Forty-Two

The thunder rumbles nearly constantly, a sleeping dragon, and Draco can feel it shivering in the air. Occasionally, it rises to a crescendo, crashing and booming, the old manor house shaking. The storm is moving closer, sweeping in directly overhead as they reach the open doors to the garden after a short, bloody fight down the long corridor. One of the American Aurors is down – not killed but wounded too badly to fight on – and Draco's taken a shallow slash to his side that stings, some of the others taking their own minor wounds. But they killed the enemy. All of them have fallen, except the handful that fled into the dark night, retreating.

A certain primal triumph flows through him as he steps up to the doorway, pausing as Weasley falls in at his side. It's pouring down, and he thinks that at least it might wash the blood and filth off him – his once-white t-shirt is now torn in two places and marked with blood splatter and the pink stain of atomised flesh. The fluids are drying tacky onto his arms, and undoubtedly in his hair too. It's disgusting. He limps forward out into the downpour, and it immediately plasters his hair to his head. It's the kind of rain that slashes down in biting needles, and it's falling thick and fast, already washing his arms clean.

He rakes his hair back and whips a sectumsempra at an injured dark wizard scrambling clumsily down the stairs away from them, with no one else nearby. The man's body jerks and he falls, tumbling down several stairs, which Draco eyes cautiously as he stands at the edge. They're stone and slippery with rain, and he's still limping and lurching like a sailor who hasn't got his land legs back yet, pain throbbing in his badly swollen knee and thigh. Traversing the steps will not be fun. If he's not careful, he'll fall straight down them and break his neck. Hermione would be so furious, he thinks disconnectedly, as trickles of water run down his face, shirt already halfway to soaked.

He takes stock of the area. Further out in the darkened gardens, he can see the fighting – little skirmishes lighting up patches of the estate as spells fly. There's a long strip of lawn that stretches from the stairs to the maze, with a walk cutting through the middle. It's lined with urns on plinths, and he can see people fighting near there, the duelling creeping back toward the stairs and spreading out over the lawn. The mansion has mostly emptied itself out into the gardens, it seems. So, down the steps it is. About a dozen people peel off and race down the stairs past him and Weasley, most heading left and right into the labyrinth of walkways, with a few heading straight out into the battle on the lawn. One falls halfway toward the skirmish on the lawn, and another two explode into human shrapnel at the entrance to a walkway at the right, and he grimaces.

Time to go and join the fight. He moves forward to descend the stairs, his jaw clenching as he lurches.

Then suddenly, Creevey is there and grabs his arm. "I'll help," he says eagerly, and Draco frowns at him, puzzled, as lightning flashes overhead. He'd think the younger man is just looking for an excuse to pitch him down the stairs, except he seemed more eager to please than to get revenge during the fight toward the doors, taking orders well. Abbot and Finch-Fletchley appear behind Creevey, fear bright in their eyes, and Draco looks at the three of them. None of them are brilliant duellists. He doesn't want to see them suffer the same fate as the three Order members or Aurors who he just saw struck down. He's going soft.

"Weasley. Should we send these three to check the dungeons?" he yells at Weasley over the thunder. "There are prisoners down there who need help!" And there won't be any Death Eaters either, and probably only a few Snatchers. It's one of the safest places they could be right now. And it would be a good idea to clear the manor of non-combatants – parts of it appear to be on fire.

Weasley glances over at the three and then shoots a fleeting grin at Draco. "Yeah!" he yells back. "Good idea! You three. Go clear the dungeons! Get the prisoners out!" Creevey looks disappointed, and Abbott and Finch-Fletchley relieved, but all three move to do as Weasley ordered. He grabs Draco's arm then. "Come on. 'Mione'd kill me if I let you fall down the stairs," he says, water streaming over his pale, freckled face, his beard gleaming wetly and his hair plastered flat.

"You look like a half-drowned ginger demiguise," Draco retorts, and then they lurch down the stairs together as Weasley talks shit, both of them running on adrenaline and a simmering blood-lust. He nearly tips himself down the stairs twice, but once he's on solid ground, he's fine. The smell of petrichor rises from the soil, and there's a sudden static charge in the air before a fork of lightning comes down and strikes a tree in the garden only a few hundred metres away. There's an explosive sound as it bursts into flame and seems to crack in two, and then the thunder splits the air, so loud it hurts, and Weasley gives Draco a wide-eyed look.

