Disclaimer: No copy right infringement is intended; I write for fun and to learn.
Chapter 15: Right Blood
Every memory of every awful thing Malfoy had ever done to me swam to the forefront of my mind. Still, none of it hurt like this.
For what felt like centuries, I stood with my feet rooted to the floor, watching as Daphne threaded her bony fingers through the silky strands of hair at Draco's nape. He pushed Daphne away, a startled expression on his face, but I refused to see the half-formed apology in his eyes.
I had been such a fool. Such a damn fool.
Draco staggered away from Daphne, whom, ironically, did not look smug, but angry-with me, as though I had interrupted something really important between them. Good, I thought with vindictive satisfaction.
"Hermione…"
"Don't you dare say my name," I said. Draco took a forward step and I moved back.
"Shit-Hermione, please. It's not what you think, I swear."
Bile rose in my throat, hot and bitter, and tears welled in my eyes. To my credit, they weren't tears of hurt, but anger. Without another word, I fled to the exit from the stairwell, back into the Atrium. Detective Trotman had gone, and as I heard Draco burst from the doors behind me I turned and Apparated to the only place I could stop him from following me.
I appeared in the middle of my living room and immediately reset my wards. When I was certain neither he nor anybody could enter without having me literally open my front door to them, my knees buckled and I collapsed to the floor. My head was a tangle of sticky thoughts and I could barely extract one to focus on.
God.
How could I have been so blind? Of course Draco had been playing me. All those wonderful things he'd said, and I trusted him because I thought he deserved a second chance. He had been playing all of us the entire time. I had to tell Harry of my findings. I needed to put as much distance between my thoughts of Draco and the present as possible, because as much as I wanted to hate him at this moment, I didn't. I loved him, and that only made the pain from this betrayal worse.
I winced as I tightened my fist, and the sharp edges of something dug into my palm. It was the picture of Charlotte Bell that Detective Trotman had given me. I briefly left the chaos of my life behind. Setting my wand on the floor next to me, I unfurled my fist. It was slightly disturbing, how she stared so adoringly at him. Ironically, I could imagine exactly how she might have felt when he left her for another woman. My own feelings of betrayal seeped back into my awareness. I suddenly had the strange feeling that I had made a mistake. What if Daphne had just been using Draco to get to me-
"Petrificus Totalus!"
My arms and legs pulled taut as bowstrings; my spine audibly cracked at the sudden jerk. I lay prone and paralyzed in the middle of my living room floor. In my line of sight, my wand lay within inches of my useless fingers.
Even as my brain worked overtime, sending commands of movement, of panic, I could only lie in wait with my cheek pressed to the rough carpet. My wand was snatched away, snapped like a twig, and then thrown to a corner of the room; all hope was flung away with it.
There was no doubt in my mind as to who this person was that hated me with such intensity. My attacker vibrated with negative energy; I could literally feel the malice and madness rolling off her in waves.
"You filthy, Mudblood bitch," she said in a voice hard enough to cut glass. She suddenly flipped me onto my back with a swift, painful kick to my ribs. My eyes rolled to the back of my head before I focused on her tiny, angelic face-the product of an exceptional Youth Potion.
Charlotte Bell looked just as I had seen her twice before, except now I looked at her with the knowledge of her capability and of her madness. Though her skin was smooth and young and fresh, her eyes burned with experience, and a whole host of other awful things I hoped to never see in a living person again.
She lifted her leg and pressed the sole of her boot into the center of my chest. She was no longer the shy, pixie-like girl clinging to Ron's arm, but a calculating murderer. The shiny gold RightBlood pin on her cloak glinted in the light. She glanced to the badge on her chest and smiled.
"RightBlood," she said. "It was the perfect cover, right? Tell a bunch of rich, spoiled, Pureblood kids that they're better than everyone else, and they'd do anything you ask."
It was all very clear to me, now. She used the front of an equality organization to use their connections, and their money… all so she could exact her revenge; so she could take out her anger and hurt on innocent Muggle-born women.
She's mad. She is completely insane, I thought, unable to speak my new realization.
Merlin, to think of all the information she must have gleaned from Ron. I knew he would never knowingly tell her anything, but even as I felt her probing at my mind with her wandless use of Legilimency, I knew that this woman knew all the Aurors' secrets, too.
"Oh," she said as the memory from the stairwell swam to the forefront of my mind. "Seems that the Mudblood's gotten a taste of her own tonight. Did you enjoy our little display?"
She continued to scan through my memories, slowing at every one that featured Draco: The night on the balcony, the night we first made love, his visits to my hospital bedside, even the argument with Ron…. I blinked, the only part of my body that could move, in order to stem the flow of tears.
