rurounihime (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rurounihime) wrote2007-04-10 12:24 pm
rurounihime) wrote2007-04-10 12:24 pm
The Road, ch. 9
Heh, I have been waiting for this chapter to come up for some time. Fans of the beautiful city of York (like me) and people who live there, I apologise profusely for this chapter. :(
Title: The Road (9/?)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rurounihime
Rating: hard R when all is said and done…
Pairing: H/D eventually
Summary: In the midst of a disintegrating war, Harry awaits the arrival of the Order’s last hope.
Warning: violence, character death, spoilers for all books
Disclaimer: The HP characters and most of the spellwork do not belong to me. The events in this story do they depict real people or events.
A/N: Thank you to April for her quick and precise beta-ing and to Coffee for constantly letting me bounce ideas off of her. The other major pairing in this is Blaise/Seamus, but there are minor het pairings as well.
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No artwork for this chapter
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**ETA: THIS CHAPTER HAS RECEIVED ITS FINAL EDIT**
Previous chapters
Chapter 9: The Storm Breaks
The Battle of York
The final Muggle awakening to the existence of magic was ugly. It began, as it had for months, with the Slingers.
Potions—incendiary, explosive, blinding—in bottles made of such thin glass that they cast rainbows on the earth, lifted with a fusion of summoning and levitation. The wand was whirled overhead, so fast the bottle became a mere blur. Just when the speed was greatest, the spells were released and the projectile flew.
In the beginning, surprise had been more than enough. But as the Death Eaters developed better shielding spells, the potency of each vial became horrifying, a delicate balance perfected by the surviving experts on either side. Certain potions could be directed at certain people over short distances, provided one knew in advance who would be there.
The Order’s information concerning York was suspect, but too menacing to ignore. The morning of the battle saw the Death Eaters completely surprised by the arrival of numerous Aurors. For two hours, the Order succeeded in preventing Voldemort’s destruction of the heavy wards protecting the Muggle sections of the city. But as the day drew on, the Death Eaters’ superior numbers proved insurmountable. They turned the Aurors gradually and pressed inward toward the city.
The wide-spread ramifications of the Battle of York were more devastating than the battle itself, however. The resulting rift in magic set off a chain reaction that extended across the Western Hemisphere, disintegrating shielding spells worldwide and spilling the Wizarding war into Muggle awareness.
~
York, April 1998
When the shields broke, Draco Malfoy was gasping for breath in the shadow of the inner city wall. The Muggles in the streets behind stopped in their tracks and stared, their faces a mix of surprise and curiosity. A teenaged girl dropped her umbrella into a puddle and pointed with one finger.
But when the first detonation spell singed the stones of the gateway tower seconds later, they started screaming.
Draco ducked out of the way, turned and caught the first black-robed figure through the gateway with a stunning spell, then watched as wizards poured backward through the arch, wands flaring, oblivious to their new audience. A Death Eater shot past Draco overhead, caught in the red threads of a retracting spell, and somewhere behind him, a woman began to shriek hysterically.
A Reductor Curse blasted a huge slab of the wall to pieces, sending chunks of granite into the midst of the gaping Muggles. Death Eaters and their Order counterparts spilled through the smoking gap, and chaos erupted in the Muggle streets.
Draco heard a wailing, growing louder and louder, but he never saw what caused it. He could only throw himself to the ground as a second section of the wall disintegrated. The remainder of the spell slammed into a building to the left, taking the entire facade with it. A Muggle woman sat amidst the rubble, blood dribbling in rivulets down her cheeks, as the others in the building fled around her. The remnants of a tea cup still dangled from her fingers as she stared at where the wall had been.
Now people were dashing out of buildings, throwing open windows and calling down to those below, questions which went unnswered. The tide of screams rose in Draco’s ears. Another building toppled, but a well-cast charm tossed the falling masonry safely aside. Draco saw Shacklebolt, wand upraised, horrified dismay across his features. He gestured frantically at the Muggles, but the whine of another incoming spell drowned out whatever he shouted.
A Death Eater released a flood of arrows from his wand and Draco threw up charms instinctively, felling most of the deadly hail before it gained momentum. But several of the arrows zipped past him, and Draco whirled, the words of wards dying on his lips. A Muggle man running full tilt was caught by the green blaze of a Killing Curse and pitched headfirst into the earth. More arrows hummed viciously around his body.
The screams began anew.
Draco spun back around. His brain had not quite caught up with him yet. They knew? They couldn’t know. There were shields and charms woven all over York. It was one of the biggest Wizarding communities in Britain, and had been for hundreds of years. The Muggles couldn’t know.
But the cries and shrieks behind him said otherwise. Some primal part of his mind recognised their terror. Felt it with them. Pounding feet, utter astonishment… Things that were just not possible happening right in front of their eyes.
But if Pansy had been right—and he knew she was—then this was exactly what the Death Eaters had been aiming for.
More and more robed figures flowed into the city. It was all the Order members could do to protect themselves; very few of them managed to cast shielding charms over the fleeing Muggles. Killing Curses hummed through the air, felling another man, then a woman. A sobbing girl.
Draco lunged out of the way as a burst of purple sang past him, and bit out a hurling hex at the Death Eater who had cast it. The woman smacked into the wall and slumped sideways, her neck at an ugly angle, bright hair spilling out of her hood. But another Death Eater scrambled through the gap to take her place, and Draco’s wand faltered.
There are too many, a voice whispered in his head. Too many.
The sounds of battle suddenly went soft. A wave of acrid smoke rolled over him and when it cleared, there were more Muggle bodies in the emptying streets, Death Eaters heading down crooked alleyways, and another splinter of light through a new break in the city wall. Draco found himself staring at the dust-covered figure of a Muggle boy, standing in the rubble of what had once been a three-story building.
Couldn’t have been more than twelve.
The boy seemed oblivious to the noise around him. Liquid brown irises stared at Draco. Draco shuddered violently. Innocence was being wrenched from this boy, right before his eyes.
With a rolling crack, sound returned—an instant before Draco was knocked off his feet by a wall of heat. He hit the ground several yards from where he’d been, only just managing to keep hold of his wand. The area inside the wall was teeming with Death Eaters. The few Order wizards who had made it through had been pushed back and were struggling to hold the shields they had cast. Draco got to his feet.
And then, on the other side of the wall, a rushing roar swept into his ears; the icy tingle of Potter’s magic—something immense—slammed into the stones. Several agonised screams sounded. Cruciatus, perhaps, among whatever else.
The wave of Death Eaters through the wall trickled to a halt.
“Go, go!” Shacklebolt shouted. “Go after them, for Godric’s sake, stop them before they get into the inner city!”
An Order member—younger than Draco—tore past him, her robe flapping behind her. She shouted, and piercing yellow flames rocketed out of her wand. Draco saw two Death Eaters down the main thoroughfare writhing and shrieking as the flames engulfed them. But there were more, dashing into alleys, flinging up wards to protect themselves. Heading for the oldest part of the city.
Another blinding ray whistled over his head, accompanied by the controlled chanting of Hestia Jones. Draco ran.
It could have been hours, or minutes. The winding cobblestone streets had long since become a maze. The buildings plunged the narrows into purple shadow as he crept along. He could hear the sounds of magic, but did not know which direction they came from. Always, always he turned a corner and came across a smoking hole, the limp body of a Death Eater or the staggering form of an Order member. On Stonegate Street, a Muggle woman ran smack into him from an open doorway, letting out a cry and pushing past without even seeming to see him.
He found the streets blocked entirely near the city wall and resorted to climbing the steps, hunched low, breath rasping in his ears. The remains of St. Mary’s Abbey, still wreathed in fog, were charred, with dark splashes of something Draco did not want to think about across the lower stones. He could see bodies in the soupy mist. The abbey was the focal point of the wards protecting the west side of the city; Draco felt no prickle of magic as he skirted by it and descended the wall again. Faint booms echoed further within the old city. From time to time, Draco heard the clack of running feet, the cries of people. But he saw no one.
The two churches along St. Saviourgate were silent. The glass had been blasted from the windows and there was an ugly spatter along the wall of the first. Draco stepped over the body of a Muggle and halted in the shadows, wary of the quiet. Dust tickled his throat. He shifted his wand to his left hand and wiped his palm on his robes.
Heard the spell coming before he felt it.
It sliced a swath across his back, spinning him round and slamming him into the church wall. Draco cried out, scrabbling behind him. He could already feel the wetness seeping through his shirt. His blood began a slow, ominous thud in his ears, but through it he could hear footsteps. Several people approaching from farther off, but one person coming down the rubbly road toward him. Draco crawled around the corner of the church. A rumbling boooom grated through the stones beneath him and he heard shouts.
Any second the Death Eater would turn the corner and find him. His back was a hot expanse of… not pain. Not yet. Just heat. A thought bounced through Draco’s mind: he would go into shock and bleed out from whatever the fuck had been done to him, if his assailant didn’t find him and kill him first. The wall of another building, some indeterminate distance in front of him, swung crazily in his vision. Draco drew a shuddering breath against the vertigo. He gripped his wand between slick fingers and recalled the magic of the killing spell to his body.
But another voice, other words, came first from around the corner. “Expelliarmus! Incarcerous!” And then, an exasperated afterthought: “You fucking bastard.”
Draco had time to inhale, to recognise the voice, before someone turned the corner. Harry Potter, so covered in dust he was grey, glasses still clean from some charm, and a short, shallow-looking gash running up his left wrist. He was holding a second wand, long and thin and black, which he shoved into his back pocket as he knelt.
“Malfoy, did it—”
“Back. My back,” Draco stuttered.
Potter’s hands were already at his collar, working the clasp of his cloak free and shoving it off his shoulders. Potter eased Draco’s shirt from his waist band, then hissed. Draco looked down and saw dark red soaking through the filthy fabric. Potter rolled the shirt up and away, then fumbled for his wand and cast a series of clotting spells over the area. Pain bit afresh and Draco let a grunt slip past his lips. Potter frowned. Flicked his wand again. A tendril of numbness slithered down Draco’s side like cool water and began to expand.
“So,” Draco began, then faltered, unsure of what to say.
“So.” Potter’s attention was only for his task. The warm drift of blood down Draco’s side, as well as Potter’s hand swiping over it, was distracting.
“Pansy’s information was correct.”
Potter nodded, still attending to the wound. He pulled his own cloak from his shoulders. There was a ripping sound. Potter’s arms encircled his waist and drew away, and then the coarse material of Potter’s blue cloak was cinched tight to his flesh. Draco gasped, and felt himself begin to shake. Shock.