"Let's get the fuck out of the open before we get struck," Weasley says, shouting over the thunder and rain, water running into his mouth from his hair, and it's pink from other people's blood. "We should head left-ish. I think I saw the biggest battle that way." He points to the left of the maze. "It's probably Harry and the others duelling Voldemort."

Draco nods – he saw that criss-crossing hail of curses from the top of the stairs too – and they head that way, only to be intercepted by the skirmish taking place on the expanse of lawn, which spills in their direction. They're dragged into a pitched battle, which isn't quickly settled. About a dozen on each side, and none of them are terrible fighters – Draco supposes grimly that most of the worst fighters have died at this point. He takes out one of the fighters after exchanging a hectic flurry of curses, but the others are being careful and staying in cover where they can. It's been at least ten minutes at this point, everyone pinned down and neither side doing better than the other.

Draco's pressed against an urn, taking tenuous cover two urns up from Weasley, who's doing the same thing, just like everyone else, frustration etched into his face. He's eager to get to Potter, no doubt. By some odd mutual agreement, no one targets the urns themselves with bombardas or any kind of destructive spells – probably because once that happens, everyone will do it, and everyone will die very quickly without any skill needed, and no one in the skirmish wants to die. And then, in the chaos of rain and flashing lights, Draco sees them at the back of the other side's duellists, taking cover on each side of an urn near the maze, popping out occasionally to fling curses, much like he's doing.

Jones, and Garcia.

Even in the dark and the rain, he recognises them. All of the American wizards' faces are burned into his mind, and he knows them immediately. It's not surprising, he tells himself. They'll all be here tonight. The Order knew that. It's why the MACUSA Aurors joined them in the first place – one of whom is pinned down under a hail of curses just nearby, fighting well. Draco is rather glad the wizard is busy; he wants this kill. Both of them. And he knows he should stick with Weasley, but he doesn't think the man will blame him for going after Jones and Garcia. Hopefully, he'll be able to take them out before this unending bloody skirmish is even done.

Draco takes a deep breath and casts a shield as he leaves the cover of the plinth at a limping run that makes surprisingly good speed. He holds his shield up with an effort, shimmering and wavering as curses splash against it and ricochet away, and then he makes it to the next urn and the meagre cover it offers. And then the next. And then, Jones and Garcia are just three urns up, on the other side of the walkway. What now? He hasn't planned this far ahead. A thought occurs to him, and he aims.

"Bombarda!" He breaks the unspoken agreement between the duellers without a second thought – although he does hope Weasley gets away from his urn in time. Jones and Garcia's cover explodes, chunks of stone flying everywhere, and then chaos immediately erupts behind him, the sound of successive explosions and shattering stone ringing out.

He runs for Jones and Garcia in his hobbling lurch and swears viciously as Jones scrambles to his feet, wobbling, and runs for the hedge maze. He flings curses after the man, but he dodges and zigzags, and Draco misses.

"Shit!" he hisses as Jones disappears into the maze, vanishing from sight. "Fuck!" A helpless fury rises in him, his leg screaming in pain as he runs on an injury he probably shouldn't be running on. But Garcia is still there when Draco lurches to a halt a few metres away. The skinny wizard pushes himself upright, his face a mask of rage as he sways on his feet with blood trickling down his head and his wand still clutched in his hand, his shoulders hunched and his mouth a sneer.

Draco lashes out with an expelliarmus, a stupefy, and a diffindo, but Garcia has already collected himself and blocks them all, one after the other, returning fire. They stand across from each other, just hurling curses and shielding, no cover available. Who lives and dies is purely based on reflexes and focus. Draco's head throbs, the rain running down his face, droplets catching in his eyelashes as he stares Garcia down, his mouth a thin line and all his curses silent, his arm constantly sweeping and flicking. If he messes up just once – the wrong motion for protego, not enough focus, too slow – then he's dead. And unlike Garcia, he's not fighting to kill, but to disable, or wound. He wants to be able to tell the man why he's dying. He wants to make it painful.

Garcia attempts the Killing Curse twice, and Draco grits his teeth as he twists and side-steps to avoid the green light, his knee a swollen mass of agony that sears and stabs up into his torso and down into his calf. He's vaguely aware of the battle going on further down the long double row of urns that line the pathway dividing the stretch of lawn, but he can't afford to spare any thought for it as the duel continues, long enough that his damned arm is getting tired. Garcia is panting, his long dark hair straggling around his face, his wandwork getting sloppier, and he barely manages to deflect Draco's incarcerous.

And then it falls apart.

