Penance

Hermione stood stock still. “What?”

He screamed out in agony, his body writhing. She moved to help him, to ease the pain but he locked eyes with her.

They were red. His eyes were red. Terrified, she stumbled back, the food dish falling with an unnecessary amount of noise. He bellowed again and arched against his restraints.

“Harry, please…let me help,” she crawled forward, pausing as he screamed again.

“No! You won’t fucking touch her! Hermione, get out! Get out of here!” How could he know who she was? She was still in the form of Marcus Flint!

“No, Harry, what’s wrong?” Why was he acting this way?

He stopped, his body slouching, gasping. “How did you find me?” he croaked.

“They-they brought me here, I took out Marcus Flint, took his body…how did you know it was me?”

“You have to leave…now. You can’t stay here. Leave me, just go!” he cried out again, his screams tearing at her heart.

“No, I’m not leaving you, not again!” she said, kneeling before him and taking his face in her hands. She transfigured herself back and held his gaze. “Harry, look at me. Whatever is wrong we can fix it. I’ll get you out of here, I swear.”

“No, you can’t. You have to leave before he comes back.”

“Who? Before who comes back?”

He looked at her, his green eyes dead. He was the same boy, but not. He was a man, tormented. “Please, leave. I can’t have your death on my hands, and I can’t hold him off much longer. He’ll find a way, he always finds a way.”

She had no idea what he was talking about but she didn’t care. She turned Marcus Flint’s wand on the shackles and worked them, muttering several incantations as Harry sobbed next to her. After nearly a minute of agonizing patience they broke free and Hermione quickly caught Harry’s skeletal body before it hit the floor. He leaned against her, absolutely unable to take his own weight. Hermione no longer felt her own pain, but his.

“Please, Hermione…don’t do this…I’ve worked so long...”

“I know, I know. You don’t have to anymore. I’ll take care of you, I promise, I’ll get us out of here.”

“He’s coming, Hermione…I can’t hold him off much longer…hurry…run…”

She looked towards the door but heard no movement. Figuring he was simply paranoid now, she clenched the wand in one hand, lifting Harry as high as she could. His legs dragged but it would have to do because she would need her wand free in case they met anyone. She tried to aparate but was blocked. So she pulled him along, extinguishing the candles along the way and silencing Harry to anyone but her. He moaned in anguish and she had to fight the tears as she made her way down the pitch black hallway, wishing she had those Hands of Glory the Weasley twins had made.

“Hey, who turned out the lights?”

Heart racing, Hermione quickly Dissillusioned Harry and herself as the lights flickered back on. Though still moaning, Harry stayed still as if knowing the danger. Hermione didn’t even breathe.

“Who’s there? Flint?”

The man from before hurried past them and Hermione dragged Harry forward, nearly crying with joy as a window drew near. Breaking the window with a quick spell, Hermione knew she had only moments.

“Who’s there? Crabbe! Intruder! Get down here!”

Pleading with Harry for his help, which she did not receive, she pushed him up to the high sill, pulling herself up next to him.

“There, the window!”

Spells flew at her and she threw herself out the window as Harry had done to her all those years ago. Gripping Harry to her she aparated in midair and landed with a bang on the entrance hall floor of the Den, Harry atop her, stealing her breath from her lungs.

“Don’t move! We’ve got you surrounded, you-Harry? Oh Gods! Seamus! Dean, get out here! Hurry!”

Someone was lifting Harry from her and she coughed. Arms helped her up and she turned to Harry who was shaking violently. Crawling to his side, ignoring all others, she took him in her arms.

“Hermione…I can’t…any longer…I can’t hold him off…”

“There’s no one to hold off anymore, you’re safe,” she stroked his long, greasy hair from his face.

“You don’t understand…run…run…”

With a yell and a whip of his head his eyes turned red and he sneered up at her.

“My dear mudblood, it’s a pleasure to see you again,” a cold version of Harry’s voice taunted.

“Harry?”

“He’s gone, you won’t be seeing him anymore.”

Hermione gasped and grabbed at her stomach which was twisting itself inside out.

“Hermione!” someone was grabbing at her but the pain was so intense…she couldn’t breathe…

“It’s not him, it’s not Harry! Go for help, someone, go for help!” Ginny was screaming. Someone tried to pull her back but she grabbed Harry’s shoulder.

“You…can’t…have him,” she gasped, her body on fire, her eyes rolling with the pain.

“I believe I can,” he chuckled.

“No, Harry…fight it…fight it, I know…I know you can…for me…please…” she wouldn’t last much longer, whatever this evil version of Harry was doing, it was killing her. She could almost feel her body dying. She collapsed on Harry’s chest as he started screaming again.

“Harry…please…I love you…”

A guttural yell and arms came like a vise around her, Harry’s. He held her…it was him. The clenching ceased but the pain continued, the damage done.

“No…no, no, no…I told you to leave me…help,” Harry croaked. “Help her…”

She was lifted into a set of arms…Seamus, with his sandy colored hair and pale blue eyes was carrying her.

“Harry…” she cried.

