Draco never bit his fingernails. He was never distressed. He did not lose sleep.
Draco Malfoy did not concern himself with anything other than himself, and he would never make a mistake that would cause him to define a situation as a dilemma.
But he was sitting stiffly in a chair Miss Pomfrey pulled out for him, with disdain, when he was informed that Muddy would not be conscious.
She probably had some far fetched idea that he was staying there for the girl, and it disgusted him.
Trying to memorize his eyelids, he knew he could not say he was staying because he knew that Dumbledore would show up only at the strike of midnight to attend to the prude of the Golden Trio, and he would not be woken to describe his moments with Granger.
He would not have it, nor would he have her telling the headmaster that he had done something to her.
Her eyes… they weren't brown anymore. Not then, not like they should've been.
Her hands flew to her head and she fell to her knees, trying to push her head into the tile.
She was standing right in front of him, she was quite close. Nothing could have passed to her, they were in the Entrance Hall, he had his back to the door but he was shielding her from attacks, wasn't he?
He grabbed her wrists and she held out her arm to him, she howled, and she wrapped her hand around her wrist, she stared at it, she tried to dig her nails into her wrist but he slapped her and she fell backwards.
Wasn't he?
Her head cracked on the tile, he guessed.
So Malfoy was here to make sure everyone understood that she was already delirious.
He didn't do anything.
He leaned his head back against the chair. He should probably go back.
He looked to her form under the thin hospital blanket.
Her hand was on her wrist again, and she was passing her thumb against her veins, where small crescents had been neglected by Pomfrey.
His eyes narrowed and he watched as she traced the marking.
She bit her lip and he lost it.
"I can't believe I'm falling for this."
In surprise, Hermione's eyes flew open but…
Her head was on the tile and she finally looked back at him, smiled, and winked a green eye.
She looked up at him with these same eyes.
"Enough bullshit."
He pressed his hand to her forehead and whispered the key to his entrance.
Placing a wand to his temple- "pervasus capitis!"
-
Harry did try to run through.
He tried to get to Hermione, to get to the man invading her head, to do something.
But no one heard him, and he watched the man's form disintegrate as an unexpected howl rose from his throat.
Harry was too late.
-
This isn't right.
He didn't get many conscious thoughts, but he knew that was the only one that mattered.
Thoughts should be flying through him.
He should be bombarded by anything she felt to think.
He was supposed to be able to see anything that ran through her head, and she could not be conscious enough to fight back.
He tried to keep himself together.
He could feel something, he could feel something else that was dragging in her thoughts.
Sucking them in and ripping them right, manipulating her own memory.
He couldn't keep himself straight.
If he wasn't careful, he could forget who he was.
It was dark magic to invade her head.
But it was obviously dark magic that had taken her hostage.
He was forgetting, again, who he was.
He was forgetting that he was human, that he was in here for a purpose.
He could feel something, someone, trying to pull him out.
Already?
How long have I been here?
No, I found it. Let me stay.
He dug deeper, pulling himself from whatever made him want safety.
Because he could feel it.
He couldn't see it, he couldn't even imagine it.
The grip pulling him ceased.
But he could sense it.
And he knew the name.
It was Voldemort.
-
Maybe Malfoy was less conscious than he thought, and maybe he was even more unaware of how he really felt.
He could not control it, really.
But when he registered the name of the Dark Lord, it triggered an emotion, a desire, so powerful, it took place in the one place it could.
Inside Hermione's brain, anything was possible.
Literally speaking.
Two men invaded her brain, and both knew only one would come out.
It was not really Him, was it?
It must have been just a phantom of Him, but all the same…
Malfoy's sheer anger at finding the presence forced him to do something that would keep Hermione comatose for a week.
He fought Him.
Malfoy's strength as a Legilimens came into question and he forced himself into a fight with the Dark Lord.
He won, of course, Malfoy did.
-
Harry ran to her side, he wanted to save her, he needed to.
Everything came down to this moment, he knew.
This was his chance to play the hero and save Hermione, but he was unprepared.
