A/N: Thank you so much for all your well wishes. In return, here's another chapter for the week.
Their potions collection had seemed paltry before but now, spread across the table, it looked downright anaemic. Hermione surveyed the little bottles and vials, dread and doubt rising by the moment. This was insane. Was there really no better option?
What was it Draco had said, all that time ago? You don't have to run into something headfirst and set it on fire if you want it to change. Well, this certainly felt like doing exactly that. Short of charging into Voldemort himself, Hermione couldn't think of much else that could be more extreme than what they were about to do.
But, she reminded herself, she'd already tried — and failed — to persuade Harry otherwise. So the only thing left to do, was do it.
"First sign of trouble — any trouble — and we'll come right back," promised Ron to a restless-looking Harry.
"You know what to look for, right?" he asked yet again. "If you hear anyone talking about him — about something he's worried about, or trying to keep safe, or that he's attached to —"
"We know, mate."
Draco, who was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, looking worried, suddenly spoke up. "We should go soon, if we're really doing this. The sun will be up shortly."
Draco was adamant they go at dawn. He seemed to think that was when Voldemort and his people were most likely to be asleep. The notion of Voldemort sleeping at all was an odd one, and Hermione couldn't help but wonder if the lack of activity would only make them more conspicuous.
Harry looked at them hungrily, like when he'd dragged them all off to the Ministry. The thought did not bode well.
"Right. Let's get under the Cloak, then." Ron brought the Cloak over his shoulders and held out his arms, as though he were pretending the Cloak were a great pair of wings. "Come on in."
Rolling her eyes, Hermione situated herself flush against Ron's side, her head barely coming up to his armpit as Draco reluctantly approached Ron's other side. When they'd configured themselves as closely as they were willing, Ron let the sides of the Cloak come around them.
"Yeah, that's… that's not going to work. I can see all your feet."
For the next several minutes, Harry coached and adjusted them until they were completely invisible. Neither Draco nor Ron were particularly small boys, and so Hermione found herself uncomfortably sandwiched between them as they hunched over until their heads were all level. It was terribly uncomfortable and inefficient (walking had become more like shuffling), and it was made all the worse by Draco's body practically wrapped around hers. She felt herself flushing and was glad Ron couldn't see; suddenly, she couldn't stop thinking about Draco's hands.
When Harry had confirmed they were ready, they crept through the house, practicing their stealth, until they'd reached the front door.
"I'll open the door," said Ron lowly, "and as soon as we're on the step, Malfoy, you disapparate us. Ready?"
The Cloak shifted around them as Draco nodded.
While Hermione was afraid, the fear had mutated, or perhaps been suppressed by the sudden and pronounced rationality which had come to the forefront. Her head was clear. Draco, on the other hand, was trembling against her. She grabbed his clammy hand — ostensibly for disapparition — and hoped it would steady him a little.
"Ready? Here we go —"
In one clean motion, they stepped onto the stoop, Draco's hand tightened on hers, and the world turned inside out.
They appeared, breathless, on an endless gravel road. Hermione's first thought was that the ground and the sky were the same colour; she felt as though she had been dropped into an infinite expanse of grey. There was a thick fog, too, which settled on her skin like a heavy shroud, though a paradoxically cold one.
"Is everyone alright?" asked Ron. "Nobody splinched?"
"I'm fine."
"Fine too." Any other time, Hermione was sure Draco would have made a comment, demanding to know if Ron was questioning his apparition skills, but his voice was wavering, and he had gone very still.
Hermione looked up from her shoes and saw a tall black shape in the distance. The fog made it difficult to determine where it ended, with its gothic spires reaching high above the main part of the house. Though calling it a house at all was unnecessarily generous, in Hermione's opinion. Even from a distance, she could tell it just wasn't the sort of place people lived anymore. Had the Malfoys been Muggles, their estate would have been turned into a museum generations ago as the family moved to live in more practical (though no doubt extravagant) abodes.
But, of course, they were wizards, and Hermione gaped as she fully came to terms with how Draco had grown up.
"Fuck, Malfoy," breathed Ron, having come to a similar understanding, "you live here?"
"Lived," corrected Draco shortly. She couldn't see his face — they were crammed against each other under the Cloak — but she imagined his expression as pinched.
On her other side, Ron shook his head, rustling the fabric around them. "No wonder you're such a twat…"
Any retort was distracted, however, by the sudden presence of two gruff voices. Hermione held her breath; Ron rifled through his pockets until he pulled out a long, flesh-coloured string and let it slither along the ground in the direction of the pair of wizards walking in the direction of the imposing wrought metal gate.
Hermione leaned in to listen, keeping her slow footsteps as quiet as possible against the gravel.
"Where's Macnair?" asked one.
"Still at the Ministry," replied the other, "trying to persuade the Unspeakables to work on the blood project."
"Not feeling cooperative are they?" A laugh.
"They say it's not possible, that blood samples don't tell you if you're a wizard or not."
"Impossible…"
They stopped, and one of them raised his wand to the fence. After a moment, the metal contorted itself into a gate, through which they passed and disappeared on the other side of the wards. The three under the Cloak came to a stop, and Ron began to stuff the Extendable Ear into his pocket.
