The Revenant (Part 9)
The prisoner crouched down on the floor of his cell, curling in on himself with pain as Draco unleashed another Cruciatus Curse. The last time he had felt this enraged, it was when he had cornered Rodolphus Lestrange in Azkaban. The man wailed at the torture, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. Draco was beyond livid. Finally, he cancelled the spell.
"That's what you get for killing innocent children, you sick fuck!" Draco roared.
"I do what I must to defend my people," the man said weakly. "I do what I must to further our cause."
"Your cause? That was a school – a place for children to learn magic. They had nothing to do with your fucking cause. Now, tell me where I can find your base of operations! Crucio!"
The man's screams grew louder and louder, but still, he would not divulge the information that Draco demanded of him. Finally, the door to the jail cell flung open and a strong pair of arms grasped Draco's, wrenching his wand out of his hand.
"Mr. Draco, stop this!" said Rami. "This is not right." When Draco fought against him, he slammed him forcefully against the wall, and Draco had to blink to clear the stars that swam in front of his vision.
"Do you know what the penalty is for attacking a superior officer?" he growled.
"And do you remember what the penalty is for torturing a prisoner?" Rami replied. Draco let out a huff of annoyance, but finally stopped struggling. Rami released his grip on him and went to bend over the prisoner.
"Are you all right?" he asked. The man glared up at him, muttered something in Arabic, and spat in his face.
Rami calmly wiped away the spittle and stood upright once more. Then he gestured to Draco and led him out of the cell. A few more of Draco's Aurors were standing in the room outside, whispering nervously to each other in their native tongue, but Draco ignored them and followed Rami out into the blazing afternoon sun. He squinted, allowing his eyes to adjust to the brightness after spending so much time in the dark. The air was so hot that his sweat evaporated the moment it left his pores, leaving his skin feeling salty and dry.
"Mr. Draco, sometimes I do not understand you," Rami said, as he surveyed the desert village around them. "Despite your demons, you are a good man - I know this to be true. And yet you would resort to torture."
"The bastard deserved worse," Draco muttered. "You saw what he and his friends did to those kids." Rami nodded.
"Yes, I saw." The dark-skinned man looked at Draco out of the corner of his eye. "This is about your wife again, yes? You are still angry about the fact she was taken from you."
Draco closed his eyes, letting the equatorial heat wash over his sunburned face. And then he told Rami everything. He told him about Hermione's pregnancy, about his joy at discovering that he was going to be a father. He told him about the day Hermione had been kidnapped, and how he had failed to keep her safe. The more he spoke, the lighter he felt, as he poured out all of the grief that had festered within him for the past three years. By the time he told Rami about the loss of his son, tears were sliding down his cheeks, but he barely noticed.
And then he admitted his final failure – how he had left his wife because he had been too much of a coward to stay and face the risk of losing her again.
Rami was silent for long time afterwards. When he finally spoke again, his words shocked Draco to the core.
"I had a family once, Mr. Draco. Like you, I was a very happy man. My wife was a kind woman – the most beautiful woman in our village. We had a daughter named Nadia."
"What happened to them?"
"It was five years ago when they were taken from me. Early in the morning, my wife took Nadia with her to get water from the well. While they were gone, a rival clan attacked our village, raping the women and children, and killing any men who stood in their way. I was severely injured in the fighting, but my wife and daughter did not survive. That prisoner you were torturing – he used to live in my village. He and several other men from our village and neighboring villages have resorted to terrorism to get revenge on the clan that once attacked ours."
"What did he call you just now, when he spit in your face?" asked Draco.
"He called me a traitor. He thinks that by helping you and the other Aurors fight the terrorists, I am betraying my people."
Draco's eyes widened as he finally understood the full meaning of his friend's story.
"Rami, your family was killed by that clan, but you're still helping us stop the terrorists from getting revenge on them? I would have thought…" Draco trailed off and shook his head in disbelief.
"You would have thought I would be fighting on their side?" Rami finished for him. "Yes, I had the motivation to join them…but not the desire. Helping them in their 'cause' will not bring my wife back from the dead. It will not bring my Nadia back to me. These terrorists think that they are making the world a better place by doing what they are doing, but all their actions do is sow more hatred. Always be wary of men who use violence in the name of 'the greater good', Mr. Draco. They are the most dangerous men you will ever encounter."
Suddenly, their conversation was interrupted as a group of children ran past them, laughing and kicking up dust with their bare feet as they chased a ball through the village streets. The ball rolled away from them to land at Draco's feet, and the children hung back, frightened of the two tall strangers. Draco gave the ball a nudge with his foot, sending it back in their direction, and a boy picked it up, flashing Draco a brief smile before running away.