The boot pressed harder into my chest. "Spare me the tears, bitch. You deserve no mercy, and tonight you will die." She leaned in close so that I could see her eyes burning like hot coals. "And then, we will toss your body aside like the filthy, worthless Mudblood you are."
She brandished her wand, and the effects of the petrifying spell were vanished. The moment my vocals cords relaxed, I screamed. I screamed until my throat burned and tears streamed from my face. I screamed until my lungs stopped working.
"You can scream until your throat bleeds; no one will come. You see, while you were out playing Mudblood the Investigator, I've been preparing for your return. All these weeks I've watched you throwing yourself at a decent pureblood man like a whore. I've had to listen to Ron talk about you like a lovesick bastard, and to what end?" She screwed her face into a sneer. "To taint Pureblood legacies … stealing our men."
"You're crazy," I said, my voice rough and weak beneath the pressure of her foot.
"Oh, Hermione," she said. "You have no idea." She pulled a velvet, blood-red pouch from her cloak and let it dangle from her fingers. "Do you know what I have here?"
"I don't … care."
"You should. You see, this is the powdered root of Firestar. A dash of this to your bare skin, and that plain face of yours will be scarred for life without immediate medical attention." She lowered her voice to a delicate leer. "Any more than that, and I get to watch your filthy blood spill all over the floor of your meager little home. Hm, doesn't that sound like fun?"
"Burn in hell."
She started to speak, but her attention was suddenly drawn to the door. A harsh grin formed on her face. "Speaking of fun: we have a guest." She pointed her wand at the door, reciting a list of spells and charms, and then looked back to me. "What have you done to the door?"
I didn't answer. I couldn't; my throat felt raw. She kicked me hard in the ribs again. This time, I heard, and felt, the sickening snap of bone. Tears rolled back into my ears and hair. What little breath I had ripped painfully from my lungs.
I curled into a ball and my arms protected my midsection as she kneeled in front of my face. She grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked back until my eyes were wide and trained on hers.
"If you scream when that door opens, I will kill you and anyone that comes running, do you understand?"
I was already dead. I'd known that lying face down on the carpet. There was no way I was taking my innocent neighbors down with me.
"Yes," I breathed.
"Get up." She released me and I fell to the floor like a broken doll. I hadn't the strength to breathe, let alone stand or scream or run. "Get up, and open the door."
I dragged myself to my knees and onto my feet. I had to escape. I knew that if I let the visitor through the door, I would never get out alive.
I shuffled as I approached the door, taking shallow breaths against the searing pain in my rib cage. This was my only chance. I flung the door wide, barreling over who turned out to be Daphne in her buttercup yellow dress. She cried out in surprise, but I didn't look back. I ran flat out, but awkwardly in the strapped sandals I'd worn to the ball. Light rain had begun to fall, turning the pavement into a slippery obstacle course. Each foot fall jostled my ribs, sending white hot pain careening through my body. I rounded the corner, and froze mid-step.
The bark of crazed laughter that followed was reminiscent of a Bellatrix Lestrange brand of lunacy.
"Where did you think you were going, Mudblood?" Charlotte asked.
Like a puppet, my body turned and marched back towards the house … away from my only chance to live. Fear settled like lead in my gut. Logically, I knew this was the end. I was wandless, broken, and outnumbered. There was no way I would live to see her pay for the awful things she'd done; not just to me, but to five other innocent women. Still, some place deep inside, I knew my friends, and Draco, would come. They would find me in time. All I had to do was stay alive until then.
And suddenly, my heart soared. It couldn't be. A familiar thatch of white-blond hair drew my eye.
There was Draco, crouched between two bushes. He was hidden, except for his eyes that shone like silver beacons under the moonlight. He lifted one finger and pressed it to his mouth-silencing the scream of joy that had surely been rising in my throat. I would have forgiven him for anything in this moment if he could rescue me from Charlotte.
My vision swam and it was all I could do to stay on my feet, but the pain was blinding.
"Please, Charlotte…I need-"
"Shut up, Mudblood. I don't care what you need." She dug her wand into my side-right between my two broken ribs-urging me forward. The pain that ripped through my body blinded me and I fell in the front door, on top of a bleeding, very unconscious Daphne Greengrass.
"What the-"
Suddenly, Charlotte's wand soared through the air and bounced silently on the carpet and landed in the dark hallway beyond. Without missing a beat, Draco fell upon her, twisting one arm and then the other behind her back. A sense of relief washed over me as he raised his wand to bind her wrists.
"Hermione, are you-?" In a surprising show of strength, Charlotte's pixie-like body bucked and threw Draco off.