“She’s good for it,” he managed, trying to keep his teeth from clacking. “As you can see.”
Potter’s hands paused and he looked at Draco for a moment. Draco could suddenly feel all five of Potter’s fingertips and his palm against his skin.
“I know.” A tiny smile lit Potter’s features. “I know she is.”
Draco nodded. Kept nodding. Potter looped the strip of his cloak around him again and tied it with deft fingers. “It’s long, Malfoy. I don’t know if this will hold it.”
“How—” Draco swallowed. “How long?”
“At least two feet.”
Draco couldn’t feel it. Just the growing numbness, and the tight material of Potter’s cloak against his heaving ribs. “Deep?”
“I don’t think so. Surface cut. Like a razor.”
“Razor?”
Potter’s green eyes flicked to his and held. “It’ll bleed a lot.” He groped behind himself with a bloodied hand and passed something to Draco. “Here. Break it.”
Draco took the black wand in trembling fingers. Dark magic coursed out of it; the constant ache of the tattoo on his left arm burned into fiery relief and he gritted his teeth. He gripped the wand tightly, lifted his knee, and cracked the wood squarely in half over it. The wand made an odd whistling sound, and then there were just two halves of a stick in Draco’s hands. Potter rose to his feet.
“Can you get up?”
Draco reached up with one hand to gain purchase on the wall, staggered upright, and felt Potter’s arms under his own. “Slow. You’ll break the clots.”
“Can’t feel it,” he whispered.
A spasm crossed the Potter’s dirty face. “Trust me. Go slowly.”
Draco took a step and staggered, his vision rocking. Potter caught him, settling him against the wall again, and Draco clenched his eyes shut. “There’s a… Potter, there’s…”
“What?” Fingers gripped his shoulder. “Are you—Is there another wound?”
He gestured with the hand that held the broken wand. “Spell. You can… can use their wands. Before you break them, you can use them. Counter… counter-something. Explosive.”
A dry chuckle. “Nott showed me.”
Draco looked up at last. “So you trust him, too.”
“I trust what he did to Dolohov two weeks ago.”
A grinding boom sounded from several streets away, and the ground shuddered beneath their feet. Potter’s eyes met his for a surreal moment. The ground continued to vibrate.
“Shields are going,” Draco whispered. “Gods, they’re all…”
He heard shouts; dueling spells one or two streets over. Potter gripped him, easing him off the wall. “Come on. Not safe here.”
Draco stumbled away from the stone. Potter slid an arm under his and pulled him out into the street.
* * *
The forest, present day, 1999
Draco fidgeted against the tree trunk yet again, scanning the forest as far as the gloom would allow. It was midday, and drizzly; the rain pattered like a muted drum on the canopy of leaves, seeping through to soak the soil. Except for the sound of the water, the woods were quiet, but Draco’s nerves were not. He couldn’t sit still. Something just felt… off. And bloody hell, there was no reason for it that he could see. He’d kept an extra close eye on their surroundings and an extra tight clamp on any discussions Weasley had felt the need to engage in. She’d long since given up; the last few hours had been waited out in tight-lipped silence.
There was no magical tingle, no movement in the corner of his eye. Nothing but the freezing rain. He should be welcoming the silence, the lack of arguing between him and the woman sitting a stone’s throw away, clutching her cloak with white fingers. But silence only gave him time to think.
He tugged his aching eyes away from the impenetrable gloom, and turned his face up to the rain. As before, he did not feel cleansed. He would only feel that once he’d reached their destination and given over his charge. Then perhaps he could just wash himself of this whole mistake.
It was an enticing thought: to simply walk away from Potter and the rest of them, maybe not physically, but mentally at the very least. To face everything with the cool outer facade he’d seen the Boy Saviour wear often enough during this war.
But he suspected he wouldn’t be able to manage it.
Even if Potter had not stepped in and given him debt after debt to pay back, his own conscience wouldn’t let him gain distance from the mire in which he’d lodged himself. Draco pressed two fingers to his forehead to stem the building headache. If only he’d been a solitary prisoner in that mire, it would have been much easier to drag himself out.
The self-loathing rose up in his throat again. How could he have pulled three others down with him? And not just any three others. Had it been some random wizard or witch—but there was nothing random about who had entered this swamp with him, and who had finally drowned there.
He was two for three now.
Bloody hell. When had Pansy, Theodore and Blaise become statistics?
Draco wondered when Ginny Weasley would become a statistic to him. Why hadn’t she already? She should have been the first; it was much easier to remove someone’s humanity if one already disliked the person. But, fuck it all, he wasn’t even sure about that anymore. It wasn’t enough anymore, being a Weasley. The name had been synonymous with hate once. And then he had bloody well gotten to know her a little better, and that, apparently, had been his first mistake.
But you’re still a fucking statistic, Draco thought, studying the dull gleam of her hair, the streaks of dirt on her face and hands. You’re Potter’s way out of this. You’re everyone’s way out. And I’m just the enabler.
Well, why not? He’d already facilitated the death of the only girl left in his life after Hogwarts. He might as well help Ginny Weasley along, too, in his bitter, well-meaning fashion.
Pansy, with all her snootiness and pureblooded self-preservation, had been the first to accept what would later turn out to be her death sentence. Theodore Nott, who had the skills to hoodwink all of the Dark Lord’s ranks, was much too well-known to Voldemort to spirit his way past, and every Death Eater in existence had been taught that the only good place for Blaise Zabini was nailed to his family’s door as a blood traitor. Pansy Parkinson, of wealth and opportunity—and a distinct history of assimilating herself into the pureblood heirarchy—was the only viable spy left of the four of them. Potter had known it immediately, and Draco... Draco had not argued.
Now, staring at the signature hair of the only blood traitors he had ever truly acknowledged as a child, he wished he had.
Pansy had done her duty, even when most of her intelligence had been scrapped as too risky to act upon. She was a pureblood, even if she was of a lesser family, and a Slytherin, and despite the fact that her family had been driven out of house and home and finally country by a vindictive megalomaniac, she was never to be fully trusted by most of the Order. It was the same with the rest of them. Only Potter had come round completely, and Draco had no idea of the strings he had to pull to get Blaise into the fold, to let Theodore have his ancient wand back. To send Pansy into the very mouth of hell.
He’d thought for an entire year that perhaps she would make it back out.
The Death Eaters left her on the crumbling steps of Hogwarts as the castle burned around them all, mockingly protected from the fires by a shielding spell: a symbol of the conquered traitor. Exactly when they’d found out about her was impossible to know, but Draco had seen the spell damage on her skin, the bruises and wounds that were visible. They’d not only conquered their traitor, they’d pulled the information out of her and discarded her for the Order to see. To blame. They’d cleaned her up and left her alive to bear the shame of not having been strong enough.
There had been no blood on Pansy’s body, but Draco still considered it to be all over his hands.
The ones who could had managed to escape the inferno that had been their school. Draco had dragged Pansy off the steps and into his arms, hearing her whimpers of apology, terror, and tangled dementia in his ear. She’d passed out by the time he got her to St. Mungo’s and saw the damage that had been done to the entire Order that night.
It hadn’t been enough, holding her seizing hand and trying to explain why he’d gotten her into this, wondering if she could hear him, all the right thoughts, the evil versus the good, they couldn’t just sit by and watch the Death Eaters ravage the world, thank you for joining me in my quest… and knowing even as he spoke that it was mostly a lie, that he’d never, ever told anyone his real, shameful reasons for seeking the Order out that night so long ago.
And before he knew it, he was sitting at Pansy’s bedside watching her bleed out subdermally from the remnants of an appalling spell, until her skin was so white he couldn’t believe she was still alive. And then later, blood that was much more tangible, soaking into his clothing in a reddening puddle in some forgotten forest... Theodore’s blood. And forgive him if that blood made him feel more like a murderer than Pansy’s had.
It was different when you’d fallen asleep in those arms, when you’d tasted that sweat and those moans, held that body quivering on the edge, and finally been the one to gently push it over. When you’d heard sacrosanct words you could not return. When you’d done all of it while picturing someone else.
Draco pressed a hand to his eyes. How long had their clocks been ticking? Had he signed Theodore’s death warrant as well, just by existing? By being his friend during school? By becoming his lover—
He swallowed the burn in the back of his throat and tried to focus again on Pansy. But there was no solace there, of course; just a different sort of pain. Perhaps they’d known for weeks, had her locked down in some cell somewhere, extracting the Order’s secrets by the hour while the rest of the world prepared for Christmas celebrations. Perhaps they’d known from the beginning.
Pansy had managed to sneak them information for so very long. Draco had his suspicions. He’d often wondered if someone close had not kept Pansy safe for as long as he could, just as he’d kept Draco safe that last night of his horrendous sixth year. Just as he’d kept him safe after.
Weasley cleared her throat softly and Draco looked up, glad of the distraction. But his counterpart was not paying attention to him, intent upon whatever was of interest in her pack. She’d already rummaged through it three times as far as Draco could tell, and he was suddenly struck by the question of what she was trying to distract herself from.
His family was gone. Was hers? He remembered the constant tension when his mother had still been alive, how he’d been unable to focus, to think, without endlessly coming back to where she might be, what she might be doing. Where his father was.
He realised Ginny Weasley had yet to say a word about her family.
Had she ceased to worry? To hope? Was she only thinking about her own predicament? Draco squinted at her thoughtfully. He’d told himself what he expected to see before he’d even reached the cathedral where she waited, but there was very little left to remind him of the mischievous, insulting girl he’d known at Hogwarts. She still had a temper, obviously. And she still disliked him… but he didn’t think it was hatred anymore. She didn’t trust him, but then, people who trusted easily these days found themselves strung out on the end of a Death Eater’s wand. Had he ever really given her a reason to trust him? He’d given Harry Potter plenty of reasons, but it had never been important to him to make sure she felt safe with him.
Well. He didn’t feel entirely safe around her either. It was a fair trade. And if she’d matured somewhere in the hubbub of killing and massacring and magical destruction, who was he to judge? He still hadn’t matured enough to handle his role in this conflict, his purpose here in these woods. He covered it with lies about wanting to do the right thing.
The Weaslette was doing the right thing. And she wasn’t complaining. Draco scowled down at his hands. They had all been forced to grow up before they were ready, to do things they never would have had the courage to do.
The night after he’d come to Grimmauld Place and sought Potter’s assistance, before that nightmare of an interrogation, he’d come face to face Ronald Weasley for the first time since sixth year, and he hadn’t been ready for it. He hadn’t been ready for much of anything. They were alone in his borrowed bedroom, Potter grilling him for details about the enchantments around his family’s library. His head was swimming, tilting, and the door had burst open.
