Chapter 10
"No. Fucking. Way," Hermione would never, under normal circumstances, cuss out her professor. But these weren't normal circumstances.
"Have I not made this clear?" Professor Snape hissed. "If you do not join, all of your friends will die. Your family will die. Draco will die."
"I'm sure they'd all rather that they die rather than us join the Death Eaters," Blaise spat. "I don't fucking care about your threats. It's not happening!"
"Oh really?" Snape sneered. "I'm sure you'll beg to differ when your mother is raped, your younger brother beaten and tortured within an inch of his life, your girlfriend ripped to shreds while-"
"ENOUGH!" Blaise yelled, trembling. "Merlin damn it. Why did you have to pick us?"
"Because the Dark Lord needed heirs, and you were the only two that could learn legilimency so quickly," Snape snapped. "We're wasting time - Hermione, you know what your initiation ceremony will be, the Dark Lord indicated that you will likely have to torture and murder your parents. We need to come up with a plan," Snape said quickly. "Blaise, I'm not sure what you initiation will be."
"What was yours?" Blaise asked hesitantly.
Snape trembled slightly, his eyebrows furrowing in pain. "Torturing a five year old girl. I couldn't swap her for a convict... it is my worst memory."
"I'm sorry, Professor," Hermione said quietly, laying a hand on his shoulder.
He brushed her hand away. "There was nothing to be done. However, that is not the case with your initiation ceremonies. Hermione, you will need to obliviate your parents' memories and send them as far away as possible."
"Australia?" Hermione asked.
Snape nodded. "English-speaking, and if they stay there long enough, hopefully they'll be able to pick up the accent. Give them new names and new lives. New memories if you can manufacture some, but you have less than a week. We'll need to break into a muggle prison for replacements. Give them your parents memories, and transfigure them into your parents' appearances permanently. Polyjuice will wear off too quickly."
Hermione nodded shakily, already brainstorming. "Monica and Wendell Wilkins. Never had any children, since they couldn't, and have always dreamed of creating a dental clinic in Australia. They just inherited a sum of money from their parents, who recently passed away, and have just found the financial means to realize their dream."
Snape nodded, buying the story. "Now go do it. Make sure to extract all memories of you into a vial so you can copy it into the prisoners' minds."
Hermione grimaced before apparating away.
"Now, Blaise," Snape sighed. "You'll have to be prepared for the worst. Which is... making a horcrux. I take it you've heard about them before?"
Blaise nodded, wincing. "Have you ever learned of the process by which one creates a horcrux?"
Blaise shook his head, finding it easier than trying to speak.
By the end of Snape's explanation, Blaise had turned quickly before running to the bathroom to vomit.
Harry stumbled out of bed, already wincing as he crossed off another date on his calendar, a habit Hermione had taught him. He flinched, refusing to think about her. Blaise's betrayal was bad enough, but Hermione's hit the closest to home. He threw his clothes on haphazardly, storing his pajamas in his trunk. After all, he'd be leaving Hogwarts for the last time today.
He actually took the time to make his bed. For once, it didn't look like a half-kneazle half-rat nest. He shuffled quickly, bringing his trunk out to the common room before Ron would wake up and make his morning any worse than it already was. And that was saying a lot.
He sat heavily down into an arm chair, staring into the now empty fireplace, holding the ratty old sorting hat that Dumbledore had placed in his care in his will. Merely a year ago, he had been woken up in the middle of the night to utter chaos. His DA galleon had burned his chest, Ginny shrieking "Hermione's gone and there are Death Eaters at Hogwarts" into the group message. Seamus, Dean, and Neville had gotten the message at the same time as Harry, and they threw on their jumpers before charging down to the common room, wands in hand.
They had met Lee, and Katie, putting shield charms around themselves before exiting the common room.
"Where are Paige and Ginny?"
