There is a troubling sound that penetrates the stillness of the night air. Night after night, the atmosphere is gentle, calm. It’s soothing, as Hermione rests her head, ready to tackle dreams and nightmares, whatever may be the case. And then. The slow, long and, mournful wail begins. Like the howl of a wind, it feels distant but much too close. She’s disconcerted, for sure. Regardless, she dismisses it and enters into the oblivion of restless dreams.
But tonight. Tonight she just cannot for the life of her, get to sleep. It’s the lack of sleep, the realization that without sleep, she is aware of something quite disturbing. The sound doesn’t stop when she enters the state of stasis. No, in fact, the sound remains, consistently coming and going.
It starts low and gradually builds in volume before it drags out in one long wail of something terrible. Its frightening and heart breaking. A pillow over her head before she stuffs cotton into her ears. And still, it does nothing to drown out the echo residing inside of her.
And so it is with a sense of dread and determination that Hermione finally jumps from her bed. She throws on her coat, her slippers and stuffs her hands into her pockets as she leaves the warmth of her home.
The wind is calm, a gentle and steady breeze that sends goosebumps up and down her skin. And she follows the sound, still consistently wailing and moaning, into the night.
It takes her to the end of her driveway. To the end of her street. And then she is standing in front of a home on the next street. A home that belongs to the gentleman standing at the gate, dressed in a pair of boots and a quickly thrown on sweater.
His pale, moon-lit hair is perfectly coiffed on a head that speaks nothing but aristocratic beauty. His hands are stuffed into the singular pocket of his pullover and his eyebrow is cocked up in the bewilderment perfectly miming her own.
“You hear it, then?” He asked, closing the gate behind him before joining her.
“Doesn’t everyone?” She frowned up at Draco Malfoy. Her reluctant co-worker, her once nemesis, and now the object of her desire.
An obsession, some may call it as her eyes frequently found him in the busy offices of the Ministry. Constantly aware of his existence. The world of chaos amongst his calm exterior. One might believe that he was the picture of mental health. But she saw his eyes.
The way they expressed his anger. His pain.
Every emotion lay within those eyes, while his face remained placid. Neutrally perfect. Perfect, to be certain, she knew his face to be. She wondered if anybody noticed the faint scar near his eye, as if a tear burned his skin. It was so subtle, she doubted anyone could see it but she. She who took the time to categorize his sharp nose. The chin that was angular and also sharp, the faint stubble that would blossom every Wednesday when he would come into work, a subtle bruising around his pale eyes. As if every Tuesday night, he spent it wrapped up in tormenting thoughts, depriving himself of sleep. With a start, Hermione realized that tonight, they were at the close of a very long Tuesday at the office.
“Where do you reckon it’s coming from?” He asked, moving closer to her side.
She shivered against the cool air. “I think it’s coming from the south.” She nodded in it’s general direction.
Draco agreed with a quick nod, his eyebrows pulled tight.
“What do you think it is?” She asked as their feet slowly moved them southward.
The wind picked up, as if it too was hurrying toward the sound that would finally finally be examined. Hermione and Draco moved through the shadows of the elder trees that lined his street, filtering beams of moonlight that looked so much like the perfectly untamed hair on his head. Hermione almost sighed as she appreciatively examined him in the dead of night.
His hair captured the sparse light and she thought maybe he descended from the moon herself. The sentient rock that rotated her world, the tides ebbing and flowing with it’s rotations.
“It sounds like an injured animal.”
“Like a child, locked away in a dark cellar, and it’s afraid of the dark.” She adds and he nods, vehemently agreeing.
“When did it begin?” He asks without really expecting an answer, as his eyes narrow in. Trying to decide the start of this unusual event that has become so every day and quite usual in a very disturbing way.
“Three months ago?” She offered and he shook his head.
“Longer,”
She wanted to disagree, but she couldn’t bring herself to argue with him. They had argued so often, at some point, that it pained her terribly to keep doing so. Besides, who was she to say when he started to hear the wail? Perhaps it had always been there, and she only just noticed it three months ago.
“It started just before I started working at the DMLE.”
While Hermione mostly sat at a desk and pushed pencils and papers across it, but when Draco was assigned as her partner, she had partook in more and more field work. It was exciting and it was a welcome change. Her love for the job was reignited along with the ignition of her love for her partner. Deep, terrible love that was beautiful and sweet. It felt like it was slowly killing her.