"Maybe someday, you will have the chance to be a father again," said Rami.
"Maybe," Draco replied, and he watched as the boy disappeared down an alleyway with his friends. Rami, too, watched the children depart, and then he returned his gaze to Draco.
"I am glad you did not kill your uncle when you had the chance, Mr. Draco."
"Rodolphus was a murderer, Rami. He murdered my unborn son, and he almost tortured my wife to death. I should have killed him, but I was too weak."
"But to grant mercy instead of revenge, even when that revenge is deserved, takes a strength few men possess."
Draco stared back at him in surprise. He had always thought that his failure to kill Rodolphus was a sign of cowardice, much as he had once considered himself a coward for being unable to fulfill the task of killing Albus Dumbledore. As if he could sense his companion's thoughts, Rami shook his head and rested one large hand on Draco's shoulder.
"Mercy is not a weakness, Mr. Draco."
Draco awoke with a jerk, and the sudden manner in which he regained consciousness led him to believe that he had been struck with a Reviving Charm. Despite the fact that he had been holding his wand in his hand, ready to defend himself, it had been useless. The moment his feet hit the ground after he arrived at the destination the Portkey had transported him to, several stunning spells had hit him square in the chest, plunging him into blackness.
Now, he blinked rapidly, trying to clear the spots that still hovered in his vision. He was lying on the cold stone floor of a jail cell, and the air was filled with the tang of sea salt and the stench of human suffering. It was an all-too-familiar smell, and he hoped against hope that he wasn't where he thought he was.
"Get up," a voice ordered. When Draco hesitated to respond, the voice spoke again, "Imperio!"
Against his will, Draco lurched to his feet, feeling like a puppet on invisible strings. He could hear laughter coming from the darkness outside his cell. He counted five – no, six male voices among the group, before they fell silent. In his mind, he created a map of their locations, for future reference, should the need arise. Then the spell was cancelled, and his body's movements were under his control once more.
"Do you know where you are?" the voice asked, and Draco could make out the outline of a figure standing in the shadows. He licked his chapped lips and considered not responding, but then decided that he didn't want to be put under the Imperius Curse again if he could help it.
"Azkaban," he croaked.
"Yes," the man said coldly, "Azkaban. Fitting, isn't it, considering that this is the place where you should have ended up years ago?"
Draco lost his tenuous grip on his patience.
"Who are you and what the hell do you want?"
The man stepped forward out of the shadows, and when the pale moonlight illuminated his face, Draco gaped in surprise.
"Creevey? You've got to be fucking kidding me."
"Surprised, Malfoy?" Dennis circled closer, and Draco studied the man closely, scarcely even recognizing him. Gone were the kind smile and the timid mannerisms. In its place were steely confidence and a smile that was cold and calculating.
"You could say that," Draco grumbled. "Where are Hermione and my parents?"
"Safe…for now."
"I want to see them."
Dennis arched one eyebrow at him.
"You're not exactly in a position to issue commands, are you, Malfoy?"
There was more snickering, and Draco's eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough to see the other shadowy figures moving in the background. Dennis had more minions than he had originally guessed – that, or their numbers were increasing as more of them arrived at the prison.
Draco's heart sank. Even if he could find a way out of the jail cell (an unlikely enough possibility considering that he no longer had his wand), there was no way he would be able to fight his way past so many men.
"Escape is futile," Dennis said, as if he had guessed Draco's line of thinking. "There's only one way out of here, and that's to do everything that I want you to do."
"Fuck you."
Dennis's eyes flashed briefly, but he managed to maintain his self-control.
"You always were cocky, Malfoy. Ever since we were children, you always thought you deserved better than everyone else, the way you mocked and bullied everyone in the school, including my brother."
"Your brother? That's what this is all about, isn't it? You're trying to get revenge for your brother's death."
"You don't even remember his name, do you?" Dennis asked with a scowl. Draco racked his brains, trying to remember. Over the years, while working with Hermione, Ron, and Harry, he had heard them mention the name once or twice…
"Colin," he said finally. "His name was Colin."
"Very good, Malfoy. Maybe I underestimated you." Dennis began pacing back and forth in front of Draco's cell. "Do you know what happened after the war was over? The Ministry gave my family twenty thousand galleons and a posthumous Order of Merlin First Class for my brother. Twenty thousand galleons and a fucking medal. That's all he was worth to the Wizarding World. They never even bothered to find out which wizard killed him. It was a war, they said. It could have been any Death Eater. So they didn't bother."
"And you decided to take it out on every Death Eater," Draco concluded. "What about Finnigan? Seamus Finnigan fought on your side, remember? But you didn't seem to have any qualms with doing him in."
