"Finite Incantatem, Finite Incantatem," she whispered frantically, over and over. Hearing the traces of hysteria in her own voice, Hermione forced herself to stop. Stop fighting the straps binding her to the seat. Stop panicking. Stop remembering the odds of managing to cast a spell without a wand. Just stop.
Sometimes information was just not that helpful.
The witch took a deep breath, willing herself to calm down. She was smart. She was resourceful. She was the top student in her year. If anyone could cast a wandless spell, it was her.
She took another deep breath, closing her eyes and reaching out to the magic around her. Ignoring the way the binds were digging into her skin, she focused instead on the power in them.
All magic was intention, willpower, and execution. Spells were but an expression of will. Wands were but a tool.
She could do this. She would do this.
"Finite Incantatem," she commanded, her voice clear and strong.
Nothing happened.
A half-strangled sob escaped her throat as she began to frantically pull at the binds, which reacted by coiling tighter around her.
"You're going to hurt yourself like that." Draco closed the station door behind him, locking it with a wave of his wand.
She did not look at the wizard and she did not reply, but the sound of his voice was enough to freeze her in place.
Draco just stood there in silence until all she wanted to do was to scream at him or break down crying. Neither was an option, however. She glared at the wizard, who watched her with a guarded expression. He sighed, suddenly looking more tired and older than Hermione had ever seen him. She fought hard to hold back tears as he leaned down and kissed her head, one hand running through her hair.
"Everything will be okay, Hermione. I promise."
She looked away from him, tears streaming down her face. None of it would be okay.
The first thing Hermione thought when they Apparated in Malfoy Manor was that Apparition was an extremely practical way to travel. The second thing she thought was that the ground was getting closer at a somewhat alarming speed. Draco caught her just in time to stop her from landing on her face.
"Very graceful, Granger," he teased.
"I'm terribly sorry, Miss Granger, terribly sorry," squeaked the panic-stricken house-elf. "Misty did not mean to make Master Draco's friend fall, no, no, no. Misty is very, very sorry."
"That's quite all right, Misty," replied the witch, ignoring Draco's sneer. "It was my fault; it's my first time Apparating. Thank you very much for coming to get us."
It was the last weekend before the start of term and they had decided to swap the Granger residence for a quick stay at the Manor. It had meant a few white lies — such as saying that Mr and Mrs Malfoy were at home — and a few more outrageous ones, such as Draco's assurance that his parents would be delighted to have Hermione over for the weekend. It was extremely hard for Hermione to keep a straight face through that particular fiction.
"Run along, Mist," Draco ordered. "And take our bags."
"Please," Hermione added, frowning at the wizard.
"Please," he humoured her, rolling his eyes. "Come on, let me give you a tour."
Malfoy Manor was certainly impressive, filled with lavishly decorated rooms with high ceilings, and corridors that turned and twisted until people didn't know where they were or how to get out. Paintings and tapestries adorned the walls, a touch of colour against dark grey stone. The cold disapproving eyes of the occupants of the frames followed the pair in their wandering through the Manor, silent and critical.
There was a table in the corner of the drawing room where numerous framed photographs vied for attention. Hermione hadn't known the subjects of the paintings — many of them Malfoys of ages past — but she found that she knew several of the people in the pictures.
In one, an incredibly young Lucius Malfoy posed in his Hogwarts robes, surrounded by a group of fellow Slytherins. There was a picture of adult Lucius shaking the hand of Millicent Bagnold that was almost an exact copy of the photo next to it, where he was seen with Cornelius Fudge. There was also a picture of Narcissa and her sister Bellatrix, who Hermione recognised from her portrait in Grimmauld Place. That photograph was awkwardly framed, as if a third person had originally been standing to Narcissa's right.
There were many pictures of Draco — one of his eleven-year-old self at Hogwarts, one of him with a broom in his Quidditch uniform, and even one of him in the dress robes he had worn at the Yule Ball the year before. Hermione smiled as she picked up a picture where he couldn't have been more than five years old, a petulant frown on his face as he tried to pry a cat away from an equally cross little girl.
"Is that Parkinson?" she asked in disbelief.
"We've known each other since we were kids. Poor Fluffy was never the same after that day."
