AN: Very passionate responses on the last chapter. Many of you are upset that Hermione forgave Harry. I don't want to give anything away, but will issue a gentle reminder: Hermione is still under the influence of the curse. She doesn't remember many of the events that happened right after Draco's trial. She knows that she was kicked out of the Weasley's, but only because Draco told her. She doesn't remember it. She doesn't feel it. She might not even believe it.

So maybe don't be too hard on her? And don't desert me just yet.

Lost Souls of Nott Castle

Chapter 39 - Broken

Franklin Willoughby looked to be about eighty years old. His beard would have rivaled Dumbledore's. His robes had seen better days. His eyes, though, were sharp and clear, bright blue and calculating.

"Mr. Willoughby," Draco greeted him. "My name is Draco Malfoy. This is Hermione Granger."

"Are you really?" He asked with wide eyes and a chuckle. "What an odd pair to show up at my doorstep."

"Sergeant Rupert directed us to you." Hermione told him. She glanced at Draco with a worried crinkle in her brow. "He said you were the best curse breaker around."

"Rupert said that, did he?" The man sized them up. "Well, I suppose you should come in, then."

He opened the door and allowed them to enter a small foyer. They followed him through to a sitting room where they settled onto a small couch side by side while Willoughby sat in a chair opposite of them.

"Never thought I would live to see the day that a Malfoy was asking for my help," he chuckled again. "Hell must be freezing over."

Draco crinkled his brows, while Hermione snickered.

"It's a muggle expression," she explained. "It means the impossible is happening."

"Perhaps you do not know that I am muggleborn, then?" The old man smirked. "I will not be offended if you leave now."

Draco squeezed her hand and sighed. It seemed everyone was either prejudiced against her or against him. Would they be dealing with people like this their whole lives? Yes, they probably would.

"Honestly, sir, I don't care about your parentage." He looked the man directly in the eye. "All I care about is if you can, or will, help us."

Willoughby appraised them for a long moment.

"Yes, I can see you are very different from your father and grandfather." He nodded his head and motioned for them to continue. "Why don't you tell me what seems to be the problem?"

Hermione sighed and rubbed at her temple. Draco looked at her with concern.

"Is your head still hurting?" He asked quietly.

"Yes," she confirmed. "I don't know that I'm up to this right now. Perhaps we should come back at another time?"

Her voice sounded weak. The pounding in her head was only getting worse, though. She could feel it pulsating with every heartbeat.

"I think that it's trying to break through the partition," she told him.

He swore under his breath and pulled her against him.

"In that case, we aren't leaving. Not yet."

She nodded against his chest and closed her eyes. When he looked back up, Willoughby was watching them carefully. The mirth he had shown was gone. Now he was intrigued.

Draco told him about the curse. He told him about the memory partition. He told him about the onslaught of memories and how she couldn't distinguish the memory from reality. He told him everything.

When he finished, Willoughby appraised him once again.

"You truly love her, don't you?" He asked.

Draco glanced down at the witch that was now sleeping against him.

"With all my heart," he answered.

"Very well." He stood up and motioned for Draco to follow him. "Bring her. Let's see what this curse is all about."

Draco lifted her easily and carried her through the house to a stairway. Willoughby led him down the stairs to a basement. The room they went inside had a chair set up in the middle with arm straps and leg straps. There was padding around the walls.

Hermione opened her eyes and looked around.

"Miss Granger," he said to her. "Please, have a seat."

She swallowed thickly then sat down in the chair. The straps adjusted to her wrists and ankles, holding her in place.

"If you would, please, lift the memory partition."

She took a shaky breath.

"I don't know if I will be able to put it back in place," she said.

"You won't need to, my dear." He told her reassuringly.

"You sound so sure of yourself," she said with a small laugh. He merely smiled at her. "Okay. Here goes nothing."

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She concentrated for a moment, finding the lock she had put into place on the partition and releasing it. As soon as it was gone, the pounding headache dissipated. She breathed a sigh of relief and her body sagged with exhaustion.

"It's gone," she muttered quietly. Her eyes fluttered open and she saw Willoughby standing in front of her. Draco was behind him, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, watching.

It only took a few seconds for the curse to regain control. The image of Draco morphed into him leaning against the doorjamb of the library.

Then she felt Willoughby enter her mind. She gasped at the sudden intrusion. Memories of her past once again flashed before her as he searched for the curse. He didn't dawdle on any of them, flipping through them quickly. Until he reached the memory at the Manor.

