Between Ruin and Salvation by Kihin Ranno

Part Four: Two Years Later

This story contains adult material. If you are not of legal age, leave this page now.

“Do you realize that we have been camping for two years?”

Luna quirked the corner of her mouth as she closed the flap of their tent with a flick of her wand. She stowed it in the back pocket of her denims and then tucked her hair behind her ears. “You have made a habit of pointing this out to me at every available opportunity, Draco.”

He pillowed his arms beneath his head. “I just want you to be aware that we have been on this grand and noble quest for two years. Which has involved camping. On the ground. With bugs.”

She shook her head and crouched down, stretching over him like a cat before settling on top of him, resting her scarred cheek against his chest. “Poor Draco and his arachnophobia.”

“I am not afraid of the bugs. I hate them. And nature in general really.”

She patted his cheek. “When this is all over, there will be beds.”

He waggled his eyebrows. “Oh?”

“I assumed you knew. I was thinking about becoming a naturalist once all this was over, but I’m not much for camping anymore either.”

“…I was attempting at innuendo.”

“Oh, did you waggle your eyebrows at me? I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking.”

“Well, I won’t waste my seduction efforts on you then,” he sniffed.

“I am sorry,” she repeated, sighing. “It’s just so exhausting taking care of her.”

Draco reached up and laid his hand against her back. He stroked up and down her spine, feeling knots and tension that even Luna’s daily meditations couldn’t soothe away. “She’s getting worse, isn’t she?”

“People used to say I was mad,” she said, as if he needed reminding of her old nickname. “I don’t think they would have said that if they looked into her eyes.”

Draco twirled his fingers into Luna’s hair, winding a familiar curl around his fingers. “Wish I could help.”

Luna shook her head. “She hates you.”

“I had got that impression. When she told me she hated me as a matter of fact, back when I first told her I was coming with you.”

“Well,” Luna said, lifting her head and her feet, crossing her ankles, “you were responsible for what happened to Ron. And you’re the only one left to blame since Dumbledore died. I suppose there’s the Death Eaters as well, but since you’re marked, that’s still you in a way.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that it’s very rude to bring up one’s past indiscretions?” he groused.

She brushed her fingers against his cheek. “I’ve forgiven you a million times over by now. But Hermione’s different. She loved him.”

“Yeah,” Draco muttered. “Hard to imagine anyone loving that hair.”

Luna pinched his neck. “That’s not nice.”

“You’re nice enough for the both of us,” Draco insisted, tugging at another curl.

She tilted her head to the side thoughtfully. “I’ve been thinking lately that it was a mistake bringing you along. For her sake at least. You’re a constant reminder of what’s happened. You know she hasn’t dealt with it, even though it’s been almost three years.”

“I’ve always thought that it was bad for her that I was here,” Draco said nonchalantly. “I just didn’t care. You needed me.”

“I needed you specifically, or the fate of the quest rested on you?” She said this with a smirk of all things, a facial expression that she’d gleaned from Draco. It was disturbingly reminiscent of looking in a mirror from some angles.

Draco sat up slightly, somewhat put off. “Need I remind you that I was responsible for getting the Hufflepuff cup from Bellatrix’s vault? What with my being the only surviving heir and all.”

Luna had to acquiesce to this. “It was nice not to have to break in. I would not have wanted to go against that dragon.”

“For that matter, who uses a dragon to guard money?” Draco asked, repeating a conversation they had had so many times before. “One little spell, and that bugger’d be free, terrorizing all of Diagon Alley.”

“Your aunt was insane,” Luna pointed out.

“This is true.”

“And,” Luna continued, poking him in the chest, “don’t act as if you’ve been the only useful one. I saw the silver doe. I found the Sword of Gryffindor.”

Draco looked over to his right, glaring at the gleaming metal blade with its inset rubies. “A sword. Of course Godric had a sword. Bloody Gryffindors.”

“It got rid of the Horcruxes.”

“But it’s still so… Gryffindor.” Draco turned up his nose in disgust.

“There’s nothing wrong with Gryffindor.”

He snorted. “Something wrong with our Gryffindor.”

Luna couldn’t deny that. “She’s fine as long as we keep her away from the books. It’s when she gets obsessive that she’s a problem. It’s worse that we’ve barely done anything for six months.”

“I wouldn’t call trying to kill Nagini nothing,” Draco muttered crossly. “She tried to eat me.”

“She still could,” Luna pointed out. Then a shadow crossed over her face, her head hanging low. “And I still don’t know where we could find Rowena Ravenclaw’s lost diadem. This is assuming that he even made a Horcrux out of a Ravenclaw artifact, and that there aren’t more out there that Dumbledore didn’t guess at.”

“Hey now,” Draco muttered, brushing her fallen hair behind her ear. “I’ve told you. The fact that it’s your house doesn’t make it your responsibility. Besides, you left at the end of your Fifth Year. Maybe you’re not even considered a Ravenclaw anymore. I think you were the first to ever drop out; probably a cardinal sin for you people.”

She smiled at him fully. He loved her smile so much. “See? You can be nice.”

“Only to you.”

