A/N: Here's chapter two, folks! Review or follow if you like this story, I can update fairly quickly if people are liking it. Thanks!
"But what if someone sees us, Lucius?"
He placed his hand on top of his wife's. "They won't."
Narcissa looked into her husband's eyes. They had a strange morphing quality—when looking at anyone else, they always seemed cold and gray. It was even a thing people referred to; at the Ministry, if someone gave you a dirty look you would say they gave you the "Lucius Malfoy stare". Even when Lucius looked at Draco, there was a coldness there, the sort of coldness that might make a boy strive to impress his father. But when he looked at her, those eyes changed. They became warm, and soft, and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that her husband loved her, that he would gladly throw himself in front of a Killing Curse if it meant saving her. And while that all sounded very grand and melodramatic, it was relevant thing to kno win the middle of a war.
"So tomorrow. You'll…?"
"Yes. Before things get too…violent. He'll be safer with them."
"What if the Dark Lord finds out?"
Lucius looked into his wife's eyes and lied. "Trust me. He won't."
So the Order was making their stand at the Ministry. Rufus Scrimgeour orchestrated it all. "If the Dark Lord wants to replace me and take over the Ministry, then let him try," he said. "We will be waiting."
Draco stood in the fireplace, holding his stomach. He was fairly certain he was about to be sick.
"Draco, love, remember to say it clearly." Narcissa gingerly took his hand and dropped a fistful of Floo powder in it.
"I don't understand." He belched and turned a shade of purple. "How does he know…?"
"You won't just close your eyes and say 'Tahiti'? Because The Dark Lord will find you, dear. And you don't want that." She leaned forward and rested her forehead against his. "At least this way, you have a chance of…well, not dying."
"A chance." He laughed bitterly. "Well isn't that nice. What about you, Mother? And Father?"
"We'll be fine."
"Well…I'll be fine, too! I'm just as skilled at magic, you know." He glared in the distance. "I had the highest marks in most of my classes."
Yes, all the classes you didn't have with the Mudblood, which, let's be honest, wasn't most of them!
"Why won't you let me Apparate? I won't splinch myself! You know I've been practicing since I was seven."
"This is just safer, sweetie. Besides, the Dark Lord doesn't want us all coming in the same way. He wants to ambush them."
"Oh." And suddenly Draco felt sick again. He hadn't seen any of his classmates since that night on the Astronomy Tower. Even though he hadn't been the one to kill the old fool, he still shuddered at the memory. He still felt deep shame over the way he froze up, the way his body wouldn't let him do it.
What Draco feared most was that it would happen again. Say he cornered Weasley—could he really hurt him seriously? He was an idiot, of course, who deserved to be hexed, but the Dark Lord wouldn't be happy with hexes. As much as he couldn't stand Weasley, could Draco really torture him? Could he even use the curse Potter had used on him—Sectumsempra—and watch the blood spray out from his chest?
He looked down at his shoes and shook his head, closing his eyes tightly.
"What is it, my love?"
"I don't know if I…" He blushed bright red. "I don't know if I can kill anyone."
She cupped his cheek.
"Merlin. I'm a coward!"
She smiled at him. "No, my dear. That makes you braver than the rest of us." Her eyes darted to the clock. "You must go now, love. Your father and I will see you there."
"Okay."
"I love you."
He swallowed the lump in his throat and turned an even brighter shade of red. "I love you too, Mum."
And with that he dropped the fistful of Floo Powder and disappeared in a emerald flash of fire.
Lucius spotted his son by the fountain, shooting a jelly-legs jinx at old Remus Lupin. That's all he'd been doing—harmless little curses that would only slow a person down. So far he'd dodged off all the attacks launched at him. Lucius even saw Potter shoot a curse at his son, but it had been weak, too—a simple Expelliarmus.
These children, they didn't know what they were dealing with.
Jets of light flew in all directions. Lucius felt a knife slash across his back and whirled around to find Kingley Shacklebolt standing there with his wand brandished.
"Ah! Dark magic, Shacklebolt?" Bright drops of pure blood fell to the floor. "Tsk tsk, what would your precious friends say?"
"They'd give me a high-five for making you bleed, Lucius."
They sparred back and forth, deflecting curses. Lucius looked over his shoulder and couldn't find Draco by the fountain anymore.
"Stop distracting me!" he shouted at Shacklebolt and sent him flying through the air. Kingsley hit a brick wall and fell the floor, a waterfall of dust and rubble raining down upon him.
"Lucius!" Narcissa shrieked.
He found his wife nearby and followed her gaze. Draco was squaring off against Mad-Eye Moody. They were circling each other like two boxers in the ring.
Stupefy! Lucius thought, pointing his wand at his son. Draco flew backwards through the air and hit the statue of the wizard in the fountain with a loud and hollow clang. His son dropped into the water with a splash.
"CRUCIO!"
He whirled around. Bellatrix was standing over the writhing body of Rufus Scrimgeour, the Minister of Magic. He roared in pain.
"Would you like some more, Mr. Minister? CRUCIO!"
Bellatrix was beside herself now, cackling like a maniac.
"Oh, this is so much fun! But I'm afraid we'll have to cut this short." She pointed her wand between the old man's eyes.
