Chapter 7: The Bargain
"Theo Nott?" Hermione repeated, struggling to keep Malfoy on his feet as he swayed against her. "You're sure you saw him?"
Harry hesitated. "I'm - I'm pretty sure - "
"'Pretty sure' isn't good enough, Potter," Malfoy snarled, stumbling as he regained his footing. He abruptly pulled out of her grasp and took a couple of hasty steps back, something strange and cold beginning to glitter in his eyes.
Hermione sighed. "Malfoy - "
"I don't want to tell you I'm positive, Malfoy, because I'm not," Harry interjected pointedly. "I was focused on Gregorovitch, and I was caught off guard - "
"So it could be someone else, then," Malfoy said dazedly. "You could be wrong. It might not have been him."
Harry hesitated, looking quickly to Ron, who shrugged helplessly, and then back to Malfoy. "I guess there's a chance, but I really think - "
"It wasn't him," Malfoy said, shaking his head with finality as though daring them to disagree. "It couldn't have been. There's no way. Theo's not a murderer."
Hermione's heart sank as she caught Harry glance guiltily at his feet. She could see that he was considerably more certain than he was letting on.
"Malfoy," she said quietly, reaching for him. "Draco, if it was Theo - "
"It wasn't," he snapped instantly, his voice taking on a strange, childish tone. "It wasn't him, Potter just said - "
"If it was Theo," she repeated, stepping in front of him and placing her hands coolly on either side of his face, "there would have been a reason for it." His eyes were startlingly unfocused and she pulled his face to hers, forcing him to look at her. "Draco, there would have been a reason."
"Voldemort was making him do it," Harry told them, and despite his best intentions, Hermione fervently willed him to stop talking. "He probably didn't have a choice."
Malfoy winced, shutting his eyes forcefully as though he'd been physically struck by Harry's choice of phrasing. "No - not Theo - "
"You didn't have a choice," Harry pointed out, and Hermione grimaced as Malfoy's eyes snapped open.
"Yes I did," he seethed. "Don't think for a second that I didn't, Potter, because I did. I chose to take the Mark for my father and everything that happened afterwards - whatever control I allowed the Dark Lord to have over me - it always came back to that choice."
Harry shook his head apologetically, backtracking. "I didn't mean - "
"Theo knew what taking the Mark did to me," Malfoy said, visibly agitated. "He knew how bad it was - he knew," he rasped, and Hermione was gutted, watching him. "He wouldn't have taken the Mark, it wouldn't make sense, unless - "
He looked up, disturbed. "Unless this is my fault," he whispered, bringing his hand to cover his mouth. "What if he's being punished for my mistakes - what if they know - "
"They don't," Harry said quickly. "If they did, we'd have heard something - "
"Draco," Hermione said, gripping his chin to return his gaze to hers, his grey eyes glazed over and darkened. "Draco, we'll find out. We'll find out the truth, I know it."
She tilted his chin down to kiss him gently, unconcerned with the opinions of her uneasy audience. "Nothing is as it seems anymore, Draco," she whispered against his lips, closing her eyes for a moment before glancing up to look at his face.
She nearly screamed with relief when a brief spark of his usual self slowly began to resettle itself in his eyes. "Okay," he mumbled inaudibly, his mouth forming the words while he struggled to find his voice.
He blinked again, and after a moment she watched as his cooler demeanor began to spread across his face like a frost. "Okay," he repeated, clearer, putting his hands on her shoulders and nudging her gently aside so that he could resume facing Harry and Ron.
"If you're right - if it is Theo," he said, expressionless, "then I want to know what happened, because this doesn't make sense." He took a deep breath, and they watched him with curiosity. "I'm not on the same fool's errand that you three are. I'm not in this to fight a war or to bring down the Dark Lord - but I'll go along with your stupid, reckless plotting as long as I know I can keep her safe," he said, gesturing to Hermione and squeezing her fingers, "and on top of that, I want your word that you'll help me find out what he's done to Theo."
It was an unexpected bargain, and Hermione questioned briefly whether she should be grateful that he seemed to have found a purpose in their mission, however different from her motivation it might be. Harry, too, considered him for a moment, his green eyes narrowed with thought. "Okay," he said finally, before offering Malfoy his hand. "You have my word."
Hermione took a sharp, deep breath as Malfoy gripped Harry's hand tightly, offering a single shake. "Tomorrow, then," Malfoy said, his eyes flitting briefly to Ron. "You and Granger get that book from Dumbledore's office and Weasley and I will check the Room of Hidden Things. And when the day comes that we get close to him - "
" - we'll get Theo," Harry finished, nodding.
