Chapter Twenty-One
Princess
Time... It seemed silly to worry about such a thing then, but it didn't stop Draco from hurrying. He hurried to his feet, he hurried righting his robe, he hurried putting on his cloak. He only had one answer to his insanity that made him sound sane and that was to get her body. It was mangled, he probably wouldn't recognize that it was her, but he had to have her, to give her a proper burial. If not for what she deserved than for what Draco wanted beyond reason. All those thoughts were stakes in his chest but it was the closest he could come to admitting what he knew happened.
"We're coming with you," Luna told him swinging her canary yellow cloak around her, Finnigan doing the same with his red one.
He shook his head. "It's too late."
"Do you think they're all dead?"
"Depends on how many tried." He lost count last night. His shoulder flared many times. He had escaped Luna and Finnigan after the second time to a spare bedroom where he bit his cheek to keep from screaming as he rolled on the floor after falling from the bed. He could still taste the copper in his mouth. All he knew was that many were dead from the attempt. Surely she was too from the pain it caused her.
Finnigan held open the door to the dim-lited hallway. "Lets go see."
As Luna went to pass him he reached out and grabbed her arm stopping her, her expression blank. He looked from one of Hermione's friends to the only one they shared together. "I'm not risking you two. They'll torture us on sight."
Finnigan grinned smugly. "Oh, coming around to me now, eh, Malfoy?"
"No," he said quickly. "Definitely not. I'm only protecting you for Hermione."
"You said Hermione was -"
"I did not say that -" He didn't even want to hear that.
"But you think that -"
"Stop it," Luna nearly begged, Draco in-taking a needed breath. "Lets just go. We know what we're doing, Draco. Let us fight for her too."
He growled. If her friends got killed... They were his last responsibility. He had to keep them alive for her. She had lost too many people. She didn't know it, but they were all she had left. If he let them die, he would be blamed. She would never forgive him... Even in such a crucial situation would he think about himself.
They stood there calmly waiting, their cloaks on, Finnigan's hand still on the doorknob. They were expectant, determined.
Draco shook his head in defeat. They were all going to die anyhow, even if all the Death Eaters there at the mansion were dead, there were more to take their place, to take a leaders place. That was how the new world worked. It already proved itself once. "Fine. It's your heads."
***
Bodies... That's what surrounded Hermione in the lounge. She sat in the midst of them. Lestrange and the others. She pulled her knees to her chest, her lips to her knees, rocking back and forth shaking madly.
She killed them. All of them. She thought back to what happened, flinching as she did so, but she had to remember. She lived therefore she had to remember.
"I'm sorry I didn't get to have my piece of you, dear Ms. Granger. I ran out of time. Lots to do, you know." He chuckled at his own sick joke.
Hermione wrinkled her nose in distaste refusing to imagine what would have happened if he did have the time. She refused to let that be her last thought.
Lestrange slowly put the point of his wand at her forehead.
Then her flesh ripped itself from her body. She fell, she screamed. She heard the Death Eaters cry out in joy. But it didn't last for long, only a mere second. Then things took a drastic turn as Hermione felt her mind and body slipping from her.
Red light exploded in the room with a resounding boom. Lestrange was knocked off his feet. Everyone froze watching their leader hitting the far wall crashing in a heap on the floor, his arm trapped awkwardly beneath his chest, surely broken.
It took the Death Eaters thirteen seconds to point their wands at her after their leader had fallen. Hermione knew this because she was counting in her head. She used it as a distraction from what she was witnessing, because she didn't want what she was seeing to be true. She was supposed to be dead, that was the plan, but she had no idea, she didn't come up with theories like the old Hermione would have, she didn't go through the hundreds of names of books listed in her head to come up with possible solutions as to what would happen against such a spell as what had been placed on her.
She cursed Draco, but immediately regretted it. She had finally come to terms with everything. The death of her family, her own to-be death, and the realization she had when she come to terms with loving Draco that she didn't want to die. Tears, those all-too familiar tears streaked down her face sliding down her chin and neck.
"Kill me," she ordered to the Death Eaters surrounding her.
Green. The same emerald green that flashed in front of her at the Battle of Hogwarts, the basement of the Weasley home, and there it was again. She felt the strikes against her chest, her mind, attempting to shut them down. She held on, her nails digging into the floor beneath her. She would stay. She made that decision. She wanted to stay. For Draco. For her family. When had she decided that? She didn't know and what did it matter? She was staying.
Each of the spells took her breath away, nearly blowing her to bits. She felt her spirit trying to leave, the blows nearly knocking her out of the world she was adamant about staying in. For one person. She had been foolish to think she had nothing to live for. She wouldn't leave him.
"NO!" She screamed focusing on her weakening heart.
