Slow Grenade

Chapter Forty-Three

February moved towards March with no change in the weather except that it became windy as well as wet. Hermione was angrily pacing the corridor outside the Room of Hidden Things, her fists clenched tightly. She was exhausted, having spent most of the night with Ron in the hospital wing, and felt as though her heart had been torn in two.

Once Crabbe and Goyle had been scared off, she started banging furiously on the locked door. To her surprise it opened quickly, and she almost fell to the floor. Draco caught her and pulled her inside.

"What are you doing here?" he asked irritably.

Hermione took a step towards him and slammed her hands against his chest. He stumbled backwards, staring at her incredulously.

"It was you, wasn't it, Malfoy?"

"What!" he cried. She took another step forward and he held up his hands in surrender. "What are you talking about?"

"I am talking about the poisoned mead."

Draco blanched, panic flashed through his eyes. "How – how do you know about that?"

Her voice was cold as she replied, "You are the reason that Ron is in the hospital wing right now. He almost died." He reached out to touch her, but she stopped him. "Don't."

"Hermione, I'm so sorry, I didn't know..."

"No, but you knew someone was going to drink it. That was the whole point, I imagine?"

He hung his head, unsure of what to tell her.

She continued, "I didn't say anything about Katie Bell because you already looked so broken, and I thought it must have been an accident. You couldn't really have meant to hurt her, or anyone else. Clearly I was mistaken."

Draco could feel his anger rising, the barely contained rage was itching to be let lose. "Why can't you understand that I don't have a choice?"

"We could have gone to Dumbledore, Snape even. Surely, that would have been better than these ill-conceived plans. They could have hidden you and your parents, protected you, kept you all away from this!"

He clenched his jaw. "I've told you before, I don't trust them."

"Nor me, it seems," Hermione said quietly. "Please let me help you, maybe we can come up with something else?"

There were at least a hundred thoughts running through his head, fighting to be the one spoken aloud. He wanted to hold her and say, 'Yes, okay, yes. I need you. I can't do this without you. It's going to be hard, but maybe there is another way.'

Instead, all he said was, "No."

The silence that followed was deafening.

"This is too much, I can't do this right now," Hermione whispered finally, tears rolling freely down her cheeks. "I know how hard your life is at the moment Draco, but all you've done is push me away and now you've almost killed two students, one of which being my best friend."

She made to walk away from him, but he caught her sleeve. "Please, Hermione," he begged. "Please."

It shocked her, the way he looked in that moment, his red rimmed eyes pleading silently with her to understand. She had never seen him look so vulnerable, and it almost stopped her from reaching for the door handle. Almost, but not quite.

Hermione shook her head and left.

He stood in the sixth-floor boys' bathroom, hands clenching one of the cold porcelain skins, his white-blonde head bowed. Draco's eyes burned with tears. He hated to cry, detested any show of weakness, but he was powerless to control it.

Draco slammed his hand viciously against the wall. He couldn't take it anymore, everything was falling apart. He was a useless, waste of space, who wasn't even able to get two items delivered to the right person, let alone fix a fucking cabinet. And the one person he thought was on his side couldn't stand him, with good reason.

"Don't," cried Moaning Myrtle's voice from one of the cubicles. "Don't... tell me what's wrong... I can help you."

"No one can help me," Draco replied hoarsely, his whole body was shaking. "I can't do it, I can't. It won't work... and unless I do it soon, he – he says he'll kill me, after he's killed my mother."

The tears began streaming in earnest, leaving red hot tracks down his pale face; he swiped at them furiously. Draco gasped and gulped and then, with a great shudder, looked up into the cracked mirror and saw Potter staring at him over his shoulder.

Draco whirled around, instinctively drawing his wand, and Potter pulled out his own. His hex missed Hermione's friend by inches, shattering the lamp on the wall beside him; Potter threw himself sideways and flicked his wand, but Draco blocked the jinx and raised his wand for another –

"No! No! Stop it!" yelled Moaning Myrtle, her voice echoing loudly around the tiled room. "STOP!"

There was a loud bang and the bin behind Potter exploded; he attempted a Leg Locker Curse that backfired off the wall behind Draco's ear and smashed the cistern beneath Myrtle, who screamed. Water poured everywhere and Potter slipped over as Draco, his face contorted in rage, screamed, "Cruci –"

"SECTUMSEMPRA!" bellowed Potter from the floor, waving his wand wildly.

Blood spurted from Draco's face and chest as though he had been slashed with an invisible sword. He staggered backwards and collapsed on to the waterlogged floor with a crack, his wand falling from his limp right hand.

"No –" gasped Potter.

Slipping and sliding, Harry got to his feet and plunged towards Draco, whose face was now shining scarlet, his white hands scrabbling at his blood-soaked chest.

Draco wasn't fully aware of what happened next. All he could think about was how, for a moment, he had genuinely hoped that Potter would kill him. Save him the trouble of having to live this cursed life for a moment longer.

But, now that it was coming true, he only wanted to live. He needed to live. For his mother, for Hermione.

As he was lifted into the air, he grasped at the ring she had given him and held on to it as tightly as he could.