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The sack is rough against Draco’s face, mouldy, damp and fusty, it blinds his eyes and clings to his skin, filling his mouth with the oversweet taste of decay and rot with every panicked breath he manages to gulp down. He feels sick, his limbs shake with the flood of adrenaline with nowhere to go, no way to burn it off, locked down into a rigid and immovable body as he is.
He may not be able to see the intruders in his home but he can still hear them, they stand around his prone body, laughing at his plight, their accents definitely east European or Russian, Slavic in origin for sure and Draco latches on to that one little clue as he feels his rabbiting heart beat echo through every limb. He tries to contain his terror, to push it away and focus on anything other than the memory of Ron’s cold expression as he cast against him, to feel anything other than the bright, hard terror of betrayal.
More footsteps on the marble by his head, a conversation interrupted by running feet and a call from the second floor. Draco’s pulse is loud in his ears but it doesn’t drown out the urgency of the response or the sound of Ron’s reply.
“What do you mean you can’t open the door-” he moves away towards the stairs, biting out the words “she’ll open it, tell her who commands her to open it.”
The reply is so heavily accented Draco can’t make it out, even as he strains against his locked muscles, trying so hard to break free.
“Go break it down, you fools! You, and you, go help them. Do not allow any hurt to the child or I will be the one to flay the skin from your still screaming faces!” More footsteps run up the stairs, the hallway grows quieter, emptier as Draco follows the sound of their heavy boots, up the stairs and along the landings as they fade until they disappear altogether.
A succession of quick and dirty blasts echoes down from upstairs, Bombardia or some bastardized version of the same he thinks, his mind swirling on the edge of all out panic, and before the echoes roll away, Draco feels the floor under him shiver in response, the house is awake to the threat now, whatever protection Ron was using to get them in via the floo has faded with the outbreak of violence inside the walls. Draco’s heart leaps with hope, the house will save them, it will alert the Aurors outside and close all the floos, trapping them inside until help arrives, he sends a desperate thought to Astoria begging her to just hang on a little longer. He waits an infinity, helpless and immobile, his senses screaming, every nerve pulled tight.
Any moment now, he repeats on a loop, any moment now, the front door will crash open and the Aurors on duty will spring into action. Another crash from upstairs, all the internal doors are slamming shut to contain the threat. Now, he thinks, they’ll assault the door now, but still nothing happens, after the kitchen and study doors slam shut, the hallway stays calm with only the restless shuffling of feet around him. He tries to cycle through the faces of the guards he’s seen lately, trying to picture who it is on the doorstep tonight, Harry said goodbye to them before he left, joking he’d make it up to them for missing the night out and..
Then he remembers, the harsh clipped words of a man he hasn’t seen here much and feminine laughter, a giggle behind her hand, the tight curls already springing out from under her hat… it was Maybell he’d spoken to, Ron’s protégé. His stomach drops as he realises, a clinging cold that squeezes his heart, there is no help coming from her, she is just as much a betrayer as Harry’s oldest friend, if they had been untainted by this plot, they would have already broken their way in through the door. She must have already disabled the other Auror or they too must… his blood turns to ice as he thinks of how large this conspiracy must be, he closes his eyes against the tears that well up, his thoughts turning to Harry. Draco cannot imagine a Ron who would act without Hermione’s blessing, he loves her too much to risk his marriage, to risk losing his children so Harry must be truly alone in a crowd of supposed friends, vulnerable with no steadfast wand guarding his back, is he even now surrounded by enemies.
A deafening crack rolls across the house, the blast wave funnelled down the staircase towards them, the acrid smell of dark magic washing through even the taint of the sack to fill Draco’s nostrils and with it his last shred of hope, that Astoria will keep Scorpius safe, tears apart. The men left behind in the hallway cheer and laugh, with much back slapping and congratulating themselves on an easy victory, it doesn’t last though, they fall into uneasy stillness when it becomes clear it is men’s voices who cry out in pain and distress, not the screams of the weak woman they expected. Draco desperately breaths in as deep as he can, shifting through the tastes and smells until he pulls in the faint but familiar taste of strawberries and vanilla overlaid with the subtle crack of a leather whip. The breath leaves him in a sob of relief, loud enough that someone notices and kicks him, the tip of their boot connecting with his knee, a starburst of agony in his contorted limb.
