The rising moon / The setting sun
What's left to prove? / What's won is won
Don't sleep too soon / Come fire or flood
What's left to lose? / What's won is won
But it can always be undone
Undone - Tommee Proffit feat. Fleurie
…
His heart pounded like a drum in his chest, as if counting the clamouring, jarring beats against his ribcage as Draco stepped from the war room.
Magic crackled and seared in the air all around him, and for a brief instant, he felt as if time had all but slowed to a stuttering halt.
Hermione stood at his side, shimmering like the night sky, her hair pulled into an elegant twist around her crown. She was more regal, more stunningly beautiful, than he had ever seen her. He could see it in her eyes: the devastation. The desperation and the despair. But her face was set with determination, the line of her jaw hard, her gaze tight and focused.
A soft, unfamiliar facsimile of a smile pulled at his lips as he stared at her. Magic pulsed at the tips of his fingers, threatening to push forth of its own accord, and he drew a deep breath, assessing their surroundings.
Nocturnus, as far as he could see.
In their midnight blue battle armour, wands held aloft in firm, unwavering grasps.
Beneath the fear and the dread, Draco felt, for a fleeting moment, pride. Through every obstacle, the Order had stood, ready to defend and to fight for what they believed in.
And now, facing war and the potential of their demise, they stood tall.
His resolve steeled as he gazed upon their faces; it was up to the two of them to return such devotion and to protect those people they served.
The magic of the wards crackled all around them still, Avance's spell-breakers dismantling Glenneth's carefully layered enchantments. At Draco's other side, Hugo's hand came to rest on his shoulder with an affirming squeeze.
"We'll give them hell, yeah?" he said, breathless. His grip on Draco's shoulder wavered just slightly with the bobbing of Hugo's throat.
"Yeah," Hermione whispered from his other side, her lips twitching.
The intricate twisting vines of her wand shone in the early hints of night, and Draco's eyes slipped shut as he narrowed in on the feel of the moon, beginning its ascent towards its peak in the sky. He could feel it in the marrow of his bones, adrenaline and magic spiking in his veins as one.
At last, he opened his eyes and said, "We'll give them hell."
The bright light of a spell shot through the darkening sky above them, and Draco blew out a long, careful breath. His wand felt flimsy in his hand while the other pulsed and throbbed with raw magic. In the moment, Draco steadied the race of his heart, gaining control of the magic as his left hand hung loosely at his side.
More spells broke through the wards, streaking through the sky in reds and blues and purples, chasing overheard and deflecting off the imbued stone.
"Faith," Draco mused, glancing at Hugo; his gaze swept to Hermione, and he added, "Courage."
His wide stare fixed on the spells as they chased by, Hugo breathed, "Being more than we ever realised."
A slow grin spread across Draco's face. "For the Order."
As one, Hermione and Hugo echoed his words, their voices quiet. "For the Order."
A contingent of guards had settled around them, and Draco caught the eye of Ben, who offered a wink and a grin. Further beyond Hugo were Vlad and Boris, and at the front of the guard was Dagomir, more focused than Draco had ever seen him.
Hermione's fingers briefly squeezed his, his affiliation pulsing against her skin.
Magic soared through the wards, breaking through and chasing over the high walls of the fortress, before plummeting downwards.
A Nocturnus man threw up a shield charm, and the curse broke, shattering in a shower of sparks.
A great battle cry went up, and magic flew from the frontlines of the fortress where the Nocturnus fighters nearest the front of the battlements had a direct view down onto the Avance forces below.
Draco's heart leapt into his throat, lunar powers shimmering in the night air around him, and he strode forward, pacing beyond the line of fire, eyes narrowed in on the fighters.
From near the front lines, so much spellfire rained down it lit the night sky with violent flashes of colour, and it might have been beautiful if it wasn't so terrifying.
Even from where he stood, Avance was at a clear disadvantage, both in numbers and in tactical location, and Draco's mind spun at the thought of it. His eyes scanned for the dark hair and slim figure of Cosette, but in the falling darkness, he could scarcely discern one Avance from the next.
Idly, he wondered whether that would make it easier.
Guards shadowed him on all sides, Hermione and Hugo at his flanks.
Over the ruckus of magic and raised voices, he mused, "What is she doing?"
Shaking her head, Hermione only offered a grimace; Hugo muttered a low, humourless, "Losing."
All three of them had been at the Alba stronghold when Cosette had caught and nearly killed Hugo, and Draco didn't need to voice the thought that things simply weren't adding up.
Slowly, Hugo's gaze dragged around them. "This isn't right, Lunae."
"It can't be a decoy," Hermione said with a rapid shake of her head. "Not with so many people."
"Not a decoy," Draco agreed, and the three of them retreated from the walls, seeking out Dagomir where he led the guards from one of the towers.
"Madness!" Dagomir exclaimed before they had even reached the man. Although Draco had never heard the man curse, Dagomir shouted, "What the fuck is she doing!"
Desperately sweeping a hand through his hair, Draco hissed, "We're missing something."
His mind spun as he raced through everything they knew about the situation, from the decisive and strategic way Cosette had behaved when they had stormed the Alba stronghold for Claude Arcand's family to how they had been forced to work under the radar because of the leak from within the advising team—
"Dagomir!" Draco exclaimed, approaching once more. Holding up a finger, the man descended from the ramparts towards the three of them. Draco's heart raced a frantic cadence in his chest as he quickly exchanged a glance with Hugo. Mind leaping between one errant thought and the next, he pressed his fingers to his temple.
