Chapter Text
The moment their feet hit the dirt, they heard Angela's voice rapidly approaching. They barely had time to steady their passenger when the young girl was upon them.
"Hermione! What happened? Did you find any-?"
Her voice died in her throat under a sudden gasp. Her eyes had fallen to the woman carried between them, staring wide in disbelief. Then, they heard a faint warble and she began to sob.
"E- Eve?"
The woman hanging from Harry and Hermione's shoulders gazed up at Angela through her dirty fringe. Her pale skin cracked into a smile.
"Hey, Angie."
Not a second later, Angela was wrapped around her sister, crying into her shoulder with inconsolable wails. Harry and Hermione wisely chose to step aside, allowing them the space for their reunion. After so long apart, they deserved that at least.
"I'm s-so sorry!" Angela spluttered between tears. "I- I left you behind!"
"Don't be stupid," Eve fondly reprimanded. "They would've caught you too if you hadn't."
"What did they do to you?"
"I don't wanna talk about it."
"What do you need? Food, drink? Anything."
"I want a billion sandwiches," Eve laughed faintly. "And a good cup of tea."
"We'll see what we can do," Hermione spoke, winding an arm under her shoulder for support. "Come on, let's get you some help."
The three girls, Eve hobbling between Angela and Hermione, made their way towards the medical tent. Harry noticed solemnly how Eve's legs struggled to push against the mud, the way her dirty jeans seemed almost empty from how gaunt she had become. It reminded him far too much of how he felt wearing Dudley's hand-me-downs.
"Have they been looking after you, sweetheart?" Eve said, her eyes not having left her sister from the moment they arrived.
"Yes, they have," Angela smiled. "They all have."
Eve turned to Hermione and gave her a barely withheld thank you. Just as the first tears escaped from her eyes and the last of her strength left her, she was taken behind the tent flap and Harry was left with only Ron by his side, as well as his second passenger.
"You actually found her," Ron remarked with genuine disbelief. When it came to eve, Ron had always remained defiantly hopeful for Angela's sake, but even he admitted she was more likely dead than simply missing, especially after so long. However, somehow, Harry and Hermione had done the impossible once again. They had brought Angela's sister back from the dead.
Harry had to hang onto that. Ever life saved was a victory.
"How are the others?" he asked, quick to change the subject.
"They're all in the medical tent." Ron glanced at the unconscious body at Harry's side. "Who else did you-" His freckled face dropped the moment he recognised Draco's pale hair. His eyes whirled around in alarm. "What the bloody Hell is he doing here?"
"I'll tell you later," Harry insisted. He lifted Draco's body and shoved it towards Ron. "Tie him up. Get him out of sight."
Ron gave him a strained look but moved to lift Draco's shoulders while Harry took the legs. The pair dragged Draco into the cave, quickly ushering him away from prying eyes. As much as they didn't like Draco, there were people here with reason to hate him even more than they did. People who would like nothing more than to see him and his family dead. It could be debated whether or not it was completely deserved, but that wasn't the point. There was enough death to go around nowadays.
"I didn't think I was ever getting out," Eve said as Hermione wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. "I thought I was going to die there."
"Well, you didn't," Angela replied and took her hand. "And now you'll never have to think about that place ever again."
Eve gave her a sombre smile.
"Easier said than done."
Before long, she was placed onto a small bed in the corner of the tent. Hermione approached with a bottle of smoking liquid.
"Take this."
Eve eagerly accepted the potion and downed it. It almost came back up as she drank it, her throat still raw and hurting, but soon the ache in her bones began to fade and she felt better than she had in months. Angela watched her sister sink into the pillows, fiddling with the buttons on her cardigan.
"I know you don't want to talk about it, but-"
"It's better you don't know, Angie." Eve sat up slightly, fixing her younger sister with a firm gaze. "But it wasn't your fault. Don't ever think that."
"I should have come looking for you," Angela pleaded.
"No. Knowing you were safe was the only thing that kept me sane." Her thin hand reached for her and Angela wrapped it in her own. "I love you, Angie."
The young girl nodded with wet eyes.
"I love you too."
Hermione happily left them to their conversation as she readied another nourishment potion. The rest of the potion was poured into a pot of water and stirred until she was left with a faintly blue concoction. She had to make sure to get the concentration correct, too many nutrients in her body at once could overload the poor girl's system. The last thing they needed was for her to die from her own medicine.