"Tell me you didn't name your cat Fluffy…"
"Pansy named it. The stupid beast wouldn't answer to anything else."
Hermione set down the frame, picking up the picture next to it. In it, a slightly older Draco was standing besides Lucius. The boy seemed ill; his normally pale skin looked ashen and there were dark circles under his eyes. The two Malfoys were standing just outside the shadows cast by the fortress looming in the background. Hermione did not have to see the dark shadows flying around it to know what place it was.
"How old were you?" she asked, unable to look away from the image.
"Eight."
"Why would your father take an eight-year-old to Azkaban?"
"Cautionary tale."
She turned to him with a mischievous grin. "Was the lesson, 'don't do evil'?"
He smirked. "The lesson was, 'don't get caught'. Now come on, I've saved the best for last."
She followed him to a carved door at the end of the drawing room.
"Close your eyes," he said.
"What for?" she asked suspiciously.
"Just do it. Don't you trust me?"
"Not even a little bit."
"Clever girl," he laughed.
She closed her eyes all the same, a smile still on her lips, and let him lead her into the room. It was getting dark outside and, even with her eyes closed, she could tell when several lamps lit up along the walls.
"Okay, open your eyes."
It took a moment for her vision to adjust, but when it did she was rendered speechless. The room was much larger than it looked from the outside. It expanded impossibly both to the right and to the left of the mahogany desk by which she was standing, large bookcases occupying every inch of wall not assigned to a window. In different corners of the room, wooden staircases led to a raised platform for easier access to the higher shelves.
"My father's study," Draco explained. "Dozens of generations of Malfoys have collected the books in our collection. This place could put the Hogwarts restricted section to shame."
She walked up to the shelves by the entrance for a closer look at the books, but all the titles seemed out of focus. Hermione frowned, trying to read the letters on the spines of the ancient tomes, but the harder she tried, the more the titles morphed into blobs of ink with no discernible meaning.
"There are wards around the shelves," Draco explained. "The Manor was raided by the Ministry a few years back. Of course, we had advance warning, so Father set up these. Honestly, I think he was just trying to mess with the Ministry's lackeys. There are no banned books in this room."
"In this room?" she echoed, knowing she shouldn't be feeling quite as amused about it as she was.
He shrugged, smirking. "There may be one or two stashed around the Manor, somewhere." And then, to redeem himself from his family's less than legal proclivities, Draco reached for his wand and pointed it to one of the books, a large tome bound in leather. "Libri Revelio." A small circle of light seemed to fall on that section, briefly bringing into focus the titles of the books in its radius.
"Lend me your wand," Hermione asked, suddenly wishing she had more than a weekend in which to explore the Malfoy Library.
"Where's yours?" Draco said, moving his wand possessively out of reach.
"In my bag."
"What kind of witch doesn't carry her wand around?"
"The underage kind. Some of us like to stay on the right side of the law."
"You have no sense of adventure."
"You have no notion of consequences."
"You can't have my wand, I'm very attached to it." He raised it dramatically above his head.
"Don't be a child, I just want to borrow it for a second," she said, getting on the tip of her toes, trying to reach it.
"But the law, Minnie," he teased, grinning.
"I told you not to call me that," she protested, still trying to reach the wand.
Seeming to consider that the best defence was a good offence, he hid the wand on the shelf above her head before pinning her against the bookcase.
"Mine," he growled with a mock frown, a few inches away from her face.
"Haven't your parents ever taught you to share?" She tried to release her arms but he tightened his grip.
"I'm the only child of one of the oldest and richest wizarding families in Britain," he laughed. "I can say with some degree of certainty that they never did."
"How disappointingly unsurprising." She tried to scowl, but the smile firmly etched on her face refused to go away.
"Though I suppose I could be open to some persuasion." He nudged her nose with his, but moved his face back when she made to kiss him.
"Tease," she complained.
"Don't think I don't know you only want me for my books."
She laughed at his exaggerated wounded expression. "Well, you can't show me a library like this and expect to get my full attention."
"I did not think this through, did I?"
"And this is why you are not in Ravenclaw." She wrapped her newly-freed arms around his neck and Draco smiled down at her. Just then a door banged nearby, making them both jump.
"What the hell?" Draco said, moving towards the library door, which was partly open. The loud voices in the distance were getting louder.
