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Need	By : diami25 Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 30263 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies and I'm not making any profits from this writing.

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Need by WickedDiSaster

Chapter 23: Aftermath by WickedDiSaster

What brought upon her such an agony wasn’t hard to explain. Her betrayal had turned around the outcome of the war, and on his last seconds of life, Voldemort had delivered his ultimate revenge. A curse to Hermione that Draco didn’t hesitate to intercept.

She didn’t feel her body turning around, nor falling to her knees at the sight that met her. The silence that drowned her whole couldn’t be broken by the soft and strained whisper that his lips formed, because she knew they were all lies; nothing was alright. Nothing would ever be all right.

She screamed, the shriek masked by a battlefield already in uproar didn’t resonate like the cracking pain that it chanted. In those short few seconds of chaos, accompanied by the slow-motion feeling that comes with shock, all hell broke loose inside her.

Voldemort was dead, his Death Eaters scattered through the grounds like wild creatures. She felt each step taken at a mad run, each wild curse shot amiss, even the splattering of blood on the dirt. Yet it was the expression on Lucius’ face as he knelt next to his son that cut right through her. It chilled her blood, and coagulated the terror that crushed her senses. All of it through Draco’s faint smiles and whispering lies.

She gripped Lucius hands, breaking through his reverie of despair with a tight hold that sought for answers that her muddled mind refused to accept.

“St Mungo’s,” Lucius whispered, and again, she barely registered apparating them there if not for the healers that rushed to Draco the next second. She stared in horror.

“What was it? You recognised it, I know,” she asked, her hold of Lucius still tight in her fingers.

Lucius’ mask of impassiveness crumbled as the sound of his raw voice reached her ears. “Bring Dumbledore,” he told her, as he extricated his hand from her clutches to use his Patronuses as silent messengers.

Every second Dumbledore took to arrive, felt like backstabbing betrayal to Hermione, and when he did finally arrive with Harry, she did not deign a glance in his direction, but crushed her friend in a tight embrace. “Nothing’s working,” she whispered terrified, “he won’t stop bleeding,” she half-sobbed. “He’s got an open wound in his chest, Harry,” she choked, “and they can’t heal him. I can hear everything.” She was drenching his shirt on her tears by now but didn’t let go. “They’re giving up. They don’t think the Blood Replenishing Potions will be worth it if he can’t heal.”

He hugged her back as best as he could in spite of his own wounds. “It’s going to be alright, ‘Mione. We’ll figure it out.”

However Lucius had taken Dumbledore aside the instant she had ambushed her friend and done his fair share of heart-breaking confessions himself. “It’s a Malfoy curse. It’s been on the family for centuries, the replenishing potions won’t be of help soon, the wound keeps increasing at a slow rate. It’s about to reach vital organs.”

Lucius whispered all of this to Dumbledore, but like she said; she could hear everything, and each word deepened the pain to impossible lengths, making her, slowly, pull out of Harry’s embrace and turned horrified eyes in their direction.

“An antidote was actually created after the curse took the life of its maker, but it requires the blood of the wizard that casted the curse and that of an heir, if not a dozen of them to share their life time with him. I,” Lucius’ voice broke, “I can’t, I have all this time and I,” he let the silence engulf him before taking this ghost of air into his lungs to finish. “He’s the last of the family. Just get her out of here. I don’t think Narcissa is going to make it in time.”

Hermione lost control of her knees a second time. “Harry,” she couldn’t hide the agony of her turmoiled mind. “Harry,” she choked again, the weight of her decisions suffocating her lungs. “I need Voldemort’s blood, Harry.” He had crouched down to hold her, and now looked at her with through bewildered, disconsolate eyes. “Ron,” she continued in a frantic, yet resolute voice, “he has to get the twins here, Harry.”

“’Mione,” Harry tenderly started, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, the twins are still too,” but she then clutched his wrist in a painful grasp to stop his tirade. She didn’t have time to explain. She doubted she ever would. “Now!” she begged. “They have to come, Harry, NOW!” she ended with a shriek.

Neither of them had taken particular notice of the way Lucius reacted to their interaction.

“What did you just say?” his croaked voice asked the crying mess in the floor.

