Rating: K+/ T, for angst

D is for Dementors

Draco didn't know what to do.

Everything was going so well, so well, and in the blink of an eye it had all been shot straight to hell.

He'd done as he promised; leading the Death Eaters towards the icy lagoon in the middle of the – cursed, frightening, consuming – magic forest, straight into a trap.

The Death Eaters didn't have time to react, blindly trusting him, Voldemort's favourite, to lead them into the heart of battle where they'd take their turn at extinguishing the lives of their lord's enemies and pave their way to glory through their blood-stained hands. No, the followers of the Dark Lord didn't have time to react aside from basic defence, ingrained into them from experience and hypersensitive senses. And so none of them turned to Draco and brand him a traitor, accuse him of selling them out.

But even if it occurred to one of them, they didn't have time to make the accusation, or the proof to carry through. His performance – outrage with soul-shaking shock, and a touch of disbelieving fury – had been flawless. He immersed himself into the battle, casting curses seemingly without discrimination, his pale, dirty and bloodied face twisted into a snarl.

He was the perfect image of the Dark Lord's favourite, of his successor.

And the Death Eaters were none the wiser that he'd betrayed them all.

Yes, he'd been firing what appeared to be curses, but in reality were hexes or benign spells cloaked by another spell layered on. A few true curses he aimed at the Death Eaters, making it seem like he missed one of the Order members or on of the foolish students with them. No one would've noticed anyway, everyone was too busy trying to not get killed. Too bad the Death Eaters were really no match for the Order. The trap had been laid down so carefully; every possible detail, every conceivable factor considered and integrated.

It had all been going so well.

But then one of his benign spells had actually missed, and instead of striking a fellow student, equally bloodied but much more terrified, it struck a Death Eater. The man – Draco could see it was a man, his mask having been blown off amidst the melee – whipped around when he felt warm wetness on his shoulder. He spared a look at his shoulder, seeing that what he felt was fake blood, and at that moment the Death Eater understood. Draco had no clue how the man's brain was fast enough to figure it out that quickly, but he did, and before Draco or another member of the Order could strike him down, the man raised his wand and shot a golden spell into the black sky like a flare. The spell hit a cloud before exploding, travelling every which way through the cloud in waves, making it rumble and screech as if the sky itself was in pain.

Draco didn't know that spell, but he figured it was nothing good. In an instant, he and an ally had brought the man down. By then, the skirmish battle was won; Death Eaters laid either dead or wounded and unconscious. A few of the Light warriors were also down, but very few overall. Draco saw his last victim twitch as if he was having a spasm as he attempted to fight off the binding jinx that held his body in an iron grip.

The man spat at Draco through panting gurgles. "Traitor!"

Draco gave him a cool glare before turning away to continue the rest of the plan. The Order members and students were left to handle the aftermath of the battle, helping the wounded and magically transferring the Dark Lord's followers to where the Aurors were waiting to seize them.

But Draco didn't get too far before the man started to laugh; what begun as a quiet chuckle raising in volume and hysteria until he sounded eerily like his aunt Bellatrix. A feeling of deep dread pooled in his stomach. He turned his head and watch the man warily from the corner of his eye.

The man continued to laugh insanely, levelling Draco with a vicious glare as his mouth twisted into a cruel smirk. Draco didn't like it one bit.

"You may have won this round, boy, but the war has just begun!" the man crowed. "It's only begun! You may have been the Dark Lord's favourite, but you don't really think he told you everything, did you?" No, Draco had never been foolish enough to even entertain that notion. But the way this man was talking, he wondered what, exactly, Voldemort had up his sleeve that he didn't know about.

The man continued, his delirious, poisoned mind keeping him talking even as some members of the Order grabbed him roughly by the arms and hoisted him up. "This is war, boy! Purebloods will rule! And we shall prove it; we shall show you how weak mudbloods truly are! And to do this, we shall make an example of the mudbloods in your precious Order!"

Draco's blood ran cold, his mind snapping immediately to one particular Muggle-born member. No…

The man's eyes twinkled as he saw Draco stiffen. He was about to be whisked off to Azkaban, but he still looked as if he was victorious. "One mudblood in particular – the perfect example! The brains of the Potter brat's group!" No! Draco's heart screamed, but he could do nothing but stare at the Death Eater as he laughed maniacally into the sky. The man looked at Draco in the eye and, with one final smug, vicious smile, divulged the name that was about to be tracked down by every follower, every dark wizard, witch, and creature, of the Dark Lord.

