The Brightest Black - A Dramione Fanfic

Changing of the Tide

She turned to cast a spell, twisting on her broom. Abruptly her world was filled with orange and then pain - so much pain. She screamed as her skin felt like it burst into invisible flames. As if a million ants were biting her at once.

She dropped her wand and began ripping at her robes. Oblivious to the fact that she was now plummeting towards the ground. There was nothing in her world but the burning, itching skin.

Arms wrapped around her, pushing her into the broom, trapping her hands. She shrieked louder and threw herself against the arms, trying to break free. She had to reach her skin. Only then could she put out the flames.

She was rolling across the ground, the arms still around her. She shrieked and tried to push them out of the way.

It burned.

It burned so bad.

The hands moved out of her way and then started helping her. Within moments her own hands were on her bare skin and she was scratching, cooling the burn with her sharp nails, heedless of the wet warmth that was soon coating her fingers.

But it wasn't enough. She scratched harder, trying to find peace.

Someone grabbed her wrists and pulled them away. Before she could do much more than scream in anger and pain red light filled her vision and darkness took her, dousing the flames.

XXX

A bolt of lightning lit up the sky, showing one of the two brooms plummeting towards the ground, the other racing behind it. Lucius cast, his spell hitting another in mid-air, stopping whatever it was from hitting the Black girl.

A Malfoy never hurt family, even family by marriage.

A few moments later a loud crack was heard and quickly followed by a dozen more cracks.

"Aurors! Stop casting! Get out of here," The Dark Lord hissed. "I will call you later. They must not believe I'm back. There must be no proof. Not yet."

Lucius breathed a silent sigh of relief, praying that one of the aurors caught Hermione Black before she hit the ground. He could do nothing for her, not without putting his son and wife in danger. Even aiming to miss or hit other spells with his own had been chancy.

One day he may have to choose between his son and his wife's cousin, but not today. Not with the shock of finding the Dark Lord still alive and in a new physical body still coursing through him.

He had to think this through, make a plan.

And, much as he feared the Dark Lord, he had to live with Narcissa.

She would slaughter him if he ever hurt anyone she cared about. Not that he blamed her, or that he ever planned to hurt his wife in any way. He loved her dearly and he wanted, no, needed, to speak with her about what had occurred today before he did anything. When he'd first joined the Dark Lord he'd been single, and being a Death Eater did not facilitate family life. Though he'd never considered leaving, even after Draco was born.

It simply wasn't a possibility.

But the world was different now. He had a wife and son, ties to families and people that had been on the opposite side in the last war. Before the Dark Lord had been defeated by a simple babe. He could be defeated again. Hadn't three school children just succeeded in defying him?

Maybe he wasn't as powerful as Lucius had always thought him to be.

Just as he was about to apparate out he heard the Dark Lord hiss, "Barty, stay and deal with them. Cover us, escape if you can, but make them believe it was just you."