At that moment, Ron appeared, brushed his hands against his trousers. He visited the bedsides of Dean and Luna, making sure they were sound and well. Poor Luna was still struggling with the bed underneath her. She would occasionally disassociate, gripping the blanket over her body, reminding herself that she was no longer in that dungeon, that she was safe and well and loved. Hermione made sure to pay special attention to her once she had Eve settled, if not for Luna's sanity then her own.
Dean meanwhile had no trouble falling asleep, glad that he had warm bed sheets instead of the dank stone floor of the Malfoy dungeon. Ollivander too had graciously taken a cot with an extra blanket and before Hermione could even offer him a cup of tea, he was fast asleep. Griphook took her up on the offer for tea and then asked to be left alone, skulking into the corner of the tent. Hermione could only guess why, perhaps the shame of being rescued by wizards was a malady that could only be solved with time.
Ron wisely chose to leave the disgruntled goblin be and gingerly walked towards the pair of sisters on the other side of the room. He reached out his hand towards Eve, who only remarked on his arrival with a confused stare.
"Umm, it's good to finally meet you," he said. His hand hung in the air for a good few seconds, left to flounder, before Ron realised she wasn't going to shake it. The older girl's eyes sharpened.
"Angela, who's this?"
"Oh, uh," Angela sputtered. "Eve, this is Ron. He's… well… he's my boyfriend."
Eve glanced at Angela then back to Ron.
"Ron Weasley?" she asked. Ron awkwardly waved.
"Yep, that's me."
"I thought you were ginger."
"I helped him dye it, Eve, just like you used to," Angela smiled. "I think it looks nice."
"Well, I certainly didn't recognise you," Eve conceded. "I suppose I should have expected you were nearby, considering who got me out."
"He came with us to the Manor, Eve," Angela gushed, not noticing Eve's face turn sour. "He helped me get loads of people out. One of them was Ollivander-"
"Wait, Angela, you were in the Manor?"
Angela paused, realising the implication.
"Uh, yes," she replied sheepishly. Eve seemed to turn on Ron, who despite standing well above her at her bedside, seemed to shrink before her eyes.
"You brought my baby sister to Malfoy Manor?" she said through gritted teeth. Hermione silently watched from the sidelines as Ron went a startling shade of pink.
"Eve," Angela interjected, "I agreed to go. I wanted to help."
Eve then rounded on Angela, her eyes almost aflame.
"You're sixteen years old!"
"Would you rather I do nothing while other people fight for me?" Angela replied indignantly.
"Yes!" Eve shouted in disbelief. "You're a child, Angela! You're not supposed to be fighting at all!"
"Well, tough!" Angela shouted back. The two sisters stared daggers at each other. The rest of the room sat completely silent.
"Angie, I let you go so you wouldn't have to be a part of this."
"I already am." She gestured all around her. "We all are. There's no point in pretending we're not."
Perhaps to the detriment of her own safety, Hermione stepped in and cleared her throat.
"If it helps, Eve, we wouldn't have brought her along if we knew she couldn't defend herself."
A look flickered across Eve's face where, for a moment, Hermione expected her to launch into another tirade. Then, her eyes turned back to Angela, then to the tent and a wave of realisation passed over her, as if the reality of their situation had finally caught up to her. Her shoulders hunched, her face drooped in exhaustion. She gazed at her baby sister with barely concealed regret, as if this were all her fault.
"You're too young for this," Eve insisted.
"So are we," Harry's voice replied.
They turned to find him standing at the entrance of the tent, looking at them all with the same face of regret. Eve's eyes found him, read him up and down and seemed to find they recognised. Then she looked at Hermione, asking, perhaps pleading, for her to understand. And Hermione merely nodded.
"How's Draco?" Eve asked, eager to move on. Harry paced forward and fell into a chair nearby.
"Still unconscious," he replied. "Tied up, but alive."
"Where have you put him?"
"In the caves. Somewhere out of the way. I don't want any of these people seeing him."
"Probably wise," Eve nodded. "He did help me, you know. He wasn't good at it, but he tried."
"That's not the Draco I know," Harry's brow furrowed. "Why would he do that?"
Eve sighed, mirroring his confusion.
"I don't even think he knows."
"What was his plan anyway?" Hermione asked. "To get you out? Just spread a rumour and hope people come looking?"