Draco sees a red bolt out of the corner of his eye. A stray spell streaking out of the thick of the battle further down. He automatically turns and brings his wand up to block it, and that opens him up to Garcia. The crucio takes him by surprise. Agony, searing through him, as though his blood is boiling in his veins, his muscles seizing and spasming, and he falls. Toppling to one side, his wand slipping from his nerveless fingers as he goes, and the way he falls – hard, unable to protect himself, his head bouncing off the muddy ground – would hurt badly at any other time. He doesn't feel it.

He screams. There's no reason not to, and it feels like his muscles are all tearing from his bones, flesh ripping. His head is being crushed in a vice, his teeth grinding together hard, his blood on fire. It goes on and on, and as if from far away, he's aware of laughter as the pain devours him. He can't breathe. Can't swallow. His eyes are open, but all he can see is darkness, and he doesn't know if he's gone blind. He thinks he swallows a piece of molar that breaks off. He's biting his tongue. Choking on blood. Choking, and seizing, his body not his own anymore. It's a fist of pain, and it's grinding his mind to paste. Pain. Everything is made of pain. He can't stand it. He can't –

Hermione, he thinks blindly, his fingers clawing at the muddy grass, his mind an ocean of agony, trying desperately to cling to thoughts of her. Hermione. I'm sorry. And then, as the crucio goes on and on, he loses the ability to think at all.

Until it stops.

The absence of pain feels like nothing else Draco has ever felt as he lies there, his contorted, spasming muscles suddenly going limp, save for aftershock spasms, his cheek pressed against the muddy grass as he lies, curled up like a comma. It's better than sex. Better than anything. He loves it. He fervently, deeply loves the absence of pain. He hears voices.

"I've got him, you go!" Creevey?

He vaguely recognises Weasley's voice next. "Are you sure, what about –"

"He's bound, unconscious, and wandless," says a third voice in an accented drawl. One of the American Aurors, he realises slowly. "We'll pick him up once the battle's done."

"Be careful, Colin!"

The sound of footsteps squelching away fast on the sodden ground, and then there's a thud by his head, and someone takes hold of his shoulder and rolls him onto his back. He stares at the sky blankly, rain getting in his open mouth, and he chokes and coughs. Blinks. Swallows, and shuts his mouth. It tastes like blood, and he realises belatedly his tongue is bleeding. Badly. The sky is black, thick with boiling storm clouds, and as he watches, lightning forks across the sky. "Pretty," he slurs, blood spilling out the corner of his mouth, and then Creevey's face looms into his vision.

"Malfoy? Malfoy, are you still… He didn't drive you mad, did he?" Creevey asks, filled with a panicked worry, and it takes Draco a moment to process what he said and then put his fragmented mind back together, somewhat.

"No?" he says, tasting the word and trying to figure out if it's right or not. Hermione – he remembers feeling terrible he'd failed her. And Garcia. And his wand, where's his wand? "N-no. Not mad," he says then, blood dribbling everywhere as he talks, putting things together fast. Bound and unconscious, that voice had said, and he must've meant Garcia. A smile tries to twitch onto Draco's face, but he feels like his muscles aren't working right. "Just – just a little shaken up. I'm fine. Just – just give me a minute." He struggles onto all fours, Creevey hovering over him and helping steady him. He doesn't refuse the help. His knee is just one of many pains now as all his abused muscles scream out.

Creevey helps haul him upright, Draco's arm slung over the shorter man's shoulders, both of them wobbling and swaying there for a moment, until he thinks he has his feet.

"Th-thanks. I've got it," he says and lets go of Creevey – only to nearly pitch straight back over as his bad knee goes out from under him. Creevey's right there, keeping him upright and then steadying him as he regains his balance, properly this time. Fuck, that was undignified, he thinks wryly, aftershocks of agony still jittering through him. But he's upright now, and actually standing on his own. He pats his belt and feels the dagger still wedged there, and then scans the ground for his wand, hoping it isn't broken.

Draco's brain still feels fractured, like he can't make sense of things properly. Like he knows he's not understanding everything, but he doesn't know what he's missing. His left eyelid keeps twitching, and he feels like throwing up. And every muscle feels like he's been put through a washing mangle. He wants to pass out.

"Here," Creevey says and holds his wand out to him, slightly muddy but unbroken, and relief soars.

"Thanks," he says simply, and Creevey smiles. "Fuck, this hurts." Draco spits blood on the ground, agony shivering through him.

