Save The Date (A Drarry FanFiction)

Chapter Sixty Five

   Hermione glared at her watch, not sure if she wanted to cry or be sick or curl up in a ball and demand sleep take her into oblivion.

One minute.

They only had one minute until midnight tolled, and still, there was nothing.

They had managed to coax open the sigil of the entwined lion and serpent, the symbol of Gryffindor and Slytherin united, and the edge of the heart-stopping blackness was ringed with a bright golden glow that showed...something was happening.

Pansy had allowed the Aurors to enhance hers and Draco's bonding spell to its very limit, and she was stood before the void, stripped of her coat and all outer accessories, sweating profusely with her jaw clamped and her fists bunched. Her feet were literally melded to the forest floor, and she was muttering to herself of the verge of tears. "Come on Draco, come on. Come on Draco, you can do it."

Ron was pacing back and forth behind where Hermione avidly clock-watching, yanking his hair and moaning desperately. This wasn't happening, Hermione told herself. It had to work.

Thirty seconds.

Okay, right, she thought, refusing to succumb to the panic in her chest or the lump in her throat. If it didn't work she would stick to her plan. She'd go through one of the image-doors, maybe this Gryffindor-Slytherin one if they could keep it open. She would organise some sort of tethering spells first, recoil, snap-back and summoning as well. She would implement tracking traces and panic pulses, and then she would go and find them. She would-

"Urgh!" Pansy cried, doubling over, and McGonagall rushed to her side, grabbing her around the ribs, freeing her feet from the ground and hauling her upright.

"Ms Parkinson, are you alright?"

Pansy though raised her head, a manic grin on her face as the sweat dripped from her eyelashes, her shirt clinging to her body as she gasped forcefully, then looked Hermione directly in the eye.

"They're he-re," she sang, then collapsed to her knees.

Hermione made to run to her side, but a sudden force blasted her – and everyone else in the vicinity – back several feet into the trees and bushes and whatever other flora the forest threw in their way.

Hermione smacked her head into a mercifully image-free tree, but it still hurt like nothing else, and she rolled to her side with stars twinkling in her eyes. She grunted, hand to her head, immediately struggling to her feet and stumbling forwards to make sure Ron was okay. But the sight that greeted her made her stop dead.

A light pulsed from the tree they had been working on, and she shielded her eyes as...something blasted outwards and into the clearing.

She wasn't the only one to be scrabbling to their feet amidst the plethora of Aurors, but at the sight of Harry's lifeless body arching as it inhaled violently, she was definitely the first to make it back into the glade.

"HARRY!" she screamed as she skidded to her shins, seizing the lapels of his dress robes as his eyes flew open and he jerked and flailed horribly. "Harry, I'm here, it's Hermione, you're okay!"

He gulped and gasped and flung his hands about, but slowly, he managed to draw his focus in and settled on Hermione's face. "Uhm-" he uttered. "Uhm – Uhmione?"

"I'm here!" she croaked, unable to stop the sob that rattled from her chest. Ron was abruptly by her side, one arm around her shoulder and the other hand gripping Harry's free hand as if determined never to let him go again, which Hermione couldn't say she disagreed with.

"Harry!" he shouted, wiggling his fingers in front of his face before grabbing Hermione again as she sagged in relief. Harry was waking up, it had worked, it had worked!

"Draco?" he rasped.