A Hundred Storms
Chapter Twenty-Seven: When it was You and Me
Blow the candles out
Looks like a solo tonight
I'm beginning to see the light
- Candles, by Hey Monday
"Oh Merlin," Hermione whispered.
"Sweet Salazar," Draco agreed.
The Maliceptor stopped just within the doorway and teetered on its spindly legs. Hermione couldn't make out any eyes, but she was sure it could see them in some fashion.
"Why isn't it moving?" Draco breathed.
"I don't know," Hermione replied just as softly. But as soon as the words left her mouth the creature began to move. One leg stepped forward slowly, as though testing the ground. Once it was sure of the path the other legs followed close behind.
"What is it doing?" Draco asked.
"Stalking," Hermione replied.
Draco turned towards her, but his eyes never left the monster. "What can it really do to us?" he asked her.
"I would prefer to not find out," she said. "Get out the mirror."
From her own pocket Hermione pulled out a miniature Beater's bat. With a whisper the shrinking charm was removed and Hermione swung the stubby bat in a practice figure eight motion.
"Good thinking, Granger," Draco commented when he saw her weapon of choice.
"My aim is terrible," she told him, no longer whispering. She watched the Maliceptor take another cautious step.
"Just as long as you make contact," Draco replied. The mirror was now gripped in both hands like a shield.
The creature was moving with more confidence now. The way it moved was reminding Hermione of the way a Praying Mantis walked, legs moving together in a way that was clearly unnatural. The right appendage that could have been an arm swung out towards them, but they still had at least ten feet of clearance.
"Offense or Defense?" Draco asked.
"A good offense is the best defense," Hermione suggested. "Let's get this over with. Do you have a couple vials? We need to try to douse it."
Draco nodded and Hermione uncorked one with the flick of her thumb on the hand free of the bat. Without preamble Hermione whipped the vial at the Maliceptor, twisting her wrist at the end to make the liquid shoot out of the glass container first and on to the smoggy skin of the creature before them. To her dismay the skin absorbed the liquid and the vial, the purple coloring soaking into the flesh and not changing a thing.
"Ohhh," Hermione moaned. "It's not working."
"Maybe it just needs more coverage," Draco suggested, sidestepping Hermione and throwing his own vial in the same fashion as she just had while balancing the mirror against his hip. The result was the same, however, and the creature didn't even take notice of the small assault.
"It's not going to work," Hermione lamented, mostly to herself. "We need to attack."
"It's absorbing what we throw at it," Draco countered.
"We still have to try," Hermione argued in frustration. "We're not going to get out of here if we don't."
"Get behind me, Granger," Draco said as he lifted the mirror and took a steady step towards the Maliceptor.
"I don't stand behind anyone, Malfoy," Hermione said.
"I mean it Granger, get out of the way, I'm about to swing," Draco warned and Hermione moved a few feet to the right. Draco lifted the heavy mirror over his head and charged the Maliceptor.
"Arrgghhh!" Draco swung the mirror up and over, connecting with the Maliceptor's neck. With the impact Draco staggered back and lost control of the mirror. He regained his balance and he and Hermione watched with sick fascination as the mirror, the size of a large child, stuck to the greasy flesh and began to disappear inside. A contact like that would have obliterated the creature before.
"I don't think smashing it will work anymore," Hermione observed.
"What was your first clue, Granger?" Draco snapped.
"My turn, then," Hermione muttered and began to make her way towards the towering creature.
"What are you doing? Are you mad?" Draco tried to grab for Hermione but she was already out of his reach.
"No time to be passive, Malfoy," Hermione said, gripping her bat. She made her way around the edge of the cauldron that had still blocked the direct path between them and their tormenter. Hermione kept her eyes on the arms, but in the blink of an eye the Maliceptor was on top of her, rearing its legs like a frightened horse.
"GRANGER MOVE!" Draco bellowed and plowed into her, knocking her to the ground and out of the way as the Maliceptor came down on top of him.
"DRACO!" Hermione screamed as one of the mantis-like legs swung down and connected with Draco's side. Hermione watched in horror as blood erupted from the contact and his body flew backward and landed hard on the stone floor. His head bounced painfully where it landed and his eyes were closed when it hit again.
"DRACO! DRACO!" Hermione was screaming for the man to wake, but there was no reaching him now. She scrambled to her feet and turned to the Maliceptor with angry tears in her eyes.