Ron’s voice rings out, “Pick him up, we need to leave.” Hands grab at Draco even as dissenting voices fill the quiet.
“No,” Ron snaps out, cold and hard, an edge of cruelty colours his words, one Draco has never heard before, “you both come with me back to the staging ground, we’ll swap portkey’s there to break the trail. The rest can follow once they have the child and the girl. You, anyone who cannot apparate to the staging post is of no use to us, make sure there are no tongues left to tell our secrets to the red coats before you leave here.”
His words seal Draco’s fate, he knows there will be no one to come after him. If they leave here, there will be no rescue, no carefully constructed plan to follow, nothing but betrayal and death, even if Theo doesn’t kill him straight away, Death will come for him anyway.
**
She rubs the edge of the soft cotton blanket between her fingers, unconscious of the soothing, repetitive movement. In her other hand her wand creaks in protest, gripped so tightly that her knuckles are white, the smooth ends of the bones standing proud against the blanched skin. She is ready and waiting as ordered, coat on, belongings neatly packed and shrunken into the small case by her feet, Scorpius by her side, sleeping innocently in his Moses basket. She is ready, the completion of her task is within her grasp and she can almost taste the freedom it would offer, yet her eyes linger on a piece of scrap parchment, tacked to the wall with the lightest of sticking spells.
A child’s drawing, all bright colours and empty spaces, a line of green at the bottom, a line of blue at the top and between is the whole world. It’s focus, in the dead centre of the space, is a tall woman wearing a shockingly pink dress, with long yellow hair that stretches down to curl like a cat below her stick feet.
“That’s you ‘Toria”
She is not alone in this little world, she is surrounded by figures, some with dark hair, some with yellow like her own and a great many with bright red hair. There are others too, one seems to be holding a plant with teeth and one has a butterfly on her head, one has glasses, and one has brown curly hair that looks like a cloud. Floating around her portrait’s shoulders are two very tiny figures, no more that blobs really,
“That’s Hugo and Scorp.”
and next to her, a little girl with bright red hair, in a sparkly blue dress. They are holding hands.
“Because you are my favourite ‘Toria”
“More than Mummy and Daddy?”
The scrunch of her nose as she decides is just too adorable, “You are all my favourites.”
They are perfect in every way and every time she looks at it, she hears Rose saying, “this is my family” and feels again, an echo of the ember it coaxed to life inside her chest.
She looks down at Scorpius, sleeping so peacefully, cocooned so carefully until now, so unknowing of the monsters that wait beyond the door, and then back again to the picture, feeling the butterfly kiss of Rose’s lips against her cheek as she said goodbye. She stands suddenly, reaching out to snatch the parchment from the wall, the movement exposing the thin gold chain of the bracelet circling her wrist. She stares at it, hatred and shame and guilt swirling and mixing to an explosive crescendo inside, she drops her wand to pull helplessly at the chain, a wordless cry of longing and despair on her lips as she pulls with all her might. It does nothing, makes no difference to the uncaring chain but cuts into the soft skin of her arm, tighter and stronger than razor wire.
She pulls the damaged arm close to her chest, cradling it as she sinks to her knees on the plush carpet. Hot tears of frustration and bone deep terror flow freely for the first time in months. She has not cried for herself with such hopelessness since the first night of her servitude, when she realised with sickening shock, just how very careless with her own life she had been, and of how deeply embedded the hook that sank into her flesh really was. She gave in to the indulgence of despair, just for a moment, allowing through the crack her longing for friendly hands to gather her close, for strong arms to hold her or a mother’s selfless love to wipe it all away.
The delusion that anyone would care enough to save her shattered immediately, the foolishness of longing for a kind and gentle mother figure was enough to make her laugh bitterly at the absurdity of such a wish. She already had a mother, a perfect and posed pureblood wife and mother, lauded as a credit to her family and a beacon of what should be, the same women whose only words had been remonstrations and whose only touches had been corrective slaps and pinches, a woman whose spite and disappointment rained down on her youngest daughter in a never-ending torrent. Better she spends her time wishing for the moon to disappear than hoping for love from such a harridan.
