Thirty-Six
Day: 1506; Hour: 11
She glances up at the fluttering sound of leaves, watching the breeze dance through the trees out the kitchen window. Her hands still from their furious scrubbing of the dishes, the steam from the water making her even more sweaty. She closes her eyes as the breeze sweeps through the window, rolling across her heated skin. Some of her curls escape the hazardous looking bush of frizz clipped to the top of her head, and they stick to her skin.
She breathes in deeply, opening her eyes at the sound of padding bare feet behind her. She almost drops her mug at the fingertips on her legs, inching up the skirt of her summer dress. He presses against her back, his hands pushing farther up.
"You know, one of these days I'm going to think someone is trying to molest me, and do you some serious physical damage." He doesn't respond to this at all, and she wonders if he's trying to freak her out. "I know it's you."
"I would bloody well hope so," he says with a sneer, a bit disgruntled. Probably because his hand had taken the liberty of cupping her through her underwear, and if she didn't know it was him, she should have stopped the person back at the fingertips stage.
She hurries to wash the soap off her cup, and he tucks his face into her neck, his stomach moving against her back as he breathes in deep. Your scent is everywhere, she remembers, and presses tighter against him. She raises her shoulder in an attempt to push him out, because she probably reeks of sweat and she feels gross. He doesn't budge, brushing his nose against her jaw, and then his tongue swipes at her skin. He breathes out what might be a laugh at her noise of protest, wrapping his arms around her waist when she tries to wiggle away.
She frowns, her eyebrows furrowing as he kisses to the strap at her shoulder. She wiggles again, and he wiggles back, catching the strap in his mouth and pulling it down. "Draco..."
"No one else is here."
"I know, they left this morning, but-"
"We'll hear them if they come back."
"I know." She studies the feel of him through the thin material again, and turns her head toward his questing mouth. "Are you naked?"
"Why wouldn't I be?"
She laughs at him, and his lips curve in a smile against her chin before meeting her own. The kiss is lazy and sweet, like the ones they sometimes share in the morning, when they're both too groggy but need it anyway. The hot day, combined with their body heat against one another, is creating a fever between them. It covers their bodies like an actual pressure, making movement feel like a lot of effort. If they shag right now, she's almost afraid of heat stroke.
"Let's go swimming." It's out of her mouth the moment she thinks it, and it feels like the best idea she's had in a long time. She hasn't gone swimming in years, and her excitement is quick. She doubts he'll agree, and she can always go by herself later, but she hopes he'll come.
She also doesn't know if she should risk going by herself anyway. After the... After her episode, it wasn't safe to go swimming around in deep water. She didn't know if she would be able to make it back to land if it happened again. Anger and self-pity begin to coil in her stomach, and then he's speaking again.
"What?" He looks at her like she's crazy, and he's considering taking several steps back. She shrugs and washes the soap off her hands.
"We'll go to the lake." The one he told her about forever ago. The one where she watched the sunrise and he lost his ring.
He looks like he just stepped in a wad of gum, and she grins at his wrinkled nose before turning off the tap. "Right now?"
She nods her head a little too enthusiastically, clipping his chin, and mutters a distracted apology at his injured noise. "Or you can stay and sweat to death."
She's out of his arms and out the door before he can reply. Her need for cool water and fresh air drives her halfway there before she decides trampling through the woods without shoes wasn't a brilliant choice. She has just enough time to start wondering if Draco really wasn't going to come before she hears him behind her.
"Forget something?" he drawls as she gingerly steps over the threatening edges of stones, and navigates around thick tree roots.
"Only something with which I can hit you," she mutters, and glares at him as he passes her. He had obviously had the mind to remember shoes, shorts, and his wand.
"What was that?"
"Hm?"
He gives her a look over his shoulder, his boots leaving a path of destruction. "Any slower and you'll get there by winter, Granger."
"Then I would be dead. Lack of food, for one." His skin is gleaming from the sweat and the sun, and she drags her eyes down the definitions in his shoulders, arms and back as he walks.
"Let's not forget the possible suffocation from your hair, should it get any bigger."
She ignores him, and only feels mildly perverted when she begins ogling his bum. It's not like he would ever know. She's pretty sure she has the right to anyway. "Then I would have to come back and haunt you."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I won't be some friendly ghost either. I'll hide dead fish in your bedroom. I'll ruin all your favorite clothes-"
"Will you pop out and yell 'boo' at random times as well? I'm scared, Granger. I fear your cleverness."
