Well, considering the amount of time I suddenly have on my hands, this story may actually get finished!

Angel and Savior

Potter procures a shrunken broom, then uses precious seconds to expand it. It's all I can do not to whip the wand away from him and apparate us to safety. He slings the pack back over his shoulder and pulls me onto the broom. Just as he kicks off, every door and window of the Dym Dom bursts open in a deafening bang followed by a rush of wind that seems to come at us from all directions and sends us tumbling in circles, almost landing in the swamp. I'm just about to lose my grip around Potter's waist when he regains control of the broom and pulls it to a hover above the swamp in the suddenly still air.

"What the…" Harry asks, awestruck. I follow his gaze upward and see what he sees: a flock of demons flying away on their large, membranous wings. They quickly disappear into the clouds.

"You… freed them?" I ask. I don't understand what just happened. But we don't have time to ponder. A flash of light from a spell narrowly misses us and without a second to spare, Potter angles us upwards, speeding towards the cloud coverage.

I spare a glance down as we fly and see crowds of people leaving the building and pointing up at us. Spells still shoot out, but we quickly become out of range. We break through the cloud layer and Potter levels the broom, but maintains our speed in case we are being followed.

"W-what happened?" Harry asks. His shivering reminds me of how cold I am. The clouds dampened us and now the cold wind as we fly gnaws at our faces and knives into our bones.

"I - was -going - to - ask- you - the - same," I chatter out. I give up and enter his mind. What was that magic? Why did you do it? I already know the answer from the confusion the question leaves in his mind. He has no idea what happened.

I don't know what you mean. The demon-Squib… he said something that made you want to escape? Did he threaten you? Why did you run?

Sharing thoughts like this, I can't deny his statement, he would see the truth. Well, yes, he threatened to not let us go, but I'm not the one who ran, you did, Harry. He said something to you, and you did something, something powerful…

I use my memory to show him as much as I can of his magical push, so to speak, against Kirill. It's clear he doesn't remember it. At seeing himself in my memory, his thoughts become confused and frightened, disjointed even more by the persistent pain of the cold.

"What do you remember?" I ask aloud.

"Just- running," he responds with a lost tone of voice.

"We need - to go down. This is - too cold. We'll freeze."

He nods, barely perceptibly, and angles down. I cringe and close my eyes as we descend through the wetness of the clouds and my eyelids feel heavy with droplets threatening to freeze over. I shake it off when we break through and scan our surroundings. Below us stretches a flat tundra of land, more yellow than green, at least compared with Ireland. It looks cold and vacant and endless. Harry flies on for awhile before a structure comes into view, a farmhouse, followed by a barn and several neighboring houses in the distance. Soon, we spot the onion-domed tower of a Russian Orthodox church with a three-barred cross on top.

"Let's go to the church to warm up," I suggest, pointing down at the foreign-looking building. No doubt he's never seen Russian architecture. Strangely, he doesn't argue or even comment, just complies by flying us smoothly to land on the front stoop of the church. I dismount and pull on the handle of the doors, but it's locked.

"Alohomora" Harry casts and the door gives way to my pulling and swings open.

A lingering smell of incense greets us as we enter the church, which is not much warmer than outside, but at least protects us from the breeze. The sanctuary of the church is painted in deep reds, blues, and golds, and faces of saints and angels stare out at us from all four walls. I look up to the domed ceiling and meet the painted face of God surrounded by a golden halo. Somehow, I feel strangely protected in the still watchfulness of the icons.

I look around until I find a fireplace near the altar and then make my way towards it, up the hallway in the middle of the sanctuary, between the rows of pews. The creek of my footsteps echo in the space, amplified by the domed ceiling above us.

A flicker of a curtain behind the altar screen catches my eye, and a bearded face appears in its place. The door to the altar opens and a man in a black robe, clearly the priest, stands in its place, watching me. In a surprisingly gentle tone that sounds so unlike anything I've ever heard spoken in Russian before, he asks how I got inside, and if he can do anything for me. I silently hope we don't have to use magic on the man, especially not in his church.

"We are travelling through, just looking for a place to warm up," I explain, with a gesture and glance over my shoulder at Harry. He stands at the entrance to the church, arms wrapped around his body in effort to keep warm.