"NO!" Potter said, starting to run towards the pair of them. Lucius knew the silly boy wouldn't make it. He wasn't nearly close enough.
"Avada Kedavra!"
And the Minister of Magic was dead.
"LOOK!" Bella shrieked. "Look at your Minister! Oh my, children! He's deaaaaaaad!"
All the fighting stopped for a moment. Potter fell down to his knees.
"It looks like our work here is done!" Lucius's sister-in-law turned to face the rest of them, the other Death Eaters waiting for her command. She raised her arms in the air and grinned. "Now!"
Narcissa got one last look at her boy, unconscious and floating face-up in the water.
And all the Death Eaters—save one—disappeared in a whirl of black robes.
Hermione dragged his limp body out of the fountain and rolled him onto the ground.
"Oh, great," she muttered.
Ron crouched next to her. "Merlin," he breathed. "It's Malfoy!"
"Yeah. And he's not breathing."
"That's a problem?"
"Well…we can't let him die, right?"
"Who said we can't?"
"Ronald! I'm being serious!" She placed her fingers on Draco's cold, slick neck. "He's still alive, but…oh, I don't want to give him CPR!"
"Well nobody else knows how to do it, Hermione. And even if I did, I'm not putting my mouth on Malfoy's mouth."
They stared at each other, the seconds ticking by, before Hermione said, "Alright!" and leaned over Draco's motionless body.
When she was a very small girl, she'd almost drowned once in the neighborhood pool. She'd only been six years old, a tiny thing with a rat's nest of hair. She'd heard tales from her parents about how the lifeguard dove in and saved her—how it was quite a heroic thing. And, being the studious person she was, Hermione spent the rest of the summer avoiding water and researching CPR, just incase that bit of information might ever come handy again.
But she'd never done it on a real person. Hands shaking a bit, she formed her hands into one big fist and found the spot between his ribs. Pump pump pump. Then she leaned over and did the unthinkable—held his nose and breathed fresh air into his mouth.
Nothing. "Oh, come on," she groaned before repeating the process once more. Pump pump pump, digging down into the space between his ribs. This time when she leaned forward to breathe, when her lips were on his, he jerked his head up and coughed up a couple lungfuls of water into her face.
"Oh, sick!" Ron shouted sympathetically.
Draco fell back, gasping up at the ceiling. For a few moments, he had no idea where he was—what had happened. Then a face entered his field of vision. Granger's.
"Oh no," he moaned. "Not you."
She wiped the mix of spit and water from her face and scowled. "Well I'm not exactly thrilled to see you either, Malfoy."
They tied him up like a dog and kept him in the main room of the Weasley house. That first night was a nightmare. Everyone felt like it was their civic duty to walk through there at least once and say something derogatory to him. "Coward", "sniveling rat", and "evil prick" were a few standouts.
When Granger came in with a glass of water, she didn't say anything. She brought the glass up to his lips without a word.
"Wait a second," Draco said, putting the water off for a second even though he was incredibly thirsty. "Don't you have something to say, Granger?"
She sighed. "Not really. Unlike everyone else here, I know you're not worth it."
"Oh." He sneered at her. "Well isn't that just sweet. Merlin, what a bucket of daisies you are…"
"Look, do you want any water or not?"
Draco glared at her until she brought the glass up to his lips again. Despite his desire to remain dignified, he drank it all quickly and greedily, adam's apple bobbing up and down.
She was walking away when he spoke up, still panting from how quickly he drank the water.
"Hey! You know, this isn't very Gryffindor like! Tying somebody up like this!"
She turned around on her heel and regarded him with an icy stare. "Anything else?"
"Yeah! Uh…" He frowned. "You know…ugh, nevermind."
But for whatever reason, she kept standing there. Put one hand on her hip. "No, Malfoy, tell me. What do you want to say?"
"I just—well. I never killed anybody, okay? I never could, despite how much that might've benefited me. So, yeah, you've got me tied up here and I bet that makes you feel pretty good, but even if you let me loose, nothing would happen." He laughed bitterly. "I mean, did you see me at the Ministry? I hit you with a Bat Bogey hex. A Bat Bogey hex. What the hell was that?"
Granger laughed under her breath.
"That says a lot, doesn't it? That I hate you as much as I do but I can only do a Bat Bogey hex? Good Lord!" He looked down at his lap, marveling at this new revelation. "I'm pathetic!"
"I don't think that's pathetic, Malfoy."
He looked up at her.
"I think you don't want to hurt any of us because you know, deep down, that our side is right and your side is wrong." She grinned. "Of course I got higher marks than you in Hogwarts, but I know you're not terrible. I think if you had the proper motivation, like fighting for a cause you actually believed in, you could be good. Well—fairly decent."
He didn't say anything in response, mostly because he had no clue what to say.
"Anyway, I'm going to bed." She turned and kept walking.
"Wait! You're gonna keep me tied up here all night?"
"Yeah." She disappeared through the door. "It's Ron's house, his call!"
"Damn Weasel," Draco seethed through his teeth. "I'll show him…"
With what, a Bat Bogey hex? a voice in his head asked.
"Oh, shut up."