As much as Eva would've loved to describe the journey to what ended up being Malfoy Manor, she couldn't really, and that was solely due to her own stupidity. Although Hecate had told her to keep it zipped and avoid angering them, she just had so much pent up aggression towards Voldemort and his followers that one of the Snatchers actually knocked her out just to keep her quiet.
Once Eva's vision began to focus itself and she began slipping back into consciousness, she made an attempt to figure out where she was. There was a dark wooden hard floor beneath her, but her head was pounding uncomfortably. She began to lift her forehead from where it had been pressed up against the cool surface.
She glanced up from under her heavy eyelids. She must've been imagining things, because she could've sworn she saw Draco subtly watching her from a few feet away, his eyes full of concern.
"This one's awake." As if she hadn't been kicked around enough, Greyback yanked her up, causing her to trip over if he hadn't caught her by her neck and held her in a choke position.
Now that she could see the room properly and her sight and hearing had adjusted, she realised that she was in fact not dreaming, not at all. As well as the Snatchers holding her, Hermione, and Ron back, Bellatrix had a grip of Harry by his hair while, Lucius, Narcissa, and Draco watched.
"Well?" Bellatrix asked Draco, the latter standing in front of them.
"I-I can't be sure," Draco stammered. Eva thought she was going to have a heart attack after not hearing his voice for a year.
Lucius stepped forward and grabbed him by the back of his neck. "Look closely, son. If we are the ones to hand over Potter to the Dark Lord, everything will be forgiven. All would be as it was. You understand?" Draco nodded nervously.
"Now, we won't be forgetting who actually caught him, I hope, Mr. Malfoy," Scabior interrupted.
"You dare talk to me like that in my own house?!" Lucius shouted.
Before he could snap any further, Narcissa dragged him away by his arm and attempted to quietly calm him down. As much as Eva wasn't the biggest fan of Narcissa, the woman did make a good match for Lucius, it had to be said. Lucius was kind of like Draco but just with much sharper teeth, metaphorically speaking.
"Don't be shy, sweetie, come over," Bella said in a strangely kind tone as she took Draco's hand and pulled him closer to Harry. "Now, if this isn't who we think it is, Draco, and we call him, he'll kill us all. We need to be absolutely sure."
Draco went quiet for a moment. "What's wrong with his face?" he asked.
"Yes, what is wrong with his face?" Bellatrix repeated.
Scabior shrugged nonchalantly. "He came to us like that. Something he picked up in the forest, I reckon."
"Or ran into a Stinging Jinx." Bellatrix pointed her wand lazily at Hermione. "Was it you, dearie? Or your little demonic friend, maybe?" Eva wasn't entirely sure how to respond so she just didn't. "Give me their wands. We'll see what their last spells were." After briefly checking their wands, she walked past them, still laughing. "Ah, got you." She gasped. "What is that?"
Eva craned her head to see what the fuss was about. The Snatcher who she remembered had been the one to punch her in the head and knock her out was holding the Sword of Gryffindor. Sometimes Eva had to remind herself that this, at the end of the day, really wasn't just some happy camping trip.
"Where'd you get that from?" Bellatrix whispered.
"It was in her bag when we searched her," he answered stupidly. "Reckon it's mine now-"
Just as the last word left his lips, Bellatrix completely snapped. Using her wand as a whip, she was able to push the Snatcher off the balcony before strangling both Greyback and Scabior.
Now that she was free, Eva stumbled back and was about to instinctively rejoin Draco when Hermione pulled her to the other side of the room. "Not yet," she whispered.
'Hermione's right, sugarplum,' Hecate advised her. 'I'll come and help get you out of there when it's safe to do so.'
"Go! Get out!" Bellatrix screeched at them before grabbing both Harry and Ron. "Cissy, put the boys in the cellar!" Narcissa took them from her and handed them off to Pettigrew who took them downstairs.
Now that Eva and Hermione were alone, Eva held Hermione's hand tightly. She hoped this wouldn't be where she'd die. Hecate, of course, had told her that she couldn't die, but Eva had yet to test that theory out, and in front of Draco and Hermione, she didn't really want to.
"I want to have a little conversation with these two," Bellatrix sneered. "Girl to girl!" she spat in each of their faces. "The Dark Lord will be so pleased to see you again, itty bitty Evie," she laughed eerily at Eva. "But I'm sure he'd agree that you should be punished for leaving him in the first place."
"Crucio!"
There were no words that quite captured the immense agony that spread like 1000 degree flames across her entire body. Eva could hear someone screaming to the point where it was deafening her, before she noticed that the screams she was hearing were coming from her own mouth.
Even once it was over, she could still feel the aftershock, the trembling and twitching in her limbs. Curled up limply on the ground, she coughed out a sob as she weakly attempted to pull herself to her feet.