Hermione didn’t acknowledge his question, and refusing to look at anything but the floor in which she had landed, she made one of her own. “How do we prepare the antidote?”

She could feel Harry’s presence still lingering at her side and turned to growl at him. “Go now, Harry!” but Dumbledore had already approached him, and was lifting him up, whispering encouragements to heed her pleas.

And he did.

*

Dumbledore was the one to get Tom’s blood. Harry and Ron brought the twins. All while Hermione stayed with Lucius to gather what they needed. They did this through this stagnant silence, full of the unspeakable implications of what saving Draco meant for her children.

In the end, Lucius and Snape took care of the potion making, because the latter assured them that slight modifications on the antidote could improve its effectiveness. Thus how ‘Mione secluded herself with her babies in Draco’s room.

This was how he opened his eyes to find Hermione holding the twins in a seat next to his bed. She had them in her lap, whispering shushing sounds, while she herself cried. Her appearance, as dishevelled as he’d seen in the battlefield if not worse, and all he wanted to do, was tell her off for letting his babies, his precious, precious babies near her blood-stained, dead-marred clothes.

It didn’t take long to realise the blood was his own, the same that was now staining the white covers of the bed. It upset him even more. He tried to move but found each attempt rendered futile by the pain, the gush in his chest had enlarged along his ever-growing wound.

He didn’t want his children to see that, no matter how small, no matter how young. They were his, why should they have to witness the demise of their father; when he couldn’t do anything about the pain he was about to cause them.

He planned to give her a piece of his mind on this. His anger flaring up with each intake of breath, when out of the blue, in an unexpected motion, her hunted eyes looked up to find him. Not him, per say, not his eyes, she couldn’t look him in the eyes, but him as a whole, his body.

She wore these pain-filled eyes, eyes that made her broken image look regal and flamboyant, eyes that made her expression reflect a perpetual distraught soul, and Draco’s anger evaporated like Peruvian Instant Darkness, effectively silencing any reproach against the means she could or could not use to deal with her pain.

“It’s going to be alright, Draco,” she had whispered, and something about the way she said it didn’t fit with Draco’s perspective of the world.

Those were his lines.

He decided, lying in a bed of St Mungo’s, that now was the time, that she should at least try to prepare her, that she had to be strong enough to handle the truth now that he could at any extend help her through it. It stroke him as odd that her cunning mind or the Hospital’s staff hadn’t worked it out yet, so much so that if not for the sincerity of her soul, he would think this was a ruse attempting to comfort him.

He needed to let her know that he was okay with it, that he just wanted her to be happy.

“I know the curse, ‘Mione,” he started. “It doesn’t feel that bad,” he lied. She glared in his direction. “I swear,” he kept trying, “I’ve taken worse, Kitten. But I do need you to leave this place in the next few hours and take Kath and Casey with you.” He looked up for strength, perhaps focus; he needed to say it. “I know you’ll take good care of them, baby,” he tried his best to convey his love and firm belief in her through this sentence. “They don’t need to see this, ‘Mione. My father will handle things here.”

She sniffed and pulled back her sobs, keeping her furious eyes on his general direction.

“No, Draco, I won’t leave. And they’ll stay with me as long as they’re needed. I’ll make sure they’re alright after that,” her voice almost cracked but she wiped a tear with ferocity to continue, “but you are not going to die, Draco. You are not going to leave us. They will understand it’s for the best. They love you too, I know.” She gulped, losing her conviction in the middle of her speech, and turning it in a mantra to reassure herself, going as far as to appease her conscience and Draco could hear it in the tone of her voice, in the change of her expression, in the shallow breaths she took, and he didn’t like it one bit.

“What,” he coughed blood, “are you saying?”

“Your father found a way, Draco.”

“If that’s true, why did you bring them?” His tone couldn’t hide the reproach and disbelief of her words.

Hermione hugged her babies closer still. “We need them,” she said, and it might have drained all the blood left in him if he could look any paler.

“What for, Granger,” he evenly muttered between his teeth.

She started sobbing, “They’ll understand, Draco, they love you,” she started muttering again.

“What are you planning to do, Granger?” Draco tried to move in vain only to sputter more blood, his unconscious attempt, a reflection of his growing distrust.

