A warning for readers: This chapter contains a scene containing a medical procedure and gore. Asterisks have been included to indicate the beginning and end of the section.
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Draco still didn't stop, but Hermione squeezed his arm and tried to slip down. She stared at Lucius, her heart in her throat.
Draco paused. "Don't, Granger."
"Draco-if he has Phoenix tears..." She forced him to set her down, gripping his arm tightly to keep herself upright as she looked wide-eyed at Lucius.
The blood was drying and crusting along his face. She had to squint in order to see him clearly from across the room.
"I would need fifteen tears," she said.
Lucius tilted his head to the side, looking thoughtful. "How many tears would half a vial be?"
Hermione swallowed, her heart dropping with disappointment so sharp it was physically painful. "It depends on whether it's a standardized vial. A modern half vial is only about twelve drops."
Lucius' eyebrows furrowed. "What if it were an older vial, from the fifteenth century?"
Hermione gave a small gasp and swayed on her feet. "They were bigger then. Do you-do you actually have Phoenix tears?"
Lucius smiled cruelly. "What would you do? What would you give me if I did?"
Draco scoffed. "Don't waste your time with him, Granger. The only reason he even cares is because I haven't produced an heir."
He picked her up and walked away rapidly.
Hermione rested her head on his shoulder as he carried her through the house. Her head felt fractured, but she forced herself to focus through the pain.
When they passed through the door into her room, he called, "Bobbin!"
The name was nearly a snarl.
Bobbin instantly appeared and began groveling on the floor. "Master Draco! Master Draco, Bobbin is being so sorry. Bobbin is not knowing how Master Lucius is taking the Miss from her room."
"It was the spoon on the breakfast tray. It was a portkey," Hermione said. There was a dragging sensation in the back of her head as though she were falling backwards.
Bobbin gave a cry of despair and began ramming her head into the floor repeatedly. The thudding sound made Hermione wince and cringe.
"Stop injuring yourself." Draco's voice was ice cold. "Bring me all the healing supplies, and send two elves to transport my mother's portrait to the South drawing room. Then get out of my sight."
He paused in front of the portrait in Hermione's room. "Father wishes to see you, Mother. If you ever want to speak to him, this is your last opportunity."
He turned away before the portrait could respond and carried Hermione towards her bed.
It seemed like only a moment had passed, but she was suddenly on the bed in clean clothes, the medical supplies laid out across one side of it. Draco was dousing several cloths in Essence of Dittany and wrapping them around her hand and leg before looking up.
Horror was written into his face. His eyes flickered, and his expression closed the instant their eyes met.
"I'm sorry... I was afraid the explosion might kill you, or I would have come sooner. I'm so sorry."
Hermione shook her head dismissively, trying to clear it and stay focused. "Draco... he might have Phoenix tears."
His expression tensed briefly. "Granger, don't."
He waved his wand, but his fingers spasmed abruptly mid-spell. The wand emitted a blue flame that guttered out after a moment. His expression rippled, and his jaw set as he carefully waved his wand again and cast a diagnostic on her brain.
Her brain projection appeared. The fractured, brightly glowing lights across her brain were still there, but several lights had lost the golden glow and turned blood red. Tiny threads of scarlet, like lightning fractals, branched through sections of her brain.
Draco turned grey when he saw it. "I need-I need to call a mind healer."
He stood to leave, but Hermione gripped his wrist and pulled him back. "No. Draco, wait-your father said he has Phoenix tears. You have to find out what he wants in exchange for them."
He pulled his wrist free, his expression set. "Granger-there's no point in finding out."
Hermione stared at him, incredulous. "What-What do you mean there's no point? I could get your mark off." Her chest jerked, and she gripped his hand again. "You have to find out-you have to ask-Please, Draco-, please-"
Her lungs started spasming as she begged.
He stared at her for several seconds and sighed, dropping down on the edge of her bed. He wrapped arms around her shoulders until her breathing slowed.
He sat back and looked down at his hands.
"Granger-" he paused for a moment. "I'm ruined as duelist now."
Hermione watched his fingers as the index finger twitched and the thumb abruptly jerked. He curled his hands into fists. "A week ago it might have been different. But now-" he lifted his right hand. The ring finger kept twitching. "Not now. The only reason I won against my father today was because he didn't actually want to kill me."
"Draco-"
He cut her off with a tight voice. "I can't defeat the Dark Lord for you, Granger. I know you want to save everyone, but I can't kill him-even if you got my mark off. If I go and try, I'll fail, and I'd probably be taken alive." He still wasn't looking at her. "If I'm interrogated-" he looked down, and she could see the rigid tension in his jaw and shoulders, "-even if you obliviate me before I go, eventually he'd learn about you, Ginny, and James, and the approximate location of the safe house. I'm-" his mouth twisted, "I'd-"
"Draco-" Her voice caught and wavered as she captured his face in her hands and turned it so that his eyes met hers. "Draco, I'm not going to remove your mark so you can die in the rubble with Voldemort. I'm going to take care of you. I'm going to save you."
