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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
They landed in a dark, shuttered room. It was furnished regally, filled with elegant settees and wing-backed chairs outfitted in rich, emerald velvet. She could feel the thickness of a preservation charm lingering in the air, the heavy feeling of it telling her that it had been in place for many decades since the room had last been used.
Draco's hand was tense in hers. She turned to him, wondering if she would ever be able to ease the tension that seemed to have permanently settled itself in his form. "Draco." She dropped his hand and ran her hands over his chest. She could feel the tension in every ridge of muscle. "We can come back. We can think of a new way. We can—"
"We need to finish this," he said simply, already raising his wand to disillusion them.
She watched the spell trickle over their bodies, watching him slowly disappear before her. Her hands lingered on his chest, his entire form only a ripple in the air before her. Still, she moved her hands up, feeling the skin of his neck to his cheeks. Her lips followed her hands, and she stretched up as far as she could to press light kisses along his skin until she found his lips.
She drew back too quickly, a part of her yearning to be able to keep kissing away the stress and fear and tension that addled him. She looked around the room, reminding herself of where they were and what they were doing. They were in the wing of the Manor that Bellatrix had all but taken ownership of, using it to commit unspeakable horrors.
He gently pulled her hands away from his face, holding one firmly. "Others are forbidden from entering her wing," Draco said. "We likely won't encounter anyone. You still need to stay close. We don't know if she's added detection spells, but—"
"—I will," she answered.
He nodded and painted a makeshift map in the air with his wand. "The most likely places it would be hidden are here and here," he said, tapping two spots on the map. "My mother only managed to create a few Apparition spots without him knowing. Only Malfoy family members can use them, so once we reach one we'll be safe. The next closest one is here—"
A blood-curdling scream cut him off. The scream was drawn out, alternating in pitch as if the victim was experiencing pain that kept multiplying and folding in on itself, burrowing its way into the victim's soul—
The scream cut off.
Draco's hand had gone completely rigid in hers, and she didn't need to look at him to know that those screams— screams that bordered on inhuman, sounds that one would think the human body was incapable of creating— were the result of the cruciatus.
"Draco—"
He moved so quickly that she was jerked forward, dragged behind him as he tore open the door and raced down the hall. The rich tapestries and sprawling windows blurred past as they moved, her heart racing the faster they went. The screams started again, drowning out the sound of their pounding footsteps as he continued to run at breakneck speed. She tried to step only for him to continue dragging her even as she stumbled. She opened her mouth to tell him to stop, to think about what he was doing—
He stopped as suddenly as he'd started.
Hermione nearly slammed into his back, stumbling sideways as she caught herself.
Her eyes landed on the scene, and her hands slammed over her mouth as she stopped herself from screaming.
Tall double doors opened to a high ceilinged room that was nearly completely bare of all furniture, save for the massive, glittering chandelier that hung from the domed ceiling and the plush rug that dominated most of the floor space. Bellatrix stood in the middle of the room, wand aloft and eyes wild as she looked down at the body crouched on the floor below her. Bellatrix's skin was spattered with the blood of her victim, whose pale skin and fine blonde hair was matted with blood. Even then, Hermione could clearly see who it was.
Narcissa.
"CRUCIO!" Bellatrix screamed.
Narcissa's body jerked with the force of her screams, the sound reverberating through the air.
Draco lunged forward. Panic short-circuited Hermione's brain as she snatched the ripple of his figure in the air, whispering "Petrificus totalus!" as she pressed the tip of her wand into Draco's back.
The sound of their bodies slamming into the wall outside the room was drowned out by the sound of Narcissa's renewed screams, the sound amplified in the dome-shaped room. It was a grating cacophony of horror in her ears, each sound akin to a jagged dagger thrust under her skin.
She felt around until she could press her hands over Draco's ears, knowing it would do little to drown out the sound. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice a breath of a whisper as tears leaked down her cheeks, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
The screams stopped.
She pressed a hand to Draco's chest to hold him upright as she peered into the room. Droplets of Narcissa's blood were splattered across Bellatrix's face as she loomed over her sister, all darkness contrasted to the fairness of Narcissa's features.
