Shutter-click.
Harry stood at the edge of the taped-off area, looking over the carnage. It was indiscriminate: bodies – what was left of them, at least – littered the street next to shattered glass, twisted sheets of metal and crumbled stone. Fire-licked merchandise was strewn in-between the debris; nearby, right inside the seclusion zone and next to Harry's foot, lay a small girl's doll. It had a pretty red ribbon in its hair, twirling under a chilly breeze that brought the smells of ash and concrete.
Click. Click.
"Let me go! Let me go! My baby – she's there! Let me go; she needs me!" A mother was crying hysterically nearby, fighting to break free of the several wizards restraining her. They had bright yellow armbands which signified them as emergency personnel. Other members of Magical Law Enforcement buzzed about the scene like a hive of angry wasps. There were aurors, forensic specialists, medical staff, and some of the top brass. Further away, a crowd of reporters had gathered, their camera flashes going off like bolts of lighting in a stormy sky.
Shutter-Click. Shutter-Click. Shutter-Click.
Near them, people congregated, forlorn, their faces lined with grief. Some of them just stood there, a silent mass, petrified with shock. Others cried freely, unashamed of expressing their emotions, and furrowed their brows in anger.
Harry understood the last group very well. There was a desperate fury in his soul that burned like acid. Again, he had failed. Again, people had died because he hadn't been good enough. His fists were clenched so hard that he felt his own fingernails digging into his skin.
He looked inside the enclosed perimeter, where the remnants of the despicable spell still lingered. It had taken a dozen aurors to contain it, and, still, it wasn't eradicated completely. As if in response to his thoughts, these remnants pulsed, and he imagined they were gloating over his helplessness and inability to assist those that had passed.
Shutter-Click.
"Easy there, mate," Ron said as he walked up and put a hand on his friend's shoulder. He had just come from a meeting with forensics, the Head Auror, MLE's director, and the Minister for Magic himself.
"What did they say?" Harry bit out through clenched teeth.
"They're working to identify the spell." Although Ron replied in a clipped, professional tone, a storm raged behind his hooded eyes. "It's old magic, familial, pureblood. Probably from some artifact that had been kept in a vault somewhere. They're looking to match it with already existing samples; if it's one of the Death Eaters that did this, we'll know by sundown."
"As if there was any doubt," Harry laughed bitterly. "Anything else?"
Ron hesitated a bit before answering and Harry turned his face to look at his. His eyes, vividly green and cold, seemed to bore into Ron's. Ron looked away.
"Well, as you know," he finally said, clearing his throat, "the minister canceled all leave, and recalled every auror… It's all hands on deck here, and everyone's checked in… everyone except Rawlings."
"He's gone?" Harry asked sharply.
"No one's been able to get a hold of him. So, yeah, I think he's run, 'Arry… This is my fucking fault. He musta read me when I approached him at the ministry; tipped the bugger right off, I did."
"Ron, no. You… no, you–we–none of us had any reason to suspect him."
Ron shook his head sadly. "We knew people in the ministry were working with the Death Eaters, Harry. I shoulda been more careful. Maybe he told whoever he was working for about my questions, maybe… Harry," Ron suddenly choked out in a hoarse whisper, "Harry, what if all of this is my fault?! He went missing the day after I talked to him! And now, this happens?! Oh, Merlin…"
"Ron, Goddamn it, stop!" Harry hissed angrily. He made sure to stand close so no one could overhear their conversation. "You know I'm standing here thinking the same things: if only I'd been better, if only we'd apprehended them sooner… If, if, if! But we can't think like that, because if you and I start wallowing in self-pity then who the fuck will close this case?! The Death Eater that made the decision to do this, to kill all these people, this is on him, and if you start blaming yourself, then we might as well just pack up and go home! So keep it together, man!" Harry shook his best friend, hard.
"You're right," Ron gulped. "I just…"
"C'mon," Harry interrupted, before Ron could delve deeper into self-doubt, "we have a fucking job to do. Let's go."
Ron nodded, quickly wiping his eyes when his friend turned away, and followed Harry down to where dozens of black tarps covered body, after body, after body. They were standard issue, all made in one size, which made the scene ever more painful. Because, although the tarps were the same, the bodies under them weren't. They bulged in many sizes, belying the true ages of the victims. Too many of them were tiny, fit only for a child.
