July 2005

Bobbin brought porridge for breakfast the next morning. Hermione didn't feel like eating and ignored the tray while she paced around her room.

Draco hadn't come back since he'd left to see his father. She was sick of waiting. She wasn't going to just sit impotently in her bedroom and wait for Ginny to come and Draco to die.

She strode over to the door and pulled it open with a jerk.

"Don't!" A sharp voice screamed.

Hermione nearly jumped out of her skin and turned to find Narcissa had leapt out of her chair and appeared on the verge of attempting to climb out of her frame.

Hermione stared wide-eyed across the room at Narcissa, her hand against her chest. Her heart felt as though it had jumped into her mouth.

Narcissa stared back at her.

"You can't go out. Draco isn't on the estate." Her voice was sharp and imperious.

Hermione had somehow thought she'd sound more broken. She drew a deep breath and looked at Narcissa warily. "You can tell?"

Narcissa gave short nod. "The magic of the estate knows."

Hermione closed the door slowly and walked over to the portrait. She studied Narcissa, taking note of the traits that Draco had inherited. The same mouth. The same mannerisms. In school, she'd thought Draco took entirely after his father, but now she saw how Narcissa subtly shone through Draco's Malfoy traits and features.

"I want to save your son," Hermione said.

Narcissa's mouth pursed tightly, and she raised an eyebrow. "You can't. If you really thought you could, you wouldn't be stalking around the room like a caged nundu."

Hermione didn't blink. "Draco will die if I don't do something."

Narcissa's expression fractured briefly then it smoothed and she glanced away. "There are worse things than dying." She straightened the cuff of her sleeve. "You don't know what my son was like when you went missing. You don't have any idea."

It was strange to see a teenage girl refer to a man a nearly decade older than herself as her son.

"I saved him."

"You wouldn't have needed to if you'd just left sooner the way he'd begged you to. There were other people that mattered more to you than doing what he asked," Narcissa said, her voice cold.

She was so young, Hermione realised. Portraits didn't evolve or mature, they stayed the way they were. The fact that Narcissa's portrait showed signs of any trauma showed just how very deep it had been. Fundamentally, she was still Narcissa Black, sixteen years old and full of romantic haughtiness.

"Why didn't Narcissa run when Draco asked her to? Because of Lucius?"

Narcissa's portrait stiffened. "No. Lucius is... he—he..." her mask fell apart. "He loved me—her—more than anything. She wanted to go—after the triwizard tournament—but Lucius swore Draco wouldn't have to take the mark. When he was arrested, she was certain the Dark Lord would come for Draco. She was going to take him as he was home from school. But... the Dark Lord came here first. Then... then—then afterwards—"

"She stayed to keep him alive," Hermione said. "Draco wouldn't have kept trying once he knew she was safe. He would have been dead in a matter of weeks."

Narcissa looked away but gave a short nod of acknowledgement.

Hermione stepped closer. "I want to save Draco. If you told Lucius—if he knew—"

"That is out of the question," Narcissa said in a razor-sharp voice.

Hermione stared in surprise at Narcissa's flashing, enraged eyes. It slowly dawned on her that Narcissa's portrait loved Lucius far more than she loved Draco.

The Narcissa in the portrait wasn't a mother. She was a teenage witch engaged to a wizard who adored her. She might call Draco her son and watch over Hermione, but fundamentally she would always choose Lucius first. She would let Draco die if it protected Lucius from the knowledge of what had happened.

Hermione's shoulders dropped. "Narcissa..."

"She didn't want him to ever know. You don't know what she put herself through to ensure he didn't find out. You thought that potion's withdrawal was difficult after three doses? She took it more than a dozen times—just in order to see him." Narcissa's voice was shaking with angry intensity. "Draco used to beg her not to."

Hermione pressed closer. Her fingers hovering a breath away from the painted canvas. "If she would have left him to protect Draco, she would have told him to try to save Draco."

Narcissa's expression was ice cold as she sat in her chair. "How would Lucius knowing change anything?"

Hermione looked down. "I don't know. I just think that he—"

"If you interfere and things go wrong, everything Draco put himself through to protect you will be for nothing. There are worse things than dying. Anyone in this family can tell you that."

She refused to speak to Hermione further.

Hermione reluctantly turned away and went over to her breakfast tray. The warming spell had worn off, and the porridge was cold and unappetizing.