“Oh, dear.” She mumbled, considering the two extra months that Draco had been doomed to wrestle sleep to the sound of something suffering tragically.
They approached a hillside at the end of town. It was the introduction to the wild that the small wizarding village was tucked into, nestled between forests and rocky hills covered in green, spongey moss.
Cracks in the rocky surface were gaping, yawning at them in the still of the night. The wail echoed between either side of the largest crevice. A cave, they supposed, and their eyes met.
Her big brown eyes met his narrowed pale blue ones and she could read the pain and the intrigue and something else. Something softer and more beautiful than any others. But she knew not what it was, that flicker of emotion, hidden amongst the array of those that plagued Draco Malfoy.
Those meeting eyes communicated silently and then they both pulled out their wands. Something they often found themselves doing more and more.
“Lumos,” They whispered together before finally pulling their gazes from each other. To the dank darkness that beckoned them to enter.
Draco stepped in before her. His wand held out in front of him and Hermione followed, admiring the sure footed steps he took, though lithe and ethereal. She thought, yes I think his true mother is the moon and I am the daughter of the sea and I am constantly at his will.
She shouldn't be focusing on the muscles contracting beneath his sweater. Or the way his shoulders allowed it to hang, slightly, gaping at his lower back. The way his pants hung low on his hips, flannel never looking so good as it did then against his thighs.
She should be focusing on their surroundings as they shimmied further into the rock. The earth had opened up and swallowed them, hungrily and without a bit of hesitancy.
The jagged bits and pieces of the rock scraped against their bodies like teeth nipping and biting at it’s meal. A taste, just a little taste.
The wail paused and so did they. Hermione reached out and held onto the fabric of his sweater. His back pressed into her as his hand came around behind him. He cradled her. This was familiar. This partnership. Of her sticking close to him, he protecting her, and together when it came time, they could depend on each other to hold their own against their foes.
“Do you think it’s over?” She asked into his back, breathing in the familiar scent of cedarwood and bergamot. He wore the same cologne, every day. Or maybe it was aftershave. She didn’t know the intricate process of his intimate morning rituals. But oh, how she wish she could.
“Maybe,” He paused, his fingers pressing into her forearm as he kept her close to him. And then the wail picked up again. It was closer, louder. It sent shivers down her spine. “It’s definitely in here.” Here was a cave. Here was an endless narrow path into the unknown.
“Malfoy,” She whimpered, claustrophobia sinking it’s claws into her. True fear taking over.
“Granger,” His tone was gentle and soothing. “I’m here.” He was, he was. He was.
With a shuddering breath, she forced her body to relax against him. to slide a hand up his back and make her palm press against the center of his back. It was meant to reassure him that she would be fine. He shuddered in response, his fingers digging into her arm.
The intimate contact propelled them forward.
They walked for several minutes. Or an hour. Or for days. She didn’t know. But together, bodies remaining in contact, his hand sliding from her arm to her wrap around her fingers, weaving them together.
She found herself trembling against the cold. Against the fear. Against the exhilaration. Draco continued to lead them on, deeper and deeper into the void.
Something moved and he stopped, pulling her against him.
“What is it?” She whispered against arm.
“I can’t tell.” He whispered. “It stepped just out of the light.”
Hermione raised her wand in an attempt to stretch the light of his wand to morph into hers, widening their field of vision. She was peeking around him and as the light stretched, they both caught the sight of a dark shadowy arm move out of the light. Deeper into the shadows.
The wail was continuous, still. But not close enough.
This being was not the source to the sound that kept them awake at night.
Draco glanced down at her as she looked up at him and his eyes softened when he beheld the fear pressed into her features.
And then the thing moved. Before Draco could lift his hand from her fingers to cup her cheek in a tender and loving sort of way she had always dreamed of, the thing pounced.
They stumbled back as it hissed. It was a shadowy mass that might have once been a human or demon. She had no idea, but it was volatile. Eyes like tiny orbs of yellow light glowed in the darkness. It’s body was long and dragged out amongst the shadows, blending with them flawlessly.
Draco cast a defensive spell while Hermione cast a protego, encasing them in a solid bubble of protection. But these kind of creatures do not need to touch you to harm you. They need only lock their yellow lit eyes with yours and then. Draco lurched forward, loosing his footing.
His hand left Hermione’s and pressed into the jagged stone wall. He hissed in pain and Hermione whimpered, trying desperately to make out how on earth he had been injured. Where, how bad?
