The morning after their arrival, Hermione and Ron walked Harry to the front entrance of the castle. As he buttoned his cloak and gave one more wrap around his neck with his scarf, Ron slapped him encouragingly on the back right before Hermione proceeded to throw her arms around his neck.
“Go get her, mate,” Ron said with a slightly forced smile.
Pulling out of Hermione’s embrace, Harry flash them a tired grin. “Thanks guys. You’ve really been so…” he trailed off as his cheeks flushed.
Ron’s face also reddened to a shade similar to his hair, and the two of them looked down at the ground in embarrassment. Hermione shook her head amusedly. Boys, she thought.
“We’ve been with you from the start, Harry, and we’ll be here till the end,” she said firmly as she brought up her hand to rest against his cheek.
Harry took a deep breath, gave them both a nod, and turned to open the door. The pair followed him to the courtyard just outside where they decided to wait for his return. As Harry disappeared from sight, Hermione sighed.
“I hope they get married,” she breathed with a smile.
Ron snorted uncomfortably. “If she had to end up with some bloke, I’ll be glad if it’s him.”
Hermione stole a sideways glance at him, admiring the effect of his shaggy red hair against the expanse of white snow surrounding him, and the adorable look of concern for his sister adorning his face. Her hand found his, as it frequently did over the past few weeks, and he shifted his gaze to land on her. They smiled at one another, innocently pretending that they weren’t hoping the other was thinking the same thing that they were.
After a seemingly short half hour, Ron stood abruptly from his place next to Hermione on the bench by the front entrance as he spotted Harry’s familiar form returning from the lake. He was alone, his shoulders were slumped, and his head hanging; this wasn’t a happy return.
“This can’t be good,” Ron observed, pulling Hermione up by her hand to stand beside him.
“Oh no,” she whispered, her voice tight with worry.
As Harry approached, Ron made the first attempt.
“What happened, mate?” he asked lightly as his friend barrelled past him, his face capturing the perfect mixture of contempt and defeat.
“Ask your effing sister,” Harry muttered, barely audible as he kept his eyes trained on the ground, not bothering to stop.
Ron and Hermione hurried to catch up to him, and they all entered the entrance hall together.
Once inside, all thoughts outside the doors left their mind momentarily as the trio noticed a curious figure cross the hall in front of them, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings. He appeared to be ticking off items of a list on his fingers, going over them soundlessly as his lips mouthed the words. It couldn’t possibly be him. His black robes placed him fittingly in the Wizarding school, but his pale-blond hair, distinct to only one traitor in their mind, was enough recognition for a bearer of a newly broken heart to unleash his frustration. As Harry reached for his wand, Ron also recognised the figure, and followed Harry’s lead. Hermione was the only one with the sense to realise that this person was obviously not hiding, was walking around as if he belonged here, and she hesitated.
With Harry and Ron’s abrupt movements, the figure seemed to sense his own impending danger, and ran for cover as two jets of red light flew straight for him.
As he exited Professor Slughorn’s office, Draco found himself listing the ingredients to the N.E.W.T. level potion he had just concocted in his head. Not having had final exams himself, he saw no reason to suspend his own studies if his professors were still willing to give him lessons.
Rarely noticing other students in the corridors any longer, even when they stared him down like a beast on the prowl, he almost missed the classic signs of reaching for a wand and whipping it around to his direction as he crossed the entrance hall. He caught the motion in the corner of his eye, and instinctively ducked behind the closest suit of armour as the word “Stupefy!” was bellowed by two separate male voices. Ducking his head and shielding his face with his arms, two jets of red light hit the metal with a loud clang, sending the figure’s limbs flying in all directions and destroying its wooden shield in an explosion of tiny splinters.
“Stop!”
He heard the young, female voice and was grateful for the intervention for he knew it would take him a fair amount of time to recover from a dual-stun like that, and his cover was literally blown to pieces.
“Harry, Ron, stop!” shouted the female voice again.
