Okay, here we go, final chapter. The sequel is in progress right now, but it will probably take me longer to write seeing as I go back to uni next week, but I'm going to do my best. Please remember that I'll answer all questions and always appreciate positive and constructive criticism. And, as always, please enjoy.
Dee xxx
He had been prepared for this. For Granger to drop his hand and run with all the speed she possessed, into the arms of Potter, and then Weasley. He had been prepared for Potter hugging her like he was inhaling her, their limbs locked together so tight it was a wonder either of them could breathe. He had been prepared for Potter meeting his eyes over her shoulder, and he had been prepared for the respectful nod of acknowledgement. He had been prepared for Weasley's stink eye. Admittedly, he had not anticipated Molly Weasley's finger poking at his ribs and reprimanding him for being so thin and tired looking or for his estranged aunt Andromeda to tug him into a warm, unfamiliar hug and the tears in her kind, brown eyes.
But he most certainly had not expected to pull away from her and be met with his mother's stare from across the room. For a moment, he felt as though the ground was shifting beneath him before she was running at him, her hair blowing behind her as she slammed into him, her arms wrapping around him. He was so overwhelmed by the onslaught of her floral scent and the soft fabric of the robes she favoured, and the unbelievably strong feel of her embrace, that his knees weakened and she reinforced her hold around him, holding him upright the way that she always did. He clutched her as close as he could, his face pressed to her shoulder, eyes squeazed shut, breath short and catching in his throat.
"I thought you were dead," he strained, tears dripping down his face, every muscle in his body aching and singing at the return of his one true best friend, his only real ally throughout everything. The only other person on the planet who really understood.
"I thought you were dead too," she choked, her voice shaky and thick with pain and relief, her hand cradling the back of his head, her body far too frail under his clasp "my son," she cried softly "I thought you were lost to me"
"You don't get rid of me that easily," he chuckled a little, pulling back as she took his face in her hands, his arms still around her waist, her face as proud and beautiful as ever. She laughed brokenly, her smile watery.
"Draco," she breathed, kissing him hard between his brows and hugging him again "I love you so much"
"I love you too," he whispered, closing his eyes more softly this time, his grip loosening as his mind and body began to process it.
"She got here this morning," Potter said, now stood with Granger hugging the side of his body, her free hand threaded with Weasley's "you'd already left your exile point so I couldn't send you an owl. She defected last week"
"Last week?" Draco frowned, pulling away some more this time, taking her hands and looking at her properly "where have you been since?"
It was then that he noticed the cut across her gaunt cheekbone, the partially blackened left eye, the newly set bandage around her right hand and arm, and the weight that she wasn't putting on her left leg.
"I – I… was severely injured when I escaped the manor. I left in the night but the guards outside the gates put up a fight and it set off the alarm. I had to kill a lot of them, and I barely got away with my life. I apparated as far into the moors as I could, but I was splinched and in a bad way. It was sheer luck that Potter's patrol found me before the snatchers did"
"Mother!" he reprimanded, his brow furrowing further, his hand going to her face, turning it to get a better look at the cut "that was stupid. You could have died!"
"But I didn't," she insisted, that familiar authority slipping back into her tone as she sniffed and batted his hand away softly, taking her handkerchief from her pocket and wiping his eyes before dabbing at her own.
"Mother," he narrowed his eyes.
"Don't you use that voice with me," she scolded "I wasn't going to stay in that place with that man any longer. And if there was a chance that you were still alive…" her voice cracked slightly again "well, I wasn't going to spend any more time away from my son. I am also under the impression that whatever your organisation have been doing, it is working," she turned to Potter with one eyebrow raised, perfectly shaped as ever.
Potter blinked at her sudden address and shifted to attention, nodding, a small, tried grin emphasising his slightly uneven jawline. Draco couldn't help the smirk furling his lips as he watched his mother. Her posture was on form, despite her clearly broken leg, and her chin remained level, her dark green eyes fixed on Potter. Her arms wrapped under her underbust.
Narcissa Malfoy was a woman of questionable morality. She was high strung and tough and quick. Appearances were important to her, and she was every bit the Slytherin she was supposed to be, her reputation for beauty and razor sharp intelligence preceeding her. She was a skilled occlumens, it was a trait he had inherited from her, and was very much aware of the way the people around her saw things. She knew body language and speech patterns and human motivation. And she knew how to manipulate that to survive in any way that she could; if she didn't, both of them would never have made it past his twelfth birthday.
She was something of a viper, a nightmare dressed like a daydream, the kind of person that could kill a man in cold blood and leave her red lipstick print on their cheek as a trophy. And yes, she was ruthless, fierce, adaptive. But she was also very human. Draco had learnt that from early childhood, having been just a toddler on her hip when he first remembered watching her break down into tears. Of course, she had remained stone faced until it was just the two of them. Since then, she had taken brutal beatings and sessions of torture many a time to save Draco's live, to spare him any pain that she could. And he had cleaned her up, looked after her, and stayed up to watch over her whilst she slept away the attacks.
She was hell in high heals, but she was also deeply compassionate and furiously protective, it was just that the compassion was extended to a select few. She cared almost too much about the people she loved, and too little about the people she didn't, and was unapologetic of that. Preservation, survival and strength were three things she had built her decisions off of, and whilst it had lead them a lifetime of abuse, it also meant that they had endured and subsisted. They had made the best of a situation that they'd both been born into and until recently weren't able to escape, and it was something that she'd always drummed into him.
And he knew that was partially why she was here now. She had seen the signs, picked up on the increased unrest amongst the ranks of the deatheaters, witnessed Voldemort's outbursts more frequently. They didn't need to tell her, she knew that The Order Of The Phoenix had some sort of advantage that was making the deatheaters nervous. And, as always, she had picked the correct side at the opportune moment. He was proud of her.