Wiping the tears from her cheeks, she knelt up to reach the parchment, pulling it free and smoothing it out on her lap. She is careful not to smudge it with smears of drying blood from the cut or the wetness of her tears. She presses a kiss to the end of her fingers and reverently presses them into the picture of Rose, before folding it up and hiding it in her skirt pocket, an artificial heart, a map towards heaven.
Scorpius moves in his sleep, just a flutter of his hand and wrinkling of his brow but it is enough of a distraction from her own misery for her to peer into the basket from her place on the floor. She strokes his little head, velvet soft under her hand and he relaxes back into peaceful slumber.
“I’m so sorry Scorpius,” she whispers, “I should not have put you in danger, I should have seen there was no way out for me much sooner. I’ll do better now, I promise. We need to leave and get somewhere safe, to find some help for your Daddies.”
She picks up her wand, retrieving it from under the chaise where it rolled and grasps the handles of the Moses basket as she rises, thankful again for the lightening charm on it. Hugging the wall by the side of the door, she takes a couple of calming breaths then carefully eases it open to get a clear view of the second floor corridor, it’s empty but she takes another moment to listen to the house, ears straining for noise over the thump-thump of her own heart.
If she can get down to the first floor, she thinks, she could access a working floo, easier and quicker than trying to break through the lock on the nursery fire. Hearing nothing, she swings the door open fully and takes quiet steps along the corridor, wincing at each scrunch of carpet fibres under her shoe, until she can peek over the banister. She hears footsteps on the stairs below her, two or three people, with heavy plodding steps very unlike Draco or Potter, making their way up towards them. When she catches a glimpse of a hand on the rail, in a dark uniform sleeve, she ducks back into the corridor and hurries as quietly as possible back into the nursery.
Just as the first man reaches the final bend of the stairs, before the entire corridor and nursery door are exposed to him, the door closes behind her with a tiny click that sounds louder than a thundercrack in the stillness of the nursery. Astoria lets out her breath with a gasp as she hurries to the fireplace, placing Scorpius down safety before she turns back, wand in hand to wake the locking and protection wards Bill had laid down into the walls weeks ago. She feels a pang of guilty at the memory of learning them, of how she’d pretended to be charmed by him, how she thought herself so clever, planning to use them against the inhabitants so she could whisk Scorpius away to Nott. She was going to use Scorpius to buy her freedom and it gives her a shiver of satisfaction to know that the very defences Nott mocked as ‘substandard spell work from a mangy dog’ will be the ones to thwart his plans, keeping his men out as she escapes his clutches. She prays she hasn’t left it too late. With a twist of her wand, the spells shimmer into life, cool turquoise and silver strands burn bright in concentric circles and ordered lines across the door, windows, and walls.
She can hear movement down the hall, the low murmur of voices and steady footsteps pacing closer and closer, a door opens further down the corridor and then one on the other side. She throws up a one-sided silencing spell, now she can hear them but her attempts to connect the floo will be hidden. Thinking hard, she takes a pinch of powder and tries to connect a call to the Weasley-Granger household. The footsteps stop in front of the door. She huddles closer to the fire, calling out into the space of an empty room but the only answering sound is the chime of an unanswered connection.
The doorknob turns slowly behind her, gluing her eyes to its slow rotation, she watches as it inches its way around to the lock, pulse jumping in her throat. She raises her wand, taking up a stance in front of Scorpius’s basket. The lock engages with a sharp click, cutting through the slow chime of the floo, the metallic sound making her jump.
**
Harry stepped out of the floo at the Leaky Cauldron to a great roar of recognition, a wall of sound loud enough to rival a world cup quidditch match or break the statue of secrecy by sound alone. He grinned as indoor fireworks and streamers popped overhead, disgorging red and gold or green and silver confetti on the heads of the crowd, a sea of familiar faces that filled the pub from side to side who all seemed to be trying to shout at or hug or slap him on the back.
