It was just that unfortunate that in his outrage, Draco's perspective had narrowed down to a sort of tunnel-vision; all he saw, as he approached the scene at a dead run, were the two older men holding Hermione- HIS Hermione- pinned between them while one of them- Crabbe senior, it looked like- lavished abuse on her with his mouth on her throat and his hands going to the laces of her trousers, starting to yank on them, his intent perfectly clear.
In his haste to reach them, in his all-consuming fury and desire to rip and tear with his bare hands, it was as if he had blinders on- he never even noticed the younger Crabbe and Goyle closing in on him from the sides until Greg full-on tackled him, the two boys sprawling to the frost-hardened ground, Draco with a surprised grunt- then beginning to roll over and over each other, vying for the upper hand.
Gregory Goyle was nearly twice the size of Draco and should have come out a clear winner, but he was caught off guard by the ferocity with which Draco fought. Though far smaller than his opponent, Draco's rage had turned him into a combatant ten times fiercer than any Goyle had yet faced in battle that day.
Finally, with a well-aimed kick to the nether-regions, Draco managed to free himself from the now howling Goyle. He'd lost his wand in the struggle, and as he scrambled to his feet, his focus temporarily bent only on retrieving it, the younger Crabbe took advantage of this distraction and seized Draco from behind, wrapping his arms around his former friend and dorm-mate, pinning Draco's arms to his sides, then applying an enormous pressure intended to crush the resistance out of the white-haired boy.
In the mean time, a whole different drama was playing out, as Gregory Goyle rolled about on the ground moaning. Hermione, taking advantage of her captors' surprise at Draco's approach, had managed to kick the elder Goyle in the shin, wrench her arms free, and even close a fist around her wand, yanking it nearly all the way out of her pocket before Crabbe senior had managed to grab her painfully by the wrists again, causing her to scream out in frustration, "NO! Draco- please!"
Draco, panting, fought like a madman, but it was no use; Crabbe's grip was like iron.
"Sorry, Malfoy," the larger boy whispered in his ear, "but she ain't yer mudblood anymore… and between you and dad, I gotta listen to dad. He says…"
Crabbe trailed off for a moment, as if trying to remember exactly what his father had said. Draco watched in dismay as Crabbe senior exerted a crushing force on Hermione's wrist, causing her to drop her wand with a pained little cry (it fell to the ground at her feet), then managed to get her arms pinned behind her back.
She was fighting as hard as Draco was, and he heard the fat, sweaty man who was restraining her grunt to his partner, the elder Goyle, "for God's sake, do something- Stupefy the little bitch!"
Goyle, rubbing at his injured shin, grinned maliciously. "I know a better way," he said, and straightened up.
"NO!" Draco shouted, as Goyle, who towered over Hermione by at least a foot and a half, proceeded to drive a ham-sized fist into the struggling girl's stomach with incredible force. She doubled over, the wind- and the fight- knocked out of her, but Goyle didn't stop- he punched her again, and again, apparently for the sheer pleasure of it.
"Oh, yeah," said the younger Crabbe then, conversationally, still pinning Draco in a vice-like grip, "I remember now… Dad says this battle is already lost, so we may as well just take what spoils we can get. A lot of us have fled, and others have left here in order to attack Diagon Alley and St. Mungo's instead- less resistance. But Dad, he said he wants a piece of that mudblood first- and," he added excitedly, "he says when he's done I can have a go at her, too!"
The language Draco used then is best left unrepeated.
Finally, Goyle senior stepped back from Hermione, who was now hanging limply in Crabbe senior's arms. "Drop her," Goyle said shortly. "She won't give us any more trouble."
Draco watched in horror as Crabbe released her and, unable to break her fall in any way, for the double reason that Crabbe had pulled her hands behind her and that she was now no more than half conscious, her head impacted the ground with a sickening crack. His blood ran cold as he saw that the side of her head had struck the edge of a rock, halfway concealed by the light dusting of snow on the ground.
As Goyle kicked her over onto her back, Crabbe looked over at Draco and dropped him a lewd wink. "Dunno what'yer so upset about, Malfoy," he called jovially; "we'll let you have a turn, no worries… elders first, though, you know… then you and the boys can share her any way you want."