She heard herself crying out in pain. She couldn't be sure if it was the memory she was hearing, or if she was actually screaming. She had revisited this particular memory far too many times in the last few days.

He moved on and did not go back, for which she was extremely grateful.

Then he was probing at the curse, finding its edges.

"Interesting," he muttered. "Try to hold very still now."

She held her breath and braced herself for the onslaught of memories. Sure enough, they started flashing through her mind, so real she would have sworn she was living them.

The memory of Pansy pushing her down the stairs filtered in. Lying on the stone floor, broken and bleeding, she tried to raise her arm to deflect the curse that was coming. Pansy smirked down at her, pointed her wand at Hermione's head and chanted " vivere rursus memorias".

"Got it," she heard Willoughby say triumphantly. "Just a few more moments."

She felt a wand tip against her temple, then she heard him chanting lowly under his breath. The memories began swirling together faster and faster. She felt dizzy. She gasped for breath against them. Her vision began fading on the edges, and then all she could see was blackness. A hand gripped hers.

Draco.

"It's okay, Hermione," he said. "I've got you."

She held onto him as though her life depended on it.

The voices in her head jumbled together in a cacophony of indeterminate noise until she couldn't take it any longer.

She let go, falling into the abyss within her mind. Everything faded. She heard nothing. She saw nothing. She felt nothing.

Draco watched helplessly as Willoughby poked and prodded around in Hermione's mind. Her eyes were wide open, but they were glassed over. Even though they were darting frantically around the room, she was not seeing anything. Not the ancient curse breaker standing in front of her, and certainly not himself.

Her breaths were coming out in short pants. Pain and fear clouded her eyes. A sweat broke out across her forehead.

He stepped forward and took her hand in his. She relaxed infinitesimally.

Then her back arched off of the chair and she screamed. The bone chilling noise was absorbed into the padded walls, but it continued until she had no breath left to scream with. Her mouth remained open in a silent scream for several long heartbeats. Then she crumpled backwards into the seat.

Boneless.

Lifeless.

"Hermione?" He whispered. His heart dropped to the floor. He gripped her hand. He cradled her face. She was not breathing.

"Hermione?!" He said louder. Panic clawed it's way up his throat. The curse breaker stumbled backwards and sat down heavily in a chair along the wall. "Is she...?"

He couldn't bring himself to finish the question.

"The curse has been broken." He answered quietly. "The rest is up to her."

She floated in the darkness. Not asleep, but not awake either. She didn't know how long it lasted. It might have been a few minutes. It might have been a few hours. It could have been days for all she knew.

Eventually, she began to become aware of her surroundings again. She could hear Draco speaking to her. He sounded far away at first, but he was getting closer and closer. She could feel his hands on her face.

"Hermione, can you hear me? Open your eyes, Princess."

She took a gasping breath and her eyes flew open.

It took a moment for her to realize she was still sitting in the chair in the padded room. Draco was standing in front of her. Willoughby was sitting in a chair against the wall.

"Hermione?" He asked. There were so many questions in that one word. Are you okay? Do you remember everything? Are you in control of your own thoughts?

"Draco," she managed to whisper. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck, only then noticing that she was no longer restrained.

They held each other like that for a long moment. Then slowly he pulled back just far enough that he could look into her eyes.

"It's okay, Draco," she told him. "I'm okay. It's gone."

The relief that flooded through his eyes washed through her. He kissed her, paying no mind at all to the old man sitting behind him.

"Bloody hell, Hermione. You scared me to death." He told her. "If I never hear you scream like that again it will be too soon."

"I screamed?" She asked.

"Yes. Then you passed out." He tucked her head under his chin and held onto her as she took a deep breath.

"Miss Granger," Willoughby said a few moments later. "I just want to apologize. While I was in your mind, I witnessed a memory that caused you a great deal of pain. I should have moved on quickly, but I was so shocked by the content that I froze. I am sorry for that."

Draco held her a little tighter, knowing exactly what memory he was referring too.

"Thank you," she told him.

"As for the curse, it was a nasty one. A lesser witch could not have survived it without going mad. It is my great honor to have been the one that you trusted to remove it for you."

He then turned to Draco.

"She's going to need rest. At least twenty four hours in bed, no magic. No extra curricular activities." He paused and raised his eyebrows. "There should not be any lasting effects. If you notice anything peculiar, please let me know."