"Must've gone out as soon as they noticed Hermione had gone missing," Katie speculated as they ran towards the Great Hall. Paige and Ginny were already in the midst of the fighting, desperately dodging unforgivable curses and shooting stunning hexes every chance they got. Harry surveyed the Hall, noting that everyone from the DA, including the few Slytherins that Alexandra and Draco had recruited, were more or less here. He jumped straight into the heat of the battle, taking down a couple Death Eaters from hexing Paige's back.
"Remind me to thank you for that later," Paige called over her shoulder, before stunning another Death Eater.
"I will provided we get the chance! Stupefy!" Harry yelled.
"Where is Hermione?" Katie called worriedly as she and Harry fought back to back.
"YOU FUCKING TRAITORS!" someone shouted, charging after two people who were dashing down the hallway towards the Astronomy Tower. Harry half-turned, suddenly recognizing Draco running after Blaise and Hermione. Alexandra, Paige and Harry glanced at each other before running in pursuit.
When the three finally reached Draco, Hermione, and Blaise, spells were flying everywhere. Hermione and Blaise both were shouting spells that Harry had never heard of, choosing to dodge as many spells as he could in case a shield spell wouldn't work.
It was when Alexandra, Harry, and Paige caught sight of Hermione's and Blaise's left forearms that they finally understood.
"You piece of shit," Alexandra cursed, managing to hit Blaise with a strong hex, but he had moved mostly out of the way so that the curse merely glanced him. He quickly muttered the counterspell, but was quickly reoccupied with his ex-girlfriend. "You fucking disgust me! How could you? HOW COULD YOU!" she yelled.
Both Hermione and Blaise had stony faces on, attacking without feeling, mechanically and completely uncharacteristically. It was as if they had flipped off their emotion switch. They would not, or could not, feel any remorse for what they were doing.
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?" Alexandra yelled, hysterically attacking with all her might, using some nonverbal spells that she had been practicing. "HOW COULD YOU?"
Neither Blaise nor Hermione had the strength to respond. All they wanted to do was stop, to cry and to give in, and let their friends comfort them. But from here on out, there was no comfort. There was nowhere to hide, not even in their own minds. They only had each other, Snape maybe, but that would only get them so far. There was no one to confide their boiling emotions to, so they buried them, deep beneath a hard, cold exterior.
"What happened to you?" Draco asked Hermione, unable to comprehend the ugly black tattoo swirling around her left arm. "I thought… I thought we were good. What did he do to you?"
"Professor Snape!" Paige cried as he billowed down the hallway. "Blaise and Hermione are with the Death Eaters! Stop them!"
Harry went numb as Professor Snape stunned every single student except for Blaise and Hermione, who had escaped, and continued up the Astronomy Tower after them. Dumbledore was waiting.
Draco couldn't sleep. He spent the night tossing and turning, rolling around in his bed, legs tangling in his sheets. The irrational part of his brain was sifting through all of the past six years- all of the memories he had stored within the stone walls of Hogwarts. And with those memories, unwanted emotions surfaced. He tried to stuff them down, and to remember he had a purpose now. The more rational side of his brain was focused on this, at the overwhelming task he had looming in front of him. But, he knew he didn't have to face this challenge on his own- and that was precisely what terrified him.
He stopped himself there, shoving that emotion deep within himself, and tried to turn the rational side of his mind back on.
A quiet voice whispered, so softly Draco doubted he heard it, "Draco Malfoy…"
He sprang up out of bed and instinctively reached for his wand. "Did somebody say Draco Malfoy?"
Theodore Nott raised his head from his bed. "No one said your name, you self-conceited git."
Draco had half a mind to hex him, but decided against it, and rolled back into his bed, throwing his covers up over his head.
