Angel's Guard
by Moste Piratical Ursh
Chapter THREE 3
- Cold Hard Jump -
Narcissa stands on the top of the mound, a silvery figure in the middle of golden folds of haze. Ash hair falls gently around her face. She is strangely blurred; indefinite and undefined. Like an age worn memory or a photo slowly obliterated by sunlight, the colours and shapes fading away…
She holds out her hands to her son.
"Draco". The words don't exactly echo. They seem to come from all around, as though the foggy boundaries are speaking instead of the figure in front of him.
He'd been hoping to come back here.
Narcissa takes his hand.
"Mother…"
Her touch is cool and soft but faint. He feels as though she might dissolve away beneath his grasp. He holds on tight.
"You must find him." She gazes at him from the distance of dream. Up close to her, looking at her is like inspecting the distance in a faint watercolour. No mater how close he gets there are details too vague to make out. Hazy. Blurred. Detailed but lacking in reality.
"Harry Potter," says Draco to the watercolour mother.
"Harry Potter," she repeats to him sternly. "You must seek him out. You must seek him out, NOW!" She speaks the last word with a resounding force that he had not expected here… He looks at the concern on her face and begins turning to leave…
She pulls him back a moment to show him something… He struggles but she merely points.
A …something… is emerging from the golden fog walls, following the outer path of the running water through the barrier. A low hulking shadow- shapeless. It crawls on all fours and sniffs at the soft turf with its face-maw. The running water that surrounds them also prevents it from invaded his mother's knoll.
"Seek Harry Potter. He knows what you must do next. Do not let it find you, Draco, promise me you won't let it." She turns her back on the shadow beast. "Now you must go…" She squeezes his hand.
Draco smiles at her and then turns to leave through the gate where a fantastic explosion of sensuous moon flowers are flourishing. He will do as his mother says… but already her words are slipping away from him and soon he will remember nothing of this place.
Walking through the gate, he breaks into consciousness.
Hermione looks down on the ashen sleeping form of Draco Malfoy. Down on his angelic sleeping face, his brow delicately furrowed, dewy sweat moistening his forehead. He is lying curled on his side in the foetal position knees tucked up high. One hand is beneath his head, the other resting lightly below his mouth. A smile threatens the corners of her mouth- he looks so… angelic. A word she has never before even considered in conjunction to the purist fanatical. He is so still that he might be a statue. She wonders how someone so cruel and malicious can possibly appear so innocent, defenceless. Wonders if this is indeed the same man who had tortured her over her parentage for six years of her life. Not any longer though. Hogwarts is far behind her now.
Hermione finds herself reflecting on the decision once more- the decision. The biggest decision of her life.
It was the logical thing to do… Ron and Harry had of course been off Horcrux hunting and there had been nothing to stay for. Very few had chosen to spend this, what would have been her seventh year, at Hogwarts studying for NEWT s. McGonagall, headmistress by that time, had kindly recommended her for apprenticeship at St. Mungo's. And here she was. Making a difference…
Her ambitions to become an auror had come to nothing in the face of reality. Things just didn't work out in real life. But hard-earned grades had left her free to pursue any other career of her choice, even if she wasn't of the standard to be a dark wizard catcher.
Suddenly, one pale hand whips out and clasps her wrist with a grip of iron.
"Granger," he growls. "What am I doing here?"
He looks severely at the woman struggling in his grip.
"If you don't let me go, I will be forced to set off the alarm, and believe me, Malfoy," she rolls the name of her tongue with irony. "I will have you done for assault before you can say 'unfair trial'."
The young man looks up at her with a cold, hard, appraising look in his flinty eyes. She tries desperately to look braver than she feels- she had been taken unawares during a moment of uncharacteristic sympathy. The threat is bluster. Her standard Healer's alarm is, in fact, lying in the apprentices' lounge. Slowly she places her hand into the empty pocket of her Healer's robes, as if to trigger an imaginary alarm.
Four truly unexpected words:
"Can I trust you?" he asks in a low whisper, eyes locked on hers. His jaw is set and a slight crease has formed on his brow.
Hermione shivers, intimidated by the frank intensity of his gaze. His icy eyes pierce right through her.
Does she trust him? Her child-hood arch enemy, asking for her help, obviously in deep trouble. What is she supposed to do? She knew what Ron would do. She had a fair idea what Harry would do. But she had always tried to think morally; always tried to rise above petty feuds and prejudices…
"Yes." She replies in kind. She finds that her usual bedside manner has deserted her in the face of his questions. "Yes," she whispers again.
Draco's relief is immediate and obvious- as he lets go her wrist, the expression of blazing intensity is slowly replaced by an extreme wariness and a deep exhaustion that sits heavy on every line of his face.
"Is this St. Mungo's?" he asks.
She nods. She doesn't trust her voice. And then, finally…
"Muggles found you. You were unconscious, in a front garden I think; they brought you into a muggle hospital. The ministry became aware of you and had you transferred here immediately. Standard procedure." She sees the look on his face. "Nothing to worry about. There's nothing seriously wrong. Exhaustion. Minor cuts and scratches. We've given you necessary potions to heal the cuts, and we are going to keep you in for observation. As soon as Healer Ceridwen gives you the all clear you can go." He seems satisfied with her- for a time at least. His attention moves away and the dark cloud settles over him again.
