DRAGON'S HEARTSTRINGS || dramione | harry potter

Chapter Thirteen

Hermione was drowning.

Water came around from all sides until it washed over her head, and she lost all sense of space. She clutched something close to her chest as it started sinking her down deeper and deeper, but she couldn't let go, she knew she couldn't. All was dark but a momentary flash before her, and she swam up to that light, hoping it was the surface. She gasped when her head reached above the water. The lightning bolted.

Where was she? What was she doing? For a long moment, Hermione only gasped for breath, disoriented and confused, shivering from the freezing water. Then she looked down at the gold cup in her hands, and realization slowly crossed her mind.

She was in Bellatrix's vault where she found Voldemort's Horcrux. There was someone else with her...

"Hermione!" she heard an awful, panicked howl echo through the space.

She didn't know where the sound was coming from, but she shouted back, "I'm here!"

She thrashed in the water, trying not to let the Horcrux sink her down, but it was really hard.

Then, she saw them in the lightning-brightened sky.

Dementors.

Hermione's eyes widened and she screamed, "Malfoy, where are you!"

No one answered. She started swimming blindly to where she thought she heard him. She swam and swam and swam and there seemed no end to it. Strangely, the Dementors weren't attacking her. They were all collected in one place.

That's where she needed to be. "Malfoy!" she cried, swimming closer.

Suddenly she saw a shock of pure white hair shining in complete blackness. Malfoy was barely floating and the Dementors were attacking him from all sides, feeding on his feelings. Hermione swam faster and she finally reached him, grabbing him by the shoulder. His horror-filled eyes turned to her.

"Hermione..." he whispered breathlessly.

"I'm here..." she assured him, trying to hold both him and the cup on the surface. "Malfoy, you need to get your wand and cast a Patronus!"

He started shuffling in his robes underwater as if only now realizing he had a wand. Finaly, Malfoy found it and lifted it in his hand.

"Expecto—expecto—Patronum..."

The end of the wand cast a short blast of light, but it immediately disappeared. Hermione pushed herself closer to him, desperately grasping his body. "You need to think of a happy memory! Come on!"

"Expecto—Patronum!" he screamed, and it echoed through. The blast was longer this time, but far from enough.

Hermione started looking for her wand, but she didn't know which one to let go, Malfoy or the Horcrux to find it, so she said, "Take the cup!" and gave it to Malfoy who grasped it with trembling hands. She lifted the wand in one hand while holding Malfoy with the other. For some reason, the Dementors kept on only attacking Malfoy and not her, even when she raised her wand to fight them. Still, it didn't make her task any easier.

"Expecto Patronum!" A light, but not a Patronus. Think of something happy, think of something happy. She thought about her parents, their last day together coming to mind. "Expecto Patronum!" Still nothing. She thought about Malfoy and what could've been if they lived different lives. She thought of what they could've been now if they saw each other for who they truly were in the sixth year at Hogwarts, "EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

A wave of light shot up out of her wand, conjuring a form of an animal she wasn't expecting. Her Patronus was an otter – a small but mighty animal. This Patronus was anything but small. It roared and flashed its leather-like wings, banishing all the Dementors away from Malfoy until they had nowhere else to go from its might but out.