Draco’s hands were bound securely behind his back. His wand was being thrown carelessly up and down in the air by a tall and thin Death Eater to his right. When he did not walk fast enough someone behind him would shove or kick him hard in the back so that he stumbled. He never gave them the satisfaction of making any complains because he knew that was what they really wanted – to hear the rich boy whine at their mercy. Theodore was the one holding Draco’s left arm, leading the way up a dirt road through some kind of forest. His grip was not tight, but almost casual, like he was escorting him to a ball. Draco understood that this was because there were enough of them to take him out if he tried escaping, and even if he broke free there was nowhere to go (he had no bloody idea where they were), and there was no means of protecting himself against six Death Eaters anyway.
After an impossibly long time, the trees began to fan out enough so that a building of sorts surrounded by a high picked fence came into view.
The Death Eater who was tossing Draco’s wand stuffed it in his robes and pulled out his own. He walked to the gate that was at least twice his size and waved his wand over the lock in a circular motion until a light click was heard and the gate opened rigidly with a high-pitched creak.
Theodore lead Draco through first, the others closely following. Ahead he saw the same dirt road twisting up to a manor that was slightly smaller than his own, splitting into two around the disfigured statue of a man (or was it a woman?) that obscured where the font doors no doubt were. Although they were a decent distance from the actual house, Draco could see from where he was that the place was unkempt, and up until recently deserted. Surrounding the manor was a garden that surely must have been beautiful once was overgrown with so many weeds and dead plants that it was indistinct what plants used to grow there. The walls had vines creeping up them and growing on the few spots that weren’t hidden by vines was mould, colouring the walls so much that the house looked a dark green rather than whatever colour it originally was.
He felt he should know this place, but no matter how hard he thought about it he could not figure out why. But it had an air of familiarity about it. He looked sideways at Nott, expecting to see a smug expression, but his face was blank. No arrogance or hardness to it at all, and like that, Draco could almost see the kid he sat with in the Great Hall – just barely, of course, but it was there.
Perhaps Theodore sensed his gaze, he was always good like that, because his dark eyes met Draco’s. His face did not twist into a sneer, but remained blank except for the twitch of his jaw. He was the first to break eye contact, and moved on to the mouldy doors ahead.
Draco arranged his own face into a mask of indifference, but it could not hide his inner disappointment. He remembered in sixth year, when he was not listening to Flitwick or McGonagall because he was so tired with his mission to kill Dumbledore, and when he was unexpectedly called on to see whether he was paying attention, which he obviously was not, he would look over at Theodore beside him and they would share this quick and discreet exchange where he would whisper the answer.
But everything had changed now, and he really needed to get over that his best friend was not miraculously coming back.
Nott tapped twice on the door and turned the rusty knob. Inside was no better than out. More mould lined the walls, ceilings and floor. As they stepped inside on the stained carpet (at least he thought it was carpet) dust floated up from where their shoes connected with the floor. Furniture was covered in plastic that was so dusty there was no hope telling what was beneath it other than the shape. There was a staircase to the right with railings that had long since rotted, or maybe had been burnt.
They made their way deeper into the house, bugs scattering from under furniture as they went, the floor feeling alarmingly unsteady under his feet; proof of this was the holes they all had to evade. They followed a dark stain down a hallway that started out as faded but grew larger and larger as though something had leaked, and the more it thickened, the more a distinct smell filled his nostrils that sincerely reminded him of blood.
The hall lead into what Draco interpreted as a drawing room, the chandelier overhead filled with spider webs more so than everything else. His eyes followed the near-black stain on the wooded ground until the stain ended, or more probably was the source of where it started, a large splat of the stuff on the floor behind a singular chair that would have once cost a fortune but now only had holes and worn fabric.
“Sir,” croaked one of the Death Eaters, “we got ‘im.”
The chair was facing an old fireplace and had a very high back, and this was why Draco did not see until there was movement that someone was sitting there. Hands clasped the arms of the chair to stand, and Draco saw the back of a man wearing a black and almost formal suit, reminding him of the attire he used to wear when he was sixteen/seventeen.
