hey all! sorry for the late update, but this is the longest one yet, so at least there's that. very much hope you like it. :)
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"L—" Luna's name stopped at the tip of Draco's tongue as he remembered his disguise.
"Who are you?" she asked. Her voice, always so dreamy, was a parched slip of a thing now.
Draco managed to eke out the name on his Spizzworth's application. "A-Aidan March."
"You aren't a Death Eater." It wasn't a question, but it made Draco's left forearm tingle. Luna's eyes travelled over his caterer's uniform. "Are you here to help us?"
"Us?"
Luna drifted back from the door. As Draco held his wand closer to the barred window, he made out a man lying motionless against the wall nearby, though he looked not so much like a man as a corpse, emaciated and grimy, a mass of filthy grey hair hanging around his skeletal face.
It was Ollivander. The wandmaker bore hardly any resemblance to the man who had clapped with delight when Draco, eleven years old, had swished this very wand through the air to produce a shimmering tail of white flame.
Fear and disgust pulsed through Draco. It was all he could do not to step backward from the sight. This was what awaited him, Hermione, and Harry if they were captured tonight—this, and worse.
"Is that a uniform?" said Luna, moving back in front of the window. Though her voice was hoarse, she sounded innocently curious, too, as if Draco had swung by for tea and light conversation.
"I … I work for a caterer. There's a Ministry of Magic gala upstairs. … Hundreds of people."
"Oh. I see." She nodded, seeming to consider. "I suppose it would be quite difficult to get us out unseen, then."
Quite difficult, Draco thought, was the understatement of the year. As he thought of Bellatrix, his fear redoubled, sending ice over his skin. If Malfoy Manor was now being used for this purpose, his aunt must have taken precautions to ensure their captives didn't escape.
He didn't know what to do. He had to think pragmatically. He knew that if he told Hermione or Potter about this, they would insist on trying to save Luna and Ollivander, but it wouldn't help the captives if the three of them got chucked into this cell alongside them. Their circumstances would only worsen if Potter, in particular, were killed. It might not be worth the risk to try—might be the better option to take the Horcrux, go, and focus on the Dark Lord's fall.
And yet even the idea of keeping this from Hermione made him feel that oppressive sense of shame again. He could only imagine her fury and disgust if he walked away, if he didn't tell her about this until after they'd returned to headquarters.
But it would be to keep her safe, he thought. To keep all of us alive.
Still—Ollivander's gaunt, twitching face … the way Luna had said, Are you here to help us?
"Why are you here?" Draco said shakily.
"My father's the editor of The Quibbler. Have you heard of it?" she added with some pride.
Her love for her father's ridiculous rag had never seemed less funny. "Yeah," Draco said.
"Good. Good," Luna said absently, nodding. Her hand shook as she moved a lock of dirty blonde hair back from her face. "Well, I suppose they don't like what he's been printing lately. … He's been writing stories about the Order of the Phoenix, and how we should band together to support Harry Potter. So, they took me from the Hogwarts Express when I was on the way home for Christmas Break."
She looked around the cellar. "They hurt me rather a lot when I arrived. … I've met Bellatrix Lestrange before, you see. She was pleased to see me again." Her large, ghostly eyes looked suddenly hollow. "After an hour or two, they had a few people chase me through the woods. … They told me I could leave if I could reach the gate before them, but now that I think of it, I doubt there was ever a gate at all."
Draco felt ill. Of course—Luna Lovegood had been at the Department of Mysteries with the rest of Potter's friends. Draco could imagine the pleasure Bella would have had, torturing one of the people responsible for the loss of the Prophecy.
Then they would have owled evidence back to Luna's father to prove they had her. They would have made some oblique reference to her torture, and ensured he knew that worse could always happen to her.
Luna seemed unperturbed by Draco's silence. "Would you mind telling me what day it is?" she asked. "Only it gets hard to keep track in here."
"It's the 23rd."
"Oh." Luna sighed. "That explains why I'm so hungry."
"They haven't fed you?"
"Only once since I arrived here, and that was the nineteenth. You wouldn't be able to bring us something to eat or drink, would you?" She paused. "It would be a real help," she added.
The hope in her voice was piteous. Merlin, Draco thought, his stomach in knots—she'd already resigned herself to living here, like this. Maybe even dying here.
He tried to remember the evening of the nineteenth. Had he and Hermione been huddled in front of the fire that night, warm and safe, Draco toying with thoughts of abandoning the plan and staying in headquarters forever? And all the while, had Luna been under Bellatrix's Cruciatus, or fleeing through the woods in the Malfoy grounds wild-eyed, twigs snapping in her blond hair, tripping into the mud?
Draco felt as if he'd crashed down to Earth after a hundred-foot fall. He'd known the war for the loyalty of the Wizarding World had ground onward while they'd been in their safe haven, but the reports on the Wireless had started to feel so distant, sanitised as they were by the Ministry.
For strategy's sake, the Death Eaters wouldn't kill Luna. Draco knew that. He also knew they'd do anything and everything else, if not to manipulate her father, then out of boredom or frustration. If this was what she looked like after only four days' captivity … Draco resisted the image of the girl propped against the wall like Ollivander, months later.
Something was coalescing inside Draco, a fragile, tentative knot of determination. Hadn't he found a hidden way into Hogwarts last year? Hadn't he solved an unsolvable problem? And this was the manor. He knew this place the way he knew himself.
There must be a way to manage it again.
"Give me ten minutes," he rasped.
As he started up the steps, climbing out of the darkness beneath the manor, he glanced back down the steps at Luna's face, an amorphous smudge dwindling like a dying candle. In truth he had no idea what he was doing, except that he was going to find the others, and then there would be no going back.
Draco faced forward again and held his wand aloft and climbed. Somehow the steep stairs looked three times as long as when he'd descended into the depths, and the manor suddenly seemed treacherous, despite the glittering splendour above—or maybe precisely because of that splendour. The home of his childhood seemed to turn transparent, hovering like a mirage in a shining layer over reality. The ancient house shared his name. It had shaped him, it had made him, it was elegance and grace and refinement. Hours before, standing at the foot of the sweeping drive, he'd felt relief and even pride to see it again, to remember where he came from.
But here, inside and deep beneath, in its hidden places, this was its foundation, after all. Torture and debasement, his own and others'. Hideous actions, his own and others'. Lavish finery, concealing the truth that belonged to him and the lies he'd inherited.
Draco's legs were tiring, and he had that whirling feeling, again, of nightmare. Pressing in on him was the crushing sensation of captivity. That was the manor, in the end. Enclosure. But he kept climbing. He could not, would not stop. There would be a way out. There had to be.
#
Hermione waited until Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had disappeared from the hall before returning to the gala. Just inside the door, a blond-bearded someone caught her eye. It was Harry. She flashed three fingers and gave a small nod: the Weasley part of their plan was complete.
A triumphant look flashed across Harry's face, and he flashed his pinkie finger, then nodded, too. Hermione's heart leapt. Umbridge had arrived—and Harry had succeeded in giving her a drink that contained the crucial part of their plan. Fast-acting laxative powder.
Under the guise of looking around for Flint, she navigated close enough to Harry to whisper,
"How long ago?"
"Seven minutes or so. She's in the sunroom."
"And Draco?"
"Kitchen, I think."
Hermione nodded, then peeled away. She scanned the room for Draco with an anxious pang—she knew this was the room where Voldemort had used the Cruciatus on him, and that he'd hoped to avoid it as long as possible. Still, they needed him here soon, on the off-chance that Umbridge somehow slipped between her fingers, or if something else went wrong. All their dozens of contingency plans involved him.
Just then, a wailing scream split the air throughout the ballroom, high and inhuman. The band broke off, and a panicked surge of voices rose through the gala. Hermione pressed herself against the wall, terrified that they'd somehow been detected, that this was some piece of anti-disguise magic they hadn't planned for—but then she saw two members of the Greengrass Guard forcing their way through the crowd toward one of the windows, which a tall, portly wizard had cracked open. It was a Caterwauling Charm, Hermione realised.
"What?" the wizard was saying indignantly. "It's stifling in here! I can't get a bit of fresh air?"
"Cast a Clean Air Charm if you need fresh air," the guard said, cool and stony-faced, shutting the window again.
