Unbidden Love Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty: Deception

Hermione swatted away the fly buzzing close to her ear, but the insect hadn’t been the first to wake her. In fact, she had hardly slept an hour before her mind jolted her awake. Ghostly images passed through her mind – dozens of shapes with barely recognizable faces jumbled together in an array of sparks and bangs. She thought she saw Draco’s pale, tense face among the dark figures of her enemies.

Her enemies. She winced and rested back against her pillow. How could she keep up with Draco’s perplexing games (was there a better word?) after he had convinced her he wasn’t on his father’s side? Should she be worried about what went through his head? The secrets he kept; the cons he created?

A bellowing snore echoed through the tiny Ministry room, and Hermione frowned with irritation. Ron’s mouth opened in another wheeze, and she threw her pillow at his head. He reached up instinctively to thrust the fabric from his face, and he blinked in confusion before settling back into slumber.

Obviously I’m the only one anxious enough to be kept awake, Hermione thought with a sigh. Ron especially doesn’t care what happens to Draco as long as Draco stays far from him.

The images returned to her mind but with a different outcome: a blast from someone’s wand flew into Draco’s chest and sent him falling to the ground. He remained immobile as a dark cloaked figure approached him and, thrusting a foot into his chest, flashed a bright green light into his terrified face…

“No!” She flew upright, clutching her sleeping bag to her chest. Her eyes widened in the gloom, her vision slowly adjusting until she could make out Harry sleeping close to the door and the red embers from the dying fire.

Her hands fumbled around the center table until they tightened around a wand. She fingered it and, once confirming it was hers, stood up and smoothed out the wrinkles in her skirt (they had no choice but to sleep in their clothes).

“I’m coming, Draco,” she whispered to the empty room. “Hang on a few minutes more.”

*

The hardest part wasn’t avoiding giving herself away as she crept along the dark corridors of the Ministry, but it was finding her way to the entrance. Barely-lit candles flickered in the still air and barely brightened her path. She was still groggy from a fitful sleep, so she had to concentrate harder in order to discern the proper direction.

At last she came to The Atrium, which had previously housed the sickening “Magic is Might” statue. (With numerous petitions, Harry’s being the most influential, the statue had been demolished soon after Voldemort’s demise). Rushing to the nearest fireplace, she threw a handful of Flu Powder into the flickering flames and stepped across the grate. “The Burrow!” she cried.

The jostling and nausea from the travel thankfully didn’t bother her as it once did. She stepped out with confidence into the empty living room of the Burrow. Her heart quickened as she arched her head to listen for any movement.

The silence that hit her was worse than screams.

Casting the Disillusionment Charm upon herself, she crept along the walls until she reached the door. After a quick surveillance, she noted that nothing was broken, torn apart, or bloody in the house. The door still stood on its hinges and she could see no one beyond.

With shaking steps, Hermione ventured beyond the relative safety of the Burrow. She prepared herself to see gore and decapitated bodies strewn across the ground like rubbish, for there were only two explanations for the quiet around her: either the battle had ended, or there hadn’t been one in the first place. Hermione prayed for the latter.

The stillness of the grounds brought a sigh of relief, and the consideration of returning to the Ministry entered her mind. Apparently the Aurors had done their job and no one had been injured. She could write to Draco now in the hopes that she’d hear from him soon…

Then she saw the body.

The stars and full moon cast an eerie light upon the filthy corpse, which appeared to possess all its limbs but laid at an odd angle. Breathing deeply, Hermione stepped forward to where it lay a few dozens metres from the house. She had to remind herself that she may look into Harry’s face, Ron’s face, or even her own. She kept telling herself the truth: her friends were safe and asleep at the Ministry. If she did see one of their faces here on the ground, it was simply an imposter.

Simply. She swallowed hard and berated herself for such insensitive thoughts. Even though it had to be no one she knew, someone still had died – more than likely to protect her. She owed them respect and care.

But she hadn’t prepared herself to see the pallid face and bleach-blond hair of the man she loved.

