The next morning I was woken up at six am by Ronald jabbing me mercilessly with his crooked wand. It was diving into my ribs painfully and I sat bolt right up to stare in shock at the intruder to my personal quarters. I had become accustomed to being spoiled enough to not have to share a room, but unfortunately I still did not have a lock on the door. "Get up, we're leaving in fifteen minutes," he grumbled.

I quickly changed into a dark blue dress and long black cloak, making sure to remove the Malfoy crest that was over the left shoulder first. I put on tall boots and grabbed a satchel that I could carry books in and any items collected, if that were even the type of trip it would be.

Downstairs, Harry and Ginny had already made food to bring and were bickering in light voices as they shoved prepared goods into backpacks. Ron stood towards the window leading onto the front porch with his forehead pressed against the glass. As I emerged down the stairs, I noticed his eyes were closed and wondered if he were trying to sneak in extra minutes of sleep while the other two argued behind him.

"Well, we've tried taking everyone else Ginny. At least let's rule her out. We need a new pair of eyes on this situation and you know that," Harry was trying to speak in a hushed tone as he leaned close to Ginny, but I picked up on every word. I put my hands down on the table when I reached them, and Ginny didn't hesitate to grab the shackles she'd placed there. She snapped them on and closed them very tightly on my wrists, making sure to tug and move aggressively as she did so. Then we were heading out the porch door and through the tulips, Ron sluggishly trailing behind.

Harry was the one to disapparate us. We reappeared on a forested trail that was ripe with the budding greenery of late April. I stepped in circles taking in the wide and long trail that disappeared around a bend into more woods. Old leaves were still fighting to form a mat on the ground below us, letting off tiny crunches under our boots.

Ginny rolled her eyes at my interest in our surroundings and just started marching off down the trail, Ron not far behind. I walked with Harry as he showed me the entire map and pointed to a hut that we were going to start near first and work around the perimeter with as many diagnostic spells as possible. The castle looked massive on the map and I found myself furrowing my brows in deep concentration, but it was literally impossible to memorize it so early on. So I just nodded and let him rant on about what methods they had been using on prior visits.

Six excruciating hours went by as we painstakingly circled the castle wards, waving wands over the shimmering protective surface as we went. I had been tasked with taking notes of diagnostics, but it didn't seem like the team had managed to research the right magic to do it. Nothing noteworthy about the castle ward spell was coming up and I felt ridiculous jogging things down that Ginny barked back at me.

When we'd stopped for lunch Ron's mood had dangerously dropped. He'd stepped into a puddle of mud earlier and his shoe was completely dark and damp from the sludge. Above us, dark rain clouds were beginning to form and the distant threat of thunder lingered in our ears. We'd stopped nearby a massive lake, sat under an elderly tree with an impressive trunk diameter. "We're no farther ahead than we were last month. This is a waste of time, Harry," he whined with half of a sandwich jammed into his mouth.

I shivered and looked around us nervously. I had a bad feeling in my gut that I couldn't explain.

"There's no other way to get past the wards Ron except for figure out the spell used to cast them. We don't have any teachers left to help us, we have no other option," Harry said in a high-pitched, frustrated tone.

I stared intently at the ground before I realized he was wrong, "Dere...dere is another way in." The wind from the lake blew my hair back from my face and I noticed all three had stopped eating intently. I cleared my throat, "If you are a Death Eater, dat is."

Ron spat food out of his mouth in an obnoxious growl, "Brilliant. Harry - did you wanna go first or should I to ask for our Death Eater mark?" His sarcasm cut my confidence apart before I'd had a chance to finish.

I twisted the metal bars around my wrists, feeling embarrassed but determined, "If we could convince or, manipulate a Death Eater to 'elp us, we could get disapparated right inside." I chewed on my lip as I continued to look downwards.

Harry seemed to read my mind, "IF we could pull that off, it certainly wouldn't be with the help of Malfoy. If that's what you were implying."

I shrugged as Ginny groaned dramatically beside me, "Not necessarily. 'e would only be one option. If you can think of anyone else..." I pulled my hood up around my head as a shiver ran down my spine. Loud thunder began to split the calm of the sky in half, now audibly approaching. Harry stood to clean up the remnants of lunch and then we were continuing on around the edge to Ron's dismay.

"We should go back now, Harry. It's about to rain like the dickens out here!" He was scribbling absolutely terrible notes on what Harry was diagnosing, and I couldn't help but notice at least five spelling errors on the page he was currently filling at a lopsided angle. It was chilly and foreboding, I had to agree with him.