"Sonorus," said the other guard. Her magically amplified voice announced throughout the ballroom: "Guests will please note that Caterwauling Charms have been applied at windows and all unapproved exits to improve event security and prevent any burglarising. Thank you and please enjoy your evening."
As they exited the ballroom and the music started back up again, Hermione's heart was still pattering quickly. She was grateful it had happened. They hadn't planned for Caterwauling Charms, and that bit of security rendered several of the contingency plans useless. Hermione mentally crossed them off the list, but she frowned, feeling suspicious. Sealing off the entire manor seemed like an extreme measure to 'prevent burglarising' …
Then she saw Flint scanning the crowd with dissatisfaction. She feigned relief and navigated toward him.
"Marilea," he said. "There you are. Thought you'd run off with someone and set off the Caterwauling Charm."
She laughed a low, melodic laugh. "I'm sorry. I thought I was leaving you in good company."
"They've all gone off to dance now." He extended one large hand. "Care to?"
Hermione hesitated. The entrance to the sunroom was at the end of the ballroom, a set of big glass doors fogged by the heat of the crowd. She needed to get in there to monitor Umbridge. What if her prey left for the toilets through another exit?
But Flint clearly already thought that she wasn't paying enough attention to him. She needed as little friction as possible, so that when she left to pursue the Horcrux, he didn't feel suspicious.
She decided to play at self-consciousness. Marilea had to have a weakness, didn't she?
"O-oh," she said, faltering as she looked back at the many dancing couples. "Er … could we have another drink, first?" She glanced from side to side, as if on the brink of reluctant admission, then said, "You may find it hard to believe, but I have a difficult time loosening up. Sometimes."
With relief, she saw Flint's harsh features soften. "Sure," he said. "Later. It's still really early."
When he placed his hand on her back again, it was in a more respectful location than before, almost reassuring. For the first time, Hermione felt a twinge of guilt about this charade. Flint had been so self-centred and aggressive throughout that she hadn't considered that he might develop legitimate feelings for Marilea.
But then they came out into the sunroom, and Flint knocked into someone just beyond the door, and Hermione forgot all about her guilt. He'd walked directly into a tall, attractive couple: the man burly and fair, with windswept sandy hair; the woman dark-skinned, with microbraids wound up into an elegant bun. They looked older than they had at Hogwarts, ineffably more adult, but unmistakable. Oliver Wood and Angelina Johnson.
The silence that dropped between the former Quidditch rivals was excruciating. The band, dulled on the other side of the door, played on; an enchanted fountain burbled in the humid air. Hermione cast an awkward look around the sunroom, which was filled with row upon row of plants that would have made Professor Sprout proud.
Flint was the first to speak. "Wood," he said. "Johnson." Then, with a smirk, he said, "Mad who they'll let into these events."
"Yes," said Angelina, looking Flint over. "It is."
Hermione felt the weight of Angelina's dislike, but it seemed she didn't dare insult Flint openly. This seemed to satisfy Flint. The smirk widened into a smug look that Hermione hated. She wished she weren't at his side.
It felt bizarre, standing here in front of the two older Gryffindors. Hadn't she partnered with Angelina during DA meetings half a dozen times, Stunned her back into piles of cushions and had Angelina's formidable Impediment jinx cast upon her, too? And Hermione had listened to Harry complain about Wood's sadistic captaining for three full years … and now here he was, here they all were, in a new world.
"Angelina Johnson and Oliver Wood," Flint introduced to Hermione. "We went to Hogwarts together, though they were in the house with most of the Muggle-lovers. Gotten over that now, have you?" He was definitely jeering now, taunting Angelina and Wood, both of whom were drawn as taut as bowstrings. Hermione could see Angelina's fingers digging into Wood's wrist as they both tried for patience.
"Thought so," Flint said, with a sip from his glass of Firewhisky. "We can all get along now, though. School's over. New rules out here in the real world. … This is Marilea Linhardt, you two. Marilea, Wood plays Keeper for Puddlemere United, and Johnson's in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, athletics division."
Angelina and Wood both stuck out their hands, looking reluctant. Hermione avoided their eyes and shook as quickly as possible.
"Marilea went to school in Dubai," Flint went on. "She's thinking about being a Quidditch commentator, and…"
Hermione's attention slipped. There she was. There, coming out from behind a Flutterby Bush in a vast adobe pot, was Dolores Umbridge.
Umbridge wore satin dress robes in fuchsia and her usual saccharine smile, and the Horcrux gleamed upon her chest. She was deep in conversation with none other than Bellatrix Lestrange.
Two Aurors were flanking Umbridge, two tall, expressionless men. Hermione let out a slow breath. It was a stroke of luck that both Aurors were men. There was nearly no likelihood that they would insist on standing guard in the powder room, where the guests might need to privately adjust their clothing. Draco had informed her and Harry that it was the height of rudeness to watch glamour magic being performed, in particular, and that if Hermione saw anyone erasing wrinkles in the powder room, she should keep her eyes averted.
"… simply can't express our gratitude for your generosity, Madam Lestrange," Umbridge was simpering. "The Minister was so honoured that you would open your doors, especially after all the wrongs the Ministry has done you over the years. The Minister himself will be here soon, of course …"
"Marilea?" said Flint.
Hermione started and looked back to them. "Pardon me," she said. "That woman's quite eye-catching, isn't she?" She glanced back at Bellatrix, who looked haughty and disdainful as usual, but not dissatisfied with Umbridge's flattery.
Wood and Angelina exchanged uneasy looks. Flint shifted too. "That's Bellatrix Lestrange," he said, his voice half its earlier volume.
"What, Flint?" said Angelina. "Not going to extol her virtues? I thought you lot looked up to her."
"Shut up," Flint said through his teeth.
Hermione pretended not to notice any of this. "And the woman with her?"
"Dolores Umbridge," Flint said, sounding more at ease. "Senior Undersecretary to the Minister."
"What lovely dress robes," Hermione said. "Such an unusual shade."
But Umbridge and Bellatrix had begun to laugh at something, and such a wave of hatred ran through Hermione at the sight of Umbridge laughing with Sirius's murderer that her voice came out high and tight, not at all like Marilea's. Flint gave her a surprised look, but it was Angelina's expression that made Hermione's stomach drop. Her eyes had fixed on Hermione's face with the hard focus that the Chaser had assumed every time she threw a perfectly aimed goal.
As Flint glanced back toward the fogged-up doors to the ballroom, Hermione met Angelina's eyes and gave her head a tiny, urgent shake.
Angelina looked stunned for an instant. Then she dipped her head in an equally tiny nod.
"In any case," Hermione said to Flint when he looked back down at her, "I'm surprised this is only the first annual gala. Wasn't there a call for something like this before? …"
They carried on an easy, shallow conversation for several more minutes, Hermione keeping an eye on Umbridge.
Then Umbridge's face contracted with surprise and dread. Hermione's pulse began to speed. She felt the weight of the wand in her pocket again. Soon enough Umbridge was shifting awkwardly in place, and the vengeful part of Hermione filled with satisfaction. She remembered the loathsome woman in the Ministry—so excited to tear Muggle-borns away from their loved ones. The more discomfort in her life, the better, as far as Hermione was concerned.
Then Umbridge was making her excuses and hurrying toward the door, the Aurors following her.
Hermione made herself count to ten. Then she winced, squinting one eye until it watered. "Marcus—I need to dash to the powder room—my makeup. … Shall I meet you on the dance floor?"
He brightened. "Yeah," he said. "I'll see you in there."
Hermione slipped out of the sunroom into the hall. Umbridge was trotting with increasing speed toward the powder room, which served as a sort of antechamber to the bathroom. There was a line of a half-dozen women down the hall, but Umbridge bypassed all of them, to several disgruntled looks. She disappeared into the powder room.
The line was inconvenient, but they had a plan for this. Either Harry or Draco was supposed to keep an eye on the wait time, and if this happened, they were meant to tell the other women about the other bathrooms spread throughout the west wing.
But as Hermione joined the line, neither Harry nor Draco appeared.
Seconds ticked by, and Hermione's mouth grew dry. Where were they? What could they possibly be doing? They didn't have forever, and the longer Umbridge took in the bathroom, the longer the line would grow—the more conspicuous they would be.
