One Life for Another

Author's Note: I guess the muses were cooperating or something -- here's an extra chapter for this week. :) Hopefully they will still be cooperating when it comes time to update on Sunday.



By the way... reviews really help those muses along. ;)

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Draco could feel blood trickling down his side, and he knew that soon he would need some form of medical attention. Voldemort’s mood had gone sour while he was there, and had chosen to take that frustration out on Draco. He had looked over during the beating to where his father stood, his face cold as stone and showing no signs of sympathy.



It was that sort of behavior from his father that had put him on his current path and made him such an angry, bitter person. His memories of having another life as someone who was loved and nurtured was something to cling to, but in a way it just increased his anger that his own father from this life might care so little.



He had only a little while to prepare before he was supposed to participate in another raid. Once again he had been judged too inexperienced and weak to be told any details. Somehow he was worthy of following and risking his life, but not of knowing how or why.



After a quick shower and a few healing spells, Draco was reluctantly ready to go. On his way out he caught sight of himself in Death Eater robes in the mirror and felt disgusted. He had always hated actually doing anything for Voldemort or going into his presence, and now that his way of thinking was steadily changing... now he wanted nothing to do with the man. There was no choice, though, as far as he could see. All he could do was hope the other side won and he didn’t get sent to Azkaban for life.



His father was waiting for him in the hallway, identically dressed, and apparated them both to their destination. Apparently allowing your son to be beaten half to death meant you were worthy of information. Draco cringed at the scene before him. Masks and hoods were on, but he saw at least twenty figures gathered with them.



“Where are we, father?” he asked quietly.



“We have finally learned the location of the Order’s headquarters,” said Lucius. “We came quickly to try to catch them unaware.”



Draco wanted to ask further questions, but at the same time he was very much afraid to get the answers. Order headquarters was where Hermione was. He could feel her presence just as he had felt her presence earlier in the day. It was nearly nightfall now, and as the light began to fade away Draco’s worries increased.



He hadn’t sacrificed his life once before to be with her just to lose her now. Dark Mark or no Dark Mark, he couldn’t go along with this. Not when it was Hermione that might die for it. There had to be something, anything, that he could do to stop it.



“Father,” he said, “I’m sorry I have made you disappointed in me by my weakness. Can... will you allow me to be the first in the attack tonight?”



Lucius nodded his approval, not at all concerned putting his son in such danger.



When finally they were given the signal, Draco disillusioned himself in order to get closer, and as they burst through the front door of Grimmauld Place he began his search. Room after room he looked, casting only defensive spells and using the majority of his energy in looking. He was trying not to be rash, not to act so foolishly that he gave everything away before he even had her to safety.



-x-x-x-x-




Panic would be the only word to describe Hermione when she realized how major a thing she had forgotten. The chances of getting pregnant through one encounter wasn’t overly great, but neither was it something to be dismissed. That, with Nimue’s comment...




Hermione grabbed her wand and cast a quick spell, her eyes widening in horror when she saw the tell-tale pink glow on her stomach. “Bloody hell,” she mumbled as she sank down into a nearby chair, along with a few choice words about pregnancy.




To be completely truthful, Hermione wasn’t sure she hadn’t forgotten the contraceptive spell on purpose. At least, on some strange subconscious level. Statistics showed increases in marriage and pregnancy around times of war, so maybe a part of her had wanted to keep some part of Galahad with her.




“Ugh,” she said loudly. How was she to explain to her daughter that her father was Galahad, one of King Arthur’s knights, who had been dead for fifteen centuries? It really didn’t bode well for the girl’s emotional well being. Or that of the mother’s, if she thought about it. Hermione had never been the sort of girl to resort to tears, but she’d been doing so a lot since her return, and in this situation it seemed incredibly appropriate. Only when she had run out of tears and hidden the signs of it on her face did she return to Grimmauld Place.




When she got there she had only a few minutes of peace before everything turned to chaos. She heard the screams from the entryway and the loud crashing sounds of dueling in the hallways. They didn’t come upstairs immediately, and so Hermione found herself facing only one Death Eater at the top of the stairs. It would probably have been most intelligent if she had apparated away to safety, but she was a Gryffindor and determined to stay until she knew there was no more help she could be. She quickly cast spell after spell at the Death Eater, turning it around until she was closest to the stairs and ready to dart down them to go find other members of the Order.




Hermione never heard another attacker come up behind her, though she saw the Death Eater before her seem to relax their guard suspiciously. She started to turn, but all too quickly found herself on the other end of a “Petrificus Totalus” spell, and soon her frozen body was falling to the ground at her attacker’s feet.





-x-x-x-x-





A quite startled Hermione woke to find herself by the Lake, soft grass laying under her and nothing but the calming sounds of nature which were a harsh contrast with the last thing she remembered. Looking up, she saw a strange figure beside her offering their hand. She took it and allowed herself to be pulled up, and as she got closer to their face the light of the moon became enough to identify them.




She took a step back, not quite believing that the person she now recognized as Draco Malfoy would be helping her. His hair was a mess, falling across his face in a way he had never permitted it at Hogwarts, and his forehead was creased in worry, but there was still no mistaking him.




“Imagine my surprise,” said Draco in his customary drawl, “when I woke up yesterday only to remember an entire lifetime I hadn’t known before. I supposed there was only one thing to be done, and so I am here to do whatever the Lady needs of me.”




The word Lady struck Hermione particularly strange, and she wondered how he could possibly know of the role she now held. Then she looked closer, and was amazed by what she saw. Draco looked very much the same as he always had, with hair so blonde it looked nearly silver and an aristocratic air that seemed to scream how superior he was to the rest of the world. There was something she had never noticed before though, and it stood out to her now. His eyes weren’t blue, or even a dull grey. They were bright grey, clear like crystal, and very familiar to her. She had looked into those eyes so much in the past couple weeks, and even now that she had returned she’d been unable to get them out of her mind. “Galahad...”




She threw her arms around him, full of mixed emotions that she couldn’t quite straighten out at first. Galahad was a good, kind man, who she had fallen for in a very short period of time. She trusted him, and felt she could rely on him no matter what. Draco, on the other hand, was a Death Eater, a boy that had tormented her as a girl and stood by as his family tortured her not all that long ago. To trust him was something that had never occurred to her before.




She released him slowly and just looked at him. He stood before her, Draco in appearance but with the soul of Galahad, and Hermione felt herself at a loss.




Draco reached out, brushing her hair out of her face as Galahad had done many times, and his expression was nowhere near the cold, arrogant one that she had come to expect from a Malfoy. “I’m confused now too,” he said, as if he could read her mind. “I have gone from an arrogant prat to someone that is, I suppose, in between. I’m not entirely sure who I am, and that’s probably why Nimue would never have chosen that I... well... nevermind what I did. I do know, though, that I gave up everything from my previous life so that I could be here with you and I don’t plan on wasting that. That is, if you will have me.”