He was passed from group to group in a dizzying whirl of excited faces and strange drinks, groups of red robed Aurors crammed in against their off-duty colleagues alongside groups of old school friends and newer friends from other ministry departments. Oliver Wood and the team from Magical Sports hoisted him in the air while the crowd sang ‘for he’s a jolly good fellow’ then gave him a purple drink with streaks of lightening running through it, a concoction, they told him, they had invented in his honour. To Harry, it tasted of electric lemons, sweet and sour and tangy, the lightening danced across his tongue with each mouthful and he thought carelessly that he would bitterly regret it tomorrow but he was too happy to pay the warning much heed. Seamus and Neville bobbed around him, pulling and pushing him onwards if anyone kept hold of him for too long, keeping him moving towards the booths at the back, the good tables, raised over the rest of the pub on a platform, where the Weasleys seemed to have stationed themselves.
Luna and the Quibbler staff stood quietly in the middle of the room, a little oasis of calm in the sea of happy moving bodies, the crowd opened, spun him round and deposited him at Luna’s side. She was talking seriously to Victor Krum, who was trying very hard to be attentive to whatever she was telling him and who looked at Harry with unabashed relief. He forced a shot of something clear into Harry’s hand that cleared his sinuses like a Skrewt blast and burned his throat on the way down, Victor laughed and slapped his back when he spluttered through the aftertaste.
“Is Hermione with you?” Victor asked, scanning the crowd behind Harry’s shoulder hopefully.
“Isn’t she already here?” Harry coughed again before glancing over to the mob of redheads in search of her familiar head, waving as Ginny and Bill shouted at him. Victor was skilfully pouring top ups into their glasses when he turned back.
“I didn’t think she’s arrived yet.” Neville tentatively sipped from his glass, his eyes watering as Seamus laughed and necked his own in one swallow.
“Hermione is needed elsewhere.” Luna laid a hand on Harry’s cheek, her soft focused eyes looked into his, “Don’t worry Harry, we’ll see her soon.”
“Yeah, that’s right Harry, she’s putting the wains down at Ron’s Mum’s,” Seamus grinned, sending him a wink, “or that’s what she said anyway.” he waggled his eyebrows suggestively, “I wouldn’t blame them if they took a moment to get jiggy with it before Ron has to go spend the night with the snakes.”
“Ron is not coming today?” Victor stopped trying to get the weedy looking Quibbler photographer to drink another of his shots and started looking keenly interested in the conversation again, “Just Hermione? On her own?”
“Yes, Ron’s staying with Draco for-” Harry started to say.
“DRACO!!” Dean shouted it out, pointing his wand in the air causing the fireworks exploded over their heads to spell out Draco in green glitter. The crowd roared around them, taking up the chant, “Down in one mate!” he shouted to Harry over the noise, “Every time you say his name, you have to down a drink!”
Harry laughed out loud as the crowd parted to reveal Tom the barman, carefully shepherding a monstrous green drink across the space towards him. It glowed a vivid luminescent green, silver sparkles whirling through the opaque liquid, topped with cream whipped into a miniature turret, and tiny paper dragons on wooden sticks that roared and flapped their wings at him. Draco would love this he though as he took the first mouthful.
**
The door stays firmly closed. The man on the other side gives it a sharp shake, rattling it in place.
Astoria whirls back around to the fire, aborting the failed connection with a tight movement. She thinks of all her possible allies, picking up and discarding them as quickly as she thinks of them, it is a depressingly short list and her eyes sting as she charms a shield over Scorpius’s basket.
The doorknob rattles again, a couple of quick violent jerks.
She wipes her sweaty hand on the outside of her coat, the echo of her mother’s voice whispering over her shoulder, A lady is always prim and proper, Astoria, feeling the bump of the folded up parchment under her hand and takes another pinch of powder. Someone knocks softly on the door, a polite brush of knuckles on paint.
“Miss Greengrass, we are here to escort you.” the voice is rough, heavily accented and uncultured, one of the rank and file she thinks, feeling abstractly insulted, not anyone near important enough to fetch her and her precious burden, so she doesn’t bother to answer.
“Open the door, Miss.” The knocking gets heavier as she throws another pinch of powder into the flames.
This time the call connects almost instantly, Molly Weasley’s round face creasing into a welcoming smile.
