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They All Taste the Same	By : pomerann Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 22348 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. All characters, concepts and places in the Harry Potter world belong to J.K. Rowling. i make no profit from this story.

Chapter List
- 13
- 14
Chapter 6 - original ending

They landed in a dark back alley several blocks away from the headquarters, too numerous to Apparate directly onto the steps.

“Alright,” Harry said checking the street. “We can go back. But let’s do it two at time. Tonks, Bill, you two go first.”

They nodded and walked back. Harry peered around the corner, watching them. “Just a few minutes more… Ron? You go with Hermione.”

Behind him, he heard a quick movement and whirled around. Hermione was craning her neck wildly and turning in circles.

“What are you doing?”

“That unbelievably stupid – Argh!” She let out a frustrated shriek and Disapparated.

Ooooooooooo

To her horror, Hermione arrived to see Ron pale, bloody, and lying on the ground. A chunk of flesh was missing from the nape of his neck, and his wand arm appeared to be broken.

“No, no, no, no,” she muttered, feeling for a pulse and trying to staunch the blood flow.

He was alive.

She closed her eyes in relief, and started chanting to close the wound. Taking in her surroundings with a cursory glance, she noticed that there was no sign of Draco, nor a corpse. Vampires disappeared in a pile of ash. She couldn’t imagine Draco leaving Ron alive with that gaping wound. He would have drained him dry if he were alive and able. Ron must have killed him.

Harry and Lupin reappeared with a pop. Lupin looked aghast.

“Alive?” Harry croaked.

She nodded without stopping her chanting and felt the beginnings of hot tears pool in her eyes. They bent over Ron and, once finding her rhythm, pointed their wands at his wound and joined in. They had arrived in time; Ron was going to be fine. She closed her eyes, and the tears fell.

Oooooooooo

Hermione and Harry sat by Ron’s bedside, looking down at him. Some of the color had returned to his face, but it would take another day or so for him to completely heal and regain his strength. Madam Pomfrey had stopped by earlier and mended his arm with little difficulty.

Harry looked up at Hermione and said, “Having a werewolf in the Order has its uses, eh? We could all cure bite wounds in our sleep.”

Hermione gave a mirthless chuckle and held Ron’s hand in hers. She felt sick with worry. She hadn’t gotten a chance to go back to the Forbidden Forest and check for a pile of ash, but she was fairly certain that Ron had killed Draco. Maybe there was a chance…

She bit her lip to hold back her tears, but it wasn’t working.

“Hermione,” Harry said tentatively and she raised her head to meet his gaze. He looked like he was trying to decide how to phrase his thoughts and then finally asked her, “When did this start… with Malfoy?”

Hermione felt the blood rush to her face. She had hoped that she wouldn’t have to talk about Draco. She got up to leave, but Harry pressed on. “Ron’s been worse than this and I have yet to see you shed a tear for him.”

Hermione studied Harry. He didn’t seem angry or betrayed as she might have expected. She sat back down and sighed.

“I… I don’t know. Sixth year? Once we actually got an opportunity to talk to each other alone, we… connected.”

“Connected?” Harry asked skeptically. “I’m surprised that he talked to you at all, bigot that he was.”

She wiped the tears from her eyes with the palm of her hand and said, “I think he had begun to question his views long before.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Well,” she sniffed, “there was that time at the World Cup, and I missed it too. I suppose you would have to know what to look for. It’s only when I thought about it in retrospect…”

“What’s that?”

“Do you remember when Draco’s father and a few others suspended those Muggles in the air?”

“Of course, and then the git came to lord it over us - the fact that they were out to get you because you’re Muggle-born.”

“Exactly.”

Oooooooo

Hermione illuminated her wand and directed its narrow beam across the path. Ron was lying sprawled on the ground.

“Tripped over a tree root,” he said angrily, getting to his feet again.

“Well, with feet that size, hard not to,” said a drawling voice from behind them.

Harry, Ron and Hermione turned sharply. Draco Malfoy was standing alone nearby, leaning against a tree, looking utterly relaxed. His arms folded, he seemed to have been watching the scene at the campsite through a gap in the trees.

“Go bugger your cousin, you inbred prat!”

“Language, Weasley,” said Malfoy, his pale eyes glittering. “Hadn’t you better be hurrying along now? You wouldn’t like her spotted, would you?”

He nodded at Hermione, and at the same moment, a blast like a bomb sounded from the campsite, and a flash of green light momentarily lit up the trees around them.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Hermione defiantly. She didn’t like the look in his eyes. It wasn’t threatening, but it was… She couldn’t name what it was and her inability to indentify it unnerved her.

“Granger, they’re after Muggles,” said Malfoy. “D’you want to be showing off your knickers in midair? Because if you do, hang around… they’re moving this way and it would give us all a laugh.”

