Chapter 28 - You saved me

"So do we just fucking go for it then?" Theo asks.

Hermione chews on her lip and Neville looks on, pale and worried.

"Can we call your elf again?" she asks.

"No," Theo shakes his head. "He could get in, but our magic can't get out through the wards to call him. We'll have to get outside to apparate."

"Then that's what we'll do," Hermione says after a moment. "Draco, can you run?"

"Yeah," he says, taking a step forward out of Theo and Neville's steadying grip. He's shaky, but upright. "I can do it."

"Then we just run back out the way we came, pick up Pansy and your mother along the way, and hope for the best."

"So we're… winging it?" Neville confirms.

They all exchange glances and Hermione nods grimly. "Let's go."

Theo takes one step towards the door, his heart hammering. This is bad, this is bad, this is bad. His every instinct is again urging him to run, but this time, there is no running away, no backing out. The only way out is through.

Draco finds Wormtail's wand, dropped as he transformed into a rat. He nearly falls, his balance all wrong as he bends to pick it up.

"I'll be fine," he sneers at the collective worried look he receives. "Let's go."

Draco leads the way back down the winding hallway, Hermione scurrying after him quickly. Theo takes the opportunity to hold onto Neville once again.

If Neville doesn't get out safely, if he's harmed in any way whatsoever… Theo doesn't know –– he'll just never recover. Never forgive himself. All he wants, all he wants in the whole world, is to spend another night with him in Gryffindor tower. He has to make it. He has to.

At the stairs, Hermione stops, peering her head around the corner and looking down.

"Where are Pans and my mother?" Draco asks, spinning his head around.

"I don't know," Hermione admits. "They should be back by now. Unless your mother was somewhere else?"

"No," Draco insists. "She wouldn't have left that room. It's her favourite, and closest to where I was. There's nowhere else she'd be."

"Maybe they went on ahead," Theo suggests.

Draco shakes his head. "No, she'd want to wait for me. She could have gotten out weeks ago, but she's been waiting for me, she wouldn't —"

"Well, they might be a bit further down," Hermione reasons. "We should check at the bottom of the stairs."

Draco nods, lips tight, and begins to descend the stairs slowly, gripping carefully at the handrail.

Pansy and Mrs. Malfoy are not down there.

But Dolohov is.

He stands for a split second, staring dumbly at the group of teens sneaking through the house.

Then he starts hexing.

Hermione's protego is quick, but whatever horrible curse Dolohov threw at her rebounds off her shield, and grazes Draco's shoulder. Blood immediately begins pouring down his sleeve.

Dolohov keeps cursing, and although Hermione gets her bearings quickly, duelling him at a nearly matched level, she'll never be able to overpower him.

Theo attempts to throw a few hexes himself, through the gap between Hermione and Draco's shoulders, still trapped behind them on the stairs. He's vaguely aware of Neville trying to do the same, but being unable to get a very good shot from behind Draco.

Then Draco slinks to the floor, his shoulder bleeding quickly.

"Expelliarmus!" Neville cries, taking the sudden opportunity of a clear shot. Dolohov's wand soars into Neville's grip.

"Stupefy!" Hermione yells. Dolohov falls back, crumbling to the floor.

"Draco, Draco." Theo bends to his level. He's barely conscious, even paler and weaker than before. "We have to go, you need to get up and walk, now."

Draco nods vaguely and allows himself to be hoisted to his feet by Theo's grip on his uninjured arm.

The four of them stagger off, Theo's feet itching to go faster.

Somewhere in the depths of the house, Theo hears footsteps on marble floors and urgent voices, stirred by the sound of the commotion.

"Which door was it?" Hermione whispers.

"One of the fancy double ones," Theo says, properly noticing the hallway they're in for the first time. There are two sets of fancy double doors, roughly in the direction they're heading for.

"That doesn't help much," Hermione hisses. "Don't you know this house?"

"Not as well as Pansy," he says, straining under the weight of half-dragging Draco along.

"Shite, I forgot about Pansy." Hermione pales, her voice hitching up to an even higher pitch.

"We don't have time, Hermione," Theo says, anticipating that she'll want to search for her. Theo wants the same thing, but Draco is bleeding out in his arms. The only way forward is out. "We have to get Draco out of here."

"I know," she breathes. "Which doors?"

No one answers her.

"Someone's coming," Neville says urgently.

Fuck it. "Left," Theo says.

The four of them hobble through the left set of doors, knowing full well that it was a random choice.