"Those will just be to throw you off. Then I'll start the revenge murder schemes. Catch you off guard."
"After telling me your plan?"
"Draco Malfoy's End: Death by Slippers. Your tombstone will read, 'He Should Have Brought Her Boots'. Everyone will say, 'oh, how ominous', and I'll just point at you and laugh."
"Death by slippers?" He sounds appalled at the prospect. "And you're about as terrifying as a Hufflepuff, Granger. I doubt your ability to trick me into death when you can't even remember your shoes. Furthermore, I don't think you have the nerve."
"You should start begging for mercy now," she sniffs.
"You're going to be the one begging." He gives her a wicked look over his shoulder, and comes to an abrupt halt at the edge of the lake. "You can-"
He cuts off when she sails past him, running into the water and diving under the surface. The water surrounds her in cool relief, stealing the heat from her within the silk of its embrace. She emerges with a grin, shoving her hair back from her face, free from the baking humidity.
Draco's scowling at her from the edge of the lake, and she shakes her head at him. "Are you not getting in?"
"I'm just making sure you don't break out in infection, or something doesn't eat you from the murky depths."
"Scared, Malfoy?" She inches closer to him.
"Hopeful." He smirks.
"You can stay in the shallow part if you're nervous. Can you swim? If you start drowning, I might consider saving you." Just a little more. His eyes drop to her breasts, and she looks down as well, remembering that she had gone without a bra today. Her dress is clinging to her, and she sinks down into the water at the sight of her nipples pressing against the fabric.
He glares at her. "Is this your attempt at manipulation?"
"That depends on if it's working."
"Since it's not, I'll take that as a yes." His smirk is wiped away with the wave of water she sends at him, splashing against his legs. He looks at his skin like it might start melting off, and slowly raises his gaze back to her.
"Feels good, doesn't it?" She smiles when he toes one of his boots off, and laughs at him when he hops around on his foot, trying to pull the other off. "The water is pe-"
She cuts off when he raises his head, his eyes narrowed and calculating. She had thought he was in a rush to get into the water for the relief of it, and not for the sake of revenge. She points her finger at him as he peels off his socks, shaking her head.
"It was only a little spla-" She squeaks when he starts forward, her arms circling twice to propel her backwards.
She turns toward the other side of the lake just as he dives under the water, swimming hard toward the other shore. She's almost there when she hears him come up from the water, his arms splashing. He grabs her sides just as her feet touch the ground, and he drags her back and under the water. He's giving a sound of amusement when she comes up sputtering, and she whips an arm out of the water, sending a wave over her shoulder.
He coughs, and she laughs as he spins her toward him. He looks nothing short of devious, his eyes shining like the stones again, and she quickly wraps her legs around him. She reaches out to push his hair back, and some emotion flickers across his face to replace his plotting expression.
"Now you can't drown me without drowning yourself." She grins in triumph, dropping her arms around his neck and pressing against him.
"You got it in my mouth." He glares at her harder when she laughs. "You're severely underestimating my need for retribution."
"You're willing to put yourself under just to put me under?"
"You haven't left me with a choice." One of his hands leaves her side to travel the length of her spine, his arm wrapping around her waist.
"Well, at least you won't be able to drown me. I'm attached to your self preservation now."
"Sure about that?" His eyebrow hikes, and as soon as she opens her mouth to respond, she's back under the water. He pulls them back up when her lungs start to burn, and she releases the death grip she had on his neck.
"Slippers, Malfoy, slippers!" They're back under then, and he might be laughing or the bubbles are just from her, forming from her lips and rolling against their faces.
They resurface a lot quicker than they did the first time, panting, and he sneers at her triumphant look. "The moment you let go, Granger...watch out."
"It's a good thing I'm not letting go then. Not until you have to carry me back to the house. I don't want to hurt my poor feet, you know."
He huffs, but if he really wanted to, he could untangle her from around him, and she wouldn't fight that hard to stay if he was so adamant about her not. Instead, his arm slips further around her back until his fingers wrap around her hip, and his other hand pushes the hem of her dress up her thigh. Her fingers dance through the wet locks of hair at his nape, and he breathes against her mouth before kissing her until she's hot all over again.
