Chapter 24
The room was spinning.
Aria couldn't breathe.
The light shining down on her from the moon was bright, much too bright; and the whispers rippling through the crowd of students around her were too noisy. She covered her ears and hid her face by crouching down into a fetal position on the floor. Even then, she felt the weight of everyone's stares and she sensed her own veela pheromones going haywire as they permeated the air.
She closed her eyes and tried to suppress her true form and force her wings back inside her body but for some reason, she couldn't; so she wrapped her wings protectively over herself instead. Behind her, Draco wrenched himself out of his coat and draped it over her head to cover her face.
"We have to get you out of here." Draco's jaw was clenched as he glared back at all of the dazed male students who were blatantly staring at her. "Your allure is too strong right now, one of these assholes might attack you." He muttered darkly under his breath as he helped her up to her feet.
"Who spoke the reveal incantation? They knew my veela name." Aria whispered.
Draco looked grim as he answered. "I didn't see who it was."
He wrapped one arm protectively around her shoulders while his other hand gripped tightly onto his wand, holding it out in plain view as they quickly made their way across the Great Hall. Since most of her face was pretty much covered by Draco's coat, Aria couldn't see anything and she had to rely completely on him to weave her through the crowd.
She heard a lot of the frantic, whispered reactions from some of the other students as they passed.
"What just happened?! Is that Potter?! Why does she have wings?"
"Oh Merlin, she's a veela! Potter's a veela!"
"I knew there was something weird about her this year!"
A heavy hand suddenly yanked at one of Aria's wings, causing her to cry out, and it was followed by the sound of a loud, jeering male voice taunting them from behind.
"What's the rush, Malfoy?! Are you just trying to keep her all to yourself—"
Draco growled and whirled around, and Aria barely managed to pull his coat off just in time to see him fling a jinx into Michael Corner's face.
Corner yowled in pain and released his grip on Aria's wing immediately, clutching onto his broken nose. As he stumbled backwards, he crashed into a few of the other boys who had crowded behind him, knocking most of them over and drawing even more attention from the other students nearby.
Aria felt the faint resonance of magic just then, and she stiffened, immediately alerted to the fact that someone had just pulled a wand out and was getting ready to fire a spell at them. Her eyes narrowed; and sure enough, the tall bulky boy behind Draco sneered and reached for his wand. Aria's eyes flashed a bright, iridescent green; and with a flare of her wings, she unleashed a powerful blast of magic, sending everyone within a ten-foot radius of them hurtling far across the room.
There was a chorus of startled screams from the crowd, and even Draco looked taken back for a moment, glancing briefly over his shoulder at Aria in shock. He eventually shook himself out of his stupor and grabbed Aria's hand again, taking advantage of everyone's distraction to pull her towards the exit.
Unfortunately, before they could reach the doors, they were forced to stop when another group of eagerly screaming reporters swarmed around them, blocking their path. Draco shoved Aria behind him, blocking her face from the flashing cameras. To their dismay, a couple of Daily Prophet columnists, including a gleeful-looking Rita Skeeter, swooped down on them with vicious smiles.
"Potter! When did you manifest as a veela? Does the Ministry know?!"
"Were you already a veela when you defeated the Dark Lord?!"
"Were you in hiding all this time?! Why did you keep it a secret from the rest of the world?!"
"Did you really choose a former Death Eater as your mate?! Did he coerce you to mate with him?"
Aria felt the way Draco's fingers tightened around hers in righteous anger at the last question (which, unsurprisingly, had come from Rita Skeeter). She was half-tempted to send another blast of magic at her when, to her relief, she heard another familiar voice call out to her from behind.
"Aria!"
They turned around to see Hermione rushing across the hall towards them. Ron followed closely behind her, but unlike Hermione, he didn't run towards Aria but instead, he headed towards the reporters, throwing himself into the crowd in an attempt to hold them off. When Hermione reached them, she turned her attention to Draco and gave him a sharp look.
"Draco, just go and get Aria out of here! Ron and I will distract the press somehow to buy you some time."
"Are you insane?! Hermione, what exactly are you going to tell them—"
The rest of Aria's protests were cut off when Draco took her by the arm and began dragging her along after him. Hermione used a knockback jinx to clear a small path for them through the crowd of reporters and Draco shoved through them, forcing his way towards the exit. When they reached the doors to the Great Hall, a strange, 'whooshing' sound out of nowhere suddenly caused Aria to look up in alarm. She heard another round of screams as most of the students nearby turned to stare at the scene.
"Draco, look out!"
There was another 'whooshing' sound and, before Aria could realize what was happening, Draco was wrenched apart from her, only to reappear a few feet in front of her by the entrance doors. A lean figure stood behind him, and he had a pale arm wrapped tightly around Draco's neck while his other hand held his wand, keeping it pointed at Draco's throat.
Aria lifted her gaze over Draco's shoulder and glared at Bentley Fisher's sneering face.
Strangely, despite the way Draco was growling and struggling furiously against him, he couldn't seem to break free from the smaller boy's grasp. When Bentley's glowing blue eyes met Aria's, his lips twisted into a smile. His expression darkened with lust as he stared intently at her true form.
"So it is true. You are a veela."
Aria's attention was immediately drawn to the two, dangerously sharp fangs that poked out from his mouth.
"And you're a vampire, apparently." Aria drawled back calmly, her wings tensing behind her as she crawled one hand over the holster against her leg where her wand was kept. "You were the one responsible for all those vandalism incidents, weren't you? I take it you have some kind of hypnosis ability? Is that how you were able to bewitch all those younger Slytherins?"
"Oh well, aren't we all just into secrets these days? Veelas, vampires, and all that rubbish." Bentley scoffed impatiently at her. "What's one more secret?"
