The Bracelet, Chapter 99/103
Title: The Bracelet
Author: AkashaTheKitty
Characters: Blaise Zabini, Draco Malfoy, Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Pansy Parkinson, Ron Weasley, Theodore Nott (whew)
Genres: Drama, Friendship, Hogwarts Years, Humor, Romance
Warnings: HBP Spoilers, although slightly incompatible.
Overall Rating: R
Summary: When Hermione Granger loses a bet she was sure she'd win to Draco Malfoy, it's the beginning of her own personal hell. And his.
Go here if you didn't read previous chapters.
Things only got crazier as the night progressed. Shortly after Draco had managed to press every single sore spot in and around Theo's wounds with a wet cloth and then a dry cloth and redress them, the Aurors arrived. Two of them very quietly began guarding the double doors leading in.
Less than an hour after that, a different Auror brought in the first student who apparently hadn't been lucky enough to be warned in time to make it completely to safety before he was attacked.
This was Draco's first big shock. The threat was real. Death Eaters were at the castle. Students were injured. He had a horrible flashback to the previous year where he had been so full of hubris and had allowed these very same madmen to roam the halls.
None of the Aurors cared to chat, and barely any of them spared him a glance, so he couldn't count on learning anything from any of them. Fifteen minutes after the first student had arrived, another student was brought in. Then another. It was a sporadic occurrence at best, but it was happening. And the injuries were ranging from superficial to very nasty-looking.
After an unconscious little girl-who to Draco looked way too young to even be attending Hogwarts-had been delivered with a big wound on her leg that had Madam Pomfrey muttering under her breath and crinkling her brow, Draco couldn't help but ask, "Wouldn't it be better to take the Healing to the fighting? Won't they just eventually come here anyway?"
He honestly didn't want to know the status on the leg.
"She will be fine," Madam Pomfrey said. "It's just a normal wound. She will limp from here, but the muscle can be regrown completely at St. Mungo's. It will hurt, but she'll recover."
Draco's gaze flickered. "What? That's not what I asked."
"Sure it was," Madam Pomfrey calmly said, "but if you insist: If the fight is over as quickly as I'm sure they hope, the Death Eaters won't need to pay attention to us until after, as we're all officially out of the battle and nobody brought here will be in a shape to rejoin the battle. If someone capable of fighting receives a minor injury, the Aurors have the training to deal with it on the spot. The Death Eaters will be preserving manpower and leaving tormenting us to last. In short: we're safer up here than down there. If the fight isn't over soon, we have an emergency escape route directly to St. Mungo's. We can't use it yet, though, because we can't risk them finding out about it before it's time and closing it off for anyone else."
"I can't just sit here!" Draco muttered. It was beginning to get to him. He couldn't-wouldn't-fight this battle and there was nowhere else for him to go. He couldn't even go to his blasted room. He wished it would all just be over and Hermione would be safe. He really didn't like how she liked to look for trouble. Didn't she have a care for how he felt? He was worried sick about her and if anything happened to her…. Nothing could happen to her. He simply didn't see how his world could remain if she were ripped from it.
In short: He was scared, and he didn't want to be!
"Then I suggest you do something," Pomfrey said, matter-of-factly, her voice seeping through his thoughts. "There are plenty of fresh bandages as well as disinfectant over there."
Bandages? "But I-"
"I am only one witch. The less time I have to spend on the insignificant scrapes, the more time I have to take care of the really ugly hexes and curses. You can either be 'useless' out there or useful in here."
She got up to check on a patient moaning at the other end of the room, and Draco miserably stared at the bandages.
He would never live this one down.
Theo was laughing. Or, rather, chuckling. Draco didn't think Theo knew how to outright laugh. Besides, this was annoying enough. Draco gritted his teeth and tried to ignore it.
"You're fine, stop blubbering now," he coldly told the faceless-he really didn't want to know who they all were-boy, who had been crying all through the treatment of his minor injuries. There was a lot of that going around. The children up here were scared and Draco wasn't exactly a nurturer.
Surprisingly enough, the boy seemed to take comfort in the harsh words.
