Story Notes

Oh wow... here we go then... THIS is what happened after the ritual in the last chapter! I hope you all like it! No more content warnings are needed on this one, if you made it through the last chapter okay, then this one will be a piece of cake, lol!

THANK YOU to champagneandliterature, my wonderful alpha/beta for ALL of your help, it is very much appreciated. :-)

Bring me to Life - chapter 13

It took a good ten minutes for Hermione to properly recover from the blast of energy that the spell had produced. The strength of the magical explosion appeared to have drained all of their energies similarly, and Daphne moved from person to person, giving out vials of the healing and restorative potions that would help them recuperate faster.

Daphne lingered the longest with Draco. She sat beside him to tend him carefully, and took his vital signs several times over the course of the next few minutes. Hermione bit her lip, scared by his utter exhaustion. His eyes kept closing as if he was falling asleep, then he would jerk awake again, blinking in surprise at his surroundings.

Harry looked equally terrified as he crouched by Draco's side. "He's okay, Harry. He just needs to rest. A good night's sleep and a quiet weekend will see him right." Daphne squeezed her fingers on Harry's shoulder, and Hermione tried to believe her calm words of reassurance.

"Well, we couldn't have done any more than that," Theo asserted, finally making it to his feet with Blaise's help. He gave a deep sigh. "I've never pushed any spell that far before, another couple of seconds, and we would have lost Draco completely. It was Blaise that anchored the pair of us as it was. Thanks for that, mate."

"No problem," Blaise said, still looking shaken as he clasped Theo's hand.

"It's okay," Harry said, although the disappointment sounded clearly in his voice. "At least we tried. We know we gave it everything, nothing is worth losing anyone else for."

Draco stirred feebly against Harry. "Dammit, Theo, what happened? Why didn't it work? Your Dad-" Hermione frowned, not understanding what Draco was trying to say, or the stern look that Daphne gave him as she appeared to momentarily silence him. As Daphne lifted her wand, Draco cleared his throat. "Sorry. That hooking spell should have worked, though." Draco looked at Hermione and Harry and then down at his hand. "I think we're blood bonded now. Right?"

"I have no idea," Harry admitted, looking at Hermione and shrugging his shoulders in confusion.

Hermione said nothing as she studied Draco, Daphne, Blaise, and Theo. She had the distinct feeling that she was missing something. All four of them were determinedly avoiding her eyes.

Daphne took Hermione's hand in her own, gently uncurled her fingers, then ran the tip of her wand over the painful knife cut to heal it. "Yes, you are. Look." She smiled as she held Hermione's hand out with the palm facing upwards. A small crescent shaped scar had now replaced the long straight cut that Harry had made with the silver knife.

Daphne took Draco's hand and revealed an identical scar on his palm and another on Harry's. "Blood bond scars. When you're all recovered, you'll need to look up what the bonds mean."

"I know what a blood bond means," Draco muttered distractedly, turning away from the strange, silent conversation he was still having with Theo and Blaise to focus back on Daphne.

"I don't," Harry admitted.

"Me neither. Well, not totally anyway," Hermione agreed with a shake of her head.

Blaise started to tidy the room. He packed up the used herb dishes, wiped the silver knife clean with a cloth, and put it away with the rest of the blood ritual kit.

When they were satisfied that the room looked as it usually did, and they were all feeling well enough, they regrouped on the steps, preparing to sneak back out of the Ministry and home for the weekend.

"No more potions," Daphne said. "Not after that level of magical exertion. We leave here visible. That's healers' orders, none of us are up to taking any more Disillusionment Draught after the amount of magical energy we all expended back there. Especially not you, Draco."

"But!" Draco protested weakly, "Daph, we can't get caught in here like this! Particularly not Harry and me, we're Aurors love, we could lose our jobs. In fact, we will lose our jobs if they find out we tried this!"

"Then we sleep here in the Death Room until you've recouped your energy. No Draco, I mean it." She glared at his furious but weak protestations. "Do you know what happened to you back there?"

Draco shook his head, "not exactly, no. I think I fainted.

