Song Inspiration: Flightless Bird, American Mouth - Iron & Wine

Chapter 23

Draco sat at the large table downstairs, alone, well into the night. The blonde witch, whom Draco had belatedly recognized as Fleur Delacour, the Beauxbatons champion from the Triwizard Tournament during his fourth year, had yet to reemerge from the room in which she had barricaded herself and Hermione upon their arrival at Shell Cottage. That had been hours ago now. Weasley had informed him that his sister-in-law was quite adept at healing charms, and Draco had found himself fervently hoping that her skills would be good enough to help his witch.

Alone in the dark, silent kitchen, he found himself drowning in fears and regrets. He wished he had been there as soon as the Trio had been brought into the Manor. He would have done…well, he wasn't sure what he would or could have done, but he would have thought of something – anything – to keep Hermione from being tortured in ways that, at this point, he could only imagine.

He ran his fingers through his blonde hair for the umpteenth time. It was extremely messy, tufts standing out on end, from the hours of him doing so over and over again while he waited for any update on her condition.

When the older Weasley had emerged from the room that still housed his wife and Hermione, Draco had been certain that the man was going to hex him into oblivion right then and there. He was, after all, a Malfoy and a Death Eater. Ron Weasley, surprisingly, had been the one to stop his older brother.

"Don't, Bill," Weasley had said, one had pressed to the center of his brother's chest to hold him back from Draco. "He and Hermione are together. Malfoy is the only reason we were able to get out of the Manor with Hermione at all."

Bill had looked at Draco suspiciously for several moments. Draco had stood, meeting his vivid blue eyes but not saying a word in his own defense. Finally, the man had nodded and turned away, leaving the room to go upstairs and check on the goblin and Ollivander.

"Why did you stop him?" Draco asked Weasley curiously, wondering why the other wizard had defended him.

He watched as Weasley shrugged.

"I owe Hermione, for more than you could ever know. If saving her…boyfriend's life is what I need to do to make things right between us, I'll defend you whether I like it or not. And for the record," he had added, glaring at Draco as he spoke, "I don't like it – not one bit. If you fuck this up, I'll be first in line to get at you then."

Then, Weasley had turned on his heel and followed in his brother's wake.

An hour or so later, he had come back into the room with Potter in tow. Draco had watched as the two of them had tried, repeatedly, to get into the room where the blonde witch was still working on Hermione, but they had been denied entry as well, which had served to make Draco feel marginally better about his own exile from his witch's side. The two of them had left, disgruntled, and Draco had assumed that they had gone to find the comfort of their own beds. Draco, however, knew that he would not budge from his spot until he saw her and confirmed with his own eyes that she was whole.

Draco was awoken from his fitful dozing by the early dawn sun peeking into the small kitchen windows. He rolled his neck and shoulder, joints popping and stretching from hours of disuse. At the sound of a door creaking open, he turned his head so quickly that his neck popped painfully.

He watched as the blonde witch pulled the door shut silently behind her before turning and spotting him sitting at her table. She moved slowly, looking mentally and magically exhausted, but smiled at him when she saw that he still waited for news.

"She is stable," she said in a voice that was still thickly accented with her native French tongue. "'It will be best not to revive her with magic. She should be allowed to rest until her body is ready to awaken on its own. She's had substantial trauma…"

Draco waited, but when she didn't continue on, he found that he couldn't help but ask.

"What," his voice broke, so he cleared his throat and then tried again. "What did Bellatrix do to her?"

Fleur sighed heavily and waved her wand, and he watched as a cup of tea began to prepare itself behind her. She sat down in the seat across from him. The tea floated over to land in front of her and she wrapped her hands around the cup as if seeking the warmth that it would provide.

"Physically? Or mentally?" she asked him, and he felt a lead weight settle in his stomach.

"Both," he said firmly.

"Well, physically, the greatest damage came from the carvings on her arm," Fleur said, and he nodded. While he hadn't been able to see the damage up close, he had certainly noticed the blood oozing from her forearm as she had lain on the floor.

"It looks like Bellatrix used the same dagger on her that she used to kill the house elf," she continued, her accent slipping more and more into the conversation as exhaustion began to overtake her. "She carved into Hermione's arm, and no matter what I did, the marks will not heal. I can't make the word go away."

He saw the regret on her face at her failure, and got the distinct feeling that she would prefer not to talk about the wound at all, but he needed to know.

"What word was it?" he asked her insistently, already knowing deep inside what her response would be. He watched as she swallowed uncomfortably before finally lifting her sapphire blue eyes to his.

"Mudblood."

Draco felt like the ground dropped away from beneath his feet. Once upon a time, he would have relished the thought of Hermione Know-It-All Granger being labelled for the world to see, but that childish, spoiled wizard no longer existed. Now, the thought of his beautiful, brilliant witch being branded as something less-than for the rest of her life made him want to retch.

"And mentally?" he prompted her to continue, unable to dwell on the thought much longer.

"Well, I'm not one hundred percent certain as to the extent of the damage to her mind and magic. We won't know for sure until she wakes. But it seems like she endured quite a bit of time under the effects of the Cruciatus Curse…"

Draco felt the tears spill from his eyes to run down his nearly-bloodless cheeks. His witch… He dropped his face into his hands and for a moment the only sound in the room was the breathing of himself and the woman that sat opposite him.

He startled when a gentle hand touched his arm, and he looked up to see the French witch watching him with eyes full of sympathy.

"Hermione is strong," she said. "With you at her side to lend the extra strength she needs, hopefully she will pull through."

He watched her as she stood wearily to her feet, placing her hands flat against her lower back and leaning backwards slightly as she did. He heard the bones and joints popping and stretching just like his own had, and knew that she was probably going to crash as soon as she got to her room and her husband.

"I'm going to go to bed," she told him, "and get some rest. Would you like to sit with Hermione while she sleeps?"

He rose to his feet so quickly at her words that he sent his chair crashing to the ground. After leaning down to right it, he nodded vigorously.

"Please."

She motioned to the doorway off of the kitchen and, with a wan smile, left him to join his other half while she headed upstairs to do the same.

Draco sat in the mildly uncomfortable chair that he had pulled up to Hermione's bedside as soon as he had entered her room. He held her small hand tenderly in his own while he watched her chest rise and fall with each breath.

"Hermione," he said softly, barely a whisper. "I'm so sorry this happened to you, Princess. I'm sorry that I wasn't there sooner to stop it…"

He rubbed his thumb absently along the back of her hand as he spoke, regret nearly choking him.

"Please wake up for me, Princess. Don't leave me here alone…"

Unable to resist the temptation any longer, Draco crawled into the bed and lay down beside her, gently tugging her body into his, needing the contact. He pressed a tender kiss to her unresponsive lips, then rested his forehead against hers.

He silently implored any higher powers that might be listening to him at that moment:

Salazar, please don't let me find her again, after all this time, just to lose her now.