That annoyed Draco even further.
"Aw, isn't that sweet?" Theo commented.
Draco threw a bloody washcloth at him and smiled with satisfaction when he noted Theo's disgusted widening of eyes and sneer.
Almost instantly, Draco got swatted on the back of his head for his troubles. "Stop that!" Pomfrey chided. "It's unhygienic. If he's troublesome, we'll put him to sleep."
Draco instantly brightened. "Oh, may I?"
"No. But if you're good, I'll let you poke his wounds again."
Draco beamed at the elderly nurse. She had a sense of humor! Who knew! She also seemed to have softened towards him as he had reluctantly begun helping out, but the worry-lines around her eyes were a clear indicator that her mind wasn't anywhere near him or Theo. It was most likely on all those people that might be bleeding somewhere downstairs.
All those people that might be dead.
Children that might be dead.
The Aurors that came up rarely stayed long enough to give them any kind of intelligence, but Draco had noticed one, to his mind, very significant thing.
Mostly smaller victims were brought here. The ones that could easily be carried by a strong person at a sprint while only one or two other Aurors guarded his back. Or possibly they were just the ones too young to be able to defend themselves fast enough and efficiently enough not to get hurt in the first place. It couldn't really be that any injured Auror or wannabe-hero would be able to get the treatment they needed on the spot, could it?
He wondered whether Hermione would be brought up if she were badly hurt.
He hoped so.
He refused to believe that she could die.
If he told himself this often enough, he might even be convinced.
Even Theo had gone quiet. Pansy had fallen asleep. Draco was staring down at his hands. He couldn't really see them; it was too dark. Madam Pomfrey had insisted that those who could should rest, and all lights had been extinguished for now. It had been at least an hour since the last student had been brought in, and Draco should probably get some sleep too. But how could he sleep when he didn't know what was happening?
She could be hurt.
Bleeding.
Dying.
He'd seen a fair amount of blood tonight. He'd even attempted to do some actual healing on a couple of wounds. It had gone all right. He suspected that Pomfrey would have a fit if she knew about it, though. Things had just been so hectic at one point….
Two students had died.
They were still here. There really wasn't anywhere else to put them, he supposed, but he didn't like that they were still here. Just lying there under thin, white sheets. Unmoving. Unbreathing.
He tried not to look at the beds. At the too-still forms under the linen. They had been put in the far corner of the room, but they were still there, their silent presences screaming at Draco.
Madam Pomfrey had cried. Not in front of anyone and not while there was work to do, but he'd seen the red and puffy eyes after she'd been to the storage area for a few minutes.
If two students had died up here, then how many more…?
Draco felt queasy. The war had always been this shadow looming on the horizon, and last year it had been close, but this… this was intolerable. He didn't think whoever invented war had ever looked a twelve-year-old girl named Olivia in the eyes and told her everything would be ok just minutes before some remnant of a curse finally finished her off.
Or maybe they didn't give a shit. You-Know-Who himself certainly had no mercy.
Draco knew he shouldn't have looked at their faces.
"It's ok to feel it, you know," Theo quietly said from his bed.
Draco snorted. "That's rich, coming from you. When was the last time you felt anything?"
Theo was quiet long enough that Draco thought he might not answer. "I'm still human," he finally said.
"I'm sorry," Draco muttered, not entirely convinced of the fact, but not feeling like bickering. It didn't matter, anyway. There were two corpses in the room. Those two had had parents. Siblings. Maybe pets. But none of that mattered, because now they were dead.
Theo was quiet again. "It's fine," he finally said with a sigh. "You're not the first to assume I don't have feelings. In fact, most people do."
Draco shrugged and then realized nobody could see anyway. "It might help if you didn't hide it so well."
There was a faint rustle, as if Theo shrugged too. "It doesn't really matter, does it? I have no friends, no family to speak of, and the one girl I wanted seems to be afraid of me. Do you know how that feels?"
"Yes."
Theo laughed again, that distinct chuckle, but it was very much without humor. "I forgot. The difference is, you insisted on making it so, even though we all tried to warn and stop you. Me… I'm just frightening because I'm me. Because I creep people out."
