Chapter Ten: Albus Dumbledore

A/N: I apologize for the delay, and the rather short chapter. I have been busy.

A heart-wrenching sense of fear nearly lurched Cato's ability to react away from him, and for a few moments he could only stare at the scene, his mind dissecting it, as if rationalizing its every element might strip it of its terrible nature. Maybe that window of time stretched on for a minute, but the next thing he knew, Cato was by her side, a finger to her neck, his wand in hand.

Her skin was cold, clammy and something horrible crawled up his throat. Then, something faint. A butterfly heartbeat, impossibly weak, almost as terrifying as no heartbeat at all. Magic came naturally now, such emotion throbbing through him that the fire conjured beside them barely required a wand movement. It roared to life, golden light only contrasting the pallor of her skin ever more sharply with the blood coating her robes. In the silence, there were only his chaotic breaths and the roar of his heartbeat, deafening in their weight. He passed a hand over her wounds, too scared to touch them. The gashes in her belly revealed red flesh beneath and Cato gently moved her hands away and ran his wand along them, his breath hitching like a faltering heart. To see death, inevitable, sudden, brutal, had left him unmoved. To witness life slipping through his powerless fingers like sand brought with it a feeling of utter hopelessness that made him want to scream with rage.

The spell had to be sectumsempra for Potter could not have known any other spell capable of wreaking such havoc on another person's body. And as quickly as that thought arrived, a sudden hatred blossomed within him as he cast spell after spell on her prone body. She seemed so fragile now, balanced on the edge of a precipice, that for the second time that night, Cato felt murder in his veins.

Her wounds were closing with agonizing slowness, horrible still despite his best efforts. If only- Draco had told him Snape had taught him the spell and Snape could have taught him as well- If only. Then he might know the counter-curse. He bit his lip and cast the only diagnostic spell he knew, a simple thing he had learned in sixth year DADA. "No," he muttered, his words swallowed by the graveyard silence around him.

It wasn't enough, and it was too late. Apparition would kill her in this state, so had said his mother and their apparation instructor. He gripped at his hair with his free hand, as if he might rip out a solution along with his golden strands. But no- She was dying. "Reducto!" he shouted, pointing his wand at a wall. The spell blew out a gaping hole, showering the slope with debris and the house groaned like a wounded beast. Cato stuffed his wand into his pocket and slid a hand under her knees and shoulders. With a great groan, he heaved himself to his feet, the pain of straining muscles muted by adrenaline.

Snow drifted onto his face in gentle, fat flakes and they felt so much warmer than the girl in his arms. A sliver of cloud-shrouded moon lit the way down the treacherous hillside but desperation drove him through the snow with reckless abandon, pushing knee high swaths aside with every step. Her breaths came out in tiny flutters of vapor now, caught and torn away by the breeze as swiftly at they came.

Hogsmeade glowed in the distance, so close yet so impossibly far, like a campfire across a river. "Help!" he yelled. 'Help… help…" echoed the moor around him, his voice lost in the snow so quickly. He tripped on a concealed branch and barely caught himself. There was nothing to answer him but the wind and his quickly fading echo.

He had no choice. He would have to apparate, for she would surely die if he did not, and that thought felt suddenly quite impossible even unbearable. "I'm sorry," he muttered, trailing a frozen finger on her cheek as he set her down and knelt beside her. She looked like she was born to lie in the snow now, pale as porcelain and so cold that snow barely even melted as it landed on her cheeks. He felt a hollow ache in his chest as he touched her shoulder and focused on Hogsmeade. They had brooms there, ways to get a mediwizard and he dared not go any farther.

But as he was about to apparate, a fireball appeared above him, warm like nothing he had ever felt before. A talon gripped his shoulder and suddenly the snow was gone, the cold was gone and someone was shoving him out of the way. He growled in fury, momentarily incoherent as Daphne was ripped from his arms. "Mr. Malfoy, you will control yourself!" And a soothing trilling sound followed the sharp voice, calming enough that Cato finally took in his surroundings. White beds, that particular smell. The hospital Wing.

Madam Pomfrey already had Daphne on a bed, and Fawkes the Phoenix was giving him a strange look, perched as he was on the back of a chair. Cato walked over to him on uncertain legs, casting aside confusion and the thought that of all places, he should not be here. That Potter knew- That he was in danger. He collapsed into the chair next to Daphne's bed, feeling suddenly tired down to the marrow. "Thank you, Fawkes," he said. "Though I can't quite tell why you did it." The Phoenix blinked once, its dark eyes as inscrutable as a night sky full of stars, then it disappeared in a ball of flame.

So Cato sat, watching Madam Pomfrey toil over Daphne, paralyzed by indecision. Leaving now was the only choice he had, but the thought of leaving her to the wolves when Potter had almost certainly already spoken to Dumbledore felt so entirely wrong that it kept him in his seat. "Is she going to survive?" He croaked. He received no answer for a long moment as Madam Pomfrey cast another spell and fed her once more potion. Then she took hold of Daphne's wrist, so terribly thin looking, and nodded once. "I suspect she will, Mr. Malfoy." Her voice was barely above freezing and she did not even deign to look at him.

The hospital wing had not been a place Cato had often visited during his years at Hogwarts, but he had never felt so unwelcome as he did now. He looked down at his hands. They were covered in dried, crusted blood and scrubbing them against his robes did little to clean them. "Good."