“Hermione’s a witch,” Harry snarled.

“Have it your own way, Potter,” said Malfoy, grinning maliciously. “If you think they can’t spot a Mudblood, stay where you are.”

“You watch your mouth!” shouted Ron.

“Never mind, Ron,” said Hermione quickly, seizing Ron’s arm to restrain him as he took a step toward Malfoy. He was baiting them on purpose, and yet… she couldn’t deny that he was giving them sound advice. They heard a bang from the other side of the trees that was louder than anything else. Several people nearby screamed. Malfoy chuckled softly.

“Scare easily, don’t they?” he said lazily. “I suppose your daddy told you all to hide? What’s he up to? Trying to rescue the Muggles?”

“Where’re your parents?” Harry asked, his temper rising. “Out there wearing masks, are they?”

Malfoy turned his face to Harry, still smiling.

“Well… if they were, I wouldn’t be likely to tell you, would I, Potter?”

“Oh come on,” said Hermione, with a disgusted look at Malfoy, “let’s go and find the others.”

“Keep that big bushy head down, Granger,” sneered Malfoy.

“Come on,” Hermione repeated, and she pulled Harry and Ron up the path again. She stared back at Draco and frowned. There it was again. He was giving her advice.

“I’ll bet you anything his dad is one of that masked lot!” said Ron hotly.

“Well, with any luck, the Ministry will catch him!” said Hermione fervently. Looking around to find that they had lost everyone else, she forgot her line of thought regarding Malfoy. “Oh, I can’t believe this. Where have the others got to?”

Fred, George and Ginny were nowhere to be seen, though the path was packed with plenty of other people, all looking nervously over their shoulders toward the commotion back at the campsite.

oooooooo

“Three times, Harry.”

“What? That he insulted you?”

“No,” she said with an exasperated sigh. “Three times that he tried to warn us. To make us understand that I would be a target and should be hidden. His father already knew that I was Muggle-born. Why else would Draco warn us if his views weren’t already changed? Or changing?”

Harry opened his mouth as if to reply, and then closed it.

“And then there was Moaning Myrtle.”

“What?” Harry asked, looking annoyed at the growing amount of evidence.

“He confided in her a lot during sixth year. Remember? And she was Muggle-born.”

“But then why keep calling you ‘Mudblood’ all these years?”

“Now you’re being purposely thick!" she retorted angrily. "Just look at the position he was in!"

He looked down in thought and admitted reluctantly, “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

Hermione stared blankly at Ron for a few minutes and then said, “He had an incredible strength of character.”

Harry’s voice took on an irritated tone. “Have you forgotten school completely? He was a whining, spoiled bully.”

“Was,” Hermione argued. “And then life got complicated. He changed.”

Harry gritted his teeth. “But how can you still feel that way… after this?” He gestured to Ron’s unconscious body.

“You hypocrite!” she hissed, furiously wiping away at angry tears. “Ron stayed behind to kill him! And I… I still love Ron, don’t I?”

Harry looked to the side, his jaw jutting out.

Several tense minutes passed by in silence with the only sound being Hermione’s occasional sniffling. Harry shifted in his seat, and then cleared his throat before speaking.

“So why did he come?”

Hermione scoffed at him. “Have you suddenly realized there are more important things to discuss than your schoolyard pissing contests?”

She reached down, picked up the sack Draco had given her, and lobbed it over Ron’s body. Harry caught it effortlessly.

Glaring at her but saying nothing, he looked inside. For a moment he was silent, and then his eyes slowly widened in shock. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yes.”

“He destroyed it?”

“Yes.”

Harry’s voice rose. “By himself?”

“I think so.”

“Merlin’s beard!” His voice softened, taking on a tone of awe. He took the cup out of the sack and held it up, turning it around and inspecting the damage. “If he’s so powerful, why didn’t the Death Eaters use him?”

“He didn’t want to be used. I told you, he has… he had no loyalty to them or their cause.”

“So why didn’t he join us?”

“He was worried about his parents; we’ve been over this Harry.”

“But they’ve been dead a few months now. Why didn’t he come? He knew you were waiting for him.”

“Being a vampire... well, that complicated things.” She looked up and choked back a sob. “I was surprised that he came at all tonight. I didn’t expect to ever see him again.”

Tears filled her eyes and Harry looked away, not wanting to stare.

"I'm... I'm sorry," he said quietly.

She nodded gratefully, and the two sat looking at Ron’s sleeping form.

After a few minutes she added, “Harry, he… he said that he thought the last is Nagini.”

Harry was pulled from his reverie. “So he thinks so, too? You didn’t agree with Dumbledore.”

“No, I didn’t. But Draco has been around the both of them for the past few years, so he would know. I just didn’t think that a living being would make a good Horcrux. Nagini will eventually die.”

“Maybe it would still be active in her corpse.”