The priest's eyes bulge as he takes in Harry and his face drains of color. He rapidly crosses himself with his hand and takes a retreating step back into the altar. Then the door slams and I hear racing footsteps. Another door in the back, I presume, opens and slams shut. Harry and I watch him through the windows of the church as he flees, black robes threatening to trip him with each panicked step.

We exchange confused looks.

"Does he know me? Is he a wizard?" Harry asks, assuming I would have been close enough to feel magical energy. I shake my head.

"A Muggle…"

Harry frowns and looks into a nearby window, trying to see his reflection. He smooths back his hair hesitantly, but otherwise seems satisfied with what he sees, but more confused at the priest's reaction.

"Idiot," I mutter, approaching him and grasping his arm, "Don't you know any permanent sticking charms for that mess." It's a half-hearted insult, and he barely seems to hear it. We both have way too many questions swarming through our heads to have a proper spar. I tug his arm up the aisle to the fireplace and then give him a nudge.

"Uh, right," he says, shaking himself out of his reverie long enough to light the logs already in place, "incendio."

The fire roars to life in response to the wave of his wand, and then Harry promptly flops into the pew in front of it, a frown marring his face.

"What are you feeling?" I ask, a phrase I don't think I've ever used before in my life. I'm cautious, but I'm not sure why. I don't want to disturb him further or cause him any more mental exhaustion. He needs rest. After whatever magic that was before, it is a wonder he is still conscious. Whatever it was, it was too strong for him to even recall it happening. That kind of power is limited to only the maximal magical exertions, and even then it is usually coupled with a loss of consciousness.

"Harry?" I prompt when he doesn't respond. I just about reach his shoulder to shake him a bit when his green eyes look up and meet mine.

"I don't understand what happened. What you showed me doesn't make sense. And that Muggle… Why did he run away like that?"

"I don't know. You performed some strange magic and freed a dozen demons. Maybe he can sense that power on you. It was… impressive. You must be exhausted?" I say it more as a question than a statement, curious to understand more myself.

Harry frowns deeper and shrugs his shoulders.

"I'm alright. Maybe a bit tired," he denies, "What did the Demon-Squib tell you?"

"I think you need rest, okay? We can discuss that after we sleep," I coax. I take my robe off and hang it over a nearby pew to dry, and he follows my example with his mind still clearly elsewhere.

I don't know how to restate all that was told to me, English translation being the least of the barriers. How can I put words to the idiocy of my father? How do I acknowledge out loud the fact that the existence of this curse is because of my paterfamilias? I can hardly think about it now, let alone form the words of my own fate, the probability that my spirit will be expelled from my cursed body and doomed to be a demon.

I feel a cold hand on my arm, above the cursed part that I only just realize I was clutching at angrily. Harry lifts my arm from my grasp and pulls it towards him, muttering the spell meant to slow the spread. I feel nothing from the spellwork, and I fight the temptation to thrust him away from me. Instead, I let him turn me around and lift my shirt to perform the same ministrations to the spot on my back, and then shoulder. I don't ask how much it's spread. When he finishes he holds my shoulder and rests his forehead down at the base of my neck.

"I wish we had the potion," he states softly. I nod, not trusting myself to speak without breaking in frustration.

I turn around and press his shoulders until he sits down on the pew in front of the fireplace. Then I kneel down in front of him and unlace his boots before removing them altogether. When I look back up at his face, he is watching me with an expression I can't place.

"Lay down, get some rest," I suggest. His frown from earlier reappears on his face in a flash, as if he just remembered he was meant to be pondering out the answers to his questions.

"No, I don't need sleep, I need Hermione," he says urgently.

"What does Granger have to do with this?" I say, my own mood shifts just as fast, and I stand up.

"She's brilliant. She'd know what was going on," his eyes flash up at me, "We shouldn't have left her out of the loop."

"I think she knew enough as it was, last I checked," I answer, more coldly than I intend, "She's a real snoop."

"She's brilliant," he repeats insistently but not at all offended. He leaps up and starts digging around in our sack, finally pulling out parchment and a quill.

"We have to write to her," he announces. I groan and shake my head and turn away from him, pacing.

