I Love(d) You (Once)

Chapter Thirty-three : Taken

To claim the treasure, you had to venture into the mouth of the tiger, thought Hermione as she placed the pocket-mirror (charmed to be a Port-key which would transport her to a holding-cell) and her wand in the fold of her robes. She noted: Peace of the magical community was the treasure and the mouth of the tiger of was one of the most critically-acclaimed restaurants in London. For a place which was likened to the mouth of a tiger, it low-thrum of jazz music, white table-cloths and bow-tie waiters in all respects seemed deceptively like a low-risk venue.

"I booked it yesterday and kicked up a huge fuss, threw my name everywhere but told everyone to keep it discreet. Naturally, because of this, everyone in the magical community should know we're eating here tonight," said Draco, flicking through his drink menu. "I'm sure our little rodent friend will hear about it."

"Think they'll come out to play in such a public place?"

"It's near impossible to get through the front door but the dining area is situated on the edge of a hundred-acre wood. It's a protected no-take reserve owned by the Ministry. If the rats are affiliated with the big guys, they'll find access through there, easy."

"I love how we instinctively know what villains would do."

"Maybe we should start our own evil organization." He nudged her foot under the table. "I mean, we have the good looks and brains for it."

"Eh." Hermione shook her head and leaned towards the center of the table. "Why bother ruling the world when it is already at our feet?"

"That is true." He leaned in for a kiss. Being with Draco wasn't a star-crossed love affair written by staid Romantic poets. Maybe it would have been ten years ago, back when they were —and the world was— a different.

But now?

The relationship they shared—to Hermione, at least—felt at ease. That was what filled Hermione's heart the most. Their love was not the consummation of two halves; they were whole people on their own.

Hermione leaned back in her chair after the waiter took their orders. Despite knowing that there was possible enemy lurking literally in the back of the woods a few meters behind where she sat, she couldn't help but relax and enjoy the sunlight that hit her face through the gaps of the large silk canopy hanging above their heads.

Whether it was nervousness or just the surmountable portions of each serving, Hermione was starting to feel full—and they hadn't even had dessert yet. She took a sip of water, trying to calm her nerves. At the edge of the forest, a haze rose from the ground and though today had been hot, at this time of the day it wasn't enough to warrant any sort of heat wave. Adrenaline pumped through her body. From the inside of her glass, she could see the pads of her fingers turn white from the pressure of her grip.

The Evil was here, under a disillusionment charm.

Palpitations thundered in Hermione's heart and she tried to keep calm.

"Hermione…" Draco had realized too, and he stared at her with a measured expression that was turbulent, yet willful. This was it.

She leaned forward and brushed her finger tips over his knuckles. She wanted to say something, but no words seemed to fit the situation. So instead, she initiated their plan. "I need to use the bathroom, please excuse me."

Hermione let go of his hand and grabbed her purse with her, before leaving her was it. While she headed off to the bathroom, which was a brisk walk along the forest treeline away, someone from an evil syndicate was going to whisk her away. Once she had lured them out, they would be transported into the holding cell and Draco and Hermione would make them spill their secrets. The purple purse she carried with her contained everything she could possibly need for the mission. But even with all this planning, she could already feel the flood of horror when they grabbed her—…but, when she had reached the bathroom and no one was there to kidnap her. As Hermione confusedly mulled around for a moment, she headed back to their table.

And her apprehension before was nothing compared to what she felt when she found his seat empty. She turned her head to scan the restaurant and even checked under the tables, just in case, for some sick joke he had decided to scare her.

"Draco?" she called. "Where are you?"

As was his habit, he threw up on the ground whenever he Apparated. Vomited his five-star meal. Purging, zero the calories, twice the flavour, he thought grimly to himself, recounting what must've been Pansy's words to one of her insane diets. He was on his all fours, and his heaves echoed through the large warehouse. When he was done, his mouth hung slack and his stomach dropped all the way down to the dusty concrete floor.

"You know what's hilarious?" his abductor—the Evil—asked. Draco could see a pair of leather shoes kicking his wand. It clattered several times before rolling away under a tall metal container. Draco winced. That was going to get a scratch.

For whatever reason, his abductor had taken him to a warehouse, not Hermione. Couldn't the Evil Person read? Now that his head stopped spinning, he'd come to realise the Evil had placed him inside a circle marked by yellow chalk. He patted his pockets and besides his wand and port-key, his wallet and cellphone was confiscated.

"Lovely," Draco spat, enraged at the idea of being beaten by what appeared to be a chalk-prison. He lifted his head higher to see that in front of him was a paper screen, and there was a shadow behind the screen of which there was a small hole where the tip of his wand poked through. Whoever was holding him captive knew of his Legilimency prowess.

The wizard behind his screen whispered a hex and the spell clipped Draco on the shoulder. It sent him flying out of the ring. Pain struck him like a knife. A twisting sensation slashed through his bones and it only subsided when he crawled back into the circle.

"You catch on quickly."

"Hermione Granger, this is what's going to happen to your darling pet if you don't tell me where Dr. Hwang is hiding." He threw Draco backwards once again.