He noticed the way Aria took a very discreet step towards him and snarled at her, baring his fangs even more and pressing the tip of his wand harder against Draco's throat.
"Stay where you are! All of you stay back!" Bentley's gaze flicked briefly over to where he saw Blaise, Greg, Pansy and a few other Slytherins already reaching for their wands. "Keep your hands where I can see them!"
Aria heeded his warning and froze in place.
She held both of her hands up and met his crazed eyes with a steady gaze. "It's me you want, right? We can talk and settle this somewhere else — away from all of these people."
"Aria, get away from him." Draco looked up at the moon above their heads. "It's the vampire moon. He's strong, too strong—"
"Shut up, Death Eater!" Bentley growled at him, tightening his grip around his throat and causing Draco to choke for air. "Do you know how easy it is for me right now to snap your neck?!"
Aria's eyes widened. "Stop it!"
"I didn't want to do this, you know." Bentley turned his attention back to her, his features twisting into a derisive leer. "I would have been perfectly happy watching you from the sidelines with someone else...someone worthy by your side. But you were just so, so stubborn, Aria. And you forced me to take such drastic measures just so I could make you understand. I had to make you understand."
"It was you, wasn't it?" Aria stared at Bentley's cold smile. "You spoke the incantation? How did you even get my veela name?"
"Ask Malfoy." Bentley's eyes gleamed as he laughed and gave her a knowing smile. "He's the one who wrote down your veela name, after all."
"What does he mean by that?" Aria slanted her gaze back to Draco's wide-eyed, guilty expression.
"It's not what he's making it sound like! Aria, I swear! I never meant for anyone else to see it—"
Bentley's fingers tightened dangerously around Draco's throat again, cutting off the rest of his frantic words and causing him to cough.
"I said stop it!" Aria snapped.
Bentley scoffed bitterly to himself. "What do you see in this guy anyway? Can't you see that this spineless piece of filth isn't right for someone like you?! If you can't even trust him with your veela name, then you can't trust him with anything else! He's not worthy of you, Aria! Not a single strand of your head! And every time I see him touch you, my blood boils!" He spat out.
"And do you think you're worthy of her? You pathetic little bloodsucker?!" Draco managed to wheeze out, drawing Bentley's attention away from Aria back to him.
Bentley growled, his eyes flashing red with anger.
"Don't call me that."
"Why not? That's what you are, right? That's all you are, actually. You think just because you were desperate enough to make the Chosen One your fixation, you're suddenly more deserving of her than anyone else?" Draco mocked loudly.
"Shut up!"
"I hate to break it to you, but you're hardly a catch yourself. A sniveling bloodsucker obsessed with a girl who won't give him the time of day—"
"I said shut the fuck up, Death Eater!"
Draco smirked, oblivious to the stares they were getting from the other students nearby. "Admit it, Fisher. We both know that neither one of us is Prince Charming anyway. So it's really more a question of which one of us, right now, is more pathetic; don't you think? And with this little stunt you pulled tonight, I think you just beat me—"
"Draco, stop pissing him off!"
Ignoring Aria's angry shouts, Bentley raised his wand, pointing it against the side of Draco's head. Within seconds, Draco's eyes rolled back and his entire form went limp as he fell, unconscious. Bentley threw him off with a sneer; and Aria heard a few more panicked screams around them as Bentley disappeared again. She rushed to check on Draco; and when she was, more or less, assured that he was unharmed, she stood back up — only for Bentley to reappear directly behind her.
He tried to grab at her; but in her true form, Aria was faster and a lot more agile than she normally was so she was able to dodge his advances with relative ease. When he lunged at her, she flapped her wings and flew over his head; and he ended up swiping at nothing but air. Bentley eventually growled in frustration and spun around, yanking his wand out of his robes and pointing it at her with a snarl.
This time, instead of dodging, Aria wordlessly cast a protego over herself.
As Bentley started hurling a flurry of offensive spells at her, she blinked and watched as his magic disintegrated the moment it made contact with her shield. Aria made a move to disarm him but Bentley vanished again. He cackled in triumph when he finally managed to grab her from behind; and he trapped her hand down, preventing her from reaching her wand.
She didn't even struggle.
"Bentley, stop this." She let out an irritated sigh. "We both know your magic levels aren't anywhere near mine, so dueling me would be pointless."
"Maybe so." He acceded. "But even someone as powerful as you won't be able to do anything without a wand."
"Who says I need a wand?"
Aria turned around slowly in his arms; and her eyelashes fluttered as she lifted her gaze up to meet his. She smirked and lifted her free hand, holding up a single finger and tapping it very lightly against the middle of Bentley's forehead.
A powerful gust of wind hurled him back violently all the way across the hall.
He crashed into a big group of reporters, including Rita Skeeter, knocking them all down to the floor in a tangled pile of limbs and bodies. As Bentley scrambled to his feet, Aria knelt back down onto the ground beside Draco's unconscious form. She was just about to use a spell to wake him up when she heard Bentley screaming at her from several feet away.
"You're mine, Aria! And I will have you!"
Aria turned around, ready to knock the annoying prick out once and for all. When she saw him, however, she paused and watched in confusion as Bentley suddenly yanked up one of the sleeves of his coat. She paled in horror when she caught sight of the familiar black, veelish symbols tattooed on the back of his forearm.
Bentley noticed her reaction and his smile widened. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a single, white feather.
"Do not fight back against me until I cut your wings off. Ceri-hi an nin, Sŷlleiníea!"
As soon as the white feather burst into green flames, Aria felt all of the veela blood in her veins ignite with magic.