Day: 1507; Hour: 8
She is contemplating the heights to both sides of her smaller frame when she notices his shoulders pulling back, his spine straightening, and his chin lifting. Draco looks almost robotic, he's so stiff, but his face looks strained for three paces before it's blank. She looks ahead of them, realization catching up with her nerves, and Vincent Crabbe freezing at the other end of the corridor.
The two Aurors at either side of him tug him forward, hard enough for him to trip over his feet. The vicious look remains on his face despite it, his eyes wild with rage and that glint of madness she knows as he eyes Draco. Hermione tries to school neutrality on her face, but her heart picks up speed and Anthony huffs a laugh at her other side. The last time she can remember seeing Crabbe had been at Hogwarts, laughing with a smirking Draco, both their arms wrapped around Pansy's shoulders as they sauntered through the dungeon.
She holds her breath as they near one another, and lets it out in a hiss when Crabbe rears back and spits at Draco. The blond pulls short, his body rigid and frozen before he lowers his head to look at the glob on his shoe. Crabbe tries to spit again, but he's jerked back at the same time, stumbling over his feet as the saliva slides down his chin. Hermione is stuck between grabbing hold of Draco or letting it play out, but even though she's so sure Draco will snap, he doesn't move.
"You have some spittle on your face, Vince."
"Fuck you. You're lucky I'm in these binds, you fucking trait-"
"You're the one who's lucky," Draco hisses, stepping forward, and the two Aurors look away. "I should make you lick my fucking boots clean. Azkaban will break you slower, though, and I rather you-"
"Who are you? Who the fuck are you? You were my- You left us! You left the Dark Lord, you left your parents, you left us! Millie cried for days, Blaise almost- You abandoned us to go save worthless, dirty creatures. If there weren't so many blood traitors, the Mudbloods would have lost by now! If-"
"You've always been so delusional, Vince. You've never had a single independent thou-"
"-we always followed! You were supposed to be there, and then the second we needed you the mo-"
"-a puppet! I didn't have the time, and you never had the fucking brain cells! I don't have to explain-"
"-always, since we were six years old, hexing Pansy's ugly 'Mudblood' dolls, and our fathers would-"
"-get it. You're not worth a moment of my life for what you've done-"
"For what I've done?" Crabbe practically roars, struggling again against the hands holding him back. "You killed Greg! You killed Greg, and I saw you! For nothing! For that worthless sack of shit, that fucking Longbottom fuck! You. Killed. Greg."
"I had no choice!" Draco yells.
"You had the choice! You made it when you left us! I don't even know you! I don't want to! You killed Greg, right in front of my face, for Longbottom. But I took care of that, didn't I? The look on your face, Dray," Crabbe laughs out, a dirty, dirty sound. "The look on your face when I killed him! And then you looked at me like I betrayed you, but you would have killed me if it hadn't been-"
Hermione hadn't even been aware that she moved. Her mind had spun with information until it registered. Until when I killed him finally hit her like a Bludger to the chest. She had been distantly aware of her hearing buzzing out, adrenaline infusing her blood, and of the cold wave of emotion in her stomach. Then suddenly she had Anthony's arms around her, his hand yanking at the wand clutched in her own, and she was throwing herself forward violently in an attempt to reach Crabbe.
"This isn't a battle, Hermione," Anthony rushes letters into her ear. "This would be murder. It'll be murder."
He killed Neville. He had killed Neville. This man, with this familiar face that she doesn't really know at all, had been the one to take Neville's life away. Had taken him from her. All she feels is rage - the grief, and regret, and all other emotions washed white and gone inside of her. She feels like she did when Seamus died, when revenge became such a solid mass of ugly that it left her raw and uncontrollable. There is nothing in the world now but Crabbe's face and Neville's memory, and her own unblinking fury.
She has to get him. She has to shove his face into mud, to break his bones, and tear him apart. She has to ram her fist into his face, her foot into his spine. She has to make him cry, and bleed, and beg for a salvation she would not give. She has to make him pay for what he's done, and what he's stolen. She has to make him sob worthless apologies for the fact that no matter what she does to him, it will never bring Neville back. She will never be able to trade his worthless life for the life of her friend.
And it's so wrong. It's so screwed up that he stands here, with breath, movement, emotions, life. That he can stand there and be alive at all. He has no right to breath. He has no right to stand there and be angry over his life, when he has it at all. He doesn't deserve it. He doesn't deserve what he took from Neville, what he laughs about taking from them all. So she'll break him. She'll break him until he begs for her to end it. She'll watch him suffer until it makes it go away. Until it somehow rectifies it all. So Neville knows she didn't let him off easy. That she did to him what he had done to Neville, what he had done to her insides.