She began to say something, and Draco decided that he didn’t want to have any more of this conversation. He caught her lips with his own, kissing her into silence. He loved that she was better than him, but he didn’t always love that she wanted him to catch up. And surprisingly enough, he loved that she wanted to save the world and save the friends she had in it. But he didn’t want to think about their failures, the Horcruxes that still remained, the battles he didn’t want to fight, Hermione’s fading intellect, and the dead. He didn’t want to think about the Boy-Who-Didn’t-Live anymore. All he wanted was her.

They pulled apart, their breath ragged and fast. “You asked me before if you needed more or if the quest did.” He gripped the back of her neck as though it were a lifeline. “I never thought you needed me, Luna Lovegood. I want you to know that.”

She kissed him again, and he couldn’t help but smile against her lips. He loved kissing her, perhaps more than was healthy. It was just so easy to forget the world outside with his lips against hers and his tongue in her mouth. Feeling her body press against his, he could forget about the war. He could forget that they were losing. He could forget everything but her skin beneath his hands and the quiet noises she made against his mouth.

Her teeth sank into his bottom lip and blood flowed into his mouth. She kissed him, and the pain didn’t go away until she pulled away and whispered ‘Episkey.’ Then she dipped her head, her teeth raked his neck, and it began all over again.

Draco sometimes wondered what her friends from school would say if they knew this side of her. Luna Lovegood? Are you sure? Haven’t you just corrupted her like we always knew you would?

How wrong they’d be. To be honest, he was not overly fond of this aspect of their coupling, but for her, he endured it. He did a lot of things for her.

“Episkey,” she said, closing the wound on his neck. He wound his hand into her hair and pulled her back to his lips, bruising where she makes him bleed. He pushed his hands beneath her jumper, smoothing his hands over her back. Her skin felt mostly soft, but there were lines of more fragile skin: the scars that battles left behind. He had his share, but not as many as she did. It was only natural. She was braver than he was.

She moved away to pull her jumper over her head, and he found himself marveling that he had gotten himself involved with the kind of girl who didn’t bother with brassieres. Then she vanished his shirt, and he was more or less preoccupied by the feeling of her breasts pressing against his bare skin.

“Don’t forget to bring that back,” he scolded mildly. “I’m fond of that shirt.”

“You’re fond of all your shirts,” she teased, circling one nipple with her fingernail.

He nipped at her earlobe. “I have excellent taste.”

“I’m sensing a veiled compliment.” She paused. “And a little something else.”

“Little?”

He took a page from her book, vanishing all of their clothes below the waist. He grabbed her by the hips and pushed into her, smirking with some satisfaction at her blissful sigh. “Does that feel little to you?”

Her eyes sparkled like ignited sapphires. “I’m always satisfied.” She braced her hands against his chest and began to move above him, slowly at first, dragging a low groan from the back of his throat. She kept her rhythm steady, moving to the beat of music only she could hear. She mewed softly, one hand snaking up her flat stomach to cup her own breast.

And the music in her mind abruptly changed, the tempo increasing. Draco’s fingernails paled as he tightened his grasp on her hips, moaning as she thrust faster and harder. He would happily let her ride him into oblivion, fucking him until he went blind. But he knew her well enough by now. Luna liked to be in control to start, but at some point, she always relinquished. She stood at the center of their lives, holding them together with an eccentric hand, a feather-soft voice, and Godric’s sword. If she held on to control of this one thing, she’d get wound up too tight. Her eyes had already lost so much of their dreamy haze. He couldn’t bear to let anymore escape.

He flipped her onto her back, grinning as she wrapped her legs around his waist. He thrust into her, hard, catching her mouth and swallowing her cry. She bit his lip again, tugging, but he didn’t bleed. He kept pushing into her, driving her towards the proverbial edge. Her eyelashes fluttered against her cheek and a pink flush dotted across her white skin.

Draco pulled her arms away from his neck, pinning them to the ground with one hand. He trailed the other over her skin, down her clean forearms and following the curve of her ribcage. Then he drew it up, over the same breast she’d fondled. He tweaked the still-hard nipple, and her hips bucked beneath his weight. She began to cry out with each thrust, something in between a sigh and a whistle. He listened to the pitch, waited until the notes began to ascend up the scale. This is how he knew she was close.

Then he wrapped one hand around her throat, squeezing lightly.

This, he’d never enjoyed. He had no idea how Luna had even gotten the idea. She’d suggested it once on a lark, and he’d agreed because he was drunk and a horny teenage boy. All he’d thought about was settling between her thighs and being inside. He hadn’t thought of what it would be like to choke her. He never did it so hard that she couldn’t breathe at all, just enough so that some of her airway was blocked.

At first, she’d said it just made it more intense, but there were other things she wanted to try. Luna was always an adventurous lover. So they’d gone through the rest of her list, and once they’d gone through that, they’d landed on this again. He hadn’t done it right away, but after awhile, it seemed that she couldn’t come without it. So he did it for her. Always for her.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like the look of it, how easily it could seem like he was killing her. He knew it was all to do with trust, and he liked that she trusted him this much and more. He didn’t like it because the one time they’d switched, it had seemed so much like he was dying. He never asked her if she felt the same way. He didn’t want to know the answer.