"You didn't creep Hermione out."
"No. She was attracted to me. Some of them are, but mostly for the wrong reasons. She didn't think like that, though. She liked me. Too bad she likes whiny brats more."
Draco chose not to comment on that last bit. "So, it's true, then? You're a Legilimens?" This was something that Draco had suspected for a long, long time, but never could get a straight answer on. He would be very surprised if he were the only one suspecting it, though, because Theo always knew way too much about everything.
Again a painfully long pause. Then, "No. Yes. Maybe. I think it's a little different. It was my manifestation of magic before Hogwarts. I just learned to control it. I had to, or my father would probably have killed me himself. Especially after I learned that he probably killed my mother."
Draco was nodding, before he remembered that Theo couldn't see. "Stanwood didn't tell you they were attacking, did she?" he then quietly asked.
Theo didn't seem very enthusiastic to reply. "No," he finally said. "She was uncharacteristically quiet tonight, but I admit that I didn't give it any thought. I just enjoyed the silence. Then, by chance, I looked into her eyes a second before she stabbed me and that was how I knew her intentions and saved my own life by putting up my hand."
"You could have told us you knew the Death Eater threat was real."
"I could. But then Hermione would have questioned how and why, and there would have been a big to-do about it. I prefer that no one else knows."
"Yeah, I'm sure the Ministry really won't like it if they find out what you can do. I'm sure they'd be uncomfortable having an unaccounted for Legilimens-or whatever you are-out and reading everyone's mind all the time."
"Oh, they won't find out," Theo very calmly said. "Because if you tell anyone, I will tell Hermione what keeps screaming at me from your head."
"What? That I'm in love with her? I've been trying to let her know, you know."
"No, that you try to tell yourself that you're sure about wanting this, but you're not. You write your mother for her blessing, but you're unwilling to mention the possibility of marriage. You get Hermione alone, and rather than telling her how you feel, you stall and try to get her to admit to any scrap of feeling. She could come barging in here and declare her undying devotion, but you'd still want to keep your distance. You're still scared of truly acknowledging your feelings and committing to her."
Draco closed his eyes, for all the difference it made. "Hey, don't blame me for being cautious," he muttered. "We might not be good together as a couple. We might not work out."
Theo snorted. It was a very un-Theo sound. "It's the same for every single relationship, Draco; yours wouldn't be different. But Hermione isn't going to stand for it. If you don't commit to something, you're going to lose her before you have her. And I promise you that I'll be there to pick up the pieces, and you won't be getting them back."
"Thanks."
"You're very welcome."
Draco frowned to himself. "I can't figure out whether your advice is ever to help me or whether you're just trying to manipulate me into to making an arse of myself so you can get your shot."
"A little bit of both. Except, I'm never trying to help you. I'm trying to give her what she wants. I'm sick of this thing being unresolved, leaving no room for anyone else to act in."
Draco tried to process that. "You tend to read her mind?"
"No. Her thoughts are a very fast babble and give me a headache even without them being about you. Also, getting eye contact with her for even a second can be difficult when she feels she has something to hide. But she slept with you, did she not?"
"Yeah, but that doesn't always mean-"
"No, it doesn't. But why else would she sleep with you? She couldn't trust you not to humiliate and ridicule her. She couldn't be sure of your feelings towards her. She probably didn't even realize just how much of your free time was spent thinking about getting into her knickers."
"Hey!" Draco felt his cheeks heat up. He had not thought about it that much!
"You really need a hobby, you know."
Draco scowled. "I resent that you dig around in my brain."
"Not much to dig in, if you ask me."
"I really dislike you."
"Yes. I'm not too fond of you either."
There was a pause.
"Thanks," Draco then said, figuring that, after all, Theo had in some roundabout way just tried to reassure him with regard to Hermione.
"Don't mention it. And by that, I do mean shut up."
Draco smiled. It was a vague smile, but it was there-for all of two seconds, until he looked up and noticed the very vague outline of Olivia's form under the white sheet again.