"Get her up, will you?!" Bellatrix ordered, and Eva soon felt a pair of hands tugging her up to her feet from under her arms. "No need to be so gentle, Cissy. I want her to watch this next part for herself."
Now standing up with her wrists pinned behind her back by Narcissa, Eva rolled her head to the side so that her tangled mess of red curls moved out of the way enough for her to see. Bellatrix was holding Hermione's head back by her hair while Hermione squirmed uncomfortably.
"N-no, don't touch her," Eva pleaded, her voice still slightly hoarse.
With a deranged laugh, Bellatrix pushed Hermione backwards into the ground and pounced on top of her, holding her wand to her neck. Eva could only just see the tears spilling from Hermione's eyes, tears of absolute fear and terror caused by the mad woman on top of her.
"That sword is meant to be in my vault at Gringotts," Bellatrix hissed. "How did you get it? What else did you and your friends take from my vault?!"
Hermione's sobs became audible. "I didn't take anything, please, I didn't take anything."
Eva felt movement behind her, followed by Narcissa whispering Draco's name under her breath. Narcissa's grip on her wrists was removed and instead replaced by Draco's—Eva could tell instantly by his hands holding hers and the familiar scent of his cologne. He held her back into him by her waist while the other hand held her hands behind her back.
Bellatrix muttered something but, before Eva could even figure out what she'd said, her ears were flooded with the sound of Hermione's screams. Tears pricking at her eyes, she gripped Draco's hand with what must've been a painful amount of force, surprised when he squeezed hers back.
As the interrogation continued while Hermione lay conscious but unmoving across the floor, it proceeded onto Griphook, one of the goblins at Gringotts Bank. All Eva could think about though was Draco, and the fact that she'd mentally planned their little reunion to be somewhat better than this. They hadn't even had the chance to say a word to each other, when all she wanted to do was turn around and hug him at least.
"When I was last in your vault, the sword was there," Griphook insisted.
"Oh, well then, perhaps it just walked out on its own then," Bellatrix snarked.
"There is no safer place than Gringotts," he told her.
Bellatrix swiped her silver knife across the goblin's face, causing Eva to flinch yet again. "Liar!" she shouted. "Consider yourself lucky, goblin." She began to turn towards Eva, causing Draco to automatically tighten his grip on her. "The same won't be said for these-"
"Like hell! Expelliarmus!"
Both Eva and Draco quickly turned their heads. Ron and Harry were standing at the top of the stairs, Harry now with a proportionally-sized face. While Ron somehow managed to disarm Bellatrix, Draco briskly thrusted Eva's wand backwards towards her without turning around and drew out his own.
From the corner of her eye, Eva saw Lucius fumbling for his own wand, but he was stunned by Harry before he had the chance.
Then the duel continued, Draco and Narcissa against Ron and Harry. Just as Eva moved forward to join, she was pulled back by Hecate, who held her behind protectively.
"You're not getting involved in this one," Hecate muttered while moving her head alertly from side to side.
"Get out of my way," Eva struggled out as she pushed past the demon towards the front.
"Protego Maxima!"
With a horizontal swipe of her wand, a vertical shield formed in front of her, also covering both Draco and Narcissa. Every spell Ron and Harry threw automatically deflected until they eventually stopped. She allowed the shield to drop once more by swiping her wand downwards.
"Drop your wands!" Bellatrix ordered, having finally wrapped her head around the fact that Ron had just disarmed her. "I said drop them!"
Eva turned around very slowly and dropped her wand on the floor as asked. Bellatrix had picked up Hermione from the floor, now holding a knife to her neck with a taunting grin.
Once Harry had dropped his own, he reached out for Eva and caught her by her arm, pulling her back towards him and Ron. As she shuffled backwards, she could see the subtle irritation in Draco's eyes which she was sure she had the same mirrored in hers.
"Pick them up, Draco, now!"
After hesitating for a moment, he first picked up Eva's wand and discretely hid it in the inside pocket of his suit jacket and then picked up Ron's and Harry's, holding them out in plain view. Well, not Ron's and Harry's exactly, but whoever they'd stolen those wands from.
"Well, well, well, look what we have here," Bellatrix murmured, pushing the knife slightly firmer against Hermione's skin. "It's Harry Potter, and Hecate too."
Now that Eva was paying attention, she could feel that Hecate was standing beside her with one arm in front of her to prevent her from pulling another stunt again. "Unless you personally want me to melt your flesh straight off your bones, which I will do so gladly, I'd drop the girl if I were you," Hecate threatened darkly.
Bellatrix laughed, walking forward and dragging Hermione with her. "Is that so?" She smiled, showing her slightly yellowing teeth, and turned her gaze to the Malfoys. "Call him."
