Disclaimer: All things Harry Potter belong to J. K. Rowling, and those corporate entities which have paid her good money for the rights they hold. This is a work of fanfiction, written for personal enjoyment, as a tribute to the fantastic universe that Ms. Rowling has created, and for no monetary gain whatsoever.
A/N: This is an Alternate Universe Harry Potterverse story. It's a "Redeemed Draco" fic, and those who like their junior Malfoy's nasty had best read elsewhere. "Metamorphosis" is the ever-growing plot bunny that came out of the WIP journal-story "Letter to No One."
A/N UPDATE (Jan 2006): This story is being re-edited to clean up minor plotline glitches, punctuation and grammar errors prior to the posting of a new chapter. "Metamorphosis" does not take OOTP and HBP into account, although the author reserves the right to borrow various bits of background and minor characters to use for cosmetic purposes.
Metamorphosis: Chapter Nine
by RowanRhys
Monday, 23 December 1996
The crowd around the public Floo had thickened considerably by the time Draco got to it. He kept his hood pulled forward, but the weather had worsened a bit, and the snow was being whipped about by random gusts of wind that threatened to carry away hats and unsecured packages. As he got into a queue to use the hearth, a gust blew his hood back and sent his Slytherin scarf streaming back into the face of the man behind him. The fellow cursed, and thrust the scarf back at Draco as the boy turned in response to the vaguely familiar voice. Oh, Merlin, no!
Euan Fraisier, one of his father's newer compatriots, glared at him before a stout witch laden with more packages than one person should be able to carry pushed between them. In the moments necessary for her to pass, Draco composed his face into a respectful expression.
"Happy Christmas, Mr. Fraiser. Sorry about that." He looped the scarf around his neck a few more times to keep it from fluttering in the wind.
"What are you doing down here? This morning your father said you were at home today."
Draco moved up as the line moved forward, and displayed the leather jewel box he'd hurriedly pulled from his pocket. "I had to pick up Mum's present. I didn't trust the post Owls to get it to the Manor on time." He tucked the parcel under his arm and rummaged in his pocket for floo powder. "I hope to see you at the party tomorrow night, Mr. Fraiser, and your lady wife." He forced a smile then turned to the blaze before him. "Malfoy Manor!"
When he stumbled out onto the hearthrug in the Manor's front hall, he was shaking. Thankfully, the elf that took his cloak and scarf attributed it to the foul weather and suggested in a trembling voice that Master Malfoy might wish a cup of hot chocolate to warm up.
"Excellent idea. I'll be in my room wrapping my mum's gift. And tell the kitchen I want a sandwich, too. Quickly!" He headed up the stairs, slower than usual because his body still ached badly from the previous night's discipline. The clock in the hall struck one; the dull ring echoing up the grand staircase. He didn't have much time to carry out his mad plan before his parents returned from their daylight social activities to prepare for the annual Daily Prophet holiday ball.
Draco swaggered as he openly crossed the dungeon's main chamber towards the corner cell in which Hermione Granger was incarcerated. Sneaking would just ensure that his father would assume he was up to something, but wanting to taunt the Mudblood was something Lucius would most likely accept.
His skin prickled as he stepped within the boundary of the warding charms that sealed the steel-barred door. He felt the Glamourie he wore begin to slip as the wards conflicted with his own inner magic, upsetting the balance and making the bruises on his face begin to be visible. There was no time to correct the disguise--who knew how long it would take Lucius or one of his other minions to arrive to investigate the wards' disturbance?
He peered into the cell at the Gryffindor and sneered, "Are you my Christmas present, Granger?", sickening himself with the suggestive taunt. "I see you're missing a wand. Maybe you'd like to experience a Slytherin one?" He arched his eyebrow at her, hoping she'd be angry enough to come up to the door. "After all, it's ever so much more useful and handy than any absent Gryffindor ones." Take the bait, damn it! He had his good wand slid out of sight up his sleeve, half-held in his left hand, which was braced along the edge of the barred door. "Or are you too scared to try it?"