Just as Hermione was about to resort to the Puking Pastille sewn into her neckline, he appeared at the entrance to the foyer. Draco, passing the Greengrass Guard who monitored the hall, moving with purpose toward the line. Hermione felt limp with relief. She could just make out his features beneath the makeup, and the sight of him, the reminder that she wasn't alone, bolstered her.
"Excuse me," Draco announced, stopping at the head of the line. He'd turned his smooth drawl into a buzzing, nasal voice. "As we've had a number of complaints about the wait, we've decided to open up the toilets on the second floor temporarily. There are two more just up these stairs. Follow me." The line in front of Hermione peeled off, hurrying after Draco toward the stairwell he'd indicated.
She couldn't help but think that Draco's eyes had looked panicked as he'd passed her. She tried not to think about it, tried to focus only on the Horcrux. If something had gone wrong, she couldn't do anything about it now, at the crucial moment.
She moved to the door and said, rubbing her fingertip against her lower eyelid as if irritated with her makeup, "I only need the powder room." The Aurors' eyes moved over her, then off, as she entered. The door clicked shut behind her.
The layout of the room was just as Draco had described. To one side was a luxurious counter of Italian marble, where twin mirrors were lit by hovering bulbs. In the corner opposite the counter was the door to the bathroom. There were three other women in the powder room: two queued against the wall for the W.C., and the last, a squat older witch in velvet whose hands were down her dress, pulling at an evidently problematic bra.
"… know she's a higher-up," one of the queued women was muttering, "but I've been waiting for ten minutes, and she just barges past …"
"They've opened up the upstairs bathrooms," Hermione said over her shoulder to the queued women as she approached one of the mirrors.
The two women glanced over. "Really?"
"Yes. I'd try those, if I were you. I overheard Madam Umbridge saying she didn't feel well. She may be a while."
The women exchanged a glance, then nodded to Hermione. "Thanks," one said, and they both exited the powder room.
Hermione continued to toy with her eyelid for a moment, but the older witch in velvet didn't seem close to leaving. "Honestly," Hermione said with a light sigh. "They call it Ellwina's Everlasting Eyeliner and yet I could swear it needs fixing every twenty minutes."
The other witch let out a hearty laugh. "Same with this Sticking Charm. Though you're too young to need that, of course."
"Soon enough," said Hermione with a friendly smile. She drew her wand, leaned close to the mirror, and pretended to touch it to her eyelid. Then she leaned back, as if to admire the effect, and flicked it in the other witch's direction, thinking, Confundo!
The other witch's face went momentarily slack. Then confusion passed over her face, and her expression cleared. She tugged her dress back into place before bustling out of the powder room. Hermione was alone.
At once, she stopped fidgeting with her eye and assumed her place in front of the bathroom door. For a long moment she waited, her body so full of tension that she thought she might be sick.
The toilet flushed.
Muffliato, she thought, flicking her wand back at the door to the hall. Colloportus.
Locking the door was a big risk, probably the most suspicious part of the operation—but for these thirty seconds, she couldn't have any other guests getting in. She turned back to the bathroom door and drew a shaky breath. Then—Alohomora.
The bathroom door clicked open.
Time blurred and jerked. One moment Hermione was flying over the threshold, met with the sight of Dolores Umbridge washing her hands. In the same moment, Umbridge let out a shriek, her hand flying for her wand. But she was too late. Hermione had already cast—
Obliviate!
The spell struck Umbridge hard, and she sank back against the wall, her eyes rolling, momentarily unconscious. Hermione leapt forward and caught her before she hit the ground. She unclipped the locket from Umbridge's neck and paused for an instant, remembering what she was holding, feeling that aliveness within it, as the diadem had felt alive. A shiver shot down her back.
She shook herself back to life, stuffed the Horcrux down her dress into her bra, and slipped a golden bracelet from around her wrist. She Transfigured it into a passable copy of the locket, which she fastened around Umbridge's ruff.
Her heart beat harder. Almost done now. She drew a deep breath and whispered the spell she'd hated practicing, for it was the same spell she'd used on her parents. "Novaria."
Umbridge's eyelids flickered, but she didn't yet wake. Hermione dragged her forward into the powder room, and as she hauled Umbridge upright against the closed bathroom door, she removed the Muffliato and unlocked the door to the powder room again.
She turned back to Umbridge. Confundo, she thought, flicking her wand. Rennervate.
Umbridge's eyes flew open.
"I said," Hermione said, frowning, "your dress robes are lovely."
Umbridge's wide, pouchy face still looked disoriented. For a long, horrible second, Hermione was worried the false memories hadn't taken—that Umbridge remembered something other than washing her hands at the sink, opening the door, and, after a brief moment's dizziness, being greeted by a compliment from Marilea Linhardt.
Then Umbridge's expression cleared. "Thank you," she said, with a wide-eyed look at Hermione's robes that clearly said she didn't feel the same about Hermione's appearance.
Then she trotted out of the powder room. She wobbled for a moment at the door, which alarmed Hermione, but she seemed to shake it off.
She was gone. It was done.
Hermione's mouth opened, and she drew several long, deep breaths. Her heart was beating as if she'd just sprinted miles, but triumph flooded through her. The plan had gone exactly as they'd hoped, and the Horcrux was warm against her breast. They had it. The locket was theirs. Now the only thing was to make their excuses and leave the grounds, and no one would be the wiser.
But when she left the powder room, Draco was stationed against the opposite wall again.
Her heart dropped. She hadn't imagined the panic in his eyes. Something had gone wrong, before—they weren't meant to have any contact after her encounter with Umbridge, not until they were outside the manor.
"Excuse me," she said to Draco, "I've been told this house has a bust of Callalya the Catastrophic. Could you direct me to it?" Their code for a private place to speak.
"Right this way," he said.
"I've got the locket," she whispered as she followed him down the hall toward the foyer.
He glanced down at her and nodded once.
Hermione's heart beat harder. He hardly even seemed pleased that they'd done it, that they'd gotten the object they'd been striving for months to steal.
As they passed through the foyer, Hermione realised one of the Greengrass Guards' eyes were following them. Draco was leading her not back into the ballroom, but toward a side hall, where another catering employee was carrying a tray of empty glasses. Guests probably weren't meant to be in this area.
But Draco had noticed, too. "I'm so sorry the refreshments weren't up to your standard," he said—not very convincingly, Hermione thought. He sounded almost sarcastic. Of course, Draco Malfoy pretending to work in the service industry had been a ridiculous mismatch all along.
"I don't need your apologies," she said coldly as they passed the suspicious guard. "I want to tell Ms. Spizzworth herself that I've never had such undercooked crab in my life. It'll be a miracle if no one gets food poisoning. …"
Hermione thought she saw the Greengrass Guard give an irritated roll of the eyes, but the woman said nothing as they entered the side hall.
"What is it?" Hermione breathed. "What's going on?"
"Just wait. Here." Draco led her to a locked door and tapped the handle with his wand. Hermione's feeling of foreboding increased as she looked down the steep stairs, which melted into total darkness.
Then Harry jogged up out of the dark, and even past his disguise, even in the half-light, she could see the panic on his face. "Come down," he whispered. "Now."
#
"What are we going to do?" Hermione moaned. Her eyes were wide and terrified.
Draco's throat was tight as he leaned back against the wall. He still hadn't had an epiphany about how to get the captives out of the house, and worse, the heavy door was still locked. Alohomora had failed to open it, as had three other unlocking spells, as had a series of cutting and blasting jinxes. They had, however, managed to pass a tray's worth of hors d'oeuvres and two large glasses of water through the barred window, which Luna and Ollivander were in the process of wolfing down.
They hadn't told the pair Draco's identity, which could be plucked out of Luna's or Ollivander's heads if an escape attempt went wrong. To their knowledge, he was still Aidan March, sympathiser. However, they had shown Luna and Ollivander the slip of paper with the address of headquarters. Under the bounds of the Fidelius Charm, only Weasley could transfer the secret to a new party in speech, sign, or script—so even if Bellatrix used Legilimency on the captives, she wouldn't be able to find the cottage. The memory of the paper would seem obscured and hazy.
"You're sure you never heard them using a specific spell to get inside?" Potter asked Luna and Ollivander.
