**I don't own anything in the Harry Potter universe – if I did, things would have ended very differently and I wouldn't have a mountain of student loans.**
oOoOoOo
So you were never a saint
And I loved you in shades of wrong
We learn to live with the pain
Mosaic broken hearts
But this love is brave and wild
Taylor Swift, State of Grace
oOoOoOo
It was the morning of the thirtieth day; the elf had just left the tray, and Draco sat vigil beside Hermione. She hadn't regained consciousness in over 24 hours, so dehydrated from sweating and crying that she didn't even need to use the bathroom.
He would try and drip water between her cracked lips, but, as she had so astutely pointed out, it didn't make any difference at this point.
He held her hand, her fragile fingers enveloped by his, and he felt her pulse, thready and weak. He didn't think it would be long now.
That was when, for only the second time in his life, Draco Malfoy began to beg. For a miracle, some eleventh-hour phenomenon that allowed him to keep her. For her to stay. Sitting in the silent grey, he implored and pleaded with the universe not to take her away from him.
"Please don't leave me," he beseeched quietly, pressing their interlocked hands against his lips. "Please Hermione, please don't go. I can't be here without you. Please, please, please… "
He barely registered when tears breached his eyelids, silent confessions made to nobody rolling down his cheeks.
He curled around her and rested his head on her stomach, listening to her heart, still beating, still fighting, and eventually he let himself drift.
oOoOoOo
Draco was standing in the entryway of the great hall, students milling about all around him. It was too bright, everything oversaturated and vibrant, and the roaring background noise engulfed him like a wave as he fought to keep his head above the water.
He wasn't wearing his Hogwarts uniform, rather he was clad in muggle jeans, trainers and a black long-sleeve t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He looked down to see his forearm shockingly bare, just a smooth expanse of milky flesh, the likes of which he hadn't sported in nearly two years.
He ran his hand over it, as if he were waiting for the ink to rise to the surface, but it remained unblemished.
He looked around him at the students passing by, but they moved as if he weren't there. As he examined more closely, he saw that their faces were blank – not in the sense that they weren't expressive, but literally blank, devoid of eyes or a nose or a mouth, like an unfinished doll.
He felt his heart begin to pound in his chest, his skin crawling with the wrongness of all of it. Then, in the distance, a face caught his eye – partly because it was a face, an actual face, but mostly because it was her. Hermione.
He stepped toward her but she smiled over her shoulder at him and then turned in the other direction, ducking down a side passage.
He followed her, but as he rounded the corner he stopped. She was perhaps 30 paces away in the middle of the empty corridor, turned and staring at him. It was then that he realized this wasn't his Hermione at all.
Her hair was sleek and pulled into a twist at the base of her neck. Rather than being clad in Gryffindor colors as she usually was, her tie and the hood of her robes were silver and green. A crest with a snake curled in the middle of it lay over her left breast.
The most shocking thing about her appearance though, was the expression on her face. Her smile held none of the warmth he had come to know. Instead it was cold and cruel, more of a sneer. And her eyes were a deep black, like pieces of coal.
He turned to run away from this horrific, demonic version of her, but his feet were rooted to the spot. She stepped closer, forbidding smile stretching and pulling her lips unnaturally wide over too-white teeth.
She had closed maybe half the distance between them when a silver knife slowly slipped into her hand from the sleeve of her robe.
He tried to scream, tried to move, but he was paralysed, sucking in frantic breaths.
She finally came to a stop in front of him, so close that their chests were almost touching, her eyes locked on his face with a dead stare.
She raised the knife to eye level, twisting it, and he recognized the blade with a wave of dread. When she opened her mouth, instead of her own voice, Bellatrix Lestrange's cruel, taunting cackle came out.
"Wanna play, mudblood?"
Draco awoke with a start, sitting up next to Hermione, his Hermione, who was still sleeping on the ground. He blinked, his mind addled with sleep, trying to comprehend what he was seeing.
Across from him, in the pale light, the door of the cell was swinging open.
Draco clamored to his feet, looking frantically around the room for anything he could use to defend himself, when none other than Blaise Zabini strode through the entryway to his prison, causing him to freeze in place.
"Bloody hell Drake, what on earth are you doing in here?" he asked, twirling his wand dexterously between his fingers. "Haven't you heard there's a war on?"
Before Draco could respond, could even form a thought, Theodore Nott followed Blaise in, cleaning his glasses on the hem of his white oxford shirt before placing them back on the bridge of his nose.
"Well this is certainly a step down from Malfoy Manor, isn't it?" he wrinkled his nose slightly as he spun slowly and took in the room.
"I don't… are you… are you real?" Draco asked, blinking rapidly and shaking his head, staring at the two men across from him.
