CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: In Love and War

The boyfriend apologizes for stealing me away for so long. Work continues to remain unapologetic. Enjoy! Also, I'm publishing one of my original novels, called "How to Lose Yourself in One Year or Less." How many of you would be interested in buying it or reading a sample chapter? Just review or message. I'm doing a survey to see how many would go through Amazon and the like. Check out the cover, synopsis… at the official Facebook fanpage. Link is on my profile.

Forgive the sad chapter.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Draco curled up on the floor, hiding from the cold slowly spreading through his fur to the shameful soft skin beneath. It was Voldemort's inner chamber but it might as well have been a prison. The floors were green and black marble and, to Draco, counting them was his only entertainment and only reason he wasn't running into the wall face-first.

He couldn't move, couldn't show any sign that he remembered, that he could change back. He just rested and focused, pretending the animal mind had left him a thoughtless slave. It was the only way he could keep his mind and therefore Hermione's safe from their mind tricks. At least, he hoped.

If he fell asleep, he could see through Hermione's eyes the way he once did back at Hogwarts, making him an easy spy. He could even feel what she felt, and she felt miserable. But he couldn't do a thing from there and he accepted that she had to continue to feel this way if it meant she'd be safe.

He could only comfort himself with the thought that he knew exactly where she was. Malfoy Manor. He knew every molding in that blasted place. He watched as she entered the lost hallway, one he knew had been made lost. He knew memories existed of the place. He didn't know the place still held the memories. He didn't know what his father had done to merit such retribution on the eve of the death of Lily and James Potter, but it had to be big.

"Draco!" called Voldemort from his chair by the fireplace, waving him closer.

It snapped him out of his thoughts. Draco lifted his head quickly, eager to respond the way he'd once responded to his father. Eager to please. He never hated himself more.

He practically crawled to Voldemort's clammy feet and lowered his large head to the floor, exposing himself. His father had once told him never to bow to anyone. That's how you end up with a sword through your skull, just like Great Uncle Marvin Malfoy. They'd burned him out of the family tree for sheer stupidity.

"Draco, you grow tired, I see," said Voldemort.

Before Draco could whine his answer, a Death Eater in the background responded, "Mates grow ill when separated. I've never seen it but it seems logical."

Voldemort raised his wand and sent the Death Eater across the room. "Do not speak out of turn!"

The man crawled away with a broken leg, the shattered bone scratching at the marble. Two others dragged him off, not an ounce of emotion in their faces. Something human had been drained from them. Draco feared the same was happening to him, especially as he looked upon Voldemort's snake-like face.

"Now… Draco. Are you prepared to turn back now?"

The wolf in him whined. It wasn't a matter of keeping himself a monster anymore. He really thought he had no choice. Voldemort seemed to read the eyes of the wolf.

"Fine, then. Your tracking skills only work as a wolf anyway." Voldemort scowled and drank a foul-smelling potion. It made Draco's sensitive nose burn from a distance. "Don't worry. You'll be reunited with your mate again. And through her, we'll take Hogwarts."

Draco gave a whine of protest. It escaped, low but still audible. Voldemort narrowed his eyes at him and picked up his wand off the edge of his seat. Draco didn't move. He barely flinched his muzzle. Voldemort respected fearlessness in his subjects. But, more than anything, he respected loyalty.

Draco bent his front legs in a small bow, only noticeable to the disparaging eyes before him.

"Very good, child. I think you're ready."

He tilted his head to the right questioningly. For what?

Voldemort turned towards two guards by the door. "Bring the prisoner," he told them.

They nodded and went to get a man from one of the prisons next door as Draco waited patiently. When you're a big scary monster, it's easy to relax in a corner knowing mostly everything is smaller than you and thus less likely to want to kill you. He used to think that would be the worst part, the scary part. Dying without her.

Then they lifted the prisoner's head and swept his shaggy hair back. He was thinner than Draco remembered, paler, but it the same broken man that once tried to teach him Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Professor Lupin.

Draco sat up pin straight. Tense. He knew what was coming. Voldemort point his wand to Lupin and, without a word, chained him to two poles in the middle of the room. He turned to Draco and stepped aside, gesturing for him to fulfill his duty as a Death Eater.

"Kill him," said Voldemort lightly.

Draco hesitated only a second. Any longer would have raised too much suspicion. This was a test, just another test. If he was lucky, Voldemort would stop him before he did the real damage.

Who am I kidding? He'll watch the kill and laugh.

Draco walked slowly towards Lupin, feigning an injured leg and a loss of his mate. Lupin knelt as best he could, bravely facing the boy in demon's clothing. He tilted his neck to the side and said, "Do it quickly."

Draco didn't give Voldemort a chance to object or to give someone else the job. Anyone else would torture the man on end, driving him mad from pain before killing him. There was no going back. He just hoped that, afterwards, he could get back to his corner. He hoped his value would be proven to his enemy and he could open up his mind to Hermione, to allow her to heal his broken soul before there was nothing left of him to save.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hermione continued to sit and stare at the phantom child until it and the sounds disappeared. She was lulled away by the silence. For a moment, all was dark and calm. Her soul felt peaceful, her heartbeat slow.