"I've got –" Creevey begins, but then Draco sees one of the things his dazed mind has forgotten in the last few moments. Garcia. The thin-framed wizard is unconscious and trussed well, at the marble base of a half-destroyed plinth. Draco lurches forward, and fuck, that hurts.

"Did you do this?"

"Well, I helped. Hannah and Justin didn't really need my help clearing the dungeons, so I came back out, and the Order were mopping up some enemies over there –" He points in the direction of a swathe of destroyed urns "– and I came running over, but then I saw you and him over here, half hidden, and I yelled for help. And Ron and one of the American Aurors helped take him down."

Draco stares at Garcia. "Thanks, Creevey. You saved my life." He flicks his eyes up – left still twitching – and the younger man beams. "And now I can kill this bastard." Creevey's face falls, his expression becoming uncertain.

"Um. I think they wanted to take him prisoner?" he wobbles, and Draco takes a deep breath, rolls his shoulders back, and centres himself, shifting his wand in his grip.

"Too bad." He points his wand at Garcia. "Rennervate!"

The man gasps to awareness, immediately struggling against his bonds. He's bound at the wrists, elbows, ankles, knees, and around the middle. The Auror and Weasley were thorough. Draco bends with a groan and grabs him by the rope around his middle, lifting him up and dropping him against the rubble of the plinth, propped so he's reclining back. "Garcia. Do you recognise me?" The man glares.

"Vetea la chingada," he snarls, obviously an insult of some sort, and Draco grins and spits a gobbet of blood on the man's face. Garcia tries to flinch away but it gets in his eyes, and Draco grins wider, lips trembling and twitching. More poetic justice, considering he's not about to get out his dick in the middle of a battle and piss on the man. He's aware that Creevey is watching, wringing his hands together and looking worried and miserable.

"The first dinner you had here, at this estate, with Voldemort. Do you remember?" he asks very calmly. Dangerously. The words still slur a little, his tongue swollen, and when more blood fills his mouth, he spits it on Garcia. "Do you remember the girl?"

"Oh nah. Nah, that's what this is about?" Garcia asks, all disbelief and bravado, laughing, harsh and forced. "That puta de mierda? The one I –"

"Silencio!" He doesn't want Creevey hearing what Garcia did to Hermione. The humiliations he'd wreaked on her. Garcia keeps mouthing words pointlessly, his whole face a snarl as he struggles. "This is penance," Draco says to Garcia as he leans awkwardly over him, braced against the plinth with one hand, his wand holstered. "This is justice. And it's better than you deserve." He grabs Garcia by the face, his fingers and thumb digging into the man's cheeks, clawing in. Forcing his mouth open as he struggles and fights, eyes wild and furious. Panicked. Mimicking aspects of what the bastard had done to Hermione. And then Draco spits a thick trickle of blood into his mouth and the man chokes on it, thrashing and squirming in disgust, retching silently.

Justice, Draco thinks, as he grabs the ropes and yanks the man down further with a grunt of effort, bumping and scraping him over chunks of jagged, broken marble, and then he lifts his heavy boot and brings it down on Garcia's head as hard as he can. There's a faint crunch just as Creevey cries, "No!" as if only belatedly realising that Draco was really going to do it, and he feels a dull satisfaction and faint nausea at once. Although the nausea could be thanks to the Cruciatus. He turns away from Garcia without looking to see if he's alive or dead, to face Creevey, who is vomiting onto the grass, hands on his knees.

"If he's still alive, then the Aurors can have their prisoner," he says blankly, already thinking about Jones, who'd run into the massive maze. It had been some time, but for anyone who didn't know the maze, it was easy to get lost in there. And Jones might not want to attract attention by blasting his way through it. Draco looks at Creevey. "Thanks for your help. But I have to go after another of them." He jerks his head at Garcia, who might be making a faint sound, unless it's just gasses escaping the body. "I think you should look for Potter. He'll need all the help he can get."

Creevey looks at him, ashen, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Are you sure?" he asks, in a tone that makes it clear he doesn't really want to go with Draco because he doesn't want to see that happen again. But he will, if he has to. It's weird. "Are you okay?"

Draco nods. "I'm fine."

He's not. Nowhere near it. But he'll do. He manages a fast, lurching walk as he heads for the maze with a wave of acknowledgement to Creevey, and his mind is clearing – he thinks – so it'll have to be good enough. He doesn't have much choice.

Hermione's hearing is slowly returning as she skids around a corner, so she hears the yelp as she careens into another person and they both go tumbling sideways to the ground together. The jut of her pelvis slams into the ground and a sharp stab sears through the bone into her hip even as her palm grates over the gravel path painfully, barely saving her face. Her breath is seething in and out through clenched teeth, panic frantic beneath her skin, and she shoves at the person, trying desperately to disentangle, to scrabble for her wand on the gravel path, to get up.

