A/N Been a while, hasn't it?
Did you guys know a prostitute in America can actually earn more than an average architect? Or so says this article I read before. It's kind of disheartening to think about… Maybe I should just run away and become a stripper. Seems I'll even earn more, haha!
Btw, guys, read the one-shots I wrote to make up for my absence! My pet favorite is Of Debts and Scars, a nice, long story about Draco and Hermione crossing paths at the war memorial. It's a bit of a deviation from my usual style of formatting and writing, but I rather like how it turned out. So, read please! #shamelessplug
And now, for the chapter I have deprived you all of for three months! I changed some events from the "announcement" I made last December.
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For a heartbeat and a breath Draco couldn't breathe, couldn't blink, couldn't get his damned heart to pulse even once as he stared at her unmoving, prone form at the back of the cell. Her hair looked mangled, her body was naked and painfully thin, and there were so, so many scars all over her. She looked like she'd been dragged through a forest of knives. And all because of him.
If she hadn't whimpered just then, Draco felt certain he'd have mauled himself.
But she did whimper, she did, the breathy sound just escaping her lips, and it was then he noticed the faint rise and fall of her chest. It was almost imperceptible, barely moving, struggling with every shallow breath – but the movement was there.
She was alive.
And Draco would have cursed those bars in between them to oblivion, would have taken her in his arms right then and there, if the panel behind him hadn't slid open once more to reveal the person he'd least wanted to see in this situation, Voldemort included.
"Tenner?" Bellatrix Lestrange asked in disbelief as she nudged the body of the Stunned Death Eater Draco had left on the floor, forgotten in his haste to get to the end of the corridor. The body twitched, limp beneath her feet, and she made a noise of disgust. Then she looked up and her wand whipped out, deadly and point blank at him. "What are you doing down here?"
"I – er-"
"Answer me! Why are you here?"
"B-Bella, please-!"
"How dare you address me with such familiarity? I ought to-" and here she paused, taking a good look at Draco, who'd stumbled into a patch of candlelight in his panic. Her brow furrowed, then her eyes widened in recognition, and for a few moments Draco was convinced his aunt knew exactly who he was and was now going to kill him, right in front of the girl he loved, and then – "Lucius?"
It took a few attempts before Draco could produce coherent, audible sound. "Bella." It was a passable version of his father's voice. Draco knew now would be the one and only time in his entire life that he'd be grateful he'd grown up so much like his father.
She lowered her wand but not her guard. "Weren't you just leaving?"
Draco could feel himself shrinking away from her, retreating into the swathe of the dark robes – but then another strangled whimper came from behind him, reminding him of what he was doing and why he was here. He straightened, adopting the all-too-familiar posture of his father, a stance he'd mimicked for himself time and again. He cleared his throat discreetly and replied in the usual lofty tones of a Malfoy: "Well it appears as though I've come back, hasn't it?"
"Indeed." She eyed him warily, searching for something – possibly a sign of weakness, anything to be suspicious of – but seemed to resign herself to his false identity. "What are you doing down here? That Mudblood filth's no good for torturing when she's unconscious."
"Perhaps we should awaken her, then? Let her taste a little more of the punishment she so well deserves?" Draco fought to keep the venom in his voice even as he felt the bile rise in his throat, his disgust at himself and his words threatening to ruin his disguise. He wanted very much to cleanse his mouth somehow, rid it and his mind of the traces of his sickening speech, but that this might get him to her somehow kept him going.
"Patience, Lucius. She may have ensnared your pathetic son somehow but at the moment she is not much for entertainment value. Besides," and here a manic grin spread across Bellatrix' face, her tongue caressing her lips as if the very words from her mouth were arousal incarnate on them, "I have something special planned for the next time we torture her."
"I look forward to it." Draco forced himself to let amusement trickle into his voice. Behind the mask he was quaking in fear and rage. Knowing his aunt, this "something special" did not bode well for Hermione. Not at all.
"Shame we can't kill her outright, though." The laugh that followed those words told Draco his aunt was not disappointed by this in the slightest; in fact, she had probably been enjoying the slow torture inflicted upon Hermione, who had no promise of death to alleviate it. "But she is bait. Such entertaining, filthy bait."
Her wand came up, aiming through the bars, and Draco knew if a spell left her lips he'd lose all composure and possibly kill her. He jerked his hand up and closed it around his aunt's wrist, burying the urge to twist it – snap it – hurt her in any way, just to pay back what she'd done to Hermione, even a little. Her eyes snapped to his in disbelief and outrage – Lucius had probably never done something like this, not after he had fallen so far in the Dark Lord's esteem.
