Chapter Eleven: The DA versus the Death Eaters

The two assembled groups stared at each other silently for a moment. Then pandemonium erupted as the Death Eaters and Slytherin students rushed into the room. The members of Dumbledore's Army outnumbered them nearly two to one, but their skill level was lower; the fight would be a close call. Draco began firing random spells at the Death Eaters, purposefully trying to avoid his friends and father.

"Well, well, well," someone cackled. Draco turned to see his aunt standing there. "If it isn't our own little blood traitor."

"Go to hell," Draco growled as he fired a Stunning Spell at Bellatrix.

She easily brushed it aside with a swipe of her wand. "No thanks," she said casually. "I think I'd rather send you there instead."

Draco tossed a Disarming Spell at her, and an all-out duel began between them. Bellatrix fired spell after spell, several of them turning out to be the Killing Curse. Draco managed to dodge and block most of them. When Bellatrix wasn't expecting it, he lunged forward and knocked her wand from her hand. It flew a few feet to her left. While she was distracted, Draco caught Hermione's eye and motioned her over.

Bellatrix straightened as Hermione approached her from behind. "Did you really think that would slow me down?" she snarled at Draco as she Summoned her wand from the floor. "You're a pitiful excuse for a wizard."

Draco shrugged. "Maybe."

"Avada Ked— "

"Excuse me," Hermione said, tapping Bellatrix on the shoulder nonchalantly.

Bellatrix spun around. "Mudblood," she said hungrily.

"Hello again, Bellatrix. It's good to see you," Hermione said politely. "I really was hoping you'd save the first duel for me."

Draco smirked at her. Hermione really was doing a good job distracting his crazy aunt.

"Sorry to disappoint you, Mudblood, but I've already fought several of your little friends. You'll have to settle for me killing you instead," Bellatrix sneered at her.

Hermione caught Draco's eye again and nodded. "That's a shame, but I suppose it's unavoidable. Wands ready, then." She raised her wand.

Bellatrix aimed her wand at Hermione's heart. Before she could get a chance to utter a word, Draco hit her in the back with a Body-Bind Spell. She fell flat on her back, staring angrily up at him. He lifted an eyebrow and gave her his best snooty look. He further immobilized her with Incarcerous and snatched her new wand away from her. Then he snapped it in half and dropped the pieces by her head. Hermione, a grin splitting her face, gave Draco a high five and they walked away to find new enemies to fight.

A miniature war was raging around Draco. He ducked and dodged stray spells, taking down as many Death Eaters as he could. After avoiding one particularly nasty-looking spell, he straightened and found himself face-to-face with his two best friends: Blaise Zabini and Theo Nott.

"Draco," Blaise said coolly, his wand pointed at Draco's head.

"Blaise." Draco carefully stuck his wand in his pocket and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I'm not going to fight you."

Theo glared at him. "That's a shame," he muttered. "It'll be far too easy to kill you if you just stand there."

"You don't want to kill me," Draco said softly.

"No?"

He shook his head. "You don't want to be Death Eaters, either. I know you don't. We've talked about it often enough."

"What else are we supposed to do?" Blaise sneered. "Turn blood traitor and run away with you into the sunset?"

Draco shrugged. "Well, I'd be fine without the sunset part, but yes."

Theo shook his head. "We can't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because . . . just because!" Theo looked more like he was forcing himself to be angry. It wasn't genuine.

"Potter can get you out of here," Draco said urgently, his voice low. "If you leave now, in the middle of the chaos, the others may just assume you died fighting."

"They'll know we're not dead once everything is over and they don't find our bodies, though," Blaise reasoned.

"Not if the room burns down."

Theo and Blaise exchanged loaded looks. "We don't have to choose sides?" Theo inquired.

"No. You just hide. Plain and simple." Draco silently urged his friends to do as he requested.

"How do we leave the room without anyone seeing us?" Blaise finally asked.

"I'll show you. Pretend to be dueling with me, and I'll get you there." Draco pulled his wand from his pocket and pointed it at his friends.

He winked, aimed his wand slightly above Blaise's head, and shouted, "Expelliarmus!"

Blaise and Theo jumped into action, casting silent spells to places close to Draco, but purposely missing him. Draco began backing up, acting as if his friends were overpowering him. They followed, fitting sneers onto their faces. The spells kept flying. Draco took every opportunity he could to hit Death Eaters with his purposely straying spells. He glanced behind him and noticed the faint shimmering of the Disillusionment Charm a few feet away. He took two huge steps back and vanished on the other side.

Then he waited and watched as his friends worked out what had happened. They looked around in confusion, then Blaise nudged Theo. They glanced around carefully, and when they were sure nobody was watching, they stepped through the spell's barrier. Draco grinned triumphantly.

