Chapter 81
"Can you heal this?" Draco grunted in pain, eyeing his mother skeptically as she widened the cut of his trouser leg, revealing the entirety of the blackened wound. It burned even more when exposed to air, and he whimpered.
"Not entirely," she pursed her lips in concentration and cast charms on his thigh where it was the worst. "But I can make it less painful."
He groaned in relief as she set a numbing charm over the open gash on his thigh where a black viscous liquid had congealed. Glancing up at him, his mother ran her hand through his hair and cupped his jaw tenderly.
"Better?"
He nodded, and she leaned in to kiss his forehead.
"So that was the trollop?" His father raised an eyebrow and looked down at them in disdain. "That Mudblood you tortured at the Manor?"
Draco glared back. "Obviously it wasn't a very effective Cruciatus."
"So that's the way of things then?" Lucius' sneer was on full display in the dim wand light. "You'll end centuries of ancestral blood purity on a whim?"
The gentle hand his mother placed on his chest stilled the retort on his tongue.
"That trollop just saved your son's life," Narcissa explained patiently. "We're on the winning side and hidden safely while she's out there fighting. I don't doubt she'd pass through the Veil and back for him. Draco could do much worse."
"You can't be serious," his father's face creased in anger. "They'll have Squibs, Cissy. Diseased and wretched."
Draco clenched his fists, struggling to follow his mother's lead and not respond to his father's baiting. How could he think about grandchildren at a time like this? Let alone the state of them? But as Hermione explained, that was the whole point of pure-blood supremacy.
Children. Inheritance.
"Would you prefer to be lying on your back on our ballroom floor?" she retorted. "Screaming while Nagini threatens to eat you? After these past two years, I'd consider myself lucky to have Squibs for grandch–"
"You don't mean that," his father cut her off in horror.
Draco was shocked his mother was so accepting of Hermione despite her bigotry. Or perhaps she saw the futility of trying to come in between them. He had been defying Voldemort for over a year. Defying his parents was nothing in comparison.
Regardless of her reasoning, his mother's jaw was set and defiant in the dim light.
"I do, Lucius. A witch of pure breeding would be preferable, but we can…" she drew in a deep breath, steadying herself. "There are good Healers. It will be a struggle but we can work through the difficulties. One thing at a time."
Lucius was incredulous. "You can't heal a diseased Squib."
"Squibs aren't a certainty," Narcissa countered, raising her voice. "Andromeda's little girl went to Hogwarts."
"Oh?" he sounded skeptical. "What house?"
His mother wouldn't know.
"Hufflepuff," Draco answered for her.
"I'd prefer a Squib," his father replied in derision.
"She became an Auror," Draco pressed.
That was an understatement.
"Yes, the Auror Department lowered its standards before it disbanded," his father waved his hand dismissively and turned to him in anger. "This is madness. She'll destroy our bloodline."
"I want the terror to end, Lucius. And I want us all to be alive when it does." Narcissa tilted her chin up. "And so do you."
His father exhaled harshly through his nostrils, not mollified at all.
"What I want is the best for you both," he ground out.
"I know that," she lowered her voice in gratitude. "You've sacrificed yourself to keep us safe. You always have, and I love you for it."
His father's cheeks reddened at her praise, but his words came out in a firm warning. "This conversation isn't over, Cissy."
"So be it."
His mother knew when to strategically disengage, and his parents eyed each other in the wand light.
"Draco?" A wary female voice carried down the passageway. "Draco Malfoy?"
Anxiously, he met his mother's worried blue eyes. She immediately extinguished her wand and his father turned, poised to attack after noxxing his light as well.
A faint glow appeared in the distance, bobbing up and down as the person neared, walking carefully down the corridor. They couldn't see who it was, and the glow became larger as it came closer, obstructing their view of the unknown face.
"Who's there?" he called out.
"Cho Chang. Hermione sent me to heal your leg."
Draco lit his wand and his mother turned to him in question.
"It's okay," he whispered as a nervous warmth settled in his stomach. He was heartened that Hermione sent him a Healer so quickly, and wanted to rejoin the battle as soon as possible so he could find her.
His mother exhaled an 'Oh' in relieved gratitude, already quite taken with Hermione's devotion to him.
Cho approached, nervously walking around his father without meeting his stare, and knelt beside Draco. She set her medi-kit on the ground, opened it, and extracted a few vials, setting them down around her.
His mother raised her wand above his leg so she could see while she worked. After scanning the injury, Cho placed a few of the vials back inside her bag. "Who attempted to heal it?"
"I did," his mother answered.