"Is there a problem, Lucius?" Her voice was as icy as her eyes burning.
"You said yourself, Bella: this filthy toy is not to be played with yet." Draco firmly pushed her wrist down, trying to make it the least painful. He knew his aunt's volatile temper well; she was not above cursing even his father if he got in her way. "Patience. I'm sure the opportunity for your special treatment will present itself in due time."
Something close to a pout made its way to Bellatrix' lips as she twisted her arm away from Draco. She spat once in the direction of Hermione, then turned back to the wall. Three taps of her wand opened the panel leading to what Draco guessed was the lowest floor of the house. With a flick of her wand, the body of the unconscious Death Eater on the floor sped up into the waiting darkness. She glanced back to where he was still standing, sending the briefest of glances at the girl in the cell. "Well?"
"I did not come back to stay and chat, Bella. I did leave for a reason earlier today. I will take my leave again." Vague words indeed but Draco hoped they'd do the trick.
There was still wariness in his aunt's eyes, but after a short pause, she simply nodded and left Draco in the dark corridor that was dark, damp, and smelled of death.
The ten seconds Draco forced himself to wait after the panel had clicked close were perhaps the longest seconds he'd ever experienced in his life. One, two, three. He forced himself to breathe, slow and even, willing his heart rate to fall. It did not help that his mind kept thinking dangerous and fearful thoughts – what if Bellatrix came back, what if she realized he was not his father, what if he messed up. Four, five, six. And Hermione, lying behind him, faintly alive. What could he do for her now? Seven, eight, nine. So close, and yet he couldn't save her. Ten.
He'd barely finished sounding the number out in his mind when he whipped around, falling to his knees, the mask clattering to the stone floor. Right there, she was right there, not five feet away from his trembling hand. So close. Her thin frame shivered in a breeze Draco could not feel. She twitched, bloody knuckles dragging across the paving – Draco cringed at the trail of crimson she left – and fell still once more.
"Hermione."
Alive. She was alive. Half-dead, beaten, a shadow of the brilliant and fiery witch Draco had come to love, but alive.
"Hermione."
Draco pressed his forehead to a gap between two metal bars, suppressing a gag, half-embedding himself to the bars as he all but shoved himself between them in his attempt to be even just a hair's breadth closer. Right there. His hand fell through the air and he wept unashamedly.
Hermione. Her name ripped from his lips like his last breath.
Relief, anguish, desperation, elation – his heart was in chaos. She was right there, right there. So long he'd dreamed and tormented himself and she was – she was –
Footsteps from somewhere in the house, sounding quite close, forced him sober. They were hurried and there were many, and he sensed he had run out of time. He glanced at Hermione, wishing with all his might that he could take her with him, envelope her in his arms right now and bring her home safely. Or even just hold her. He would give anything at the moment to simply feel her skin under his, just for a few seconds.
His hand stretched out, unbidden, reaching through the bars toward marred flesh.
A particularly loud set of footsteps caused him to jerk back. No, to leave with her now would only kill them both. He didn't know what enchantments had been placed on this cell, nor on the corridor. And much as he would lay down his life to keep her safe, it would be fruitless to die trying to get her out only to have her end up in a worse situation after.
It pained him greatly, but he stood up. As his knees left the floor he felt as if this brief glimpse of her had somehow managed to anchor his heart to her broken body, and by getting up he was only pulling at the chain that tied him to her – almost ripping his heart from his chest. So close…
"I will be back," he whispered, making an unheard promise to the girl in the cell. To Hermione. "I will come back. I – I lo-"
There were footsteps behind the panel now, thundering toward him. Draco snatched the remnants of his confession back and took flight, only barely remembering the wand he had dropped on the cold floor. The cobra head was fire and ice to his skin but he gripped it as if his life depended on it, and to some extent it did. He could hear the shouts behind him, enough to make out the angry tone but not the words. His footsteps echoed in the dark tunnel as he fled toward the entrance, each step agony as it led him further and further away from the one thing he'd been so desperately seeking all these weeks.
She had been taken from him once, and that had been excruciating. Now he had taken himself away from her, when she needed him to save her, and it was nothing short of unbearable.
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It was the dead of the night when he emerged from the tunnel, the hatch almost breaking his foot when he'd tripped over the last step. Not knowing if he was being pursued, he whirled around in panic, only just remembering where to Apparate to. The cave materialized before him. The crack resounded through the forest and two bodies hurtled out towards him, wands drawn, eyes blazing. He stumbled backward, terrified at the onslaught, his hands raised in a gesture of surrender.
"Don't – Harry – I've found her!"
"You've what?"