One body... Two.... Three... They were all falling. She forced her eyes to open, to allow the green to reflect in them. She smiled. One by one. Two by two. She laughed, her heart skipping a beat. Just like her family, they were dying.
Then she was alone. And she cried from the shock. She lived. For him.
Hermione held onto that thought. Her heart beat it's regular beat. She was able to think, to contemplate. She was able to feel. She was alive. No one was going to harm her, but she kept her eyes on Lestrange, flitting back and forth from the others to him just in case the battle wasn't over.
She waited for her love to rescue her. Just like a princess would of her prince.
***
The Malfoy Manor (that's what it used to be called) stood tall, dark, and proud against the darkening purple sky. It was five stories with turrets like a mini-castle behind a wrought iron gate which was designed in snakes. It hadn't changed since Draco was last there... When he saw his parents...
"We didn't come up with a plan," Finnigan said obviously.
Draco rolled his eyes. "No kidding... You two kept focusing on our classmates deaths instead of finding a way to get her out."
"Before you started screaming like a girl."
He spun on him, but Luna reached out grasping his arm pulling him towards her. "Should we think of a plan now?"
He calmed himself turning his back on the Gryffindor to face the Ravenclaw. "We don't have time."
"So we just barge in there? That ought to do it," he commented sarcastically.
Luna held his gaze and quickly said, "wait a second, Seamus," before he could make a snide comment. Draco nearly smiled. "We have time. Can you think of nothing? You used to live here."
"We go in there, and we kill as many as we can. Avoid a bushy-headed woman, okay?" He glowered at Finnigan. "Got that?"
"Got it, git."
He chose to ignore the pointed statement and started up the pebbled walkway. He strolled past the tall hedges shaped like snakes that gave them light out of their jewel eyes. It was winding and he heard Finnigan making a few more remarks that he again chose to ignore. They had a job to do and he could be the mature one for a few hours. When he got Hermione out he would curse Finnigan. If they lived that is.
They went under the awning shielding themselves in darkness. He pushed open the door and with wands held high, they crossed the threshold into the fire-lit lounge.
From the steady light of the sinking sun to the flickering room his eyes had to adjust. He squinted them seeking out the danger he was sure to be there. But he was greeted with the last sight he expected.
Death Eaters he didn't care to count (Luna and Finnigan were already making their rounds to them) was lying in a circle around a shaking figure. He took in the frizzy brown hair, and immediately lowered his wand rushing to her side his heart flying from him. He dropped to his knees, disregarding the pain because frankly he didn't feel it. What he did feel was her soft hair, the skin of her elbow. He touched her not able to get enough, but not holding her for fear she was hurt.
"Hermione, love, Hermione it's me, Draco."
She looked up from her arms staring at him blankly. It was as though she didn't recognize him. His gut sank.
He took her clammy face between his hands. "It's me. Hermione, my lioness, it's me." There was a mad rush in him for her to see, but he suddenly realized that maybe his first assumption of her death wasn't too far off.
Draco took a good look around the lounge. There was the Death Eaters, some with their masks blown to bits beside them, others had fallen off, all revealing their shocked and fearful faces. Goyle, Crabbe, Rowle, Travers, and Macnair, and many others. He even spotted his uncle against the far wall, broken and clearly dead. Each one of them had tried to kill Hermione and in return had killed themselves.
A complicated spell on a ring burned into someone couldn't stop a spell such as Avada Kedavra. Nothing could stop it. Unless you were Potter, of course and even it had caught up with him. How could Hermione have survived? Especially when death was what she wanted so badly? What had happened?
"Please speak," he begged, his voice breaking through. "Speak to me damn it."
By this time Luna and Finnigan had joined them sitting on the other side of her. They both carried worried expressions, Finnigan's was almost angry.
"What's wrong with her?"
Luna's voice was weaker than usual as she spoke. "Possibly shock... This has never happened before... Not quite like this..."
Draco didn't take his sights off of Hermione. He waited impatiently as her eyes focused on him. She opened her mouth a fraction as his heart sped and he froze.
"I love you, dragon." She lifted her trembling hands to his cheekbones. "Don't cry."
He didn't realize that he was indeed crying. For the first time in his life he was crying out of happiness. He felt as though he'd burst with it. He wanted to tell her so much, that he loved her, that he was happy she was alive, that he loved her, that he missed her, that he loved her. He didn't say any of it though. He clasped his arms around her, holding her close to him as his tears wet her hair and hers his shoulder.
Finnigan and Luna were shouting in jubilation, hugging each other, patting Hermione's back.
She pulled from his embrace turning slightly to be wrapped in her friend's arms. Draco didn't take his hands off of her though, he kept them on her waist protectively.
