Hello again my dears! First off I would like to apologize for the long wait. Nearly 3 weeks now!
I promise that will never ever ever happen again. I expected to come home for holiday break from college and have all this free time but I got called into work at my old job in town and have been working overtime all of break. But today was my first day off so I forced myself to sit down and finish writing! My last day of work is tomorrow, so I'll be going back to updating every 2-4 days as was usual :)
Song recommendations: Safe and Sound - Taylor Swift, Skinny Love - Birdy, Perfect - Hedley and Kraco has recommended All I need - Within Temptation.
This chapter is long and informative, yet is in a common setting. Please review if you read it! I love comments that discuss my style, the storyline, etc. even if it's constructive criticism! Also, if you have any song suggestions, I would love to hear what songs my story makes you think of :) Also, accioedits | tumblr made a graphic for the Chapter 9, and the link is on my profile page, along with a link to my tumblr! I love you guys :) - Valerie Ann
Draco slowly slid his hand towards the wand in his pocket and straightened out his posture, putting on a façade to hide his fear.
"Hello to you as well Nymphadora." He replied in a flat tone. Tonks stared at him for a moment, her mousy brown hair in a short, unkempt style and her robes disheveled from the battle.
"Expelliarmus!" Draco's wand which he had barely grabbed in his pocket went flying across the room. "So why are you here cousin," she asked, saying the last word with spite, "come to finish off McGonagall as well?"
"I didn't-"
"Don't use your innocent ploy on me Draco. Now tell me, why did you think I was Hermione?"
"I-I…" he stammered, but stopped mid sentence when he heard heavy footsteps rushing up the stairwell, and the door slam open.
Hermione burst through the door. "Oh thank goodness you're here." She murmured. She had run here as soon as she could move. Her head still aching, the hair on the back of her head lightly caked in dried blood.
She only saw Draco and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck.
"Hermione?" Tonks questioned with a look of confusion on her face.
Hermione released Draco's neck and spun around to see Tonks standing a few metres away with a wordless expression, her wand still pointed at Draco.
"Tonks! I- What are you- what is going on?" Hermione finally stammered out her words, her eyes moving back and forth between Draco and Tonks.
"Why are you being so friendly with him? Do you realize what he has done tonight?" the mousy brown haired woman sneered.
"You don't understand. He didn't want to bring them here, he was forced. It was a life or death situation!" Hermione nearly shouted as tears filled her eyes.
"What about the Astronomy tower Hermione? He wasn't forced at the point of a wand to go up there, was he?"
"What are you talking about?"
Tonks smirked and looked at Draco. "So Mr. Malfoy, I see you haven't told her everything. Spit it out, or I will."
A look of worry covered Hermione's face and she wrapped her arm around the arm of the grey eyed boy beside her. "Draco, what is she talking about?"
He looked away from the girl he loved to look back at the woman across the room. "Nymphadora, please… don't," he pleaded, his voice shaking with each word.
Hermione unwrapped her arm from Draco's and took a step back. "Draco, what did you do?" she asked sternly.
"Love, you have to understand-"
"Draco, answer the fucking question!" Hermione demanded.
"Love? What in the bloody hell is going on between you two?" Tonks asked, reminding the couple of her presence.
"Tonks, just tell me what he did." The bushy haired girl commanded.
"Well if you must know, Draco here brought all the Death Eaters as support in his quest to kill the headmaster," she paused seeing the look on Hermione's face turn to one of horror. "Hermione, Dumbledore is dead. Harry saw everything and came and told us just after you disappeared from the hospital wing."
Hermione's face turned to one of disgust and she spun around to look at Draco again, tears falling down her cheeks. "That is what all this bullshit was? So you could do Voldemort's dirty work for him?" she took a few more steps away from him and wiped the tears on her face away with her sleeve. "Was I just another part of your plan Draco?" she asked, her voice deceiving her with its quaking words.
"I didn't kill him Hermione. Remember what I said earlier?" a tear was falling down his face now and he stepped towards her, but she only stepped further back. "Remember how I said I failed him because I thought of you? That is how I failed you-know-who. I didn't kill Dumbledore; I couldn't do it because all I could think about was you, and what it'd do to you. Snape saw my hesitation and stepped in before I could even stop him."
"Would you have actually tried?" Hermione asked with her still quaky voice.
"I wouldn't lie to you." Draco replied as he held his hand out to her.
A look of anger flashed across Hermione's face and she slapped his hand down. "Don't you dare say that! That seems to be all you've done these last few months and I don't know what to believe from you anymore!" Draco stepped back at her harsh tone, but she continued, "Why the hell did I even stick around this long? How could I have been so stupid? You haven't changed and YOU NEVER WILL!"
