Chapter 19

Draco stands on a dune overlooking the expedition's camp.

The desert is just as he expects: hot and bright and sere.

Sand shifts beneath his feet like a living thing. It is a beast with an infinite maw that will devour him if only he does it the favour of standing still.

He obliges.

Sand reaches up to his ankles and sets him in place like dry concrete.

It is a familiar scene.

He has had this dream before.

One large tent has been reduced to a heap of charred supports and disintegrated canvas. Two more remain upright and intact. A cook fire smoulders between them, trailing a thin line of white smoke into the clear, blue sky.

In the distance lay the ruins of Maru-Aten.

Draco watches, waiting for what he knows comes next.

It is his imagining of what must have happened on the surface while he, Hermione, and Todd the intern explored the secret cavern beneath Maru-Aten. This scene is peaceful, a liminal space where nothing bad has yet happened. Where no one has slogged through a subterranean lake, retrieved half of the Sun Disc, or died.

So he waits and watches, as helpless above as he had felt below.

Any moment now, they will appear: haggard, soaked, bloody, and a man short.

But they don't.

Lucidity weakens the sand's grip on his ankles. Draco takes a small, staggering step forward.

He doesn't understand.

Why this dream?

Why now, when Hermione sleeps beside him, her presence keeping the terror of his memories at bay?

And why this heat?

It comes without warning, a new twist on the old trope.

He begins to sweat.

The sand burns beneath his bare feet.

The air thickens, stinks, suffocates.

A hand curls around his neck.

Something is wrong.

SLAP!

Draco woke to chaos.

The sting in his cheek barely registered as he sat up in tangled bedsheets, eyes stinging, lungs constricted, a cough lodged in his throat. The air in his bedroom had turned dark and acrid. Somewhere in the hallway beyond, a beast breathed, huffing and panting like a charging bull, its lungs a mighty, oxygen-stealing bellows.

The heat.

The smoke.

The roar.

He'd had this nightmare before, too. Years before Egypt, though it had also ended in death.

Fiendfyre.

A hand clamped around his wrist and tugged him over the side of the bed. Draco struck the floor with a thud and found Hermione, her eyes red and streaming tears. She pressed a torn strip of sheet over her nose and mouth. Though the air was cleaner down here, it was nowhere near clear enough to bother with a Bubble-Head Charm.

"We need to get out of here!"

The mask muffled Hermione's shout, but Draco understood well enough.

He also disagreed. "Mitchell!"

Hermione's eyes narrowed in a pained, sympathetic wince. "We can't!"

They had no idea if Fiendfyre could harm the mirror, but Draco wouldn't take that chance. He'd let people die before. He refused to shoulder that guilt again.

Struggling to his feet, Draco snatched his wand from the nightstand and staggered low through the bedroom, heading toward the door.

Hermione cursed but followed with a hand at his back.

He reached for the doorknob. Hermione tugged at his shirt, but her silent warning came too late. The skin of his right hand seared against the hot metal, blinding white pain blanking his vision and tearing a scream from his throat.

"Draco!" Hermione's hands gripped his shoulders. "Are you okay?"

He pressed his right arm against his chest, the tight skin of his burned palm curling his fingers inward. It hurt. But he clenched his teeth and nodded anyway. "I'm fine."

The answer seemed to satisfy.

"Where's Mitchell's room?"

Draco gestured left, toward the water closet. Hermione led, walking in a low crouch, the top of her head cutting through the haze. She stopped them at the door with an outstretched arm and took aim.

"Bombarda!"

The wall separating the two water closets exploded. Draco ducked, shielding himself against the spray of tile shards and splintered wooden studs. The smoke-filled air thickened with plaster dust. He panted, struggling to breathe.

"Help! Help!" Mitchell's tinny cries were weak but audible. He was alive.

"Go!" Hermione pushed him forward.

On aching knees, they scuttled toward the balcony and the promise of clear air.

Smoke poured from the open sliding door. Draco lunged outside, caught himself against the railing, and gasped an inhale. The evening air was cool against his torched throat, fresh in his polluted lungs.

Behind him, Hermione's first breath was a curse. "Shite! We have to go!"

Draco followed her eyes and caught her panic. The door to Mitchell's bedroom was aflame.

Fingers of fire shredded the thick maple wood like parchment, and the frame collapsed into ash and charcoal within seconds. Within the fire's steady roar was a discordant melody of ominous groans and a staccato percussion of sharp pops and cracks.

It was the sound of destruction, now upon them, signalling their end.

With a swish-and-flick, Draco levitated the mirror. He flung it away, an aimed if uncontrolled throw into the infinity pool below. Hermione blasted the metal railing apart from the stone balcony. A series of small explosions allowed her to flick the twisted metal off to either side.

