Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Breaking the Chain	By : RynStar15 Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 42452 -:- Recommendations : 5 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, that belongs to the glorious J.K Rowling. I don't make any money off of this writing, I simply twist her world for my own pleasure.

Chapter List
- 13
- 14
- 15
Hermione was sweltering. It was all she could think about: the heat and the pain. Her side burned something dreadful, her head pounded, and every part of her throbbed. She moaned and tried to throw off the blanket of heat surrounding her, but it persisted, engulfing her as if she'd been submerged in a boiling cauldron.
"Hermione?"
The voice sounded far off, as if coming from the end of a long tunnel. It was familiar and comforting, but she couldn't place it. Her head spun. Reels of colors flashed before her eyes as fingers of blackness consumed her once more.
The heat… Oh, the heat! Why couldn't she escape from it? It was everywhere, surrounding her like a mother swaddling her child. Her mother... Where was she? She tried to call out to her but her throat stuck. She swallowed and tried again, reaching out when she saw her face. It had been so long, so long since she'd last seen her…
"Mum," she croaked. She felt the tears forming but they didn't fall. A sharp pain split through her side, ripping her into teeny tiny pieces that floated along on a cloud of anguish.
Cool. Something cool was touching her face. A hand. Her mother's?
"Gods, Hermione! You're burning up!"
No, not her mother. A man. There was a man here; his hand was on her forehead, in her hair. He left and she felt alone. She sunk back into the depths where the heat could no longer torment her.
Even the dark was filled with that all-consuming fire. And pain, so much pain, a pain that made her moan in misery, that made her want to rip at the source but she was too weak to move her arms.
Something brushed her and she jerked, afraid of what loomed in the dark. Were those men there, trying to hurt her again? Biting and scratching and screaming, there was so much screaming…
The someone was talking, soft words wrapped in smooth silk, a voice she knew, a voice which soothed her. Her face was bathed in something cold and the relief was unbelievable. She moaned her thanks, not able to remember the words she was supposed to say. Was she supposed to say something?
Hermione opened her eyes, gasping when the snake was there, Nagini, slithering over her lifeless body, curling between her legs and arms, wrapping around her neck…
The snake! She had to kill the snake! It was her mission, she could not fail. Harry was counting on her, they all were. If she didn't kill the snake then Voldemort would win…She reached up to grab it where it was choking her but it disappeared in a wisp of smoke. She cried out in despair.
The hall was dark, one flickering torch to light her way. That one torch sent off waves of insurmountable heat. Would the heat follow her everywhere?
It didn't matter; all that mattered was getting to the snake. The door was right in front of her, all she had to do was reach out and touch it, but something held her back, something that scared her and made her feel safe all at the same time. It could take her away from the snake, from the evil, from the killing. She could stay there in that frightening security and forget all about what she had to do.
Green eyes, brilliant green eyes, flashed before her. And a scar, messy, jet black hair. Harry. Harry lying on the cold stones in a pool of blood, his sightless emerald eyes staring up at her.
No! No, not Harry! Please not Harry!
And then bright blue eyes stole the scene, staring at her, disappointment etched in every line of his drawn face. Ron, holding Harry, looking at her as fat tears rolled down his freckled cheeks.
"It's all your fault, Hermione. You failed and now he's dead. They're all dead," Rod croaked, cradling his dead friend, a sob wrenching from his chest
The room was suddenly filled with members of the Order, the Weasleys, all lying dead, the blood pouring through the slates of wood beneath them, streaming down from the walls. Ron turned to his dead mother, his expression one of pain so intense it stuck Hermione down to her very core.
"It's your fault, you know. It's all your fault."
A jet of green light hit Ron and he joined the others on the floor, unmoving, lifeless.
"No!" she screamed, the pain ripping through her, they were gone, they were all gone, and it was all her fault…
"Shh, Hermione, it's okay, you're alright, I'm here, right here."
That soothing voice bade to her, to take her to that safe place and hide away from the world. But she couldn't, there was something she had to do…
She was once again surrounded by the bodies of her loved ones. No, no, this couldn't be happening, they couldn't be dead. The snake! She had to get to the snake before it was too late.