“Astoria, hello dear, is everything alright?
“Mrs Weasley, is Mrs Granger-Weasley with you? It’s urgent I speak to her.”
“Hermione? Yes dear, she’s just putting Rose to bed, she’ll just be a few minutes. Shall I get her to call back?”
The knocking turns into banging, the door moving in its frame under the assault. Molly’s eyes tighten at the sound.
“I really need her now Mrs Weasley.” Astoria tries not to look, tries not to scream, her hand tightening on the edge of the Moses basket until the straw protests.
“Right dear,” Molly steps away to call for Hermione, Astoria can see her hurry to the bottom of the stairs where a brief conversation takes place, Molly shouting and Hermione whisper shouting back. Molly reappears, “Can you come through?” she asks, her face pinched with worry.
“No, the floo is locked against travel.” The pounding stops and Astoria gives in to paranoia, throwing a nervous glance at the door.
Hermione appears in the flames next, dressed for an evening out, hair smoothed and pinned with sparkling clips. Her eyes dart around the room, taking stock in an instant, the glowing runes, Astoria’s wand and death grip on the Moses basket by her side, “I take it you cannot move to one of the unlocked floos?” she asks.
“No, I was too late to get away.” Her throat closes over the words, so they come out dry and raw, Hermione’s image wavering as a tear wells up, “I have Scorpius with me, the locks are holding for now but, we are trapped.”
The door wards flare briefly as they repel an unlocking attempt. Muted mutterings from behind the door before footsteps run away down the hall, clattering on the first few steps before fading away.
“How many and who?” Hermione demands, stepping back from the fire to conjure a Patronus, a hefty otter of sleek silver light, standing on its hind feet, front paws paddling the air, eager to carry her message.
“At least three, probably more, I think they are being directed by someone else in the house, on the ground floor.” Astoria hesitates, “There was no fighting, from downstairs, so they probably already have Draco, and probably the Aurors outside.”
“And Ron? Or Harry?” Hermione pales, her otter scampers closer to wrap around her legs.
“I don’t know.” Astoria whispers, hanging her head, the thorns of guilt choking her words.
Molly clutches Hermione’s arm, “Arthur and the boys are at the Leaky, waiting for Harry, send it to them.”
Hermione nods and bends to speak with her otter. Astoria trembles as a succession of blasts rock the door. The wards light up again and again, their warm light as firm and strong as before, she takes another breath only for it to congeal in her lungs as she hears the next voice snaking under the door.
“Miss,” it calls, cajoling, “pretty Miss, open the door for us. Our Lord commands it, pretty Miss.” The words are dipped in honey, but the sweetness doesn’t disguise the rotten core.
The man with the scar, she thinks, clutching at her stomach, sweat breaking out over her cold skin, the feeling of his hands on her rises unbidden, unwanted, in her mind, along with Theo’s voice, a warning hissed into her ear as she was held, helpless, “Bogdan likes a pretty girl Astoria, disappoint me and I’ll let him play with you again, only the next time, it will be until you fall apart from ill use.”, she gags and vomits what little she has in her stomach behind the chair.
“Astoria.” Hermione says it firmly, like it’s not the first time and when Astoria turns to look at her, she gives a little smile and nod, good girl and Astoria grasps the comfort offered with her whole heart.
“I’m going to teach you a breaking spell, then you are going to close the floo connection,” she holds up a pacifying hand, as Astoria feels the hot-cold flush of panic rising up her face, “and on the count of five we are going to both cast the spell together, reconnecting from both sides as we do. I’m going to get you out Astoria, I promise.” She is so grave and so confident that Astoria can only nod, too choked with emotion to trust her own voice with replying coherently.
Hemione patiently makes her repeat the spell four times before she’s satisfied with Astoria’s pronunciation and wand movement, cautioning her gently through the overwhelming urgency to move, “We can only try this once, after that, the floo connection will break until repaired, which will take too long under present circumstances.”