She sat back on her heels leaning her back against this chest. She wiped her tears away speaking strongly sending a ray of hope into him.
"You're here! Seamus, Luna! Ah, I've missed you two so much! I thought..." She sniffed.
"We all thought everyone was dead," Finnigan told her sadly though the smile hadn't left his face. "We're glad we found you."
Draco kissed her cheek. "How," he asked to no one in particular. "The spell, it should have..." He still couldn't finish that sentence.
Luna beamed. "The spell you used, Draco, was very awful. It wasn't made to be used for good. But it has, and it had good effects. Your love protected her. She must have chose for it to for that was the last bit for that single powerful spell to be rebounded."
Finnigan flinched in revulsion at that idea of Draco's love having any good part in their rescue mission. His happiness at finding his friend alive hadn't softened his attitude against Draco.
"Like Lily protected Harry," Hermione said softly. Draco noticed that she held their hands squeezing them.
"You and Harry have had good luck against that curse," Finnigan chuckled darkly.
That brought Draco back from his time on cloud nine, the ice cold feeling of how many death's Hermione should have suffered. He stood up, bringing her with him, Finnigan and Luna following suit. "Lets not push our luck then, shall we?"
Luna grasped Finnigan's hand tugging him towards the door. "We'll go check outside then."
Finnigan looked like he would rather do anything but leave them two alone.
Hermione twisted in his arms gazing up at him with the clearest look she had every had since her families deaths.
He ran his fingers through her hair, he inhaled her scent, muted under the dirt and sweat. She was alive. She was safe. That was more than he could have asked for. To have her be the old Hermione he knew was overload. Certainly he hadn't done anything in his life that should earn him such a reward. So he had to know.
"Why did you stay?"
She sighed her fingertips trailing down his neck. "You."
"Why?"
"Because you were right. Your path was obstructed from mine. Our paths were natural, we were supposed to be, but... Things got in our way. And..." She touched her nose to his. "I want you."
Too good to be true. It had to be a dream of some sort, but he didn't dare try to wake. He would take this dream and be unconscious forever.
***
Hermione brushed her lips against his a contrast to the bruises he was likely causing on her waist, and the bruises she had to be causing around his neck. A breath of fresh air, a breath she felt like she hadn't took since seeing her friends.
Her friends. How sweet were those words. Seeing Seamus and Luna was seeing part of her family alive once more. She had thought them dead. If Harry and Ron were dead, then no one good could have survived, but they did, and it was surreal how Hermione felt. Happiness didn't cover it.
They had changed since their Hogwarts days. Luna had a prominent scar over her left brow, and one in the shape of a 'c' on her right cheek. Yet she continued to glow ethereally, her smile just as radiant.
Seamus had many scars on his face. They dominated his visage, giving him a mangled look, and one could barely recognize him, but the picture in her mind matched closely enough with his sweet brown eyes and friendly smile. He was still Seamus.
Draco had brought her the best gift. How he did it, she didn't know nor care. Right then she had more than she had the right to ask for when all she wanted from a few hours ago was him.
The kiss couldn't have lasted long for her taste, but it was only a second before loud footsteps sounded behind Draco making them spin towards the door.
Seamus and Luna both out of breath halted in the archway. They were saying the same thing. "Get out. They're here. Get out."
Hermione understood quickly. There were more Death Eaters. There was supposed to be a celebration that night, she should have known, because the killing of Hermione Granger, the last of the Golden Trio would be a cause of celebration.
"We'll handle them," Luna said in her naturally calm voice. "They're outside the gate, we're prepared -"
"Just go," Seamus interrupted. "They'll be looking for you."
"We'll do this together," She squeaked. She couldn't stop fighting when there were more. As long as there were Death Eaters around she would continue fighting. It was her duty. She looked desperately up to Draco and for a moment she thought he wouldn't consent, that he would apparate them both away.
He nodded in agreement, but then she turned a second later...
One second... One second could change everything. They would never know her friend's argument to their declaration for Seamus and Luna's features were wiped clean of emotion, a green flash behind them, and they fell to the floor, shadows in the darkness of the hedges beyond.
There had to be noise. Screams, threats, the roaring in her ears, but she heard nothing. The world had been muted, and everything fell away and her heart had been ripped out in front of her. It was happening all over again, and though she knew the ending she remained helpless to change it.
Hermione ran forward. She didn't hear her footsteps or Draco's protests. She crumpled between her friend's lifeless bodies. She grasped their arms, looked up to Draco who swam in her vision, but her voice was steady, she could feel that.
"I won't leave them!"
He bent next to her quickly as another green flash shot above him. He grabbed her shoulder and before he turned Hermione saw something that shocked her.
Draco, her dragon, was crying. This time in their shared grief.