Trying not to get emotional, Harry placed his hand on Hermione temple just as the other man done, but instead of entering, for he had not heard the words, Harry tried to draw out the invader, he could feel him within his grip. But when Hermione whimpered he lost his focus and lost his grip upon the man.
Instead he watched as his hand drew up to Hermione's throat, and he squeezed, he felt his hand tighten and a grin come to his face, pulling at her air as Hermione began to convulse, and he pushed her other shoulder down, he clambered on top of her, pushing her into the bed as she began to cry, not even aware-
When suddenly she sat up and looked at Harry, who lost his grip, who began to falll back onto the bed as he watched her grey eyes widen in shock, her hands gripping the rails of her bed, her grey eyes watched as he fell back onto the bed, losing consciousness, watched as the green that was not his turn into the familiar green of her best friend-
And as she tried to gain control of the scream rising from her throat, her hand reached up where Harry had gripped her, reached for the necklace he had given her when he was her best friend, and in a man's hoarse voice she was just barely able to whisper out templum-! before her back arched up, staring at the ceiling, holding her throat, her head, tried not cry as she realized where she was, what she had done to get here-
The last thing Hermione remembered…
She had been walking in the dungeons, with Zeus, the Head Boy. They had been chatting animatedly until they saw a shadow at the end of the hall.
Zeus pushed her behind him but she watched, from the floor, as he willingly let the shadow enter him, arching up and sputtering as this new being became him-
And then he turned to face Hermione, green eyes glinting, and he raised his wand to kill her, she knew, but when he cried out her sentence the shadow flowed from his wand tip too slowly, she watched as the being left him, left a crumpled boy on the floor.
Before the shadow could reach her, fluttering in the air without direction, Hermione had turned her wand to this now innocent boy and cried Avada Kedavra-
What else could she have done?
-
Ginny's eyes opened, slowly, blinking the blur from her vision, she saw Zeus seated before her, in a state she had never witnessed.
Although he was seated beside her, obviously concerned, thought Ginny with a smile; Zeus kept twisting his torso to look behind him, anxiously glancing around the Hospital Wing.
When he returned his eyes to hers, however briefly, he did a double take as he saw that she was smiling up at him, despite his aberrant behavior.
"M'lady…" And although Zeus delivered a kiss to her hand, Ginny could see that his eyes were not relieved, they seemed, in fact, more worried than before, at which Ginny's eyes own concerned, drawing her eyebrows together and tugging away the smile on her lips.
Weakly, Ginny raised her hand to Zeus cheek, although Zeus seemed to wince, instead reaching to take her hand, hold it, before she could make contact with his face, smiling apologetically.
She tried to sit up but he would not release her hand.
"What's wrong?"
Zeus' eyebrows shot up, an actor of innocence.
"Nothing's wrong!" His voice was high pitched and, Ginny noticed, he had dropped the accent.
Suspiciously recognizing that he would not address something so obvious, she tried to make her own inquiries of innocence.
"Why are you here?"
It would have been easy for Zeus to have replied something sweet, about concern for her, her health, enough to drag him to the Hospital Wing in the middle of the night.
Ginny glanced to the windows, it was raining outside. She had a feeling, a very treacherous feeling, that his paranoia did not have any relation to getting caught by Madam Pomfrey.
Instead, he seemed to be refraining from glancing to a corner of the room where Ginny knew no one lay.
Still playing along, Ginny asked what time it was.
"Quarter till midnight."
He wasn't looking at her, he was looking across the room. Ginny couldn't see, she couldn't know what he was looking at, because his body was blocking her view. The grip he held on her arm tightened when she tried to twist to look past him.
Although her face began to grow red in anger, Ginny kept her voice steady. "I'm sorry I missed our date." She could barely keep the hissing venom from her words.
But somehow Zeus must have heard this anyways, for he turned to her, already sneering in disgust, already delivering hatred through his eyes.