"Well since you're a new defector and we're so pushed for time so we can't build up trust or solidarity, you'll have to take the unbreakable vow before we tell you anything," Potter said, slightly uncomfortable, sheepishly bringing a hand up to scratch the back of his head. Draco moved to speak, suddenly irritated, but his Mother shot him a look that made him keep his mouth shut. He had missed that, somebody else being in charge. It was a small weight off of his shoulders.
"I anticipated it," she said blandly. Potter gestured for the rest of The Order to leave the room, and immediately they all loudly announced several different reasons for being occupied elsewhere Narcissa lifted her uninjured arm and rolled up the dark red velvet sleeve, meeting Potter's eyes deadpan as he stepped forward.
"Mother, this is ridiculous, they're treating you like a criminal-"
"We are all criminals, Draco," she spoke simply as Granger looked at him apologetically and lifted her wand, standing between them as they grasped each others arm "this isn't about dehumanisation. This is preservation, am I right, Mr Potter?"
"Uh, right," Potter confirmed awkwardly, glancing at Granger. It was true, but he still didn't appreciate them not trusting his mother. She had clearly put herself in a lot of danger to defect and reform with The Order. Surely putting her life on the line to get to them so that she could share information would warrant a pardon.
"Okay," Granger nodded wearily as Weasley shifted nervously beside her "ready?"
Potter looked back at Narcissa for conformation and she simply smirked, tilting her head slightly to the left, making him purposefully uneasy.
"Will you swear allegiance and secrecy to The Order of the Phoenix and any information divulged by any member of said organisation regarding the cause against Tom Riddle and any of the other aliases he goes by?"
"I will," Narcissa spoke, her smirk growing, although the truth in her eyes was what allowed the magic of the first red coil to wind itself around their arms. Seeing as that was the only promise she was making, the coil glowed bright for a moment, before seemingly disappearing into their skin. Slowly, their fingers peeled away and she pulled her sleeve back into place, hiding the dark mark once more.
"So," she said, wrapping on arm around Draco's waist again and moving close, her eyeline remaining fixed on Harry "shall we begin?"
"You look tired"
He didn't even look up when he heard her voice, simply snorting in reply and shuffling over a space on the cold wall to make room for her. She sat close to him, her head dropping softly onto his shoulder, both of her arms hugging one of his. She was wrapped in a plaid woollen throw, her hair loosely tied behind her head, ridiculous curls escaping and framing her face, moving and tangling a little in the harsh wind.
He had to give it to Weasley and Fleur, they'd chosen a beautiful place to set up shop. Shell Cottage was a pretty little thing on the top of a cliff that overlooked a beach and a currently particularly stormy sea, backdropped by what seemed to be an endless horizon.
After his mother's gruelling exchange of information with Potter and a small group of his companions packed into the tiny kitchen, pouring over maps, marking out several locations where the deatheaters had prisoners, Potter had handed him a packet of cigarettes. It had been months since he'd had one, and he hadn't even questioned how the guy knew he smoked. It had been the first time he'd ever had to fight the urge to hug Harry Potter. Instead, he'd just taken them with a nod of gratitude and a wink at Granger who narrowed her eyes in disapproval.
He didn't even know that it was gone midnight until he'd sat himself down on the wall in the tiny garden and noticed the large moon, almost blindingly bright.
"Bill says we can have the room on the top floor," she spoke softly, obviously choosing not to give him a lecture on the smoking thing. At least not yet. He knew she'd probably bring it up the following day, but right now they were both very emotionally drained, and he was just trying to get his head together. For now, he was just looking forward to sleeping on an actual mattress for the first time in four months.
"Did you talk to Weasley and Potter yet?"
"Not really," she sighed "Ron wasn't too happy when I asked Bill about a room for us, got all squinty and big-brothery"
"That's weird as fuck, Granger," Mafloy smirked a little, raising his eyebrows and sucking on the cigarette watching it glow for a moment before breathing out a little "you've had his dick in your mouth and you still call him your brother"
She tutted at him, nudging him, although he continued to smirk at the small twitching of her lips and the blush in her cheeks.
"I'm going to have to find time to have a proper conversation with him about it tomorrow," she told him, snuggling a little closer, lynching his heat.
"We haven't even had a proper conversation about it," he remarked.
"Exactly," she replied "not that it matters. There's not much to talk about. I know how I feel. I'm pretty sure I know you feel. So unless there's a big problem, I think we're good as we are"
He breathed, shrugging in agreement and turning his head a little to press a kiss to the top of her scalp, finishing of his cigarette. They sat there for a little while, still trying to process the abrupt changes to their location and sleeping arrangements.
Tomorrow, neither of them would need to get up early to go on a hunt and they would have to gut and skin a badger for lunch or test the wards. Just adjusting to the smell of cleaning products and sofas that weren't half devoured by moths was proving to be slightly exhausting. They could actually shower or bath in something that wasn't a huge metal bucket and they could clean their clothes properly with laundry detergent. The food wouldn't have the same bitter taste to it and the walls were made of stone and brick and wallpapered with clean patterns, rather than thin sheets of white fabric covered in stains that started to smell when the weather got too bad and leaked when it rained too hard.
He still couldn't sleep though. For hours after they went to bed, he laid staring at the wooden ceiling of the four poster, Granger draped over his body, her warm face resting on his chest as she dreamt of things she never talked about, his arms up behind his head. When he eventually did feel the pull of unconsciousness, he estimated it to be around five in the morning, and he didn't open his eyes again until around eleven am.
"So they're planning to end it at Hogwarts?"
"Yes," Narcissa replied, looking almost breathtakingly domestic. The robes she'd escaped the manor in were ripped and still covered in blood, so for now she was borrowing a plaid shirt from Draco that swamped her slightly, and leggings from Hermione. She had haphazardly tied her hair back, but even with parts of it falling either side of her face she still looked stunning and impenetrably steadfast.
