Would You Like A Hand?

23 | are

The students moved from area to area around the ministry, casting muffliato all over the place.

When they thought they had done their best, they took a moment to calm down - or rather, Hermione did.

Draco was fine - he was encouraging her because she seemed to be facing some harsh anxiety now that all she had to do was apparate.

"What if they're long gone? What do I do then?" Granger mumbled to herself.

"Hey," Draco put a hand on her shoulder, "We'll worry about it then, and only then. No point in worrying when we don't even know."

This was his fifth time repeating himself, but the hand on her shoulder seemed to calm her down a bit more and after a moment of hesitation, she finally nodded and steeled herself to apparate into the building.

The loud crack of lightning rang out over the city as the students reappeared inside the ministry.

The undead outside heard it through the buzzing, but paid it no heed - the persistent buzz was much more confusing to them.

Inside, the two unlikely allies immediately fell into battle stances, ready to fight.

Nothing approached them.

In fact, it seemed the entire building was empty of the undead. Although there were broken things and rubble all over the place, no beings wandered around.

Strange, Hermione thought, it wasn't this empty when we first came here before getting separated...

The signs of scuffle and fighting revealed that there must have been undead here, once.

Someone had cleared them out.

"Harry? Ron?" Hermione called out quietly at first. A moment passed and she called out again, louder this time.

"Granger," the Slytherin boy said in warning. Only their immediate vicinity was clear for sure of the undead. They would have to look and explore the rest of the ministry.

Hysteria once again threatened to hit Hermione, but she tried to survey the area as calmly as she could. Now that she was inside the ministry, though, it was getting harder to not panic.

Where are Harry and Ron? Harry, Harry, Ron, Ginny, Luna...

Draco could tell she was getting twitchier by the second. She scanned their surroundings with wide eyes, looking for her friends - dead or alive.

"Granger," he called to her, hoping she wouldn't freak out at him.

The girl whipped her head around to look at him and he realized then that she was on the verge of a panic attack.

"Hey, Granger, it's alright. I'm right here," he spoke, inching towards her slowly. If she bolted from him, they would both be alone in unfamiliar space - possibly with undead at their backs.

She seemed to be trying to rationalize something in her brain, because instead of bolting like he feared, she collapsed into a crouch on the ground. Hands on her head, she mumbled something quickly under her breath.

It wasn't until Draco moved closer, lowering himself to her level, that he found out she was repeating names.

Her friends' names.

"Harry, Ron, Harry, Ron, Harry, Ron, Ginny, Ginny, Luna, Luna-"

"Granger," the Slytherin wanted her attention back, but she was intensely focused on her friends' names.

He called out louder again; it took a few tries before the Gryffindor girl turned to him again. And she only turned when he finally yelled, "Hermione!"

Upon seeing his face, she suddenly started saying his name and repeating it over and over - "Draco, Draco, Draco, Draco, Draco-" and leaving her crouch, she lunged forward and fell into him, knocking him back.

"Hey," he said softly, caught off guard. She had once again wrapped her arms around him, but this time she was clutching the back of his shirt much more tightly.

His name - his name, not just the generic Malfoy - sounded strange coming from her.

But it was a nice reminder that he wasn't just a Malfoy - he was his own person, too.

And maybe this 'Draco' had made mistakes, from losing his parents to accidentally letting a muggle family die, and even for being on the wrong side of the war - but this Draco could redeem himself. He didn't have to stop here and leave these mistakes as they were - he could at least try to help out and fix something.

Like getting rid of these undead, to start.

This Draco felt that beside Hermione, he could maybe - just maybe - do some good in life instead of bad.

And so he waited patiently, lightly hugging the girl back until her grip relaxed and she was breathing normally.

It was quite a while they stayed like this, on the ground, before he broke the moment and spoke up.

"Ready?"

-

end note: I'm soooo sorry about that unannounced hiatus! Something came up irl, but hopefully I will now be back on track for the most part. I'm going to slowly get back into this story, so it may not be exactly once a week like before, but I'm hoping it'll be a regular schedule at least! Hope you enjoyed this chapter!