Astoria closes her eyes against the pounding on the door, loud enough now to drown out her own heartbeat, trying to gather some tiny reservoir of calm in readiness and when she opens them, Hermione and Molly are both crowding into the fire. They are close enough that she could reach out and touch them, run her hand over the concern and fear she sees in their faces. She realises with a kind of dropping sensation that it is too late, that they are afraid this is the last time they will see Scorpius, and her, knowing that if she’d only spoken up earlier, she could have had this concern, this care for herself, guilt free.
“On the count of five, Astoria,” Hermione lifts her chin, projecting absolute confidence through the flames, “we will see you on the count of five.”
Astoria breaks the connection.
One.
The hammering on the door stops.
Two.
The crunch of gritty powder in her hand is unnaturally loud in the silence.
Three.
Footsteps shuffle back from behind the door.
Four.
She inhales, filling her lungs and raises her arm to throw.
Five.
She feels the force of a storm gathering in the air around her as she forms the first phrase.
She whips her wand through the trail of powder as she throws it, words with the taste of electricity rolling out of her mouth, igniting the path of glimmering sand to the fire, it flashes, a constellation of stars living and dying in an instant as the flames in the fire turn deep purple, blazing out to lick across the ceiling. The heat rolls across her skin. A doorway forms out of the swirling and through it she sees Hermione, standing in the mirror image of her own stance.
It worked. Astoria is giddy with relief. Hermione is grinning back with the same giddy joy, but her smile collapses with horror, eyes widening at something happening behind Astoria as Astoria watches. Hermione brings up her wand, but Astoria already knows she will be too slow.
The door behind her shatters, breaking inwards, the blast so loud it is felt only in pressure and heat, pressing up against her back like an unwelcome lover, pieces of shattered door flying past and into the flames. Time slows to a trickle as she watches a piece of wood the same size as a spear-point cut through her billowing hair, flying with strange grace past her eyes and through the frozen doorway, it spins as it flies, turning and turning until it strikes Molly’s chest, parting the wool of her homespun jumper with ease. Astoria sees the bloom of red even as Molly falls backwards into a chair, her mouth forming a perfect circle of surprise.
The sound rushes in next, Hermione’s voice cutting clear through the ringing as she throws up a shield behind Astoria and Scorpius.
Scorpius
She falls to the basket, hands shaking as she pats him down, ignoring his bewildered, terrified screams until she is sure the blood on his blankets is from her and not him.
“Quickly, Astoria, come through.” Hermione is shouting, no longer at the doorway she is hunched over Molly, a steady stream of light concentrated on the red bloom of her chest.
Astoria risks a glance at the door, glad to see the ribbons of Bill’s wards still holding strong over the bulk of the ragged hole in the wall. She grips the basket handles when the house shivers, taking her balance from her and dumping her on her knees again, something shifts in her side and the view fades to black and white. A door slams down the corridor, then another and another as she uses the furniture to pull herself unsteadily to her feet again. With each new slam, the house shakes and shivers, the floor becoming the deck of a sinking ship, twisting away under her feet, the doorway to the Burrow collapsing in increments as the wards try to lock it down.
“The wards! Hermione,” she gasps, a tightness in her chest, “the wards have triggered, the doors are closing!”
Hermione appears in the rapidly closing portal, now just a third of its original size, “I’m coming, I’m coming through to get you.”
“No,” Astoria shouts, trying to crawl across the shaking floor to the fireplace, “the wards will close entirely, we’ll all be trapped, take Scorpius,” she grabs another handful of powder from the broken bowl on the hearth, flinging it towards the fire and shouting for the Burrow. The flames roar around the outside of the portal, changing from purple to red then green, they burn the ceiling and creep across the walls, but the opening stabilises, it is no wider now than a barrel, a ring of black energy crackling with green lightning.
Hermione’s arms emerge, reaching through to grasp Astoria’s arms, “Come, you can both make it, I’ll pull you through.” She’s begging.
The ring gives a warning shudder and Astoria thrusts the precious cargo into them, she catches Hermione’s eye as she releases the basket.
“Tell him, I’m sorry.” the ring shudders inward with a roar, they can only see each other’s faces now, Hermione’s tear stained and distraught, but Astoria feels nothing but calm, the weight pressing down on her has lifted, she holds out her hand for Hermione to grasp, their fingers just touching. “Tell him I loved him as if he was my own, ask him to think of me kindly.”