The battle was not over.
Author: AkashaTheKitty
Characters: Blaise Zabini, Draco Malfoy, Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Pansy Parkinson, Ron Weasley, Theodore Nott (whew)
Genres: Drama, Friendship, Hogwarts Years, Humor, Romance
Warnings: HBP Spoilers, although slightly incompatible.
Overall Rating: R
Summary: When Hermione Granger loses a bet she was sure she'd win to Draco Malfoy, it's the beginning of her own personal hell. And his.
Go here if you didn't read previous chapters.
Things only got crazier as the night progressed. Shortly after Draco had managed to press every single sore spot in and around Theo's wounds with a wet cloth and then a dry cloth and redress them, the Aurors arrived. Two of them very quietly began guarding the double doors leading in.
Less than an hour after that, a different Auror brought in the first student who apparently hadn't been lucky enough to be warned in time to make it completely to safety before he was attacked.
This was Draco's first big shock. The threat was real. Death Eaters were at the castle. Students were injured. He had a horrible flashback to the previous year where he had been so full of hubris and had allowed these very same madmen to roam the halls.
None of the Aurors cared to chat, and barely any of them spared him a glance, so he couldn't count on learning anything from any of them. Fifteen minutes after the first student had arrived, another student was brought in. Then another. It was a sporadic occurrence at best, but it was happening. And the injuries were ranging from superficial to very nasty-looking.
After an unconscious little girl-who to Draco looked way too young to even be attending Hogwarts-had been delivered with a big wound on her leg that had Madam Pomfrey muttering under her breath and crinkling her brow, Draco couldn't help but ask, "Wouldn't it be better to take the Healing to the fighting? Won't they just eventually come here anyway?"
He honestly didn't want to know the status on the leg.
"She will be fine," Madam Pomfrey said. "It's just a normal wound. She will limp from here, but the muscle can be regrown completely at St. Mungo's. It will hurt, but she'll recover."
Draco's gaze flickered. "What? That's not what I asked."
"Sure it was," Madam Pomfrey calmly said, "but if you insist: If the fight is over as quickly as I'm sure they hope, the Death Eaters won't need to pay attention to us until after, as we're all officially out of the battle and nobody brought here will be in a shape to rejoin the battle. If someone capable of fighting receives a minor injury, the Aurors have the training to deal with it on the spot. The Death Eaters will be preserving manpower and leaving tormenting us to last. In short: we're safer up here than down there. If the fight isn't over soon, we have an emergency escape route directly to St. Mungo's. We can't use it yet, though, because we can't risk them finding out about it before it's time and closing it off for anyone else."
"I can't just sit here!" Draco muttered. It was beginning to get to him. He couldn't-wouldn't-fight this battle and there was nowhere else for him to go. He couldn't even go to his blasted room. He wished it would all just be over and Hermione would be safe. He really didn't like how she liked to look for trouble. Didn't she have a care for how he felt? He was worried sick about her and if anything happened to her…. Nothing could happen to her. He simply didn't see how his world could remain if she were ripped from it.
In short: He was scared, and he didn't want to be!
"Then I suggest you do something," Pomfrey said, matter-of-factly, her voice seeping through his thoughts. "There are plenty of fresh bandages as well as disinfectant over there."
Bandages? "But I-"
"I am only one witch. The less time I have to spend on the insignificant scrapes, the more time I have to take care of the really ugly hexes and curses. You can either be 'useless' out there or useful in here."
She got up to check on a patient moaning at the other end of the room, and Draco miserably stared at the bandages.
He would never live this one down.
Theo was laughing. Or, rather, chuckling. Draco didn't think Theo knew how to outright laugh. Besides, this was annoying enough. Draco gritted his teeth and tried to ignore it.
"You're fine, stop blubbering now," he coldly told the faceless-he really didn't want to know who they all were-boy, who had been crying all through the treatment of his minor injuries. There was a lot of that going around. The children up here were scared and Draco wasn't exactly a nurturer.
Surprisingly enough, the boy seemed to take comfort in the harsh words.