Her hands roamed his body, looking for the injury and he squeezed his eyes shut, he grit his teeth. Shook his head.
Hermione growled at the creature and sent a curse in it’s direction. Something dark and only something that she would use in order to protect Draco. The creature breaks away from one wall to jump to the other. Dodging the curse the threw at it, the creature sets its eerie gaze onto her.
The air is punched from her lungs as the overwhelming sense of heart ache and despair clawed at her. She saw visions of Draco wrapping his arms with another woman. Someone like Pansy Parkinson, only she was not. They shared the dark mark. They shared a bed, they shared a life.
It was rapidly replaced by visions of Harry and Ron cursing her for falling in love with their childhood enemy. Quickly, it morphed into them being tortured. Over and over, their skin being flayed, falling off of them layer by layer.
She doubled over in pain, vomiting.
Draco was in pain. He was being flayed. Everyone she loved and cared for was being painfully and meticulously taken apart.
“Granger!” Draco’s voice was distant and failed to get her to stop staring into the tiny orb like eyes that showed her her fears. She felt them, smelled them. Tasted them. The nausea, the pain.
The annihilations of her heart.
“Hermione!” Draco’s hands were on her, blocking the shadowy creature. She blinked back tears but her vision was still blurry as she looked up and into Draco. “Look at me,” He softened his voice as his hands tightened their hold on her shoulders.
She did, refocusing her gaze. He was there, his warm breath coasting her face, eyes frantically searching her eyes. She trusted her instinct then, and let her hands shoot out to grasp him by the front of his sweater.
“You’re okay.” She breathed.
His eyes widened, just a little, and those brilliantly expressive eyes conveyed surprise and relief. Draco swept her hair from her face, with both hands, before he tenderly pressed them to her cheeks.
“You’re okay, too.” His eyes move to the edge of his vision, a glance. “Don’t look at its eyes.” She stared instead into his. “Do you understand?”
She nodded, and became vaguely aware of the wail still echoing throughout the cave. “I understand.” Her voice shook with adrenaline. With fear.
“Hold my hand and keep your eyes away from theirs.” He ordered and with one swipe of his thumb against her cheek, he turned. He grabbed her hand and she followed, with her eyes downcast and her body trembling.
She doesn’t know why they continue to go. The wail is luring them in. Has been for months. She’s certain of it. There must be something sinister at play here. Even more than the shadow figure they are slowly inching their way past. It doesn’t touch them as they pass.
In fact, the deeper they go, the more the shadows shift around them and the creature disappears amongst the dark they leave behind them.
They both sigh in relief, but Draco’s hand tightens on hers, unrelenting.
The moaning, mournful wail begins anew. There is a bitter cold the deeper they go and it is with a frightening realization, Hermione discovers that they are descending into the bowels of the earth. Down and down. Their feet shuffle, her flimsy slippers doing nothing to protect her feet from the scattered rocks digging into the arch of her foot. The air feels damper but so cold, her shivering is no longer due to just the fear.
Draco tugs her against his side and his fingers are clammy against hers. But they do not let go. Suddenly, in the meager penetration of light from their wands, they catch a glimpse of a gnarled branch.
As they move closer and closer, they soon come to realize that the branch is part of a massive tree with swirling knots and it’s in the center of a wide pocket of the cave. There is dozens of what looks like blood red oranges hanging from its branches. A red so dark, it summoned the feeling of dread as Hermione and Draco approached the tree.
They were presented with a tree underground. A giant, fruitful tree full of green and blood oranges. Its roots were twisting and diving into the ground and then out again and then back in.
“It’s a tree.” Hermione pointed out and Draco nodded because, yes it most definitely was a tree. It thrived in the dark of underground. It was happy in the cold, damp air.
Draco held his wand up high, allowing the light to guide the path of their eyes, eager to examine the phenomena. “What is this place?”
She couldn’t say for sure, but something about where they were headed made her think of words like hell and underworld. Demons and sin. Fear and depression.
Instead of saying all of that, she chewed on her lip as her eyes followed Draco’s wand light. Her own held wand still held up high, she noted the way the bark of the tree glistened, as if it absorbed the dampness that hung in the air.
“This doesn’t feel real.” He shook his head and pulled his hand free of hers. With it, he reached out and ran a finger along the bark. When his hand pulled back, his finger was wet. With something dark and maybe it was dust mixed in with the moisture. But Hermione thought it looked like the kind of inky goo that belongs inside of the veins of a horrible monster. A demonic being with ill intent.