Crabbe junior sniggered in his ear.
Draco remembered back to that night in his bedroom at Hogwarts, the night that had followed their idyllic day in Hogsmeade, celebrating the end of the dreaded N.E.W.T.s, the night on which he'd convinced her to celebrate in the most intimate way possible… how she had looked like an angel against the slippery green and silver of his sheets… how her innocence, her purity, had practically radiated off of her in waves… how she had trusted him then, been ready and willing to give herself over to him… but how she'd cried out, her head whipping back and forth against his chest when he'd pushed no more than two fingers into her… her hot tears of pain flooding against his bare skin, causing him to stop, to go no further, despite the fact that he'd been nearly mad with wanting her.
And now these… these fucking animals were going to take turns on her and he was helpless… utterly helpless to put a stop to this monstrosity, to save the girl he loved.
I would rather die, she had told him a year ago tonight, in the corridor outside the potions classroom, and now he was going to be forced to watch her endure a fate worse than death and goddamn it, there had to be something he could do, there had to….
His desperate eyes suddenly lit on her wand, lying on the snowy ground, not two feet away from her. The elder Crabbe and Goyle seemed to have forgotten all about it, and even about her, for the time being… they had actually moved several feet away from her and, Draco realized, had gone and gotten themselves into a right little shoving match over who would get to go at her first… and all she would have to do would be to reach out and take hold of it- it was so close-
And, he saw, her eyes were even open, and gazing in the direction of the wand- but they were glazed, unfocused from the head injury she had sustained when she'd hit the ground. If only she would focus and see it, see it and reach for it- he remembered what she had told him once in the library; he could control the wand while she held it if he saw fit to do so- all she had to do now was grab it and he could do the rest.
But he couldn't shout to her without alerting the two paunchy old men who were fighting over which would get to rape her first- the very thought made him sick with loathing- so he willed instead; willed with all his might, all his heart, all his soul.
Your wand, Granger- Hermione- sweetheart, love- your wand, its right there, see it, reach for it, reach for it, PLEASE! See it- Hermione- see it, its so close- reach out your hand… reach out your hand… reach out your hand…
And she did.
She blinked, and a measure of focus reappeared in her eyes; she frowned, a tiny, perplexed furrow appearing on her forehead as she stared at the wand for an impossibly long moment, as if unable to actually comprehend that it was lying there, so close, so easily within grasp, and Draco wanted to scream at her to fucking grab it already, but he couldn't- he couldn't make a sound, he couldn't so much as move for fear of distracting the arguing men and their sons, who were watching the conflict intently, knowing that the order their fathers decided on would determine the order of their turns as well.
And then she reached out, slowly, as if she were moving through a dream, and it was a good thing, after all, that she moved gradually, because she didn't attract any attention to herself in the process… and then the wand was in her hand and Draco knew, suddenly and completely, what he had to do.
"Granger," he shouted then, finally, not caring any longer who heard, because the balance of power had just shifted back into his favor; "Your wand- hold onto it! Do you hear me? I'll do the rest, just hold onto it and DON'T- LET- GO!"
He narrowed his eyes for a split second, focusing all of his magic, his energy, his will in a flash. As he did so, Hermione's eyes, wide, shocked windows of pain, fear and confusion, locked on his and he saw her hand tighten around the wand even as Crabbe and Goyle senior, who had turned toward Draco when he'd shouted, spun back toward her, advancing on her menacingly.
Hermione, Draco realized, was too dazed from her fall to even sit up- but that was all right. She didn't need to sit up on her own; all she needed to do was hold onto the goddamn wand, and that brief look they'd shared had told him that she understood the importance of doing so. Not the reason, perhaps, but the importance of it. Really, that was all that mattered.
She'd hold on.
And so, it was time to act.
Draco slammed his eyes shut for a split second, and when he opened them again it was to one of the strangest sensations he had ever experienced.
It was a double perspective; he was still aware of being Draco; aware of his own body, which had gone suddenly very still in Crabbe's grasp… preternaturally aware, in fact, of his heartbeat, his breathing, a bead of perspiration trickling slowly down one temple- but at the same time, he was no longer seeing through his own eyes.
He was seeing through Hermione's- his new perspective allowing him to aim her wand unerringly.
And he was almost out of time.
