The Best Mistake

Chapter Twenty-Five | Daylight

The moon, high in the sky, provided just enough light that the curse breakers and rag-tag group of rescuers he could still see without the help of a Lumos. Draco paced along the ward line, never taking his eyes off the castle on the hilltop. With each prowling step, dewy grass and fallen leaves crunched underneath his dragon-leather boots.

"Won't be long now," the Scarred Weasel remarked distractedly, wand moving in fast, complicated combinations that looked more like a bizarre mating dance than curse breaking. Whatever it was he was doing seemed to be working, however, and the group of goblins and other curse breakers from Gringotts worked faster than any of the ward experts from the Ministry.

Still, they weren't working fast enough for Draco, not at all. He sneered, rather uncharitably, at the eldest of the Weasley brood before he spun around to continue his pacing.

A hand clamped down on his shoulder. Draco snatched it between his, spun the assailant around and put them into a headlock.

"Merlin, Malfoy, it's me, you maniac!" Potter gasped, clutching at Draco's arm.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Potter," Draco snarled, releasing the git and making a show of dusting his robes off. "You're an Auror! You should know better than to sneak up on one like that."

"I didn't sneak up on you," Potter insisted, green eyes wide as he adjusted his stupid circle glasses. "I've been here the whole time. I was just going to ask if you wanted to send the signal for places while I send the patronus to the DMLE, but maybe you should take a calming draught first. You nearly broke my neck!"

Draco scoffed. "I don't need a bloody calming draught!"

"Tell that to Ron," Potter said with a grimace, looking over where the Weasel King stood with Pansy, sporting a shiny black eye.

"He shouldn't have tried to give his unbelievably moronic opinion where it wasn't wanted. Lesson learned. We've all moved on."

"I don't think he's moved on," Potter said, as if Draco should care.

And he didn't—Draco absolutely couldn't care less about Weasley and his swollen eye. When Potter and Draco had first arrived in Cockermouth, they'd put their heads together, analyzing the property to determine the best approach to get in and out as fast as possible once the wards fell.

Draco wanted everyone to apparate directly into the area of the castle where Luna's glasses seemed to suggest Hermione was being kept—underground toward the center. Potter, more logically than Draco thought him ever capable, pointed out how dangerous several dozen witches and wizards apparating into a space they'd never seen before at once would be, let alone one. Potter further suggested they divide their number into four groups, each taking one of the cardinal directions around the castle. They would apparate as close to the castle as possible, get inside, find Hermione and Theo, and get out.

Draco had to concede, but he wasn't happy about it. There was too much that could go wrong, even with four groups infiltrating the castle from each direction, all with a shared mission and goal. He was on edge, anyone could see that—everyone should understand that. He was a rope pulled impossibly taut, ready to snap at the lightest touch.

When stupid, eavesdropping Weasley remarked that Potter's approach had the added bonus of giving them a better chance at finding Nott Sr.'s horcrux, Draco had let his annoyance get the better of him.

In a strange but comforting mirror of Granger's fist making contact with his own face in their third year, he punched the ever-loving-shite out of Weasley's ruddy freckled face.

Pansy's squeal of outrage and his mother's tsk of disappointment were nearly drowned out by Blaise and the Business Weasels' cackling laughter, but Draco heard them, and he didn't care. If the Weasel couldn't understand that this wasn't about saving wizarding Britain and being heroes, he deserved more than a black eye. Granger was supposed to be his friend, for Merlin's sake. Some bloody friend he was!