Hermione knew things had changed as soon as she entered the next memory. The Wizengamot sat in full assembly. The rows on rows of purple-clad wizards glowered down at the sole accused.
His wrists were chained to the arms of the stiff-backed chair. His ankles were in a similar predicament. The man's hair was dirty as if it hadn't been washed in over a month. Which, reflecting on the Wizarding World's criminal justice system, Hermione thought might not be too gross of an estimation. His robes were tattered, a terrible grey that owed its hue more to dirt and grime than to any dye. The sight of Lucius Malfoy before the Wizengamot told her all she needed to know.
Hermione felt her throat clench, and her heart begin to beat wildly in her chest as the Wizengamot member began to recount the events in the Department of Mysteries her fifth year. She had been through worse since, but that did not stop the white scar that cut across her chest from burning anew. Her eyes darted behind her to the holding cells. Dolohov was nowhere in sight, and the cages were blissfully empty. Hermione remembered the Ministry had left Lucuiys until last, presumably to make a statement, which reminded Hermione that she was indeed in a memory and that those memories had been gifted to her for a reason.
Hermione scanned the room for another head of golden-white hair. There. In the front row of the public benches, and as close to the door as was allowed, sat Draco and Narcissa Malfoy. Both wore impassive masks and barely looked at the seat of honor. Narcissa wore all black, but Draco wore a muggle suit. Hermione remembered him mentioning how his father despised the item. She felt her lip quirk up at Draco's minor rebellion."I told you two not to come." Draco's voice was amplified so she could hear it from her position.
"Like we wouldn't be here." Blaise snorted indelicately. Theo leaned forward to speak into Narcissa's ear. Hermione did not hear his words, but Narcissa offered him a brief smirk. The pair were seated behind the mother and son, offering their encouragement while the rest of the courtroom cast ugly looks in their direction.
Lucius was offered a chance to tell the events of the night, as he recalled. He spun a heart-wrenching story of an addled sister-in-law, an endangered wife and son, and an imperious curse. Hermione felt a coil wind around her chest at his colorful interpretation of the facts. It pressed tighter as two members worked in tandem to extract the relevant memory and verify the truth of Lucius's statement - a newer, and more invasive, method of interrogation which had only just begun at this time. He had been lying, of course; there had been no imperius curse used that night. Or any other night. The Wizengamot's fury was palpable. The coil around her chest wound tighter.
"Lucius Abraxas Malfoy." The head of the assembly intoned, "You have been found guilty." The coil threatened to burst her lungs, but it continued to tighten as he read off the numerous charges. "As such, you will be imprisoned in Azkaban for the remainder of your life."
The coil suddenly released. Hermione sucked in a breath. Although Draco's face remained cool, she knew his unease had been the source of the restrictive coil. Theo clapped a hand on Draco's shoulder, "No kiss."
"No kiss."
"You're free." Blaise leaned forward.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Blaise. Our trials have only begun." Narcissa's face was stone as she rose to lead the three sixteen-year-olds away. Although Lucius called for them, neither Draco nor Narcissa spared him a look as he was carted away.
xoxox - (()) - xoxox - xoxox - (()) - xoxox - xoxox - (()) - xoxox
Two figures slunk through the alleyway. They clung close to the walls, letting the shadows conceal them. The smaller cloak whispered to the larger one. The pair reached a door hidden in an alcove. The larger figure knocked twice and then once again. The door opened, the larger robe was pulled inside by an unseen person, and the door slammed shut, leaving the smaller figure in the alley alone.
When the door shut, Hermione lost her visual. The larger cloak must have been Draco, as Hermione had expected. The smaller one, Narcissa. Hermione felt a brief, but searing pain on her forearm as the next memory swam into view. She clawed at her sleeve to expose her left forearm. There was no snake or skull, only the ugly MUDBLOOD scar. Although the branding had hurt like hell, Hermione suspected that Draco had dulled the marking for her given his earlier description of the process.