"No, Potter. You promised. Just us." He shoots upright, squaring himself to face me.

"Do you want us to solve this or not? Do you want us to fail? Do you want this to end with your Avada Kedavra on my wand?!" His voice gets progressively more hysterical with each question. I turn around and catch his shoulders, instantly reminded of the torment he went through with the boggarts.

"No, no, okay, okay, just, relax, okay?" I soothe, and push him back down to the bench. Crouching in front of him again, I take the writing materials from his trembling hands and place them on the pew beside him. The quill is enchanted with an everlasting ink supply. I pick it up and frame the parchment towards me.

Granger- I scrawl on the top of the paper. He watches me, then seems to sigh in relief.

"If nothing else, it will help us organize our thoughts," he mutters, seemingly bashful at the scene he made. I nod.

"Do you want me to explain to her what happened, since you don't seem to remember it?" I offer. He nods, and I feel his hand brush my hair away from my face, freeing my vision to focus on writing the letter.

"Tell her everything we know," he clarifies.

I hesitate before muttering a "fine" and then continuing to write out the message. He's right, it does help me focus on what we know, what questions we have unanswered. I write about the Goyles, their reaction to me and their level of fear. I write about the information we gathered from Snape's portrait, and I add my own assumptions about the curse, what I'm becoming. In a way, though I would never do this if not for Potter, I feel relief at writing it out. It's like an acknowledgement of the reality of the situation, without having to voice it. And while it's still stressful, it is also grounding. Looking back, so much has seemed so surreal. Writing it out is a reality check that I didn't know I needed.

"Tell her I can feel your pain," Harry says, after several minutes of my writing and him reading over my shoulder.

"You felt the torture Kyrill put me through?" I ask softly, seeking confirmation of what I already know.

"Yes…" he hesitates before adding shyly, "You don't think that's because of … how we… um…"

I arch my eyebrow and stare up at him from the corner of my eye.

"Relate?" I ask, wondering what the hell he'd come up with if I didn't offer him a word to put him out of his misery. He nods gratefully.

"I'm not going to be sharing that particular detail," I say firmly. He blushes even deeper than he already has.

"Ugh, no, Merlin! Just -ugh- just tell her that I feel your pain," he huffs out, crossing his arms like a first year Slytherin being teased by a second year.

I laugh and quickly write down the commanded phrase: Harry Potter states he can "feel the pain" of Draco Malfoy. I assume he means physical assaults. Harry groans at the theatrical way I wrote it and slouches down on the pew, covering his eyes. I write on: Kyrill was particularly interested in exploring this phenomenon, testing it out as if it were a theory he had already come up with. How did he know? What am I missing? Why would he expect Harry to be affected by my physical pain? Why was he expecting Harry at all? Even if he knew I'd been cursed and would seek him for information, how would that connect me to Potter? Or Potter to him?

I look down and realized I have written in the letter all the questions I've thought in my head. I quickly add an appropriately cutting post-script: "Not that I expect you to be able to answer these questions, let alone understand them in the least. Just try not to open your big beaver mouth about this to the wrong people."

I hear a soft sigh from Harry and realize he's half asleep, the sun has gone down, and I've been writing mostly by the light of the fire that has started to die down, but is still giving plenty of warmth. The flames cause the golden halos painted around the chamber to flicker.

I sign the letter D. M. and fold it neatly, placing it under the pew. Then I lay down on the wooden bench, and pull Potter over to me, until he's practically laying on top of me. He nestles into my chest and grips my shirt sleeve as if afraid of me leaving without him, and the sleepy gesture almost has me forgiving him for not transfiguring the pew into a proper couch, at least, before falling asleep on it.

I feel the rise and fall of his breathing and sync it to my own. Calm invades my body in a way that feels unnaturally natural. His chest on my chest, in this moment, feels like all the answers I've ever needed. There is no letting go in sight. I feel like I'm falling upwards, into the present. I never knew that "falling in love" felt like rising. I have always only fell in a downward direction. I look up at the domed ceiling and thank the God painted there for this exact piece of heaven.

