Chapter 7: Objections

A/N: I don't usually do this, but if anyone would like an instrumental track to listen to while reading this chapter, I suggest "Kitchen" by This Will Destroy You

Pansy covertly dabbed at the corner of her eye as Harry finished his suggestion. Even Blaise was silent, nodding in approval as Ginny squeezed Harry's hand.

"Really Potter? Do you see me getting down on one knee?" Draco drawled, his chin in his hand.

"For the right girl, yes." Harry smiled, "And we all know who that girl is."

"Well before you do or don't get down on a knee, you'll need a ring first." Ginny noted.

"Do you have one yet?" Pansy asked, after clearing her throat delicately, "I have suggestions on that too."

"I think we all did." Blaise chuckled, swiping another pastry.

"I have a ring." Draco said slowly and the table went silent. He reached into the pocket of his coat and produced a small silver box, resting it on the table before carefully opening it. On a bed of matching velvet sat a sparkling ring; the top of it dominated by a silver figure eight with two large diamonds, inlaid in each of the loops and flanked on either side by smaller clusters of silver and gold gems. There was an intricate woven pattern along the platinum band and something magical danced in the depths of the stones, as if there was fire trapped at an impossible depth inside of them.

"I had it specialty-made." Draco continued in a low voice, "The stones are from the vault—some of the oldest I could find—enchanted, they say, by Flamel himself."

The witches and wizards seated around the table sat transfixed by the ring as if in a spell of their own. Pansy had teared up again and was dabbing furiously at her cheeks as a goofy smile broke out across Harry's face. Ginny rested her cheek on her husband's shoulder, admiring the ring that would soon adorn her best girlfriend's finger and Blaise clapped Draco on the shoulder enthusiastically, earning a genuine smile from the blonde.

"Hey Harry! What—" The silence was suddenly broken as another wizard walked up to the cafe table, stomping snow off his shoes before slowing to a halt. Ron Weasley stood behind Draco, brows furrowed as his eyes darted across the table to note the other witches and wizards present before finally stopping on the flickering ring in front of Draco.

"Ah—hey, Ron." Harry coughed out, watching the dawning comprehension creep across his best friend's face.

"What the bloody hell is this . . . this . . ." Ron's blue eyes flicked back to Harry's as his shock began to churn to hot anger.

"Use your words." Draco drawled with a curled lip, utterly unperturbed by the tense atmosphere that had settled over the gathering like a blanket. Pansy stared hard at the table, unspeaking, as Blaise glared at Ron.

"Guys—" Harry shot Draco a warning glance that was ignored, "look, Ron—"

"What the fuck Malfoy, are you going to propose?" Ron ignored Harry, rounding on his old schoolmate.

"That is why one gets a ring." Draco replied with forced boredom, tapping a slender finger against the ring box.

"You son of a—"

"Ron, look," Harry tried again, pushing his glasses up his nose and attempting to diffuse the situation, "Hermione and Draco have been together a long time, I know—"

"A long time?" Ron choked out a strangled laugh, addressing Draco, "I waited an entire war for her after which she breaks up with me, spends two years defending your innocence, and then you up and leave her? She was distraught after the trials! You broke her heart!"

"She told me to go," Draco replied, anger cracking through his carefully composed calm, "She broke up with me—"

"HAH! So you WERE together back then!" Ginny exclaimed, snapping her fingers and pointing at Draco, feeling vindicated.

"So not helping, Gin." Harry badly stage-whispered to her, absently rubbing his forehead out of nervous habit.

"WHAT —you—" Ron sputtered.

"This is a mess." Groaned Pansy, having seen this meeting play out very differently in her head.

"—And—And what are you doing here? My own sister—" Ron rounded on Ginny, pointing an accusing finger at her, grasping at targets in his indignation.

"Well I've quite decided that your sister is one of my favorite Weasel's now." Draco spoke up again in a forcibly lazy drawl, "She's jumped higher on the list."

"I mean, technically I'm a Potter since—" Ginny supplied as Ron interjected,

"List?"

Draco continued, pretending not to hear Ginny as he slid a finger across his lip in thought, "Yes I do think the She-Weasel sits around . . . number three now? Maybe four, depending on who your prankster brother is picking on that particular day."

"Who's number one?" Ginny asked, leaning forward eagerly.

"Ginny, please—" Harry threw his wife an exasperated look as he still tried to wrangle a hold of the situation but Draco barreled on,

"Hmmm. I would say Charlie solely for the fact that his Hungarian Horntail almost killed Potter back in fourth year. Your mother is two because she scares me. The rest of you are tied for last." Draco waved his hand noncommittally in the end, as if to encapsulate the rest of the Weasleys in his gesture. Ron's face began to turn puce.