"No," said Luna. "They tap the door with their wands, that's all."
"So it's nonverbal," Harry muttered. "We just need to land on the right spell, then."
"No," rasped a voice from inside the cell. Luna's face disappeared from the window, and after a moment's scraping, Ollivander's face appeared. He was breathing hard from the effort of standing upright, and every second or two, muscles twitched beneath his thin, wrinkled skin. "I … believe it to be … a wand-native locking spell."
"Oh, Merlin," Hermione whispered.
"A what?" said Potter.
"A wand-native locking spell," Hermione said. "It's a fairly advanced spell—it ensures that a magical barrier can only be unlocked by certain wands." She hesitated, biting her lip so hard that Draco saw her lipstick transferring to her teeth. "In this case, the Death Eaters' wands."
Draco looked from Hermione to Potter. They couldn't actually be considering this. Absolutely not. "No," he said, hating how his voice sounded high and scared.
"We have to try," Potter said.
"We can't," Draco said sharply. "Even if we do steal a wand from the most dangerous people in this place and get the door open, what are we meant to do after that? We'll get ourselves killed. How does that help anyone?"
Hermione looked conflicted. "It does seem likely we'd all be caught," she said in a near-whisper.
"We won't be," Potter insisted. "They flew in some of the equipment on brooms. We'll Disillusion Luna and Ollivander. It's dark enough now that they won't be seen in the grounds. Then we take a few of those brooms and fly through the gate to avoid a standoff with the guards."
"We'd still need a way onto the grounds, though," Hermione said. "You saw the Caterwauling Charm go off earlier. This must be the real reason that Charm's in place. … We can't sneak out through a window or side door. We'll have to leave through the front entrance, and Disillusionment definitely won't fool the guards in the foyer."
"What you've done is very good," said Luna appreciatively, looking Hermione and Harry over. "Are you disguised too, Aidan? You don't sound as old as you look. I would never have known Muggles could do this kind of Transfiguration."
"Yeah," Draco said, "but the man who did it is in London, so he's not much use."
But Hermione was frowning into the middle distance in that way she did when she had an idea. "Well," she said, "they aren't checking the list of names at the manor door. So, if Luna and Ollivander look like guests, they'll be able to walk right out, in theory."
Draco stared at Luna and Ollivander, their dirty, stringy hair, their torn and tattered clothes. "How are we supposed to make them look like guests?"
"That's easy enough," said Luna. She sounded unnervingly casual, now, chewing a last hors d'oeuvre. "This house must be filled with elegant clothes. If you can find some for us, we can use your wands to cast Aguamenti and wash ourselves. Then we can get dressed and come up with you three."
Draco could already think of a thousand ways this could go wrong. Which Death Eater's wand could they steal to get the door open? And what if Bellatrix had given the Greengrass Guard a description of the captives in case of an attempted escape? Could they risk Transfiguring Luna's or Ollivander's faces? Security were swatting Probity Probes over everyone who entered the manor, and if they passed too close under Transfiguration while exiting, they'd set them off.
Moreover, what if the brooms had been moved since the start of the gala? Draco supposed they could try to get to his family's brooms—they'd been told that gala guests were allowed, even encouraged, to enjoy the Malfoys' substantial grounds, which had been spread with nearly fifteen thousand Christmas lights in spectacular formations. But the Malfoy family brooms weren't stuffed into some garden shed. They had a collection kept under weather-controlled conditions in the gatehouse, watched by the groundskeeper, Farlough, and even if Draco had been willing to risk telling Farlough he was alive, he knew the man would never have done him a favour in a thousand years, the way Draco had always treated him.
Draco felt another humiliated pang and closed his eyes, aware that every second they waited, Spizzworth's and Marcus Flint were more likely to notice their absence.
Potter seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "We need to hurry," he said in a tone that brooked no argument. "Draco, you find some dress robes from the bedrooms. They won't let guests into the upper floors, and you know the house best. … Hermione, you and I will get a Death Eater's wand. There are half a dozen of them here. Not Bellatrix, obviously, but Yaxley looks terrible—we might be able to distract him. One of us can do the spilling trick again, and the other can pick his pocket."
No, Draco wanted to say. It's too dangerous … for Merlin's sake, it's barely even a plan.
He glanced back at the window where Luna and Ollivander were watching, though, and then at Hermione, straight-backed and resolved now. He found that he couldn't make himself say the words.
But neither could he look away from Hermione, from the way she was blinking more often than usual with nerves, from the rise and fall of her shoulders. The fear he'd felt in the front room of headquarters returned twice as strongly, a kind of acceleration, the sensation of flattening himself to a broom handle in a steep dive. If Potter was caught, the Dark Lord would kill him. Probably not without some humiliation, but the Dark Lord would want it to be quick; he wouldn't want to risk Potter slipping away again. If Draco was caught, the same was probably true.
But Hermione was a Muggle-born. They wouldn't consider her important enough to call the Dark Lord back to Britain, which meant that if they caught her, she would be Bellatrix's. If Bellatrix had enjoyed toying with Luna as thanks for the Department of Mysteries, she would unleash that tenfold on Hermione. She'd tear into Hermione's mind with Legilimency, searching for information about Potter, until there was nothing left. She'd probably invite Yaxley and Crabbe to join in, to get revenge for their humiliation at the Ministry in September.
Draco felt suddenly sick. It was all he could do to keep his voice steady. "I think," he said, trying to sound coolly rational, "you should take the thing we came for back to headquarters, Hermione. We should keep that safe, shouldn't we? You go first, and Potter and I can get Luna and Ollivander out alone."
When Hermione looked at him, her gaze bright and pained, he knew she'd seen right through the excuse.
"I'm not leaving you two here alone," she said, and the way she was looking at him—the way she sounded as if she were confessing something—it terrified Draco even more. What if this was the last time they ever spoke?
"It's not a bad idea," said Potter. "We can't risk losing it, Hermione."
"No," she said. To Draco's alarm, her eyes suddenly looked wet. She glanced away, blinked twice. "No," she said again, determined now. "We'll need two people to get the wand. We have to do this together. We're all going to get out together. Now, come on." She looked to Luna and Ollivander. "We'll be back soon," she said fiercely.
But as they walked up the steps, she slipped her hand into Draco's and squeezed so hard it hurt. He squeezed back, dreading the moment he would have to let go.
#
They parted ways at the foyer. Draco knew distraction was dangerous, but as he climbed the stairs, part of his mind remained on the first floor, following Hermione back into the gala. Right now, were she and Potter scanning the room for Yaxley? How quickly would it be done—how quickly would he know if everything went wrong?
He returned to the kitchen and fetched a tray of wine, then hurried back toward the manor's centre. Two guards were stationed at the split staircases up to the third storey, but Draco bypassed them and headed for the tiny stairwell concealed in the west wing behind a tapestry of Ara Malfoy, hoping the Lestranges didn't know to guard it.
He was in luck. As he approached, he saw nobody there. He and his friends had always used this passage to pretend they were Aurors on secret missions in distant countries.
Draco slipped behind the tapestry and climbed toward the third storey. If any more guards were up there, he could claim that one of the Lestranges had ordered him to leave a glass of wine upstairs. A feeble excuse, but they hadn't planned for any of this; it would be a miracle if any part of this plan hung together.
Gryffindors, he thought furiously with every step. Gryffindors and their hero complex, Gryffindors and their … their …
But he kept losing track of the thought in the image of Luna stumbling wild-eyed through the grounds, mud-splattered, Greyback at her heels. And before he could stop his imagination, it was Hermione in his mind's eye, running, tripping on a root, trying to scramble back, face drawn in terror.
He climbed faster. When he peeked out from the corresponding tapestry, he found the third floor blessedly deserted.
Draco let out a slow breath. Soon he'd have the disguises; he just had to trust that Hermione and Potter could manage their part, too. Hermione had just stolen a Horcrux from the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister from under two Aurors' noses, hadn't she? And hadn't Potter spent his whole life wriggling out of near-death situations? Surely they could manage nicking a wand.
His dread built, though, as he looked to the westward end of the hall. Ollivander was closer to Draco's height than his father's. He'd have to go there after all, to the room he'd wanted to avoid more than any other.