An innumerable many hours later, Draco finally decided it was time. It was surprisingly hard to get up and go through the daily motions so familiar to him. He got himself dressed and the rest of his trunk packed, and turned to make the bed. It hit him then as he pulled the covers up that this was the last time he would ever be doing this. It seemed so simple an action, and on any other day Draco would have scoffed at his hesitation. It's just a bloody bed, Draco, pull the covers up. But somehow, he couldn't get himself to do it. It seemed like closure to him, pulling those damn covers up, because it was such a sense of finality and the irrational part of his brain was whispering in his ear it's over, Draco, all of those moments are now memories. Draco squeezed his eyes shut, and with more energy than he would have thought necessary, shut that part of his brain off and focused on his mission, on his purpose.
Opening his eyes, he pulled the covers up swiftly, grabbed the handle of his trunk, and walked out of the Slytherin dormitory without looking back.
Draco ascended the stairs to the Astronomy Tower a few hours later, having deposited his trunk at the drop off. Harry, Alexandra, and Paige were already up there, standing facing each other and talking, dressed in their street clothes. They stopped when they heard Draco coming, and opened up their triangle to let him in.
"Are we ready, then?" Draco asked as he stuck his hands in the pockets of his jacket, looking out over the edge of the tower.
"Actually, there was something I need to talk to you all about," Harry said, looking down at the tattered sorting hat that Dumbledore had left him. He took a deep breath. "This isn't any of your fights. This is between me, and Voldemort. Finding these Horcruxes... it is going to be dangerous. I need to do this alone."
"To hell it's not our fight," Alexandra sniffed.
"We are just as much of a part of this war as you are, Harry, we deserve to fight in its battles," Paige said.
Harry shook his head and looked her in the eyes. "I couldn't live with myself if anything happened to you…" he trailed off and shifted his gaze to Alexandra and Draco, "to any of you. It's going to be dangerous-"
"Yeah, mate, we know it's going to be dangerous," Draco said, annoyed. "But here we are, aren't we? You don't have to play the hero on this one, Harry. Get over your hero complex and let us help you. We aren't all useless wastes of space."
"This is our war, too," Alexandra reaffirmed. "We've been through too much to separate now."
Silence came over them as they each remembered all they had been through in the past six years-all the betrayal, heartache, and war that had brought them together.
"We're not going anywhere," Paige said, breaking the silence. "We're coming with you-that's non-negotiable."
He turned to Alexandra and Draco. "You know we might encounter… them," Harry said, looking both of them straight in the eyes. "We might have to fight… I don't know if I want to put you through that."
"You wouldn't be making us do anything," Alexandra snapped."If it comes to that, then…" she trailed off and exchanged a look with Draco.
"Then we'll deal with it," Draco finished, turning back to Harry.
Harry looked around at each of their faces, and it was clear there was no arguing with them-they were dead set on helping him find these Horcruxes.
Finally, Harry turned to Paige. The night in the Room of Requirement flashed through his mind. Sometimes things aren't yours to save… He had tried to keep her safe once-what if he couldn't do it again?
Harry looked at her and blurted out the first thing that popped into his head. "What about Oliver?"
"I think taking down Voldemort is a bit more important than spending time with my boyfriend," she said evenly.
"Well yeah but…" Harry blustered, trying to find a way to keep her safe. If he couldn't protect her… maybe Oliver could.
"But nothing," she said, summoning their brooms and shrinking her luggage down with a simple charm. "He can't stop me, and you won't either."
"So let's shut up and go," Draco said tightly, mounting his broom.
"Where are we going first?" Harry sighed, giving in.
"I've got a hunch," Alexandra frowned, shrinking down the memory vials that Dumbledore had entrusted to her in his will. "One of the most common sayings in Slytherin is know your enemy, right? I say we go to his origins. The Gaunt Shack."
"We better go," Paige muttered as the castle began waking up. "Snape will be after us after our parents receive the letters."
On that solemn note, the four friends kicked off into the sky, flying towards their destinies.
AN: Sorry we haven't updated in so long! Snape'sPaige394 and I have been crazy with college decisions, scholarship apps, internship apps, etcetera etcetera. Hopefully after AP season is done, we'll be back to updating this story more frequently! We're bursting with ideas - all we have to do is write them. Expect a lot more coming in a few more weeks!