Hermione stood frozen a few feet away from the tense young wizard, who extinguished the lights with a wave of his wand and closed the door further, allowing only a small gap through which to look.
"Ziggy, wine." The booming voice of Lucius Malfoy echoed in the stone halls of Malfoy Manor. The previously empty drawing room was suddenly overflowing with people talking loudly and cheering. Hermione gripped Draco's arm, watching the scene on the other side of the door.
She recognised Draco's parents straight away, but there were others known to her.
Crabbe Sr, who looked remarkably like his son, sighed happily as he seized a bottle from one of the house-elves. And near the immense fireplace she spotted Theodore Nott's father, who she had seen before in King's Cross alongside his son.
The elegant robes worn by the Malfoys, and by Nott and Crabbe stood in stark contrast against the ragged clothes of some of the other wizards.
"Lucius," a dishevelled witch called out. "We must go to him. This is a momentous occasion and I have waited far too long already. Take us to him."
"All in good time, Bella. All in good time."
Hermione gasped, recognising the witch. Bellatrix Lestrange bore little resemblance to her picture. Her hair was a wild mess of curls and her once willowy frame had become gaunt and emaciated.
"NOW!" the witch yelled, eyes impossibly large in her haggard face.
Lucius sighed, looking at his wife for assistance.
"You have waited fifteen years, my darling," said Narcissa in a conciliatory tone. "A few more hours won't hurt."
"The Dark Lord will summon us when he's good and ready," said Crabbe cheerfully, reaching for the cream puffs. "There's no rushing these things."
Hermione didn't realise she was shaking until Draco placed a hand over her own, which still clung to his arm.
One of the men distanced himself from the group, his face pointing upwards, as if he was trying to catch a scent. He had a bulky built and a wild expression, albeit more contained than Bellatrix's.
"Greyback," Nott said quietly, "We'll need patrols out on the grounds. If anyone catches wind of this lot being here, we'll have the Ministry at our heels before any of us can say 'Azkaban'."
"Don't worry your pretty little head over it," replied the other gruffly. "It's taken care of."
"You all right, Dolohov?" Crabbe Sr asked a greenly-looking wizard who was half-lying in a settee, his face contorted in a pained expression.
"Let him be, top-dweller," spat another wizard in tattered robes. "Some of us haven't been living in luxury's lap for the past decade. You try rotting in Azkaban for over ten years and then see how well you take it."
Crabbe Sr, still holding a half-eaten cream puff, raised his hands apologetically, as if to atone for the indignity of his luxury-filled, Azkaban-free life.
Hermione took a deep breath, trying to bury some of the fear she felt building in her chest. She needed a clear mind. She needed to think. If there had been a mass breakout at Azkaban… How had there even been a mass breakout in Azkaban? The only two people who had ever managed to escape were Sirius and Barty Crouch, the first one because he was an Animagus, and the second through his father's deception and his mother's sacrifice.
But an escape of this magnitude… There were at least a dozen escaped Death Eaters in the room. The Dementors would never have allowed it, not unless… the Dementors were no longer under Ministry control. Hermione took a step back. She had to tell someone. She had to warn Dumbledore. She had to tell Harry.
Her sudden movement startled Draco, who let go of the door, allowing it to slide back a few inches. Greyback's eyes flew in their direction and both teenagers froze in place. The man crept towards the door, his piercing eyes unblinking.
Draco turned to her. "Hide," he mouthed.
The wizard did not wait to see Hermione find cover behind a group of shelves. Draco took a deep breath to steady himself and then threw the door open, marching out of the room. He listened for the sound of it closing behind him, suppressing a sigh of relief when he heard it.
"As souvenirs go, I think you may have outdone yourself this time, mother," he said, nodding at the assembled Death Eaters.
"Draco," Narcissa let go of Bellatrix's arm and rushed to her son's side. "What in Merlin's name are you doing here?"
He shrugged. "I was bored."
"We told you to stay at Hogwarts." His father's restrained tone chilled Draco more than anger would have, but the young wizard's face mirrored Lucius's impassive expression.
"You also told me you were going to Europe. Life is full of surprises."
Crabbe's father roared with laughter. "You have one cheeky kid, Lucius, one cheeky kid."