She always said she didn’t mind the idea of dying. Was this her little flirtation with death? Her danse macabre? Did he make her more and more comfortable with dying every time his hand closed around her neck?

She didn’t mind dying, and he supposed he could endure that. Maybe he even preferred it to the alternative of her always being afraid like he was. But he hated the thought of her leaving him.

Her breath wheezed out of her open mouth with each thrust. Her hips continued to move beneath him, her back arching into a pale rainbow. Finally, with a burst of wandless magic, he felt a tiny wind tunnel swirl around his hands. This was her version of a safe word.

He let go of her neck, and she gasped, gulping in oxygen and letting it out with a loud cry. She trembled beneath him, her body rocking endlessly. She grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled, dragging her other hand down his back. He felt her nails cut into his spine, and then his skin seal together again with her whispered spells. He kept thrusting into her, letting her ride out her orgasm for as long as she could, and then finally, he came.

He could never finish with his hand on her throat.

He let out a final grunt and then collapsed above her, falling into a kiss and drinking her taste in like a fine blackberry wine. Then they went through their usual post-coital ritual. He kissed her eyes, first right then left, all but worshipping his favorite part of hers. And she grabbed his wrist and pulled his marked arm to her lips, kissing the clean skin just above the Dark Mark. His reminder that she didn’t care about his past, that she’d forgiven him, and that maybe she loved him in spite of it.

-----

Harry narrowed his eyes. It had never occurred to him that Dumbledore would have people he cared about and lost. Family even. He’d always pictured Dumbledore as the wise old man who knew everything there was to know. The idea that Dumbledore had ever been young was such an alien concept that it left Harry dizzy.

“What makes you think he’s afraid of the dead?” Harry asked, swinging his gaze around.

It took him approximately three seconds to realize that Sirius wasn’t actually talking about Dumbledore.

Sirius shivered against a cold that Harry could not feel, wrapping his arms around himself like a shield. He started to sink to the ground. Harry ran forward, holding him up. “Sirius? Sirius, what’s wrong?”

“We’re trapped, and the whispers are all around,” Sirius hissed, covering his ears. “It’s just like before. Just like Azkaban.”

Harry felt his heart beating against his ribcage like a lead weight. “Sirius—"

“I heard your mum and dad, you know,” Sirius said, his hair falling in front of his face. “I told you knowing I was innocent kept me sane. It did. It didn’t change the fact that sometimes I heard them.”

Harry had never felt so completely out of his depth. “It’s all right, Sirius.”

“I heard them asking me why I didn’t save them,” Sirius growled, his fingers pushing into his scalp. “I got there as fast as I could once I knew what Pete had done. But I wasn’t fast enough. They were already dead. The house gone. All that was left was you and the rubble.”

“They don’t blame you,” Harry whispered fiercely, giving Sirius a little shake. “Did you hear me? They don’t.”

Sirius shook his head. “You’re wrong, Harry. You didn’t know them… and the dead do blame. Don’t you hear what they’re saying to us when it goes quiet? They all blame us. For daring to be alive.”

For the moment, Harry didn’t know what to say, giving the voices the opportunity to rise. He listened, unable to make out a single word, but he caught whiff of darkness. He’d assumed that they were safe in this world. Now he wasn’t so sure.

“Don’t worry, Sirius,” Harry murmured. “They’ll get us out soon. I know they will.”

-----

They woke up the next morning to Hermione poking her head through their now open tent flat. Draco covered up his waist despite his grogginess out of habit. Luna seemed to have no such inhibitions. He had to resist the urge not to flip her hair over her shoulders.

“Hermione,” Luna murmured, bleary-eyed. “You’re soaked.”

“It’s raining,” Hermione answered, her hair plastered to her forehead in a mess of frizz and curls. To be perfectly honest, looking at her was becoming more and more of a chore. She’d dropped even more weight over the past year, and there was something unhinged and frightening in her eyes. He told himself over and over again that it in no way reminded him of pictures of his Aunt Bellatrix.

Of course, it wasn’t just the look of her that unsettled him. He didn’t speak to Hermione much, but sometimes when he went out during the night, he could hear her in her private tent. Sometimes she was just muttering on about Horcruxes or the mission. But other times it almost sounded like she was having half of a conversation.

But Draco groaned as if she didn’t concern him, “This is going to be a day of you pointing out the obvious to each other, isn’t it?”

“Draco,” Luna murmured meaningfully. “Hermione, why didn’t you use a charm to keep yourself dry?”

“I was in too much of a hurry,” Hermione said.

Draco snorted. “That anxious to get a look at Luna’s breasts?”

“No,” Hermione said, missing the joke. Two years ago she would have given him a scalding lecture for suggesting that. Then again, two years ago, they wouldn’t be in this position at all. “I was in a hurry because of the Patronus.”

Luna and Draco were instantly wide awake. “What Patronus?”

“The wolf.”

-----

Remus ran from his home just before the jinx hit the gas stove. It ignited, blowing the rickety building to bits. Fire bloomed like an angry red rose, thundering through the air above his head and burning all the oxygen up. Smoke made the already dark sky darker, and ash came down in the rain.

Remus scrambled to his feet and sent a blind hex to his right, sighing in relief when he heard the howl of pain. He dashed towards the forest he had been using as his own private hunting grounds, wincing with every step.

