Draco gulped. Having Potter's wand in his face was not something he took lightly, and like all these Unbreakable Vows, something that seemed to be happening with far too great a frequency. He hadn't done anything… oh, except hug Hermione. Seriously, was the self-righteous git going to draw a wand on him every time he touched Hermione? And she had clearly started this! Was he being blamed for being the one the golden girl ran to for comfort instead of Potter? That, that Draco could actually understand being angry over; he wasn't looking forward to the day when Hermione ran to Idiots 1 and 2 instead of to him.
He flicked his eyes towards Ron meaningfully. To his surprise, Potter nodded and ran over, awakening the Weasel with a quick Ennervate. Draco continued to hold Hermione, whose small frame was still wracked by violent sobs. Had she hexed him? If so, why was she crying? Had he hurt her and she hexed him in self defense? He felt his ire towards the redhead building instantly.
"Is Hermione okay?" Ron asked dazedly as he sat up.
"She's crying her eyes out in Draco Malfoy's arms, but she seems unharmed" Harry said with a tone that signalled that was not at all okay.
"Oh thank goodness!" the redhead cried.
"What happened?" Neville finally spoke up, touching a tarnished circlet with an enormous blue gem on it with his toe.
"Watch out, mate! That diadem is the nastiest of the Horcruxes we've seen so far," Ron took a shaky breath before continuing. "Hermione and I were looking for it, and when I found it, I put on the Dragonhide gloves like we discussed but it was in my mind like that!"
He snapped his fingers for emphasis then seemed to deflate.
"It was worse than that locket even. The locket… just made me feel worthless and paranoid. This one, it made me feel right. It pulled up those same fears and insecurities but sort of, I dunno, wove them together with this logic behind it that made it seem ironclad, like I'd always been right about everything and just no one saw it. It told me… well, nevermind exactly what it told me, but it convinced me to put it on, that I'd know how defeat You Know Who and finally be the hero and…" he glanced at Hermione again and Draco got the feeling the Diadem might have been dispensing advice usually left to Witch Weekly's "Woo Your Witch or Wizard" section along with tips for toppling Dark Lords.
"Hermione tried to get me to stop. I… I told her she just didn't want me to use the Diadem to save the day because she'd been so corrupted by Death Eater scum. I was moments away from putting it on my head when she hexed me."
Hermione's voice was muffled by Draco's chest when she added, "And then it turned its attention to me." She hiccoughed another sob and didn't say anything else. Draco wondered if she was crying because it had offered her unlimited knowledge and she'd turned it away or if it had taunted the raw guilt she felt over Stan Shunspike and her recent flirtation with the Imperius curse. Or if it told her where her parents were… He continued to rub slow circles over her back. There were a lot of pieces of knowledge that could make someone cry these days.
Potter was already rummaging a basilisk fang out of the bags they'd brought back. He viciously stabbed it through the crown, covering his face as a noxious black smoke wafted up from it.
Potter rubbed his eyes tiredly. Plebian, Draco thought smugly.
"Well that's four down, three to go," he whispered.
"Two to go," Hermione corrected, finally lifting her head.
"Ah," Potter sighed, "we have no update you both on a few things we learned."
** TR *** TR *** TR **
Hermione ruthlessly edited their plans to accommodate Snape's experiments in getting a soul fragment out of his head.
"Do you really think writing 'Harry gets himself mostly killed, hopefully' in magenta is really the most appropriate color?" the man himself asked.
Hermione looked vaguely horrified, "That's not at all what it says! And, well magenta contrasts really strongly with green and blue so it made sense for that to be your color…" She trailed off, seeing the mirth in her unremembered friend's eyes. She set her jaw firmly and her mouth twisted in the smirk Draco was sure she'd learned from him.
"I thought pink suited you," she added primly. This elicited a full fledged laugh from the maybe-doomed man.
His laughter was cut short by a scuffle and a shot of light overhead. Draco looked around frantically only to see Borgin had somehow freed himself and wandlessly Accioed his wand. The man was shooting Stunners left and right as he beelined for -
"The Cabinet, don't let him get away!" Draco shouted.