Still, she had a hard time concentrating on the following memories as they flipped by her. All Hermione registered as the memories flipped quickly by was a general sense of doom, gloom, and overwhelming stress. She felt a knot forming between her shoulder blades as she watched various minute-long clips. Theo trying to force-feed Draco. Pansy completing NEWT-level potions, a course she had never enrolled in. Blaise wrestling a bottle of amber liquid out of a cursing Draco's grasp.
The speed show screeched to a halt in the potions classroom. Hermione stood beside Slughorn, looking out at the group of sixth years. Harry and Ron came sliding into the room, and Hermione couldn't help but roll her eyes even at the memory.
Hermione watched as sixth-year Hermione explained the purpose of the potion. Harry and Ron shared an eye roll. She'd have to remember to scold them for such disloyalty. The Slytherins snickered. All but one. Draco kept his chin down, apparently looking at his book, but Hermione could see his eyes flicking up to stare at her through his fringe.
"... I can smell freshly mown grass..." a brief flash of the Manor grounds with perfectly trimmed hedges and mowing lines, "... and new parchment … " a series of shop bells ringing as memories of Draco entering Scribbulus's in Diagon Alley, "... and spearmint toothpaste..." Blaise shoving a mangled tube of toothpaste into Draco's bare chest while the blonde grimaced. The overlays faded, and Hermione saw Draco's lips twitch, just slightly as he stared down at his textbook.
But then new scents registered. Old, dusty books, smelling distinctly of the Hogwarts library. Cinnamon, the unique scent of her shampoo that she special orders every other month. Fresh sheets with that soft linen scent. Hermione smiled, remembering Lucy and Teddy waking her and Draco at Christmas. Her perfume which her mother would buy her whenever she went to Paris. She was running low, and her mother was no longer there to replace it. Hermione choked back a sob.
xoxox - (()) - xoxox - xoxox - (()) - xoxox - xoxox - (()) - xoxox
"How's your assignment going?" Hermione did not need to see the speaker to know it was Theo. She was standing by the fireplace in the Slytherin common room. Theo sat with his back to her in a wingback chair. Draco sat on the couch, facing her with his elbows on his knees. Draco grunted in response. "Lovely. And your negotiations with the Greengrass family?"
This question caused a reaction in Draco. He leaned back, letting his head fall back to look at the ceiling, "Don't remind me."
"I'm sure Mrs. Parkinson would be thrilled to hear you're no longer interested in the Greengrasses."
Draco sat up and glared at Theo, "I thought you were supposed to be my friend."
"I thought that was what Vin and Greg were for?"
"Don't be dense." Malfoy grimaced. "They're morons."
"You flatter me." Theo scoffed. "Back to Daphne, not interested?" No response, "Hair too straight? Too blonde?" Hermione had rounded the armchair to see Theo's skeptical brow arch. "Blood a bit too… pure?"
"You have no idea what you're talking about." Draco's voice had an edge to it, but Hermione saw his eyes flick to the various entrances to the room.
"Fine, Draco." Theo scoffed, "But if, hypothetically, you weren't interested in Daph and were interested in someone else, Blaise and I, we wouldn't be upset."
"Gee, thanks, Dad. Sure, Mum's alright with it?" Draco deadpanned.
"No. We're infinitely more tolerant than Lucius and notably less terrifying than Narcissa. If we were your parents, you wouldn't have to choose between her and us." The teasing lilt to Theo's voice had vanished, "Because as it is, you'll have to choose, Draco."
"You say that as if I haven't already made my choice."Draco scratched at his forearm, "As if there was ever really an option."
Again, memories started flipping past Hermione's eyes with stunning speed. Draco unveiling the vanishing cabinet. Draco working on the cabinet. Draco, with tears on his cheeks, collapsing on the floor with his back to the cabinet. A potions classroom. Hermione saw herself with frizzed up hair. Draco looked up briefly from his potion to catch her with her head turned. A small smile flickered across his face.
