Chapter Twenty One
Hermione made herself and Winky another cup of tea and chatted quietly to the elf. She had no one to write to and felt left out listening to Harry and Draco's quills scratch away at the dinning table.
She listened happily to the little elf fill her in about the goings on at Malfoy Manor, Winky had so many stories to tell, it was fascinating.
Winky had just finished telling her about all the flowers that were in bloom at the moment at in the gardens when Harry and Draco came over with a large bunch of envelopes between them.
Winky took them without question, tucking them into her pocket and jumping from the sofa.
"It is been very nice to see yous." Winky said with a smile, "All of yous."
"It's been really nice to see you as well." Hermione assured her, "No one knew that you were coming, did they?"
Winky shook her head, "I was afraids they would want to come with me, or says I couldn'ts go! I will tell them when I gets home though, Winky is a truthful, good elf."
"You are a very good elf." Draco assured her.
Winky hugged the three of them in turn before walking from the tent and making sure she was outside the wards before apparating away, the pop echoing through the tent.
"I think we should move on anyway." Harry sighed.
Draco and Hermione nodded.
"We've got the scram sax now, we knew that Dumbledore wanted you to have it." Draco said, running his fingers through his hair, "Do you really think it'll destroy that horrible thing?"
Harry shrugged, "I think we have to try. Let's get packed up now, before we try and destroy the Horcrux, then we'll move after it's gone."
"Sounds like a plan." Hermione said, starting to empty the kettle and wash their dirty cups.
It wasn't long before everything was packed away and the three of them had tucked their magical bags in their pockets so they could leave at a moment's notice. They'd also agreed where to meet up so they could apparate separately if needed.
Harry wandered to a fallen tree and sat himself down, pulling the locket from the Mokeskin pouch and looked it over.
It really was beautiful; heavy gold but polished to a brilliant shine. It wasn't really an S on the front, looking closely it was a snake that twisted round, it was more of a coincidence that it looked like an S.
"Any idea how to get it open?" Hermione said, sitting next to him.
Harry gave it a sharp tug but it didn't budge, "You give it a try, you've got longer nails than I do."
Hermione ran her thumb nail between the two halves and shrugged, "It's stuck solid."
"I just… I have this feeling that we have to open it to destroy it. Kreacher tried everything and it didn't leave a scratch." Harry sighed, rubbing his aching scar, "And House elf magic is really powerful."
Draco took the locket, running his thumb over the snake, "Parseltongue."
"What?" Hermione asked, "Stop mumbling."
"I think it's Parseltongue." Draco said, trying to keep a lid on his hopeful excitement, "Think about it; that's how you get into the Chamber of Secrets! It's the Slytherin family thing, it makes total sense that you'd need to use Parseltongue to open this!"
Harry perked up, "Oh my gods you're right!" it seemed to obvious now Draco had said it.
Harry jumped to his feet and lay the locket down where he'd been sitting.
"Hermione, get the scram sax out and ready, I think we need to kill this thing as soon as we can." Harry said.
Hermione nodded and pulled the scram sax out, handing it to Harry.
Harry didn't take it though, shaking his head, "No. I need to open this thing, meaning you need to kill it, one of you anyway."
"Is… is it safe?" Draco asked nervously.
Harry shrugged, "Nothing bad happened when we killed the Diary, just Ginny coming back to life… and I did not mean that the way it came out. You know what I mean."
Draco smirked, Hermione just rolled her eyes.
"Something bad did happen with Dumbledore and the ring, though." she pointed out.
Harry took a deep breath, "That was different. He tried to 'use' the ring, said that it told him he could have more power. We're not going to do that, we're just going to kill it. The Diary was tricky as well, just must not listen to it."
Hermione and Draco nodded, positioning themselves around the fallen tree that the locket was laying on. Draco grasped his hand around Hermione's, the scram sax hovering over the locket.
Harry stared at the locket snake, into its strangely real looking eyes and let out a low hiss. A loud click sounded and the locket sprung open.
Hermione, Harry and Draco felt themselves pushed backwards by a strong, invisible force leaving them all winded and sore from falling hard on the forest floor.
Harry pulled himself to his feet, wincing at the grazes covering his hands. Everything was suddenly very foggy, he couldn't see Hermione or Draco and when he called out for them, the sound was swallowed by the fog before it got anywhere.
In front of him though, was Danica.
She was older than she was now, eighteen or twenty even with long black hair that reached to her hips. She was beautiful, although Harry felt slightly weird looking her over so closely.
"Hello Harry." She said softly, giving him a very Danica smile.
Harry watched as the smile slipped from her face, tears starting to pour down her face. Harry reached up and realised he was crying as well, mirroring her tears.