"The loss of Seamus was…regrettable," Dennis admitted, and Draco could detect the faintest flicker of sorrow pass over his face. "But unfortunately, he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You see, Goyle was going to betray me. I wanted him to find a way to summon you back to England, but he refused. He turned to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for help, and Seamus was the one he filed the report with."
"So, you put Finnigan under the Imperius," Draco prompted. He wanted to stall Dennis and keep him talking for as long as possible. It would give Harry and the Aurors more time to come to the rescue. Though how they would manage to find them, Draco had no idea.
"Yes," Dennis continued, "When I found out what Goyle was up to, I had Seamus arrange to meet him in Knockturn Alley, and when he showed up, I was there to finish him off. It was quite simple, really. And then you came back to England once you heard about the murder. So, in the end, Goyle fulfilled the task I set out for him after all."
Draco roiled with rage at Dennis's cavalier attitude towards the death of his childhood friend, but he held his temper in check.
"But the evidence was stolen. You staged your own attack, didn't you?"
"Yes. With every other murder, I had managed to make sure any critical evidence conveniently disappeared. I used my position as the department's crime scene investigator to my advantage. But in Goyle's case, a few things slipped past my notice."
"The vial of Morpheum."
Dennis nodded.
"I've always been good at potions. I invented the Morpheum potion to help me attain my goals, and to help place key people like Goyle and Pansy Parkinson under my control. But I didn't want that vial to remain in the Ministry's hands. So I used the Imperius Curse on Seamus again, forcing him to attack me so that no one would suspect me once the evidence went missing. And I made him put the Aufero Spiritus potion in the Veritaserum to kill Meachim, to make sure he wouldn't give away crucial information. I had to ensure that no one figured out it was me. Not until after my plan was set into motion."
Draco had an ominous feeling about this last statement, but he didn't allow Dennis to see his unease. Instead, he remained as calm and collected as possible, trying to distract him with more questions.
"Finnigan didn't really commit suicide, did he?" he asked.
"No," said Dennis, shaking his head. "He was under the Imperius Curse when he did it. Harry sent me a message stating that you and Hermione had figured out that Seamus was the one who had led Goyle into Knockturn Alley on the night of his death. I knew I had to get to Seamus before you did, and I used the Locator Charm to find him before giving the coordinates to Harry and the other Aurors. I had to kill him. He was starting to fight the Imperius Curse, and I couldn't risk him giving anything away."
"You're a sick bastard, you know that?" Draco seethed.
"I'm not the one who became a Death Eater and followed the orders of a murderous psychopath."
"Look, Creevey, I didn't kill your brother, okay? I didn't kill anyone. I served Voldemort because I had to, to protect my family. Yes, I took the Dark Mark, but I never really had any choice in the matter."
Dennis cocked his head to one side and studied Draco in silence for a few moments. Then his lips curled into a feral smile that sent shivers up and down Draco's spine.
"Well, Malfoy, I'm going to do you a favor. I'm going to give you exactly what you want - a choice."
He nodded to his minions, and several of the dark-robed men went to the sides of the room and began cranking a series of winches that were mounted on the stone walls.
The room that Draco, Dennis, and his followers were situated in appeared to be an abandoned tower in the prison. The structure of the tower continued to rise high above their heads, but one entire wall, and much of the floor, had crumbled away, and the moonlit sea was visible beyond the gaping hole. Draco watched with horror as three cages lowered from the darkness of the tower above. Finally, the cages stopped descending, and the men secured the ropes so they remained suspended over the hole in the tower floor.
"Draco!" his mother cried out once she spotted him. But Draco forced himself to make no reaction to her distress. He noticed that Dennis was watching him carefully, and he didn't want to give the man any more ammunition to use against him. Instead, he let his gaze wander over his mother, noting that despite a few bumps and bruises, she appeared to be unscathed. His father, in the next cage, also looked intact, although his usually sleek blond hair was a bit disheveled.
The last prisoner upon whom his eyes fell was Hermione. Other than the fact that she was holding the bars of her cage in a white-knuckled grip, she appeared to be quite calm. He was relieved to note that aside from a swollen, bloodied nose, she was relatively unharmed. She said nothing, but the look she gave him was so fierce and full of love, that Draco felt a surge of strength rush through his body.
"Welcome to the family reunion!" Dennis said mockingly to the three people in their cages. He held both of his arms out wide to encompass their drab surroundings. "Although I always thought the Malfoys chose more stylish venues for their parties. The life of a Malfoy really is a charmed one, isn't it? Your family helped Voldemort for years, and what happens to you after his demise? Do you get thrown into Azkaban? No. Do you get the punishment you deserve? No. Instead you continue to live in your Manor, keep your wealth… Hell, you've even managed to regain some of your social standing."
