A/N: Without further ado… I give you the beginning of the end.
Chapter 36- Le Don
-"It is a pleasure to finally meet you Mr. Granger. Mrs. Granger…. My name is Marc- and I have news on your daughter."
Marc and Robel had apparated in the living room, and had instantly noticed the stock still Muggle couple who sat eating in the adjoined dining room. The "crack" of their appearance had startled Marc's in-laws, and they stared at the men as Marc moved into the dining room and sat at the table across from them.
The couple had either been too shocked or too afraid to move, and they had allowed Marc silence as he sat down and addressed them.
"What? You- you've found our daughter?" Mr. Granger looked surprised, and tears sprang into his eyes at Marc's words. The Frenchman's heart began to beat erratically, and it wasn't for the reason it usually did.
This heart-beat was from fear... and so much guilt. He had never felt guilt so deep; not ever.
Marc had done this to them; to him and Hermione…
"Hermione… is alive." Marc said to them, "And she and I are husband and wife." The Granger's looked floored; their mouths hanging open, their wide eyes releasing tears as they blinked at him in silence. "And it is because of her that I have to… that I had to come here this evening." Marc was struggling, but kept his eyes at the couple across the table from him as Robel moved from the living room to stand in the doorway. "But she can't be here this evening because… because it's too dangerous."
"She's in danger?" Marc nodded at Mrs. Granger's question, responding in a saddened tone,
"She's being threatened... by my boss. I- I'm a Pureblood wizard who works for a man who plans to see that anyone not of this status- dies… And she doesn't know this- because I'm a coward who can't find a way to tell his wife what a monster he really is. I have told her all of my misdeeds but this one. I swear it to you." Marc took in a deep breathe, realizing he'd gone farther than he'd intended to go with his statement. He exhaled loudly and continued,
"I'm sure you're both aware of Hermione's status in our society." The Grangers nodded. "Then you can understand my boss's aversion to my marriage to Hermione.
"I didn't tell him about her because she is the most amazing woman I have ever met. She's beautiful, and intelligent, and she has the most stubborn, un-yielding spirit. She doesn't deserve to be called anything less than perfect, and the man I work for thinks her to be less than garbage.
"I could never feel this way about her. She loves me, despite my being the most… horrendous of people." Marc didn't lie to himself.
"We don't belong where we come from. She's… too brilliant, and I am too… something!" Marc didn't know why he'd gone into a monologue, but he was unable to stop it. "There is something wrong with me… and she doesn't care! She loves me and my imperfections, and I would do anything to keep her safe.
"That is why I'm here. To keep her safe…
"This man, Lemieux, has fifty men outside of your house, and mine, as we speak. Hermione is at home, and she's unaware we're here. They're waiting for me to… to kill you." The Grangers, who'd remained mostly silent in this encounter, seemed somehow more shocked at his words, but didn't make to leave. He had expected that, but they didn't budge. "If I don't, they will kill you… And Hermione will die as well... and even if they kill me last for disobeying- what's left of me will die when she does.
"This man awaits my decision, and… if I don't come back with you both dead, then he will have us all. I might be able to take twenty of his men, but fifty? One hundred...?" Marc never lied to himself, and he was not yet capable of dealing with one hundred men at once! Twenty might have been a bit of an exaggeration.
The couple continued to look at him as he finished speaking, blinking in silence, allowing Marc's words to set in.
It was finally Mrs. Granger who spoke, saying in a courageous, unshaken voice,
"Then it's us. Chose us…" she looked up to her husband, who turned to her with a curt nod, and then back to Marc to say, "We- chose us… if it will keep her safe." Marc noted the sound of Robel's near silent footsteps coming up behind him; noted as Hermione's parent's looked up to Robel with slowly widening eyes.
Marc raised his hand, and his mind wheeled with images of Hermione; of Hermione happy, of Hermione reading, of her in the garden with the hollyhocks; of Hermione covered in stags blood when they'd gone "hunting", of her beneath him, and of her sheepish grin when he'd proposed and she nodded her head vigorously before saying, "Yes!"
