I know I shouldn't really be starting a new story when I have so many unfinished ones, but this story is short, I estimate ten chapters at most. Those of you who are waiting for 'It's A Kind of Magic' to be updated, rest assured I have not abandoned it and do fully intend to finish it.

Prologue

Granger would not last the night.

Aunt Bella had done a real number on the mudblood when the snatchers had failed to capture Potter and Weasley at the same time as they caught her. Draco knew he shouldn't care that there would soon be one less mudblood in the world but for the life of him he could not convince himself that he didn't.

He also couldn't stay away from the cellar in which the mudblood would breathe her last. The last shreds of human decency that remained, despite his father's, and the Dark Lord's, best efforts, insisted that Hermione Granger should not be alone as she died. The goblin and house elf who shared her cell were poor substitute for the friends and who should surround her deathbed.

Sitting beside her, Draco took her hand, unsure what had prompted the move, and remarked to her. "I'm sorry it has to end like this you know. I wish it didn't have to."

"It doesn't have to," a hoarse voice put in from across the cell.

Draco looked up to find the goblin watching him, and he dropped Granger's hand as fast as if it had burned him.

"She's already dying," Draco retorted, stiffly. "Of course it's going to end like this."

"The goblins could save her." The Goblin returned, its huge eyes aglow in the dim light of the cellar. "All you need do is say your right words."

"Say my right words?" Draco snorted. "That's a fairy tale, a story meant to scare children."

The goblin arched an eyebrow. "Is it?"

"Is it?" Draco asked, despite himself.

"Say your right words and find out," the goblin returned with a nasty smile.

Draco could not fight the feeling that the little banker was laughing at him. He scowled. How many pureblood children had been threatened with the right words, some, he knew were threatened with it in an attempt to scare their still dormant magic out of them- the threat of becoming a goblin would have scared Draco into doing just about anything, when he was little.

Still, on the off chance that calling on the goblins would save Granger's life, it could be the first step on the road to redeeming himself; and if it didn't work there was nobody of import around to hear him make a fool of himself.

Draco Malfoy closed his eyes and said the words. "I wish the goblins would come and take you away, right now."

~v~