"What do you want from us?" Hermione's voice was lower now. She didn't think the Maliceptor could really understand speech and wasn't surprised when it failed to respond. Instead, now that the other target was out of the way, it turned towards Hermione.
Hermione gripped the Beaters bat and in her fury threw it at the creature. She stared as the impact was absorbed by the greasy exterior and she replaced the bat with her wand. Hermione grabbed a handful of beakers filled with the purple liquid and uncorked and threw them one at a time. Each time the body of the Maliceptor absorbed the liquid like the bat, leaving no color behind.
There was barely five feet between them now. She glanced, defeated, at the Slytherin that just saved her and then focused on her enemy. She couldn't let him die for her, she would not let him die for her.
"Bastard," Hermione growled. She felt the energy rage in her and screamed again, "BASTARD!" Hermione saw red, the likes of which she couldn't remember. When Malfoy laughed at Buckbeak's beheading, when she thought Snape was a traitor, when she saw Umbridge leading the charge against everyone she cared for, when Ron left her out of jealous anger and when Harry left her to greet death. She couldn't handle anyone else leaving her. Not again. She reached back into her mind and dug out the only spell she could think of that could possibly work when others failed.
"SECTUMSEMPRA!" She screeched at the top of her lungs and cut her wand through the air like the knife she wished could stick into the thing that she couldn't physically touch anymore.
The effect was instantaneous. The thick, dirty smog that made up the body was sliced to ribbons, falling away and disintegrating into dense smoke. Hermione whipped her wand through the air again and repeated the spell that she swore she would never use. The Maliceptor wrenched one more step toward her before the curse annihilated the rest of the body into nothing.
Hermione didn't waste a heartbeat. With a swish and flick she gently but expertly lifted Draco's unconscious form and severed off a piece of her robe. She used her wand to wrap the makeshift bandage around Draco's middle to keep the pressure on the wound and the blood at bay. With speed she hadn't used in a year she came tearing out of the potions classrooms shouting for assistance.
"HELP! Someone please!" Hermione yelled as she ran, Draco's limp body trailing fast behind her. Several flights of unpredictable stairs still stood between her and the hospital wing, and the blood was already soaking through her dark robe and onto the ancient floor.
A crack marked the appearance of Winky, and Hermione slowed to a stop with Draco, relief washing over her.
"Miss calls?" Winky asked, her large eyes alarmed and fixed on Draco's floating form.
"Winky, oh Merlin," Hermione gasped. "Winky, are you able to take him tot he hospital wing? I can't Apparate us within Hogwarts."
Winky blinked and nodded. Cautiously she reached up above her head and took hold of a piece of fabric dangling down from Draco's robe. Without another word Winky and Draco disappeared with another crack and Hermione was alone.
Hermione didn't give herself a minute's reprieve. As soon as Winky and Draco were out of sight Hermione barreled off again and didn't stop until she reached the infirmary.
Finally reaching the doors she grabbed the handles and pulled them open with all the might she had left. Madam Pomfrey was already there, accompanied by McGonagall. On the bed lay Draco, naked from the waist up and covered in thick red blood.
"Oh no," Hermione breathed as she flew across the room to the bed. "Oh no, no, no, no."
"Shhh," McGonagall put a firm hand on Hermione's shoulder and guided her gently to a chair beside the bed. "Miss Granger, what happened?"
"It's so big now," Hermione mumbled. "We didn't expect it to be so big. It was unresponsive to most spells before, but physical contact worked. It didn't work. We tried but-"
"Shhhh," McGonagall said again. "It's alright now. He will be alright. Poppy already had a look. Whatever hit him didn't do any lasting damage."
"What?" Hermione's head was spinning. The red rage she experienced earlier had abated and she felt like she could sleep for a year.
"He will be just fine, Miss Granger," Madam Pomfrey confirmed McGonagall's words. "The blow to the head was the worst of it. He will be out for quite some time between that and the blood replenishing potion. Your quick bandage kept the blood loss from being too severe. I already have the wound closed and dressed, see for yourself."
Hermione stood, abet shakily, to her feet and gripped the edge of the hospital bed. Pomfrey was right, while Hermione had been trying to relay the events of the last hour the healer had cleaned the blood and properly bandaged the wound to Draco's side. He lay before her in his trousers and a white bandage wrapped several times around his pale torso. Hermione reached for his hand and gripped it, not really realizing what she was doing.