"I can fix it!" she screamed to the broken faces around her. She had to.
She turned and ran from the room of death, tripping over the bodies of her parents who stared up at her.
"You killed us Hermione. We weren't even supposed to be here. We were just two normal people, happy, raising a beautiful little girl. And then you changed. You brought this evil to our home. It's your fault."
My fault, my fault, my fault…
A comforting hand touched her cheek and she flinched away. She didn't deserve it, she deserved the pain, the grief, the agony of her failure. But the hand was so familiar, so warm and strong. No, you don't deserve it, you deserve this pain…
She tried to pull away but she was too weak. He didn't understand that this was something that she had to do, what she was supposed to do. The snake would die.
The room cleared and it was empty but for a large fireplace across from her. The snake! It was there, lying on the carpet. She had to get it now, before it sensed her. She raised her wand, the Killing Curse on her lips when pain exploded in her side. She looked up. Wormtail! He had to die too! But she couldn't move, her feet fused to the floor. She was paralyzed! The snake slithered towards her, a malicious grin plastered on her serpentine face. She was done for, she knew it.
She had failed.
The snake reared back and struck her side again and again. Pain radiated throughout her body and she screamed, afraid to die, afraid of the pain. Wormtail was laughing, standing above her, his stringy hair falling across his round face and from a distance, someone was calling her name...
The voice grew louder, her name starting to sound funny to her own ears. Her-my-o-nee. Her-MY-o-neeeeeee. She laughed. What a funny sounding name. Who would name their child that? Hermione, Hermione, Hermione. She laughed again.
And then the black consumed her once more.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Draco plunged the cloth back into the bowl of water he had conjured over an hour ago. He wrung it out, folded it, and placed it back on Hermione's blazing forehead. Her cheeks were bright pink, tendrils of curly hair clingy to her face and head. Her lips were slightly parted, a stuttered breath falling between them. She slept again. Finally.
He was going out of his mind with worry. He had first woken at dusk to her thrashing, claiming it was "Hot, too hot." He had been warm himself, having placed them so close to the fire. So he had pulled the two of them back and thought nothing more of it, glad to lay his exhausted body down again next to hers and fall back to sleep.
The second time she had woken him it had been night, the moon floating low in the sky. She had called for her mum. That was the first sign to him that something was wrong. He'd sat up and noticed how flushed she was and felt her head. She was burning. Fever.
She had been so cold before he wasn't all that concerned that her body had overheated in its attempt to stay warm. So he had bathed her head with cool water, removed a blanket and fallen back to sleep, his body drained from its earlier struggle.
He hadn't slept more than maybe twenty minutes when he was wrenched awake again. She was thrashing and screaming. She shouted for Potter and Weasle, she kept saying over and over that it was her fault, that she was sorry, that she had failed.
And then she had spoken the name. Nagini.
Draco had started, his mouth going dry and his hand stilling where it had been brushing back her sweaty hair.
Why was Nagini in her dreams, of all things? How did she know the name of the Dark Lord's pet snake? And why?
His heart had sunk even lower as she had muttered the name Wormtail. What was going on? How did she know about them?
And why did she keep screaming that she was sorry?
He was terrified. She was hallucinating. But her hallucinations were all too real.
Her eyes rolled in her head and she refused to lie still. She would cry out in what he could only assume was pain and tears rolled down her face. He had done the only thing her could think of and continued to wipe her face with the cool water, letting it drip down into her mouth. The night had grown fiercely cold, there was no reason she should be this hot.
Her body rocked with shivers and he threw on the other blanket to keep her warm even though her face still burned with fever. He was close to panicking. He didn't know what to do; he'd never taken care of a sick person before. He'd never even really seen a sick person before. Sure, he'd made Goyle walk Crabbe to the hospital wing when he'd started puking his guts up in the fourth year and told Pansy to see Madame Pomfrey when she'd had a cold because her snotty face had disgusted him, but he'd never been this close to a situation in which the person was so sick they were hallucinating.
After a while she started laughing and his fear redoubled. He had no idea what to do. The laughter turned to tears and his heart broke, his eyes searching the dark forest around him as if someone would pop out of the bushes and take over for him, nurse Hermione back to health. But there was no one around, he was all she had.