"She thinks she has an advantage—she thinks she knows something—" A thought registered, inciting dread in the pit of his stomach, and he said to Hugo, "I need to speak with your father. Stay here—I'll be right back."
Hugo's expression faltered, his eyes tightening, and though he opened his mouth to respond, Draco was gone, dashing from the rest of the group and scanning the mass of people spread in all directions.
The interior of the fortress was safe in comparison to the frontlines, given they were out of range of any Avance spellfire.
In the chaos, he had already lost Hermione and Hugo, twisting towards the far corner, but they were safe with Dagomir and it was of the utmost importance that he find Bergen—
Searing heat and a blinding flash of light erupted from the stone a short distance in front of Draco's feet, and he was thrown backwards in a great, concussive blast, his vision going black.
"Damnit!" Hugo exclaimed as a great explosive roar sounded from the far side of the fortress.
Staring at a dusty haze across the floor of the fortress, Hermione said, "What in the name of Merlin—"
"Explosives!" Dagomir shouted like the word was a curse. "Avance has brought Muggle explosives."
Leaving his contingent to continue with their barrage of spellfire, he dashed towards the wall, Hermione and Hugo following closely. She cast a glance behind, but was uncertain which way Draco had gone. At any rate, she didn't think he'd veered towards the site of the blast.
Several guards had followed after him, so at least he would be protected.
Hugo said, "I don't think he went that way."
Although nightfall was upon them in earnest, the spellfire was so voracious that it lit the sky, and Hermione gaped, dumbfounded as she stared over the wall at the ground beyond.
"Is that…" she mused, blinking, "a catapult?"
Hugo met her stare for a moment. "To be more specific, it's a trebuchet—you can see the counter-weight."
Despite the urgency of the situation, she fired him a bewildered stare. "You're a swot, Hugo Bergen." Lips twitching, she added, "That's saying a lot coming from me."
His cheeks pinked. "I like history."
"Regardless of what it is," Dagomir groused, "it's throwing explosives! This fortress wasn't built to withstand such a thing!"
As her stomach plummeted, Hermione saw the colour drain from Hugo's face. The trebuchet at the backlines of the Avance troops was being loaded once more, and further along the horizon, she spotted another. It reminded her of the way the old Alba fortress had employed Muggle arrow traps. She hissed, "We need to get back to Draco. Now."
Following the line Draco had taken when he ran off, Hermione cursed under her breath that they hadn't immediately followed him. In the mass of people, all clad in similar shades of dark blue, and with the panic mounting in her heart and blurring her vision, she could barely see faces.
The three of them made their way across the structure and through the crowds. Hermione could only hope he had already found Elias, and she wracked her already ragged brain for an idea of what had sent him off so quickly.
Mind churning with thoughts of the advantage Cosette thought she had, she didn't realise tears were running silently down her cheeks until Hugo's hand coiled around her elbow.
"I'm not losing you, too," he muttered through clenched teeth and a tight jaw.
"Hugo," she rushed, attempting in desperation to follow Draco's reasoning, "what if your father didn't find the person responsible for sharing privileged Nocturnus information—of there was another person, or—"
"Fuck!" he snapped, running a hand through his hair. Turning to face Dagomir, he asked, "What did my father tell you?"
Dagomir's expression darkened. "A member of his advising team was responsible. The oath-breaker has been dealt with."
"Just one?" Hermione implored.
The man nodded, his eyes flashing. "To my knowledge."
"Fuck," Hugo repeated in a huff, hissing the word as a mantra to himself. "There must be another. There's no way Cosette is doing this without inside information."
"No way," Hermione echoed, jaw clenching as she forced a thick swallow in the dusty air. "We have to find Draco, find your father, and find out what's going on."
She left the last words unspoken, haunting the tense space between them. Before it's too late.
Along one wall, another explosion erupted, sending rubble and dust into the air with a distant cacophony of shouts and screams. The three of them gaped; adrenaline and fear raced through her.
With a strangled cry, she mashed her thumb into the crescent on her opposite wrist, hoping against everything that she could somehow reach Draco.
Dagomir offered a grimace, drew his wand, and led the three of them deeper into the fray.
A low groan sounded, and it took Draco several long moments to determine the sound was coming from himself. His ears rang, muffled, the back of his head throbbing as he rolled his face to the side, grimacing as sharp bits of stone and debris dug into his cheek.
"Lunae!"
A voice, saturated with panic, forced him to open his eyes. He stared up into the bright blue gaze of a woman he recognised but whose name he couldn't place. The dull flickers of pain persisted through his skull, and with significant effort he lifted a hand to feel moisture in his hair.
The woman released a sharp exhale. "Thank Merlin you're alright."
"Quite the spill you took, Lunae," another voice, deep and gruff, said to his right. Blinking clumsily, Draco stared at the other person.
"Ben," he said, his voice dry and hoarse; his tongue felt too thick for his mouth. Glancing back at the woman, his mind clicked at last, and he muttered, "Madeline. What—"
Making to push up from his spot on the ground, Ben's firm hand held him in place. "You could have a concussion, Lunae."
