8. The Rescue

Ginny nearly fell out of the fire place when her feet finally thumped into the soot. The baby screamed and wailed and she pitied him, but didn't have time to comfort him. No matter how many times she blinked, she could not get rid of the image in her mind. The flailing limbs, the blood, the gnashing of teeth spilling towards them.

"What is Dumbledore's name is going on?" Shrieked Mrs Weasley, now covered in ash and shocked at the commotion in her living room. She looked at each of their faces.

"WHAT IS MUNGDUNGUS FLETCHER DOING IN MY HOUSE?"

Ginny flew forward and handed Mrs Weasley the baby, who stared down at it with knitted eyebrows and mouth wide open.

"No time mum - we have to go back - Hermione and George..."

There was a crackle behind her and she spun. Mundungus had been shoved out of the fire grate, he squirmed holding onto his satchel for dear life.

Ginny just caught Mr Weasley's face as he disappeared back into the green. His mouth whispering,

"I'm sorry..."

They stood in silence for a second, staring at the empty fire place.

"What's happened Ginny?" Mrs Weasley said gently, rocking the baby to no effect.

She rose her voice slightly above his screams.

"What's wrong dear?"

Ginny just shook her head. She looked into her mother's eyes.

"Oh mum, it's... it's...hell!" She broke.

Mrs Weasley wrapped an arm around her as she began to wail, while Mundungas rooted around a far corner like a rat, humming to his satchel.

Draco gripped the sword firmly in his hand. It was slipping, dripping with black ichor and guts. He glanced behind him. Weasley wasn't much better off. He was unsure where the redheads hair stopped and the blood began. But Draco had to admit, he didn't think the ginger would have had it in him.

It hadn't been long after finding the swords that they stumbled across their first infected.

He had been a cleaner, judging by his tan overalls, now stopping in a trudgy brown mix of blood and innards.

George had nearly thrown up at the sight of his face. His cheek tendons where in show and his left eye was hanging limply out of it;s socket.

Despite everything - Draco couldn't help but watch as the orb bounced as the man staggered forward. The way it swung almost made him laugh. Almost.

Three years in Azkaban really does a number on ones humour.

Draco had been the first to strike, a clean blow right through his neck, severing his head nearly clean off. The body fell and the head flipped to the side, hanging on my a small flap of torn skin.

"Like nearly headless Nick," Draco said to no one in particular, but George looked at him like he was insane.

"Oh Merlin, he's still alive!" Cried George pointing down at the collapsed corpse.

Disgusted but intrigued, Draco bent closer and watched as the mans teeth continued to chomp at him, still wild and determined, like he was trying to thrust himself forward with his eyelids alone.

He lifted his sword and thrust it down as hard as he could, right through the center of the cleaners forehead. Finally the man lay still.

Draco sweated. He took a breath and looked at George.

'Destroy the brain." He said, and George nodded.

After that George seemed a little less reluctant to attack the infected, Draco noticed. As though witnessing the cleaner had helped him understand the true magnitude of the situation.

It had helped Draco too, reiterating what he had already known. They were dead.

The nightmares of killing still haunted him. But this wasn't murder.

You can't kill something that's already dead.

Draco funneled all of his pent up anger and frustration and channeled it. Thrashing and swiping again, and again until the walking corpses were nothing more then puddles of skin and pulp. Although his body was tiring quickly, he was feeling more awake then he had in years.

By the time they reached the offices, their adrenaline was pumping but their arms were growing weak. The whole of Hermione's floor was ruined, with guts and blood smeared over every surface. Bodies lay under tables, too mangled and damaged to rise again, their brains seeping into the carpet in a never ending sea of grey and pink slush.

George's breath caught when he saw Hermione's office door open, hanging on it's hinges. He ran to it, kicking over a limbless creature that was writhing and snapping at his ankles.

"Ginny! Mione!" he yelled as he stormed in through the office.

Draco looked around, and watched as more and more bodies began to appear our of surrounding offices at the noise, some still clutching at various organs and body parts - a little snack for later.

" Shut up idiot!" Draco hissed, moving towards the office, beheading a middle aged secretary as he went. They had to get out now. The girls were gonners, and he didn't want to deal with weasel if they found one of them turned into...well ...one of those. He felt a pang thinking about them - Granger had been holding a baby...

He tried to clear his mind, taking out another creature that had snuck up from behind him.

He kept hitting until its head was matted into the carpet. He wiped the blood from his eyes.

"Lets go Weasley, a deals a deal..."

Draco was surprised when not one, but two people paced out of the office.

"Mr Malfoy," Arthur Weasley murmured, quite alarmingly casually, as he quickly hurried passed, not really even looking at him. Draco noticed he was covered in soot.

"The old sod must have access to the Floo network." he said to himself, wiping his sword on a discarded jacket hanging forgotten on the back of a chair. Blood was heavier to swing then he'd pf first thought.