He didn’t know how they’d found him, but they planned their attack well. The full moon had only been a few days before. Remus hadn’t had access to the Wolfsbane potion for months now, and each transformation had been harder on his body. It was a miracle of adrenaline and survival instinct that he could move at all.

He clutched his bad knee and limped as fast as he could. It was only because he stooped over so oddly that one spell flew over his head, giving him more time to flee into the solace of the forest. Even taking his condition into account, he knew the terrain, and hopefully, that would give him the advantage in a fight. Barring that, if he could hide out until help came, he could get out of this alive.

It took twice as long now as it would have just a few days earlier, but he made it. He tore through the trees, immediately heading off the path and plunging into the dark.

Once he did, he saw that he was not alone.

Eyes more animal than humane. Grey hair coarse as a wolf’s. Yellow teeth and dirty nails. Canines glinting in a horrific smile and a tiny river of drool seeping out of the corner.

“Hello there, Little Cub.”

Remus did his best to stand at his full height, but his back didn’t quite allow it. “Fenrir. You found me.”

Greyback chuckled, but it sounded like a growl. “I can always smell you, Lupin. No wards can erase the smell. I know my own.”

“I was never yours,” Remus said, his voice dangerous as his wand flew to his hand.

“Maybe not,” Fenrir said, licking his lips as a horrible growl rumbled deep in his chest. “But you’ll be my kill, Remus Lupin.”

Remus didn’t know if this would be his very last fight, but if it was, he was almost glad. He was old beyond his years, and so very tired. His flight from his home had taken so much energy out of him. He could maybe hold Fenrir off for a little while, perhaps long enough for his call for help to be answered. But maybe he couldn’t.

And if he couldn’t, maybe he’d see Harry and Sirius again. James and Lily. Ron and Bill Weasley. Dumbledore.

When he thought of it like that, was dying really something to be afraid of?

“Then come and get me, Greyback.”

He didn’t think so.

-----

Luna, Draco, and Hermione each appeared behind a set of rocks in the clearing by Remus’s house. Luna looked on the burning wreckage that had once been his cottage with horror, and Draco, who had developed a grudging respect for the only decent Defense Professor he’d had, turned his face away. Hermione just stared into the flames.

“He wasn’t inside,” she insisted.

“How could you possibly know?” Draco asked, incredulous.

Hermione turned to him, her brown eyes snapping as if blown by the heat. “He wasn’t inside.”

Draco held up his hands, placating for the time being. “Whatever you say, Granger.”

“We have to assume he’s alive,” Luna insisted. “I count seven in the open. There could be more in the trees.”

“They’re waiting for us,” Draco pointed out reasonably. “You do realize that.”

Luna shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first trap we’ve run into.”

“I know. And it’s amazing how my objections to doing so are continuously overridden.”

“It’s Lupin,” Hermione cut off definitively. “We’re not leaving him.”

Draco’s shoulder sagged. He knew when he was beat. “Fine. But if I die—"

“You’re haunting us,” Luna said with irritating cheerfulness. “We know.”

The girls burst out from behind their cover, momentarily leaving Draco behind. He scowled at their backs, muttering, “I don’t care for being mocked,” and then joined them in the fray.

Much as Draco hated to admit it, there was something almost addictive about the rush a battle provided. He could hold himself apart enough to see reason, but he could see how some people (Gryffindors) could grow to love it, or perhaps be born with an inclination towards it. Running into danger, cutting down the enemy, and dancing away from spells that could gut him inside and out made him want to throw up when he thought about it later. But in the moment, it left him feeling more powerful than he was.

“Protego!” he shouted, blocking a barrage of hexes from the Death Eaters flanking his left.

Luna, who had always been more than a little prodigious with silent spells, waved her wand at an advancing Death Eater. She picked him up in a whirlwind, depositing him in Remus’s fire-bombed house. She smiled eerily at the sound of the Death Eater’s screams as the flames consumed him, fueled by the air in her spell.

“Descendo!” Draco called out, bringing down one of the flaming walls on top of another man, flattening him instantly.

He saw Luna twirl in his peripheral vision and then felt her back slam into his. She deflected one spell, and then threw in one of her own. “Incendio!”

The smell of burning flesh was now filling his nostrils, but Draco kept fighting, his back all but fused to Luna’s. They moved in tandem, hurling spells at their opponents with well-honed skill. It occurred to Draco that they were too young to be so good at this. He remembered that it hadn’t been that long ago that he’d been told to kill someone and tried his best to do it from afar, so he wouldn’t have to look. Now he saw it all the time, even with his eyes closed.

Finally, the last of the Death Eaters fell, and he was still standing. He hadn’t even been hit, since he’d made Shield Charms something of his specialty. He looked over his shoulder at Luna. “You all right?”

She cradled her arm, but nodded. “Stinging Hex, but I’m fine otherwise.”

“Still, better have Granger look at that. You know I’m crap at healing spells.”

It was then that they realized there had only been two sets of spells fighting off the Death Eaters.

“Shit,” Draco swore with venom. He looked around frantically, counting the bodies, searching for one with bushy hair and an unpleasant disposition. If any corpse could still have a disposition, it would be Hermione Granger. “Do you see her?”