Ron gazed over the small forms, swallowing a lump in his throat, and vowed that he would do whatever necessary, but he would catch the people who did this. He would catch them and make them pay.
Shutter-Click.
. . . .
. . . .
Hermione and Draco heard of the tragedy in St. Petersburg. It was hard to ignore once they entered the city's magical domain. There were children on street corners holding bunches of newspapers for sale – like something out of a Dicken's novel –, and even though neither Hermione nor Draco knew Russian, the photos of Diagon Alley on their covers were unmistakable.
Hermione gasped and pressed a hand over her heart when she saw. They quickly found a stand that sold foreign prints, The Daily Prophet among them. After paying for it – eight knuts – they tore into the pages.
'TERROR IN DIAGON ALLEY: THE DARK MARK FLIES AGAIN' read the headline. On the photo below, the mark itself, so familiar to them both, hovered like some vulture above rows of destroyed buildings. Draco felt a tremor pass through his body at the sight, and gripped his arm tightly over the spot where a similar insignia was branded onto his skin.
He felt Hermione brace herself against him, biting back a horrified sob.
"Look, Draco," she said with trembling lips, pointing to a section of the paper labeled 'VICTIMS: 37 DEAD, 15 WOUNDED'. Below, a little girl clutching her mother's unmoving hand could be seen. The caption read: Eilidh McHugh, aged 5, holds her deceased mother in the aftermath of the attack.
"Oh, Gods," Hermione kept muttering as she read the grisly accounts. Finally, she looked up, eyes brimming with tears.
"So much evil," she whispered. "Why, Draco? Why? Is it so hard to just live in peace? How can you not empathize with others? How can anyone do something like this?"
Draco, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable, shifted under her piercing gaze. Hermione took one glance at the spot on his arm that he was clutching and covered it with her own.
"There's a difference," she practically growled. Draco knew she was talking more than just about the attack anymore. "There are actions born of desperation, and then there's just pure evil. There's malice behind intent, and I will never be able to understand that. The ones who kill indiscriminately for pleasure, power, or to seek some form of validation… are they broken? Has the humanity been washed from their soul? How can you dissociate yourself to such an extreme so as to not feel others' pain? This sort of cruelty – it's against nature itself."
She lapsed into silence. Contemplating what she said, Draco gently pried her fingers off his hand and lowered it. He didn't have any easy answers to share. They both knew the depths of depravity that some were able to stoop to.
"We can't know for certain what's behind this," he said heavily.
"There hasn't been an attack of this magnitude–"
"Since the war," Draco finished for her. "I think it's a sign."
"A sign?" she sputtered.
"That we're getting close," he explained. "Something we've done has spooked them, whoever's behind all the muggle attacks, and this is their retaliation."
Hermione shook her head. "Or it's just a reminder that we haven't caught them all. A slap in the ministry's face, if you will; a giddy way to recall the good old times."
"I don't know, Hermione," Draco disagreed. "If it was me in their place, I would have run far away by now. There's just no end game for Death Eaters in Britain anymore; it's over, they have no support. The only exception applies to those who are directly tied to this sick infection we're chasing. I guarantee you: they're behind this, and this is their salvo in our covert battle."
Hermione wiped away some tears on her cheeks. "Either way it doesn't matter to those that died," she said, sniffling. Her shoulders slumped. "It doesn't matter to that little girl."
They both looked at the paper again, where Eilidh was gazing at her mother with that bewildered expression that children get when something very-very terrible happens, and they're just beginning to grasp the ramifications. It is the look of innocence, ripped away. Soot stained the girl's cheeks and her lips were mouthing some phrase over and over again. Draco wasn't entirely certain, but he thought it was: "Mummy, wake up now! Mummy, please!"
It broke his heart just a little more.
. . . .
. . . .
There were several days between their arrival in St. Petersburg and the time that the Portkey for the Shabash was scheduled to depart. Hermione, her grim determination to finish their mission reaffirmed by the terror attack, filled them with visits to a variety of specialists. She grilled them on different aspects of magical infections, hunting for any clue. Even though she went unrecognized in her disguise, she obliviated them all anyway, just in case.
