Title: The Misfortunes of Virtue
Author: Winter Ashby (rosweldrmr)
Disclaimer: Harry Potter © J.K. Rowling & Misfortunes of Virtue (title only) were written by the Marquis de Sade in 1787 (more notes about the literary allusions in the footnote of the last chapter)
Rating: M (for language and adult themes)
Summary: Draco steals away in the dead of night on orders from the Dark Lord to either kidnap or kill Hermione. But who is he really loyal to?
Timeline: Post 'The Half-Blood Prince' Some incorporated plot of 'Deathly Hallows'
Warning: Major Character Deaths! Inferi!Character, Necromancism: controlling the dead (NOT necrophilia), strong language, violence, blood, gore, & DH spoilers
Authors Note: Last chapter before the epilogue. This is going to be kind of long. So warnings: more character deaths, violence, blood, strong language. All that good stuff! Also, writing action/adventure is really hard! I swear this was like 10 times long when I was writing it. I thought it was EPIC!
Part Ten
Evils of Absolutionism
At the first flicker of green that shot from the forest, Draco already had his wand drawn and 'Avada Kedavra' out before the rest of them had time to think. He charged, headstrong and blindly into the darkness. The only light came from spells that shot from all directions, making the black sky streak red and green, like an unholy Christmas.
"Protego." An insipid voice shouted to his right, and he didn't turn to see Potter's face gloat after saving Draco from a curse sent sideways through the trees.
"Crucio!" Somewhere threw the trees; a deatheater felt the wrath of Draco's anger. He held it until he couldn't hear the screaming anymore. He had meant it for Hermione, and Potter, and the Weasley. He meant for them to feel his pain and he imagined her writhing face as he conjured the curse.
He smiled wickedly.
"Don't bother with them!" Potter shouted at his inner circle, which'd formed a kind of half ring around him. Draco was at the far end, though still close enough to see the blood on Hermione's cheek. It wasn't hers. "Just get deeper in, find Voldemoooooaaaahhhhh!"
His command was swallowed up by his own screaming. Potter dropped to his knees, clutching his forehead with both hands, his wand slumping between his fingers.
"Harry!" Hermione pushed past the others, "Expecto Patronum!" A silver otter burst from the tip of her wand and scuttled forward through the trees, immediately dispelling the mounting chill that Draco had hardly been aware of.
"Expelliarmus!" Longbottom disarmed a packrat deatheater lumbering through the trees at them.
"Lumos." Hermione lit her wand and bet to Potter's side.
Draco turned away.
"Morsmordre." Came from between the trees, and a large green skull and snake appeared in the sky, twisting and churning the air; acidic, metallic, bloodied.
"Fuck, Granger! Just get him up and moving!" Draco shouted and spared only a second to look at her over his shoulder before he pushed on through the trees.
"Petrificus Totalus." Could be heard in the distance, and one of the older girls that used to play for Gryffindor's quidditch team fell.
"Oppugno!" The girl Weasley shot a curse back. And in the distance, he could see a section of trees had come to life and were now attacking two cloaked figures.
"Nox." Hermione extinguished her wand light as the deatheaters shouts grew louder, more frantic.
Draco fought desperately to shut out the pain in his arm that was threatening to drag him under. It was burning like it never had before, even in the room of perpetual darkness when he'd learned to stop the pain. Now, it was different, magnified. It was hard to breathe, like there wasn't enough oxygen. He gasped and clawed at his throat.
"Rennervate." Hermione pointed her wand at Potter and his eyes flickered open.
"Petrificus Totalus." Two voices echoed the same spell. The older Weasley twins moved forward and took Harry under the arms. They walked over the frozen body of Avery.
"About bloody time!" The Weasley girl screeched at them and threw a powerful curse into the darkness. "Reducto!"
In the distance, he could hear someone dying. It seemed the youngest Weasley was the most powerful.
"That way!" Draco chocked out, trying to block out the pain. Obviously, someone had to take the lead while Potter's eyes rolled in his sockets and he mumbled something about the 'the true master' and thrashed around in the other men's grasps. Ginny, who he had pointedly been speaking to, had her wand turned before he'd gotten the words out.
"Incarcerous" and the three people who had appeared through the trees were immediately bound with rope so tightly they cried out. Draco recognized one of them as Nott.
"Avada Kedavra" Draco pointed his wand and relished in the feel of taking the life. No one seemed to notice, or if they did, no one said anything about it.
"Stupefy." Another boy their age came bursting through the underbrush wailing out the stunning charm.
