Chapter 81
Prompt: Secret soul bonds
There
It had been close to 2 years since he last felt it and the unfamiliar sensation almost brought him to his knees.
Draco looked around seeing nothing but undisturbed countryside, not a home nor a soul in sight, but he knew better.
She was here.
After two years of searching every known Order safehouse, even those that were only rumored, he had finally found her.
Closing his eyes, he slowed his breathing and focused on the ancient magic reaching for his core. It gently caressed him, filling him with a sense of completeness he had almost forgotten. Almost.
“Hermione,” he breathed out, barely a whisper, but powerful in its incantation.
A flash of light was his only warning before the wards exploded around him. Draco watched in awe as a dragon made of Fiendfyre tore through the safe house, screams following its path as the order members tried in vain to escape. They never realized their fate was sealed the moment they took her from him and locked her away.
Another scream and Draco watched as the roof collapsed, the fire coursing through the property, leaving nothing and nobody behind; except for one.
She was pure magic.
Draco watched as Hermione emerged from the wreckage, her brown curls crackling with magic, her eyes burning with the dragon directly above her, waiting on her command.
There was no sound other than the roar of the fire and the pounding of Draco’s heart in his ears as she finally locked eyes with him.
They tore across the field toward one another, their bond pulsing and urging them closer. As they fell into one another’s arms, their touches became frantic, each seeming desperate to be sure the other was real.
Draco pulled back first, his hands cradling her face, searching her amber eyes for answers.
“Are you ok?” he asked, his tone more demanding than he’d have liked.
Hermione gave a small smile, “I am now,” she muttered as she tried to nuzzle once more into his chest.
Draco stepped back, “I’m serious, what happened? What did they do to you?”
Hermione broke his gaze, looking back toward the wreckage. “It was Luna; Luna could see the soulbond and she told Harry.”
She paused, eyes still searching the blaze before she swallowed, “She hadn’t meant anything to come of it, she thought it would be proof to the Order, proof you were on our side, but..”
“Harry, he couldn’t see beyond his rage. He convinced the rest that you had forced a soul bond, as if that could even be possible, he locked me here, forcing everyone to find a “cure” to rid me of the bond and when that didn’t work…”
She stopped again, unable to prevent the tears from pouring down her face. Draco pulled her into his chest as he tried and failed to temper his own rage over imagining what her life must have been like these past two years.
“What do we do now, love? Just tell me what you want and I will do it for you,” he whispered into her hair.
A quiet sob shook her body, “I want them to pay, Draco.”
“Who?”
She pulled back and fixed him with a determined gaze, her eyes bright with barely contained fury
“Everyone.”