"Whatever spell was cast against her is nothing I have seen used for almost twenty years," she said, finally looking at him with a flinty expression. "You may no longer be under my care, Mr. Malfoy, but Miss Greengrass is. Your choices have been made, but I will not have you put my wards at risk."

The skin on Cato's forearm felt suddenly hot, but he suffered her gaze until she turned back to Daphne, his head held up and his back straight. "Sometimes choices are inherited, not made," he said. And when she looked back at him, the tightness around her eyes had softened a fraction and she gave him a small, clipped nod.

"I see," she said and before the silence could stretch until it was taut with tension, she added, "Either way, your limited work may have stabilized her just enough to save her."

"Good," repeated Cato. He ran his hands through his hair distractedly, pulling it back out of his face and scooping back stray strands into a new ponytail. He couldn't stay, but he could not leave.

"You should return home, Mr. Malfoy. Your friend is safe now."

He scoffed and his eyebrows rose. "Hardly, considering it was a student who attacked her."

Pomfrey let out a scandalized gasp just as the doors to the Hospital Wing opened quietly. Cato turned around and froze. Standing in front of him was Dumbledore.

"Ah, Mr. Malfoy, just the man I was looking for. Perhaps you will allow me to escort you to the gates?"

"If you expect me to leave her after what happened, you have seriously misjudged me, Headmaster."

Dumbledore gave him a long, considering look and then smiled. He looked tired, and his ruined hand was hidden beneath his sleeve. "It is highly likely that I have. Nevertheless, you have my word that Miss Greengrass will be safe from harm here, and until the end of her studies."

Knowing what he did of the old man, Cato was not surprised when the knot of tension in his belly relaxed a fraction. Slowly, he stood up and nodded. "Very well." He would send her an owl first thing upon his return to Falaise.

"Excellent." The Headmaster smiled and Cato distantly realized that this was the most he had ever spoken to him. Before following Dumbledore out, he turned back to Daphne, frowning. The sense-eroding fear he had felt upon finding her lacerated in the Shrieking Shack had been so much stronger than he had ever thought he might feel. It had gutted him and now it scared him. Only the thought of his family being hurt in such a way had brought even a fragment of such terror. That her fate held such thrall over his emotions made him want to leave and never see her again.

He stared down at her for a few moments. Touching her now, as she slept the deep sleep of the deeply wounded, felt oddly wrong, unwelcome and presumptuous. So without a word he spun on his heel and marched after the Headmaster, who was waiting patiently in the Entry Hall, humming an odd, disjointed tune.

"Ah, perfect," he said as they stepped outside and onto the sloping hill leading to the gates. "I trust you yourself are well?"

"I missed the exact incident," said Cato, his mind racing. "Though I'm sure you know of it by now."

Dumbledore frowned, his eyes sad beneath his spectacles. "Yes. A most disappointing misadventure."

"Indeed…" said Cato, hesitating. What exactly did the man want with him?

"And how is your mother. I was sorry to hear of your father's current fate." And he truly did sound sorry, as if the pain of an enemy still inflicted pain upon him. Cato marveled for a moment at the thought, his mind trying to bend and fold to fit into such a perspective, but it eluded him.

"She is doing well enough," replied Cato stiffly. "My father's situation has burdened her."

"As it has you."

They stopped somewhere about halfway from the gates and Cato turned to face Dumbledore, mustering a hard look on his face. "What do you want, Headmaster? If you wish to strike me down, I assure that I will not be a match for you."

The moonlight deepened the tired crags in Dumbledores face, giving him a terribly old and burdened look. "I have no wish to do you harm, Mr. Malfoy."

"Even now?"

"Now more than ever. I fear your choices have not been your own-" Cato scoffed and threw up a hand abruptly. "Don't," he said. "I made my decisions knowing what they would entail."

"You are not a murder, Mr. Malfoy."

Cato stared back into his expressive blue eyes, feeling a bright flare of defiance. "My acts have spoken otherwise."

"And do you regret it?" Asked the Headmaster quietly.

"Some of us do not have the luxury of regret."

Dumbledore sighed deeply. "No. I suppose you do not. I daresay you will have to learn the weight it casts upon one's shoulders when peace has given you the time to consider your actions."

"If I have to kill a dozen more to protect my family and myself, I will never miss a night's sleep," said Cato harshly, though it sounded hollow even as it left his lips.

"But not your father." The gates were close now. He could ignore the question and walk out. Disappear with a pop. Dumbledore would not stop him, he had mad that much clear. But something in him pushed him to speak. Alone with the man he was fated to kill, he felt ironically safer than he had in years. Safe to speak and be understood by the man who would have turned back time itself to save a little girl in a living room, so many decades ago.

"My father picked a side before I was born, and fought for it. I cannot protect him from himself."

They stopped at the gates and Dumbledore paused. "I pray that you understand the path you have chosen, and that you are able to save yourself from it, in time, Mr. Malfoy." The weight of ancient wards lifted from Cato's shoulders as he crossed the boundary line and turned back to face his old Headmaster, whom he now understood in ways he felt few must. The weight of hard choices and lost lives now sat upon both of their shoulders, like little demons whispering their many mistakes into their ears.

"I would gladly condemn myself to save my family, Headmaster. I think you would have chosen as I have, had you been given that chance, once." He twisted and disapparated, his last view that of a pale-faced and stunned looking Albus Dumbledore.