Forty-Four
It's brutal, and it's bloody, and she's never seen him like this before. It is as though he fights on sheer force of will because there is no way he should be able to do what he does, with his leg the way it is, and his body so injured. But as soon as they pass from the pathway into the crowded stretch of the rose garden that holds the pitched battle, spells flying everywhere, his exhaustion seems to fall away.
Someone comes sprinting toward them immediately – what looks like an untransformed werewolf – and he's on top of them before Hermione can even move her wand. But Draco is moving already, his left hand flashing out, and there's a thud and a grunt, and then their attacker is sinking to the ground as Draco wrenches the dagger out from beneath the man's chin. It drips blood as he straightens, and he wipes the blade on his trouser leg before lifting his wand and flicking it, a red bolt flying outwards, and a wizard who had just turned to face them explodes.
And then there's a growling snarl, and a body hits him. One minute he's standing there, to her left and just in front of her, and then he's gone. Crashing into a bed of roses and hitting the ground with a body on top of him, and Hermione's about to cast a diffindo when he heaves up, and then he's on top, and she bites back the spell in horror. She could've killed him. Light catches her eyes and she hisses a protego, a random curse bouncing off just before it hits her, and her heart gallops, her hands sweaty. She holds the shield, not knowing what to do as Draco wrestles with the man on the ground, his wand having fallen from his hand. If she says anything, it could distract him – fatally – and if she tries to cast a spell, she'll probably hit him.
He smashes his forehead down into the other man's face twice, and then she sees the dagger in his hand. There's a quick, ugly struggle, and Hermione doesn't see what happens, but suddenly blood sprays through the air in a dark arc. Hermione's heart stops, but then Draco's snatching up his wand and pushing to his feet, and the man on the ground is blank-eyed, his throat a gaping gash, blood still pumping weakly out. Draco turns to her, the left side of his face and head blood-drenched, and she can read him well enough to know he's holding back a grin when his lips twitch. She shivers, ice trickling down her spine. He's enjoying this.
"What do we do?" she yells as she keeps up her shield. Harry and Voldemort are locked in combat in the middle of the garden, and neither side seems to be attacking them. Not yet, at least. Everything else, however, is chaos. Lights in the dark, silhouetted figures locked in small skirmishes and duels, which shift and change like shoals of fish, as though the battle has a life of its own, and it's all moving so fast. There are stray spells flying everywhere, and more than once, Hermione sees people hit accidentally. Friendly fire seems just as much a danger as anything else. Fuck.
Hermione sends curses flying at anyone who comes near that she can identify as an enemy, her adrenaline pumping, her whole body wired, on high alert. She drops two people and wounds a third, aware that Draco is also flinging curses as he covers their left and in front, although she doesn't know how many he kills.
"Move!" he yells back to her. "Go right." He pushes that way, staying in front of her. The rose garden they're in is small, and it's filled with people in between the beds of roses, the bushes not yet flowering. Like a garden party, except the guests are all slaughtering each other, Hermione thinks wildly. A bolt of yellow light sears toward them from the right, and she shields and then lashes a diffindo off at the caster, and they stagger and fall just metres away, clutching at their throat as blood gouts out and splatters the toes of her trainers as they move past. She feels ill. There's so much death. The stink of it is heavy in the air – blood, and vomit, and the smell of meat, and fecal matter. She chokes down on a retch.
Draco herds her up against the hedged wall, several metres from the entrance, half behind a row of tall, standard rose bushes. "Disillusion yourself, and stay here. Stay low. It's too fucking chaotic out there. If you want to be useful, watch my back because I can't," he snaps in the end as he pushes her down, and his limp is nearly gone – moving almost fluidly, a whining groan low in the back of his throat every time he moves his leg, the dagger in his left hand, his wand in his right. She wants to argue, but he looks like a dangerous stranger.
"Pick them off, one at a time. If it looks like someone suspects where your spells are coming from, then move, but try to stay near the wall. And don't fucking come for me, understand? You'll get in the way." His voice is cold and hard – frightening – and Hermione finds she obeys without argument, crouching there, hidden. Almost invisible, and low enough to the ground that stray spells fly over her head. There are figures everywhere, and Hermione has no shortage of targets. She sticks to diffindos whenever anyone enters her field of vision, picking off several of the enemy, but mostly, she watches Draco.