"Using what?" Cho asked, immediately casting a diagnostic and glancing at the readings. His father observed her calm, competent bedside manner in silence.
"Sealant charm on the thigh muscle and the skin at the bone along the shin."
Cho peered at his wound and pointed. "You did well here where the cut isn't deep."
"Thank you," his mother replied in surprise.
Cho flicked her eyes to the diagnostic flashing above his leg. "Numbing charm?"
"Yes," his mother affirmed. "He was in a lot of pain, I cast on the exposed thigh muscle."
Cho met Draco's gaze and warned him warily, "I have to remove the charm in order to treat it, but I'm all out of anti-pain potion. It won't take long and you'll be as good as new. Ready?"
He nodded and she silenced him so they wouldn't be heard. His mother held his hand like when was a child at Healer visits and he smiled at her appreciatively. Some things never changed.
Not wasting any time, Cho opened a vial with a green liquid, and dipped her wand inside after removing the numbing charm. He jerked at the sudden onset of pain and squeezed his mother's hand as the burn of the open wound hit his nerve endings full force.
Working quickly and efficiently, Cho spread the substance out across the blackened injury. The green liquid tingled, and his leg trembled as he fought to stay still. Silently whimpering, he flexed and unflexed his muscles while watching the black coagulate liquefy as the green fluid permeated down the length of the slice and outward to where his veins were discolored.
There was a pressure in his arteries as Cho focused her wand on his thigh, guiding the liquid inside. Cho waved her wand at his leg and everyone watched as the black veins underneath his skin slowly turned red. Draco gritted his teeth as the burning spread deeper into his muscle.
His mother rubbed his knuckles with her thumb. "You're doing well," she offered in encouragement.
"Iron blood curse," Cho spoke while digging in her bag to bring out a jar with blueish gel. "First we detach the iron from your blood, then bind it to a simulant and siphon it out. The treatment works for most blood curses actually." She flicked her dark brown eyes up to Draco's face. "This will sting."
He nodded and braced himself. The burning hurt like hell, but it was nothing in comparison to the Cruciatus.
Cho waved her wand and began extracting the red liquid. It stung a great deal and he exhaled sharply. They watched as small red rivulets rose into the air, leaving his thigh to pool together into a long stream which arced above them and deposited into a container Cho set aside for collection. His mother tightened her grip on his fingers and he glanced up to meet her small smile. He clenched his stomach muscles as the pain intensified but before he knew it, the stinging was gone, leaving only a mild burning from the raw open wound, which was now clean.
"Ready?" Cho asked.
He nodded and squeezed his mother's hand again. They watched as Cho capped the jar of red liquid and expertly set to healing his leg as if it were a regular laceration. He winced while the open gash stitched itself together on his thigh. Tiny pricks pulled on his muscle and then on his skin until a jagged pink line was all that remained.
Draco sighed in relief and she removed the silencing charm.
"Thank you," he breathed.
She uncapped the jar of blueish gel and rubbed it over his leg, explaining, "Iron supplement. I depleted your stores while removing the curse."
She shone her light over his skin and nodded, looking pleased with her work.
"Well done," his mother complimented her, and Cho returned a small grin at his mother's praise.
"Bend your knee?" Cho asked, packing the used items into her bag.
Draco bent his knee.
"Lift your leg, and point and flex your foot," she requested, vanishing the used jar of blood simulant.
He did as he was told.
"Try to stand." Cho rose to a crouch, studying his leg as he stood up.
His mother gave him her hand and helped him to a standing position.
Cho put her hands on her hips and tilted her head to the side, scrutinizing his leg one last time. "Any pain?"
He shook his head and repaired his trousers. "Thanks."
"Chang, you say?" His father had watched, clearly impressed with her work. "Are you by any chance related to Changs of Shanghai, the parchment and quill distributors?"
She turned to him and blinked. "No. Chang is a common Muggle name as well. Mum's a software engineer. Dad's a professor at the University of Leicester."
His father curled his lip in disgust. Warring between having just openly admired her work, and repulsed by the fact that not one, but two Muggle-born women had manhandled his only son.
Cho continued talking, organizing a few things in her bag, and missed his father's open hatred. "Your blood pressure is on the low side and that should be fine for now, but if you sustain another injury causing blood loss you'll need a replenishing potion."
"Why not just give him one now?" his mother interrupted, irritated by this information.
Cho's eyes snapped up to Draco's, then to his mother's, realizing she spoke too much. "I don't have any on me," was Cho's blatantly untruthful reply. She had probably lied about the numbing potion as well, being used to people begging for it. Possibly she had to allocate frequently used items like blood replenishing potions and pain medications for more extreme cases, and Draco's was not.