Open air stretched beyond their feet. The pool seemed impossibly far away, the surrounding stone pavers intimidatingly wide. It was a two storey drop from Mitchell's balcony.

"Draco."

Hermione's eyes held a reflection of his own terror. He took her hand and backed them up to the sliding door, the glass beginning to warp, near molten with heat.

A moment of breath lingered between them.

Draco wanted to fill it.

He wanted to acknowledge their fear and promise an outcome that did not end in severe injury or death.

He wanted to tell her what she meant to him.

Explain the depth of his love, the ferocity of his devotion, the folly of his hope.

But cursed fire raged at their backs, reaching for them with greedy fingers and a slavering mouth.

His grand declarations would have to wait.

On an unspoken count, they ran.

Leapt.

The water glimmered, livid with orange and yellow flame, rushing to meet them.

Draco closed his eyes, held his breath, and hit hard.

The impact tore Hermione's hand from his.

He sank alone, dazed, the water warm and saline. Quiet save for the beat of his heart.

Contact with the pool floor jolted him into focus. He pushed up from the bottom, kicking toward the water's surface and bursting through it with a gasp.

"Hermione…" His cry was little more than a croak. He coughed and tried again. "Hermione!"

"Here!" She bobbed a few feet away, treading water.

"Mitchell?"

She shook her head.

Draco shoved his wand into the waistband of his pants, filled his lungs with air, and dove, ignoring the sting in his eyes as he searched.

The mirror rested flat against the bottom, with Mitchell pounding against the glass in panic. Draco swam to it and worked his fingers around its edge. His singed lungs ached with the effort of dragging it to the surface.

Hermione prowled the pool's edge, each panicked footstep slapping water against the pavers.

"Draco!" She fell to her knees and reached for him.

But he was sinking. Unable to keep himself and the mirror afloat, and its weight too great to swim with, Draco's body failed as it consumed the last molecules of his adrenaline.

"Take the mirror!" His head dipped underwater as he lifted it high. The weight disappeared from his hands as Hermione snatched it with a spell.

The fight left him.

He floated for a moment, Hermione's screams muted by the water's weight.

He'd asked for this.

Just last night, he'd wished for it: escape via ocean, a respite from conflict, and pain, and strife.

Today, he could have it.

It would be so easy…

A body crashed into the water. Hermione's arms linked beneath his armpits, and her legs kicked furiously against his. Their heads broke the water's surface.

"What… The hell…" Hermione panted as she propelled them to the shallow end. "Draco?" She tapped his cheek with the tips of her fingers. "Draco!"

"I'm fine…" He rested his head against her shoulder, breathing the salt air and the scent of her skin. "Just need a minute."

"We don't have a minute." Hermione deposited him on the pool's steps, then slid her body from beneath his and pointed her wand at his chest. "Rennervate."

A force like lightning arced through him, activating each neuron and cell. His heart lurched, then sped into a gallop, sending him into a seat with short, sharp, "Ah!"

"Better?"

He looked up at her, chest heaving with breath. "Better."

"Good." Her eyes hardened. "Don't do that to me again."

She rose and sloshed out of the pool. With a groan, he followed. The parts of him that had screamed in pain now merely ached, and his exhaustion had lessened. The after-effects of tonight would catch up with him later; Draco knew he would feel every second of stress in his body and brain.

But not yet. Not until they were safe.

The Fiendfyre curse would burn until nothing remained of the structure upon which it was cast. Already, drops of molten spittle rained from the engulfed edge of the stone balcony to consume the pavers below.

It would come for them next.

Hermione took Draco's outstretched hand and helped him to his feet. With the mirror levitating behind them, they skirted the burning patches of stone and picked their way across gravel nursery beds, the small stones sharp against their bare feet.

Narcissa waited for them in The Khôra's front garden. She paced like a caged animal, face drawn with abject fear. Clover mirrored her every step.

"Mum?"

It was barely a whisper, but a mother always knows the cry of her young.

Her face crumpled. She rushed toward him, and Draco held her tight as she sobbed into his shoulder. She felt small in his arms. Fragile. He wasn't sure when he'd grown taller than the woman who had always loomed so large in his life.

The Khôra groaned. Draco moved them back a reflexive step as a wave of heat blasted forward.

A fiery minotaur burst through what remained of the mansion's roof. Taloned fingers stretched from muscled arms, grasping for purchase, bent on destroying the works of man. Finding none, it leaned its head back and closed its beady, coal-dark eyes. Barrel chest furred in flame, it bellowed a cry of pain and rage. Draco felt it in his bones. Sparks shot from its snout, lighting the midnight sky like fireworks.

As it collapsed, The Khôra came with it.