Anthony is still holding her back when three Aurors pry Draco off of Crabbe. Crabbe is jerked to his feet, his nose broken and blood filling up the holes where his two front teeth had been. But it's not enough, it's not enough, it'snotenough.
Day: 1507; Hour: 19
She pulls her knickers and jeans up, and they catch and drag in the sticky sweat on her skin. The fabric sticks to her legs and thighs, uncomfortable and damp, and sweat beads down her spine as she buttons her trousers. She had had to pee so badly she was walking crooked in her attempt to press her thighs together. The pressure was so demanding she feared her body would take over her head, and the thought of fighting as her jeans chaffed through sweat and urine had her heading into the woods before she even finished telling them she had to go.
Kara, or Klara, had followed behind her, and it took several awkward seconds before Hermione knew the woman didn't plan on moving from her spot in front of her. Between the stranger scanning the woods around her, her bare bum shining white toward the team, her hoping they didn't see it, and the threat of Death Eaters, it was the most awkward loo break of her life.
"Thanks," Hermione breathes, because she isn't sure what else to say to someone who watched her back while she took a squat.
Kara shrugs, falling in line as they navigated the bushes and trees. It is a little unnerving when they emerge from the shadows to seven wands aimed at them. They drop quickly, but Kara still raises her hands, her fingers pulled into peace signs. Draco raises an eyebrow, pushing the sweat-dampened strands of hair out of his eyes, his bruised knuckles black on ivory, and she can just make it out from the darkness within his hood. Done? She keeps walking as an answer.
The group of them reminds her of a rising and falling wave as they hold their formation over large roots and small hills, only breaking to wound around trees before coming back together again. There's half of a moon in the sky overhead, and they move through patterns of eerie blue and complete darkness. The forest is alive around them, but nothing moves as close as an enemy, and there isn't any flashes in the dark yet. Hermione still feels them like they could be anyone, though, because this is the way she has learned how to survive.
There is no pause in step when Draco raises his hand into a beam of moonlight, and Hermione automatically breaks left with a man named Fin – a nickname, she has been told, because he's the warning before the enemy never comes up again. Hermione doesn't know if that's because he's clumsy, or only dangerous for the enemy, but she guesses the latter when the large mass of him picks through the forest as silently as a pixie.
Hermione's feet squelch in sweat within the confines of her boots, and her hair feels like a hot, damp towel wrapped about her head to keep all the heat inside her blood. Her skin is prickling and itchy, and when she scratches her arm, layers of perspiration form under her uneven fingernails. She feels a tingle that she almost passes off as a gifted breeze until Fin mutters a curse. He stops and half-turns on a step back, and his foot cracks wood as the moon catches his wide eyes. Her heart thumps hard twice, and her inhale is slow and heavy.
"The anti-Apparition wards are already up," he whispers so lowly that she thinks he said something completely different at first.
"Someone else did it."
"It was my job."
She thinks to tell him that it doesn't mean someone on their team didn't do it, and that Draco is more than capable if he thought it was taking too long, but Fin's look gives her pause. She is used to seeing the wild looks of people in war as if they are an animal who has been spotted as prey, but Fin's look is more of the hunter who has spotted the prey and is now running out of time.
He starts moving to the side where Kara and Dunfley should be next to them, his walk no longer silent but crunching and rustling. They're supposed to be circling left in an angle that will bring them to the back of the house, and the plan is riding on everyone doing what everyone is supposed to do. Hermione feels like she is attached to the back of an unstoppable car heading for collision when she follows him, unknowing of when or how they'll crash, or if she'll walk away. All she knows is that she isn't going to leave him to the dark alone, and there's no way she can drag him in the direction they need to be going.
"Fin," she whispers, and he stops, but it's only because Kara and Dunfley aren't anywhere to be found. "Fin, we have-"
Something cold flashes across her nape, and then it's burning heat that grows sharper, sharper. Hermione's head whips to the side in time to catch a jet of purple in the moonlight as she slaps a hand to the back of her neck, and the spell slices across her cheek, cold and then fiercely hot. Her neck is soaked with far more than sweat could have managed, and the heat pulses in time with the liquid that seeps through the cracks between her fingers.