"Hermione Jean Granger!"

"NO!"

Draco lunged at the Death Eater, but he had already been Apparated away, leaving behind his mocking laughter.

In a flash, Draco turned and ran back into the forest, heading straight for the Hogwarts castle. He ignored the startles yells, the calls of his name; the pleads to retain his sanity and to follow the plan. His heart was thudding in his chest like a hummingbird while his mind formed only half coherent thoughts. No, no, not her, I won't let it, no, no, no, how, protect, mine, no, no, wrong, save, help, run, run, not her, hurry!

The spell the Death Eater had set off before his capture made so much more sense now – it'd been a signal; Voldemort had anticipated something like this happening. Maybe he didn't suspect Draco would betray him, but only a true fool would not anticipate such an ambush in a war.

Stupid, stupid stupid, RUN!

No time, no time. He had to find her, he had to find Hermione.

And then he did.

But not in the way he wanted to, not in the way he prayed every single night that it wouldn't happen.

He dug his feet into the cold earth at his feet, almost falling over as his momentum pulled him across, and then he was running towards her, towards the still figure laying under a tree on moonlight-pale rocks. Towards the girl – no, the young woman – he would've recognized anywhere.

"Hermione!"

He fell to his knees beside her, partially sliding across the hard surface as he didn't bother to slow down – he had to reach her, now – ignoring the pain as his trousers and the skin beneath were ripped and bruised by the rocks. His hands hovered over her body, uncertainty and confusion clouding his already erratic thoughts, completely at a loss.

Draco didn't know what to do, what he could or should do.

"Hermione, wake up," he whispered urgently. "Wake up, wake up!" He finally got a hold of his senses, forcefully pushing past the building panic in his chest, and with a shaky hand he brushed back the tussled brown hair from her face. She was so cold, so pale…

"Come on, Granger," he snarled; a hidden plea behind his angry tone. "You're the brightest witch out there, there's no way you could've done something stupid enough to get killed!" But she could, he knew. If it meant saving someone, she'd gladly put herself in harm's way without hesitation. Besides, if trained Aurors got killed, then even if she was the smartest girl of her generation, why should she be spared?

No, no, this is Hermione, he growled at himself, squashing those traitorous thoughts. They were simply not possible; they were not allowed to exist. Hermionepromised.

"Granger!" he snapped, lightly slapping her cheek. She would open her eyes, glare at him and berate him for being such a git, like she always did, before leading them back to wherever they were needed; her warm brown eyes narrowed in determination and burning fury.

But she didn't.

She wasn't even breathing.

"No…" a sob escaped Draco's throat, unheeded. "No, please… Please. Don't do this to me." His hands, dirty and cold, cradled her face, turning it so she was facing him fully and not the forest. He leaned closer to her face, his eyes desperately searching for a sign, anything, to let him know that he was being stupid and it was all his imagination. But the warmth he had come to know and unknowingly rely on was nowhere to be found. He swallowed a lump in his throat, letting out a broken whisper. "You promised."

"My, my. How touching."

Draco was on his feet on an instant, standing protectively between Hermione and the intruder, wand pointing straight at the man who had spoken. He'd know that voice anywhere.

"Father," he snarled.

"You've shamed your family, Draco," Lucius Malfoy sneered as he walked closer.

"You stay back!" Draco warned. "I will kill you if I have to."

Lucius paused, sensing that his son meant it. He regarded his son, considering the young man who now stood before him. When had he grown up? He'd always been but a boy, chasing after his robes and worshipping the very ground he walked on. But now… Now what Lucius saw was a desperate young man, pulled into a war and role he didn't want, angry and tired, and scared. And heartbroken.

His eyes shifted to the girl laying still behind him. Hermione Granger. The brightest witch of her generation, or so they said.

Lucius' eye returned to rest on his son, whose wand was still drawn and aiming at him. There was the slightest tremor in his grip, revealing that his son didn't really want to do it, but Lucius knew that if he felt he must kill him, then he would.

"Think of your mother, Draco," Lucius said. "How would you face her?"

"The same way you did," Draco bit back. "Did you really think Mother wanted to be part of this – this – this bloodbath? For the second bloody time?" Lucius opened his mouth, but Draco cut him off. "No! I don't care what you have to say! Do you understand? I don't care! You did this to us, to our family! Why would you drag us into a war? You're supposed to protect us from such things, not sign us up! And for what? A mudblood Dark Lord who's intent on destroying other 'mudbloods,' all for the sake of making you feel better about our in-bread lineage? You're such a hypocrite!"