Suddenly, it felt as though every single muscle in her body wasn't listening to her anymore. A powerful, magical haze clouded her senses, drowning out everything else except for a strange, foreign presence in her mind that whispered soothingly to her, compelled her to do as she was told. Even now, as she backed away from Bentley's approaching form, that presence in her head only seemed to grow stronger and stronger, until Aria realized that she could no longer hear her own thoughts.
Somewhere, a couple of feet away, Aria vaguely heard a few familiar voices — Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna, and even Blaise. All of them seemed to be shouting at her, telling her to fight back but she couldn't.
She mustn't fight back.
She had to obey.
More screams around the Great Hall were heard as Bentley continued to move toward Aria; and some of the nearby teachers tried to stop him, blasting him with spells that he evaded easily with his heightened speed. As Bentley shoved his way through the crowd, a large group of 7th years (a mixture of students from Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff) tried to stop him but Bentley just smirked at them and looked up, staring directly into their eyes. Within seconds, the 7th years whipped their wands out and began attacking the teachers, successfully diverting everyone else's attention away from Bentley and Aria as all the other students nearby began screaming and running towards the doors.
Aria's eyes flicked to one of the nearby windows.
She pulled her wings back, hoping to fly away but before she could even move, Bentley was already behind her. And without any warning, he raised his wand and, using a severing charm, slashed it down against her right wing.
She screamed.
Her vision blurred with tears of pain and she stumbled to her knees, gasping as the spell ended nearly halfway down her wing before Bentley yanked his wand back up. She winced, feeling dizzy as she felt blood gushing out from below her shoulder and pooling into a small puddle on the marbled floor beneath her skirt. Bentley's eyes widened, gleaming red with hunger as he dipped his finger into the pool of blood and brought it up to his mouth, licking some of her blood off the tip. Then, with a smile, he raised his wand up into the air again and Aria stifled another scream, crawling backwards by her elbows along the blood-stained floor in a feeble attempt to move away from him.
"Stop it! Get the fuck away from me—"
A blinding flash of magic shot out from behind her, and Bentley was thrown backwards again; only this time, he let out an angry yelp of pain as he crashed to the floor a few feet away. Aria looked up to find a frantic Draco kneeling over her, his face turning white when he saw her partially severed wing.
"Oh gods...Aria." Draco looked down at his hands, and his fingers trembled when he saw them covered with blood. "Come on, I'll take you to Madam Pomfrey—" His voice broke as he pulled her gently to her feet, only for Aria to let out another sharp cry of pain.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you—"
"Move!"
Aria tried to shove him out of the way but it was too late.
Bentley pointed his wand at him, levitating Draco by the neck and lifting him up until his shoes dangled above the floor. Draco struggled wildly, trying to reach for his wand but it was no use; and Bentley just scoffed at him before lifting him up higher and hurling him across the room. There was a loud 'smacking' sound as Draco ended up hitting the back of his head against the wall, and he winced, crumpling down to the floor.
"Draco!"
Horrified, Aria tried to crawl towards Draco but Bentley cast a binding charm on her ankles, ignoring her hissed growls as he dragged her roughly along the floor back towards him. She cried out in frustration, desperate to fight back against him but still, that veela presence in her mind kept holding her back, screaming into her head that she had to do what she was told.
Bentley's eyes gleamed as he stepped on her uninjured wing, effectively preventing Aria from crawling away.
"You don't have to fight me anymore, Aria." He cooed as he caressed her severed wing and brought his hand back up to his mouth, licking more of her blood off his fingers. "I promise that it will all be over soon. All I have to do is cut off your wings, and you'll realize how much you love me. And you'll be mine forever. You'll see."
By now, Aria was beginning to feel the unmistakable effect of all the blood loss and she felt incredibly lightheaded. She forced herself to blink her eyes open and stared blearily up at the wide, fanatical smile on Bentley's face.
She sneered at him.
"Go fuck yourself."
Bentley's eyes flashed at her words, and he snarled as he bent down, grabbing Aria by her hair and hauling her up into a sitting position. Just as he was raising his wand over her, another blast of magic came out of nowhere and Aria looked up to see both Ron and Neville attacking Bentley from opposite sides of the room.
She collapsed onto her back, wincing as she turned her head to the side and caught glimpses of Ron and Neville dueling with Bentley a few feet away. Unfortunately, Bentley's vampire speed was unmatched and he avoided all of their spells easily. He eventually caught Neville by the neck, lifting him up and throwing him across the hall. There was another scuffle that followed; and Aria heard Ron's angry shouts as he continued to duel with Bentley but she was too far away to actually see what was happening.
Aria felt a pair of gentle hands scooping her up, and she heard Hermione's soft, soothing voice. After a few minutes, she felt the familiar warmth of her friend's magic healing her wing, trying to stop the blood loss. As Hermione pulled her up to her feet and began ushering her towards the doors, Aria saw Bentley standing over Ron's unconscious form. He rounded on them, using his vampire speed to lunge for Aria but before he could grab her, Hermione shoved her away and he ended up tackling her to the floor instead. When he realized his mistake, Bentley growled and wrapped his fingers around Hermione's throat.
"You meddling bint!"
Bentley lifted her up into the air. With a sneer, he sank his fangs into her neck.
"Hermione!"
Aria screamed as Bentley eventually tossed an unconscious Hermione onto the floor.
She crawled towards her, her hands shaking as she felt desperately around Hermione's neck for a pulse. Her eyes blurred with tears of relief when she found one, however weak it was. Biting her lip, she bent down, trying to gather Hermione's unconscious form into her arms when Bentley caught her ankle in another bind, sneering as he pulled her closer towards him. Aria hissed back at him, and she let her features twist into a cruel-beaked, bird face as she tried to wrestle herself away.
