Chapter Seven
"And now it's clear to me
That everything you see
Ain't always what it seems"
Wide Awake by Katy Perry
"What do you mean it isn't illegal?" Hermione yelled from across his desk so loudly that Harry winced.
"Domestic abuse isn't illegal in Wizarding Britain, Hermione," he said, hating that he had to tell her something he'd been keeping from her, and leaving her to deal with it on her own. "They are married so it isn't a crime. Usually in the Sacred 28 it's the men, the husbands, abusing their wives and kids. It's only illegal if…" Harry Potter trailed off
"What was that Harry?" Hermione's cheek ticked with the tension in her jaw.
"If they kill their heir and there isn't any spare."
"You have to be bleeding kidding me, yeah? This can't be. This is positively Victorian! How can we be in a society that's so backwards!? She's taken him somewhere to hurt him where no one can see, where she can do whatever she wants. You don't understand, Harry, we have to save him!"
Harry reached out and took her hand "You're right I don't understand. Why are you so worried about Draco Malfoy anyway? Aren't you marrying Nott? What's this about? I know you're all about helping the defenceless, but Malfoy has never been some innocent bystander. Why do you care?"
Hermione yanked her hand back, scowling at the man she'd defended, saved, stood by since they were children. "I am marrying Theo, but that doesn't mean Draco deserves to be abused." She spat the words at Harry, hopeful that he, of all people, would understand just how wrong it was.
"Doesn't he, though?" Harry said without thinking. Hermione's vision turned blurry, the anger coursing through her fueling her.
Hermione shot him with a stinging hex, "Did you, Harry? When the Dursleys starved and hurt you, did you deserve it? When you had birthdays alone in a cupboard, did you deserve that for being a burden they did not want?"
She was so angry that her hair was sparking. "You seriously disgust me. You can accept this conversation as my resignation, there are some matters worth more than a dead end career."
"I don't bloody well accept your resignation," Harry yelled as she stormed out of the office, the door slamming shut behind her. "Hermione! HERMIONE!"
He slumped back into his desk chair, and dropped his head into his hands. He'd really messed up this time. "Fuck."
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Theo fell into a fitful sleep while Hermione chased after some leads, his afternoon nap pulling him down deep into the world of dreams.
He walked out into a white stucco room, blue tile accents and the sea air reminding him of half-remembered childhood vacations.
Draco was there by the window, staring down at the sea.
"Where are you?" Theo whispered.
"In Crete," Draco said, not looking back at Theo, "I'm going to die here if Astoria has her way." His voice sounded far away, weak almost. "I miss you, Hermione too."
"Miss you too, Draco. We're going to find you, I promise. We aren't going to stop until you're home and safe with us." Theo tried to reach out, but whatever it was, he was blocked from being able to do more than touch the mist like air in front of him.
"Thanks, Theo, I appreciate the sentiment and the attempt to instil hope, but you are just a dream." Draco turned away from the window and smiled sadly at Theo. "It was nice seeing you though before the end. Dreams of you and Hermione were always the best dreams I have ever had."
Theo tried moving forward, but his feet felt like they were cemented to the ground. He tried to cry out to Draco. To just hold on, but his voice was gone, and then the scene before him turned black.
Theo sat up on Hermione's couch, his breathing coming in pants. Draco was in Crete. He thought he was dreaming of Theo and Hermione, which meant…
Bloody witch, why hadn't she told him?
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Hermione was pleased when her contact at Gringotts was able to tell her that Astoria Malfoy had had a huge amount of galleons transferred to the Minoan Wizarding Bank. Yes, she'd had to pay them for their silence, but the Nott vaults were nothing to turn your nose up at.
A floo call to a former colleague who now worked for the ICW got Hermione a hastily scribbled address that was the only one connected to the Malfoy family on Crete. She had to promise to look Inez up afterwards to give her their entire story or there would be hell to pay. The last thing Hermione wanted was to make the fiery Spanish witch upset with her, but it would have to wait until she was sure that Draco was safe.
He had to be the priority, and she feared the clock was ticking much faster than anyone really knew.
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"I can't believe we are hiding behind a bush." Theo complained as another branch prodded into his back.
"I need proximity to dismantle these wards," Hermione pointed out, "And this bush is giving us great cover." She continued waving her wand, impressed by the wards, even if they weren't a challenge to her and had clearly been placed in a rush.
"This is not our best date ever," Theo stated, flicking a bug off his sleeve, just for another branch to slap him in the cheek.
"Theo, this isn't a date. This is an illegal Auror operation in a foreign country that has no approval and if it goes wrong we could both end up in the Greek equivalent of Azkaban." She scolded the man, her eyes not straying from where they were fixed at the shimmering of magic.
"So again, not our most romantic date." He deadpanned, making Hermione want to roll her eyes.