Hermione feels pure relief and takes a couple of steps backwards, away from the bed and out of the reach of his powerful grasp.
It is as though his very awareness of her holds her trapped by him. His manner compels her to listen to him, to follow him, as much as she hates herself for it. He is a born leader.
What has happened to Draco Malfoy? For him to seek help in a Mudblood, one of Harry Potter's closest. A Gryffindor…
Suddenly his attention snaps back to her.
"What-" Draco starts, but is cut off by a screeching low-pitched siren that shatters the peaceful quiet of the ward.
A trainee Healer, Hermione recognises the howl immediately. Voldemort- or, more likely, his Death Eaters. The dark mark had been put up within the vicinity of the building.
Draco's face bears a look of utter betrayal on its patrician features, mingled with a fury so extreme it looked as though it might burn. She could never have imagined she would feel guilty at any expression of Draco Malfoy's face, but here was the undeniable evidence of remorse twisting her heart.
"Granger, I thought we understood one another other. I thought you weren't going to set the alarm off." he delivers this in a fearsome monotone, his quaking hands belying a entirely different emotion.
"I didn't. And that's not the Healer's alarm." she hisses, surveying the other patients on the ward. She is in charge. It is her duty to get them out, count them, and check them off. But for once, Hermione lets her instincts take over- Malfoy is obviously in danger and, as her quick mind soon deducts, he is most likely the cause of the Death Eaters sudden appearance.
"Get up. Quickly!" she orders. Draco doesn't waste one second questioning her, and she is thankful. Time is of vital importance. She watches him pull a dark cloak and robes over his head. If her hunch is correct then the security at the front foyer and the reception would not hold out more than a few minutes, perhaps ten. A few moments at most to locate the ward. The room would be stormed by death eaters any minute now- if it is indeed Draco they're searching for.
She bends close to him, speaking into his ear so that the others on the ward don't hear.
"That siren, it means Death Eaters. The Dark Mark has been put up somewhere close." Hermione raises her tone ten-fold "Out! Everybody out! NOW!"
Anxious patients began to stand up, look round at one another for reassurance, obviously not twigging the severity of the situation.
"OUT!" Still, nothing.
Hermione takes a deep, deep breath, weighs up the prospect of death eaters against that of mass-hysteria and instantly decides upon the later.
"You-Know-Who is here!"
While not strictly true, its effect is immediate. The occupants of the ward run, screaming and shouting towards the double doors at the end.
Hermione suddenly becomes aware of Draco next to her, his presence powerful, commanding. He is urging the other patients out with threatening wand movements and caustic drawling. A look of disgust and condescension is curling his top lip as the ward's occupants file out sheep-style.
She is impressed with his speed in registering the situation, his reactions. They are certainly unexpected. Helpful, if not quite pleasant.
The last patient is out.
Hermione grabs his large hands, so pale next to her honey skin and begins to drag him in the wrong direction, towards the end of the ward where the tiny window casts its thin light. Towards a large and very door-less cream coloured wall.
Draco's eyes widen at the sudden contact, and he panics as she leads him in the wrong direction, but quickly catches up with Hermione's pace. It seems to her that he is resigned to certain fate. He seems to expect death, and his lack of struggle, questions, insults even, gives her a deep uneasiness.
Perhaps he's grown up... Perhaps he's desperate.
They run full out, skid and pelt towards the seemingly blank wall. Hermione yanks them aside at the last minute; slams Draco painfully into the wall. She thrusts open an inconspicuous door and drags Draco out. He throws it shut behind them.
The height hits them both immediately like a vicious slap with a mouldy haddock. The twosome takes tentative steps onto the rickety scaffolding that sways ominously beneath them. The sky is huge up here.
The morning breeze, brisk and frigid and strong hits her skin leaving it feeling raw and numb under the slick coating of sweat and tears on her face. She is more fearful than she would like to admit.
A dull muffled thumpf from the floor below leaves the entire building quaking in its wake. The fire escape simply sways out a little further from the building.
Immediately the wailing quiver of fire engines and police sirens fill the air.
Death Eaters on the Floor below? She knows they won't make it down in time. There is only one alternative. Draco seems to have realised, too. Their wet hands slip about in a tight clasp. She raises her wand… waves the featherweight charm. She hopes that her patients have managed to escape.
The whooshing of the wind and the howl of sirens are too loud to speak over. Instead she turns, finds herself looking into the terrified, ice-grey eyes of the blond. Draco's expression is desperate.
She mouths the words-
-one-
-two-
-three-
Together they jump. Hand in hand. Falling through the whipping air. The cold burning. The noise deafening.
Hermione's eyes are shut tight, her mouth wide open in a scream that doesn't come, her mind following the words of her forgotten catholic faith…
Draco's eyes are wide, wide open but unseeing. His brain permeated with a numbing nothing that seeps in to block the fear. There is only the knowledge of the coming end. Cold, hard asphalt is waiting at the bottom, a badly cast charm their singular hope. They hit the road hard.