"You realize I didn't want to do this, right?! I didn't want to take such drastic measures to make you understand but you were just so, so stubborn, Aria. You left me no choice!" He swiped at her arm again but Aria managed to evade him, wincing when the sharp movement brought another stab of pain to her injured wing and caused her to stumble to the floor. "I tried to make you see that Malfoy wasn't right for you — how none of these Slytherins were good for you! I tried to show you but you wouldn't listen, Aria!"
"Was that what everything was about? All those ridiculous vandalism incidents that you tried to frame my housemates with? Was all that just to prove a point?!" She snapped.
"I was trying to make you see the truth!"
"You're pathetic." Aria scoffed at the earnest look on his face. "You even had to hypnotize all those kids to do it? What's wrong, Bentley? Were children the only ones susceptible to your hypnotism? Is that how weak you are?" She mocked.
"You still don't understand! I did it all for you! Can't you see that?!"
Bentley screamed in frustration. He reappeared in front of her and raised his wand, holding it above her tattered wing.
Aria grimaced and closed her eyes, preparing herself for another onslaught of pain when she felt three strong bursts of magic flying over her shoulder. She opened her eyes and looked up, barely registering the fact that Blaise and Greg were now dueling with Bentley and that Pansy had crouched down protectively in front of her. When Aria blinked weakly at her, Pansy shook her head and gestured frantically for her to stand.
"Get out of here, Potter! Now!"
"What about Draco—?"
"I already checked on him, he'll be fine. Now go! We'll keep Fisher distracted!"
Aria was too stunned to answer so Pansy let out an exasperated sigh and hauled her up to her feet. As she stumbled her way towards the doors, Aria stole one last look at them over her shoulder. She watched in dismay as Bentley let out an impatient screech and, using his vampire strength, caught Blaise in one hand and Greg in the other. He lifted both boys up in the air as though they weighed nothing.
"Pansy, I can't just leave—"
"Salazar's sake, Potter, just think of saving your own ass for once and get the hell out of here!"
Draco woke up to the sound of shrill, panicked screams.
His head hurt; and it took him a few minutes before he was able to adjust to the light and focus on his surroundings. It took him even longer to remember everything that happened; but when he did, and Draco realized exactly why he was lying on his back against the cold floor of the Great Hall, his eyes snapped open.
In his panic, Draco jerked himself up to a sitting position; but he ended up regretting it immediately afterward when a sharp, excruciating pain stabbed the back of his head.
"Ow! Fuck—"
"Careful!" Pansy snapped as she knelt down beside him, raising her wand to shine light into his eyes. "I think you have a mild concussion, you hit the back of your head pretty hard."
"Where's Aria?!" Draco immediately blurted out. He sat up again and stared in dismay at all of the dried blood on his hands and along the floor. "Is she hurt?! Did that bastard manage to cut off her wings?!"
"We don't know where Aria went." Blaise answered uneasily beside him, and Draco noticed for the first time that Blaise had several cuts on his face and that his left eye was bruised. "All we know is that she's hiding and Fisher ran off to look for her."
"What the hell has everyone else been doing?! Where's Weasley and Granger?! Why aren't they—"
Draco cut himself off in the middle of his tirade when he looked up and saw both Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger lying unconscious on the floor, not too far away from where he was. Luna Lovegood, Ginny Weasley and a few other Gryffindors were crouched around them and were obviously checking on their injuries.
That was when Draco realized the full extent of the chaos happening around him.
Fiendfyre was rapidly spreading along the floor, crawling past several tables as it made its way toward the walls. By then, all of the reporters and photographers had left and around him, Draco watched as hordes of panicking students tried to make their way past the fiendfyre that was currently blocking all of the exit points of the Great Hall.
Draco noticed that Neville and Greg were among the 8th years who were running around, struggling desperately to keep the fiendfyre under control.
"Who started the—"
"Fisher did." Blaise looked grim. "He set the doors on fire right after he went after Aria. Obviously he didn't want any of the teachers following them. Though, if you ask me, he did a pretty good job of making sure they're preoccupied."
He nodded towards the center of the hall, and Draco followed his gaze.
In front of the stage, in the middle of the dance floor, most of the Hogwarts faculty (including Headmistress McGonagall) were all still busy trying to safely subdue a large group of hypnotized students. As they fought, McGonagall shouted for the prefects to evacuate their housemates to their respective dormitories as soon as possible.
"Why are there so many students fighting the teachers?" Draco asked, confused.
"It's obvious, isn't it?"
Another voice spoke up, and Draco, Blaise and Pansy looked up to see Luna Lovegood making her way over towards them. She knelt down on the floor beside Blaise and continued. "They're all under Bentley's hypnosis. It's a vampire moon, after all, so it's logical to assume that his powers are strong enough tonight that he's able to bewitch more people for much longer than he normally could." She explained in a distant voice.
"How did that bastard even get her veela name?" Blaise growled out loud, clenching his fist. "He even had the blasted symbols tattooed on his arm, that freak—"
"That's my fault." Draco winced in guilt as he forced himself back up to his feet, swaying a little and grabbing onto Blaise for balance. "I wrote Aria's veela name down when I was still trying to find out about her secret, and that son of a bitch must have...I don't know, gotten access to it somehow."
"You wrote down her name?!" Pansy screeched and whacked him hard on the arm. "What the bloody hell were you thinking?! Did you not learn anything in class?!"
Draco growled back at her, glancing around the room. "I know, okay?! I messed up! Why is no one looking for Aria anyway?!"
"Slughorn said that the priority at the moment was to ensure everyone's safety. They probably want to make sure all the other students have been subdued and returned safely to the common room before they go looking for Aria and Fisher." Blaise explained.
"What?!" Draco rounded on him and snapped. "Are they insane?! That asshole has her name, what if he uses another Feather Curse against her?! What if he tries to cut off her wings again and forces her to mate with him?! Where is she now?!"