Goyle senior was towering over Hermione now; he drew back his foot and kicked her hard in the ribs, intending to incapacitate her by causing her to double up again- but what he hadn't counted on was that even though her body crumpled in on itself exactly as he had intended it to, her wand arm nevertheless swung around toward him… almost as if the wand was controlling the girl instead of the other way around.
And with lightning speed and precision the wand was trained on his chest and he barely even had time to be surprised before Draco's voice, contorted by rage, shouted "Avada Kedavra!" from behind him… and the mudblood's wand- in the mudblood's hand- responded.
A jet of green light burst from the wand's tip, and the elder Goyle was no more.
Crabbe senior, who had been right behind him, only had time to get out a puzzled, "what the fu-" before he shared Goyle's fate.
Hermione's eyes were squeezed tightly shut now, as if she couldn't bear to look at the mayhem and death her wand was unleashing, but that didn't stop it- Draco, somehow, could still see from her perspective, and he was still firmly in control, and in the next instant, the wand swung around to fix on the younger Goyle, who stood off to one side- he'd finally managed to drag himself to his feet again- watching in dimwitted amazement.
At this point, however, Draco found himself unable to quite bring himself to murder his former dorm-mate, and so shouted "Stupefy!" instead, felling him like a stone.
This left, in the immediate vicinity, only Hermione, still on the ground, still holding onto her wand for dear life- holding it so tightly that the knuckles of her right hand had gone ghost-white- and with her left arm now flung protectively over her face, as if to further shield her eyes from the acts of violence Draco was committing through her; and Draco, still locked within Crabbe's vice-like grip; and Crabbe, who now tightened his arms still further about Draco, making it increasingly difficult for the blond boy- his former compatriot- to draw breath.
And now Hermione's wand swung around and pointed directly at Crabbe's head, which towered over Draco's.
"Let me go," Draco said in a voice of dead calm, though his breathing was shallow now, labored; constricted by the larger boy's hold on him. "You saw that I didn't kill Greg; I won't kill you either. You have my word on that. Just let me go and walk away, Vince."
Crabbe stayed silent and still for a long time, as if mulling this over. Finally, he spoke slowly- even thoughtfully; "can't do that, Draco. You killed my dad just now." He didn't sound unduly upset by this; he spoke with the calm assurance of someone who was simply stating the facts. Nevertheless, he continued in the same, implacable tone, "that means I have to kill you in turn… that's just the way these things work."
What happened next, happened very, very fast.
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Crabbe took one arm away from Draco, though he clamped down even harder with the other; Draco realized that the other boy was going for something- either his wand or some sort of Muggle weapon- most of the Death Eaters had carried swords or daggers into the battle in addition to their wands, as backup, just in case. Whatever it was that Crabbe was reaching for, Draco did not intend to let him get a hold of it.
"Stupefy!" he shouted again, and red light exploded from the tip of Hermione's wand- but Crabbe, moving with astonishing speed for his size, jerked to the side, taking Draco with him; the spell hit Draco squarely in the chest, rendering him instantly unconscious.
Crabbe, who had already begun to fall, was unable to stop the process, and so he and Draco crashed to the ground together. A second later, however, he was scrambling to his knees, his wand now in his hand and trained on Draco's still form. He drew in breath to cast the killing curse, when-
"Impedimenta!" shouted Hermione, who had also dragged herself up into a kneeling position. Crabbe dodged again, throwing himself flat beside Draco so that the spell whizzed over his head. He then rolled back onto his knees, snarling, his wand now fixed on Hermione.
"You stupid mudblood bitch," he growled, "this is your entire bloody fault! You've turned Draco against us, you filthy little whore!"
Hermione, seeing that Draco had, for the moment, escaped Crabbe's notice, acted swiftly and with no thought for herself; she flicked her wand a degree to the right, so that it was no longer pointed at Crabbe, but at the silver-haired boy sprawled unconscious on the ground- she couldn't leave him in that helpless state, no matter what the cost to herself…
Because, damn it all, she still loved him- she'd never stopped, and she never would.
She shouted "Ennervate!" at exactly the same moment that Crabbe, realizing he now had a clear shot at her without fear of retribution while her wand was otherwise engaged, cried "Serpensortia!"