"Silence!" Lucius whipped out his wand, pointing it straight at Draco. "How dare you speak of your Lord that way?"

"No, Father," Draco solemnly said. "How dare you?"

The wizards, father and son, said nothing as they observed each other in quiet contemplation. Both were ready to kill each other, but neither really wanted to. And yet, that was the moment that fate had brought them to, and so all they could do was watch each other, and consider. The place was deadly silent, the sounds of battle echoing from afar, but nothing could disrupt this moment when a member of the Malfoy family would highly likely kill another. It was a showdown of wills as much as one of magic. The tension was so thick that Draco wasn't just feeling it in his bones, but drowning in it. But he'd be damned if he gave in to it. He'd had enough, he'd paid his prize for burdens he was forced to carry and had never desired, and it was time his father realized it.

Lucius watched his son cooly, his eyes equally dispassionate. But there was a flicker of something there. He opened his mouth, for once in his life not entirely certain about what to say, when a sudden chill permeated the air and froze his breath before he could even get the words out. He knew that feeling, all too well. He glanced at the sky, sensing how the very air trembled in fear.

He turned to his son, who had sensed the sudden change as well but didn't quite know what to make it of. He didn't know what was coming.

Lucius lowered his wand slightly. "Do you love her?"

Draco blinked, taken aback. "What?"

"Don't be a fool, boy, and answer the question!" his father barked. "We don't have time. Do you love her, or not?"

"What do you care?" Lucius could've strangled him right there and there, but seeing the caution and suspicion build in his son's eyes made him push down the building ire that had become so normal for him and focus.

He took in his son's tired face, his bloodied, dirty everything, the way his cheekbones stretched the skin of his face almost painfully and the dark bags under his eyes. He took in his protective stance, the soul-deep wariness, and the burning determination fuelled by grief reflecting in his eyes.

Having his answer, he put away his wand and turned away.

"Where are you going?"

"I have my answer. Now it's time you found yours." Lucius looked back over his shoulder at his son, the boy he'd sacrificed and who'd somehow become the man who still grasped for the Light even while everything he knew was unmercifully swallowed by darkness. The man he should've made sure he kept away from the darkness, not willingly immersed him in it.

"Death is coming, Draco. If you really love her, protect her. Prove your worth, and earn your freedom."

"Wha -?"

Lucius was gone in a stream of black smoke before he could even finish his question. He swore. And the cold rapidly increased around him.

His teeth began to chatter. A chill crawled up his spine, making goosebumps appear on his arms and the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He suppressed a shiver. This unnatural cold, he knew the reason behind it but it was just beyond his grasp… How did he know what it was? How did he fight it – because even if he couldn't quite remember what was coming, he knew in his gut that he'd better be prepared to fight or he would die?

He stepped back, closer to Hermione's prone body. He crouched down beside her, grabbing her by the shoulder and lifting her into a sitting position. Only once did he spare a look at her as he did so. His focus was on the world around them.

Lifting one of her arms and draping it around his neck, using his other arm to wrap around her waist, he made a motion as if to lift stand but froze before he could. He was interrupted by a quiet scream, a terrible screech that sounded like the voice of the wind was being ripped away. His gaze shot up into the sky; alarm ripping through his face. His heart skipped a beat, his mind finally finding and filling in the bit of information he'd been missing. Only one such creature could change the environment so drastically and make such a bone-chilling sound.

Dementors.

And a whole pack was closing in on them from all sides.

Swearing, he released Hermione and cradled her body close to his as his mind raced through his options. He could make a Patronus, of course, but he wasn't sure it'd be strong enough to dispel so many Dementors. If he was lucky, maybe he'd be able to shoot a particularly strong one to get help. But then what? He'd be exhausted, and with so many Dementors there'd surely be at least one or two who'd attack him from his blind spot.

He was trapped.

Death is coming, Draco. If you really love her, protect her. Prove your worth and earn your freedom.

His father's words echoed in his head. For an instant, his mind showed him a memory, of only the year before, when he and Hermione had only started to develop a tentative friendship. He'd made fun of one of her favourite plays, by some Shakespeare bloke. He couldn't understand how the male and female protagonists could be so stupid and desperate so as to kill themselves within moments of each other.

"Well," Hermione had sniffed. "They love each other."

"So?" he'd shrugged. "I love chocolate frogs, but you won't see me die for them."