Hermione had always wondered what she would look like when she grew older. Wizards aged slower because they lived well into their hundreds, but she supposed that she'd have a thinner mass of grey curls and, going by recent events, a shit load of trouble with her left leg that just did not want to heal. She hoped that she could see her fourties in one day looking as good as Narcissa Malfoy, but she doubted she'd even make it past her nineteenth birthday at this rate, so she wasn't counting on it.
But she was very distracted today, part of her mind on planning for the climax of the war, the other part on Draco, who was still too pale and flinched every time anybody but she or his mother touched him. He spent hours in the water now, and she suspected that he spent a lot of it scrubbing himself raw, trying to get the feel of the deatheaters that had assaulted him off of his skin. There was a pain in her chest everytime she thought about what they had tried to do to him, what they would have been able to do, if he hadn't been so angry and not in control of his magic. It made her sick to the stomach, filled her veins with fury and made her want to destroy something. So she couldn't even begin to fathom what he was feeling.
He hid it well though, moved as convincingly Draco-like as possible, maintained an almost scarily checked level of calm that only spiked when somebody wasn't respecting his mother or Hermione. She knew that his façade was the only way he was coping with it though, so she let him go on that way, being there for him and making things between them as normal as they could be.
And it wasn't as though she was complaining; it was so much of a weight off of her shoulders now that they were together. She didn't have to hold back whilst touching him or talking to him anymore, no longer scared that she might reveal her feelings for him. And for so long they'd both been starved of friendly, loving human contact, it was incredibly wonderful to be held by somebody again, to know that it was Draco who was kissing her, holding her hand, wrapping his arms around her or teasing her without the restrictions of being just friends or allies. They could be intimate now, and it was something she had been depriving herself of for far too long.
"Does it bother you that we haven't had sex yet?" he asked when she was laid on the floor doing sit ups, curls flatter than usual, and matted to her face with sweat. She continued to move as he spoke, frowning a little.
"Not particularly," she replied breathlessly, determinedly pushing herself further each time.
"So its not an issue?"
She paused now, stopping and taking her sports bottle, pulling the cap with her teeth and swigging heavily, panting slightly, back hunched forward, one arm dangled over her bent knee. She had done very little else the past few days, clearly becoming increasingly nervous about their impending final battle. There wasn't a date set for it yet; it was difficult to schedule the deciding fight of a war that had technically been going on for twenty years. But it would be very soon, and that was fucking terrifying, he had no problem admitting that.
"Look," she said "you tell me when you're ready. As much as I care about you, and adore being close to you, its not something I'm thinking about constantly right now. You've been through a lot with your body lately, and I'm going to take a wild guess and say that wasn't the first time you'd ever been sexually assaulted?"
He didn't really say anything, instead avoiding eye contact, shrugging, drawing in a deep sigh, and slumping back against the headboard of the bed.
"Right," she said "so you get to be in control of your body now," she told him, pushing the damp, stray tendrils from her heated face and getting up a little lethargically, sitting crosslegged on the bed in front of him, drinking some more of her water "you always have control of your own body with me. Its yours, and you know it better than anybody else. So let me know," she smiled, winking at him affectionately, still breathless from excersise "and we'll sort something out. But right now you're still recovering, and we have a frontline to prepare for"
He lifted his head a moment later, jaw tight, tilting his head to the side slightly, brow furrowing, mouth slightly curved.
"I still don't get it, Granger," he said, tongue darting out to wet his lips "I'm an asshole. Why do you bother?"
"Beats me," she grinned. She was covered in sweat, she stunk, her hair was a fucking mess, her cheeks were flushed and then she lifted her arm and sniffed at her armpit, grimacing. He raised his eyebrows at her, bemused at how she could be covered in her own bodily fluids, be such a mess, and smell awful, and still be attractive to him.
"You're disgusting," he remarked but it just made her grin wider as she sat forward on her knees, her hands on his legs supporting her as she moved in and placed a lingering kiss to his mouth, catching his bottom lip between her's. She pressed their foreheads together for a moment, one hand coming up to cradle the back of his head, before kissing the tip of his nose and jumping up, disappearing into the ensuite bathroom for a shower.
He shifted against the headboard again, closing his eyes and focusing on the taste of her on his mouth.
If there was one thing he was good at, it was sex. Sex with men, sex with women, sex with those of the in between or non-binary kind. Blaise had taught him everything he knew, taught him about rough sex, soft sex, the importance of intimacy and how that didn't necessarily mean actual intercourse. Blaise had been the one that had shushed away his phobias, covered the bruises left by his father with love bites, been his best friend and only other constant. When he'd been unable to get out of bed in the morning, Blaise had yelled profanities at him and yanked the duvets from his body and forced him to at least shower and go for a walk on the grounds. When he had been broken and lost and at rock bottom, Blaise had cleaned him up and held him tight and reminded him of reality.
And it wasn't that he didn't want to have sex with her. As far as his sex drive went, Granger drove him fucking crazy, in almost every sense of the word. He was pretty damn enthusiastic about the prospect of kissing every inch of her body, her ridiculous hair bunching in his hands, the sight of her gripping at the bedsheets, making her come so hard she forgot her name and screamed his. It was just that he didn't want to get there and end up panicking or lashing out by accident because of a flashback. He didn't want to be that person anymore.
He knew he wanted to do it at some point before they went off to fight, because there was no way he was going to die without having spent one night knowing her body, hearing her moan and whimper in his ear, being that close to her as someone he genuinely cared about, someone he always thought he'd hate.