Her scream caught in her throat and her legs weakened. She sunk to his side, placing a shaking hand on his blood-strewn chest. Blood and dirt streaked his cold cheeks and Draco’s eyes were wide and cloudy in death.

“No…no!” she breathed, falling onto his chest and foolishly searching for breath, a pulse, anything to prove that some life still existed within. His body was still warm, proving that there had been some battle not long before.

And she hadn’t been there with him.

“Draco!” Tears burned her eyes as she choked back a rising sob. “Draco, you stupid boy! How could you do this? How could you leave me here alone?” She tried to scream at him, but her body had collapsed into uncontrollable sobs. All she could do was fall onto his chest and attempt to discern a heat beat. But all she felt was stiffness and cold.

Hermione didn’t notice the presence above her until it was too late to run. But even with forewarning, she knew she could never have escaped. All her energy and concern for her own well-being had died with her love.

She only looked up and studied the stranger when she realized whose face was before her.

“Harry?”

The man, almost as grimy as Draco, slowly shook his head. He made not a movement, nor did he raise the wand clutched in his hand.

“Why did you come back?” the stranger asked, his voice a mere whisper.

Hermione didn’t like the expression on the imposter’s face. It was pale and drooped in either weariness or grief. He regarded her despairingly, though not unkindly. Hermione vaguely wondered, in the midst of her torn and grieving mind, what kind of men Draco had petitioned to take her and her friends’ places. Whose side were they on?

She struggled to remember what he had asked her. “I had to come back,” she spoke unwaveringly. She softly stroked Draco’s cheek, letting the agony encompass her as she realized she’d never kiss or hold him again. “I had to come back for him. But I came too late! He died trying to save me, and now I’ll never get to thank him.”

The stranger in Harry’s skin knelt down to her level and studied Draco’s body with captivation. Hermione watched his face, frowning at the strange look in his eyes. “Who are you?” she whispered. “And why haven’t you killed me?”

The man glanced up with intense, alert eyes. He seemed to be struggling to speak the correct words. “Draco would’ve been foolish to choose men with sinful intentions to fight for you,” he said. “They were chosen because they didn’t have a side and weren’t afraid of death. But I’m amazed, Hermione, that you don’t think Draco was intelligent enough to find a man to cover for him, not just for the three of you.”

“I…I didn’t…” she sputtered, gazing into the man’s eyes to find a kind of compassion there she had only seen in one other person. It was unique, it spoke to her heart, and shock rippled through her as comprehension came.

“Draco?” she wept.

The corner of his mouth twitched into a smile. Hermione’s mouth dropped as she tried to saying something, anything, but her body couldn’t obey after the double shock she had been dealt.

Draco’s hand had just reached up to stroke her face when a voice thundered through the air.

“It’s Potter! Potter’s returned!”

Before either of them could react, a spell came whizzing toward Draco and struck him in the back, paralyzing him instantly. Hermione screamed and reached for her wand, but a body materialized behind her and grabbed her around the waist. Another man took her wand and threw it several metres into the trees beyond. He then did the same with Draco’s wand.

Lucius Malfoy, his long hair matted with dirt and leaves, approached Draco with sinful greed in his eyes. His mouth grew into a wicked sneer as he grabbed Draco around the throat and hauled him upright. He freed him from paralysis but kept him locked under his firm grip. Hermione struggled against her captor’s hold, but the man dug his wand tip into her throat and whispered, “Try and save him and you’ll hasten your death.”

Lucius studied his son’s body on the ground and snarled. He turned back to Draco with flashing eyes. “You! You killed my son, didn’t you, Potter?!”

Draco clenched his teeth and remained silent. Lucius grabbed his hair and pulled, but Draco hardly winced. Hermione desperately tried to summon a plan to mind, but with Harry and Ron still asleep and no one knowing she was here, she knew not a soul could come to their aide.

But if she was to die, Hermione desired it to occur with no one else but Draco.

“Years of hatred have finally overwhelmed you, I see!” Lucius spat in Draco’s ear. “You had no aversion to killing my son whilst the rest of us were chasing Weasley and Granger. I thought they both had escaped, but I see Granger returned to you. Well, two out of three will have to suffice!”