He moves into the thick of a small skirmish several metres to the right of them with a rolling, disjointed prowl, flinging curses as he goes. Shielding lightning fast before sending spells flying back, his arm in constant, quick motion. Tonks is there fighting four to one, Hermione sees now, with someone on the ground next to her. She stands over them protectively. Hermione immediately wants to help. But he'd said not to. She gnaws on her bottom lip and stays where she is – for now. She doesn't want to distract him.
Draco immediately takes one of the enemy fighters down with the Killing Curse, which rips through their shield, and Hermione feels cold as he stalks forward, more curses bursting from his wand. Someone approaches the skirmish from behind with their wand raised, and it's clear that Draco and Tonks are totally unaware of their presence. In a battle this frantic, it's impossible to track everything when already engaged in a fight, and Hermione sees now how she can be valuable; her diffindo drops the enemy before they become a threat.
Tonks takes down one fighter a few seconds later, and then shortly afterwards, Draco disembowels the second to last, treading over their spilling organs as he moves toward Tonks. Hermione gulps sickly as she crouches there, watching him even as she tries to scan the battlefield – the fighting is thinning, and she thinks their side is winning. She sends a diffindo lancing at another enemy fighter who is beginning to turn toward them, and then her eyes flick back to Draco. He's yelling something to Tonks. Hermione can only hear snatches of it, but Tonks levitates the body on the ground to waist height and begins a quick retreat, leaving Draco to face the last man.
They duel for a short time, a flurry of spells, neither one gaining the upper hand. Hermione watches from the sideline. She's like a sniper, she thinks stupidly. Taking out individual targets from relative safety. She covers Tonks's retreat, taking out an enemy fighter while still keeping half an eye on Draco. He's still fighting. Still holding his own. She worries.
And then, growing desperate, the enemy fighter lashes out with the Killing Curse, and Draco sidesteps it with a quick movement that must cause him agony. Hermione watches with her hand pressed to her mouth, terror rising. Oh god. She wills him to win. His wand sweeps, a red bolt flashing out, and the enemy's wand goes flying. Hermione sees the panicked rage come over the disarmed man's face, and he rushes at Draco. She expects him to take the man down with a spell, but he doesn't, and she doesn't understand why. And then, when he's within reach, Draco's left arm moves, quick and brutal. The dagger's blade catches the light as the fighter goes down in a spray of blood before Draco slams his boot down onto the man's throat.
Hermione flinches. He cleans the blade and looks up, off to the left, and in the strange, shifting lights of flying spells, she sees he's smiling grimly. And then he takes down an enemy that she's been too distracted to see and heads straight into another cluster of fighting, where Hermione thinks she sees a red head. Ron, not Ginny. And thinking of Ginny makes her feel sick, as she edges along the hedge so she can stay nearer Draco, sending a diffindo at a random enemy fighter who jogs past. She regrets bringing her now, but she'd had no choice. Hermione desperately hopes that she's okay. That she's still alive.
And then there's an explosion directly to her left. Someone has seen her. It was bound to happen, she thinks vaguely, even as a rose bush disintegrates into shrapnel that shreds into her, muddy dirt spraying everywhere, and she bites back a scream as she twists away from the explosion. Her Disillusionment Charm drops as her concentration is ruined. Her trainers scrabble at the ground as she scrambles away on all fours, behind several more rose bushes, cuts from the rose bush shrapnel stinging all over. Another explosion hits behind her, and then another, and Hermione is gasping and panting as she shoves to her feet and runs, all thoughts of hiding forgotten.
Everything hurts. A lot. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to move. It hurts just to exist; his muscles bands of pain, his leg an ocean of agony, his chest aching, and his arm burning, his head throbbing in time with his pulse. Draco grits his teeth and tries to feed on the pain. He embraces it as he lurches forward at a quick rolling stride, slashing his wand out to the left and dropping an enemy fighter fast and rough. Except the pain does make it hard to think, especially with the lingering after-effects of the Cruciatus. He feels halfway drunk and incoherent, working on sheer instinct.
