Unbidden Love Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen: The Truth From Within

Hermione realized too late that she had fallen asleep in her wet clothes. It was late evening when she awoke, shivering fiercely like she had only just been saved from the creek. Her jeans and shirt were uncomfortably damp, and her eyes automatically scanned her surroundings for a change of clothes.

“Here. Try these.”

A dark pair of flannel trousers and a plain cotton shirt were thrown at her from another direction. Catching the warm clothes, she peered up to find Draco staring deeply into the flames of a newly kindled fire. He did not glance at her again, so Hermione didn’t feel the urge to ask him any questions.

Once certain that she was hidden in shadow, she quickly changed. The soft fabric was heaven against her cold skin and, once she had hung her old clothes outside to dry, she crept up to the fire.

The silence was long but, Hermione noticed, not uncomfortable. They both were too absorbed in their own ponderings to take notice of the other. Hermione watched the fire light flicker in Draco’s eyes, the eyes that did not seem to blink.

It was only after a few minutes, when Hermione had properly warmed up, that she remembered what had caused her to need new clothes in the first place. She relived that moment as if it had only just occurred: Draco, soaked through, standing above her with terror in his eyes. How her body had failed her, and he had taken her into his arms without being asked to. How he had reminded her of Ron in the gentle way that he cradled her and the compassion that had exuded from him.

Suddenly, the silence became unbearable. She needed to fill it with all the questions she longed to ask, and she needed to hear the answers that had been withheld…

But just as she opened her mouth, Draco murmured, “I have to go back to my parents tonight.”

Her jaw couldn’t close. She stared at him, unable to comprehend, until he finally looked at her directly.

“This was not supposed to be a long trip, Hermione.” He sounded apathetic, but Hermione studied him closer and saw that his hands were shaking. “I was supposed to be ‘done with it’ quickly, as my parents told me. They’ve been treating this whole mess like it’s a simple test of skill – easily solved, easily conjured. They don’t understand what it’s like here…”

Hermione, feeling her own body shake, sat herself down on the filthy floor. Folding her hands in her lap, she struggled to remain composed.

“What is it like here, Draco?”

Her soft voice must have hit a soft spot inside him. For yes, Hermione knew he did have soft spots. He wasn’t a cold, unfeeling soul like Voldemort had been or even Lucius. He was human, just like her. Just like Harry.

Just like Ron.

Draco pressed his lips together as if holding back a sob. His entire body became tense until he could no longer hold back his emotions. They spilled out into his words until Hermione clearly understood how much agony he was experiencing.

“It’s unbearable,” he whispered. “Simply unbearable.”

Hermione held her breath, longing to find the right response to this. She was torn inside, aching to help him but also questioning why she wanted to. Her thoughts and sensations were so broad that she couldn’t sort through them. The good and the bad were all mixed together like a boiling potion. And one small tug on that potion was going to be the end of her sanity…

But Draco’s potion tipped first. He saw the torn look on her face, the concern mixed with hesitation. For some reason, this set him off. Rising swiftly, he stumbled toward the wooden table and fell against it, his hands gripping the edge so fiercely his knuckles turned white.

“Damn it, Hermione! Why have you done this to me?”

She inhaled sharply, stung by this unexpected comment. “What have I done? You’re the one who…”

“You can never understand!” Draco cried, his voice rising in a tide of fury. Even in the dimness of the cabin, Hermione could see how sickly pale his face was. He was not seeing her, or even listening to her. He was far away, suffering under something Hermione did not see.

“You can never understand!” he screamed again, his hands shaking so fiercely he could not keep them still. Then the demons in his mind increased, sending him reeling over the edge of insanity. One moment he was clutching the table with a death grip, the next he had grabbed it with amazing strength and toppled it over.

Hermione screamed as the table created a shuddering boom, sending clouds of dust into the air. She coughed harshly and rose as quickly as her body allowed.

“Draco, stop!”

“What am I to do with you?!” he cried, pointing a finger at her in accusation. “How am I ever to survive this? I am being attacked from all sides! There is no way out!” His chest was heaving, his eyes wide and fierce. In the dark cabin, with the shadows of the fire flickering off him, he looked truly terrifying. Hermione’s feet were frozen to the ground, leaving her unable to move or even breathe. She was surprised that the pounding of her heart was not reverberating around the room.

“I cannot stay here any longer.” Draco’s gaze zoomed around the room, scouring every item in it. Hermione could almost see his mind working, darting through thought after thought like a film reel at high speed. “I have to go to my parents. I have to finish it. This has to end in one way or another.”

