Guardian Angel
Harry.
Her best friend.
He and Draco had come looking for her, together.
Draco had been their enemy once, she knew.
But not now, not for a long time.
He had risked his life to break into Azkaban.
For her.
Hermione suddenly felt lightheaded, unable to stop herself pitching forwards, completely overwhelmed by the force of emotion that had hit her all at once.
Draco pulled her back to his chest, centering her once again.
She looked up at him and she had no idea how she could have thought him to be a stranger mere moments ago.
Everything about his face felt like home.
She suddenly knew that she’d looked into these eyes a thousand times – no, a million times before, the colour of them the exact shade the sky would be just before it snowed.
There was a small scar below his eye that she knew he’d gotten after being hit by some shrapnel during a skirmish.
The thin white line that ran down his top lip was from when she’d smacked him in the mouth and when he told people he’d first known that he loved her.
Hermione unthinkingly touched her fingers to the scar and the small sound he made against them made her heart hurt.
He gently caught hold of her wrist to stop her moving away, kissing the tips of her filthy fingers, his eyes screwed shut.
As she watched him do it Hermione somehow knew without doubt that this man belonged to her.
She felt like she wanted to crawl inside Draco’s chest and curl up, safe and warm.
She grabbed the front of his shirt weakly, trembling just as violently as he was.
He pressed his forehead to hers, one large hand cradling her face as she sobbed, her tired mind working, trying to make sense of her overwhelming emotions.
‘Draco,’ she croaked. ‘I’m- I’m confused. What’s going on? Where are Harry and Ron? Why didn’t they come?’
He hesitated, chewing his lip, his anxiety visible now he was no longer occluding.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he murmured. ‘I know how confusing this must be for you. I wish I had more time to explain.
The things I’ve done to get in here, they were dangerous – stupid, really – and for your sake, for now, the less you know the better.
But I need to get you out of here before we’re discovered.
I promise, I’ll explain everything. I know you have no reason to, but please, can I ask you to trust me?’
Hermione looked at him and despite her confusion she knew she did trust him. Implicitly.
But… there was more she couldn’t grasp beyond understanding that he was vitally important in her life.
There was a specific reason he hadn’t wanted her to recognise him until he’d checked she remembered who she was first, and who Harry and Ron were.
Whatever incantation he’d whispered had unlocked a small part of her brain – but not all of it.
There was far more, like shadows in her peripherals, shapes she couldn’t quite make out.
She had a choice: she could go with her gut and trust him. Maybe she could leave Azkaban alive if not completely whole and if not, at least she’d die fighting.
Or she could go back to her life in a cell below the earth until she was executed.
‘You said Harry is waiting for us?’
He nodded, his expression guarded.
‘But not Ron?’
A pause.
‘No. Not Ron.’
She wanted to ask him more but up close she could see panic shifting just below the surface of his eyes.
He was pretending to be calm for her benefit, but Draco was terrified.
‘Okay,’ she said, seeing only one viable option.
‘Get me out of here, please.’
She saw his relief as he rose, lifting her effortlessly with him, his hands on her hips.
‘Can you stand?’ he asked, looking dubiously at her wasted legs.
She nodded, her mind focused on him, not the question.
He placed her down – carefully, like she was made of glass.
Hermione felt herself immediately sway and then stumble.
Draco hissed a curse as he caught her again, his arms banding around her ribcage.
She blinked, black spots dancing in front of her eyes, her head buzzing loudly.
‘What the fuck have they done to you?’ he grit out as Hermione’s vision tunnelled and her legs collapsed from under her.
He immediately scooped an arm underneath her again, lifting her into a cradle hold.
She was hit by a sudden memory of him holding her like this before, kicking open the door to a room that was their room, carrying her over the threshold before dropping her onto the bed and following her there, crawling between her thighs as she giggled.
‘Hold on tight,’ he said, and she snaked her hands up to loop them around his neck.
Draco gripped her with one arm as he let go with the other and began fishing around in his coat pocket.
She watched as he gently withdrew a small gold object.
It was a figurine of some type.
Hermione frowned. It was a figurine of ... an angel.
A small, Muggle angel.
The angel was on her knees, her hands moulded in the act of praying.
She had large feathered wings and long curly hair. As Hermione looked closer she noticed something more.
The angel wasn’t praying. She was holding a tiny knife between her hands.
Draco brought the figurine to his lips and kissed it, his eyes falling closed momentarily, eyebrows drawing up.
Then, still holding her with his one arm, he reached across and placed the angel delicately onto the table.
He muttered something and the angel began emitting a sound. It was quiet, barely audible.
Ticking.