“No,” Luna answered, calling out from beside Lupin’s still smoldering home. “She’s not here. We didn’t hit her.”

“Then where the hell did she go?”

-----

Hermione didn’t consider herself an expert on Remus Lupin. The men who had been closest to him were long gone in one way or another. However, she thought she understood the wolf mentality well enough, and try as Remus might, there would always be something lupine about his reasoning. An animal when cornered fights back no matter how injured. But a human with animal instincts who was not the target of a particular assault would go to ground where his attackers could not follow with ease.

This is what led Hermione to the trees. She simply turned away from the fight Luna and Draco charged into and walked calmly into the forest grove. No one even seemed to notice her. She preferred it that way.

She studied the branches and the twigs crushed underfoot when she reached the woods, examining the tell-tale signs of a man in flight. She tracked the markers just as Hagrid would have told her to do, taking advantage of the relative calm of the atmosphere. Apparently there were no Death Eaters hidden behind tree trunks today. This wasn’t surprising. It wasn’t as if anyone really cared about Remus. They were all after Draco and Luna nowadays.

Not her. No one had been after her for a long time. She was part of a triumvirate no one believed in anymore, left hanging on to a duo who hadn’t needed her for a long time. They all thought she was too dim to understand that now, all because she was still looking for Harry. All because she still had faith in his return.

No one understood her anymore. No one believed in the importance of her work. No one thought a sane person would still continue to chase after Harry Potter, their fallen Chosen one.

They thought she was crazy. She heard Luna and Draco talking at night. She caught their fervent glances toward her when she was hard at work for a solution. They thought she didn’t notice. But she did.

The only thing she didn’t understand was how wanting Harry back was crazy. How was it mad to want your friend to save the world? How was that wrong?

It wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t.

It was mad of everyone else to have given up on him.

Hermione banked left among the trees, searching for Remus Lupin. She would find him, take him by the hand, and lead him back to the field. Luna and Draco would have taken care of it by now. Luna the Sword and Draco the Shield. Everything would be safe and sound. Maybe Remus’s house wouldn’t be burning anymore.

Then she saw something.

The wolf-man, she remembered him, but it wasn’t the wolf-man she’d been looking for. Greyback. Lupin. Fenrir. Remus and Romulus and the birth of Rome. He was on top, crushing with his weight and tearing with the points of his yellow teeth. His face was smeared with offal and the ground was watered with red. Twigs and leaves and dirt swirled in it, and she thought she saw the bugs drowning in it. Muddy blood. Mudblood.

This had happened before. She’d seen this before, but not here. Where had she seen it? Why was it so familiar to see Fenrir Greyback crushing a corpse beneath him, feasting on the entrails?

She remembered him. She remembered hearing him howl. She remembered Ginny screaming. She remembered the body twitching beneath him, pale freckled skin shining like a ghost against the castle floor. Red hair spread out beneath it.

“Ron?”

Ron didn’t answer her. Ron couldn’t anymore. Ron was gone, she knew that. Sometimes Draco or Luna or someone else would tell her, as if she needed reminding. Of course she knew he was gone. Why did that mean she had to stop talking to him? It’s not as though she expected him to talk back.

Ron didn’t answer her, but the wolf-man did. Not the right one though. Greyback. Fenrir. Child-slayer. Man-eater. Monster.

“And who’s this then?” he asked. “Little Red Riding Hood lost in the woods, looking for Grandmother Lupin?”

Little Red Riding Hood. She didn’t think wizards knew about that. Little Red. But there wasn’t a little red. There was a lot of it. Fenrir Greyback ate Red. She’d seen it. She’d seen him do it. She’d seen him slice into the carotid with his teeth. She’d seen the blood spill out and stain the stairs. Then Ginny screamed and her face was ruined and she tried to kill herself because she thought it was her fault.

But of course it wasn’t. That was crazy.

“Would you care to join him?”

It wasn’t Ginny’s fault. Little Red didn’t ask for the wolf to eat her brother. She’d tried to save him. She just hadn’t had anything to cut him out. The woodsman had an axe.

Hermione had something better.

“Sectumsempra.”

Fenrir’s chest all but split open, and he howled in pain, trying to hold his skin together. Hermione wondered if he could stitch it closed to keep the stuffing from spilling out like her mother had done for her teddy bears. Had she ever had a stuffed wolf? No. She didn’t think so.

“That’s Snape’s spell!” Greyback snarled.

Hermione failed to see what difference that had made. She’d seen him use it in fights before. And it was much faster than finding an axe to get Ron out of his stomach.

“Sectumsempra.”

A slash across his abdomen.

A wolf-man’s howl.

“Sectumsempra.”

Something fell out of the hole she made in Fenrir’s stomach.

It wasn’t Little Ron Riding Hood though.

“Bitch!” Greyback shouted as he struggled to push the squelching red horror back inside. “I’ll… I’ll kill you.”

Hermione chuckled. Silly little wolf-man.

“Sectumsempra.”

The cut went across his neck, and his head tumbled to the ground. His body soon followed.

It wasn’t any way to get Ron out of course. It’s not like he had gotten caught in Greyback’s throat.

