Author's Note: I wept buckets writing and editing this chapter.
Draco landed hard on his rear-end and coughed. The floo powder had once again gone up his nose and coated his whole windpipe. He hated traveling by floo.
As the dust cleared, a hand reached down. Presuming it was there to offer assistance, and not to choke him, he grabbed it and used the other person's weight as leverage to hoist himself up and out of the hearth. He found himself in a warm, brightly lit kitchen. There was a long oaken table surrounded by countless mismatched chairs. The kitchen necessities lined the wall opposite the hearth and there was a strange grandfather clock standing sentinel over the entrance to the stairway.
He blinked and looked around again. Everything was spotlessly clean. The items had been used, but didn't look drab or tattered. Well-loved was an expression he had heard someone use once. That described this place. And the smell…
Was someone baking biscuits?
"You can save your heartless comments; we won't be here long," said the voice attached to the hand.
Draco turned his head around to find out who was speaking to him.
"Stand down, Potter," he replied, calling up a bored tone, "what makes you think I was going to say anything at all?"
"You were standing here, examining the place looking as though you had smelled something bad."
"I must still have floo in my nostrils," he didn't really feel like fighting. He had a notion that there would be plenty of time to battle it out with Potter in the days and weeks to come, "I was actually thinking how different this place is from the Manor."
"It's not going to infect you."
"Oh will you relax? Honestly…where's Granger?"
"She's upstairs with Ron."
"Oh…where's Ginny?"
"Outside, getting some clothes off the line for her mother."
"So I guess I'm stuck with you for the time being."
"Looks like."
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"Did you pack your toothbrush?" Hermione asked as she went through the things in Ron's bag for what had to be the hundredth time.
"Yes, Mum, I think that by now we've got everything."
"What about that book on easy home remedies I got you?" she kept shoving things into the bag.
"Hermione, I can only take so much," he removed the three sweaters she had just packed. Seeing as how they hadn't fit him in three years, he didn't know how useful they would be at The Front.
"You are a wizard, Ronald, you can always charm the bag to hold more than Muggle physics would allow," she stopped suddenly and rubbed her temples. The entire day so far had been one of fits and starts.
She hadn't slept all night. She simply laid there, feeling Ron's weight on top of her, staring at the ceiling and caressing his back. Thoughts kept her awake. Four a.m. was a dangerous hour, one that almost had her following through with her plan to wake him and beg him to run off with her. Where had two weeks gone?
Where had seven years gone?
As the seconds ticked passed, driving them ever closer to when the boys had to be on the train, she grew more and more angry at herself, and him, for all the time they had wasted. She couldn't help but secretly wish that this was all a dream. If she tried really hard, she would wake up in the Hospital Wing back at Hogwarts, and this all would have been just a flu-induced hallucination.
Wake up, wake up, wake up…
Ron couldn't take it anymore. He stepped forward and wrapped Hermione in his arms, holding her close to his chest, breathing her in again and again, trying to memorize every molecule he could.
"Please don't do this…" he began, unsure of exactly what he was going to say to her.
"I'm trying so hard not to cry."
"I know, I appreciate it."
"Really?"
"Yeah, if you start to cry, I don't think I'd be able to stop myself from crying," he smiled down at her, "and I think it's a little early in our relationship for you to see me blubbering like a whelp."
She looked up at him with a watery smile before breaking away. She walked over to his dresser and stopped.
"Oh Mione, please stop packing. I'm sure that I don't need my baby scrapbook while I'm off fighting the forces of evil."
She didn't respond, merely turned around carrying a small black velvet box in her hands.
"I have something for you."
"You got me a present?"
"Sort of…open it."
He gingerly opened the clamshell box to find a gold pendant starring back at him. It had a rune on it that he couldn't place.
"This looks like the necklace I got you for Christmas."
"That was kind of the point; I wanted them to match, at least a little bit."
"I'm not good with runes, Mione, what does it mean?"
"It's a rune for protection."