She'd hit him with the book. "Don't be such a git. This love is the binding love of a millennium. They are a pair – sure, one could exist without the other, but they wouldn't be alive. They complete each other, and once knowing that completeness, they'd rather remain together in death than even contemplate their lives apart."

"That sounds like a bunch of sappy drama."

"Maybe so. But that's the truth, Draco. Death is what ultimately separates people from their loved ones. Why do you think in so many weddings, the priest declares 'until death do you apart'? But for them, even death couldn't do that. Between their love and death, it was death that was the weaker of the two." Draco had hummed pensively, but didn't say anything else. However, that idea of a love that was stronger than even death was a completely foreign and fascinating concept for him. Not that he believed he'd ever have something like that in his life; but he found comfort in the idea that such a thing could exist.

Even now, when he stood face to face with death.

Draco glanced down at the young witch in his arms. For the longest time, he couldn't remember the name of that play, having been too busy with being a double agent and preparing for the war. But now, in a moment of clarity, he remembered.

He tightened his hold on Hermione and lowered his face so their noses were almost touching. He looked at her – really looked – and took in all her features, burning them in his heart. Then with one final, steady breath, he said, "You were – are – my Juliet." Then he put her down on the hard ground and stood with his wand at the ready.

Prove your worth and earn your freedom.

The Dementors were closing in. The air around him practically developed frost around him. But Draco only had his determination now. But it was enough.

Taking a deep breath, not even feeling the icy wind as it burned his lungs, he whipped his wand and blasted his spell straight at the closest Dementors.

"Expecto Patronus!"

Draco was lost in a world of his own. Patronus after Patronus; he let his feelings fly in a protective shield around him. The Dementors would screech horrifically when his spells hit them, shooting away rapidly to avoid the harm, but returned only moments later when the young wizard had his attention elsewhere. Slowly, but surely, the safe haven he'd created in the shape of a half sphere was shrinking. Soon the Dementors were coming in close enough for their dark, macabre robes to brush his own. And his energy was draining, fast, and it was reflecting on his spells. They were becoming weaker.

Sweat crawling down his forehead, his arms shaking and the world becoming blurry from exertion, Dacro put up a magnificent fight. As the Dementors closed in, he backed up closer to Hermione, who remained as immobile as ever. And then, one Dementor broke through his defense; swooping down over his head and inhaling his soul briefly before carting away when Draco lifted his wand.

Draco gasped, stumbling back. He shot a weak Patronus after the Dementor, but the assault to his already drained self left him exponentially weaker. The Patronus didn't get far before dissolving mid-air.

The Dementors saw him falter. And they knew they had him. As did he.

As all the Dementors rushed in after him, taking turns feeding on his soul, Draco scrambled back, stumbling onto his hands and knees as he desperately crawled to the body of his beloved. He swore the Dementors were cackling gleefully, evil beings that they were.

Just an arm's reach from Hermione's body, a bold Dementor slithered up along the ground from Hermione's other side and rose above him like a cobra. Draco neither saw him nor had enough energy to avoid it. The Dementor greedily opened his mouth in front of Draco's, and breathed in, long and deep.

Draco's eyes rolled back as the Dementor released him and his body fell, boneless, on Hermione's arm. Gasping but still unable to breathe, Draco gathered up the very last drops of his strength and pulled himself shakily over Hermione's body, collapsing in a final pose reminiscing of when they would lay on the grass together at night to watch the stars. Their faces an inch apart, Draco lifted his hand to softly ghost over her lips. Ignoring the harbingers of death, Draco focused on Hermione's face. Closing his eyes, his hand falling limp on her cheek, Draco let out a deep sigh and prepared to step into the otherworld with his last happy thought in place, Dementors stomachs be cursed.

His last happy thought. "Her…mione…"

"Expecto Patronus!"

A gentle white light glowed beyond his eyelids, but he was just too tired to even open his eyes. The biting cold was driven off, and the looming presence of darkness and death went with it. Something moved beneath him, but he was too disoriented, too tired to make sense of anything.

"Draco? They're gone now. We're okay."

Ah. He was wrong. There was one thing that still made sense to him. His lips twitched and he forced his eyelids to open fractionally through sheer willpower. It wasn't enough to see anything, but then again, he didn't need to. "`Mione."

"Thank you for looking after me, Draco. I'm sorry it took me so long to respond; petrifying spells are hard to get out of."

Draco didn't particularly care about that at the moment. Letting out another extended sigh, this one not as a last breath but as one of quiet contentment and relief, he waveringly smiled in the direction of her voice.

"Knew you were too smart to die."