Dennis turned to Draco once more, and his light blue eyes narrowed in disdain. Draco couldn't think of the last time he had seen someone so full of hatred.
"And you, Malfoy. You got the best prize of all, didn't you? Even after everything you did, you got to marry one of the kindest, smartest, most beautiful witches of our age."
"You want her," Draco said with dawning realization. "You've wanted Hermione all along." Then he finally formulated a plan. "Well, you can have her. I don't want her and I never have."
"That's a lie," Dennis hissed, but Draco shook his head.
"No lie. You do recall that I left her three years ago, don't you?"
As Dennis fumbled for an answer, Draco glanced in Hermione's direction, trying to convey with his eyes what he was unable to put into words. But there was no need. She had already caught on.
"It's true, Dennis," she said in a woeful tone. "Draco only came back because of what happened to Goyle. He doesn't really care about me anymore. Not in that way. So if you were planning to use me to get to him, you're wasting your time."
"Indeed, you seem to have captured the wrong people," Lucius put in slyly. "He doesn't care much for me or my wife, either. Frankly, the boy has never been anything but a disappointment to us. I've even written him out of our will; you can check for yourself."
Dennis stared at him with wide eyes, clearly disconcerted.
"Young man, allow me to give you a word of advice," Lucius continued. "I appreciate your valiant attempt to pull off this little plot of yours. I've tried my hand at evil plots a few times myself, you see. But I have to warn you that just when you think you've succeeded, that empty-headed fool, Harry Potter, will swoop in and spoil all of your well-laid plans. Trust me when I say this, the stupid boy always gets in the way."
"Shut up!" Dennis shouted, brandishing his wand in Lucius's face. "All of you, shut up!" He turned back to Draco. "You say you don't care about any of them? Fine, prove it."
He swiveled, pointed his wand at Hermione, and bellowed, "Crucio!"
Immediately, she crumpled on the floor of her cage, screaming in pain. Draco lunged forward and gripped the bars of his cell so tightly that he could feel the bones in his fingers creaking with the strain.
"No!" Narcissa shouted, rattling the bars of her cage, and even Lucius looked as if he was about to lose his calm veneer.
"I'll stop when Draco tells me to," Dennis responded coldly. Hermione's cries of pain increased in amplitude, and Draco felt every one of her screams as if they were cutting into his very soul. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore.
"Stop!" he shouted. "For fuck's sake, stop hurting her, you miserable son of a bitch!"
Dennis smiled triumphantly and cancelled the spell. Hermione lay curled up on the bottom of her cage, her muscles still twitching with spasms from the curse.
"So," said Dennis, "the big, bad Draco Malfoy has a weakness after all."
"If you're going to kill me, Creevey, just get it over with. I don't want to play your games."
"Oh no, Malfoy. You're not going to die today. You're going to walk out of this prison in one piece…physically, that is. Pansy seemed to think that you'd do anything for Hermione. Care to test her theory?"
At his gesture, a few more of his followers emerged from the shadows, rolling out a metal cart with a television screen mounted on top. They pushed the cart directly in front of Draco's cell, and he stared at the screen, recognizing the atrium of the Ministry of Magic. Countless visitors and employees strolled back and forth across the large space, talking and going about their daily business.
"What the hell is this?" Draco asked.
"Those are all the people whose lives currently rest in your hands, Malfoy. This is real-time footage from a hidden camera I had mounted at the Ministry. And so is this." He clicked a button on the screen, and the scene changed to show a pile of explosives, and a clock that was at the ten-minute mark and counting. Draco tried to swallow, but his throat seemed to have turned into parchment.
"You're going to blow up the Ministry?" he asked in disbelief. "Why?"
"Because they failed to do the right thing when they let those Death Eaters go last year. Because they failed us all by letting people like your father get away with it the first time around. What I'm doing is for the greater good of all witches and wizards living in Britain. The Ministry has been a corrupt establishment for decades – even Hermione would agree with me on this." He turned to face her. "I told you about fighting for what we believe in, remember?"
"No government is without its flaws, Dennis," Hermione argued. "And nothing justifies the murder of innocent people. This isn't going to bring Colin back. This isn't what he would have wanted."
"Well, I guess we'll never know what he would've wanted, will we?" Dennis murmured. "And you, Hermione, are you sure this is what you want? Are you sure you want to go down in flames with the Malfoy family? You could always take me up on my offer, and come away with me. I could make it so that you'd forget all of this ever happened."