The door shuts behind them by magic and Theo is suddenly quite sure.

It was the wrong door.


"Well, well, well, aren't we a heroic little group?" Bellatrix Lestrange drawls, pacing slowly towards them. "Come to save ickle Draco from the big bad Dark Lord?"

Hermione keeps her wand ready, her breath shallow in her throat, as two other Death Eaters she doesn't recognise stand from their chairs and come into a sort of formation behind Bellatrix.

Bellatrix cackles and lazily swings her wand at the door. Hermione hears the lock click. "Oh, I think we'll have some fun with you."

They're in some sort of parlour, with a small piano and several elegant chaise lounges. The whole room is done in creams and pale greens and it's simply the wrong place for her to die.

"Expelliarmus!" Neville tries again. But Bellatrix is quicker than Dolohov and she easily deflects the curse.

"Crucio!" she cries, laughing delightedly. "Just like mum and dad, eh little Longbottom? So lovely to see you again."

Neville crumbles under the weight of the curse, his head smacking roughly on the floor, though he clenches his teeth, refusing to make a sound.

Theo lets out a yell of rage and attacks, allowing Draco, now fully unconscious from blood loss, to slip from his hold and to the floor, as he sends curse after curse at Bellatrix. She deflects each one of them easily.

The two other Death Eaters advance on Hermione. One is big and blond, the other wiry and small.

"Potter's mudblood, aren't you?" the small one says, stepping into her space. She tries to curse him away, but he deflects it easily. "What're you doin' here, eh?" He breathes onto her face. "Bella's right, you know. We could have so much fun, the two of us."

He wraps his hand around the tip of her wand and pulls, trying to get it out of her hand. She grips with all her might and concentrates all her power on a stinging hex. It's nothing major, but it's enough that he loosens his grip, just a bit.

"Stupefy!" she yells, quick as she can, and he falls, knocked backward away from her. "Incarcerous!" she adds on the off-chance he wakes up.

She chances a look at Neville and Theo, both of whom are fiercely duelling Bellatrix. Though there are two of them, they're losing badly, both knocked on the floor, barely holding on to their wands.

Hermione doesn't get a chance to help them, before the second Death Eater, the blond, comes at her with an Avada. She sees the flash of green light and dodges it, barely.

She counters with another curse and they duel. He's viscous, but he's not quick, and miraculously, they're rather evenly matched. She brings everything she learned from Harry in the DA, every defence class with Snape to the forefront of her mind. Stupefy, Expelliarmus, Protego. She sticks to the classics, the spells she knows she's perfected.

She's angled away from Neville and Theo, and she can't spare a single moment to check how they're doing. She thinks they're still fighting.

Draco is within her line of sight. He's not moving, slumped on the floor at an awkward angle.

They're losing.

Hermione is getting tired, and Draco's down and the others won't be able to hold off Bellatrix forever. They're losing. She wracks her brain for a way out and comes up empty.

This isn't how it was supposed to go. None of this is right, none of this should be happening.

Stupefy, Expelliarmus, Protego.

She duels mechanically, perfunctorily. Buying time for an impossible solution.

If she had just forgiven Draco earlier, he wouldn't have destroyed the cabinet and they wouldn't be here. If she had just told Dumbledore the moment she knew, insisted on Order protection for Draco, they wouldn't be here. She should have come by herself, sooner, and not risked Theo and Neville and Pansy. Maybe then she would have had enough Felix Felicis to last on the way out.

The big Death Eater casts some sort of slicing hex and it lands, hitting her in the ankle.

She falls, bleeding all over the elegant cream carpet.


Bellatrix Lestrange fights better than him and Neville combined. By a long shot. There's no way, none at all, that they get out of this thing alive.

No countryside cottage with an absurdly large garden for them. All those times he gazed into crystal balls, and it turns out he has no future at all.

And Neville, Neville. He wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Theo. He'd be tucked up in bed, cozy and content in one of his endless sets of herbology pyjamas. Not getting crucioed on Draco's parents' drawing room floor.

And when he sees Hermione fall, he knows. He thought he'd known before, but he didn't — he'd hoped. Without her, he doesn't. No hope.

He closes his eyes, gathering the last of his energy for one final curse. Maybe he can save Neville from a single second of pain.

He gets hit with a crucio, rendering his efforts worthless, and through the blinding, deafening, senseless, familiar pain, he stops thinking. There's nothing in the world but pain.

And then the pain stops.