"Mione…"
"Promise me you'll never take it off."
"Mione, I don't believe in that kind of stuff."
"I don't care; promise me."
"Ok, ok, I promise."
She wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him with all her might.
"You had better help me put it on." Taking the jewelry in her hands, she clasped the chain around his neck. Then she dropped it under his shirt and smoothed the garment.
"There, you can hardly see it underneath your shirt."
"I won't take it off," he said again, quietly.
"I know."
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He ambushed her as soon as he saw her coming down the stairs.
"Granger," Draco began without preamble, startling her, "I want to ask a favor of you."
"What do you want?"
"How do you feel about breaking and entering?"
"Pardon?"
"I've written up a list," he unfolded a rather large piece of parchment where she could see several items written down in his precise handwriting, "I was wondering if you would collect these things for me."
"Collect them from where?"
"The Manor."
"Draco…"
"Here is the address. You will probably have to drive there using your Muggle auto the first few times until you get the feel for the place. The floo has been disabled and only people with special clearance can apparate into or out of the grounds. The closest you can get is the perimeter fence. This is the key," he dangled a scary-looking skeleton key in front of her on a chain, "I've dismissed all the house elves, so the house should be empty."
"Wow…"
"Don't take that as gospel, though. The elves weren't happy about it, so they may still be hanging around. Especially those that were particularly loyal to Lucius, if you get my meaning. Don't just trust that the place will be deserted. It has a funny feel to it, as though somebody has been using it for something. So check it out before you go."
"Ok."
"The things on this list are rather important to me. If you would remove them to a safe location, I would be very grateful."
"Draco, why didn't you just get all this when the Ministry guys took you there for your things?"
"Well, I didn't really want them sniffing around the house or finding out what my assets were. They didn't have a search warrant, you know."
Hermione turned this little piece of information over in her head. He had a good point…
"As compensation for this favor, you may help yourself to anything you wish to take from the house, provided it isn't on the list. My mother had a rather extensive jewelry collection, if I remember correctly…" he added, trying to sweeten the pot.
"Draco, you didn't put down where these things are located in the house."
"I didn't have time; you'll just have to figure it out," he turned to walk away from her.
"Hey," she said, grabbing his arm, "are there any special security features I should know about?"
"Security features?"
"Yeah, anything that's going to get a whiff of my 'less than pure' blood and set me on fire or something?"
"I'll let you in on a little secret," he leaned in close, "the only way you can tell a pure-blood from a mu…err…Muggle-born is by knowing who their parents are. Physically, there really isn't any difference."
"Wait a minute, so Voldemort's whole worldview is based on something as shallow as that?"
"Well, what's the difference between a Nazi and a Jew if you take their religion away?"
"Are you kidding?" she stared at him in disbelief.
"Look, as fascinating as I am sure this conversation would be we don't really have the time now. Will you loot the Manor or not?"
"Oh yeah, I think I could do a really good job of that," Hermione answered holding the skeleton key in her hand and smirking at it.
"Somehow, I thought you would get a kick out of the job."
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Draco only spent about an hour at the Burrow. Before too long, Ron and Hermione were down the stairs, Ginny was in from outside, and all of their stuff was being magicked into the boot of Hermione's car. He kind of wished he had had more time to look around.
How different this house was from the Manor. Where the Manor was all cool colors, the Burrow was alive with reds, yellows, and browns. The Manor was silent; the Burrow was bustling. The Manor smelled like a library, dead. The Burrow smelled like something was always baking in the cookers.
What must it have been like to grow up in such a place?
He somehow didn't think that there would be any priceless porcelain sculptures to break here. And no spankings for breaking said sculptures, either.
Draco was rather surprised that the Weasley matriarch wasn't there herself, blubbering all over her beloved youngest son, and Potter, the practically-adopted son. Ron told him quietly that his father had taken her out for the day, to make things easier, apparently. Mrs. Weasley would come home and the boys would just be gone. She wouldn't be able to moan about things for hours on end.