"Of course we're real, you great prat, we're rescuing you," Blaise scoffed, "why the hell would you – Merlin's beard, is that Granger?"
Theo leaned around Draco and took in Hermione's unconscious form on the ground with an incredulous eyebrow raised.
"Sweet Salazar, did you kill her?" he asked, sounding more curious than anything.
"No, no she's not, not yet…we have to get her out of here. Is there anyone else out there?" Draco asked, snapping back to reality and moving to the corner where he bent to pick up Hermione.
"Not anymore," Blaise said with a cheeky grin. "We took out two no-name Death Eaters upstairs, and a bloody deranged elf that tried to attack me with a fireplace poker."
Draco stood with Hermione's limp body cradled to his chest and moved toward the door of the cell.
He stopped at the threshold, hesitating briefly, before stepping forward.
"Which way?" he asked over his shoulder.
"After me," Theo said, wand drawn, gesturing to the left and down the corridor. He stepped ahead and took the lead while Zabini brought up the rear, Draco and Hermione between them. They passed flickering torches mounted on the wall that stung Draco's eyes, which had grown unaccustomed to direct light. There were four more identical iron doors hanging open to the left.
They soon reached a steep flight of stone stairs and began ascending. Draco's legs felt weak, having done little more than pace the length of the cell in the last month, but he held Hermione steady against him, her mutilated arm hanging down and bobbing to the side.
As they climbed the last few steps before the landing, a body came into view, face down with a pool of blood still slowly creeping outward. Theo stepped over one of the sprawled legs without a second glance and Draco followed suit, momentarily grateful that Hermione was unconscious. They crossed into a dimly lit drawing room, much less grand than the one at Malfoy Manor, but exuding no small amount of dark magic. He was correct in the conclusion that he had drawn weeks ago following Hermione's assault on the house elf. They were in the home of Bellatrix Lestrange.
In the corner there stood a crushing cabinet with old, dried blood dripped down the front, and on the mantle over the stone fireplace was a hand of glory, gnarled and claw-like. He wondered if it was the same one from Hogwarts the year prior. On the hearth of the fireplace lay the house elf, neck severed and fireplace poker still clutched in his tiny hand.
He felt Blaise sidle up behind him.
"Where's everyone else?" Draco asked.
"Gathering at Malfoy Manor," Blaise responded, crossing to the French doors that sat across from the fireplace and firing a silent unlocking charm, causing them to swing outward. "They're preparing for an assault on Hogwarts tonight."
"Where can we go? She needs medical attention," Draco said, tipping his head down to look at Hermione. "Blood cleansing potions, essence of dittany, wiggenweld if possible…"
"Well, the plan was to apparate to Zabini's mum's flat in London before catching a portkey to Italy, but there's nothing like that there, and she doesn't exactly look up to international travel at the moment," Theo explained, gesturing to Hermione.
Draco could feel her chest barely rising and falling against his own and shook his head.
"Why exactly are we rescuing the Gryffindor golden girl again?" Blaise asked, seemingly annoyed that their plan wasn't executing as intended.
"Because I said so," Draco bit back. "What about Nott Manor? You said everyone is gathering at my house, so there wouldn't be anyone there."
Theo looked vaguely ill at the prospect, but he finally nodded.
"Yeah, it should be empty and there are pretty extensive potions stores in the basement… there may or may not be enchantments in place to disallow muggleborns from entering the grounds though."
"You don't know?" Draco asked, blanching slightly.
"Well it hasn't exactly come up before!" Theo retorted, rolling his eyes. "I think it was just a myth made up by my wanker ancestors."
"Fine, we don't have a better option," Draco bit out tensely. "Have either of you seen my wand anywhere?"
Blaise produced a handful of them from his pocket. "Found them down near the cells, we weren't sure which one was yours."
Draco stepped closer and looked them over before concluding his own hawthorn wand wasn't there. He ran his hand over a few of them before plucking a ten-inch ebony from the lot that didn't feel too combative.
"Hold on to the rest, I don't know which one is hers," he directed.
"We're arming her now?" Blaise asked dubiously, but he raised his hands in surrender when Draco shot him a scathing look. "Alright, wand for Granger, got it."
"Let's get out of here please," Theo urged from near the open doors. The trio, plus Hermione, crossed the threshold and walked out into the fading afternoon light.
oOoOoOo
They apparated to the very border of the Nott estate, located in the countryside north of Brighton.
"Okay," Theo huffed, looking a little green as he took in their surroundings. "The wards start just beyond that beech tree – if there is anything preventing her from entering the grounds, we'll find out pretty quickly."
Draco sucked in a deep breath and held it, pulling Hermione slightly tighter against him as he strode forward. He passed the tree and stopped, all three men looked down at her unconscious form, waiting for something to happen. When it didn't, there was an audible sigh of relief.
