Chapter Twelve

Defining Decisions

"What is it you plan on doing with her?"

Narcissa's delicate brows shot up as she turned to face her son. He sat across the headmaster's office from her, his elbows propped on the armrests of his chair. Lucius had popped in oh, so very briefly, to inform them he was moving the girl to Gryffindor tower, and then he was gone, again.

Since that moment, Draco stared mutely into his hands. His prolonged stillness made her think perhaps she's imagined his toneless whisper, just now.

But, after a few more seconds of silence, he lifted his head to meet her gaze unflinchingly.

She swallowed hard. There was something so angry about him. He couldn't really be this upset with them over that girl, could he?

"I have very little part in whatever is going on."

Grey eyes rolling, Draco hissed out an angry breath. "You really expect me to believe that?"

The wounded expression that flickered across his mother's features tore at his heart, but he pushed that aside. If he let her lull him, he might never have room to ask anything of importance.

"I expect you to believe your mother, Draco," she said, her voice low.

"I believe you have little actual part in whatever Father is doing, certainly," he agreed, his tone mildly scolding, now. Another flicker across her face at that—she never expected him to speak to her in such a manner. "But I also believe you at least know what is happening. Why Father is suddenly treating Granger like some bejeweled trophy."

Narcissa sighed, her eyes drifting closed as she rested an elbow upon the headmaster's desk beside her chair. She rubbed her fingertips in soothing circles against her forehead. The soothing part was a failed notion, she realized, because it did nothing to ease the tension squeezing her skull like an invisible vice.

Of course, he was correct, and in that regard, she knew it would be an odd thing if he weren't upset with her.

Finally, she spoke. Her eyes still closed, and her head shaking, she explained about Lucius' more-mad-seeming-by-the-moment ancient prophecy. Well, she kept the mad-seeming comment to herself, of course.

Draco's full attention was fixed on her by the time she finished. He'd turned his seat to face her and sat forward, leaning his elbows on his knees as he stared at her.

After another long moment of quiet wound through the room, he said, "I've . . . I've never heard of—"

"No one has; no one we know of, in any regard." She smirked and nodded, her gaze on the floor. "Except, of course, for your father."

He looked out the window as he tried to sort through this new information. The sky outside had darkened easily an hour ago. It was difficult to grasp how much had happened in a single day, but now that he realized how late it was, the time caught up with him and he felt weariness wrack through him.

Shuddering, he held in a yawn.

Narcissa's expression shifted to one of sympathy. "Draco, you're exhausted. I'm certain these last few days on your own couldn't have been—"

"I wasn't on my own, Mother," Draco said through clenched teeth. No, he wasn't. He was helping Potter and protecting Granger. But then . . . he understood with a strange, cold certainty twisting in the pit of his stomach, she and Father probably would still consider that as him being on his own, because they were not his equals.

It sickened him a little to think on how much that used to matter to him, too. Especially now, after he'd realized that it was never that they weren't his equal, but that he wasn't theirs.

"Well," she said, standing and fluttering her hands about. "Regardless, you are exhausted. Come, I'll take you to the quarters where your father and I—"

He shot to his feet so fast her words died on her lips.

"Mother will you stop treating me like a child," he said, his tone thundering.

Her gaze flickering over him from head-to-toe, as though she didn't recognize him, she curled her hands into fists at her sides. First Lucius losing his mind with this prophecy business, and now her only son was snapping at her? What was the world coming to?

Schooling her features, she managed in a calm, steady tone, "I am not trying to suggest that you are. Simply . . . too much is going on as of late over which I have precious little control. I have been worried sick about you, only to have you return to us. And yet here you, rewarding my relief by speaking to me in such a tone!" She shook her head, going on in an angry, rapid whisper. "You father only shares with me half of what is going through his head, and I even find myself worrying for what will become of that girl!"

Narcissa's face fell after that last word left her lips. Draco understood her shocked expression, instantly. She hadn't meant to say that last part . . . not aloud. Not where anyone might overhear her.

Shoulders drooping, he stepped up to his mother, holding her gaze. "I need to see her. Please."

She recalled how he'd been in the Main Hall. The way he'd been so protectively curled around that girl. "Why?" Her eyes narrowed. "What is the blood doing to her?"