‘We need to go. Now.’ He grimaced and with one final silent movement of his lips they were disillusioned.
Despite the gaps in her memory, Hermione knew this with certainty:
Draco Malfoy was an exceptionally talented wizard, wand or not.
Theoretically, his magic shouldn’t have worked without clearance inside the prison, but he had controlled the guards. She’d seen him do it.
She glanced back at the angel, noticing her facial expression for the first time.
The angel was screaming.
Draco moved towards the door, peering through the glass.
She could see the guards loitering outside, blinking vacantly, like they weren’t quite sure what they were doing there.
They looked up at the screech when Draco wandlessly opened the door, reaching groggily for their wands.
She heard him murmur a curse and both guards crumpled to the ground, their eyes blank, their chests unmoving.
He didn’t stop. Hermione smiled as Draco stepped over the guards bodies and kept moving forward.
Her arms tightened around his neck.
As they came to another set of doors he swore and pressed his back against the wall. There were several guards on the other side and several cells. Hermione realised this must be the genpop section of the prison, different to the isolated cells beneath where they had kept her and Colin.
‘We need to wait,’ he whispered. ‘There’s too many people who might notice the door opening.
When someone next comes through it we can sneak past. We’re heading for the opposite corridor.’
Hermione nodded against his chest, looking up at the underside of his jaw as he waited, peering through the glass.
Her body felt electric where it touched his, unaccustomed to physical touch.
She felt Draco’s fierce protectiveness surrounding her and it was painfully comforting after so long alone.
‘Heads up,’ he muttered and a second later a guard pushed open the doors. Draco waited for him to pass barely an inch from where they stood, then surged forward, stepping deftly through the gap before it closed.
They were suddenly very exposed, in a room full of people moving rapidly around them.
Draco didn’t hesitate. He maneuvered them around, dodging the guards until they were finally at the opposite corridor, waiting for the door to open.
By the time they got through, Hermione could feel his heart pounding through his shirt. He was sweating. She could feel heat radiating off his body.
‘I’m okay to walk from here,’ she said, hoping that it was true.
Instead of releasing her, he pulled her closer.
‘It’s not far now,’ he murmured. ‘I can carry you the rest of the way.’
‘No. I- I’m okay.’
He sighed but lowered her gently, setting her down.
Hermione’s legs wobbled precariously. She’d never been so aware of how malnourished she was, how weak.
She hated it.
She grit her teeth, taking a few deep breaths before nodding again.
‘I’m fine.’
‘Always so stubborn,’ he muttered and she could hear a smile in his voice despite their precarious position.
He reached for her hand, lacing their fingers together. Hermione gasped as she felt the rings he wore against her palm. She ran her fingers over them, the patterns in the cold metal now achingly familiar in a way she didn’t understand.
When they got to the end of the corridor Draco pulled her up against the wall next to a door. He seemed to be waiting for the right moment. Very quietly, when he was sure the coast was clear, he whispered, ‘Alohomora’ and the door clicked open.
He pulled Hermione inside, dropping their disillusionment as he locked the door.
She gasped as she took in the four dead men lying on the ground.
‘Who-?’ She began.
‘Um, well that guy was your actual Ministry representative,’ he said, pointing down at a prone figure in a rumpled suit and robes.
‘Two guards and-’
‘The Warden,’ Hermione finished, looking down.
The Warden had a small pocket knife in his hand.
It looked as though he had cut his own throat.
A large pool of blood, now cold and tacky, spread out on the prison floor.
‘How did you-?’
‘Imperius.’ His voice was calm, matter of fact, despite the carnage he had wrought.
‘Oh.’ It was all she could manage, vindication licking through her like fire, warming her insides.
Gods, she loved this man.
Hermione was assaulted once again by her powerful feelings for him.
Her body’s reaction was visceral, even through the fogginess from the potion she was on and her lack of memory.
‘The hard bit comes next,’ Draco said, shrugging out of his coat.
‘There’s an inlet at the bottom of the cliffs.
I need to get you down there but there are Dementors, as you know, as well as the guards.’
‘How are we going to get past them?’ Hermione asked. ‘The Dementors will sense us.’
Draco nodded grimly. ‘They will. That’s why I organised a distraction.’
Hermione opened her mouth to ask what it was when she suddenly felt all the air being sucked out of the room.
There was a moment of utter silence followed by an almighty BOOM that was terrifyingly loud.
It thundered through the room despite clearly coming from a different part of the prison.
The ground shook, the ceiling spider-webbed with cracks and then, with a gradually-building roar, the wall nearest the door began collapsing inwards, chunks of crumbling concrete rolling towards them.