Hermione found her voice again as Draco shakily headed toward the door. “Draco, please! Stop scaring me like this! What has happened to you? Why are you acting like…like…”

Tears halted her words; unexpected tears that flowed swiftly. She hadn’t realized how terrified he had made her until he was leaving.

Her words, however hoarse and soft they had been, seemed to have brought Draco back to the cabin…back to reality.

He lost all tension in his body and now seemed weak, depleted. He studied the overturned table and then her cowering body, and his eyes held such grief that she almost wept for him.

“I’m sorry, Hermione. Please forgive me.”

The words were uttered so carefully, so slowly that she almost didn’t catch them. By the time she had fully taken them in, he was gone. He had left her completely alone.

Her fate was out of his hands.

*

“Hermione. Hermione.”

She heard someone sobbing in the distance, and the sound aroused pity within her. The cries were weak, like the person had run out of strength to scream. There was such heartache in those tears that Hermione vaguely wondered what had happened to devastate a person in that way.

“Hermione! Please…”

Large, warm hands carefully cradled her face and lifted her head up. Someone with vibrant ginger hair was kneeling in front of her, but it was difficult to make out the face. Her vision was clouded with large, wet tears, and she hastily rubbed her sleeve across her eyes.

Her face, she found, was soaked with salty tears. The distant cries she had heard must have been her own.

“Hermione.”

The voice was so compassionate and tender that the tears renewed themselves instantly. But before her vision became hazy again, she recognized her boyfriend’s freckled face.

“Ron…” she whispered, her voice a mere fragment of sound.

She remained frozen, her arms clutched around her legs. Her body was so stiff that she vaguely wondered if she’d ever be able to move again. How long had she been on the floor? An hour? Two hours?

Ron’s face softened and he carefully lifted her off the floor and into his arms. Hermione experienced an almost alarming sense of déjà vu. She had been carried like this not so long ago, but the sensation had been much different. Then, she had lain against his chest longingly, enjoying the familiar scent of his skin. She had fallen asleep there, nestled against him like a child. She had never felt so protected or secure in a very long time.

But in Ron’s arms it was different. Strikingly different. It wasn’t uncomfortable, per say, but it was…foreign. Awkward. She couldn’t fall asleep here, it felt too strange. She didn’t feel protected or even safe. And she knew she should. It was Ron, for God’s sake!

“Hermione, what’s wrong?”

Ron’s alarmed voice brought her wet eyes up to his. She had started sobbing harder and hadn’t realized it. His wide blue eyes stared down at her with fear, but she couldn’t speak. She shook her head hard, letting her hair whip against her wet cheeks.

“God, what has he done to you? That son of a bitch will pay! Once I get my hands on him…”

“Ron, hurry up! What if he comes back?” Harry’s voice traveled to her from a distance.

“Let him come back!” Hermione had never heard such fervor in Ron’s voice before. He spit out the words like poison in his mouth. “Let him come so I can deal with him personally! This has to end, Harry. I will not let him destroy my girlfriend like this!”

No, it’s all wrong! Hermione shouted in her mind. She longed to cry the words out loud, but her chest wouldn’t stop heaving, her eyes wouldn’t dry. The truth was finally being revealed to her and it scared her. They don’t know what happened here. They don’t know who he really is…

“Quick, Ron! I don’t…”

A rumble like an oncoming freight train cut out Harry’s words in mid-sentence. Ron froze with Hermione still in his arms, struck dumb at the sudden noise.

They hardly had a second to think before an earth-shattering boom thundered into the cabin and took out half of one wall. Chaos erupted as Ron tumbled with her to the ground, protecting her body with his own as part of the roof caved in. Hermione screamed against his chest as another jolt shook every inch of the cabin.

“Ron! Get out!”

It took several terrifying seconds before Ron could respond to Harry’s cry. His body was almost completely immobilized with shock, and Hermione could do nothing but stay in his arms as he clutched her fiercely against him. At last, reason entered his mind and he dragged himself up from the floor. The air was thick with dust and grime, causing both of them to choke. Hermione could not see a few feet in front of her, so she was amazed that Ron did not run into any walls as he carried her out of the wreckage and into broad daylight.

What greeted them outside froze Ron to the spot. Hermione could feel his heart jump in his chest as he looked out and met the eyes of five black-cloaked Neo-Death Eaters.

“What a pity, Weasley,” laughed the one closest to the trio. “It would’ve been far easier if you’d just left the Mudblood inside. That way a third of our job would be done with. Now I regret we must finish off all three of you at once. How ‘bout we start with Potter…I’ve been longing to get my hands around his throat since he was born.”

The last thing Hermione clearly remembered was Harry crying a spell at a Death Eater before her world became a dizzy whirl of smoke, colourful spells, and screams.