His father, no stranger to deceit, approached her. "I think you should give my son one now." The threat in his voice was apparent, and Cho's eyes widened in fear.
Draco eyed the interaction and anger overtook him. His father was perfectly willing to attack Cho, despite the fact that she had just come to heal him, and all for an unnecessary blood replenishing potion.
"Expelliarmus!"
Not expecting his own son to strike, his father's wand zipped into Draco's hand. The Weasel was right not to leave Hermione alone with his parents. Hermione had sent Cho, trusting that she would be safe while she healed him. It probably hadn't even crossed her mind that his father would Imperius someone who had just healed his son.
Hermione didn't know his father.
"Insolent!" his father hissed at him.
"Run Cho," Draco directed her, his eyes not leaving his father. "I've got your back."
She didn't need to be told twice, and raced down the corridor.
"She's a Mudblood," his father chastised him as Cho's receding footfalls echoed in the distance.
"Mother," he asked, eyes still locked on his father's icy glower. "Are you going to attack the person who just healed your son? Even if she's Muggle-born?"
"Of course not," she replied, glaring at his father. "Lucius, do you want to spend the rest of your life in Azkaban? Because not even Kingsley will be able to help if you continue on this way." His father flared his nostrils but said nothing, knowing she was right. His mother pressed on. "You acquitted yourself well in the courtyard; this battle could knock years off your sentence. Should we all survive this day, I prefer you spend as much time as you can at home with me, your son and whatever grandchildren we'd be lucky enough to have."
Draco gazed down at his father's wand, laying in his open palm.
His mother was getting through to his father. Slowly.
"Alright then," Draco said, handing the wand to his mother. He started jogging down the corridor after Cho, grateful that he was fully healed and could run now.
"Where are you going?" his father called after him angrily.
Without pausing, Draco jogged backward as he retorted, "To find my trollop."
"Draco," his mother called out, scolding. "Stop right where you are."
He paused in his tracks. "What's wrong?"
"Do you know where you're headed?"
"No! But I have to–"
"Charge out into the middle of a raging battle alone?" his mother asked, incredulous. "Without knowing where she is or how to find her? Lucius can't run, but our chances of making it out alive are infinitely better if we stick together."
Draco's fingers twitched around his wand, and he could barely contain himself for all his nervous energy. Hermione was somewhere in the castle and he had to find her. But ultimately, his parents were right.
"Idiot," his father muttered under his breath.
oooooooooooooo
Led by Draco, the Malfoys walked silently through the maze of Hogwarts' corridors, pausing when they heard the rapid footfalls of approaching fighters, or the blasts of errant hexes. Passing the Great Hall, they glimpsed the carnage left behind by Lavender and Dean's bombs. Draco wondered who was amongst the bodies, and decided it would be better not to know right now.
Although they heard the occasional shout or crash, they didn't encounter any major skirmishes. As Draco and his parents searched for one of the larger groups of the Order sweeping the castle, they easily picked off lone fighters with a few quick and efficient wand strokes.
His mother bent over each one, checking under their masks.
"Ooh." She clucked her tongue, "It's Marcus. Levitate him into a classroom so he doesn't get injured."
He and his father grudgingly obeyed. Much as he wanted to find Hermione, there had been so much death already. He had no desire to see any more of his childhood friends killed if he could help it.
After incapacitating someone else, she lifted the mask and cursed the body with a swish of her wand, looking up with a smirk as a light blue glow dissipated into the prone form behind her.
"Leave that one. And it'll be painful when they wake."
His father lifted an eyebrow in curiosity.
"Shunpike," Narcissa answered.
Draco took no issues with his mother's vigilante justice.
The Malfoys left a trail of incapacitated Death Eaters and broken wands in their wake, and after checking underneath each mask, his mother would tell them whether to hide the body or jinx it. Five hexes later, he realized she had quite the shit list.
Mildly amused, his father commented, "Taking advantage of Kingsley's pardon?" as a flash of purple left her wand.
She looked up smugly. "Quite possibly."
"I must say I'm enjoying your vindictiveness," his father said with a fond smile. "And here I thought your creativity was best applied to hosting dinners and galas. I couldn't identify half of those charms."
His mother blinked at him, lip trembling.
"I'll miss you, Lucius," she said with a tremor in her voice.
Draco watched his parents share a glance and then turned his head to the side, feeling like he was intruding on their moment. His father made his share of mistakes over the years but he always put his family first. It was no small sacrifice what he had done for them. Draco wondered if they'd be allowed to share a cell in Azkaban.