Marc couldn't do it. He stared at Mrs. Granger, who reminded him of his wife, and suddenly, instead of her, he could only imagine Hermione crying, weeping at him and cursing at him when she realized this plot; attempting to kill him, or even leaving him alone with her contempt for him…
Robel moved from behind Marc, raised his wand hand at the Grangers, and said plainly, "Sectumsempra."
()()()()()
Draco blushed when Harry rolled over and kissed him on the cheek, before the dark haired man rolled over him and out of the bed.
Hermione had woken first, leaving her place between them, yelling something like, "Where's my toothbrush! Someone "accio" my toothbrush, please?" Draco heard her rummage through a drawer and groan, "Why would it be missing?"
Draco had blinked, and rolled over with a groan, only for Harry to roll close and kiss him before getting out of bed to help Hermione as the heat in his face grew and grew.
When in the throes of passion, a few kisses were acceptable; but they hadn't yet moved to showing affection to one another "outside of the bedroom". It had only been four days since the shack, and Draco had to groan as he realized he was starting his 25th year (that very day) by being kissed by the one and only Harry Potter!
Draco hadn't told his lovers that it was his birthday because he didn't feel that it was appropriate. He knew that one of the soft- hearted twits would do something like buy a cake or something else as droll. Sure, he hadn't done anything for his birthday in years, besides visiting Narcissa. He wasn't sure he wanted to go about doing things any more differently than he had been; taking on Harry and Hermione was different enough, thanks.
He was… happy that he at least had them.
Draco listened as the two found Hermione's toothbrush, and the water in the sink began to run, before rolling onto his back and sighing as he stared up at the canopy. There wasn't going to be any more sleep had; especially not with the sun blaring in the window. He could have closed the curtains, but he would just lie there until he decided to get up.
The night before, the five of them- Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Ron, and Draco- had all sat about devising a plan; throwing out ideas on the best way to deal with Marc and his band of thirty henchmen. At one point, Ginny said,
-"When you get there, you should put the Dark Mark in the sky, Malfoy. Show them how England does terrorism." Ginny smirked. She got a little feistier than usual when she drank. Draco, who got angry when he drank, replied with a glare,
"Go ride a broom. And I meant that how it sounded."-
Needless to say, it had been interesting. Ron hadn't responded well to Draco's response, and the two squabbled back and forth until they both stood to go to blows, and then Harry had to stand to put his hand on either man's chest before the things on the table became unorganized; magic be damned. And before Draco had to fix anymore faces; even his own.
When Ron and Ginny bid them goodnight, standing to dissaparate from the table with promises to return the next day, it was like a bomb went off! The three of them had barely made it to the landing on the stairs before they'd stripped each other naked.
They'd spent the entire day avoiding one another, even with Ginny figuring out that Hermione and Draco had an attraction to each other. Harry had fidgeted relentlessly, something that Draco noticed immediately, and knew stemmed from his lack of "substances".
Because of this, it had been Draco to finally, fully instigate a kiss with the man; which had led to other things, and Draco was happy that there had been no portraits in that part of the house. They had a redo on their activities from earlier that morning; after which, Hermione had needed a potion to help the… soreness. They'd gone upstairs and showered together, and barely made it back to Harry's bed before they were at it again.
Draco had never had so much sex in his fucking life! Not at this level, anyway.
It was insane to him that he could go from a life of solitude to waking up between the two in the middle of the night, moving to be closer to both of them in any way that worked. He'd gone from thinking about getting laid, to now having more than he could do with.
The "him and Harry only" thing hadn't happened. If their situation ever got to that, it would be an entirely different set of experiences! Draco gave a small shiver at the thought, and he felt himself grow hard as he let his imagination run a little wild at the thought of him and Harry doing things to one other. He put his hands over his face to block out the sun's rays, and he sighed into his palms,
"Happy Birthday, Draco."
"It's your birthday?!" Harry yelled, Draco not realizing the man had padded bare foot from the bathroom. Draco removed his hands and looked up at him with flapping lips. He shouldn't have said anything. 'Why do I always say too much?!'
