Ginger
It was several weeks later when Draco woke up suddenly. He wasn't sure why. Then, he heard another odd noise outside. He sat up and grabbed his wand. Amira turned over next to him and tried to take the warmth from where he was without waking up.
"Amira," he said quietly and urgently. Her eyes shot open immediately.
"What is it?" she asked, sitting up as well.
Draco got out of bed and put his shoes and coat on. "Something's happening out there."
Amira jumped up and got ready as well. The two of them crept towards their tent entrance. There was a weird commotion going off far in the distance. Then, it all went silent.
"Harry's out there," Amira murmured. She pushed past Draco to go outside. She didn't run, which Draco was grateful for. The two of them slowly tiptoed out, scanning the area. Suddenly, Granger jumped out of her tent.
"Harry's gone!" she exclaimed.
"I know," Amira said, "He's over there."
She gestured in the direction that the noise had come from. Suddenly, they all heard a pair of footsteps, or two, approaching them. Draco raised his wand, as did Granger, and Amira readied herself. Draco's heart pounded, wondering if this was going to be their first battle for their lives.
Granger leaned forward.
"Oh you've got to be kidding," she said as she squinted into the darkness at the two dark figures.
“For fuck’s sake,” Draco cursed under his breath as the moonlight glinted off ginger hair. Amira sighed next to him as Granger marched forward to meet the pair. She stopped right in front of Weasley, her lips slightly parted, her eyes wide. Weasley gave a weak, hopeful smile and half raised his arms.
Amira gasped, and then laughed as Granger launched herself forward and started punching every inch of him that she could reach.
“Ouch – ow – gerroff! What the –? Hermione – OW!”
“You – complete – arse – Ronald – Weasley!”
She punctuated every word with a blow: Weasley backed away, shielding his head as Granger advanced.
“You – crawl – back – here – after – weeks – and – weeks – oh, where’s my wand?”
Amira had quickly summoned it before Granger would notice. Draco was appreciative because Granger seemed to have lost her mind. They didn’t need to be discovered in the middle of whatever this lover’s row was.
“Protego!” Potter said firmly.
The invisible shield erupted between the pair. The force of it knocked Granger backward onto the ground. Spitting hair out of her mouth, she leapt up again.
“Hermione!” said Potter. “Calm –”
“I will not calm down!” she screamed. She whirled around to face Amira. Never before had Draco seen her lose control like this; she looked quite demented. Draco stepped in front of her, even though he knew Amira was quite capable of protecting herself. “Give me back my wand! Give it back to me!”
“Hermione, will you please –”
“Don’t you tell me what to do, Harry Potter!” she screeched, before turning back to Amira. “Don’t you dare! Give it back now! And YOU!”
She was pointing at Weasley in dire accusation. It was like a malediction, and Draco could not blame Weasley for retreating several steps.
“I came running after you! I called you! I begged you to come back!”
“I know,” Weasley said, “Hermione, I’m sorry, I’m really –”
“Oh, you’re sorry!” She laughed, a high-pitched, out-of-control sound; and the ginger looked at Potter for help, but Potter merely grimaced his helplessness.
“You come back after weeks – weeks – and you think it’s all going to be all right if you just say sorry?”
“Well, what else can I say?” he shouted, and Draco was surprised to find that he was happy that Weasley was fighting back. Amira took his hand.
“Oh, I don’t know!” yelled Granger with awful sarcasm. “Rack your brains, Ron, that should only take a couple of seconds –”
“Hermione,” interjected Potter, “he just saved my –”
“I don’t care!” she screamed. “I don’t care what he’s done! Weeks and weeks, we could have been dead for all he knew –”
“I knew you weren’t dead!” bellowed Weasley, drowning her voice for the first time, and approaching as close as he could with the Shield Charm between them. “Harry’s all over the Prophet, all over the radio, they’re looking for you everywhere, all these rumors and mental stories, I knew I’d hear straight off if you were dead, you don’t know what it’s been like –”
“What it’s been like for you?” Her voice was now so shrill only bats would be able to hear it soon, but she had reached a level of indignation that rendered her temporarily speechless, and Weasley seized his opportunity.
“I wanted to come back the minute I’d Disapparated, but I walked straight into a gang of Snatchers, Hermione, and I couldn’t go anywhere!”
“A gang of what?” asked Potter, as Granger stalked back into the tent. The other two followed. Amira tugged Draco to come inside as well. So far, Weasley hadn’t even had a chance to really look at the two of them so they hung back. They’d heard of snatchers on the radio previously, but in the time that Potter and Granger had been with them, they hadn’t come up.