The tide of the battle is turning though; he can see the shifting balance in the small clusters of fighters. The Order is winning. And he's doing his part. He doesn't know how things are going between Potter and Voldemort; as far as he can tell, they're still locked in their duel in the centre of the garden. Lost in each other's eyes, Draco thinks dizzily with a snort as he sends a confringo at a fleeing fighter and hits him. The man explodes in a cloud of flesh; fertiliser for the roses. He grins as he limps forward into the next fight, a vicious satisfaction surging through him.
If it wasn't for Hermione being here, he'd almost be enjoying himself, in between the terror and pain, and the moments of disgust. Hermione. He hopes to Merlin he does as she's told for once in her fucking life and stays hidden and careful. He thinks now of half a dozen more things he should have told her. To make sure she moved every so often in between spells. To try to make sure no one was looking at her when she cast a spell. To stay behind the cover. He sets a man on fire and casts a diffindo so vicious it cuts him off at the knees, and then limps his way through a bed of roses that snag and catch at his trousers, worrying.
He should be focusing, but instead, he's worrying about Hermione. He slashes his wand, and an injured man collapses. About whether he should have stayed with her – he's more useful in the thick of it, helping end the battle faster. About whether he should have Imperiused her to run and hide – she never would've forgiven him. He deflects a curse and sends two flying back. The second hits. About whether she's okay – there's no way to know. She's disillusioned, and it's dark, and she's behind the rose bushes – even if she's okay, he won't be able to see her.
Draco looks anyway – he can't help himself – and his heart lurches to a stop. Suddenly there's a weird buzzing in his ears, and he can't fucking breathe. Where he left her is utterly destroyed. The bushes are gone, and half the hedge too, and he can't breathe. She has to be okay. She has to be. He turns so fast he nearly falls over, everything forgotten but her as he staggers a step back toward the wall, gaze sweeping the garden.
"Draco!" Her voice is filled with terror, a breathless shriek. And there she is, just to his left, coming out of the dark – muddy and wet, her face covered in scratches as she sprints toward him, a wizard flinging curses after her, her arms pumping, hurdling a small bed of rose bushes and landing with a skid on the slippery grass.
"Down!" he roars, to be heard over the battle, and thank Merlin, she reacts instantly, dropping to her knees and clasping her hands over her head as he aims at the wizard directly behind her. "Avada Kedavra!" he snarls, and the wizard tries to dodge, only to be hit by Draco's incendio. He doesn't put the man out of his misery as he goes up in flame as though he's drenched in oil instead of rain.
"Hermione," he calls hoarsely, very aware that there's still a battle going on around them. He hobbles toward her as he tries to scan the battle, wishing he had eyes in the back of his head, but she's up and moving, running to him.
"I'm sorry," she says, panting, her expression stricken. "I was hiding, but –" Her wand flashes, and he twists to see a man drop, throat slashed in what seems to be her signature move.
"It's fine," he cuts in before she can begin apologising again. His heart is racing and there's a pain behind his eyes now, and terror is sharp and bright in his veins. The way she'd sounded when she'd screamed his name… "Come on. Maybe you're safer with me." The way she smiles at him is like a swig of Pepper Up – her eyes bright and her teeth white against her muddy, blood-smeared skin, and happiness radiating off her so incongruously. He feels high as a kite, his pain suddenly more bearable.
"We're better together," she says, and then snaps: "Protego!" A curse splashes off the shield, and Draco focuses swiftly. Somehow he needs to find a balance between protecting her and not being distracted by her. He doesn't know how.
"Let's go," he says, and they head for the fight, where Weasley, Shacklebolt, and two American Aurors are fighting six of the enemy. It looks as though two of the Order and four of the enemy have already fallen, and one of the remaining enemy fighters looks unsteady on their feet. Draco wades into it, Hermione just behind him, and he shoves the dagger in his belt and grabs her with his left hand, nudging her. "Against my back," he yells, and she moves so they're back to back, the fingers of her free hand hooked through his belt. He'd wished he had eyes in the back of his head, and now he does, he thinks with adrenaline-driven amusement. He flings off a curse and then shields, exchanging a nod of acknowledgement with Weasley – who stands about three metres away – before he drops the shield.