Aware that he hadn't yet spoken, Hermione looked questioningly to Ron, who had an unreadable expression blanketing his face.
"Well," Ron said, clearing his throat. "Should we talk about what You-Know-Who's after? Whatever was stolen from Gregorovitch?"
Hermione's eyes slid back to Malfoy, frowning as he seemed to slip into an embattled trance. "We can talk about it later," she said crisply. "We have time."
She held her hand out to Malfoy and he took it slowly, following in her wake like a man in a dream.
"Draco," she said, putting her arms gingerly around his neck the moment they were alone in her tent. "Are you - "
"I don't want to talk about it."
She bit her lip. "But - "
He cut her off with an urgent kiss, his fingers hungrily pressing into her hips as he slipped his tongue into her slightly parted mouth.
Neither of them said another word that night, from that moment until they fell backwards against her bed, enraptured. He was on some kind of dire mission with her that night, touching her with a desperation she'd never seen in him before, an inexplicable voraciousness that somehow drove him to take her hard, take her deep, take her fully - take her any way he could to make her cry out with shaky pleasure. It seemed like hours before he finally shuddered in her arms, where she held him the rest of the night. Despite her physically sated state she was wretchedly discontented, pretending not to notice the way he tremored against her body, his eyes open and his mind clearly restless.
"You're sure," she whispered to him in the morning. "You're sure you want to do this today? I could just stay here with you - we could just - "
"I'm sure," he intoned emotionlessly. "Do what you need to do."
She nodded uncertainly, frowning, though she slipped out to find Harry as soon as she was dressed. It seemed the room had produced a seating arrangement in the shared space between the tents, and Harry was sitting in a soft leather armchair with his head bent over the Marauder's Map.
"How's Malfoy?" he asked, not looking up.
"Um," she said, glancing over her shoulder at where she'd just left him. "Not great, but that's to be expected."
He raised an eyebrow. "I didn't realize they were close," he commented blankly. "Or that he would take it that way."
She bit her lip. "I'm not sure I understand their relationship either," she said honestly. "Though I know Theo is the closest thing he has to a brother." Her lips formed a hazy half-smile. "I suppose you would have the same reaction, if you found out Ron had killed someone."
Harry's mouth seemed to pucker distastefully. "I think I would know how it feels to find out your best friend has killed someone," he said drily, not looking at her, and she realized yet again how superficially they had actually dealt with their problems.
"So," he said, clearing his throat. "Dobby says that Dumbledore's office isn't occupied right now. Chances are the password hasn't been changed."
She frowned. "Can't Dobby just apparate us in?"
"Apparently not," he said, pushing his glasses back on his nose. "I guess that room in particular has a variety of safeguards on it."
"I suppose that shouldn't be surprising," she said, sighing. "Is anyone around the castle?"
He lifted the map, eyeing it from a different angle. "I don't think so," he said, and she stepped around to see the different labels that floated around on the parchment.
"Just the ghosts," she said, nodding. "Could be worse."
She looked up as Malfoy exited his tent, still dressed sharply in a black shirt and black trousers even in their self-imposed exile, at the same time Ron emerged from his. The two offered unfriendly nods to each other before joining Harry and Hermione.
"You have everything you need?" Malfoy asked her, touching the inside of her wrist.
She shrugged. "I imagine so," she replied. "It should be pretty straightforward. As long as we stay under the cloak and watch the map, I don't foresee us running into any problems."
Harry nodded, and Malfoy was quick to fix him with a severe glare.
"Just so you know, Potter," he said flatly, "if anything happens to Granger while you're gone, I won't hesitate to kill Weasley."
Ron snorted indignantly. "I hardly think you would - "
"I'll take care of her, Malfoy," Harry interrupted.
Hermione snatched the map out of Harry's hands with annoyance. "I can take care of myself, you brutes," she said crossly, but she stood on her toes to kiss Malfoy's cheek.
"Well," Harry announced, standing. "Now's as good a time as any."
Hermione nodded. "We shouldn't be long, okay?" she said. "Make sure you're back in this room in a couple of hours, or we won't be able to get back in."
Ron glanced up to find all three of them looking at him. "What?" he exclaimed, alarmed.
Malfoy shrugged. "She's not talking to me," he said brusquely. "I don't need reminding not to do something stupid."