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Draco opened his eyes to a vision of horror that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Realizing that he was no longer restrained and that Crabbe's attention was focused elsewhere- on Hermione, to be exact- he frantically summoned his wand just as a huge and deadly snake burst from the tip of Crabbe's- flew through the air, hissing and spitting, and landed squarely on top of Hermione, knocking her backward from her knees to the ground, rearing back its head, and-
"NO!" Draco shouted hoarsely, and, acting quickly and decisively, did the best thing he could possibly do under the circumstances; he trained the wand on Crabbe and bellowed "Avada Kedavra!"
Crabbe crumpled instantly, and the snake, a creation of Crabbe's magic, which had suddenly, completely and permanently been extinguished, vanished-
But it was already too late. The damage had been done.
Hermione had thrown her arms up to protect herself as she'd been slammed backward onto the hard and snow-dusted earth, and the snake had struck, with vicious speed, twice- two bites on her left forearm. And the most powerful aspect of a correctly cast Serpensortia spell (and how ironic that the final spell of Vincent Crabbe, a barely competent wizard for most of his life, should have been perfectly executed) was that even after the snake itself vanished, its venom, once released into a victim's bloodstream, would remain to do its deadly work.
"Hermione! HERMIONE!"
No more pretense now- no more use of her surname, as a means of attempting to deny, to her and to himself, the depth of his feelings. Not anymore, not now, when he stood to lose her- and not just through his marriage or even her own, the possibility of which had seemed bad enough at the time- but to lose her completely and permanently and irrevocably, through an agonizing, poison-induced death.
"Hermione!" His voice was little more than a choked sob as, scrambling over the cold and hard-packed earth, he reached her. She had dropped her wand and twisted onto her side, rolling into a fetal position with her right hand clamped tightly over the wounds on her left arm.
"Draco… hurts…" she gasped, as he pried her hand away from the two ugly bites, pulling her arm straight and pushing her sleeve up so that he could get a better look.
"Bloody, bloody hell," he swore vehemently under his breath, and did two things in rapid succession. First, he yanked his shirt off over his head with no regard for the fact that he was kneeling in snow, ripped two wide strips of fabric off the bottom of it, and tied them with brutal tightness, tourniquet style, one around her left arm just above her elbow, and the other below the bites, above her wrist- then, he grabbed his own concealed dagger out of his boot.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he murmured to her, his eyes flicking to her face, which had broken into a cold, clammy sweat, and then back to her arm, "but it's about to hurt more for a minute. I have to do this- there's no choice-" and so saying, he sliced at her skin, making a pair of neat, X-shaped incisions, one over each bite.
And he began to suck.
Suck and spit, suck and spit- first one bite wound, then the other. He did this for long moments, until his mouth was full of the coppery, metallic taste of her blood- and what would his father have said if he could have seen him now? Muddy blood, he would have said; inferior, tainted, filthy.
But Draco found he didn't care what his father would have thought or said; he cared for one thing only- that this amazing woman did not die.
She was whimpering continuously, making tiny, mewling sounds of pain and distress when, Draco thought, any other woman would likely have been screaming her head off. Finally, when he thought he had done all he could insofar as poison removal went, he sat back on his heels, untied the two makeshift tourniquets and wrapped both strips of cloth, much more gently this time, over the wounds. He then grabbed a handful of dirtyish snow from the ground and scrubbed it across his mouth, wiping away the blood that had been smeared there, and bent close over her.
"Hermione," he murmured, catching her face in his hands and willing her to focus; to look at him. She had been gazing straight up at the night sky- for night had truly fallen now- a faraway look in her eyes and tears steadily leaking from them, to streak down the sides of her face and vanish into the tangle of her dark hair- her braid was halfway undone now, he saw; the wild hair, released from its bonds, fanning out about her on the ground.
"There are so few stars tonight," she whispered, still staring past him, straight up. "They're hiding… they don't want to see… all this misery… all this death…." She closed her eyes then, two final tears squeezing past her lids, a furrow appearing in the middle of her forehead- that furrow was familiar; Draco had seen it there countless times as she had studied, concentrating on her work… but it was not a product of concentration, this time, he knew, but of pain.