So Draco kept bathing her face with a shaky hand until she finally settled, succumbing to sleep.
His stomach rumbled. Gods, he was so hungry. They hadn't eaten since dinner the night before. He had never gone this many days with such little food. He felt weak and shaky and his whole body was covered in bruises and welts from the rocks. He wondered vaguely where their little boat had gotten to.
Draco stood and decided to look for some food. He conjured bluebell flames in his hand to light his way as he stepped into the woods, making sure that he could keep an eye on Hermione wherever he went. He knew the Trackers would sense all the magic he had done, but there was nothing he could do now except pray his charms kept them from prying eyes.
He saw movement and Draco's heart lurched, but it was just a rabbit. A rabbit!
Knowing that if Hermione ever found out he'd slaughtered the furry creature she would throw a fit, he made up his mind and threw a Killing Curse at the terrified rodent and gathered it up. Now he just had to figure out how to cook the damn thing.
Sitting back at the fire he used Diffindo! to slice off the skin. It was a bloody, nasty mess but he finally got to the muscle below which he threw on a conjured metal pan and hovered over the fire. The smell of the cooking meat made his stomach ache, he was so hungry.
He looked back over at Hermione who was still quiet. He knew she hadn't eaten for as long as he and she would need sustenance to fight the fever.
While waiting for the meat he conjured a goblet and filled it with water, bringing it to her lips while propping her up so she wouldn't choke. At first the water just fell down her chin but then she started and began drinking it greedily and he had to take it away before she made herself sick. As he laid her back down she cried out in pain. Draco's brows creased. Had she been hurt in the river? He knew about the bump on her head, the swelling had already come down so it didn't worry him overmuch. But maybe she had been hurt elsewhere. He pulled back the covers, peeling away her cloak and was nearly ill.
Blood soaked her dress and he suddenly remembered her grabbing her side in the alley after he had helped her off the ground. He recalled her wrapping herself in the cloak, crossing her arms in the boat, facing away from him... She hadn't gotten this in the river, she'd had it long before.
His hands were shaky as he ripped the material away from the area. He moaned when he saw the gash. It was well over a dozen centimeters long and swollen. Pus oozed out of the open wound; thick, dark blood congealing at the sight. His stomach lurched and suddenly the cooking rabbit that was now flipping itself on the metal pan didn't sound so good. The smell coming from her wound was acrid and suddenly his anger was beginning to reach alarming heights.
Why had she kept this from him? Why hadn't she told him, or, at the very least, healed it herself?
It was infected. He didn't know how to treat infected wounds. And because she was too damn stubborn to tell him she was injured, she was now hallucinating and could very possibly succumb from infection. He didn't know how bad it was, had no idea how to help her. He was completely thrown into new territory. He knew nothing about healing something this severe. He could suck a man's eyeballs out of their sockets but he couldn't do more than lessen swelling or close a small cut. He had never worried about it; if he was hurt one of the house elves or Madame Pomfrey would take care of it and he had never cared about other people being hurt before. And now, when it mattered, when the one person who mattered needed him, he was next to useless. Even if he could close a wound this severe, the infection would be trapped in her body, wasting her away with him powerless to stop it.
He shakily grabbed the cloth resting on the ground next to Hermione where it had fallen off and dipped it into the bowl he'd conjured. He washed the wound as carefully as possible but she still flinched and moaned in pain. Blood still leaked out of it slowly, the swollen lips of the cut a bright angry red. He tried to clean out the pus but it kept coming. Running a hand through his hair he watched as the pan over the fire fell to the ground, the meat finished. He didn't know what to do; he was at an utter loss. He cursed Hermione with every word he could think of for doing this to herself. When she woke up he would kill her.
If she woke up.
He now knew it was a considerable possibility she could die from this. He'd seen countless men die from infection. Men tossed into dirty cells with open wounds would be dragged out later and laughed at, their wounds now nothing more than a mass of black and green. Draco had always found this revolting and refused to go to those "meetings" after his first visit.