He wondered what his own mother's reaction would be.
Would she be proud? Would she think him foolish, laying his life on the line for no apparent gain? Would she caution him about going off with people who had, and probably still, despised him?
Would she worry about him while he was gone?
He shifted a bit in the back seat of Hermione's car, trying to put some space between himself and Ginny.
Yes, he thought, she would worry about him. She had loved him very much.
Ginny felt him fidgeting and reached over to pat his hand. The gesture seemed to calm him. Draco put his head back and closed his eyes, trying to sleep until they reached the station.
Ginny's other hand, meanwhile, was held tightly in Harry's. She gave him a little squeeze to remind him that she was there. Turning his head from where he had been staring out the window for the whole drive, he gave her a smile and squeezed back.
The entire car was silent. Hermione held the steering wheel in a death grip as she navigated the unfamiliar streets to get them into London, and then into the part of London that held the train station.
Ron's posture mimicked Harry's as he stared out the passenger window.
This was it. In less than two hours he would be gone from this place, without the promise of ever seeing Hermione again.
Over the course of the previous two weeks, he had tried to convey how he felt about her; what she meant to him. But he was never really good with expressing himself. The feeling of failure nagged at him. He couldn't just leave things like this. Then a thought struck him…
…if he could take thoughts and images out of people, who said he couldn't take his own thoughts and images and put them in to people?
Summoning up concentration he wasn't sure he had, he reached out and placed his right hand on Hermione's leg. He took a deep breath and tried to organize his thoughts. He hoped that she would be open and able to receive the message.
She got it, alright, and nearly crashed the car in the process. The emotional overload caused a tiny crack in her armor, allowing a single tear to escape her eyes and run down her cheek.
She looked at him briefly. In the split second their eyes met, he knew. The message had gotten through.
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The train station wasn't busy as it was a Thursday afternoon. They were even able to find parking relatively nearby. Continuing along silently, they found the platform where the boys would be leaving from and waited the fifteen minutes until the train arrived. The locomotive pulling up to the gate was the saddest thing Ginny had ever seen.
"Well, looks like this is it," Hermione said, after the conductor had taken their parcels. She stepped forward and hugged Draco. He was so shocked it took him a few seconds to react.
"Take care of my boys," she whispered in his ear, giving him another squeeze, "and take care of yourself."
He pulled away to look at her.
"Thank you," he said.
"For what?"
"Everything."
"You did it yourself," she replied, leaving him to embrace Harry.
This hug was a little tighter.
"I love you," she said, kissing his cheek and nuzzling his head with the side of hers.
"I love you too," she thought she heard him reply from where his face was buried in her neck.
"Harry, look at me," she placed her hands on either side of his face, "be careful. Listen to what the other's think before you going running off into peril. And don't do anything too noble, okay?"
"But I thought I was supposed to save the day?" he joked weakly.
"You can do that and still come home in one piece," she pulled him into an embrace again, "just be careful. I don't have any other brothers, you know."
"I know."
The last one in line was the hardest. She couldn't do anything but stare at Ron for a few seconds. Finally, he reached for her and she fell forward into his arms.
"In the car…" she managed to croak out, voice breaking before anything else could be said. He hugged her so tightly she could hardly breathe.
"I'm not good with words, you know that," she heard him say, his voice breaking just as much as hers, "so I tried to show you."
"Yes," she said, "to everything."
Their faces seemed to turn toward each other with the same invisible cue. It was a kiss out of a storybook, one that would wake a sleeping princess, or bring a marble statue to life. The world should stop and wait for a kiss like that.
Unfortunately, it doesn't.
When they finally broke apart, at the sound of the conductor's subtle cough, they looked at each other with dry eyes.
Nothing more needed to be said.
She stood there, still, but her eyes followed him as he turned from her, walked the six steps to board the train, and handed the conductor his ticket. He turned back once to see her standing there, silently stoic, while Ginny cried a deluge at her side.
That's my girl, he thought, closed his eyes and boarded the train.