"Thank you, sir. For everything." Draco held out his hand. "I don't know how we can ever repay you."

Willoughby took his hand and shook it heartily.

"Don't worry, Mr. Malfoy. I'll send you a bill for my services." The mirth from earlier had returned to his voice.

"It was worth every knut." Draco told him.

A few minutes later they stepped through the floo network and back into Theo's sitting room. Hermione couldn't deny how tired she was even if she tried. By the time they made it upstairs to her bedroom, she could barely keep her eyes open.

She laid down on the bed fully clothed and was asleep only moments later.

Draco waited a few minutes longer to make sure she was really asleep, then he went to find Theo and Blaise. A lot had happened that day and he wanted to fill them in.

He found both of them on the roof. It was obvious they had been flying that afternoon and had stopped for a break. They were enjoying a couple of butter beers.

"Are you okay there, Draco?" Blaise asked him as he sank down in his chair and dripped his head into his hands. "You look like shite."

At first he couldn't even answer. He just shook his head and took deep breaths.

"What happened now?" Theo handed him a bottle of butterbeer.

"We found a cursebreaker." His voice was shaking. He opened the bottle and took a long drawl. Then he told them everything that had happened at the old man's house.

Retelling how Willoughby had found and then broken the curse, and the reaction Hermione had as a result, made his stomach churn. He still wasn't sure which was worse, the scream she had emitted, or the way she had gone completely slack afterwards. Pale. Unmoving. She wasn't even breathing.

He had been afraid she was gone forever in an instant.

"Mate," Theo interrupted his reverie. "I think you need something stronger than butterbeer."

He followed Theo's eyes and saw that his hands were shaking.

"Yeah. I think you're right," he agreed.

Soon his bottle had been replaced with a glass. He took a long drink before continuing the tale, picking up from when she had finally taken a breath and opened her eyes.

He had never felt such relief in his entire life. Not even when he watched Voldemort fall.

"So she's sleeping now?" Theo asked when he was finished.

"She is. Willoughby assured me she would be back to normal tomorrow."

"That is great news," Blaise told him.

"It really is," he sighed and ran his hand through his hair. There was still more he needed to tell his friends, though.

He cleared his throat after another drink.

"There's more." He swirled the liquid around in his glass. This part wouldn't be easy. "While we were at the Ministry they asked me if I would talk to Pansy to try to figure out what curse she had used."

Theo and Blaise shared a look before refocusing on their friend.

"Did she tell you?" Theo asked finally.

"No." He ran his hand through his hair again and sighed. "She did, however, confess to using an unforgivable curse on Potter, forcing him to threaten and attempt to kidnap Hermione."

The silence on that rooftop was deafening. Slowly he lifted his eyes from his glass to look at Blaise.

"What?" Blaise blinked twice. "Why?"

"When we were at Hogwarts two months ago, she saw me stick up for Hermione, then we all went to Hogsmeade together."

"Let me get this straight," Blaise leaned forward and glared at Draco. "She was jealous that you were talking to Granger? What the hell?"

"Supposedly, years ago, she convinced our fathers to sign a betrothal contract."

Blaise stood. The bottle in his hand went flying across the roof to crash into pieces on the stone railing.

"Are you telling me that for the entire six months we were dating, she thought she was betrothed to you?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't know anything about it. It's null and void now, anyway. Not that I ever would have honored it, if it does exist."

Blaise paced back and forth for several minutes before slumping into his seat.

"It isn't your fault. Don't worry about it." He opened another bottle and drank half of it in one go.

"You know it isn't over yet, though, right?" Theo asked him. "There are going to be others. People that hate her. People that hate you. People that hate the two of you together."

"I know," Draco sighed and took another drink. "It's the price we pay, I guess."

Theo and Blaise shared a look.

"What?" He asked, although he was pretty sure he knew where they were going.

"You've both been through so much. Is it really worth it to put yourselves through even more?" Blaise asked.

He stared into his glass, swirling the amber liquid around and around. He would be lying if he said he hadn't thought the exact same thing.

How much more was he willing to put her through just to be with him?

How selfish was it for him to risk her life because he wanted her for himself?

Or would it be his life that was at risk the next time?

Was that a chance he was willing to take?

AN: I'm not going to lie, this is one of my favorite chapters. I hope you all liked it too! Drop me a line and let me know what you're thinking.

Until Wednesday.

-mezy