Ron gave him an unpleasant scowl. "Oh, bugger off, Malfoy," he grumbled indignantly.
Hermione shook her head, sighing. "Don't kill each other," she warned. "We'll be back in two hours. No later."
"Still won't be soon enough," Ron mumbled.
. . . . . . . .
Draco and Weasley had slipped under Potter's invisibility cloak only long enough for them to step outside the Room of Requirement and wait for it to become the Room of Hidden Things, but it somehow took less than that for Draco to miss Granger.
He wished, sometimes, that he could be better at telling her when he was grateful for her. He straightened as the thought struck him, resolving to tell her he loved her as soon as she got back. He didn't say the words enough, he thought, stepping through the door and navigating the tall piles of junk that filled the room.
When it came down to it, he just really didn't want to talk about Theo. And she knew that, somehow, and understood it. She knew him implicitly, loved him effortlessly, and it saved him the effort of having to deal with his feelings - which was best, really, as he was currently a veritable Pandora's box of feelings, of fear and doubt and guilt. The fear was for Theo; everything else was on him.
Weasley was lagging behind him; Draco rolled his eyes irritably, whipping around to discern the delay.
"What are you looking at?" Draco snapped.
Weasley's pale blue eyes were wide, staring at the piles of abandoned items that seemed to form towers throughout the room. He had paused briefly in front of the collection of used potions items that Granger had once said reminded her of her mum's pantry, and Draco remembered, watching the redhead's face, that the room could be momentarily transfixing upon first entry. He, however, was long past that stage.
"I don't know what you're in such a hurry for, Malfoy," Weasley said with irritation, barely bothering to glance at Draco. "We don't even know what we're looking for."
Draco crossed his arms tightly over his chest. "Still," he replied. "No reason to dawdle."
Weasley sighed dramatically but stepped forward to join him. "I totally get what Mione sees in you," he said sarcastically. "You're the total package - rude, impatient, inhumanly pale, a complete bloody arse - "
Draco closed his eyes, trying to smother his temper. "Weasley," he said slowly. "I suggest you stop talking. Immediately, if not sooner."
"You know," Weasley said, ignoring Draco's very reasonable request, "I'd like to know what it is that you have to offer, Malfoy."
Draco turned to look at him, smirking. "I'm rich," he said drily. "And I'm great in bed."
Weasley pretended to gag. "Spare me," he said, rolling his eyes. "But I meant in general. You and Nott were friends, apparently. Explain that to me."
Draco stopped suddenly, his entire frame going rigid.
"I don't want to talk about Theo," he said mechanically, clenching his jaw.
Weasley looked at him skeptically. "I'm no expert, but it seems like you probably should," he said obnoxiously, gesturing to Draco's stiffened posture. "Look at you. You're not exactly at ease."
Draco scowled. "What do you care?"
"I don't," Weasley said, shrugging. "I'm just asking a bloody question. We never even saw you with Nott that often. I wouldn't have known you were close if you hadn't practically fainted on Hermione."
"Theo's not the social type," Draco said shortly. "But we grew up together. He's like a brother to me."
At this, Weasley shrugged impassively. "I've got more brothers than I know what to do with," he commented, leaning over to look at what appeared to be a small paper maché version of the castle. "And frankly, I would hardly bat an eye if Harry told me it was Percy that killed Gregorovitch."
Draco let out an unwilling snort of laughter. "Fair enough," he agreed, equally put off by the irksome former Head Boy.
"What I don't understand," Weasley said loudly, "is why you're so surprised that Nott would take the Mark." He looked pointedly at Draco. "It's not exactly a secret that Nott Senior was one of the original Death Eaters. And anyway, you took it, didn't you?"
Draco felt his face contort into an angry grimace. "I've already explained to you why I took the Mark, Weasley," he fumed quietly. "I don't appreciate being made to repeat myself."
"Yeah, but - "
"Look," he said, pivoting in place to face Weasley. "Theo's smarter than I am, okay? He always has been. He wouldn't do something like that, especially after seeing what I had to do."
Weasley seemed unconvinced by this. "Well - maybe he's being pressured too."
"Maybe," Draco said, gritting his teeth through the concession. "But that's - that's not why I'm - "
He sighed. "Nevermind," he huffed brutishly.
Weasley frowned. "No," he warned, stepping closer to Draco. "You might as well finish that thought, Malfoy." For some bizarre reason, he seemed to chuckle a little to himself. "It's not like I could possibly think any less of you," he pointed out.