“It feels like we’re being lured towards the devil himself.”
Draco rubbed his finger against his thumb, frowning down at the inky good. He sniffed it and recoiled. “Up close, it smells like rotten eggs.”
Hermione stopped herself from grabbing his hand and shoving it toward her nose. The curiosity a powerful thing, always leading her into funny situations. But she remained stark and rigid beside him. Wiping his fingers on the thigh of his pants, he starts to circle the tree, his wand still held out. Hermione remains standing where he left her.
“This tree has fruit.” He says.
She knows. She thinks it’s poison inside of them. But she is still tempted to pick one, peel back the layers and taste the flesh.
“Hermione, come here. Stay by my side.” He holds his hand out for her and she swallows with a throat that feels too tight.
When she doesn’t move, he regards her with caution. Her free hand lifts and reaches above her, to the branch with low hanging fruit. And pulls one free.
“Hermione!” Draco hisses.
She digs her fingernails into the peel, piercing it and then begins to pull it off. Piece by piece, the peel falls from her hands, onto the ground. Inside of the dark peel is a blood red orange covered in pith that might be white or pink. She can’t tell. It smells like summer and hope. It makes her lips lift with gentle ease. Ripping a section of it out with her wand hand, keeping it trapped between her middle and index finger, she lifts it to her lips and Draco leaps for her. But he’s too late. It’s in her mouth, her teeth are crushing the endocorp. Sacs of juice erupt and burst on her tongue, even as Draco knocks her to the ground.
Her wand falls away from them, but the remaining portion of the orange remains in her hand. Draco pants over her, eyes furiously cursing her with a passion that only his eyes can convey.
He’s watching her, waiting for something terrible to befall her. She swallows the bite and he growls down at her. Grabs the fruit from her hand and lifts it to his mouth. When he bares his teeth, she reaches out to stop him. But her hand is pinned between her body and his knee. He sinks his teeth into the juicy fruit. Drops fall into her hair.
When he too swallows his bite, he rolls of of her and lays down.
She knows that he is certain that they will die. Together, they will lay down and die under ground, beneath the shade of an orange tree that shouldn’t exist. They lay, however, in silence punctuated by their panting breath. Draco’s hand pressed over his eyes.
“What on earth provoked you to do that?” He rasped.
Hermione moved her head against the ground, side to side. “I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking at all.” Which was rare all in its own. But it was true! She took a deep breath and turned her head to look at him.
Draco was already staring at her, his expressive eyes hard to read in that moment. His hair was really and truly messy now. Tousled and her stomach twisted with a yearning that reached all the way past her belly and to her spine.
The tear slipped free without warning. His hand moved to capture it on his thumb.
It was time, she realized. It was time it was time it was time.
“I love you.” Unguarded and pained, the words finally fell from her lips in a whisper that left her chin trembling.
Draco’s hand froze, still touching her cheek.
“But I’m terrible.” He whispered back, eyes wide with wonder. He still was, mostly. Everyone at work hated working with him, the pompous prick, they called him. Harry was constantly back and forth but forever suspicious of him. Ron wanted to murder him half the time.
But not Hermione. He was protective and serious. He was always present in any conversation. He had input that made her marvel in intrigue. He was always by her side, her companion through the harshest times. And sometimes, whenever, there were jelly donuts at work — usually on Thursdays — he would smile. It was almost always hidden between a sneer and a scowl but whenever she brought him one to their office, powdered sugar dusting her finger tips, he would smile. A real smile that transformed his face.
And he would take a bite and lift it in a cheers or a thanks and she would stare and stare and stare at the way the sugar dusted his lower lip. The way his tongue would inevitably capture it and tuck it away.
Oh, how Hermione wishes she was powdered sugar he would savor. Not the squishy jelly inside that would disappear and she would be left staring at his back as he made them both a cup of tea. He would always put milk and honey in his and just milk in hers. He would keep them near his side of the office. Allowing them to cool down just so, before handing it over to her with a mild smirk. The smirk that was not harmful nor condescending. The smirks she only ever saw when they were alone.
“Not to me.” She swallowed back the excess of tears.
Draco shook his head. “No.” He resumed his task of wiping and stroking at her cheek. “Not to you.”