Draco was on top of her before she even knew what was happening, caging her with his body, protecting her from flying rubble and dust as debris rained down around them. Hermione screamed, squeezing her eyes shut.
After several minutes, everything went still.
Hermione’s ears were ringing and she coughed as she inhaled a mouthful of dust.
She could feel rather than hear Draco’s ragged inhales as he held himself over her, not putting all of his weight on her.
Several minutes passed before he moved again.
‘Fuck.’ Draco pushed back to his haunches, looking at her with concern in his eyes.
‘Are you hurt?’
Hermione shook her head mutely, trying her limbs one at a time, checking she could move them.
She coughed again, rolling over to push up on her hands and knees and turning to look at him.
Draco was completely covered in dust, his whole face white other than a thin trail of bright red blood dripping down his neck and onto his shirt collar.
Outside the room all hell had broken loose.
‘Shit,’ he muttered. ‘She was even more powerful than I thought.’
She? Hermione frowned but there was no time to think about it.
He disillusioned them again and pulled her to stand.
‘It needs to be now.’
Draco held her hand as they stumbled over the pile of rubble that had once been a solid wall and stepped out into the carnage of the corridor.
Everywhere around them people were laying on the ground, with blood and debris covering the floor.
Hermione watched a guard scream as he clutched frantically at a leg that looked to have been blown off at the knee.
Some of the guards who weren’t already injured or dead were moving towards the place where the explosion appeared to have gone off – the direction from which they’d come.
Others grappled with prisoners who had suddenly found the front of their cells blown to smithereens and were making a desperate bid for freedom.
She noted with bitterness that they weren’t shackled at the ankles the way she had been.
It was utter carnage and in the chaos no one noticed when they stepped through the large hole blasted in the side of the building, invisible and unseen.
Hermione turned as Draco pulled her away, her eyes widening as she saw the black cloud of Dementors rise up over the prison, streaming through the hole in the wall and descending on the visible inmates sprinting away, out over the dead grassland of Azkaban island.
She watched at least two inmates pitch themselves off the side of the cliff, choosing certain death rather than be kissed.
She was still incredibly weak but Hermione knew they had to run.
Draco gripped her fingers tightly, pulling her towards where the cliff scooped away.
She forced her legs to move, dragging air in through a throat that felt dangerously tight.
They skidded down the rough coastal path towards a ledge just underneath. Draco swore as stones skittered under his feet. He teetered for a moment before righting himself and stepping backwards, panting as he looked up to check they were out of sight.
Hermione put a hand to her heart, feeling it fluttering behind her ribs, unaccustomed to any form of physical exertion.
She was so focused on not passing out, especially not whilst standing on a small ledge that she screamed in terror when she suddenly felt a cold rush of air hit her face and two shapes materialised in front of them.
If she’d thought her heart was already pounding it was nothing compared to this. It throbbed as she found herself suddenly looking into a pair of sparkling green eyes beneath a mop of wild black hair: a painfully familiar sight when coupled with a lightning bolt shaped scar.
‘Harry?’ She could barely get the words out as the pale face of Harry Potter smiled back at her from where he sat astride a broom, hovering next to the ledge.
‘Hermione.’ Her name was breathless, his expression one of shocked disbelief.
‘Malfoy, you actually fucking did it.’ Another man she knew was Neville Longbottom mumbled from next to Harry, his own face equally as pale but his eyes bright with amazement.
He handed Draco a wand which he took, murmuring his thanks and sliding it up his sleeve.
Hermione could see the stark relief on both men’s faces.
They were looking at her like she was a ghost.
Clearly Draco had gone into the prison on a death mission. Neither of them looked like they’d actually expected him to be able to retrieve her let alone get back to the cliffside.
‘Creevey?’ Neville asked quietly, and Draco took his head. Neville swore softly and Draco pursed his lips.
‘We need to go. Now.’ He said, jerking his head upwards. Both men seemed to jolt into action, dragging their eyes away from her.
‘I’ll take Hermione.’ Harry said, motioning with his arm. Hermione allowed Draco to guide her towards Harry who helped him to lift her onto the broom in front of him, shifting his thighs back to make room.
Draco looked wholly reluctant to let her go, chewing his lip.
‘I’ve got her Malfoy.’ Harry said. ‘You don’t look in any shape to fly safely.’
He was right. Draco was shaking again, his teeth chattering slightly as his adrenaline seemed to be catching up to him.
The blood which was still trailing down his neck had slicked his collar and shoulder a deep maroon, the stain spreading steadily from the heat of his exertion.
‘Be fucking careful with my- with her, Potter.’
He growled as he turned to swing his own leg over the back of Neville’s broom, his eyes never leaving hers.