"Oi! This is a war! Duel to kill!" Draco warned. But before he had a chance to do much else, a green streak came flying through the trees and struck the boy in the middle of his chest. His body fell immediately; his eyes still swiveled in their sockets, forever staring at Draco.
Draco cursed and threw a protective charm around them for a moment as more curses flew from the same direction.
"Dean!" Lovegood screamed and lunged for the body.
"Leave him! Leave him, Luna!" Potter instructed. Almost as if on cue, he seemed to be coming out of it. "He's farther in, near where Aragog's lair was." No one present got the reference, and as Potter wrenched free from the twins hands, he drew his wand up. "Come on."
The spells were getting strong, harder to deflect with anti charms and hex deflecting techniques. Draco was caught on the side, his robes ripped open as a curse flew past him. It burned like fire against his skin, but he kept going.
And all around him, he could see the others beginning to bleed and pant. He could only imagine how the rest of their army was fairing. It was their job to distract and take out as many as they could. They had to deal with the giants, Draco noted there must have been a few for the way the ground shook somewhere to the south, and everything else.
It was only a chosen few, 12 or so, that pushed into the heart of the forest. It was their job to let Potter get to the Dark Lord.
"Relashio." Ginny took out another one.
"Incendio." Finnegan cast a fire spell at a shadow amongst the trees, just to Draco's left.
"Watch it with that!" He shouted as he dusted the ash from his torn, bloody cloak. But it didn't matter. A second later, the other boy was down. Fixed, blank eyes looked at nothing but a dark sky.
Draco growled and pointed in the direction the curse had come from. "Sectumsempra!" Potter gave him a withering look, something like shame as they heard the screams of agony in the distance.
"Serpensortia." Came from somewhere near Ginny and she was overrun with snakes.
"NO!" Potter bellowed, and without even uttering an incantation, he whipped his wand around and the snakes turned to dust before they could touch their fangs to her skin. Draco only saw his face for a second before he pulled Ginny to him. But that look would last him for a lifetime.
He'd never seen anyone look so dangerous before. And it was only then that Draco truly understood what Potter had been blathering on about before the start of the fight. When you had something or someone you wanted to protect with that kind of ferocious dedication, there was no telling what you could do.
Draco spared a passing glance at where he'd last seen Hermione. Her jaw was set in a straight line as she pointed and flicked her wand, without ever having to use words.
Someone else went down behind him. Draco didn't turn to see who it was. "There're too many fucking trees!"
"Evanesco." Hermione's voice cut threw the din of the battle as she appeared at his side. She pointed her wand from tree to tree in no order. They started vanishing, making a winding path of open earth, and moonlit sky.
"This way." Potter bellowed and charged ahead, still holding onto Ginny.
Almost time. Draco counted the seconds. He could feel the pull of the dark mark. He didn't bother telling Potter; obviously he had his own way of knowing.
And then, the forest parted. There was a huge clearing, hollowed out and dug down like a kind of burrow. And there, in the middle of all the chaos and death, surrounded by three cloaked figures, was the Dark Lord himself.
Draco panicked. "Crucio." The deatheater nearest him hit the ground, writhing and spurting unintelligible curses. Rookwood's hood fell as he screamed.
The Dark Lord waved his wand, and Draco fell to the earth, his knees digging into the dirt, unable to breathe.
"Very good, Draco. I see you have improved. But then again, you always did have a knack for the dark arts." Those slit nostrils flared, and the red eyes with vertical pupils pinned him, bound him. There was a terrible screaming and it was a moment before Draco realized he was the one making it.
"NOW!" Potter ordered, and out of the corners of Draco's blurring vision he could see the last of their battalion run forward.
Hermione flanked by the twins, following just on the heels of Potter, Ginny beside him, keeping perfect pace. Longbottom and Lovegood on the other side, running full speed and just behind them was an older boy, Lee Jordan.
Draco remembered him from his quidditch days. It was utter ridiculous that at that moment he should be thinking about flying on a broomstick. But he always did love the feel of the wind on his face, knees tucked in, the smooth wooden handle of the broom sliding under his half-gloved hands as he rolled and arced in the air.
The air was beginning to turn cold all around him. And Draco held onto the feeling of the wind on his face.
He could see the dark capes hovering just above the ground as the chill set to his bones. The dementors were coming for him. But he didn't close his eyes, or give in to the misery that seemed to overrun anything else in his mind. Instead, he watched her. She was dueling Mulciber, along with Lee and Ginny. Longbottom and Lovegood were dueling Bellatrix, the Weasley twins were going after the snake and Potter was standing right in front of the Dark Lord.