"It's his birthday?!" Hermione yelled from the bathroom her mouth still full of toothpaste, spitting in the sink before popping her head out to look at both men.
"I- uh… yes…" Draco managed, before the two were back on the bed and tearing the sheet off of his naked body.
()()()()()
Marc stood at the barrier of Harry Potter's house in Aberdeen, and he could feel, with elated pleasure, that both Potter and Malfoy were inside.
After Jolene had gone from Paris, leaving Marc alone and unable to attend his best friend's funeral, he had begun moving on with his next plan of action. He apparated to New Zealand, directly to the spot where Hermione had apparated once she'd killed Robel, curious as to how the house had been missed in Eli's usually spotless background checks.
Marc was almost disturbed at what he met upon arrival, not caring if he showed up in the middle of a crowd Muggles.
The "house" was a small studio shack, and it was in shambles from Merlin knows what! The bed was a bit of an indicator, and upon further inspection he was able to spot one piece of black hair on a pillow. He picked it up between thumb and forefinger, and he almost couldn't contain the bounce that hit his feet as he began to search the other pillows… on one of which he found a platinum blonde hair.
He literally clicked his crazy heels before he dissaparated back to Paris to grab two vials of tracking potion.
Now, as he and fifty of his sworn men and woman stood staring through the ward on the inner side of the quite large fenced in back yard, Marc had to give a one sided smile at what this day would bring… at what was coming!
"Ready?" Marc asked, looking to his left to twenty five of his followers, and then to his right where the other twenty five stood, all in a straight line and heads turned to address him with nods. "Begin."
All of them raised either wand or wand hand, and together they began to bring down Weasley's wards, while Marc kept himself open to feeling the three within the house.
()()()()()
The alarm went off, and Hermione jumped off of the bed where she and Harry lie on either side of Draco, and ran to the window.
She couldn't see anything, so she grabbed her shorts and someone's shirt and ran out the door and down the hall, where a large pane of glass faced the front of the house. She didn't see anything there either, so she turned and ran back down the hall to the window that faced the back yard…
…Where she could see a large group of men and woman standing beyond the back stone fence and the ward; all of their wands moving as they worked to bring down the barrier. Hermione looked for Marc, and she found him within seconds… her heart bouncing up and into her throat at the sight of him.
He was there… right fucking there!
Hermione felt Draco and Harry run up behind her, leaning in close as the three peered out the window at the attackers.
"Merlin's… what the- fuck! That's not thirty men!" Draco the abacus said, and Hermione groaned.
"How did he know we were here?" Harry asked, turning and moving back to the room. "We need to go!"
"Where?" Hermione asked. Harry turned in the doorframe, and shrugged.
"Hogwarts."
"No! We're not taking this back there. Go get Ron and Ginny." Harry nodded, knowing that the two had already intended to come back that day; even if it wasn't for this! They'd intended to storm Marc's castle, not have him storm theirs!
"We could floo away so they can't follow us." Draco said. Hermione sighed, and tried to wrack her brain for any kind of plan. Could the five of them handle more than thirty men? They'd only planned on thirty…
Hermione sat on the floor, and crossed her legs and tried to breathe herself into a state of calm. She hadn't been able to meditate in a week, and she had felt herself becoming unbalanced. But that imbalance had been helped by Draco and Harry, and now, with Marc knocking on the door, she felt herself becoming a bit panicked.
She had to hold it together! She had to think; which was really hard with the alarm that was still blaring its high pitched, rhythmic beat.
Draco knelt down in front of her, and he put his hand to her cheek, causing Hermione's eyes to open and look into his.
"We have to get ready, love." Hermione blinked at him. His choice of words made her train of thought freeze. "We have what we need to do this right. The gingers are coming, and I'm sure Ron will do what he needs to." He leaned in and kissed her forehead, before grabbing her hands and helping her to her feet.
()()()()()
Harry floo'd to Ron's, afraid that Marc and his followers would see him dissaparate, and he stepped from the fire wearing only his slacks.
