Ultimatum

A/N: I hope you are all still enjoying this. I'm almost done, it's been over a year, but I'm almost to the end. Thank you all so much for your patience.

Chapter 12
Two Words

Draco took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and tried to wake up so that this horrible dream would be over. He heard the clink of wood hitting stone and then a frump of someone hitting the ground. He opened his eyes and noticed that Potter had collapsed next to Hermione and was tearing up, looking down at her motionless face.

It felt as though someone had stabbed Draco through the chest and had ripped out his heart, he just couldn’t get over the fact that there on the ground was his Hermione, his fiancée, the only woman besides his mother that he could ever love. Slowly he made his way over to Potter and Hermione.

Draco was still not sure whether this was a dream or not, when Potter didn’t even rise to try and curse him, Draco became confused. Would Dream Potter curse him because that’s what Draco expected, or would Real Potter do that because that’s what Potter liked to do was curse people. Draco wasn’t sure, but when he looked down at Hermione, he collapsed. Nearly all of the feeling in his body, except the severe pain in his chest, left him as he fell onto the ground next to his beloved.

She looked peaceful, like she did when she was sleeping, and Draco ran a hand through her hair. He noticed that there were water drops falling on her face and realised that they were his own tears. How could it be that just that morning Draco had been licking strawberry jam off Hermione’s breasts? They had been making love not even two hours ago and now…now she was gone.

Draco’s hand ran from her hair, down her neck and to her stomach where their child had been growing. He wouldn’t even have a baby as a reminder of the woman that he loved, for both were dead.

Draco looked into her face, trying to imagine that he saw her take in a breath, or move her eyelashes, or that something would twitch so that he knew that she was not really dead, but he had watched as she had been hit dead centre by the killing curse. There was no way that she could possibly be alive.

When Draco was hit with that revelation, he started sobbing, not even aware that Potter was still sitting there.

Harry, who had been watching the entire thing with a sort of fascination, finally came to his senses when Draco began sobbing loudly. “Malfoy,” he said to the man crying next to the body of Harry’s best friend. “Malfoy!”

Malfoy looked up at him in surprise. “What?” he asked, his voice broken.

Harry didn’t like that he had to do this, but he had promised Hermione, and even if she was…gods, he couldn’t even think it...Well, he would keep his promise to her. “You have to do something for me,” he said and when he saw a skeptical look on Malfoy’s face he said, “It’s for Hermione.”

“What is it?” Malfoy asked, tears of sorrow streaming down his face.

“Hermione asked me to keep you, your mother, and Blaise Zabini alive. I need you to find the other two and keep them in a safe room so that none of you are killed.” When Malfoy began looking like he would rather be dead, Harry continued. “I swear to Merlin, Malfoy, I promised Hermione and if you die, I will find a way to haunt your afterlife, now find them and get them somewhere safe!”

Malfoy looked down at Hermione with absolute love shining in his eyes. He picked up her hand and kissed the ring on her finger and then placed her hand on her stomach and got up. He walked swiftly down the hall and knocked on the door of the room that Hermione had said housed Voldemort. Harry stood in the shadows for a moment as Malfoy seemed to be talking to someone. When Narcissa Malfoy walked out of the door, trying to console her crying son, Harry realised that Malfoy was doing exactly what he had told him to do.

Harry quickly got out of sight as Draco and Narcissa walked back over to Hermione and Narcissa broke down in tears at the sight. Draco quickly lifted the dead weight of Hermione’s body into his arms and carried her away with Narcissa following.

Harry was finally in the clear to kill the man who had killed his parents and his godfather, his two best friends and his mentor. He would finally have the revenge he needed for the man who had made his life on this earth a living hell.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Blaise and Ginny were taking in excited voices when there was a knock on their door, before they were even able to answer, the door burst open and three people came into the room. Narcissa quickly shut the door behind them and Draco walked over to the bed to set Hermione down.

Ginny and Blaise looked at the other people for a few seconds before they realised that they themselves were absolutely naked and that they should put some clothes on. Draco and Narcissa turned around and the other two clothed themselves quickly. Ginny then walked over to Hermione and touched her face. “What’s wrong with her?” she asked.

Draco began sobbing again and Narcissa had to explain in a choked voice. Ginny began crying too and she and Draco hugged each other as they cried over Hermione.

After about an hour, almost everyone had settled down and stopped crying, except Draco who was sitting in a chair by the window, looking out at the blackened landscape, finding it a nice picture of his future—dark, gloomy, bitter and never ending. He looked back over to Hermione on the bed, she was no longer wearing just a slip because Ginny had attempted to put some clothes on her. His eyes began to water again as he looked around at the other people in the room. Ginny was sitting on the bed, wrapped in Blaise’s arms as she looked down at Hermione, and Narcissa was staring at the door while standing next to the bed.

As if his mother was psychic, only a couple of seconds later, the doors burst open and three fully armed men walked into the room. The three red heads looked ready to fight but then took in the ambience in the room. “Ginny?” a Weasley that Draco had never seen before asked.

“Charlie?” Ginny said and hopped up from the bed, she ran over and hugged her brother as the twins also joined in the hug. Ginny then stepped away from them. “Don’t hurt them, you guys, they are all good,” she said.

“We know, Gin,” one of the twins said. “But we have to take them in. They still have to go on trial.”

Ginny looked over at her husband who nodded his head and then walked over to the red head and held out his hands together. “Fine,” he said.

One of the twins tied his hands together. “Oi, Malfoy!” he said.

“Just let me say goodbye,” Draco said, standing up from his chair and kneeling next to the bed, he softly brushed his hand through Hermione’s hair and kissed her motionless lips softly. “I love you, Hermione Granger, and I will never love anyone like I love you.”

Draco hated his overactive imagination in that moment because he watched her eyes open slightly and her voice choke out, “I love you, too.” But a moment later she was just as still as she had been and Draco knew that she really had not moved at all. He was delusional with the hope that she would still be alive.

He walked over to the red head dubbed Charlie and held his hands out. “Azkaban can’t be much worse than this hell hole anyway,” he said and Charlie tied his hands together.

Narcissa was walked out with the other two and they were all put together with the rest of the death eaters going to Azkaban. Harry had killed Voldemort, they had heard and Narcissa let out a short sob. They were all transported by portkey directly to Azkaban where they were each put in their own individual cells.

Draco sat in the middle of his iron prison. He brought his knees up to his body and sobbed fresh tears into his robes. Life would never be the same again, he realised. He was going to be stuck in the cell for the next fifteen to twenty years of his life, he would never see Hermione again, his mother would probably die before she got out of this place, and he would never get the chance to make everything right with all of the people that he had wronged in his life.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

A few days after Draco had been first put into his cell, Potter came to visit him. He had sat down on the bed that Draco hadn’t even realised was in there, and had talked to him about the trial and how he just shouldn’t say anything because Potter would do all the talking and try to get the three of them out of Azkaban. Draco didn’t really care. He had cried himself dry in the last couple of days and wanted nothing more than to hang himself with his robes. The only thing that kept him from doing something like that was the effect it would have on his mother.

“What about Hermione?” he asked when Potter seemed to be done talking about the trial.

“We’re waiting for you to get out of here,” is all Potter said before he took his leave and left Draco behind in his cell to wallow in more of his self misery and pain.

Draco hated magic more than anything else right now. How could it be that someone would come up with a spell that with two words someone like him could lose not only the woman that he was in love with, love that he would never find again in his life, but also a child that he had been so looking forward to having? Four days ago, he and Hermione had been talking about what to name their child, now both Hermione and the child were gone.

Draco had lost his family—his future—in two words.