Draco knew he had to cover the wound, stop the bleeding. That much he could figure out. He transfigured a stick into a roll of gauze like what Madame Pomfrey had once used to wrap around his arm after that vicious creature Buckwheat, or whatever, had attacked him in the third year. He smiled remembering how much he had milked it and the simpering Pansy who did everything for him for weeks until he couldn't stand her ugly mug around him anymore.
And then his sweet tempered Hermione had gone and sucker-punched him right in the face when his father had managed to get the hippogriff killed. Gods, but this witch took his breath away. How hadn't he fallen for her right then?
Levitating Hermione a few inches from the ground, Draco tore her gown down the middle, yanking the material away, and wrapped the gauze around and around her body, watching as the blood seeped through the first few layers until eventually the white overtook the red. He tucked the end in and lowered her gently. She moaned again, her legs coming up to push at the ground in pain. It was then he finally realized that she was all but naked under his gaze, her cunt exposed for all to see, her bruised breasts sticking up proudly in the night air. When Draco saw the bruises and bite marks his anger surged again. He wished he could murder those sick bastards again for what they'd done to her. A thousand hells would never been enough for them.
His hand brushed lightly over her abused breasts, healing them as he had the other injuries, wishing he could just as easily erase her memories of her brutal attack.
He was caught off guard when her chest arched up to his touch and she moaned for an entirely different reason. Smiling, Draco quickly Scorgified her dress and mended it before he did something he would regret.
He pulled the blankets back over her and grabbed the now cold food, scarfing it down, ignoring his protesting stomach. He broke up small pieces and rubbed them against Hermione's closed lips. She chewed and swallowed a few bites before she turned her head away and slept on. Draco finished the meat knowing he would be thankful for it later and sat next to Hermione, watching her through the night.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
When dawn came Draco knew they had stayed too long already. They were far behind from his screw up, although how the bloody hell was he supposed to know? He had lost the map in the river and now he had no idea where he was supposed to be headed. He tried to wake Hermione several times to ask her, but she did nothing more than mutter nonsense and moan. Her fever still raged and he feared for her life. He didn't know how long a person could go with a fever but he figured the sooner he could get it down, the better. He knew he couldn't take her into the river to cool her with an open wound; the bandages wouldn't do much to protect her from further infection. He'd replaced them twice throughout the night and he did so again as the sky began to lighten. He drenched the fire and Levitated Hermione, wrapping a blanket around her to keep her warm. He was walking before the sun had risen.
Draco hiked along the river, knowing they were supposed to have stopped at the bend. He jogged a few times but his aching limbs and right knee screamed at him when he did this and he fell back to walking as fast as he could. Hermione floated along in front of him, sometimes she slept, other times she would toss and turn, shouting and moaning. She called out to her friends and murmured gibberish about "Whore-crooks," whatever that meant.
He stumbled up steep hills, his stomach dropping when he saw the fall that had so nearly gotten Hermione killed. It took him a good portion of the day to get to the bend, stopping several times to rest and make Hermione drink water. He was forced to change her bandages twice more when he noticed the blood and pus seeping through her gown.
Every twig that snapped, every bird that chirped, made him jump for he knew it was only a matter of time before the Trackers came back and he didn't think they could escape this time. He was too weak, too tired. His muscles ached, his right knee swollen and angry from hitting something in the river. How could he protect both of them against numerous wizards? Hermione had always bailed him out, but now he was on his own, responsible for the both of them and he was terrified at the thought.
When he finally reached the bend he collapsed on the ground bringing Hermione down gently next to him. Dusk was near; he knew he'd taken far too long, his knee impairing him and the rest of the bruises and cuts making themselves apparent.
Hermione started moaning again.
"Draco?" she croaked. He crawled to her, placing his frozen hand on her blazing face.
"I'm here," he assured her, his thumb tracing her brow.
"Draco...I have to...tell you..." her words fell away and he shook her gently.
"What? What do you have to tell me?"
Her eyes opened, glassy and heavy, focusing for a second on him.
"Draco…"
"Stay with me, Hermione," he begged, cupping her face. "I need your help. Tell me how to get to Alvida."
"Alvida..."
"Yes, Alvida. We're trying to get to her. Where is she? Once we get to the bend, what do we have to do?"