Daphne grimaced as she put a hand on his arm. "You passed out, sweetie. You know what we planned, we followed through with it, and it knocked you out cold. Your soul left your body and went through the arch. You nearly took Theo with you, if it weren't for Blaise and myself doubling up the back anchor, we would have lost you both." She sighed, looking back at the arch with a shiver. "We already knew it was a strong spell, but it was made a lot stronger by the dark magic in the ritual knife and by Draco opening his Dark Mark to use the power held inside it. Then with the blood bond on top of all of that, it turned explosive. The spell nearly worked in reverse. You are NOT taking any more potions. Shoot the sensors out with your wand if you must leave, or stay here overnight and leave in the morning."

"For fuck's sake, Daph, you're as scary as Hermione when you put your foot down," Draco grumbled.

Blaise merely chuckled, opened the door a crack, aimed his wand at the sensor in the Room of Spinning Doors and hit it with an Obscuro spell. "There. I don't fancy sleeping here when I've got Ginny waiting for me at home. Now stop arguing. It's a good thing I mapped out every sensor we'll pass earlier on today, isn't it?" He led the way down the hall, stopping to briefly disable each monitor as they went.

"Sometimes, Zabini, you really are brilliant. They're going to know someone's done this though," Draco said mildly as they made their way into the atrium, "security will know there's been a break in at the very least-"

"Shhh!" Hermione said, grabbing both Draco and Blaise's arms as a pair of security wizards turned to walk in their direction.

The security wizard's mouths dropped open in surprise as Theo waved his wand. "Imperio," he said smoothly, and the first wizards' face relaxed into a passive smile as Theo hit the second one with the same spell. "You will go along the corridor to the D.O.M. and reset all of the security sensors back to their usual settings. You will delete any trace of the energy surge that took place within the Death Room of the D.O.M., and then you will return to your posts where you will forget that this conversation ever happened. You will let us leave here freely now, and you will have no recollection of seeing any of us, or of this spell being used on you. The curse will end once you arrive back at your desks after this particular mission is complete."

Obediently the security wizards nodded as they turned away to follow Theo's instructions. Draco silently held out a hand for Theo's wand, then passed it to Harry with a smirk, "can you wipe this, please, love? My energy is a little low right now."

Harry took Theo's wand and ran his own over it. "Prior Incantatem Vim Extermina," he whispered. A thin silver wisp of spell energy rose into the air and vanished as Harry passed Theo back his wand.

"Cheers, Potter." Theo flipped his wand through the air nonchalantly and caught it with a grin. "Do you have to be an Auror for that deleting spell to work? What?" he grinned again as Daphne glared at him, "it's a valid question babe!"

They stepped outside into the chilly but still bright evening, only to have their ears assaulted by a cacophony of beeps from Harry and Hermione's mobile phones. "What in the name of Circe?" Hermione pulled her phone out of her coat pocket and opened what appeared to be a chain of text messages from Ron. "No!" she heard Harry say blankly, and she looked up to see him staring at the words on his screen as the last of the color drained from his face. "Uh….."

"What?" Draco demanded, looking over her shoulder impatiently.

Harry read the first message aloud. "It's from Ron. It just says, "what the hell have you lot done?"

Hermione checked and saw that her first message was identical. Ron had messaged them both the same thing. "Get back to Grimmauld now!" the second text ordered.

"You have got some serious explaining to do!" read the third,

"Nice one, though!" said the last one of the message chain.

"Shit!" Harry exclaimed, randomly grabbing hold of Blaise and apparating them both away without another word.

Hermione stepped closer to Draco. Her heart was pounding, and her breathing was ragged. Just what on earth had happened, and why was Ron at Grimmauld Place? Knowing that apparition was risky, given how exhausted Draco currently was, she wrapped her arms tightly around him. "I'll come straight back," she promised Theo and Daphne, then twisted into nothingness, still holding onto Draco tightly.

She didn't linger at Grimmauld to see what had happened. She just set Draco down in the kitchen then returned to the Ministry to collect Theo and Daphne.

Once they had all landed in the now deserted kitchen, she took a deep, steadying breath and led the others upstairs to the lounge.

She thought her eyes were playing tricks on her.

She'd thought the ritual hadn't worked.

Apparently, it had.

"Hello, Kitten!" Sirius Black said, looking up from the tight hug he was holding Harry in.

Hermione gasped and swayed weakly on the spot as Harry let Sirius go and stumbled across to a very surprised looking Draco.

Sirius held his arms out, and his grey eyes twinkled as Hermione crossed the room towards him. Wordlessly she fell into his arms, hugging him back hard.