Weasley strode into the room, much taller than he had any right to be, tossed his sweater over the sofa, and froze. A furious twist struggled over his features and he opened his mouth. Draco waited dully for the outburst.
But Weasley’s mouth snapped shut again. He beckoned to Potter, and they moved out of earshot, Weasley’s rapid greeting too soft for Draco to hear. Potter answered and Weasley’s blue eyes fixed on Draco from across the room.
Calculating. There was no room for compassion in his gaze, but Draco had not expected that. Just new information, clicking into place.
But Weasley left eventually, having said nothing at all to Draco. It was the first time Draco truly realised how the war had changed people. Himself included, though he hadn’t thought of it in that context until then.
It was also then that he realised just how much sway Harry Potter held.
Someone his own age had been called upon to lead. Draco shivered.
Potter might have used whatever pull he had to demand this sacrifice of Ginny Weasley, this surrender of self. But Ginny was right once again: Harry Potter would never force this on her, even if it meant the difference between Voldemort ruling the world or not. He had to want it too, the bastard. Didn’t they just make one big happy fucking family?
Draco’s fingers began to ache; he found he was clutching his cloak so tightly his knuckles were stained white. Suddenly he was so furious he could barely see. Why was it his responsibility? Tears pricked at the backs of his eyes. He had no desire to see Potter again, to watch the gratitude unfold in his eyes when he dumped Ginny Weasley into his arms. It wasn’t Draco’s duty or his place, and he’d be damned if he sat here and stared at that disgusting pity in the Weaslette’s expression, had his memories rifled by her apologies about Theodore. She had never known Theodore. She had no right to speak to Draco about his pain; she was going to be bound to the love of her meager life and she’d never know what it felt like to have him die in her arms, because Perfect Potter wouldn’t die that easily, it wasn’t his way. No, he’d rise up like a phoenix and save the whole damn world, and then, if Draco were still alive after the dust had settled, they’d come to him hand in hand and express their overwhelming gratitude, and he’d just stand there and nod, and never, ever have the chance to scream out the grief and agony that was building, roiling, twisting inside him even now.
Fucking, fucking Potter.
Why was he doing this? Why couldn’t he just turn a blind eye like he’d always done? Why couldn’t he hate them both for being who they—
Abruptly, Draco felt the change in the air. The forest had gone silent in a way he couldn’t define, but—he stiffened, squinting again into the trees. It looked the same as it had. Nothing moved, nothing that he could see, but…
The ripple skated over his left forearm like sparks. Draco gasped before he could stop himself, and Ginny Weasley looked up.
“What is it?”
Draco rose, eyes fixed on the press of trunks directly ahead. The pat-pat of the rain was deafening, beating a tattoo against his heartbeat. Weasley did not so much as twitch.
He felt it again, as faint as a dream, crawling along his inner arm.
“Salazar,” he hissed.
Ginny’s eyes cheeks paled several shades. She stood, grabbing her pack strap. “Oh, gods—”
Draco slashed a hand through the air and she broke off, staring with him into the gloomy tangle. Still nothing. But he could feel them, pricking with their magic. A steady burn under his Mark. Close. How close, he had no way of knowing short of using his own wand, and that would be suicide. But the vibration was getting stronger.
Apparition. Subtle seeking spells.
He gestured, not taking his eyes from the trees. She came quickly and silently, tugging her hood up over her head. Draco did the same, cursing his bright hair. Had they seen them yet? How many were there? He reached back and brushed Ginny’s shoulder with his fingers. “This way.”
She fell into step just behind him, and they crossed the leaf-littered ground as quickly as they could. He looked back once and saw that she had her hands tucked into her cloak. Not out, grabbing onto branches to help her passage or flaking bark off as they went. An unfamiliar swell of admiration fluttered in his chest. Thunder growled as if urging them on. The bases of the trees were wreathed in a rising mist, and the rain increased, slipping through the branches to strike the earth. Draco blinked water from his eyes and felt the magic ripple again.
He stopped, and Ginny halted behind him. Lightning flashed, throwing the angles of the forest into sharp relief. He heard the thunder roll, and saw Ginny looking back over her shoulder. One of the wayward shadows in the depths shifted.
He found her forearm before he even registered what he’d seen. The flicker of dark cloth… maybe. “Close.”
He slid his free hand into his pocket and drew out one of the obsidian Minis-ports. It would leave the tiniest of trace signatures when it went off. They might sense it, they might not. He heard his companion swallow once.
“Move,” she said.
They made their way through the leaning trunks, inching across crackling expanses of leaves. It wasn’t for some minutes that he picked out the voices. Ginny made a breathless sound behind him and froze. Draco backed them into a stand of aspen, heart climbing into his throat. He still could not see anything, but damn it, he could hear them, crunching through the carpet of bracken, murmuring in low voices. Ginny’s breathing sped up, but she remained perfectly still, pressed against the nearest trunk. Draco listened until he picked out which direction they were heading, and then moved as swiftly as he dared away from the sounds.
They nearly stumbled across the path of a Death Eater a few moments later. Draco grabbed Ginny’s arm and pulled her down to the forest floor, then crawled into a tumble of bushes. The dark figure passed just in front of them, moving steadily until the forest swallowed him up once more. But there were others in the gloom, circling, only yards away. Before, and behind. Their wands gleamed under a sheen of rain.
There were so many. Surely he hadn’t been that careless, not to sense them approaching. How long had they been shadowing the two of them? Days? Hours? The thought of them watching through the trees as he and Weasley slept, ate, argued—just biding their time—made him sick.
No. It wasn’t the Death Eaters’ way to watch, to trail and then pounce. A simple, sudden Killing Curse would have been the way of it. So they hadn’t located them yet. But they would soon, in moments. He heard the rustle of robes over the earth and the squelch of boots against the soggy loam.
A terrible calm rolled through Draco’s mind as his options became clear. He gripped his pack in a sweaty palm. It had come to this at last. And he wasn’t even fighting the idea. Something in him protested feebly, reminded him of the injustice, that he didn’t deserve this sort of end, it wasn’t his responsibility for fuck’s sake, but Draco silenced it. He waited until the nearest Death Eater had gone nearly out of view, then turned to face Weasley.
“Listen,” he whispered, “because you’ll need to remember. The forest edge should be one hundred yards to your left. When you get there, find the ridge running north and get behind it, then follow it as far as it goes. From there, the castle is to the northwest. It’s in the open on one of those plains, so you’ll have to run. I don’t know how far, but Lovegood will know you’re coming.”
Ginny stared at him, mouth open. “What?” she said hoarsely.
Draco drew a deep breath, trying to keep his nerves in check. The crackle of footsteps was coming back. “You’ll have a few minutes at least. As much as I can give you. They won’t expect me to be on my own and they haven’t any idea where we’re going, so if you keep quiet about it, they won’t follow you.”
Ginny’s head began to shake in slow sweeps. “No. Fuck, no. I’m not going to just—What kind of person do you think I am, Malfoy?” Her voice rose to a thready squeak, but her eyes sparked. Draco gave her a quick, hard shake.
“Don’t be an idiot, Weasley!” He clenched his hand around the Minis-port. “You have to get there. There’s no fucking option about that. If you don’t arrive, we lose this bloody war. You do not get to be the selfless hero this time!”
Ginny’s eyes widened, and for the first time since they’d stopped, Draco saw the fear in them. The helplessness. He stilled, watching the play in her face. She studied him for a tense moment, so close that her exhalations skated over his face. And then she nodded.
Draco let out the breath he’d been holding and grabbed his pack again. “Run. Along the hill. And for Salazar’s sake, go quietly.”
“Where will you be?” But it was a lifeless question; she already knew the answer.
“Distracting them.”
She was staring at him again. He felt heat rise in his cheeks and avoided her eyes. Sod it, they were wasting time. The Death Eaters’ voices were fully audible now, but for the life of him, Draco could not concentrate on their exact words. He licked his lips and tasted metallic rain. “Go north,” he muttered, nodding in the correct direction.
“Malfoy—”
She stopped. The freckles stood out against her skin. The look in her eyes was resigned, but still pleading. He opened his pack and pulled her replacement wand out, thrusting it into her hand. “Try not to use it.”
She nodded, closing her fingers around the wand. Draco waited another moment, listening to the footsteps, and then rose and crept in the direction they’d come. There was no sign of their pursuers. He chanced a look back and saw Weasley moving in the opposite direction, hunkered low to the ground. She threw him a glance full of unspoken words, and he turned away. When he looked again, the mist had swallowed her up.
He took a second to gather his wits. His hands were shaking with what he’d just done. And he couldn’t let it hit him. Weasley had no time for his weakness; every second, the Death Eaters got closer to discovering her, and if they did—Draco closed his eyes, sought for air.
Was he really going to die for her?
No—no. No time for petty stupidity. This wasn’t about her, this was about the rest of the world. He’d already allowed more people than he wanted to count die for him, for his cause, which only Theodore had suspected in the end. If this was his fate, then he would damn well meet it as they had, and he’d do it without faltering or turning it into a personal crusade. He was going to draw them away from Ginny Weasley, right onto his own back if he had to, and he’d keep them occupied until he was no longer capable of it.
And give Harry Potter a chance to save those who were left. To remember him in a better light. It was poetic, really.
Draco began to move again, less carefully. No magic; they’d know immediately that it was a trick. But they could hear, as he could. And they could obviously track. He’d just make it easier for them.
He deliberately stepped on a stick, cursing the rain for soaking the wood and muting the crack. Was it his imagination that the eerie voices around him paused? Draco skirted a small grove of trees and tried to glimpse the moving figures. Salazar, but he had no idea where they were. He hated not being able to see them. The sensation of being hunted crept over his shoulders.
He pushed his hood down off of his hair and started forward again.
For several minutes, he wound his way through the woods, going in circles, edging incautiously nearer and farther from the voices. Again he pondered their numbers, wondered if any of them were trailing Ginny instead. She must have made the edge of the forest by now, and located the ridge. The castle could not be too far off. He’d estimated only a few hours of travel during the night, provided they hurried. He didn’t let himself think about what would happen if she never found the castle, if Lovegood did not call her in. He still didn’t understand it fully; the ward Lovegood embodied had come from the Malfoy libraries, but it was ancient and there had been no time to study magic in the last few years, aside from newer, deadlier offensive spells. But there was no way under the sun or moon that the castle could be found if Lovegood did not allow—
He barely saw the black robe before something clouted him over the temple. Draco fell, white light searing across his vision. The world tilted dizzily, and for a moment he could only shut his eyes and press his head to the earth. Couldn’t think. Could only hurt and hurt.