She turned and connected her boot with his chin. Blood poured from the slice in his lip. Her second kicked knocked Draco's wand from his hand, and it sailed out the door behind him. He blocked the next kick, and gave her ankle a sharp twist. She cried out, and threw a heavy glass figurine at his head, and narrowly missed.
Now would have been my chance. The front door was open to the drizzly street and completely unguarded, but I couldn't leave Draco behind.
The air crackled with the intensity of Charlotte's rage. She lunged at Draco, forcing him back. She straddled his waist, and punched him relentlessly. Her wild, mad magic swirled around her, blowing like a red, livid wind. Books flew from the shelves; the pages ripped from their spines like leaves from branches.
Draco was using every ounce of his strength to keep her from clawing at his face. He grunted as a perfectly aimed fist caught him in the jaw. Droplets of blood from his already busted lip landed in a splattered pattern on the light carpet. He used his left hand to block her fists, while he clutched her neck with the other, and visibly shaking with the effort of refraining from squeezing the very life from her.
"Goddamn it," he growled. "Don't make me kill you."
"Bloodtraitor!" she screamed at him. A heavy leather-bound edition of Hogwarts: A History slammed into his head at her silent command. The blow momentarily stunned him, and it was just enough time for Charlotte to gain the upper hand. With her wand lost among the debris, she picked up a snow globe and held it high above her head.
No. I had to do something-
Next to Daphne's head was the pouch that contained the powdered flower root. Time seemed to stop as I struggled to catch the little pouch in my fingertips. My entire body throbbed like the beat of a drum with the pain of what I expected was a pretty bad break of at least two ribs. The white and gold snow globe glinted in the light as it sailed through the air on a downward arc.
"No!" I screamed. My breathed sawed out of my lungs as I fought not to pass out.
My sudden outburst drew her attention and she blinked as though she'd forgotten I was there.
"I'm the one you want," I said. I continued to talk as I untied the drawstring on the pouch, careful not to touch the contents. "I'm the Muggleborn, just don't hurt Draco."
She moved too fast. Between one blink and the next, she lunged at me. She dropped the snow globe and picked up a splintered shard of my wooden table. My clumsy fingers fumbled with the drawstring. She swung the sharp edge of wood-
"Stupefy!"
And just like that, Charlotte fell, mid-lunge, directly atop Daphne. The fragment of wood landed soundlessly on the carpet, and the silence that followed was deafening. The only sound was my own heavy, erratic breathing and the soft groans coming from Draco.
Through graying vision, I saw Draco, his arm still extended from where he had crawled to the doorway and retrieved his wand.
ooo
Harry was kneeling over me. His brows were drawn up, under the rain-soaked fringe across his forehead.
I must have passed out, because my house was teeming with Ministry personnel. "Merlin, Hermione, are you all right?" he asked. I cried out when he tried to embrace me, and he jumped back in alarm. Now that the adrenaline was beginning to wear off, the barest hint of touch set my tender ribs throbbing.
"I'm fine-just a broken …" My voice trailed off when I glanced at Draco half-sitting up and wiping blood from his chin.
His face looked like he'd battled a juggernaut, and lost; blood that had leaked from the split in his lip trailed down his chin, onto his robes, and was smeared across his cheek. More blood trickled from a knot forming on his head where he'd been knocked with the book.
It was no wonder the members of the Portable Healing Unit rushed over to him. He pushed their hands away and shrugged from their efforts to assist him.
"No, I'm fine," Draco said, his speech a little slurred because of his swollen lip. "Help her, you idiot."
oooo
Someone draped a blanket over my body. Even though it was rough and scratchy, I appreciated the warmth it provided. The medi-wizard had given me a pain-killing draught. The insistent throbbing in my body had now dulled to an unpleasant twinge.
Two particularly thick-armed porters raised the gurney without jostling me. Aurors and several Law Enforcement Agents moved around my tiny living room; it seemed like every agent from level seven in the Ministry was present.
No-one noticed the grim-faced former Detective Micah Trotman as he slipped past the Aurors. Even in my draught induced haze, I knew he shouldn't be there. Daphne had already gone to St. Mungo's. Draco had gone to fill the Aurors in on what had taken place, and two other porters were preparing to cart Charlotte off to St. Mungo's where they would check her for injuries, then get her over to Azkaban to await trial.
Trotman hardly blinked as he stalked towards Charlotte. The pain-killing draught worked well, too well, in fact. My movements were sluggish and speech slurred at best. My warning never made it out in time.
Trotman stooped to pick up the pouch of Firestar root that had gone unseen by the Aurors. Nobody stopped him because he was dressed in Ministry issued robes and walked with a purpose. He walked right up to Charlotte's gurney and stopped. She blinked up at him with an unhealthy amount of adoration in her gaze. "Micah, you came back…"
"You murdered my family," he replied in a flat, toneless voice.