“Snatchers,” said Weasley. “They’re everywhere – gangs trying to earn gold by rounding up Muggle-borns and blood traitors, there’s a reward from the Ministry for everyone captured. I was on my own and I look like I might be school age; they got really excited, thought I was a Muggle-born in hiding. I had to talk fast to get out of being dragged to the Ministry.”
“What did you say to them?” Potter asked.
“Told them I was Stan Shunpike. First person I could think of.”
“And they believed that?” Potter said in disbelief.
“They weren’t the brightest. One of them was definitely part troll, the smell off him…” Weasley glanced at Granger, clearly hopeful she might soften at this small instance of humor, but her expression remained stony above her tightly knotted limbs. Draco cringed inwardly.
“Anyway, they had a row about whether I was Stan or not. It was a bit pathetic to be honest, but there were still five of them and only one of me and they’d taken my wand. Then two of them got into a fight and while the others were distracted I managed to hit the one holding me in the stomach, grabbed his wand, Disarmed the bloke holding mine, and Disapparated. I didn’t do it so well, Splinched myself again,” he held up his right hand to show two missing fingernails.
Granger raised her eyebrows coldly.
“And I came out miles from where you were. By the time I got back to that bit of riverbank where we’d been, you’d gone.”
“Gosh, what a gripping story,” she said in the lofty voice she adopted when wishing to wound. “You must have been simply terrified. Meanwhile we went to Godric’s Hollow and, let’s think, what happened there, Harry? Oh yes, You-Know-Who’s snake turned up, it nearly killed both of us, and then You-Know-Who himself arrived and missed us by about a second. If it hadn’t been for these two… we would’ve been dead!”
“What?” Weasley said, gaping from her to Potter to Draco and Amira, but she ignored him.
“Imagine losing fingernails, Harry! That really puts our sufferings into perspective, doesn’t it?”
“Hermione,” said Potter quietly, “Ron just saved my life.”
Draco really wanted to interrupt then, but Amira squeezed his hand so he stayed silent.
Granger appeared not to have heard him. “One thing I would like to know, though,” she said, fixing her eyes on a spot a foot over Weasley’s head. “How exactly did you find us tonight? That’s important. Once we know, we’ll be able to make sure we’re not visited by anyone else we don’t want to see.”
Draco actually agreed with her.
Weasley glared at her, then pulled a small silver object from his jeans pocket.
“This.” She had to look at Weasley to see what he was showing them. Draco had no idea what it was.
“The Deluminator?” Granger asked, so surprised she forgot to look cold and fierce.
“It doesn’t just turn the lights on and off,” he said. “I don’t know how it works or why it happened then and not any other time, because I’ve been wanting to come back ever since I left. But I was listening to the radio really early on Christmas morning and I heard... I heard you.”
He was looking at Granger. Draco was getting bored.
“You heard me on the radio?” she asked incredulously.
“No, I heard you coming out of my pocket. Your voice,” he held up the Deluminator again, “came out of this.”
“And what exactly did I say?” asked Granger, her tone somewhere between skepticism and curiosity.
“My name. ‘Ron’....So I took it out,” he explained, looking at the Deluminator, “and it didn’t seem different or anything, but I was sure I’d heard you. So I clicked it. And the light went out in my room, but another light appeared right outside the window.”
He raised his empty hand and pointed in front of him, his eyes focused on something none of them could see. “It was a ball of light, kind of pulsing, and bluish, like that light you get around a Portkey, you know?”
“Yeah,” said the other two said together automatically.
“I knew this was it,” said Ron. “I grabbed my stuff and packed it, then I put on my rucksack and went out into the garden. The little ball of light was hovering there, waiting for me, and when I came out it bobbed along a bit and I followed it behind the shed and then it well, it went inside me.”
“Sorry?” said Potter. Draco felt similarly confused. He glanced at Amira to see her staring intently, not at Weasley, but at the deluminator.
“It sort of floated toward me,” said Weasley, illustrating the movement with his free index finger, “right to my chest, and then – it just went straight through. It was here,” he touched a point close to his heart, “I could feel it, it was hot. And once it was inside me I knew what I was supposed to do, I knew it would take me where I needed to go. So I Disapparated and came out on the side of a hill. There was snow everywhere…”
“We were there,” said Potter. “We spent two nights there, and the second night I kept thinking I could hear someone moving around in the dark and calling out!”
Why did Amira not notice that? Draco thought, And why the hell did Potter not say something?? Idiot.
