By The Light Of A Dying Flame ~ Drarry Fanfic

Chapter 22: Harry

Harry and Bill landed on a cliffside, the sea shifting and swirling below them, its salty spray immediately coating Harry's skin. Bill walked Harry across the border of their own enchantments before Disapparating to retrieve Draco. Harry watched him disappear with a pop, something cold and unpleasant coagulating in his stomach. He half expected Bill to reappear alone, to tell Harry that Draco was gone. He should've made Bill take Draco first, he should've made him take them both, even if it was harder on Bill.

He fully intended to stand there and anxiously await Bill's return, when someone called his name. He turned stiffly, jerking his head around at the last minute. As soon as the house came into view—a small cottage with whitewashed walls—it was blocked by a head of flying curls. He had only a brief second to open his arms before Hermione was on him, nearly knocking him on his back with the force of her hug.

"Harry!" she sobbed, her face buried in his chest, her hands fisted tightly in the back of his shirt. "I've been so worried."

Harry shoved his own face into her curls, inhaling the familiar cinnamon scent of her. He felt as if he'd been floating out at sea and was suddenly back on dry land, his legs wobbly beneath him. "So have I," he murmured, his throat tightening.

Hermione stepped back, her hands tangled in his jumper as she looked up at him with teary eyes. "I thought we'd lost you," she said, shaking her head. "We've all been out of our minds."

"What happened after the Manor?" Harry asked, tucking Hermione into his side as they began to make their way toward the house. "Are you alright?"

Hermione wiped her eyes forcefully with the sleeve of her shirt. "We all made it out, thanks to Dobby, although I don't remember much of it." She frowned, her eyes trained forward. "I was mostly unconscious from— from everything that happened. When I woke up a couple days later and Ron told me you were missing, I was a mess."

Harry gripped her tighter against him, a fresh wave of anger surging through him. He'd heard her screams, her agony, over and over in his dreams. "But you're healed now?"

"As I'll ever be," she said, a watery smile tugging at her lips. "Ron's taken good care of me."

"You've made up, then?" Harry asked mildly, and he grinned at the pink flush of Hermione's cheeks as she nodded. He squeezed her again, his fingers digging into her arm, almost as if he couldn't convince himself she was real unless her flesh was beneath his fingertips.

They reached the front door, the same pale blue as the sky. Bunches of sea lavender grew around the front stoop and seashells were embedded in the walls. The cottage was charming, certainly, although Harry couldn't help the twinge in his chest as he thought of the other cottage, with its sage shutters and warm fireplace and silver moonlight splashed across Draco's face. Hermione threw the door open, calling inside, "He's here!"

The sound of pounding footsteps preceded the sight of Ron careening around the corner and slamming into Harry with a loud thud. He lifted him off the ground, his arms wrapped around his torso, shaking him back and forth as if he were Hagrid. "I thought I'd lost you, mate," he said, his voice wobbly and breathless, but when he set Harry down, he was beaming. "It's bloody good to see you."

"Yeah, good to see you too, Ron," Harry said, his own throat thick with elation that they were all three here, alive and whole and reunited. His gaze flickered between the two of them, but dipped into the relief was a drop of poison: Draco, the foil in the plan, the dagger slipped between the ribs of his friendship with Ron and Hermione. They would never accept him; they may not even tolerate him. And how could Harry ask them to, when Draco had never referred to Hermione as anything but a slur, when his aunt had carved her up in his own drawing room, when he was only ever cruel?