“He’s coming, just behind us. Hang on, Hermione, hang on to me,” he told her. She couldn’t, her body wouldn’t listen. The darkness was crawling, seeping into her. She heard the Irish man yell “Hogwarts!” and she gave in to the pain.


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Draco woke to a racket and sat straight up in bed. His head swirled but righted itself quickly and he squinted towards the door in the dark hospital wing.

“Madame Pomfrey!” someone shouted, carrying a body, several people behind him, two carrying another. What now?

The older woman bustled into the room, tugging on a nightcap as she went while the man laid down a very still figure and the two others hefted the larger body onto a bed beside it. Draco got to his feet, surprised when he was able to walk normally with minimal amounts of pain.

“What happened?” Madame Pomfrey asked, looking over the first person, snapping her fingers for light which blinded them all.

“Hermione came, with Harry…something happened…she was grabbing her stomach, he went all weird. We don’t know…”

Hermione…

Draco ran to her side and fell to his knees. She was spattered with blood, her face caked with it, her hands…her clothes were torn, her skin bruised, her hair matted…

“Hermione! Oh Gods…” he moaned. He watched shakily as Madame Pomfrey pulled up her shirt and prodded her stomach with her wand. The older woman sucked in a breath and snapped at Dean Thomas to grab a black bag from her office. She turned to Harry who was twitching, the whites of his eyes all anyone could see. When Dean returned in amazing time she pulled out a vial and shoved it down Harry’s throat, rubbing his neck to move the potion down. The twitching eased and he lay still. She handed a bottle to Ginny and told her to make him drink it while she turned back to Hermione who slowly paled before Draco’s eyes. He gripped her hand tightly, stroking her hair with one hand. He said nothing, allowing the nurse to concentrate as she worked. Suddenly, the woman exploded.

“OUT! Out everyone, OUT!”

They all jumped and Seamus, who had blood on him from Hermione, dragged Ginny and Dean out, cocking his head at Draco to indicate he should leave as well. Draco didn’t want to leave Hermione…

“That’s you too, Mr. Malfoy. I said out!”

Someone was pulling on him and he went reluctantly with. Luna conjured a seat for him when he was outside the hospital wing door and he sat, exhausted, shaking.

“What happened?” he croaked. A blanket came over him and he tucked its warmth around him.

“She must have aparated,” Ginny said. “I was in the kitchen, we were going over some maps of dungeons we know they hold and there was this crash. I went out into the entrance hall and there they were…I had to pull Harry off of her…he was moaning so loud. She just crawled over to him and started talking to him…I couldn’t hear most of it but I heard him say ‘run’ and then he was screaming. His eyes…they turned red and he said ‘My dear mudblood, what a pleasure it is to see you again’ and when she said his name he said in this really cold voice ‘he’s gone, you won’t be seeing him anymore’. And then she just grabbed her stomach and screamed, we came here, we didn’t know what else to do…”

Draco felt ill, both from his injuries and from what they told him. What the fuck was wrong with Potter? Had he gone mad? What had he cursed Hermione with? He had no idea how she had escaped, they wouldn’t know until she awoke…

If she did…

He must have dozed off worrying because the next thing he knew someone was shaking his shoulder.

“Malfoy? We can go inside now,” Seamus Finnegan said. Draco took his offered hand and limped into the hospital wing where Ginny and Luna were already stationed by Harry’s bed, Ginny stroking his wet hair, one hand on a bony shoulder. He had obviously been bathed but the bruises, scars and closing wounds were still painfully obvious, as was his gaunt face and translucent skin. He sat on Hermione’s bed and looked her over. She was pale as well, dark circles under her eyes, dark bruises marring her beautiful skin. She had been washed as well, her wet hair flowing around her on the white pillowcase.

“How is she?” he asked as Madame Pomfrey came up behind him carrying potions.

“It’s hard to tell,” the nurse said stiffly. “It’s an old curse. We had to read about it in training, of course, but I’ve never actually seen it performed, never knew anyone who could use it…Dark. Very Dark.”

Why would Potter use a Dark spell on his best friend? It didn’t make sense. He glanced over at him. He breathed steadily in a drug induced sleep, his eyes occasionally twitching as it he was fighting it.

“Come along, there’s nothing more we can do. Back to bed, Draco dear,” Madame Pomfrey ushered kindly. He left her reluctantly and crawled back into his warm, soft bed, his body weary. He fell back to sleep without the use of a potion while the others talked quietly around him.


_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

When Draco woke again he felt that this time he might stay awake for more than a few minutes. The weak January sun was shining through the high windows and he sat up carefully, assessing his wounds. It was incredible what Madame Pomfrey could do in just a few days. He looked over to his left and was stunned to see Hermione sitting up in bed, Luna next to her braiding her hair and chatting quietly. He hurried over to her and she grinned up at him.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

“Me? What the bloody hell are you doing sitting up? You should be asleep!” he protested.

“I’m fine, Draco. Really.”

“You were unconscious when they carried you in here. You didn’t look fine then.”