"Ginny is already out," George said as he pulled Draco's arm forwards.

"She has the baby. We think Hermione is still alive, she was in the bathroom, the door would have been locked, so there's a chance..."

Draco doubted that, by he didn't have much of a choice. He sighed deeply, hoisting his sword over his shoulder.

"We're all dead."

The bathroom door was ajar, but there was a scream coming from inside. A screaming and crying that Draco was embarrassed to say he recognized.

A dark room in a house that never felt like home. A Chandelier and a wild woman's cackles.

He shook his head.

If she was still screaming, there was still a slim chance they could help her.

They ran as fast as they could.

"Go," waved on Mr Weasley, "I'll watch the exits!"

Their pounding feet echoed throughout the tiled room.

"Granger?!" Draco called, as George struggled to shut the door behind them.

"In here!" She sobbed.

A women was pounding on a cubicle door, slipping on her own intestines, her milky eyes turning towards Draco for just a second before he plunged his sword straight through the middle of her head. She dropped like a sack of potatoes.

Draco heard the bathroom door click shut and watched as George used his sword to secure it in place of the latch they had broken.

"Come out Granger it's safe."

He could hear Hermione fiddle with the lock, her hands shaking so hard she couldn't open it. When she eventually did, she all but fell out of the door. Draco caught her. She shook uncontrollably, her voice croaking in incomprehensible sobs.

"We've got to go," Draco said to her unintentionally softly, "More could come at any time."

"More?! Oh my god the baby! Ginny and the baby!" Hermione sobbed into his arms. Subconsciously he squeezed her, but as soon as he realised her let her go slightly.

"They are fine Mr Weasley got them out. They are at the burrow." He felt her sag as she released a shaking breath of relief. He started to feel awkward and rose to his feet, pacing away from her and picking up his dripping sword from the floor and weighing it in his hand. It somehow felt both lighter and heavier then when he had first ripped it off of the wall.

George gently went to Hermione and picked her up, wincing as his hand came away red. He looked at Draco, his face dripping with a sickening worry. Draco looked at Hermione, her torso was seeping blood through her jumper. He looked down at his own shirt, stained crimson from where he held her. He gripped his sword tighter. He felt sick.

'Hermione, have you been bitten?' George asked gently. She looked up with watery eyes that narrowed and tried to think. She shook her head.

"No, I don't think so. Why? Whats happening to them?!" She glanced down at her bloody jumper and sobbed harder. "She...She ripped into me with her bare hands! She was knashing her teeth at me, but I kept her away." Hermione shook and Draco could tell she was in shock, but he wasn't about to let his guard down.

She made eye contact with Draco, 'This is black magic isn't it?'

He stared back into her brown eyes for a second.

'We need to see...' Draco said roughly, edging his way towards her . She stepped back but Draco cornered her. George stepped in front of him.

'What are you doing? She's scared!" George said, blocking Hermione.

"We can't risk it Weasley, if she was bitten and we take her back, it will be your mum, your sister next. Is that what you want?"

Draco could see the inner battle George was having with his morality but there was no time to think or be gentle. He roughly pushed past George and pinned Hermione against the wall, holding her small frame with his own, seizing at her jumper and lifting it. She screamed and wriggled and George tried to barge him away but Draco was too strong. The wool stuck to the blood and he could feel Hermione under him jerking with the pain. Draco shouldered George away as he looked at the jagged raw claw marks that raked through her porcelain skin. He winced at the inflamed and shredded tissue, it was nasty and urgently needed stitches, but nothing looked like a bite mark - but he couldn't be sure. He stepped back and let go of Hermione's jumper, she pulled it down roughly, and slid down to the floor - glaring at him through teary eyes.

God, why was she always giving him that look?

'Happy now Malfoy?' George said while rubbing Hermione's shoulder and picking her up.

"Some more are coming boys! It's time to go!" Mr Weasley called from outside the door.

Draco ignored him and continued looking at George.

'Not really, she probably hasn't been bitten, but how do we know scratches don't infect too? It's your choice weasel, its a risk on your family.'

'It's not a choice. Hermione is family, she's not staying here, besides...' George lifted up a sleeve to show a thin but long scratch all the way up his forearm. 'The woman in the labs caught me as we were trying to pin her to the chair. I'm fine.'

Draco was pissed.

'You bastard you didn't say anything.'

George shrugged and smirked. 'I guessed if I did turn you'd be the first I get.'

'Charming, you ginger piece of...'

'Can we go?' Hermione said quietly. More exhausted and fed up then sad or scared. This girl really had had the shittiest week.

"Boys!" Mr Weasley bellowed from outside, "It's now or never!"

George and Draco picked up their swords and instinctively stood in front of Hermione. They gave each other a quick nod and opened the door.