Her arms were shaking, but she didn't let go of him. "I can save you if you let me. Let me get your mark off and run away. Run away with me the way we always said we would."
He stared at her for a moment, and the corner of his mouth quirked up wistfully. "I made an Unbreakable Vow, Granger. There's no-"
"I know about your vow. You made it to me." She cut him off, staring intently into his silver eyes, gripping his right hand tightly in hers until she could almost feel the magic between them. "Draco Malfoy, you have done your best to aid to Order of the Phoenix in defeating Voldemort. I am the last Order member. I consider your Unbreakable Vow fulfilled in excess."
She pulled his face closer until she could press her forehead against his. "You have done more than anyone should have ever asked from you. Let me save you now. Please, take the risk of believing that I can."
Draco sat frozen for several seconds. She could feel him waver.
Then he slowly nodded.
Lucius was on his knees in the cage, leaning forward as much as he was physically able towards the portrait in front of him.
His expression as he stared at it was starved. Possessive. Ravenous.
He was crying. Hermione could see his entire body shake.
He glanced up and caught sight of her and Draco at the door. He instantly jerked back, his expression closing.
The room had been cleared and cleaned of most of the rubble and blood.
Hermione walked slowly across the room until she stood only a few feet away from the cage. Her head still hurt so sharply it felt as though her skull were fractured. She'd taken several strengthening potions in order to walk reliably, but her vision still blurred slightly.
Draco had wanted to call a healer, but she'd refused. If their escape was going to work, Lucius' attack had to be contained.
Lucius' mouth curved into a ghastly smile as he stared at them. "Well, well, it's my son, come to see me to the afterlife, accompanied by the Mudblood whore who seduced him."
"Lucius!" Narcissa's voice was sharp.
He flinched visibly, as though he'd been struck. Emotions rapidly flashing across his face. Shock. Guilt. Remorse.
He looked back at the portrait.
"Cissa..."
Narcissa had lost her earlier appearance of composure. She looked shattered.
"She's all he has," Narcissa said.
Lucius' expression soured with barely concealed disapproval, but he gave a begrudging nod of acknowledgement before looking back up.
The corner of Hermione's mouth twitched, and she stepped closer, studying him. He was covered in cuts from the splinters of wood, his cheek sliced open and bleeding down his jaw and throat. The wound on his side had stopped bleeding. He was injured and in considerably more physical pain that he was letting on, but there was nothing worryingly lethal.
She stepped back again. "How do you have Phoenix tears?"
Lucius stared at her and raised an eyebrow. "The Malfoy Family has been in England for nearly a thousand years. We were gifted a vial during the fifteenth century, in exchange for-certain services rendered. It is only to be used to preserve the family line. It is passed down from father to son when a new heir is born."
"Really?" Draco's voice was cold and skeptical. "You have a vial of Phoenix tears that you never thought to mention, without any record?"
Lucius' expression grew lofty. "It is only used to preserve the line. Do you have an heir, Draco? No. You do not." His tone was vicious and full of derision. "The vial is kept in a chest that holds the blood of each generation. If you had an heir, his blood would be added upon his birth, and from that time forward, unless you died, only you, his father, could open the chest. When he had a son of his own, the chest would pass into his possession."
Draco looked at the portrait. "Did you-know about this, mother?"
Narcissa shook her head, and Draco's shoulders dropped as though he'd been braced against her answer. He swallowed and gave a sharp nod. "Where is it? An additional vault in Gringotts?"
"It should be in my room at the moment," Lucius said in a bland voice. He'd sat back languidly in the cage.
Draco blinked. "There has been a vial of Phoenix tears on the estate this entire time?"
"No," Lucius said, rolling his eyes, "it is intended to preserve the family line. I keep it with me."
Draco stared at Lucius for several seconds. "What do you want for it? What is it you expect in exchange?"
Lucius gave a low, unending laugh until Hermione wanted to strike him. He tilted his head into an unnatural angle so that his hair fell away from his eyes. "Why, Draco, why do you think I would require bribing in order to save my own son?"
Draco snorted.
Something flashed briefly in Lucius' eyes, and he straightened. "I will save you, Draco, because you are my son and heir, without asking for anything in return from you."
Lucius' eyes strayed from his son.
"What do you want from me?" Hermione asked.
Lucius raised an eyebrow. "Ten minutes. Alone."
"Out of the question," Draco said in a cold voice.
Lucius rolled his eyes and waved a shackled wrist. "What possible benefit would I derive from harming her at this point?"
"What benefit have you ever derived?" Draco looked feral as he sneered down at his father. "I'm not leaving her alone with you. I'd rather die."
Lucius twitched.
Hermione rested her hand on Draco's arm. "I'll be fine, Draco."