Harry watched in horror, unable to move as blood started to pour from horrific wounds that covered her body.
"You didn't save me Harry… you couldn't save me. You just weren't enough and you're not enough to do this either. You're going to lose. I'm going to die, and it'll be all your fault." Danica sobbed gracefully.
Harry felt himself fall to his knees, pain ripping through his chest at her words. He couldn't move, he could think, he just knelt there, watching his baby sister bleed to death.
Hermione hadn't expected to be blown back as the locket opened. She pulled a twig from her hair and forced herself to her feet. A dense fog covered everything but the fallen tree in front of her. The fallen tree, and the locket.
Hermione saw the scram sax to the side of her and took a step towards it when she heard a voice.
"Viktor?" Hermione said, feeling her heart melt slightly at the sight of him. She missed him so badly, it was a never ending ache in her chest. She just wanted him to hug her, tell her that everything was going to be OK, "Viktor?" she said again.
Viktor didn't even turn to look at her, although some how she knew that he'd heard her.
"I can't believe how easy it vas to get tat mudblood to believe I actually could care about her." Viktor scoffed, "'Look at me! I vas stupid enough to pretend tat I am pretty enough to have someone even half good looking look at me twice vhen really I am ugly and… vell a mudblood'. She is so pathetic!"
Hermione let out a strangled scream and covered her mouth, "It's not real… it's not real." she repeated to herself, as much as her heart wouldn't listen.
She could hear Viktor laughing, and other laughs in the background. Harry and Draco's voices echoed through, coming from Viktor.
"She actually thought she was our friend? Oh that's rich! Like we'd ever be friends with someone like her." Draco laughed, his voice booming painfully in her ears, "I mean! Look at her!"
"She was useful to have around, you have to admit." Harry sneered, "She did all the work for us, we didn't have to lift a finger and still got all the credit."
Hermione took several deep breath and wiped the tears from her face, taking a few shaky steps towards the scram sax, as the words got louder and nastier around her.
"Well that hurt." Draco mumbled to himself, looking around at the white fog, "and that is not a good sign…"
"Harry! Hermione!" his voice died the moment it left his mouth, strangled by the fog.
Draco took a careful step towards the locket, the suddenly frozen forest floor crunching under his feet.
Draco stopped quickly, seeing the fog grow thicker, taking human form on the fallen tree. His mother and father sat before him, impossibly perfect and clutching tightly to each other's hands. It was the two Death Eater masks, however, that drew Draco's attention. Lucius and Narcissa's free hands clutching just as tightly to the horrible masks.
"Come with us Draco, you know that you are meant for better things than this." Narcissa said softly.
It was her voice, it sounded just like her.
"Come be with us again, we shall be a family!" Lucius beamed at him, letting go of Narcissa's hand to reach out to Draco.
"Your friendship with Harry was never meant to be." Narcissa pleaded with her son, "You shouldn't be here, risking your life for a half blood."
"Lily is your best friend." Draco choked out, "And I know that you never expected us to be friends, it's basically a long running joke! But we are, and you've always been happy for us."
Narcissa and Lucius sighed and looked meaningfully at one another, Lucius's hand drooping slightly.
"No… we pretended." Lucius said, with another sigh, "But the game is over now, we want you to come home, to take your place amongst us where you belong!"
"It's easy." Narcissa smiled, lighting up every inch of her face, "Just touch the locket and everything will be the way it's meant to be."
Draco reached out his hand on automatic, before shaking his head.
"This isn't real!" Draco shouted at himself, "You're just trying to get inside my head."
Draco heard a noise to his side, but couldn't pull his eyes away from his mother and father. They stood up, glaring down at their son.
The Death Eater masks were now fixed over their faces as they held a new one out for Draco, the pale metal catching the light around it, highlighting the intricately engraved finish.
Draco forced himself to pull his eyes to the rustling next to him. Hermione was crawling towards him, tears streaming down her heartbroken face. She held the scram sax in her hand, reaching it out towards Draco.
"Draco… help." Hermione sobbed, deafened by Krum, Harry and Draco's voices ringing in her ears as they laughed at her.
Neither of them could see the way the locket was hurting the other, just that they were both struggling.
"It's time to choose son." Lucius said, his voice empty and cruel, not showing a hint of the love that filled it a moment ago.
"They can't win." Narcissa said, equally coldly, "You will die if you stay with them."
"Who will you pick son?" Lucius hissed.
Draco felt his heart pounding in his neck, he wanted to be sick and cry. He looked desperately between Hermione and his parents and scram sax.
"Them." Draco said quickly.
He cleared the three steps between him and Hermione in a heartbeat, before rushing over to the locket and plunging the scram sax deep into the empty picture place.