"If we rescue Draco, that will be pretty damned romantic," Hermione hissed, reminding Theo of why they were here to begin with.
"I still can't believe that you didn't tell me you were having dreams about him too," Theo groused.
"Theo, can we not talk about this now? I'm trying to concentrate," Hermione sighed. "I'm sorry I didn't realise we were sharing magical dreams. That's really a divination thing, and you know that was never my cup of tea."
"Alright, I'll let it go for now," Theo said, attempting to peek around the bush towards the picturesque villa that was perched on the cliffside 1000 yards beyond them. "I wish we'd borrowed Potter's cloak."
"Hush," Hermione ordered, not wanting to discuss her former friend. Her wand motions and incantations became more and more elaborate until finally the wards fell on the house with a rushing force of magic that hit Theo and Hermione like a shockwave.
"That wasn't as subtle as I would have hoped, princess." Theo purred into her ear as they waited a moment to see what alarms, if any, they'd triggered.
"Not helpful, Theo," Hermione disillusioned the two of them. "Come on, we need to make a run for the house before that bitch starts launching Bombardas at us."
They jogged to the house, attempting to take cover as much as they could despite being disillusioned. They both hoped that Draco was going to be okay by the time they found him.
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Draco had been refusing to eat and he'd tossed the cufflinks and every other piece of jewellery that Astoria had ever given him into the sea. He wasn't sure what she thought he was going to be doing in his cell that required cuff links. And him wearing them was one of the few things that he ever did that made her happy.
Why would he do anything to make her happy?
He must have been certifiably mad. The longer he went dumping the food out the window, the clearer his mind seemed to him. The elves didn't seem to realise that he wasn't eating what they prepared, therefore not reporting it back to Astoria. Draco certainly wasn't going to attract their attention to the fact.
It had only been a couple days, but instead of feeling sick and hungry, he was actually feeling better and he could have sworn he felt his magic bubbling under his skin again like it used to before Azkaban.
When the air itself seemed to explode around him, but left all the objects and house as solid as ever, Draco exhaled, "Magic!"
He had felt the wards fall. He had felt magic. Maybe he wasn't as good as a squib after all.
He could hear Astoria screaming in the other room and when he heard what she was saying, he forced the door open and ran towards the noise.
The word "mudblood" echoed through the house in his wife's unhinged shrieks.
Draco could only think that her yelling meant two things.
Hermione.
Theo.
They had come for him after all.
It was more than just another dream.
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Hermione was bleeding. She fucking hated Astoria Malfoy. The bitch had hit her with a flying brick of all things. Hermione was seeing double and she did not appreciate it.
"I'm going to kill you, you filthy little mudblood," Astoria was screaming as she continued to throw curses and hexes towards where Hermione was hunched behind a rather terrifying stone sculpture that to Hermione looked like a cross between a mermaid and a veela sitting on a rock. She didn't understand why someone would put such a thing inside their house, but she was quite content to use it to protect herself.
She had the portkey and she wasn't leaving without Draco and Theo, who'd unwillingly left her when they had entered the house, because he'd seen this place in a dream and thought he knew where Draco's room was based on the view out his window.
Draco came running into the room from the opposite direction from where Theo had run and ducked as his wife started throwing hexes in his direction. A cutting curse that could have decapitated him instead took off the top of a vase, the flowers scattering.
Draco crawled through the destruction his wife had wrought as she screamed about how she would see him dead before she would let him leave her. The pounding in Hermione's head was growing worse and she was having trouble staying awake.
"Fuck, Hermione," Draco whispered, wiping at her face, the dust and blood mixing on her forehead. "You are bleeding."
"Your wife isn't really keen on unexpected guests," Hermione tried to quip, but groaned when Draco pushed back a curl and touched the gash on her temple.
"She isn't keen on a lot of things," Draco pulled a handkerchief and tried to wipe the blood away ineffectually.
A loud curse shook the sculpture they were hiding behind and Draco laced his fingers with Hermione's. "Thank you for coming to save me. I didn't think anyone cared."
"Of course we care. I couldn't leave you to her tender mercies." Hermione thought she was going to be sick and the edges of her vision were a little black. "Can we talk about this later though?"
"Astoria, I see you've done some redecorating since the last time I visited the villa," Theo's voice rang out from the other side of the room, which caused Astoria to start throwing jinxes and hexes in his direction.
Theo threw up a shield and began to duel with the irate witch, not bothering to hide from her wrath. The distraction clearly being used to help protect the two cowering from her onslaught attack.
"I'll see him dead before you can have him, you filthy wizard-lover!" She screamed, her anger making her magic shake the room.
"Astoria, darling, it's the twenty-first century, it really is rather crass to be homophobic at this point." Theo launched a stupefy which Astoria dodged with practised grace. "And really, I don't think you'll miss him. Just get a puppy to kick, that should fulfil your need to be cruel."