Would the Quidditch paraphernalia still hang on his bedroom walls? The Holyhead Harpies team poster signed personally to him by Gwenog Jones? The Slytherin House banner he'd begged his father to get him when he was six years old? Or would the Lestranges have stripped the place, Bella disgusted by his failure?
Draco steeled himself and strode down the hall.
His hand was on the doorknob when he heard voices inside. His hand wobbled on his tray of glasses. He slid the tray onto the windowsill and leaned closer to the door, pressing his ear to the oak.
His heart plummeted. It was Pansy.
"… you don't get your hands off his things, Crabbe," she was saying coldly, "I'll hex them off for you."
Crabbe had always been soft-spoken, and his laugh was low and rumbling, like thunder. "Hear that, Nott?" he said. "I think your girlfriend's still got a candle burning for Draco."
"Is this why you wanted to come up here, Crabbe?" said Theo's light tenor, coloured with annoyance. "To go through Draco's stuff and make fun of us for caring that he died? And here I thought your sense of humour couldn't get any worse."
"Oh, stop it for once, you two," said Millicent Bulstrode's voice, high and nasal. "Leave it, Vince. Come here."
"Fine," said Crabbe, and Draco heard something land with a metallic clatter on a wooden surface, then a loud creak of bedsprings as, presumably, Crabbe sat down beside Millicent. "Only 'cause you say so."
Then one of Blaise Zabini's long, airy sighs. "You two are revolting," he said in clipped tones.
Draco felt as if he'd drifted out of his body. If his father had managed to retrieve the Prophecy at the end of fifth year, he would have been lounging here with the rest of them, on break from Hogwarts. He wouldn't have known anything about the Horcruxes, would certainly never have gone into Muggle London. He would have been joking about blood traitors and Muggle-borns and outfits at the gala, casually referencing his father's Ministry connections. It seemed unreal.
Would he have questioned any of it? Would he have been pleased to see the Carrows torturing the other students, pleased that Hermione and every other Muggle-born had been barred from Hogwarts?
With a sinking feeling, he thought that he probably wouldn't have cared. It wouldn't have seemed important at all, next to questions of his own future and status.
"Pass me a drink, Pansy?" said Goyle's deep bass.
"You don't need more," said Pansy, sounding amused now. "What is that, Greg, your eighth one?"
But Draco heard a clink of glass, and heard the smack of lips as Goyle downed whatever she'd handed him.
"'s just weird, being back here," Goyle grunted. "In this room, and all."
"Yeah," Pansy said.
Draco felt a rush of affection for Pansy and Goyle, then. He'd had two friends, at least, who had really cared about him.
There was a strained silence. Then Goyle said, his voice slurred, "I should've gone with him."
"Not this again," Crabbe said with disgust. "He told us, stay in the Room of Requirement. No, ordered us. You miss being bossed around like that?"
"He wouldn't've kept doing it once we'd joined up, too."
"If you believe that," Crabbe jeered, "you're as stupid as he thought you were."
Goyle didn't answer. Draco closed his eyes, the undercurrent of shame running hotter through him. He'd always joked around with Crabbe and Goyle about the classes they failed, about them being slow on the uptake. They'd always joked about him being small and fragile, hadn't they? He'd thought it all equalled out, he'd never thought they actually cared.
"You know what I think?" Millicent said. "I don't think Draco ever had it in him. I think Dumbledore killed him, and he told us all that Draco's Killing Curse rebounded just to cover it up."
Blaise sniffed. "Please, Millie. You think the fuddy-duddy would ever have laid a hand on a student, even to save his own skin?"
"Doesn't matter," Crabbe said, sounding impatient now. "The Dark Lord gave Draco a job and he didn't do it. He deserved what happe—"
There was a scuffling sound, and then a hard, ringing smack. Crabbe bellowed with surprise.
"Take it back," Pansy snarled. "You take it back, you—!"
"What is wrong with you?" Millicent gasped. "Get off—"
"Pansy," multiple voices said at once, alarmed.
"You're crazy," Crabbe spat. "You've gone off the bloody wall, Parkinson. Acting like a blood traitor this whole term—I bet that's why they put your parents in Azkaban, to teach you a lesson!"
"Oh, yeah?" Pansy shrieked. "Blood traitor, am I? At least I don't swallow everything those half-blood Carrow idiots tell me! At least my parents didn't let Harry Potter and that Mudblood waltz out of the Ministry of bloody Magic! Your father's still hurting from that, isn't he?"
"You shut your fat mouth about—" Crabbe snarled.
"Pansy," Blaise cut in, his lofty tones letting on a rare hint of caution. "You should be careful what you—"
"I don't want to hear it from you, Blaise," she snapped. "You need to stop pretending none of this has anything to do with you. I thought this was all supposed to make our lives better. Wasn't it? That's what they said! All our parents said once the Dark Lord was in power, everything would be so much better, we'd be safer. Do you feel safer?"
There was a silence. "Do you, Theo?" she demanded.
"Can we not talk about this right now?" Theo muttered.
Pansy let out a mirthless laugh. "Well, that's a huge surprise. What about you, Millie? Well?"
"I feel safe," Crabbe sneered. "I feel safe because I can keep my mouth shut, unlike you."
"No," Pansy snapped back, "you feel safe because you're an idiot, Crabbe. You think if he'll let the Malfoys die out, one of the oldest bloodlines in Britain, he'll give a damn about you and your dad and your loyalty? Didn't he have that nutter Lestrange torture him into a bed at Mungo's for a week in September?"
"If Madam Lestrange knew you were talking like this in her house," said Crabbe's voice, softer and more dangerous now, "you'd be in for it."
"So what are you going to do, Vince?" It was Goyle talking now. Draco had never heard Goyle talk to Crabbe like this—his slow voice hard with anger. "What? You going to turn her in? Our best friend?"
There was a long silence. Draco came back into himself. God, how long had he been standing here, when down in the hearth room, Hermione and Potter were risking everything to get a wand? He snatched the tray back off the windowsill and rapped on the door.
Heavy footsteps. Then Goyle pulled the door wide. Draco still wasn't quite prepared for the sight of them all, the six people he'd thought would be his closest friends for the rest of his life. They stood scattered throughout his bedroom, which looked identical to the way he'd left it: his black oak sleigh bed with its soft grey sheets, the Holyhead Harpies standing in a regiment with hands clasped behind their backs, posters of Viktor Krum and the Irish Chasers from the last World Cup. A set of his robes was hanging off the high-backed chair in front of his mahogany desk. He might have just left after Easter Break for the last few weeks of sixth year.
"Yeah?" grunted Goyle, looking down at Draco with shifty eyes.
"Is there a Theodore Nott here?" Draco said, forcing his voice through his nose, trying to emulate Professor Sprout's accent.
"That's me," said Theo, standing from the desk chair. He'd grown a few inches since last year, although he was still only an inch or two taller than Pansy. She was wearing green and grey silk and spared Draco a single disinterested glance. By the dresser, Crabbe had his arm around Millicent's waist, and Blaise was inspecting one of Draco's bookshelves, taller than ever and perfectly postured, not even bothering to turn around.
"Your father and his associates," Draco said to Theo, "have requested that you and your friends return to the gala."
Theo sighed, slipping his arm around Pansy's shoulders. "Probably time for the speech. Come on, you lot." He waved everyone else out of the room, so that he and Pansy exited last. As they passed, Draco saw with a twist in his stomach that her cheek was scored and scabbed.
He watched them go. Pansy and Theo were a distance behind the others, and Draco heard her hiss to Theo, "It'd be great if you could take my side for once."
"It'd be great," Theo hissed back, "if you could seem to care about me more than someone who's been dead for six months, for once."
She shrugged his arm off her and strode forward. Theo's steps faltered, and Draco watched him stop and let out a breath, his shoulders sinking. Then he hurried after her. They turned the corner and were gone.
#
"There!" Harry whispered. Hermione followed his sightline and saw Yaxley across the ballroom in conversation with two portly, balding men. Almost instantly, the Death Eater was obscured by moving bodies. The huge room was packed now, and the music had become more lively. A sea of colourfully dressed people were laughing and dancing in front of the stage.
"Let's go," Harry said.
