Ravenclaw, Prefect additional short, He reached out. His hand grasping for her... , WC: 1039
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They were running again.
Time moved slowly, as if they were escaping a monster in a dream.
Her frizzy brunette ponytail whipped around as she ran, following her partner through the dim moonlight, curving around the explosions that manifested from the ashes themselves. The fire burned the air around them, searing marks onto their already-charred skin. Draco led a path through the trees, partially to confuse the enemy Death Eaters that seemed to be permanently on their tail, and partly to assess the damage surrounding them. Hermione kept her wand out, occasionally firing backwards to ensure a little more safety. Behind them, the bangs and crashes sounded as curses hurled themselves into trees, causing them to fall unceremoniously.
Draco's legs were burning from running for so long. Adrenaline wasn't about to fail him, but it didn't mean that he didn't feel the inkling of pain that would come. Every part of his body ached. Physically and mentally, he was slowly falling to his knees. Now that he was part of the rebellion, he had a little more to fight for. He'd been mulling it over for months, letting the thoughts breathe one into the next, over what was the right thing to do. How to implement it. One day he had woken up and done that right thing for once in his life. And he had kept doing it. Over and over again.
Hermione, on the other hand, had always been good. Draco knew that she had always been on the right side. Somehow, they worked exceptionally well together.
They didn't need to talk as they ran because they already knew the drill. Get to the rendezvous point with the Horcrux. Somewhere along the way back, Death Eaters had just been there. There wasn't time to Apparate to an agreed-upon place. They just ran.
"We can't lead them there, Draco!" Hermione shouted to him over the tumultuous din as another tree exploded into flames beside her.
"I know!" he shouted back, glancing over his shoulder to check on her for the seventh time since they had begun running. If she was okay, then he was okay. "We have to get back somehow, though! We can't stop and let them get it!"
"I know, I know!"
"I have an idea, but you just have to trust me!"
His voice was almost completely drowned out by a flurry of curses bulleting the forest floor ahead. Hermione sidestepped them easily, legs pounding against the ground, escaping by mere inches. She shot jinxes backwards again, not pausing to relish in the shrieks of a Death Eater who was caught in it.
"You know I trust you!" she answered Draco, accelerating to keep up with him again.
"Steer clear, okay?"
Hermione winced as a Stinging Hex hit her ankle, not wholly paying attention to Draco. He assumed that she had heard and was running sideways instead of into the chaos he was about to create. He was wrong. He assumed that she was okay, and that she was safe from the spell. He took a moment to glance around and ferociously point his wand to the soil.
"TERRA BOMBARDA!"
Behind him, the ground dissolved then was thrown into the air, white-hot dirt expanding in a burning soil-cloud as the earth itself exploded in a single crack. Several thousand fathoms deep and expanding as though the ground was splitting itself. In seconds, the hole swallowed fifteen Death Eaters, leaving only one or two of the slowest ones shouting in surprise. Hermione was running towards him. But then, suddenly, the darkness was at her heels too. It chased her as she sprinted for him, stowing her wand away. Terrified, he ran for her. She couldn't fall. She just couldn't.
Draco forgot what he was and where he was. He forgot that he was on a mission and holding the Horcrux. He forgot the wand in his hand. It was too dangerous to attempt magic on something so vital. She was falling. The expanding crack caught one of her feel, then her leg.
He reached out. His hand grasping for her wrist, desperate.
"Hermione!" he shouted, his voice cracking in the newfound silence. Instead of shattering skies, and cracking spells, and vicious shouts, there was only white noise surrounding him. The crack didn't swallow him as he held onto her. She was so tiny and frail. "Don't let go!"
"Draco, I –"
"No, I can't lose you," he interrupted, reaching for her other arm to pull her out. "Come on, grab hold of me."
A Stinging Hex to the hand was all it took to send her tumbling down into the depths below away from him. It was well-aimed. He flinched, the sharp and searing pain causing him to let go. It was a purposefully stupid spell. Oddly, not meant to kill him. He fumbled, reaching for her, flat on his stomach from his mistake. His shout was barely loud enough against the din. She was falling into the chasm that he had created.
Draco lay there for longer than he should have, crying out from the pain. It pulsated outwards from his stomach and his heart outwards. It was slowly eating him inside, preventing his speech and halting the feeling in his limbs. He felt paralysed.
Move, he told himself. You have to get back.
The world wasn't exploding anymore, but he was certain that he might implode at a moment's notice. He was on his feet without really knowing how, numbly running through the thicket of forest, taking liberty to walk through some of it.
Draco reached the rendezvous point, pushing against the knot of the tree and entering the seemingly empty cave.
They were both there. Ron Weasley and Harry Potter. Waiting for him, and waiting for their best friend. Instead of determining the location of the Horcrux, it was Weasley who asked, "Where's Hermione?" glancing behind Draco to make sure it wasn't a mistake he had made due to the darkness.
Draco merely shook his head, unable to speak. His throat closed up and he absolutely certain he wanted to die.
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Ta all.