Hermione was fuming now and her eyes were filled with tears of anger that she refused to let fall down her cheeks. She clenched her fists and glared at the boy with blonde hair in front of her who looked as though he had just been stunned. Tonks was still standing by the doorway, her mouth gaping at the young feuding couple.
"Am I missing something here? The two of you…? Together?" Tonks said as her eyebrows creased together questioningly.
Draco simply stared at the girl before him, his lips slightly turned down in the corners and his eyes glazed over. He could see the dried blood in her hair and had wondered how it had gotten there. Was it there just a few hours ago? Tonks' question didn't faze him, everyone would now know their secret, the one Hermione had desperately begged him to set free but he had refused. Now the possibility of losing her had become a reality when he realized everyone else would try to keep them apart. It was even more realistic when he grasped the fact that he had screwed anything up before anyone else could even try.
A few steps of footsteps were heard rising up the staircase towards the doorway. None of the three people inside the office dared to move. Tonks' wand still raised, Hermione's anger still seething and a broken Draco Malfoy still staring at her with the looks of both love and regret in his eyes. The door opened to reveal Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, Slughorn and Sprout entered the large office, followed by Harry and a crouching Hagrid. They obviously had not expected to walk into a scene such as the one before them.
Harry's eyes set on Malfoy who was still staring blankly at Hermione.
"YOU!" Harry yelled, not even pulling out his wand, but just lunging straight towards Draco, who landed to the floor with a loud thud and a flash of pain as Harry quickly pinned him down. The look of anger in Potter's eyes had mutated his face into one Hermione had never seen before but she couldn't help but watch as the sight before her unfolded.
Harry's right fist crashed into Draco's face with a loud breaking noise, but the boy beneath him wasn't even trying to fight back. He was about to bring down his fist again with a pair of small hands enclosed around his wrist.
"HARRY POTTER, YOU GET OFF HIM RIGHT THIS INSTANT!" Hermione demanded while pulling him backwards.
Harry landed flat on his arse, but luckily his arm caught him from landing on his back. He gawked at Hermione, his glasses askew on his face and a hint of blood on the knuckles of his right wrist. Draco lay still on his back, blood rushing out of his now crooked nose.
Tonks had lowered her wand and the teachers just stared at the students, completely speechless.
"What the fuck Hermione?" Harry spat while fixing his glasses.
The bushy haired girl ignored him as she ran to the side of the boy lying silently on the cold stone floor. She grabbed her wand and her pocket and shakily pointed it at his face.
Draco prepared himself for the worst seeing has Hermione's wand was mere centimetres from his face. He scrunched up his eyes and wondered what spell she would possibly use on him. Surely nothing unforgivable. That was one more thing he loved about her; she would never do something if it went against her own morals. He closed his eyes tighter for if she used a harsh spell against him, he didn't want to witness it, even though he deserved it. He waited motionless for what seemed like minutes as he anticipated. He felt her scoot on her knees a little closer to him.
"Episkey," she muttered lowly.
Draco felt his nose become very hot, then very cold as it cracked back into place. He opened his eyes and looked confusingly at the girl with the concerned look, sitting on her knees to his right.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
He couldn't help but smirk at the thought of what she had just done. She had saved him… again. "I've been better." He replied.
"So you really didn't do it? Because of me?" Hermione asked.
Draco lightly nodded his head as he rose onto his elbows, knowing exactly what she was referring to.
The couple seemed to ignore the seven other people in the room, all eyes on them for they only were looking at each other.
Hermione threw her arms around the boy before her, making him crash back onto the floor again but he didn't care for even though it'd only been a few hours since she'd been in his arms, it was relieving to be holding her again.
Harry rose to his feet while trying to fumble his wand out of his pocket. He had it out and ready, pointed straight at Malfoy when suddenly a barely noticeable red light flashed across the room and his wand went flying across the room. He looked up to see McGonagall's wand at her side, he eyes glaring daggers.
"Mr. Potter, I will not have you causing any harm in my office, do you hear me?" she said in a voice demanding compliance.
Hermione released Draco and he rose up to a sitting position beside her. She looked at him with worry and although he was wandless and scared, he tried to calm her by entwining his fingers with hers. Her tense stance seemed to loosen as his touch and her breathing evened.
"Hermione, what is this? Do you even realize what he has done? Dumbledore is DEAD! Bill is in the hospital wing, and somehow the rest of us managed to come out unscathed. HE DID THIS!"
Draco felt her fingers leave his as she rose to her feet and stepped towards Harry. "I know what he has done," she replied in the most calming voice she could manage, "and I also know it won't make any sense to you but he really is a good guy Harry. You just have to understand his circumstances were different than ours were."
"He had the same options we've been granted. I saw Dumbledore offer him a way out of all this. He offered him protection and Malfoy still stood there with his wand pointed at him!"
Draco rose to his feet at that comment "Listen Potter, if you overheard that then you must have heard me tell him why I needed to. You also must have seen that I lowered my wand in the end."