"You know what he did!" Bellatrix's eyes bulged as she screeched. She bent down and snatched Narcissa by the hair, dragging the woman's head back. "Your son, your filthy traitor of a son—"
Hermione's blood ran cold. She mashed a fist into her mouth to stifle her sob as she swung panicked eyes towards Draco's frozen form, knowing that the horror that bloomed in her chest was magnified tenfold in his own.
Bellatrix knew what they'd done.
Somewhere deep inside of her, she'd known that it would come to this. She'd known that burning the vault was their last resort because of how high the risk of Bellatrix finding out sooner was, just as she'd known that even if they had taken the necklace, they didn't know when she would check on it next. And now the consequences lay bare before them — in the form of Narcissa Malfoy's blood-soaked form.
"I'll kill him," Bellatrix said. "A thousand cuts, starting here," Bellatrix said, dragging her wand across Narcissa's cheek, splitting the skin open in its path. "And when I tell the Dark Lord, he'll have what's left."
Narcissa looked up at Bellatrix, her blue eyes glinting despite the blood that ran down her cheek— and laughed. The sound started as little more than a choked garble as blood dipped from between her lips, intensifying until her mockery was clear. "You won't," she said, spitting more blood onto the floor.
Bellatrix's wand dug under Narcissa's chin as she forced it up, snapping Narcissa's head backward. "You dare think I wouldn't?!"
A slow smile stretched across Narcissa's bloodied face. "You think I don't know why you dragged me here, where no one could hear me scream?" She choked out another laugh. "He did something that your precious Dark Lord would kill you for."
Bellatrix's fair skin flushed red as her figure trembled with anger. "CRUCIO!"
Narcissa's screams filled the room once more. More tears slid down Hermione's cheek as she looked at Draco's frozen form. She had to help Narcissa, but she knew they couldn't risk a duel here. Not when they lay in the midst of their enemy. She didn't know how many Death Eaters there were lurking the halls, and he could be there—
She had only a warning of a small ripple in the air before she was thrown back onto the ground under the force of Draco's wordless finite as he broke the spell.
This time, there hadn't been the cover of Narcissa's screams to stifle the sounds. This time, the sound of her body being thrown onto the ground felt as loud as a crack of thunder in the sky.
She looked up to see Narcissa's eyes wide and horrified as they met hers. Narcissa, and Bellatrix, whose wild gaze was now centered on her exposed form, the cover of her disillusionment spell stripped completely under the force of Draco's sudden finite.
For the breath of a moment, all were frozen, equal expressions of shock painted on their faces.
"CRUCIO!" This time, the spell was hollered from Draco's mouth. Bellatrix barely dodged the spell, and it struck the opposite side of the room, exploding a stone column in a rain of stone.
"Run," Narcissa cried at them. She grabbed at Bellatrix's foot, sending Bellatrix stumbling down.
The move sent Bellatrix's next curse flying off course, where it slammed into Hermione's arm. She gasped in pain as she scrambled away, feeling blood seeping through her shirt. She stumbled to her feet, barely dodging another curse.
Draco stood with his wand aloft, pointing at the tangled mass that was his mother's and aunt's bodies. His expression was shattered, fragments of anger, heartbreak, emptiness, and rage that comprised a fractured whole. Hermione stumbled to him and snatched him by the arm.
"We'll get her, I swear it," Hermione's words were a desperate babble as her blood soaked fingers slid off of his arm. Her words felt empty even as she forced them out, remembering that she'd said them the last time too. She barely dodged Bellatrix's next curse, and it grazed her cheek in a lick of white-hot pain.
Narcissa scrambled over Bellatrix, throwing her weight upon her. "GO!" Narcissa screamed, her voice leaking with horror and desperation.
A lone tear ran down Draco's reddened face before he dragged Hermione backward and took off at a run down the hall. Spells blasted the walls around them as they ran, Bellatrix's angered shrieks following behind them. Hermione's heart pounded in her ears as they drew further from the scene. She wondered if they would soon stumble upon even more Death Eaters before—
Draco dragged her though what appeared to be a panel in the wall, the section dissolving and re-forming as they barreled through it. The sudden silence was almost deafening in the wake of the chaos they'd escaped.
