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Bad Faith	By : angharad1143 Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 7649 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 17
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A high-pitched screech roused her, and Hermione woke with a terror that answered almost as soon
as it questioned.

The little dragon on her back rolled, flailing his tiny wings, clawing as he writhed.

Hermione sat up in her bed and screamed.

Answering screams. Pounding feet.

Unseeing, unthinking, as lights went on and the door to her bedroom swung open, Hermione tore the
shirt off her back and raced across the room to the mirror on the nightstand, turning to watch the dragon
writhing in agony. She was wearing a bra beneath the shirt, but could not possibly have cared even if she
were stark naked, and had every male wizard in the world between the ages of eleven and sixty as an
audience.

It didn’t hurt.

Not in any technically physical sense, but Hermione dropped to her knees and felt as if her heart
would burst from her chest.

The dragon screeched again, ear-splittingly high-pitched, spouting flames that drew a surprised,
“Bollocks!”

She could care less if he set the room on fire. The dragon was a part of Draco, and the dragon was
screaming in pain.

She was screaming herself. Covering her own ears to shut out the sound. Hermione only dimly heard
the whispered conversations at the doorway, and viciously struck at Ginny as the girl tried to comfort her.

“What’s happening?”

“Did they find–?”

“Death Eaters?!”

“...the Mark. Get Dumbledore.”

“...everyone else...sleep, if they can...”

A hand lashed across Hermione’s face, once, twice, and Harry caught her arms as she pitched
forward, too terrified to cry.

“Is it Draco?”

Looking up with eyes filled with horror, she nodded speechlessly as the dragon on her back went into
a fresh round of writhing, almost catching Tonks’s robes on fire.

“Hed...Hedwig h-hasn’t come back y-yet?” Hermione asked through chattering teeth, and Harry’s
lips closed in a firm line as he shook his head.

Ron, too, crouched on the floor beside her, grasping her hands.

“It’s D-Draco,” she told him, and felt her hands start to shake. “Th-they...”

She couldn’t say it. If she said it, then it meant Draco would die. Hermione threw back her head and
screamed again as the dragon lashed.

Abrupt silence as Professor Dumbledore entered, moving at a speed at odds with his age, fairly
crackling with power.

“Out,” he said flatly, his eyes flashing at the mob in the room, gesturing for Ron and Harry to stay.
“Hermione–”

Hermione fell between them, shivering uncontrollably as they held her. Thoughtfully, Ron brushed
a thick lock of hair out of her face and laid his hand on her icy forehead.

“They’ve got Draco!” With that admission, it was suddenly very hard to breathe.

“Lie still,” Dumbledore said softly. “Harry, Mr. Weasley, if you could please help Miss Granger off
the floor?”

As lightly as if she had simply slipped and fallen. Taking her elbows, they helped her up, though her
knees trembled beneath her.

“On the bed, Miss Granger.”

Obediently, she sat there, her face in her hands. The little dragon lay still, gasping.

Dumbledore gently touched the dragon, and the little one rolled over, staring up at him with wide
garnet eyes.

“Hold her,” he said, and covered the dragon with the palm of his hand, closing his eyes and exhaling
slowly.

Heat burst into her back, eating into her spine, travelling like lightning up to the back of her skull.
Grimly, Ron and Harry moved her so that she lay flat on the bed, Dumbledore’s hand still on her, as if he had
found a heretofore unknown switch on her body that caused a momentous amount of pain.

There was a part of her, somewhere, still capable of realizing that whatever this was, it was meant
to help, but Hermione could not help shrieking as Harry and Ron silently kept her pinned. A small voice in
the back of her head was gibbering, Draco Draco Draco DRACO...

Then the little voice shut up, and all that was left was pain.

Pain and trauma dilate time, slow it, speed it, stretch it, and an endless line of black spots marched
through her vision before the pain finally stopped. Ron and Harry hesitantly released her, as though expecting
her to lunge for their throats.

Hermione had no interest in going for anyone’s throat. Yet. For now, her entire being was focused
on relearning how to breathe.

More bits of conversation drifted back to her from the area of the door, bits that made no sense, in
funereal voices.

“Perhaps...so ancient...few understand...”

“...help...”

“...alive?”

“Fades...will know...with her.”

The door shut gently, and the long-suppressed tears finally fell, drop by drop.

~o~oOo~o~

The five year-old Draco that resided permanently in the back of his head had taken one look at what
was left of Lucius Malfoy and fled screaming into the darkness.

The older Draco had seen Padma Patil on the floor and gritted his teeth, the screams of her sister
dimly registering.

Between then and now, there had been a great deal of screaming. The Eye shimmered on
Voldemort’s robe, the source of his power, and when that power was channelled into the cruciatus curse, it
was a fearsome thing indeed.

There was something he had to do...

Draco shook his head, noting that the surface to one side of it was very cold. And hard. Most
uncomfortable.

Found that he had hands, arms attaching them to his body, and thought it marvellous.

He remembered, a very long time ago, Professor Flitwick lecturing them their first day at Hogwarts.

To practice magic requires two things: education, and control.

And Mad-Eye Moody, sixth year, after what must have been a mighty struggle against Professor
Dumbledore.

Practically speaking, it would be easy to simply Apparate away from a fight. But it takes
concentration, and usually there is none to spare, if you’re fighting for your life. And if you’ve been hit with
a curse–not necessarily the cruciatus curse–then part of you is already fighting the curse. There’s only so
much energy to use.

He breathed, the first breath, it seemed, in a long, long time.

Where the strength to fight the curse had come from, he didn’t know. Had no time to wonder. There
was something...

Some...one.