She didn't entirely believe it, but she was past caring. She was ready to risk everything if it meant she could obtain Phoenix tears.
"Granger-"
She slipped her hand to his and looked up into his eyes. "Just ten minutes."
Draco didn't move. Didn't waver.
She squeezed his hand. "Please, Draco. You told me you'd let me save you."
He studied her, his expression guarded. His silver eyes were like mirrors to the point that she could see herself in them. Her eyes and the red of her clothing. She was paler than she'd realised.
"Please, Draco..."
He nodded reluctantly. "I'll stand by the door."
Before he left, he stalked over to his father and started going through his robes, confiscating several weapons and a variety of objects Hermione couldn't identify.
Lucius had three additional wands concealed in his clothing, a tin containing a dragon's heartstring, and an entire set of torture instruments shrunk into the size of a pocketbook. Draco cast several detection spells and seemed to find something new with each of them.
"I don't even have use of my hands, I don't see how or why you expect me to murder her," Lucius said in a sulky tone as Draco extracted the last wand.
Draco just wordlessly stashed everything in his own pockets with a sneer and then cast a careless tergeo spell on Lucius as he straightened.
Lucius hissed as the blood was roughly scoured off his face.
Draco stared down at his father for a moment. "Ten minutes. I will set mother's portrait on fire before your eyes if you attempt to so much as touch Hermione."
Cold rage shone in Lucius' eyes as Draco walked away.
Hermione and Lucius stared at each other.
He didn't say anything; he just studied her. His silver eyes were intent as though he were weighing and measuring who she was.
After a minute, she spoke. "If you expect to make me promise that I'll give him up and disappear once he's safely away, the answer is no."
He blinked and leaned forward. "What do you intend to do with my son?"
She gazed steadily down at him. "I intend to save him."
Lucius' eyes narrowed. "Then what?"
She twitched a shoulder. "Then-we live. There are no plans after that. Everything else is dust. What's left of us is all there is."
He scoffed at her. The noise rattled in his lungs, and he coughed, reddening his lips. "You're fools if you think you can run and disappear. The Dark Lord will never let him go. You'll be hunted down. Unless he has power he can maintain, neither of you will survive. If you want to stay safe and be taken care of, you'll give up your romantic ideation. There's a family in Bul-"
"Draco made an Unbreakable Vow to the Order never to claim Voldemort's power or become a Dark Lord."
Lucius fell into an astonished silence for several seconds.
"He. Did. What?" His voice was deadly.
The corner of Hermione's mouth threatened to twitch, but she forced herself to continue staring at him impassively. "The Order feared that Draco was using us to further his own ambition. To prove his loyalty, he vowed to do his best to defeat Voldemort, and that following the Dark Lord's defeat, he would never seize power or become a Dark Lord."
She knelt down so that her face was close to Lucius'. "You're right, he does plan to save me. Since the moment I arrived, everything he's done has been to protect me and for the purpose of getting me somewhere safe before he commits suicide, so that no one can ever find me. That's his plan. That's his idea of taking care of me. But I want to save him. I made promises to him too. I will do anything to save him."
Lucius' expression grew mocking. "Except give him up."
She looked down for a moment before meeting his eyes. "Except that." Her throat tightened as she swallowed. "I'm-I'm more selfish than he is."
"And how do you imagine yourself saving him?" Lucius asked in a cold voice. "Will you send me off to kill the Dark Lord in order to avenge my wife and save my heir?"
He said it derisively, but his eyes were glittering.
Hermione stared at him calmly. "No. There's too much margin for error. Even if you could, killing Voldemort won't protect Draco from everyone else who will want him dead. After you help me remove Draco's Dark Mark, I need you to kill yourself."
Lucius gave a wet sounding laugh. "I wondered when your true colours would come out. Maybe you did level Sussex." He tilted his head back. "Why should I regard leaving my son in your hands for the rest of his life as somehow better than his death?"
He was baiting her. He wanted her to beg, she could see it in his eyes.
The Mudblood whore who seduced his son, that was what he saw her as. A paltry source of comfort that Draco had grown attached to while grieving over his mother. In another life, in a slightly shifted set of circumstances, Draco would have gladly walked over her corpse.
Her throat tightened, and she forced herself to keep breathing.
The only way to keep Draco alive was by convincing Lucius to willingly agree to her terms.
She would make Lucius agree.
She would save Draco.
She looked over at the portrait. "He looks like Narcissa, doesn't he? I didn't see it at first, but now I can't look at her without noticing it. It must have been difficult when she was sick and after her death, to always see her." She looked back at Lucius. "But-it's all fading away now, isn't it? He's not the same as he was. This war has carved away almost everything about him. And now Voldemort is destroying him on purpose."
Lucius' mouth hardened into a flat line.