When Sirius finally released her, she staggered with exhaustion, similar to the way Harry had. Sirius steadied her, then picked up her hand. He held her fingers back while he examined the crescent shaped blood bond scar on her palm. "Idiots, the lot of you," he asserted, "risking everything like that." Despite his emphatic words, he grinned as he looked around at them all. "Thanks, though. It's good to be back."

"It's good to have you back," Harry said quietly from his position on the sofa beside Draco.

Ron sat in the chair opposite them, watching them all with approval. He crossed his long legs at the ankles and conjured a handkerchief which he tossed to Hermione. She caught it with a smile, using it to wipe her tears before she sat down weakly. "Thanks, Ron," she said with a watery smile. "What are you doing here anyway? I assumed you'd just take the security badges straight home with you."

"'Mione," Ron sat forward in his chair and fixed her with sharp blue eyes, "I've been best friends with you and Harry since we were eleven years old. I know when you're both up to something-" he broke off and shrugged "-I also trust you both enough to know that if you won't tell me what's going on, there's a reason for that. I came here because I was worried about you, and I wanted to be here in case you needed help, that's all."

Hermione nodded as Sirius crouched in front of Harry and took his hand into his own, looking for and finding his identical blood bond scar. "Are you alright, son?" he asked softly.

Harry appeared to be too overcome with emotion to speak. He stared wordlessly at Sirius then dropped his head into his free hand.

"Hey." Sirius moved forwards and pulled Harry forwards into his embrace. "It's alright. You did it. You brought me back. Your love for me brought me back. I'm here now, Harry. It's all over, and everything's going to be okay. We can finally be the family we always should have been."

Harry eventually nodded, and Sirius sat back on his haunches to look around the room. After a moment, Sirius stood, then turned to hug Theo and Daphne. He thanked Daphne for keeping everyone safe, then smiled as he regarded Theo. "I thought you'd pushed it too far at the end there. It turns out you knew exactly what you were doing, though. Tell me, did Draco know you were planning to use him as a life hook like that? Because he looked rather surprised when you shoved him through the veil."

Theo looked contrite as he dropped his eyes to the floor. "Yes. Draco, Blaise, and Daphne knew I was going to do it. We might have omitted that detail when we told Harry and Hermione what we were planning, though."

Sirius nodded. "How certain were you that you'd be able to pull us both back?"

"We, were... uh, as certain as we could possibly be. We popped to see my father in Azkaban. He was confident that we could pull it off. He told us what to do."

"Your father is Thoronus Nott? The man who's currently imprisoned in my old cell?" Sirius queried.

"Yes," Theo admitted. So I wouldn't be surprised if you already knew that we went to see him, given that according to the energy readings, you still visit that cell on occasion."

Sirius nodded as he returned Theo's grin. He didn't seem to be able to sit still. He kept touching his own arms, his face, and his scraggly hair as if he was getting used to the idea of having a body again. "Your old man is one of the good ones in there. I pop in and out of my old cell every now and then to check up on him. We were friends once. I wish he hadn't been imprisoned for so long."

"You knew we were going to try to bring you back, didn't you, Sirius?!" Draco demanded from the sofa suddenly. He gave a sharp laugh as he shook his head. "You were waiting when Theo shoved me through the arch. You grabbed onto me and came back with me. Why didn't you come out in the Death Room with me then?"

Sirius threw back his head and laughed, "of course I knew! I've watched everything you've all been doing. You're a smart boy, though, Draco, for figuring it all out. Yes, I was waiting. I got diverted to where my life imprint was strongest. I came out of Harry's diary." He picked up the dog-eared notebook and waved it. "Harry sat by my bed for months writing in this while I watched over him. I tried to follow you, Draco, but the energy caught me and sent me that way instead."

"It seems to be rather easy for people to manifest through books, particularly diaries," Ron said quietly. "Look what happened to Ginny with Riddle's diary. Not that there's any more similarities there, Sirius. I'm just saying that diaries seem to have specific energy or something about them that draws people in."

"That sounds like it could be the subject of our next investigation, Hermione," Blaise said with a nod of acceptance at Ron. "Although, you're looking rather pale and being very quiet about all of this, are you oka-"

"She's quiet because we knew nothing about the life hook part of the ritual," Harry exploded, cutting Blaise off rather abruptly and staring at Draco while still looking bewildered. He reached over to take Hermione's hand. "You didn't tell us about any of that. I can't believe you did something so risky! It was so-"

"No," Draco admitted. "We didn't tell you. If we had, you'd never have let us go through with it. I nearly backed out mid ritual as it was, but then I've never been courageous. I trust Theo's dad, though, and we had it all worked out in advance. The spell wouldn't have worked if we hadn't pushed it that far, it was all or nothing, Harry, and well, we went all in."