The man scuttled behind piles of Hogwarts detritus, dodging their spells. Draco nearly growled in frustration. They'd all forgotten about the hapless shopkeeper, and here he was undoing their carefully laid plans! Of course the slippery git would be a talented escape artist; in his line of work, he likely tangled with unsavory types all the time. Draco would know, he supposed; he'd accompanied his father to the shop a number of times.
"Bombarda maxima!"
Hermione's voice rang out over the melee and the Cabinet exploded just as Borgin had opened one of its doors. Relative silence reigned in the room as they all processed what she'd done. Except for Borgin, who'd been knocked unconscious by the force of the blast.
"Hermione," Ron ventured, "we were planning on using that to get out of here."
"Well, so was he, evidently, and then probably was running straight to his former employee, one T.M. Riddle. We'll come up with another plan," she huffed.
*** TR ** TR ** TR ***
Weasel, Longbum, and Draco flew silently over the grounds of their school. The rush of air, the thrill of accelerating-usually flying cleared Draco's mind but his thoughts continued to fly bounce around his head like those Cornish Pixies Lockhart had crammed in that cage. A quarter of these thoughts were devoted to feeling sorry for himself, for being stuck with two men who really, truly (and rather reasonably) hated his guts on their way to the Lestrange Castle to destroy a Horcrux. Another quarter was filled with a sort of creeping, existential dread about this whole endeavor and the increasingly unlikely chance he'd survive it. He rather fancied he was used to those thoughts by now; they'd been his constant companion ever since the Dark Lord had commanded him to kill his Headmaster.
The other half thought about Hermione, who was off with Potter and Snape to try to get the Horcrux out of Potter's head, hopefully without killing him. He remembered Hermione's grim face when she understood the subtext behind Harry's request-of course she was the more talented spell-caster, would be better able to support Snape if something went wrong-unlike Ron, she would support actions that would result in Harry's death if that's what it took. She was too devoted to their cause and too sensible not to.
He imagined her at Azkaban, emptied of prisoners but not of its terrifying guards. Snape had revealed he had served as the negotiator between the Dark Lord and the Dementors and, through his research and preliminary conversations with them, believed they could remove only the fragment of the Dark Lord's soul. He shuddered, thinking back to what his godfather had revealed. Horcruxes were, evidently, a delicacy for Dementors as they contained both the huge amount of energy of a soul (which evidently could sustain a Dementor for close to a decade-far superior to the measly meals they got from siphoning joy) but also the additional energy imbued when the soul of the sacrifice was ripped from its host. The energy was attractive, but evidently it was the flavor that really sold it. They'd tasted that dark soul when last they interacted with Potter (Draco remembered with chagrin his own antics mocking Potter for his reaction to the Dementors; there had been no time for apologies and now maybe there never would be). The fragment of the Dark Lord's soul had experienced to joys of murder; he'd relished in the sounds, the smells, the feel of torture. That soul's twisted version of happiness matched the darkness of the Dementors and they coveted it. They could only remove souls from living humans, so the chance to consume a Horcrux was once in a lifetime, even for a being as immortal as they.
He imagined her not being able to cast a Patronus under duress, her lack of memories cutting off the depth of happy options available to her. He imagined the responsibility, the horrible grief she'd experience if another person died. He imagined, imagined, imagined, torturing himself until he thought his head might explode from the stress of it all.
The finally alighted just beyond the edge of the school wards.
"Ready to pay Auntie B a visit?" Neville quipped.
Draco held his tongue. His aunt had tortured the man's parents into insanity. Nothing could make that better, much less anything coming from the mouth of her blood relative who had mercilessly teased you as a child and then joined the same dark organization. He wished Hermione were here with her mulishly set jaw and determination to fix everything.
Instead, he held out his arm and gave the two men more information about where they'd be Apparating. Weasle took the opportunity to remind them all of the plan again.
All too soon, two Gryffindors were touching him (he decided he'd burn the robes afterwards; it would be cathartic) and they were swirling through the uncomfortable void towards Lestrange Castle.
*** TR ** TR ** TR ***
Draco didn't remember visiting Lestrange Castle as child; he'd still been in nappies when Aunt Bella had been sent to Azkaban, in part for torturing the parents of the man walking beside him up to the twisted wrought iron gates. Looking at the monstrous house and its grounds, he couldn't quite imagine any self-respecting parents would have brought any child, much less a toddler here, but then again, his parents had allowed him to carry a cursed diary into a school at 12 and then get a Dark Mark at 16...