Hermione nods, her fingers squeezing tight, “Astoria-”
She drops her hand and the connection slams shut, as if it knew that anything else would be a waste, any further words would only sully this, this brief but shining moment when she looked like a good person, like a person of worth in someone else’s eyes. She holds it like treasure, a golden moment when she did the right thing, when maybe her life was worth something after all.
The wards break with a soft sigh, a tinkle of broken glass, the light flickering and then diming down to nothing. She stays where she is, back towards them, staring at the remains of the burnt-out hearth. The magic is gone, everything that made the fireplace a vibrant, living entity is now cold and empty, a thick layer of ash coats the surfaces, blistered paint in undulating scars mark the walls, there is no help coming from here.
“Pretty Miss, what have you done? Where is the boy?” His voice is the hissing of a snake.
“He’s gone.” She turns her head to side, better to hear their footsteps, “You can’t have him, he’s safe.” She smiles as she says it, cold and proud.
He laughs, “Did you think you could get away? Did it go wrong and now you are left here with us.” he’s almost purring with glee as he steps through the door, feet crunching over broken wood and plaster, “I think our Master will give you to me for this, yes, I think we will have a lot of fun, pretty miss.” Other footsteps follow him through, not even trying to hide their positions from her.
She waits as long as she can, before turning towards the men at her back, blasting away their cruel smiles and lecherous eyes with a well-placed curse, blacker than night, learnt at her daddy’s knee. It burns her mouth as it rolls out from her, stripping the flesh from the bones of the two inside the room with her and taking the arm and eyes of a third in the doorway. What is left of the puckered scar stares up sightlessly at her from the floor and she wishes she had made him suffer longer.
In the shocked silence before the screaming and shouting starts in earnest, a wave of fatigue rolls across her, the creeping sticky warmth in her back has started soaking into the skirt of her dress, wet and clinging, it unbalances her as she tries to move out of the line of fire. She stumbles to the wall, pulling herself up straight against the hard surface, hand clamped over the hole in her side. The parchment in her pocket crinkles faintly. She readies herself, wand already twisting through the air as she steps out, its tip trailing a red line of pain through the air, poised to lash out at her command.
**
From the constant movement, dragged and lifted, jostled and bumped, his captors are not kind, they seem to delight in any extra pain they can cause him. Their careless movements in perfect tandem with their rough voices and brutish laughter
The pain from the bindings wrapping around his limbs melding with the disorienting squeeze of a portkey rolls his stomach until he is sure he is about to empty his lunch into the lining of the sack, and he fervently begs any deity listening, to spare him of the ignominy of greeting his abuser covered in his own vomit.
He doesn’t vomit, when they finally stop spinning, but it is a near thing, only the oppressive push of dark magic against his own diverts his mind, its cloying, smothering presence obliterates all other concerns. It is so thickly clustered about him it feels like a living thing, reminiscent of the cold, alien feel of Nagini’s scales gliding over his throat or a thick blanket of poisonous gas weighing him down and hidden in it, a network of razor-sharp wires waiting to pare him to the bone.
They move past the outer wards, their presence fading and gentling as they reach what must be the inner side of them, they still remain, dark as they are, but the pressure in his chest eases enough to catch another breath. He is released from his bindings, though he can do nothing to save himself, the pain of blood pumping into his numb limbs is like a million needle stabs, a crescendo that lasts far too long. They kick his legs out from under him, forcing them to bend and he falls painfully to his knees on hard stone, heavy hands on his shoulders.
When the sack is finally pulled from his head, he almost wishes for it back, the fetid stench of stale air fills his nose, blood and sweat and misery overlaid by the burning metallic tang of dark magic. It burrows into his mouth and nose, coats his tongue, it tastes like the Manor and everything bad that ever happened there. He blinks in the dim light, twisting around to see his captors. The hands on his shoulders are too familiar, heartless blue eyes meet his, cold and far from the man he had once called friend.