"The Malfoys may not have a perfect past, Dennis, but they've moved on with their lives and become better people than they were before, which is more than I can say for you. I think I've finally figured out what I believe in. I'm a Malfoy and proud of it." She paused to smile at Draco, and he didn't think he'd ever loved her more than he did at that moment.
Lucius looked at Hermione in disbelief, and Draco could have sworn there was grudging admiration in his gaze. Then his father turned to address Dennis once more.
"Enough of this," he said imperiously. "My son is not to blame for taking the Dark Mark. He's right – the life of a Death Eater is never one he would have chosen for himself, if he had been given the right to refuse. Any fault you have with the Malfoy family should be with me alone. It is my choices that are to blame, not his. Do with me what you will, but let my wife and children go."
Dennis shook his head and withdrew a small, rectangular object from the pocket of his robes.
"No," he said, "what happens next is completely up to Draco."
Dennis set the object down on the cart outside of Draco's cell, being careful not to step within range of Draco's grasp. Draco stared down at the rectangular device, which had a large red button in the center of it. He looked up at Dennis questioningly.
"This is your chance to be the hero you've fooled everyone into believing you are," Dennis said quietly. "If you press this button, the bomb in the Ministry will be defused, and you will have saved thousands of so-called innocent lives in the process."
"What's the catch?" asked Draco, and Dennis smiled gruesomely.
"Do you see the chains suspending their cages? The brackets securing those chains are synchronized to release when you press that button. At the same time you defuse the bomb, your family goes plunging into the North Sea. It's at least a ten-story drop, and there are sharp rocks at the bottom. Needless to say, I don't think they will survive the fall."
"No," Draco whispered, his heart clenching with dread. His mother let out a sob, while his father finally lost his nerve.
"This is insane!" Lucius seethed. "Release us at once! I will pay you anything you desire – you can have the entire Malfoy fortune, if that's what it takes."
"Do you actually think you can pay your way out of every situation?" Dennis said viciously, looking angrier than Draco had yet seen him. "Do you think your filthy money is going to satisfy me now? I have enough money to last ten lifetimes from the trade of my Morpheum potion. It's not money that I want."
He turned back to Draco, his eyes flashing with rage.
"You see, while you thought you were being so clever delaying me with your stupid questions, all you were really doing was reducing the amount of time you'd have to make your choice. You now have six minutes to decide. If you press that button, you're the savior of the Wizarding World. But, of course, your family tree will be short a few branches. Who will you save, Malfoy - your family, or hundreds of nameless, faceless strangers?"
Draco stared at the television screen in front of him, at all the witches and wizards who were currently oblivious to the fact that their lives were in danger. Not all of them were nameless or faceless, either. Harry and Ron were somewhere in that building. Draco had gotten to know and respect them – perhaps even consider them acquaintances after all they'd been through together. As for the other men and women, even though he didn't know them personally, they were somebody else's loved ones. They were someone's father or mother, son or daughter, husband or wife.
Draco knew that by letting Dennis's bomb go off, his decision would touch the lives of hundreds of people beyond those currently residing in the Ministry. He looked up at the three people he cared about most in the world and shook his head.
"I can't," he said. "I can't do this."
"Oh come now, this should be easy," Dennis mocked. "You've made this choice before, remember?"
"You stupid bastard, what are you trying to prove?" Draco snarled. He watched as the numbers on the clock ticked below the five-minute mark, and then kicked the bars of his cell in frustration. It was like trying to decide which layer of hell he would prefer to reside in for the rest of his life. Either way, he would have to live with the guilt of his decision – live with the horror of knowing that he had either destroyed his family, or allowed hundreds of lives to come to an abrupt end. At this last thought, all of the fight went out of him, and any semblance of pride disappeared.
"Please," Draco whispered pleadingly. "Please, don't make me do this."
"It's all right, Draco," Hermione said softly, drawing his attention back to her. "You know what you have to do."
"I can't!" he sobbed.
"Yes, you can. I know that in your eyes, your parents and I are the whole world, but in the grand scheme of things…There are hundreds of innocent people in the Ministry. You know there's no other way. Just-just know that I love you, Draco, so much."
Draco turned to face his father. Lucius said nothing, but his eyes were full of love, pride, and, if Draco read them correctly, a plea for forgiveness. He gave his son a nod and then reached between the bars of his cage to loop his hand through Narcissa's.
"I love you, too, Draco," his mother said, as she gave him a wavering smile. "We all do."
Draco shook his head, tears spilling down his cheeks as his gaze fell on his wife once more.
"I can't do it, Hermione. I can't lose you again."
"You never lost me, Draco, and you never will. Do you remember the poem you copied down for me when you left three years ago? I didn't understand it at the time. I read it over and over again, hoping to figure out what you were trying to say to me. But I understand it now. Do you?"