"The bend?" she croaked, her forehead wrinkled in confusion.
"Yes, the bend, the bend in the river," Draco said shakily, his grip tightening to keep her focused. "Where do we go from there?"
"Sari..."
"Yes, Sari, Sari told you where to go. What did she say?" He was getting frustrated. He was tired and hungry, everything hurt, and he was angry at Hermione for doing this to herself and putting them in this situation, terrified that he couldn't help her. He needed her and he hated himself for it.
She licked her chapped lips and blinked, obviously trying to clear her head. "The bend. At the bend we need to…to go east. There will be a road..."
"Yes?" Draco pressed, trying to keep her from sinking back into oblivion, but she was slipping away quickly. "What about the road?"
Her eyes closed again and he shook her shoulders, trying not to jar her side too much.
"Hermione, you have to stay awake, just for a minute. What about the road? Where is the road? Do we follow the road? Where do we follow it to?"
She began to shudder violently and Draco scooped her into his arms and held her for a moment. He knew he had to keep going. They only had tonight and the day after before Alvida Eynon died. She might have already sent the letter with the Time Turner in it to France, they might be too late. They had no idea if she'd be able to fix the shattered necklace still thankfully in his pocket and at this rate, it would be a miracle if he even found her.
Draco buried his face in Hermione's hair trying to draw the strength she always had in endless supplies from her. He needed her Gryffindor courage. He had never had to be responsible before, someone had always been there to tell him what to do, to point the way. His first taste of really being alone had been their sixth year on his mission and he had definitely not shone through. He wondered how Hermione did it every day, going through life with so much strength and courage. And for the first time in his life, he wondered how Potter dealt with what he had to.
If Potter and Hermione could find the strength to battle the Dark Lord, he could do this, he had to. They were so close. He would find the road and follow it. Maybe he would figure it out from there or Hermione would wake up again and tell him. But her fever still raged and he doubted she was going to wake again. He clung to her for a moment longer, willing her to be alright. Alvida might know how to cure her. If she could figure out how to make a Time Turner she could damn well concoct a potion to help Hermione!
Levitating Hermione again, Draco got shakily to his feet, his knee threatening to give out. It was strange how he hadn't even noticed it while he had been worrying over Hermione throughout the night.
Draco walked on in the darkness, stumbling with fatigue. Hermione stayed absolutely still, no longer moaning or thrashing, no more incomprehensible words. He worried over her blood loss, her face almost iridescent in the moonlight where it wasn't flushed with fever.
He looked at the stars, dimly remembering that the star Horatio lay to the east of Orion's belt. He found the belt, thanking Pansy Parkinson for once in his life, and found the bright star. He grinned, knowing without a doubt that they were going the right way.
When he found the road he jumped, punching the air with a grin on his face, nearly dropping Hermione as he briefly lost concentration. The jubilation he felt at doing something right and doing it on his own gave him a fresh burst of energy. He continued along the dirt road going east-southeast.
The moon was bright, nearly full. He grinned at the irony of a full moon on All Hallows Eve, the night a witch a burned to death. It was weird to think that they would meet this woman and she would die the very next day.
Draco lost track of time, his mind wandering along various paths. He thought about Hermione and what he would have to do when they got back. He couldn't kill her, he knew that for a fact and he also knew that a second failure would mean death for not only him, but his parents as well. Could he condemn them all to a painful, torturous death for her life?
The answer was a resounding yes. The three of them put together would never equal the person Hermione was and would become. His father he didn't care about much but his mother...He knew she had tried over and over to keep him from learning the things he did, but once he had chosen his path she had followed along blindly, spinelessly, just as she had with his father. He doubted very much whether she ever would have become a Death Eater had it not been by his father's insistence. He was sure she would be on the Dark Lord's side, but she was far too weak to have become a fully-fledged supporter on her own.
Draco would do whatever he could to keep Hermione safe. His life line was short, but Hermione deserved a long, full life, away from all this. She deserved to be happy, get married, have children. It tore him up inside to know that she would never do any of that with him. It would probably be Weasley or Potter.
Until then, he had to keep her alive.