Blaise and Pansy glanced uncertainly at each other, obviously not knowing what to answer.
Growling in frustration, Draco was just about to head out of the Great Hall to look for Aria himself when Luna suddenly stood up and walked quietly over to the window behind them. The expression on her face was deeply contemplative as she stared at the expansive view of the Forbidden Forest outside the castle.
She turned to glance at them again over her shoulder. "I can sense a powerful magical presence somewhere in the Forbidden Forest right now. It's probably Aria."
"Oh joy, the Forbidden Forest. That's not dangerous at all." Pansy drawled sarcastically, reaching up to massage her temples.
Draco ignored her comment and took his wand out of his pocket.
"I'm going to go look for her. She's still injured, she could bleed to death out there." He was already heading towards the doors when Blaise sighed and stopped him by grabbing onto his arm.
"You're still concussed, you idiot." He ignored Draco's halfhearted protests and stood up, removing his wand from its holster. "I'll come with you. We can cover more ground if we search for her together."
"I suppose I have no choice then." Pansy grumbled as she reluctantly stood up and walked over to join them. "But if Potter gets us killed for making us chase after her in the Forbidden Forest like a bunch of Gryffindors, then I swear, I'm going to kill her."
Blaise turned to the blonde girl still standing by the window.
"Will you go with us, Luna?"
There was a twinkle in Luna's blue eyes as she turned around and stared at them with a knowing smile on her face. "You three go on ahead. I'll stay here and help Greg and Neville put out the fiendfyre before it gets worse. Besides, someone has to stay behind and tell Ron and Hermione where to find Aria when they wake up."
Draco gave her a grateful nod and took off, Blaise and Pansy close at his heels.
When they reached the main entrance to the Great Hall, they were forced to stop when they caught sight of the fiendfyre blocking the doors. Draco hesitated as he stared up at the roaring flames in front of him; and already, he could feel all of the blood in his face draining away as memories of the last time he had been confronted with fiendfyre began to flash before his eyes.
He shook his head, desperately trying to clear the image of Vince's wide, panicked eyes and the sound of his bloodcurdling scream as he fell to his death from his mind. Behind him, he could hear Blaise and Pansy asking him why he stopped but Draco's throat was too tight, and he couldn't find the voice to speak.
Suddenly, he was back in the Room of Requirement.
He remembered the way Greg screamed at Vince to put the fiendfyre out as they climbed to the top of a large pile of trinkets, desperate to stay alive. He remembered the suffocating feeling in his chest as he coughed; and the way he almost slipped and fell, the same way Vince had. He remembered the way the flames below him seemed to climb higher and higher, licking at his heels and burning the expensive leather of his shoes.
Draco remembered hanging on for his life, dangling from the edge of a tilted table at the very top of the pile and staring down at the fiendfyre, thinking to himself that he was about to die when Aria came flying out of nowhere, screaming for him to grab her hand.
She had saved him that day; despite him being the worthless piece of shit he knew he was.
Aria was the one who needed his help now.
And he refused to be the same spineless coward he was back then.
Draco forced himself to snap out of his trance and held his wand out, squeezing it tightly with his fingers. Then, ignoring the panic and fear in his chest, he stepped right in front of the fiendfyre; dangerously close enough that it almost singed the sleeve of his robes.
Blaise and Pansy shouted angrily at him, demanding to know what the hell he was doing but Draco ignored them and gripped his wand even tighter, closing his eyes and muttering a complicated incantation over and over again until a small, circular formation of water began to form. The water eventually formed itself into a magical, protective barrier around them and Draco motioned impatiently for Blaise and Pansy to follow him as they stepped into the fiendfyre and made their way across it towards the doors.
Once they were safely out of the Great Hall, Draco extinguished the water barrier with a wave of his wand. Wordlessly, they ran through the empty hallways on their way to the exit of the castle; and it wasn't long before they reached the school grounds.
The silvery light of the moon cast a sinister glow along their path as they pushed past the gates that led them into the Forbidden Forest.
Draco ignored the anxious feeling in his gut and began making his way through the darkness, weaving himself around a small cluster of tall trees. Blaise whispered a lumos spell behind him, holding his wand up into the air as he followed.
"I don't have a good feeling about this." Pansy whispered nervously, flinching when she accidentally stepped on a large twig on the ground.
"Look."
Blaise called their attention when he suddenly knelt down, holding his wand above an orange lump of fur on the ground. He waited until Draco and Pansy crouched down beside him before he lowered his wand, illuminating the figure of a dead, orange fox.
"It's just a dead animal, Blaise." Pansy made a disgusted face and stood back up.
"No, look." Blaise reached down and turned the fox over, pointing out the two pinprick wounds on the fox's neck. "It's not just dead. It's been drained of blood. And recently too since it's still pretty warm."
"That bloodsucking asshole is nearby then." Draco's eyes narrowed and his fingers tightened around his wand again. "Keep your eyes open; the last thing we want is for him to catch us off guard—"
"Behind you, look out!"
From the corner of his eye, Draco saw a bright beam of magic heading right for him and instinctively, he ducked. The spell whipped past him, hitting the tree in front of him and causing it to burst into flames. He heard Fisher curse loudly and spun around, whipping his wand sharply through the air and sending a hex towards him. To Draco's frustration, the spell missed and Fisher vanished from his line of light, only to reappear a few seconds later to Blaise's left.
Blaise held up his wand and cast a protego over himself just before Fisher flung a hex at him. The spell shattered Blaise's shield, but before Blaise could retaliate, Fisher disappeared again and this time, he reappeared directly behind Pansy.
She screamed when he wrapped an arm around her neck from behind and pointed his wand at her throat. Blaise and Draco both froze, watching as Fisher tightened his grip around Pansy and dragged her along as he walked backwards away from them.
