Chapter 17

Draco hated being back at Malfoy Manor, back in his old room. It was the room of a person he didn't recognize anymore and it felt awkward just being there. If the war hadn't happened, he would probably be comfortable here, living without a severe break in his character. Now it was even hard to imagine what that would have been like. He'd probably be ambitious. Maybe he would be the one holding salons rather than Pansy. No, he would have seen that as too trying. He was the one people wanted at their parties, not the one inviting others. The games of favor Pansy played would never have appealed to him.

A smile tugged at his lips. Back then, he'd been out to get Hermione. Potter too, obviously, but that was a different thing entirely. His interest in Potter had waned when everyone else's interest in Potter grew. There was no glory in a pile-on. Hermione was the brains, but they were only interested in destroying the symbol that Potter was. They overlooked her, and they'd been stupid to.

Maybe it went to prove that it had always been just him and her. Now Marcus, but he was simply an extension of her. She used Marcus against him, and Marcus, the fool, believed it was his own decisions that had brought him to the club, caused him to whip out his wand and attack. No, it was all her.

All this would probably make everything more complicated. It didn't matter. The battlefield might change, but the battle was still on.

A soft knock sounded at his door. It was his mother. He knew by the way she knocked. "Not now," he called. Whatever it was she was about to say, he didn't want to hear it.

But as she tended to do, she didn't listen. Instead she opened the door. "Your father wishes to speak to you," she said.

Draco internally groaned. The truth was he didn't care about whatever reprimand Lucius was going to give him. The old him would have cared. Pleasing his father had been a mainstay of his life. But now he didn't care.

Lucius appeared, sweeping into the room as he did all rooms. He sighed, signifying that he wasn't looking forward to this either.

"We cannot have the kind of behavior displayed," Lucius said and Draco continued to pace. "In normal circumstances, the settlement of property can be decided in court, but in this case, you have no claim to the particular property in any fashion."

"She's a person. I think things are more complicated." Then again, it really wasn't. He had laid claim to her, even as deep down, he didn't believe a person could belong to anyone. Not in the way Lucius meant, in the way where a court could determine who a person belonged to. "It was never an issue of property," he said, and that was true. Her proprietary status was simply a tactic used in a larger war.

"I suppose it doesn't matter now. The club owner has had to be compensated for the damage, and that compensation will be distributed equally between you and Mr. Flint. As for the property in question, I suppose it doesn't matter now as she perished in the raid that ensued."

The world stilled in a most terrible way. As if the energy seeped out of the entire world in one instance. "Perished?" he found himself saying. The meaning refused to form properly.

"She is dead. Marcus Flint will be compensated for the financial loss by the Ministry in this case, and it will be settled. We're inviting the Bulstrodes for supper, and it would be nice if you could attend. Mr. Bulstrode has significant properties in France, so it would be good to hear his interpretation on how the relationship between ourselves and France should evolve."

Draco didn't respond. His chest ached. Pain grew and pierced. Not that he let any of this show. "I won't be able to make it."

"I think you need to take more interest—"

"Lucius," Narcissa warned and Lucius immediately stopped as he tended to so when she used that tone with him. "We will leave you to recover from your injuries, my darling," she said. "Come down if you feel up to it."

Draco knew full well they would have a discussion outside in the hall about how they shouldn't coddle him, as if he was still a child. He'd always been the main source of contention in their relationship. Maybe they would have been much happier if they'd never had a child.

The stillness of the room returned as they left. It seemed darker and more stark. It seemed pointless, and he didn't know what to do. Something unimaginable had happened, and he didn't know how to feel. A part of him was relieved, but another was… outraged. Dark anger simmered, but he wouldn't let it come to the surface. Its burning heat was there, but there was a block—as if it couldn't fight through the ice that held it down.

The truth was that he felt nothing. Nothing at all. Everything was complete stillness. His mind, his heart. He just stood there. Because there was nothing to be done. Emptiness stretched in every direction. The future, the past, the present. Nothing.

A hero wasn't a hero without an enemy. They never talked about what happened after the hero was vanquished. Maybe this felt so wrong because he hadn't vanquished her. It had been an accident. A careless novice sending a careless hex, and she was gone. Maybe she'd fallen. A simple accident.

And now he was robbed of everything. He was stuck on this quest with no enemy to fight. He should be happy he didn't have to bother, but he'd wanted the bother. This had been the fight he'd invested everything into. Now there was nothing. Just him, ready for a fight that would never come.

