All I Need To Get By

Chapter Fourteen: Folly and Mishaps

Draco Malfoy's breath was coming in ragged gasps, his chest tightening horribly around his lungs so he could barely breath, and the stitch in his side so painful that even as he ran he was doubled up in pain. It was gloomy around him, the muggle street lights had shattered from the magical energy he and his pursuer were radiating, the ground beneath his feet of damp cement making his shoes slide a little as they pounded.

His cloak lay three streets behind him, cast off along the way for some muggle street cleaner to find and take to the local dump, where it would linger until a tonne of heavy earth feel atop it in some far off landfill. He wished he had worn the muggle trainers Hermione had bought him as a joke instead of the expensive dragonskin boots he sported. His arm shook slightly as he cradeled its bleeding wound closer to his blood stained shirt.

St Mungo's drew up before his very eyes, dummies standing motionless in the window, shadows draping them as if they had once more become draped with expensive fabrics. He ran straight through it, absorbed through the glass because of his doctorate in medicin and the tiny pass he had stitched into his black shirt. Behind him it shattered loudly, clearly his antagoniser was not prepared to wait for the creaky dummy to permit him access.

The klaxon sounded around his ears as the window exploded, so loud it made him wince in pain. He couldn't breath he suddenly realised, and the loss of blood was making his head light, as if someone had placed wingardium leviosa on it, as if it hovered like Hermione's feather in that second charms lesson of their first year. He dropped as he ran, folding in on himself, the momentum making his body travel some feet across the marble floor of the recepetion, which had emptied as the klaxon sounded. He left a trail of blood in his wake.

The wizard chasing him had slowed to a walk, his breathing heavy in Malfoy's ears, but he was not the one laying gasping for breath on the cool marble surface as Malfoy was. The neatly polished black boots stopped a little in front of Draco's nose, pointed toes sinking deep into the pale flesh as he kicked. Draco felt his nose explode.

The klaxon doubled in sound, it's whine summoning fifteen aurors somewhere, but too slowly. The neat red shoes of the auror he had run after to bring back to his ward hovered in front of Malfoy's eyes. The stillhetoes shifted a little uneasily.

'Go and make sure nobody comes,' said a male voice, and the red heels teetered off to the doorway, their clicks sounding like agony in Draco's ears. She was standing in front the the window she had apparated through he guessed.

'Meddlesome,' said the male voice, the toe grinding into the blood coated marble as it spoke, 'that's all you are Malfoy.'

The vibrations of a pair of shoes thudding up a set of stairs some distance away made Malfoy's teeth move slightly, but the man standing above his didn't notice. The smell of a fag drifted across the foyer, but all that Malfoy could smell was the acrid quality of the blood filling his throat and where his nostril's had been. The footsteps slowed their vibrations.

'All this is your own fault,' said the male, taking a step back and sniffing elegantly, 'Put that thing out Leviosa!'

'Yah, yah, yah,' responded the female auror, and stabbed the cigarette into the window, where it fizzeled delicately.

'Mavara!' came a female shout suddenly, and the spell sped across the open airspace to hit the man standing above Malfoy.

'433,' he snarled angrily, trying to flex the frozen muscles of his leg.

'Aurors!' came a frightened scream from the window, 'They're here already! How?'

'Impedimenta!' came a gruff sounding shout of an auror suddenly becoming aware of a situation, 'Impedimenta!'

'Baricosa!' shouted the auror Leviosa, backing away from the hastily errected red shield which glowed over the window. The cigarette had dropped from her fingers as soon as the three aurors had strolled jauntily around the corner, expecting nothing more than to go and see their friend. It lay glowing on the floor, stubbed and dropped.

'Mavarisca!' bellowed Hermione, rolling out of the doorway she had been sheltering in and behind the reception desk.

Leviosa sank, groaning to the floor, clutching her stomach and breathing raggedly. 433 had transferred her pain to the other girl, who hadn't been trained well enough to withstand it. The desk shattered in front of her as she threw her hands upto protect her face. Across the floor Draco's antagonist fingered his wand thoughtfully as the shattered remains of the desks and thousands of medical files settled onto the marble floor as dust.

'Good evening 433,' he said calmly, smiling a grim smile.

'What are you doing?' screamed Hermione, already moving across the floor towards Draco, now unconcious.

'Reclaiming my best unspeakable,' he said icily, 'the rest will follow.'

'This is folly!' she shrieked quite suddenly, pointing to the long trail of blood and Leviosa on the floor, 'The vote has already been cast!'

For more than a mere moment number one looked perfectly confused, fixing her with a unwavering stare that focused on her left eyebrow rather intently. When he finally spoke he seemed as confused as he looked, for his voice was steady and tense and filled with curiosity.

'Vote?' he asked, shifting his wand through his fingers, 'Whatever are you talking about?'

'The vote of no confidence,' Hermione glanced towards Draco as she said this, keeping half an eye on her enemy, 'It has already been cast.'

'Grow up 433,' he answered, suddenly sounding amused, 'You're far too keen, you must know that when, as I inevitably will, I die, you are clearly the only Unspeakable capable of taking over our Department.'

'This isn't about that!' Hermione whispered after a moment of stunned silence, her eyebrows drawing together quite fiercly, 'This is about my friends, and my colleagues and the future of the Department.'

'How noble,' he replied in a terribly drole voice, completely ignoring the silently screaming auror some two metres away from his foot.

'No. If this was about being noble, I would have appealed to your human kindness and allowed you to resign instead of being dishonourably discharged. No, this is about who you kill and obliviate and control for some sick power!'

'Really?' he asked, a mocking note clear in his voice, 'No, this is about you.'

'Me?' Hermione murmured, (understanding perhaps as little as everyone else)

'Of course you, girl,' he snapped, rather irritated, his wand still and pointed directly at her wnad, pointed at him, 'The only female Unspeakable. The best. 433 with the power radiating off her. 433,' he growled, 'disobeying unspoken orders and traditions. Turning this department on it's head because my men fancy themseleves in love with you – fancy an odd kind of respect, fancy they would follow you to the ends of the earth! Don't you think I see you tease them?'

'How dare you!' she screamed, infuriated.

She slipped a little on Draco's blood as she leapt for him, her wand flying out of her fist as it connected with his, and both skittered across the floor. The blood already on her fingers as she wrapped them around his throat wasn't either of theirs, it belonged to the man who had sparked the whole thing. Hermione saw red, both of them saw red, as the shielding spell exploded inwards, shards of the magic burrying themselves deep in her back so that she arched inwards briefly, never removing the weight of her body saddling his.

He flipped her over backwards, pinning her to the ground and driving the physical magic deeper into her back as Leviosa flopped in convulsions a mere thirty centimetres away from them. She bit his neck, and watched in almost satisfaction as he stiffened in revulsion and allowed her to head butt his chin fiercley.

There were shouts in the distance, shouts of stop, for help, to save 'the stupid ferret' as one at least of the aurors reverted back to his childhood in times of great stress. One was pulled off her by two of the aurors, the last having been dispatched to fetch their head of command by providing a neat apparation point some metres from the hospital. Leviosa stopped writhing and thrashing, and lay eerily still.

The pain which returned to Hermione did not merely wash over her, it power showered her into oblivion, and beyond.

Another quick update while I have time… Review!