Harry stiffened and then nodded, tightening his thighs around her.
Within seconds the four of them were disillusioned and soaring up in the air above Azkaban.
Hermione gasped at the sight below them.
Hundreds of Dementors swooped and dived, many of them already on top of the prisoners and guards lying on the ground. One half of the prison was completely destroyed, reduced to nothing but a pile of rubble.
It was a war zone. The fallout of the explosion much bigger than Hermione had anticipated.
She screamed as suddenly a small group of Dementors rose, swarming upwards as they seemed to sense them despite their disillusionment.
‘Harry!’ she shrieked and he leaned forward, increasing their speed.
She felt the air whip past her face, barely able to breathe as they streaked through the sky at an almost unbearable pace.
Most of the Dementors in the group gave up quickly, peeling away and circling back down to easier targets, but one remained behind them, steadily gaining.
It suddenly rose up and swooped and she realised it was coming straight for them. She saw its bone-like hands stretch out and Harry let out a low, pained groan behind her, the broom dipping wildly.
An image suddenly came into her head, so horrific and so brutal that she knew it couldn’t be real.
She screamed, almost taking her hands from the broom handle to cover her eyes.
Hermione wanted to die, she realised. She deserved to die for the things she'd done. She should let go, she should-
No.
No.
She couldn’t die now. Not when Draco had come for her.
Not this close.
Hermione had no idea where or how she found the strength but she screamed again, this time with a bitter rage, calling on the fury that had sustained her for four years.
She held out a hand and with everything she left she sent her magic out, pushing it as hard as she could towards the Dementor.
It made an awful, inhuman sound, jerking and then sailing back away from them like she’d burned it.
‘Fuck.’
Behind her Harry instantly righted the broom, panting in her ear.
Hermione had no idea where Draco and Neville were, her head spinning with exertion and shock. The black spots appeared again in front of her eyes, pain slicing through her head.
Hermione felt Harry’s arms tighten around her again as she began to tip slightly. She desperately tried not to lose consciousness, fighting against the encroaching darkness for a moment before she suddenly felt a painful pull and then a sharp jerk behind her navel.
A few seconds later she heard Harry’s wild laugh, Neville’s loud shout of triumph.
She opened her eyes and they were no longer above Azkaban.
The sky was no longer a malevolent grey, swirling with dark shapes.
It was blue and cloudless, the air several degrees warmer.
Neville and Draco bled into view flying alongside them.
Draco’s blonde hair whipped up around his face as he smiled widely at her, his eyes tired, his expression one of utterly exhausted relief.
Hermione realised they’d done it.
They were safe.
She closed her eyes, tilting her face up to the sky towards the warmth of the sun as she released her own victory cry, long and loud.
She’d survived. Somehow, she’d made it out of Azkaban.
Tears streamed down her face, dribbling over her smiling lips.
This was sunshine, she thought. This was what it felt like.
She felt Harry’s chin on her shoulder as he relaxed his arms slightly around her waist.
‘We’ve got you, ‘Mione,’ he murmured into her ear. ‘Let’s get you home.’
Hermione didn’t know how long they flew for.
She couldn’t stop herself from dozing, the effects of the potion and the magnitude of the day’s events catching up to her weakened body.
She leaned back against Harry’s chest, soaking up his warmth.
Hermione floated just on the edge of wakefulness for a while, not missing the way Harry pressed his face to the top of her head as they flew, absently thinking that they were all mad for touching her when she was so filthy.
She knew she must stink, must look horrifying, but none of the men had seemed to notice.
She knew when they’d reached the space above Grimmauld Place, recognising the familiar skyline immediately.
Harry paused the broom in midair, incanting several spells she didn’t recognise in order for the wards to let them through.
She watched as Grimmauld Place appeared below them, the old house still as dark and malevolent as it had appeared when she was a teenager.
Harry lowered the broom to the ground and held her hand as she stepped off, just in front of the crumbling front steps.
‘You know where you are?’ He asked quietly and she nodded, no doubt in her mind that this was where she had lived before she and Colin were captured.
Hermione looked up at the black front door and emotion swelled within her.
She’d been in Azkaban for four years.
She had suffered.
Every day she was there had felt like a lifetime and in all that time she hadn’t been able to remember Draco or the events that had led up to her imprisonment.
The incantation he had muttered in the prison had unlocked a set of memories she didn’t know she had.
They’d been hidden from her, clearly by Draco or Harry in order to keep both her and the Order safe.
But there was more.
The images she had seen when the Dementor got close flashed in her mind again and she swallowed heavily, feeling like she might vomit.