Hermione considered skipping breakfast, but she needed to regain her weight. She wasn't going to build muscle if she skipped meals.

She sighed and half-heartedly picked up the small pitcher of cream and poured it into the bowl, reaching for the spoon.

As her fingers touched the spoon handle, she felt a sharp jerk behind her navel.

It was like being inverted and shoved through a tube. The bedroom vanished, and she reappeared in midair, falling forward and smacking her head on the floor as her stomach roiled.

She almost vomited, as she gripped her tightly contracted abdomen protectively under one hand and tried to find her bearings. She gave several ragged gasps as she breathed. Everything was swimming and her forehead ached where she'd struck it.

She forced herself shakily up.

Lucius was sitting several feet away, reclined in a spindly chair, teacup in hand.

"Ah. There you are."

Hermione stared at him in blank horror as she took in the remainder of her surroundings. Lucius had portkeyed her across the manor into the drawing room in the South Wing.

He set his teacup down on its saucer and sat forward, eyeing her.

"I have some questions for you, Mudblood."

She shifted back, and her hand stuck slightly to the floor. She pulled it free and then she realised the ground was sticky.

The ground was soaked with drying blood.

The spoon which had brought her lay on the ground a few feet away. Her heart stalled. Her hand darted out, and she tried to grab it.

It vanished just before her fingers reached it.

"Trying to leave so soon? After all the effort of bringing you here? You offend me, Mudblood," Lucius drawled, twirling his wand in his hand.

She stared up at him, forcing herself to breathe steadily. She just needed to stay calm and buy time until Draco came.

Draco, your father has me. South Wing. She focused her mind on the thought.

"Did you know," Lucius pulled his cuffs away from his hands, "you are intriguingly difficult to access? I must congratulate my son for his ingenuity. Since my return, the North Wing of the manor has become bewildering. I enter the hallways and find myself walking in circles and forgetting which doors lead where. Before I recover my bearings, I've walked back into the main wing or recalled something I'd meant to do but forgotten. Or Draco appears requesting my help with a matter."

Hermione licked her lips nervously and didn't answer.

"Have you noticed the phenomenon?" Lucius asked, his voice lilting. He was toying with the handle of his wand.

"I don't leave my room—by myself," she said, avoiding his eyes. There was an aching sensation at the base of her spine and sharp pain in her lower abdomen. Her throat tightened and her shoulders almost spasmed as she sat rigidly, trying to ignore it.

"No. It doesn't seem that you do." Lucius' lip curled. "Then I'm sure you must be unaware that my son was—" Lucius blinked. "He was injured a few days ago."

Hermione didn't so much as breathe.

Lucius cocked his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. "I've been looking into you recently. The little healer who was caught blowing up Sussex."

Hermione cringed and felt herself shrivel internally as Lucius continued, "I was at Sussex after it was destroyed. I saw the bodies removed from the rubble. The poison used to ensure that anyone who escaped the blast radius died was a fascinating invention. Ingested, it kills painlessly within seconds, but inhaled is slower... and messier."

Hermione gulped.

Lucius noticed her reaction and cocked his head to the side. "What kind of healer can build a bomb capable of killing nearly a thousand people in a matter of minutes?"

He leaned forward in his chair, dragging his eyes over her so slowly she could almost feel his gaze on her skin. "Am I intended to believe a little Mudblood healer, so insignificant there are barely records with her name included, was single-handedly responsible for one of the most devastating attacks the Dark Lord sustained?"

Hermione said nothing, forcing her expression to stay neutral as she processed the revelation. There were hundreds, possibly thousands of Order records with her name on them. From the cave at the beach. In Grimmauld Place. She'd managed the reconnaissance team and Order prison following Kingsley's death. The Order's classified records had reflected that.

Unless they were gone somehow.

Lucius sat back, snorting and startling her from her reverie. "It wasn't you. You were a decoy. A sacrificial pawn to protect the last Order member."

She blinked.

She'd assumed that healing Draco had been what piqued Lucius' suspicion. Instead he'd brought her in over a misguided conspiracy theory. She stared at him, trying to calculate her course of action.

Lucius' eyes narrowed as he stared at her. "You know the identity of the last Order member, the one responsible for blowing up Sussex and for killing the Warden in February." He leaned towards her again, his silver eyes glittering.