"It was mainly delaying my death for as long as possible," Eve explained as if the notion of her death were something quite mundane. "Until he could come up with an actual plan."
"It took him eight months to think of calling for help?" Angela scoffed.
"Took him that long to realise he couldn't do it all by himself."
"Well, it is Malfoy," Ron smirked. "I'm not surprised."
"Well, then, what do we do with him?" Angela asked. "He's going to wake up eventually."
"I vote we give him back," Ron offered to a round of vocal disapproval.
"Excuse me?" Eve remarked.
"Ron," Angela gently reprimanded.
"What?" he said with raised hands. "I don't care what they do to him, frankly he has it coming. He almost killed me, remember? And Katie and you, Harry. He was going to kill Dumbledore."
"But he didn't," Harry pointed out. "Besides, we're better than that."
"Yeah," Ron sighed, "but do we have to be?"
"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed.
"Oh, don't tell me you feel sorry for him too," Ron scoffed.
"No, of course I don't," Hermione replied, "but I'm not going to let him be killed either."
"Whatever happens," Harry said, "We'll sort it out in the morning. Until then, we need rest. You most of all, Eve."
Eve might have argued that point but at that moment, as if in protest, her eyelids slid down of their own accord. Any attempt to convince her sister she could go on was fruitless. Not five minutes later, Eve was fast asleep under a soft blanket. It was the most comfortable she had been in a long time.
Angela chose to sit by her side, refusing to leave and Ron dutifully kept her company. On the bedside table was a potion she was to take the moment she awoke the next morning, as Hermione explained to them before she left the tent. By the time Harry and Hermione climbed into bed, the first beams of morning were cresting the horizon.
It had been a long and tumultuous day but at least now they had a lead and the beginnings of a plan.
Draco awoke in dank, musty darkness, his wrists bound tight together, his back screaming in pain like it had been twisted out of shape. Even with eyes wide open, it took a moment before the stars dissolved from sight. The most he could make out from the sharp beams of light was dirt and the sheen of wet rock. If it weren't for the weight of his body resting on the seat of a rickety chair, he might have believed he was at the bottom of a deep, dark hole.
All around him were the walls of a cave, the mouth covered by wooden boards holding a door, like a wall cutting through the stone. Draco nudged his bindings, blinking rapidly into the darkness. His eyes adjusted enough to make out for the first time a figure standing before him.
"Who the hell are you?" he croaked.
The stranger leaned over, a beam of light caught the edge of his thin face and gleamed in the rims of his glasses.
"Take a wild guess, Malfoy."
Draco looked up into the eyes of his schoolyard nemesis and for a fleeting moment felt an ounce of relief.
"I honestly thought you were dead," he smirked.
"Sorry to disappoint," Harry replied, the playful mirth of their typical snide remarks gone. Draco felt the sharp bristles of rope around his wrists more vividly, the dull throb of pain in his back grounding him as blood pumped through his veins.
"Where am I?" he drawled.
"Somewhere your Death Eaters buddies can't find you. Every ward known to man and a Fidelus, good luck trying to call for help."
"How long do you think you can keep me here?"
"If you'd rather go outside with a bunch of people who would like to eat you alive, then be my guest."
"What are you talking about?"
Harry paced back and forth in front of his prisoner, staring at him like a particularly annoying fly.
"Outside that door is a refugee camp full of people you and your family helped displace." He stood up to his full height, staring down at Draco will barely-held contempt. "This room is about the only safe place you have left in all of Britain. God, I should just let them have you and don't think I won't just because Dumbledore wanted you alive."
"You wouldn't have the balls," Draco drawled, having suddenly regained his colour.
"It's been a long war, Malfoy," Harry warned, "you wanna test that?"
"Oh please," Draco smirked, "if you really were going to let me die you wouldn't have gone through the effort of bringing me here, tying me up - I'm guessing there's a compulsion charm to stop me from saying V-" His jaw snapped shut before he could utter another syllable, his lips pushed together against their will. Eventually, they relaxed and he was allowed to open his mouth again. "That word. I assume Granger was the one who removed the tracking charm. You do know there's a tracking charm on me, right?"
"Don't be stupid that's the first thing we checked," Harry replied. "And it was Eve who got it off you in the end."
"Was it?" Draco asked, a hint of colour permeating his cheeks. "How? It's an old family spell."