"Hey," said, his voice soft but urgent, "hey, Hermione- hey, babe. Come on, look at me. I need you to look at me."
No response.
"Hey," he tried again, "not all the stars are hiding, Hermione. Some are still there. And do you know what they see? They do see misery; they do see death. But they also see hope- and love. I love you, Hermione. I love you so damn much it hurts. I love you, and I'm not gonna fight it anymore." And he lowered his lips to hers, which were dry and slightly parted- just like their first kiss, he thought- but how different were the circumstances tonight. How very much had changed in a year.
It was just a quick kiss; tender and chaste- but it served its purpose of capturing her attention and compelling her to open her eyes and look at him directly. When she spoke, her voice was surprisingly steady.
"Where's your wife?" she asked pointedly.
Draco swallowed thickly. "She's… gone. But the thing about Pansy is, she was never really there. Never really real to me at all. You are the one who was real. You are the one that I loved. And I still do."
She stared at him silently for a long time, then turned her head to the side, looking away. Draco saw her eyes start to come unfocused again; saw the far-away look start to return.
"HEY!" he said sharply, gripping her shoulders and giving her a little shake, "don't do that. Look, I don't care if you're angry with me- you have every right to be. I was a goddamned fool. There will be time to sort through all that later. Right now, what I need you to do is tell me everything that hurts. I'm medic trained, remember? Be angry if you like, but let me help you, Hermione."
"Hurts everywhere," she said quietly, still not looking at him. "My arm…" she flexed the fingers of her left hand and winced- "my stomach, my ribs, my… head… ow, my head." She raised her right hand to her right temple, where she had hit the rock when she'd fallen. Draco's heart skipped a beat when she brought her hand away and he saw the red on her fingers. She held them in front of her face, examining the blood with a dazed, detached sort of interest.
"Shit, Hermione!"
He grasped her chin and turned her head back toward him, then bent to examine the head wound he'd forgotten until just then.
He realized how he had missed the blood; it had seeped into her thick, dark hair, which was soaked with it. If it had been daylight, he would still have seen it easily, but by starlight- her blood drenched hair was just a shade darker than normal. He traced the wound with his fingertips, and she sucked in a sharp breath through clenched teeth.
"Listen to me," Draco said, in a voice of forced calm, as he began passing his wand tip lightly over the side of her head- it started to glow with a faint golden light. "I know you're in pain. You're probably tired too. It may get very tempting to drift off to sleep. You can't do that. You're smart enough to understand why. I need you to stay awake, Hermione. Promise me- promise you'll stay awake, and that if you feel like you just can't stay awake any longer, you'll tell me. I know you're independent and you're goddamn stubborn- but if you need help, you must ask for it. Please." And then, more quietly, "don't make me lose you. I couldn't stand it. Hermione. Are you fucking hearing me?"
"Yeah," she whispered, her dark eyes finally fixed on his. "I hear you, Draco."
"Good," he said grimly. And poured all his concentration into healing her many injuries as best he could.
Please, he prayed silently as he worked, please, Granger, you've showed me time and again just how bloody stubborn you can be- be stubborn NOW, now when it really counts. Stay awake, don't give in, please, please, please….
Please....
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(A/N: I DO read all my reviews! I DO cherish and value every single one of them, from the simple two-word acknowledgements to the lengthy feedbacks and critiques! I DO love honest feedback, even if it's not all positive! Well-thought-out critiques prove that people are really reading and paying attention and that is enough of a compliment, even if they go on to disagree with something I've done to the plot or the characters. I DO check my email obsessively, several time a day, for reviews, and I DO smile every single time I see Review Alert! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to anyone who's reviewed ANY of my stories, and to those who haven't yet and think that a review would be wasted on me because I probably don't even read them anymore, please think again! The reason I don't say more about reviews in my A/Ns, for those who wonder, is that I know I get a lot of them and I know how lucky I am. I dislike authors who whine and plead and blackmail for reviews, and I dislike them even more if they behave that way when they're already getting tons! I don't want to come across like that, so I tend to downplay my reviews, but that doesn't mean they don't matter to me, because they absolutely do. I LOVE REVIEWS!
:o)
Phew... that was a mouthful! In case you hadn't guessed, I've had a couple of reviews lately asking if I even care. So um… I CARE!)