There's no noise, no screaming, no fighting. He's so tired. He relaxes his body, letting go.

"Sister! You would join these traitors?"

"I told you, Trixie," rings the cool, collected voice of Narcissa Malfoy. "There's nothing I wouldn't do for my son. Stupefy!"

"Crucio!"

Perhaps he's not dead, then. Theo manages to crack a tired eye, dragging himself back from the brink.

The sisters are duelling, focused only on each other, Belltrix's former targets forgotten. They circle each other, pacing and casting spells in phenomenally rapid succession, their duel a wild show of lights and colours and sounds. The witches are evenly matched in skill, equally vicious in their determination.

Theo takes a moment to scan the room.

Pansy: arrived on scene, duelling the blond Death Eater.

Hermione: bleeding on the floor, unmoving.

Draco: bleeding on the floor, unmoving.

Neville: scrambling into a corner, being chased by a gigantic snake.

There's a long moment where Theo can do nothing but stare, unable to quite process what he's seeing. Of all the things that could go further wrong, he had not anticipated the addition of snakes. It writhes and snaps, its tongue flicking out of its open jaw. It gets closer then backs away, teasing its prey, pushing him back.

Neville's found his voice - no longer suppressing it for the sake of denying Bellatrix the pleasure of his suffering. His terrified screams rip a hole in Theo's chest.

"Neville!" he thinks he yells, but it might be more of a moan.

Theo clambers to his feet, trying to rush, but his head is fuzzy and his limbs heavy. It's like he's swimming through mud. As soon as he's upright, he staggers sideways, a sudden weight in his pocket dragging him down.

He fumbles into his robes, past the brim of the Sorting Hat he'd long since forgotten that he brought with him.

The sword of Gryffindor is in his pocket. He heaves it out, arms shaking, and looks up.

The snake's fangs are right in Neville's face. It's on top of him, its enormous, weighty body pinning him down. His wand is rolling away.

Theo's too late, too far away. The room flashes, his vision tunnels and Neville's too far away. He'll be bitten, poisoned and ripped apart because Theo was too many seconds away, on the wrong side of the room, and it's over, it's over.

Neville looks up. His eyes lock on Theo's then drop to the sword.

And Theo throws it. The sword slips and stutters and reaches Neville's faster than it reasonably should, like it's drawn to him.

Neville palms vaguely on the floor, his hand wrapping perfectly around the handle.

The sword of Gryffindor cuts through the snake like butter.

Blood splatters. A wispy black shadow emerges from the snake's severed neck, wailing as it dissipates laboriously around the room.

Theo breathes again, heavily. He hadn't noticed that he stopped.

Pansy takes the opportunity of the distraction to cast a well-placed body-bind curse, and follows up with a quick incarcerous. The blond Death Eater is down.

Only Bellatrix and Narcissa remain fighting, the speed of their duel not slowing for even a second at the beheading of the snake or the fall of the Death Eater.

Theo dodges a stray flash of red light and crouches, waddling on bended knees to check on Neville.

"I'm okay," Neville whispers. "It's just — help me get it off my leg."

Theo and Neville work together to shift the snake, it's weight and length tangled up and heavy on Neville's leg.

Freed, Neville picks up the sword again and presents it to Theo. "The sword of Gryffindor," he murmurs. "You saved me, just like in your dreams."

No, he almost says. In my dreams I couldn't save you.

"Oi," Pansy calls, from the other side of the room. "Let's go!"

She's got Hermione propped up against the side of her body and Draco levitating in front of her. Hermione still appears unconscious, though the bleeding has stopped. And Draco — Theo honestly can't tell. He looks like death.

They scramble to their feet and Neville takes Hermione from Pansy, supporting all of her weight though he himself is limping, his foot injured by the snake. Theo drags the sword along.

"No!" Bellatrix cries, casting aside a hex from her sister and quickly training her wand on Draco, summoning his levitated form in front of her. She holds him like a shield, her wand at his throat."No one is going anywhere."

Everyone freezes. Bellatrix cackles at their fear.

They can't curse her without risking it hitting Draco. Draco, who's been bleeding for ages already and who cannot possibly withstand a single curse more.

Narcissa is the first to speak, her voice soft, almost sad. "Your own nephew, Trixie?"

"This blood traitor is no nephew of mine!"

"Then, I suppose, you are no longer my sister."

Narcissa moves her wand, almost imperceptibly, and Theo feels the sword gently tug against his grip. He lets it go and it hovers quietly in front of him, awaiting Narcissa's direction.