Draco forced a gulp down his throat as he shrugged. "I don't really know. All I know is that it gets worse when I'm not around her."

Narcissa felt a snap of cold creep along her spine. She couldn't think on why anything about the blood in her system should be specific to Draco, only that whatever it was doing to her was exactly what Lucius wanted.

"Well," she said, nodding as she lifted her chin defiantly. "Then let's go see if your father will allow you to visit with her."

As they exited the office, she surprised Draco by tacking on in a barely audible whisper, "But do not tell him what you have just told me."

Night had fallen a while ago, by the time Harry caught up to Thayer. The dark-haired wizard had alternately run, and jogged, seeming as though he wanted to put as much distance between himself and the castle grounds as he could manage, before he fell to his hands and knees. He caught his breath in huge, gulping gasps.

"You certainly can run!"

Thayer jumped in place at the unexpected voice, tumbling onto his side and then rolling to sit up and look about. "Wha—?"

While the man he'd chased made no scramble to draw his wand, Harry wasn't taking any chances. He drew his own wand, holding it at the ready as he pushed back the hood of his Cloak with his free hand.

"Bloody hell, it's just you," Thayer said, pressing a palm to his chest as he shifted to sit up a bit more.

Harry's face pinched as he nodded at the other wizard. "You know who I am, then?"

Dark brow furrowing, Thayer's expression soured. "What are you, a bleedin' idiot? Everyone knows who you are!"

Uttering an impatient sound in the back of his throat, Harry simply rolled his eyes. He really should've expected an answer like that.

"Why'd you follow me?"

"I saw that whole scene back at the castle. I need to know what Hermione said to you." With the way she was carrying herself and that expressionless face, Harry knew she'd succumbed to whatever the blood brought about in her, at that moment.

He only hoped that like the other times, she could come back to her senses, again.

"If you saw that, then you know what I told Lord Malfoy. I have no idea what she said."

Frowning, Harry said, "Then why did you run the moment they were gone?"

With a sigh, Thayer hung his head. She'd spared him, so maybe he was supposed to help her? But he wasn't certain how just repeating her words might do that. "Hermione, that's . . . that's that girl, right?"

Harry nodded.

Thayer glanced around. He supposed they were far enough from the castle, now. Nodding, he stood and brushed himself off. "Fine. I'll tell you, but only if you promise you won't make me go back there."

There was no mistaking the genuine terror flickering through the other wizard's dark-eyed gaze.

Again, Harry nodded. He lowered his wand, but still held it tight, just in case. "I promise I won't make you go back there."

Thayer nodded in return. Drawing a breath, he described everything from the moment Fenrir had busted down the castle doors, to him—as soon as he'd cleared the eye line of the other dark wizards and witches on the castle grounds—bolting away, as though his life depended on it.

And, from his words and his tone, Harry was pretty certain the wizard thought it just might.

Lucius' cold gaze darted from his wife, to his son, and back as he stood at the open portrait entrance to Gryffindor tower. He was almost tempted to say no and turn the boy away.

Almost. Narcissa wore a severe expression that he hadn't seen in quite a long while. He wanted to monitor the girl, wanted to know the moment whatever metamorphosis she was undergoing was complete.

But exhaustion clawed at him. He could feel the circles under his eyes. His wife and son looked equally weary. These few days since the War's end indeed felt like the longest he'd ever experienced.

He'd settle for warding the tower to keep her captive there—well, apparently, her and Draco—until morning. He almost found it laughable that under any other circumstances, Narcissa would be the last person advocating for their son to be alone with a young lady for the night.

"Fine." Lucius nodded. "Go on, but if you try to help her escape, there will be nowhere that I won't find you."

Draco arched a brow, deciding to keep to himself that he had hidden for that forest manor for three days, and Lucius was not the one who found him. He simply offered an obedient nod and stepped through the entryway.

The portrait swung closed behind him, followed by the muttering of his father on the other side, casting a ward, causing him to spin around. Those sounds both felt so incredibly final.

Sighing, he shook his head and turned to face the common room. There she stood, in the center. The hood of the dark cloak was down around her shoulders, and her face was blank and once more so terrifyingly doll-like as she stared back at him.

She only held his gaze as he drew near, her brow furrowing as though she simply could not make sense of the worry in his expression. "Good evening, Draco," she said in that beautiful, but sharp crystal voice.