"Nicely done." He motioned to the few stragglers still marching into the tunnel behind the portrait. "Follow them. When you get to the other side, find Longbottom and tell him that I sent you."

They both nodded. "Are you coming?"

"I'll meet you on the other side," Draco said. "I promised I'd stay to fight."

With one last glance back at their friend, Blaise and Theo followed the last of the students out of the Room of Requirement. Draco looked back to where the fight still raged and snuck back into the melee when the coast was clear. He rushed over to Harry's side and began helping him battle Rabastan. Harry hit the Death Eater with a well-timed Stunning Spell. Draco pulled Harry to the side.

"Everyone else is out," he whispered. "Start sending some of our people behind the Disillusionment Charm."

Harry nodded and dove back into the mass of bodies without a word.

The fight got harder the more members of the DA managed to escape. Soon it was down to Harry, Ron, Hermione, Draco, Ginny, Luna, Seamus, and Dean fighting the remaining Death Eaters. While a large portion of the opposing group had been knocked out or otherwise debilitated, there were still too many, and they were powerful. The Death Eaters certainly didn't go down easily. Already, nearly a dozen members of the DA had been carried out by their fellow fighters when they had become too injured to continue the fight.

Luckily for the DA, Snape just happened to be one of the ones still standing. He had to keep up appearances, so he was fighting viciously. Curses, jinxes, and hexes flew from the tip of his wand at a blinding speed, though most of them actually hit his fellow Death Eaters. The remaining members of the DA fought back with everything they had, even though there was nothing they had to be afraid of—at least not from Snape. The Carrows were still standing, and they were very angry. They, along with several other Death Eaters Draco didn't recognize, were putting up an intense fight. It was clear that the last of the DA was about to be overwhelmed.

Harry looked around desperately, his mind clearly running a thousand kilometers an hour. Draco finally took down Rodolphus, who he had been fighting for the past ten minutes. He was on his way to help the others with Snape when the unthinkable happened.

"Sectumsempra!" Snape shouted.

His spell missed its intended target, and Ron fell to the ground, blood seeping through his clothes. He twitched a few times then was still.

"No!" Hermione screamed, taking a step in his direction.

Snape aimed his wand at Hermione, and Draco lost it. "Potter, get them out of here!"

Harry's head snapped in his direction. "What?" he asked, blocking another spell from a Death Eater.

"All of them. Now!" Draco yelled.

Harry scrambled backwards and grabbed onto Ron's shoulders. Hermione and Luna each grabbed one of his legs and they ran for the Disillusionment barrier. Draco drew a line of fire in front of him, blocking Hermione and the others from view. Seamus, Dean, and Ginny continued fighting at Draco's side.

"Where have all of the blasted kids gone?" shouted one Death Eater.

"Who bloody cares?" Snape roared. "Just get Potter!"

As the conjured fire in front of Draco faded away, he met Snape's glare. Snape's eyes briefly flicked toward the barrier, and Draco knew what would come next. He gestured to the others and bolted.

"Maledictus Ignitio!" Snape cried. Fiendfyre in the shape of a basilisk flew from the tip of his wand and headed toward Draco and the others.

"Severus! What have you done?" hollered Nott. "That thing will kill us just as surely as it will kill them!"

"Shut up!"

Draco reached the portrait just as the flaming basilisk burned through the Disillusionment Charm. He stopped to help the others get into the tunnel before scrambling in himself. Knowing it wouldn't hold for very long, he shouted, "Colloportus!" at the portrait door, hoping it would give them enough of a head start.

They ran down the corridor towards the Hog's Head. After they had gone a few meters, the portrait blocking the entrance burst into flame. It crumbled to ash almost instantly, and a blast of hot air rushed toward them. Draco choked on the smoke and put on a burst of speed, propelling himself farther away from the Room of Requirement. Somehow, they made it to the other side without the Fiendfyre following them.

"Oh, thank God!" Neville cried out as they emerged into the pub. "Come on!"

Draco didn't stop running until he'd reached Neville's side. He grabbed onto Neville's shoulder just as Neville dropped his Bertie Bott's Bean Portkey into his hand. Instantly, the filthy walls of the Hog's Head swirled away. Draco felt as if his limbs were being ripped from his body. Then they were all tumbling to the ground. Draco released Neville's shoulder and pushed himself to his feet, looking around.

He was standing in the clearing in the woods, exactly where he had planned for the Portkeys to go. But there was nobody else around. Where had the others gone? Draco began to panic. What if they wound up spread across the world, all because his ability to make Portkeys was mediocre at best? He was about to barge into the trees when Harry appeared before them, covered in blood.