Hermione averted her gaze. "I don't remember. I don't remember anything about a last Order member."

"Ah yes..." Lucius made an unnerving tsking sound. "Those memories you lost that make you so important now."

Hermione glanced surreptitiously towards the door.

"My son is resigned to wait until your memories can be safely extracted. He doesn't want anything to happen to his little Mudblood unless the mind-healers approve it." Lucius sighed and sank back into his chair, his lip curling. "He's young and naive. He succeeded during one war and now thinks being careful and following orders is a dependable path to success. I served during both wars. Victory can be snatched away at any point. Triumph burns to ash in an instant. One error or miscalculation and everything can slip away..." his voice trailed away, and he sat twirling his wand absent-mindedly in his fingers.

There was a long silence.

Hermione began estimating how quickly she could reach the door if she needed to bolt.

"Are you expecting someone?" Lucius' rolling purr was suddenly close. When she looked back, he'd moved from his seat and stood merely inches from her. His gaze was mocking. "My son, perhaps?"

He knelt down in front of her. "Do you expect Draco to appear and save you?" He smirked and glanced around them. "This room is unique. There's such an unusual quantity of magic centred here it affected the ley lines of the estate. It cannot be apparated into, and given inconvenient task of accessing you, I thought I'd return the favour to my son."

His hand rose up, and he caught her chin lightly with his fingertips. "I should hate to see him punished by having to damage you."

Hermione's throat closed, and she flinched as he leaned closer.

His hold tightened. "You wouldn't want that, would you? You are fond of him, I believe. He takes you for walks on our estate and you wait for him like an obedient little pet. He may enjoy you less if I'm required to cut the information out of you. You were a healer; do know how many nerve endings are in each of your fingertips? Tell me who the last remaining member of the Order is now, and I will not harm you."

"I don't know." Hermione tried to pull her face free, but Lucius dug his fingers under her jaw, gripping the bone painfully. "I don't know. I—don't remember yet."

He pulled her closer until their faces were nearly touching. His eyes were glittering, and he sneered viciously as though he were baring his teeth at her. "I don't believe you."

Hermione started shaking uncontrollably.

"I'm no fool. There was a spy among the Death Eaters in the year leading up to the Resistance's defeat. Even the Dark Lord suspected that one of his most trusted servants had betrayed him. They are the piece that remains unaccounted for. The fingerprints are scattered across the war. The unusually accurate attacks on our prisons. The massacres and acts of sabotage that were so uncharacteristic of the Order of the Phoenix. That person destroyed Sussex and disappeared after the Final Battle only to re-emerge a few months after you did." He'd tilted her head so sharply back it was difficult to breathe. "Your compliance may have lulled my son into a false sense of assurance, but you have not fooled me. You're not broken—you're lying in wait."

He shoved her backwards, and her head cracked against the stone floor as he pinned her to the ground under him.

"This is your last opportunity, Mudblood. If you wish to leave this room intact, tell me who the spy is." Lucius' face was centimeters from her own, and she could feel the heat of his breath across her face and smell the tannic scent of tea.

"I don't know. I don't remember." Her voice was trembling as she tried to avert her eyes. Her heart rate was spiking with steady terror. Don't panic. Don't panic. Breathe. "Malfoy tried to get the memories out. So did the Dark Lord. I don't know who it is."

She bit her lip and tried not to have a panic attack as Lucius knelt over her.

His hand trailed down her body, and she couldn't suppress the shudder of revulsion when it came to a stop over of the growing swell in her lower abdomen. His fingers moved across it as though he were caressing her. "Isn't this pregnancy of yours supposed to change that? That is why you're here as my son's plaything. I heard about your coma. Surely you remember something by now."

"I don't—I don't."

He gripped her by her throat. "I don't believe you, Mudblood. Why don't we see." He wrenched her jaw straight and stared into her eyes.

She squeezed her eyes shut. "Don't! Please don't—please don't. Invasive magic—miscarriage—" she tripped over the words.

Lucius laughed as his hold on her throat tightened. "Do you expect me to care about a Mudblood whore's illegitimate daughter? Did you think my son intended to keep it?"

Hermione shook her head violently, trying to pull his hand away. "The Dark Lord—invasive magic could damage the memories—kill you. Draco killed Montague for it—Only—"

Lucius smirked down at her. "You seem suspiciously concerned for my longevity."