“Yeah, well, that would’ve been me,” said Weasley. “Your protective spells work, anyway, because I couldn’t see you and I couldn’t hear you. I was sure you were around, though, so in the end I got in my sleeping bag and waited for one of you to appear. I thought you’d have to show yourselves when you packed up the tent. But you didn’t.”
“I stayed on that hill all day,” he said. “I kept hoping you’d appear. But when it started to get dark I knew I must have missed you, so I clicked the Deluminator again, the blue light came out and went inside me, and I Disapparated and arrived here in these woods. I still couldn’t see you, so I just had to hope one of you would show yourselves in the end – and Harry did. Well, I saw the doe first, obviously.”
“You saw the what?” said Amira sharply. It was the first time she’d spoken and Weasley whipped his head around to look at her. He withdrew his wand sharply.
“It’s okay Ron,” Harry said, holding out his hand, “We’ll explain later… first, let’s tell them what happened.”
They explained what had happened, and as the story of the silver doe and the sword in the pool unfolded, Granger frowned from one to the other of them, concentrating so hard she forgot to keep her limbs locked together.
“But it must have been a Patronus!” she said. “Couldn’t you see who was casting it? Didn’t you see anyone? And it led you to the sword! I can’t believe this! Then what happened?”
Weasley explained how he had watched Potter jump into the pool and had waited for him to resurface; how he had realized that something was wrong, dived in, and saved Potter, then returned for the sword.
Idiots! Draco thought once again.
He got as far as the opening of the locket, then hesitated, and Potter cut in. “– and Ron stabbed it with the sword.”
“And it went? Just like that?” she whispered.
“Well, it – it screamed,” said Potter with half a glance at his friend. “Here.”
He threw the locket into her lap; gingerly she picked it up and examined its punctured windows.
Amira strode over to examine it as well. “It’s dead. Or gone, or whatever.”
She turned to Potter, “Nice job.”
Then she yawned.
Draco took the cue, “We’re going back to bed. You can all… figure out your stuff.”
“Wait, you never explained,” Weasley protested.
“They can take care of that,” Amira said cooly, “I’m going to sleep.”
Draco and Amira left.
“Now we have to deal with another one,” Draco grumbled as they got back into bed, “And Granger, Merlin, I thought I was going to have to stun her.”
“She loves him,” Amira shrugged, “I would be worse if it was you.”
Draco tensed, “That’s not comforting.”
Amira laughed, “Good. Don’t you dare ever do something like that then.”
Draco knew he never would, but it still scared him as he fell asleep that night.
The next morning Draco woke up and found that Potter and Amira were already outside working together again. He sat with his morning tea to watch. He could see how badly Amira wanted to be casting spells as well, but she only did so as much as was necessary to show Harry the ropes. When he was done with the tea, he joined in the lessons. He got some satisfaction over how much farther advanced he was than Potter.
Potter had more power than Draco did, but he really couldn't control it very well. Draco had a good grasp on levitation and summoning spells, as well as Lumos, and a few shields and basic offensive charms. He had a few months head start, but that didn't matter to him. He was beating Harry Potter at something, finally. Potter for his part, took it well. Amira bounced between helping both of them. Weasley came out to watch, but Granger stayed in the tent. Draco wondered if it was simply because she was still upset, because normally, she didn't miss anything.
Draco sat down to take a break at one point. He was surprised when Weasley walked over to him.
"How are you all doing that?" Weasley asked nervously. "Without wands?"
"It's a trick, and only Amira can teach it," Draco said. He neglected to mention that he was also able to pass along the secret. He wasn't about to be sharing it with everyone. They needed to keep it to only who was necessary, and who could protect their minds. It was already a huge risk to give it to Potter, who had a direct link to the Dark Lord. Still, it seemed Amira was still crucial in training it.
"Why?" Weasley asked.
"We're hoping it's the power 'he knows not'" Draco quoted.
"I thought it was love," Weasley said, "That's what Dumbledore said."
"Dumbledore is a crackpot," Draco insulted.
"She's a Dumbledore," Weasley pointed out. Draco turned to him with an icy stare.
"You don't know anything about her," he said in a low tone. Weasley raised his eyebrows.
A shriek and then laughter ended their conversation. Draco turned his head back to the pair and saw that they had fallen on the ground together. Jealousy and concern boiled up inside of him.
"What happened?" he asked calmly. Amira climbed off of Potter and helped him up.
"He blasted himself backwards and into me somehow," she said.
"I tried not to fall on her so I turned, but I somehow I brought us both down," Potter chuckled and blushed. Draco wanted to hit him. Especially because he was still holding onto Amira's arm. Then Amira swayed and Draco's jealousy disappeared. Potter noticed too. He steadied her with his other hand. "Alright?"