Support beams broke like brittle bones, each snap as sharp as a whip crack and just as painful. A low, mournful sound hummed through the night air as the mansion sank in on itself, harmonised by Narcissa, who had lost her sanctuary in the span of an hour.

They stared at the smouldering, smoking ruin until light edged the horizon.

And in that time, Draco came to terms with the truth.

"This is my fault."

His mother's eyes, older and more weary than he'd ever seen, found his. The culprit was obvious, the mistake inexcusably foolish.

"Rosie."

Draco had Summoned her, understanding both her forced allegiance and the compulsion of her species. And instead of freeing her, he'd let her return to Brutus' control, who had then compelled the truth from her unwilling heart.

Draco's mercy had cost them their safety, leaving them without shelter or safe harbour.

Narcissa held onto his upper arm as if to keep herself upright. "Where do we go?"

They couldn't go back to Malfoy Manor. At this point, they had enough evidence to conclude that an unplanned confrontation with Brutus would not end in their favour. And Brutus' successful foray into felony arson had been an attempt not only on their lives, but also on the mirror.

He'd promised as much at Gringotts; tonight, he'd nearly succeeded.

Did Brutus know how close he'd come to killing them? Had he waited? Watched?

A chill crawled down his spine, and Draco whipped a look over his shoulder. Nothing but shadows stood beneath the cypress trees. No human or elf-shaped figures lurked beneath the bushes.

But the sound of a collapsing house could easily hide the crack of Disapparition.

"What do you see?" Hermione faced the lifting darkness with him, wand drawn. The water had pulled her hair into long waves and made her t-shirt cling to her skin. She looked like a berserker in the most literal way: ready to wage war in nothing but cotton.

Draco, in his soaked boxer briefs, wasn't much better.

"Nothing yet," he said, "but we can't stay here much longer. We need to assume the worst: that Brutus knows he failed to kill us and destroy the mirror. He'll come after us again."

Narcissa's grip on his arm tightened. "What do we do?"

He glared out into the darkness as adrenaline made way for anger. "We're going to France."

"France? You mean…"

"The countryside château, yes. We're going to end this. What better place than where it all began?" Draco looked from Narcissa to Clover. "Take Mother," he instructed. "We'll be right behind you."

The elf took Narcissa's hand and Disapparated them, not bothering to wait for her mistress' approval.

Draco turned to Hermione next. "Can you Side-Along with the mirror?"

She ended the levitation charm and rested the mirror atop the bridge of her foot, leaning it against her side for support. Wand tucked behind her ear, she wrapped an arm around the back of the mirror, her fingers barely grasping the frame's far edge. It was clumsy, but it kept her out of contact with the glass.

It would have to work.

Draco took her hand and spun in place, snapping them out of Greece and into France.

He'd visited Château Malfoi as a young child, accompanying Lucius on his once-a-decade survey of their global properties. He didn't remember it well and misjudged the landing, setting them in an abandoned pear orchard on the property's west side.

The cold of a late October morning in the northwestern region of the Loire Valley left Draco breathless. Frost sugared fallen fruit, which littered the ground around them. Steam rose from their Mediterranean-warmed skin and puffed from their lungs in crystalline clouds. Hermione began to shiver.

"Shite, sorry. I'll get us closer." He could see the château's peaked silhouette through the fruit trees' twisted limbs.

A second spin landed them on overgrown grass, which melted dew against their bare ankles.

The château was a boxy, three-storey structure made of tan stone. Its shutters—off-white and filthy from decades, perhaps even centuries of neglect—were closed to protect the thin windows. A candle flickered somewhere deep within the house; Narcissa and Clover had arrived safely. Its dim light shone through one of the ground floor's missing shutter slats. The château's four chimneys lay dormant, and the blue shingled roof appeared to have weathered the years more or less intact.

Hermione's teeth chattered as they walked up the small set of steps and through the front door. The old hinges stuck; Draco jarred them loose with a firm hit from his shoulder.

Indoors provided little relief from the cold. The front hallway was bare of furniture, the wall sconces candleless and crusted over with old wax hardened into eternal drips. Dust clung to the soles of Draco's wet feet as they followed the faint sounds of habitation. Their tracks revealed an intricately tiled floor. It ran from the front door through the hallway, then transitioned to parquet when they reached the living areas.

The floor varnish was faded and flaking, but Draco could imagine the château's former beauty. How the wood must have shone in the sunlight, imbuing the rooms with warmth. How the chandeliers that hung over the twelve-person maple dining set would have glittered, scattering rainbows over the attendees. How the gold accents on the wallpaper, the wood panelling, the trim, and the fixtures would have emphasised the family's wealth instead of looking, as it now did, like a desperate attempt to maintain status during a period of obvious decline.