He gripped her jaw and forced her face up towards his.

"Open your eyes, Mudblood, or I will cut your eyelids off."

Hermione's heart was beating so rapidly it had become a painful stabbing sensation in her chest.

You will be obedient.

She felt herself going slack as her eyes fluttered open.

You will not hurt anyone.

Her fingernails digging into Lucius' wrist slipped loose. Lucius smirked as his grey eyes met hers.

You will do everything to produce healthy children.

She froze.

Everything.

Everything to produce healthy children.

She would do everything. She could do everything.

She focused on the thought and slammed her forehead into Lucius' face. She felt his nose break as she wrenched herself away, kicking him savagely as she tore herself free and flung herself towards the door.

Bony fingers clamped around her ankle and jerked her back, knocking her to the ground and dragging her back across the floor. She tried to kick herself free as Lucius dragged her under his body. She rammed her elbow into his solar plexus as she attempted to twist out of his hold.

She clawed at his face, aiming for his eyes. His grip loosened as he jerked back to avoid her fingernails. She scrambled away and rammed her heel into his throat before she flung herself towards the door again. Get to the door. Get to the door.

She slammed into the heavy wood and gripped the handle. She tried to turn it, but it wouldn't budge. A searing pain spread through her hand and up her arm as she kept trying to make it turn. Finally she gave an agonized scream and jerked her hand away. She stared down at her fingers and found the flesh burned and scorched to the bones. The knob was white hot.

Lucius laughed. The same unnerving, unending laugh he'd had as he watched Ron die.

The vibrations of it moved through her veins like ice. She turned slowly to find him standing across the room, grinning as blood trickled down his face, filling his mouth and filtering around his teeth.

He lifted a pale hand up to his throat and coughed. "I enjoyed that. Did you think you were going to escape, little mouse?" He gave a low chuckle. "You will die in this house. Like many Order members before you. There is no one left to save you."

Hermione stood staring at him. The burns on her hand were throbbing painfully with every beat of her racing heart.

As she stood by the door, a slow sinking sensation swept over her.

Draco wouldn't come in time.

He wouldn't. They'd used up all their luck surviving as long as they had.

Lucius wasn't Astoria. Kidnapping Hermione from her room had been premeditated and planned specifically to thwart Draco.

She stood studying Lucius until he flicked wand towards her. Hermione felt his magic seize hold of her and drag her forward. When she reached him, he sidestepped and she slammed into the bars of the cage in the centre of the room.

A bar caught her in the forehead, and her vision wavered from the impact. She slumped and shook her head, trying to clear it as she struggled to think.

She felt a flutter in her abdomen, and her throat thickened as her shoulders shook. She pressed her injured hand protectively over her stomach. "Please, Lucius—you don't want to do this."

His fingers dug into her shoulder as he turned her to face him. His face was covered in blood, and there were gouges down his forehead where she'd nearly clawed his eyes out.

Could she run again? Was there any point in trying?

Her legs abruptly gave out, and she slid down the bars to the floor.

"Don't do this, Lucius," she said. "You don't want to know."

Lucius knelt and tilted her head back. She stared into his cold silver eyes.

They were just like Draco's. She'd never noticed that before.

Lucius raised an eyebrow. "I have been commanded to find the last Order member, and I will. This is not a task I am permitted to fail."

Hermione stared at Lucius dazedly, there were spots riddling her vision and a detail that felt just out of reach. A key. She studied his face, looking for Draco in it. Their eyes were so similar; they had the same desperation in them.

Lucius looked desperate.

Her eyes widened.

Voldemort aspired to immortality. He had no intention of having a successor. He only cared about power so long as he controlled it.

He'd burn the Wizarding world to the ground rather than let anyone else rule.

"He's going to kill Draco if you fail, isn't he?" She felt his fingers flinch almost imperceptibly. "The injury last week—it wasn't a test, it was your punishment. Are you the one who had to crucio him?"

Lucius' eyes flickered before turning colder.

When Hermione saw it, she tilted her head back gave a choking laugh. Of course, she should have known they'd have the same tells.

She held his gaze and leaned forward.

"I am the last Order member. The very last one," she said after a moment. "Everyone else is gone now. I'm all that's left."

His eyes narrowed.