She was saved by the door opening and letting in a stone-faced Lucius, a weary Dumbledore, and relentless Snape. The healers that followed them didn’t dare a glance on his direction, following their example.

Draco started coughing profusely stopping all attempts to ask what they were doing, and they pretended not to understand the nature of his questions as they rushed to him, warning that painkillers would stop acting if he kept on moving and opened his wound.

“It’s ready,” Lucius stated, “You need to drink this now.”

“What is it?” Draco managed.

“It’s the antidote, Draco. It’ll stop the wound, help you heal.”

They didn’t give Draco time to reply; Dumbledore started an incantation, a healer shoved the liquid onto his lips, and Snape uncovered his wound, pouring the cold material on top of it. It burned his skin and made his throat light on fire. He forgot how to breathe, think or speak, when the Potion Master signalled her to come.

Leaving the twins aside, Hermione moved in a fluid motion, hovering over him as she pressed the tip of a knife against her wrist, blood dripping on top of his wound.

Draco heaved, coughing on his own blood in an attempt to ask what the hell did she think she was doing, before she handed the knife to his father. The realisation shocked him to the core. Blood rituals like these served to do one thing, and one thing only, transfer your life into another being.

It was dark arts at its best, banned from use and public knowledge centuries ago, but Draco, being the Potion Master beloved Godson, and Malfoy extraordinaire, knew not only how to recognise its traits, but how it still motivated hijacks, human traffic, and contraband of the lewdest kind among the rich and desperate.

It wasn’t often that a) lifetime was an option available to your affliction, and b) you had someone willing (or unwilling) to gift you at least three decades of it.

His muddled mind dwelled on this while his lungs fought to get back its breath and his father repeated actions prickled something on his mind, something he was missing, a detail that didn’t quite fit with his fluid motions. Blood from your predecessors can’t be used, Draco, the memory of Snape’s voice echoed in his mind.

It was then that the gnawing feeling in his gut that something was inherently wrong, that there was more to the haunted eyes and self-reassuring mutterings that his brain refused to believe.

Because it was unspeakable, unthinkable, impossible; she was their mother, and she had to know this. Because above all things, Draco had always trusted in her, in her unwavering ability to take care of them; to ALWAYS take care of them, in spite of her life, in spite of himself! Because it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

But then he saw Hermione lift Kath towards him, uncovering her wrist, and Draco roared in outrage.

His chest screaming in pain along him as he yelled at her to stop; she swallowed her sobs, trying to shush Kath’s scared cries while her blood dripped on his chest. One, two, three; and it was only now that he felt his wound closing, burning like never before. One of the healers took hold of Kath, tending to her hand and cries.

Dumbledore repeated the chanting and they restarted their actions once again.

Draco thrashed around the bed screaming bloody murder to stop them while more healers restrained him.

Snape poured the contents of the vessel on top of him and Hermione made a second cut to her wrist, as did his father. Then she brought Casey up to his chest and did the same twice until the fourth time he felt his wound finally close.

He didn’t know at what point they had silenced his screams or casted the immobilizing curses, didn’t know how or when they lifted them, nor did he feel responsible for the wandless curse he directed to the last healer scurrying past the door as he ripped the covers from his chest and hollered at them to get out.

By then there was no trace of Dumbledore’s deceiving composure, Snape’s fake controlled demeanour, or the inherent traitor of his father. No one he could beat into a bloody pulp.

He took hold of Kath and Casey, placing them on top of his bed. He healed their wounds with his wand, cleaning the remains of blood in their robes. He turned to bar the door, realising just there that not everyone had left.

She was silently weeping in the floor next to the entry.

He growled his teeth at her to get out. She shook her head furiously, shedding yet more tears.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered in a muffled sob.

“Get the fuck out!” he hollered.

“You have to understand,” she sobbed.

“I don’t have to understand a bloody shit, Granger! Get out of my sight.” Draco’s voice dripped with venom.

She broke down yet again. “I had to do it, Draco, it was the only way.”

“GET THE BLOODY HELL OUT!”

“You’d have done the same, you- you tried to do the same,” she told him in weeping hiccups.