"She's clever and she didn't mind being rough."
"Is that why my back feels like it's been run over?"
"Ripped it right off your magical core," Harry whistled. "Gotta say, be glad you weren't awake for that."
"How long have I been here?"
"A week."
Draco blinked. To him it hadn't been a few hours since he was standing in Eve's cell, watching his father begin to cast the killing curse. Now, here he was, free from his family's grasp, now prisoner to someone else. He wondered if his family was out there searching for him, whether they'd had to pay for letting Eve escape.
"A week," he murmured, "and I'm still alive."
"By some miracle," Harry remarked. "If it were up to anyone else, you'd still be in that mansion getting exactly what you deserve."
Draco looked down at his feet, wincing at the ache in his spine. His shoes were scuffed and covered in dirt. He couldn't remember the last time he couldn't see his face in them.
"Is Eve alright?" he eventually asked, his eyes still glued to his shoes.
"Yes," Harry replied. "What I want to know is why you care?"
"Sorry," Draco scowled, "is that a crime now?"
"To a Death Eater, yes."
"I'm not a Death Eater," Draco growled.
"Oh, yeah," Harry scoffed, "I heard you guys aren't all buddy-buddy anymore. What happened, did you use up all their hair gel?"
Draco rolled his eyes, leaning back in his chair as far as his binds would allow.
"I bet you're loving this."
"Tiny bit," Harry gave him a tight smile. "You still haven't answered my question."
"Eve helped me get my Dark Mark removed," Draco explained. "In return, I helped her sister escape."
"And then they traced the money back to her. Yeah, yeah, I know," Harry nodded impatiently, "but why keep her alive? They were going to kill her, why save her life?"
The young Malfoy stared at him as if Harry had tossed a glove at his face.
"What kind of person do you think I am?" he said in a slighted cry, which only caused Harry to laugh out loud.
"Let me remind you. Does, 'You'll be next, mudbloods,' ring a bell?"
"That was years ago-"
"Or how about trying to kill Dumbledore." Harry rounded on Draco, an icy chill creeping into his voice. "Nearly killing Katie and Ron."
Draco squirmed in his seat, suddenly finding the far wall very interesting.
"Those were accidents."
"Your dark mark wasn't," Harry pointed out. "That's not something you get on a whim."
"I paid a lot of money to get it removed."
"Money can't wash away everything. You're still a Malfoy and Malfoys only care about themselves."
Despite Harry having said much worse to him over the years, Draco was lost for words. He quietly sat in his tiny chair in his dark, cold, stone prison cell and stared at the door. His pale eyes occasionally darted back to Harry, as if sizing him up, but Harry would only stare back, daring him to try and escape.
"I saved her because I owed her," Draco eventually said. "It wouldn't be fair for her to die just because she helped me."
"You've never cared about what's fair before."
"And I'm not a child anymore," Draco seethed. "I've seen what they do to people like her."
"So has everyone."
"I didn't think it would be like this!" he exclaimed. "I thought it would- I thought it would be different, that it wouldn't be so-"
Harry leaned down towards him, until their eyes were level.
"Newsflash, moron," he spat and Draco flinched at every word, "this is exactly what it's like! It always has been!"
"Well, I'm sorry now," the boy whined. "Happy?"
"Oh, I don't care," Harry scoffed. "You think 'sorry' is going to give any of these people back their homes? You think 'sorry' is going to fix this country after what you and your whole class of scum have done?"
Harry raised his wand and for a second, Draco saw his life flash before his eyes. It was a sad, lonely life, full of privilege and comforts, yet shallow and hardly lived. And the end, the image of Eve, perhaps the first real friend, looking up at him, ready for the end.
A light erupted inches from his face, but it was not the end. The ropes snaked around his body shattered and fell to the floor. Draco took in a lungful of air, his chest rising and falling unimpeded. He was not dead, but very much alive, perhaps more so than he had ever been.
"But I know a way you can," Harry said, "and that's by helping us put an end to it once and for all."
"And how will I possibly do that?" Draco drawled.
Harry's face was set alight by a vicious grin. There was a glint in the emerald of his eye.
"By helping us break into your Aunt's vault in Gringotts."
Despite the idea being his own creation, despite having explained it in great detail to both Hermione and Draco, assuring both that it was the only way forward, Harry struggled to believe what he was about to do. His footsteps from the cave where Malfoy now sat in contemplative silence were marked by a constant dialogue in his head.