"For fucks sake!" Harry said angrily, standing up, crossing to the window, and staring out into the square. "Draco, we could have lost you through the veil as well!"

"But you didn't," Draco argued. "It's a little bit like the time you walked into the woods to willingly let Voldemort kill you. You didn't tell anyone you were going to do that either did you? We all do funny things for love, Harry."

"You-" Harry hid his face behind his hands as he broke off, and his shoulders shook with emotion once more. "You said his name."

Draco shrugged, "I'm blood bonded to you two now. Some of that legendary Gryffindor courage must have made its way across. Anyway, I can't live in fear of it forever, can I? What is it you lot say? Oh yes, it's only a name."

Draco reached over to take Hermione's hand as he attempted a weak grin. "So for you Harry, I've brought your Godfather back into the land of the living, this one's for you then, Hermione." He grinned as he let her hand go and stood up, holding his hand out to Ron instead. "Weasley, I hereby apologize for any of my past… unpleasant behavior towards you. Hermione has made it plain that you mean a lot to her, and since she means a lot to me-"

Hermione couldn't help the squeal that burst from her as she finally succumbed completely to long overdue tears. Draco broke off, looking back at her over his shoulder, "seriously, love, this is meant to make you happy!".

Ron grinned as he stood up too. "She does that when she's happy sometimes, mate." Ron shook his head as Draco looked equally baffled by her behavior. "Yeah, I've never understood it either. Sorry, you were saying?"

"I've said it already. Don't push your luck." Draco held his hand out with a half-hearted scowl, and Ron took it, clasping it in both of his.

"Thanks. I appreciate that. I apologize too, for my less than pleasant past behavior towards yo- oooof!" he caught Hermione and steadied a still weakened Draco as she hurled herself at both of them before breaking down completely.

"Thank you. Both of you," she said when she had eventually composed herself. She pulled back to kiss Ron on the cheek and Draco on the lips. Draco's kiss felt strangely different now. The touch of his skin against her was accompanied by an extra tingle that hadn't been there before. Hermione released them both and sat down, turning to smile at Daphne, who was holding Theo's hand with tears running freely down her cheeks.

Once the emotion in the room had died down a little, Hermione shifted her focus back onto Blaise, "this was where you disappeared to yesterday, wasn't it? You went to Azkaban to see Theo's Dad?" Blaise nodded slowly. "I thought you were the one who was the least on board with how dark this ritual was getting?"

Blaise sighed. "I was. But Theo and Draco seemed pretty sure of what they were doing, Daph too. And if you want to know anything about blood magic, well, after Rodolphus Lestrange, Thoronus is your next best option."

"How?!" Harry asked suddenly, turning to look at Blaise as well. "How the hell did you get permission to just wander into Azkaban at such short notice?"

"Unspeakables have the same level of access to Azkaban as Aurors do. Theo claimed to have a family emergency that meant he and Daph needed to visit his father immediately," Blaise said. "I offered to go with them so that Azkaban didn't have to arrange extra security for his visit. It also meant that we could speak freely while we were there since there were no other guards or Aurors with us. I'm sorry, Harry, Hermione, I'm truly sorry for not involving you in this."

Hermione nodded as she looked at Daphne, "you've been in on this all along too?"

"Yes," Daphne said, shaking her blond hair free of its tie and wiping her eyes yet again. "Well since yesterday anyway. And, only because Thoronus was so sure we could pull it off safely. I'm so sorry, Hermione. I wanted to include you and Harry as well, but, and please be honest here, if we'd told you what we were planning, what would you have said?"

"I'd have said no to the whole thing," Hermione admitted with a heavy sigh. "I was on the brink of doing that anyway, and that's before I knew you were planning to go this far."

"So would I," Harry agreed. I can't believe how much you've all risked here.

Sirius grinned, "well, happily for me, nobody asked either of you and here I am. All's well that ends well. Now I haven't had a drink for seven bloody years, and I happen to know that there's plenty of alcohol around this house. Who wants to join me for a firewhisky?"