He stopped for a moment to check her bandages. The bleeding had slowed, but not enough. She had bled through the layers of gauze again. He was glad his Charms and Transfiguration marks were always high as he conjured more gauze to wrap around the wound. With the bright moon looking down on them he checked the gash. A black crust was beginning to develop around the cut and he cringed. It was bad. It had swollen even more, pressing out of her like a tumor. The skin on her stomach seemed thin, whiter than usual. She had lost way, way too much blood. He quickly wrapped her back up and covered her with the blanket.
He took a moment for himself to brush the hair from her face. He wished she would wake up, look at him and tell him it was going to be alright, that she was going to be okay. But it was the all-too terrifying truth that there was a chance she'd never wake again. His poor skills at healing couldn't help her and the only person he had every loved was slipping away before his eyes.
It was a sharp punch to the chest to hear the admission aloud in his head. He'd known it deep down but had purposefully refused to look into it, knowing their short-lived affair was doomed from the start. The closer he got to her the harder it would be when the time came to let her go. But things had spiraled beyond his control and there was no point in denying it anymore. How could he not love this witch? She was beautiful, intelligent, and courageous, the most loving and selfless person he'd ever met. She'd seen a side of him he hadn't even realized was still there, had helped him pull that human part of him back to the surface. She'd saved his soul as well as his life.
And now he was watching her slip away.
He refused to give up on her, though. She was strong, the strongest person he had ever met. She could make it through this, she had to!
Before he could dwell any longer he started back up again. He had no idea how far to go or what he was looking for. Hermione had saved his arse by telling him this much but now he had to figure the rest out. His father had always tried to teach him the art of Sensory, being able to step into a room and feel the magical presence like the Trackers did. Draco had never picked it up very well, never really caring, thinking it was a useless art. He beat himself up for not listening to the one advice his father had ever given him that might be useful. If he could feel the magic coming from Alvida, maybe he could follow it and find her. He hadn't come this far just to give up now, he had to try.
So he lowered Hermione gently to the ground and closed his eyes. He drew himself inside his own body, feeling. He felt the air, the trees moving, the moon shining down on him. He began to feel the tingling awareness of magic, his own, that he had just used to Levitate Hermione. It was weak, for the spell was a simple one. Alvida Eynon would most certainly use powerful magic. Draco widened his search. He felt an animal slinking around in the darkness, but he felt no magic. Maybe she was too far away?
It was then that he felt it. It barreled into him like a storm rolling into the high seas causing angry tidal waves. Her magic was strong, he could sense it. The next part was what he had never fully picked up. Where. Where was she doing all this magic? It was far, he could tell, but not immensely so. He pushed harder; trying to feel, feel where it was.
Up ahead, it was coming from in front of him and a little to his left. He had to keep walking. He pulled himself back into the night where Hermione lay limply on the ground before him. He Levitated her once more and walked quickly, excited that he now knew about where she was. He was close.
Twenty minutes later Draco stopped again. He put Hermione down and tried to sense Alvida Eynon's magic again. Draco pushed towards it faster this time, knowing the feeling he was looking for, the punch-in-the-stomach power that radiated in waves towards him. He was so close. She was in the woods, off the path, hidden somewhere in the trees.
As he began to pull back to himself he heard the unmistakable pops! that announced the arrival of the Trackers. Draco wrenched himself back into the present, giving himself a head rush. He swung his arms wide, screaming Impedimenta! not knowing where they were coming from. More than a half dozen men flew back as his vision cleared and he could see more rushing towards them from the corner of his eye, spells flying around him, the men shouting in glee. Draco shot Stunners off to the side as he ducked and gathered Hermione up over his shoulder, knowing he was probably injuring her cut further but he had no choice. He couldn't fight them all alone and that led to flight. If he could get to Alvida, maybe she could help. She was strong, he had felt it, and with the stone in the leather pouch attached to his belt she would know they were friends.
Draco threw up a Shield Charm and ran as fast as he could toward where he had felt her magic stem. He heard more and more Trackers Apparate around him, their war cries ringing in the air. It seemed as though Draco's slaughter of their friends had garnered their attention. They were obviously not leaving their capture to a couple of men any longer. It seemed they were pulling out all the stops and fear clenched in his chest knowing he could never fight them off. Even if he and Hermione were in the prime of health they were only two compared to dozens. Injured and alone, his mind focused solely on Hermione's safety, Draco was no match for the angry mob.