His mother would be alone. Maybe she'd reach out to her estranged sister.
The Malfoy's continued on, more somber now at the reminder of his father's sad, and yet voluntary fate.
The battle appeared deceptively safe until they heard a larger roving band. Due to the sound of boots, and the fact that it was mostly male, it was likely remnants of the Dark Lord's army.
Draco plastered his back against the wall, and made to lean around the corner to peek but his father pulled him back and silently shook his head. Lucius was wise to stay hidden and not chance a meeting when they were numerically disadvantaged. They'd catch up with one of the groups of the Order sweeping the castle soon enough.
After the fighters were long gone, a straggler ran limping across their path. Draco silently disarmed him just as his mother jinxed his legs and his father bound him. The three Malfoys approached the lone Death Eater, now tied up and lying on the ground while cautiously checking the corridors for more fighters.
"Draco?"
Greg.
Draco froze in his tracks, and slowly turned to face the struggling form on the ground.
"Why did you betray us?" he croaked.
Draco swallowed thickly and lowered himself to squat in front of his friend. Greg wrangled with the ropes binding him and Draco hefted him up to sit against the wall. He reached out and removed the shiny, metal mask so he could look his friend in the eye. Greg was bleeding from the temple.
"There was never any 'us' to betray," Draco answered. "We were just his pawns; don't you see?"
Greg searched his face. "That's not true. The Dark Lord rewards his follow–"
"Have you been rewarded?" Draco cut him off. "What would have happened to you and your parents if you'd failed to kill that Muggle-born family?"
Greg furrowed his brow and shook his head, not wanting to accept the truth. Draco's mother approached from behind and Scourgified the blood running down his face.
"Draco, pull his hood back."
He did, revealing a long cut running through Greg's scalp under his crew cut. His mother leaned over, quickly healing it.
"Thank you, Madame Malfoy," Greg looked up at her, grateful, and then shifted his gaze back to Draco. "I saw Millie run out."
Draco nodded. "Can you blame her? You said yourself you didn't want her to have to murder children, and she nearly died attacking the safe houses."
Greg turned away, his face pained. "It was supposed to end. We make the sacrifices now and when it's done, it'll be worth it. Mudbloods are destroying our–"
"And who will be left?" Draco cut him off. "Tracey died attacking the safe houses. She didn't want to be in his army. Vince nearly died then. They torture us when we fail, threaten our families so we comply and kill us if we refuse orders. You've seen it."
Draco watched Greg struggle with being confronted with the truth.
"Blaise defected." Greg looked up as Draco continued. "And Pansy. Theo. Adrian. They were scared. None of them wanted to fight for him. They'd rather fight against pure-blood supremacy if it requires living with the constant threat to themselves and their families."
"Did you ask them to turn?"
Draco nodded silently.
"Why didn't you ask me?"
Draco winced and his stomach twisted in guilt. Greg followed in Draco's footsteps like always, taking the mark before the rest of them were forced into it. After a painful moment Draco turned back to his childhood friend.
"Would you have come?"
The silence was answer enough.
"Will you defect now?" he continued, his voice lifting in hope.
In reply, Greg glanced at Draco's parents. "So you're suddenly abandoning our way of life? You're not just allowing the magical world to be corrupted, you're part of its destruction now."
Draco's father clenched and unclenched his fists. "What is going on is unsustainable, Gregory. We followed the wrong leader."
"But the Mudbloods and blood traitors will lose!" Greg protested. "If not today, then tomorrow! There is strength in purity! You still believe that, I know you do!"
Draco picked up Greg's wand from the floor and made to break it, hesitating at his friend's sudden desperate cry.
"Draco! No! We've been friends for years!"
"I'm sorry, Greg," Draco replied in earnest.
His longtime friend flinched at the sound of snapping wood. But at least he was alive. That was more than Draco could say of Vince.
He was about to stand when he heard his aunt's cackle in the distance.
"Bella?" His mother whirled in the direction it came from, but her cackle softened as she ran off, in pursuit of her quarry.
"Mudblood…" The faint echo of her voice made his blood run cold.
Without pausing to think, Draco launched himself up, feet pounding heavily on the ground as he sprinted down the corridor.
"Draco! Wait! You'll get yourself killed!"
He ignored his parents' rapidly receding cries as he ran, skidding around the bend.
"Draco!"
Next chapter:
Bellatrix, Draco, Gun, Hermione, Ron, Sword of Gryffindor, Tonks…
Not necessarily in that order.
And some fucking awesome fanart.