Their eyes moved across the room towards Lucius who was rolling up his sleeve, exposing the Dark Mark on his inner left forearm. His hand lingered above it for a moment.
'Hecate? Escape plan?' Eva asked silently.
'Looks like I won't have to burn this place to the ground after all,' was all that Hecate replied with. 'I always did like that elf who wore shoes.'
Eva was about to mentally reply when a loud squeaking sound broke her train of thought. It was coming from the chandelier above their heads, and it was only when she really squinted her eyes that she could see Dobby loosening it from the ceiling.
"Holy shit," Eva whispered.
As soon as the squeaking stopped, there was a painful moment of silence as the tiny glass shards collapsed from above their heads. Hecate grabbed both Harry and Eva, throwing them both out of the way until Eva stumbled into Draco's arms.
While Bellatrix was distracted, Draco reached into his inside pocket and pulled out Eva's wand. "Wand," he muttered breathlessly as he hurriedly shoved it into her hand.
Eva could see Harry approaching from the corner of her eye and knew this would probably be her only chance to actually be with Draco for the foreseeable future. With her wand in her hand, she held the side of his face in a rush and didn't even get a chance to properly kiss him, her lips only brushing against his briefly.
"Thanks," she whispered before scrambling back over towards Hermione and Ron.
Before rejoining them with Draco's wand in his hand, Harry stunned Lucius once again. The small group were now gathered near the top of the staircase, Eva holding onto Hermione's uninjured arm soothingly with her wand still pointed outwards.
"Stupid elf!" Bellatrix screeched at Dobby. "You could've killed me!"
"I think that was the point," Eva snapped back.
"Dobby never meant to kill," Dobby explained himself timidly. "Dobby only meant to maim or seriously injure."
Eva saw Narcissa begin to spin her wand above her head and instantly turned the direction her own wand pointed to towards her. However, as if plucked out of the air, Narcissa's wand flew straight out of her hand and into Dobby's, and all he'd had to do was click his fingers.
Bellatrix gasped. "How dare you take a witch's wand? How dare you defy your master?!"
Eva scoffed while Dobby narrowed his eyes. "Dobby has no master. Dobby is a free elf, and Dobby has come to save Harry Potter and his friends."
With one final longing look at Draco, Eva reached backwards and held onto Dobby's arm. She could instantly feel herself apparating, that horrible sensation of every possible body part being pulled and stretched uncomfortably. Her organs were twisted around, and her head was stretched until her skull felt numb. Elf apparition was by far worse than the wizard kind.
She felt herself being thrown roughly onto a surprisingly soft surface. The feel of tiny grains under her fingers told her that it was sand. They were on a beach, somewhere, for some reason.
But something was wrong. There was a horrible sting in her leg, and the sand wasn't making it any better. With a groan of pain, she rolled onto her back and her features contorted into a grimace.
"Eva!" Harry staggered towards her and propped her up against him before diverting his gaze towards her leg. "Eva, what happened?"
There was a cut across the length of her shin, and the sight of her own blood trickling out of it was beginning to make her head spin. "I . . . I don't . . . I don't know."
With a sigh, Harry removed his jacket and held it to her leg, causing her to hiss in pain. "Hold that there for now and we can-"
"Harry Potter?"
Eva wearily turned her head. Dobby was standing several metres away with his shoulders hunched over. He collapsed to the ground just as Harry ran forward and caught him. Harry tossed an object away, which Eva noticed was in fact a bloodied knife, presumably covered in both her blood and Dobby's.
"We'll—we'll fix you," Harry assured the little house-elf, "Hermione will have something. In your bag, Hermione? Hermione?"
Hermione was standing in Ron's arms, tears again freefalling down her cheeks. Eva felt movement behind her, soon followed by a mass of thick curly blonde hair hovering over her eyes.
"You're hurt," Luna observed, sitting cross-legged in the sand and pulling Eva back so that she was leaning against her lap.
"Such a beautiful place," Dobby spoke weakly, which triggered Eva to begin to cry silently, "to be with friends. Dobby is happy to be with his friend, Harry Potter."
"This is wrong," Eva murmured as she leant against Luna for support, her leg now bandaged but almost fully healed. "Children shouldn't have to bury their own friends."
Luna nodded while they stood back and observed Dobby's grave. "He was a rather sweet elf though, don't you think?"
With a trembling lip, Eva nodded in agreement as she read his gravestone.
Here lies Dobby. A free elf.
⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰
Author's note: Ugh, Dobby's death gets me every time. Aside from that, what did we think of Eva and Draco's brief reunion? Okay, underwhelming, maybe, but trust me, they'll reunite properly soon, I promise! I have so much planned which I hope you'll love!
Anyway, thank you so much for reading, stay safe, and ily lots!