His words sounded slurred to the ringing in his ears. "'Mm, alright. Need to find—where's Hermione?" Attempting to focus his thoughts was like swimming through mud, and he grimaced. "Hugo?"
"I haven't seen Hugo," Madeline announced, swallowing, "or the Lunae Amor."
Something snapped into place in his mind, and he struggled once more to push himself up. "I need to find Elias."
"Haven't seen him either, Lunae," Ben said, "but our first priority is making sure you're alright. I'll call for a healer—"
"No time," Draco ground through his teeth. Wrapping a hand around Ben's thick arm, he pulled himself upright, pressing his eyes shut tight against the barrage of pain in his skull. "Can do it—m'self."
He didn't know if it was even possible or if the magic would respond the way he needed it to, given his head was swimming in a wild disarray, but Draco plastered his palm to the back of his own head, fixing all of his efforts into the magic of the affiliation.
The magic wasn't nearly as responsive as he hoped, but some of the anxious pounding settled, and he could feel a large gash through his hair slowly knit shut.
Against the admonitions of both Ben and Madeline, he rose to unsteady feet, ears still ringing in the aftermath of the concussive blast, and curled a hand around Ben's sturdy wrist to stabilise himself. Dragging a hand down his face, he winced to realise his fingers were still coated in an obtrusive mixture of sticky blood and dust.
He muttered, winded with the exertion of standing, "I'm going to need your help. Hermione is with Hugo and Dagomir—I need to know they're alright. But I need to find Elias, and something tells me we don't have much time."
"Noted," Ben said, shoulders straightening as he snapped to attention. He spoke briefly with a handful of guards nearby, and the three men nodded and spread out in separate directions. "They'll find your bride, Lunae."
Worrying her bottom lip, her wand held within trembling fingers, Madeline asked, "What do we need to find Hugo's father for?"
"He has information I need," Draco said, scanning the crowds as some of the fog dissipated from his skull. "And I'm afraid it can't wait."
"Well then," Ben announced, his expression more serious than Draco had ever seen, "let's go."
Hermione jolted to a stop as Hugo's arm swung out in front of her, heart stuttering in her chest as she tightened her grip on her wand. Dagomir crept forward, crouching down, and she followed his movements without breathing.
"Avance," Dagomir bit out, prodding a man's prone form on the ground of the fortress. She wouldn't have noticed in the darkness, but the man wore gear of black with gold seaming rather than the navy and silver of the Nocturnus.
"What's he doing inside the fortress?" Hugo snapped.
Lip curling with revulsion, Dagomir rose once more, nudging the body with his toe. "We won't know—he's dead."
It was difficult to ignore the reality of it; the closer they travelled towards the main entrance, the amount of immobile bodies increased. Hermione forced a swallow, steadying her breathing even as flashbacks raced through her mind from five years ago: the unmoving forms of students and classmates. The casualties they'd lost in the Battle of Hogwarts. Tonks and Remus and Fred and—
Forcing herself to the present, she nodded. "We will have to—"
In an instant, so quickly she could barely comprehend, Dagomir's hand curled around her shoulder, and with a slash of his wand, a man crumpled to the ground several feet away.
Fury burned in Dagomir's expression even as caution flitted through his eyes. When they approached, Hermione realised the fallen man also wore Avance clothing. She didn't ask whether the man was still alive, eyeing his prone form.
"How are Avance getting in?" Hugo hissed. "The drawbridge is intact."
"No matter how," Dagomir growled, "they are. We need to warn the Lunae Ortus."
A thrill of fear shot through her spine at the thought that Draco might be caught off guard and unawares; in her panic, a mental image shot through her head at the idea of him surrounded and alone. She nearly darted off, but Dagomir held her firm.
Eyes roving the darkness, he said, "Carefully."
On all sides as they walked, Nocturnus rained spells down on the Avance gathered beyond the fortress, fighting them from within. Despite a tremble to her hand, Hermione cast as many offensive spells as she could at the black and gold clad figures, but Dagomir was so quick with his wand by the time she spotted any Avance fighters they were already down, and she found herself grateful for the Head of the Guard as their personal escort.
As they neared the war room at the centre, Vlad rushed forward, drawing heaving breaths. "Sir," Vlad said, "Avance are—"
"Inside, I know," Dagomir said. "Fight them off. They must be coming through the tunnels."
"How?" Hugo asked, shaking his head; he looked nauseated, his complexion pale and sickly. "The tunnels are an absolute labyrinth. If they did manage to infiltrate, they should be lost down there."
"They aren't," Dagomir returned simply before facing Vlad again. "For fuck's sake, someone find the Lunae Ortus."
Quickly, Vlad returned, "He's with Ben and Madeline near the north wall. I'm to retrieve the Lunae Amor."
A loud exhale chased from Hugo, and he pressed his lips together in a thick swallow.
"Thank Merlin," Hermione whispered, exchanging a glance with Hugo even as another massive eruption rocked the foundation of the fortress, and they all braced upon impact. Idly, she wondered whether Cosette had any scruples whatsoever, to be firing explosives into the fortress her own people had infiltrated.
Relief chased through her at the thought that Draco was alright and with a guard escort.
Dagomir nodded. "Let's go."
With Vlad leading a direct path, it should have been easy to reach the north wall, but a steady flow of Avance were inside the fortress now, and the four of them made slow progress, Dagomir and Vlad merciless as they cut down any enemy in sight.