Pain seared and it felt stronger, more intense this time. A high-pitched scream escaped from his throat and blood began to ring in his years. He crawled back into the circle and laid there. Pain was gone for now and he tried to slow his racing heart. But this might be worth it, the Evil had let it slip: "me", it meant he was working alone. "You're sending this memory to her, aren't you?"

"That is correct."

"Don't listen to him!" Draco had to look strong and seem unaffected. Unbreakable. She would hold strong and do what she deemed right, but he was determined he wasn't going to make it hard for her.

"A beautiful solution, isn't it? Instead of cluttering the prisons, people will stay in home detention. There's a charm placed onto the prisoner, which directly shoots impulses to the part of their brains that perceives pain. Hermione Granger, you have fifteen minutes to bring us the blueprints to Dr. Hwang's machine and half an hour to deliver the person," he said and he giggled. The man could've been giggling at comedy show and he collected his tears within a vial.

"No henchmen?" Draco asked, so Hermione could know the Evil was alone in his plans. "I'm surprised you thought up all of this by yourself."

"The old method is best: do your own dirty work. Keeps everything simple and makes sure no one has material to blackmail you with."

"You are a pure-blood then," he said. "Anti-Muggle?"

"Hardly. I'm just interested in preserving Wizarding culture." The wizard laughed.

"How did you manage to access the Head Auror's e-mail?"

"Set her password as her birthday, the idiot!"

He would never again grumble when it was time to change his pass-codes in the company. People's lives and nations fell on the ability to make a good password.

The man behind the screen shrugged his shoulders. "Trying to find out more about me, are you? I would worry more about yourself."

Draco was indeed worrying about himself (as he had a tendency to do) but he also still intended to save the day. Though the Evil man was not in the holding cell—where interrogations could be properly executed, as long as the wizard was there with him, Draco could still find out who he was and what his plans were.

The hex and effects of the curse from stepping out-of-bounds had broken a few of his bones (the ones that had been weakened from being them fixed less than a week ago!) and he breathed in and out, compartmentalizing the pain.

Auto-pilot on.

He saw the necessary steps to achieve success.

Don't over think it, just do it.

He managed to stand up and tested his weight on his non-broken leg. The wizard laughed, "What can you do? I assure you, if you try to break out of this circle, you'll be running into death's embrace."

Draco didn't speak, instead he took a deep breath and prepared himself for the worst time of his life. He leapt out of the circle and barrelled into the screen. He wasn't sure whether he was the one screaming out of pain, or the other man screaming from surprise. A rocket of pain shot up his broken leg as he put his weight onto it.

Draco understood why the Evil Man had failed to fathom such a simple exit out of his devious plan. Draco was a coward and knew the wizard was a coward because he was hiding behind the screen. A coward knew how a coward thought and a coward would have never entertained the idea of jumping into searing pain with his own free will. The pain was meant to serve as a deterrent. But what Draco understood and the wizard didn't was that some things were worth the pain.

Draco pressed his body onto the paper screen so all his weight was on top of the man. The wizard writhed underneath him and tried to reclaim his wand. Through blurry eyes, Draco whispered a spell and magic tore through the paper of the screen and with the wand now in hands, he locked the wizard in a full body-bind.

I've stopped screaming, Draco realized in a faint dissonance. His body, if he could describe the sensation in colour, was a piping hot red.

"The pain will tear you apart," the man said in a strangled, low garble.

Thanks for the reminder, I really needed it. He began to experience tunnel-vision and he could feel the ligaments in his back start to swell and burn. With a grunt, he rolled over his useless, shattered leg so his body was within the confines of the circle again. Draco tightened his hold over the man's wand. Draco lifted it and pointed it at the wizard who lay several feet away.

Then in a still, small voice, "Legilimens."

A shriek erupted from his captor's throat and it sliced through the stagnant air of the warehouse as Draco entered the man's mind. Draco braced himself for an onslaught of new emotions not of his own.

...he expected visions of glory, maniacal laughter, but instead he saw….

Broken Faces.

Magical people—his people—impoverished, not in the way where dirt smudged their cheeks and gave them empty doe-eyed expressions, but desolate and hungry. Draco was confused when he felt the wizard's despair on their behalf…

"Vote for Claudius Wayward!"

Purple banners fluttered through the air and he saw T-shirts of the wizard's face emblazoned on it. Claudius Wayward—that was the name of his captor then. Minister of Civil Defence, running in the election head-on with Kingsley.

"The introduction of technology has created a disparity, and income gap between those with—" said Claudius with the noblest intentions—and he still retained them. He intended to make things better for people.

The deep-seated sense of optimism bewildered Draco.

Claudius wasn't… evil?

(I'm not evil, just misunderstood)

Draco shook his head. That was the excuse all villains tried to claim. With a much gentler touch, he delved into the corners of Claudius' mind...

the catalyst.

"Claud?" There was something about the soothing cadence in the woman's voice and her soft hums through the wooden door. A warm summer's day, and Draco—Claudius—Draco could feel the soft carpet between his toes after a long in pinched-tight dragon-hide shoes.

Contentment.

Bliss.

The voice through the door was associated with light, and love. Draco-Claudius was drawn into his most delightful domain. "Are you home?"