That annoyed Draco even further.
"Aw, isn't that sweet?" Theo commented.
Draco threw a bloody washcloth at him and smiled with satisfaction when he noted Theo's disgusted widening of eyes and sneer.
Almost instantly, Draco got swatted on the back of his head for his troubles. "Stop that!" Pomfrey chided. "It's unhygienic. If he's troublesome, we'll put him to sleep."
Draco instantly brightened. "Oh, may I?"
"No. But if you're good, I'll let you poke his wounds again."
Draco beamed at the elderly nurse. She had a sense of humor! Who knew! She also seemed to have softened towards him as he had reluctantly begun helping out, but the worry-lines around her eyes were a clear indicator that her mind wasn't anywhere near him or Theo. It was most likely on all those people that might be bleeding somewhere downstairs.
All those people that might be dead.
Children that might be dead.
The Aurors that came up rarely stayed long enough to give them any kind of intelligence, but Draco had noticed one, to his mind, very significant thing.
Mostly smaller victims were brought here. The ones that could easily be carried by a strong person at a sprint while only one or two other Aurors guarded his back. Or possibly they were just the ones too young to be able to defend themselves fast enough and efficiently enough not to get hurt in the first place. It couldn't really be that any injured Auror or wannabe-hero would be able to get the treatment they needed on the spot, could it?
He wondered whether Hermione would be brought up if she were badly hurt.
He hoped so.
He refused to believe that she could die.
If he told himself this often enough, he might even be convinced.
Even Theo had gone quiet. Pansy had fallen asleep. Draco was staring down at his hands. He couldn't really see them; it was too dark. Madam Pomfrey had insisted that those who could should rest, and all lights had been extinguished for now. It had been at least an hour since the last student had been brought in, and Draco should probably get some sleep too. But how could he sleep when he didn't know what was happening?
She could be hurt.
Bleeding.
Dying.
He'd seen a fair amount of blood tonight. He'd even attempted to do some actual healing on a couple of wounds. It had gone all right. He suspected that Pomfrey would have a fit if she knew about it, though. Things had just been so hectic at one point….
Two students had died.
They were still here. There really wasn't anywhere else to put them, he supposed, but he didn't like that they were still here. Just lying there under thin, white sheets. Unmoving. Unbreathing.
He tried not to look at the beds. At the too-still forms under the linen. They had been put in the far corner of the room, but they were still there, their silent presences screaming at Draco.
Madam Pomfrey had cried. Not in front of anyone and not while there was work to do, but he'd seen the red and puffy eyes after she'd been to the storage area for a few minutes.
If two students had died up here, then how many more…?
Draco felt queasy. The war had always been this shadow looming on the horizon, and last year it had been close, but this… this was intolerable. He didn't think whoever invented war had ever looked a twelve-year-old girl named Olivia in the eyes and told her everything would be ok just minutes before some remnant of a curse finally finished her off.
Or maybe they didn't give a shit. You-Know-Who himself certainly had no mercy.
Draco knew he shouldn't have looked at their faces.
"It's ok to feel it, you know," Theo quietly said from his bed.
Draco snorted. "That's rich, coming from you. When was the last time you felt anything?"
Theo was quiet long enough that Draco thought he might not answer. "I'm still human," he finally said.
"I'm sorry," Draco muttered, not entirely convinced of the fact, but not feeling like bickering. It didn't matter, anyway. There were two corpses in the room. Those two had had parents. Siblings. Maybe pets. But none of that mattered, because now they were dead.
Theo was quiet again. "It's fine," he finally said with a sigh. "You're not the first to assume I don't have feelings. In fact, most people do."
Draco shrugged and then realized nobody could see anyway. "It might help if you didn't hide it so well."
There was a faint rustle, as if Theo shrugged too. "It doesn't really matter, does it? I have no friends, no family to speak of, and the one girl I wanted seems to be afraid of me. Do you know how that feels?"
"Yes."
Theo laughed again, that distinct chuckle, but it was very much without humor. "I forgot. The difference is, you insisted on making it so, even though we all tried to warn and stop you. Me… I'm just frightening because I'm me. Because I creep people out."