Behind the gates, a forest was doing its best to choke out the spindly, dark building about a tenth of a mile past the gates. Thorns longer than Draco's forearm burst from thick vines and in the shadows, the leaves seemed to rattle and rustle. The place seemed wholly abandoned. Evidently the flora that had moved in once the castles' inhabitants were sent to Azkaban were as dark as they had been. Maybe their poisoned spells had leaked out into the grounds. His aunt had once tittered that blood made the best fertilizer. His stomach lurched at the thought that she might have been offering legitimate gardening tips.
"You sure they've been here in the last century?" Ron hissed.
"You've seen her hair; why do you think her lawn would be any better kempt?" Draco snapped back.
Surprisingly, the ginger seemed to accept the wisdom of Draco's words. He pulled out a flask and passed it to Longbottom, who nodded gravely before tipping it into his mouth. Draco watched, mesmerized as the tall boy shrunk into the familiar body of one Hermione Granger.
"Ready?" Longbottom snapped. Draco had to admit, his imitation of Hermione's bossy impatience was fairly spot on, although he liked to think his was better.
"I need some bruises and dirt, but you look great," Weasel agreed. He blushed slightly, confirming Draco's suspicion that the Weasel held a torch for Hermione. He tried not to gag.
A few stinging hexes at Weasel and rolls in the dirt later, Draco grabbed the red-head and dragged him to the gate. Punching him in the face-for a good cause, no less-made him feel a bit better.
*** TR ** TR ** TR ***
The instant Draco's hand touched the gate, a pulse shook the fence, distorting the air around it. What felt like hours later, but Draco realized must have only been seconds, the familiar face of his Aunt peered curiously through the gate. He idly wondered how she got through all the underbrush. Was it just an illusion? Or did the wood somehow recognize and bow to the superior evil in its midst?
"Little Draco. Why are you at my house? I thought you were busy with the Dark Lord's business," she hissed the last words in clear admonition.
"Aunt Bella, please look at who I have with me," he drawled.
Longbottom gestured happily at the Weasel, who was doing a bang-up job looking royally peeved and somewhat terrified.
"That's not the Potter boy," she pointed out.
"Of course not. That's why we're here and not at the Manor. We need somewhere to stash him for an hour or so while we contact Potter to lure him out. Can we come in now? He's torn my robe," Draco whined.
She chuckled and for a second, Draco reckoned he saw his Aunt, the one who'd apparently sat with his mother while she was in labor with him, singing lullabies and holding her hand and who'd cried when she first held him. A second later as she led them down the path (the thorns and branches did indeed shrink away from her, revealing a narrow passageway) giggling and gesturing grandly, he wondered if it had only been his addled imagination.
*** TR ** TR ** TR ***
Draco had the extreme misfortune of a fleeting thought that all was going quite well, seconds before the trio passed through the opulent Lestrange front door.
A sizzling sound, followed by a yelp that started in Hermione's register and quickly dipped down into Neville's signalled that the wards of Lestrange Manor had removed the effects of the Polyjuice.
For a moment, time stood still. Longbottom's eyes were attempting to bulge from his sockets, Weasley's jaw had dropped precipitously towards the floor, and his Aunt looked gleeful. He wondered if she recognized Longbottom and looked forward to reuniting his sanity with that of his parents. He wondered who would throw the first spell. Scratch that. It would definitely be Aunt Bella. He wondered if she suspected him; would her trust buy him a second of time?
And then time sped up and before he'd even raised his wands, several shouts and flashes of light assaulted his ears and eyes. And then silence. For a moment, he thought he must have been hit by a Confundus, because what he was afterwards was Neville Longbottom standing with his wand outstretched, pointed towards a very much Stupified Bellatrix Lestrange.
He must have stood there, shocked for an eternity, because it was Weasley's voice that cut through next (and who knew how long it took for his three brain cells to scrape together an idea?), "Right, reckon we Incarcerous her and then Levicorpus her with us in case there are others here, and then find the Horcrux. Malfoy, did the rest of the Polyjuice survive? If so, I have an idea."