"They were Muggles, Mike. They could never love you like I can. I would die for you."
His mouth quirked at her last statement. The two men at either end of her gurney shifted nervously.
"Excuse us, detective," one of the porters said, "but we need to get her to St. Mungo's- what the …?"
Without word or warning, Trotman raised the pouch and dumped its contents over Charlotte's face. Agonizing, tormented screams pierced the air immediately. Her dark, hysterical eyes stood out against her bloody face in horror.
Trotman staggered back as she grasped at him, begging him to help, but he only watched. He watched in detachment as the skin of her tiny face blistered and peeled away to reveal more blood, flesh and bone. In an instant, the screams stopped and Charlotte's lifeless body hung from the gurney-her face turned in Trotman's direction, who had dropped to his knees and hung his head as the Aurors closed in on him.
My tiny living room filled beyond capacity in seconds. "Get Hermione out of here!" someone yelled.
I couldn't tear my eyes from Trotman as I was carted away from the scene. Avenging his family's deaths had done nothing to extinguish the self-loathing I knew he felt. All the hurt and torment and guilt he had experienced over the last five years would burn in him for the rest of his life.
Suddenly, my anger with Draco seemed insignificant and petty. I had come to realize many things this night: Someone, somewhere, would always be against any relationship between Draco and me. Their opposition could only make our bond stronger, but, if we were to have any kind of bond, I would have to trust him with every fiber of my being- which brought me to the incident in the stairwell of the Ministry.
Draco had once told me he would never purposely do anything to hurt or betray me, and I had believed him. Or, so I thought. If I really believed him, would I have so easily believed what my eyes interpreted as betrayal? And what did my eyes see? Daphne pressed against Draco. He didn't move, he didn't embrace her; in fact, he seemed surprised. Draco wouldn't have come after me, risked his life, if his true feelings were for Daphne.
No.
"Ms. Granger," the portable unit said, startling me from my thoughts. "We're going to have to move you around a bit when we take the Portkey to St. Mungo's."
I nodded.
The quick cadence of hurried footfalls came out of the silent night. "Wait, please, wait … I need to talk to-I need to talk to Hermione."
Draco.
The two porters stepped aside and wandered back into the house to be of use. Draco appeared at my side. He didn't speak, just studied my face with his scrutinizing stare. I suddenly felt very conscious of how awful I must look. I took little comfort in knowing that it was probably about as awful Draco.
His hair stood out in wet spikes from the rain. Most of the blood on his face had been wiped away, but his lip still seeped a bit. The knot on his head was beginning to form an ugly bruise, and all-round, he looked bone weary.
"You look terrible," he said, and softened the comment with a smile.
"So do you."
More silence passed between us.
"I hope you can believe me one day," he said grimly. "I would never hurt you. Daphne has nothing I want or need and-" I held up a hand to stop him, and he paused. "I know you don't want to hear it, Hermione, but it's the truth. She caught me off guard and, I just … shit, I don't know."
I shook my head. "Draco-"
"Damn it, I'm pants at stuff like this." He ran his fingers through his blonde spikes, the first nervous gesture I'd ever seen him make. "I wish I would have realized what I feel for you earlier. I don't think I have ever felt this way about anyone else and I would never-"
"Stop and listen to me, Draco." I pushedtwo fingers over his lips. I didn't care about the blood that was warm and sticky beneath my fingers. "Daphne and Charlotte set me up. They knew I would see the two of you kissing, and I just played right into their trap. I know you wouldn't hurt me. In fact, you saved me tonight, Draco. I was going to die and you saved me. I owe you my life."
"You don't owe me anything." He glanced over his shoulder and sighed. "I need to finish up here, and you need to get to St. Mungo's. I will be there as soon as I can." He pressed a quick kiss to my lips and I tasted the tangy, metallic taste of his blood. I nodded as he walked away and the two porters returned to my side.
Funny; his pure blood tasted no differently from mine.
"Ready, Ms. Granger?" one porter asked.
I watched Draco disappear into the house. Yes, I was ready.
The End.
AN: Phew! THANKS to everyone that stuck with the story for one whole year! Thanks to kamikaze-tryst, drcjsnider, bookofsecrets, kazfeist, and eilonwy for either beta reading or providing some kind of feedback that helped improve the story. And of course, I have appreciated all the reviews!
I hope I pleased those who were afraid of some long and drawn out angsty Dramione scene. Not my style, but it wouldn't be Dramione without some angst!
So what's next? Well, this story has an epilogue, which will be posted within a few days...and then, I am working on another story that's been stewing for about a year. I do not expect to post it for a while. Maybe I'll throw in a one-shot in the meantime.
After that...who knows? But THANKS again!