Crabbe Sr's amusement was not shared by the majority of the Death Eaters, however. While Bellatrix was still sulking in a corner, eyeing Lucius resentfully, the rest was starting to cast concerned glances around. Dolohov looked positively panicked. "Malfoy, if we are not safe here… If there are people…"
"Settle down, Dolohov," Lucius ordered with a bored look on his face. "The Manor is safe. There is no one under this roof who would give you away." Draco could have sworn he heard one of the portraits snort, but he did not look to see. The portraits in the Manor were vowed to protect the Malfoy family secrets. And he too was a Malfoy. "Draco is my son," his father continued. "Questioning his loyalty is questioning mine. Understood?"
Dolohov muttered something under his breath but returned to his place on the settee, sitting at the edge, his eyes darting to the windows every few seconds. Just then, Draco realised Greyback was still hanging around the back of the room, edging towards the library with his face up in the air.
"Father," he called, "are we associating with half-breeds these days?"
Fenrir Greyback spun around with murder in his eyes, lips pulled back revealing his sharp fangs. "Watch it, cub," he growled. "You're a bit too old for my taste, but I can still rip you to pieces, even this far away from the full moon."
Draco affected a yawn. The enraged Greyback was almost upon him when Narcissa's and Lucius's wands at his throat brought him to a sudden halt.
"Don't make me warn you twice, Greyback." The werewolf might have been almost twice her size, but in that moment, Narcissa was the scariest person in the room. Greyback took a step back, his expression a stony mask.
"Draco, adults are talking," Lucius chided. "Go to your room."
Draco ignored the smirks in the faces around him. "Gentlemen," he nodded before leaving. He paused, his eyes meeting Bellatrix's deranged gaze. "Aunt."
He strolled out of the drawing room, his hands in his pockets. When he was sure he was out of sight and out of earshot, Draco broke into a run, conquering the stone steps two at a time as he hurried up the stairs. The door of the master bedroom banged against the wall when he threw it open, but the wizard did not let the noise worry him. The mansion was too vast and too jealous of its secrets for the sound to have reached the Death Eaters on the floor below.
"Sanctimonia Vincet Semper." He pointed his wand at the lit fireplace and the flames turned blue, while the wall at the black slid sideways, revealing a dark entrance. "Lumus," he whispered, diving for the opening.
He spared hardly a glance at the weighed-down shelves that lined the walls of the narrow passageway as he made his way down. When he came to the library entrance, he paused, extinguishing the light of his wand and listening for any sounds on the other side of the panel. Failing to hear anything, he opened it cautiously, greeted by the all-encompassing darkness on the other side.
"Hermione," he whispered, stepping down into the room. "Lumus." The soft blueish light fell on the shelves, which cast long shadows against the books and the floor. Hermione's form peered from behind a bookcase on the other end of the room. "Come on," he whispered. She hesitated only briefly before hurriedly crossing the room. Her hand on his felt ice cold, but her determined expression showed no fear.
They were almost at the passage when the library door suddenly flew open, flooding the room with light from the drawing room. He turned around, pulling Hermione behind him, his wand raised.
Narcissa stopped in her tracks and stared at her son. Hermione gasped behind him. His instinct to lower his wand at the sight of his mother was at war with the part of his brain that warned him that was a terrible idea.
The witch glanced at the drawing room before closing the door behind her. A wave of her wand caused all the lamps in the library to come to life. She pointed the wand at the door. "Muffliato," she whispered, before turning to her son. "Move out of the way, Draco," she ordered, her wand aimed at them.
Draco stood his ground. "I will take care of it, mother," he said, turning his wand hand so as to stop it from shaking.
"You know what's at stake here." Narcissa took one step forward, mirrored by him taking a step back.
"I said I will take care of it," he snarled. He knew what was at stake. He understood what would happen to Hermione were she to be found by the Death Eaters currently feasting next door. He realised what it would mean for his parents if it came out that their son was hiding a Mudblood in the Manor; one who had seen and heard far too much. He was also not oblivious to the consequences of Hermione revealing what she had seen at the Manor tonight. Draco Malfoy was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them.
It had all gone to hell in the blink of an eye and he didn't know what to do nor how to fix it, and he couldn't breathe. But he refused to panic and he refused to move.