But the only thing Draco focused on was her. The way her hair moved, the way her lips formed the curses and her hand flicked her wand. The way she inched forward, bold and brave and foolish as ever, and it didn't matter then that what he'd felt for her wasn't real. It didn't matter because it was the closest he'd come to love, to understanding Dumbledore and Potter. It was the freest he'd ever been.
So what difference did it make if it wasn't real? What did it matter that the mirror showed him standing with her? Mirrors and vows were nothing compared to her. She was real, and she accepted him. She wanted him, she let him be himself, at last, even though she probably wanted someone to love her at the very end.
The dementor was right above him now, bending over, taking long rattling breaths.
Draco gripped his wand and kept the thought in his head of what she'd looked like in the firelight.
"Expecto Patronum." A weak silvery mist exuded from his wand, but it had no shape or form. But the dementor paused for a second at it. And that was all Draco needed. He thought of her lips, her hands, her scars. He thought of her books, her eyes, her hair, her smell. He thought of the mirror, and what it had been like to see love reflected in his own eyes.
"Expecto Patronum!" This time, a sleek four-legged animal burst from his wand and moved like the wind after the fleeing dementors. He held on to it, concentrated on Hermione as his artic fox chased the shadowy creatures away.
The cold dissipated in their absence, and Draco was on his feet in no time. He could see Hermione break away from her duel, leaving it up to Ginny and Lee. She was headed in the same direction as he was, towards Potter.
"All your friends will die tonight." Voldemort hissed as he circled Harry, their wands drawn. "I am the master of the elder wand now."
"Maybe, but I know something you don't." Harry smiled and raised his wand. "I am the true master of the deathstick."
There was a shink of metal as Draco turned to see one of the Weasley twins wielding a silver sword, and Nagini's head spinning through the air.
"No!" The Dark Lord howled.
Draco was moving as fast as he could, but he was still too far back to reach them in time.
One of the twins collapsed as they were hit with the killing curse fired from Bellatrix. She screamed out in pain as Neville had taken the chance to hit her with a crucio so powerful, blood seeped from her eyes, mouth and nose.
But Draco only spared them a passing glance as he ran for Potter. Hermione was almost there now, she was ahead of him. But he already has his wand out, ready for his chance.
"Avada Kedavra" The green curse left the wand at the same instant Draco herd Hermione's voice cut through the clearing.
"Expelliarmus!" Hermione shot the spell and the wand in Voldemort's hand flew up into the darkness.
Potter's body fell. The wand flew. And a yellow stream of light came from behind them. Hermione stumbled.
Draco was close enough to reach over, if he wanted to. He recognized the curse. It was the like the one that tore Ron apart from the inside. There was no external damage. It was Dolohov's specialty. Her head turned as she fell and Draco could see it in her eyes: all cleverness and books.
Before blood shot from invisible cut under her skin, he could still see the fading bruises along her collarbone that he'd kissed the night before. Without thinking, without words or knowledge of his actions, Draco's hand drew back to where the curse had come from.
Dolohov was torn apart. His arms and legs were ripped from his body as he screamed. Blood shot in all directions and Draco held the curse flowing threw him for only long enough to watch the other man die.
Then he turned back to the Dark Lord. He could faintly make out the sound of gurgling breaths on the ground next to him.
The snake-like man was smiling, wand already in hand.
"Fiendfyre." Draco cast the spell at the same time the green jet of magic shot towards him.
"Protego."
A shield was cast between the Dark Lord and those still left fighting. Potter was standing, his wand held aloft as the fire became demonic shapes as it devoured the Dark Lord. There was a low howl pain from Mulciber and a screech like a dying animal that Draco could only hope was Voldemort.
"Feindfyre Potestas." Draco commanded the fire to yield to him and extinguished the flames.
Panting, he fell to his knees beside her. There was so much blood. It formed a puddle the length of her body as it absorbed into the ground. There were no visible damages, only puddles and puddles of blood that shouldn't have been there.
"Draco." She rasped out, trying to move her hand.
"Hermione!" Potter screamed her name, "Hold on, just hold on." He summoned his patronus and sent it galloping through the trees. "I called for help, they'll be here any minute."
"No use." She said and coughed up blood, staining her chin and shirt. "Draco, you have to do it."
"No." he shook his head, tears falling on her face. And he didn't care, he didn't fucking care that he was crying.
"You have to." Her leg twitched and it was clear that whatever charm she'd used on herself for protection wasn't strong enough to save her. It just bought her some time.