"Ron, mate, let's not—" Harry jumped out of his chair to diffuse his best friend. He rested his hands squarely on Ron's shoulders and gave them an imploring squeeze, "Draco is going to propose, yes. We all came here today to help give him suggestions for how to pop the question. To . . . support him."

"Oh well that's just bloody precious, innit." Ron spat, shrugging off Harry's hands as he waved angrily between Harry and Ginny, "Really love you two fraternizing with the enemy here."

"We haven't been the enemy for a long time, Weasley." Blaise said slowly, in a low voice laced with self-control.

"I beg to differ—" Draco held up a finger in protest as Ron rounded on him once more,

"You want a suggestion for how to propose, Malfoy?" He pressed his fists against the table and leaned forward intimidatingly over Draco who appeared utterly unperturbed, "I've got one for you . . ."

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There was mud.

That was the first observation that hit Hermione's senses. Her world was washed in hues of sticky brown—it sucked at her boots and matted her hair and ran slick down her side where she was pressing her hand against her ribs.

No wait—she pulled her hand away and looked down at it, taking a moment for her eyes to focus— that was blood.

Hissing, she tucked her hand back against the wound at her side, applying pressure as she blinked rapidly to dispel the pain before her vision blurred again.

A breath. Two breaths. Smoke in the air. It hit her nostrils despite the prevailing scent of damp earth and brought her back from semi-consciousness, her head jerking forward violently with realization.

Death Eaters.

There was a raid on the safe house. Her mind said, and she hung onto the thought although it didn't make sense yet, fighting another wave of unconsciousness.

Her head lolled to her shoulder and through half-lidded eyes she could see her other hand covered in mud, practically buried in it. Fitting. But there was something else there, something cylindrical and hard—she was holding her wand.

There was a raid on the safe house.

Hermione's fingers convulsed around her wand as she wrenched it from the earth with a sucking sound, the world finally finding meaning in her sluggish brain. There had been a Death Eater raid on the Order safe house she'd been staying in last night. There'd been fighting—casualties. Fire.

Without looking—without wanting to look—Hermione pointed her wand at her side and muttered a temporary patch-job for the wound there. It wouldn't help the broken ribs, but it'd at least keep her blood inside her and she could worry about the rest later. For now—she looked around again, shaking the last bit of dizziness from her head.

Mud.

She was sitting with her back against one of the trees in the sparse grove to the south of the safe house. The house was little more than a shack, passed down through the Figg family and conscripted for the Order's use two wars in a row now. She could see the charred remains of it ahead through the trees, still billowing huge plumes of smoke into the cold air, crackling with the dying embers of a fire.

Her team had been staying in it just last night, after a successful reconnaissance mission. It was a lean but talented team, working on information Hephestius had gleaned from some careful eavesdropping. They had tracked and recorded the movements of several prominent Death Eaters deep into the night, expanding their knowledge of Voldemort's strongholds and discovering two new locations Order members may be imprisoned. That alone had rallied some hope in their small crew—losing Lavender Brown to Snatchers last month had been rough and everyone knew the clock was ticking to find her still alive.

It had almost been dawn when they returned to the Figg house, and the exhausted team had shuffled to bed. It couldn't have been more than an hour between their return and the Death Eater raid.

There was a raid on the safe house.

The cold dread sent her stomach churning and head fuzzing but she bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep her senses sharp. The Death Eaters must have followed them or tracked them somehow. There had been five Order members in the safehouse last night; Theo Nott, Susan Bones, Ernie Macmillan, herself, and—Draco Malfoy.

Her world spun on its axis and she found that it wasn't because she was losing consciousness again but because she was pulling herself forward, trying to crawl through the mud back towards the ruined house. She slipped and cursed and used a nearby tree to pull herself up, giving her a better vantage point. The grounds around the shack were ruined, the naturally thick mud agitated even more so by dozens of criss-crossing boot prints and craters from Unforgivables churning the landscape into something alien.

Hermione couldn't see another soul as she sagged against the trunk of the tree, digging her nails into its bark as she slipped again in the mud underfoot. She had to find her team. She had to warn the Order. She had to-

A memory from last night—this morning?—swam in her addled brain. She had been leaning against the wall outside the one bathroom in the shack waiting for Susan to finish up before bed. Her head tilted back against the wall, Hermione had felt the tug of sleep and closed her eyes for only a second before opening them to find Draco standing in front of her. He was too close, and she stared in silent surprise as his eyes darted across her face, their path uninterrupted by her awareness. It was as if he was searching for something, looking both at her and past her, stripping away freckles and skin and blood. They stood there a long moment, Hermione hardly daring to breathe under the blazing trail of his gaze as the house creaked around them and his brows furrowed.