“Well,” said a voice somewhere above him. “It is good to have found you.”
Draco blinked, trying to clear his vision. The wet earth soaked into his clothing. He could smell the pungent scent of it. He gazed upward, somewhat cross-eyed, and made out a blurry black shape leaning over him. He hissed and jerked up, clenching the Minis-port, but felt the cold, blunt tip of a wand pressing hard into his throat. Draco froze.
“I don’t think so.” Female, tinted with a dead quality that lanced through his vertigo. “Hold still for a moment, Malfoy.”
When his vision righted itself, he didn’t recognise her. Honey-blonde, with dark, dark eyes and a sneer twisting thin lips. She was younger by at least two years. Barely out of school, if there had been any school to go to anymore. Draco swallowed and felt the wand shove into his Adam’s apple. The girl’s eyes glittered. “Where’s your wand?”
“Fuck you,” he spat. She caught him a stinging slice across the cheek with the tip of her wand, and then thrust it against his throat once more.
“You’ve no idea how much I prayed I’d be the one to catch you. Get up. Slowly.”
Draco rose to his feet. His trousers were a muddy mess, his pack crushed into the soil. His cheek felt as if it were on fire. She sneered at him.
“Where’s your friend?”
Draco met her sneer with one of his own. She stepped back, leveling her wand at him. The tip hovered an inch in front of his chest. “You pompous bastard.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said as calmly as he could manage. Her jaw clenched.
“Oh, you’ve gone beyond that, Malfoy.” He saw raw hatred, bubbling up behind the fury in her eyes. “Killed my sister at St Alban. You fucking blood traitor.” Her hand flicked down and she jabbed her wand viciously into his left forearm.
Draco forced himself not to wince. Wondered if he could jam the Minis-port into her hole of a mouth before she killed him.
“Now. Where is Weasley?” the girl snapped. “Don’t tell me you killed her, too?”
Draco smiled at her. His emotions weren’t quite working properly; everything had a strange haze of peace around it. He felt completely numb, unable to process the danger he knew he was in.
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” he countered, judging the distance between them. If he could just surprise her—
As if she knew what he was thinking, she stepped back and snicked her wand up to point at his head. “All I have to do is cast one spell,” she warned. “One little spell and they’ll be all over you like the carrion that you are.”
“Do it, then. Bring them all. And when they’re here, I’ll tell you how good it felt to slaughter your sister.”
Her face contorted. Her wand hand began to shake with the force of it. Draco wondered if she would actually slip and let fly some spell. He had no memory of her sister, or of anyone in particular in St Alban. The battle had been a mess and it was just as likely that it hadn’t been him at all. But if he could goad her into summoning all the Death Eaters to them—
“They’ll be along soon enough,” she gritted out.
Movement in the forest behind her caught Draco’s eye. He made out another robed figure, coming between the trees. An unexpected shard of fear spiked through him.
Too soon. Despite the logic of having them all come to him, he wasn’t ready for it. His stomach threatened to clamp up on him and he swallowed the bile that rose. He was going to die. Not here, but elsewhere, soon. They would take what they needed and make an example of him. Lucius Malfoy’s son, but not on Lucius Malfoy’s side. The punishment would take ages.
He wondered how long it would take them to break him; hours, days, weeks, until that moment when he spilled his secrets like so much blood. As long as it took to break Pansy? He had no idea how long that had been.
“Where is she, Malfoy?”
Draco dragged his attention back. “You’ve obviously got the upper hand. Why don’t you tell me?”
“Shut up and tell me where she is!” the girl shrieked at him. Draco did wince then. Surely the sound would bring the rest. He found the figure in the forest again. Black cloak, and something dangling from one side, like a bulbous limb.
But the person wasn’t moving very quickly; he or she was creeping toward them. Draco forgot himself and just stared. What he’d thought to be a grotesquely shaped arm was actually something carried in one of the person’s hands, long and thick.
He looked back at the Death Eater and saw her smirking. “I could call them if you like,” she said nastily.
“That won’t… be necessary,” he forced out, trying to work through the confusion in his head. He glanced back at the approaching figure.
And saw a glint of fiery hair beneath the cloak’s cowl.
For a tiny eternity, Draco forgot to worry and was furious instead. Why hadn’t she run? What in Merlin’s name did she think she was doing, throwing herself into the arms of the Death Eaters?
He jerked his attention away from her, to find the girl squinting at him. She had an odd smile. “Think I’ll turn, do you? Never thought you’d be one to resort to petty tricks. It’s so commonplace, it’s cute.”
She couldn’t turn around. She couldn’t. If she did, she would see Ginny, and then no power in the world would stop her from calling her compatriots. He forced himself to stare her in the eye, and all the while, Ginny crept closer.
But he couldn’t help the way his eyes flicked of their own accord. The Death Eater’s eyebrows rose. “You really expect me to fall for it, don’t you? I haven’t the patience for this, Malfoy. I know what you have in your hand. I’m not a bloody fool!”
Don’t turn. For the sake of all of us, don’t turn around. Draco lifted his chin hesitantly and tried to speak, his voice cracking with the strain. Ginny was yards away, moving as silently as moth’s wings. Now he could see what she carried: a solid, twisted tree branch as long as her arm and twice as thick. He fixed his eyes on the Death Eater, but could still see Ginny’s piercing blue in his mind.
“Why haven’t you called them, then?” he whispered. The girl’s face ruptured into a heave of triumph.
“Forgive me for wanting to leave you with something of my own. But you’re absolutely right. It’s time they joined us. And then we can all look for your slag together.”
It was amazing she had not sensed the presence behind her. Ginny’s expression stiffened; she wheeled the branch over her shoulder with both hands and her lips parted to suck in a silent breath. Draco watched the tendons in Ginny’s wrists tighten.
And then she swung.
The branch slammed into the back of the girl’s skull with a sickening crack. She dropped without a sound, splashing face first into the mud. Ginny’s shoulders heaved with every breath, her face contorted in belated surprise. She opened and closed her mouth silently, and Draco suddenly found himself again.
He bent and snatched the wand from the Death Eater’s limp fingers. Magic tingled up his arm. Ginny took a step toward him and stopped. She was trembling, water running in rivulets down her face.
Why had she—But there was no time for it. Draco grabbed his pack from the ground, yanking it over his shoulder. Blood was running into his eyes; he swiped it away, felt pain as he glanced over the cut at his temple. Looked for Ginny again and found her staring back, wide-eyed.
He couldn’t meet her gaze for long.
Draco crouched and slapped the Minis-port onto the flesh just at the felled woman’s nape. She vanished in a quiver of air. The voices in the woods were audible now, coming closer. The muted clap of Apparition echoed. The branch fell from Ginny’s grasp. Draco grabbed her hand, and they started to run.
...
Chapter 10
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This chapter’s music: “Draco and Ginny’s Flight”, or more appropriately titled Huron ‘Beltane’ Fire Dance by Loreena McKennitt. This link is to a You Tube video featuring the song.
Title: The Road (9/?)
Author:
rurounihimeRating: hard R when all is said and done…
Pairing: H/D eventually
Summary: In the midst of a disintegrating war, Harry awaits the arrival of the Order’s last hope.
Warning: violence, character death, spoilers for all books
Disclaimer: The HP characters and most of the spellwork do not belong to me. The events in this story do they depict real people or events.
A/N: Thank you to April for her quick and precise beta-ing and to Coffee for constantly letting me bounce ideas off of her. The other major pairing in this is Blaise/Seamus, but there are minor het pairings as well.
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No artwork for this chapter
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**ETA: THIS CHAPTER HAS RECEIVED ITS FINAL EDIT**
Previous chapters
Chapter 9: The Storm Breaks
The Battle of York
The final Muggle awakening to the existence of magic was ugly. It began, as it had for months, with the Slingers.
Potions—incendiary, explosive, blinding—in bottles made of such thin glass that they cast rainbows on the earth, lifted with a fusion of summoning and levitation. The wand was whirled overhead, so fast the bottle became a mere blur. Just when the speed was greatest, the spells were released and the projectile flew.
In the beginning, surprise had been more than enough. But as the Death Eaters developed better shielding spells, the potency of each vial became horrifying, a delicate balance perfected by the surviving experts on either side. Certain potions could be directed at certain people over short distances, provided one knew in advance who would be there.
The Order’s information concerning York was suspect, but too menacing to ignore. The morning of the battle saw the Death Eaters completely surprised by the arrival of numerous Aurors. For two hours, the Order succeeded in preventing Voldemort’s destruction of the heavy wards protecting the Muggle sections of the city. But as the day drew on, the Death Eaters’ superior numbers proved insurmountable. They turned the Aurors gradually and pressed inward toward the city.
The wide-spread ramifications of the Battle of York were more devastating than the battle itself, however. The resulting rift in magic set off a chain reaction that extended across the Western Hemisphere, disintegrating shielding spells worldwide and spilling the Wizarding war into Muggle awareness.
~
York, April 1998
When the shields broke, Draco Malfoy was gasping for breath in the shadow of the inner city wall. The Muggles in the streets behind stopped in their tracks and stared, their faces a mix of surprise and curiosity. A teenaged girl dropped her umbrella into a puddle and pointed with one finger.
But when the first detonation spell singed the stones of the gateway tower seconds later, they started screaming.
Draco ducked out of the way, turned and caught the first black-robed figure through the gateway with a stunning spell, then watched as wizards poured backward through the arch, wands flaring, oblivious to their new audience. A Death Eater shot past Draco overhead, caught in the red threads of a retracting spell, and somewhere behind him, a woman began to shriek hysterically.
A Reductor Curse blasted a huge slab of the wall to pieces, sending chunks of granite into the midst of the gaping Muggles. Death Eaters and their Order counterparts spilled through the smoking gap, and chaos erupted in the Muggle streets.
Draco heard a wailing, growing louder and louder, but he never saw what caused it. He could only throw himself to the ground as a second section of the wall disintegrated. The remainder of the spell slammed into a building to the left, taking the entire facade with it. A Muggle woman sat amidst the rubble, blood dribbling in rivulets down her cheeks, as the others in the building fled around her. The remnants of a tea cup still dangled from her fingers as she stared at where the wall had been.
Now people were dashing out of buildings, throwing open windows and calling down to those below, questions which went unnswered. The tide of screams rose in Draco’s ears. Another building toppled, but a well-cast charm tossed the falling masonry safely aside. Draco saw Shacklebolt, wand upraised, horrified dismay across his features. He gestured frantically at the Muggles, but the whine of another incoming spell drowned out whatever he shouted.