Draco tagged along to these meetings, although he often felt like a third wheel. The muggleborn girl had far surpassed him in several fields of magical theory, and he quickly lost thread of the conversations. He occupied himself with minor spells and periodic glances at his bushy-haired companion. In the course of an argument or deliberation, her skin would become tinted with pink and her eyes would sparkle with academic thrill.
It was the most beautiful sight.
They spent the evenings walking about the wide boulevards of the once Imperial capital. It wasn't a touristy season; the winds too gusty and strong. Still, at night, the city became doused in the lights of a myriad scintillating lamps. Hermione and Draco would wander, visiting parks, museums and golden-domed cathedrals. They watched the drawbridges rise over the Neva River, ships sailing through the opening. Hermione stared at them for a long time, so that even the last pedestrian stragglers disappeared from the streets, and Draco had to recast a warming charm three times.
There were two sides to Hermione Granger, he had discerned. In the presence of others, she put on a steely front, brave, unyielding, sometimes vicious. But when it was just him and her, the facade would inevitably drop, leaving her yearning for drops of affection.
Draco could not imagine what had precipitated this. When he asked, she just smiled sadly and told him to focus on other things.
On their first night in the city, when they returned to their hotel, Hermione invited him into her room. They curled in together on the couch, talking about everything and nothing. One of his hands languidly twirled a lock or two of her hair, sometimes brushing against the skin of her neck. His other held his wand, which he tapped against the cushions with absentminded restlessness.
It was serene and peaceful. And, when she reached over for the wand he was holding, it left him completely unprepared in the face of his own sudden, visceral reaction.
It was anger. No, it was more than that. Like a summer storm, a flash of unbridled rage burned through his veins, leaving a toxic aftertaste under his tongue. His fingers clenched, almost as if on their own, protecting the magical conduit. He needed it; this was his wand! How dare this mudblood try and take it?!
It was the word – that word – which knocked him out of this daze. His thoughts were sluggish for several moments, and then a chasm of horror opened in his soul, ready to swallow him whole. He gasped, feeling its icy breath. Where had this come from? He hadn't thought like that in years!
Hermione must have noticed something, because she turned her head and asked him with a perplexed expression, "Draco? Are you alright?"
A mountain of shame weighed down on him. He couldn't even imagine the look of disgust and disappointment she would give him if she knew what had just gone through his mind.
"It's nothing," he lied quickly, trying to still his beating heart. He forced his fingers to relinquish their hold, letting her pry the wand from from his grip. It was almost painful, like something was trying to fight him every step of the way. The feeling passed, however, once the wand was out of his hands. "The pelmeni must have not agreed with me," he added with a weak smile, referring to the dumplings they had for dinner.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Hermione said compassionately. "Do you need–"
"No, no, I'm fine already. Really," he tried his best to reassure her.
"Well, alright," she said, giving him a careful look and then switching over to the wand. With a cool appraisal, she slid her fingers along its polished length and murmured something.
Draco, whose thoughts were still a little scrambled, didn't make it out.
"What?" he asked.
"Malfoy no wand in," she repeated, still transfixed by the object. "But no wand in what? Why was that phrase so important to me, and what word comes next? What relevance does your wand have to the virus, the muggles… this whole situation?"
Draco's eyes were glued to the wand. There was an uncomfortable pressure in his chest that demanded he take it back right now and cast a spell or two. He took a deep breath to check this feeling and replied, sounding a bit forced, "I don't know, Hermione. This is the only wand I've got, and both you and the ministry have conducted dozens of tests on it. There's nothing special about it."
She tilted her head a little to the side and said, "Well, that's not exactly true," sounding every bit like a huffy, know-it-all that is busy pointing out a fellow student's mistake in class.
"I don't follow." He frowned.
"There is something special about this wand," she asserted, a mischievous twinkle playing about her eyes. He still didn't understand, but she let the silence hang for a moment, and then softly, almost tenderly, explained.
"It's yours."
. . . .
. . . .
Apart from that night, there was one other that gave Draco cause for some concern, but this time about Hermione.