“Please!” Hermione gasped. “Please don’t kill him! He didn’t kill Draco. I saw someone else do it long before!”

“Hush, mudblood!” her captor hissed. “Lies will not save your friend now.”

Lucius threw Draco onto the ground, raising his wand above his heart and glaring mercilessly down at him. “I don’t expect you to defend your malicious actions or plead for mercy, but I’ll have you know that my son was to surrender the location of the Elder Wand if he lived. Now, after I kill you, I’ll be forced to torture the information out of Granger before she suffers your same fate.”

Draco cast fearful eyes at Hermione as tears leaked from Hermione’s own. She tried to put on a brave face for him, for this was the last time he would look at her.

“I love you,” she mouthed to him.

Lucius ignored her entirely. “I will destroy you, Potter, in the name of the Dark Lord who still lives among us!” Lucius raised his wand higher and his eyes widened in madness. “May the afterlife have pity on your vile soul…”

“Avada Kedavra!”

A blast of green light struck Lucius Malfoy in the side and, his face frozen in astonishment, he slumped over and was still. Another blast and the Death Eater who held her collapsed in a lump on the ground, his eyes wide and vacant.

Hermione raised terrified eyes to the figures behind the body of Lucius. She gasped at the sight of her and Ron, whose faces were contorted in rage. “Ron” ran toward Draco and helped him up.

“Sorry about that,” the man muttered, wiping dirt from his hands as he glared down at Lucius. “But I figured you’d rather have us kill your father than have him kill you.”

Draco nodded distractedly, his expression stiff and emotionless. Upon seeing Hermione, he darted from his partners and went to her, pulling her tightly into an embrace and letting her cry against him. Hermione couldn’t grasp a single emotion; a wide mix of shock, horror, and relief rushed through her veins and left her weak.

Draco eventually released her to turn to the imposters. “Where are the other Death Eaters?”

“We followed them secretly after they thought we’d escaped,” replied the person impersonating Hermione. Hermione couldn’t watch as he/she spoke – it was too strange. “They all left for separate destinations after one said that they’d be expecting word from Lucius or Draco later.”

Draco nodded and turned back to Hermione. He kissed her forehead gently and whispered, “You’re shaking; you need to get back to the Ministry.”

“No!” she blurted. “Not without you!”

He sighed. “I won’t receive a warm welcome from Potter and Weasley…especially when I look like this.”

“Then we’ll wait until the potion wears off,” Hermione replied insistently. “And they can’t hate you when you’re the reason they’re still alive!”
“Yeah, mate; be aggressive!” The man in Ron’s body laughed. “Show them who’s boss!”

Draco smiled weakly. He looked exhausted, Hermione noticed, and strained.

He just watched his father die, she reminded herself. He needs to recover.

“Let’s rest inside before we go to the Ministry,” Hermione told him, taking his hand and leading him toward the Burrow. “I’ll make you something to eat and I’ll send word to the…”

“Don’t bother,” Ron’s impersonator interrupted. “We’ll make sure the Ministry knows what happened. We’ll try and round up the remaining Death Eaters, as well. We can only hope that, once they know that Lucius and Draco are dead, they’ll disperse and not rise up again.”

Hermione gasped and halted, her grip tightening around Draco’s waist. “Oh my god, Draco! The world will think you’re dead now!”

Draco shrugged, trying to appear unaffected. “The only person I want to know the truth is you, Hermione. It’ll be better everyone thinks I’m gone. Perhaps then the Neo-Death Eater cult will weaken without a leader, and I’m sure the Ministry will help with that.”

Hermione fell against his chest, ravishing the feel of his breath on her skin and the pounding of his heart. Only a few minutes ago, she had been trying to find a heartbeat in another man’s body. What did she do to deserve him, alive and breathing beside her?

“I think you’re the one who needs the rest,” Draco said, watching her collapse against him. “Then you can wake up and pretend this whole business never happened.”