She drops to her knees to avoid the next spell flying at her, and casts a Stunner into the woods. It's coming from behind them, so they either have terrible timing, or the Death Eaters had somehow known. She remembers the anti-Apparition wards as Fin's massive hand hauls her to her feet, her heart pounding at the base of her throat, and thinks, theyknowtheyknow. Fin shoves her hard enough to make her stumble back and slam into a tree, and his Killing Curse makes everything around them glow green.
"Go tell them!" he growls before running through the trees, a spell hitting the ground in front of her feet and kicking up clumps of dirt onto her jeans.
She wavers, tilting left and right to follow him or find the others, but it's the Killing Curse that hits five trees away that makes up her mind. All she can see is Draco lit in green, his face frozen in surprise as he falls into the depth of night, and then her feet are hitting the ground even faster than the slamming of her heart.
Sweat slides into the open wounds in her cheek and neck, making them burn so badly that she feels as if her head is on fire over and under the skin. She swipes an arm across her eyes and forehead to prevent the drops from blinding her, and almost misses the slant of black at the edge of a moonbeam. The figure is paused and cloaked in a black robe like all the members of her team, and she can't see the face to find a mask or skin. She might have missed it entirely had it not been moving before, but she can see where the arms must be, devoid of any ribbon of color.
She casts to Petrify the figure, the spell hitting hard enough to knock them out of the light. She aims a Binding Spell into the place where she guesses they fell, just in case, and the distraction causes her to bang her shoulder off a tree trunk. It throws her back crookedly, and she hits the ground on her hip with a squeak.
She sucks in a breath, thick and humid down the dry passage of her throat, and it leaves her shuddering. She can hear yelling from up ahead now, distant but rumbling like thunder, and she knows she's too late. She rushes to her feet, ducking around the tree, and sails down a hill so quickly that she isn't sure if she's going to tumble head first until she hits the bottom on both feet.
The momentum sends her out of the woods and into the clearing around a rickety, tall house before she's even fully prepared, her wand just raising in time to rebound the spell darting at her. It flies back to one of the three people rushing at her, and Hermione flings herself to the right to avoid the Killing Curse as she yells out a Stunner. If they get any closer, she's not going to be able to dodge it like that, and it's this thought that causes her to cast her own.
The green puffs like vapor from the end of her wand, and she sucks in a breath, her heart jolting. That worthless sack of shit...when I killed him, when I killedhimwhenIkilledhim.
"Avada Kedavra!" she cries, and it explodes from her wand like the feeling does in her chest.
The man next to the one the spell hits roars out his rage, and Hermione has to throw herself to the ground on her stomach to miss the two flashes of green aimed at her. She jerks her wand back with the spell she casts, wiping one of them off their feet before rolling to avoid the next two lines of green.
Hermione staggers to stand, nearly losing balance as she Stuns the man on the ground. Blue jets through her hair, singeing the curls, and pain erupts in her earlobe as her hearing buzzes out on the left. For two rapid beats of her heart, she suspects the gold light and sound to be part of whatever hit her, but then she spots the wave of fire arcing across the sky just a moment before the entire house is lit with it.
Her heart stops long enough for her whole body to feel numb, and her block is clumsy, forcing her to jump to the side to dodge the spell when it breaks through her shield. She prays that no one is in the house, that they all got out, that they're currently jumping through windows and onto ground that is hard but not low enough to be unforgiving. She hopes Draco isn't doing anything stupid.
The Death Eater in front of her has removed her mask, and if Hermione's fear wasn't so concentrated on where her team is, she might be afraid of the way blood is coating the young girl's face. It's streaming from her eyes and nose, and when she casts, a red vapor follows her words into the air. With the orange glow and flames lashing behind her, she looks like she has risen from hell with all its fury.
It must be from whatever spell Hermione had rebounded when she first emerged from the woods, but there's no time to think of the could-haves, and only enough to recognize the capability. She rebounds the yellow light, and the girl throws up a shield, but it doesn't last long enough to block Hermione's Stunner as well. The Death Eater flies back, hitting the ground, and dragging for another foot as Hermione runs forward.
Her feet skid across the ground as she comes to a stop. The flames tearing through the house are sweltering so much heat onto her that she feels like her skin will start melting soon; like the fire is going to peel it back from her meat and sinew, and it'll slip through all the sweat until she's a pile of naked bones. But she knows simply and honestly that if she rounds this house and doesn't find them, she'll be heading inside no matter the cost of her skin. She can't even catch her breath, and her eyes are burning everything into starry, liquid shapes as she searches for the Death Eaters' wands.