"He's my husband! I can do what I want to him! Don't you see, you have no right, he's nothing more than a dirty squib. Sullying a bloodline, he deserves to be punished!" Astoria snarled, throwing a purple curse that Hermione didn't recognize.
The crack of apparition sounded and Harry Potter quickly stooped next to Hermione and Draco, his eyes narrowed at their intertwined hands.
"Bloody hell Hermione, you are bleeding everywhere," Harry remarked, "No wonder your emergency alert activated."
"I resigned," Hermione pointed out.
"I refused to accept your resignation," Harry responded, passing a jar of dittany to Draco who wasted no time putting it on Hermione's cut. "Do you have a portkey? You need to get straight to St. Mungo's."
Hermione nodded, but felt the nausea roll through her again.
"Take my hand Draco." She pulled out her emergency portkey, a small set of keys and Draco gripped them and her. "Portus." And they were gone, leaving only a splatter of Hermione's blood behind.
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"Nott, stand down," Harry stood up tossing a port key to the other Auror who dropped his shield to catch it, throwing it back up just in time to deflect another cutting curse.
"Potter?" Theo's shield was rocked as Astoria tripled her efforts to get through. "What are you doing here?"
"Nott, portkey out or I'm gonna have to write you up for insubordination," Harry didn't have time to argue with the other Auror. "Hermione and Draco are already out, they need you with them at Mungo's."
With those words, Astoria screamed and directed her firepower towards Harry, who ducked behind the sculpture for a second but saw Nott portkey out and breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't sure what the bloody hell was going on, but at least Hermione would be at St. Mungo's and Nott would be with her. He couldn't find it in himself to be concerned about Malfoy, but he was trying, if for nothing else for their sakes. He thought of Hermione's fingers laced with Draco sodding Malfoy's. Harry would try anything for Hermione. He owed her his life.
"Mrs. Malfoy!" Harry called, "It's just you and me here now. Do you think you could stop throwing spells in my direction?" When she didn't respond, but also didn't send any more spells his way, Harry stood with his hands up. He still had his wand in his hand, he wasn't an idiot, but it was disillusioned to try to encourage the enraged witch to lay down her wand and let down her guard.
Astoria Malfoy looked nothing like the perfectly put together Pureblood socialite that Harry was used to seeing at events and in the papers. Her eyes were wild and she was entirely a mess, she liked nearly as deranged as Bellatrix had been.
There were cuts all over her, whether they were from Theo and Hermione or her own spellcasting Harry was unsure. There was rubble all around her, with her standing on top of some destroyed priceless heirloom. She was covered in dust and her wand was clenched in her hand like a knife.
"YOU WON'T STEAL MY HUSBAND HARRY POTTER! DRACO DESERVES TO BE PUNISHED! YOUR LOT LET HIM OUT OF AZKABAN! YOU SHOULD HAVE LET HIM ROT THERE! DIFFINDO!" Astoria shrieked, snapping from her stilled state, the air around her cracking with her untamed magic.
Her spell headed straight for Harry's throat. Harry barely had time to throw up a shield to deflect it, before it crashed against it, making the shield flicker.
The curses came faster and faster, but when the first syllable of the Avada Kedavra formed on her lips, Harry pictured Ginny, James and Albus snuggled together and cast his own killing curse without remorse. He was going to go home to his family, this mad bint wasn't going to kill him today. If Voldemort failed twice, Astoria Malfoy was not about to be his end.
Astoria's body dropped to the ground and Harry walked over to her, kicking her wand away before checking to make sure that she was indeed dead. He'd learned his lesson with that before. He leaned down and closed her eyes, the wild gaze still lingering even in death. Looking into the dead eyes made him feel uncomfortable.
He was fucked. He wasn't even in Britain. This was going to cause an international incident.
A tiny unsure voice broke the horrible silence from behind him, "Harry Potter? You are Harry Potter?" A small house elf that reminded Harry of Dobby stood there as he turned.
He kneeled down to the elf's level, attempting to block Astoria's corpse from view, and nodded, "Yes, yes I am."
"Oh, thank the stars you are here Harry Potter, Mistress Astoria has been making us do horrible things, Harry Potter. Horrible things to Master Draco." The elf gripped his hands, little fingernails drawing blood.
"I'm going to need you to tell me everything…" Harry stopped, not sure what the elf's name was.
"Mipsy, Harry Potter. Dobby was Mipsy's older brother." Tears threatened in her eyes.
"Alright, Mipsy," Harry smiled reassuringly, he hoped, "I need you to tell me all about the horrible things that Astoria asked you to do to Draco."
The elf began to cry in earnest then.
What the bloody hell had Astoria been doing to Malfoy?
As Harry listened to the elf detail what had been going on for years, Harry thought that he might be sick. Perhaps he'd killed her too quickly.