Hugo looked increasingly ill, and Hermione felt a spasm of sympathy as her own heart raced in her chest with an ugly spike of adrenaline. He had obviously never experienced magical warfare before, and even though Hermione had fought in battles as a teenager, she didn't think she would ever grow accustomed to the sick dread that accompanied such a thing.
He kept close to her side, shoulders tense and a heavy furrow in his brow as he kept his jaw clenched. But he vanished from her side upon sighting Madeline.
Relief chased through her when she saw a distinctive flash of platinum blond at last, and she rushed towards Draco, though he looked significantly worse for wear than when she had last seen him. His clothes were coated in a thin layer of dust, a swath of his hair tinged an unsettling copper like the shade of dried blood.
"You're okay," she whispered, grasping him by the arms as his grey eyes blinked at her. He was a little unsteady, but he nodded.
"Fine," he muttered, and Hermione noticed a slight tremble to his hand. "I got caught in one of the explosions, but Ben helped me. Listen, Hermione—Avance are in the fortress. We need to figure out how they're getting in—and there's another traitor."
"We know," she rushed, glancing at Dagomir as the man briefly conferred with his nearby guards. "We haven't seen Elias, but Dagomir said he was only informed of one oath-breaker."
"There's no other way they can be navigating the tunnels below the fortress," Draco hissed as Dagomir stepped into the conversation.
With a sharp nod, Dagomir announced, "I've dispatched a contingent of guards to locate Avance's point of entrance. There are four access points from the tunnels into the fortress. What's done is done, and there is no way to prevent them from reaching the tunnels, but we can keep them from entering the fortress."
"Force them to retreat back into the fields," Draco said, running a grimy hand down his face. "It's our best option even though they've blown the damn place half to rubble."
Indeed, as Hermione gazed around, this area of the fortress had crumbled to chunks of stone and debris, dust heavy in the night sky. Great holes had been blown through the stone, large segments of the tall walls decimated.
"It is not safe here," Dagomir announced, his eyes trained on Draco. "We must get you to safety."
The blond scoffed, flexing his fingers. "I'm not leaving the Order to fight this battle alone."
Even as he spoke the words he swayed a little, and Hermione started forward with alarm, grasping his arm. "Are you alright?"
"Hit my head," he muttered, gazing down at his palm. "Tried to heal it up myself, but I don't think I went deep enough. Bloody magic isn't quite—"
As he spoke the words, a ball of magic pushed from his hand as if of its own accord and nearly grazed the side of Dagomir's face; the man's eyes widened as he released a harsh breath.
"Fuck," Draco exclaimed, "sorry." Looking contrite, he clenched his hand into a fist as Dagomir stepped back into the fray. "Nocturnus are being killed, and I can't—"
As he focused once more, his stare a little glassy, he brought the affiliation at last into his palm. His eyes lifted to find hers, mouth fixed into a hard line. Hermione could see the agony and the indecision in his stare, and though he obviously required medical attention, she knew it would be a futile effort to push.
For all the conversations they'd shared about the realities of war and the hypothetical nature of it, they had never discussed the massive destruction of the affiliation. She knew he didn't want to use it.
She could see it in his eyes, the pressure and the responsibility. The way his hand trembled just slightly. But she knew, deep down, the resolve he carried to protect his own.
Holding his stare, she whispered, "Clinical."
Hermione wished it were only the two of them and that they had time, but battle raged on all around them. They were out of time, and it was all at once the simple truth and a complex design. They needed to push through.
With a thick swallow, he nodded, drawing a deep inhale through his nose and blowing it out.
"Right. Clinical," he bit out, despair haunting his eyes as his voice dropped to a whisper. "It's war. Kill or be killed, yeah?"
His raw vulnerability shattered something deep within her chest as she stared at him, unable to respond. But as if steeling himself, Draco squared his shoulders, and Hermione watched as the affiliation built within his palm, shimmering down the length of his forearm.
As his gaze tightened, Hermione followed his stare to an approaching Avance man, who cut short mid-step as his eyes landed on Draco, flickering from the magic in his palm, to the fury in his stare, to the shimmer of his silver crown.
And the flare of magic that became the last thing the man knew.
Cautious, Hermione observed as Draco approached the man's prone form, his jaw locked tight, before his grey eyes flickered up to hers, and he huffed out a breath.
There were no words in the moment, no time for sentimentality, but Hermione could see his resolve, his devastation, and in that moment, his courage.
His hand still shone with the deep well of his lunar magic, and when he glanced at Dagomir, the man offered an infinitesimal nod. Draco bit out, "Let's take back this fucking fortress."
Time became a blur, stumbling from one occurrence to the next, even as the images flashing before his brain were stifled and stiff. Slowly, the invading fighters of Avance dwindled, their numbers too few, while from the towers, Nocturnus continued to strike down those who still ambushed the fortress with spellfire and explosives.
Draco's fingers tingled from the force of the affiliation, eager and ready to serve his bidding, and the faces of those he struck down blended together, a series of images he knew would haunt the rest of his days.
And as they received word from the guards that they'd located Avance's entrance into the fortress, a narrow pathway that supplied an Apparition chamber to the surface above, Dagomir led the charge with ferocity in his eyes.
Not once had Draco seen Cosette.