"You've got mud in your hair." Hermione murmured, breaking the silence as she swiped a finger across his temple and pulled away to show him. He said nothing and with another searing rake of his gaze he had turned and was gone, stalking down the hallway with his dark cloak billowing behind him.

Hermione shook her head and pushed off of the tree, propelling herself forward. Her team needed her.

The house was in ruins and the grounds silent, but she still hobbled forward with her wand at the ready. As she turned the first corner around the destroyed shack, she caught sight of a blur of color and surged to the left before stumbling down a shallow ravine. Susan was laying on her back, half-buried in mud, her blue shirt a bright contrast against the brown and Hermione could tell that she was dead even from meters away. Hermione felt the wetness of tears slip silently down her cheeks as she was dimly reminded of a famous Muggle painting of Ophelia, from Hamlet; Susan's arms rested out to her sides, palms turned upwards, her chin tilted back and mouth partially open as the mud pooled around her features like water.

The urge to rush to Susan's side and hold her—to shake her—rose in Hermione but she choked it down as she backed towards the Figg house again. There was nothing she could do for the girl now, and there were still three missing teammates she needed to account for.

She found Ernie as she rounded the north side of the shack, slumped against the side of the house and covered in soot—dead. His wand lay snapped and discarded in his lap and his glasses were askew. Hermione bit so hard on the inside of her cheek that she drew blood as she walked heavily past the fallen Hufflepuff. Whatever spell or combination of spells had caused his death must have also set the house aflame, their dark trails streaking up the house's siding.

Hermione trudged onwards around the east side of the house and let out a shaky breath when she found no other bodies. She turned reluctantly back towards the shack, her stomach flipping at the thought of finding a teammate buried in the charcoal and twisted metal.

"Wh—Who's there?" A voice behind her yanked her from her thoughts and she whirled around, scanning the grounds around the shack. There was a slight movement from next to a swell of churned mud and Hermione caught sight of a familiar dark cloak.

Her body was moving again before she realized it, her feet fumbling to carry her across the slippery earth until she fell to her knees in front of Draco Malfoy. He lay on his side in the mud, his cloak splayed about him, his pale face in stark contrast with the ground as he breathed heavily, looking up at her with a furrowed brow and shaking wand.

"Oh I thought . . . I thought . . ." He said, lowering his wand and closed his eyes to hide a wince as Hermione leaned over him. Her hands hovered over him, unsure of what to do or where to start. He was lying awkwardly on his arm and clutching his stomach, his forehead resting in the mud. He winced again as Hermione automatically began reciting the first healing spell she could think of, moving her own wand in a shaky circle.

"I'm fine, I'm fine." Draco explained with a cough, waving her off, "Bloody hell, Death Eaters hit hard."

At his admission, Hermione felt relief overtake her followed quickly by a deep exhaustion. It was as if a physical weight was pressing onto her from above, causing her back to bow and knees to sink into the mud. Her head was swimming as she lay down next to Draco on the ground, her head level with his, and curled her hands under her chin.

"This is no time for naps, Granger." Draco raised an eyebrow even as his breathing hitched in pain.

"I think I hit my head." Hermione mumbled, eyelids fluttering as she struggled to focus on Draco's pale face. His blonde hair lay in disarray, plastered against the slick sweat of his forehead.

"You probably have a concussion. You went through the window head first." He panted.

"I . . . the window?" Hermione struggled to recall any memory of such an event. All that surfaced was one of earlier yesterday afternoon, before they left on the surveillance mission. It was overcast and had been pouring rain for a solid day by then, and Hermione had found herself standing in the kitchen gripping a mug of tea with both hands as she watched the rain weave rivets down the east-facing window. There was a creek of shoddy floorboards and Draco was standing next to her, his shoulder pressed against hers, too close to be accidental in an empty room. They stood there side by side, not speaking or looking at each other until Hermione's tea went cold and still the rain poured on.

"The living room. When the Death Eaters came. Some kind of Apparation-tracking—hey," Draco snapped, shaking her sharply by the shoulder as Hermione's eyes shuttered back open, "Come on Granger, I need at least one of us to be functioning here."

"My head hurts." She mumbled and Draco found the strength to roll his eyes,

"Brilliant assessment Granger, now—"

"Ernie and Susan are dead. I can't find Nott." Hermione interrupted, shaking her head and feeling the cold mud pull at her side.

Draco let out a string of curse words, somehow naming and damning all four Hogwarts founders in a profanity that would have made even Mad-eye Moody blush. The two of them lay in silence for a moment, letting the reality of their teammate's deaths settle over them.

"Theo's missing? That's just like the git—step out and conveniently escape irreparable bodily harm." Draco said dryly before wincing again, a shiver running through him.

"Are you okay?" Hermione asked with growing concern as his pale features blanched further, the hand on her shoulder beginning to shake.