It was a battle of two voices: one saying he was mad and that it would never work, the other saying that it was mad and for that reason alone it might work. Both voices sounded remarkably like they belonged to Hermione.
However, no matter how much he might doubt his own sanity, he knew it was only the way forward. They were going to break into the most fortified Wizarding bank in Europe, sneak down into one of the central vaults and rob it. And then, somehow, they were supposed to find a way out and go on to win a war. All in one day.
The notion of stealing from the goblins sent a shiver up his spine. He remembered the poem he had read upon his very first visit to the bank, carved on the entrance as a warning to all that the only thing that awaited thieves in Gringotts was death. It made him almost glad he wouldn't be surviving the war, because even if he did somehow manage to make it to the peace of the other side, the goblins would be out for his blood anyway.
Give him a dark lord any day, but a whole contingent of angry goblins? Not even Harry was mad enough to think he could win that fight.
As he emerged from the cave entrance, he scanned the camp for Hermione, ready to discuss the fine details of his excellent plan. He eventually found her, wrapping a blanket around a woman with a head of hair violently oscillating colours.
It took a moment to recognise her heart-shaped face, a moment more to notice the small bundle in her arms. His resolve turned to a looming concern as he caught a sheen of something on her cheeks and around her eyes. She was crying.
Harry's heart stopped. His feet began moving faster of their own accord. Soon, he was running as fast as his legs could carry him. By the time he reached them, another woman he recognised hurried into view. Andromeda sat beside her daughter, comforting her as she cried inconsolably.
"What happened?" Harry sputtered. "What's going on, are you okay?"
The three women looked up at him in alarm. Hermione said nothing, just quietly shook her head. It tore Harry's nerves like a scream. Andromeda was about to explain, when Tonks stopped her. She stood, slowly offering him the bundle in her arms. Tears were streaming down her face, her eyes were red and raw.
"Harry," she beckoned him closer. "Come here."
He carefully held his arms out and the bundle was placed into his arms. The folds of the blanket parted, revealing a tiny face with a patch of blue hair.
"Harry, this is Teddy," Tonks whispered between sobs. "Your godson."
The word tossed and turned in his head and exploded. Harry stared at her, breathless, thoughtless, in shock.
"My-" He struggled to speak. "Are you-"
"I'm sure," Tonks said earnestly and despite her anguish, she managed a small smile.
Harry honestly didn't know what to say. As far as he was aware, Tonks wasn't expecting the baby for another week at least. He had no idea when he woke up that morning that this would be the day, but here it was, sleeping in a quilt blanket, completely still and content.
For a good few seconds, Harry was simply awestruck, holding Tonk and Remus' child like it was the most precious thing in the whole world. Teddy, his name was. Teddy Lupin. His godson.
He was so small, as if with one wrong fold he would be lost in the blanket forever. He barely weighed anything. His features were tiny and round and barely there yet, but Harry could tell he had Remus' nose already. Despite having known Teddy for only a moment, and having held him for even less, every fibre of Harry's being was given over to protecting this child. In this one small moment, every dark day, every heartbreak, every second of pain and torment was all pulled into sharp focus.
This was what he was fighting for. This was why he had to win.
"Hermione," Tonks called, bringing him back to the present. She held out her hand towards the brunette, who quickly took it and stood from her seat. "We want you to be the godmother."
Hermione was similarly awestruck, quietly stunned for a moment, before she shook herself and began feverishly nodding.
"I'm honoured," Hermione whispered reverently. "Thank you so much."
"What about Remus?" Harry spluttered. He glanced around, looking for his father's friend. "Has he agreed to this?"
At the mention of her husband's name, the dam burst. Tonk's hair turned a shade of deep black and she was quickly taken into her mother's embrace as she collapsed in on herself. Harry could only stand and watch in horror as her tortured wails twisted his throat and seized his stomach. He looked to Hermione, begging her to relieve him of this nightmare. She could only place a hand over his, supporting Teddy's small head, as she too struggled against tears.
"Harry," she gasped, "Harry… They just told me. Remus-"
He was already crying, even as he stood in terror, waiting for what he knew was coming. He pulled Teddy into his chest, as if to protect his baby godson from the pain he was too young to bear.
"Harry, I'm so sorry. He's dead."