"Is the creature still in the dungeon?" McGonagall asked softly.
Hermione shook her head. "I got rid of it for now. The potion didn't work."
"And how did you do that?" McGonagall said, not unkindly.
"Sectumsempra," Hermione whispered, not taking her eyes of the boy who once fell victim to it.
If McGonagall reacted to Hermione's confession Hermione didn't notice. She drug the chair McGonagall had provided for her closer to the bed and sat down off her shaky legs, never letting go of Draco's hand. She took a deep breath and looked up into McGonagall's concerned face.
"Professor, I'm out of my element," Hermione confessed. "I don't know what to do."
McGonagall looked down at her brightest student with a sad smile. "We all face challenges," she told her. "I'm so very sorry yours are so exceptionally hard to bear. Have you any leads yet to the cause?"
"Nothing," Hermione's eyes focused on Draco's peaceful face. "Draco even went to his mother. We can't think of anyone."
"Curious, that Severus's spell worked when others did not, isn't it?" McGonagall inquired.
Hermione lifted her shoulders silently. "It's a dark spell. I didn't know what else to do."
"It's not illegal," McGonagall reminded her. "Dangerous, of course, but it appears to have come through for you this day. Please, explain from the beginning."
Hermione launched into her tale, beginning with when they arrived to collect the potion (while omitting the daring speech Draco gave), how Draco had pushed her out of the way and took the blow for himself, and ending with her flight to the infirmary after Winky disappeared with Draco.
"I must thank her," Hermione said to herself. "Poor thing, I probably frightened her half to death."
"Winky is doing just fine as well," McGonagall said with a small smile. "The House Elves at Hogawarts are always ready to lend a hand to a student in need. I would wager she is being celebrated most famously in the kitchen right now."
Hermione finally smiled at the image. She imagined the kitchen full of House Elves lifting Winky on their small shoulders and cheering wildly for her. It wasn't long before she sobered, though.
"It will be back.," Hermione told her teacher. "I know I didn't...kill it. The source is still unknown. Did anyone come into the infirmary at all today?"
McGonagall shook her head. "Nothing out of the ordinary. Marissa Cummings was in earlier with a case of cursed hiccups from another student, Connor Gibbon suffered a nosebleed hex, and Terrance Weatherby had a small potions accident during his morning classes. Truly, Miss Granger, in all my years here at Hogwarts you and your friends seem to have the most colorful visits to this part of the castle than any other student I ever had the pleasure of teaching."
Hermione flushed and looked up at her professor, who still had a kind smile on her face. Minerva McGonagall was normally very severe, but she knew the benefit of bending to the needs of her children. Her young Gryffindor may not feel like it anymore, but she was still very much a child, and children need comfort.
"It appears you and Mr. Malfoy have become very close," McGonagall observed nonchalantly. "And from what you say our Mr. Malfoy here is indeed deserving of merit. It sounds like you were very lucky he was there for you."
Hermione looked back at Draco, having been unable to read the expressions on McGonagall's weathered face. If she didn't know better she would say their Professor was fishing.
"Professor?" Hermione asked an unspoken question.
"You both have shown admirable resilience," Professor McGonagall answered. "You both," she looked at the unconscious boy on the bed. "You both have been through more than anyone with any decency should ask of you, and yet here you are. You, Miss Granger, and Mr. Malfoy, have been an exceptional example of what we've fought for. I'm not ashamed to say I am happily surprised at this relationship- yes, relationship, that the two of you have displayed. If this is the future of the Wizarding world, then I have to say we are in excellent, most excellent hands."
Hermione was speechless at her teacher's admission. "Professor, I-"
McGonagall waved her hand. "I know we have never allowed you to stay in the infirmary overnight before unless you were the one with the ailment, but I think we can waive that rule just this once."
Hermione opened her mouth and then shut it. She hadn't noticed, but Madam Pomfrey had left the room. When Hermione gave no other indication that she could speak, Professor McGonagall left the infirmary.
Hermione watched Draco's chest rise and fall. When she felt confident she was completely alone with him she stood and gave him a kiss on his forehead. When she sat back down she bowed her head over the hand she clasped over his and sobbed.
(A/N) Loved this chapter :) This is one of those chapters that wrote itself. Who is it? I left a hint in this chapter, did you find it?