She's frantic with her need to see that everyone is all right, and she misses spotting the wand near a hip until her third time looking in that exact spot. She pauses at the fold of paper, then rips it from the pocket of the Stunned man, cramming it against the bottom of her own. The three Death Eaters had been running for the woods instead of staying to fight, so they might have been scared, or trying to protect-
Hermione jumps back at the large figure running for the woods, and her wand hand hesitates before she hexes the ground in front of their feet. They turn towards her, as she had wanted them to do, and she lowers her wand when she sees Fin's face. If it hadn't been for the distance between them, whatever spell he cast at her would have hit without her wand so much as twitching at her side. Even when she throws up the blocking spell, it's due to instinct over any real belief that he isn't just casting at something behind her.
It does not hit an unseen enemy, however, and instead hits her shield hard enough for the explosion of his magic against the power of her own to send her onto her back. Her spell ends with the impact, and his sails over her sprawled body like a comet in the starless sky above her. Hermione gasps back in the breath that left her, her mind spinning with thoughts she can't quite catch as she leaps to her feet in time for another curse. Her feet are planted firmly, but when his spell hits her block, the heels of her boots scrape back deeply enough through the dirt to leave grooves. She has to grab the wrist of her wand hand to straighten the shaking, and she grits her teeth until his spell relents.
"What are you doing?" she screams, but he ignores her, his expression wrinkled with anger.
She yells through her teeth when his spell hits her block again, as if the sound can build strength into the strained muscles of her arm and swirl of magic in her blood. It ends so suddenly that she stumbles, one arm flying out for balance while the other drops leaden to her side. She forces it back up again, trying to blink her way to a clearer vision as sweat rolls down her entire body and continues soaking through her clothes.
It's only Draco, though, scowling as he strides towards her, and she can't deny the jolt of her heart at seeing him untouched by green or flames. Kara is behind him but still, her wand trained on Hermione, and Hermione feels as if she has stepped into another world.
"Drop your wand."
Her eyes widen as Kara takes three steps towards her, nodding the box of her chin as fire-lit eyes glance to Hermione's hand. "He attacked me, in case you didn't notice that I was only using blocking spells."
"They've all Apparated out, then," Dunfley says, walking past her to study the edge of the trees.
Draco's eyes scan the gash in her cheek as he moves around the bodies to put his back to the fire, but he doesn't say anything. His gaze makes her more aware of how she looks like she just dived into a pool of sweat and then rolled in dirt, but his own skin is gleaming, and his hair is yellow with wetness. His robe is torn near the bend of his elbow, and his hand is coated in blood, but he doesn't look pained when he grabs a fallen wand with it.
"Fin wouldn't turn traitor if he was being tortured to death for information on the location of Ministry toilets, let alone to set us up. Now drop y-"
"If he's not the traitor, it's only because he thinks I am due to... I couldn't see his band, he was running in the other direction, so I threw a hex in front of him to make him turn. But it was obviously not aimed at his person!"
"Who did that?" Kara asks, nodding towards the bodies.
"I did," Hermione snaps, because being accused as a traitor is one of the easiest ways to set her blood boiling. Draco stands, glancing back again when he catches her glare, and she doesn't have to say anything for his scowl to deepen.
"It's Hermione Granger, Kara," Pluckinson says, and Kara snorts, but her wand drops – probably because no one else had rallied with her, rather than her actually believing Hermione.
"I'm taking off your Stunner, Malfoy."
Draco appears too busy with a muttered conversation with Henley to pay Kara any attention. Hermione watches the other woman hesitate for several seconds before finally lifting the spell from Fin. Hermione clenches her wand a little tighter, just in case, but Fin doesn't even look at her when he shoves himself to his feet.
"They were communicating," Henley says. "All of them are wearing these rings." He looks up to the woods, and then glances back at the burning house. "They must have had a watch group, and then sent word through the rings when they saw us."
"It makes more sense than accusing Fin."
"Or me," Hermione shoots back, but Kara keeps her glare leveled on Draco.
"I didn't get the ones who ran off, unless that's them," Fin says, and Hermione remembers the wad of folded paper in her pocket.
"It looks like them. What the hell happened to her face?"
"This one's dead."
"There's only four of them," Hermione says, opening the top of each fold enough to recognize the design of a map.
"Three… Oh."