“You hate everyone.” She thought of the way he would relentlessly make fun of Ron. The way he would never cease to sneer at Seamus whenever he came by the office to ask for advice on a case. Calling him worthless incapable.
“Not you.” His thumb slide down to her mouth, grazing her bottom lip. And she was momentarily captivated by his hair like threads of moonlight, caked in dirt for, the ground they remained laying on.
His eyes dipped to follow his fingers movement. Briefly, in that moment, Hermione considered that they may be dying and she were in a fever dream. Struck I’ll by the poisonous fruit they both consumed. Her chest felt tight enough, like her breathing was labored.
And in that moment, as his eyes stared and stared at her mouth and she stared and stared at his hair, she realized that the wail had begun again. It climbed like a crescendo of a piece of music. Gradually, it built up with a haunting sort of moan before it crashed into a gravelly cry that held the single note.
Hermione’s head jerked toward the sound. On the other side of the tree, the path of the cave continued. The wail, it came from there and it sounded closer than ever. Draco’s hand fell to her hand and suddenly, she was lifted to her feet. He wrapped his fingers through hers, again he pulled he to his side and summoned her wand from where it fell. She took it from him with gratitude, had forgotten that it had even fallen.
Suddenly lit anew with the energy of curiosity, she walked with Draco to the other side of the pocket where the tree grew. As they entered back into the dark path, leaving her words of affection behind, the confession laying on the dusty floor amongst the gnarled roots of the tree.
She didn’t feel ashamed of her confession. She felt lighter. The words leaving her felt like a cathartic release of all the pent up doubt and anxiety. She had been festering with it, dying of the pain of unrequited and unexpressed love!
Draco held her tighter as they shimmied their way into the dark tunnel and the wail moved through the air around them, steady and prolonged and it dug into their skin. The skin at the back of their necks and around their temples. The hairs on her arms stood as the traversed the dark and earthen path.
“It’s close, now.” He murmured over his shoulder, glancing back at her as he moved sideways through the path. This broad shoulders were too wide to fit through the walls and Hermione barely fit, her dainty form almost sideways as she allowed him to pull her forward. ““There’s light.” He said and she looked through his arm to see that indeed, there was a faint glow. The light looked grayish or silver, she couldn’t tell amongst the darkness that surrounded it, the darkest shadows. Vantablack, the shadows were so dark they seemed to be sucking the rays of silvery light towards it.
“Do you think it’s an exit?” She whispered.
“I don’t know…” His head tilted as he examined the sparse light up ahead. “It looks like another chamber in the cave system.” His thumb moved over her knuckles once, softly. “Please don’t leave me side this time.”
She didn’t bother telling him that it was he who had left her side back at the tree. Because she doesn’t regret what happened, she says nothing. She only squeezes his hand in agreement and he squeezes hers back.
They’re getting closer to the light and the wail begins to taper off, as if the lungs of whatever is making the sound, finally used up all of the oxygen in its lungs, and it dragged with a rattle as it came to a sudden stop.
They approached the pocket of light and stopped at the entrance.
The air was still, not a whisper of sound.
Hermione stepped up beside Draco, their hands still connected, their shoulders lined up. The glow of the light came from above, but they could not see an opening in the rock. Nor could they see a bulb or a lantern that would emit such lighting.
There was no continuation of the tunneled path that they could see. But what the light did not touch, was not visible to them, their eyes unable to penetrate the thick dark shadows of the cave. They could not even tell how large the chamber was. It could have been only the size of the light showed. It could have been bigger. Much bigger.
Hermione was just about to tug on his hand to go back the way they came. To encourage him to abandon their mission. But just as she opened her mouth to speak, the wail burst into the cave with no build up. Louder than ever, it screeched and moaned and it hurt her ears.
They both let go of each other to clap their hands over their injured ears. They couldn’t see what could possibly be making such a foul sound. It was heartbreaking and terrifying all at once.
And then it died. As fast as it had burst into existence, piercing their eardrums, it stopped and when they tentatively removed their hands from their ears, the sound of a soft breeze howling through the rocks of the mountain they stood in hummed.
The temperature inside of the cave plummeted, and Hermione found herself shivering so violently that Draco pulled her into him with both arms. He was shivering as well, but she pressed her body into his. Their bodies begged to mold together, willing heat to seep into each others limbs.
“What’s happening?” She stammered out through shuddering and tingling lips.