Draco's eyes fell closed as he recalled the last lines of the poem, which were etched into his memory like a burning effigy:
"Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom."
Draco nodded and opened his eyes once more.
"Yes, I understand," he murmured. He raised one shaky hand over the button, not breaking eye contact with her the entire time. "I love you, Hermione."
She nodded, and he lowered his hand, but just as he was about to press the button, there was a crack and a flash of light. Suddenly, Harry Potter was standing in their midst, his wand pointed in Dennis's direction.
"Hello, Dennis," Harry said in greeting. "Fancy a few late arrivals to the party?"
At his words, the prison tower was suddenly full of popping sounds as a legion of Aurors arrived via Apparition to engage Dennis's followers in a heated battle. Lucius Malfoy, who was still dangling from the ground in his little cage, folded his arms across his chest and smirked in Dennis's direction.
"Well," he said, "you can't say I didn't warn you."
As Harry engaged Dennis in a wizard's duel, Ron hurried over to free Draco. A few other Aurors fought their way past Dennis's minions in order to release Hermione, Lucius and Narcissa from their own cages.
"Weasley, there's a bomb in the Ministry," Draco began, as soon as he had stumbled out of his cell.
"I know, Malfoy. Harry and I already found it."
"It's set to go off in less than two minutes!" Draco showed Ron the button Dennis had given him to defuse the bomb with. "If we don't press this button before then, the whole Ministry will go up in flames!"
Ron gave Draco a sly grin as he pulled him out of range of the ensuing battle.
"Don't worry about the bomb, Malfoy. It's already been defused."
"What? How?"
"Well, Dennis isn't the only wizard with a keen interest in Muggle technology."
Draco's eyes widened as he comprehended the meaning of Ron's statement.
"Your father defused the bomb!?"
"Yep," Ron said proudly. "Did it all by himself. Well, okay, not quite. We also kidnapped a member of the London Bomb Squad to help out. Poor bloke. Tomorrow morning, he's going to wake up thinking he had some very strange nightmares. Once the bomb was defused, we came to rescue you. Damn it, Malfoy, didn't I tell you not to do anything rash?"
"What can I say?" Draco replied with a rueful grin. "You Gryffindors are a bad influence on me. But how the hell did you know where to find us?"
"I put one of Dennis's tracking devices in your shirt pocket when I was wrestling you out of the interrogation room," Ron answered smugly. "Had a feeling you might try to spring the coop and do something stupid."
Draco shook his head in amazement.
"Weasley, that was…well, that was uncannily brilliant of you."
"Oh, for heaven's sake, you boys can inflate each other's egos later. Can't you see we're in the middle of a battle here?"
Draco turned to see Hermione standing there with her hands on her hips, and before she could berate him any further, he threw his arms around her and held her close.
"Hermione, thank God you're all right," he breathed, as he buried his face in her hair. "I thought –"
"Never mind that," she said, rubbing his back reassuringly. "I'm safe, now. We're all going to be fine."
"Here," said Ron, tossing Hermione and Draco a couple of spare wands to defend themselves with. "Let's bring these bastards down." He hesitated, and then gave Narcissa and Lucius wands as well.
The group entered into the fray, helping the Aurors capture or incapacitate their opponents. Ron's jaw dropped as he watched Narcissa take down two brutish, broad-shouldered wizards with one powerful spell.
"You know," he said to Draco, "for an old lady, your mum's pretty good in a fight."
"Who are you calling an 'old lady'?" Narcissa asked menacingly. Ron gulped and assumed a cowed expression as he continued fighting.
Draco fired a hex at one of Dennis's minions, but the man managed to hide behind a stone pillar just in time to avoid the spell.
"Reducto!" Hermione shouted, blasting the pillar into pieces. The man fell to the ground, knocked unconscious from the explosion.
"Nice shot, love!" Draco exclaimed, and she grinned in response.
Dennis's band of thugs was scattered and unorganized, and it looked as if it wouldn't take long for the Aurors to round up the rest of them. Soon, there were only a few left, and it was obvious from Dennis's panicked expression that he realized defeat was imminent. He fired off curses at Harry in rapid succession, but the Head Auror dodged them all with skill and proficiency.
"Give it up, Dennis!" Harry yelled. "It's over!"
"Not yet," Dennis growled. With his free hand, he fished a glass vial out of his pocket and threw it at Harry's feet. The vial smashed once it hit the floor, and the impact triggered whatever volatile substance Dennis had placed inside it, causing a small explosion. Even though he was standing a good distance away, Draco could feel the shock wave from the blast as Harry was sent reeling to the ground, where he lay motionless.