"Yeah, just dizzy for a second," Amira said convincingly. She backed out of Potter's hold.
"Maybe we should do lunch," Granger said, finally emerging from her tent, "I made grilled cheese and soup."
"Thanks Hermione!" Weasley said super enthusiastically. She just rolled her eyes and went back to the tent. Weasley deflated slightly but turned to Potter, "You're all living a lot better than when I left."
"Yeah, they've helped us a lot," Potter said, still watching Amira in concern.
"I'm fine," she told him. She walked inside after Granger. Draco hurried so that he would be able to get the seat next to her. It was ridiculous how he felt, he knew that. Potter barely knew her, and she was his girlfriend. Still, Draco never was one to share, especially not Amira. And, they'd never explicitly said they were together. For all the other three knew, they were just close friends. No matter how obvious they’d made it, Potter was oblivious.
He took the seat next to her. Throughout the meal, he had his hand on her leg, and tried to subtly encourage her to eat more. She was eating less and less these days, something that he was sure wasn't helping. A few times, when she'd eaten too much, she would have to fight sickness. It was more common now, and Draco feared pushing her too much would actually lead to her food coming back up.
In every way, she was declining. They were hiding it from the others well. He had their room layered with charms to alert him to when she woke up in her trances at night. Luckily, they were working, but almost every night, he had to bring her back to bed in various states. She was shaky in the mornings, and at night. Draco caught her scratching her arms lightly, absentmindedly during the day now. Running didn't seem to help. She was scared to use magic at all, he knew that. She'd confided to him that the grip on her mind felt so loose now that she was worried that any amount of magic would pull her into madness. She also had those odd dizziness spells more often where her face would go pale and she'd need to sit down.
She was able to keep her emotions and triggers hidden, but Draco knew she was struggling there too. She was exhausted, always. And the war wasn't close to done yet. He spent his days with Herm- Granger, plotting how they were going to end things. They didn't have anything solid yet, but at least the locket was dealt with and gone.
"Can we nap?" she whispered to him as they cleaned up dishes. He nodded.
"We're going to go rest for a little bit," Draco announced. The other three just nodded. The tension between the three allowed the couple to slip out with no questions.
Amira all but collapsed into the bed. She was passed out by the time Draco laid down. He had a book, as he wasn't tired at all. He smiled a bit at the way Amira curled up on him, touching as much of him as she could. This was the standard for them. She was very affectionate behind closed doors, and thrived when he was as well.
They had recently put an end to their sexual activities. Or rather, a pause. In addition to being tiring, they were starting to take a toll on her mentally as well.
“You want it?” Draco asked in a husky voice in her ear. Amira writhed beneath her and Draco grinned. This was becoming a routine.
Since they’d had sex the first time, Amira wanted it every night, and Draco was more than happy to oblige. They mostly took things slow, but she’d been wanting it faster, harder. She was really coming out of her shell, which Draco was thrilled by.
“Say please,” he teased. Amira lost her mind whenever he was more controlling in the bedroom.
“Please Draco, please,” she gasped as he touched her between her legs.
He slid inside of her and began a steady rhythm. Amira moaned and panted into his ear and Draco delighted in the warm pleasure of being in her body. She started to arch and tense the way that she usually did before she came. It never took long. Normally, he had her coming over and over before he finished.
“That’s it baby, come for me,” he encouraged. She whined and grasped onto his hair as she neared the peak.
Suddenly, she froze under him. Draco froze as well and looked down. Her eyes were open and she was staring vacantly at the ceiling.
He immediately pulled out.
“Amira, hey,” he said softly and brushed her hair back from her face. He quickly reclothed both of them, and still she did not move.
“Sweetheart, you’re okay,” he said, concern welling up in him. This hadn’t happened before. “Come back to me, love.”
He felt incredibly guilty for what had caused this, even though he wasn’t sure what had gone wrong.
“Baby,” he begged, “You’re safe, talk to me.”
Eventually she blinked, looked at him, and began to cry. Her whole body shook for a long time and he held her through it. She clutched on to him desperately.
“I’m sorry,” she cried.
“Shh, it’s okay,” he said, “It’s not your fault. Just take a deep breath.”
In the days that had followed, neither of them had really known what caused it, but the incident had filled both of them with fear, and they’d decided it was best not to continue until she became more stable.
Over all, Draco was extremely worried, feeling like he was running out of time, but also that there was too much time as well. He felt helpless. He had to just keep doing the best that he could with the time that they had.