Harry shudders in his sleep and I watch myself instinctively wrap my other arm around him, effectively hugging him to me. And suddenly, I know. I cannot ask him to kill me. I would rather face immortality as a demon than cause Harry any harm. I try not to imagine the centuries I will spend regretting that. It won't matter, anyway. I cannot. It is not an option.

"You don't have to do it," I whisper, "You don't have to… kill me."

A few moments later and I'm shocked out of my own thoughts again by a clear "Thank you," and it sounds like pure relief. Harry grips me tighter, and soon I feel a warm dampness on my chest and know he's crying.

"Shh, just sleep, it'll be ok," I say

"It sure as hell better be, Malfoy," he responds quickly, choked and embarrassed. He swipes at his eyes and turns his head the other direction, but doesn't let go of his grip on my sleeve. I sigh, a new phenomenon for my generation of Malfoys, and shift a bit to get comfortable on the solid pew. He's back to steady breathing, and soon, I follow.

Low chanting voices greet my ears when I awake. It sounds like several voices singing a minor tune, though I can't make out the words. It's still dark, with only soft light from burning embers. I squint into the blackness, barely making out the shape of Harry's body. He is crouched before the fireplace, blowing on the coals and stoking the fire.

"Do you hear that?" I ask. At the sound of my voice his head whips in my direction, and it seems to take a second before I see the green light of his eyes on me. His expression seems dazed and confused.

"The singing. It's coming from outside," I clarify. He shakes his head and seems to try to focus.

"Yeah, now I hear it. What is it?" I frown, wondering how he didn't hear it earlier if he was awake. I go over to him and take the stoker from his hand, and say, "Maybe we should put this out and leave."

"I'll augamenti it" he says in agreement, and turns to the bench where he left his wand. As he turns, I notice his hand is clenched and holding something. I reach for it and pull it close, and he relaxes his grip. It's a piece of paper, crumpled. I take it and unfold it.

"The letter to Granger?" I say, looking back at him. His expression is bewildered, almost too much so, no doubt mirroring my own. "Did you mean to burn this?" I ask, remembering how he was coaxing the fire when I awoke.

"No! I- I meant to send it right away. With a pigeon from the steeple. Here, give it back, we'll do it right now," he assures, grasping for the paper. I let him have it without a struggle, watching him carefully.

"Where is the pigeon?" I ask, able to hear my own caution in my voice now.

"Accio pigeon!" he states, and a squawking bird falls down into his arms. He busies himself with enchanting the bird and attaching the letter, while I try to puzzle through everything I just heard.

A loud banging on the front door of the church jars us back to reality. Potter jumps, and in the process releases the pigeon who flies straight up to the dome and out through a crack.

"I CAST YOU OUT OF THE TEMPLE!" A booming voice blares in Russian.

"We need to leave," "Let's get out of here," we say at the same time, freezing our eyes on each others'.

"IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER!"

"Where will we go?" "Where's the brooms!?" We both shout, springing into action and almost colliding.

"AND THE SON!"

"Just grab the bag!"

"AND THE HOLY SPIRIT!"

"Wait, look!" Harry yells, pointing at the fireplace. Outside, the eery chanting continues.

"What!?"

"I saw something! It just blinked!" I stare at the coals, forcing myself to be still, and slowly I am able to make out the possible hint of two beady eyes watching us. My own eyes narrow and I drop on my knees in front of the fire.

"Who are you!?" I demand. Potter hands me the bellows and I begin working them to blow air on the coals. Eventually, as the fire grows, we see a beard and the outline of an upturned nose. A goblin.

"Ah but I know exactly who you are, young Malfoy and Harry Potter!"

Next to me, Potter groans at the recognition.

"This is connected to the floo network?" I ask urgently, raising my voice as the pounding on the door has just continued.

"Ah Muggles exorcisms are always such a racket," the goblin grumbles, again not answering my question, but instead disappearing from the fire. "Come through, come through so we can talk in peace!" we hear him invite.

Harry and I look at each other warily. His wand is poised, ready to cast out the fire, while I eye the bag in his hand, ready to get the floo powder. I hold up my hand, stopping him. He frowns, considers, and then nods. He pulls out the floo powder.

The face reappears in the fire. "Ah, I almost forgot. Bezeklik Caves! Do hurry, those Muggles are about to enter." Again, his face disappears and sure enough, we hear the sound of the doors unlatching.