The sound of something breaking in the other room followed by a roar of laughter made them all jump. The elf-made wine appeared to be having the desired effect of relaxing the collection of skittish Death Eaters.
Draco took another step back, edging towards the open passageway.
"Colloportus," Narcissa shouted at the door behind them, just as Draco yelled, "Protego." The first spell bounced off Draco's shield and it was hard to say who looked more shocked; Narcissa, whose own son had believed her capable of casting something he'd need to shield, or Draco, whose shields had never had to stop anything more serious than Blaise being a prat.
"Mother, please," he begged. He searched for the words that could convince his mother that letting her fifteen-year-old son deal with something that could signify the fall of her House and the destruction of her family was a good idea, but for once he had no arguments left.
"Cissy!" The shrill voice was followed by approaching footsteps and Narcissa's face lost all colour as her eyes darted to the library door. "Go," she said, looking back at her son with a terrified expression.
Draco did not wait for his mother to change her mind. He turned on his heels, following Hermione into the secret passage, careful to keep his body between the two witches.
They hurried in silence past the shelves and the banned books, and the cursed knick-knacks hidden in corners. They rushed out of the master bedroom and past the silent corridors filled with nothing but the echo of their steps.
The moment they entered his bedroom, Hermione dashed towards her beaded bag lying on the bed, rummaging frantically through it until she found her wand.
"Misty! Ziggy!" he bellowed. The house-elves Apparated immediately, looking around befuddled. Draco grabbed the closest one by her dirty apron, lifting Misty off the ground.
"Draco, put her down," Hermione said, but he ignored the distressed witch.
"I'm only going to say this once. Not a word about Hermione to anyone downstairs. Not even my parents. You are forbidden to talk about her, to mention her presence, or even to confirm that she is or was ever here. And you better make sure the other house-elves keep their traps shut about it."
The terrified elves only nodded.
"Misty, scamper," Draco ordered. There was no telling what would happen if his father were to ask her a question that directly contradicted Draco's instructions, but there was no reason to suppose he would. And as for his mother… there was no helping what she already knew.
"Ziggy, you're Apparating us at Hogwarts," he ordered, looking around for his things.
"We can't Apparate at Hogwarts. Draco. Will you please stop moving around? Listen to what I'm saying." She grabbed his arm, forcing him to turn towards her. "We can't Apparate at Hogwarts," she repeated. Her calm voice only served to increase his own anxiety.
"If that lot downstairs finds you here, they'll spend the rest of the night taking turns at playing Crucio the Mudblood." To say nothing of the questions it would raise regarding his family's loyalty. "We need to go."
"I know that. But we can't Apparate at Hogwarts. It's not possible to Apparate anywhere on the grounds."
"House-elves can Apparate at Hogwarts."
"House-elves can, but even a house-elf can't take us past the wards. Best case scenario we wouldn't move. Worst case scenario, we'd get splinched trying."
Draco took a deep breath, struggling to think. They couldn't Apparate in a Muggle area. He needed somewhere where he could use magic without bringing the Ministry down on them. Proper magic, not just a small Unlocking Charm. Even if the Ministry probably had bigger fish to fry at the moment.
"Diagon Alley," Hermione suggested, putting on her cloak. "We'd be safe there."
Diagon Alley. The perfect place to go if he wanted to read in tomorrow's Prophet that there were escaped Death Eaters at Malfoy Manor.
"No, we'll go to Hogsmeade. It's not warded off against Apparition." And the station was far away enough from the village that there wouldn't be anyone around at night.
The witch nodded, clutching her purse in one hand and her wand in the other. He was about to order Ziggy to take them there when Hermione threw her arms around his neck. Against his better judgement, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight against him and burying his face in her messy hair. That morning had started happily. They had had breakfast at the Granger kitchen table and Mr Granger had made pancakes. How had they gone from pancakes to here?
When he let go, they both had tears in their eyes and neither spoke. Rather than turn to Ziggy for their already much delayed departure, Draco pulled Hermione back to him and kissed her, deeply, hungrily, and perhaps rather foolishly. The clock was ticking and they absolutely needed to go.
"Ziggy," he called at last. "Take us to Hogsmeade Station."
