Chapter Twenty-Seven

Draco

(Warning: This chapter is pretty dark.)

"I've been expecting you." My father smirks. My heart beats rapidly as we both glare at the other, our ice gray eyes a mirror of each other. However, my eyes are full of fear, while his are full of pleasure: his plan worked. He knew that Hermione is what it would take to get me here.

I try to get up, but it is to no avail. No matter how hard I try, I cannot move. This is definitely a limb-locking spell performed on me by my father. He laughs at my frivolous attempts to move.

"Oh, you won't be moving for a while. Don't waste your breath. You don't have many of them left." He laughs mirthlessly, looking at me up and down.

"W-What did you do to her?!" My voice demands an answer through my gritted teeth. He ignores my question.

"Those scratches on your arms- they're from the bushes out front, aren't they? You were spying. And this?" He points to the scar that he left on my arm, smiling. "I think I did a nice job. What about you?"

All of a sudden, an idea comes to my mind: I can Apparate out of here, whether my limbs are frozen in place or not, as long as my wand is with me. I block my father's voice out of my mind and close my eyes, concentrating on the diner I was at this morning. My father continues to taunt me as I try to Apparate away from here. His laugh suddenly breaks through my concentration as he continues to speak. I open my eyes to see him holding my wand.

"I don't think you'll be going anywhere without this," He places it in his pocket, and my stomach drops. That was my last hope. What happens from here is up to him. He certainly won't have mercy on me. I can only hope that he has mercy on Hermione, if she's not already gone. He continues, "or without my help." With that, he touches my arm, and the familiar feeling of Apparation falls over me. Where could he be taking me?

We abruptly fall onto the ground in a room that I recognize instantly as the living room. The confused house elf is stumbling around, curious as to what had happened to it. The first thought that comes to my mind is Hermione. Is she still in here? I shift my gaze to the side, but I cannot see much of anything from there. As much as I want to turn my head to see if she is here, the spell my father cast on me prohibits any movement... However, when I just thought about looking over there, my head turned ever so slightly. If I think harder,  I can completely turn my head.

I tell myself,Finally, just my head breaks loose of the spell, and I can look around the room.

What awaits me both comforts me and terrifies me. Hermione is still there, laying on the ground. There is only one difference than when I saw her just a few minutes ago: she is not breathing now. My heart stops, and I hear a ringing in my ears. Hermione can't be gone. Hermione has to be alive. Without her, I am just a shell of a man. So many thoughts race through my head at the speed of light.

My voice catches in my throat as I cry, "" Tears begin to blur my vision. I can't seem to take my eyes off of the corpse of the only person I have ever truly loved, and the only person who has ever truly loved me.

"What are you yelling about, boy?" My father asks, agitated, "You're going to make your mother come up here!"

"You killed her!"  I yell, my eyes still glued to her beautiful, lifeless face, "You killed her, you monster!"

He  looks shocked for a second, but his face relaxes as he begins to laugh. "You think I'm that heartless? To kill her before you were here to watch?" He pulls out my wand once again and points it at Hermione. "You bloody elf. I thought I told you to get rid of all of the boggarts!" The elf continues to stumble around, still in a state of confusion from the curse. When I look back, Hermione is gone. It was a boggart. She's not really dead. This thought fills me with great joy that disappears as quickly as it appeared.

"You think I would be foolish enough to keep the Mudblood here?" He asks me, disgust in his tone, "No, she's far, far away. The chances of you finding her are slim. But you got to just the point that I wanted you to; back at home sweet home. I applaud you for putting two and two together and figuring it out." He is now looming over me, intimidating me to no end. I feel like a little boy again.

"W-Where did you take her?" I ask, trying to sound strong, but miserably failing. The chances of my father answering this question are about as slim as finding her is. But if he does answer, then my chances increase dramatically.

"Oh, I didn't take her there. We... traded places. She's where no one goes by choice, and no one ever leaves... unless they have a few tricks up their sleeve." He reaches into his sleeve and pulls out a blood-stained blade with some sort of ancient runes inscribed on the handle. Suddenly, my left arm begins to burn, just where the scar is. "Look familiar?" He asks. An image flashes in my mind: my father looming over me just as he is now, holding down my left arm. I had just enough time to see the runes on the blade before I blacked out. My blood runs cold as I look upon it once again.

"Since you're not going to make it outside of this room, I suppose I can tell you where the Mudblood is. She's where she belongs, and she'll be there until the day she dies. Such a great mind gone to waste..."

"Tell me!" I demand, and he inches the blade closer to my scar.

"Azkaban." He tells me, an evil grin upon his face. This is much worse than I imagined. Hermione is innocent, and she's left in Azkaban to rot to death in the place of my father! How did this happen, and how am I going to get to her?