The interior of the fortress still teemed with those fighting, though the bodies piled around them, and fewer Avance leapt out of the shadows.
But he knew, somehow, she wasn't there. That she wouldn't lower herself to fight alongside her people. It was the difference, Draco sought desperately to ensure himself, between them.
At his side, Hermione wore a veil of despair.
They hadn't determined the other traitor—the one responsible for such loss and bloodshed—and Draco found his stare flickering between his cadre, unwilling to let any of them out of his sight for long. To Hugo, the one whom he'd struggled to trust, but who had become so close. And Dagomir, determined and ruthless, sworn to serve the Order with his life.
The rest of the council, fighting within the fortress; the numbers were so vast, the fortress so large, that he hadn't seen most of them in hours.
The dozens of guards who had taken up arms.
And the hundreds—thousands—of Nocturnus who fought within and without the fortress, as the battle moved to the fields and the more courageous abandoned the safety of the stone walls.
The only person he could trust, implicitly, in his soul, was Hermione.
Elias, Glenneth, Oro, Tressel—any of them could have possessed their own motivations to betray the Order, but he couldn't wrap his head around the idea of any of the council seeking his destruction.
Couldn't stomach the thought of someone in his inner circle playing such a hand.
Perhaps he'd been blinded by his drive to do good and to protect those who sought to protect him in return. They should have realised there was more going on below the surface. Because he had seen the labyrinthine tunnels below the fortress, and only someone who knew where to go would have found the interior Apparition chamber.
It was so apparent now.
Lifting his palm towards a black-clad figure, Draco barely felt the magic sear from the tips of his fingers. Barely winced, so numb to the reality of it.
Beneath her stare, Hermione hid her fear, though he could see it all the same. But they had no choice, because Cosette would surely kill them all if she could.
And Draco needed to get to her first.
Below the surface of his skin hovered a frisson of nerves that perhaps she would not show at all. But the Order was weakened, and she had sent her people to fight her battle for her; surely she must be there.
Mentally and emotionally drained, Draco climbed the nearest tower, scouring the fields below.
That was when he saw her, through the dim lighting from the turrets, standing at the back of her remaining troops; in the darkness he could see only her slim figure and the outline of her hair, pin-straight, but he knew it innately.
Lip curling with disdain and fury as Dagomir ascended beside him, he growled, "Cosette."
Dagomir's gaze flickered to him. "We will go through the tunnels. The networks are vast; we can come out behind her."
Drawing in a breath, Draco clenched his palm with a shuddering nod. "This ends," he breathed, "now."
Strong and assuring, Dagomir's hand curled around his shoulder. Quietly he said, "You have fought valiantly tonight, my friend."
Nodding again and pushing the faces with their dulled stares from his mind, Draco said, "And you."
When he met the man's hazel eyes, Draco swallowed. It couldn't be Dagomir who had betrayed him. Not when the man had been so persistently loyal from the beginning.
It couldn't be Hugo, who despite looking on the verge of sickness all night, had remained by his side, wand steady in his hand.
Warning bells pealed in the back of his mind, growing ever louder, and Draco forced a thick swallow, pushing the thoughts aside. What's done was done, and now all they could do was to finish it. The situation began with Cosette and the affiliation, and it would end with Cosette—and the affiliation.
Drawing strength from the moon high above, its cold chill seeping into his soul and twining with his magic, he murmured, "Let's go."
The tunnels were even more complex than Draco remembered from their arrival at the fortress, and as the dull yellow light of their wand tips bounced off the walls, a shudder raced down his spine. The guards had followed the paths of Avance into the subterranean network below the fortress, seeking out the stragglers and those who had sought to run.
Bodies littered the corridors, and Hermione kept close to his side, even as her face betrayed nothing.
Their contingent included Dagomir, Hugo, Ben, and Vlad, all of whom had refused to stay behind. With Nocturnus overpowering Avance, it was safer within the fortress than beyond the walls.
With each step, Draco felt his heart racing in his throat, magic tingling in the tips of his fingers and pulsing through his veins. The air was stale and tight, the walls narrow, and he felt his breath quicken as they paced forward.
Having studied the tunnels extensively, Dagomir led them beyond the fortress, and Draco felt the shimmer of the protective magic imbued into the stone as they left its borders.
Still they persisted onwards, beneath the fields where Nocturnus and Avance still fought in the heat of battle.
Draco dreaded to see the aftermath and the fallen Nocturnus he had desired to protect. Who had fought and died in an effort to keep the Order alive.
Hermione's fingers threaded into his, the contact fortifying his nerves as the crescent at his wrist pulsed and reached for her magic. He tightened his grip, giving her fingers a brisk squeeze and drawing strength from her support.
In the dimly lit passageway, he met her stare, and his resolve only strengthened further. She didn't deserve this, and it was within his power to provide a better life for her.
He read it in the movement of her lips, rather than in the volume of her words, when she whispered, "I love you."
Bringing the back of her hand to his lips in their joined hold, he murmured the same into her skin, allowing his eyes to briefly flutter shut as he dug deep for the strength to continue fighting.
At last they came to the end of the corridor and what seemed to be a dead end as the tunnel rounded into solid earth once more. But Draco met Dagomir's glance and offered a nod.
It was another Apparition channel, only this one would lead them to the surface above. An old, ingenious trick by Lunaes long gone to negate the need for access passages or stairwells.
