Hate and Love
Disclaimer: Characters and places belong to J.K. Rowling. Sorry for damaging one of them… but no one will notice if you prop him up and use a string to move his mouth!
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A/N: I'm only a day late. You can forgive me a day, can't you? This chapter is a Very Important one, and as per usual I dislike it.
Other news in the world of cyropi: I got my I.T. mock exam mark back, and I'm predicted an A*! Celebrate with me! my actual proper GCSE exam is on the 20th, wish me luck! And those of you that don't know what GCSE's are: big scary exams you take when you're 16 (but our school makes us take one a year early!)
Enough about me, onto the chapter!
~*~
For a heartbeat the world was still, silent as death. In that one timeless, endless moment every detail of the room seemed to stand out like a knife-edge: the texture of the walls, the patterns in the wooden furniture, the colour in the carpet, burning themselves into his mind so he would never, never forget this moment.
But above all else was the ghastly, horrifying sight at the centre of it all: Hermione's blood staining the carpet, her body crumpled and scarred, her skin pale and her eyes shut as though sleeping, but she wasn't asleep, she was…
He didn't deny the fact – had never denied the truth – but what his eyes saw was too immense to take in. Hermione, dead. He simply stood and stared, unable to comprehend it, empty of any feeling inside. It was something impossible that couldn't have happened, because when he'd decided to leave the world of evil and Death Eaters behind him his new world had been built around Hermione. Hermione's death was the end of his whole world.
And Hermione was dead.
All at once the emptiness was filled – no transition stage between empty and full, but the instantaneous change like the flick of a switch. What had been nothing was now burning rage to rival the fires of hell itself, fury and anger, ferocity and wrath that filled every corner of his being, leaving no room now for even the merest scrap of sanity.
And the berserk fury demanded payment. It wanted revenge.
Silver eyes blazing, he reached up above the nearby fireplace and seized the hilt of one of the crossed swords, dragging it from its place. He span to face his father, weapon in hand, mind on only the loss and the thirst for bloody vengeance, and ran at him. Lucius' smirk barely had time to change to a look of surprise – an expression he rarely showed – before the sword moved in Draco's hand like quicksilver, pushed on by the weight of his run and the force of his anger, and pierced Lucius through the heart.
His expression didn't change as his corpse fell to the floor, frozen in the instant of changing from smirk to shock. Draco, carried on by his momentum, fell to the floor beside him. He was sweating and panting from the all-consuming rage, which, lacking a focus, dissipated.
He kept his head bent, eyes closed, empty again as he tried to accept another unimaginable thing. His father, dead. His father, who had domineered over him since his birth, was dead. His father, who he had respected and feared, then hated and feared, was dead. Killed by his own hand. There was a word for killing your father, what was it? Patricide. Yes, he thought dimly, he'd committed patricide.
~*~
'Face it, Harry.' Ron said in a glum voice. 'We're lost.'
Harry frowned, slightly damp from the drizzle of rain that they'd flown through, and shook his head.
'We're going to find her.' he said confidently.
Ron appeared pessimistic. 'This place is huge.' he pointed out. 'And we don't know our way around. She could be anywhere. It would take weeks to search this whole place.' He sighed, leaning against a wall with his broomstick in hand and probably ruining the expensive looking wallpaper. 'Perhaps we should go back to school, get Dumbledore or someone…'
'No.' Harry replied simply. 'It would be too late.'
Ron groaned. 'Look, Draco's looking for her, and since this is actually his house he stands a far better chance of finding her than we do. And you know he wouldn't let her be hurt. And it would do Hermione far much more good if we went to Dumbledore…'
'I'm not giving up. We're going to find her.' Harry said firmly, choosing a random direction and walking in it. Ron had to practically jog along side him to keep up. Harry's face was set, eyes sparking with determination.
'It's not giving up, Harry, it's bloody common sense!' he tried to argue. 'We aren't doing her any good at all by charging round this bloody place and getting ourselves lost forever in some festering dungeon.'
'We won't get lost forever.' he replied quite calmly. 'And we won't give up.'
Ron groaned, despairing of ever winning the argument, and spent his energy in trying to keep up with his friend.
The corridors of Malfoy Manor were long and usually featureless. No tapestries or paintings hung on the walls: there were only the unrelenting mahogany floorboards with their thick carpet runner down the middle, and the grey stone walls which arched together at the top. There weren't even any windows, unless their path took them close to the outside of the manor. As rescue parties went, it was an extremely dull one.
The only relief from Harry's punishing pace was when he stopped to open a door and examine the room inside, and Ron soon found himself trailing. He didn't want to ask Harry to go slower: he was worried about Hermione as well, and wanted to find her as much as Harry did. It was a relief of sorts, therefore, when Harry stopped short in the middle of a dim corridor.
'Did you hear that?' he asked, frowning. His hand strayed instantly to his wand.
'Hear what?' Ron wheezed.
Harry shook his head. 'I swore I heard footsteps…' He trailed off, and as if on cue there was the soft pad of feet on carpet, the quiet creak of a floorboard.