"We can Apparate from here." Draco's voice was gruff and mechanical as he took her arm and forced up her blood-soaked sleeve, revealing the wound beneath. He drew out the curse and started cleaning the wound carefully.
"Draco—" she started.
"I know why you did it." He started sealing the wound with practiced ease.
Hemione choked out a sob. "I'm so—"
"Stop." His hard tone had her mouth clamping shut. He sealed the last inch of the wound before shoving her sleeve back down. He took her hand and looked up— and froze.
He jerked her behind him in a swift move, but not before she caught what he looked at beyond her.
Lucius Malfoy stood quietly in the open doorway across the room.
His handsome features were marred by lines of stress. His once-fair skin had taken on a yellowish tinge, save for the dark, haggard-looking circles under his eyes. His normally coiffed blond hair was askew, falling around his face in matted tangles. His expression betrayed no emotion, showing nothing in response to the sight of his son that he'd thought missing and possibly dead for the better part of a year. His posture still had an arrogant tilt to it despite his appearance.
Hermione sucked in a ragged breath as she clutched Draco's cloak. The silence that had fallen was heavy with tension, the air thick with a thousand unsaid words. Her heart continued to hammer in her chest while father and son stared each other down in silence, the looks on their faces inscrutable as she looked between them.
"Father," Draco said, the single word at once empty and laden with heated emotion.
Lucius did not respond. He continued to stare them down that dark, unreadable look in his eyes, his eyes never straying from his son's.
When he finally spoke, his voice was as dark and commanding as she recalled it. "Come here, Draco."
Draco did not move, and each frozen second swirled and coalesced the tension in the room that grew so thick that it felt like a film on her tongue.
Lucius' look was hard. His lip twitched minutely, and a tense, angry muscle jumped in his jaw. "I thought my only son dead, yet here you stand before me," he said, his voice dark. "Come here, Draco."
His voice echoed in the empty room. An opulently decorated parlour, Hermione realized, under a preservation spell as thick with age as the one in the room they'd arrived in.
"No." Draco's word was simple, yet reverberated on Lucius as swiftly as a strike.
Fury licked across Lucius' features, hot and swift as it consumed him. "No? What end do you see in—" his eyes flicked disdainfully toward Hermione, " —whatever you've been doing? You would risk yourself in the midst of a war for a woman?! Come here, Draco!"
Her father-in-law — and he didn't even know. Hermione clutched the back of Draco's cloak tighter, fear curling in her heart at the look on Lucius' face.
"No." Draco's body was tense, nearly vibrating with the force of his defiance.
Hermione wondered if he'd ever done so before, reminded of the years of instant compliance she'd seen from him. But that — that was what had brought them here, in the midst of this war, father and son on opposite sides.
"Where do you plan to go, hm?" Lucius' voice was sharp, his anger cracking like a whip. "To the Order? Their forces are being decimated each day, Draco. Each day the Dark Lord grows stronger."
There was an edge to his voice that Hermione struggled to place, the word that could encompass the emotion she read there hovering just out of the grasp of her thoughts.
There was a wild glint in Lucius' eyes as he spoke his next words. "Come here Draco!"
When Draco's silence continued muscles all over Lucius' face spasmed at once, looking as though he were wont to explode. And with that, the emotion she'd been on the precipice of identifying became clear as day—
Desperation. A desperation so acute, so broken, that the man's haggard appearance made sudden and complete sense.
When Lucius spoke next, she heard every note of desperation that his tone was laced with. "Each day we draw closer to winning this war— and there is only one side it can be won from." The words weren't spoken with conviction, but with fear. Still, despite the way his voice betrayed him, he still managed to keep an arrogant tilt to his posture. Hermione wondered how long it would take for his pride to break, too.
Draco's silence carried more weight than if he'd spoken. Father and son stared each other down, the looks they exchanged reminiscent of a conversation that Hermione was not privy to. Hermione knew that Voldemort winning the war would be Lucius' only chance at avoiding the Kiss for his long list of transgressions. Draco knew this too.
