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Chapter warnings: References to canon violence and mild sexual content

3. Not from the Stars Do I My Judgement Pluck

The air is dank, suffused with the tang of magic and the stench of burnt flesh. Draco grips his wand tightly, peering into the fog. He can't see anything. But he can hear everything. The shrill screeches of spells. The crunch of bones. The wet squelch of blood rushing from fatal wounds.

He digs his nails into his palm and tries to see through the slits of his Death Eater mask. The thing is a menace to his eyesight and right now he's truly as blind as a bat. He wants to rip the thing from his head, but knows his hair is too distinctive. The Order would have him in their sights within seconds. And as much as he hopes they would simply take him alive, he knows better than to make that gamble. If he were sure of survival, he would have unmasked himself ages ago.

Draco is fairly sure that's more evidence that he's a spineless coward, but if cowards live to see another day, he really doesn't care.

He crouches further down as a blue spell jets just above his head. He should fire back, but he doesn't. He's used maybe a handful of curses in the battles he's fought and only when he has no choice. It's not that he's trying to help the Order, but he finds the entire thing nauseating.

He is perfectly capable of killing. He has executed more prisoners that he cares to remember. But that was in front of the Dark Lord. There was no choice. It was simply give death or receive death. He will always choose to survive and he will never apologize for it.

But here he has a choice. He can cover his hands in blood or he can hide. So he pretends he is fighting for the monsters he calls family, but spends his battles ducking behind bushes and crawling through mud. It's utterly undignified, but he lost his dignity a long time ago. Perhaps he never had any.

The mossy loam squelches underneath him as he rolls away from the latest attack. In the distance he hears his aunt rallying the Death Eaters to her cause, spitting madness and poison as she advances. He knows she is looking for him. He knows she is always disappointed not to find him at the head of the ranks. But she never mentions it, never calls out his cowardice. He supposes that's the advantage of family. She may abhor him for his weakness, but she will not openly punish him.

There's a soft curse behind Draco and he spins, breath catching in his throat as he finds himself face to face with Harry Potter. Potter stares back, equally shocked.

Draco's pulse is thunder. This is his chance. This is the moment he can fling himself at Potter's feet and beg for salvation. But he can't force his limbs to move, can't find his voice to utter any such plea.

Potter growls and raises his wand. Draco's heart spasms in his chest. He has to do something. He has to act before Potter kills him.

"She's alive," he blurts. Potter freezes, wand halfway between the ground and Draco's chest. "Hermione. She's alive."

The Boy Who Lived crosses the distance between them in a heartbeat. He rips away Draco's mask, dropping it unceremoniously to the mud below. The brunette glares at him, lip curling in disgust. "And why in the world would I believe you, Malfoy?"

Draco holds his stare, trying not to notice how luminous Potter's emerald eyes appear. Their breath intermingles, rage and terror colliding before fading into the gray fog of battle. "What reason do I have to lie to you?"

The other boy's hand tangles in Draco's robes, pulling him impossibly closer. "You had better not be jerking me around, Malfoy."

Potter is far too close. Draco can feel his breath warming his cheek, the frantic beat of his heart matching the unsteady gallop of Draco's own pulse where their chests press together. Draco wants it all to stop.

He wonders what Potter's mouth would feel like on his skin.

The thought is too much. He stumbles back, gasping for breath. He looks anywhere but Potter. He slams a door shut in his head, the one he's kept locked for as long as he can remember. Then he takes a deep breath, then another. His expression is distant, even disdainful when he focuses on the brunette again.

"I'm not lying." His voice is different now, full of his trademark arrogance. The voice of skilled Death Eater, not a cowardly boy. "They've tortured her, but they still feed her, keep her alive, just for you."

"For me?" Emerald eyes flash with confusion.

"You're predictable, Potter," Draco drawls. "The Dark Lord plans to use her to get to you. You find out where she is, swoop in to rescue her and voila, he has what he's wanted this whole time. You."

Potter's eyes narrow and he takes a step forward. It takes everything in Draco not to retreat. "Why in the blazes are you telling me this, Malfoy?"

Draco sighs and runs a hand through his hair, sure he's leaving streaks of grime through the platinum strands. "Because I don't want the bastard to win, you git."

"How do I know I can trust you?"

Draco shrugs, careless, despite the thundering herd of hippogriffs that is his heartbeat. "You don't. But I haven't tried to kill you yet, have I?"

The other boy eyes the wand dangling at Draco's side for a long moment. "Fine. Say I believe you. Where is she?"

"No."

"No?"

"I'm not telling you that."

Potter closes the distance between them until Draco's skin prickles for all the wrong reasons. He refuses to meet those enchanting emerald eyes. He stares at the scar on Potter's forehead instead.

"Why bloody not?"

"Because I want you alive." He wants a lot of other things, but he's not about to think about that. Potter sputters, but Draco continues. "I can find a way to get her out." It's a bold-faced lie, but he hopes Potter is desperate enough not to care.

The brunette studies him a long moment. Then he holds out his free hand. "Give me your hand."

Draco cautiously lifts his left hand. Potter grabs it and yanks him forward. Their chests smash together briefly before Draco feels the cold press of metal in his hand. He glances down and sees a coin.

"It's charmed to alert its pair when you write on the back." Potter mutters a spell under his breath and suddenly a gash etches across Draco's palm. The brunette closes his hand around Draco's smashing their fingers around the coin and smearing blood across the bronze. "It's keyed to only respond to your blood now."

Potter keeps their hands clenched around the cool metal as he brings his mouth to hover over Draco's ear. "If I find you're lying, Malfoy, about any of it, I will end you myself. Is that clear?"