A Death Eater released a flood of arrows from his wand and Draco threw up charms instinctively, felling most of the deadly hail before it gained momentum. But several of the arrows zipped past him, and Draco whirled, the words of wards dying on his lips. A Muggle man running full tilt was caught by the green blaze of a Killing Curse and pitched headfirst into the earth. More arrows hummed viciously around his body.
The screams began anew.
Draco spun back around. His brain had not quite caught up with him yet. They knew? They couldn’t know. There were shields and charms woven all over York. It was one of the biggest Wizarding communities in Britain, and had been for hundreds of years. The Muggles couldn’t know.
But the cries and shrieks behind him said otherwise. Some primal part of his mind recognised their terror. Felt it with them. Pounding feet, utter astonishment… Things that were just not possible happening right in front of their eyes.
But if Pansy had been right—and he knew she was—then this was exactly what the Death Eaters had been aiming for.
More and more robed figures flowed into the city. It was all the Order members could do to protect themselves; very few of them managed to cast shielding charms over the fleeing Muggles. Killing Curses hummed through the air, felling another man, then a woman. A sobbing girl.
Draco lunged out of the way as a burst of purple sang past him, and bit out a hurling hex at the Death Eater who had cast it. The woman smacked into the wall and slumped sideways, her neck at an ugly angle, bright hair spilling out of her hood. But another Death Eater scrambled through the gap to take her place, and Draco’s wand faltered.
There are too many, a voice whispered in his head. Too many.
The sounds of battle suddenly went soft. A wave of acrid smoke rolled over him and when it cleared, there were more Muggle bodies in the emptying streets, Death Eaters heading down crooked alleyways, and another splinter of light through a new break in the city wall. Draco found himself staring at the dust-covered figure of a Muggle boy, standing in the rubble of what had once been a three-story building.
Couldn’t have been more than twelve.
The boy seemed oblivious to the noise around him. Liquid brown irises stared at Draco. Draco shuddered violently. Innocence was being wrenched from this boy, right before his eyes.
With a rolling crack, sound returned—an instant before Draco was knocked off his feet by a wall of heat. He hit the ground several yards from where he’d been, only just managing to keep hold of his wand. The area inside the wall was teeming with Death Eaters. The few Order wizards who had made it through had been pushed back and were struggling to hold the shields they had cast. Draco got to his feet.
And then, on the other side of the wall, a rushing roar swept into his ears; the icy tingle of Potter’s magic—something immense—slammed into the stones. Several agonised screams sounded. Cruciatus, perhaps, among whatever else.
The wave of Death Eaters through the wall trickled to a halt.
“Go, go!” Shacklebolt shouted. “Go after them, for Godric’s sake, stop them before they get into the inner city!”
An Order member—younger than Draco—tore past him, her robe flapping behind her. She shouted, and piercing yellow flames rocketed out of her wand. Draco saw two Death Eaters down the main thoroughfare writhing and shrieking as the flames engulfed them. But there were more, dashing into alleys, flinging up wards to protect themselves. Heading for the oldest part of the city.
Another blinding ray whistled over his head, accompanied by the controlled chanting of Hestia Jones. Draco ran.
It could have been hours, or minutes. The winding cobblestone streets had long since become a maze. The buildings plunged the narrows into purple shadow as he crept along. He could hear the sounds of magic, but did not know which direction they came from. Always, always he turned a corner and came across a smoking hole, the limp body of a Death Eater or the staggering form of an Order member. On Stonegate Street, a Muggle woman ran smack into him from an open doorway, letting out a cry and pushing past without even seeming to see him.
He found the streets blocked entirely near the city wall and resorted to climbing the steps, hunched low, breath rasping in his ears. The remains of St. Mary’s Abbey, still wreathed in fog, were charred, with dark splashes of something Draco did not want to think about across the lower stones. He could see bodies in the soupy mist. The abbey was the focal point of the wards protecting the west side of the city; Draco felt no prickle of magic as he skirted by it and descended the wall again. Faint booms echoed further within the old city. From time to time, Draco heard the clack of running feet, the cries of people. But he saw no one.
The two churches along St. Saviourgate were silent. The glass had been blasted from the windows and there was an ugly spatter along the wall of the first. Draco stepped over the body of a Muggle and halted in the shadows, wary of the quiet. Dust tickled his throat. He shifted his wand to his left hand and wiped his palm on his robes.
Heard the spell coming before he felt it.
It sliced a swath across his back, spinning him round and slamming him into the church wall. Draco cried out, scrabbling behind him. He could already feel the wetness seeping through his shirt. His blood began a slow, ominous thud in his ears, but through it he could hear footsteps. Several people approaching from farther off, but one person coming down the rubbly road toward him. Draco crawled around the corner of the church. A rumbling boooom grated through the stones beneath him and he heard shouts.
Any second the Death Eater would turn the corner and find him. His back was a hot expanse of… not pain. Not yet. Just heat. A thought bounced through Draco’s mind: he would go into shock and bleed out from whatever the fuck had been done to him, if his assailant didn’t find him and kill him first. The wall of another building, some indeterminate distance in front of him, swung crazily in his vision. Draco drew a shuddering breath against the vertigo. He gripped his wand between slick fingers and recalled the magic of the killing spell to his body.
But another voice, other words, came first from around the corner. “Expelliarmus! Incarcerous!” And then, an exasperated afterthought: “You fucking bastard.”
Draco had time to inhale, to recognise the voice, before someone turned the corner. Harry Potter, so covered in dust he was grey, glasses still clean from some charm, and a short, shallow-looking gash running up his left wrist. He was holding a second wand, long and thin and black, which he shoved into his back pocket as he knelt.
“Malfoy, did it—”
“Back. My back,” Draco stuttered.
Potter’s hands were already at his collar, working the clasp of his cloak free and shoving it off his shoulders. Potter eased Draco’s shirt from his waist band, then hissed. Draco looked down and saw dark red soaking through the filthy fabric. Potter rolled the shirt up and away, then fumbled for his wand and cast a series of clotting spells over the area. Pain bit afresh and Draco let a grunt slip past his lips. Potter frowned. Flicked his wand again. A tendril of numbness slithered down Draco’s side like cool water and began to expand.
“So,” Draco began, then faltered, unsure of what to say.
“So.” Potter’s attention was only for his task. The warm drift of blood down Draco’s side, as well as Potter’s hand swiping over it, was distracting.
“Pansy’s information was correct.”
Potter nodded, still attending to the wound. He pulled his own cloak from his shoulders. There was a ripping sound. Potter’s arms encircled his waist and drew away, and then the coarse material of Potter’s blue cloak was cinched tight to his flesh. Draco gasped, and felt himself begin to shake. Shock.
“She’s good for it,” he managed, trying to keep his teeth from clacking. “As you can see.”
Potter’s hands paused and he looked at Draco for a moment. Draco could suddenly feel all five of Potter’s fingertips and his palm against his skin.
“I know.” A tiny smile lit Potter’s features. “I know she is.”
Draco nodded. Kept nodding. Potter looped the strip of his cloak around him again and tied it with deft fingers. “It’s long, Malfoy. I don’t know if this will hold it.”
“How—” Draco swallowed. “How long?”
“At least two feet.”
Draco couldn’t feel it. Just the growing numbness, and the tight material of Potter’s cloak against his heaving ribs. “Deep?”
“I don’t think so. Surface cut. Like a razor.”
“Razor?”
Potter’s green eyes flicked to his and held. “It’ll bleed a lot.” He groped behind himself with a bloodied hand and passed something to Draco. “Here. Break it.”
Draco took the black wand in trembling fingers. Dark magic coursed out of it; the constant ache of the tattoo on his left arm burned into fiery relief and he gritted his teeth. He gripped the wand tightly, lifted his knee, and cracked the wood squarely in half over it. The wand made an odd whistling sound, and then there were just two halves of a stick in Draco’s hands. Potter rose to his feet.
“Can you get up?”
Draco reached up with one hand to gain purchase on the wall, staggered upright, and felt Potter’s arms under his own. “Slow. You’ll break the clots.”
“Can’t feel it,” he whispered.
A spasm crossed the Potter’s dirty face. “Trust me. Go slowly.”
Draco took a step and staggered, his vision rocking. Potter caught him, settling him against the wall again, and Draco clenched his eyes shut. “There’s a… Potter, there’s…”
“What?” Fingers gripped his shoulder. “Are you—Is there another wound?”
He gestured with the hand that held the broken wand. “Spell. You can… can use their wands. Before you break them, you can use them. Counter… counter-something. Explosive.”
A dry chuckle. “Nott showed me.”
Draco looked up at last. “So you trust him, too.”
“I trust what he did to Dolohov two weeks ago.”
A grinding boom sounded from several streets away, and the ground shuddered beneath their feet. Potter’s eyes met his for a surreal moment. The ground continued to vibrate.
“Shields are going,” Draco whispered. “Gods, they’re all…”
He heard shouts; dueling spells one or two streets over. Potter gripped him, easing him off the wall. “Come on. Not safe here.”
Draco stumbled away from the stone. Potter slid an arm under his and pulled him out into the street.
* * *
The forest, present day, 1999
Draco fidgeted against the tree trunk yet again, scanning the forest as far as the gloom would allow. It was midday, and drizzly; the rain pattered like a muted drum on the canopy of leaves, seeping through to soak the soil. Except for the sound of the water, the woods were quiet, but Draco’s nerves were not. He couldn’t sit still. Something just felt… off. And bloody hell, there was no reason for it that he could see. He’d kept an extra close eye on their surroundings and an extra tight clamp on any discussions Weasley had felt the need to engage in. She’d long since given up; the last few hours had been waited out in tight-lipped silence.
There was no magical tingle, no movement in the corner of his eye. Nothing but the freezing rain. He should be welcoming the silence, the lack of arguing between him and the woman sitting a stone’s throw away, clutching her cloak with white fingers. But silence only gave him time to think.
He tugged his aching eyes away from the impenetrable gloom, and turned his face up to the rain. As before, he did not feel cleansed. He would only feel that once he’d reached their destination and given over his charge. Then perhaps he could just wash himself of this whole mistake.
It was an enticing thought: to simply walk away from Potter and the rest of them, maybe not physically, but mentally at the very least. To face everything with the cool outer facade he’d seen the Boy Saviour wear often enough during this war.
But he suspected he wouldn’t be able to manage it.