His very soul felt cold, his heart beating a dull, somber rhythm as he gazed upon the faint shimmer of magic before him. They had no way of knowing exactly what was above; if Dagomir's estimates were correct, they would have traversed the entire area of the siege and would arrive beyond where they had seen Cosette.
Ben and Vlad strode forward and stopped just before the Apparition point, seeking to be the first ones to the surface. Their expressions were dire as they turned to Draco for direction.
Gazing for a long moment at the silver lines of his palm, he wondered, just briefly, how all of this could possibly have been worth it.
Clenching Hermione's hand with his other, he nodded.
Laying a hand to his heart, Ben dipped his head into a deep bow and vanished; Vlad followed suit. Dagomir Disapparated next and Draco drew in a long, steeling breath, before glancing between Hermione and Hugo.
Quietly, he bit out, "It's been an honour."
Hugo dropped his head into a deep bow before looking back up. "The honour has been all mine. Lunae Ortus—Lunae Amor."
Hermione's eyes shone with unshed tears, and Draco didn't know how he could look at her with the way everything had turned out. All he could do now was finish what someone else had started.
Because he had roped her into all of this.
Warmth stung at his own eyes, and he pressed a quick, hard kiss to her lips; before he could think on the situation any further, he stepped into the portal and Apparated to the surface.
Draco barely registered Hermione's and Hugo's arrival beside him as he stared at the small guard presence alongside them. They were back behind the fray, as Dagomir had predicted, and Draco's heart quickened in his chest as he scanned the crowd still fighting.
From the ground, everything looked so much more severe.
Dark figures slumped on the all around, and though he couldn't see their faces in the darkness, he felt each of their losses in his soul.
Ben and Vlad stood a short distance away, their wands drawn, and when Draco approached, following their stares, he could see Cosette's slim figure, her back to them. Magic pulsed through his hand and up his arm, the affiliation gathering its strength once more in preparation for this, the most monumental of battles.
"She will have protected herself in some way," Dagomir cautioned at his side. "Be careful, Lunae."
As he stared straight at the woman, assessing the situation, his hand hung loosely at his side, the affiliation steadily building. Draco recalled the way she had crafted a shield around herself when they had infiltrated the Alba stronghold to recover Arcand's wife and daughter.
The affiliation was naturally spell-breaking—but she would have learned that lesson.
Draco couldn't see the shimmer of wards around her form, but they were far away, and it was dark.
Still, the affiliation grew, lighting the ground beneath him in its intensity.
Behind him, Hermione and Hugo stood, wands at the ready as they kept watch.
His heart hammered in his chest, breaths rapid with the rise and fall of his chest. It took everything within him to contain the magic flowing freely to the surface of his skin—but he wouldn't release the power until he was ready.
Then, as if in slow motion Cosette turned, her face silhouetted in the darkness. A smile curled her lips.
Quietly, she spoke. "You've come to join me at last, Lunae Ortus." A cold, mirthless chuckle escaped her mouth. Draco wondered if she realised she was about to die; idly, he speculated as to what else she had up her sleeve. But she went on. "I thought you might spend the whole night hiding up in your tower, watching your fighters die."
"Like you've done?" he returned, dredging up a bit of a drawl, "Sending all of your people into a battle where they had a clear disadvantage?"
Her eyes flickered for a brief instant towards his palm. "That doesn't matter," she said, her tongue flicking out to moisten her lips. "Because all that matters is that magic in your hand. I suppose you think you're going to kill me, Draco Malfoy."
At his side, Dagomir tensed. Ben and Vlad stood their ground as Cosette took several steps towards them. As far as Draco could tell, she was alone, and he wondered at her level of hubris.
He didn't respond but to lift his hand; the collected magic was so dense it was nearly blinding, illuminating the entire area. Slowly, Draco released bits of it, unspooling it like a thread to encircle his guards and his friends—they were all the same now, he supposed—protecting them. And still, the magic remaining pulsed in its raw fury.
"Impressive," Cosette purred.
Through clenched teeth, Draco managed, "Isn't it?"
His heart pounded in his chest, threatened, and throughout the back of his mind, warnings triggered insistently. Something was wrong, and he knew it.
But they were here, and they were so close, and he couldn't wrap his head around the situation. Couldn't understand why Cosette's cheshire grin only widened.
All along, Avance had been ahead of them. They had known things of which Nocturnus had been unaware, and now, Draco knew the feeling once more, deep within him.
His gaze darted to Dagomir's at his side.
"It's funny," Cosette whispered, breaking the tension as it gathered and built in the air between them all, "that you think you're going to kill me tonight."
Dagomir hissed, "Do it."
Before he could think further or contemplate himself into a worse situation, wondering at her motivations, Draco clenched his jaw; with a curl of his wrist, the affiliation flew. It was enough magic to decimate a small village, if he so willed it.
With a huff of a breath, Draco watched, eyes narrowed, as the affiliation deflected inches before eclipsing Cosette; his lips parted, with a whispered, "No," as it shifted, just skimming one corner of the fortress. It collided with a great cacophony of stone, crumbling the tower at the corner to the ground in a heap of dust and rubble. Fighters leapt out of the way to avoid the fallout.
When silence fell in the distance once more, thick and rancorous, Draco merely flexed his wrist, allowing the magic to build once more.