Hermione, is that you? Draco called out from within the memory and he mentally corrected himself, this was Claudius' memory and not his—

"Yes," Claudius' voice, so much sweeter, untwisted, full of hope and promise.

"I'll be right out," the woman sang from the bathroom. "Just let me, oh—"

thump.

"Honey?" he asked as he opened the bathroom door. Steam emitted from the bathtub and his wife had lit sweet-smelling vanilla candles on the sink. The flames flickered as he stepped into the room and Claudius let out a small gasp when he saw the love of his life floating facedown in the bathtub. Their newly installed hair-dryer (which they had fought over for a week, because he really didn't see the point in them when there were drying charms) floated beside her.

"No, no, no no no no!"

There had been no scream, no shaking, she hadn't even clutched at her chest. Her life had been zapped away by a tiny current to the heart.

And Draco was the only one who had felt the same pain as Claudius. He'd thought he had it bad when he stepped outside of the circle. But pain in the heart always hurt more than outwardly pain. Was this how he would feel if he lost Hermione...

Life After Her Death?

Claudius made it his personal duty to convince people of the danger of Muggle technology—he could convince a few, but most of the people didn't believe him. Thought he still hadn't shaken off his wife's death.

His wife was not water on dog fur.

(Death couldn't just be shaken off)

When he heard about the technology which might inhibit the use of magic, his heart screamed for what that might have meant for the future.

That was a sign to take care of society.

So he'd broken into Dr. Hwang's laboratory during lunch hour. Phillip White received a fatal surprise when Claudius apparated right in front of him. He'd gulped a cherry tomato whole and it remained lodged in his throat.

"See?" Claudius said to Phillip, as he watched the man kneel over and turn blue. "Yet another person dead because of technology. If it weren't for the Muggle Revolution, you wouldn't be here, my wife would still be alive and everyone would be happy. If it weren't for him being in the lab, eating his lunch, he wouldn't have died."

More evidence to why Muggle Technology had to be stopped. Science was all about proof and this was rock-solid proof. Technology was evil, on a small and large scale. The price of technology of lives, and that—Claudius reasoned, was much too high a cost. It must be destroyed at all costs. And through many twists and turns…

now.

Draco blinked, wrenching himself from Claudius' mind, trying to breathe in and out.

Technology was evil (no it wasn't!)

Claudius Wayward was doing the right thing (was he?)

He remembered what his Dark Arts tutor had said, he was never to read someone's mind when he was in a vulnerable position. The assimilation—the empathy created between the reader and the readee—was sometimes irreversible. He thought hard to separate his identity with Claudius'.

I'm Draco, sometimes Pucey, mostly Malfoy.

I'm Draco Malfoy.

I'm Draco Malfoy.

I'm Draco Malfoy.

It didn't mean anything. The construct of identity was not self-sufficient. The sense of self could only be defined by categorising what was and what was not. Identity relied on a discursive discourse.

So Draco thought of all the people in his life. His identity was a product of who he loved and who loved him. Slowly, as he though was treading through thick treacle, he regained his being. As he regained himself, the pain which had hid grew more prominent with each passing second. His chest muscles must've seized up and he must've punctured something because he could feel liquid in his lungs and he was slowly drowning.

"Yet another one lost to the cause of Technology," said Claudius beside him.

Draco would have nodded, except he didn't have enough energy. He saw the harsh industrial lamps cast an intense light on the corrugated iron and chicken-mesh wires that made the ceiling of the warehouse. Through the wires, he could see the starry night sky. It was beautiful, and without medical treatment, he was accelerating towards death with great speed.

"Your magical hold on me is weakening," Claudius said, as he began to shift in his body-bind.

He was stating the obvious so Draco didn't bother to reply. Instead he allowed his mind to wander and dwell on other more important thoughts.

"Hermione Granger, you're like a shark."

Many things changed since he first uttered the phrase. Earlier on, he had intended it as an insult, then later, a compliment. Draco closed his eyes to envision her in front of him. In his mind, he traced the contours of her face, stopping at the dip on her upper lip that would crease when she smiled at him.

She was the woman who rendered her gender obsolete. Though he loved her first because of her bright mind and incredible heart, he loved everything about her now, even her short temper and know-it-all attitude.

She was a shark and that meant she must keep moving forward to survive. She'd be devastated at first, he reasoned. Then she'll move on. Time smoothed the sharp edge of yearning and eventually she would miss missing the him a little less as each day passed.

"Do you regret it ending like this?"

Regret that I'm dying, looking up at chicken wire? Yes. But the fact that I've got here this far in life? Not at all. He worked much too hard, put too much effort to regret being here.

Understanding washed through him as he accepted his fate. The answers to life rarely shone so clearly until the end of its run. This is all there is to dying, he realised with a heightened sense of clarity. In the end your heart beat until it stopped and you breathed until you couldn't.

"What are your last words? I will remember them for you. I didn't mean to hurt you so badly, if you hadn't stepped outside the circle—"

Draco closed his eyes and he shied away on reflex as the sound of shattered broken glass rung through his ears.

The next chapter will be the final chapter of the story. :)