"I'll go first," I say, taking a scoop of the powder and not giving Potter the option. The fire flares green and I step in directly.

"But you don't have a wand!" he yells, just as I say "Bezeklik Caves!"

One. Two. Three. I close my eyes as I fly through the floo system, counting the seconds that pass. Seven, and I land. Longer than the average whirl across England, shorter than our trip to St. Petersburg. I duck through the fireplace and look around at my surroundings.

The room is clearly underground, but it does not appear to be a traditional cave. Instead, the floors and walls are a smooth adobe and the room is relatively well lit by various lamps. On opposite walls are entrances to halls leading to other rooms, and looking down them, I find it stretches longer than I can see. Along all other walls are desks covered in various papers. Contraptions of all sorts are littered across the desks as well. The walls are bare, suggesting this place is a recent set up. It looks like Dumbledore's office, if he had only just moved in and had several hundred other rooms in the cave system to spread out his items in.

Potter still doesn't arrive and I tap my foot anxiously before moving to the nearest lamp. I peer down at the papers there, suddenly greeted by an all too familiar newspaper clipping. Myself and Potter in the great hall after the final battle, the moment of the curse. Looking further down the desk, the Malfoy name catches my eye in other headlines saved from the Daily Prophet. Arithmetic and alchemical calculations are edged in the margins of rough sketches of demon bodies. Diagrams and calendars are littered about as well. One desk seems set aside for potion brewing, and I see the distinctive color of Molten Greev in various vials.

I whirl around at the sound of footsteps in the left entrance and face the goblin, who now looks much smaller and older than he had in the relief of the fire.

"You're Doctor Bristok?" I ask, my voice higher pitched than I'm used to. He pushes a pair of spectacles up his nose and opens his mouth to respond, when Potter comes tumbling from the fireplace and landing at my feet.

"What took so long?" I hiss, and catch him under his shoulders and help him up. He clenches his wand in one hand, pointing it at the goblin defensively.

"What do you mean? I jumped in right after you!" he answers, and it seems honest, though not possible for the whole minute delay between my arrival and his. I shake my head, vaguely imagining his tardy record at Hogwarts with his warped sense of time.

"Welcome, Savior of the wizarding world," the goblin says, bowing with a small flourish. Potter's eyes flatten in effort not to roll.

"Don't call me that. How did you find us?" he asks snappishly, still suspiciously aiming his wand. "And what do you want with us?"

It's obvious his trust for goblins vanished in Ireland, along with our things.

"Potter, I think we found him, and we want something from him," I correct in a low voice, meant only for him. He looks at me sideways, confused for a moment, before his eyes land on one of the hints on the desks around us, and widen.

"You're Dr. Bristok?" he asks, putting two and two together, "You study demons?" The goblin nods in acknowledgment and scratches his balding head.

"You gave Father Nikolai quite a scare today!" Dr. Bristok says with a small chuckle. "Yelena, my Russian demon spy, as she likes to be called, claims he was about to burn down the old cathedral! Well, now that you're here, he'll think the exorcism worked and all will return to normal for that little village. Humph." He strokes his beard, contemplating something distant.

"You are informed on all demon activity, throughout the whole world, magical and Muggle alike?" I am almost convinced by the amount of records covering his desks.

"Oh no!" he immediately denies, "I wouldn't have time for that! Only the specialty cases from around the world ever come to me. I just happen to have a wide international clientele. Yelena is perfectly capable of handling any adverse spirit activity in Russia. However, she's been pretty overrun today, due to several escapes out of the Dym Dom black market that I believe you two were involved in? I am curious to learn more about that, by the way! But anyway, I did tell her to look out for you two and to keep me informed. I have, of course, been expecting you. In fact, the kettle's on!" He states the final bit as if it were the most obvious fact in the world, and disappears into the room he had entered from.

"That's what the snake said, too," Harry mutters, shooting me a sideways glance before saying louder into the next room. "President Jintok wrote you, then?"

"Jintok? No… Why?" His goblin head reappears for a moment in the door frame, puzzled.

"We visited him. He told us about you and even wrote a letter promising you compensation for whatever help you can offer us," Potter explains.

