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Liberation
Chapter 6
The next morning Hermione dutifully followed Draco to the meeting room he'd met with Lestrange and his companions the day before. Neither said anything to the other as they walked down the hall, and Hermione played the part of victim very well. She allowed Draco to push her in front of him and kept her head down. They both knew that she was going to be a 'plaything' for those who would be visiting throughout the day, but while Hermione was resolved to deal with it, Draco was racked with guilt because he knew that he would not be able to stop them without blowing his cover. Just before they entered the room and were within earshot of others Draco paused and whispered low to Hermione.
"My father was an opportunist, not a senseless maniac. He took advantage of women but he did not torture them for sport. You will have nothing to fear from me personally today."
Hermione looked at him curiously. The lines in his face hardened and there was a barely perceptible change in his stature as he prepared himself to be 'Lucius'.
"However," he continued in a flat voice, "as I promised you last night, you will not be violated, but I cannot prevent them from too much sport or it will look suspicious."
Hermione fought to roll her eyes at the end of his declaration. She'd lived through the same wars he had, seen some of the same battles, and been tortured too. She was fully aware of what kind of 'sport' he was referring to and was perhaps more prepared to deal with it than he was. She hadn't forgotten the stricken look on his face when Bellatrix was torturing her in the Malfoy Manor so many years ago. Someone like Hermione does not quickly forget the details of the people who want to be saved.
"I assure you, Malfoy, I have lived through worse."
Draco nodded stiffly and turned away from her to open the door. He knew she'd lived through worse as well, but it did nothing to ease his mind. In fact it just made him feel even more guilty for all that she had been through in her life. Looking down on her apologetically, Draco grasped her upper arm tightly and pushed her threw the doorway ahead of him.
"Why don't you go sit over there where I can keep my eye on you?" he drawled cruelly as he thrust her into a nearby hardwood chair. Hermione winced as he did this and not because it caused her any pain, but because Draco was portraying Lucius so well, in manner and speech. Goyle and Dolohov laughed at the genuine fear in Hermione's eyes as they continued to eat, but Draco's expression remained unreadable. He stared down at Hermione with icy eyes for a beat before turning abruptly and seating himself on the other side of the table so he could see her clearly.
"Goyle," Draco said in a tone of dignified superiority, "are you not going to offer our guest breakfast?"
Goyle's mouth hung half open with an enormous quantity of half masticated egg lolling unpleasantly on his tongue. Draco suppressed a grimace and waited for his old school friend to do something. In this sort of situation Goyle would do one of three things. He would blindly get up and fix a plate, he would refuse, or most likely he would do something crude and debasing. Draco was not disappointed. Goyle let the half chewed eggs roll out of his mouth and back onto the plate on top of the remains of his bacon rinds.
"Of course, Mr. Malfoy, I'm finished. The Mudblood can have mine."
Draco wanted to hang his head in shame. There was a point in his life when he would have laughed at such a childish and disgusting antic. Clearly Goyle had not changed at all, and Draco was beginning to believe that he was beyond redemption. Dolohov was still chuckling merrily. Hermione was not even attempting to hide her look of revulsion and she turned her head away from them. Goyle stood up to approach Hermione with the plate and Draco warred with himself over whether he should stop him or not. He had suggested the breakfast but he only did it on the off chance that Goyle actually gave her food she could eat. The poor girl was hungry.
"Here, Mudblood. Breakfast fit for a queen." Goyle shoved the plate under her nose. Hermione nearly vomited what little bile remained in her stomach.
She pushed the plate away from her politely as if she was refusing any ordinary meal. "No thank you, I'm not hungry."
As if to sabotage her own efforts at maintaining some sort of dignity her stomach growled audibly. This caused the dirty man in front of her to laugh raucously. He turned toward Draco and Dolohov with a childish and toothy grin.
"Her belly says she's hungry! You should hear it," he said before turning back to Hermione. "Now take it or I will force feed you."
He scooped up the egg muck and brought it to her face. Just as Draco was going to tell Goyle that was enough because the spectacle was ruining his own breakfast, Hermione smacked Goyle's hand away and the plate with enough force to send it sailing across the table. It skirted past Dolohov's shoulder and shattered as it hit the floor behind him.