He taunted them with a sneer.
"Put your wands down on the ground. Or I'll drain this worthless slut of all her blood, I swear."
Blaise cursed under his breath but he obliged, reluctantly crouching down and placing his wand by his feet. Beside him, Draco's eyes narrowed and he began to crouch down slowly, pretending to lower his wand. When Fisher's gaze flickered, Draco sprang back to his feet and made a sharp, jabbing movement with his wand, hurling a powerful blinding jinx into Fisher's face.
Fisher howled in pain and immediately recoiled, shoving Pansy away as he stumbled to his knees and clutched at his eyes. As Pansy ran behind Blaise, Draco walked over to Fisher's blind, kneeling form. He scoffed loudly and kicked him hard on the stomach, causing Fisher to wince and stumble to the ground.
"You piece of filth!" Draco spat out as he kicked him again, this time aiming right for his crotch. "If you ever look, touch, or even go anywhere near my girlfriend again, I will kill you, do you understand?!"
He ignored Fisher's pained whimpers and began hurling hex after hex at the other boy's face.
"Hey, that's enough! You might end up in Azkaban if you keep that shit up!"
Draco ignored Blaise's angry shouts for him to stop and raised his wand again, slashing it downwards through the air over Fisher's crouched figure.
There was a violent, ripping sound, followed by Fisher's agonized scream as a long, diagonal gash suddenly appeared on his back. The spell ripped right through Fisher's coat, and Draco stood back, watching with a certain degree of satisfaction as the laceration began to bleed profusely, staining Fisher's inner shirt with a diagonal line of blood. As Fisher continued to gasp and whimper in pain, curling himself up to protect his head, Draco finally allowed Blaise to pull him away. He ignored the way Pansy was staring nervously at him and watched as Blaise knelt down, checking the extent of Fisher's injuries.
"Merlin's beard, Draco." Blaise muttered under his breath, wincing when he caught sight of Fisher's battered face. "You could have killed him, you realize."
"I'm sure a Death Eater like him is used to killing anyway." Fisher hissed, wincing as he slapped Blaise's hands away when he tried to help him back up. "Why don't you just kill me already? What are you waiting for?" He taunted.
"I'm not a Death Eater anymore." Draco retorted in a cold voice. "But after everything you've done tonight, you'll probably meet a lot of them soon. In Azkaban."
He turned around, about to walk away from him but Fisher surprised them when he suddenly burst out into loud, hysterical laughter. When Draco stiffened and turned around to glare at him, Fisher began reaching for something in his pocket.
"Oh no no no, Malfoy. We're not finished yet. You may have beaten me, but I know exactly who I can ask for help to fight back against a Death Eater like you."
Draco squinted in the darkness; and he paled in realization when he recognized the three white feathers Fisher was holding in his hand.
"Let's see...If I'm not mistaken, it should be three for three right?" Fisher scurried away from Blaise before he could grab the feathers and hastily yanked the sleeves back along his arm. "Do you hear me right now, Aria?! Help me! I want you to kill Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zabini, and Pansy Parkinson! Ceri-hi an nin, Sŷlleiníea!"
The three feathers burst into bright green flames. Fisher slumped back down onto his back, exhausted, and not ten seconds later, Draco heard the soft, ruffling of the leaves along one of the tree branches above their heads, followed by the sound of a wing flapping in the air.
A pair of heeled shoes suddenly dropped down onto the ground behind him with a soft, ominous 'click'.
Draco didn't dare move.
He glanced discreetly to his side, noting that Blaise had raised his hands up in the air in a gesture of surrender while Pansy remained completely still beside him, her eyes wide as she kept glancing nervously at Draco with a panicked look on her face.
Slowly, Draco began to turn around.
He lifted his gaze off the ground and blinked as he found himself staring into a familiar pair of green eyes. This time, however, there was none of the usual warmth or playfulness in them that he had grown used to over the last few months. Instead, the eyes he found himself staring into were blank and lifeless, and the sight of them made Draco's blood run cold.
Aria glared back menacingly at him, and she raised her hand, hovering it directly in front of Draco's chest until a wave of powerful magic exploded from her palm, blasting Draco, Blaise and Pansy backwards in three separate directions.
As they stumbled onto the ground, thick large vines suddenly sprang out from the dirt underneath Blaise and Draco. The vines coiled themselves tightly around their ankles at first, before crawling up their legs and wrapping around their torso, pinning them on their backs and completely incapacitating them from all movement. Aria made a gesture with her hand and the vines crawled up even higher, twisting themselves very tightly around Blaise and Draco's necks. They gasped for air and struggled desperately to break free.
"Hey, Aria! Come on, babe! You like me, r—remember?!" Blaise choked out, wincing in pain and trying to twist himself away. "I thought we were good friends by now!"
"Aria, stop it!" Draco began coughing.
Somewhere in the background, they heard the sound of Fisher's loud, maniacal laughter.
"Potter, stop! You'll kill them!"
Aria's cold green eyes glinted as they flicked over to where Pansy was sprawled out on the ground a few feet in front of where she stood. Pansy stiffened at Aria's vacant stare and began crawling away, digging frantically for something inside her purse. Before she could find whatever it was she was looking for, Pansy screamed as she was yanked forward through the air, her feet dangling above the ground as she flew straight into Aria's outstretched hand.
As Aria's sharp, veela claws closed tightly around her throat, Pansy wheezed for breath and she struggled desperately to break free. In spite of Pansy's efforts, Aria just lifted her up and slammed her violently against the trunk of the tall tree behind her.
"P—please, Aria! I...can't...breathe..."
Draco and Blaise both watched in horror as Pansy's face turned purple and her eyes began to roll to the back of her head.
"Relashio!"