He was so fucking awful at speaking things like that. He was so fucking bad at talking about his feelings for people because from the moment he could remember anything, he'd been taught that love was a weakness and a disadvantage. But he was good at showing. He'd always been a lot better at articulating what he needed to get across though physical contact. And he knew that if he could just get his head together, he could show Granger what he couldn't say, he could ghost his fingers over her skin and kiss her neck and make her feel what he was feeling.
It was fucking terrifying though. It was so scary. One of the most fuck off frightening things he'd ever thought about. And he supposed that was how he knew it was important to him, how he knew she was important to him. Somehow, in five short months, Hermione Fucking Bookish Know-It-All Big Hair Beautiful Ridiculous Kindhearted Granger had wormed her way under his skin and breathed a sort of life and passion back into him; one that he thought he'd given up on the second he'd left Blaise's bed for the last time. One he thought he'd given up on all together.
It was a sort of quiet, slow-burning, hazy, intoxicating, mind wankeringly deeper level of understanding and propinquity. It had the potential to drive him mad, or, going on the unlikely assumption that he made it to his twentieth birthday, make him as good of a person as he was ever going to become. It was already happening, he could feel it every day; every time he looked at her or teased her or coaxed that mischievous little smirk out of her seemingly squarish demeanour, every time she kissed him like he wasn't the awful person he knew he was – he could feel it altering him, making him want to survive this even more, making him want to hope for something that he'd never allowed himself to have, something that he had always believed he might be too broken or too selfish for. It made him want to live again.
Fuck, he was so screwed.
"You're not going to hit me?" Draco raised his eyebrows as Weasley sat on the wall beside him, still putting about a metre between them, but not looking particularly worked up or irritated. Weasley took a cigarette from where it had been resting behind his ear, and lit it, shrugging as he stared out at the sea.
"Are you going to give me a reason to hit you?" Weasley replied matter-of-factly. Draco let out a breathy laugh, sucking on his own smoke and hanging his head slightly, smiling "aside from the whole being a racist for the first seventeen years of your life thing, of course"
"Of course," Draco snorted, wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue and wrapping one arm around his own torso, flicking excess ash away.
"Obviously I love Hermione," Weasley spoke a moment later, still not taking his eyes off of the horizon "she's my best friend"
"Do best friends have sex with each other now?"
"I don't know, Malfoy," Weasley retorted, looking sideways, a smug expression on his ridiculously freckled face "do they?"
Draco stared back at him for a little while, impressed for a moment, with his comeback. He wasn't surprised that he knew about Blaise. The majority of the school had been aware of their fuck buddies arrangement.
"Touche," he smirked then, swallowing and taking another toke, eyes returning to the line that separated sea and sky.
"As I was saying," Weasley continued "I love Hermione, and bloody hell, she's the toughest hellbitch I've ever met. That's saying something, my mum is Molly Weasley," he remarked, a little too relaxed for Draco's liking "so I don't like it, mate. I don't like that she's with you. I don't like that she's forgiven you so quickly, and I don't like that you treated her like shit for so long and still somehow get her love," now they were getting somewhere. Something in Weasley's voice told him that he'd sat and thought about it for a long time before coming out here, which was why he was so calm "but I trust her with my life," he said "I trust her absolutely. And I trust her judgement. So if she thinks you're worth it, and if she thinks you've changed, then fine"
"How long did you have to think about that before you were able to come out here and not beat the shit out of me?" Draco asked, still smirking slightly.
"Three hours," he chuckled, blowing smoke out in chaotic little burst.
"Well done there, Weasley," Draco grinned "there may be hope for you yet"
"Shut up, asshole," he said, although it wasn't malicious as such, and the smile remained on his mouth.
"Glad we had this talk Weasley. I feel like we've bonded. We should make out, it could be our new hand shake"
"Fat chance Malfoy, I know where that mouth's been"
"I assure you," he responded "Blaise's penis is completely clean and free of disease"
He ducked a burst of green light, whipping around and shooting a killing curse at the chest of the bastard who thought they could throw try to kill him from behind. He watched the light leave the eyes of Antonin Gledwyn, a deatheater who had always despised the Malfoy bloodline, but was abruptly distracted by a hot burst of air passing his ear. Turning back to his left, he registered the oncoming attack just quick enough to shove his elbow out. A fist slammed into his ribs, but his counter movement successfully dislocated the jaw of whoever the fuck was stupid enough to try him in hand-to-hand combat. He didn't recognise the deatheater, but there was a sense of fresh hunger and excitement in his brown eyes, and guessed new recruit. Shame, the guy was kind of pretty.
The fucker held his own though, ducking a couple of Draco's punches, young enough to take direct hits without being completely disabled. And he managed to crack one of Draco's ribs before getting his neck snapped. He could worry about the weight of all this killing later, if he survived this; the panicking and crying and screaming was for later on. Right now he was a nineteen year old fighting a war.
It was only when the deatheater dropped from his arms that Draco's world froze around him for a moment. Then he was running, paying no heed to the awful soreness in his torso and the blood on his tongue, his body slamming tight against another, arms gripping, hands bunching in dark hair. He was being dragged backward amongst the edge of the forest away from open fire and wave of intense alleviation washed over him, choking him, his eyes wide and glistening with tears.
"Hey," a wonderful voice he had thought lost to him gasped desperately, a strong hand gripping the hair at the back of his head, the other clutching around his waist, fingers tight enough to bruise at the other end of his midriff, the soft, plump mouth pressed against the crook of his collar bone "hey, asshole"
Draco laughed breathily, hysterically, disbelieving of the hold wrapping around him, the one he had missed so fiercely in the first month of his exile that it had been physically painful. This was his home, if he ever really had one.
"Fuck you," Draco panted "fuck you, you fucking fuck"
Blaise pulled back, pressing their forehead's together, his dark, soft hands holding his face either side.