She shoves her feet against the person who makes an oof, propelling herself within reach of her wand, and then her fingers wrap around the slim stick – her palm stinging – and she aims it at the person just as they say, "Hermione?"

"Colin?" She squints at him in the dark and the still falling rain. Yes, that's Colin alright. Wide-eyed and eager to assist as he scrambles to his feet and then helps her up like a gentleman.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were meant to be staying at the –" His expression crumples. "Oh no. They haven't taken the estate, have they?"

Hermione stares at him blankly for a second, not understanding, her heart a rolling drumbeat. As loud and as crashing as the thunder above, which makes her flinch even more now, after that lightning strike. She'd defeated the enemy fighter she'd encountered right after the explosion, but then had been pinned down by two more for a while. It had felt good to kill them, something which makes her feel faintly ashamed. But it also made her feel strong. Capable. She's not helpless and pathetic – she's not an impotent victim. Not when she has a working wand. She's actually doing well. She's useful. "Hermione?"

"What? Oh, no. No, the estate's fine. I just wanted to help."

"Malfoy's going to be furious," Colin says and then snaps his mouth shut as if he'd spoken without thinking. He blushes. "Sorry. I mean, he is, though. You shouldn't have come," he says in a jumble, "he'll be ropeable." Hermione frowns but focuses on the relevant piece of information.

"Draco," she says urgently, grabbing Colin by his sleeve and tugging him into the cover of a tree and the wall, so they're slightly less obvious targets. She holsters her wand for a moment to pick bits of gravel out of her abraded palm, wincing as she does. "Have you seen him?"

"I saw him just a minute ago. He was heading into the maze."

The maze. Shit. Well, that won't make him easy to find, she thinks with a grimace. "Why?"

"He was going after one of the enemies who ran in there after a skirmish."

"I-is he okay?" She thinks he must be okay if Colin didn't go with him. Maybe. Then again, maybe not. "When you saw him," she begins, fear crawling up her spine like icy claws and making her shiver. "Was he okay, Colin?" He shifts on his feet uncomfortably, looking away and not answering immediately, and Hermione feels her heart lurch and sink. "For fuck's sake, Colin!" she hisses, suddenly angry, her eyes leaking tears that mingle with the rain on her face.

"He said he was," Colin says evasively. "And he was upright."

"He was upright… He – fucking hell." Hermione stares at Colin in disbelief, her worried anger consuming every other emotion she could be feeling right now. "And you just let him go?"

"He said he was okay!" Colin whisper-yells defensively, looking entirely ill-equipped to deal with this. "He told me to go! He'd just crushed a man's skull with his boot, he –" Colin breaks off, looking ill, and then bends without ceremony and throws up on the ground beside them, coughing and retching. Hermione gulps, looking away as her own gorge rises. Crushed a man's skull? It makes her feel ill too, imagining him doing that, but she believes Colin. She's sure Draco's done worse. At least this time, the person probably deserved it. She gulps again, salivating as her thoughts and Colin's retching conspire to make her feel the urge to vomit. She pats him on the back numbly and refuses to let herself throw up, and a moment later, he straightens and takes a deep breath, wiping his mouth.

"It was one of the American wizards," Colin says, as if he's in shock, and Hermione feels her whole body tense, mortification washing over her, the palms of her hands going clammy. Her pulse skitters and races, and she feels like throwing up. She wonders how much Colin knows as she swallows down on the urge to be sick and pulls her wand, clutching it like a safety blanket. "He just – it was awful," Colin says. Hermione finds herself hoping it was. A certain vicious pleasure seethes up in her, and for a second she hopes Draco made him suffer. But then Colin goes on, and she forces herself to focus.

"He's hurt his leg badly, and the wizard he killed used the Cruciatus on him, for quite a while I think. He's not in great shape. But he told me to find Harry. But I don't know where in Merlin's name they are!" Colin's voice goes up, nearly a wail. "I don't even know where I am right now!"

"Okay." The maze, Hermione thinks. He's in the maze. He's in the maze, and he's badly hurt and alone – the idiot – and he needs her. Colin might be lost, but she knows where they are, and she thinks there's an entrance to the maze up ahead, on the right. She remembers it from the plans they were poring over before the attack, and from looking out the window of their room in the mansion, trying to memorise the maze. "Thanks, Colin," she says, and then she's off without another word, abandoning him there as he calls after her helplessly, running at a near sprint toward the maze entrance.