An infinite moment passed and everything changed. The comfortable darkness, temporarily empty, filled up with something red and violent.

Fear.

Pain.

Evil with a lover's face.

Draco was calling out past the image of the wolf. He was trapped, she saw, but he was also trying to get across for the first time since his capture. He was trying to tell her something, as though fleeing from reality inside her mind.

She created a safe room for them.

It was simple, square, with checkerboard floors and red walls. She imagined up a table for them in the center with a white tablecloth. She sat his shadow across from her and waited for his eyes to open and look at her once more. They refused. They never opened so no one could look in.

"This isn't a safe channel anymore, Hermione," the shadow whispered in her lover's voice. The mouth didn't open. All she saw was thin darkness in the faint outline of her boy. Through him, she saw the imaginary wall behind him, just her mind telling her he wasn't real and he wasn't hers. He, like the baby that disappeared before her, was just a remnant of the true boy.

"I know," she whispered back. "I just… Why are you trying to reach me now?"

The shadow waited. Its hands moved palm down on the table, inching closer to her like spiders' legs.

"He trusts me. He thinks the wolf has taken over and I am his."

She sighed, trying desperately to believe him. "Why hasn't it? How do I know it hasn't and you're just his puppet?"

The shadow smiled. She wasn't sure what she was seeing but she felt the warmth his smile radiated caving in her chest and making her believe.

"Because I have you, 'Mione," it whispered. "Nothing breaks us."

It took her a second to reply with complete certainty, "What do you need?"

The shadow smiled again. It told her a plan. It was stupid but what Malfoy plan wasn't. It was detailed but Hermione would remember. And it was brilliant, because it took everything he had to conceal it. If anything, they had the element of surprise on their hands.

She then stood and walked around his chair, trying to find the real in the mental. "I need help," she said. "I'm in the nursery again. I don't know how I'm going to get out."

She felt the smile again. The walls of her little room dropped like crate pieces to the floor. She felt herself awaken and jumped. The shadow was still there, in the corner of her eyes, just out of view, but she was now outside the dream.

Follow me, the shadow whispered.

It led her to a door in the hallway just outside the nursery. She felt eyes upon her there, an eerie sense of foreboding. The shadow told her to ignore it. She went on as if nothing through the whispering room, towards the other side of the Manor.

It's dangerous here, she hissed inside her head.

The shadow chuckled. War means nowhere is safe. But don't worry. I'm here… Make a left. Go straight. Snape will be there, looking for you.

She blinked and the little shadow in the corner of her eye making her feel like he was watching over her shoulder was gone. And she missed him again, just like the first time.

She heard Snape's voice in the distance, calling her name. "Young lady, do you know how long I've been looking for you! It's been hours!"

She laughed a little, still in a trance to recover her beloved shadow boy. Snape sounded like her father after she got lost at the grocery store when she was five. She wasn't really lost. She was at the book and magazine section reading Newsweek. They just didn't know that.

"I'm fine. I got stuck in this hallway. This place is a maze with booby traps."

He nodded and placed a hand on her shoulder. She could see his chest heave as though relieved of a great weight. He couldn't speak.

"You were really scared, weren't you?" she said. "You were worried about me?"

It seemed hard to believe even for him. She could tell by the size of his eyes.

"You don't understand," he huffed, placing both hands on her shoulder and bringing her closer. "If the Dark Lord had found you – or any part of the Ministry, in fact – it would mean…"

"Yes?"

"It could mean the end of this war, Ms. Granger."

She scoffed and walked past him, back to their little sanctuary. "I see you believe that, Professor, but you must understand why I will never."

He shook his head, tired and aching for it all to end. He cursed something about Dumbledore but Hermione was too far away to hear.

As soon as she got back to the room, she gathered her few little things, mainly the weapons she'd been training to use. She placed her wand in her cloak pocket and fastened what could only be described as a utility belt low on her hips. She filled the little pockets with potions from Snape's closet (the man had more powdery things than actual clothing) and stood in front of a quickly conjured mirror.

She looked half-dead, but fully determined. Her hair was starting to stand up again so she pulled it back into a tight bun. She reminded herself of Professor McGonagall. All war, no game. She wore a white blouse tucked into some black pants she presumed were once Draco's. It scared her how well they fit. She charmed her belt to disappear and pulled her cloak around her like a robe.

"Time for school," she told herself.

She looked at the window and it broke apart on its own. Something was different about her. She wasn't alone anymore, and Draco wasn't Draco anymore. Something was stronger. Whether it was their connection or themselves, it made her fearless.

She didn't bother with a broom. She jumped out the window, perfectly aware that she would land feet first. Air gathered under her soles and, as though on some invisible staircase, lowered herself safely down.

"Granger!" Snape yelled from above. He nearly threw himself out the window after her. She looked up but didn't move backwards. She waved and went on her way, faster than the human eye could follow.

Snape pulled himself upright and whispered to himself, "Dear God, it's beginning. She's changing."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

What would you name the big finale story? Lilies, legacy, laughter…? Help? And don't forget to become a fan of the official Lose Yourself Facebook page!

Reviews are better than knowing someone's there to guide you through anything. Almost.