"I said I do not want it!" Hermione yelled trying to shrink away from Goyle, who still hadn't reacted. He was so slow Hermione could reach out and snatch his wand from his pocket probably, but Draco would not be able to protect her from what Dolohov would do. Finally, Goyle's face shifted from surprise to rage and he backhanded Hermione hard across the face. Her head whipped around sharply and tears stung her eyes. The coppery taste of blood filled her mouth and she spit out one of her front teeth. Tears fell from her eyes but they were purely involuntary, and a result of the pain. She would not cry on account of their abuse.
Draco raised an exasperated hand. "That's enough, Goyle. I'm trying to eat here."
His expression remained calm, but inside his gut was churning with abhorrence. It had been years since such violence was commonplace in his life and what meagre appetite he had to begin with disappeared altogether. The expression on Hermione's face was worrying him slightly as well. Her eyes were so dark they were almost black and she was clenching her jaw so tightly that he wondered how the fine bones in her face did not crack from the pressure. But what frightened him the most was that all softness and compassion had completely left her features. He truly feared that Goyle had broken her somehow with that last blow. Draco was quite able to recognise when emotional chain mail was being worn and he could see Hermione protecting herself one link at a time. The protection was good, but it was extremely difficult to take off, and Draco could testify to that personally for he still wore his.
Dolohov had risen from the table and walked around to Hermione. He gripped her chin and forced her to look at him. "You see, Mudblood, you are on the wrong side. You have no idea how good it feels to just hurt people who deserve it."
Hermione looked pointedly in his newly healed eye, "I think I have a fair idea."
Dolohov was about to strike Hermione again but Draco could not take it anymore.
"Enough!" he shouted. "We have much to discuss, stop wasting my time."
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Harry and Ron sat huddled together on a hillock about three hundred metres up the coast from Urquhart Castle. They were sharing Harry's Invisibility cloak and a canteen of warmed pumpkin juice. Harry pulled his collar up tight against the chill as he stared at the castle below them. What the Muggles saw as an old ruin in the daytime, was alive with light and activity to Ron and Harry as they watched many figures dressed in black walk in front of candle lit windows. It was very near midnight and Aurors were stationed all around the castle, a few even hovering on brooms over the ocean so that they could invade the castle in a circle. Draco had instructed them to arrive exactly five minutes after the midnight so that the ceremony would have begun.
Ron could feel Harry literally buzzing next to him in anticipation. His green eyes were sparking in the faded light from Ron's Lumos spell. Ron could feel the electric charge of impending battle as well, but where time and maturity had wrought him sensibility, it had turned Harry into hardened fighter with the narrow focus of simply rescue and capture, or kill when unavoidable.
Harry stopped looking at the castle long enough to fish in his pockets for his wand and the Portkey to get Hermione out of the castle. He was prepared to let her stay and fight but only if she was whole and well, otherwise he was sending her directly to St. Mungo's for treatment.
"Are you ready, Ron?"
Ron had been silently visualising the layout of the castle that Draco had managed to describe using the magical coins. He was contemplating the best point of entry from their current vantage that would get them in the hall the former Death Eaters were using for the induction.
"I am ready, Harry. This should be over quickly, we have them outnumbered, and we have the element of surprise."
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Lucius Malfoy never got jittery. He was always a sea of calm on the outside regardless of what was going on around him. Therefore Draco was finding it nearly impossible to keep his father's body from fairly shaking with nervousness and trepidation. There were twenty black clad Pureblood supremacists all surrounding a thoroughly beaten and bleeding Hermione Granger. There was no real initiation ceremony planned but Dolohov thought it would be in good fun to sacrifice the Mudblood to the cause. Draco had not been able to stop the taunting and jeering and had almost become violently ill with the shame and guilt he felt. Hermione was barely holding on to consciousness and she kept looking at Draco but she could not read what her worn out eyes were trying to say. It was four and a half minutes after midnight and despite Draco's best efforts he was not sure he could keep Hermione alive for that much longer. Dolohov had slid his shiny blade from its sheath and was holding the point at Hermione's chin.
"Let me!" Draco shouted as he darted out to snatch the blade from Dolohov. In his haste he wrapped part of his hand around the blade and the sharp knife separated his skin as if it was butter. He could feel warm sticky blood filling the palm of his cupped hand. Draco realised he had just made a very un-Lucius like move and ignored the pain in his hand as he stood straight and turned toward Hermione with the knife. He counted down the seconds in his head as he spoke. Twenty, nineteen, eighteen...
"You have had your fun. Let me finish it," Draco said commandingly. Fourteen, thirteen, twelve... "Dolohov, why don't you say something appropriate for the moment."