“Yes, well it was rather painful at the time but Madame Pomfrey is a miracle worker. I’ glad to see you are up and about, Luna told me you’ve been out of it most of this time.”

He looked at the girl in question. “Would you excuse us for a minute?” he asked grittingly, trying his hardest to sound polite. She could tell from his voice, however, that she should leave. With a tap of her wand a band wound its way around the end of Hermione’s braid and the oddball beat a hasty retreat with a sorrow-filled look at Hermione who waved her off. Draco fumed.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” he growled.

“Don’t start on me-,”

“Oh I will, and don’t try to pull this ‘I’m sick’ bullshit. You’re going to answer me, and you’re going to answer me now.”

“No, Draco, I don’t think I will.”

No? “What were you thinking? You didn’t even have your magic. You could have been killed.”

“Good thing it came back when it did, then?”

“This isn’t a joke! This isn’t something you can make a sarcastic remark about and brush off!”

“What do you expect me to say? Do you want me to apologize for saving yours and Harry’s life? Because I won’t do it. Nor will I promise you that it won’t happen again because I will always do what I can to protect the people I love. If you can’t deal with that then you better find a different girl to spend your time on.”

Draco froze at her words. Had it been an offhand comment, or an insinuation?

“No, I think I have the right one,” he said breathlessly. Since when had he been breathless? Since when had one girl made him so speechless? Since when had he felt as if his chest would explode just by looking at her, listening to her, thinking about her? Since when did one person make such a difference in his life? He sat next to her and took her lips, pouring the fear of the last few days into her, making her understand the hell he’d been through thinking about the hell she was going through. He was a ponce of the greatest sort but he didn’t care; he no longer had standards to base his life on, no longer had an image to live up to. He was free to be his own person, to make his own worth.

Hermione strained up to meet his kisses and gasped, grabbing her stomach and blanching. Draco set her back, cursing himself.

“Madame Pomfrey!” he called.

“No, no, Draco, I’m fine. Just sat up too fast, a little sore-,”

The nurse came on demand and shoved a potion in her hand. “Here you are, just ease the pain a little.”

Hermione rolled her eyes and drank it. “There, see? All better.”

Madame Pomfrey smiled at her. “We just have to make you as comfortable as possible, now. Have you thought about what I told you?”

Hermione nodded. “I’ll talk to Kingsley about it when he’s here.”

If Draco wasn’t mistaken, he thought tears formed in the older woman’s grey eyes. “You’re very brave, dear. Make sure you take good care of her, Draco.”

“I intend to,” he replied, puzzled. The woman took off, darting behind a screen positioned around Harry’s bed, wiping her eyes.

“What was that about?” he asked. Hermione squirmed. “Hermione?”

“There’s something I need to explain…”

His heart sank at the words. Those were never good words to hear. “What?”

“Come here,” she said, shifting slightly over with a wince. She grabbed his hands and for a minute, just watched the way their hands looked linked together. “Madame Pomfrey spoke to me when I woke…she explained the curse I had been hit with. It’s called Penitus Nex. Have you heard of it?”

He shook his head.

“It’s a Dark magic, obviously. See, what it does it…well…it slowly shuts down your organs, kind of rotting them from the inside out. They used to use it as a form of slow torture to get people to talk, only the victims didn’t know that once the spell is cast, there’s no way of stopping it. It will work its way through and within a couple weeks the victim will die.”

Draco felt as if he’d been hit with a sledge hammer. “You’re dying?”

She nodded. “The pain is minimal; Madame Pomfrey has supplied me with enough potions to ease me through it. She hopes it might slow the process as well. Of course, she’s never had to work a case such as this so it will be difficult to tell.”

She spoke so calmly of her impending doom that Draco wanted to slap her, make her laugh and tell him it was all a sick joke. He felt as if his heart were ripping into shreds, being torn out piece by piece.

“Do, er…do they know? Ginny and them?”

“No, not yet. I wanted to tell you first. I’m sorry.”

Sorry? She was sorry? He tried to form the words to tell her off but couldn’t, he couldn’t think, he was numb. There was only one thing that passed coherently through his brain.

“How do we stop it?”

“We don’t. Draco, there’s no known cure.”

“Yes, yes there has to be one, someone hasn’t researched it properly-,”

“Draco, please. Don’t make this harder on me than it already is. Can we just…enjoy what we have?” he could see the tears she was holding at bay, knew she was as terrified as he was. He grabbed her roughly and held her hard, so hard her must have been breaking bones because if he didn’t, he might just fall apart into a million pieces which would drown themselves in the Great Lake below them.

Draco could smell the soap Madame Pomfrey had used to wash out Hermione’s hair, he could smell the musk that was all her own. He could feel her warm body in his arms; feel the slight tremble that broke through her. He could see the highlights in her hair, could see the gentle curve of her back. She was real, here, in his arms.

And in a few weeks, she wouldn’t be.

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A/N: Evil bitch? Well, maybe.

Story’s not over yet, folks. Hang in there! Let me know what you think of my little twist. Next chapter we shall delve into the mystery of Harry. And anything you think I’ve forgotten, I haven’t :)

XOXO

RynStar15