Dramione Fanfiction

Eclipse of Serpents and Lions

Chapter 4: The Phoenix’s Ashes

Setting: Hogwarts, Dawn.

The word hung between them, raw and impossible: *Sanctuary.*

Hermione stared at Draco Malfoy slumped against her dormitory corridor wall. Blood crusted his split lip, his left eye was swollen shut, purpling violently. Fresh bruises mottled his jaw. His torn robes revealed glimpses of the half-healed Sectumsempra scars beneath, stark against his unnaturally pale skin. He looked like a ghost haunting the wrong hallway, a shattered prince exiled from his own kingdom.

Logic screamed *No*. He was a Death Eater. He’d brought the killers into Hogwarts. He’d pointed his wand at Dumbledore. He’d stood by while Snape… She squeezed her eyes shut, pushing the image away. But the memory of his trembling hand lowering the wand, his broken sobs on the Astronomy Tower, the raw terror in his whispered plea – it drowned out the scream.

*He lowered his wand. He tried to stop me from dying too. He’s branded, beaten, and has nowhere else to go.*

Ron’s snores rumbled faintly from the boys' dorm down the hall. Ginny’s soft crying had finally ceased. The castle was a wound, raw and weeping, but its inhabitants were momentarily spent. If she turned him away… Greyback? Rowle? They’d find him. They’d finish what they’d started. Or Voldemort would punish him for failing to kill Dumbledore himself.

Hermione’s jaw tightened. Gryffindor courage wasn’t just about charging into battle; sometimes it was about making the impossible choice. She grabbed his arm – colder than the stone wall – and yanked him inside the deserted sixth-year girls' dormitory, shutting the door silently behind them.

"Merlin, Granger," Draco rasped, flinching as she steered him towards her own four-poster bed. He tried to pull away, pride flashing briefly through the pain. "I’m not sitting on your… Gryffindor quilt."

"Shut up and sit down before you collapse and stain Lavender’s carpet," Hermione hissed, pushing him firmly onto the edge of her bed. He landed with a grunt, wincing. She immediately knelt, pulling her beaded bag from under the bed. "*Accio Essence of Dittany! Accio Bruise-Healing Paste!*" Small vials flew into her hands.

Draco watched her, his one good eye wary, exhausted. "Playing Healer again? Shouldn’t you be mourning Saint Dumbledore with the Golden Trio?"

The barb was weak, automatic defense. Hermione ignored it, uncorking the Dittany. "Hold still." She dabbed the clear liquid onto his split lip. He hissed but didn’t pull away. The skin instantly began to knit. The proximity was jarring. She could see the faint, silvery lines of Sectumsempra scars peeking above his collar, smell the iron tang of blood and sweat mixed with his usual cedar-and-ice scent gone sour with fear. "Who did this?" she asked quietly, moving to the swelling around his eye. Her fingers brushed his temple. He flinched.

"Rowle. Greyback." The names were ground out like broken glass. "Celebrating Snape’s… efficiency. Decided the spare Malfoy heir needed… reminding of his place. His *failure*." He swallowed hard, pain tightening his features as she applied the cool paste. "They enjoyed it."

Rage, cold and sharp, prickled down Hermione’s spine. She focused on the task, her touch clinical yet unavoidably intimate in the pre-dawn gloom. "They’re animals."

"They’re the Dark Lord’s favored pets," Draco corrected bitterly. He tilted his head slightly, allowing her better access, his gaze fixed on a loose thread on her quilt. "And now they run the Ministry, or will by sundown."

Hermione froze, the paste jar hovering. "What?"

Draco met her eyes, his expression grim. "The plan wasn’t just Dumbledore. It was the Ministry. Simultaneous strike. Pius Thicknesse is already under the Imperius Curse. By tonight, the Muggle-Born Registration Commission will be more than just propaganda. It’ll be law." He saw the dawning horror on her face. "They’ll come for you, Granger. First. You and every other ‘Mudblood’. Snatchers. Trials. Azkaban… or worse."

The air left Hermione’s lungs. The world tilted. Her parents, obliviated and hidden in Australia, felt suddenly, terrifyingly vulnerable. *Registration. Snatchers.* The war wasn’t coming; it had exploded, and the shrapnel was aimed straight at her heart.

Draco watched her panic, a flicker of something almost like sympathy in his bruised eye. "You need to run. Disappear. Potter too, obviously."

"And go where?" Hermione whispered, her voice shaky. "The Burrow? Grimmauld Place? They’ll be the first places they look!"

"Then find somewhere else!" Draco snapped, then winced, clutching his ribs. "Merlin, just… don’t be here when they start rounding people up."

Silence stretched, thick with the weight of his warning and the intimacy of her tending his wounds. Hermione finished applying the paste to his eye, her fingers lingering for a fraction of a second longer than necessary on the high curve of his cheekbone. He didn’t pull away. His breathing hitched slightly.

"Why are you telling me this?" she asked, sitting back on her heels, studying his battered face. "Why warn me?"

Draco looked away, his jaw working. He traced a finger over a faded scratch on her bedpost. "Call it… repayment. For the bathroom. For not hexing me off the tower." He paused, the words seeming to cost him. "And because…" He finally met her gaze, his grey eyes stripped bare, haunted. "Because seeing you on a Ministry list… it’s a different kind of nightmare." He looked instantly horrified he’d said it, his cheeks flushing faintly beneath the bruises. "Don’t read into it, Granger. Just… get out."

Hermione’s heart did a strange, traitorous flip. She busied herself repacking her potions kit, trying to ignore the heat creeping up her own neck. Repayment. That’s all it was. Practical. Necessary.