"Well, that was educational," he said mildly, but his voice was a little strained. It seemed the temperature had dropped another degree.
Draco directed them towards the imposing wrought metal gate which seemed to go on forever and, once again, lacked a door. Apart from their cautious footsteps crunching in the gravel, there was no sign of anyone else in the cold, gloomy morning.
They crept, breaths held, along the road. Hermione kept waiting for it to happen — for someone to appear, for them to be caught, for the Cloak to catch the wind and fly off them — but they were unhindered in their mission. Perhaps Harry had been right, perhaps this had been the best next step, but as they got closer to the manor's gate, that sense of impending doom only grew until it felt nearly suffocating.
"Don't touch the gate," warned Draco as they approached. "It's protected by ancient blood wards. They'll know someone's trying to get in the second you do."
"Got it."
Ron and Draco both sounded overwrought, like they were struggling to speak from the bottom of a lake, and Hermione wondered if they felt the same paralysing fear she did. Was it always like this? Thinking back, she'd always felt alert during these sorts of things, didn't she? Not like this. Perhaps she remembered wrong.
"The grounds are huge," Draco said, and Hermione felt a flash of irritation that he was repeating himself. They'd gone over all this already, at Grimmauld Place. "Once I get us in the gate, we can try and get closer to — to the house and see if we find anything. B-but we'll have to get back out here to disapparate."
Hermione nodded impatiently, her hair rustling against the cloak. After several minutes of careful manoeuvring, they ended up alongside the fence, and Hermione stared at one of the black metal poles, the intricate designs embossed on it, feeling curiously empty.
"The wards know me," Draco needlessly explained again. "When I touch it, it should let us in without alerting anyone…"
He reached out a hand to the metal and Hermione suddenly sensed the magic imbued there, thrumming just beyond her perception. The metal took on a glow as Draco's fingers neared, until he'd wrapped a hand around one of the poles. Draco's eyebrows drew together as he manipulated the magic, but he was frowning. "What?" he breathed. "That's not right…"
For a second, all Hermione could see was the clear glowing of the wards, before everything turned a bright red as the metal flashed crimson. Draco yanked back his hand, crying out in pain the same moment they heard hurried, uneven footsteps coming up the drive.
There was a scrambling beneath the Cloak as they secured their wands in their hands, ready to meet the threat hobbling towards the door that had appeared in the fence at Draco's touch. It was a wizard, dressed in dark robes, limping and growling. He was close enough that Hermione could hear his accent. It was too late now to disapparate, not if they didn't want to cause a scene —
"Who's there?" he grunted. "Is it you, pretty thing? Come to take my other leg?" He laughed cruelly. "Mudblood…"
Beside her, Ron's wand arm raised, then faltered. Hermione did, too; the temperature had plummeted again, and suddenly she realised why she'd been feeling so bereft since they'd arrived.
Half a dozen Dementors surged at them, swirling through the mist above. Hermione choked and felt her soul lurch within her, but it didn't matter — none of it mattered, because this was the end, and there was nothing she could do about it.
All three of them had their wands raised, aimed frantically at the Dementors, and Hermione felt the breeze skim her ankles the same moment she heard a triumphant "Ha! There you are!"
"Expecto patronum," came a whisper from beside her. "Expecto pa— EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
"STUPEFY!"
To be between two powerful incantations sucked the breath out of her. From her right, something white and indistinguishable lurched through the air, charging at the circling Dementors, barely keeping them at bay while the Death Eater in front of them crumpled to the ground. The effect was overwhelming; it was several seconds before she could breathe again, and she found herself suddenly able to think for the first time since they'd got here.
"I need to obliviate him," she whispered into the silence.
"You'll need to wake him up, too," added Draco frantically.
"What, so he can see us —"
"They'll find him out here, Weasley, and know someone was here. If we take his memory and let him go on his way, he'll just go back and tell them an animal tripped the wards or something —"
"Fine. Do the memory thing, Hermione. I'll wake him up as I disapparate us. Grab my arm, Malfoy."
"Fine — oh, fuck, my hand —" Draco shifted beside her, reaching around her back for Ron, wincing and whimpering in pain. Hermione tuned them out, her eyes settling on the unconscious wizard in front of them while the Patronus battled the Dementors above them. She could see now that one of his legs was false, having been severed above the knee. It was a crude prosthesis, especially by magical standards.
He was several feet away; it was difficult to aim her wand between his eyes, and the Patronus was failing, the cold was coming back… She'd only ever really done this on Slughorn, of course, and he'd been conscious and cooperative. Would the spell work like this, too?
There wasn't time to think about it. What mattered was removing the memory of the Patronus, of their legs revealed by the Cloak, of a Stunning Spell flying at him from nowhere…
Hermione took a long, slow breath, ignoring the frightened boys beside her, the encroaching feelings of dread, and said, "Obliviate."
The body sagged a little, as though sighing in relief. She decided to take that as a good sign.
"Right. Hold on," warned Ron. She tightened her hold on his bicep and felt Draco stiffen beside her. Ron's wand came up. "Rennervate."
Then the world turned inside out again, just as the Patronus extinguished and Dolohov began to stir.