"You stupid bastard," he breathed "you shouldn't be here"
"Where the fuck else would I be, you dumb piece of shit"
Blaise looked at him for a moment with fire in his eyes, before cursing and wrapping his arms around him tightly again, shaking his head against his shoulder. It was only when a curse hit a tree nearby, sendling splinters showering around them that they were pulled apart again, knocked off their feet. They recovered quickly however, crawling across the cold groud to each other, sheens of sweat covering their skin, illuminated by the different colours of light around them. Draco hauled Blaise to his feet and dragged him behind the nearest tree, hands grappling at the fabric of his dirty, bloodstained, slightly ripped Henley.
"You defected," Blaise wheezed, his muscled chest rising and falling heavily and quickly.
"You too, apparently," Draco replied, equally breathless as he yanked him out of the way of another stray curse, the heat of the battle contrasting with the cold spray of rain and the chill of the winter air.
"I was never a deatheater in the first place, prick," he snapped, grabbing a hold of Draco's t-shirt under his denim jacket and dragging him down to duck again, despite not even seeing the curse coming for them, watching it hit a tree about twenty yards behind them.
"Don't be a snob," Draco narrowed his eyes, gulping for breath "nobody likes a snob"
"I thought you were dead," Blaise growled, tapping him sharply across the back of the head, earning himself a glare.
"I thought you were dead too," Draco snapped "it wasn't like we had means of getting in touch"
"Well we can't keep this up," he said distractedly, glancing over his shoulder at where the thick of the battle was taking place. They were on some field ten miles west of Dartmoor, surrounded on all sides by patches of forest and shrubbery "also when the fuck did you get so trigger happy?"
"Since I started travelling in exile with Hermione Granger," he yelled, the noise of the fighting getting louder, the rain picking up slightly.
"What the fu-" Blaise's shout of incredulity was cut off when Draco threw them sideways to the ground again. When they got back up, grappling with each other to stand, they took off on feet immediately, marching back out onto the field, working together now, having always made a good team in combat. Blaise had all the training of a deatheater, but had escaped into hiding with his mother after Voldemort had slaughtered his father in front of him. Draco had been left at the manor to take the mark, and a week later, a hunting party had returned claiming that they'd killed Blaise and his associates. Clearly a lie, seeing as Blaise was currently back-to-back with him, shooting curses left right and centre as they tried to move back up to the frontline.
Around them, dead bodies lay strewn about macarbrely, almost like decoration. Blood squelched with mud and rain beneath their shoes amongst the grass. But there were still thousands of people around them fighting, dropping like puppets cut from their strings, being thrown backwards in bursts of fatal heat and light. Then he spotted Granger, as she kneed somebody in the crotch and slammed her tiny fist into their face, knocking them out with a cruch and a yelp. He grabbed her around the waist from behind with one arm and pulled her out the way of a jinx, continuing to duel someone with the other.
"Thanks," she grinned at him, her hair knotted and messy in its plat, blood and dirt smeared across her face, eyes alight with determination and adrenaline. She moved straight into a fight with somebody else and he and Blaise were met with a wall of deatheaters facing them about ten feet away, and straight away they had to start blocking spells and shooting them back, having to use their whole bodies with almost every movement.
"That was so fucking weird," Blaise yelled over the noise, not pausing in his motions, ducking and whipping the deciding curse at a momentarily distracted opponent, sending them flying backward through the air, leaving them with four different people against the two of them.
"Don't be mean," Granger's voice retorted as she joined them. Within three short, razor sharp, lightening fast movements of her arm, all four deatheaters where limp on the ground. Both men stared at her in awe, eyebrows near their hairline, eyes wide, mouths agape.
"What?" she shrugged, grin still in place on her split lip, a graze stretching across her cheekbone again, left eye blackened but not swollen "don't fuck with me"
"I am simultaneously scared and turned on," Blaise said, eyes still wide, shaking his head.
"Fuck off," she replied, dragging Draco's cheek to her lips as a way of greeting and blindly shooting a curse to her left at a deatheater that had been about to attack her "one Slytherin is all I can handle"
"Don't look at me," Draco said, laughing slightly, returning the rough kiss to her uninjured cheek, one hand cradling the other side of her head, still looking at a bemused Blaise "its not my fault"
"I have so much to yell at you about," Blaise shouted ridiculously as Granger suddenly launched herself at the two of them, tugging them into crouching positions, covering them with her body as much as she could as an explosion laved a rush of hot air over their heads, wiping out anybody who hadn't ducked or moved on time, the feindfire roaring to the right of them. Screams filled the air as several people began to burn alive. Draco managed to get his wand out through a gap in the tangle of arms, shooting killing curses at those he could see covered with flames, already too burnt to save, putting them out of their misery.
"I think I'm in love with her," Blaise said dumbfoundedly as it died down but the flames continued to lick spots of grass around the field and Granger heaved them both back to their feet.
Ten minutes of hard out duelling and combat fighting later, there was a commotion up front, the battle as a whole slowing. Draco had to grab Granger by the arms and forcibly keep her from running forward as Potter and Voldemort began circling each other, a lion and a snake in a cage snapping and hissing at each other. Someone had destroyed the tiara then, and his eyes searched frantically for Nagini, resting on her corpse near where Longbottom was stood, her body sliced in half, the sword of Gryffindor in the young shmuck's hand, apparently not as much of a blithering idiot as the world had assumed.
"Potter was dead a minute ago," some kid to their left whispered.
"You can't kill Harry Potter," her bloodied up friend replied "at least not permenantly. He's too fucking stubborn for that"
"Granger hold fucking still, you have to let him do this himself, dammit!" Draco snapped against her ear, getting his arm around her waist, her arm movements abating.
"This is it," she spoke numbly, the light of an adjacent fire shining in her wide eyes as she distractedly shrugged out of his hold. He reluctantly retracted his arm, sure now that she had realised the gravity of the moment and was not going to try to intervene.