She shook her head. “No, he made a living being a Horcrux. When it dies, the Horcrux will die. It was rather foolish of him.” She lay back in her chair exhausted. “She’s the last one, Harry. And then we can kill him.”

“If we’re smart, we’ll do both at the same time.”

“That’s the only way we can do it.”

Oooooo

Hermione and Harry woke up as Ron began to stir.

“Hey,” Harry said and smiled at him. “How are you doing?”

Ron rubbed his eyes and looked around. “Not bad. Hungry though.”

“Did you kill him?”

Ron turned to see Hermione’s hostile expression. He raised his voice an octave to imitate hers. “How are you feeling, Ron?” His tenor returned to normal, but became laced with anger. “Oh, I’m fine, thanks for asking. I just got a bite taken out of me by a blood sucking ferret. How have you been?”

She gritted her teeth in an attempt to stay the angry tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. Leaning forward, she repeated her question. Each word trembled with her rage and sorrow.

“Did. You. Kill. Him.”

“Isn’t it me you should be worried about? He tried to kill me.”

“And what did you stay behind for?” Hermione spat at him. “A game of Exploding Snap?”

Ron scowled at her. “Maybe now he’ll stay away. We’re better off without his ferrety arse stalking you. He’s done something to you. You’re not in your right mind.”

She sighed in relief and sagged back into her chair. “So he’s alive.”

“Crispy, but alive,” he answered reluctantly. “He was too fast. And if he comes back, I’ll do it again.”

Hermione pressed her palms to her forehead, counted to ten, and then exhaled loudly. It didn’t help. Her patience had run out; this whole ordeal was a complete waste of time. Slowly lowering her hands, she glared at Ron. She could feel the anger radiating out of her and he winced at whatever he saw in her expression.

Her voice came out more threatening than she had originally intended but she did nothing to temper the outpouring of her rage. “You’re a fucking idiot, Ronald Weasley.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but closed it after Harry gave a quick shake of his head.

“You have this uncanny ability to reduce your intelligence to that of a Blast-Ended Skrewt whenever you're worried about the size of your dick!”

His face reddened and her voice dropped lower and became even more menacing.

“Don’t you understand? He would have been an ally! And an incredible weapon if wielded correctly. He’s more powerful than Voldemort and his Death Eaters combined and he came to help us destroy him!”

She paused until it appeared he had formulated a response. When he opened his mouth to reply, she cut him off, raising the volume of her voice. “But now you’ve gone and bollixed it up because you’re still upset that he had a Nimbus 2000 when all you had was a Cleanswop!”

“Cleansweep,” Harry muttered under his breath.

“Whatever!” she yelled, dismissing him with a wave of her hand. Harry sat back, not daring to interrupt again. From the look on her face, Ron might soon have yet another bite that would need healing.

Ron’s expression turned livid. “What… What absolute tripe! I was only protecting y—umph! What the-!”

He looked down at the object she had thrown at his stomach. The angry expression on Ron’s face fell as he looked dumbly down at the Hufflepuff Cup.

“Fuck me! You guys went to Gringotts? How long was I out?”

Hermione crossed her arms and answered curtly. “You were out for a day and a half. Draco gave me the cup.”

Ron opened his mouth like he was going to say something, shut it, and then opened it again. “Wait, but - how did he know?”

Hermione raised her eyebrows and leaned forward. “And,” she continued without answering his question, “he also thinks that Nagini is the final one.”

Ron slowly raised the cup, scrutinizing it skeptically. “Are you sure that this is really…?”

She sat back. “Yes, Ron, it’s the real thing. We checked.”

“And he destroyed it?”

“Yes.”

“By himself?” Ron asked, gawking at the cup.

Hermione looked at Harry and sighed.

Ron poked at it, surprised when the blackened metal that looked so much like crumpled paper didn’t give like paper would.

“Bl-o-o-dy hell.”

Ooooooooo

Bill, Hermione, Lupin, Tonks, Ron and Harry were huddled over the attack plans for the fortress and the sketchy blueprint that they acquired and added to over the years. They were discussing what they had hoped would be the final battle every day now for the past week.

After a lull in the conversation, Lupin looked at Hermione, sighed and said, “You’ve got some brilliant ideas, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’re outnumbered three to one. Maybe even four to one if we catch him with the entirety of his force.”

Hermione gazed at him. With sagging shoulders she said, “And we’re attacking a fortress. The advantage goes to the defending position no matter how you look at it. I know.”

“What if we made a decoy, a second attack somewhere else to draw most of them out?” Ron suggested.

“It had better be a good decoy,” Harry said. “Those odds are pretty steep. It would take quite a bit of subterfuge to convince them it was real and keep them there long enough to finish off Voldemort.”

Bill gave Ron a quelling look. “And those involved in the decoy would essentially be on a suicide mission. Leave the planning to Hermione.”