Draco’s head snapped up and his eyes flew open. Through the settling bits of wood, he glimpsed none other than Scarhead and his vacant-faced side-kick approaching him with their wands drawn. His hand flew to his back pocket, but had hardly grasped his wand when another jet of red light obediently left Harry’s wand upon his command, sent straight to Draco’s chest. Draco met Harry’s livid green eyes right before the room went black.
“Ennervate.”
His eyes fluttered open upon being revived to see Professor McGonagall’s face closely watching over his. Behind her were Harry, Ron, and Hermione, all watching him cautiously. His wand out and ready, Ron looked ready to strike if Draco were to make the slightest movement.
“Put that away Mr. Weasley. Mr. Malfoy is not in our custody,” McGonagall turned to berate him sternly.
Ron sheepishly lowered his wand. Draco realised that he was being looked down upon because he was lying on the stone floor of the entrance hall, and sat up with a grimace; his chest felt sorely bruised.
“Yea, Weasel, put that away. I wouldn’t want to have to do something I wouldn’t regret later,” Draco attempted to smirk through his pained expression.
The redhead’s wand was back up, though Hermione had now placed a small hand on his arm to restrain him. Standing shakily, Draco continued to sneer. McGonagall sighed impatiently.
“All of you, to your dormitories! Now!” she barked harshly at the gawking crowd. Slowly and reluctantly, the rest of the students filed out of the entrance hall until only the four young adults and the headmistress remained.
“Now,” she turned her severe gaze to her former pupils, “if I can trust you four not to curse each other, I have much more important matters to attend to than baby-sitting teenagers!”
“Sorry, Professor,” the three boys grumbled.
Hermione just shook her head at them, and then gave McGonagall a look that said, ‘I’ll look after them.’
“Very good.” McGonagall nodded, and then swept up the staircase towards her study.
There was an awkward pause of silence.
“So, what are you doing here?” Draco asked the one question they both wanted to know of each other.
“You first,” Harry countered contemptuously.
Heaving a sigh, Draco felt he should tell them; he needed every opportunity possible to feel he had earned his return to the castle.
“Long story short, the Dark Lord had been holding my mother captive all last year to force me to try and kill Dumbledore. He expected me to be killed in the process as punishment for my father, and hadn’t anticipated Snape finishing the job for me. When I returned to Malfoy Manor alive, he tried to kill me himself, but my mother broke free just before to jump in front of me, giving up her life for mine. Somehow I made it out of there in one piece. I came back here to tell someone where the Death Eater headquarters were, and pledged my allegiance against the Dark Lord in exchange for protection here.” He kept his eyes on the floor as the words flooded monotonously out of his mouth. Once he’d finished, he glanced up at the gaping mouths of the former Gryffindors; apparently they hadn’t expected him to actually tell them anything.
“So that’s where that tip came from,” Hermione spoke up in confirmation of his story. “I read about that raid in a Prophet I nicked while I was trying to find us food.”
Harry continued to eye him darkly. “You know, I’ve found that only Death Eaters call Voldemort ‘Dark Lord.’”
His eyes flashing with anger, Draco pulled up the sleeve of his left arm, bringing it up to Harry’s face. Hermione let out a muffled cry, and Ron took on a look of one that might be sick. Harry’s wide eyes landed on the pale, deformed arm, but he said nothing.
“Does this look like the Dark Mark to you?” Draco cried, moving his arm so that each of them could get a good look. When presented to Hermione, she proceeded to bury her face in Ron’s shoulder rather than look at it. Slightly pleased at having rendered the High-and-Mighty-Trio speechless, he went on.
“They burned the shape of the Mark into me to make me think I was a part of them, and as a reminder that they held my mother’s life. I’ve kept the scar this long to instead remind me of what they did to my mother, and of my promise to myself to make them pay.” As he finished, he shook his sleeve back over his arm to hide the mark from sight. “Now you,” he spat impatiently.
The three of them exchanged a hesitant look, and Harry gave the other two a nod that seemed to say that he would be the one to do the talking.
“We’ve been on a mission appointed to us by Dumbledore ever since he was killed,” he started. “We only have one more thing left to do before I have to face Voldemort myself, and once that last thing is done, he will be able to be destroyed.”