Aria let out a pained hiss and released her grip on Pansy's neck.
Gasping, Pansy fell to the ground and scrambled away. She looked up and watched as Aria turned around slowly, sneering at the person standing behind her.
"Get away from her, Pans." Neville flicked his worried gaze briefly to the girl on the ground before he glanced back at Aria and pointed his wand at her, positioning himself into a defensive dueling stance. "I don't want to fight you, Aria. But I will if I have to. So just back away."
Instead of answering, Aria summoned her wand from its holster.
Then, her lips tugged upwards into a smirk as she stepped in front of Neville and expertly readied herself into an offensive dueling stance that matched his. No other words were spoken as the two former Gryffindors immediately snapped into action, slashing the air and firing and exchanging offensive spells at each other back and forth.
As Aria and Neville dueled, Draco shared a brief look with Blaise beside him and they both glanced at Pansy, watching in confusion as she resumed her search through her purse. After a few minutes, just as Aria managed to offset Neville's attempts to disarm her with a powerful stunning spell, Pansy let out a triumphant cry. She yanked something out of her purse and ran towards Blaise and Draco.
After cutting both boys loose from the vines, she pulled Draco to his feet and shoved a white feather into his hand.
"Use this! Make her snap out of it!"
"What—Pansy! Where did you even get this?!" Draco demanded, holding the feather up in disbelief.
"Do you really want me to get into that now?! Just use it and make her stop!" Pansy snapped.
Draco hesitated for a split second, before he held the feather up into the air and spoke out loud. "You will cease carrying out your previous instructions immediately! Ceri-hi an nin, Sŷlleiníea!"
As soon as the feather disintegrated in Draco's fingers, Aria gasped in pain and collapsed weakly onto her knees beside Neville's unconscious form. She let out an exhausted sob and folded her bloodied wings over her face, curling herself up into a tiny ball on the ground.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—oh god! I could have killed you all, I'm so sorry!"
Draco frowned and moved towards her, but when he passed by Fisher's bleeding, half-conscious form on the ground, the vampire glared hatefully up at him. He wiped the blood from his lips and gave him another mocking smile before reaching into the pocket of his coat.
"Fortunately, I saved one last feather just for you, Malfoy."
"Stop it! Can't you see that she's had enough?!" Draco's eyes flashed and he tried to grab Fisher to stop him but Fisher quickly twisted away from him and screamed out his next words.
"Kill Draco Malfoy. Ceri-hi an nin, Sŷlleiníea!"
Aria's red-rimmed eyes widened in horror as the feather burst into flames.
"No!"
Despite her screams, Aria's entire form was jerked upwards, as though propelled by some kind of invisible force, until she was back up on her feet. Draco paled and took a step back, watching as the expression on her face shuttered and her gaze became empty once more. She twitched her fingers and summoned her wand back to her hand before slowly turning her attention to him.
"Aria, listen to me—"
Draco barely managed to put up a shield around himself before Aria hurled a gigantic blast of fire at his face.
"—I know you can hear me. You don't want to do this—"
A stinging hex shattered through his shield and he hastily flung his wand upwards to deflect it.
"Aria, stop it!"
"You're wasting your breath, Malfoy." Fisher mocked as he sat up and watched them duel with a satisfied smirk on his face. "No veela can break the Feather Curse. Not even Harriah Potter."
Draco hissed when one of Aria's severing spells managed to break through his defenses and sliced a deep gash on his arm. She immediately followed up with an upward slash of her wand, forcing Draco to retaliate by pointing his wand at her and casting a counter spell to deflect her magic. It proved to be a mistake, however, because the beams from their wands connected and Draco gasped as the force of her magic nearly knocked him over. He winced and gripped his wand with both hands, grunting with exertion as he struggled to push her magic away. Aria lashed out with a very powerful shockwave that shattered their connection instantly and sent Draco hurtling to the ground.
He saw Blaise and Pansy attempt to move forward to help him but they stopped when Aria raised her wand and made a spiraling motion in the air above her head. A wall of large blue flames suddenly erupted from the ground, circling around them and isolating Aria and Draco away from the others.
Wincing in pain, Draco pointed his wand at her again and tried to stun her but Aria just raised her hand, disarming him and summoning his wand into her palm. He watched in horror as her clawed fingers tightened around his wand, snapping it in half before she tossed the pieces to the ground by her feet.
Draco heard Pansy and Blaise's panicked shouts when Aria finally reached him and bent down, pointing her wand directly over his heart.
He didn't fight back anymore.
He lifted his gaze and stared directly into Aria's wide eyes, and he noticed for the first time that they weren't blank anymore. Unlike the vacant expression Draco had seen on her face when Bentley had first cast the Feather Curse, Aria's eyes looked crazed —as though a distinct, completely separate part of her mind was trying desperately to break free.
Draco hadn't noticed it at first, as he had been too far away from her to see her face properly, but he saw it now.
She suddenly let out a sharp, pained cry; and Draco felt the wand she had pointed at his chest being pulled away.
He looked up and watched as Aria clutched at her head with her hands and fell weakly to her knees in front of him. With a manic, deranged look in her eyes, she yanked the gloves off her hands and reached both of them up to cup his face.
Her eyes glowed; and she had to force her next words out in a harsh, raspy whisper.
"Im mel cin, Im bui- cin, Im cil- cin!"
Draco felt an oddly comforting warmth building in his core.
The warmth grew stronger and stronger; until it radiated into a bright, yellowish glow that erupted from his chest and spread out over the rest of his body. When the glow finally faded away, Draco realized what Aria had done, and his heart stopped. He looked down, staring at the veelish symbols of Aria's veela name that began magically inscribing themselves along the back of his wrist.