They found the kitchen—the heart of all Malfoy homes—through a double acting door. Clover had started a fire in the central hearth and was making exceptional use of her elven magic to clean a dented kettle and a tarnished silver tea service.

Narcissa sat slumped at the small kitchen table, hands folded, knuckles white where they pressed together. Hermione set the mirror down across from her and joined Draco before the fire, arms crossed tightly over her chest. He looped an arm over her shoulder and drew her close. He wore little more than she did at the moment and probably wasn't much help in warming her.

But it felt right to hold her.

To take and give comfort to a woman who had risked so much for him tonight.

To a woman who had saved his life.

Draco's chest tightened with the realisation.

Hermione had saved his life.

Stiffly, he lowered his arm. The awkward gesture earned him a confused look.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah." The answer squeaked out from a throat that was quickly closing. He wasn't okay. Not even close. "Excuse me."

Draco stepped back into the dining room, first at a walk, controlling his pace until he felt the gorge rise inside him and cold sweat prickle beneath his arms.

He eased into a jog.

A run.

A sprint.

But there was no outrunning panic.

Tears blurred his eyes. When he finally fell to his knees, he hoped it was far enough from the kitchen that Hermione could not hear. Draco curled over himself. His forehead touched the floor and he took a deep, shuddering breath.

He screamed.

In anger: for the hurt Brutus has caused; for the stress they had endured; for the pain still to come.

In fear: for the unending string of setbacks and defeats; for the inadequacies these failures had exposed; for the consequences mismanaged expectations would bring.

In loss: for Mitchell's autonomy; for Narcissa's sanctuary; for Hermione's desire for freedom; for Draco's desire for her.

His hope at privacy vanished at the touch of a hand on his shoulder. Hermione sank down beside him. Her hip pressed against his, her bare legs goose-fleshed and tented, her grass-flecked ankles aligned, her dirty soles and toes flat against the floor.

She gave him silence, but not space.

Her hand held steady on his back until the echoes of his scream died away. Until he felt capable of straightening. Draco ran fingers through his hair, searching for order, for a scrap of the control he'd abandoned.

He found nothing but truth.

"I've fucked it all up."

Draco met her unflinching eyes: amber stones upon which he could dash himself until she rendered final judgement.

"From the beginning, I've done nothing but make mistake after mistake. It started with lying to you, it got worse by not listening to Mitchell, and it's ended here by not heeding my mother. Every decision I've made, every path I've chosen has taken us from bad to worse. I can't do it any more, Hermione." He looked away from her, hung his head. "I can't."

"Does that mean you're ready to listen?"

He practically sobbed the answer. "Yes."

"Then look at me and listen well."

When he faced her again, her eyes seemed to glitter.

"The world does not revolve around you. These decisions you've made? You haven't made them alone. We've been in this together. We've survived this long together. Our mistakes are shared, as is the responsibility for those failures."

"But—"

"Listen. You say you can't? Bullshite. I say you must. We don't have the luxury of walking away or giving up. We never have. Yes, the stakes are high. Yes, we're at a disadvantage. But we're not done yet. Not until Brutus is recaptured and the mirror is destroyed."

"Destroyed?"

"You're right," she said. "You were right all along. Brutus' soul is broken. I want to be selfish. I want to understand the link between us, and I want to break it. But it wouldn't be right to prolong his agony for that. We're going to destroy the mirror. It's the only way to end things. And Draco? You're going to tell us how."

"I don't know how."

"Don't you?" Hermione's tone snapped his eyes to hers once more. "Look around."

He and Hermione sat in the centre of an empty ballroom lined with floor to ceiling mirrors.

Reminiscent of Versailles, the ballroom was long and rectangular. The architects must have worked a permanent charm into the wood and plaster, because the ceiling appeared vaulted, even after years of abandonment.

Painted frescoes illustrated the history of the family Malfoi: wealthy landowners and respected knights; members of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy; political taste-makers and foppish dandies.

Men, all.

Draco didn't stop to examine what that meant about his heritage. It was nothing complimentary.

Like Versailles, the room's only windows faced west. Unlike Versailles, the western view was on the short wall. Draco could imagine light glittering through the clear panes at sunset, reflecting off the four crystal chandeliers. But the lack of early light meant that, in the morning, maybe until as late as noon, the windows functioned more as mirrors.

It was a huge, reflective rectangle.

"Tell me."

His eyes flit back to Hermione's, who looked at him with stubborn expectation. Like she knew the answer and was growing impatient waiting for him to catch up. It warmed him, the expression so familiar that this strange place suddenly felt like home and his flaws felt inconsequential against all he could achieve at her side.

"Tell me your plan," she pressed. "Tell me how we're going to end this."

And so he did.