Draco doesn't trust himself to speak. So he nods, throat bobbing with terror and something he refuses to acknowledge.

"Get her out."

It isn't a request. It's a demand. A demand he is powerless to heed. But he needs to get out of here alive and Potter will kill him if he senses even the slightest hesitation. So he forces his voice out of his trembling body.

"I'll let you know."

Potter squeezes his hand around the coin until the metal digs in so sharply he can't help the whimper of distress that escapes his lips. "Do not betray me, Malfoy."

Draco looks him straight in the eye and lies. "I won't."

The other boy holds his stare for so long Draco is sure he can see the truth written across Draco's every feature. But then Potter lets go. "Get out of my sight."

Draco glares for a beat longer, refusing to be cowed, before obliging and retreating into the charged mist. As soon as Potter's emerald eyes disappear into the grey fog, Draco stumbles backward. He keeps moving, tripping over his own feet until he collapses at the base of a sturdy tree. Only then does he let the shudders overtake his frame, the panic he'd held at bay consuming him.

He hates that he told Potter about Granger. Hates even more that he doesn't regret it. But most of all he hates the way Potter made him feel. He covers his face with his hands and pretends his cheeks aren't streaked with tears as he collapses boneless against the rough bark.

~*~ Before ~*~

The stars are so bright she has no trouble imagining them as suns, burning sources of radiation giving life to all those within reach. Hermione wonders how many other worlds exist in the depths of those cosmos and how many of them have magic. She wishes she could fly, not on a broomstick, but with her own will and magic alone. Then she would tear through the solar system, then the galaxy, and finally the universe. She would have all the answers and all the questions.

She sighs and settles deeper into Harry's embrace. She feels his lips turn upward against the skin of her forehead. "What are you thinking about?"

The forest is quiet around them, but not too quiet. Pine needles rustle in the light breeze and in the distance an owl hoots. She knows they are not safe here, but the wards are strong and she and Harry have such little time to talk of idle things. So she tells the truth.

"I want to fly among the stars."

Hermione expects him to laugh. He doesn't. He shifts until he can capture her with his emerald stare. His heart beats steadily beneath her fingers splayed across his jumper as he replies, "where would you go first?"

Her chest squeezes so tightly it aches, like the weight of the universe is descending to consume her with joy. She sometimes can't believe he is hers. Can't believe his lips worship her skin, his eyes promising everything she can imagine and so much she can't. She doesn't remember the dull life that existed before he tore down her walls and demanded her surrender. She knows she enjoyed books and lessons, but she also knows she was just going through the motions.

How is it that she knew Harry for so long and yet never understood what they could be together? How many more hues of the world she'd experience with him beside her? Hermione stifles a snort. She may have been the brightest witch of her age, but she'd been awfully dense when it came to boys.

Harry traces a finger across her jaw, leaving sparkling nerves in his wake. She remembers he asked her a question.

"I think I'd like to see Pluto first. It's not so far away and it's so small, but I'd like to know what it's like at the edge of the solar system. But then, then I'd like to go Sirius. I'd like to see all three of the stars and…" she trails off, meeting Harry's laden stare with equal emotion. "And it seems a fitting tribute for him, for all he did for you and all of us."

Harry's lips are hot on hers, full of so much more than desire. She lets herself fall into the abyss of his touch, lets him melt away her jagged edges until she is smooth and whole. His skin is like satin beneath her finger tips as she explores, his breathy moans like a symphony written only for her. She can never get enough, can never sate the hunger that prowls through the depths of her soul. He is more than touch and friction and desire; he is home and peace and love. He is everything impossible in the universe distilled down to something tangible and real. She clings to him like he is her last gasp of oxygen in the depths of space, like she will cease to exist if he does not fill her completely.

Afterward, when their carnal needs no longer cry for satisfaction, their exhales lace together like ribbons of smoke against the sea of stars. Hermione isn't cold despite the chill autumn air that fans their smokey breaths. She thinks she will never be cold again.

Harry pulls a blanket from the chair above them, cocooning them in warmth. He presses a soft kiss to her brow before propping himself up on an elbow. The stars dance through his raven locks like snow upon rough seas.

"We need to talk about Ron."

Hermione looks away. No they don't. But they do and she knows it.

"I had no idea he still felt that way about me."

She knows Harry is nodding, even if she can't see him. "I know. I thought that his relationship with Lavender was real. I had no idea he was still waiting for you either. I would never have—"

He cuts off because they both know that isn't true. Harry was relentless in his pursuit of her and knowing Ron's feelings might have altered his course, but never his destination.

"He didn't deserve to find out that way," he tries again. She can hear the exhaustion in his voice now, the toll of their months on the run. "From the bloody Horcrux."

"I know." And she does know. For a moment she'd even wanted to deny it when Ron and come back to their camp simmering with an anger she had never seen before, untarnished locket in hand. But what lay between her and Harry was not something to deny.

"He's my best friend, Hermione," Harry murmurs softly. "And he's out on his own right now. In the middle of a manhunt for me and everyone I know. I can't forget about that, no matter how much of a git he was to both of us."

She bites her lip until it bleeds, but she says the words he needs to hear. "We'll look for him in the morning."

"I couldn't live with myself if anything happens to him," Harry murmurs against the bird's nest of her hair.

Hermione knows that. But she couldn't live with herself if anything happens to Harry. He is important to the world—Boy Who Lived and all—but he is essential to her. She hates the thought of Ron on his own, but walking into Death Eater territory on a hunch doesn't seem right either. They'll be risking everything and if anything goes wrong, she knows the consequences will be dire.

But she lifts her lips to meet Harry's in a soft caress and whispers, "I know," into the starry night.