But she didn’t want to talk to the wolf anymore.

“Sectumsempra.”

-----

“Granger!” Draco shouted for what felt like the fifteenth time. He paused, waiting for her to answer, but all he heard was Luna’s own echoed ‘Hermione’ reverberating off the trees. They knew Hermione had gone into the forest, presumably to look for Lupin, but finding her inside was proving to be easier said than done.

“Lupin!” Draco added for good measure. Luna had confirmed that the only body inside the house was the Death Eater she’d put there. But the fact that neither Hermione nor Remus answered their calls was beginning to put him on edge. The Lupin he remembered would have popped out the first time he called for Granger, then joked that he wasn’t who Draco was looking for and hoped that was all right. And then they would have found Granger wandering in the woods and she could have bounced a few of her theories off the werewolf, who would have politely told her they were good thoughts even though the logic was too whimsically convoluted for anyone but Hermione to follow.

Draco sighed and rounded yet another corner in the grove. He opened his mouth to call for the missing wizard and witch, hoping that this time would be the last.

But he when he rounded the corner, he didn’t call out at all. He didn’t need to. He’d found them.

The first thing he saw was Remus Lupin’s brown eyes boring into him from the ground. Draco knew the man was dead before he saw the old professor’s ripped open stomach and the mauled neck. Draco clenched his jaw shut and thanked Circe that he hadn’t eaten any breakfast that morning.

“Sectumsempra.”

He narrowed his eyes at the noise. He’d never heard Snape say the curse so calmly before. Then again, he’d also never heard Snape sound so like a woman either.

And then he saw something that did make him retch, and he vomited up nothing but bile, brought to his knees by dry heaves and absolute horror. He saw Hermione kneeling before what he could only assume had once been a corpse. It was now little more than pulp.

“Shit, Hermione,” Draco murmured, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Fuck.”

Hermione looked over her shoulder, and he fought the urge to be ill again. Her entire front was absolutely covered in blood. Her face was slick with it; it was dripping from her hair, staining her clothes. If he looked very closely, he thought he saw pieces of flesh hanging off her jumper. He stopped looking closely.

“Who was that?” he wheezed. “Oh, Granger, what have you done?”

“It’s Greyback of course,” Hermione said in her familiar matter-of-fact tone. “Didn’t you see his head?”

Draco had not, and he had no interest in doing so. “Did he… did he do that to Lupin?”

Hermione nodded. “He did. But it’s okay.”

Glancing back at Lupin’s gutted corpse, Draco did not see how that was possible. “How?”

“Well, I’m going to get him out of course.” She frowned. “It’s taking longer than I thought. I assumed I would have found him by now. And then Ron can’t be too far behind.”

Draco’s felt a depression settle over him that he wouldn’t have expected. Luna had told him that Hermione was teetering, and it seemed that now she had gone over. Granger was hardly his favorite person, but even at his worst, he’d grudgingly admired her intellect. Now there was nothing left for him to like about her. He had absolutely no idea how to deal with crazy people, but he imagined it helped if you could feel more than dislike and dull pity. He wondered if Luna would know what to do.

Remembering that they’d agreed to send up a signal when they found their quarry, Draco sent up a stream of red sparks. Hopefully Luna would be there soon.

“Hermione, Ron’s dead,” Draco said.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Well, of course. I know that. You tell me often enough, don’t you? But it was Greyback who did it. So I have to cut him and Remus out of the stomach, and then they’ll be all right.”

“Cut him… Oh, bollocks. Hermione… Ron’s not in there.”

She froze. Draco was reminded of a cat stilling before it pounced. “What do you mean?”

“Fenrir didn’t kill Ron,” Draco said carefully, deciding it might be best to follow her line of reasoning for the time being. It seemed like a good idea to humor crazy people. “Are you thinking of Bill? At Hogwarts two years ago?”

Hermione frowned. “Bill?”

“Yes, Fenrir killed Bill,” Draco repeated, slowly rising to his feet. “You saw it, didn’t you? And you’re just… you just got confused. I get it. Weasleys do look alike, don’t they? I still get them mixed up. Not that they have me around, mind, but… but Hermione, it was Bill. Not Ron.”

She furrowed her brow. “Bill. Not Ron.”

Draco felt the knot in his chest begin to relax. “Yes. That’s right, Granger. Bill.”

“But then how did Ron die?”

Draco immediately realized his mistake.

Hermione’s eyes widened, white specks in a sea of red. He could picture her wheels turning, putting the pieces back together. She’d forgotten, but now she remembered, and he was all alone.

Draco reached for his wand, but Hermione got hers on him too quickly. He immediately held up his hands in surrender. “Granger—"

“You,” she said, comprehending at last. “You killed him.”

“It was an accident,” Draco reminded her, clinging to this truth now as ever. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t want Weasley to die.”

Hermione started to get to her feet, shaking. “You poisoned him.”

“He wasn’t supposed to drink it!” Draco raged. “It was Slughorn’s fault for not giving away the damned mead like he was supposed to. The tag said he was giving it to Dumbledore! If he’d just not been such a greedy little sod, they’d both still be alive.”