Hermione held his gaze and let her desperation show on her face. Looking at Lucius was like brushing against salvation with her fingertips, but finding she wasn't close enough to fully grasp it. Her heart felt like a fluttering bird caged inside her chest, beating itself to death as it kept fighting to escape.
Her lips twitched. "Voldemort will kill him. Even if Draco weren't a spy, even if he was the most unfailingly loyal Death Eater to ever exist, Voldemort would still torture and eventually kill him, just to make sure there's no one who can surpass him. Phoenix tears won't reverse a Killing Curse. They don't reverse the brain and nerve damage from the cruciatus."
She touched the bars of the cage with her fingertips. "I'm sure you realised that he became a spy to avenge Narcissa. He knew we probably wouldn't win. He was certain he'd be killed for it, but he did it anyway. It was his penance-because he'd always promised he'd take care of her. He's never-" her voice fractured, "-he's never expected to have a life outside this war. Not when he was trying to protect Narcissa, and not now with me. He's always assumed it'll be the last thing he does."
Hermione shifted forward. "I've tried everything I can to find a way to save him. I've had so many ideas but I never had the pieces I needed to make them work. If you really have Phoenix tears, I can save his life, but only if you'll help me. If saving him is enough for you."
She wrapped her fingers around the bar. "I can't promise to leave him because I've already given him my word that I never will. But I can promise this: once he's free, if he ever wants to leave me-I'll let him go."
Lucius leaned closer until their faces were only inches away from each other. His silver eyes were cruel and burning. "Swear it on your magic."
Her mouth twitched, and her fingers spasmed where they were gripping the cold steel.
She didn't give herself time to hesitate. "I swear it on my magic. If Draco ever wants to leave me, I'll let him go. You have my word."
Lucius stared at her a moment longer and then sighed and leaned back. "The chest is in my wardrobe. My wand will unlock the door. I'll open it once it's brought, and you can see if there are even enough tears."
He looked back at the portrait and seemingly forgot about Hermione entirely.
She studied the starved, desperate adoration on his face for a moment before she stood slowly. It wasn't surprising that Draco had never thought his father had space to care for anyone but his mother.
She walked unsteadily across the room. Everything hurt. Even her heartbeat felt painful. The room was so unnaturally cold.
Draco watched her approach from the doorway. His eyes were worried. She gave him a wan smile.
"He says you can use his wand to open the door of his wardrobe," she said. "The chest is there, he said he'll open it."
Draco pulled her away from the drawing room. "I'm taking you back to your room."
Hermione had barely nodded before he was carrying her again.
"I can walk," she said, trying to slip down, "you're still recovering."
"You should be in bed," Draco said in a cold voice.
Hermione was too tired to argue. She buried her face in his robes and half-dozed as he carried her through the manor. She should have been manic with adrenaline, but instead she was tired. She was so tired.
"He does love you," she said as they neared her room. "I just don't think he knows how to look at you without seeing your mother."
"I know." He set her on the bed. "Rest, Granger. If I come back and you're reading, I will call a mind-healer in, I don't care what your plan is."
She nodded cooperatively. Her head was hurting so much she didn't think she was actually capable of reading. She felt like she might pass out. "If there are tears, the elves have a list of the potion ingredients I need and all the supplies. I need all of them, best quality possible. Your entire medical inventory needs to be restocked. Tell Ginny not to come, and sever the bloodwards you have with the estate. They have to lapse or-"
"You explained it earlier, Granger. Stop talking and rest."
She curled tightly around her stomach.
He pulled the duvet up over her shoulder, and she caught his hand; gripping it desperately. "Draco-you have to help me make this work. I don't think that-" her voice stalled, and she hesitated. "Promise?"
Draco was silent for a moment. "I'll take care of everything."
It was evening when Draco woke her. There were half a dozen diagnostics conjured around her that he was studying.
Her hand and leg had healed fully, and the baby was still a bright golden light. The light made her head ache.
"I need to call a mind healer," Draco said when she sat up wincing.
Hermione shook her head. "No. It's not worth the risk. I'm fine. It's just a headache. I'm not having a seizure. It's fine, the memories are probably just-a bit murky now. It's not as though a healer would actually be able to do anything about it. The damage is already done."
His expression tightened.
She looked up at him, her heart pounding rapidly in her chest. "Do you have it? Are they really Phoenix tears?"
Draco withdrew a vial of silvery liquid from his robes and handed it to her.
"There's an analytic spell, to confirm they're really tears," she said, her voice tight and nervous as she turned it over in her hand. "They might not work. If they're really that old. There's no research on preserving tears more than a few years."
Draco cast the spell.
Hermione's vision doubled, but she squinted through it and studied it carefully.
It was a vial of pure tears. The reading was perfect; the efficiency was still exact. They had been perfectly preserved.
There were enough. She could tell just by looking at the irregular size of the vial that there were at least fifteen tears.