Harry's wand dropped in disbelief but Ginny's didn't waver. Draco moved his hands forward as if to ward off a blow – and flinched, pain searing through his shoulder. He glanced down and saw that in his haste and distraction, he'd Splinched himself. And he was still wearing his Death Eater robes. And, Merlin, his father-
"Malfoy." Ginny's sharp voice snapped him back to the situation at hand. "It's midnight, a good few hours since you were supposed to have come back to report. We came back to an empty cave, a missing watchman, and a stolen Invisibility Cloak. Then we spent the next two hours hunting you down in the damn forest without any leads to where you might be. Explain yourself."
Somewhere in the recesses of his mind Draco registered the strict tone and noted how Ginny sounded so much like a mother scolding a misbehaving child. Even Harry spared her an incredulous glance before turning his attention back to Draco, brow furrowed. "What do you mean, 'you've found her?'"
"I s – I saw her." The past few hours were starting to catch up with Draco, all the emotional turmoil and stress and pain, and he was feeling bewildered and exhausted. "Under the – under the house. An underground cell. She's" – hiss of pain as he gestured using the injured arm – "alive. She's alive."
"Alive," Harry echoed, arms slack at his sides as his eyes looked over Draco's shoulder to where the Lestrange house stood. "She's alive." He choked on the last word, whispering as if saying it out loud would make it untrue.
Something akin to a sob ripped through Ginny's lips, even as she fought to keep her wand arm steady.
"But – how?" Harry came back to reality slowly, dragging his attention from the faraway point to Draco as if it weighed a ton. "We had nothing to go on – no one was seeing anything – how did you know?"
Draco hesitated, not wanting to lie but not wanting to admit he had lied. Then he blinked; since when did he give such a damn about his relations with Potter and the Weasel girl? The look on Ginny's face left him little room for an internal debate, so he settled for giving the briefest possible explanation that still gave the most important details. When he got to describing his conversation with Bellatrix – using as unspecific words as possible – Harry's hands were balled in tight fists.
"Potter," Draco reasoned, seeing the boy start toward the Lestrange house in anger – and seeing that Ginny was doing precious little to stop him. Not that Draco wanted to be stopping them himself; he'd much rather race Potter to that back trapdoor. "Be reasonable. Two barely legal wizards and one underage witch are far from enough to take on a house full of Death Eaters and take Hermione. We need a plan."
"She's – right – there – Malfoy." Harry's words came out staccato as he fought against Draco's restraining arms, trying to make a run for it. Draco was just thankful that Ginny had enough presence of mind not to run off herself. He couldn't keep the both of them in check.
"I know, Potter!" With one hard shove, Draco had Harry down on the ground, eyes wide with shock. "You don't think I realize that? Merlin, I was there – she was right there. If I could have stretched out just a little further – it was less than five feet – it killed me to leave."
"Why did you?" The mix of accusation and curiosity in Ginny's voice threw Draco off – it was hard to believe a question could contain such contradictory emotions. That and he was having a hard time coming up with an answer.
"I couldn't stay," he replied at length. Harry had gotten up, dusting his pants. He still looked ready to bolt but thankfully didn't seem to want to act on his urge. He was eyeing Draco curiously, watching him as he answered. "I couldn't stay there – and I couldn't damn well take her with me. Use your brains, Weaselette, I'm sure you've got more of them than your brother."
It was a testament to how much his finding Hermione affected them all that nobody cracked a smile at his feeble remark. Instead, Harry opened and closed his mouth a few times, ran a hand through his hair, and simply went back into the cave. Ginny came forward, wand aloft once more. Still on edge, Draco jerked back, fearful for what she might do.
"I just want to fix your shoulder, Malfoy." Her voice and expression were neutral, but Draco could read the internal conflict in her eyes, and knew even she was battling the urge to turn now and blast the Lestrange house to the high heavens so she could dig Hermione out of the ruins. It was this alone that stayed him, kept him still as she ran her wand over his wound again and again, until the raw red flesh turned sealed itself and turned pinkish. Draco briefly wondered where she'd gotten so good at healing magic, then remembered what her mother had done for Snape mere days ago.
Merlin, had it really only been days? It felt as if they'd been searching for Hermione for years.
"You should rest," were Ginny's final words to him before she, too, disappeared into the confines of the cave. Draco looked over his shoulder, thinking for a moment if he could run now and go back to her – but his shoulder throbbed and his stomach growled. With a heavy heart, he went over to his bed, passing a silent Harry taking first watch, and surrendered to sleep.