"Oh Ginny," and now that she had heard his true voice, his cold drawling voice, it was only frightening that he returned to the accent that she had once thought of so fondly- "you'll never know how much you've missed. But you've been a big part!" Zeus grinned, "the main role, the key damsel in distress, that made tonight possible! You deserve honor, for all you've been through. Oh," Zeus feigned sympathy, pouting, placed his cold hand upon her cheek and Ginny found herself writhing, twisting to get out of his grip, she wanted to cry, to scream, anything. "you deserve it."
And with this Zeus leaned closer and closer, grinning wider and wider, for he heard Hermione scream and he knew his master had won, he knew it, and now he was free to do anything, including shutting this bitch up once and for all, now that she knew.
And he crushed her scream- she finally started to scream, and he muffled her as his hand dragged past her legs, grabbed her thigh, shoved her breasts into her chest, finally brought his hand to reach her throat, finally started squeezing as Ginny tried to fight, tried to help herself, save herself, just to stop crying, tried to bite his lips, his tongue but that only made him moan and squeeze harder-
Another scream and Zeus was knocked off of her, the corner of a book hitting him square on the head.
As he fell next to the bed, leaning up against the hospital nightstand, Hermione, in a flailing hospital gown and face red with fury, almost cried when she saw the beast she had knocked off Ginny.
And at the same time both seventh years, if Zeus truly was, shouted in unison "You're supposed to be dead!"
And Hermione wailed, landed on Zeus and began to beat him with anything she could grab, a glass that had held a potion he was to give Ginny, trying to cut open his face with the shards when the glass finally broke, the lamp on the nightstand, watching with satisfaction as the lightbulb shattered-
For she was delirious, she was rabid, even, and Ginny tried to get over her shock, tried to pull her off before she killed him. Even if Ginny wanted him killed herself, he knew what was going on and if he was dead no one would believe her. And so she tried to pull off Hermione, finally deciding that she was sorry she had fucked up so bad, finally deciding she couldn't be mad at her when she saved her, she had been trying to save her since the very beginning-
And so when Snape shouted stupefy at the boy, Hermione cried and fell into Ginny's arms, Ginny held her, hugged her, unsure of what had happened but knew that she had Hermione back and things would have to go back to normal.
They had to.
-
The last person Molly Weasley had ever expected to show up on her musty doormat most assuredly had shown up, soaking up the rain that permeated his clothing, his hair, and seemingly his expression, as he began to feel hopeless, watching as the portly woman screamed at the sight of his wretched face.
He banged on her window, he cried that he had to see Dumbledore, they had to take him, they had to, she cried to her husband, what else could they do?
-
Dumbledore sipped slowly from the glass of water on his desk.
In front of him was Professor Snape, looking, for all of his cold composure, like the world would fall apart if Dumbledore did not follow him to the Hospital Wing, where lay an unconscious Potter, distressed Miss Weasley and Head Girl, and an unconscious- previously missing person, guarded carefully by several spells, awaited his authority.
And as it seemed that Severus would begin again, Dumbledore silenced him, choosing for the first time to speak.
"I know, Severus. But there is no need to worry. For what you do not know is that tonight Voldemort's presence within Mister Orcanil, Miss Granger, and briefly within Mister Potter and Miss Weasley-has been vanquished. And Mister Orcanil, who of course wished his master victory by giving up his life for him, has certainly died. It is too late to inquire the true behaviors of these students, which were their own and which… not. I will be there in a moment, return there and do not let them leave. I will address this subject only minutely, but I must ask Miss Granger about her recollection of these past hours. I will be with you shortly, Severus, and so will Mister Malfoy, who I believe has just entered the grounds."
Severus left the Headmaster, speechless, and Dumbledore folded up the map, confiscated from the Head Girl when she was brought to the hospital room by Mister Malfoy, and he was sure- absolutely sure, that the Head Boy had not harmed her. Dumbledore felt, instead, that there was most certainly something more to this man than was obvious.
It was his job, then, as Dumbledore withdrew himself from his room with a desperate sigh, to give him the bittersweet news of the evening.
For even though evil had been vanquished…