“You put the potion in the drink,” Hermione accused. “You did it for Voldemort. You’re a Death Eater!”

Draco glanced up at his forearm. His position currently had his Dark Mark exposed. Lovely. “Hermione, no. I’m on your side, remember? I helped you destroy Horcruxes. I have. I helped you. And I know you’ve never forgiven me because of what happened to Ron, and you don’t have to, but I’m sorry. I’m so sorry about what happened. I’ve never been sorrier about anything I’ve done. Please. You have to believe me.”

“You. Killed. Ron,” Hermione hissed with hatred dripping from her voice like Fenrir’s blood.

“I didn’t know you loved him!” Draco insisted. “I’m sorry!”

“I wonder,” Hermione murmured, stalking towards him, “if I cut you open, will he fall out?”

If there’d been anything in his bladder, he’d have pissed himself. “Hermione, please.”

“Sectumsempra!”

“NO!”

A weight barreled into Draco from behind, taking him down just before the curse would have hit. When he hit the ground, he saw little tuft’s of moon-white hair falling all around him. He turned to see Luna hovering above him, her ear bleeding and some of her hair cut away. He wanted to hold onto her in desperate gratitude, but her wand was drawn, and he knew there were more important things.

“Expelliarmus!”

Hermione’s wand went flying out of her hand and into the branches. For some reason, this is all it took to break her. She started screaming over and over again, wordless shouts of agony ripping through his ears.

Luna levered off him and ran to Hermione, heedless of the danger. She stepped over Lupin’s body and the pieces of Fenrir. Then she threw her arms around Hermione. Hermione beat on her back and tried to pull away, but Luna just kept holding on, making soothing noises and smoothing her hair, the strands wet with rainwater and blood.

Eventually Hermione’s screams dissolved into weeping. Eventually Luna could not hold her up anymore, and they tumbled to the forest floor in a mess of blood and tears. Eventually Hermione started hugging her back.

“I want Ron,” Hermione sobbed. “I want Harry. Why did they leave me? Why did they leave me all alone?”

“I don’t know,” Luna answered. “I’m sorry; I don’t know. No one does.”

Draco had always hated Harry. He’d always looked at Ron like a traitor. He’d always seen Granger as an affront to his safety and believes. But he was sorry Ron was dead, and now he felt sorry for Granger.

And he hated Harry even more for it. He hated Harry for what this world had become.

-----

Once they had taken care of placing Hermione in St. Mungo’s and cleaned themselves up, Draco and Luna set about to cleaning up all of the papers and books she had accumulated over the past two years. Thanks to Hermione’s bottomless bag, this turned out to be more of a chore than even her two companions could have guessed.

“She was a research hound,” Luna sighed, running her hands down the spines of a tall pile. “So married to her facts and figures.”

Draco thumbed through a stack of her notes, amazed at her meticulous handwriting. He’d seen her scrawling away night after night, and had assumed that it would have been impossible to read based on her speed. But he could read it perfectly, though he wished he hadn’t.

“We should have paid closer attention to her,” Draco murmured, bringing the bundle over to Luna. “Look. This is ten pages of one of the Sorting Hat’s songs over and over.”

Luna plucked a random paper from his hands and scanned the page. “This is a list of the dead in order of when they died,” she said. “And then it looks like she drew up some kind of proof based on the probability that they’d meet up with Harry.”

“Bloody hell….”

“She factors in the date, location, closeness to Harry.” Luna sighed, pushing the paper back into his arms. “I can’t believe I never thought to look at these. I just assumed it was research. I didn’t realize that she’d gone so far over the edge.”

Draco continued shuffling through the stack of papers in his hand. They seemed to be her more recent notes judging by how delusional they were. Occasionally, something about the Horcruxes or the veil came up, but more often than not, her thought process was taken over by nonsensical ramblings.

“I never liked Granger,” he announced. “And she never liked me. But I never wanted to see her come to this.”

“She’s the last of them,” Luna said as she sank onto a nearby tree stump. “She’s the last of the original three.”

“There’s still you,” Draco reminded her. “And Neville, wherever he is.”

Luna ran her hands down her face. “I’m going to have to tell him about this. Maybe he can help us find the other Horcruxes. Who knows? Maybe he can even kill Voldemort.”

“Maybe,” Draco said, hoping she didn’t catch the whiff of doubt in his voice. Neville Longbottom had become something of a war hero over the past year, but Draco couldn’t help but see him as a clumsy boy forever chasing after a toad trying to escape him.

“I think he could,” Luna maintained.

“If you say so,” he said, wanting to avoid an argument. Then he reached a paper towards the bottom of the stack. Her notes seemed to be more lucid towards that end, but one word in particular caught his eye. “Portkey?”

“Hmm?”

Draco stared at the page, reading it over. Then he let all the other papers drop. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

“You’re not talking to me,” Luna said, rising to her feet. “I hate it when you talk to inanimate objects with me around. I feel left out of the conversation.”

“Look at this,” Draco demanded, shoving it into her hands.

Luna’s eyes ran over the page. She blinked, raised her eyebrows, and read it over again. Then she looked at him again. “She wanted to go through the veil and then Portkey out?”

“Looks like that was the idea,” Draco said. “But look, she decided it was too dangerous. She said it was a last resort.”