"But …" Hermione hesitated, but of course, there was nothing to wait for. In fact, every moment they waited, she risked being seen by Flint, who was standing on the edge of the sea of dancers, wearing a look of mutinous anger that frankly scared Hermione. She'd already had to shift behind Harry twice to hide from him.
"Reminds me of Slughorn's party," said Harry under his breath, and Hermione, with disbelief, saw his beard twitching with amusement. "You know. You trying to shake off McLaggen."
"How can you think of that now?" Hermione hissed.
Harry grinned. As they moved toward Yaxley, she shifted again to avoid Umbridge, who, nearby, was leaning a bit too heavily on a side table. Umbridge was speaking to none other than Percy Weasley, who didn't look nearly as pompous as usual. He looked uncomfortable, a bit nervous.
Soon they were hardly ten feet from Yaxley. The Death Eater did look awful, hollow-cheeked and swaying on the spot as if he might collapse. "All right," Harry said, serious again. "You take a glass. Spill it on him when you're passing to the left—just there—and I'll go around the other side. I think I see his wand."
"Yes," Hermione breathed. "I do, too. In his right pocket." She swept a glass of pale blue wine from his tray, her heart pounding. "Ooh, let's hurry, my hands are shaking."
"Okay," Harry said. "I'll circle around now. You count to three and follow me. All right?"
Hermione nodded, and Harry moved forward, holding the tray of glasses aloft. One … two …
She drew a deep breath and strode after him, affixing Marilea's haughty expression back onto her face. Just as she passed Yaxley, she made herself trip on her own heel, and gasped as the wine poured onto Yaxley's shoulder.
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry," she said as Yaxley sputtered and lifted his arm. "Here." She drew her wand and flicked it, and a tendril of blue wine drew out from the shoulder of his robes, back into her wine glass. Yaxley opened his mouth, but Hermione said idly, "Do excuse me," and passed him by as if she were in a hurry to get to the stage.
Moments later, Harry nudged his way out of the crowd to her side. "Got it!" he hissed. "He'll notice it's gone soon. Hurry."
They cut back through the ballroom, Hermione at Harry's heel. The room had begun to smell like sweat. The band were playing a fast, bright number, and the many silver, red, and green lamps had dimmed. As they slipped between dancing couples and groups in circles, Hermione could see the marble of the foyer floor. Almost there …
Then a hand shot out from the crowd and fastened around Hermione's wrist.
She spun around to see Flint staring down at her. "Where have you been?" he said, dragging her deeper into the crowd, anger and hurt curling his features into a snarl. His hand was tight enough to bruise on her arm. "Three different people have asked if you ditched me, and I had to pretend like it was funny."
"Marcus," Hermione gasped, thinking fast. Pain was shooting up her arm from his grip. It felt as if he was bending her bones. "P-please don't make a scene. I was just trying to find you to ask if we could leave. I've just been really sick in the bathroom. I think it was the crab."
"Oh," said Flint, letting her wrist go. She grabbed her hand back to her chest and rubbed the spot he'd clamped onto, no longer feeling at all guilty for the charade. Watching her rubbing her wrist, he didn't even look sorry. If anything, he looked sceptical, like he couldn't believe his crushing grip could actually have hurt her. After all Flint's posturing about his good upbringing, at the end of the day, he was still the bully from the Quidditch field, ready to lean on his size and strength the instant he felt slighted.
"Fine, then," he grunted. "We'll go after the Minister's speech. Department head's told us we're not to leave before that."
"All right." Hermione chanced a glance back. Harry was still lingering near the threshold to the foyer. Go, she mouthed at him, glaring. Go! Now!
She looked back to the stage just as the band finished the song. There was clapping and whistling, and the sweaty lead singer said, his voice amplified over the crowd, "Thank you, Ministry of Magic!"
More cheering and hooting. The band traipsed off the stage, and Hermione's eyes caught a flash of fuchsia in the bright lights. Umbridge, she realised, was about to introduce the Minister.
Then there was a sudden shout of alarm. Umbridge had tried to go up the stairs to the stage, and near the top, she'd stumbled, falling backward.
Hermione felt a hard lurch. Had the spells gone wrong? But how could they have? She'd practiced them so many times on Harry and Draco …
All the breath went out of her. That was precisely it: she'd grown accustomed to weeks' practice on Harry and Draco, both of whom were a good foot taller than Umbridge and accordingly heavier. The Confundus was a proportion-responsive spell, and in the moment, juggling half a dozen other enchantments, Hermione hadn't weighted it correctly to someone of Umbridge's size.
One of the Aurors was shouting, waving his arms to clear guests away from the steps. The other was passing his wand across Umbridge's face, apparently performing a diagnostic spell.
Any moment now they would recognise signs of spell damage. They would identify, then break Hermione's Memory Charms. … They wouldn't be able to see that she'd taken the Horcrux, as Umbridge had been unconscious then—but they would see her in Umbridge's memory, barging into the W.C.
She had to get out now.
Hermione didn't even bother making an excuse to Flint, who was craning his neck like all the others to see what was happening to Umbridge. She took a few steps backward, then turned—
She knocked right into Yaxley.
"There you are, girl," he said, eyes narrowed, looking more off-kilter than ever. "Where's my wand?"
"I—wh-what?"
"You took it when you spilled that drink. Now, where is it?"
"Did I—what are—don't be ridiculous," she blustered, drawing her own wand. "What would I want with your wand?" But her fear had come into her voice, and she'd lost Marilea completely, and now Yaxley was staring at her with new eyes.
"You," he breathed.
Even as he said it, a magically amplified voice rang out over the crowd. "Guards, seal the doors. There has been an attack on the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister."
#
Draco let out a relieved breath when the door at the top of the steps opened. "Did you get it?" he hissed, but as a wand burst into light, only one set of footsteps ran down toward him.
"Potter," Draco said. "Where is she? Where's Hermione?"
"She's fine," Potter gasped, breaking out of his run at the bottom of the steps. "She's trying to shake off Flint, she told me to go ahead. Did you get the disguises?"
"Yeah. They've already used my wand to clean themselves up. They're getting dressed now."
"Great. I've got Yaxley's wand here." Potter pulled out a wand, stepped up to the door, and hesitated. Draco felt the same dread he knew Potter was feeling. What if it hadn't been spelled to accept Yaxley's wand specifically? What if Ollivander's hunch had been wrong altogether? …
But when Potter said, "Alohomora!" the great door swung open.
Potter flew inside. He swept Luna into a hard, tight hug, then broke away from her. Draco got a good look at the captives for the first time. Both looked substantially improved: Ollivander had on a set of Draco's black dress robes, and Luna was wearing one of his mother's pale blue dresses, which fit adequately. They'd taken off the filth with Scourgify and used Aguamenti to rinse themselves. Still, their hair was wet and stringy, and Ollivander looked even more gaunt in the black robes.
"Hello, Harry," Luna said with a slightly vacant smile. "It's working well, isn't it? I think Mr. Ollivander and I will need a bit more work to pass for guests, though. Could you do a Drying Charm on my hair, and maybe we could cut his beard…"
"Good idea." Fumbling his wand out, Potter looked back. "Draco, can you go and get the brooms ready, so that when Hermione gets away from Flint, we're all ready to leave?"
"Yeah." Draco ran back up the stairs, taking them two at a time, his scalp itching with sweat beneath Leo Clifton's wig and his cheeks itching furiously from the fake beard. He couldn't believe they'd gotten this far, but Luna was right—the plan had almost worked. They were almost out of the manor's clutches, all five of them.
Then he came into the foyer and found it empty. The Greengrass Guards had deserted their posts. Shouts were coming from the hearth room.
Draco's stomach plummeted. The sound twisted as it snaked out from the threshold into the foyer, but he could make out the words. "She's there—there!"
Fear flooded him. He didn't think. He just flung himself across the foyer in a flat-out sprint, pell-mell into the hearth room.
His feet skidded on the parquet floors. He knocked guests out of the way, struggling through the crowd. Indignant cries shot through the commotion.
"I have her!" roared a voice. "It's her—it's the Mudblood—Potter's Mudblood!" Draco knew it was Yaxley's voice even before the crowd shifted in front of him, and he saw them, ten feet ahead. Yaxley had Hermione's wand in his hand. She was on the floor in front of him as if she'd just been flung down, a scratch on her cheek and her prosthetics torn half away, rage and terror in her face.