“I didn’t know them!” he hollered in a hoarse voice. “How could you?! You,” he whispered with disgust.

“You- you were going to die,” she sobbed.

“Then you should have let me die!”

She broke down in a heap of sobs in the floor. That hadn’t been an option.

“Get out!” he growled again.

She took several intakes of breath before managing to sputter a word between her sobs, “I, I can’t, they’re, they’re, mine too.”

Draco nuzzled his babies, who had started crying again, breathing in whatever self-control he could from them. He finished healing Casey’s wound, purposely ignoring the heaving mess on the door because he couldn’t avoid hollering his rage at her again. However, Kath, who sat between his legs, lifted her arms towards her mother, calling for her with almost the same desperation with which the other sobbed.

Draco tried to pull her back to face him, an attempt that only made his daughter shed yet more tears, so he lifted her on his arms, burrowing his face on her small shape, before he muttered through his teeth a clear, “You don’t deserve them.”

He picked Kath up and took her to her mother, who welcomed her like a lifeline, showering her with kisses that calmed her sobs.

“Don’t stain her with your tears,” Draco snapped at her, while Hermione searched her daughter’s wrist for any trace of her wound. Kath happily engaged in recreation with her mother’s curls, while Hermione recovered control over her shaking limbs to stand up and bring her back to the bed.

Sniffing to get back some semblance of control, she took a seat next to Draco – who still held Casey – and lifted a hand to check on her daughter. Draco sneered at her, but Casey lifter her hands to meet her mother’s.

“Clean yourself up; I don’t want a trace of soil in them,” Draco cruelly remarked.

Hermione casted a silent Scurgifying spell on her clothes, another in her tear-stained face, and a third one on Kath’s clothes, before she took hold of her daughter, examining every crevice of her carefully, the same way she had tended to Kath.

“You casted a Blood Replenishing spell,” she whispered.

Draco didn’t deign to look at her. His expression full of disdain. “What did you expect, Granger? That I left them to mend for themselves after what their mother subjected them to?”

She swallowed back her sob at his comment, placing her babies on top of the bed. She pulled her hair back to one side, lowering the strap of her top and her bra. Casting a spell to refill her milk, she placed Casey on her bosom.

She wasn’t fooling anyone, not even herself, it was not done in their benefit. She needed this, tangible proof that she was still their mother; that for all the love she bore them, she was still good for something, that she could still do this.

Draco’s impassive stare felt constricted, a flicker of regret crossed his eyes at the sight of her pitiful attempts to grasp what was left of her sanity. A flicker of emotion she didn’t see because she couldn’t raise her eyes to meet his.

Casey greedily accepted the invitation, and Hermione felt let go of the breath she was holding in relief, caressing a curl behind her small ear with a finger. Kath gasped in indignation, begging to be lifted as well, inching to move closer.

Draco stared at Hermione with contempt, standing up to move her, so she was the one resting on the headboard to place Kath next to Casey. Hermione silenced her jealous antics with a half-sobbing smile.

He ended up enlarging the bed to rest next to them. Propping himself on one arm as the adrenalin of his anger receded, to make his aching muscles be known. He used the other hand to trace small patterns along his children’s heads as he watched them fall asleep. After a while, he watched her close her eyes too, keeping his intense gaze on them.

He had only himself to blame.

*

A Healer entered the room and Draco found himself standing up in a fluid motion to throw him out.

“I just need to run a few spells on you, Mr Malfoy, and then you’ll be good to go,” the healer mumbled, shrinking beneath Draco’s glaring stare.

“If you don’t leave right now, you’ll be the one in need of the spells!” Draco snarled.

“Draco, let him do his job, you need it,” Hermione groggily interrupted from the bed, capturing the attention of the intruder. Draco swiftly got in his line of vision, turning him around by the collar, and casting a few drapes between Hermione and themselves.

“Go on, then,” Draco viciously growled, and the healer gulped, trying to steady his motions as he proceeded to cast the spells.

“I’ll inform your family, Mr Malfoy that you’re ready to leave now.”

“Do whatever pleases you best; just get out of my sight.”