As he'd hoped, Granger couldn't stand the suggestive insults, and jumped up from the cot to stand just inches from the bars, glaring at him. "Damn you, Malfoy--!" she snapped, then gasped as his left hand shot forward, entangling his fingers in her hair and yanking her up against the steel. Draco inwardly winced as he flashed on his father seizing her in like manner the night before, but he pressed his own face against the bars and crushed his mouth against hers, forcing his tongue past her open lips. Groping at her breast with his free hand, he held the kiss until he managed to work the length of his wand into the tangled mass of light brown hair.
Draco pulled away from her lips before she could draw her wits about her. He surveyed her person, his eyes lingering on the swell of her bust under the jersey outfit she wore. "I'm looking forward to Christmas night, Mudblood. Maybe by then you'll appreciate a Slytherin wand."
He swept back towards the dungeon's main door, feeling the crawling sensation from the ward layers around the cell door grow weaker and eventually vanish as he reached the center of the chamber. He actually made it through the second set of doors at the top of the stairs before the shakes set in. Music. That will help. It always does. He dragged in a deep breath and headed for the ground floor entrance to the ballroom.
Hermione Granger stumbled back from the cell door as Malfoy's face disappeared, scrubbing at her mouth with one hand and probing at the tender scalp with the other. She gasped as her fingertips encountered a slender length of wood entangled in her hair.
His wand! She dropped down on the bare cot and curled up with her back to the cell door as she drew the shaft free and examined her surprising find.
Why? she cut off the thought ruthlessly. The 'whys' could wait. There was a small parchment packet tied around the wand's ebony handle, and she worked it loose to find a note and a tiny envelope. The note read: "Your mum is safe at St. Mungo's. Use this floo powder and get out fast before the alarm wards bring anyone" It was Draco's writing, familiar from his signature on prefects' patrol schedules. And it was his wand; she could feel the magic that hummed through it. As she balanced the shaft across her palm, she reviewed the words he'd spoken before he'd kissed her. They hadn't been double-entendre at all.
In the windowless dungeon, she had no idea of how much time she had before someone would come investigating, so she'd have to be quick. There was the risk that it was a cruel trick--but it was her only chance.
Hermione stuffed the note and envelope into her pocket, rolled to her feet and extended the wand towards the cell door. The ebony wand didn't feel as comfortable in her hand as the one that the senior Malfoy had taken from her the night before, but she would use the tools available to her.
It was uncooperative, and took four tries before she was able to break through the locking ward on door. She burst out into the center of the dungeon chamber, sure that she was going to come face to face with Lucius Malfoy or one of his compatriots, but found the stone-walled room unoccupied. She ran for the great hearth against the wall, dodging ominous pieces of torturous furniture.
"Inciendo!" she cried, aiming the wand at the hearthstone. A small fire came into being, barely enough to illuminate the vast fireplace, but it would have to do. Pulling the packet of floo powder from her pocket, she flung it into the blaze. As she did so, she thought she heard the main door creak as if it were opening. Panicked, she leapt into the green flames, crying out, "The Burrow!"
Flashes of light alternated with dark as Hermione zoomed past innumerable hearths to finally fall--literally--out into the cluttered hominess of the Weasley kitchen.
She choked on the soot that filled her mouth and nose, and crouched on hands and knees on the hearthrug as she coughed her airway clear.
"Hermione!" Molly Weasley's cry was almost a shriek as she dropped the saucepan she held and darted across the room to scoop the seventeen-year-old up, brushing soot from Hermione's face.
Hermione burst into tears as the incipient hysteria she'd been holding at bay broke loose.
Incoherently, she babbled into Molly's ample bosom, tangling her words until the older witch magically summoned a steaming tea cup and forced Hermione to drink it down.
Between swallows of the strong brew, Hermione choked out, "Draco Malfoy gave me his wand, and floo powder." She sniffled and swiped at the tears on her cheeks. "Oh, god, what's going to happen to him when his father finds out?" She fumbled the note out of her pocket and showed it to Mrs. Weasley in disbelief. "My mum. He rescued my mum!" She broke down into tears again, and Molly soothed her.