She paces slowly, walking in an arc away from Theo. Bellatrix follows her, turning in place until Theo is just out of her line of sight.

"Think carefully, Cissie," Bellatrix hisses. "What will you do when the Dark Lord takes over? Do you really want to be his enemy?"

Narcissa straightens her back and puffs out her chest defiantly, looking her sister in the eyes. She makes another subtle movement with her wand and the sword flies forward, true and steady. It slices easily through the back of Bellatrix's knees.

She shrieks, letting Draco fall out of her grip as she drops to the ground. Narcissa strides forward, and stands over her, levitating Draco into her control.

"Don't ever threaten my son again, you bitch," she snarls, stepping daintily over Bellatrix's prone, shrieking form and picking up the wand she dropped. "Theo, dear, do take your sword."

Theo blinks dumbly, then quickly summons it back into his grasp. It has quite a lot of blood on it, between Bellatrix and the snake.

"Quickly, now," Narcissa says, holding Draco close to her body in a protective embrace, though she must have him levitating somehow, to lighten his weight. "Back exit, Pansy."

Pansy nods and leads the way, down the stairs they came up earlier. She takes a different turn along the way somewhere and they bypass the kitchens, exiting onto a broad stone patio. Theo can smell the rose gardens, heady and floral in the warm air of the spring evening.

"We can apparate from the other side of the lawn," Narcissa says quietly as the group limps along. "Hogsmeade, as close as we can to the castle."

The walk across the field takes forever, and is over before Theo knows it.

"Longbottom," Pansy says. "Give me Granger."

Neville passes Hermione over, and Theo takes his hand. "I'll side-along you," Theo says, partly because he has his apparition licence and Neville doesn't, but mostly because he doesn't want to let go.

Narcissa nods briefly, approving the arrangement and is the first to disappear, vanishing into the night with Draco secure in her arms.

Pansy and Theo follow, disapparating almost in sync. It's a weird feeling, to be smushed through space with another person alongside him. For a moment, he wonders if he did it right, and when he lands, face first on a gravel road, he's still not sure.

Then he hears Hermione's voice.


She comes to with a bang. The crack of Pansy's apparition wakes her and she's immediately thrust through the compression of space before she can catch her breath.

They land with a smack and Hermione blinks, taking in the dark road around them. Up ahead is the bridge and the path leading them back to Hogwarts.

"What happened?" she mutters hoarsely. "Draco?"

"We got out," Pansy answers.

"Draco?" she asks again, more insistently.

"I don't know," Pansy says tightly, getting up and holding her hand out for Hermione. "Can you get up? We can't stay in the street."

Hermione takes her hand, and staggers to her feet, nearly collapsing again when she tries to put weight on her ankle. She steadies herself, using Pansy's shoulder for support.

She sees Theo and Neville gathering themselves up and whispering to each other, something intimate and loving that she feels the need to look away from.

Then she sees him, already on the other side of the bridge, and needs to restrain herself from running over there on her injured ankle and dubious state of blood loss. He's draped over his mother's arms, body limp, and so, so pale in the stark light of the moon.

"Where now?" Theo asks, coming up next to them, Neville leaning against his shoulder. Neville's limping, though not nearly so bad as Hermione. "The main gates?"

Hermione shakes her head weakly. "Aurors. Getting through them will take too long. Let's go through the Shrieking Shack, there's a secret passage."

The four of them take off, making their way over the bridge, hurrying as much as they can. Narcissa waits for them, looking up as they approach.

"He's breathing," she announces quickly.

Hermione almost makes Pansy fall over, she slumps in so much relief. "Thank god," she whispers.

Narcissa shoots her a sharp look, narrowing her eyes.

"Hermione knows a passageway," Pansy explains. "It's over that way."

The trip up the street and through the tunnel under the shack is a blur. As they emerge under the Whomping Willow, Hermione levitates a branch to freeze the tree in place, and that small exertion of magic leaves her nearly drained.

On the lawn, as they make their way to the castle entrance, she notes a crowd of people standing under the astronomy tower. It registers as odd, but only just.

What's truly odd, though she again hardly has the capacity to think about it, is the ease with which they pass through the Entrance Hall and up to the hospital wing. They hardly see anyone, and of those they do see, no one questions Narcissa's presence or their injuries.

When Hermione finally lays her head to rest in a hospital bed, she lasts mere seconds before falling into a deep, heavy sleep.