“Can things get any worse than they are now for the war?” Luna asked. “Voldemort’s all but declared victory, and half of the people who were fighting against him are dead or missing. I don’t see what else there is for us to do.”

Draco couldn’t argue with that. “But could that work?”

She shrugged. “I haven’t a clue. It’s not something I could work out without knowing more about the veil. Portkey magic is determinate on locations. Zeroing in on the destination is only half of it. It has to recognize where you are so that it knows how to guide you away. Whatever’s on the other side of the veil might not be something the Portkey could work with.” She paused, her eyes shining. “But it could.”

Draco snorted, moving to pull the paper out of her hands. “Yeah, too bad no one will try it. No one would be mental enough to go through after what happened the last time.” He pulled.

She refused to let go of the page.

His stomach churned and the world seemed to spin away. He had meant to show her this as an amusement, even as reassurance that perhaps Hermione could regain the mind that had made her who she was. He hadn’t meant to give Luna any mad ideas. “Fuck, how could I have been so… You’re not considering this.”

“Why not?” she asked. “You know how desperate things are.”

“And that’s not going to be fixed by you running off into the unknown!” Draco snapped. “We’re supposed to be finding Horcruxes.”

“But we’re not,” she insisted. “I don’t think it was ever something we were meant to do. Maybe we can’t find Ravenclaw’s or get Nagini because it was never our quest.”

Draco groaned. “God, I hate when you talk about fate. Look, it doesn’t matter if Potter was meant to go riding off into the sunset with Granger and Weasley. Even if he were still around, he couldn’t do it now.”

“You’re right,” she agreed. “There was no prophecy about who was meant to find them, but it did say that Harry was the one who had to kill Voldemort.”

“I think it’s all bollocks,” Draco snapped. “You can’t go hinging the world on a crystal ball.”

“But something has to change,” Luna insisted. “We’ve been stuck for months now. Voldemort’s still alive. People are still dying.” She shook her head fiercely. “I can’t let it go on anymore, Draco. I know you’re not like me. I know the faceless deaths don’t mean anything to you, but they do to me. And even though I know they’ve gone on to the next world, it’s not right. He shouldn’t be sending them there before their time.”

“But why you?” Draco shouted, grabbing her shoulders. “Why does it always have to be you?”

Luna looked at him with those eyes that he loved so much, the ones that had never shown him her rage other than that one day when he had stopped her from doing what she wanted. She looked at him and she smiled, as if that meant everything would be all right. He wanted to believe it. He did. But he couldn’t.

“Because I’m not afraid,” she said softly, the wind lifting her hair away from her shoulders. “I don’t know if Hermione’s idea will work, but it’s the only one anyone’s ever had. You’re right. No one else would dare to walk through the veil after losing Harry… but I would. I know what’s on the other side of that veil is the world of the dead, and I am not afraid.”

“And what about me?” he asked, his voice cracking. He cupped her face between his hands, holding on to her too tightly, as if this would keep her there. “I didn’t let you go to that first fight at Hogwarts. What makes you think I’ll let you go now?”

She just kept smiling at him. “Because I’m a better witch than I used to be. You won’t get the drop on me again.”

He knew this was true. He’d always been quick to learn spells, but when it came to fighting, Luna had always been better. He realized now it had nothing to do with loving it like a Gryffindor. It was just like she’d told him – she wasn’t afraid to die. Without that fear, she was free from restraint and hesitation. That made her one of the most powerful weapons in their struggle. He hated it more than he could articulate.

“You know I love you,” he murmured. “Don’t you?”

She widened her eyes. “You never said.”

“Well, I do,” he hissed, pulling her forward into an embrace. “And you’re bloody stupid not to have known that.”

She wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her lips into the hollow of his throat. “You never said… and you know I can’t let it change anything.”

He held onto her more fiercely. “It should change everything.”

“I know you want it to,” she said, burrowing her face into his chest. “But I can’t. It’s too important, Draco. Getting him back is so much bigger than you and me.”

He swallowed his bitterness, hating that she was right. “Tell me something.”

“Anything.”

“Do you think it will work?”

He felt her shake her head against him. “I don’t—"

“I’m not asking for your intellectual opinion,” Draco said. “I know you usually give that to me because you think I like it more. But you have the best bloody intuition of anyone I’ve ever known. I’m asking you what that’s telling you. Think like Luna, not like Hermione.”

She pulled away slightly so he could see her eyes. He’d never seen them look so certain. “It’ll work.”

He took a very deep breath. “It had better.”

She beamed. “You’ll let me go without trying to petrify me?”

“Looks that way,” Draco muttered, sighing. “And also, I’m coming with you.”

Her jaw fell open, and the surprised look that had slipped away over the past few years returned with a vengeance. He couldn’t help but chuckle at its reemergence even with the circumstances. Then she threw herself back at him, kissing him so fiercely that she bruised his lips.

When they parted, there was only one thing to say.

“I’ve told you before, Luna Lovegood, you’re all I have left in the world…. So you’re all I have left to die for.”

“But you won’t,” she insisted. “I know it.”

“How?”

She reached up and tapped him on the top of his head. “Just have a little faith.”

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