We'd moved on for another thirty minutes despite the impending storm, when a horrid crack of lightning nearly struck Ron who was the farthest into open space.

"Blimey!" he yelled in sheer panic as we all turned, only to find a gruesome looking woman with feet of black, messy ringlets standing not ten meters from Ron. She had a filthy grin of blackened teeth and a gleam of absolute evil in her dark eyes. Behind her both Draco and another man that looked more like a hairy animal had appeared with their wands out. Everyone on our side also had their wands out in split seconds, and for a brief few moments the only sound was the gale of the harsh wind whipping through the landscape.

My heart felt like it was on fire as I locked desperate eyes with Draco. His gaze wandered to my wrists which were shackled with the heavy metal.

"Well, well, what have we here?" The woman quirked in a melodic and disturbing tone, "If it isn't baby Potter, come to return for his graduation reunion so soon?" I pressed myself partially behind Ron to defend myself.

Harry squeezed his wand tightly where he stood not two feet from me. I could see the gears in his mind turning as he tried to contemplate how to get us out of there.

"Draco!" She suddenly roared offensively, not bothering to turn her head around, "Is this who I think it is?" Her big, terrifying eyes darted over my face with a psychopathic stare. Then she belted out laughing hysterically and the hairy man with them began grunting in entertainment as well. Draco's eyes moved between them headily and he winced. I knew he was filled with fear that they would blow my cover, both of them already knowing full well that I had been placed with The Order as a spy.

The woman took another step forward, twisting her wand delicately against her pale throat while licking her rotting upper teeth. "She's done a good j-" Before she could finish blurting out that I had succeeded in doing anything less than innocent, Draco decided to fire a shot at Harry, missing him by a full foot as the dirt next to Harry's foot exploded chaotically.

All hell broke loose as magical spells filled the air in every direction. I was completely helpless to defend myself with the shackles on and I fell to the ground on my knees to try and crawl out of the miniature battle. Smoke started to burn at my lungs from shots that were just barely missing me. I couldn't see very much, just a variety of colors hitting objects around me. A distinct green color was coming out of the horrible woman's wand as she tried to take down Ginny permanently, who rotated behind a nearby boulder to hide. They moved far enough away from us that it became impossible to make out what was happening there, save for the maniacal laughing of the Death Eater woman.

I reached another boulder and stood up against it with my chest heaving dangerously from panic. I reached into my satchel to pull out the large knife I'd brought with me just in time for the extremely hairy man to crawl over the top of the boulder, actively growling and snarling like a wolf. I stepped back several feet into the smoke around me with wide eyes, holding the knife forward, not even close to certain that I could wield it effectively. My hand shook with unsteadiness and my breathing was coming out in short, inconvenient bursts.

Ron and Harry were both preoccupied with Draco. All three were diving behind landscape features such as trees and rocks, shooting almost aimlessly at each other.

The man leapt from the rock and I noticed far too late that he greatly outnumbered me with blades. His fingernails were all talons. He dug them into my shoulders viciously and pinned me to the ground, completely ignoring the knife which had dug itself between two of his ribs. A large glob of slobber barely missed my hair which had fanned out around me in the impact as I looked up into his maleficent, dark-blue eyes.

I could feel the wetness of blood soaking into my dress where he was sinking his claws deep into my skin, all the while laughing a dark and telling chuckle. I cried a high pitched shriek as he pushed me down into the mud and shut my eyes harshly, hoping he would at least make it quick. He reached up an arm and slashed my side deeply and I shouted in paralyzing anguish.

Then just before he could repeat the act I felt him fling off of me several meters away. I turned my watery eyes to see that Draco had stepped out from where he'd been hiding to blast the monstrous hybrid man against a boulder, effectively rendering him unconscious.

I'd barely had a moment to partially sit up before Draco collapsed in front of me, going down by his knees screaming and writhing in agony. His fingers bent at horrible angles over his hair as he curled into a ball and screamed so loudly it felt like my ear drums were being pierced. It was the cruciatus curse - every second would feel like decades.

Ron appeared through the dissipating smoke with a satisfied, pitiless smirk on his face as he pointed his wand straight down at Draco. Harry rushed to Draco's side and snatched up his wand, stuffing it in his back pocket. "I'm going to check on Ginny, hang on!" He shouted and took off around the enormous boulder she'd disappeared behind earlier.

I felt weak as I tried to push myself up, but I was actively losing too much blood to even see straight. My heart rate felt extremely rapid and haphazard. I reached towards Draco trying to beg Ron to stop. His cries were filling the air with such desperation I couldn't help but start immediately choking with tears.