"I did blow up Sussex." She kept looking into his cold eyes. "Harry—Harry was dead. Everyone was dead or captured, there was no one to stop me. I created the alchemy and designed both of the Order's bombs. The poison you found so interesting, I invented it too. Thestral blood. Monkshood. Asp venom. Arsenic. Pufferfish. Water hemlock roots. Newt skin. It was mine."

She drew a deep breath. "You're right though—there was a spy among the Death Eaters during the last year of the war. I was his handler."

There was a flash of triumph in Lucius eyes. Hermione wanted to spit at him.

"But you won't save Draco by finding him." She studied his bloodied face and heard his laughter as Ron died screaming. She leaned closer, her voice dropping into a whisper. "The spy who killed Umbridge and destroyed the locket is your son."

Lucius' expression went blank for a moment before twisting into an enraged sneer. He seized her by the throat, jerked her forward, and slammed her back into the bars of the cage.

"My son would never ally himself with the Order."

Hermione choked but didn't break her eye contact with him.

"He—hates Voldemort," she rasped out. "He—has always—hated him. Why do you think there's a cage in your drawing room? Voldemort kept your wife in it."

Lucius jerked as though she'd struck him. "You're lying!"

His grip on her throat tightened, and Hermione gasped as she fought to breathe. His fingers were pressed brutally into the esophagus, and the skin on her face grew taut from the pressure.

"Voldemort—tortured her—in this room. That's why Draco took the mark and killed—Dumbledore..." she could barely force the words out. She clawed at his hand, trying to tear herself free. Her lungs began spasming and burning.

"Do you expect me to believe you?" He released her throat, and she gasped desperately for air, dragging it into her burning lungs as she collapsed against the cage.

His wand jabbed dangerously close to her face, and he snarled . "Legilimens!"

Lucius was not a legilimens. His magic for mind invasion was weak. It was like having her mind roughly pried apart with a blunt stick. If she'd had magic, he would never have been able to penetrate her mind.

She didn't have magic.

He forced his way in.

There was no precision. He simply crushed her consciousness under his as he shoved his way in.

He didn't focus on individual memories, just pushed his way through them until he collided with one.

Draco ...

His fingers running along her spine as he kissed across her shoulders and neck. His other hand tangled in her hair, holding her close so that his bare skin pressed searingly against hers.

"I love you." "I love you." "I'm going to take care of you." He muttered the words against her skin.

Hermione tried to tear the memory away but couldn't summon any magic. She could feel her manacles starting to burn around her wrists.

Draco pressed her back against the headboard, wrapping her legs around his waist as he pushed into her. The devastating adoration in his face unmistakable as he kissed her. She tangled her fingers into his hair and kissed him back as her hips met his.

She could feel Lucius' horrified rage.

She didn't know how to show him the correct memories. She wasn't even altogether sure where they were. He'd crush her mind to pieces long before he found them on his own.

She was staring up into Draco's face. "I found what I was missing to remove your Dark Mark."

"Oh."

"Phoenix tears. I'd be able to remove it if I had a vial of Phoenix tears."

She forced herself to focus through the pain. Narcissa. She had to show him what happened to Narcissa.

Narcissa. Narcissa.

Narcissa's portrait swam into view. "She didn't want him to ever know. You don't know what she put herself through to ensure he didn't find out. You thought that potion's withdrawal was difficult after three doses? She took it more than a dozen times just in order to see him. Draco used to beg her not to."

Lucius stopped brutalizing his way through her mind and seemed frozen for several seconds.

Hermione seized the brief respite to scrabble through her memories for the right ones. There was a throbbing pain in the back of her head as though a scalpel were slowly sinking into the base of her skull.

Narcissa. Narcissa. She needed memories of Draco talking about Narcissa.

Draco's furious face appeared, and he glared down at her.

"After you and your friends had my father thrown into Azkaban, the Dark Lord went to my house. I wasn't even home from school yet. When I got there, he was waiting for me. He had my mother in a cage, in our drawing room. He'd been torturing her for nearly two weeks."

Lucius jerked. She could feel his growing horror.

"She—she never recovered. The tremors—they never stop, not after that much cruciatus. I don't even know what else he did to her—before I got there—," his voice broke. He shoved his hair away from his face and seemed to be struggling to breathe. "The whole summer—I couldn't... I couldn't do anything but tell her I was sorry."