'It might be Hermione!' he whispered excitedly. 'Come on!' He set off in the direction of the noise as fast as possible, Ron following with a new hope and new strength.
The rounded the corner together and stopped dead.
In front of them was a tall blond woman holding a wand pointed directly at them in one hand. She wore an unmistakably Malfoy sneer, and seemed to be looking at them as though they were lower than slugs.
'If you move a muscle,' she threatened in a low voice, 'I'll curse you with every Dark curse I know.' Then her eyes widened, focusing on Harry's scar, and she gasped audibly.
'Harry Potter!'
Both boys tried to grab their wands surreptitiously, but she shouted, 'Accio wands!' and they could only watch in horror as their last line of defence flew to her hand.
'Petrificus Totalus.' she said with a smirk, watching gleefully as both boys fell to the ground, unable to move. 'The famous Harry Potter, captured by Narcissa Malfoy.' she said, the words rolling off her tongue like a dream. 'Lucius will be pleased… and Voldemort too, of course. The Death Eater that brings him The Boy Who Lived will be honoured above all others. And that,' she added briskly, 'will be me. Mobilicorpus!'
Horror gripped both boys' hearts as they rose into the air in front of her, totally powerless.
~*~
Nothingness. Absolute nothingness, pure and empty, so peaceful, so restful. She was vaguely aware, if she thought, of a world outside this one, a world of light and pain… but thinking was an alien and foreign concept, and reality was a distant dream, as muddled and vague as the stories she'd read as a tiny child.
The tiny speck of dim consciousness which was Hermione floated, drifted through the dark and empty world, neither fully alive nor dead. But gradually things began to penetrate the darkness of her world: sound, sensation, light, until her consciousness rose upwards, out of the darkness, to reality.
There was light filtering through her eyelids, and the dull sensation of pain. Her skin was covered in something warm and sticky, and a coppery metallic taste filled her mouth. She swallowed, trying to get rid of the taste, and a voice spoke.
'Hermione?'
It was a half-whisper, laced with a hope that didn't dare let itself exist. With an effort, she dragged her eyes open a crack, squeezing them shut again as the light and colour hurt her eyes, before forcing them to open fully.
Everything around her was blurred, a mess of too-vivid colour. Above her was a jumble of light and shadow that looked like a face, twisted in worry and concern and hope… it was familiar somehow. She blinked, trying to place it. Silver hair, pale skin… even the shape and angles of the features were inherently recognisable.
She smiled feebly, recognising him with a glow of happiness. 'Draco…' she replied.
'You're alive?' he breathed, and she felt his hand touch hers as if he expected it to turn to mist. She curled her fingers stiffly around his hand.
'Alive.' she agreed, closing her eyes again against the painful lights and colours. 'I am alive…'
She felt his arms curl around her, pulling her upright, hugging her tight to him. 'Alive.' he repeated, his voice cracking. 'Alive…'
The nothingness was so inviting, so welcoming, dragging her back into its warm embrace. And why shouldn't she let it… Draco was here, she would be safe. Draco. She smiled. Draco…
'Love you.' she whispered as she fell back into unconsciousness. Because with her mind dimmed and her memories a vague muddle, memory charms and lies and the past didn't matter. All that mattered was what she truly felt, when almost all her mind was faded and burnt away by the pain, claimed by unconsciousness. What she felt regardless of memories and spells.
Love you…
~*~
It was a horrible experience, being floated through the air to what was realistically their doom. The body-bind prevented them even from struggling, from fighting back, from moving at all. They could only stare straight ahead – at the ceiling – and imagine the hideous fate awaiting them.
After what felt like an eternity, they stopped. Where they had stopped, the boys didn't know: they could see a cream ceiling and the corner of an ornate light fitting, and nothing more.
Narcissa knocked on the door. 'Lucius? I have a… surprise for you. A surprise it's worth pausing in your torture for, I promise.'
There was no reply.
'Lucius?' she called again, frowning. 'Can I come in?'
After a few seconds of silence, there was the sound of a door opening, and they were levitated gently over the threshold, fear churning in their stomachs. Narcissa followed.
The sound of a woman's scream pierced the thickly silent air – Hermione? they thought desperately – but no, it was from behind them, from Narcissa…
She fell to the floor with a thump, in a dead faint, and without the support of her wand so did both the boys. They lay in an agony of not knowing, unable even to turn their head and look into the room. Was Hermione alright? Was she injured? What… what was there to make Narcissa scream and faint like that?
A low voice spoke. 'Finite Incantatem.' Their muscles once again fell under their control. Sitting up stiffly, they looked around the room.
In one corner, with a sword through his crimson-soaked chest and a look of slight surprise frozen on his face, was Lucius Malfoy. In the approximate middle, Draco was cradling an unconscious and bleeding Hermione, looking at them with a slightly lost expression.
Ron did the only sensible thing in such a situation, and swore quietly.
~*~
Coming up: There will be romance, and there will also be an M.B. But only if you read next week!
Reviews are always welcome!!!