"Turns out Death Eaters really don't like a turncoat." Draco muttered, shuddering as he pulled his arm back around himself.

"Malfoy—"

"You should go find Theo. Get back to the Order and let them know what happened. Ernie and Susan are down, their spots will need to be filled . . ." Draco trailed off as a particularly bad convulsion wracked his body.

"Malfoy. What's wrong?" Hermione reiterated firmly, her panic rising as Draco's breathing became labored.

"That's an order, Number Two. Get back to McGonagall and—"

"I'm not leaving. Bloody hell, Draco, tell me what's wrong." She sat up in indignation, ignoring the swimming in head and fuzzing at her vision that the sudden motion caused as she looked down at the defeated blonde.

"You can't do anything. Cruciatus after-effects." Draco explained between sharp breaths as he rode out another wave of pain from the curse.

"W—what? Did you say Cruciatus?" Agony contorted his features as Hermione frantically began mumbling healing spells, numbing spells, stitching spells, going down the list in her head of what she had learned from the Order Healers. Someone subjected to the effects of the Cruciatus for long enough could have irreversible side effects, and who knew how long Hermione had been knocked unconscious or Draco had been tortured. The boy growled under her ministrations,

"Granger, I told you, there's nothing—" He coughed suddenly, his body wracked in a spasm and Hermione froze over him as he wheezed, "Just . . . stop."

"I—I can't." She felt the tears rolling down her cheeks again, unable to tell when they had restarted or if they had ever even stopped. Her hands hovered uselessly over Draco's convulsing body, out of spells, unable to touch the Unforgivable's damage with her magic. His brow twisted in pain and her hands flew to his face in a gesture of comfort—but froze inches away, unable to touch his features which managed somehow to stay icily beautiful despite the flecks of mud marring them. She could only watch, fisting her shaking hands into her lap as Draco opened his eyes once more when the pain receded.

"Fuck." Draco spat into the dirt.

They sat in a long silence, Hermione watching helplessly as Draco struggled to catch his breath again.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Hermione whispered, feeling the cloudiness in her head begin to turn into a dully throbbing pain.

"Wouldn't have mattered." Draco heaved a breath, turning his head to look up at her, "We both know what the side effects are. We've seen it used. We've felt it."

"We can—we can get a portkey. Take you to the Healers at HQ. Shacklebolt will know . . ." Hermione's head spun as she tried to formulate a plan. She clutched at her temple, her hand sliding against the mud there. Draco shook his head weakly, and Hermione was struck again by how his light complexion stood out from the dark, tumultuous mud around it.

"No time." He rasped, "Go find Theo. Get out of here in case they come back."

"No, Malfoy. I'm staying right here." Hermione said softly, and mustering her courage reached out to brush her fingertips along the ridge of his flawless cheek, careful to avoid the fresh gash along his jaw.

Something stirred in Draco's eyes, a question, a million questions all bubbling up at once in that heated gaze. A lifetime stretched out before them at her touch and Hermione saw a future past the war, past just brushing shoulders and exchanged glances. She saw them living through the battles and growing old. She saw the two of them walking in Diagon, working in the Ministry, getting a flat together, traveling. She saw the questions he wanted to ask and hadn't. The questions he still didn't.

"You have mud in your hair." Draco said breathlessly, reaching up with a badly shaking hand to tug on a lock of her hair.

He died staring into her eyes, the millions of unasked questions behind his gaze slipping away just as he did.

Hermione's hand trembled against his cheek, a humming chord within her falling silent.

"Granger." Theo seemed to unfold himself from the shadows of the treeline and crouch at her side, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder, "We should go."

"We should." Hermione agreed, taking a shaking breath as she closed her eyes to Draco's cold grey ones. She picked herself up slowly, extracting her legs from the mud. Theo was similarly battered and wrapped a steadying arm around her shoulder as she looked back at Draco's crumpled body.

"Cruciatus. There's nothing we could have done." Theo said, in an uncharacteristically sincere voice.

"I—I know. Let's get back to HQ. We need to inform McGonagall and—" Hermione turned away from Draco, shrugging her cloak tighter around her body, "and there's someone I have to see."

Theo pulled away from Hermione, Apparating into thin air with a crack and for a moment it was just Hermione standing alone in the muddy field. She stared up at the broken, blackened house before her and watched the smoke curl up into the cool air, the field around her heavy with silence. She shook her head to clear it.

There was a raid on the safe house.

More than just her friends died here today.

Hermione Apparated away.

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A/N: Only one chapter left! Thanks to everyone for sticking with me so far! The reviews and favs really make my day :)

Also, as a sidenote I'd like to say that I usually dislike Dramione fics that vilify Ron. However, I do think he'd be upset at the pairing aaaaaand I wanted an excuse to write his proposal idea. SORRY NOT SORRY