They took off at a light jog up the hill to the towering stone edifice outlined against the sky.
"Out of curiosity," Blaise asked, panting a little, "what did you think might have happened when she crossed the wards?"
"Erm, one of the older portraits used to talk about how the skin would be flayed from the body of any muggle or muggleborn that entered the grounds," Theo answered quietly. Upon seeing the murderous look on Draco's face he quickly continued, "I never believe it though, and the old codger was clearly just posturing. Totally batty."
Blaise caught his eye behind Draco's back and raised an eyebrow in question, to which Theo shrugged, silently mouthing, 'I had no idea.'
They made it up to the front entryway as the door swung open, revealing a house elf wearing a stained tea towel.
"Bad Master Theo is returning home," he gasped, wringing his ears. "Tippy is to be telling Master Nott right away, he is not being happy with Master Theo!"
Theo had opened his mouth to respond when the elf suddenly crumpled to the ground, stunned. Draco and Theo turned to Blaise who shrugged, wand still held aloft. "I'm sorry, are we not in a bit of a rush?"
Theo levitated the elf to the left of the entrance and the three boys made their way into the front sitting room where Draco quickly deposited Hermione on a green sofa. The house was nearly as dark as Lestrange Manor had been, heavy curtains framing the windows and various cursed artefacts placed around the room.
Theo flicked his wand and quickly silenced a large portrait over the fireplace that started screaming about mudblood filth violating the sanctity of Nott Manor.
"Okay, potions are in the basement," Theo said, he and Draco taking off further into the house. Theo cast ahead of them, freezing the portraits before they ran past so the ones with multiple frames couldn't report on what was happening to anyone.
Blaise was left standing in the front room, catching his breath and staring down at the girl that had caused them so much trouble. He examined her arm hanging off the couch and nearly retched at the sight of the rotting green and white gashes surrounded by red and purple skin. Frankly she looked like she was already dead.
Draco and Theo skidded back into the room a few minutes later, levitating an apothecary's worth of potions behind them. Draco dropped to his knees next to the sofa and began to summon them to him, his shaking hands un-stoppering the vials one by one.
"Mate, I don't know if she's…" Blaise started, incredulity coloring his voice.
"She's fine, she's going to be fine," Draco snapped without looking up.
First, he dumped a light purple potion across her arm, intended to remove contaminants from tissue and blood. He figured it was working when the flesh started to bubble and smoke, letting off a positively vile scent that made him pause for a moment and breathe through his mouth, swallowing hard and pushing down the urge to vomit. He heard a gag off to the side but didn't look to see who it was.
The angry red patches down her arm and across her neck started to fade until eventually there was just the actual wound left, looking the same as it had when she received it. He poured another vial of the purple liquid over it for good measure, which smoked again briefly before stopping, at which point he vanished it away.
Next he grabbed a vial of essence of dittany, discarding the dropper and decanting it directly onto the wound. He could have cried with relief when it began to close. Pink and white scar tissue appeared in place of the open gashes, rather than the unmarred flesh that likely would have occurred had the wound not been magical in nature, but this wasn't the time to be greedy. He glanced up at Hermione's face to find her still unconscious.
He turned and looked over his shoulder. Theo was standing stark still in the middle of the room as if someone had petrified him, having taken on a greyish pallor. Blaise was in the corner, bent over with his hands on his knees, sucking in rapid breaths and clearly trying to avoid being sick.
"Help me prop her up," Draco directed, and Theo paused for just a moment, seeming as though he were suffering a small existential crisis, before moving behind Hermione and pulling her forward into a reclined position, resting her head against his chest. Draco summoned two more vials from behind him and un-stoppered them. Wiggenweld, with the hope that it would address any internal damage from the infection, and a general nourishment potion to combat the dehydration and lack of food she had taken in for the past week.
He gripped her jaw, pinching so it opened, and poured the first into her mouth. He lightly massaged her throat, flooded with relief when she instinctively swallowed the viscous liquid. He repeated the process with the second potion.
Once done he fell backwards onto the rug and tried to catch his breath, still shaking with adrenaline.
Theo stood up and laid her back on the sofa, an unreadable expression on his face. Blaise, having finally conquered his gag reflex, regained his composure and joined him. They looked down at their friend, who was filthy, dressed in ragged clothing, and sporting a scruffy beard, trying to process everything they'd just witnessed.
"Okay, I'll be the one to ask," Blaise finally said. "What the fuck happened in that cell?"
oOoOoOo
A/N: They're finally out! And it only took ten very angsty chapters. If you can't tell, I have a lot of fun writing Blaise and Theo.
Chapters 11 and 12 will be uploaded on 10/30; let's pretend it's a Samhain treat and not an indication that I have no control over how long my chapters are.
Beta love to TanzaniteWrites and JustLilyJade.