Aria's strangled gasp of relief sounded heavy with exhaustion as she finally pulled her hands away from his face and collapsed in front of him, both of her shoulders heaving for breath. As she fell, the blue flames that had been surrounding them vanished, and Draco blinked rapidly a couple of times as he stared at her, noting that she no longer appeared to be under the Feather Curse's control.
"No! What just happened?! I ordered you to kill him! Why did you stop?!" Fisher blurted out as he staggered over towards them. "Why are you just sitting there?! You were supposed to do as I said!"
"It won't work anymore." Pansy spoke up from where she was trying to rouse Neville's unconscious form awake on her lap. She gave Fisher a mocking sneer. "She obviously broke the curse."
"What do you mean she broke through it?! That's impossible!" Fisher raged at her.
"No, it's not." Blaise's eyes were wide as he flicked his gaze back and forth between Aria and Draco with a look of genuine amazement on his face. "You ordered her to kill Draco, and so she made him her mate. And everyone knows—a veela cannot harm her mate."
Draco shifted his stunned gaze back to Aria's crouched figure.
"No! No, that can't be! That's not possible, she couldn't have! Aria was supposed to mate with me, not him! She couldn't—"
Fisher's shouts of denial ended up as a terrified scream when Aria suddenly spun around and lunged at him. He staggered backwards, too weak from his blood loss to use any more of his vampire powers. He tried to run away from her, but she pointed her wand at him, sending thin cords out from the tip that wrapped themselves tightly around Fisher's ankles and caused him to stumble.
As he growled and reached down to untie himself from the binds, Aria conjured up another wall of blue flames. The flames circled slowly around them, separating them from the others and preventing Fisher from running away. She made a motion with her hand, causing the flames to grow even higher and close in dangerously around them.
When he realized he was trapped, Fisher swallowed nervously and turned around to face Aria. She hissed at him, and her veela features morphed into an ugly, cruel-beaked snarl as she tackled him to the ground. He struggled against her, but Aria pinned his hand above his head, tearing off his sleeve and exposing her veela name tattooed on his forearm.
She sneered and pressed her palm down onto the tattoo; causing Fisher to scream and howl in pain as she began burning the symbols right off his skin. He thrashed wildly and tried to push her off; but Aria let out a bird-like screech and raised her other hand, swiping at his face with her claws and leaving three, painful-looking gashes across his cheek.
Draco continued to watch the violent scene unfold in front of him from a few feet away; and he frowned when he saw the strange expression on Aria's face.
She looked murderous.
And it was making him feel very uneasy.
Ignoring the confused look Blaise gave him, he snatched the other boy's wand and held it up in the air, wordlessly summoning something from the bottom of his trunk all the way back in the dungeons. He knew it would take a while before the summoned item would reach them, so Draco reluctantly turned his attention back to Aria.
He watched anxiously as she and Fisher continued to wrestle and grapple with each other; until Fisher finally grabbed at Aria's injured wing, causing her to cry out in pain. Fisher used her distraction to pin her against a tree and lift her up into the air. She hissed at him but strangely, she didn't pull away when Fisher bared his fangs and leaned his face closer towards her. He lifted Aria closer against him and bent down, sinking his fangs into her neck.
"No! Aria!"
Draco actually considered running through the flames to help her but Blaise grabbed him by the elbow to hold him back.
For a while, the look on Fisher's face was almost gleeful as he drank greedily from her; but then, after a few seconds, his eyes widened in realization and he immediately jerked away from Aria as though he'd been burned.
"J—Juniper!" He gasped loudly and bent over, trying to retch all of the blood he drank onto the ground. "You poisoned me! When—how?!"
"They weren't that hard to find." Aria smirked as she straightened back up and loomed over him, twirling her wand around in her hand. "Did you really think that I would let you take advantage of me again? You must think way too highly of yourself." She growled.
Fisher couldn't answer.
The effect of the Juniper berries must have already gotten into his system, because his arms, legs, and even his facial muscles had already begun to stiffen; and his skin had already darkened into a dull, ugly gray. When Aria stopped directly in front of him, the only parts Fisher seemed to be capable of moving were his eyes.
"Any last words?" She mocked.
By then, the item Draco had summoned from the castle finally began floating its way towards him and he reached for it, snatching it from the air.
"I suppose not."
Aria's expression grew dark, and she raised her wand, pointing its tip right against the middle of Fisher's forehead. She spoke her next words at the exact same time Draco raised the feather in his hand and shouted loudly enough for her to hear him.
"Avada Kedav—"
"I order you not to kill him! Ceri-hi an nin, Sŷlleiníea!"
Aria's eyes narrowed and she whirled around to glare at Draco in stunned outrage. As the feather burned away in Draco's hand, Aria blinked a couple of times and stared back helplessly at him with a dazed look on her face. The circle of blue flames around her and Fisher vanished as Aria's wand fell limply from her fingers.
Her wings sagged as she dropped down to her knees and gave Draco one last, pained smile.
"I'm sorry."
Aria's bloodshot eyes rolled to the back of her head and she collapsed in a dead, exhausted faint on the ground.
Notes: A few things:
1. I'm so sorry this update took so long. I was actually supposed to update a week ago, but my laptop went all wonky just as I was in the middle of editing this chapter. I actually had to go back to the very first draft I wrote and I had to re-do all my edits from memory. It usually takes me a week to edit, so...yeah.
2. Not sure if it came across the way I wanted, but yes, Draco has PTSD from the fiendfyre incident. So for him to step directly into it is a very big thing.
3. Yes, I know fiendfyre basically destroys everything in its path and that it can supposedly only be stopped by its caster (yada, yada) but for purposes of this story, let's just assume otherwise.
Anyway, thanks for being so patient with me! We're almost done with this story (just 2 more chapters and 1 epilogue) so yay! :D