"Backing out of it was an option but instead you pansied out! You didn't do it out of courage or bravery, you still wanted to but you just couldn't so you had Snape do your job for you!"
"I AM NOT A KILLER POTTER!" Draco was now within a centimetres of Harry and his features had hardened into anger.
"Oh really? You're not a killer but yet you seemed perfectly content with using the Imperius on Madame Rosmerta, cursing Katie Bell and poisoning my best friend, am I right?"
"I didn't mean-"
"DON'T YOU DARE TRY TO JUSTIFY YOUR ACTIONS. Just because you were actually trying to kill Dumbledore instead of my entire Quidditch team, doesn't make you a better person." Harry's voice was filled with disgust at that last statement. He looked back a Hermione, who was a metre in front of the feuding boys with her mouth open and her arms pulled into her chest as if she was trying to breathe but couldn't. "And what were your plans with Hermione, huh? Just pulling her along for the ride?"
"Do not challenge my feelings for Hermione." Draco demanded. He now looked back at the broken girl behind him as well and stepped towards her, trying to enclose her hands in his but she pulled away.
"Why is it that every time I forgive I find out you've done something far worse than before?" she asked in a soft and shaken voice.
"Hermione, I know you can't comprehend all this now but I think somewhere deep down you know that I did all this because I thought it was what I needed to do to survive," he paused taking in her expression, but it was blank and unreadable. "Then you came along and it became more about doing whatever I needed to, to be with you. That is why I am here now and why I didn't complete my mission. I only want you Hermione."
She simply stared at him as he talked unsure what to make of his words. The man before her was the same boy that used to taunt her when they were children but the war had aged them both past the point of childish insults. They both had done what they thought they needed to do for the war, although it was for separate sides. It dawned on her that every single time he did something to upset her, he would somehow sweet talk her into wanting him again, no matter what he had done. She figured this time would be no different.
Isn't that what love is? Protecting each other, forgiving them for the past and accepting their flaws? That is exactly what Hermione knew she needed to do then. Sure, she and Draco have had a lot of their own problems over the past couple of months. They were either blissfully in love and spending every possible moment together in secret, or hiding from one another, unable to accept their awful circumstances but now they had no choice.
Hermione looked up at Draco, lowering her arms from her chest, and grabbing his hands in hers, still ignoring the other five teachers and Tonks, all silently watching her response.
"You can't change the past Draco, but you can change where you go next." She said in a concerned tone. "If you are really in this, I'm going to need your word. Just say it and I'm yours."
He lowered his hands from her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her in. "I promise love, the only side I'll fight for is the one you're on."
"I can't believe you're going to fall for this bull shit Hermione!" Harry scoffed, reminding the couple that he was nearby. "You know what he is going to do now, right? You're going to inform him of our plans and what we know, then he'll skip off to Voldemort and we'll all be dead soon after… you're endangering us all by saving him, and he isn't worth it."
"Harry, I trust him! I'm not asking you to do the same, but I am asking you to not question my judgment!" she retorted and turned towards the silent teachers in the room, "McGonagall, he isn't safe there. Please… help him." Hermione pleaded.
"I have faith in your decision Miss Granger, and I will try to find a way to help Mr. Malfoy and possibly make use of him, but I only ask one thing of you…"
"What is it? Anything, I'll do anything if you'll save him."
"You are not to tell him any details of the Order, our plans or whereabouts at any given time. Do you hear me?"
"Yes ma'am." Hermione curtly replied.
"Also, I am leaving Mr. Malfoy under your care until I am able to make other arrangements and discuss this with the Order."
"I take full responsibility for anything she that goes wrong concerning this. I can mind those conditions."
"Good. Now if the two of you wouldn't mind, I need to talk to the heads of houses, Miss Tonks and Mr. Potter."
Hermione managed a small smile in Draco's direction, grabbed his hand and they started to walk towards the door.
"Ahem, Mr. Malfoy," McGonagall called his attention and pointed under the desk. "You'll be needing your wand."
Draco nodded and briskly walked over and grabbed his wand, then took a few steps towards her. "Thank you Professor, I assure you that you won't regret this."
"You better not force me to, Draco." She replied, low enough that Hermione couldn't hear. Draco nodded again let Hermione hook his arm through his, shutting the door as they made their way out of the entry.
As soon as the door shut they could already hear Tonks' protests of Draco carrying a wand, Harry ranting that McGonagall's decision would end up killing them all and the teachers all discussing and questioning exactly how trustworthy the Malfoy heir really was. As they got farther down the staircase the objections turned in inaudible sounds, and then were completely quieted.
(A/N) I wasn't going to end it here, but the next part flowed better with the next chapter than it did this one so the ending is kind of at an awkward placement. Look for chapter 11 before Saturday! :) Review!