The moment they Apparated, he was ready to catch Hermione in case she lost her balance again, but the witch had landed firmly on her feet and Draco found himself staring at her pointed wand. He took a slow step back, more tired than surprised.
"So," he said.
"So," she echoed.
"It would appear we find ourselves with something of a conundrum." The station around them was dark and silent, buried under a mantle of snow, but while the moon was not yet full, it gave off enough light for them to see their surroundings.
"People need to know," Hermione said, mirroring his slow backward motion.
"You know I can't let you tell." Very slowly, so as not to draw her attention, he reached for his own wand in his back pocket.
"And you know I can't let you stop me."
"So what do we do with all this knowle—"
"Stupefy!" she yelled.
Quidditch reflexes kicked in and Draco dived to the side, rolling out of the way. No more talking, then. He threw back a Disarming Charm, but she had used the time to find cover behind a pillar. Ziggy was whimpering in the middle of the platform, either too scared to move or too scared to do it without permission. Either way suited him. Hermione would not risk harming the elf, and he didn't care.
His own cover was less than stellar, but it would have to do. Trying to flip the table or one of the benches was useless, as they were bolted in place. He peered over the table just as she did the same from behind her cover.
"Petrificus Totalus," he shouted. The spell whizzed past the pillar, finding nothing but cold air in its path. He couldn't hear Hermione's next cast, but the unmistakable sound of flapping wings caused him more surprise than concern.
"Oppugno," came her voice, loud and clear.
An army of angry birds flew at him like a single entity, pecking and scratching his face and neck. "Blasted hell," he cursed, waving his hands, trying to get rid of them. He nearly stunned himself before he had the presence of mind to mutter, "Finite Incantatem."
When his vision cleared, his eyes fell on Hermione's shape running away towards the end of the platform. He started after her, yelling: "Impedimenta." The jinx hit her squarely on the back with enough force that it threw her forward and she landed heavily on the ground.
For a moment he was afraid he had really hurt her, but she scrambled to her feet and hid in the relative cover of a doorway. The moment he tried to get close, another hex nearly blew his head off.
He was actually relieved.
If he didn't put an end to it soon, one of them would end up actually hurting the other. Draco looked around for ideas and his eyes fell on the brightest one he had had yet. A Slytherin solution to a Gryffindor problem. Checkmate.
Without taking his eyes of the spot where Hermione was hiding, he moved towards the station building. The moment his hand broke through the window, the pain of glass ripping his skin actually felt good. It was a specific kind of pain. Real. Physical. The only uncomplicated thing in an otherwise messed up night. He broke off a shard of glass and called out to the shaking house-elf.
"Ziggy, come here." He didn't turn his back to where Hermione was hiding, but he knew the house-elf was making her way to where he was standing. "Take this piece of glass and gouge your left eye out."
"No!" Hermione screamed. Ziggy's nervous squeaks had grown into frantic sobs, but the house-elf couldn't help the slow movement of the shard towards her eye.
"Enough dancing around." His voice sounded harsh to his own ears. "Come out, or she loses an eye."
"You sick bastard."
"Do feel free to insult me at your leisure, but I don't think Ziggy's eye has that kind of time." Big powerful sobs shook the small creature's body.
"Stop it!" Hermione came into view, walking out of the doorway, her wand by her side.
"Stop, Ziggy." The piece of glass was only a few inches from the elf's face. "Drop your wand." The witch's grip on her wand tightened. "Do it, Hermione." He took grim satisfaction in the fact that at least he wasn't the only one faced with nothing but bad choices.
Shaking with rage, Hermione threw her wand at his feet.
"Accio wand," he whispered. "Let's go."
"Send her home," she demanded without moving.
"I will. When I'm certain that you aren't going anywhere. Let's get out of the cold."
The soft blue light of the moon shone through the window panes and the open door of the main station building, but it didn't reach the shadows in the corners. Draco let his eyes adjust to the half-light without illuminating his wand. He wasn't worried about light being seen — with the amount of noise they had made, if there were people around, they'd know they were there already. But he didn't want a closer look at Hermione's stricken expression. He didn't need to see the anger and the hurt and the rage. He knew they were there and that was enough.