Draco saw Yaxley's mouth form the word: "Cruci—"
Draco saw white. "Stupefy!" he yelled wildly. The red jet of light tore through the semidarkness and struck Yaxley in the jaw, blasting him off his feet. But Draco wasn't the only one who'd shouted. An Impediment jinx had jetted out of the crowd from the wand of a tall black girl Draco recognised from—of all places—the Gryffindor Quidditch team. The jinx streaked past Yaxley and collided with one of the Greengrass Guard who was trying to force through to Hermione.
The spells shocked the crowd. People were screaming, trying to get to the exit. Draco fought against the current. He shoved past people in fine dress robes, spilling expensive drinks everywhere, and then he was breaking into the small open area around Hermione and dropping to his knees beside her, in front of the hearth where the Dark Lord had ground him down into nothing—but she was safe. Wasn't she? Had Yaxley done anything before he'd arrived?
"Hermione," he said roughly, out of breath. "Hermione?"
"Draco," she whispered, clawing her dangling prosthetics away from her face. "I'm fine, I'm all right."
"Good. Here—" He snatched her wand out of Yaxley's motionless hand and passed it to her, and they both leapt to their feet.
"They're here!" screamed an older wizard nearby, waving his hands. "The Mudblood's here! Help!"
Hermione sent a Silencing Charm at him, but the damage was done. There was a flash in the corner of Draco's eye. A jet of light shot toward him out of nowhere, and as he whirled around to block it, he saw uniformed figures all throughout the crowd getting closer, slipping through knots of Ministry workers.
Hermione had gone rigid with fear. Draco seized her forearm. "We've got to run!" he shouted over the redoubled screams from the crowd. "Come on!"
Even as they tried to flee down the length of the hearth, though, Draco knew it was no good. There were hundreds of people between them and the threshold, a distance that seemed like a mile, and the place was crawling with not just guards but Aurors and Death Eaters.
Now the crowd cover was failing them, too. The guests shoved back from Draco and Hermione, exposing them. As the clear space around them widened, half a dozen guards burst through at once. Their faces were triumphant, their wands raised. Draco and Hermione froze as spells tore toward them, but before they could block, before Draco could even think an incantation, a voice he didn't recognise yelled, "Parasalvus!"
A plump black-haired woman flew out of the crowd and conjured a curved barrier in front of Draco and Hermione. Off it bounced four, then five of the Greengrass Guards' spells; one rebounded on a guard and Stunned her where she stood. A man with a thatch of blond hair emerged too, planting his substantial figure before Draco and Hermione and felling another guard with a jet of blue light.
"Tonks," Hermione breathed, "Sturgis—no—you can't!"
"Can." The black-haired woman glanced back just long enough to give Hermione a wink, her face alight with adrenalin. Then she whirled back around, blocked a searing stream of heat, and sent a hex zigzagging back toward the Auror who had cast it. Draco's wand faltered—Merlin, he hadn't realised his cousin could duel like this. The clumsy, affable youth was gone, replaced by a fighter who flung her wand out as if she were hurling a javelin, the sheer power of her spells making the floorboards bend and whine.
New energy rushed through Draco's veins, and Hermione seemed to feel it too, for they both began to fight with twice as much ferocity, the four of them inching steadily toward the exit. They immobilised two Aurors, then three—a guard to the left—another dead ahead. Sturgis and Hermione cast up protective enchantments while Draco and Tonks went on the offensive. Soon Draco realised the girl from the Quidditch team—Johnson, that was her name—Johnson and Oliver Wood were nearby, too, yelling spells that ricocheted off the mantel, adding to the confusion. Draco thought he heard other voices from around the hearth room, secret loyalists to the Order, calling out to the guards from distant corners, "No, they're over here!"
"This way!"
"I see her here!"
But the battle was beyond containment now. Blocked spells were rebounding onto Ministry officials left and right, some of whom were trying to block, too, inadvertently casting their own flashes of light. Draco caught a whiff of smoke, looked up, and realised that the banners on the walls had caught fire from the volleying spells. Within seconds, they were roaring with flame, the words MAGIC IS MIGHT! flashing in garish shades as they burned to shreds, the flames licking and crawling up the ivory paint toward the crown moulding.
"Fire! FIRE!" A chorus of screams rang off the curved ceiling, and the crowd exploded from a frenzy into outright pandemonium. Multiple people yanked open the French windows at the opposite wall, and as the Caterwauling Charm wailed pointlessly overhead, guests vaulted out over the windowsills. Some guards and Aurors were shooting jets of water upward, but the flames were coursing over the old wood and paint too eagerly, hissing and climbing and refusing to extinguish. Dozens of people were flooding out into the foyer, emptying the hearth room, leaving Draco, Hermione, Tonks, and Sturgis dangerously visible—but just as Rodolphus Lestrange and Alistair Crabbe shoved out of the mob, roaring with triumph at the sight of them, two more people dived in front of Draco and Hermione.
It was Arthur and Molly Weasley, wands drawn, blocking and casting spells with a speed and ferocity Draco couldn't have imagined from them. And almost at once, another voice yelled, "Mum! Dad!" and another redhead burst from the crowd, stumbling into place beside his parents—Percy Weasley.
"Percy!" sobbed Mrs. Weasley as her son raised his wand and joined the fray. They were only ten feet from the door now, and getting ever closer—but just as Draco thought they might make it out, his heart seemed to stop beating.
Six people had blocked the threshold. Crabbe and Goyle, Blaise and Theo, Millicent and Pansy.
Their eyes were all fixed on Hermione's partially visible face, and every one of them looked stunned. Amid the uproar, there was an instant's silence between all the seventh-years.
Then someone behind them bellowed, "Reducto!" They all ducked as one. The hex shot over their heads, and as if in slow-motion, Draco watched the jet of red light tear out into the foyer, up, up—and connect with the seventeenth-century crystal chandelier.
There was an icy peal, a resounding shatter, as it was blasted from its hook and exploded in mid-air. Fragments of crystal shot everywhere, hitting the marble like a thunderstorm, studding into the walls in rapid-fire. Hermione's voice screamed, "Protego!" but Draco hadn't even thought of his wand, he'd just yanked her into him, shielding her body with his.
The last remnants of the gala crowd flooded forward, the current washing Draco and Hermione out into the foyer along with allies and attackers alike. They slipped in the sea of crystal shards, Draco's arm still around Hermione's waist, the marble gleaming beneath their feet. "Stupefy!" Draco gasped, making a guard topple backward, as the fight collected around the enormous Christmas tree, the scent of pine washing over them, ornaments tinkling and bursting overhead.
Then Draco heard her from somewhere behind him. He heard Bellatrix's scream. "Out of my way! Where is the Mudblood? Out of my way!"
Screams and bangs in the hearth room as Bellatrix blasted guests out of her path. Ahead, Draco heard Potter's voice now, too, shouting, "Protego! PROTEGO!" Draco's stomach dropped, and he prayed that Potter would have the sense not to use Expelliarmus and give his identity away. His gaze raked across the melee. Crabbe and Millicent were bellowing curses. Goyle, Theo, and Millicent were duelling Wood and Johnson. Tonks, Sturgis, and the three Weasleys were fending off guards, but—where was Hermione?
Fear shot through Draco again. They'd been separated. Had she been hit? She must be around the circumference of the massive tree—
As Draco struggled around the edge of the tree, ducking spells, shielding his face from shattering ornaments, he saw Hermione, ten feet away, holding off Blaise and Theo. And directly in front of Draco, taking aim at Hermione's back, was Pansy, cold determination on her face. Draco knew that no matter how she'd rebelled against the Carrows, no matter how she felt isolated from the Dark Lord's cause, she would never betray the Death Eaters and the Ministry in front of everyone she knew, not for a Muggle-born girl she'd hated at school.
"Petrif—" Pansy started to cry.
"Pansy, stop!" Draco yelled.
He didn't realise what he was doing until it was already done. He'd spoken in his own voice.
Pansy's whole body went rigid. Then she turned, and her eyes locked on his, and the colour drained out of her face.
"Stop," he panted again.