And then he focuses on the fight, acutely aware of Hermione's hand at his belt. She is who he is fighting for. She is who he has to protect. The witch at his back, guarding his vulnerable side. She is out in the open, and a target, and there is no more time left for playing by the rules. Draco will kill Voldemort himself if he has to, but he is keeping Hermione safe. He takes out two of the enemies with the Killing Curse. Fuck what the Order thinks of it. The third one that he levels it at dodges, only to be taken out by Shacklebolt's curse. The fourth one runs before he can do more than aim, and Weasley's bombarda takes him in the back. The fifth sends the Killing Curse back at Draco, and oh fuck.
His arms slam backwards, hooking around Hermione's waist, and he tips them sideways. They fall hard, but the curse goes over their heads. He hears her breathless yelp as she hits the ground, him half on her. He shoves himself up enough to see and slashes off another Killing Curse that takes out the last standing enemy fighter. Weasley moves in closer, wand up, guarding them. Draco slumps back, head swimming and leg hurting so badly he almost feels like amputation would hurt less.
"Hermione? Are you alright?" Weasley asks as Hermione pushes at Draco, yanking her trapped legs out from under his back.
"I'm fine," she pants, and then she's on all fours, her face over his as he tries not to pass out. She looks beautiful, even sideways and covered in dirt and blood, dripping rain on his face.
"Good," Weasley says, but he sounds furious. "That means I won't feel bad when I yell at you later for bringing my little sister here." Hermione looks up at Weasley, colour draining from her cheeks, and Draco struggles to sit up.
"Is she okay?"
"She's fine, last I saw," Weasley assures Hermione. "I sent her to escort Tonks and Lupin past the wards. She'll probably come tearing back into the thick of it any m– diffindo!" He glares down at them. "Come on, you two. Get the fuck up."
Draco feels like throwing up as Hermione helps haul him to his feet, light-headed and nauseated. He doesn't. Instead, he lashes off a sloppy confringo at an enemy fighter. And then there's a loud crack that shivers through the air, and Weasley says: "Holy shit." Draco wobbles to face the battle, finding his feet, unable to put any real weight on his bad leg, gingerly using it for balance. Where they stand is now the outskirts of the battle; much of the enemy have fallen or fled, which is a good thing because Draco thinks his leg is too wrecked to fight on. But the fighting has ceased anyway.
All eyes are fixed on Potter and Voldemort, whose spells have locked, a solid beam of magic buzzing and humming dangerously between them. Green and red, and right now, the green is crawling closer to Potter. He looks exhausted – ashen and hollow-eyed, his arm trembling as he holds it up, his face twisted with concentration. He leans in, frowning, and the magic hums louder. Hermione clings to Draco's arm with one hand, her fingers digging into the burns. "Oh my god," she murmurs, awe and fear in her voice. "What's happening?"
Now the red is consuming the green, suddenly flaring up it, and then there is no green left at all. The second Potter's spell reaches Voldemort, there's a whoomph of force that nearly knocks Draco over – Weasley grabs him and steadies him – and makes his ears pop. And both Potter and Voldemort go flying back several metres, hitting the ground hard. There's a moment of total stillness. Neither one moves. Everyone is frozen.
And then there's a scream, short and hard. Draco looks toward it. Ginevra Weasley, standing at the entrance to the garden, her face paper-white. Anguish and denial are printed all over her. The stillness breaks as she runs toward Potter, screaming his name. The Death Eaters and Voldemort's minions break – running away. Fleeing like the cowards they are. Over the walls and out the gates, vanishing into the rain and the dark.
And Draco finds himself suddenly standing alone.
Hermione is sprinting toward Potter, and Weasley…toward Voldemort? Draco's leg finally gives out, and he sits down abruptly and doesn't think he's capable of getting up again. He watches as Hermione falls to her knees over Potter and pushes Ginevra out of her way, doing…something. They probably don't need him right now anyway, he thinks, head spinning.
He has no pulse. Hermione looks down at her best friend's face, her fingers jammed against his throat, her other hand splayed over his chest, and there's nothing. Nothing at all. And she can tell, somehow. Harry's not there anymore. His features slack, his glasses askew, his body so still. So empty. Hermione laces her hands together, one atop the other, and places them over his sternum, beginning chest compressions. She did these for Girl Guides on the practice dummy, as an eager little eleven-year-old, before Hogwarts. Before Harry. She's read in more detail about how to do CPR since then but never practised.