Draco was breathing so rapidly his hands were shaking, and he kept talking, the words just pouring from him. "My mother—she—she was never very strong. She nearly died when she was pregnant with me, and she never recovered from it. She—was always fragile after that. My father always said we had to take care of her. He made me swear, again and again growing up, that I'd always take care of her. When the Dark Lord finally left the manor—I tried to get her away; somewhere he couldn't find her or hurt her again. But she wouldn't go—she wouldn't go anywhere without me."

He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. "I was trying to take care of her. I was trying to keep her safe. I was trying to figure out a way to run—and then—she was burned to death in Lestrange Manor—"

Lucius wavered for a moment. Hermione thought perhaps he'd withdraw from her mind.

He shoved himself deeper into her buried memories.

Her mind was recoiling. She could feel an agonising, fracturing pain begin radiating out from the back of her head

There was screaming surrounding her.

Her voice. It sounded so much younger than she remembered it being. "D-did your father know?"

Draco swallowed. "No." He looked away. "My father—he—he was very protective of my mother. If he'd known—"

He was silent for a moment. "Occlumency isn't a talent he has. Not to the level he would have needed it. He would have been vengeful, and it would have damned us all. My mother insisted we hide her condition from him. There was a potion prescribed by a Danish mind healer; it masked most of her symptoms. Prevented her from panicking when she was required to make appearances. She took it when my father visited. The Dark Lord had mostly kept my father in France and Belgium following his release. He assumed she was cold and distant because she blamed him for my taking the mark."

The memory shifted.

She and Draco were in bed together, his arms wrapped possessively around her as he rested his head on her chest.

"I'm going to take care of you. I swear, Hermione, I'm always going to take care of you."

"Tell me about your mother, Draco," she said as she traced her fingers across the runes on his back. "Tell me everything you could never tell anyone."

...

"I'd never seen anyone tortured before," he said without looking up at her. "She was—the first person I ever saw tortured. He—," Hermione felt his jaw roll as he hesitated, "—he experimented on her and let—a few other Death Eaters contribute ideas about what to do to her. To punish the Malfoys."

Lucius kept pushing, deeper and deeper into her mind. The memories started growing dimmer as though they were melting, breaking into pieces and fading away.

The screaming kept going. On and on.

Hermione felt herself slipping away.

Everything shook, and the weight of Lucius' mind inside hers suddenly vanished. There was pricking sensation in her arms and right leg

She sat slumped against the cage, gasping as she forced herself to stay conscious. The room swam slowly into view. The air was thick and hazy with dust and smoke.

Lucius was gone. Hermione looked down at herself in confusion. There were small splinters of debris buried in her arms. A sharp, tinny ringing filled her ears and wouldn't seem to stop. She squinted and coughed when she tried to breathe.

She tried to get up but the room wobbled and turned red as she leaned forward. She sank back, a choked sob formed in her throat while she struggled to think.

She needed to...

What was it?

Needed...

The drawing room.

She needed to get out of the drawing room. Get to the door. Get to the door.

Where was the door?

She glanced around in bewildered. There were flashes of light that she couldn't make out clearly. The wall where the door should have been was gone. There was a cavernous hole in its place, as though the wall had been torn apart.

She had to get through it before Lucius came back. She tried to push herself shakily up. Her head throbbed so painfully the room wavered, and she nearly fainted. Her leg wouldn't move. She looked down and realised there was a piece of wood buried in her calf.

The room was distorting in her vision. There was noise, but she couldn't make it out through the ringing. Lights kept flashing. She blinked and tried to look up to see what it was, but everything rippled and got darker. She slumped back.

She'd get up in a moment.

She just needed to catch her breath. If her head cleared a bit, it would be easier to move.

She reached up and touched her face with trembling hands. Her fingers came away red with blood...

The bars behind her shook abruptly and roused her.

Hands took her by the shoulders and pulled her up from the place she'd been resting.

Blond.

She tried to pull herself away. "Please—don't— Don't—"

She was laid on her back and pale skin and hair filled her vision.

"God—Hermione—I'm so sorry. Hold on. You have to hold on."

The voice was elongated and distorted.

She squinted. "Draco?"

He was so pale she thought he might be a ghost.

"You came..." she reached out and touched him. He was really there. "I guess you always do—"

He was leaning over her, rapidly muttering healing spells.

"I'm sorry. I can't give you pain relief," he said. His voice was shaking. "Hold on for me. You're safe now. I'll get you out of here. I'm so—sorry."