"Which one was carrying them?" Henley asks.
Draco holds his hand out, and she hesitates before handing them over. Perhaps to be petty enough to not give them to him when he hadn't bothered to say a word for her before. Not that she needs him to defend her, but it still bothers her that he had been silent while a stranger was the first to point out the unlikelihood. She also wants to know what the maps are to and for, but she knows she's not allowed to see them. She's not even sure if any of them are allowed to really see them.
"The one on the right."
"Stunned. Perfect."
Hermione glances up at Henley, and then over to the legs of the Death Eater Jacob is searching, who they would not prepare for transport like the other two, because their side had carried enough of their own dead to worry about carrying the Dark's. Fin is lifting the girl with the bloodied face, and Hermione wonders if she ever might pass that girl in a Ministry corridor one day, and if her phlegm might slide the slopes of Hermione's boot tip.
"Granger."
She looks up at Draco, surprised with the sudden break of her thoughts, and then looks down at the two-sided bottle opener serving as a Portkey.
"They'll want to interview you."
She slides a finger through the loop as he quickly draws the fabric away from under it, and then slides one of his fingers through the other end. She takes a deep breath, closing her eyes to the grey and gold, and the world spins, spins, and spins.
Day: 1508; Hour: 20
She refolds the letter from Lupin, smoothing the edges between her fingers. The Wizarding Ministry had come to an agreement with the Muggle Ministry over her...car theft. Thankfully, because it was crucial to the success of the mission, she had been forgiven. Unfortunately, she would have to repay the Muggle Ministry for the reimbursement they gave the woman due to interior damage. Like some mud really hurt her car or something. Hermione would like to inform them she'll pay it as soon as she gets her next paycheck, in a year or ten.
"What is that shit?"
Hermione drops her hand from pinching the bridge of her nose, and smiles at the look on Draco's face. "It's called rap."
"Is it a form of Muggle torture? If he says 'birthday sex' one more time, I'm going to go mad."
Hermione huffs a laugh and shrugs, tilting into him as the cushions sink under his weight. "Anthony loves it. It's good to dance to, I guess."
"How, exactly, do you dance to this? I can't see couples sweeping across the ballroom to words like 'shake that ass' or-"
Hermione laughs – really laughs. Full out, eyes shut, head back laugh. There is something remarkably funny about those lyrics in Draco's bored drawl, coupled with the images of rich purebloods in their formal wear, dancing to rap music.
Draco's grinning lopsidedly at her when she opens her eyes, and she's overwhelmed with the desire to kiss him, but she doesn't. "We're going to have to search for a music channel on the television next time. You have to see for yourself."
"Show me."
"What? No."
"Granger, if it's that funny, I want to see it."
"It's not really funny, though I assure you it would be embarrassing and hilarious if I attempted it. Which I'm not going to, by the way."
"Why not?"
"I don't dance."
"Bullocks. I saw you at the Yule Ball."
"I mean, I don't dance like that." She briefly entertains the idea of dancing with him, but dismisses it. She would probably make a fool of herself, or burst out laughing if he tried to do it himself.
He gives her an annoyed look, but is cut off from replying by a slamming sound. They both look toward Anthony's door, tense, until a female moan sounds against the wood. Hermione blinks and turns her head forward again, Draco shifting and leaning back into the couch. She doesn't think it will ever stop being awkward to hear people having sex, no matter how many times she's had it herself.
"Why didn't you tell me it was Crabbe?" And there are a dozen other ways she could have drawn their attention away from the banging, but it's the first thing that comes out.
Draco's shoulders raise in what could have been a slow shrug or a long inhale, and he rolls his head along his shoulders. His neck cracks loudly in the room, and his eyes settle on her. "Does it matter?"
"Maybe not." Because knowing who it had been wouldn't have changed what it was. "How did...?"
She can't finish the question, and maybe Draco understands why, because he knows what she's asking. "Avada. It was quick."
He's lying, or at least she thinks he is. Harry had mentioned that Neville's casket had been closed at the viewing. Perhaps it had been his grandmother's wishes, or Neville's, but it was likely the state of the body. She isn't sure if she even wants to know, afraid of the images that would accompany it, so she doesn't press him. Instead, she looks down from his solid look, like he wasn't going to budge on that answer, and she's more thankful for that than she should be for having asked in the first place.