"Ron!" Harry yelled, and he was startled when Ron jumped up from the couch off to the side of the dark room. The red head looked at him with wild eyes, and stood up while grabbing his wand from the coffee table.
"What?! What?!" Ron was on his feet and ready in seconds, having fallen asleep in his clothes the day the before.
"Marc's in Aberdeen." Harry said quickly.
"What?!" Ron yelled, "Gin!" He turned and called down the hall. Harry, for a moment, was confused. He hadn't really thought why Ron was on the couch, but it became evident when Ginny ran into the room, wearing nothing but a long t-shirt, her bed head, and her wand at the ready.
"What?!" Ginny yelled, looking between the two men, wide eyed and panicked.
"The new Voldie and his henchmen are in Aberdeen!" Ron said.
"What?! We were supposed to go to him! Trap them in and poison them like rats!" Ginny said, apparently having thought on the plan in her sleep, which she'd barely come out of.
"Well… bring Hermione and Malfoy here. Get them out of there." Ron said. Harry wanted to ask why Ron cared about Draco, but now was not the time to nitpick.
"No. I think Hermione intends to deal with this now."
"It's happening now?" Harry sighed at Ron's question, and nodded.
"I'm going to get dressed and I'll floo over. Harry-"Ginny said, "tell Draco to stop biting you." She turned on her heel and moved down the hall, and Ron looked from her over to Harry, finally taking in the man's ruffled appearance.
"Merlin's… what?" Ron asked, obviously not understanding what the hell was going on. Harry thought about yelling a few choice words after Ginny, but instead he told Ron,
"We'll talk about that later. You have to get your arse in the floo and-"
"No! We'll talk about this now or I'm not helping! Are the two of you- shagging her?" Harry wanted to die… He took in a deep breath, but could only nod as he looked away; preparing himself for the punch to come by taking his glasses off of his face. "Gods, Harry! How- why?! Is that why you didn't tell me she was back? Because you were shagging her this whole time?" Harry felt his jaw clench, and he looked back to Ron to say,
"No. That was Minerva's call to keep you out of this. And- the three of us- have only been a… a thing for a few days! It's…" Harry didn't know what "it" was, just that it was something. "Now is not the time! You can kill us later, because, Ron, right now, we have an angry mob of people trying to bring down your ward on my house!" Ron seemed to pique at this, though he still looked like he was going to be sick, and said,
"Those bastards."
Out of all of the things in the world, Ron looked like he was just as mad that someone could undo his work, as he was about the Harry, Hermione, and Draco situation. Granted, it was going to take a horde to bring the wards down, but it was still possible. They had looked like they knew it was possible!
After Ron processed Harry's words for a moment, he turned his ice blue stare back up to Harry to say,
"You are going to have to answer for a lot of shite after this." Ron pointed a finger, "Our friendship is over. I'm going to help because it's the right thing to do; something you have obviously lost sight of." Ron glared at Harry, and it took all of Harry's will power to maintain eye-contact.
"He doesn't mean that, Harry, because it doesn't matter." Ginny said, moving into the room while buttoning her jeans, a smile on her face as she said, "We're all going to die!"
()()()()()
Draco watched as the group outside began to bring the ward down; slowly, but surely. Harry had been gone twenty minutes, and Marc and his followers had only managed to lift a quarter of the barrier.
He had turned the alarm off, and he and Hermione had finished getting dressed quickly. They had accio'd the bags of supplies from the back yard, settling in the hallway before the window to quickly assess what they had and how and when to use it; while still being able to watch the progress of Marc and his men.
As the hole in the ward had widened, none had moved from their spots to go through it, and none of them had dropped their wands or their concentration; they simply continued in turning the light glowing red of the ward clear, starting near their feet and moving up the dome.
Draco thought on this as Ginny and Harry came in through the door; the raven haired man pulling one of his infamous t-shirts over his head before he gave Draco and Hermione a meaningful look before looking to Ginny. Draco tried not to believe that he understood Harry by standing and saying,
"Where's Weas- Ron?"