"Sit," he said, pointing to a row of chairs across from the ticket office. Stubborn to the last, the witch just stood there, unmoving, her arms wrapped across her chest. He struggled to keep his voice even. "Let's just skip the part where you refuse and I threaten the damn elf again, because next time, I'll skip the eye and have her shove the damn glass into her carotid."
Urged by Ziggy's convulsive sobs, Hermione did as she was told. Draco pointed his wand at her: "Incarcerous." Ropes shot from his wand, coiling around a startled Hermione and binding her to the chair. She instinctively tried to get up again, but the straps twisted tighter around her torso and legs, pulling her back against the seat. The struggle to keep from moving was evident in the tension in her shoulders and the way she closed her eyes, focusing on trying to control her laboured breathing.
Unable to stand it one second longer, Draco rushed outside. Ziggy was standing by the door, swaying back and forth, the shard still held tightly in her hand. Every few seconds, a new droplet of blood added to the growing stain on the white snow. Feeling like he was going to throw up, Draco took a deep breath, trying to clear his head. "Drop the glass, Ziggy." The elf slowly put her hand forward, as if expecting a rebuke. As none came, she finally released the shard, immediately hugging her hand against her body.
He had grown up surrounded by house-elves just like her. They served his family, cleaned after him, saw to his needs. For him, house-elves were like the portraits at the Manor: they existed and they moved and they talked, but their reality did not extend past their usefulness. He did not hate house-elves, but only in the same manner that no one would hate a teapot.
But looking at his own bloodied hand, for the first time he thought of this one very specific house-elf as a fellow thinking, feeling creature, and the weight of that almost crushed him. He wanted to apologise, to say he was sorry and that he hadn't meant it.
But he had meant it.
And some things you cannot atone for.
"Go home, Ziggy," he said simply, starting to walk to the other end of the platform. A small pop let him know that the house-elf had Disapparated.
Everything was quiet outside, and the reflection of the moon on the snow gave the world around him a soft glow. He stopped by the broken window. "Reparo," he said, wishing that all broken things were that easy to fix. Then he picked up Hermione's dropped purse before erasing all other signs of their presence with a wave of his wand.
Having put off the inevitable long enough, he walked back into the station's main building, closing the door behind him.
"You're going to hurt yourself like that." Hermione started visibly at the sound of his voice, and stopped struggling against the binds.
He regarded her in silence for a few moments before coming to kneel on the floor, looking up at her. The witch winced when he reached for his wand.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said, sickened that it needed saying.
"Forgive me if I don't find that reassuring." Even in the half-light, he could see the tears falling freely down her face, but her voice was steady. "What are you going to do, exactly?" she asked.
"Memory Charm. You'll simply forget. Like it never happened."
Her nearly hysterical laughter filled the room. "You think you can make me forget and that will somehow fix everything? How dare you?" she asked, voice dripping with loathing. "If you're making me forget, then be thorough. I want to forget it all. I want to forget us. I want to forget you. I don't ever want to look at your face again."
He nodded, ignoring the iron fist currently squeezing his lungs. Sometimes things broke too thoroughly to fix and there was no amount of magic in the world that could put them to rights again.
He raised his wand.
"Draco," Hermione said in a small voice.
"Yeah?"
"Don't mess up the spell."
He tried to smile. "Ravenclaw smart, remember?" She started to cry in earnest at that. His heart breaking, he reached for the witch, pressing her forehead against his for a few precious seconds and kissing her tear-stained cheek before falling back on his knees.
She closed her eyes as he raised his wand again.
"Obliviate."
AN: It look me far longer than I'm willing to admit to finish this chapter. I had decided on the general outline of it back when I was writing chapter 2 and it was originally meant to be the end of this fic. At some point, I decided however that I am still having too much fun writing this, and that I don't want to end it quite so grimly (also, when I emailed this chapter to my friend, she texted me with "You're a monster and I'll never forgive you," followed by "Until I get giggles and cuddles again, we're not speaking", so I better have something up my sleeve...).
Regarding the timeline, in Order of the Phoenix we don't learn of the mass breakout until the middle of January, after classes have started. I had them escape a few weeks earlier so it would fit with the story. Also, I have no trouble believing the Ministry would have kept it under wraps until they had no choice but to go public with the information...
Many thanks to my beta, RaistlinTheWizard, who finally got an account here!