"Stop...stop..." I begged in a child's voice, but my words were croaked and inaudible and it felt like I was miles away from the scene instead of only a few meters.

"That's what you get for killing Hermione!" Ron was cursing down at Draco, clearly enjoying the torment of the other boy. He kicked him in his ribs with deep hatred as though it would even register over the immense pain of the unforgivable curse that he was casting.

My fingers danced on Ron's ankles as I fought to crawl to him and he finally looked down at me long enough to contemplate that I was bleeding to death. "Stop, please," I barely breathed out with pleading eyes. He eventually broke the curse on Draco, but it had already been nearly five entire minutes. Draco's body continued to convulse violently at Ron's feet as he sobbed through continuous misery, his fingers now almost ripping his own hair out.

Ron pushed me onto my back with shaky hands, ignoring Draco behind him. His eyes wandered helplessly over my soaked frame as I coughed on blood, "Help!" He cried out pointlessly, as though Harry or Ginny wouldn't already be doing so if they could be. He whimpered and pointed his wand at the huge gash in my side, but cast nothing, "I-I don't know how to heal. I don't-help! Help!" He called again in a shaky voice.

The heavy taste of iron lingered in my mouth as I stared up at the dark sky above us. It was hardly one in the afternoon but the clouds were so heavy with rain that it looked closer to dusk. Little droplets of water were hitting my skin as I fought to keep my eyes open. Ron was gravely attempting to press my cloak against my wounds to slow the spread of the hot, pooling blood.

Several agonizing minutes passed by as Ron panicked beside me and Draco's cries slowly lessened in volume. The thunder above us bellowed, cautioning the landscape of the impending storm above.

"Don't die, don't die, please," Ron whined through the thin slits that his eyes had narrowed to. He pressed my bunched up cloak onto my side harder and I cried in pain again, this time less than before. I already could hardly feel my fingers and toes and my breathing had completely transformed to a reckless gasping.

I could hear Draco moaning, trying to push up onto his hands, "Weasley...Madeleine... is-is she hurt..."

Ron's voice came out hot and strained, "Oh shut the fuck up you prick! You're lucky I don't fucking kill you right here right now!" I cried out in protest at the argument and squeezed Ron's hand that was holding my cloak in place over the wound.

"Go...find...'arry," I said, blinking up at what was left of his face in my black and white vision. I dug my hand under his to hold the cloak loosely.

He stood, "I'll be right back." Then he was gone, feet pounding away at breakneck speed over the wet terrain. I laid there, fighting to control my heart rate which now felt like a dim rhythm in my chest.

The faintest notion of heat on my fingers gave away that Draco had managed to crawl to me. He was still shaking vigorously from the cruciatus curse, miraculously up on his knees over me. He pushed my hair out of my face as he wept over me, his eyes scanning the damage, "Fuck! I can't do anything, they took my wand." He was wrenching in deep breaths of panic and agony, trying to bunch his own cloak up against me to replace my soaked one through trembling hands. He started digging frantically through my satchel for my wand, which I hadn't brought with me considering it would've been useless with the metal cuffs.

I was suddenly overwhelmed by a deep feeling of relaxation as I blinked up at him. It would be alright. "Draco," I managed to gasp, then coughed on more blood.

"Just hold on," he was saying but it was now an echo in my head. I closed my eyes as the rain pattered down onto my cheeks peacefully. Then he was shaking my face by my jaw, "Don't close your eyes! Don't give up!" he instructed, but when I opened my eyes it was almost as dark as when they were shut.

"Get back! Get back Malfoy!" I heard Harry shout as he came from the direction where they had all gone to fight against the awful woman.

"I won't leave her, she's dying you idiot," Draco snarled.

'We're taking her back, she doesn't have much time. Get out of the way," Harry demanded darkly.

I heard Draco growling in defeat, wandless magic or not, he couldn't take on three people with wands in his face and I was dying quickly, "Don't obliviate her again."

A pause, only for a second, "And why shouldn't I? She doesn't deserve this. Any of this."

Draco exhaled heavily, pulling his fingers through my hair, "Fine. You want a fucking deal? I'll get you into the castle."

Harry didn't waste a second making up his mind, "Alright. You do that, when we're ready, and you have a deal. I won't obliviate her. If she even lives. Now back up you coward."

I felt my hand tug outwards as Draco pulled us apart and backed away. A shuffle as multiple pairs of shoes surrounded me.

"Can she disapparate in this condition?" Ginny asked uneasily.

"It's that or nothing," Harry grimly replied. I felt his hand grip my arm tightly and then I blacked out.