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He awoke with one hand pressed against his mouth, stifling a scream that would have surely woken up whoever was still sleeping. It took a few seconds before he trusted himself enough to move the hand away. He didn't remember the nightmare but he could remember the feelings – the absolute terror and despair that haunted him even in waking. He deliberately took slow, even breaths to try and calm down.
"Malfoy? You awake?" Harry's hoarse mumble wandered into the cave. The source followed a few seconds later, hair a mess and eyes puffy, looking as bad as Draco felt. There was a crack to his voice that confirmed Draco's suspicions about Harry crying, but the look on his face told Draco he ought not to mention it, and so he didn't.
"Yeah. I'll take watch. Get some sleep." He trudged past Harry, avoiding his gaze. It was fairly obvious none of them would be getting any sleep that night – Draco could hear Ginny shifting in her bed, over and over, sniffles barely audible but still there. Draco vaguely wondered what it would be like if Ron were around. Probably nothing good. Harry had been hard enough to restrain; pinning Ron down might have killed him.
At that thought, Draco let out a short bark of laughter. Oh wouldn't it be just wonderful, to have torn himself away from Hermione only to die at the hands of Ron. The fucking irony of it all.
Draco dropped to the ground by the entrance of the cave, absentmindedly rubbing his still-throbbing shoulder. The thin moon smiled down on him through the trees. Chesire Cat moon, he remembered – something Hermione had told him, long ago, in the Room of Requirement, after reading him her favorite part in Alice in Wonderland.
Of course I'm in your head, but does that make me any less real? He could hear her voice saying the words and something other than his arm hurt, badly.
He could feel the clench in his gut and the tightness in his throat but his eyes felt horribly, horribly dry – so dry they hurt. Suddenly the proximity to people she'd known her whole Hogwarts life – people she had shared years, joys and pains with – was suffocating. They had had years and he had had weeks, precious few weeks of scattered, secret meetings, and – and – and he didn't want to think anymore.
Knowing the other two wouldn't be asleep anyway, Draco set off into the forest, hoping with his last that a walk might do him some good.
It wasn't until he'd tripped over a tree root for the third time in his distracted meandering that he remembered he'd left his father and the cloak at the foot of a tree.
Fuck.
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Draco tried to be as silent as possible as he moved past the back of the Lestrange house, the trap door calling to him even as the house itself made him shudder. In the dead of the night the forest and the house were quiet, save the occasional hoot of an owl or scuffle of some animal through the undergrowth. He'd forgotten all about Lucius in all the events that had just occurred, and he now wondered if his father had awoken, bound and covered. He wondered what his father would think when he found out it was his son who'd trussed him up.
He wondered a lot of things to stop himself from wondering about others.
The trap door still called to him.
He walked between the trees, trying to gauged where he'd left his father – he'd run through this place in a blind panic, so his memory of his path was vague at best. He knew he'd found it, though, when he saw the rope and the cloak bundled up at the foot of a tree, a dark on dark stain on the roots just visible.
"Shit," was his eloquent reaction as he bent to earth. Had his father escaped on his own? Had someone freed him? Why had they left the cloak intact – and here? It would have been so easy to just take it, or slash it, or something.
The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and Draco recognized the feeling of being watched.
Pulling out his wand – he'd left the Death Eater cloak and the cobra wand back at the cave – he whipped around, eyes wildly searching the dark forest before him. Was it – father – aunt – Death Eater – Harry –? His thoughts and suspicions careened, skittering about, but no one appeared. No footsteps, no sounds of breathing.
But from up above, the chirp of a bird sounded.
Acting on instinct, Draco sent a jet of red light flying, forgetting momentarily where he was and who could be nearby. It shot through the trees harmlessly. His heart pounded in his ears as his hand jerked about, aiming the wand arbitrarily. Where – who – what – and then –
He watched, shocked, as a sparrow flitted up and dove. The second it touched the ground, it changed, and-
"You've got a lot of explaining to do, Ferret Boy."
Draco forgot about the trapdoor for the moment as he stared disbelievingly at the red hair and gangly figure of one of the Weasley twins.
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A/N So… did that make up for my absence? O_o It's longer than the chapters I usually write but… Idk, some part of me isn't so satisfied with this. Maybe I just lost the tone of the story since I haven't updated in so long.
As always, constructive criticism is very, very helpful.
Thinking about it, I realize there's not much left to this story. I've got the climax all planned out; all I need to do is build up to it. And to make you guys even happier (possibly) I'm gonna tell you now, I'm considering a third installment to this… saga. Series? That. But first, this must finish!
Again, please check out Of Debts and Scars, please and thank you! #shamelessplugagain
And as always, R&R! Hope to update again soon.