-----

CHAPTER 19: Always a Death Eater

-----

Fifteen minutes passed. Twenty. Thirty. Everything was silent. Ginny paced behind Harry, holding back tears and hugging herself for warmth. Harry was the same, shivering under the weight of a phantom pain. He knew they were losing as long as they just sat there and let their friends brave enemy lines.

"This is wrong," he finally whispered, knocking Ginny out of her thoughts.

She threw her arms in the air. "Yes! What have I been saying?"

"No, not what we've been talking about. Yes, that's wrong but I mean Seneca. They shouldn't have gone alone."

Ginny's eyes lit up the way they usually did when Harry suggested yet another god-awful adventure sure to turn into disaster. "Is this you saying we should storm the gates?"

He narrowed his eyes at her but was too quickly distracted by the swarm in the distance to reply. It might have seemed threatening to anyone else, something so obscured by night. To Harry, it was a beautiful mirage in a seemingly endless desert. "No, love. I say we meet the cavalry," he answered and pointed up at the sky.

She turned on her heel and craned her neck at the swarm. They both laughed and stretched their arms up in the air, calling the others down to Earth. One of them pushed back her hood, revealing vibrant orange hair. "Tonks!" shouted Ginny. "Over here!"

Tonks swerved and slowed but didn't stop, scooping Ginny up behind her. Another followed her, a stockier man in a similar hood. By the feel of his scarred arm, Harry knew it was Moody. He didn't care. He clung tight as they flew on down to the front gates.

"It's not safe this way!" shouted Harry. "They have defenses!"

Moody laughed. "Don't worry, child. Dumbledore's taken care of it. We too have our spies in their midst."

Harry looked around for Ginny but found Pansy instead, two brooms behind, looking terrified among so many Aurors and generally good men. He shot her a smile, realizing quickly that if she was there, it meant whatever spell had caused them to switch places had been reversed. Frantic with worry, he leaned in to Moody's good ear and shouted, "HURRY! If they got to Draco, they're both dead!"

Moody nodded and swerved again, making for a balcony on the east side. The swarm followed. One by one, they entered the mansion through its windows. Harry landed first, Ginny and Tonks behind him. Alastor went on his own mission while Harry and Ginny scoured the grounds.

Death Eaters were everywhere but the invaders surrounded them, cornered them, petrifying as many as possible before they could turn. Nobody wanted the Malfoy Manor Massacre Part Two. Not even the Death Eaters, it seemed.

Harry and Ginny got separated from the others. They were more preoccupied with looking from room to room than fighting anyone. They rounded a corner and almost ran face-first into Ron, who had entered through a north-side window. When he saw his sister, he set down his broom, pushed back his cloak, and hugged her. Ginny didn't know how to react. They were in the middle of a battle, one that had just started. He knew she had to be safe. He saw her get picked up off the ground.

"Ron, what is it?" she squeaked.

"Sorry, sis. I just ran past a boggart and thought—well, I just thought—"

Ginny and Harry smirked at each other. "You thought she'd gotten hurt, didn't you? Aren't you cute?" joked Harry, giving him a playful punch on the arm.

Ron punched back, not so playfully. "No, dumbass. I thought she'd gotten pregnant and was being tortured by Snape for the answer on a quiz."

Ginny went pale and walked past both of them, thinking once again that she had way too many male influences in her life, none of whom were exactly stable. That's when they all heard the growls at the end of the hall. Most people know to run away from the angry animal sounds. Harry, Ron, and Ginny would have loved to run away, but they knew they had to at least check it out first.

They could recognize Draco and Hermione immediately. Their furs were unique, but the mess they saw at the end of the hall made the Malfoy Manor Massacre seem like a tea party on the ceiling.

Sparks were everywhere, from the few wizards still walking around on two feet. The rest were snarls. The floor was slippery with blood and drool and other things none of them ever wanted to think about again. Harry fought with himself not to step in but it would mean his death. This was not a fight for the likes of them. If Draco and Hermione were caught up in it, it meant…

Ginny grabbed Harry's arm and pulled him back to the other end of the hall. "There's nothing we can do," she whispered, "but pray they make it out."

-----

Draco never saw where Hermione went. That was the point of a secret entrance, he figured. Luckily, he didn't have to see her enter the tunnel to know she was safe. He could feel her. She was terrified but safe, and that was all that mattered.

She was terrified because he was terrified. The army was new, fresh out of their skins. They didn't hold their human minds quite yet. They didn't want, too enthralled by the power. So, when Draco shifted to attack, those that had been taught how to shift on command followed but didn't attack right away. Draco realized then that he was fighting puppies, not wolves, and smirked confidently.

Blaise shifted and charged at them. In the momentary shock of seeing his childhood friend change before him into a vicious animal, Draco hesitated and didn't lunge at his neck right away. He was having trouble keeping his human mind on track too. Without Hermione beside him, it was like running blind into a brick wall, but he did it nonetheless.

He was slammed back onto the floor by at least three other wolves and stepped on till he heard his ribs crack and mend and crack again. One of them stopped, believing him dead, and he took his chance. He hit it with his hind legs, sending it flying back into the circular crowd of snarling beasts. It set the others off, creating a mob of confusion.

Instead of attacking Draco, they attacked each other.