“BASTARD!” he surges upwards, or tries to, spitting the words out, hands coming up to grip at Ron’s coat lapels, “You fucking bas-”
Unkind hands drag him back to the ground, feet kicking his knees out from the back so that he slams into the floor again, his teeth clacking together sharply, cutting off his words with the sound of chipped porcelain. He refuses to give them the satisfaction, clenching his jaw tight as his arms are wrenched back behind hm again, glaring up at Ron, who continues to look back down dispassionately, as if Draco was an idle curio someone was showing him.
“We trusted you, Harry trusted you.”
The blow knocks him sideways, splitting his lip, the taste of blood flooding his mouth as he crumples at Ron’s feet. The dark magic jitters around him, excited at the scent of violence, the shadows pulsing in the corner of his eye. He spits the excess liquid onto Ron’s boots.
The heavy lurking by Ron’s side steps forward again, arm raised for another strike but Ron stops him, a flick of his fingers and the man steps back.
“I should make you lick them clean with your tongue, Malfoy.” Ron’s eyes are so cold that Draco’s ridiculous heart leaps in hope that this isn’t really Ron, praying for an imposter who’s only wearing his face.
A door behind them opens and Ron switches his attention to the footsteps making their way towards them, the edges of his mouth tilt up in a cold smile and he gestures the guard away with a nod of his chin.
“Glad you could make it.” He extends his hand over Draco’s body and clasps the arm of the new arrival, leaving Draco to twist around and see. The arm in his is dark, dark as rich chocolate ganache, shirt sleeve rolled back to expose a strong forearm covered in twisted burns. Draco follows the arm up, past the grey shirt and tight Bavarian waistcoat to a neck equally covered in burns, thick ropes of scar tissue that climb the side of the once noble and aristocratic face. The face that turns towards him, that looks down at Draco is both beautiful and hideous.
A white eye, blinded but no less cruel as it gazes down at him, Blaise’s face is a broken mirror, shards of destruction fracturing what was once whole.
“Do you like what you see, Draco?” he gestures to his face with his unblemished hand, “Do you like what your foolishness has wrought?”
Draco can do nothing but gape, the horror of Blaise’s appearance freezing the rage in his veins.
“What? Not to your taste?” Blaise leans down over Draco, pushing his face so close that Draco can see the milky orb in all it’s terrifying glory, “Well it’s not to mine, either.”
“Wha- What happened to you?” Draco breathes out, his words made wispy with shock.
“YOU!” Blaise roared, “You happen to me Draco! You and your selfish actions, your stupid, thoughtless, greedy actions!” he bends closer and hissed as Draco cowered into the floor, “Our Lord was not happy with you Draco, he was not happy that you married Potter. He was so unhappy, HE BURNT MY WIFE TO DEATH!” he screamed down at Draco, the tortured flesh flushing bright red, his spittle spraying out, falling like acid onto Draco’s upturned face.
“No!” Draco’s expression collapsed, his lip trembling, “no, not Pansy, please Blaise, not Pansy-”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP, you are not WORTHY to speak her name.” Blaise grabbed Draco by the collar and hauled him up from the floor to bellow in his face, tears of rage falling heedlessly down his cheeks.
From the darkness around them arose a whisper, “Kraljica Zimija” the words overlapping again and again until they hissed like a great snake.
“My Viper,” Blaise cried, closing his eyes, “my beautiful queen is gone forever.” His fingers tighten in Draco’s shirt, pulling the fabric until it cut into his skin, chokingly tight around his neck, “You and I will have a reckoning, Malfoy, before I hand you over to my Lord.” The blinded eye burns with hatred.
“Give us the room,” Ron calls out and a dozen men step out of the shadows, “Guard the perimeter and wait for stragglers.”
All but one salute him, hands thumping to their chests as they turn, filing away in silence through the thick door. The last one drifts closer, thinner and younger than the others, he moves like a cat, stalking his prey, his dark eyes glimmering from under the fall of his inky fringe. He takes up position by Ron’s side, a hand criss-crossed with white scars, draws back his coat to rest on the handle of the long knife in his belt and his mouth curves up in a cruel smile.
Ron’s cold eyes turn back to Draco, dangling like a fish on the hook of Blaise’s hand, “I think we need a little alone time, don’t you Malfoy? Before we give you up to Nott.”