As Draco watched the intense expression on Voldemort's distorted, snake like face, breathing slow and labourous. From their left, Weasley slid his way through the crowd to stand next to Granger, both of them wearing looks of acute fear, struggling with their deep-routed instincts to protect their other limb. That's what Potter was to them, Draco had come to realise. In the same way that Blaise was his extra body part, Harry Potter was like Granger and Weasley's added appendage. Neither of them would be able to function if he died. They loved that brave, stupid idiot like their brother.
Draco was tuned in on a different frequency though. He watched Voldemort with an indescribable emotion burning in his gut, catching in his throat, making his knees slightly weak. Blaise caught him around the middle from behind, the hard planes of his chest against his spine, chin tucked over his shoulder.
"Keep it together," he said quietly against his ear, Draco's hands coming up to grip at Blaise's where they rested on his bruised, probably bleeding abdomen, using the contact to ground him and steady his breathing "its nearly over"
He didn't like that Granger was in front of him where he couldn't shield her if something went down, although he knew Weasley would protect her with his life if it came to it, he felt as though one of his nerves were exposed and he was sort of powerless to cover it up again.
But his attention was mostly focused on the tall, skeletal figure becoming more and more irritated and hysteric as Potter yelled the true story at him. The rain became harder, and it felt rooting as it fell against his scorched skin, washing part of the dirt and blood away, years of belief in this one person, this one cause, falling away from him, the remainders of any sort of conditioned loyalty he had for Tom Riddle crumbling like dried mud from his body. This person who had trapped him from birth despite his absence for the first fifteen years of his life, the person who had advocated for the murder and rape and torture of innocent people, the person who had destroyed his father's sanity and put his mother through hell, the person who had ripped his life apart and pushed him to the brink of insanity, and thus, into the very best thing that could ever have happened to him.
The breath left him and he almost collapsed when Voldemort's body dropped to the ground, the blood rushing around his head. Blaise kept him upright, turning him around and holding him tight, one hand cradling the back of his head to his shoulder, the other tightly threaded around his waist, holding him vertical. Several shouts and pops sounded around them as the remaining deatheaters began to try and run and apparate, but he couldn't be bothered with that right now.
"Okay," Blaise's voise was shaky and broken, but solid and assuring as Draco squeazed his eyes shut, tears rolling down his cheeks "its okay"
Then his mother was there, worming her way in, pressing their heads together and kissing the both of them.
"One of these days you boys will give me a heart attack," she breathed, hugging them both to her tightly.
"We don't do it on purpose," Blaise laughed exhaustedly against her, eventually pulling back. Draco finally turned back, ready to face the aftermath to find Granger extracting herself from the arms of Weasley and Potter. She looked as though she was scolding Weasley for a moment before she walked towards him, smiling softly when she stepped into his space, taking his hands.
"You're hurt," she said, a frown furrowing her brow, her thumb ghosting over his knuckles where there were deep cuts, although it had stopped bleeding for the moment. His ribs were throbbing painfully but it wasn't unbareable, and it hurt to breathe slightly where somebody had had him by the neck at one point, and when the adrenaline had worn off, he supposed he'd feel the full extent of his injuries, but right now, he was still running in slight combat mode. He was having a hard time believing that it was actually over, the reality of it not quite registering properly.
He snorted, sighing deeply and rolling his eyes, pulling her against him, his arms wrapping around her as he pressed another rough kiss to her cheekbone.
"I love you," she croaked against him, and he could feel her shaking slightly, crying. It was expected, he was a little choked up himself; but he hadn't been expecting her to say that, it made him step back a moment, eyebrows shooting to the top of his head. She was crying, as he suspected, and she was smiling. Her hair was singed and frizzy, her face battered and bruised and covered in dirt. But for fuck sake she was still one of the most beautiful people he'd ever seen, regardless of whether it was cheesy or if it made him vulnerable as fuck.
"Granger-"
"Oh shut up," she tutted, punching him in the arm softly "you don't have to say it back. We did just win a twenty year war; we don't even know what its like to be together without that looming over us. But I love you, Draco Malfoy," she grinned, stepping back in, her arm threading around his waist, dropping her forehead against his "and-"
She was cut off suddenly by the flash of purple light. It took her left leg out, exploding, causing her to scream out in pain. He just managed to catch her before she hit the ground. He pulled her against him where he sat back on his knees, white hot panic shooting through him. Potter and Weasley had rushed forward, and then there was blood everywhere and she was wailing in agony, sobbing into his shoulder, her hands gripping at his arms.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit," he whimpered pathetically, eyes settling on the mangled mess that was the second half of her left leg. The blood was all over his hands, hot and wet and terrifying. She was shaking violently now, and about fifty yards away, the unchecked deatheater that had cursed her was being detained by Kingsley and Lupin "what the fuck?" he croaked, shaking his head. His mother knelt beside him, drawing in a deep breath before settling into action immediately.
"Shhh," she said, taking out her wand and muttering a string of spells. The bleeding began to stop but the nauseating flesh was still grotesquely damaged and singed down to the bone, charred and grizzled, chunks missing. Narcissa slashed the fabric of her jeans open properly.
"Is she okay?" Weasley demanded in a frantic voice where he was crouched. Granger was still sobbing heavily against Draco, hyperventilating now. Her skin was pale and pallid and she was urging slightly.
"She needs to be taken to hospital right now," Narcissa spoke regally "she's lost a lot of blood"
"Fuck," she moaned loudly in anguish. She was biting down hard on her hand to stop herself from breaking her teeth, gulping and gasping for air. It was so distressing and scary, like every sound of dolor that escaped her mouth was resonating in his bones, wrapping its harsh, bony fingers around his lungs and heart, preventing him from breathing properly.