"I wanted to kill him," she whispers, confesses with something like shame as she stares at her wringing hands. "I've never really hated anyone. Hate is such a common place word, it felt even beyond that. There was this moment, with Seamus...after he died, but the person who killed him was already dead. It felt like that, though, maybe worse, when I looked at Crabbe."
She makes wrinkles at the bottom of her shirt with her nervous hands, and she can feel him staring at her. "It's not like hating him is unjustified, Granger."
"I know. But it wasn't a battle. It wasn't hating him and trying to defend myself. He was in the middle of the Ministry and in binds. I didn't care if he couldn't defend himself. I wanted to do...a lot of very bad things. I still do. I was so overcome with these...dark things inside of me, this fury and hatred, that I couldn't think of anything else."
"He killed Longbottom. It doesn't matter if he was defenseless at that moment. He's still a Death Eater, and he still did it without care. It doesn't matter if we're in a battle or not."
"Doesn't it, though? Shouldn't there be a line, Draco? Between killing people in self-defense, and killing them because you hate them? Death Eaters kill people because they hate them. Not us. Not me. That's not supposed to be me. I'm supposed to believe in the legal system. I always have. Crabbe will get Azkaban-"
"And the Kiss."
"Yes. He'll pay, and I know that, but I didn't care right then. I felt like I had to do it...I wanted to. I never felt so much hate before...still. That scares me. I know he'll pay with his soul later, but... There's a darkness that comes into us when we cast that Curse. I've been able to justify it because it's what I need to do to survive. But that would have just been revenge, and hate, and... It scares me how quickly that darkness took control...over everything."
They fall into silence. The thumping against the door has stopped, though the music keeps blaring. She wonders why she confessed these things to Draco, but she has a habit of doing so. He's never judged her for it. Maybe it's his past, the things he's done, but he's never looked surprised or made her feel ashamed.
She raises her eyes to him when he clears his throat, but he's staring at the black sheet of night covering the window. "There are few human beings in the world who could look at a person that killed someone they care for and not want to do the same to them. It's part of our humanity, not a formed evil. Trying to kill people when it's not survival, or when the hatred is not justified, is evil. The darkness you felt wasn't something created by your means of self-defense, Granger. It's what they created."
"But I-"
"There aren't any 'buts'. I would have thought you fucked up if you hadn't felt that way. You don't want to kill every Death Eater you see because they are a Death Eater and you hate them. If they saw you, in a battle or not, they would torture and kill you without thought. You want someone to die to pay for killing a friend? That's not evil. That doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you normal."
"By now, though, nearly everyone in the war, on both sides, have lost someone they care about because of the other side. So, doesn't that make all hate jus-"
"Death Eaters," Draco turns to her now, pointing a finger out the window, agitated, "will go and kill a Muggle for the fuck of it. That doesn't justify them for anything. None of them are killing us in self-defense, Granger. None of them are killing us because we killed someone they love. It's only an added reasoning to them. They're killing us for blood. For dirty blood, or blood traitors, all for blood. We aren't anything like them, no matter how much we want to see them dead."
"I know that. I jus-"
"Good."
"-felt like that outside of a mission, and it freaked me out a little. In retrospect. I just don't like to lose such control over myself." He raises an eyebrow at her, and she rushes on. "Like that."
His other eyebrow raises now, and when he smirks, she realizes that the look he had given her had nothing to do with sex like she had thought. He opens his mouth, but whatever she had been hoping he would say was lost when Ron walked into the room. He barely looks at her, though she smiles at him, and he looks at the scant space between her and Draco. She looks at the blond when Ron stares at him longer than five seconds, and finds Draco glaring right back at him.
"Hey, Ron." She smiles again, trying to break the tension he brought with him. She has to remind herself that Ron isn't used to seeing Draco around. The two had worked with one another at least twice, as far as she knew, but that was hardly enough time to be civil. She and Draco had still hated one another at that point.
Ron doesn't take his disgusted look off Draco when he answers her. "Harry wanted me to tell you that there's a session next week, if you want to go."
"Oh." The last 'session' had ended about the same time their argument had, so they hadn't really had one. She had promised Harry she would try it, so she doesn't really have a choice on going if she didn't have a mission. "Are you going?"
Ron finally looks away from Draco and to her, but his only response is to walk out of the room. She stands to follow him, smoothing her hands over her wrinkled shirt. "I'll be back in a few minutes."
Ron's door is locked and he doesn't answer when she knocks. By the time she walks back to the living room, Draco is gone.