She spun to a stop in a dungeon classroom. Draco leaned against the professor's desk. His face was a perfectly indifferent mask. Crabbe and Goyle loomed over him. Pointing out his lack of progress. Threatening to tell their fathers. But Draco remained impassive to the common observer. Hermione, however, saw the signs of his distress. The slight throb of a vein in his temple. The clenching and unclenching of his jaw. Minor movements, but Hermione saw and noted each one.
"It'll be done by the end of the week," Draco spoke through gritted teeth. His former-cronies, seemingly appeased, lumbered from the room. Draco remained. He raked his hand over his face and pinched the bridge of his nose.
The room spun. When everything stilled, Hermione was still in a dungeon classroom, but she recognized this one. Snape's Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Draco now stood where Crabbe and Goyle had. Snape sat behind the desk. He leaned back with his elbows resting on the chair's arms, and his fingers steepled against his lips.
"And what would you like me to do, Mr. Malfoy?"
"Contain her. Give her detention. Whatever you need to do."
"Under what pretenses? And for what purpose? Draco -"
"I don't care." Draco gritted his teeth, "Send her into the forest with Hagrid, have her scrub cauldrons in the dungeons. I don't care. Just keep her away from the towers."
"Tonight then?" Draco nodded, "And why do you have such an interest in Ms. Granger's whereabouts." Draco remained silent as Snape searched his face, "No. Draco, I told you -." The Professor tried again, "You were suppos-." His air seemed to leave him, "Still?"
Malfoy's tone was final and absolute, as if announcing the death of a patient who could not survive the surgery. "Always."
xoxox - (()) - xoxox - xoxox - (()) - xoxox - xoxox - (()) - xoxox
A new scene blinked into focus, and although it was only a memory, the icy rain chilled her to her bones. Hermione stood on a stone bridge over a violent river. In the distance, she could see the hulking mass of a large house. Given the memory's owner, Hermione bet that it was Malfoy Manor, but the pounding rain prevented her from confirming her theory.
"Draco!" The voice, despite being a yell, was barely audible over the summer storm. "Get down from there!" Had Hermione been corporeal, she would have been pushed aside by the rushing body. Blaise. "Don't you dare, Malfoy!"
Hermione noticed him then. His fair coloring had stopped him from standing out against the gray sky. Draco was standing on the bridge's wall, his back to his friend, looking down into the river below.
"If you jump off that ledge, I will kill you!" Blaise yelled while inching closer to his friend.
"Go ahead." Hermione could hear her host grumble into the night, "Serves the purpose all the same. It'll be quicker. The best I could ask for, really." Draco seemed to peer over the ledge.
"Merlin, Malfoy, we'll get through this."
"Fuck." Draco's dark laugh twisted around her, "There's no fucking way through. I die now, or I die later. There is no 'through.' I'm a dead man walking, Blaise." He choked somewhere in the last sentence.
Hermione saw Draco lift one foot, about to extend it into the abyss, "You're no use to her dead!" Blaise shouted, the desperation clear in his voice. Malfoy halted his step, balancing on one foot. Given the wind, Hermione did not trust his ability to stay aloft. "I didn't believe Theo when he joked about it," Blaise said more to himself than to Draco, but clearly, Draco had heard. "She'll get through this." Draco put his foot down, "She's strong. You know that. I know that. Hell, even the Dark Lord knows that." Draco looked over his shoulder at his friend, "That's why it's been three months since he took over, and she's not dead on the drawing-room floor. He's afraid of her. That's why he sent Theo's dad after her parents. The Dark Lord is afraid of Granger. By doing so, he put her in the same league as Dumbledore. Do you want to bet against her? I sure as hell don't. As long as she's alive, mate, there will always be a way through."
Draco turned, crossing his arms. "He's going to force me to create one tomorrow."
Blaise let out a breath. Hermione was still holding hers. "She's smarter than him, but she won't be able to evade him forever. Get yourself through this. She might need you."