As soon as Hermione heard the door close, she vanished the drapes and levitated her babies onto the bed, they were still fast asleep. She fixed back her clothes and turned to Draco’s cold glare.

“We should get them ready,” she ascertained, “Ron brought a few of their clothes with him; they’re in your drawer.” She waited for him to move before his impassive stance made her reach for the clothes herself.

“Ready for what?” Draco voiced, staring at her antics from the door with arms crossed.

“Your parents; your mother is probably having kittens in the hall.”

“What makes you think I’ll let my father within an inch of this room again?”

She gave a tired sigh, but continued taking out the clothes from the bag Ron had brought, pulling out possible matches for them.

Draco sneered derisively at her choices. “Kath will pull your hair out before she lets you dress her with that,” he took the clothes from her hand, pulling out a blue dress and a white open sweater with a small blue hat for Kath, adding a pink hair blossom with matching baby gloves to the white flowered dress she had chosen.

Hermione ignored him, charming the clothes on Kath and Casey’s form to avoid waking them. A feat that proved unsuccessful with Casey, who opened her eyes in wonderment. Hermione lifted her up and turned her around to put her gloves in each hand, the muggle way, her favourite way.

“Draco, if you don’t let your father in, I will,” she told him. “He was just trying to save you, and he did save you. You owe it to him.”

“I don’t owe the bastard anything.”

“It’s your choice; he’ll see them one way or the other.”

*

“Draco! You’re okay! Thank Merlin!” Narcissa pulled him into a tight embrace that encircled both him and Kath. “And you’re a father, dear, I can’t believe it. Can I hold her?” she asked. “How could you hide such a precious thing from me, Dragon.”

Hermione, still holding the door open, looked at the display with relief as she turned to Lucius. “She’s Casey,” she whispered, introducing the baby in her arms to her Grandfather. “Narcissa is holding Kath right now.”

“Draco is still upset,” she warned him.

“I wasn’t expecting any different,” Lucius replied.

“You may take a seat,” Hermione told him, pointing to the chairs inside the room.

“You’re the one holding my granddaughter; it’s you who should have a seat.”

Hermione smiled, while Kath made her curiosity for the newcomer known by lifting her arms towards Lucius.

“Look, Lucius, she wants you to hold her,” Narcissa cried out in excitement.

Draco glared at his father, who smirked affectionately at the small bundle that he now held in his arms.

“Don’t let her get fond of your hair, she’ll never let go.” Hermione warned Lucius, but it was too late; Kath had already taken hold of his blond strands in a tight fist. Narcissa chuckled merrily, providing more entertainment for Kath in the form of yet more strands tickling her face. She gurgled.

“I can see where this one, gets her character,” Lucius said winking at Hermione.

“You don’t know the beginning of it,” she whispered back, while Draco stood up from his bed and extended his hands towards Casey.

“Hand Casey to me, Granger, Kath always gets all the attention and my baby here,” he whispered, carrying Casey away, “needs all the distractions she can get or she’ll grow annoyed.” Draco continued while he nuzzled Casey’s tummy, making her tickle all over. Kath soon wanted the attention of her father again.

“Draco, dear, I don’t think you should be up already, you just recovered from a curse,” Narcissa told him.

“I’ll be going home soon, Mother. I just need to change.”

“Oh, well, I guess we could get you better care at the manor, sweetheart.”

“Not the manor, Mother, we’re going home, our home.”

It wasn’t lost in them why he planned to go to their home and not the manor, at least not for Hermione or Lucius, who handed Kath back to her.

“Oh,” Narcissa couldn’t hide her crestfallen voice. “I didn’t know, Draco. Where is it?” she asked.

“I can’t tell you right now, mum, it’s warded with a Secret Keeper but I’ll make sure you get the address as soon as I can.”

“I see, I guess that makes sense.”

Hermione felt a twinge of guilt as they said their goodbyes, especially from Narcissa, but promised herself to talk to Harry as soon as possible.

The walk out of St Mungo’s room was filled halls full of wounded people and restraining Aurors. I wasn’t lost in her that most of the injured people were Death Eaters.

She had little time to say her goodbyes to her friends as Draco checked out of the Hospital, barely finding Harry and Ron to give them a tight hug before she left.
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