Draco ran a hand through his hair wearily. "You wouldn't understand."
"So?" he said, shrugging. "Try me."
"No," Draco said, making a face. "Are you trying to bond with me or something?"
"Bloody hell, no," Weasley said adamantly, before derisively turning away. "Don't tell me, then."
But of course, by that point, the question was nagging at Draco. The very thing he wanted so badly not to discuss seemed to be boiling up inside of him, his failures facing him everywhere he looked.
"He asked me if I needed anything," Draco said quietly, and Weasley had the decency not to look startled. "He asked me if there was anything he could do for me, and I - I made him promise to take care of my family - and - and I asked him to watch out for Granger - "
Draco swallowed painfully, and Weasley eyed him with confusion.
"So?" Weasley said, his brow furrowed. "What's wrong with - "
"I made him make promises to me," Draco said, his voice strained. "I never once wondered about who would be there for him." He threw his head back, closing his eyes. "I didn't do a single thing for him. I just left him. He's alone."
"He's - he's not alone," Weasley said hesitantly. "I mean - "
"No," Draco said, shaking his head. "You don't know Theo like I do. You don't know what he's been through."
"Okay, fine. What has he been thr- "
"Hell, Weasley," Draco interrupted curtly. "He's been through hell and back. And when all of this happened, when things got just a little bit easier for him and a little bit harder for me, I just - "
He sighed. "I never thought for a second about who would be there for him if I was gone. I had Granger to save me, and I didn't think twice about him." He scuffed his foot against the wooden floor, needing an outlet for his frustration. "I'll never forgive myself for that."
Weasley seemed stunned silent, for once. "Maybe it's not what it looks like," he ventured after a moment.
Draco arched his brow wearily. "I suppose," he conceded. "After all, for all intents and purposes, I'm dead."
"That's the spirit," Weasley agreed. He looked around, eyeing the many piles and tables and shelves. "You know," he said, making an obvious - and not unopposed - attempt to change the subject, "I'm not sure how Mione thought this was going to be a useful exercise."
Draco grimaced. "She had solid intentions."
"I just don't know what I'm even fucking looking for," Weasley vented. "You know, she's the brains, Harry's at least got some sense of what we're after - "
"And we're here based on my expert ability to have been here several times before," Draco said, his tone listless and bored. "Hope she's not too disappointed."
"What do you think You-Know-Who would put his soul in?" Weasley asked, wrinkling his nose in revulsion at the thought. "You'd think it'd be somewhere covered in a black cloud of smoke, with maybe a banner and some arrows pointing to it saying 'seriously evil shit' or something - "
"Ever the sophisticate, Weasley," Draco murmured, though he paused. "Though maybe you're not totally wrong."
Weasley looked taken aback. "I'm not?"
"Don't let it go to your head," Draco sniffed. "But I used to have dreams about the Dar- I mean, You-Know-Who. It was how he communicated with me."
"Like Harry's dreams?"
Draco shook his head. "I don't think so," he said pensively. "I think Potter is inside his head, and in mine, he was talking to me. He'd be waiting for me." He shuddered, remembering.
"Well that's pretty fucking creepy," Weasley commented. "But how does that - "
"I remember the feeling of the dreams - the feeling of being near him," Draco said, frowning. "There's an aura to him - like there's a kind of vacancy in the world right around him. It's - "
He couldn't think of a word, and Weasley looked at him hopefully.
"It's . . . bad?" Weasley suggested.
"Bad"? Clever, Weasley.
"It's eerie," Draco said, settling on a term. "There's a particular feeling that you get, being near him." He looked around the room. "Maybe if I just looked out for that feeling, something might come to me."
Weasley shrugged. "By all means," he said, gesturing forward.
Draco smoothed his hair back again, trying to focus on the types of magic that filled the room. There was a slight buzzing in the atmosphere, though that could have been from multiple sources. He tried instead to focus on the familiar feeling, the one he'd encountered - and suffered from - so many times before.
"Are you - "
"Shut it, Weasley, I'm thinking," Draco snapped impatiently, closing his eyes. He tried to take himself back to the dreams he'd had - there'd been the one with Granger, when he'd felt the air go stale as the Dark Lord approached - and the one at his home, with the uncomfortable stillness, the unsettling feeling like he knew what was waiting for him, in a place he should have felt safe.