He could tell the man used to be rather skinny, but had recently bulked up. His hair was longish, coming down to his ears just enough so he could tuck it away if he wished. It was brown and stringy, and Draco had a feeling that after a good wash the colour would be a light brown. When he turned around, Draco saw that he was middle-aged, had a gaunt face, murky hazel eyes and many frown lines. He thought the man might have once been handsome like the rusty furniture that sounded them, but had been worn down too much by unkind years.
“Draco,” the man said, his voice surprisingly strong despite the ragged edge to it. “It’s been a long time.”
It took a moment for Draco to place this person because the hazel eyes he remembered were not the same shade he was staring into now. They used to be alight with mirth and mischief, rather than cloudy with an unsettling wild look to them, but he would always recognise the colour of Astoria’s eyes and knew that there was only two other people in the world with the same colour. The first person, Daphne, was dead. The second was their father. And suddenly all Lucius’s delirious ramblings about green plants and grass made sense.
Green grass.
Mr. Greengrass.
It was him all along, and Draco had been such a fool to not see it sooner.
Who else would go through all this trouble to have him? He was responsible for the demise of this man’s entire family. Draco had taken away everything he loved in one night. That alone was enough to drive the sanest man to insanity, and it worked out all the more because Mr. Greengrass had never been a violent person. He was never part of the Death Eaters. He was just seen as the quiet man who tragically lost his family, the last suspect to everybody.
“You,” Draco stated. “That was clever, keeping yourself in the background and having your minions run your little errands.”
“Don’t speak with such disrespect –!” someone began furiously but was cut off when Greengrass waved him down.
“It doesn’t matter, I expect this sort of behaviour from a murderer.”
Draco clenched his jaw but did not say anything more. A pause followed where Greengrass looked Draco up and down, taking in the changes from the past five years.
“Do you think of my girls often? About what you did?”
Draco looked at Nott who kept his gaze firmly on the fireplace, then glanced back at Greengrass. “It’s not something you can forget. I think about it everyday, about what I could have done differently. But it happened, and we all made mistakes, and we can’t do anything to change that now.” His voice was confident as he repeated what Hermione had told him several months ago.
Greengrass nodded, like they were having a civil discussion. “It’s true we can’t change anything. But I can damn well make you pay.”
“That’s only going to make you feel fulfilled for a short period and then it’ll wear – ”
“I don’t care!” he burst out, his hands rising briefly at his sides, and he let out a crazed chuckle. “Don’t you see? Anything to just take away this constant numbness, I’ll do.” His tone quivered on the last words, and he moved closer. “Any feeling is better than not feeling at all.”
“Look, I can’t pretend I know what it’s like to lose so much all at once, but you need to know there’s not a day that goes by where I don’t regret what happened,” he said honestly. What he was saying was something he had planned on saying to this man ever since it happened, only Draco had always been too much of a coward to find him. Greengrass was no longer looking at him but staring down at the floor, but Draco knew he was listening. “I told you we can’t take back what happened, but you need to know I’m sorry –”
Apologising was apparently the wrong thing to do.
“You’re not sorry,” he said darkly, his wild eyes snapping back to Draco’s. “Not yet.”
“Sir –” a Death Eater tried.
“LEAVE US!” he suddenly barked. “OUT! NOW!”
In pairs the six of them left the room, some tripping over the others to get out. When they could no longer hear their footsteps on the floorboards, Greengrass spoke again, calm once more, and it was an effort on Draco’s part to hide the uneasiness of how quick this man’s emotions could switch.
“Do you know how much planning I went into just to get you here tonight? To make sure that no one would interrupt? That there was no possible way daddy or mummy or even that Mudblood bitch of yours could come rushing to the rescue?” Draco’s teeth clenched at the cruel referral to Hermione, and Greengrass smiled icily. “I wonder, if it was her instead of my daughter backed up into a corner against several Death Eater’s, screaming, would you have saved her?”
He did not answer right away, thinking maybe Greengrass would let the question slide, but the seconds ticked on, and he replied reluctantly. “No. I didn’t like her back then.”
“But if you had known that you would someday like her as much as you do now, would you?”
Draco could not hold his burning gaze, so he let it drop to the floor. The truthful answer was yes. Yes a thousand times over. He was doing just that for Hermione right now, in fact. Risking his life for hers with every second he was here.