"Let's tuck you up on the couch, dear. I need to floo Arthur. And Headmaster Dumbledore."
Hermione huddled in brightly coloured knitted and crocheted blankets on the worn but comfortable couch as she listened to Molly make the floo calls.
Minutes later, there came the always-startling pops of person apparating into the room. She wiped at her face with her fingers and sniffled once more as she was taken into the embrace of Arthur Weasley. "Oh, Hermione, we were so worried! How did you get away? We need to fellytone your father."
"Not quite yet, Arthur." Headmaster Dumbledore drew up a chair next to the couch and smiled kindly at her. "In what condition was young Mr. Malfoy when you last saw him, Miss Granger?" Behind him she saw the tall looming form of Professor Snape appear.
Hermione opened her mouth to speak, then paused to recollect the sequence of events more clearly. When he came through the wards, Draco's face had been mottled with bluish and greenish bruises that had seemed to fade in and out. "I think he was hurt," she said slowly. "There were bruises on his face, but there weren't always there. He--he didn't seem himself, at least, not like at school."
Dumbledore looked up, exchanging concerned glances with Snape.
The Potions professor seated himself next to Arthur. "Perhaps you should start at the beginning, Miss Granger."
Somehow there was another mug of hot tea in her hands, and the knitted blankets seemed to be giving her comforting hugs to her as she applied her analytical mind to the events of that and the previous day--forcing back the panic that rose everytime she thought of her mother.
"At some point, after Avery locked me in, I fell asleep. Something woke me up but I didn't know what it was." Hermione rubbed at her forehead. "But now that I think on it--" she said slowly as she replayed the exhaustion-fogged memories, "It was a voice. It said 'St. Mungo's." She took a deep breath and pushed her frantic emotions back. "I couldn't see the fireplace from where I was laying, but it must have been Draco with my Mum."
She went on to describe how Draco had returned later in the day and taunted her. She flushed as she described the kiss, but kept her voice steady as she went on to explain finding the wand--and the floo powder--in her hair. She showed them the note she still clutched in one hand. As Dumbledore examined it and passed it to Snape, she finished. "I broke through the warding and locking charms after four tries, and headed for the hearth. 'Inciendo' worked the first time, and I threw in the floo powder and yelled 'The Burrow' and got here. I thought I heard the dungeon door open behind me but I was already in the floo by then."
"It's his writing," Snape confirmed. "Just as the others are." He handed the note to Arthur Weasley. "And there's no way he's going to be able to escape on his own. The instant they realize what happened, they'll seal off all floo access to and from the house and add more guards to the Apparition point--assuming Lucius doesn't just put up overall anti-Apparition wards."
"I didn't even think about anti-Apparition wards," Hermione admitted. "And even if I could have done it last night, I couldn't leave Mum there." She looked earnestly at Arthur. "Mr. Weasley, please. Where is my mother? Is she at St. Mungo's?"
"No, Hermione." He patted her shoulder. "They released her just a few hours ago. She's safe."
"I want to see her--"
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "So you shall, as soon as we return to Hogwarts." He also patted her hand. "Molly, could you conjure some warm clothing that Miss Granger can borrow? It's still a fair walk from the gates to the castle."
After a flurry of quickly gathered jumpers and an extra cloak, Hermione hugged Mrs. Weasley and joined the professors and Mr. Weasley in front of the fire.
"Envision the gates," Snape told her, and she nodded, feeling a bit nervous. She'd never Apparated such a long distance before.
She closed her eyes and pictured the gates with the school crest and the sculpted boars on each post. "Hogwart's," she whispered to herself, and then the world flashed out and she was staring at the gates in truth.
By the time the four had reached the main doors, she was shaking with cold and residual shock. The corridors and stairs blurred before her, and when they hustled her into the door of the hospital wing, she stared, disbelievingly, the sight of her mother sitting in an armchair by the fire, sharing tea with Madam Pomfrey.
"Mum!" She broke away from Arthur's supporting hand, and threw herself into her mother's arms, finally accepting her hopes as reality.
TBC