She felt him pull the splinter of wood out of her leg. The pain tore through like fire, and she gave a ragged scream.

The unexpected additional agony cleared her mind, cutting through the dazed pain. Lucius had kidnapped her and forced his way into her mind. She gave a sharp gasp, and her chest started spasming.

"Oh god. Oh god. Oh god, Draco. He used legilimency and portkey. Is the baby alright? Did he hurt her?"

Draco was casting several spells on her injured hand, and she closed her fingers over his wand and shoved it down towards her stomach.

"Check on the baby," she said, her voice shaking. "I think he might have hurt her."

She couldn't breathe as Draco hesitated and then cast the spell. The brilliant golden light filled the room as the orb appeared, still steadily fluttering.

Hermione stared at it for several seconds before bursting into tears. She forced herself to sit up. The room began swimming but she forced herself to focus, gripping Draco's shirt tightly and looking into his eyes.

"He knows—I'm sorry. Your father knows. I told him what happened to your mother." She had to lean close in order to make out the details of his face.

Draco froze and blinked.

"It's alright. It doesn't matter," he said after a moment. His hair brushed against her hair and he kissed her forehead. He slid a hand behind her waist and under her legs and picked her up. "I'll take you back to your room and finish healing you. Then I'll deal with everything here."

He stood. She could feel that he was shaking. He was so pale; he might be bleeding somewhere. She wasn't sure. She looked dazedly around the room. The floor was covered in rubble, and the entire wall where the door had been was gone.

Lucius was slumped down in the cage in the centre of the room. His wrists were shackled to bars on opposite sides of the cage.

To prevent him from touching his Dark Mark.

There was blood pooling on the floor from a wound in his side.

Draco noticed what she was staring at. "It was the quickest way to deal with him."

Lucius stirred and his head tilted back as he stared at Draco and Hermione. His hair had fallen over his face, but his eyes were glittering with rage.

"Why didn't you tell me what happened to your mother?" he asked, his voice a long snarl.

Hermione felt Draco's fingers twitch against her spine. He released a low breath. "What would you have done that wouldn't have killed her sooner?"

Lucius shifted, the metal shackles clanking against the bars. He jerked his head so he could see more clearly. "You should have told me. She was mine!"

Draco stared coldly at his father. "Yes. She was. And you saw to it that everyone knew it, didn't you? Even the Dark Lord. You never let her go. Not when she begged to run after my fourth year. You loved her right into her grave."

Lucius paled through the blood obscuring his face.

Draco gave a bitter laugh. "It always baffled me that you believed the Dark Lord would have used me to punish you when he had her. I suppose you never were as creative as the Dark Lord."

Lucius said nothing for several moments, then he cocked his head to the side. "What are you doing now? The Mudblood spread her legs to comfort you and so you imagine yourself saving her instead?"

Draco said nothing.

Lucius leaned forward. "You won't survive it. If she escapes, the Dark Lord will hold you responsible."

Draco snorted. "I don't imagine there are many circumstances in which I survive the next several months even if she stays."

Lucius' eyes narrowed. "You knew."

Draco nodded with a cold smirk. "Information is my specialty, Father."

He was outwardly calm, but Hermione could feel his entire body shaking.

Lucius shifted forward and studied Draco as if he were reevaluating him. His eyes were burning. "And what do you intend to do with me?"

"What do you think? You snapped and nearly compromised my assignment. In the process of recovering the Mudblood, I had to kill you. I have memories to corroborate it."

Lucius nodded, seemingly unsurprised. "I want to see Narcissa."

Draco hesitated and then nodded. "I imagine she'll speak to you now. I'll have the elves bring her portrait. You have until I return."

Lucius was silent.

Draco turned towards the door. Hermione rested her forehead against his shoulder as he picked his way through the rubble. Her head lolled back.

"Just a little longer, Granger. Stay conscious for me."

There was another sharp pain in her lower abdomen and she gripped his robes.

They were nearly out of the drawing room when Lucius spoke again.

"What would you do if I offered to save you, Draco?"

Draco barely reacted, he continued walking away without response. Hermione lifted her head and looked over his shoulder at Lucius.

His head was tilted back as he stared across the room at her, his eyes glittering.

"Phoenix tears, isn't it?" His lips parted in a rictus, revealing his bloodstained teeth. "How many do you need?"