There wasn't anything he could do. Move, sleep. He could only stand there. His purpose was entirely gone.

Walking over to the sideboard, he poured himself whiskey. It was the only thing he could think of doing, even as he didn't feel like it, because it achieved nothing. The lights bothered him, so he extinguished them, then sat with the tumbler in hand. He didn't want to be here, so he apparated to his spot by the lake.

The stars were out, the moon reflected of the black, shiny water. The tree behind him. But this place held no peace. It was just empty. She'd slipped away without a look back. Permanently this time. Final and complete. She'd robbed him by dying.

Walking to the edge of the shore, he stepped into the water. The coolness seeped into his shoes. Step a little further and there would be blackness. It would be complete, like when his father's hex had struck him at the club, but he wouldn't wake again. Return to utter nothingness.

The whiskey stung his throat as he took a swig. The coolness of the water called to him. Just to release everything. He stepped deeper into the water up to his knees.

She'd been unconscious in the Hogwarts lake once, during the tournament. He'd seen her carried in. It had been both thrilling and disturbing. Obviously, he'd know she wasn't being drowned, but it hadn't looked like it. She hadn't particularly liked lakes before, and she certainly hadn't like them afterwards. Maybe he should bring her here, tie her down in the darkness. She'd hate that. They could both be down there, tied to the bottom with ropes, no one ever finding them.

Well, she'd be found. There was a tracker on her. There was a tracker on her, he repeated in his mind.

Stepping out of the lake, he threw the whiskey glass away and apparated to the ministry. Sodden steps trailed behind him as he walked through the main hall and toward the Auror's office. It was late at night and it was barely staffed, but enough for him to order a confused clerk into the tracking room. "Show me Hermione Granger," he ordered.

The clerk hesitated because he wasn't in charge of this department anymore. "Now!" he ordered harshly and the clerk quickly slipped into the seat.

The map emerged on the wall with streets and little dots. The clerk worked, typing into the contraption and then stared at the wall where the map didn't move. He tried again.

"There is no response. It cannot find her."

A hope had flared in his chest. What that hope was for, he hadn't dared explore, but the map sat mutely. It couldn't find her. This felt like falling. An out of control feeling that said nothing but disaster.

"Does the tracker dissipate upon death?" he asked.

"I don't know," the clerk said. "I can call Madam Brokers."

"Where are the bodies?" It was a question he'd never asked before. Where did victims go?

"What do you mean?"

"The bodies of people who die." Draco quelled an urge to strangle the man for being so dense.

"St. Mungos," he finally said.

That was where she was. What his intentions were right now, he had no idea, but he was going there, because that was where she was. Apparating, he appeared in front of the old stone building that looked anything but inviting.

"The morgue," he stated as he reached the guard at the entrance.

"Down the three flights of stairs to the left," the man said without interest.

It got darker and darker as he walked down, as if making his way into the underworld itself. A dark polished door stood at the bottom of the staircase with 'Morgue' written in gold letters above it.

It smelled unpleasantly of clinical death inside and a pale man sat by the desk in the room beyond.

"I need to see a body," Draco said. The man looked up, about to say something, but stopped when he saw who it was. There was still a degree of satisfaction in how nervous he made people. Rightly so, because nothing was stopping him right now from going where he wanted to go. This man would either help or get in the way, and Draco didn't care which way it went.

"About whom do you enquire?" the man asked, pulling over a large leatherbound book.

"Hermione Granger. Brought here yesterday, or the day before."

"The friend of Har…? Uhm," the man said, quickly leafing through the pages. "We have no one of that name here."

"Then where is she?" Draco said warningly.

"Well, people of a more questionable background are left for the muggle authorities to deal with."

"Left?"

"Well, if they died on, say a muggle street, they are… left there. The muggles eventually find them. Legally, they are considered muggles, as I believe is the deceased person's status in this case."

"And if they died at a wizard's property?"

"Have you checked the street outside the property?" he said with a displaced brightness, an expression which he quickly dropped. "No, at times they are delivered to the muggle authorities, who deal with any arrangements."

"And where are they?"

"Well, it is complicated. There are a lot of muggles, you see. So one would assume the nearest to wherever she, uhm, died, I suppose."

The idea of her being left on the street like discarded trash wasn't a thought he liked. She deserved better. Like being tied to the bottom of a lake amongst a cathedral of seaweeds. It would be more fitting.