A sudden, sharp *crack* echoed from the grounds below. Then another. Apparition. Shouts. Death Eaters leaving? Or Snatchers arriving early?

Draco tensed, scrambling unsteadily to his feet, panic flaring in his eyes. "I need to go. If they find me here… with you…" The consequences were unspoken but clear: torture, death for them both.

"Go where?" Hermione demanded, standing too. "The Slytherin dungeons? They’ll tear you apart!"

"The Room," Draco gasped, already moving towards the door, swaying. "It’s… warded now. Against them. Snape showed me before he left." He paused at the door, hand on the knob, looking back at her. The vulnerability was back, warring with urgency. "Granger… about the warning…"

Before he could finish, Hermione acted. She rummaged in her beaded bag, past the tent poles and books, finding a small, ordinary Galleon. Gripping her wand, she focused, pouring magic and intent into the cold metal. "*Protean Charm, mutare ad periculos!*" The coin glowed faintly gold, then cooled. She pressed it into his uninjured hand. His fingers were icy.

"This is linked to mine," she said quickly, holding up an identical coin. "If you hear anything… anything about Snatcher patrols, safe routes being compromised, locations they’re targeting… heat it. It’ll warm mine. It’s… basic. But it’s something."

Draco stared at the coin in his palm as if it were a venomous snake. Then his fingers curled around it, tight. He looked up at her, a storm of emotions in his single visible eye – disbelief, grudging respect, fear, and something else, something intense and unreadable. "You’re mad," he breathed. "Utterly mad."

"Probably," Hermione admitted, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. "Now *go*."

He hesitated for one more heartbeat, his gaze locked with hers. In that suspended moment, the shared secrets, the blood, the forbidden magic, the terrifying new world outside – it all crackled between them. Then he was gone, slipping silently into the mourning grey of the corridor, leaving Hermione alone with the scent of Dittany, blood, and the lingering electricity of his presence.

She sank onto her bed, the quilt still indented where he’d sat. The Galleon felt heavy in her own hand, cool metal against her palm. A lifeline to Draco Malfoy. A Death Eater. The boy who’d warned her. The boy whose battered face and haunted eyes were now seared into her memory as indelibly as the image of Dumbledore falling.

The days blurred into a nightmare. Dumbledore’s funeral was a sea of grief under a mercilessly sunny sky. Harry was distant, vibrating with a dangerous mix of sorrow and fury directed solely at Snape. Ron was a solid, comforting presence, but his grief was simpler, less corrosive. Hermione moved through it all like a ghost, the Galleon a secret weight in her pocket. She watched Harry, knowing the Horcrux hunt was imminent, knowing Draco’s warning about the Ministry was horrifyingly true. The Prophet had already started its poisonous campaign.

The train ride back to London was suffocating. The usual end-of-term chatter was replaced by hushed whispers and fearful glances. The atmosphere crackled with unspoken dread. Hermione sat with Harry and Ron, staring out the window at the passing countryside, her fingers unconsciously tracing the edge of the Protean coin in her pocket. It remained stubbornly cold.

Platform 9¾ was chaos. Aurors in unfamiliar, harsher uniforms patrolled the platform, their eyes scanning the crowd coldly. Ministry officials with pinched faces checked documents. Hermione saw the way they lingered over Muggle-born students, their parents confused and frightened.

She hugged Mrs. Weasley tightly, forcing a smile she didn’t feel. "We’ll write," she promised, the lie tasting like ash. Communication would be too dangerous now.

As the Weasleys and Harry moved towards the Apparition point, Hermione lingered, pretending to adjust her trunk. Her eyes scanned the thinning crowd frantically. *Where is he?*

Then she saw him. Draco stood near a pillar, partially obscured. Lucius Malfoy was beside him, but the once-proud man looked diminished, broken, leaning heavily on an ornate cane, his eyes darting nervously. Narcissa stood ramrod straight beside Draco, her face a mask of icy control, but her hand rested protectively on Draco’s arm. He looked better – the bruises faded to yellows and greens, the swelling gone – but the haunted emptiness in his grey eyes was deeper than ever. He wore long sleeves despite the summer heat.

Their eyes met across the bustling platform. It was only for a second. Lucius muttered something sharp, pulling at Draco’s sleeve. Narcissa’s gaze flickered towards Hermione, cold and assessing. Draco didn’t react to his father. He held Hermione’s gaze. No smirk. No sneer. Just a look of profound exhaustion and a silent warning that screamed louder than any words: *Run. Hide. They’re coming.*

Then Lucius tugged harder, and Draco turned away, allowing himself to be steered towards the Apparition point, disappearing with his parents in a sharp *crack*.

Hermione stood frozen amidst the dwindling crowd, the platform suddenly feeling vast and empty. The warm summer sun beat down, but a chill had settled deep in her bones. The Galleon in her pocket felt like the only anchor in a world that had just shattered completely. Dumbledore was ashes. The Ministry had fallen. Darkness was no longer looming; it had swallowed the sun.

And somewhere in the heart of that darkness, branded and bound, was Draco Malfoy. The boy who’d bled on her bathroom floor. The boy who’d lowered his wand. The boy who’d warned her. The boy whose sanctuary had been a Gryffindor dormitory at dawn.

She clutched the Protean coin tighter. It was cold. Silent. A fragile thread connecting her to the enemy who might just be the only warning system she had left. The war had entered a terrifying new phase, and Hermione Granger was utterly, completely alone with her secrets and a single, dangerous lifeline forged in blood and desperation.