After wincing instinctively at the sound of the illicit name, Draco then stared at Harry dumbfounded, wondering what he could possibly mean by ‘he will be able to be destroyed.’ “What makes you think that you will be able to finish your mission here?” he asked.
Pausing uncertainly, Harry took a deep breath before continuing. “I can… kind of see into his mind, and I saw that the next place we would have to go to was Hogwarts.”
Ron and Hermione seemed to be shifting on their feet uncomfortably as Harry spoke, as if verbalising this phenomenon were forbidden.
Disgust being the only form of facial expression that Draco seemed to possess at that moment, he asked, “How?”
“It’s not important how, just that we can see into each other’s minds and I’ve figured out how to use it against him–”
“Hang on,” Draco cut him off, “he can see into your mind too?”
Giving an exasperated sigh, Harry reluctantly opened his mouth to answer.
“I’ve been able to see into his mind since fifth year, but he hasn’t tried to see into mine until recently. Once I figured out he was in there, I closed him out and he hasn’t been back since.”
They stood in uncomfortable silence for a moment, naught a sound but the occasional stone from the house point hourglass rising or falling as points were earned or lost.
“What did he see?” Draco questioned, hoping a certain weakness of Harry’s hadn’t been revealed to the merciless lunatic.
Harry shrugged as his eyebrows contracted in disregard. “Nothing really, just some old memories; I stopped him before he could see where we were. He just saw some Quidditch practices at school, that time Ron flew me to Hogwarts in an enchanted car during our second year, a picnic by the lake with Gi–”
Even with half a word, Draco knew why Harry’s voice had caught in his throat. If the there was a dual correlation between Harry’s mind and Voldemort’s, who’s to say certain thoughts couldn’t be planted? An Idea, an emotion, a gut feeling that would lead Harry back to Hogwarts. From what Draco had heard from his father, Harry had taken the bait before. If Voldemort knew where Harry was, he wouldn’t be far behind.
Harry’s eyes flew to the ceiling high doors, betraying the reality that Ginny was still outside, and Draco’s own eyes shifted reluctantly to the entrance in horror. A chill began shuddering in his chest as another thought crossed his mind: what better way to break The Chosen One’s strong will than by threatening the well-being of a particularly important witch in his life. The trap seemed painfully obvious as Draco watched comprehension of Harry’s own stupidity darken the former Gryffindor’s pale features, both of their legs taking a stance to send them running to the door.
He could come in anytime he wants, Pansy’s words echoed inside Draco’s head, sending shivers to his heart as the full impact of the danger Ginny could be in right now hit him over the head with the force of a bludger.
A moment too late: a blood-curdling scream reached their ears from just outside the tall doors of the main entrance. Even with the terrifying experiences shared between the four teenagers that immediately drew their wands, not one of them could be prepared for what awaited them as the doors blew open with a loud bang and a gust of magical wind.
Lord Voldemort himself hovered ten feet above the ground just outside the entrance, his robes of midnight black billowing around him. His malicious, white face lowered slowly as his red eyes landed on his welcoming party. He appeared to be unable to enter, though he had managed to penetrate the outer perimeter of the grounds. They were safe for the moment, but their concern was for the redheaded girl dangling from Voldemort’s grip as he held her by her neck as far away from him as possible, waving her around as if she weighed nothing to him at all.
There was unison shout of “Stupefy!”, but Voldemort countered the meagre spells with an impatient wave of his wand. As his eyes landed on the face he had been seeking, his lipless mouth curved into a sick smile.
“If you want her to live, then follow me,” he announced cruelly to the Boy-Who-Lived, and then conjured a small, black orb, which he allowed to drop towards the ground. It bounced in the air until it settled about waist high in the middle of the entrance. He turned immediately and flew high into the sky, dragging Ginny behind him. His fluttering robes rode the wind as if they were wings.
Harry ran full-speed toward the Portkey, hotheaded and impulsive as usual, but Draco was faster. Taking a fistful of cloth from the backs of Harry’s robes, he yanked back, throwing him to the hard floor.