With one last look over the edge, Draco stumbled down from the ledge. He collapsed against Blaise with sobs shaking his shoulders.
xoxox - (()) - xoxox - xoxox - (()) - xoxox - xoxox - (()) - xoxox
Hermione stood in the middle of a familiar bedroom. Dark wood floors and furniture. The only thing out of place were the dark green walls and matching curtains and bedding. Hermione spun in a slow circle, taking in the room, but her eyes landed on Draco at his desk, where he fiddled with a letter opener. His back was tense. Hermione could see the muscles shifting under his pressed shirt.
A knock on the door disrupted the silence. Both Hermione and Draco jumped. The latter bid the intruder enter. The door slid open, and Narcissa stepped in, shutting it behind her. The blonde woman looked much older, the stress aging her.
"They're here." Draco's fist came down on the desk. When he moved his hands to rake over his face, Hermione could see the letter opener standing straight up from where he had inadvertently impaled it into his desk. "Bella is insisting you introduce us at last." Draco pushed his hair back and fisted it in both of his hands. "Every minute you throw your temper tantrum, the longer she is alone with your aunt." With a deep breath, Draco rose to his feet, smoothing his hair as he went.
She was downstairs in the drawing-room. Although she could see the chaos unfolding in front of her, she could not hear it. Instead of the shrieking and the yelling, the world sounded as if it had been submerged in deep water. Harry and Ron were thrown down into the dungeon, but there was no clang of the door. The snatchers were unceremoniously evicted from the room, but there were no shouted profanities.
"Draco." Narcissa's voice cut through the muffled din. "You need to do it now."
"I can't! It said-" The two were pushed aside, forgotten, while Lucius and Bellatrix stalked their prey: Hermione.
"Sweetheart, I know what it said." Their eyes met, and even Hermoine could see Narcissa searching her son, "You can do it. You have to. Or she'll be dead." Draco looked at his mother, inhaled a shaky breath, and closed his eyes. He began muttering in a language Hermione did not recognize, "Good, Draco, it's working. Keep it going." He kept muttering as his aunt wrestled Hermoine to the ground. A tiny shimmer of silver trickled from Draco's wand. The strand was so light and so thin that Hermione could hardly track it as it crept across the floor to Hermione's prone form. It slid under her body, disappearing into her back. "You did so well, sweetheart. Finish now." Draco's murmured chanting changed its rhythm before finishing abruptly.
"Did it work?" He looked frantically at his mother and then at his former classmate.
Bellatrix brandished her knife. Poised it above Hermione's arm. "You had better brace yourself, Draco." Narcissa wrapped an arm around her son's shoulder just as Bellatrix dug the tip of the knife into Hermione's skin. Hermione screamed. Draco grunted and slumped against his mother, who, despite being much smaller than her son, managed to keep him from falling.
xoxox - (()) - xoxox - xoxox - (()) - xoxox - xoxox - (()) - xoxox
Malfoy's figure stood, alone in the Entrance Hall, visible to anyone who cared to look. His almost-white hair hung around his face, dirty, like the rest of him, with the grime from battle. His left pant leg was torn, revealing a long cut trailing from his knee to upper thigh. His once-white shirt was stained with blood, a deep red in some places, and a faint pink in others, but there was no white left. If Hermione squinted, she could barely distinguish Harry, standing outside the ring of light the hall cast through its open doors. Harry looked into the eyes of his childhood tormentor.
"Just, if you see the chance, kill the snake." Harry pulled the cloak tighter around his body and prepared to disappear into the night.
"Potter," Draco called. "Thought you ought to know." He adopted his taunting drawl. "I claimed Granger. When we win, she will be my property." Potter spun to look at the other boy, ready to fight, Hermione was sure, but the look of sincerity in Draco's eyes halted him, "She will constantly be by my side, a fit reward don't you think? And you know how I am with my things. No one will lay another finger on her."