"Ah, well, he's a lovely goblin, isn't he," Dr. Bristok says absently before swerving back to what I assume is a stove top, given the whistling kettle. "Come in, come in," he invites.

Harry's eyes meet mine for an instant and I feel a need to soak in his gaze, as if this will be the last chance I get to be alone with him for a while. As if whatever we are about to learn from the doctor will inevitably separate us. And I see the same strange tension I feel mirrored on his face. I feel my brow crinkle and I summon a deep breath, placing a hand on his shoulder, as if to steady myself, as much as to comfort him. I enter the room and he follows soon after me.

"Tea?" Dr. Bristok asks, holding up a steaming cup in my direction. I take it politely. "Please, sit!" he offers, motioning to the table from which a lantern is dimly lighting the room. I sit at the chair, though the goblin-sized table is not tall enough to fit my legs under, so I turn to the side.

"So, this is Urumqi?" Harry asks, taking a cup of his own from the goblin. He then sits in the chair next to me and turns his knees in as well, touching mine.

"Well, close to Urumqi. We're in a system of caves made by Buddist Monks long ago," Dr. Bristok explains, pride evident in his voice. He sets his cup down on the table opposite us and then nestles into a chair. "I've found it to be an excellent place of study. Rich, in the spiritual sense. Here, I have more material than I would be able to write about in a lifetime."

"You mean demons live here?" Harry asks.

"Well, I don't just study corrupted spirits. Spirits of all types have made this their home. Flowing freely in and out of the spirit realm. Bezeklik is a portal, in a sense." His eyes glow over the rim of his mug as he takes a sip of tea.

"How long were you watching us from the fire?" Harry asks, clearly sparked by the look to remember the glowing eyes that had caught his attention in the embers. The way he asks all the questions amuses me, and I sit back in my chair and let him take the lead.

Dr. Bristok sets down his tea. "Long enough," he dodges. Harry frowns.

"Why didn't you come through as soon as you heard we were at the church if you were expecting us anyway?" Harry pursues.

"Timing is important in these matters," he says, both answering and not answering. Harry's eyes narrow and he looks at me pleadingly. I smile at him and take a sip of tea, entertained by his predicament.

"What exactly alarmed the Muggle priest anyway?" Harry asks, his voice betraying his frustration in a way I'd never allow.

"You did, of course" Bristok answers simply. "Well, the demon you carry. Muggles can be very spiritual, often more so than Wizards. Some have a clear sense for these things."

"You mean I carry," I correct, sitting up at once and stepping to Potter's defense. I almost have the instinct to shield him. "I am the cursed one. I have the demon."

"You still do not know?" Bristok asks softly with a tilt of his head and a puzzled expression, as if only half believing what I'm saying. "No," he continues on conversationally, calmly sipping at his tea, "The priest was quite clear. A white haired angel and a black-haired demon entered his church while the doors were still locked."

"Angel!?" I splutter, almost spilling my tea. I look between the goblin and Harry. Harry's brow is furrowed in contemplation, but his lips are relaxed as if, almost, amused.

"That's not so far fetched, Draco. You're just missing wings," he jibes.

"I am no angel," I growl, sinking down into my seat for the first time in my life.

"Though, curious how I became the demon in this scenario…" Potter continues, ignoring me.

"You're not," I reply reflexively.

"Ah, yes, well, I was, too…" the goblin replies, also ignoring me, "Until I looked closer at this." He waves his hand and the newspaper clipping from the desk in the other room appears on the table. He rotates it so it faces us.

Harry and I peer down at it, watching the picture of the two of us struggling in the Great Hall, and then me passing out against him.

"What do you mean? What is it that you see here?" I demand.

"This is the moment of the curse, is it not?"

"It is," I agree through gritted teeth, barely able to stop from yelling at the goblin to get to the point already. Dread swirls in my gut.

"And of the two of you, who was the most injured?" Bristok asks.

"Clearly Draco," Harry answers, much more patiently than I feel. "He was attacked by a werewolf."

"What is the point, goblin," I snap. Bristok eyes me over his spectacles.

"When the demon was cast from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to you, Harry Potter was touching you. Thus, the demon was able to choose which of you to enter. Of course, it chose the Savior."