Shaking his head, he reached out, slipping a hand around the back of her neck and pulling her to him. She shuddered at the contact, trembling in his arms as he kissed her.

He pulled back only enough to look at her as the life flooded back into her metallic eyes.

She gasped, fighting for her breath, suddenly, as though she'd been holding the air in her lungs for too long. "Draco, oh, God," she said in a shivering whisper before she shot forward, hugging him tightly.

He slid his arms around her waist beneath the folds of the cloak, once more shaking his head. "You scared me!"

"Not as much as I scared me!"

She was laughing as she'd said that, but still the statement worried him. Once more retreating enough to meet her gaze, he asked, "What do you mean?"

Swallowing hard, she slid her hands forward, keeping her bare palms pressed to the back of his neck as she answered. "Before it was like I was having some sort of fit, or episode, whenever the blood took over, but now . . . . Now I can remember. At least this last one."

Draco bit his lip as he noticed the traces of worry that colored her features. There was so much they needed to discuss. And where the bloody hell was Potter?

But then she stumbled a bit, even as he held her. "Whoa, whoa," he said, tightening his hold on her. "What was that?"

She gave another laugh, this one light and airy as she said, "Nothing, really. I'm just so tired, now. I don't think exhaustion can occur to me when I'm . . . well, you know."

He nodded, relinquishing his hold to take her hand in one of his, and slip his other arm around her shoulders. "Maybe you should lie down. Or at least sit."

Hermione nodded as he guided her toward the sofa. She stumbled again, slipping from his grasp. Before he could catch her, she bumped the end table beside the sofa, knocking a few decorative porcelain knickknacks to crash against the floor beneath her.

"Granger!" He immediately hoisted her to her feet and helped her to sit on the plush cushions. "I'm so sorry. Tell me you're okay."

Sparing a moment to take an internal inventory, she nodded. Pulling on of her hands into her lap, she examined a gash along the side of her palm. "I think it's just this. I'll be okay. It wasn't your fault."

"Yes, it was. I know how weak you've been feeling. Maybe I should have carried you or—"

"No, okay. I've had enough of that recently, thanks very much," she said as she raised her hand to look more closely at the wound. "Oh, my God. Draco . . . look."

He was in the midst of scrambling for something with which to wrap the cut when she called for his attention. Frowning, he looked up. The blood seeping from the gash was strangely beautiful. Crimson, laced through with ribbons of silver.

"Granger," he said, surprised his voice didn't stick in his throat. "You've . . . you've actually got unicorn blood in your veins, now."

She was at a loss for how to respond to this discovery. But Draco's mind was working furiously. Father would see the wound in the morning, he'd know she was, indeed, still changing. They'd separate him from her, again, and there was no way he could protect her, then.

That was when it struck him. Possibly the stupidest idea he'd ever had, but if it killed him, at least he'd die an honorable death, which was not something he'd ever thought he'd have the privilege to say, before.

"Unicorn blood," he said again, nodding.

Before Hermione could react, Draco pulled her hand to his mouth and closed his lips around the wound. "Draco, no!" She pulled at her arm, but he was stronger than her, despite holding her gently, and her struggle proved useless.

She realized distantly that this was a very odd time for it, but the pulling of his mouth on the cut, the feel of the tip of his tongue dancing over the torn skin, sent sweet, warm tingles shooting through her body. Her eyes drifted shut and she had to remind herself to breathe.

After a few moments, he pulled back, inhaling sharply as he met her gaze. But already his eyelids were drooping.

Hermione knew what was coming, after her own post-blood-ingestion collapse. Pouting, she felt her eyes well up as she used her hands on his to tug him up to sit beside her on the sofa.

Suddenly, he was too drained and weary to fight as she shifted and guided him to rest his head on her lap.

"Draco, you idiot," she whispered, sniffling. "Why did you do that?"

He shrugged against her thigh, speaking as he let his eyes drift closed. "Now, whatever Father is planning for you, he'll have to do to me, to."

Hermione wanted to stay awake and yell at him more, but her head was tipping back against the sofa. Her lids lowered as she said, "You certainly picked a hell of a time to start being so brave."

He uttered a quiet laugh. "Just remember this if we both survive."