Dimly, he heard the word again, the word that meant pain. Wild laughter that made the hair on the
back of his neck stand on end, laughter that was cold and somehow utterly empty of humour. Part of him
flinched, at the word, at the laughter, bracing for the onslaught.

His hand moved, if he focused on it. Fingers curled at his command. He forced that hand under
himself, forced his arm to push, forced himself up, reeling, to one knee.

The laughter ceased, and

Hermione.

Draco stood, and faced a Dark Lord whose teeth were bared with rage, and a circle of Death Eaters
who had drawn back, fear and uncertainty glinting in eyes half-hidden by the masks they wore.

Hermione screaming

Cowardly things to wear, masks. He told them so.

Potter and Weasley holding her down

He felt...strange.

Behind him, he saw Lee Jordan working quickly and silently to untie the others, and didn’t bother
to wonder how Jordan had got himself free.

For the first time in a very long time, the Dark Lord himself was uncertain, and his hesitance trickled
through the room, a scent caught on the breeze.

Reaching into his pocket, Draco found change jingling–the last of his Muggle money. It struck him
as ironic, somehow, though he could never say why. Clenching it in his hand, he thought portus with all his
might, focusing on the Ministry. Even without a wand, there were some magics a determined wizard could
manage. Of course, it helped if the wizard in question was terrified. Draco was secure enough in his
masculinity to admit that.

Even with the Eye, the Dark Lord’s cruciatus curse had failed. Even with the Eye.

There was a moment, a heartbeat of hesitation, and Draco took it.

Whirling, he threw most of the handful of coins to Lee Jordan, and bent, shoving the rest into
Padma’s unmoving hand. Had halfway straightened, and brought the image of the glade where he had first
taken Hermione into his mind–

“Oblisum–”

Voldemort made a slashing motion with his wand, his face gone deadly white and terrible, a line of
purple flame snaking out–

“–animus!”

With a crack, Draco Apparated.

~o~oOo~o~

To the forest.

To the Aurors’ library in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, a wreckage strewn with
countless pages.

To the goddamned hotel where he and Hermione had first made love, startling the life out of the bint
at the front desk.

And still, they were one step behind him.

Hunting.

Enraged.

He couldn’t breathe.

Reeling, to the snowy path just outside the windows of Nott’s mansion. Touched the trickle of blood
at the corner of his mouth and wondered why he felt like he was drowning.

Back to the forest.

Whatever wild strength had seized him in the Death Eaters’ lair was deserting him, and the trees of
the glade were spinning. Something struck his shoulder and he swung at it blindly, an indignant hoot reaching
his ears.

Paper fell into his hands, and he forced reluctant eyes to focus on it.

The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, London...

...........

I love you. Hermione.

“Love you,” he said thickly, and Apparated for the last time.

~o~oOo~o~

Pandemonium erupted.

The door to Hermione’s room was flung open, and Hermione started, bleary-eyed, to see Ginny
standing in the doorway, her mouth open in shock.

“He’s–it’s–”

The twins were shouting downstairs.

Her heart in her throat, Hermione leaped from the bed and sprinted toward the balcony, watching
Fred and George haul Draco through the doorway, Fred kicking the door shut behind them and bending with
his brother to lay the taller man down on the floor.

She would not have been the least bit surprised if she had been informed later that she had jumped
from landing to floor, rather than taking the stairs.

“Get Harry,” Draco managed, gagging. Bloody froth rose to his lips.

Hermione dropped next to him and grasped his hand, wiping away the blood at his lips with the tail
of her shirt. Merlin, so much blood. Why is he bleeding?

Draco pushed her hands away and tried to sit up, snagging Harry by the collar and almost holding
himself up by it.

“Little Hangleton,” he gasped, and fell back, turning on his side as he coughed, his face going as
grey as his eyes. Spitting blood, he gasped for breath, and couldn’t find it. Saw Harry still hovering, and
thought exasperatedly, he cannot possibly be this thick. “Goddammit, go!”

Further chaos. Moody and Kingsley shouting orders. Mrs. Weasley pausing to embrace Hermione
so tightly that it took her breath away. Members of the Order running, swearing, fetching their wands and
Apparating in a series of cracks that shook the house. Harry hesitated, grabbing Hermione’s arm.

“Hermione?”

“Go,” she said, a lump rising in her throat. “Now, before they have a chance to reorganize.”

It felt as if a whirlwind had passed through, for the house was suddenly still and silent again, empty.

“Draco?”

He smiled at her, lifting bloodstained fingers to touch her face.

“’Mione,” he whispered. “Saved them.”

“I told you to be careful,” she whispered back. “Didn’t you read the note?”

His lips curved, and despite the blood, despite his pallor, his face was beatific. “Bloody owl...almost
took my head off...giving it to me. Love you,” he repeated, his breath rattling in his throat.

“I love you,” she said, dashing tears away from her eyes. “Draco, stay with me.”

“Was it...enough...?” He asked, so softly that she had to bend to catch the question. In his grey eyes
was the boy that might have been, if things were only a little different.

“Yes.” Tears streamed down her cheeks as she grasped his other hand.

He pressed her hand to his lips, a courtly gesture that drove into her like a blade.

“Love...”

“Draco?”

“My...love...”

“Draco!”

With a small sigh, a final sulphurous breath, the little dragon on her back faded away.

Author’s Notes:

This is not the end of the story. That’s all I will say, except that if you know/think you know what
happens, don’t spoil it for anyone, please. And review, review, review. (Hopefully I made you cry; I did my
damnedest. And I am woman enough to confess that I cried the first time I wrote this. I hate killing off
characters.)

And for interested parties, “Oblisum Animus” was the spell used on Hermione in the Battle of the
Deapartment of Mysteries. A lot more deadly when the spellcaster isn’t silencio’d.
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Bad Faith