Draco forced himself to stay calm as spells bounced off his shield. He ran for the trees hoping for their shelter to help protect them but before he could make it a spell shattered his barrier and sent him flying. He fell to the ground, Hermione underneath him, and knew this was it; he had gotten them as far as he could go. If he could convince them to let Hermione go maybe Alvida would find her and help her, but he knew it was the end of the line for himself. He would face death like a Malfoy, with pride.
Draco rolled to a seated position placing himself in front of Hermione. The men were circling. It looked like a Death Eater gathering. They all had black hoods that covered their faces and the largest one came to stand directly in front of him.
"Not gonna try ter run this time?" he cackled.
Draco looked up at the man who seemed to be the leader and rose slowly, his hands up in surrender.
"Leave my woman be," Draco implored lowly, knowing in his heart they would never let her go. "I will come with you freely, you can do whatever you wish to me, just leave her alone. She is sick, she cannot harm you. Let her die our death in the woods where she belongs." Draco wished stupidly that she would wake and figure a way out of this mess like she always did. But it was a futile hope; she lay just as still as ever, her breath shallow, her own death pending.
The men around him roared with laughter. "Yeh think we're daft? After wha' ye done ta the las' men we sent? We know ye witches're up ta sumthin. Gervais, c'mon over here and give this lass here a good shocker, see iffin that'll make her lose her act."
A man started forward and Draco Stunned him so powerfully the men standing next to him were knocked off their feet.
"Don't you fucking touch her!" he screamed, rage consuming him. He'd never let any of these men touch her again. "I have powers you could not imagine. Take me, but leave her. You have my word I will come quietly if you leave her untouched. Or you can test my strength. I'm not from your world. I do not take prisoners. What I did to the last three was merciful compare to what I will do to you. You will experience pain that will make you wish you were dead and then I will make it hurt a thousand fold. I can do things you couldn't imagine in your worst nightmares."
The men in the circle seemed hesitant, looking towards their leader for an answer.
"Leave the girl," Draco growled dangerously. "Or you will pay."
The man was silent for a moment, debating. "I don' believe ye."
"No?" Draco snapped. His anger had finally reached its limit. He raised his palm to the man in front of him and squeezed his fingers. The man stumbled back a few centimeters, those around him fumbling back. His beefy hand came up to his throat where he made a gagging noise and his mouth opened as if he were going to retch. Slowly, his intestines began pouring out of him like a snake, pooling at his feet while he gargled and screamed in pain. Cries of terror rang around him and a few men rushed forward to help their leader but Draco flung them back with his other hand and they burst into flame.
Draco felt his strength draining but knew if they surmised as much he was done for. With his right hand still drawing out the large man's innards he lifted his left, enveloping several men in a Cruciatus Curse, needing to cause pain, needing to see them hurt as much as he. A few men Apparated away in terror, but several men rushed forward.
Draco bellowed and brought both his hands down creating a wall of wind knocking all the men back into the trees with screams of pain as invisible daggers ripped at their skin. Draco fell to his knees, spent. The men would recover any moment and he would have nothing more to fight with. He crawled shakily to Hermione and placed his body over hers, creating the only protection he had left. He could hear the yells of the angry men as they rushed him and he clenched his eyes shut against the pain he was about to endure, clutching Hermione, telling her wordlessly how much he loved her, how sorry he was that he couldn't save her, that he had failed her.
A heartbeat later the only thing he could hear was choking, then silence.
Draco looked up. He saw a woman gliding towards them and he knew who she was before she reached down her hand to help him up. Her emerald green gown flowed behind her, her dark red curls surrounding a face carved by the Gods. She was tall, nearly as tall as he, and graceful. Though her feet touched the ground she seemed to have floated over to them. He took her smooth hand and stared into her green eyes, too exhausted and dazed to speak.
"You must be Draco."
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
XOXO
RynStar15
- 13
- 14
- 15
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Breaking the Chain