*

Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy had been eagerly anticipating their only child since early evening. Their wine glasses had been refilled by the maid a handful of times until the alcohol made them quite unstable. Narcissa had to physically remove the wine from her husband’s powerful grip, for Lucius had been absentmindedly draining his drink out of maddening impatience.

At last, neither one could hold it back any longer.

“Once I get my hands on that boy, he’ll never leave the Manor again!” Lucius spat wildly, flinging his wand about like a sword. Green sparks erupted out of the end, almost grazing Narcissa’s shoulder. “I knew he was too incompetent to finish the job. I knew he was too weak in both body and mind to kill the Mudblood. You remember what happened in his sixth year? How the Dark Lord honoured him with the most important task in our family’s history and what did he do?! Nothing but weep and sputter at Dumbledore’s feet like a five-year-old Muggle girl…”

“Lucius, this is no time to bring up Draco’s many failures!” Narcissa hissed. “If we want our son to obey this once, we have to build up his courage with words of advice. If you hurt him either physically or mentally tonight like you’ve done in the past, he’ll return to that Mudblood even weaker than he left her.”

Lucius groaned and collapsed into his armchair. He glared into the flames of the brilliant fire with such wrath that Narcissa inadvertently stepped back.

The silence was thick and almost sparking with tension when the doors to Lucius’ study burst open and there in the doorway stood their son. His parents both turned and directed powerful gazes at his figure, but Draco only stood up straighter and stepped slowly into their presence.

“Father. Mother.” Draco’s curt nods and overly polite tone spoke his temper like nothing else. Something that night had tested his patience already, and – from the red surrounding his eyes and the whiteness of his face – he was emotionally unstable. But he still stood in front of them, faking strength and confidence so well that it even silenced Lucius for a moment.

“What happened to you, Son?” Lucius’ tone lowered in a strange resemblance to awe. “Did you…accomplish the task?”

Draco chuckled darkly. “No, Father. The Mudblood is still alive.”

“Then what happened?” Narcissa cut in. In normal circumstances, she would never attempt to overpower her husband in a conversation, but the oddness of the situation overcame her timidity. “You say she’s alive, but is she…injured? Unconscious, perhaps? On the verge of death?”

When Draco carefully turned his gaze upon her, she gasped inwardly at the emptiness of his eyes. It was as if a ghost were standing in front of her. Her son, the man she knew that could radiate pompousness and zealousness like no other Neo-Death Eater, was either smothered underneath a shadow or had departed.

Narcissa caught it earlier than Lucius, for her husband had never (she believed) seen a person suffering with a mental illness before. But Narcissa kept a dark secret to herself each day of her life. She knew what depression was, for she had suffered with it for days on end: endless days of misery and emptiness that could not be taken away by anything on Earth.

And now her son was the living image of that illness.

“I have failed, Mother.” Her son’s voice was deep and detached. “I have failed in yet another assignment you have trusted me with. I am sorry to have disappointed you both for the umpteenth time, but know that I have not forgotten the punishment for such severe failures. I’m sorry it had to end like this, but I am seemingly too weak to be your son. Destroy my name and memory from the family tree and all living records – I deserve it all. But please remember that through out my life I have done my utmost best to please you. I only wanted to make you proud of me, and I have failed even at that. Good-bye, Mother. Good-bye, Father. I’m sorry for everything.”

Both Narcissa and Lucius became numb as Draco bowed to both of them and gracefully spun on his heel and walked out of the room. They minds screamed at them to do something, but Draco’s words had affected their movements and it took a few minutes before Lucius found his voice.

“Draco! Draco, get back here!”

Draco did not turn back as he walked purposefully through the doors and down the hall.

“Draco!” Lucius hollered, his raging voice echoing off the stone walls like a cannon. For the first time, Narcissa caught panic in her husband’s voice. He was shaking from head to foot, blurting out anything that came to his mind. “Draco, you have not failed! The…Mudblood is probably dead as we speak! I have sent the Neo-Death Eaters to finish the job…”

Surprisingly, these were the words that halted Draco’s course. Draco froze for a few seconds until he spun back to face them. He was quite a distance from his parents now, but distance did not stop Lucius and Narcissa from observing his chest rising and falling rapidly. “What?” Draco gasped, fierce emotion returning to his voice.

Lucius stumbled over his words in obvious relief that something had halted his son’s steps. “Y..yes! Five of them are at the cabin as we speak. Yesterday, it was reported that Potter and Weasley tortured the cabin’s location out of Carrow, but they, too, shall die with her. There is hope yet, Son! Don’t be so bloody rash!”

Draco’s eyes widened with either shock or fear, and it took him but a heartbeat after his father’s words to spin on his heel and Disapparate in the middle of the corridor.