Hello, I'm back for another go at this fanfiction thing.
My deepest thanks to everyone who left such lovely feedback at the end of Cross my Heart. I've been slack and not replied, but I read every one and I'm incredibly touched.
BIG MASSIVE SPOILER: Hermione doesn't die. Draco dies. Right at the beginning. But before you close this story and go off in search of non-dead wizards/witches, he comes back to life. He just has to undergo a journey, first. And nothing gets in the way of true love, right?
Acknowledgement: I own the plot, but JK Rowling owns the Harry Potter universe.
*Trigger: references to rape and torture. No scenes depicting rape and torture are written.
Lord Voldemort, lounging on the large chair he liked to think of as his throne, was distracted from the sounds and sights of revelry and political machinations echoing around Malfoy Manor's once-superb ball room. The large entry doors clanged open, and a dark-clothed figure appeared, clutching something.
Voldemort smiled his snake smile and crooked a long bony finger, beckoning the new arrival forward. "Approach, dear boy," he hissed.
Draco Malfoy walked the gauntlet of Death Eaters, pointing their fingers and whispering about the pitiful piece of baggage he brought with him. He dragged the prisoner by their hair, clutched tight in his fist. His conquest only put up a token resistance. They were too exhausted, too damaged, to care for anything much.
A respectful distance away, Draco stopped and released his hold on the prisoner, who collapsed to the floor.
"The prisoner Granger, as you requested, my Lord," Draco said in a monotone.
The murmurings amid the Death Eaters grew. This was the mudblood Granger, intimate ally of the upstart Potter! Surely she has revealed his location under the 'persuasive' techniques they applied to all who were folly enough to think they could best a Death Eater! Maybe this time next week the war would be all over, and they could rightly take their places alongside (or maybe behind a bit) Lord Voldemort and rule the wizarding world as it jolly well should have been all along.
"What has she revealed?" his Lordship asked. Dull lights gleamed in his black eyes.
"Nothing of any use, my Lord," Draco replied in the same tone.
Lucius, never too far from Voldemort's spectre-like form, frowned mightily, hoping without success to catch the boy's eye. Honestly, would it kill him to put a little respect in his tone? At least he keeps his eyes on the ground, Lucius reflected. Seems his son will be in need of a little educative discipline later this evening, after the revelries had concluded.
Voldemort slunk back into his throne/chair, cheesed off. His finest men had applied every method in their revolting arsenal to break her physically and mentally, and for what? Nothing! Just this wreck of a girl lolling about on Lucius's best carpets, getting them dirty, no doubt.
"Fine, then," he snapped, waving a dismissive clawed hand. "Execute her."
"But my Lord," a Death Eater pouted – Dudley's old man from the sound of it – "perhaps a little time to play with her, first?"
"There is nothing of her left," Draco said. "Raping her would be like fucking a bowl of dough."
Lucius closed his eyes in pain at Draco's impolite words. The boy was getting the whip tonight, that was for sure.
"No playing," Voldemort intoned, and Dudley senior stepped back in disappointment, adjusting his crotch under his robes.
"Very well, my Lord," Draco replied, grabbing a hank of Granger's snarled hair and pulling her up almost to her feet. Tears tracked down her filthy, nearly skeletal cheeks, but she remained silent, courtesy of a recently-applied broken jaw. The fire he and his brethren had never been able to torture from her eyes remained, and when theirs met for a merest inkling of a second, he felt it brand his skin. It hurt more than his Death Eater tattoo, a mark he'd come to loathe with all his strength as the war dragged on. If anyone pulled up the sleeve of his robe, they'd see a snake coiling around a path that was blotched and scratched with deep, bloody grooves. He'd lately taken to using a knife to try to dig the atrocity out of his body. And for everything it stood for.
He was over it. And his options for escape were very narrow.
"Stop!" His master's voice rasped out as Draco and his prisoner turned away. "Do it here."
Draco took a silent breath in and tightened his hold on Granger's hair, expecting her to fight, however feebly. She stiffened, but that was all. Turning back, he glanced around the large room, taking in the expressions of the assembled wizards. Lust heightened their features and brightened their eyes. Draco hoped that his feigned expressions had been enough to fool his colleagues when he stood where they stood, egging the entertainment on.
His eyes met his father's, so alike in feature. But a physical resemblance was all they shared. The night they raped his mother to death in this very room was the night Draco changed. His father stepped back and let it happen. Even joined in. All to save his worthless arse and prove his loyalty to a beast that was more animal than wizard. And Draco could not find it within himself to forgive him.
Draco nodded to the man who gave him life, then drew his wand.
He angled his face close to Granger's and whispered "Prepare yourself."
Her cracked lips stretched. "-uck you, -al-oy," she gritted.
He smiled and began the incantation.
There was a blinding flash of light and the crackle of magic sparked in the air. There was even a little smoke for theatrics. When that settled, a collective gasp of outrage burst from the assembled and bounced off the ballroom ceiling.
The mudblood Granger was gone!
Voldemort leapt off his throne/chair. "What have you done, you stupid boy?" he roared. "Bring her back this instant!"
"Nope," Draco replied, his wand in a defensive position.
"Draco Malfoy, what is the meaning of this?" Lucius spat, rolling up his robe sleeves, preparing to administer the thrashing of a lifetime. "Do as the Dark Lord says, and your punishment may be somewhat merciful."
In response, Draco raised his wand and pointed it to himself. "Avada" –
"NO!" Lucius lurched forward, fumbling for his wand.
There was a flash of green light; and the body of Draco Lucius Malfoy lay crumpled on the ballroom floor.
A/N: Chapter 2: Draco and Hermione find themselves in very strange places.