She stared down at the vial in her hands for several seconds, trying to absorb the reality of what she held. Her stomach was fluttering, and she felt breathless.
She could do it. Draco was going to live.
She was going to save him.
"We'll need to do everything in the drawing room," she finally said. "There's so much magic already there that new spell signatures will be lost. Is everything ready? Did you contact Ginny?"
Draco nodded slowly. "She's aware of what we're going to attempt. The elves have everything ready. My-my mother intends to stay. She doesn't want to leave my father."
Hermione studied his face for a moment before standing and reaching out for him. The room swam. Draco caught her by the elbow.
She held his robes until she found her bearings again. She drew a deep breath before forcing a smile. "I never ate breakfast. I should probably take a few potions."
Her stomach rebelled, but she forced herself to keep down a strengthening potion and a nutritional potion long enough for her body to absorb them. Her head stopped feeling cracked and hollow.
She stood up again and walked slowly around the room. Her calf was still sore, but her hand was fully healed. She bent and unfurled her fingers to check their dexterity. A Calming Draught would help manage her tremors once she needed to do spellwork.
Her vision slowly stopped doubling.
As long as the lights weren't too bright, she'd be alright.
Draco stood watching her. His expression was closed, but his eyes were pensive and worried. "Granger, you-"
"We're going to do this, Draco," she said, cutting him off. "If it were me, would it even be a question?"
He reluctantly shook his head.
"I can do this. I'll be fine. Once we escape, I can recover for as long as I need to. After I save you."
She went over to the doorway and walked through without hesitation.
Lucius was still in the cage in the drawing room.
Hermione's stomach curdled as she entered the room for the third time that day.
"Bobbin," said Draco, his tone still vicious.
The elf appeared at the entrance of the drawing room.
"Bring everything here, and get the horse ready."
Hermione chewed nervously on her lip. "Once my manacles are off, how long do you think we'll safely have until it's noticed?"
"I doubt you'll have more than half an hour," Lucius said.
Hermione nodded. "That's about what I thought. So, twenty minutes to get the Dark Mark off, and then a few extra minutes to leave. It-it might take longer than twenty minutes, but that's the best time I've gotten in practice. We need to do as much as possible before my manacles are removed. We'll have to brew the potion beforehand."
She looked at Lucius. "In order for this to work, everyone has to believe that Draco has died, that we all died. Can you do that?"
He glowered at her. "Easily. Assuming that my wand is returned."
She nodded and turned away. The elves had brought in a large table that extended across nearly the length of the room. On one half, there were potion supplies laid out. On the other end, healing supplies: bandages, dozens of vials of Blood-Replenishing potion, Essence of Dittany, eye wateringly expensive pain relief, and several spools of acromantula silk. Hermione arranged it all carefully.
There was a smaller table nearby with a pile of wands and a satchel on it.
Her heart skipped a beat.
Her satchel. She reached out and opened it. It was still packed with all her alchemy and potion supplies, as well as a full assortment of healing potions and supplies.
"You kept it," she said as her fingers ran across the waxed canvas.
"It was useful," said Draco in a dry voice. He watched her intently as she inspected the contents.
There was a set of travel clothes, with riding breeches set with buttons to accommodate her stomach. Draco conjured a screen, and she nearly tore off her surrogate robes, leaving them in a pile on the floor as she pulled the new clothing on. There was a padded gambeson coat beside her cloak, and her boots were hung over the back of a chair, alongside a pair of buttery leather gloves. Draco's heavy black cloak hung beside it.
She laced up her boots and looked up at Draco. "You have everything? You're ready?"
He nodded and she stood.
"You're not going to be in any state to guide a horse. Not until some of the potions wear off. Where should I have the horse go until you're lucid?"
Draco's expression grew more tense than it already was. "It knows the way. Just tell her to go home. Her mate is at the safe house. She won't fly anywhere else."
Hermione nodded, her fingers twitching nervously. She hadn't ridden a horse since she flew a Thestral to the Ministry of Magic in her fifth year of school.
She braced herself, she refused to have a panic attack.
She turned back to the table and placed the silver cauldron on the stand. "I'll need you to do the spellwork for me, Draco."
Her heart raced, but brewing a potion felt as natural as breathing.
She started with white cedar oil, warming it gently as she added crushed valerian roots. When it grew aromatic, she poured honeywater slowly down the sides of the cauldron until it was halfway full.
"I need the most intense flame you can conjure now," she told Draco as she turned to inspect the Dittany leaves that the house-elves had minced and placed under stasis.
She used a spoon to shift the minced leaves and verified every piece was surgically precise and uniform.
The cauldron was boiling almost violently as the base was reduced to a syrup.
She set to grinding the dried nettle and yarrow until they were a fine powder. Her ears were ringing slightly, and she blinked and shook her head as she focused on the mortar and pestle in her hands.
She ground a half-dozen fairy wings in another pestle until they shone like silver dust and then sifted all the powder together.