Greengrass understood his silence as a positive response and made a contemplative ‘hum’ under his breath. “How times change,” he commented lightly. “I have to say, you’re not as predictable as you used to be. When I dragged poor daddy away like that, I felt certain you’d follow in his footsteps and join us.”
That threw him off guard. “What?”
“Well, you see, when my guys approached you that first time, asking for you to join us again, I was expecting a yes from you.” He began pacing, looking thoughtful. “Thought you’d choose your old life back rather than the new one where you were treated like common filth. But no. So then I set about to get dear old Lucius back into the gang. I believed then, if you thought he’d chosen the dark side again, you’d follow him like you always used to and try and join again. But once again you proved us – me – wrong.”
“Why didn’t you just take me? All those times I ran into Nott…”
“At the beginning of all this I wanted you to come to us. But the year went by faster and faster and I still hadn’t made any progress. I began to get a little… anxious, I suppose you could call it. If some of my guys brought you in against your will I’d’ve been content. Nott, though, seemed to have other plans. The time around Christmas when you ran into each other he mucked it all up by knocking Gibbon and Jugson out. I think that’s what happened at any rate. It was hard to tell; I think he’d attempted some kind of memory charm on them that didn’t go as well as he’d hoped. He was punished severely for letting you escape, and I was still making my mind up whether or not to kill him when he provided us with some useful information about you. He’d been keeping tabs on you through the Prophet and saw, just by mentioning her name, your sudden fondness of Granger. And if I remember correctly Wilkes was the one who saw you outside the first ball with her. I asked Nott to look into that, thinking maybe we could use her at our advantage. But then she had always been a smart one, and I thought it would be unwise to get her involved. Nonetheless, it was a backup plan if everything else went down the crapper. And then only hours ago, just when I’d started to think we’d have to do this by force, Nott finds Weasley outside, tells me how much he means to Granger, and boom.” He clapped his hands. “It all fell into place after that.”
He took a moment to process this all, and then asked, “Why are you picking up where – where Voldemort left off?”
Greengrass hissed at the name and shot him a warning glare. “I’m still pure-blooded, Draco. I liked his outlook on things, but wasn’t passionate about it enough to become a member. I thought that way I would keep my family safe by staying out of it completely.” He snorted. “How wrong I was. But now there’s nothing for me to lose, might as well make the best of it.”
“And you took all those people because…?”
“Obviously I needed a fair number of followers. The ones who didn’t join died. My motives aren’t very complicated.”
“And…” Draco swallowed. “How did you know Hermione would choose Weasley over me? What made you so sure?”
Greengrass looked at him like this was a very stupid question. “Because it’s always going to be him over you. Just take a step back and look at yourself, Draco. You’re the kid who ran away from a frightened young girl, leaving her to die. You’re the kid who stood by and actually listened to Granger scream as your aunt tortured her. Weasley, on the other hand, is her best friend and the one who helped save the world.” He laughed bitterly. “You really had no chance.”
He had never fully appreciated the term ‘the truth hurts’ until that moment. He waited to make sure he had his emotions in check (because he would not, could not, let Greengrass know he’d hit home with those words), and asked another question, one that had been on his mind for a very long time, only when asked the words sounded more of a statement.
“And now you’re going to kill me?”
He shook his head, pausing in his pacing. “No.” A nasty smirk twisted his thin mouth. “We’re going to hurt you enough until you’re begging to be killed, for as long as it takes.”
***
“Hermione, I think maybe you should stop now –”
“No, Harry! I’ve almost got it, I swear I have…”
“You’re not going to get it at all if you tire yourself out first!” he retorted hotly.
Hermione understood his impatience; she had been trying to get the tracking spell working for close to an hour now, only each time it would not take. There would be sometimes a light spark, smoke, or nothing at all. No hum that was supposed to indicate if it had worked. And each time she ruthlessly made another attempt, it would take more and more out of her. She was slowly but surely becoming both physically and mentally weak. But she could not stop now, she was close, she could feel it.
“Hermione,” Harry persisted when she failed once more. “You’re going to be no good to us passed out. Take a break for a sec –”
“NO!” she shouted, running her shaking hands agitatedly through her tangled mess of hair. She was sitting on a stool, bending over closely to the silver ring lying innocently on the wooden table, her wand clutched in her hand so tightly her knuckles were white. “I can do this,” she insisted without turning around to look at him. “Just please, give me some space – all of you.”