"Harry!" Ron shouted, as he and Hermione dashed to their friend's side. In the commotion, no one paid any attention to Dennis. Draco was the only one who noticed him slinking away in the direction of the spiral staircase that led to the upper levels of the tower.
"Oh no you don't!" Draco growled, chasing after him. Ignoring his wife's frantic calls, he raced up the stairs in pursuit. He would be damned if he was going to let Dennis escape after all the pain and suffering he had caused.
Draco ran up the stairs, moving as fast as he could, until his legs burned and his lungs felt as if they were about to burst. He could hear Dennis's thudding footfalls overhead, causing tiny pieces of stone to trickle against Draco's face as they crumbled off of the ancient steps. At one point, he had to draw back under the staircase and press himself against the wall when Dennis paused to fire off a few spells in his direction.
Draco knew Dennis was trying to get out of range of the anti-Apparition spells that Harry and the Aurors had no doubt cast on the prison tower. He fervently hoped that the spells extended far enough to prevent the man from Disapparating once he reached the top.
Finally, after what felt like hours of pursuit, Draco emerged onto a balcony overlooking the North Sea. Dennis stood at the edge, staring down at the waves as they crashed against the rocks far below. Clearly, his attempts at Disapparation had failed. He spun around to face his pursuer, but Draco was ready for him.
"Expelliarmus!" he gasped, in a breathless voice, and Dennis's wand went sailing through the air and into his outstretched hand. The two men stood there in silence, still breathing heavily from their flight up the stairs, as Draco pointed both wands at Dennis's chest.
"Are you going to kill me, Malfoy?" Dennis asked finally. "That is why you chased me up here, isn't it?"
Was it? Draco wondered. The man had nearly killed his parents, and the woman he loved more than anything else in the world. Not to mention, he had almost forced Draco to do the deed himself. He could not imagine a worse form of psychological torture, and at that moment, he decided he had never hated anyone more than he hated Dennis Creevey.
Draco could hear the sound of people ascending the staircase below them, and he knew they would not be alone for much longer. He could kill Dennis and claim self-defense. It would be quite easy to get away with. He certainly had the motivation to kill the man, but did he have the desire?
"Do it," Dennis hissed, his hands clenching into fists. When Draco hesitated, he smirked. "Or are you too weak, after all?"
Draco raised his wand, pointed it at his adversary's heart, and prepared to utter the spell. But the words never left his lips. Because as he stood there, staring at Dennis, he seemed to see the faces of every other person he had ever tried, but failed, to kill. The haggard face of Albus Dumbledore, the sneering visage of his uncle Rodulphus, the crouching form of a Middle Eastern terrorist; all of these things passed before Draco's eyes, as he remembered the conversation he had shared with Rami, on a sunny afternoon in a desert village that seemed a world away from where he now stood.
"Mercy is not a weakness," he murmured, lowering his wand. Then he graced Dennis with one of his trademark Malfoy sneers as he swept one hand in the direction of the frigid North Sea. "I hope you like the view, Creevey. Something tells me you're going to be staring at it from the window of your jail cell for a very long time."
A group of Aurors, including Ron and Hermione, started flooding the doorway leading out onto the balcony, and just for a second, Draco did the unthinkable – he let his guard down.
Never turn your back on the enemy. How often had that lesson been drilled into his head during Auror training? And learned from personal experience when a Jordanian wizard, stripped of his wand, had once jumped him from behind and attacked him with a knife? Draco still had the scar on his jaw line as a reminder. Yet, when it mattered most, he forgot this lesson, and turned his back on Dennis to join Hermione as she emerged onto the balcony.
Suddenly, Hermione's eyes widened in alarm, and Draco spun around just in time to see Dennis withdrawing another wand from an inner pocket of his robe.
"Stupefy!" Hermione shouted, raising her wand to cast her spell at the exact same moment that Dennis bellowed, "Avada Kedavra!"
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion.
Hermione's spell struck Dennis in the stomach, and sent him flying over the edge of the balcony, into the roiling sea far below…but not before his own spell succeeded in hitting Draco square in the chest.
Draco saw a flash of livid green light, and then he was falling backward into darkness.
"NOOOO!" Hermione wailed, as her husband's lifeless body fell to the ground. In an instant, she was kneeling beside him, clawing at his chest, pleading with him to wake up. But she knew it was useless. Nobody "woke up" from the Killing Curse.
She lay her cheek down on his chest and sobbed into the front of his shirt, which was still warm with his body heat. She was vaguely aware of Ron standing at her side, squeezing her shoulder, Narcissa kneeling down on the opposite side of Draco's body, lovingly stroking his hair, and Lucius hovering over the small group, his face frozen in an expression of shock and grief. But Hermione hardly noticed any of this, because the world was ending, and she was oblivious to everything but her pain.