She dipped a copper stirring rod into the potion, and when she withdrew it, she counted to three before a thickened drop collected and fell back into the cauldron.
"Cool it to room temperature as rapidly as you can," she said in a tight voice.
The instant the surface of the liquid was still, she poured the powders across the surface in a slow figure eight. Count to ten. She placed thirty rose petals across the surface over the powder which was beginning to crystallise. Draco removed the stasis, and she added an even layer of Dittany on top.
The potion sat still for several seconds before the entire surface turned translucent. Hermione immediately added crushed geranium and stirred rapidly with an ash stir rod, dropping pickled murtlap tentacles in with every fourth rotation. The potion turned a brilliant blue.
"Simmering. It needs to barely move."
She used a dropper to carefully measure out the tears. Fifteen. Exactly fifteen. There were two drops left in the vial.
She stared at the simmering potion. It looked flawless. Exactly the way it should.
Her hands shook slightly.
"Draco, I need a Calming Draught."
He handed it to her without a word. She swallowed it in a single gulp. Her hands stopped shaking.
She added the tears. Even with Calming Draught, her heart was in her throat.
When the last drop was added, she stood frozen as she watched. The silvery tears slid beneath the surface, luminous, as though they were falling stars. They slowly turned blood red. The colour spread through the rest of the potion and held.
"Flagon."
A silver ladle, dusted in powdered unicorn horn, transferred the potion into a glass flagon.
Hermione stoppered it and released a slow breath. "That's it."
"That removes the Dark Mark?" Lucius said, staring curiously at the potion in her hands.
She looked over at him, and her stomach twisted. "No. This stops the curse from killing him after I cut his arm off."
Lucius stared at her blankly before his expression grew murderous.
"You intend to maim my son?" He lunged against the bars of the cage as he sneered at her. "You claimed to be an ingenious healer and cutting off his arm is the best you can do?"
Hermione's heart was pounding painfully in her chest as she gripped the flagon and stared at him. A burst of heat flared in the pit of her stomach. "You may have noticed I don't have magic at the moment. It's been two years since I cast a spell, and the instant my manacles are removed, I'm on a countdown. I'll have twenty minutes to perform a procedure that should take an hour with a surgical team. I won't even have my own wand."
Her hands started shaking violently. She set down the potion on the table. "If I had a better idea, I would be trying it. Do you think-I want to cut off his arm-?" Her voice was vibrating.
She wanted to scream at him.
She turned away and pressed her hands again her sternum, fighting to breathe.
She'd never performed an amputation on anyone whose limbs weren't entirely destroyed beyond all hope. The Phoenix tears had been such an impossible missing piece. She'd been so relieved to have them she hadn't fully processed the reality that she was about to cut Draco's arm off.
She felt as though she was about to be violently sick.
She could vaguely hear Draco saying something to his father.
Her throat was closing.
She stumbled across the room to the far wall and pressed herself against it as she struggled to breathe. She choked back a sob, smothering it with her hands, and stood shaking.
She felt fingertips brush lightly across her shoulder and flinched as the guilt almost shattered her.
"I'm so sorry, Draco. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." Her voice was broken as she turned to look at him. "I swear if there was another way quick enough, I'd do it. I'm so sorry-"
Her voice cut off as she sobbed. "You have such beautiful hands. I always thought-you had such beautiful hands-"
Draco held her face in his hands, and she gripped his wrists tightly while she stood crying for several minutes. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, and she sobbed and tried to memorise it.
"Granger, I always assumed if I escaped, I'd lose my hand," he said in a low voice, dropping his head against hers and tucking a curl behind her ear. "If I could have, I would have cut it off myself years ago."
She swallowed a sob and nodded. "I know. I just-I really did try to find another way. I really did. I don't want you to think I would if I had any other choice."
She brushed her tears away, drawing a deep breath as she turned back.
She forced herself not to look at Lucius as she walked over and reviewed all the medical supplies, painstakingly laid out in the order that she needed them. She ran the procedure through her mind, verifying that she had everything she'd need.
Her manacles were burning around her wrists.
"I'm ready." She turned to face Draco and Lucius, extending her hands.
Draco's face was expressionless, but his eyes were molten silver. He reached into his robes and withdrew Lucius' wand.
He extended it slowly towards his father, his expression growing dangerous. "If you-"
"If I harm her, you will undoubtedly blaspheme your mother's memory, torture me most horribly, and we will all die dreadfully. I am aware, Draco," Lucius said, snatching his wand back. "Shouldn't you be focused more on your own wellbeing and impending maiming? You couldn't have fallen for a more competent healer?"
Draco just sneered at him before looking back at Hermione. He took her hands gently in his and pressed her inner wrists together.
"Hold the manacles like this," he said.
As she studied his fingers wrapped around her wrists, her eyes burned, but she blinked the tears away.