Even if Potter had not stepped in and given him debt after debt to pay back, his own conscience wouldn’t let him gain distance from the mire in which he’d lodged himself. Draco pressed two fingers to his forehead to stem the building headache. If only he’d been a solitary prisoner in that mire, it would have been much easier to drag himself out.
The self-loathing rose up in his throat again. How could he have pulled three others down with him? And not just any three others. Had it been some random wizard or witch—but there was nothing random about who had entered this swamp with him, and who had finally drowned there.
He was two for three now.
Bloody hell. When had Pansy, Theodore and Blaise become statistics?
Draco wondered when Ginny Weasley would become a statistic to him. Why hadn’t she already? She should have been the first; it was much easier to remove someone’s humanity if one already disliked the person. But, fuck it all, he wasn’t even sure about that anymore. It wasn’t enough anymore, being a Weasley. The name had been synonymous with hate once. And then he had bloody well gotten to know her a little better, and that, apparently, had been his first mistake.
But you’re still a fucking statistic, Draco thought, studying the dull gleam of her hair, the streaks of dirt on her face and hands. You’re Potter’s way out of this. You’re everyone’s way out. And I’m just the enabler.
Well, why not? He’d already facilitated the death of the only girl left in his life after Hogwarts. He might as well help Ginny Weasley along, too, in his bitter, well-meaning fashion.
Pansy, with all her snootiness and pureblooded self-preservation, had been the first to accept what would later turn out to be her death sentence. Theodore Nott, who had the skills to hoodwink all of the Dark Lord’s ranks, was much too well-known to Voldemort to spirit his way past, and every Death Eater in existence had been taught that the only good place for Blaise Zabini was nailed to his family’s door as a blood traitor. Pansy Parkinson, of wealth and opportunity—and a distinct history of assimilating herself into the pureblood heirarchy—was the only viable spy left of the four of them. Potter had known it immediately, and Draco... Draco had not argued.
Now, staring at the signature hair of the only blood traitors he had ever truly acknowledged as a child, he wished he had.
Pansy had done her duty, even when most of her intelligence had been scrapped as too risky to act upon. She was a pureblood, even if she was of a lesser family, and a Slytherin, and despite the fact that her family had been driven out of house and home and finally country by a vindictive megalomaniac, she was never to be fully trusted by most of the Order. It was the same with the rest of them. Only Potter had come round completely, and Draco had no idea of the strings he had to pull to get Blaise into the fold, to let Theodore have his ancient wand back. To send Pansy into the very mouth of hell.
He’d thought for an entire year that perhaps she would make it back out.
The Death Eaters left her on the crumbling steps of Hogwarts as the castle burned around them all, mockingly protected from the fires by a shielding spell: a symbol of the conquered traitor. Exactly when they’d found out about her was impossible to know, but Draco had seen the spell damage on her skin, the bruises and wounds that were visible. They’d not only conquered their traitor, they’d pulled the information out of her and discarded her for the Order to see. To blame. They’d cleaned her up and left her alive to bear the shame of not having been strong enough.
There had been no blood on Pansy’s body, but Draco still considered it to be all over his hands.
The ones who could had managed to escape the inferno that had been their school. Draco had dragged Pansy off the steps and into his arms, hearing her whimpers of apology, terror, and tangled dementia in his ear. She’d passed out by the time he got her to St. Mungo’s and saw the damage that had been done to the entire Order that night.
It hadn’t been enough, holding her seizing hand and trying to explain why he’d gotten her into this, wondering if she could hear him, all the right thoughts, the evil versus the good, they couldn’t just sit by and watch the Death Eaters ravage the world, thank you for joining me in my quest… and knowing even as he spoke that it was mostly a lie, that he’d never, ever told anyone his real, shameful reasons for seeking the Order out that night so long ago.
And before he knew it, he was sitting at Pansy’s bedside watching her bleed out subdermally from the remnants of an appalling spell, until her skin was so white he couldn’t believe she was still alive. And then later, blood that was much more tangible, soaking into his clothing in a reddening puddle in some forgotten forest... Theodore’s blood. And forgive him if that blood made him feel more like a murderer than Pansy’s had.
It was different when you’d fallen asleep in those arms, when you’d tasted that sweat and those moans, held that body quivering on the edge, and finally been the one to gently push it over. When you’d heard sacrosanct words you could not return. When you’d done all of it while picturing someone else.
Draco pressed a hand to his eyes. How long had their clocks been ticking? Had he signed Theodore’s death warrant as well, just by existing? By being his friend during school? By becoming his lover—
He swallowed the burn in the back of his throat and tried to focus again on Pansy. But there was no solace there, of course; just a different sort of pain. Perhaps they’d known for weeks, had her locked down in some cell somewhere, extracting the Order’s secrets by the hour while the rest of the world prepared for Christmas celebrations. Perhaps they’d known from the beginning.
Pansy had managed to sneak them information for so very long. Draco had his suspicions. He’d often wondered if someone close had not kept Pansy safe for as long as he could, just as he’d kept Draco safe that last night of his horrendous sixth year. Just as he’d kept him safe after.
Weasley cleared her throat softly and Draco looked up, glad of the distraction. But his counterpart was not paying attention to him, intent upon whatever was of interest in her pack. She’d already rummaged through it three times as far as Draco could tell, and he was suddenly struck by the question of what she was trying to distract herself from.
His family was gone. Was hers? He remembered the constant tension when his mother had still been alive, how he’d been unable to focus, to think, without endlessly coming back to where she might be, what she might be doing. Where his father was.
He realised Ginny Weasley had yet to say a word about her family.
Had she ceased to worry? To hope? Was she only thinking about her own predicament? Draco squinted at her thoughtfully. He’d told himself what he expected to see before he’d even reached the cathedral where she waited, but there was very little left to remind him of the mischievous, insulting girl he’d known at Hogwarts. She still had a temper, obviously. And she still disliked him… but he didn’t think it was hatred anymore. She didn’t trust him, but then, people who trusted easily these days found themselves strung out on the end of a Death Eater’s wand. Had he ever really given her a reason to trust him? He’d given Harry Potter plenty of reasons, but it had never been important to him to make sure she felt safe with him.
Well. He didn’t feel entirely safe around her either. It was a fair trade. And if she’d matured somewhere in the hubbub of killing and massacring and magical destruction, who was he to judge? He still hadn’t matured enough to handle his role in this conflict, his purpose here in these woods. He covered it with lies about wanting to do the right thing.
The Weaslette was doing the right thing. And she wasn’t complaining. Draco scowled down at his hands. They had all been forced to grow up before they were ready, to do things they never would have had the courage to do.
The night after he’d come to Grimmauld Place and sought Potter’s assistance, before that nightmare of an interrogation, he’d come face to face Ronald Weasley for the first time since sixth year, and he hadn’t been ready for it. He hadn’t been ready for much of anything. They were alone in his borrowed bedroom, Potter grilling him for details about the enchantments around his family’s library. His head was swimming, tilting, and the door had burst open.
Weasley strode into the room, much taller than he had any right to be, tossed his sweater over the sofa, and froze. A furious twist struggled over his features and he opened his mouth. Draco waited dully for the outburst.
But Weasley’s mouth snapped shut again. He beckoned to Potter, and they moved out of earshot, Weasley’s rapid greeting too soft for Draco to hear. Potter answered and Weasley’s blue eyes fixed on Draco from across the room.
Calculating. There was no room for compassion in his gaze, but Draco had not expected that. Just new information, clicking into place.
But Weasley left eventually, having said nothing at all to Draco. It was the first time Draco truly realised how the war had changed people. Himself included, though he hadn’t thought of it in that context until then.
It was also then that he realised just how much sway Harry Potter held.
Someone his own age had been called upon to lead. Draco shivered.
Potter might have used whatever pull he had to demand this sacrifice of Ginny Weasley, this surrender of self. But Ginny was right once again: Harry Potter would never force this on her, even if it meant the difference between Voldemort ruling the world or not. He had to want it too, the bastard. Didn’t they just make one big happy fucking family?
Draco’s fingers began to ache; he found he was clutching his cloak so tightly his knuckles were stained white. Suddenly he was so furious he could barely see. Why was it his responsibility? Tears pricked at the backs of his eyes. He had no desire to see Potter again, to watch the gratitude unfold in his eyes when he dumped Ginny Weasley into his arms. It wasn’t Draco’s duty or his place, and he’d be damned if he sat here and stared at that disgusting pity in the Weaslette’s expression, had his memories rifled by her apologies about Theodore. She had never known Theodore. She had no right to speak to Draco about his pain; she was going to be bound to the love of her meager life and she’d never know what it felt like to have him die in her arms, because Perfect Potter wouldn’t die that easily, it wasn’t his way. No, he’d rise up like a phoenix and save the whole damn world, and then, if Draco were still alive after the dust had settled, they’d come to him hand in hand and express their overwhelming gratitude, and he’d just stand there and nod, and never, ever have the chance to scream out the grief and agony that was building, roiling, twisting inside him even now.
Fucking, fucking Potter.
Why was he doing this? Why couldn’t he just turn a blind eye like he’d always done? Why couldn’t he hate them both for being who they—
Abruptly, Draco felt the change in the air. The forest had gone silent in a way he couldn’t define, but—he stiffened, squinting again into the trees. It looked the same as it had. Nothing moved, nothing that he could see, but…
The ripple skated over his left forearm like sparks. Draco gasped before he could stop himself, and Ginny Weasley looked up.
“What is it?”
Draco rose, eyes fixed on the press of trunks directly ahead. The pat-pat of the rain was deafening, beating a tattoo against his heartbeat. Weasley did not so much as twitch.
He felt it again, as faint as a dream, crawling along his inner arm.
“Salazar,” he hissed.
Ginny’s eyes cheeks paled several shades. She stood, grabbing her pack strap. “Oh, gods—”
Draco slashed a hand through the air and she broke off, staring with him into the gloomy tangle. Still nothing. But he could feel them, pricking with their magic. A steady burn under his Mark. Close. How close, he had no way of knowing short of using his own wand, and that would be suicide. But the vibration was getting stronger.
Apparition. Subtle seeking spells.
He gestured, not taking his eyes from the trees. She came quickly and silently, tugging her hood up over her head. Draco did the same, cursing his bright hair. Had they seen them yet? How many were there? He reached back and brushed Ginny’s shoulder with his fingers. “This way.”
She fell into step just behind him, and they crossed the leaf-littered ground as quickly as they could. He looked back once and saw that she had her hands tucked into her cloak. Not out, grabbing onto branches to help her passage or flaking bark off as they went. An unfamiliar swell of admiration fluttered in his chest. Thunder growled as if urging them on. The bases of the trees were wreathed in a rising mist, and the rain increased, slipping through the branches to strike the earth. Draco blinked water from his eyes and felt the magic ripple again.