In all of his tests, his own mental fortitude had depleted long before the magic of the affiliation ran out.
But there was no shimmer of magic playing at his fingertips, its cool touch creeping down his forearm. The lines of his palm remained dull and unresponsive.
He felt his cohort tense as one.
And a short distance away, beyond the guards, Cosette's grin widened.
"I think you will find, Mister Malfoy," a new voice broke in, bone chilling in its familiarity, "that your magic will not work here tonight."
A sharp inhale of a breath sounded from Hugo at his left flank; the fingers of Draco's right hand clenched his wand tighter.
Slowly, his heart throbbing in his throat, roaring with the race of his blood in his ears, Draco turned his head to see Elias Bergen, a nasty smile on his lips as he walked up alongside Cosette.
"You," Draco hissed, eyes narrowing on his chief adviser—the one to whom he had entrusted everything.
At his right, Dagomir's face remained blank, his eyes flitting between Cosette and Bergen, assessing the situation. If he was surprised, he didn't show it. Ben and Vlad stood firm.
But to his left, Hugo stormed forward, his face fully drained of colour. Confusion and bewilderment sat blatant on his features as he scowled at his father from Draco's side. "You can't have—"
"You should have returned to Stockholm, Hugo," Bergen interrupted, his voice cold. "When you were given the chance." And though Hugo had fought bravely all night, his wand hand trembled when Draco glanced his way. Bergen snapped, "Come, Hugo."
Baffled and hurt, Hugo turned towards Draco, whose stare remained fixed on Elias. He asked only, "Why?"
"The house of Malfoy was never fit to rule," Bergen spat, revulsion and loathing clear on his face. "Not your great-grandfather, who chose to let Nocturnus fade into obscurity rather than fight. Not your snivelling coward of a father." The words hung in silence for a moment before he added, "And certainly not you."
Hermione shifted into the space between him and Dagomir, her eyes hard. The fingers of her left hand grazed his wrist, and he could feel the enticing tingle of her magic.
Lips twisted into a sneer, Draco said, "And I suppose you think you should have been granted the ruling seat."
"Nocturnus belongs to the House of Bergen!" Elias exclaimed, the words ringing in the night air. "The affiliation belongs to the House of Bergen."
It was Hugo who spoke next, devastation and fury mingled in his words. "As per Nocturnus rule," he ground out, his jaw clenched so hard Draco thought his teeth might shatter, "the Order passed from House Bergen to House Malfoy."
Crisply, Bergen announced, "It was taken. Tonight, we will take it back. Come, Hugo—or die alongside the rest of them."
Despite his brain reeling as the situation unfolded between them, Draco felt pressure building in his temples as he reached again and again for the affiliation, finding no response. He cast a wild glance around, panic building within him. If he couldn't penetrate Cosette's protective spells, they were at a sudden and severe disadvantage.
Hugo flinched and bit out, "I stand with my Lunae Ortus."
"Idiot boy," Elias spat, "chasing ideals you do not understand. I should never have brought you to England with me."
Still, Draco flexed his palm, clenching Hermione's hand desperately within his, hoping to draw her faint shreds of the affiliation into him.
"You are learning," Elias said, his tone steadying once more, "that dear Glenneth's magic is strong enough to choke your own—for a limited time, but long enough for our purposes here."
Draco could hear Dagomir's low growl as he glanced around to see Glenneth approach, the mage's hands lifted in a spell. Another sharp stab of betrayal settled in the fringes of his heart. But the man's eyes were glassy and haunted with despair as if he fought an internal battle, a tight downturn to his lips.
By his ear, Dagomir whispered, "He is Imperiused."
"Elias," Draco breathed in return. Dagomir gave a brief, sharp nod. If they could distract the caster long enough for Glenneth to break free, Draco could regain use of the affiliation.
Hugo still stared at his father, despair and devastation etched in the lines of his brow, his wand loose in his fingers.
In an instant, without preamble, Dagomir, Ben, and Vlad fired at Elias.
Glenneth was faster than their spellfire, swinging one hand towards Bergen in a protective shield; the spells bounced off the man in the same way the affiliation had been deflected from Cosette.
For barely an instant, Draco felt magic tease the veins of his palm before Glenneth refocused, strangling the lunar magic in a choke hold once more.
Despite Bergen's distraction, Glenneth held firm, and Draco ground out to his cohorts, "It isn't him controlling Glenneth."
"I'm afraid," Cosette broke in, speaking for the first time since Bergen had revealed his true colours, "as touching as this all is, Elias and I have work to do." Her cold gaze swung to Hugo. "For the sake of your father, I will offer you this last chance to join us."
There was something in the way she caressed Elias' name, something in the way they shifted closer to one another.
Hugo picked up on it, too, as he breathed a horrified, "No."
Something flashed in Bergen's eyes as he gazed upon Cosette before turning back to Hugo. "You've been nothing but a complication this entire time. I thought if you were threatened you'd run back home."
Suddenly, Dagomir murmured, "Tressel."
Draco followed his gaze, keeping his expression carefully stoic, to see Tressel, the appointed replacement treasurer, with his wand trained on Glenneth from a safe distance.
He ought to have realised; Draco's eyes tightened as he scowled at the man.
Another active bout of spellfire exploded from the guards and still their magic bounced off, unable to penetrate whatever sort of shield Glenneth had erected. Sorrow shone in the man's eyes as they held Draco's, tears leaking from their corners, but still he couldn't relent.