It was on the eve of their departure; their last day in the city. Moments of physical closeness were already common for them, but this time, he went further than just holding hands. They were in her room again, resting after a full day. Hermione had taught him how to play some silly muggle game called charades which they adapted to fit a Hogwarts theme. During her turn, Hermione, with a cheeky grin, pantomimed a scene where a certain student got what he deserved from a certain hippogriff. This was all done rather expressively, and when Draco figured it out, he was simply forced to defend his honor. Hollering with mock indignation and anger, he jumped up, declared that he would teach her a lesson, and proceeded to chase her all around the room, all the while dodging various cushions and pillows she attempted to delay him with.
Finally, her supply of ammunition expired, Hermione found herself backed into a corner. With no way out, she put on a serious mien and told him that it had been fun and all, but now it was over, and would he be so kind and let her out, after which he could go sit over there.
Psh, in the history of the world, that tactic has maybe worked once. Then again, in Hermione's defence, she had been a single child. She had little clue about the size of wars that siblings could wage, and the few muggle friends she did have were all like her – serious and even somewhat precocious.
Ginny, with all of her brothers, would have been prepared for the next part, but Hermione was ill-equipped to deal with this sort of battle.
This seemed to dawn on her at the last moment, but by then it was too late. With a devilish glint in his eye, Draco promised her she'd be sorry, and then unleashed the most wicked of all punishments and tortures – tickling. She screamed, gasped and pleaded, promising him (in between squeals of laughter) anything, everything, if he would just stop. Unmoved by her cries of 'not fair!', Draco emitted the signature 'MUAHAHAHA' that every villain must perfect in order to get their villain diploma and then declared to the world that he, the notorious Draco of House Malfoy, had finally discovered a way to collar the noble lioness! Oh, what a foolish man the Dark Lord turned out to be! He had committed so many resources to a war, when all he had to do to win was tickle one itsy Gryffindor! Which Draco then proceeded to do again, with relish.
Hermione might have even been offended, but her lungs were burning from laughing too hard.
Finally, he relented, and she wound up in his arms. She was close, so close, body pressed flush against his. Breathing heavily, her eyes were wide and sweet, like pools of clover honey. He could drown in them, he realized.
He leaned in, and she didn't object. She tilted her head, just a little bit, closing her eyes, and then he pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth.
It was nervous and inexperienced, and it was their first kiss.
It was also wrong.
He felt it almost instantly: her reaction, a stiffening of the joints, a sharp, panicked intake of air. Whatever arousal and happiness he had fled, doused by a river of worry. Did he do something wrong? He pulled back then, only to observe that she had gone still, like someone had stunned her with a petrifying charm.
He could hear her heart thundering erratically, her skin going pale as snow, and breaths coming out in short, shallow pants. Eyes wide with fright, she looked like some animal, hounded down and awaiting the finishing blow.
For a moment, he had no idea what to do. He didn't move, didn't even blink, terrified of scaring her further. Beads of icy sweat popped up on his temples, growing heavy and fat. He swallowed, and then, trying to be as gentle as possible, ran his trembling hands over her shoulders and back. This seemed to have some effect, so he repeated that motion over and over again, while his mouth worked on its own, babbling about things that he would never be able to recall. Eventually, he wound up whispering the words of lullaby his mother used to sing.
"Hush now, mo stórin,
Close your eyes and sleep,
Waltzing the waves,
Diving the deep…"
This seemed to work; slowly, she relaxed, and a little color found its way into her cheeks. Her breathing evened out, her chest beginning to rise and fall with steady rhythm.
"Stars are shining bright,
The wind is on the rise,
Whispering words
Of long lost lullabies…"
He rocked her like a child in his arms, back and forth, stroking down tufts of rebellious hair. She clutched at him, pressing her nose into his shoulder, dampening his clothes with trails of tears.
"Oh, won't you come with me,
Where the moon is made of gold…"
Hermione was crying, soundlessly, silently. He wanted to pause, to ask if she was alright, but she just gripped him tighter and shook her head into his shoulder.
He didn't push.
Instead, he picked her up, marveling at how light she was, and carried her to bed. After tucking her in, he lay close over the covers, humming the last verses of the song as the moon danced across the heavens and the first rays of light broke through to herald the dawn of a new day.
The day of the Shabash at Bald Hill.
Draco's song is called 'Song of the Sea'. It was (as far I can understand) composed by Bruno Coulais and performed by Nolwenn Leroy.
Oh, and, yes: I moved up JKR's timeline for this story.