My thoughts are disrupted by the unbearable sting of the blade penetrating the skin on my arm. I cry out in pain as my father draws a line about half an inch long, and another one across that one. My heart beats unsteadily, my breath faster than it ever has been in my life. My head pounds like a sledgehammer. I am reminded of when I watched Hermione be put through a similar situation by Bellatrix. We weren't friends then, but I still felt an overwhelming amount of sorrow watching an innocent girl be put through that.

"How did she get there?" He asks himself, predicting what I would have asked if I could speak. "Oh, it was quite easy, really. First, I got my associate Yaxley to find out from his young son when the next trip to Hogsmeade was. Then," He pulls the blade away from my arm, allowing droplets of blood to fall upon my shirt before continuing, "I got my other associate, Professor Marcus Bane, to tell one of the professors that they needed extra security at Hogsmeade. We knew the Head Girl would be chosen." I knew something was up with the new potions teacher.

"Yaxley's son then lured Hermione to the alley where Bane was waiting. He knocked her unconscious, sent her by Portkey to my manor, then proceeded to act as hopelessly confused as the other professors. At which point I realized that the Ministry of Magic would be coming here to take me back to Azkaban, so I got some old Polyjuice Potion from downstairs, infused it with a single hair from my head, and made your Mudblood drink it. They fell for my trick and took her to Azkaban."

I want to rip the blade from his hand and shove it through his arm. The anger I feel towards him is indescribable, but so is the pain: the blade is leaving a bloody trail across my arm once again, in various strokes. I scream in anguish, my voice cracking. Through the pain, I sense that the feeling is returning to my limbs, and the spell is wearing off. I don't let him know that.

"We did everything we could to raise you right, Draco," He sighs, shaking his head, "but you don't care. If you cared, you wouldn't have went back to the war that day. You wouldn't have betrayed us. I would still you..."

"You never loved me," I struggle to argue through the torment, my breathing heavy, "You don't know what love is."

He doesn't deny my statement, not that I expected him to. "If I don't know what love is, then you certainly don't." Another torturous stroke on my arm.

"Hermione t-taught me... more than y-you ever did." I try my best to make my voice sound stable, but it comes out rough and raspy. My arm is throbbing, and the pain is beyond anything I have ever felt, but that does not stop him from adding yet another wound. It feels as if he is writing something.

"You could have been great, Draco, had you stayed on the right path. You're a traitor. You could've been like me." My vision is blurring, and I am beginning to feel a sense of numbness. Every moment I slip further and further away from reality.

"I'd rather die than be like you." My voice comes out in a whisper. My father scowls, raising the blade once again. When he lifts his arm, I see something- or someone- behind him. The figure has blonde hair and is dressed in all black: my mother. I don't know what she is here to do, but when our eyes meet, I know she is not here to help my father kill me. She's here to save me.

As my father raises his arm for the final strike, my mother stealthily grabs the knife out of his grasp. He seems too involved in this moment to notice. When he brings his hand down, it is just a rough punch to my arm. It hurts, but not as much as the knife would have. I do the best I can to slip a smile to my mother without my father noticing.

When my father notices that I didn't scream, he seems dumbfounded. He then looks at his hand, realizing that the knife isn't there.

"Looking for this?" My mother asks. My father turns around, looking at her in shock. She takes his moment of distraction to throw the knife into his thigh and grab my wand from his coat. He whimpers before immediately falling into the floor, unconscious. She then helps me up off of the floor, supporting me with her shoulder once I am standing up. She hands me my wand and then points hers at me. "" She exclaims. This spell is used to replenish strength, I guess, because every sign of my weakness is gone.

"Thank you," I say in my regular voice. It has returned to normal as well. At the same time, we both look at my arm, which reads A deeply saddened look shows on my mother's face.

"I'm so sorry, my son," My mother cries, wrapping me in a hug, "We could've been so much better parents. I hope you can forgive me. Of course, I don't expect you to forgive your father," I nod, and she hands me a folded piece of parchment before continuing, "Go. Go find her. Hurry!" She instructs, and I turn around to run out of this living hell.

"Draco?" She calls as I'm about to head down the stairs.

"Yes, mother?"

"I love you." She admits, and it is the first time I have heard those words from her in many, many years. We both wear a slight smile through our tears.

"I love you, too." I answer, and then a thought occurs to me. "Mother, you have to leave. He's going to get revenge on you! Leave with me, please!"

"Everything will be alright, son," She assures me, her face solemn. I don't believe her, but I don't question her. I swiftly Apparate away from the manor to the alley that I was in this morning, clutching the mysterious piece of parchment in my hands.