"Potter—"

Harry shook his head. "It's Ron's."

Draco nodded sharply. "Where is everyone?"

"Hermione put up wards. Follow me."

He turned around and led them down a small—and well-hidden—deer trail. A few yards later, they emerged in another, much larger, clearing. Tents were set up everywhere, and campfires were scattered throughout. Harry took them to the center of camp and ducked inside a white tent, where the wounded had been brought and attended to.

Hermione sighed in relief when she saw them come in. Ron was lying on a cot, stripped of his bloody clothes and covered by a scratchy-looking blanket. The wounds on his arms and shoulders were clearly bleeding still, indicating that the rest of his wounds were too. Draco cautiously approached.

"Is there anything we can do?" he asked quietly.

Hermione shrugged. "As far as I know, Snape invented this curse, and I don't know the first thing about reversing it."

Hannah Abbott walked over. "We keep giving him Blood Replenishing Potion so he won't die from blood loss, at least for now. But if we can't figure out how to close the wounds, he won't be around for very long." She shook her head sadly. "I wish I knew what to do."

Draco frowned. "Where did you get Blood Replenishing Potion?"

Hannah pointed at Hermione. "Ask her."

He turned his gaze to Hermione. "Well?"

Hermione smiled somewhat sheepishly. "You know me; I can't go anywhere unprepared. I grabbed everything from the first aid station back in the Room of Requirement and put it in my bag."

"But you weren't carrying your bag," Draco protested. "I saw you."

This time Hermione smiled smugly. "I shrank it down and put it in my pocket."

"Brilliant." He shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Malfoy," Harry said as he approached. "You don't happen to remember how Snape healed you when I used Sectumsempra on you last year, do you?"

Draco pursed his lips. "I was pretty out of it at the time."

"What about extracting the memory?" Hermione suggested. "One of us could revisit that day and find out what Snape said."

"Yes, that's a great idea!" Harry said excitedly. "How about it, Malfoy?"

Draco raised an eyebrow. "You have a Pensieve in your miracle bag, Granger?"

"Oh," she said, her elation fading. "No, I don't."

"There must be other ways to view memories besides a Pensieve, though," Harry insisted. "Would you happen to have any books that might tell us for certain?"

Hermione pursed her lips. "I might. I have to check."

Draco watched as she rushed from the tent, only to return moments later with her beaded bag. Hermione sat down on the floor and began Summoning books from the endless depths of her bag. After only a few minutes, she was surrounded by stacks of books of various sizes and lengths.

"Do you need any help?" Harry asked from where he stood by Ron's cot.

"Er," Hermione mumbled as she sorted through the books, "yes, please."

Harry moved over to where she sat and crouched down. "What do you need me to do?"

"Get rid of any spellbooks. Those won't be applicable."

Draco watched them silently, half wanting to help, half torn between leaving. He honestly didn't know what to do anymore. He had firmly decided that he was ditching the Golden Trio once they left the Room of Requirement, but he still remembered the promise he'd made to himself about keeping Hermione safe. Could he really trust Potter and Weasley to do it for him? They hadn't exactly done a good job when they'd been brought to Malfoy Manor. And what about Blaise and Theo? Was he supposed to stick with them now? What would they do until the war ended? It was like Draco had said to Hermione two nights ago: the war might not end for another ten years. Could he really live on the run for that long?

"Okay, I think it might be in this book."

Draco was pulled from his reverie at the sound of Hermione's voice. She was holding up a copy of a book titled Magical Artifacts: Natural and Artificial. He continued to watch her without speaking.

"Are you sure, Hermione?" Harry asked.

She shook her head. "Not really. But I can't think of any other book that might have an answer." She began flipping the pages of the book at a rapid pace. About two-thirds of the way through, Hermione stopped with her finger on a page. "Yes. Right here."

"Well?" Harry asked impatiently.

"It says: 'The Pensieve is a rare magical artifact that allows memories to be viewed by either the person who owns the memory or by an outside party. It is typically shaped like a shallow basin, made of metal or stone, and enchanted with runes of unknown origin. It is the lack of knowledge about these runes that makes the Pensieve so irregular. Very few were made, and the creator left no indication of how to produce more. However, there is another way to view memories outside of a Pensieve. An even less-common artifact known as the Pensaguar can be made with relative ease. One simply needs a bowl or other container that can hold liquid, then must add at least four liters of enchanted water. Once the memory is added to the enchanted water, a person can view it much like they would be able to in a Pensieve.' Don't you see?" Hermione exclaimed. "If we can just locate a body of enchanted water, we'll be able to view the memory!"