"You didn't creep Hermione out."
"No. She was attracted to me. Some of them are, but mostly for the wrong reasons. She didn't think like that, though. She liked me. Too bad she likes whiny brats more."
Draco chose not to comment on that last bit. "So, it's true, then? You're a Legilimens?" This was something that Draco had suspected for a long, long time, but never could get a straight answer on. He would be very surprised if he were the only one suspecting it, though, because Theo always knew way too much about everything.
Again a painfully long pause. Then, "No. Yes. Maybe. I think it's a little different. It was my manifestation of magic before Hogwarts. I just learned to control it. I had to, or my father would probably have killed me himself. Especially after I learned that he probably killed my mother."
Draco was nodding, before he remembered that Theo couldn't see. "Stanwood didn't tell you they were attacking, did she?" he then quietly asked.
Theo didn't seem very enthusiastic to reply. "No," he finally said. "She was uncharacteristically quiet tonight, but I admit that I didn't give it any thought. I just enjoyed the silence. Then, by chance, I looked into her eyes a second before she stabbed me and that was how I knew her intentions and saved my own life by putting up my hand."
"You could have told us you knew the Death Eater threat was real."
"I could. But then Hermione would have questioned how and why, and there would have been a big to-do about it. I prefer that no one else knows."
"Yeah, I'm sure the Ministry really won't like it if they find out what you can do. I'm sure they'd be uncomfortable having an unaccounted for Legilimens-or whatever you are-out and reading everyone's mind all the time."
"Oh, they won't find out," Theo very calmly said. "Because if you tell anyone, I will tell Hermione what keeps screaming at me from your head."
"What? That I'm in love with her? I've been trying to let her know, you know."
"No, that you try to tell yourself that you're sure about wanting this, but you're not. You write your mother for her blessing, but you're unwilling to mention the possibility of marriage. You get Hermione alone, and rather than telling her how you feel, you stall and try to get her to admit to any scrap of feeling. She could come barging in here and declare her undying devotion, but you'd still want to keep your distance. You're still scared of truly acknowledging your feelings and committing to her."
Draco closed his eyes, for all the difference it made. "Hey, don't blame me for being cautious," he muttered. "We might not be good together as a couple. We might not work out."
Theo snorted. It was a very un-Theo sound. "It's the same for every single relationship, Draco; yours wouldn't be different. But Hermione isn't going to stand for it. If you don't commit to something, you're going to lose her before you have her. And I promise you that I'll be there to pick up the pieces, and you won't be getting them back."
"Thanks."
"You're very welcome."
Draco frowned to himself. "I can't figure out whether your advice is ever to help me or whether you're just trying to manipulate me into to making an arse of myself so you can get your shot."
"A little bit of both. Except, I'm never trying to help you. I'm trying to give her what she wants. I'm sick of this thing being unresolved, leaving no room for anyone else to act in."
Draco tried to process that. "You tend to read her mind?"
"No. Her thoughts are a very fast babble and give me a headache even without them being about you. Also, getting eye contact with her for even a second can be difficult when she feels she has something to hide. But she slept with you, did she not?"
"Yeah, but that doesn't always mean-"
"No, it doesn't. But why else would she sleep with you? She couldn't trust you not to humiliate and ridicule her. She couldn't be sure of your feelings towards her. She probably didn't even realize just how much of your free time was spent thinking about getting into her knickers."
"Hey!" Draco felt his cheeks heat up. He had not thought about it that much!
"You really need a hobby, you know."
Draco scowled. "I resent that you dig around in my brain."
"Not much to dig in, if you ask me."
"I really dislike you."
"Yes. I'm not too fond of you either."
There was a pause.
"Thanks," Draco then said, figuring that, after all, Theo had in some roundabout way just tried to reassure him with regard to Hermione.
"Don't mention it. And by that, I do mean shut up."
Draco smiled. It was a vague smile, but it was there-for all of two seconds, until he looked up and noticed the very vague outline of Olivia's form under the white sheet again.
The battle was not over.