"Malfoy," Potter's voice came soft, closer now as he squatted on the other side of Granger's body, his hand shaking as he reached out to place it on Granger's right leg "we need to apparate her, and you're in too much of a state to do it"
"Hey," Blaise's voice came next, and that was what really plucked him back to reality "c'mon, let your mother take her, she'll be in good hands"
"Granger," he managed, burying his face against her's a little where she was hiding it against his jacket "my mother is going to take you to st mungos, okay?"
"I – it h-hurts," she struggled, her face screwed up in pain.
"I know," he said as gently as he could "I know, love, but you have to let her take you"
Slowly, he allowed Weasley, Blaise and his mother to assist him in lifting Granger upright. Weasley took her weight on one side, Narcissa took it on the other.
Blaise took him by the arms and moved him away slightly as they apparated her away. He was tremoring now, the shock of everything that had happening in the past twenty minutes beginning to take a hold of him. He ran a hand through his hair, nails scraping over his scalp as he hung his head, trying to breath through the hysteria. He paced slightly, jaw tight, trying to ignore the fact that he was soaked in Granger's blood and tears, unable to get the blanched, sickly colour of her skin out of his head.
"You need to calm down," Blaise said "you can't apparate after them like this, you'll splinch yourself"
"I fucking know that, Blaise," he snapped, swallowing tightly "I know"
People around them were starting to go into recovery mode, levitating the dead bodies of the deatheaters to one side of the field, those of their own to the other. People with minor injuries were being tended to, and Arthur Weasley was working with Moody to direct them away from Voldemort's body whilst they decided what to do with it.
Eventually Blaise caught him by taking his face in his hands.
"Hey," he said firmly "I don't know what kind of weird as fuck situation you've got going on with Granger, but she didn't look like she was in a good way. You can't lose it right now, she needs you"
"I'm so fucked in the head, Blaise," Draco said, looking helpless and tired "if she goes the way I think she's going, how am I supposed to look after her when I can't look after myself?
"She's Hermione Granger, you fucking dumbass," Blaise replied, pressing a rough kiss between his brows "she doesn't need you to look after her. She just needs you to be there"
"Granger, please take a break," he sighed, rolling his eyes as she placed a particularly heavy box down on the floor near where their new fridge had been randomly positioned for temporary use. She stood slowly, one hand on the bottom of her back, blowing a few curls from her face and moving the hand to her waist, blinking a few times and nodding. She went to step backwards into the dining chair, but ended up staggering into it instead.
It was still hard for her. She was still struggling to get the hang of the prosthetic, and it had taken her a while to fully understand the gravity of losing a literal limb. For a while, he had wondered whether she would actually be able to accept it at all. When she had first been in hospital, she'd barely said a word, and kept staring at the missing space where the bottom half of her left leg should have been, as if the force of her glare alone would grow back tissue and muscle and bone.
It had been even more difficult when she'd been let out of hospital. Weasley had been kicking off about wanting her to stay at the burrow where they could look after her. He had fallen into the old habit of losing his temper with the red headed young pureblood, until he had realised the vital flaw in their discussions – they hadn't even asked Granger what she wanted.
She'd looked shocked as fuck when he'd presented her with the choice, as if she was frightened of making any sort of decision, as though somehow the loss of the body part had taken away her ability to make any sort of real judgement for herself.
Nevertheless, three weeks later, with a shaky balance on crutches, and barely holding herself upright, she had independently climbed the steps to the door of Grimmauld Place. Potter, who was already residing in the old house that he'd inherited from his late Godfather and renovating it, had invited him to live there with her whilst she recovered.
The three of them had established a sort of peace, which included comfortable silences and grumpy morning conversations, which had grown into arguments over what channel to watch on television, and the newest report in the Prophet of an evening. Through a process of assisting Granger in her day to day tasks, her physical therapy, Chinese takeaways on Friday nights, a hell of a lot of predictions that revolved around whodunit storylines on EastEnders, and figuring out what they wanted to do with their newfound freedom alongside dealing with severe cases of PTSD, they had found a decorum.
It was when Potter had begun to spend so much time abroad as an auror, that Granger had brought up the subject of moving out to get their own place. He had hardly been able to believe her when she had first suggested it, the words contracting and warming in his chest where he'd had to take some time to remember how to breathe properly. Fast-forward another four months, and they were moving boxes into Luna house apartment block directly located along the Thames.
She was looking rather ridiculous in the gigantic t-shirt she was wearing with an obscure picture of some sort of ironic muggle cartoon on it, along with boyfriend jeans which she'd rolled up at the bottoms, with dark blue boat shoes. Before now, she'd gotten out of the habit of biting her nails down, but when they'd started looking for apartments, she'd fallen into it again, and her nail varnish was chipped, in need of a repaint or removal. Of course, as usual, her lips were spotted with redness and chapped from where she'd been nibbling on them as she concentrated on her momentary tasks.
Really, it was remarkable the types of prosthetics that both muggle and wizarding physicians had offered her. In the end, she'd gone for a varying collection of them. Her daytime one was shaped as her calf muscle would have been, and was transparent. The one she wore for ministry events was encrusted with silver diamante and shaped deliberately for stiletto heels. She had one with a more rubbery texture, coloured like flesh for when she was feeling more insecure, but the actual wearing of it was more uncomfortable for her, so it rarely left the bottom drawer she kept it in. She didn't usually wear one to bed, as she didn't particularly see a lot of point in it. To begin with, she had been hesitant to ever take it off, and had refused to tell him why. That was, until he had lost his temper with her insistent recluse that had obviously been making her miserable, and she had frustratedly admitted that she was unsure as to whether he'd still want her without something there.
He recalled never being quite as dumbfounded as he had been in that moment. He couldn't quite understand how she could even assume that being disabled would mean that he'd want her any less than he had done when he had fallen wand over arse in love with her.