Hermione opened her mouth and closed it before opening it once more. Hermione looked up at Draco's face before looking back at her father-in-law, wishing she could read the heavy looks that passed between them.
It took another try for her to find her voice. "Please—please—" she pleaded desperately, her voice sounding overly loud in the dreadful silence. "Just let us go."
"He won't stop us," Draco said, his voice steady. "He'll let us go." His voice rang with a certainty that she could not understand, not in the wake of the dark look on the face of the man that stood across the room from them.
Hermione swallowed thickly, her fingers tight on Draco's as she waited for his father to lunge at them, to start throwing curses at them, to trap them somehow—
"You'll come back," Lucius said, his eyes gleaming with anger. "You'll come back when you see the truth of it — if you don't get yourself killed before you do."
The last thing she saw him before they disapparated was the dark, rage-filled look on Lucius' face as he continued to watch them, standing still in the darkness.
X
They landed back in the cabin in silence. Draco dropped her hand without a word, taking two angry steps towards the bedroom before he paused and turned to make his way towards the front door instead.
"Don't," she said, catching him by the arm before he could leave.
She held her breath as he froze, his every muscle vibrating with tension. And then he turned, making his way to the bedroom and closing the door behind him without another word.
Hermione sank down on the couch. She thought of all the times that she had done the same to him, leaving him out here while she stewed alone in the bedroom, drowning in her anger and sorrow. She wondered if he had wanted to go to her back then as much as she wanted to go to him now. There had once been a time where she'd thought of him as nothing more than an ice-cold caricature of a man, devoid of all emotion. Now, though, she saw just how much his mask held in, shielding a broken man from the weight of the pain he carried.
The need to go to him, to hold him, to do anything she could to soothe the brokenness the encounter with Bellatrix had magnified in him, was nearly tangible.
When she'd needed her time to mourn, he had left her for days, only coming to feed her. But she could not do the same for him. She stood and slowly crossed to the bedroom door, easing it open. He was perched on the edge of the bed, his face buried in his hands. She approached slowly until she was just before him.
When he looked up at her, it was with red-rimmed eyes. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and cradled his head against her stomach. No words were exchanged, yet it felt like a thousand had been said.
When his tears began to wet her shirt, she pulled him closer.
X
She stayed with him for two days. They laid in the bed, her arms wrapped around him. He didn't cry again. Instead, he lay in stoic silence, unmoving, save for when she forced him to eat. Neither said anything, speaking only with their bodies. Sometimes, she would hold him for hours as he slept. Other times, he would turn to her with a look in his eyes that made her pull off her shift and climb astride him, making love to him in desperate, frenzied movements until they fell deep asleep, exhausted.
On the second evening, they stepped out of the shower to the smell of burning wood. Hermione turned and brushed her hands over Draco's chest as she looked up at him, a multitude of excuses to ignore it bubbling to her lips.
But the look in his eyes stopped her, and she didn't hold him back when he went to retrieve the burning coin. He circled the coordinates on the map and nodded at her.
They Apparated to a quiet street in Central London. Draco's hand was warm in hers despite the chilly air. It was near silent, save for the distant sound of muggles going about their evening. The cobblestone beneath their feet was slick along with the brick of the buildings they stood between, the taste of recent precipitation lingering in the air.
They moved forward as a unit, stepping cautiously out of the alleyway and searching the equally empty street before them for any sign of danger.
Hermione cast a detection spell and frowned. "Nothing," she said. "Nothing for blocks." She looked up at Draco and saw the same conclusion she'd come to in his eyes.
They'd been too late.
She swallowed, pushing down the implications that her thoughts ran rampant with. She tugged him forward and they wandered the streets in silence for several long minutes, still looking for conflict that appeared to be long gone.
Eventually, Draco stopped them. Hermione spoke before he could, her guilt propelling the words forward. "Maybe we need to search—"
The calm turned into calamity before she could finish as pops of Apparition sounded on the street before them.
An ambush.
"There!" A spell whizzed past Hermione's head as a Snatcher spotted them.