Draco felt buried under jabbing balls of bone and fur, rolling atop him and pressing him against hard castle walls. Images of Hermione disappeared. It went on for what seemed like an eternity. His whole world, his humanity, fizzed away into the background. Everything was about survival. Everything hurt. Everything healed, too quickly for his mind to remember he had once been human.

It and everything that had once been Him retreated to the darkness inside his head. It was a dream, a moment trapped in time and memory.

Her fingers running through his hair…

Her smile on his neck, biting and nibbling…

His head on her lap, bathing in broken light through colored Hogwarts glass…

Raindrops on skin, shimmering like little pools of sadness…

Hermione.

Names and times and feelings but nothing else.

Am I dead? he thought.

No, she answered. I'm right here. I'm always here. Just hold on. Hold on to me. They're coming for you.

But he couldn't answer what he knew was a figment of his imagination, a survival instinct to ease the pain. His thoughts grew shorter; the moments faded. And soon, there wasn't even a shattered memory. There was just darkness and the faint smell of death.

-----

"Let me go!" demanded Hermione, pulling away and slapping her assailant before realizing who it was. She gasped and pulled her hand back to her chest. "Professor Snape! I'm sorry! I didn't realize it was you!"

He glowered at her, annoyed yet relaxed. "I imagine I'd do the same," he eventually caved. Hermione imagined him taking points away from Gryffindor in his head just to spite her later on.

"Professor, what are you doing here?"

He nodded towards the tunnel, to keep walking towards salvation. She didn't move an inch, choosing instead to look back at the closed door. "You can't both be caught. They can't have mates in their arsenal. It's too dangerous. They can't know what you really are!"

"He's in pain," she whispered, her voice shaking to bits. She couldn't concentrate on what he was saying, on the things he knew that he couldn't possibly know unless he was more than just trailing behind enemy lines. "I know I have to leave him but it hurts."

The professor put a hand on her shoulder and answered, "I took off the protection spells. The Ministry will be here within minutes. Just put your trust in them, in me, and in Draco. He'd want me to protect you above all else. We have to hurry."

She gulped and, three painful tugs later, allowed him to pull her down the tunnel.

The trudge was silent. She knew the way but her mind was in the darkness, trying to look in through Draco's eyes but seeing nothing but darkness. She tried harder but, aside from a headache, all she got was the fear he felt.

It got to a point where she couldn't walk. She could barely breathe. She started to hyperventilate and reach for the walls, sliding down them slowly. Snape stopped and turned around. He took hold of her wrist and pulled her up but she started to slide down to the floor again. He pulled once more, taking both her wrists and shaking her.

"Granger! Snap out of it! You're a werewolf for goodness sake! You can't have a panic attack on me now!"

"He's hurt!" she gasped, shaking her head. "He's hurt and I can't hear him anymore!"

She heard Snape curse expertly for the first time in her life, unashamed, but he still didn't let go of her wrists. She realized it was the only thing holding her up. He wasn't strong enough and she collapsed on her knees, scraping them. She echoed his curses in perfect rhythm, which made him smirk a shadow of the infamous Slytherin smirk.

The pain seemed to snap her out. She grunted and pushed herself up off the ground. She held onto the walls. They were sturdier than Professor Snape, surely more trustworthy. From years of dealing with Harry and Ron's paranoia, it was hard not to feel just a little distrustful. Still, she followed him to the other side.

When she saw the overcast sky once more, she finally breathed in. She didn't even know she'd been holding her breath. She just remembered her feet – one in front of the other, one in front of the other – towards the end.

She wasn't sure if it was morning or night. The sky was too dark and rainy. Mud mixed with blood on her legs. It'd started to drip down and she wondered just how long that tunnel had been, how long she'd been talking with Dennis, how long Draco might have been dead…

She knew she was crying but she didn't feel it. She just wiped at her face, smearing blood and mud, as they trudged on towards a gathering of cloaked figures in the distance. Hermione felt safer and safer, recognizing more silhouettes with every step closer. She sensed that Draco was asleep. In pain, but asleep. They had stopped hurting him.

She relaxed, to the point of collapse. She felt like she had been sending him all of her energy to him, all of her will to survive. Now that he no longer needed her to draw breath, she felt the exhaustion of their shared existence.

Snape reluctantly wrapped an arm around her shoulders, keeping her upright till the crowd of Aurors, a secondary line of defense, it seemed, could hurry to her aid.

"Forget about me!" she shouted, though it came out more like a mumble. "Storm the castle. It's what you do best. Storm it and get Draco out. My mate is in there!"

She thought that was what she said but a few moments later, she found herself lying on a bed of grass, cloaked creatures all around. She felt like it was third year all over again, watching Harry and Sirius be swarmed by Dementors. Only, this time, it was her watching herself be carried off as though from a distance.

She knew she couldn't fight it and let out what felt like a last breath. She fell into the darkness, feeling around for the remnants of Draco.

There was no sign of her mate, not even the angry little boy she met all those years ago. She found only a snarling beast in the distance too great for her heart to stand. It was something not even worthy of the wolf name. It was a Death Eater.

-----

So I'm sick as hell. Can't sleep. Can barely finish off my sentences. And, I'm contemplating killing off Draco just to cross this story off my to-do list. I'd appreciate some love. Yes yes?

Reviews are better than raindrops on skin.