"What are you –?" Ginny begins to ask through her tears as she kneels there, filled with wretched, incipient grief.
"CPR," Hermione says tersely. "Harry's heart has stopped. This might restart it." Short and blunt as Ginny stares at her, hope shuddering on a knife edge, and then Hermione thinks two of Harry's ribs crack as she uses all her body weight and momentum to drive herself down, arms locked. She blanches, feeling sick, but keeps going, singing the Bee Gees in her head. She can't remember how long to wait between breaths, so she approximates, and after about forty seconds pinches Harry's nose closed, seals her mouth over his, and exhales with all her strength. It's hard.
She goes back to chest compressions after three breaths, panting, her arms exhausted already, vaguely aware that Ginny is staring at her in bewilderment now. It probably looks very strange to everyone who's clustering around. All staring at her, and Harry. "Ginny," she pants, and then she tells the other witch how to do the breaths. Ginny does her best, every thirty seconds, and another of Harry's ribs cracks after Hermione begins singing "Stayin' Alive" in her head the second time.
Her arms feel like they're going to fall off. She'll have to get someone else to take over. The prospect of stopping doesn't cross her mind once. She will keep going until he's breathing. That's it. She refuses to let Harry die. Someone touches her shoulder and says her name gently, and Ginny snarls at them to leave her alone. To let her work. Tears drip on her hands, and she forces herself to keep going. And then, just as she begins a third repeat of the song, Harry makes a funny choking sound, and his left arm jolts, and Hermione makes a strangled sound herself, of relief, dropping her leaden arms to her sides and slumping back on her knees.
Harry opens his eyes to Ginny, leaning over him. He frowns at her in confusion and, with one trembling hand, automatically straightens his glasses. "Ginny?" he asks in a rasp and then hisses with pain, clutching at his ribs. He grimaces, but lifts his other hand to Ginny's cheek. "What are you do–" The rest is cut off as Ginny presses her lips to his, her arms sliding over him as she sobs.
Oh god. Harry died, Hermione thinks. He died, and I brought him back. She shoves herself clumsily to her feet and moves backwards as everyone else crowds forward. There is a clamour of joy. Of relief, and victory. She melts through the group of clustered people.
She stumbles past Voldemort's beheaded, de-limbed body with barely a blink of surprise.
Exhaustion is embedded in her bones, and she can only think of him. He's sitting on the lawn in the rain and the dark, one leg stuck out straight in front of him, and his eyes are fixed on her. He doesn't see any of them, she knows. He doesn't care. It's just her. She knows that because she feels the same way about him.
She stumbles to her knees beside him and he drags her into his lap with hard, clumsy motions, pressing her very tightly against him, heedless of his injuries. She wraps her arms around his neck, turning her face up to his, and his head dips down, and their lips meet. Soft and sweet, and then his hand clutches against her head and her fingers curl in his hair, and it becomes hard. Nearly vicious. Their mouths sealed together, and something far more than mere arousal is rushing through her, turning her blood to fire and her bones buoyant.
They keep their foreheads pressed together when the kiss ends, hearts racing and a thrill in the air like the seconds before a lightning strike.
"It's over," he says in a wondering voice as they stare into each other's eyes, and it sounds like I love you. But he says it anyway, a catch in his voice, and those silver eyes are liquid and soft. "I love you, Hermione," he says, and it sounds like damn the rest of the world.
"I love you too," she says and swallows hard, blinking back tears. "More than anything," she says, and it just sounds like what it is, because she does.
The tears come then. A quiet flood, as they sit there on the lawn, in amongst the flowerless roses and the bodies in the dark, her face pressed against his chest, crying hot, wet tears against the cold wetness of his shirt, while he holds her.
The war is over, she thinks, and it is so momentous she can hardly comprehend it. It's over.
They sit there on the sodden lawn in the gently falling rain, and the dark is like a veil as he kisses her head, with his hands warm on her back, and her exhausted arms wrapped around his waist. Everyone else seems to have forgotten them. Everyone is clustered around Harry, and Ginny, and Voldemort's body, and that's fine. That suits them.
They are happy to just be alone together.