"I think he went to Hogwarts to tell McGonagall. He said he'd be right back, but part of me thinks he's none too happy about the three of you shagging each other. I'm used to crazy shite, especially from the three of you! So I think it's kind of appropriate… No one else will be able to deal with three of you but you," Ginny said, finishing with a sickly sweet, antagonizing smile.
There it was; Ginny knew… Ron knew… They were all dead twice…
Draco shook away his worry about having to fight both Ron and Marc at the same time, and started in on the true issue at hand.
"I feel like we use our original plan and flip it inside out. They seem to have to concentrate pretty hard to bring that ward down, so they're vulnerable. And, since it takes all of them to do something of this size, I only wonder how many we need to take out before their number is too small to continue.
"Which leaves us with the question of what we have that can do the most damage to all of them at once."
"I call "fiendfyre". Your aunt had that shite spot on." Ginny said. Draco nodded his head in approval.
"I have a very long list of curses." Hermione said, pointing to her head. Harry nodded, pointing to his own head, before saying,
"And I have all of their counters. Got any Felix?" Harry asked, raising a brow at the blonde. Draco nodded skeptically. He wanted to win… he wanted to live… but Merlin! Liquid luck? (Draco's honorable Gryffindor was showing at a very bad time.)
"Give me that," Harry said, holding his hand out.
"We're going to need that, Draco." Hermione said, and the blonde shook his head, exasperated, caving as his… girlfriend..?... gave him a lifted brow.
"Fine, but you get to brew me a new batch, Harry." Draco said to his… boyfriend..?... before he turned to the crates that he and Hermione had unshrunk, and called for section of vials that held ten vials of Felix Felices. He grabbed two, passed them to Harry, and said,
"Take these, and owl me in an hour."
()()()()()
Marc could feel as the three on his radar moved within the house; what they were doing exactly he could only guess… but he knew it had something to with them standing to face him.
They had not left the house, tried to run… they merely cast a few spells and stayed within the walls. He had hoped that they would try to dissaparate, or even floo to a place that did not have wards; but that did not happen.
Marc loved the chase, but he knew he wouldn't get the opportunity this day.
This day held the promise of a show down, and he was so, so, so ready for this. He had been for years… but he'd waited because he knew what he was bringing to the table for the three within. It would be no fun to have just chased them down and killed them all one by one… it would have been too simple.
Far too easy...
Marc concentrated as the ward reached the halfway point, wondering, every second, if this was moment that he would see Hermione again; if she would walk out the back doors and he would see the sun on her face as she glared at him.
He loved her glower, even when it was directed at him! Her defiance was unbounded; her ability to stand up for herself near unshakable… the only time he ever saw her truly back down was when she'd apparated in England.
When he'd gone to retrieve her from Thailand that fateful night, it had been the same… she had not been ready. At all. It was in that moment that he was happy that he hadn't killed her, because it had taken him seconds to apprehend her.
But, now, he longed for this moment to see her fire; to see her ready to face him with purpose… before he petrified her, killed Potter and Malfoy, and made her see reason.
She always saw reason in the end; it was another of her great qualities. She would do what needed to be done, and she respected Marc for always following through with his deeds, even the shop-keep in Botswana.
As he stared at the back door, his hand out as he concentrated on both the ward and his wife's magic, he and his followers continued to work together on the task that had taken thirty of them to do the first time; the time stretching for hours as they tried different methods.
One of the men had been splinched right in half trying to walk through the clear, man-sized opening in the ward in Paris, and it was deduced that the ward had to be taken down entirely before one was allowed entrance; the color change only indicating that their spells were working, and that it had been weakened, but not that the ward was gone.
Now as they all chanted Nswiba's enchanted breaking spell, the only one strong enough to even put a tiny hole in the barrier, Marc had to admit that he was impressed by Ronald Weasley's ingenuity. Then, he regretted that the man was on his list of targets. He considered trying to turn the man to his side, but that had only lasted a second before Marc shook his head of his insanity. (Did it work? Not completely.)
Marc stared so intently on the back door of the house that his eyes caught the movement in the shadows of the dark hallway beyond; noting first the way his wife moved toward the back door before her face came into view.
