dragged long on his skin, the zig-zag pattern a toil, and the shedding of blood was no longer enough of a release.

The pain ripped a moan from Draco and Narcissa spasmed on Hermione's right.

"Why- why can't we stun him?" Her voice was strained.

Hermione finished the first zig-zag and stopped a moment, turning somber eyes to the woman.

"Magic has a price. Pain," Hermione's voice broke. She tried again. "Pain for the protection."

Narcissa's eyes skipped over Hermione's contorted face, then she knelt beside Tonk's. Grasped Draco's left hand, nodded.

Hermione began again, driven by the light at the end of the tunnel, by Narcissa's support, and Tonks' aid, and the noises from Draco that shot straight through her chest.

There, she thought breathlessly, finishing the last of the runes a couple minutes later.

Now… with no time to waste, Hermione padded his arm with a warm damp towel, until the white of the cloth was painted red. The ink and quill came next.

She deftly dipped into the black liquid before scraping it gently through the seeping cuts on Draco's skin. It mixed with the blood, resembling wine, and Hermione chanted fervently the spell in the tome that would enmesh the magicked ink with the fresh carvings.

"Radicte, radicte," and the ink filled up the lines.

"Radicte." Hermione's voice broke over the lone tear that escaped from Draco's closed eyelid.

She shuddered and paused.

"Radicte," she intoned again as the inguz rune turned black and bold against the pale, white skin. The room breathed an audible sigh of relief at the sight of fully inked, runic tattoos; even Draco cracked open his eyes. A tired not-quite smile flicked across his face.

Hermione leaned across his body in order to gaze seriously into his clouded, grey eyes.

"One more thing, love. You've been… so strong."

She nodded to the firewhisky bottle which Tonks retrieved, handing it over to a slightly propped Draco. He drank. His throat bobbed shakily as the liquid analgesic ran down, down, into his belly and blood. Eventually he pushed it away with a weak hand.

"Just fucking finish," he muttered before collapsing back to the ground.

Reaching for the salt, Hermione nodded wordlessly to Tonks and Narcissa, both latching onto Draco's form. She poured the salt on the first rune.

And Draco finally screamed.

oOo

Luna stilled in the pleasant, afternoon sunlight as the high-pitched noise faded from the inside of her head. She had been sitting in the grass, silently scanning one of the books Theodore had retrieved from his home earlier in the day.

He left shortly after breakfast under the pretense of bringing back reference material for the two of them to study, in the hopes of discovering the purpose to the unspecified runic ritual- but Luna knew he was lying.

He truthfully just craved space from her home that was admittedly very odd.

One day she'd get him to say what he meant.

Regardless of social niceties- because even she could admit that he carried them in spades when he wanted to- the boy returned after luncheon with two pocketfuls of shrunken books. They had been perusing them ever since, even opting to take tea in the grassy patch several meters to the west of the house, since neither could deny the perfection of the June afternoon.

Also, it was much quieter without her father attempting to school Theodore in all things conspiracy. He cared little for lore about the Deathly Hallows.

And yet, even with the balmy breeze and crumbly scones, the serene afternoon went topsy-turvy when Luna finally distinguished the noise inside of her head.

"Screaming," she murmured, pressing hard on one of her ears as if to release the noise to nature. Too immersed in his book, Theodore only responded with a vague "hmm" which was probably for the best.

Not-quite-honest Slytherins shouldn't know about her sudden Seer abilities. Probably.

The scream had subsided although the echo of it jarred Luna more than its sudden onslaught. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the remnants of the sound and downed the rest of her tea. The dregs clung limply to the sides as her eyes opened, taking them in.

"Theodore," she called, her tone almost questioning as the symbols surfaced in the leaves, "maybe we should look at rituals involving tattoos."

Her gaze turned outward and landed on the boy's blank stare.

A sigh seemed to catch in his throat as he gurgled a bit before saying, "I hate to ask, but why?"

Luna hated that he asked too. It made her desire to be as honest as possible that much more inconvenient. She shrugged, leveled her tone, "My tea leaves say so."

Then she focused back on the books, running a finger through the appendices, grateful and also pervertedly delighted when after a moment she heard Theo grumble and return to the search.

His grumble made Luna's insides dance.

She wasn't sure if that made her a sadist.

He called, "Loony," but the name was less cutting and more communal and so she scooted over to where he sat, in a transfigured chair. Prim and proper, a Pureblood snob.

He shot a sideways glare as she settled next to him. "You'll get grass stains all over."

"What did you find?"

Theodore's finger pointed to a section titled 'Runic Branding'. They scanned the passages together, nearly in sync as both swiftly inhaled when they reached one archaic ritual involving runes, magicked ink, and pain.

Quite a bit of pain, by Luna's estimation.

Perhaps she wasn't a sadist after all.

Theodore's hand trembled as he brought it to his lap. "Granger would never… to Draco. He couldn't- " and then the awful possibilities choked him, rendering the thoughts incomplete.

Luna felt the possibilities less like emotional lumps in the throat and more like a magnifying lens, sharpening the initial picture that brought them here.

"I think Hermione would. I think she would do whatever it took for Draco."

The answer didn't seem to soothe Theodore in the least.

In the silence that followed, the idyll of the afternoon drained from the air around them and Luna didn't know how to get it back.

She also didn't know why she wanted it so badly.

Uncomfortable, she shifted her weight from one hand to another and inadvertently brushed her shoulder against Theodore's leg.

He shot immediately from the chair. "I should get going. The books shouldn't stay outside for very long." His long arms, completely clothed despite the summer warmth, scrambled for the books in reach before accruing the rest.

"Of course," she said, too evenly. Impatience flared in her chest. "We could just move everything inside."

That rather logical observation seemed to horrify him as his eyes widened comically. Luna didn't know if she were offended or entertained by his reaction.

Theodore stuttered, "I need to go. Home. WIth my books."

Then he quickly shrunk them and walked past her and the property wards, apparating away with a very audible sigh of relief.

A/N: Little chapter to hopefully hold as I start maneuvering the bigger plot bunnies ahead! My lovely beta, all the kudos to continuing your guidance and support through our second multi-chapter fic! I hope to be back after graduation, friends. 16 DAYS!