He stopped, and Ginny halted behind him. Lightning flashed, throwing the angles of the forest into sharp relief. He heard the thunder roll, and saw Ginny looking back over her shoulder. One of the wayward shadows in the depths shifted.
He found her forearm before he even registered what he’d seen. The flicker of dark cloth… maybe. “Close.”
He slid his free hand into his pocket and drew out one of the obsidian Minis-ports. It would leave the tiniest of trace signatures when it went off. They might sense it, they might not. He heard his companion swallow once.
“Move,” she said.
They made their way through the leaning trunks, inching across crackling expanses of leaves. It wasn’t for some minutes that he picked out the voices. Ginny made a breathless sound behind him and froze. Draco backed them into a stand of aspen, heart climbing into his throat. He still could not see anything, but damn it, he could hear them, crunching through the carpet of bracken, murmuring in low voices. Ginny’s breathing sped up, but she remained perfectly still, pressed against the nearest trunk. Draco listened until he picked out which direction they were heading, and then moved as swiftly as he dared away from the sounds.
They nearly stumbled across the path of a Death Eater a few moments later. Draco grabbed Ginny’s arm and pulled her down to the forest floor, then crawled into a tumble of bushes. The dark figure passed just in front of them, moving steadily until the forest swallowed him up once more. But there were others in the gloom, circling, only yards away. Before, and behind. Their wands gleamed under a sheen of rain.
There were so many. Surely he hadn’t been that careless, not to sense them approaching. How long had they been shadowing the two of them? Days? Hours? The thought of them watching through the trees as he and Weasley slept, ate, argued—just biding their time—made him sick.
No. It wasn’t the Death Eaters’ way to watch, to trail and then pounce. A simple, sudden Killing Curse would have been the way of it. So they hadn’t located them yet. But they would soon, in moments. He heard the rustle of robes over the earth and the squelch of boots against the soggy loam.
A terrible calm rolled through Draco’s mind as his options became clear. He gripped his pack in a sweaty palm. It had come to this at last. And he wasn’t even fighting the idea. Something in him protested feebly, reminded him of the injustice, that he didn’t deserve this sort of end, it wasn’t his responsibility for fuck’s sake, but Draco silenced it. He waited until the nearest Death Eater had gone nearly out of view, then turned to face Weasley.
“Listen,” he whispered, “because you’ll need to remember. The forest edge should be one hundred yards to your left. When you get there, find the ridge running north and get behind it, then follow it as far as it goes. From there, the castle is to the northwest. It’s in the open on one of those plains, so you’ll have to run. I don’t know how far, but Lovegood will know you’re coming.”
Ginny stared at him, mouth open. “What?” she said hoarsely.
Draco drew a deep breath, trying to keep his nerves in check. The crackle of footsteps was coming back. “You’ll have a few minutes at least. As much as I can give you. They won’t expect me to be on my own and they haven’t any idea where we’re going, so if you keep quiet about it, they won’t follow you.”
Ginny’s head began to shake in slow sweeps. “No. Fuck, no. I’m not going to just—What kind of person do you think I am, Malfoy?” Her voice rose to a thready squeak, but her eyes sparked. Draco gave her a quick, hard shake.
“Don’t be an idiot, Weasley!” He clenched his hand around the Minis-port. “You have to get there. There’s no fucking option about that. If you don’t arrive, we lose this bloody war. You do not get to be the selfless hero this time!”
Ginny’s eyes widened, and for the first time since they’d stopped, Draco saw the fear in them. The helplessness. He stilled, watching the play in her face. She studied him for a tense moment, so close that her exhalations skated over his face. And then she nodded.
Draco let out the breath he’d been holding and grabbed his pack again. “Run. Along the hill. And for Salazar’s sake, go quietly.”
“Where will you be?” But it was a lifeless question; she already knew the answer.
“Distracting them.”
She was staring at him again. He felt heat rise in his cheeks and avoided her eyes. Sod it, they were wasting time. The Death Eaters’ voices were fully audible now, but for the life of him, Draco could not concentrate on their exact words. He licked his lips and tasted metallic rain. “Go north,” he muttered, nodding in the correct direction.
“Malfoy—”
She stopped. The freckles stood out against her skin. The look in her eyes was resigned, but still pleading. He opened his pack and pulled her replacement wand out, thrusting it into her hand. “Try not to use it.”
She nodded, closing her fingers around the wand. Draco waited another moment, listening to the footsteps, and then rose and crept in the direction they’d come. There was no sign of their pursuers. He chanced a look back and saw Weasley moving in the opposite direction, hunkered low to the ground. She threw him a glance full of unspoken words, and he turned away. When he looked again, the mist had swallowed her up.
He took a second to gather his wits. His hands were shaking with what he’d just done. And he couldn’t let it hit him. Weasley had no time for his weakness; every second, the Death Eaters got closer to discovering her, and if they did—Draco closed his eyes, sought for air.
Was he really going to die for her?
No—no. No time for petty stupidity. This wasn’t about her, this was about the rest of the world. He’d already allowed more people than he wanted to count die for him, for his cause, which only Theodore had suspected in the end. If this was his fate, then he would damn well meet it as they had, and he’d do it without faltering or turning it into a personal crusade. He was going to draw them away from Ginny Weasley, right onto his own back if he had to, and he’d keep them occupied until he was no longer capable of it.
And give Harry Potter a chance to save those who were left. To remember him in a better light. It was poetic, really.
Draco began to move again, less carefully. No magic; they’d know immediately that it was a trick. But they could hear, as he could. And they could obviously track. He’d just make it easier for them.
He deliberately stepped on a stick, cursing the rain for soaking the wood and muting the crack. Was it his imagination that the eerie voices around him paused? Draco skirted a small grove of trees and tried to glimpse the moving figures. Salazar, but he had no idea where they were. He hated not being able to see them. The sensation of being hunted crept over his shoulders.
He pushed his hood down off of his hair and started forward again.
For several minutes, he wound his way through the woods, going in circles, edging incautiously nearer and farther from the voices. Again he pondered their numbers, wondered if any of them were trailing Ginny instead. She must have made the edge of the forest by now, and located the ridge. The castle could not be too far off. He’d estimated only a few hours of travel during the night, provided they hurried. He didn’t let himself think about what would happen if she never found the castle, if Lovegood did not call her in. He still didn’t understand it fully; the ward Lovegood embodied had come from the Malfoy libraries, but it was ancient and there had been no time to study magic in the last few years, aside from newer, deadlier offensive spells. But there was no way under the sun or moon that the castle could be found if Lovegood did not allow—
He barely saw the black robe before something clouted him over the temple. Draco fell, white light searing across his vision. The world tilted dizzily, and for a moment he could only shut his eyes and press his head to the earth. Couldn’t think. Could only hurt and hurt.
“Well,” said a voice somewhere above him. “It is good to have found you.”
Draco blinked, trying to clear his vision. The wet earth soaked into his clothing. He could smell the pungent scent of it. He gazed upward, somewhat cross-eyed, and made out a blurry black shape leaning over him. He hissed and jerked up, clenching the Minis-port, but felt the cold, blunt tip of a wand pressing hard into his throat. Draco froze.
“I don’t think so.” Female, tinted with a dead quality that lanced through his vertigo. “Hold still for a moment, Malfoy.”
When his vision righted itself, he didn’t recognise her. Honey-blonde, with dark, dark eyes and a sneer twisting thin lips. She was younger by at least two years. Barely out of school, if there had been any school to go to anymore. Draco swallowed and felt the wand shove into his Adam’s apple. The girl’s eyes glittered. “Where’s your wand?”
“Fuck you,” he spat. She caught him a stinging slice across the cheek with the tip of her wand, and then thrust it against his throat once more.
“You’ve no idea how much I prayed I’d be the one to catch you. Get up. Slowly.”
Draco rose to his feet. His trousers were a muddy mess, his pack crushed into the soil. His cheek felt as if it were on fire. She sneered at him.
“Where’s your friend?”
Draco met her sneer with one of his own. She stepped back, leveling her wand at him. The tip hovered an inch in front of his chest. “You pompous bastard.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said as calmly as he could manage. Her jaw clenched.
“Oh, you’ve gone beyond that, Malfoy.” He saw raw hatred, bubbling up behind the fury in her eyes. “Killed my sister at St Alban. You fucking blood traitor.” Her hand flicked down and she jabbed her wand viciously into his left forearm.
Draco forced himself not to wince. Wondered if he could jam the Minis-port into her hole of a mouth before she killed him.
“Now. Where is Weasley?” the girl snapped. “Don’t tell me you killed her, too?”
Draco smiled at her. His emotions weren’t quite working properly; everything had a strange haze of peace around it. He felt completely numb, unable to process the danger he knew he was in.
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” he countered, judging the distance between them. If he could just surprise her—
As if she knew what he was thinking, she stepped back and snicked her wand up to point at his head. “All I have to do is cast one spell,” she warned. “One little spell and they’ll be all over you like the carrion that you are.”
“Do it, then. Bring them all. And when they’re here, I’ll tell you how good it felt to slaughter your sister.”
Her face contorted. Her wand hand began to shake with the force of it. Draco wondered if she would actually slip and let fly some spell. He had no memory of her sister, or of anyone in particular in St Alban. The battle had been a mess and it was just as likely that it hadn’t been him at all. But if he could goad her into summoning all the Death Eaters to them—
“They’ll be along soon enough,” she gritted out.
Movement in the forest behind her caught Draco’s eye. He made out another robed figure, coming between the trees. An unexpected shard of fear spiked through him.
Too soon. Despite the logic of having them all come to him, he wasn’t ready for it. His stomach threatened to clamp up on him and he swallowed the bile that rose. He was going to die. Not here, but elsewhere, soon. They would take what they needed and make an example of him. Lucius Malfoy’s son, but not on Lucius Malfoy’s side. The punishment would take ages.
He wondered how long it would take them to break him; hours, days, weeks, until that moment when he spilled his secrets like so much blood. As long as it took to break Pansy? He had no idea how long that had been.
“Where is she, Malfoy?”
Draco dragged his attention back. “You’ve obviously got the upper hand. Why don’t you tell me?”
“Shut up and tell me where she is!” the girl shrieked at him. Draco did wince then. Surely the sound would bring the rest. He found the figure in the forest again. Black cloak, and something dangling from one side, like a bulbous limb.