There was so much she didn’t understand and Hermione somehow knew that by stepping back into Grimmauld she was going to be stepping back into a past she had no memory of.
She was undoubtedly going to find out things she didn’t want to hear.
Her already fragile heart and mind were going to be trampled all over and she didn’t know whether the cracks that were already there would withstand the pressure.
Neville and Draco arrived a moment later, sweaty and windswept.
Neville’s earlier exuberance was gone, he looked anxious, his eyes darting between her and Harry as Draco dismounted the broom and came to stand next to her.
He was impossibly pale, his fists clenching and unclenching, his shoulders squared.
‘It’s okay,’ Harry said gently, coming to stand on her other side. ‘We can explain everything. We tried to think of the best way to do this without freaking you out too much. That’s why Malfoy only released part of the charm – on your memories.’
Although Harry had only confirmed what she already knew, his words rooted her to the spot.
‘I’m scared,’ she whispered. ‘I’m confused.’
Draco said nothing. He watched her warily, his body language tense as though he half expected her to crumble there and then.
She didn’t think it was unreasonable.
He was occluded again, she realised, and it increased her fear even further.
What was he so afraid of?
‘Ready?’
She stepped forwards, Draco flanking her closely. Harry and Neville brought up the rear, following behind her like a funeral procession as she walked back up the steps of Grimmauld place.
When they got to the top, Draco withdrew his wand, tapping it in a complicated movement on the brass knocker. He stepped back as the sound of several heavy locks turned with a series of loud clunks.
The first thing Hermione thought when the door swung open was that Grimmauld was still an awful place.
Dark and dingy, unloved.
It looked just as it had when she’d first gone there with Harry years before, desolate and cold.
She stepped inside.
The magic of the house immediately reached out, curling around her like cold hands, exploring her own magic, her mind, ready to eject her if it deemed her unsafe.
After several moments she felt the tendrils withdraw.
She gasped as the house began shifting around her.
The faded wallpaper melted away, replaced by fresh white walls, the dank smell replaced by a warm vanilla aroma.
The grimy wooden floor gradually flipped slat by slat until clean oak boards covered the entire hallway.
The Black family portraits were replaced one by one by a new set of pictures, smiling groups of friends – a couple.
Instantly she felt warmer, a familiar comforting sensation flowing through her, like she was being welcomed home.
Hermione moved forwards, her heart in her throat.
She blinked away tears as she looked around her.
This hallway was familiar.
She walked slowly, looking intently at her surroundings, stopping as she got to the first photo.
It was of her and Harry, dressed in their Gryffindor uniform.
She thought it had been taken during their first year.
The second one was a group photo, Neville, Luna, Colin, her and Harry.
She touched a finger to Colin’s face, holding in a sob.
Draco was in none of the photos and neither was –
‘Where’s Ron in these photos?’ She asked quietly and Harry exhaled heavily behind her. Neville placed a placating hand on his arm.
She turned to look at him, the question on the tip of her tongue completely forgotten when she caught sight of the picture behind Harry’s head.
It was a picture of them.
She was wearing a short white dress with chunky combat boots on her feet and a spray of white carnations in her hand.
Her hair was shorter than it was now, her body curvy and healthy looking.
Her face was still pale but she smiled widely at the camera, her eyes sparkling with joy.
Standing behind her was Draco, immaculate in a smart black suit. He had an arm banded around her waist, his fingers linked tightly with hers.
His head was dipped to look at her, rather than the photographer, a lock of blonde hair falling over one eye.
He smiled like the cat that got the cream, adoration clear on his face.
Her eyes ran over the photo taking in every detail. She was unable to look away.
Her breath caught as she snagged on the rings Draco wore, glinting in the sunlight as the photo was taken.
She looked at the ring on his third finger, the one he was still wearing now.
In the photo she was wearing a matching one, the intricate patterns she’d traced with her finger clear to see.
Twin bands. Wedding rings.
This was their wedding photo.
She looked at Draco now. He stood just behind her, loitering in the hallway.
His eyes were firmly fixed on her face, watching her expression, tracking her reactions.
His jaw was tight, the fingers of one hand nervously twisting the ring she now knew bound them together around and around.
‘God.’
It was all she could bring herself to say.
She breathed out, willing herself to stay upright as she looked past Draco, at Harry and Neville who looked almost as anxious as he did.
Hermione couldn’t remember it.
She couldn’t remember this day which was clearly one of the most important days of her life.
But she knew one thing, if the vision the Dementor had forced her to see was correct.
Her husband had murdered one of her best friends.
Ron was dead and Draco had been the one to kill him - but she had been the one to give the command.
Draco sensed she was going to fall before she did, diving across and catching her as her legs gave way yet again.