Toward Draco, her braid bouncing wet against her back, the gravel crunching under her feet, her breath whooshing in and out loudly, her wand closed tightly in her hand.

The maze is terrifying. It's hard to hear anything over the rain and the thunder, and the panicked, rasping sound of her own breathing. Twice now Hermione's turned a corner to face an enemy – and thank Merlin it was an enemy and not an ally, because both times she'd instinctively slashed off a diffindo, and nearly cut their heads off, she was so vicious with the spell. She doesn't want to shout for Draco – she's afraid it'll just alert everyone to her location. So instead, she races the pathways with fear fizzing in her blood, just hoping she'll run into him before he does something stupid, like d– She cuts off that thought.

He'll be fine, Hermione tells herself instead, her legs tired as she runs, her lungs burning. Her jeans are wet and heavy, her trainers and socks saturated and rubbing blisters into her feet, the back of her t-shirt all wet from rain trickling down her neck. She's tired, and getting sloppy and clumsy. Rounding a corner, Hermione sees no one, so she takes a second to swipe rain and tears from her eyes. When she drops her arm, she sees a red bolt of light streaking for her. Oh fuck. She stumbles to the side at the last second, able to feel the zing as the stunner nearly brushes her shoulder.

She looks up. It's Goyle Sr., and horror bubbles up in her as she remembers in an unwelcome rush. The way he and Crabbe had threatened her in that room, before the first revel. The way he'd watched, at both revels, with relish in his eyes. The way he and Crabbe had told Draco he wanted a turn at her, when they'd cornered Draco and beaten him. He leers at her. "If it isn't Draco Malfoy's pet mudblood," he greets her, and her flesh crawls. She wishes very badly that he hadn't recognised her. Lead sheaths her bones, and she feels heavy and dull, her fear a weight that drags her under, drowning her. Making her useless.

"Don't worry," he says, as he takes a step closer, only metres away, and she backs up, her wand a slim stick forgotten in her hand, her heartbeat rabbit-quick, her mind stupid as the fear swallows her whole. "I'm not going to kill you," Goyle says, and a tiny whimper escapes her. She knows what that means. Her breath is ragged and frantic, on the verge of hyperventilating, dizziness swirling and vision darkening. He takes a step forward, and she backs up until she hits the hedge with a rustle. He grins, enjoying her terror. "You might wish I did, though. Once I start –"

No. No. Hermione unfreezes in a rush, anger boiling through her. No one is ever doing that to her again. All her hatred and rage pours through her in a torrent. "Sectumsempra!" she snarls, her wand coming up and slicing the air. "Diffindo!"

Goyle Sr. tries to bring his wand up to cast a protego, but he's too slow. He had thought she was helpless, and so had she for a moment, catapulted back into memory. But she clawed her way out in time. Just barely. Merlin, she can't take much more of this. Her hands are trembling still, and it's a miracle she got those spells off successfully. She's beginning to creak under the strain of old horrors. She takes a shuddering breath as Goyle falls, blood pouring from his wounds. His blood stains her trainers as she edges around past him, his eyes glazing over, fear pumping in her veins. Leaving him to die in the rain, his throat slit wide open and torso slashed across with wounds.

Hermione forces herself into a jog, feeling wobbly and weak with adrenaline and fear, and reaches another intersection. She pauses and pictures the maze in her head before she heads left – Draco had entered the maze from the manor, so she figures if she heads toward that end, she has a slightly better chance of finding him. And then she hears the crashing and breaking of branches, and her head snaps in that direction. She sees a gout of flame leap up for a moment, and her heart constricts. It seems like it came from about six rows over, and down a little. It might not be Draco though, and perhaps she shouldn't just go crashing in. Fear makes Hermione uncertain and indecisive, and then she shakes herself. If it's Draco, he might need her now, not in two minutes. She backs up.

"Bombarda!" she snaps, and the hedge in front of her explodes into tiny bits of shrapnel as she flings an arm up to cover her eyes, shards of wood peppering her skin. Fuck the maze, and fuck being quiet and careful. She doesn't have time for this. If she blows through this hedge, and runs down the next path, taking the turn to the right, and then explodes that dead-end, and then… Hermione runs through a path that takes her in that rough direction in her head as she scrambles through the hole she made in the hedge, hair and clothes snagging on broken branches. She just hopes she's remembering it at least somewhat accurately.