Pansy looked terrified, uncomprehending. Her eyes were flooding with tears, her wand still outstretched, shaking now. "Dr … Drac—"
"Descendo!" snarled Crabbe's voice. They both looked up as the twenty-foot-high Christmas tree groaned, swaying perilously. A dozen Greengrass Guards cried out stabilising charms and hover charms, retreating up the grand carpeted staircase out of the battle.
Then Hermione shoved past Blaise, the scratch on her cheek bleeding freely now. Her eyes met Draco's, and they lunged for each other, their hands fastening around each other's wrists. "Come on!" Hermione cried, pulling him forward toward something. He saw them just ahead, in a gap in the fighting: Potter, Luna, and Ollivander. He and Hermione burst forward, scattering a group of Ministry officials who were firing off spells in apparently random directions, confusion and fear on their faces. When Draco looked back, he saw that the rest of their allies had fallen into a formation behind them, fanned out and blocking spells from the threshold, from up the steps, from side halls. Pansy had disappeared.
Potter let out a triumphant yell as he saw the host of allies. He and Hermione skidded to a halt beside him. Ollivander was trembling but protected in the centre of their circle, Luna supporting him with her left arm and firing off shaky spells with Yaxley's wand in her right.
They battled toward the manor doors, gaining ground, nearly out in the night. … Almost there, Draco thought. Come on …
Then Crabbe's deep voice bellowed something—or maybe it was his father; they sounded so similar now—and an inferno tore across the marble. Fifteen-foot-high flames seared across the panelled walls and flooded onto ancient oils in gilt frames. They caught the woven and painted images of Malfoys past. They created a white-hot wall between the fight and the door into the night, cutting off the exit.
Whatever Crabbe had done, though, he didn't seem to have control over it. The flames were rising higher, chasing each other, growing, mutating, transforming into great beasts of fire and light.
"Oh, my—" Hermione gasped. She choked on the words and began to cough. Draco cast a Clean Air Charm, but as they both caught their breath, as they spun back around to take in the foyer, Draco's heart plummeted. The tree had caught fire. It went up with a sucking, tearing sound, every green needle flaring in an immense rush of heat. It teetered backward—seemed to hang suspended for a perilous second—and impacted the grand steps with an almighty CRASH.
The final guests had fled back into the hearth room to escape through the windows. The foyer was nothing but a warzone now, and a fresh wave of the Greengrass Guard were vaulting the balcony and pouring out of side halls. Aurors spilled out of the hearth room in teams. At their forefront was Bellatrix.
"Crucio!" she screamed. The jet of light streaked twenty feet and connected. Arthur Weasley fell back, yelling in pain.
"No!" howled Percy, sending a spell back at Bellatrix. She broke the Cruciatus to block, laughing madly now, her eyes alight with reflected flame, coming ever nearer. And at their backs, the wall of fire roared higher, burned hotter. Draco cast Stunner after Stunner across the foyer, his lungs aching. Hermione Transfigured a shattered bust into a thin plaster wall that exploded with the impact of several attacks at once. His hand sought hers desperately, and she clutched to him, too, and he knew this was it. They were all about to be slaughtered where they stood.
Then Potter's voice burst through the noise, furious and determined.
"All together!" he yelled. "Ready—set—NOW!"
He didn't have to explain. They all knew what to do. They all spun from their duels as one. "Aguamenti!" Draco yelled with the rest of them, and something seemed to ignite inside him as he heard his voice joined with Hermione's, with Potter's and Luna's and the Weasleys', with Tonks's and Sturgis's and Johnson's and Wood's. And there was one more voice in the mix. Pansy had reappeared on Draco's other side, her wand outstretched, screaming the spell, too.
A blast of water shot through the fire, so hard that the elegant manor doors were shattered clean out of their frames, blasted down the steps and onto the gravel. For a few precious seconds, there was a black hole in the wall of flame, a rush of icy night air in the ocean of furious heat, and the twelve of them all tore through it, flooding out into the open.
As Draco sprinted down the steps, he cast a look back. The fire was already climbing back up, devouring their tunnel, but for a single moment he saw the foyer. He saw the Christmas tree pointing up the stairs like a white-hot arrow, and the carpets like a red-orange sea that flickered and spat, and the walls racing with streamers of flame, and the banisters catching, too, the hardwood cracking like bones breaking. Anything that moved was shadow, and figures fled back into the hearth room, casting protective spells around themselves while around them the inferno gambolled and played. Dragons and chimaeras and lions burst out of the fire and melted back into it, surged down hallways, latched onto billowing curtains. The fire was a howl, a sucking scream. It was eating away at the façade. It was tearing Malfoy Manor limb from limb.
Draco faced forward again and stumbled, coughing and hacking with the others, onto the gravel. The world was a sea of smoke. Draco saw the red hair of the three Weasleys, he saw Pansy's dress and Sturgis carrying Ollivander in his arms like a child.
Hermione's hand was still in his, sweating and trembling, and Draco held tight to her, but he forced himself upright and stared through the grey darkness, half-blind, hunting for the windows.
There they were, half a dozen arcs of yellow light: the windows of the hearth room, through which were pouring the stream of guards, and Aurors, and Death Eaters. They were levitating out the unconscious bodies of their fellows, putting out uniforms that had caught fire—and now they were pointing to the entrance.
"Run," Draco yelled, but his voice was weak and ragged from the smoke.
"Run!" Hermione yelled with him, seeing them too. Together their voices were enough. They all propelled themselves into an exhausted run down the gravel path, following the last trail of the guests. Fifty metres ahead, at the end of the drive, people were pouring through the gates and CRACK, CRACK, CRACK—Disapparating en masse.
"No!" Hermione cried out, crashing into Draco's side just in time to knock him out of the way of a jet of white light. They both crashed into one of the hedges and emerged scraped, clutching to each other.
"Are you all right?" Hermione gasped, looking him over wild-eyed. "Are you—"
"Fine, yeah, it didn't—" His thumb smeared the blood shakily from her cheek— "I'm fine—"
But as they stumbled back into their run and looked back, Draco saw that the air was thick with spells. Their enemies had coalesced at the top of the drive and were ploughing mercilessly downward, sending a rain of light toward them.
And they were beginning to meet their marks. "No!" howled a voice, and Draco looked over to see Potter running toward the motionless body of Oliver Wood. Was he dead?—stunned?—Draco couldn't tell.
Someone crashed into Potter, shoving him back toward Luna and Ollivander. It was Arthur Weasley.
"Go," Mr. Weasley shouted wildly. "Shell Cottage, Hermione!" He spun back around as the others conjured a massive stone wall into place. The ground shook as the wall erupted upward, blocking the full width of the drive. The cascade of spells crashed into the barricade's other side with a sound like a bomb going off, and Draco couldn't see Pansy anymore—was she on the other side? Mr. Weasley lifted his own wand to aid with the Transfiguration, reinforcing the wall, even as blasting spells from the other side took chunks out of it. Fragments of rock whizzed in all directions.
"You four," yelled Mrs. Weasley, "take Ollivander and run, now!"
"But—" Hermione gasped.
"Go!" screamed Tonks and Angelina at the same time.
Draco didn't need telling again. He grabbed Hermione's hand and sprinted forward, joining Luna and meeting Potter, who had hoisted Ollivander onto his back, the wandmaker as frail as a child but clinging on for dear life. They tore down the last stretch of the drive and Draco's heart slammed like a mallet to a drum. The drive was empty now except for the guards at the gate, whose numbers had shrunk from six to two.
They all lifted their wands and cast spells over and over, dodging the guards' attacks, as they approached the gate. The guards were outnumbered two to one. Luna's Impedimenta knocked one down, and then Hermione's Petrificus Totalus the other—and at last the way was open.
They spilled out of the gate onto the country lane. CRACK—Luna, Potter, and Ollivander were gone at once. But Draco hesitated, and so did Hermione, her hand in his, and as one they turned for a split instant, and Draco saw it there upon the hilltop for what he knew was the last time: Malfoy Manor, ablaze from west wing to east, lit up to its farthest reaches like a beacon in the black night, swallowing itself with a distant roar, blinding and falling and somehow never more beautiful—consumed, in its last moments, by light.
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cool well that was the most fun i've ever had
thanks as always for reading and please do review if you enjoyed it! much love!