"Please, Draco," she whispered. "Please don't leave me."
She could almost imagine that his eyelids fluttered at her words, but she knew it was just her imagination - just as she was imagining the sound of his heart beating beneath her cheek. It was wishful thinking, or perhaps it was the sound of her own blood whooshing in her ear. But then – and this time, it was unmistakable – he made a soft, groaning sound in the back of his throat.
Hermione gasped and sat upright, afraid that there was some dark magic at work, reanimating Draco's body. She glanced at Narcissa, who was staring down at her son with wide eyes, and she knew for certain that she had not been imagining things.
"Draco?" she said tentatively. "Draco, can you hear me?" She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him frantically. Ron and the others watched her in bewilderment, no doubt thinking that she had lost her mind with grief.
"Draco!" she repeated, louder now. "Draco, say something!"
And then she heard it – words spoken so quietly, she had to bend down and place her ear just above his lips to understand:
"Something."
His eyes opened then, drawing astonished gasps from the surrounding crowd, and as she gazed into their quicksilver depths, Hermione knew he was not some evil spirit that had suddenly taken residence in her husband's body. His eyes were full of love as he gazed back at her, and she was so overwhelmed with joy that she didn't know what do with herself. She wanted to laugh, scream, cry, and do cartwheels all at the same time.
"But how…?" she asked. In response, Draco tugged open the front of his shirt, revealing something shimmering and silver underneath.
"I guess your anti-Kedavra suit works after all, love," he said with a wry grin. Hermione sputtered wordlessly for a few moments, running her hands over the smooth, glowing material that lay against her husband's chest. Then elation morphed into indignant anger.
"Draco Malfoy, don't you ever scare me like that again!" she shouted, drawing her hand back to slap him. But he was ready for her this time. Tenderly, he caught her wrist in one hand and used her forward momentum to pull her down on top of him instead.
"I promised you I would never leave you again," he whispered. Then he burrowed his other hand into her curls and brought his lips crashing against hers for a fierce kiss. She melted into his embrace, pressing as close to him as she possibly could, as if she could somehow absorb him through the pores of her skin. She didn't care that Ron, her in-laws, and at least a dozen Aurors were watching. At that moment, she would gladly make wild, passionate love to Draco in front of the whole lot of them.
Suddenly, Harry emerged from the lower levels of the tower, looking battered but no worse for the wear, and Draco finally released Hermione from their kiss. The stunned expression on Harry's face indicated that he had been told to expect a thoroughly dead Draco Malfoy when he arrived on the scene, and didn't know what to think upon discovering him alive.
"Jesus, Malfoy," Harry muttered, shaking his head in disbelief.
"Yeah," said Draco, "you almost could call me that, couldn't you?"
Harry snorted and rolled his eyes, asking, "How do you feel?"
"Like a hippogriff was doing the cha-cha on my chest. You?"
"About the same."
"I see. Well Potter, if you don't mind, I think I'm going to let you do all the miraculous escapes from death in the future. I've just discovered they're not really my style."
Harry, Ron, and Draco grinned at each other, leaving Hermione to shake her head and mutter, "Men."
Hermione and Ron helped Draco rise shakily to his feet, and then she stood with her arm wrapped around his waist to support him. She didn't want to stop touching him, because she was afraid that if she let go, even for a moment, he would cease to be real.
"What next, Mrs. Malfoy?" Draco asked, smiling down at her. "A second honeymoon in Fiji, perhaps? I hear the weather's quite nice at this time of year." He raised his eyebrows at Harry. "That is, if my boss will give me the time off from work?"
Harry chuckled, and then winced as the motion irritated his bruised ribs.
"Take all the time you want, Malfoy. I'm not showing up at work for a month if I can help it. Well, if Ginny even lets me come back to work after all this."
Hermione reached down to lace her fingers through Draco's, and gave his hand a gentle tug.
"Right now, the only place I want to go is home," she said. "What would you say to a hot bath and spending the whole day tomorrow in bed?"
"That's the best idea you've ever had," Draco replied with a grin. "And that's saying something."
Hermione smiled up at Draco. Then she sobered once more, and cupped his cheek in one hand.
"Draco, I know you're always saying that you don't deserve me, but… sometimes I think I don't deserve you."
For a few seconds, Draco stared down at her in mute surprise. Then his lips curled into a sly smile.
"Well," he said, "thankfully, you have the rest of our lives to make it up to me."
A/N: The poem quoted was once again Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 (my favorite!).