“You bloody prick; you led him right to her! Is this what you’ve been waiting here for, for something like this to happen?” Draco yelled, his pale cheeks flushed with rage.
Ron lunged for Draco, his arm cocked and his hand balled into a fist, but Hermione stepped in front of him, pushing with all her strength with both hands against his chest. His arm dropped at once since apparently he didn’t want to be hitting her.
“No, Ron, he’s right, this is all our fault! How could we not realise that Hogwarts was exactly where he wanted us to go?”
“He’s right?! The bloody Death Eater is right?”
Hermione’s bright eyes glistened as tears ran tracks down her face in salty, wet rows, but her expression was hard, determined as she glared at Ron.
Draco towered over Harry, still lying on the ground where he was thrown, staring up mutinously into the incensed grey eyes.
“What were you planning to do once you were taken to wherever that Portkey goes? Do you even know how to use the killing curse?”
“And I suppose you do, ferret! Did your snake-faced mate teach you all about that?” Harry stood to put himself in front of Draco until they were almost nose-to-nose, and then shoved him hard in the chest, nearly making them both topple over. Draco stood his ground, and then shoved Harry back with each emphasis of his words, making the dark-haired boy stumble as he struggled to walk backwards.
“You have to see them die in your mind, you have to will them to die, will their life to leave their body. You have to hate them with your entire soul or the curse will barely leave a mark!”
“You see! How would he know that if he wasn’t really a Death Eater?” Ron gestured towards Draco with outrage, making his point to Hermione, who was still holding her hands against his chest to keep him from lunging. He shook her off and turned from her to stare Draco dead in the eye. “How do we know we can trust you?” he spat at him venomously, the curl in his lip at his disgust in the young Malfoy reminding Draco all too much of a similar look his father used to give Mr. Weasley.
Draco took a deep breath. “Because she trusts me, and because I love her,” he declared, a little too quietly to be proud, considering his company. “I love her,” he emphasised as he caught Ron’s glare, basking in the hot hatred he had earned.
The silence that fell after his declaration was deafening.
In that moment of absorption, the bright emerald hue of Harry’s eyes took a much darker shade behind his round glasses as a rage of realisation began to swell. Both of his hands closed into tight fists and shook slightly at his side. Draco almost thought to arm himself and be ready for an attack, but the flash of anger suddenly passed and Harry let out a heavy sigh, his head hanging.
“She loves him too, Ron; she told me,” he muttered. The disappointment in his voice made it plain that he still had feelings for her, but had been sorely let down in his expectations. Ron’s eyes snapped to his friend in alarm, clearly thinking him mad. Hermione took a sharp intake of breath as her hand met her mouth in shock.
“What, Malfoy? That’s completely barmy, mate; she loves you,” Ron stated, as if Harry was just confused, and coercing him into believing that one fact would make it true.
“No, she doesn’t, not like... him,” Harry whispered, the emphasis of his last word indicating just how off-colour the thought made him feel. He kept his head down, his eyes on the floor. Hermione’s arm came around his shoulder and she rubbed his chest with her free hand. The sentimental moment the two seemed to be sharing as Ron continued to try to wrap his brain around the idea of his sister even associating with Draco Malfoy was wasting valuable time, and making Draco’s stomach squirm.
“Right, well I think we should go get McGonagall…” he started uncomfortably.
Harry’s eyes snapped open, and the determination residing in his ashen face as he resolutely stood as tall as he could told Draco exactly what he planned to do. Turning on his heel, he shook off Hermione’s arm and ran towards the Portkey. Ready for him again, Draco ran after him in an attempt to pull him back. Grabbing his robes tightly and preparing to pull backwards, Draco suddenly felt a familiar pull from behind his navel. As the two of them spun into oblivion, he heard Hermione’s shriek ringing in his ears, the words making no sense to him at all.
“What about the snake?!”
Author notes: Even more action coming! Harry and Draco will finally face Voldemort, though I doubt either of them expected to face him together. I await your thoughts! :-)
Next chapter: Neither Can Live While the Other Survives
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