Draco looked up at her. "Ready?"
She nodded without a word.
Draco and Lucius looked at each other and then extended their wands.
"Morsmordre."
The Dark Marks slithered from their wands, but instead of traveling upwards, the green mist encircled Hermione's manacles and disappeared beneath the shining copper. There was a brief pause.
A quiet click and the manacles unclasped, falling to the ground.
Hermione gave a low gasp and nearly fell over as her magic suddenly came roaring back to her.
It was as though every cell in her body were glowing and the compulsions were jerked free of her consciousness.
She felt high. She hadn't realised how she'd adapted to the lack of magic until it returned like a tidal wave.
There was a sense of euphoria. She had magic. She could cast and cast and cast. She would bend the world to her will. Create and form, dissolve and destroy, and... save Draco.
She focused through the exhilaration rushing through her veins.
She pulled on her magic, and it didn't fade, or vanish, or turn on her. She wrenched it inward, drew towards her mind, and slammed her occlumency walls into place. Blocking out everything.
Cold. Crystal clear.
She picked up one of the wands and flicked it. It was like forcing something down a blocked channel. The wand gave a few halfhearted sparks. She tried the next, trying to find one that felt right. A wand that was responsive and attuned to her.
Nothing. Nothing. Very little.
Her shoulders grew more and more tense as she began running out of options. Draco even handed her Lucius' wand to try. Her stomach began twisting with dread.
She started to pick up the last wand and then hesitated, looking up at Draco. "This was your old wand from school."
"It was. Hawthorn and unicorn hair. They don't turn to the Dark Arts."
As her fingers slipped around the handle, she felt her magic stir, warming her fingertips. She picked it up and waved it through the air.
The room filled with lights.
There was an itching in her fingers to experiment; to cast something superfluous or transfigure a few vials on the table. She ignored the temptation.
She'd already lost three minutes finding a wand.
She conjured a twenty minute hourglass and flipped it, starting her countdown.
"Lie on the table," she instructed Draco in a sharp voice. She flicked the wand and summoned several vials to herself. She felt a rush through her entire body but forced herself to ignore it.
"Take all of these. Then I'm going to stun you."
"No," Draco said in a flat voice as he downed the line up of potions.
Hermione didn't look at him as she summoned the bandages and cut off the entire sleeve of his shirt. "Draco, I don't want you to watch me cut off your arm."
"I doubt it could possibly be more traumatic than anything I haven't already experienced," he said through his teeth. "Don't you dare stun me, Granger."
She glanced up at him for a moment and found that he was nearly grey and his eyes were burning with determination. And terrified.
Nine attempts.
He'd seen nine Death Eaters die while trying to remove their Dark Marks. If she stunned him and it went wrong, he wouldn't wake up, he'd just die. This would be goodbye.
She pressed her lips together into a flat line and summoned an additional potion. "Fine. Take this now, then."
While the potions activated, she took his left hand in hers and used the wand tip to trace several glowing lines across his skin around the circumference of his forearm, trying to save as much of his arm as she could while still carefully avoiding the Dark Mark burned into his skin. Then she anesthetised his arm from the shoulder down.
"Are you certain there's no other way of removing his mark?" Lucius' condescendingly vicious voice interrupted her concentration. "How much research did you actually-"
Draco silenced his father with a sharp flick of his wand, still gripped in his right hand.
Hermione was casting spells faster than she had ever done spellwork in her life. She knew his health and vitals intimately. She conjured over a dozen diagnostic and monitoring spells around him. His heart rate was elevated but steadily slowing as the potions took affect.
One of the diagnostics turned blue, indicating that all the potions were fully integrated. She brought his left hand up to her lips, squeezing it and pressing her lips against it once before meeting his eyes.
"I love you. I love you," she whispered. "This will work, I swear."
Then she pinned his arm to the table and immobilised him.
*****
She began with the process of internally ligating and then cauterising the veins and arteries in his forearm. The fewer places he could bleed from when she started cutting, the lower the risk. The curse was designed to force him to bleed to death; any opportunity for blood loss increased the risk, even with the Phoenix tears.
When the diagnostic scan showed that the blood flow to his forearm had been completely stopped, she drew a slow breath and ran the wand along one of the lines she'd drawn across the skin.
Draco jerked involuntarily as she ligated and then severed the nerves in his arm. She didn't let herself look up.
She angled the wand at a sharp diagonal angle and began cutting through his skin and muscle down to the bone.
She vaguely registered the sound of Narcissa sobbing. She kept working.
Draco gave a ragged gasp and suddenly there was blood everywhere, the cauterised veins and arteries forcibly beginning to open themselves. The diagnostic spells began flashing and turning dangerous warning hues. Draco's heart rate sky-rocketed.
She cast a powerful stasis spell on his arm and snatched up the Phoenix tear potion.