Harry was not the only other person in the room. Ron was there too, as were seven other Aurors, the best and most men they could get on such short notice. Not that there weren’t any female Aurors, but it was a popular male job, and there were no women free tonight. That left Hermione with nine irritable men at her disposal, all crowded behind her to watch what she was doing. Fortunately, at her order to back off, they obeyed without hesitation. Harry and Ron, however, stayed on either side of her, craning their necks to see round her bushy hair at the ring.
Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. “That includes you two,” she said quietly.
“Would you just look at yourself Hermione?” Harry demanded, leaning forward and pressing his palms onto the table, ducking his head to see her face. “You’re exhausting yourself –”
“Mate,” Ron spoke up tentatively, “maybe we should just leave her to do this her way.”
“What?” And although Hermione still had her eyes closed and was not facing either of them, she knew Harry would be gaping.
“You heard,” said Ron. She looked back at him in time to see him shrug casually, hands in his pockets. “Imagine if you’d just sent Ginny to those bastards, or me or Hermione.”
“Yes, but Malfoy isn’t Ginny or you or Hermione,” Harry contradicted, his tone exasperated. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t go after him, I’d still want to save him even if Hermione didn’t care so much. I’m saying she’s not going to be beneficial if she’s not even bloody conscious!”
“This is Hermione. She wouldn’t keep going like this if she didn’t think she could do it.”
For a second, she thought Harry might yell. It had, after all, been a long night and was very late, but then he just shook his head. “Fine. But if she doesn’t get it in twenty minutes she’s taking a break.” He moved to stand back with the other Aurors who were all lined against the opposite wall.
She waited for Ron to meet her gaze before saying softly, “Thank you.”
Ron moved closer and sat on the table, trying not to look too pleased with himself. “Yeah, well I just hope it was the truth. You are actually trying to figure out why it’s not working, aren’t you?” She did not know what look must have crossed her face, but it had Ron raising his hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m just checking. It’s hard to tell with you sometimes.”
“It might be a good idea to reread the spell book,” she said tiredly, feeling certain that she was not far from remembering the instructions by heart now. As she reached out for the large book, Ron’s hand caught hers. She glanced at him distractedly while she flipped through the worn pages with her free hand. “Yes?”
“Could you look at me?” he asked, and reluctantly she lifted her eyes. “I really am sorry for getting you into this.”
“It’s not your fault. If they didn’t capture him tonight it’d have only been a matter of time before they did.”
“I gotta say, I didn’t expect him to go in like that. So willingly.”
“I don’t think anybody did,” she said, the corners of her lips lifting into a sad and brief smile.
“He’s…” Ron hesitated. “He’s really changed, hasn’t he? That’s why he means so much to you.”
Hermione cleared her throat, uncomfortable, and released her hand from his, returning her undivided attention to the book before her.
She carried on relentlessly, and each time she failed she would start again before she could begin to get discouraged, pushing all her negative emotions to the very back until she was focusing on nothing but the piece of metal in front of her, the incantations and movement of her wand.
And when Ron had long since left the table to talk to Harry and her body began to sway on the stool and her mind was fuzzy, she still did not stop.
It must have been longer than the twenty minutes Harry had given her when, thanks to her frail state and slurred words that had her speaking slower and more drawled out than she normally would have done, did she feel the itchy sensation go up her arm, followed by the light hum.
Before she could rejoice along with the other Aurors, now all listening intently to the sound, her back gave up supporting her upper body weight and had just begun to fall backwards off the stool when two firm hands gripped her shoulders, her back falling into Ron’s lower stomach instead.
He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “You did it,” he murmured.
She did not let herself feel relieved.
________________________________________
Next chapter; Draco goes through hell as Hermione begins her desperate search. Will she find him? Dun dun dun.
~
Sorry this took so long to get up! We had two weeks holidays which I was planning to use to do some more writing (and tie dying some shirts cause I'm hippie like that) but then my dad decided he'd have me at his house for a quarter of a century and the internet over there sucks and there's like twenty-five other kids and it's just a very bad place to try and concentrate >.>