Hermione and Harry both understood Draco. Hermione would be protected to the best of Draco's abilities even if Harry lost. Harry nodded once and left the light of the hall. Off to die.
xoxox - (()) - xoxox - xoxox - (()) - xoxox - xoxox - (()) - xoxox
"Who's that? That Hagrid's carrying? Ron? Who is that?" The red-headed girl with the dirt smudge on her nose. Ginny.
"Harry Potter is dead!" Voldemort basked in the cries of distress, beating back any attacks with a few simple flicks of the wrist. "From this day forth . . . you'll put your faith in me. Harry Potter is dead! And now it is the time to declare yourself. Come forward and join us . . ." he scanned the overwhelmingly young crowd, "Draco, please join us." The snake man extended his arm to the young man.
Hermione felt Draco stiffen, and a new, stronger wave of panic crashed through him. Hermione could sense every set of eyes flicker to Draco, where he stood in the back of the courtyard, despite being partially hidden behind a broken pillar. He must have hoped he would be left unnoticed. Clearly, that was too much to ask. Hermione could feel the thousands of thoughts flickering through the blonde's head, scenarios of cowardly self-preservation, and heroic attacks. His father called to him, but it wasn't until his mother repeated the summons that Draco took a step forward. And then another. One foot in front of the other until he crossed into the no man's land.
"Ah, and Draco, while you're at it, grab that hat from the sniveling fool over there." The snake-man beckoned Draco onwards. Malfoy did as he was told, obtaining the sorting hat from Neville, refusing to look his classmate in the eye, before crossing to stand beside his parents, just behind the Dark Lord. "Any other volunteers?"
Neville stepped forward and delivered what Hermione remembered to be an inspirational speech about rallying the troops around Harry's sacrifice. Still, Draco did not hear a word of it, so neither did Hermione. She realized with a start that the scene was blurry, except for the rumpled hat in Draco's hand. And the hilt of a sword that was now sticking out. Malfoy allowed his head to pivot slowly from the side. He just deserted to the body lying limp in the half-giant's arms.
Everything went silent. Hermione could feel Malfoy's tunnel vision as his head swiveled back to Voldemort and then to the snake just beside him. Draco felt his hand grip the sword, felt him unsheathe the weapon, and brandish it. With something akin to a battle cry, Malfoy took two quick steps forward and brought his sword down, separating the snake's head from the rest of its body.
If only. Draco thought sadly, blinking to clear his imagination from his sight. The sword was still there, but so was the snake. You are a Slytherin. You are the villain, not the hero. Don't forget that.
"Beautiful speech, Neville. Draco! The hat, if you will." The sword glittered and disappeared as Draco handed the hat to the Dark Lord. "There will be no more Sorting at Hogwarts School. There will be no more Houses. The emblem, shield, and colors of my noble ancestor, Salazar Slytherin, will suffice for everyone. Won't they Neville Longbottom?" He paralyzed Neville and forced the hat onto his head. Voldemort flicked his wand, and the hat erupted into flames.
Hermione whirled around as for the second time in her life, she witnessed the turning point in the battle. Reinforcements from Hogsmeade, Grawp, and the Centaurs. A moment after the chaos began, it dulled into background noise. Hermione's brow wrinkled. The noise had not quieted the last time around. Her eyes found Draco's. They were staring at Neville. Nothing on Malfoy's expression hinted at the surrounding noise. She watches as his words formed the curse, "Imperio."
Neville went ramrod straight that had she blinked she could have been missed. Neville stood abruptly, the flaming hat falling from his head. He reached into the hat and pulled out the Sword of Gryffindor. Everyone stopped and stared as Neville Longbottom lifted the sword above his head and sliced the snake's head clean off its body.
Hermione gaped. Everyone had seen Neville's act, but no one knew of the true actor. No one except for Draco and Hermione. Neville had admitted that something just came over him. No one, not even Neville, knew Draco Malfoy had used an Unforgivable Curse to destroy the final Horcrux.