She tilted Draco's head up and upended the contents down his throat, casting a spell to prevent his body from regurgitating it. She could feel him shaking through the immobilisation.
She met his eyes as her wand spun rapidly in her fingers, and she cast spell after spell on him.
"Hold on. Stay with me. I'm going to save you. Trust me. You're not going to die."
His eyes were locked on her face as she cast spells on his heart to stabilise and slow it until the potion took affect.
She touched his cheek as she studied the diagnostics. "You and me and our baby. We're all going to be free. I'm going to save you. We'll go so far away no one will ever find us. You have to hold on."
The diagnostics stabilised, and she dosed him immediately with a vial of blood-replenishing potion.
Hermione didn't have time to even register her relief. She started re-cauterising all the ruptured veins and arteries as quickly as she could.
"Draco, look away," she said in a voice as taut as a bowstring. She didn't have time to verify that he had.
She turned back, muttered a spell, and cut through his radius and ulna.
His arm was removed.
Her hand shook slightly, and she countered the sticking charm, clinically moving the severed limb away, covering it with a cloth.
She could feel the time running out.
She smoothed the bones, drilled several tiny holes and then washed the entire area with Essence of Dittany before summoning a spool of acromantula silk and rapidly suturing the tendons to the bones. She'd visualised, practiced, and reviewed the procedure a thousand times in her room, the precise order of every movement. Once she'd completed the myodesis, she began wand-suturing layer after rapid layer of stitches. They were quicker to perform and more forgiving than the spellwork she'd used on his runes. Her fingers twitched, and she didn't have time to fix the crooked stitches.
She was running out of time.
Stitch after stitch, layer after layer until the fascial tissue met neatly.
*****
"Ferula," she said, drawing her wand along his skin. Bandages wrapped firmly around his arm nearly up to his shoulder.
"There," she said, stepping back and giving herself a moment to breathe raggedly. There were drops of perspiration on her face. She was still gasping with relief as she countered the immobilisation on Draco. He was barely conscious. She began carefully inspecting all the diagnostics and monitor spells surrounding him as the sand in the hourglass ran out.
He was stable, although drained both physically and magically. There were still traces of the curse, but the most deadly aspects were countered. She gave him a potion meant for countering vampire antivenin, and it improved his blood platelet count.
Lucius banged his shackles loudly against the bars of the cage. Hermione turned sharply, and countered the silencing spell Draco had used on him.
"I hope you're done. You've run out of time. I'm being summoned," he said in a tight voice.
Her stomach plummeted, and she nodded. She pulled on her coat, cloak and gloves, and, with a flick of her wand, cast a spell on Draco to make him lighter. She wrapped his robes and cloak tightly around him, muttering warming charms, and put a dragonhide glove onto his remaining hand before taking hold of his right arm, pulling it over her shoulder to help him stand.
She picked up Lucius' wand from the table where it lay and held it towards him. "You can do it? You'll do it?"
He sneered at her as he jerked his wand from her hand. "Get out of my house, Mudblood."
Hermione spelled all the supplies and extra wands into her satchel and slung it over her shoulder, turning and half-carrying Draco across the room towards the door.
"Draco..." Lucius spoke when they were nearly out of the room.
Hermione wavered over whether to pause or keep going. Draco twitched.
She swallowed hard and stopped, turning him back.
Lucius was staring across the room with the same starved expression he'd worn looking at Narcissa.
"Father. Mother," Draco said, his voice low and forced.
Lucius rested a hand on the bars of the cage. "I was proud of you."
Draco was silent for a moment.
"Right..." he said, the word barely more than a whisper.
Narcissa stared at Hermione. "Save him."
Hermione nodded. "Yes."
Lucius looked at Draco for a moment longer before his eyes dropped to Hermione. "Get him out."
Hermione tightened her hold on Draco and walked quickly out the doors of the South Wing.
Bobbin and several other elves were standing outside, holding the reins of the Granian. It was saddled and pawing the gravel impatiently, prancing as it stood waiting at the doors.
The elves helped Draco up into the saddle, and Hermione mounted behind him. She looked down at Bobbin.
"Get all of the elves out of the manor. Don't let any of the Death Eaters find you. Don't ever tell anyone what happened."
Bobbin nodded.
Hermione took the reins and drew a deep breath before snapping her wrists and kicking.
"Take us home!" She shouted the words.
The Granian bolted forward like a racehorse released from the gate. Its flight muscles tensed tightly as it galloped the length of the manor and took a powerful leap, wings extending. The smoky grey feathers beat surely against the wind, and they were airborne. The Granian circled, carrying them higher and higher as it gained altitude. The wind was whistling around them as they shot through the protective wards of the estate.
There was a roar from below that shook the air.
Hermione glanced over her shoulder as the roof of Malfoy Manor exploded in flames. An enormous fiendfyre dragon rose up, screaming with soul-rending rage as it tore the building apart.