He nuzzled his face into the top of her head and murmured into her skull, “I don’t know. Hermione,” he stammered over trembling lips and she squeezed him tighter, pressing her body heat into him. He didn’t finish his sentence because a form moved into the light.
It was hurried and grotesque. It terrified her.
There was a definite set of horns that protruded from the top of the forms head. The form that looked female. Long black hair that might have been spun of shadows. The shadows that were dark, too dark to see through. The shadows that lived in this chamber.
Eyes of all black. The kind you see on an insect that children are afraid of. But the features of this woman creatures face was quite beautiful. If not for the gaunt look to her cheeks and the way her jaw hung open, as if the hinge it used was broken.
Her teeth, jagged and sharp and shiny. They looked cleaner than any of her parents own looked. Dentist tended to take very good care of their own teeth. Hers gleamed they were so well taken care of, better than any queen in existence. Perhaps she was some kind of queen of dark.
Her mouth remained hanging open as she drifted into the center of the mysterious, glowing light. Her hair, those shadowy tentacles, they floated and drifted in threads as they left the shadowy corner of the chamber. As if she was disentangling herself from the vantablack mass of dread.
She wailed!
That dreadfully horrible sound erupted from her and both Hermione and Draco watched in horror as her jaw seemed to further unhinge. It dropped lower, lower, and the darkness of her mouth yawned as the sound pulled and pulled against their nerves.
Draco tightened his hold on Hermione as the figure drifted closer to them. Her body was thin and long and when she lifted her hand to point her thin, crooked finger at them, Hermione saw her fingernails were shaped into razor sharp tips. Beneath the nail was dark crust, blood or dirt, she didn’t know.
A powerful wind overtook them, pulling at their bodies. Forcing them apart!
Hermione’s fingers clawed at the dark hooded sweater that Draco wore. His fingers clawed at dark her coat. Their wands clattered to the hard packed earth beneath their feet, the lumos spell extinguishing. Darkness was swallowing them both as their bodies drifted further and further apart. Hands slid from bodies to arms and finally to the tips of each others fingers. Grasping, desperately, to maintain a hold on one another.
“Draco!” She cried and her body pulled away, the tips of his fingers barely touching hers.
“Hermione,” he growled. But he sounded frightened. Pained, as his face slowly slid into the shadows.
“No, come back!” Hermione scrambled, but the force of the wind, the thunderous wail…it kept pulling at her. Or him. She couldn’t tell if she was moving or he was. Or both of them we moving.
And just as the tips of their fingers broke contact, the glow of the cave vanished, plunging them into pure darkness.
Hermione was at a stand still. Her hands reached out with trembling fingers as she searched the space in front of her. She saw nothing and her slippered feet shuffled as she felt blindly at nothing. Anything, something that may give her a sense of direction.
The cave was silent, only that soft howl hummed in the air. And the rapid, panicked inhales of air into her lungs.
Her fingers finally found a solid wall of rock. She moved to her right, at least she thinks it’s her right, and continued on. The rock kept going and she feared she was moving away from that chamber where she lost Draco.
“Draco.” She whispered and got no reply. She was so terrified that the creature had taken him. Hurt him, killed him.
She sobbed and it echoed into the void. And then she heard him. A groan, like he was waking up or injured. But it sounded distant, so far from where she was.
“Draco!” She whisper sobbed.
He grunted and she kept moving in the same direction, scaling the wall, hoping desperately that it would take her closer to him. And not further away.
“Granger?” his voice sounded as if his throat had been shredded. His voice was decidedly not getting further away.
“I’m here.” She moved faster, edging her way around the chamber. At least, that is what she assumed she was doing. She hoped.
And then she Screamed.
Something wrapped around her waist and tugged her so violently, her feet lifted off the ground. Her body flew across some unknown amount of space and then landed hard. Her shoulder collided into the ground with such force that she thinks she heart something snap. She certainly felt like something snapped. A bone or a tendon.
“Granger!” Draco bellowed. “Fuckfuckfuckfuck.” He was panicking. She has never heard Draco panic. Not since their time in the room of requirements had she heard such frantic fear in his voice.
She was crying. Her body hurt. And her heart broke for him.
“It’s okay, Granger.” He said and she could hear him moving, his boots crunching against the dirt floor. “It’s going to be okay. I’m coming.”
That silvery ghostly light flickered on directly above her, blinding her. Her eyes angry at the intrusion of sudden light in the pitch of black.