As quickly as they'd left, they landed back on the frostbitten grass outside of their cabin. Hermione's heart was still hammering in her chest as she looked Draco over, searching for injuries. "Are you alright?" she asked.
He nodded stiffly, a hard look on his face. She followed him back into the house, watching him quietly as he sat down at the table and buried his head in his hands. Her steps were slow as she moved, feeling as though she was underwater as her mind swirled with thoughts over what had just occurred.
"We were ambushed," she said.
"Brilliant observation, Granger." Despite his words, his voice was hard, devoid of any humor.
More thoughts filtered through her mind, clearer this time. "Draco—" She started then hesitated, watching him carefully. Her tone made him look up at her all the same. "When— when your father said what he said, about winning the war— did you believe him?"
Draco's eyes were hard, unreadable. "Does it matter?"
"Yes." Her entire body sang with the desperate need to hear him answer the way she hoped he would. "Do you think we can win this war?" Her voice wavered on the words.
He watched her for a long moment. "No."
Hermione's heart lurched. "Then why?"
"Why what?" he answered sharply.
"Why are you still fighting? Why any of this if you don't think we can win?!"
His palms slammed down on the table. "I'm fighting to survive!" His breaths were harsh and ragged as he looked at her. "You think that there is a fight to be won or lost, when all that really matters is survival because everyone loses when it comes to war."
Hermione ground her teeth. "Do you think I don't understand that? This war is about eradicating those born like me! The only reason I'm here is to survive!"
His figure teemed with tension as he looked back at her.
Her heart continued to race. "Would you have chosen this side if your mother hadn't chosen it for you?"
She burned with the need to know the answer to the question, yet the look in his eyes — the jaded, impenetrable look she saw there — answered it before he did.
"I would have chosen the side that would win."
His words burned her so hotly that her hand flew to her chest where her heart was still constricting within. It felt like a fissure was creeping along it, the pain as acute as if she'd been struck by a curse.
"So what are you saying, then?" Her throat constricted around her words as she tried to speak. "That we'd be safer at the Manor than we are with the Order?"
His eyes flashed. "How are we even with the bloody Order, Granger?! We are nothing more than their pawns, and you damn well know it. Fuck them and fuck their protection. Where has anything they've done gotten us? Gotten her?"
Hermione's throat went dry as she met the hard look in his eyes. "So you think us safer in the Manor, then?" Unbidden, an image of them being dragged to the Manor flashed in her mind's eye. Lucius and Narcissa tearfully explaining that the Order had forcibly bound Draco's life to that of a mudblood. Voldemort's snake-like features as he locked her in the dungeons.
Draco's answering silence carried more weight than words.
She pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle the sob that threatened to burst forth. He cursed and stormed away from her, violently dragging a chair back before sitting down heavily. She watched him bury his head in his hands, dragging them over his reddened face.
It hit her then like a switch, like the sudden change of having the lights turned on after a blackout.
She turned and clutched the countertop hard as she took slow and steady breaths, wishing for relief from the pain that only seemed to blossom further in her heart. "I'll make you some tea," she said mechanically, her voice devoid of all emotion as her mind continued to swirl, a thousand ideas forming and dissipating before re-forming once more.
She was silent as she summoned mugs and made the tea. It was only when she set his steaming mug before him that she spoke again.
"Can I trust you?" she asked softly.
Draco looked up at her, his eyes stormy and guarded. He was silent for so long that she wondered if he would even respond. The fissure cracked further in her heart as she watched him, and she clutched her mug tighter to stop her fingers from trembling.
"No," he answered flatly. She watched him take a slow sip from his mug.
Another silence fell between them as he looked back at her. "Can I trust you?"
She didn't answer, instead training her eyes on her own mug, watching the slow swirl of steam rise in the air. "They shouldn't have been able to find us," she said. "The Snatchers. They shouldn't have been able to find us. But they did— every time. We didn't say the Taboo. They shouldn't have been able to. Not unless someone was leading them to us."
Her eyes rose to meet his, her words burning in the air between them.
He watched her as she crossed over to the desk and took a quill to scribble a short note. She wondered if he'd seen the way her hand shook, too. He coughed and cleared his throat behind her, and the fissure in her heart grew deeper.