Seven, six, five...Draco held the blade aloft in front of Hermione's face. Hermione eyes were blazing as she looked at Draco. Despite the obvious pain she was in, Draco recognised the vehemence in her eyes, she wanted this over just as badly and her weakened body was somehow still rippling with eagerness to fight. Two, one...There was a loud splintering crash as every door and window around them shattered with the entrance of more Aurors than Draco could count. He immediately dropped the blade he was holding and scooped Hermione into his arms to remove her from the battle just as he'd promised Harry he would.
"Put me down, Malfoy!" she screamed beating him on the chest. "Give me a wand so I can fight!"
"You are too weak to fight!" he yelled back but he paused in his dash long enough to reach in his pocket and fish out the extra wand he had, nearly dropping her in the process. She took advantage of the moment to wriggle out his arms and landed in a heap on the ground. Draco ducked with her narrowly avoiding a curse that flew over his head. He pushed the wand into her outstretched hand.
Hermione tried to stand but her weak legs were protesting despite the adrenaline pumping through her veins. About half the dark wizards in attendance were stunned and being hauled out by Aurors, but the remainder was fighting to the death. Goyle sent a killing curse straight at the Auror in front of him who dodged in time so that the curse hit the Death Eater behind him instead. Goyle's face twisted with rage and he made to fire another curse at him when he saw Lucius Malfoy helping Hermione to her feet with Harry Potter.
Harry had seen Hermione and Draco fall to the ground from across the room and fought his way over too them. He could see that Hermione was seriously injured and weak, but his heart nearly burst out of his chest at the sight of her. He already had the Portkey grasped in his hand ready to send Hermione away from the quickly ending battle for treatment.
"Hermione!" he gasped when he saw her and pulled her into his arms. Tears fill unbidden from his eyes but no one noticed. Hermione clung to Harry with one arm and Draco with the other.
"Help me up! We have to finish this," she said with determination as she forced her legs to hold firm beneath her.
"No, Hermione, you are going to take this Portkey to St. Mungo's right now," Harry said forcefully as he tried to shove the little statue of an elephant he'd brought with him in her hand. Before Hermione could refuse however, Goyle approached their little group with his wand pointed directly at Draco's face. He appeared to be one of the last of the criminals still standing as Aurors around the room gathered their captives and their injured.
"Traitor," was all he said as he trained his wand on Draco.
Draco released Hermione and took several steps away from her but he kept his eyes locked on Goyle. "You have no idea, Goyle."
Harry made a move to stun Goyle but Draco signalled for him and the other Aurors to lower their wands. This was a fight between him and his former best friend, no one else. The effects of the Polyjuice were wearing off nicely and soon Goyle would see exactly who the traitor was. Goyle's face went from twisted with rage to confused and finally back to twisted rage as he saw Lucius turn into Draco. Draco watched with mild amusement at how often Goyle's face would shift from one expression to another.
"Draco!" he said unable to suppress his surprise.
Draco took a few steps even further from Hermione and Harry, the latter still trying to convince the former to take the Portkey.
"That's right, Greg. Did you honestly think the Ministry was going to release Lucius to you? You may be a little crueler now than you used to be, but thankfully you are all still just as stupid."
Draco had walked what he felt was a safe enough distance from Hermione to now start throwing curses without her getting hurt. He raised his wand steadily. "I tried to help you, Greg. I could have helped you out of all this."
Goyle guffawed loudly, "For what? You have nothing I want."
"I have my freedom. You should want that," Draco said carefully. He could sense Goyle getting ready to hex.
Goyle looked at Draco with consideration for a moment and then his eyes glinted with malice. "Well then maybe, I will just take your freedom from you. Avada Kedavra!"
Several things happened at once. Harry sent his own stunning spell at Goyle just as he heard him utter the first word of the Killing curse causing Goyle's aim to go awry, Draco attempted to move out of the way of the green jet of light, and Harry finally shoved the Portkey into Hermione's outstretched hand as she reached out towards Draco. She felt the familiar tug behind her navel but it did not pull her away before she saw the jet of green light graze Draco's hip and send him sprawling across the room.
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A/N: Sorry for the long wait for the update. I got a bit distracted from writing. This chapter is not beta'd because I wanted to get it posted so any changes in it will be strictly grammatical. I don't think there are so many mistakes in it that the chapter is unreadable.
Reviews would be appreciated! Dramione's are hard for me to write for some reason so it helps to hear what people think. With so many stories to choose from on the site it is difficult to really know what people are looking for.
Anyway... short chapter but thanks for reading!!!