He felt rather than heard a distinct, chattering vibration and opened his eyes, heading deeper into the room. There was a particularly unwelcoming pile there, stacked as all the others were with a multitude of items, and he squinted at the pillar-like structure. There was some kind of inherent disruption somewhere in that area, as though the very air itself were conflicted. He pulled open the door of an old, antique cupboard, not finding anything of interest, before turning his attention to the table beside it.
"Weasley," he said, jutting his chin forward. "See anything?"
Weasley caught up to him, squinting at the pile. "No," he said uncertainly. "Maybe that stone warlock over there is just giving you the creeps, Malfoy."
Draco rolled his eyes. The finest mind of a generation, he is. "No, I think there's - " he stopped, seeing a faint metallic glint in the midst of a pile of unremarkable belongings. "What did you and Potter say the other horcruxes were?"
"The locket," Weasley said, recounting. "A cup, a ring, a diary - "
"So small things, then," Draco said, brushing away an errant hair. "Valuable things. Jewelry, possibly - maybe a - " he leaned over, eyeing the table again. There seemed to be an ancient, discolored jeweled item of some kind, resembling a sort of gaudy trinket. He peered at it closely. It might have been a crown of some kind, though he wasn't familiar with the terminology. "A tiara, maybe?"
But before Weasley could open his mouth, a sudden thud rang audibly through the room, and Draco looked at Weasley uneasily, bringing a finger to his lips. Something wasn't right.
"I don't know what he's been going on about."
It was a voice Draco recognized as belonging to Alecto Carrow, a Death Eater whose memory he had modified while at the Astronomy Tower. "Obviously the cabinet works just fine - "
"Sure, sure, feel free to tell him that," came the second voice, a sour baritone that Draco assumed had to belong to her brother, Amycus.
Draco groaned inwardly; he had forgotten to consider that the vanishing cabinet he himself had fixed might still be in use. If any of the Death Eaters had been attempting to use it while they'd been elsewhere in the Room of Requirement, their entrance would have been blocked. Now that it wasn't, though, they had an entirely new set of problems on their hands.
Draco gestured frantically to Weasley from across the aisle that separated them, mouthing for him to duck down and hide. Knowing as he did that the cabinet was a few corners away from where he stood, he felt reasonably confident that they were probably fine.
Perhaps mildly confident.
Slightly confident.
Provided that neither of them - nor the room's other magical occupants - made a sound, he was somewhat confident that they would be fine.
"Where did he want it moved?" Amycus asked gruffly.
"Don't think it matters," Alecto called back. Draco's heart started pounding at hearing her footsteps approaching his hiding place. "He just wants it somewhere convenient."
"What's wrong with this room?" Amycus asked testily. "I don't see why we have to do the grunt work when it's obviously unnecessary."
"I don't know," Alecto replied. "I've never even been here - are you seeing all of this?"
Weasley's eyes grew to the size of saucers as Alecto turned the corner and into their line of sight, wandering aimlessly in Draco's direction. Draco pressed himself against the closest tower of items, trying desperately to blend in, while Weasley watched from a few feet away, concealed in a particularly shadowed corner.
Alecto strode through the labyrinth that was the room's cryptic organization, eventually passing each row that led to theirs. She had just stepped into their row, her boots clicking against the floor as she remained oblivious to their presence, and had moved on by the time Draco released a thin stream of air, relieved.
Though of course, that would have been too easy. As though the room itself meant to punish him for his numerous misdeeds, the barely attached door of the creaky cupboard he'd searched earlier now resumed its boisterous path, the hinge falling open and emitting the faintest of unwelcome sounds.
Alecto spun on the spot. "Who's there?" she demanded, returning at a gallop to step within a foot of Draco's face.
Weasley, who was standing behind her, instantly drew his wand. "Stupefy!"
She collapsed on the ground.
"Did she see you?" Weasley mouthed, and Draco shook his head, his mind racing. After all, she hadn't been alone . . .
A second purposeful stride seemed to grow louder as the stunned Death Eater's companion headed their way.
"Alecto?"
Draco brought his hand to his face.
"Weasley," he breathed. "What the fuck have you done?"
. . . . . . . .
a/n: a little shorter today, but a variety of hijinks await. Dedicated to MrsMorgan813, who was wondering how Draco's processing was going . . . not well, I'm afraid.
I also posted a fluffy one-shot today called "The Story," which is an extended scene from Clean, Chapter 14. Little Chmura's amazing illustration of happy Dramione is up on tumblr, so take a look!