His breaths were loud now, laboured as he started to struggle to take each one. "Granger—" He cut off with another cough, and she turned to see him rubbing at his throat. Her heart stuttered at the sight, her chest growing tight.
He was as quick as she gave him credit for.
He rubbed at his throat again before his eyes shot to his mug before shooting back to her. "What did you do?" He stood abruptly, toppling his chair to the ground and spilling the contents of the tea across the table.
Her chest grew tighter, constricting her heart as she struggled to breathe alongside him. Tears started to leak down her cheeks as she watched him start to slowly flush red. "The Snatchers shouldn't have been able to find us. We never said the taboo," she repeated. "But they did — every time. They shouldn't have been able to — not unless someone was leading them to us."
Three times now. Three times that the Snatchers had appeared when they shouldn't have. Snatchers only killed known Muggleborns. But others— others were captured.
Captured and brought straight to Malfoy Manor.
"What are you—" Draco swayed as he made his way to the door, ripping it open as he stumbled outside.
"It feels like you're choking, but you aren't," Hermione said, choking out a sob as she followed him outside. Painful fissures sprouted all over her heart more rapidly now, one for every step he took away from her. "You're going into temporary paralysis. But it won't hurt you. I swear it."
His eyes were wild as he looked at her. She wanted to look away, wishing she didn't have to see the emotion reflected in them. She thought of the long, tense look shared between father and son, the silent communication she hadn't been privy to.
"How did you know he would let us go?" she asked, still approaching even as he stumbled backward.
"Who?!" he shouted. She chanced a look into his eyes. It was as if a dam had been broken, unleashing everything he'd kept so carefully folded away all these months.
Hermione sobbed harder. "Your father," she said. "How did you know he would let us go?" He was Lucius Malfoy. He would never have let his son disappear again.
Unless he knew that he would come back.
"He wouldn't have—" her words were more garbled as she sobbed harder, " — not unless he— not unless you—"
"Not unless I what?" Draco stumbled into the trees, ripping off his cloak as he went. His breaths were ragged and shallow, and he stopped to brace himself against a tree.
Hermione sobbed openly now, clutching at her chest as she felt her heart constricting. "You don't think we can win this war." His figure was a blur before her through her tears. "You need to survive— you need your mother to survive— and that means you need me to survive too."
She thought of the look between father and son again, a shared tension — or a shared agreement. Survival could be winning— or conceding. She thought of all the times Snatchers conveniently appeared to capture and take them to the Manor, where they'd be safely contained as the world crumbled around them—
"Why?" His breaths were heavy and laboured as he sank to the ground. He looked— broken. His eyes were wild with emotion as he looked up at her.
"I can't trust you — you said it yourself." She sobbed harder as she sank to the ground beside him. "I need to send you somewhere safe. Somewhere— somewhere where I can know they'll keep you. Somewhere where you can't betray me. Somewhere where—"
She cut off as he tried to speak, his words garbled as the effects of the potion reached his jaw.
She sobbed harder as she leaned over him, watching his eyes searching hers wildly. The one emotion she'd been drowning in was burning in his eyes, unmistakable as she leaned over him.
Heartbreak.
Maybe she'd been wrong. But maybe— maybe she hadn't been.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I'm sorry." Her sobs grew louder as she leaned over him, pressing her lips to his unmoving ones. "I'm sorry," she repeated. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
When she leaned back, there was a glimmer in his eye, reminiscent of an unshed tear.
She looked away and took out the note she'd shoved in her pocket as she'd followed him out, the few short sentences on it explaining that whoever was on the other side of the Order's portkey needed to keep him— wherever he was going. But the fact that he was Draco Malfoy— she knew that would be more than enough.
From her cloak pocket, she pulled out the second pouch that had been tucked at the far back of one of the desk drawers — a pouch that was tagged for emergencies only. Her heart spasmed and constricted as she looked at him through her tears. Her tears leaked onto his chest as she fumbled with the pouch, memorizing his face one last time before she let the lone coin fall onto his chest.
And then he was gone.
I'm sorry.
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