Her eyes shut, instinctively. But something wrapped around her throat. It was cold and she couldn’t feel pressure like a hand would cause. But slowly, her the thing tightened around her neck and the air that flowed through her trachea diminished.
Her eyes popped open. The edges of her vision darkened and her head grew light, like it was detaching from her neck, about to float away.
“Granger!” Draco cried. It sounded like he was also choking. He growled and then said, “Hermione! Please!” She tried to look at him but her eyes just kind of swirled in her head. She couldn’t find him.
“Please!” He begged. “Leave her alone. Take me, take me!”
Hermione was vaguely aware of the shadowy for, of the woman materializing over her. Her black eyes were watching something beyond her line of vision. Draco, perhaps. Her mouth hung open, and the shadowy threads of her hair were everywhere.
And then she began to wail. It started with a rasping moan.
“Let her go. Please.” His words sounded wet, like he was crying. “Take me, please. I’ll do anything. Just let her go!”
The wail reached an unmatchable volume that threatened to burst her ear drums. She might already be bleeding out of her ears but her body was not intact. She felt like she was breaking into pieces.
“She is the only good thing in my life and I’d rather die than let anything happen to her.” The wail grew even louder. Shriller. Draco kept talking, as if the creature demanded him to. “I love her. Fuck!” He hissed. “I love her so much it hurts! My chest constantly feels like it’s being cleaved in half. Like the pain of knowing the woman I love is too good for me is cracking every rib and is poking holes into my heart. Over and over and over.” The wail is lower now, the noose around her throat loosening just enough for flickers of light to pop in and out of Hermione’s vision.
“But I swear to gods, I would do anything to keep her safe. I will dance with the devil, himself. Is that what you are?” He snarled at the beast. Her mouth, still agape, pulled at the edges as if she yearned to smile at him. “Come on, then. She is not meant for you. She’s a good one. The best!” She could hear his feet shuffling closer. But she still could not turn her head toward him. “I am the one you should take. It’s my soul that is tainted.”
But she felt like she could gather the strength. Because Draco loved her. He would die for her and she for him. Hermione began to find enough wits about her to silently reach out her hand, behind her back and summon her wand.
Her tingling lips didn’t move. She simply willed it. She nearly cried when the smooth Hawthorne wood slammed silently into her hand. She wrapped her fingers as the creature began to pull away from Hermione, still somehow keeping her pulled off halfway from the floor. But the things focus was solely on Draco and she smile and wailed in triumph as those dark shadowy tendrils slithered from her hair and toward him.
With the demons attention off of her, Hermione struck.
She held her wand out toward the creature and yelled with everything she had. Every bit of love she had for her life. Her friend. For Draco.
“Expecto Patronum!”
She sobbed and screamed as she held tight to her wand, with the hand that was attached to the arm that was most definitely injured.
The brilliant patronus burst from the tip of her wand with such intensity that the entirety of the chamber lit up. She saw Draco standing nearby, too close to the beast. His clothing was covered in dirt and there was a tear in his leg. She saw red and pale skin. His hair was sticking out in several direction, as if he had pulled and pulled at it in desperation. His eyes were bloodshot and his face paler than ever.
They locked onto hers as she re-centered here and aimed it directly at the evil entity. Slowly, she dragged her eyes to the thing and it wailed in pain. Loud and blistering against the skin. It vibrated in the large chamber. She could see now that the chamber was massive. The size of her small house. The creature continued to wail and it dragged out as the shadows that floated off of her began to dissipate. Draco was inching his way toward her.
The thing seemed to get angrier. Louder. The closer Draco got to Hermione.
And then he was kneeling beside her, one hand on her shoulder. His other hand helped her hold up her wand hand. She hadn’t realized that she was loosing strength. The force of magic that was leaving her was draining her, rapidly.
But when Draco’s fingers wrapped around her wrist, the patronus glowed anew. The otter finally launched itself at the shadowy figure and it wailed louder. The wail rattled in the beasts throat. Its jaw dropped lower and lower and its skin began to peel away. As if it were made of egg shells, it cracked and peeled away before they fluttered in that phantom breeze that still hummed distinctly in the background. Beyond the wail and Hermione’s screams of effort.
“You’ve got this, love.” Draco muttered, resting his forehead against the side of her head. “Keep holding on. I’m with you.”
Hermione clenched her teeth, baring them in a growl at the beast that threatened to break them apart.