After he had thoroughly assured her that he would most likely want her regardless of any circumstance, despite his own irritation, she had seemed to finally come out of her shell once more. For the first time since her injury, he had seen some of the old fire back in her brown eyes, the fire he had disgruntledly and hesitantly fallen for as they had struggled through blood and death around the English countryside in exile. They had been through so fucking much and survived even when they had not expected to make it past war; they could survive life afterwards, he had no doubt.
"Sorry," she smiled tiredly, huffing out a breath and dropping her eyes to the clear plastic peaking between the finish of her jeans and the start of her shoes around the artificial ankle.
"Stop apologising," he tutted, filling a glass with water and placing it on the table beside her, leaning against the kitchen countertop and crossing his arms over his chest "you're expecting too much of yourself again"
"I know," she nodded, drinking half the glass in one gulp, apparently thirstier than she had realised "I don't think I'll ever get used to this"
"Don't be absurd," he replied "most of the reason why you're finding it so difficult to get the hang of it is because you're still fighting it"
"I lost my fucking leg, Draco," she snapped, narrowing her eyes at him "excuse me if I'm not ecstatic about it"
"It's a part of who you are now, Granger," he countered, glaring back with equal fervour, the small stereo playing in the background still "you're not broken or damaged. You're just different"
"Are you seriously saying that to me with a straight face?" she challenged blandly, raising her eyebrows and sitting back in the chair, resting her back a little "we're about as fucked up as they come"
"I'm not denying that," he said "I just mean that you still have mobility. You can still walk around. It hurts sometimes, and it's strange for you, looking down at yourself and having something that isn't you attached to your knee. I know you're going to say that I'm too privileged to understand again, and that's true," he told her, her angry expression softening a little "but I don't need to tell you how I feel about you regardless of whether you have your left leg attached to your body or not. It isn't like you're suddenly not you. Just… different"
"I'm trying," she said, blinking at him again and bowing her head slightly, swallowing tightly "I'm really trying"
He drew in a deep breath, a small smile curving his lips as he rolled his eyes once more and pushed off of the counter, taking her hands and pulling her up to full height again. He wrapped his arms around her, and against him she felt as she always did, the beating of her heart thrumming against his breast plate just as warm and steady as it had ever been, her slender arms threading around him in return just the same, the side of her face pressed against his, the same height as him, and just as strong willed, her mass of brown curls tickling his neck just as they always did.
The familiar beginning of a song that Radio 1 had not stopped playing for a good few weeks now started up on the portable stereo, and absent mindedly they sort of ended up moving to it, the left of her head resting on his shoulder, their fingers moving to thread together, scarred and contrasting in colour. Her other hand traced soft circles under the skin of his t-shirt in the small of his back where it rested.
"When your legs don't work like they used to before," he hummed, teasing her. She brought her head back slightly, a mortified grin furling her chapped lips as she laughed, shaking her head at him "and I can't sweep you off of your feet," she continued to laugh, pouting at him, continuing to protest slightly "will your mouth still remember the taste of my love, will your eyes still smile from your cheeks?"
His voice was quiet and soft, and eventually, she sighed in defeat and laid her head against his shoulder again.
"And darling I, will, be loving you till, we're seventy. And baby, my heart, could still fall as, hard, at twenty three," he sang softly, swaying a little more now, spinning slowly "And I'm thinking 'bout how people fall in love in mysterious ways, maybe just the touch of a hand. Well, me I fall in love with you every single day, and I just wanna tell you I am"
"You're ridiculous," she whispered against his ear, although she sniffed a little, and a moment later, he felt a slight wetness on the downward curve of his shoulder where she was obviously crying a little.
"So honey now," he sang a little louder now, deliberately teasing her further "take me into your loving arms. Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars. Place your hand on my beating heart, I'm thinking out loud, that maybe, we found love right where we are"
"Why do I even associate with you oh my god," she mumbled again as they moved slightly more fluidly. He was taking a lot of her weight now, as she was still a little tired from all the lifting, but somehow they still managed a grace. A sort of hazy bubble of quietness that was kind of intoxicating and wonderful.
"When my hair's all but gone and my memory fades, and the crowds don't remember my name. When my hands don't play the strings the same way, I know you will still love me the same"
"I love you," she breathed, snuggling against him closer and pressing a kiss to the crook of his collar bone, bringing her arms up to thread around his neck, his own moving around her waist as she pressed their foreheads together.
"I love you too, you idiot," he replied.
The November rain beat gently against the wide clear glass of the large bay windows where it opened up onto a ground floor balcony over the river, and when he closed his eyes, just for a moment, he was back there, when he had first realised how incredibly fucked he was regarding Hermione Granger.
The rest of the song played without the need of his input, and instead they just moved, breathing each other in.
There was chaos in their lives of late, and moving in was a big step, one that would meant they were officially moving on from their traumatic adolescence. It would mean that they'd have to try and be functional adults. It would mean that he'd have to sit at dinners with her parents and try to remain on his best behaviour whilst her father eyed him suspiciously and made snide comments about the nature of his intentions and his past. It meant that Granger and his mother would need to spend more time together, that she would come home after long shopping trips and be so stressed that he'd have to duck from the prosthetic leg flying towards his face (which had actually already happened a good few times). It meant that they would now really have to work at trying to move on, really put the effort in to get out of bed in the morning, and to not end up addicted to dreamless sleep potion trying to curb the nightmares. It meant that they would still have to find some way to survive the explosive arguments they still had, that they'd committed to what could sometimes be an extremely rocky and problematic relationship.
But it also meant that he might actually get the chance to spend a good portion of his years loving Hermione Granger. And, as insane as that sounded amongst the rain outside and the music on the radio, it was all he really wanted.