"Do what?" Potter asked, trying to lean in. But Draco just drew her closer, folding himself around her.
"Kill me."
"What?" Neville shouted from somewhere behind him.
"The last condition…" she chocked again and Draco nearly fell apart.
"The vow. The last condition of the vow. I swore I wouldn't let her die unless I killed her myself." Draco told them, deadpan.
"What's wrong with you?" Potter demanded, but Draco ignored him.
"I order you, Draco Malfoy, to behave selfishly." Her eyes were beginning to fade.
There was the same, burning feeling in his chest that he used to feel so often when he was at the Order's hideout. It was the snake that coiled around his heart and bound him to her will. But this was worse than all the other pains, because it was the hardest thing he'd ever been ordered to obey.
"No, no I can't. I won't. Don't make me." He begged her, begged her.
"Hermione, don't." Potter leaned closer still and Draco resisted the urge to lash out. His chest burned, but it was nothing next to what she was asking him. He wanted to retaliate, kill her for being so stupid, so weak.
"Ask me." She whispered to Draco, her grip becoming weaker. He must have made a confused face, because she tried to laugh. It was the single most horrifying sound he'd ever heard: Hermione Granger's death rattle. "How I s-survived."
"How?" He asked her, his voice sounded much too composed, even to himself.
"I can teach you to bottle glory…" she crinkled up her face and used a slightly cocknied accent.
"And even put a stopper death." Draco finished for her. "Snape showed you." She nodded against his hand. He remembered Snape's speech as well, from first year potions. Back then, he'd wanted glory. He'd wanted recognition, fame, a legacy. He was jealous of Potter's celebrity, for his role in his own family's fall from grace. The reputation of the 'Malfoy' name was gone now, obliterated by the ashen skeleton only a few feet away from him. These were foolish things that all meant nothing now.
"Please, Draco." Her fingers, twisted in his shirt, loosened as a blank expression swept across her face, through her eyes. "It hurts."
His chest flared. The burning was worse than his mark ever was. It left him gasping for air and doubled over, his head resting against her bloodied cloak. And then, it stopped. There was no more pain. His heart made the decision for him.
He could see the anguish written on every feature of her face. The harder the vow, the more pain it caused when she asked it. Her asking this of him hurt her. And him holding out, waiting for death along side her was hurting him even more.
He hated himself, hated that he'd done this to himself. And he hated her as well, because she did this to him, to them. All the pain, the confusion, the mixed up emotions Draco was never prepared for in the first place – she put them all on him. She gave him this, the pseudo-love that haunted him, berated him, taunted him. She was the cause of it all.
"They're coming!" Potter yelled and turned away from them towards the snapping branches and rustling underbrush.
Draco raised his head and drew his wand. He looked her in the eyes, those eyes that used to be so vibrant, and she smiled. Blood-stained and hiding the pain, the fear, the utter injustice of it all.
"I'm sorry." She whispered and shut her eyes.
"So am I."
He didn't say the curse; doing so would have made it too real. Instead, he touched the tip of his wand to her chest directly. There was a tiny flash of green light, her whole body flexed slightly and then fell limp. Still, deathly quiet. And she was gone. It was over.
First, I wanted to thank everyone on the LJ Dramione community who helped me with Draco's Patronus. Especially krissa27, eggie1978, snowe, and nistha. I am also aware that canonically, Seamus' patronus was a fox, but I diverted a bit from canon (as you can tell) and to me, I think a fox fit Draco much better than Seamus.
All the spells in this chapter are real, except Feindfyre Potestas which I used to put out the feindfyre (the demon flames from DH). 'Potestas' means to control, subdue or dominate in latin.
The 12 people with Harry were: Draco, Hermione, Ginny, Fred, George, Lee Jordan, Luna Lovegood, Nevile, Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan, and Ernie McMillian (he was the body that fell just before they reached the clearing).
If you're intested in how the Elder Wand changed hands, it went something like this. Dumbledore took it from Grindelwald. Draco 'Expelliarmus'ed it from Dumbledore (who was buried with it). Harry 'Expelliarmus'ed Draco when Hermione took him to the Order. (So Harry is the rightful master of it when he faces Voldemort in the forest). Voldemort 'killed' Harry in the woods. Hermione 'Expelliarmus'ed it out of Voldemort's hand. Dolohov took down Hermione. And then Draco killed Dolohov, so Draco is technically the true master of the Elder Wand. (Just a little example of how much time went into making this fic.)