“That’s it,” he cooed into her ear as the last bits of skin fell. Beneath the shell. Nothing but shadows lay. In the form of that creature, it floated and the wail became raspy as it began to shrink.
“Keep going, love.” She did.
That insidious wail vanished as the figure grew smaller and smaller.
And then. It disappeared. As if the air itself sucked it up.
Hermione crumbled against Draco and he kissed her head. Over and over, he kissed her hair and her temple.
“I love you.” He growled. His arms wrapped around her, holding her up as her patronus fizzed out, plunging them once more into darkness.
“Iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou.” His words were paying homage to her. His hands worshiped her as they moved over her. Caressing her. Examining her injuries, she realized when he squeezed her shoulder and she cried out in pain.
“I’m sorry.” His mouth was on her face in between her eyes, just above the bridge of her nose. “I’m so sorry it took me this long. I’ve loved you since we were children. You have been the only thing in life worth loving.”
She sobbed. “You have to let go of the pain, Draco.” She was grasping at his face now, cupping his cheeks with her cold, shaking fingers, wand still in hand. “I’ve decided that you are not terrible. You are wonderful and incredible and I’m very very much in love with you.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
“You were willing to sacrifice yourself for me. If anyone is underserving, it's me!” She felt the brush of his lips against hers as she spoke. She was trying to spit it all out as if they were short on time and if she didn’t say what she needed to say, then they would perish. “Please,” She kissed his mouth once. “Just let me love you.” She pulled back but his face moved forward, his lips chasing hers.
He kissed her hard. Their lips crashed and she melted into him. His tongue swept out and ran along the seam of her lips. She opened her mouth and welcomed him in. His hand moved over her cheeks, pushing dirt covered curls back from her face. Her fingers danced along the lines of his jaw and then found the back of his neck.
They dug into the hairs there, pulling him closer. Desperately trying to get closer to him. Afraid to let go.
She couldn’t see him in the dark but she felt him. The point of his nose against her cheek. The shape of his mouth against hers. She was in love and she was completely and utterly unraveled before him.
Pulling apart, they breathed into each others mouths. He tasted like salt and mint.
“Let’s get out of here.” Draco managed to scoop her up into his arms. “Accio wand, Lumos.” He muttered the spells and light filled the cavernous chamber. She lit her own wand.
Two exits on opposite sides of the chamber. They had gotten so turned around in all of the drama that they didn’t know which way to go.
“Should we apparate home?”
Draco shook his head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with your shoulder. I don’t want to risk further injury.” He held her like she weight nothing. She felt like she weighed nothing. She thinks that her heart was so full, that it had inflated, filling her chest with air that caused her to become buoyant and easy for him to haul around.
“Which way then?” She chewed thoughtfully on her lip and shook her head. “Just pick one.”
Draco did. He carried her to one exit. The tunnel went on forever. In no time at all. Her shoulder throbbed, close to her clavicle. She’s certain that she’s got a broken bone. But the pain is nowhere near as great as the relief she feels. Being cradled in Draco’s arms. Holding him close to her. The sprinkling of kisses he showers her in as they walk.
Her temple. Her forehead. Her nose. Her mouth, her mouth. Over and over.
They emerged into the cool twilight hour before dawn. The horizon bleeds from orange to purple to dark blue. Stars still twinkle in the sky and the moon lights the path for them as they move away from the cave.
“Where are we?” Draco asks.
She doesn’t know. It looks like a different world. There’s beautiful colors of red and orange on the trees, their leaves vibrant with speckles of green. They’re standing before an orchard.
There are deep red pieces of fruit hanging in the trees and the grass is covered in luminous purple flowers that line a path that leads from the cave and through the groves.
A bird squawks somewhere nearby followed by a flutter of wings as it emerges from one of the grand trees. Trees, she realizes, look exactly like the one in the cave.
The bird is magical. It’s got silver feathers and a white underbelly that they stare at, as it flies overhead.
They are in a new world.
“I have no idea.” She lies. “Do we keep going?” She hopes he says yes because she desperately wants to see this new world full of vibrant colors. The air smells like citrus and it feels cool against her face.
Draco looks down at her and she sees all of the love in his eyes. Expressive as ever, he nods as a smile. That one that stays tucked away between scowls and sneers. The smile he saves only for her.
He kisses her once again. This time on her eyebrow. “Okay.”
And together, they leave the old world behind.