It was in the moment that Hermione's hand reached out and opened the door, stepping out onto the terrace dressed in Thai garb- her hair pulled back into a braid- that Marc felt himself lurch, without even thinking, and blasted through the slightly weakened barrier; landing just barely on the other side.
He was acutely aware of the pain in his leg where the ward had tried to cut him down, as well as the feeling of his brain pounding behind his eyes.
Marc would not know it, but this was his final mistake; his blind self-will, his lack of control, his inability to cope, had delivered the first of blow. Though, to him, it hardly felt like pain…
What hurt most was his chest; the glower on his wife's face setting deeper as he stared at her, the expression he once cherished causing the hand that still held his heart to flick its wrist and twist.
He had expected this, her anger, but even still it hurt him.
()()()()()
Hermione's heart beat was erratic as she left the other four to their missions; though the new plan of Hermione facing Marc alone at first didn't settle well with anyone but her. But she knew she was the perfect distraction, that she could keep his attention long enough for the others to do their worst on his men.
When he came through the ward, Hermione was both ecstatic and filled with great fear, which she tried to still…
'Breathe, Hermione. Breathe.'
She should have meditated this past week…
Hermione noted that Marc looked like he'd hurt himself apparating into the ward, and it also looked like he was surprised that he hadn't been closer to her, which worked well enough for her when it came to her raising a shield with a flick of her wrist.
She would think about it later, but she loved the feeling of her magic in that moment. It felt strong as she allowed her soul, her energy, to reverberate through her entire being - the opposite of what she'd chosen to do for many years. She'd tried to block it all out, and now, she was channeling it.
She knew this to be the only way she was going to stand against him.
He could "accio" and "Avada" a man without saying a word, or even looking at him, and it was with these reasons that Hermione told the other four to wait until she'd engaged him, distracted him, so that they could surprise attack the people beyond the ward without Marc being able to stop them.
That suited her well enough, because she hated brooms… and she also couldn't deal with watching Ron fume and give them all the cold shoulder- the lion pissed at his Pride- but still doing what he did best; protect and persevere.
"You need to leave us and the rest of the world alone, Marc," Hermione yelled to him across the yard, "Because we don't want your shite! I left you, and despite the light that Robel shed on that situation for me, I cannot accept you in my life. Not again. Not ever!
"You've killed too many innocent people for me to forgive you!" Marc stared at her, silent, before he began to walk toward her, a slight limp in his step that subsided a small amount with a wave of his hand.
Hermione moved down the stairs towards him as she felt herself falter at his advance; her legs threatening to give as he slowly walked toward her, his eyes searching her face as she lifted her hand, yelling, "Avada Kedavra!"
He ducked, the spell aimed for his chest flying past him and hitting the ward, and ricocheting off into the grass. She sent another, and another, and before she knew it they stood face to face; eyes locking for the first time… in so long…
Hermione brought her hand up to his stomach, her mind going straight for the kill, despite the flutter in her heart at their eye-contact; she knew what she had to do, she knew she had to stop him… even if she still loved him- somewhere inside of her twisted soul.
Before she could think, Marc's hand reached up, gripping her wrist, pointing her hand out and away from him; the black, twisting light of the Spine Twist Curse flying into a bush as Marc's other hand reached up behind Hermione's neck, and he leaned down to kiss her.
A/N: *grins evilly and taps fingertips together*
A/N: I took a break from posting this to start a Harry/Hermione/Draco/Pansy fic called "The Misfits". Check that out if you're into smut and if you like to sail different, crazy ships! :) (Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate's life for Jadeypoo!)
(Honorary Lyrics- chosen for I WAS BOTWP)
(Radar Love- Golden Earing)
I've been drivin' all night, my hand's wet on the wheel
There's a voice in my head that drives my heel
It's my baby callin', says I need you here
And it's a half past four and I'm shiftin' gear
When she is lonely and the longing gets too much
She sends a cable comin' in from above
Don't need no phone at all
We've got a thing that's called radar love
We've got a wave in the air, radar love
The radio is playing some forgotten song
Brenda Lee's comin' on strong