Pushing onwards, their cohort persisted in their ambush of spellfire, both deadly at Tressel and non-lethal force at Glenneth in an effort to throw him off.
Every so often, Draco felt a flicker of his magic through the disarray, creeping through his veins and tingling, cool, against his skin. But it wasn't enough, and when he tried to summon the magic, each time it only sputtered and died.
Even Hermione's fledgling magic, her hand gripping his, couldn't awaken the affiliation in his veins.
And their spells continued to bounce off.
Fear crept into Draco's heart, fear for Hermione, for Hugo and Dagomir, for the guards, all unwavering in their efforts.
Revulsion curled his lip at the look exchanged between Cosette and Elias, and Draco felt his fury boil in his veins. Cosette had said Glenneth could only kill the power of the affiliation for a short while, so if they could somehow manage to distract them for long enough to regain his power—
But Cosette snapped out, "Glenneth, we don't have all night."
A frisson of real fear chased down Draco's spine as the mage turned on him, pacing forward. The pale irises of Glenneth's stare shone with fear, desperation, and misery.
Draco growled under his breath, "Fight it." Glenneth's stare flickered, blinking rapidly, and Draco felt a breath catch in his throat as the man's jaw clenched hard. He whispered again, "I know this isn't you—fight it."
On all sides, the battle raged on, but as Draco stared into the depths of Glenneth's eyes, watching the man war with the grip of the spell, dread settled into his bones. He had no way of fighting the man off, not by affiliation nor his wand, useless as the rest of them.
In his periphery, he saw Dagomir wind up and strike Tressel in the jaw; a flicker of magic flared in Draco's palm. It was a wonder the man was still standing. Ben and Vlad converged on the treasurer, and Glenneth's stare shifted again, a hint of the cloudiness dissipating.
"Do it now!" Cosette screamed, drawing her wand, as Elias' spellfire blew Ben backwards.
Draco could see in Glenneth's face, the moment when Tressel regained control, and the last of his hope sunk away. All he could see reflected back at him was his own demise. Desperation couldn't will the magic to flare at last, and Draco felt useless as the day he was born.
He could only hope Hugo or Dagomir would get Hermione away in time.
Grimacing, Glenneth began a low chant in Latin; Draco didn't attempt to catch it, his mind whirring as he sought an answer—anything he could do to turn the tides of this battle back in their favour.
Maybe if Cosette and Elias took the affiliation, they would spare Draco's friends. Hermione, his beautiful Lunae Amor. The woman he never deserved but who had become everything he ever wanted.
His own spells broke, useless, on Glenneth's shield, and as the spell carried on, his head began to throb, a reminder of the wound he'd suffered earlier and had pushed through on adrenaline alone. His body began to fatigue, the strength waning in his clenched fist.
Idly, Draco saw Dagomir and Ben throwing themselves bodily at Glenneth's shield and being fired back.
He couldn't bear to look at Hermione, though he desired to seek out the beauty in her stare once more.
Draco didn't know how to acknowledge that he'd failed her so intensely, and shame welled within him, hot and painful, his many failures building and blurring as moisture in the corners of his eyes.
He felt faint, and he wasn't sure if it was truth or delirium that he could see his own magic leaching from his body in thin wisps, shimmery and silver like the moon. Draining him of his power as his very core magic seeped through his pores, drawing from his veins with the slowing of his heart.
Though battle raged and he knew people were shouting, everything became muffled, dulled to a faint echo. His eyes fluttered shut, his energy all but drained; unsteady on his feet, his knees buckled, and his wand fell from his useless grasp.
Faintly, Draco could hear Hermione's voice, and a hint of a smile curled his lips.
All went black.
"No," Hermione gasped, eyes wide as she stopped, frozen. Terror gripped her heart as Glenneth turned away, and Draco crumpled to the ground, his magic creeping from him in shimmery tendrils and following after the mage. Tears sprang to her eyes as she ran forward, a broken sort of keening pouring from her lips as she collapsed to the ground beside him.
His skin was cold, his eyelids lightly closed, and she pressed a trembling hand to his pulse, to the beautiful silver crescent at his wrist.
Even now, she could feel the soft prodding of her own affiliation, but it wasn't strong enough. It wasn't enough when he needed her.
Her breaths choked from her as deep, gasping sobs, her heart pounding an anxious rhythm that she could hear in the rush of her blood.
Pressing a faintly shimmering hand to his chest, she drew Draco towards her, cradling him to her heart.
"Hugo!" The word tore from her throat, hoarse and raw, and the man glanced up from his duel. At last Glenneth's shield collapsed, and Hugo's spell threw Tressel back into the air as he rushed forward.
Vaguely, Hermione heard Dagomir shout something, but everything was dull and muted beneath her own sobs.
Hugo landed at her side, and she met the tears in his eyes through her own, blurred, as moisture poured freely down her cheeks with the shattering of her heart. With a long breath, Hugo pressed the tips of his fingers to the pulse point at Draco's throat.
He cussed under his breath, grabbed a hold of both her and Draco, and buried a hand into his pocket.
In a whirl of time and space, they were gone.
…
End Part 2
Author's Note: Thanks for reading. See you in five days xo
Alpha and beta love to Kyonomiko, LadyKenz347, and ravenslight.