But the person wasn’t moving very quickly; he or she was creeping toward them. Draco forgot himself and just stared. What he’d thought to be a grotesquely shaped arm was actually something carried in one of the person’s hands, long and thick.
He looked back at the Death Eater and saw her smirking. “I could call them if you like,” she said nastily.
“That won’t… be necessary,” he forced out, trying to work through the confusion in his head. He glanced back at the approaching figure.
And saw a glint of fiery hair beneath the cloak’s cowl.
For a tiny eternity, Draco forgot to worry and was furious instead. Why hadn’t she run? What in Merlin’s name did she think she was doing, throwing herself into the arms of the Death Eaters?
He jerked his attention away from her, to find the girl squinting at him. She had an odd smile. “Think I’ll turn, do you? Never thought you’d be one to resort to petty tricks. It’s so commonplace, it’s cute.”
She couldn’t turn around. She couldn’t. If she did, she would see Ginny, and then no power in the world would stop her from calling her compatriots. He forced himself to stare her in the eye, and all the while, Ginny crept closer.
But he couldn’t help the way his eyes flicked of their own accord. The Death Eater’s eyebrows rose. “You really expect me to fall for it, don’t you? I haven’t the patience for this, Malfoy. I know what you have in your hand. I’m not a bloody fool!”
Don’t turn. For the sake of all of us, don’t turn around. Draco lifted his chin hesitantly and tried to speak, his voice cracking with the strain. Ginny was yards away, moving as silently as moth’s wings. Now he could see what she carried: a solid, twisted tree branch as long as her arm and twice as thick. He fixed his eyes on the Death Eater, but could still see Ginny’s piercing blue in his mind.
“Why haven’t you called them, then?” he whispered. The girl’s face ruptured into a heave of triumph.
“Forgive me for wanting to leave you with something of my own. But you’re absolutely right. It’s time they joined us. And then we can all look for your slag together.”
It was amazing she had not sensed the presence behind her. Ginny’s expression stiffened; she wheeled the branch over her shoulder with both hands and her lips parted to suck in a silent breath. Draco watched the tendons in Ginny’s wrists tighten.
And then she swung.
The branch slammed into the back of the girl’s skull with a sickening crack. She dropped without a sound, splashing face first into the mud. Ginny’s shoulders heaved with every breath, her face contorted in belated surprise. She opened and closed her mouth silently, and Draco suddenly found himself again.
He bent and snatched the wand from the Death Eater’s limp fingers. Magic tingled up his arm. Ginny took a step toward him and stopped. She was trembling, water running in rivulets down her face.
Why had she—But there was no time for it. Draco grabbed his pack from the ground, yanking it over his shoulder. Blood was running into his eyes; he swiped it away, felt pain as he glanced over the cut at his temple. Looked for Ginny again and found her staring back, wide-eyed.
He couldn’t meet her gaze for long.
Draco crouched and slapped the Minis-port onto the flesh just at the felled woman’s nape. She vanished in a quiver of air. The voices in the woods were audible now, coming closer. The muted clap of Apparition echoed. The branch fell from Ginny’s grasp. Draco grabbed her hand, and they started to run.
...
Chapter 10
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This chapter’s music: “Draco and Ginny’s Flight”, or more appropriately titled Huron ‘Beltane’ Fire Dance by Loreena McKennitt. This link is to a You Tube video featuring the song.
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Your Draco is amazing. And your descriptions of war, and its effects on people, are poetic and sad.
I am looking forward to how this turns out.
Will it be very, very long?
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I am estimating somewhere between 20 to 30 chapters, probably on the higher end of that spectrum at this point, but it's really going to depend on how things manifest anf fit together as I write the last half.
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Bravo Ginny!
Cannot wait for more!
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I'm feeling nervous now. Like I'm running...
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'Awesum'! *_________________*
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Resists. Urge. To. Squee. Uncontrollably.
OMGGinnydeserveslikeawitch'sgirlscoutsmedalorsomething!
Really, that was breathtaking. The way you described the lead up to Ginny cracking the girl over the head was brilliant. I really like the pacing of this as well.
Another well done chapter!
P.S. I'm missing Luna!
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Thank you so much! And no worries, Luna is making more appearances soon.
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This is probably going down as one of my favorites. Your writing is so descriptive and perfect and there is always so much going on at once and alkdfja;lsdkfja! I love it.
Thank you so much and keep it up! :)
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I'm really excited to hear that you are enjoying my fic so much! ♥ Thank you again!
So long!!!!
(Anonymous) 2007-04-11 07:58 am (UTC)(link)Re: So long!!!!
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The battle scene at the beginning was quite gripping - the high-pitched whine of another incoming spell drowned out whatever words he was shouting - I like that, how the use of magic isn't silent.
Fuck, that was intense...Harry tending to Draco, and Draco's self-loathing on behalf of Pansy and Theodore. Wow. You do a great job of making his wretched feelings so palpable...
and go Ginny! Wow!! What a great chapter...
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Thank you so much, darlin'.
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Secondly: I feel vindicated. I had guessed the blue cloak had something to do with Harry and yes! Harry used it to mend Draco's wound and Draco kept it ever since. That is adorable and tragic at the same time.
Thirdly: I loved loved loved the way you wrote the battle. Usually battle scenes are boring to me but I felt sucked into this one...might be attention to detail
Fourthly: The way you are describing Harry (his personality, his magic, his actions) have me sympathizing with Draco. Of course he fell for this guy!
So yes. Characterizations are wonderful your writing blows me away and i can't wait to see Harry and Draco finally, finally interact again!
hmmm I think Draco's 'selfish reason' for joining the war was Harry. *wibbles* That is so...gah!
Can hardly wait for next chapter!
- last note: Snape? *wibbles* Wh-where is Snape?
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Thank you so much for your continually lovely reviews! I love them so much.
As for Snape... Again, no secret-giving. *hugs instead*
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I really love getting into Draco's head, especially when the Death Eater was questioning him. His sense of calm about death sinking into dread as it was drawing closer to him, but still keeping that mask of control on his face. Thank the gods for stupid, stupid, reckless Ginny for saving him.
No, he’d rise up like a bloody phoenix and save the whole damn world, and then, if Draco were still alive after the dust had settled, they’d come to him hand in hand and joined at the hip and express their overwhelming gratitude, and he’d just stand there and nod, and never, ever have the chance to scream out the anger and grief and agony that was building, rolling, twisting inside him even now.
^I was bitterly hating Harry and Ginny at this point, right along with Draco, until...
Why was he doing this? Why couldn’t he just turn a blind eye to everything like he’d always done, instead of seeing the little nuances, all the shades of grey? Why couldn’t he just hate them both for being who they—
Everything really is immersed in shades of grey, and he can see the sacrifices the people he once hated are making all around him. It's really hard to hate people that are suffering just like you, and even harder to hate someone you love, as much as you might desperately want to.
Waiting anxiously for the next chapter,
Abi
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Hmm, I may go shopping tomorrow, you reminded me I need new earrings from the shambles...
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I love the shambles too - there's just this one craft shop, where they handmake these gorgeous earrings...
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You've written Ginny's character in such a wonderful way for me, that I don't think I could hate this Ginny. But still, I can't root for HG since I'm a HD fanatic *grins*
And finally, a sort-of-hint of HD? Is that really what it was? Or am I putting too much on it?
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Oh, you are not putting too much into it: this is definitely a hint about H/D. Draco's pining in every way.
Thank you so much for reading my fic and leaving me this wonderful comment. ♥
So good!
I also really enjoy how well Draco can recognize magical signatures. It seems that most characters can, but you've really evolved the skill in Draco (and well I'm Draco-biased so I thoroughly enjoy this). He can feel the Dark magic, but more importantly, felt Potter's magical pull. Good stuff.
I did pick up on Draco and Nott. He had strong feelings for his lover but "When you’d heard sacrosanct words of emotions you could not return, meant for your ears alone. When you'd done all of it while picturing someone else." Oh ho ho. So I wonder who Draco was picturing when he was with Nott. I look foward to finding out.
I hope you update soon!
Re: So good!
P.S. I am a Snape fan, and I can't wait to see his role in this fic!
Re: So good!
I will get Remus in here, no worries. *hugs* And Snape... alas, that would be giving away spoilers. But we'll see, because I too love Snape. ^_~
Re: So good!
So that movie has a deafening-war-scene as well? I actually sort of went off one of my favourite films, Saving Private Ryan, where one of the exploding shells on the D-Day beach puts Tom Hanks' ears out of commission for a few seconds. And the way his hearing returns... It's just a phenomenal scene. And so sad! I wanted to capture the same feeling.
Draco's ability to recognise Dark Magic has a lot to do with the presence of a Dark Mark on his arm. He's a defector, for all intents and purposes, and I'm sure Voldemort would see to it that his Mark would be able to punish people like Draco for that. I just think Voldemort is this completely insidious being... I love being able to write him as scary again. He sort of lost that effect for me in book 5, but gained it back a bit in 6.
Aha... yes. Nott and Draco. A very sad mini-arc, and it has a lot to do with his emotional turmoil right now and for the rest of the story. I'm so happy to get reviews like this. Thank you so much for reading and for commenting. ^_^
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O_o I love being in his head. So utterly conflicted and yet, so gorgeously rendered. My heart just about stopped when he came to the decision to play the fox to the Deatheaters' hunt. And then...Ginny. Duuuude, you're just tearing me up inside! Don't know who to root for but wanting my boys to get together so badly. *keels over ded*
And oh, the gut-wrenching Battle of York, where the line between Wizards and Muggles was breached in the most horrific way. >_< This story just has so many layers and guh, I can't wait to read of when Draco and Ginny finally get to the castle... *keels over ded again*
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Thank you so much for getting in Ginny's character like this. I don't want her to be flat and cardboard-like, and it's wonderful to hear that you are having a hard time choosing who to root for. I love complexity when I write.
Thanks again for leaving me such a nice review. And I promise a castle-arrival soon. ^_^
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Thanks, in any case. Can't wait for the next part.
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He would need it to hide his hair & better concealment.
Eh, oh well.
NEXT!!
6.6
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Hmm, that would have been a smart thing to do, I think. I suppose she could have hexed it to be detectable magically and therefore cause a problem to whomever stole it, but I think that's unrealistic, seeing as the Death Eaters don't want to be tracked just as much as the others.
^__^
Point.
To put ones self in their way is pretty much suicide unless the one doing so REALLY had their shit together or could think uber fast on the turn of a dime. Not too many people qualified. Draco pretty much being "all of the above" in that catagory.
Dunno, its an open ended possibility.