Ron scowled.

Hermione rubbed her temples and let her hands drop to the table. She had hoped that it wouldn’t come to this and that they really would come up with a battle plan to overcome all the obstacles. Then she wouldn’t have to suggest the alternative that had been dancing around in the back of her head.

“Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way,” she said slowly.

“How so?” Tonks asked.

“Well, we always assumed that once we finished the mission, we could go attack Voldemort and kill him. End this all. But that was years ago. His army is much larger than it was before. And while we’ve grown too, we still don’t have the manpower that he does.”

“Each one of the Order is worth at least four of his brainwashed idiots,” Ron piped up defensively.

Bill gave him a half grin and ruffled his hair. “That’s the spirit. You’re better at cheerleading.”

Ron cursed under his breath and swatted Bill's hand away.

Hermione took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Well, there is another option.”

Sometimes, Hermione wished that she wasn’t such a good strategist. Ultimately, she felt responsible for both the victories and defeats that they incurred. Even worse, she was sometimes in a position to decide who lived and who died, who would be in which wave, who would attack from which flank and who would participate in which raid. She knew if the chances of survival were better in one group than another.

Sometimes, even the best laid plans resulted in death. Unforeseen difficulties, people in the wrong place at the wrong time, like when…

“Draw him out?” Tonks finished for her. She must have been thinking along the same lines.

She nodded, wordlessly.

“How?” Harry said.

She sighed, looked at Harry, and hoped he wouldn’t hate her. His inquisitive expression fell to one of resignation.

“Bait,” he said, since she couldn’t quite get the word off the tip of her tongue. “You want me to be the bait.”

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“But surely we could…” Tonks protested.

“Think about it,” Hermione explained. “We pick the time,” she said as she began ticking off the advantages on her fingers, feeling very Machiavellian. “We pick the battlefield. We come prepared. We have the element of surprise. They come, hoping to do Harry in, or kidnap him — depending on how we set it up. They won’t expect a full-fledged battle. Every advantage goes to us.”

No one could argue with her. She stole a quick glance at Harry. He was looking at the table, avoiding her gaze.

“I’ll do it,” he said tonelessly.

“Harry,” Tonks tried to placate him.

“No,” Harry continued. “She’s right. And what difference does it make? It’s got to be me and him anyway.”

He looked up at her and gave her a small smile. “It’s okay. And… I’m glad we have you to think of these things.”

She felt the coldness in her body warm a little from his words.

“If Harry’s bait,” Ron said, “then I am, too.”

Harry nodded at him gratefully.

“Me too,” Hermione said quietly. Harry gave her a small smile in response.

“Harry,” Lupin said. “We’re all going to be with you that night. Now,” he said, waving his wand causing all of the maps, plans and notes that were on the table to whisk themselves away to a drawer in the kitchen. Everyone’s eyes followed the papers. “Before we commit to anything, let’s brainstorm a bit. I think our first question is - where do we want to do this?”

“The Gaunts' old house,” Hermione replied.

Harry looked at her sharply. “You’ve already sussed this out.”

She looked down at the table guiltily. “I started thinking about it two days ago. I didn’t think we’d be able to beat the odds either.”

“Well?” Tonks prodded her. “Who are the Gaunts?”

Hermione looked at Harry out of the corner of her eye and saw him nod.

“Voldemort’s family.” That answer got a few raised eyebrows from around the table. “He had hidden something there which was connected to our mission. If we let it be known that Harry, Ron and I are staking out the area, he’ll come. And he’ll come with few others, if anyone at all, because he won’t want anybody to know about the… our mission. We’ll ambush him.”

She saw Harry smile appreciatively at her intellect and she continued, “The house is relatively isolated, the nearest residence being the Riddle estate which has been abandoned for quite some time. We can prepare the land, make the borders of anti-apparition wards, which will be erected the moment he arrives…”

She saw nods of agreement, but Ron was staring thoughtfully into space.

“What are you thinking, Ron?” He managed to hide it well, but she knew that Ron had his moments of brilliance, even if no one else did.

He lowered his eyes to hers. “He has to bring Nagini in order for this to work.”

Hermione opened her mouth in surprise.

“Damn,” she muttered. “I didn’t think of that.”

“A shame Padma’s turned traitor. It would be nice to have someone on the inside to take out the snake,” Harry said, digging his nail into a scratch in the table.

“There will never be another Severus Snape,” Lupin commented.

Suddenly, Lupin tensed, sniffed the air and looked to Bill who also seemed on edge. Bill nodded.

“What?” Harry asked.

Bill and Lupin turned to the puzzled and curious expressions on everyone’s faces. Lupin met Hermione’s eyes and said, “It appears that our vampire friend has returned.”
- 13
- 14
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They All Taste the Same