Harry looked around at the other people in the tent, an uncomfortable look on his face. "But where are we supposed to find enchanted water? Isn't it typically hard to find?"

Draco sighed heavily. How was it that he kept having the answers to problems the Golden Trio encountered? He knew exactly where they could find some enchanted water. He just wasn't sure he wanted to tell them. If he did, they might never allow him to leave; they'd be too dependent on his having all the answers. Things just kept getting more and more confusing.

"I'm not sure. I could do more research, of course, but maybe it would be easier to ask everyone in camp if they know of something—" Hermione started.

"I know where you can get the water," Draco finally said.

Harry and Hermione looked up at him in astonishment. "Well?" Harry asked.

Draco closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, I'll tell you, but you have to promise to let me leave after I give you the damn memory."

Harry frowned at him. "Why are you suddenly so keen on leaving, Malfoy?"

Draco glared back. "Why do you think?" he snapped. "None of you really want me here. Why should I stick around if that's the case? I shouldn't just be a resource of information to the lot of you, but that's what I've become, and I'm sick of it!"

"Slow down, Malfoy," Harry said. "What makes you think we don't want or need your help?"

"For starters—" Draco waved toward Ron. "—he'd rather see me dead than helping you." Harry opened his mouth to object, but Draco held up a hand to silence him. He glanced uncomfortably at Hermione. "It's not just that. Granger said I wasn't needed and that my efforts weren't appreciated. So I'm done. I have nothing to prove to you people."

Harry turned and glared at Hermione. "What the hell is your problem?" he demanded.

Hermione folded her arms across her chest defensively. "What's my problem? How about his problem? Malfoy's the one that's been picking fights left and right lately!"

Draco just looked at her, hiding his thoughts behind his usual blank stare. "So I asked Weasley to beat me half to death today?"

"No, that's not what I meant," Hermione said, shaking her head furiously. "But just because someone says something you don't like doesn't mean you have to threaten to pack up and leave every time!"

"What are you going on about?"

Hermione glared at him fiercely. "Every single time we've had a disagreement, you've immediately threatened to leave us behind. Every. Single. Time." Draco was a bit startled to realize there were tears in her eyes.

"I've only said that because it's so bloody obvious that you want me gone!" Draco said heatedly.

"Oh my God," Harry groaned. "Would you two just shag already and get on with it?"

Draco and Hermione stared at him in shock. When Harry realized what he'd said, he turned bright red. His eyes went wide and his mouth nearly dropped to his knees.

"I—I didn't mean . . . I'm . . ." he stuttered.

"What is wrong with you?" Hermione asked incredulously.

"Good question," Harry mumbled. Then he looked back at Hermione determinedly. "Look. You need to sort out whatever this is with Malfoy. Despite what you may think sometimes, we do need his help. Make it right."

Harry abruptly turned on his heel and marched from the tent, leaving Draco and Hermione alone with an unconscious Ron in the background. Draco glared at the floor of the tent, refusing to be the one to break the awkward silence. Finally, Hermione cleared her throat.

"I didn't mean it, what I said earlier. I'm sorry." She sounded reluctant to admit it.

Draco shook his head but still didn't meet her gaze. "You wouldn't have said it if it weren't true on some level."

"No, that's not completely true. Sometimes—especially when we're arguing—I have a hard time thinking of you as someone other than who I knew in school. What I said earlier was really meant for that Draco, not the person you are now."

"But still," Draco persisted, "I shouldn't have to prove to you—especially now—that I've changed. I left everything behind for you, but that's still not good enough."

Hermione's brow furrowed. "What do you mean, you left everything behind for me?"

Draco sighed. "I didn't save you at the Manor because I wanted to help you to defeat the Dark Lord. I couldn't care less about that. I did it because I couldn't just watch you die. I—"

He stopped talking when Hermione rose fluidly to her feet. She stepped over her stacks of books and moved closer until they were only a hair's breadth away from each other. "But then why have you stayed with us since then?" she asked quietly.

Draco mumbled something incoherent.

"Sorry, I didn't catch that," Hermione said with a small grin.

"I couldn't," he said after a moment. "I couldn't just leave, knowing you might somehow wind up back at the manor. I wouldn't be there a second time to help you."

Hermione searched his eyes for a long time before she finally spoke again. "Please stay," she whispered.

Draco could only nod. She got to him every time.

"Do you know what would help me the most right now?"

He shook his head.

"If you would tell me when things really changed for you. You told me before that you've liked me for a long time, but I don't know when that happened. What changed your mind about me?"

"I, er . . . maybe that's a conversation we should save for another day," Draco said. "Right now we should help Weasel."

Hermione gave him another long look but finally relented. "So where exactly is this enchanted water you know about?"