Saint-Seducing Gold

Part Two: Death Mark'd Love

Chapter Eleven: Out of Hate

"The time and my intents are savage-wild; more fierce and more inexorable far than empty tigers or the roaring sea."

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Later, Ginny would remember the following moments having transpired in a fashion much like her dream of Draco dying had. Everything was so disjointed afterward - out of place and strange - and it all seemed too terrible to have really happened.

She felt an inward shudder as she turned to face the stunned expressions on her friend's faces. The tense silence of awful discovery filling the hallway was driving her mad, and she wished desperately that someone would speak and break the dreadful tension. As she grabbed for Draco's hand to regain some sense of reality, her brother fulfilled her wishes and spoke.

Ron was gone. His face was an apoplectic shade of violet and he was furiously digging in his pocket for his wand. "You bastard!" he was saying to Draco as a crimson flush rose in his cheeks to badly compliment the violet that already stained them. "You fucking bastard!" Behind him, Harry's shocked look was quickly fading into something resembling outrage and bitter resentment. Ginny's mouth opened in surprise and sudden dismay. Her gaze darted to Hermione who was looking at Harry with much the same expression. Ginny felt her heartbeat speed up and she clutched Draco's hand convulsively, all too aware that she was out of excuses.

"Ron," she said, trying anxiously for her mother's no-nonsense tone and not quite achieving it. Draco's fingers were trembling in her grasp. "Please, don't be a prat."

Blaise Zabini, at the other end of the hallway, suddenly began to laugh. Everyone turned to stare at the seemingly mad dark-haired boy. Draco turned a disbelieving gaze on his friend in the first move he'd made since the clock's strike, and Blaise grinned.

"Good joke, mate," he said, starting forward to clap a hand on Draco's shoulder. Draco shied away from him and shook his head. Blaise appeared wary as Draco pulled on Ginny's hand and tugged her back with him into the shadows of an alcove.

"I tried to tell you, Blaise," Draco warned, still shaking his head. His mind was racing, but all coherent thought seemed to have left him. He felt like a cornered animal, wild and desperate to escape. Beside him, Ginny shivered and closed her eyes. There was something abut the charged atmosphere that she didn't trust.

Blaise looked as confused as Ginny felt. "No," he spat, deliberately looking Ginny over with loathing. "You told me Gryffindor. You did not say Weasel."

Ron growled wordlessly and charged forward, but Blaise shoved him aside and frowned at Draco. Ron spluttered indignantly.

"I tried to tell you," Draco repeated, taking another step backward even though his back hit the wall in doing so. Ginny took note of the strain in the air and wished that she didn't feel so much like a convict with a hundred Dementors descending on her. Behind Blaise, the other Slytherins were scowling in the realization that Draco was no longer joking around

"Ginny, how could you?" Aubrey's harsh whisper made Ginny's head swivel to stare at her roommates who had just entered the hall as well. Miranda was wide-eyed, Catherine seemed too surprised to do much of anything, and Ella only gave her the same sad look she'd given her back in the Great Hall. Standing next to Harry, Hermione looked like she was frantically trying to come up with some way to end this confrontation before violence broke out. Parvati was hanging on Harry's arm, looking unnerved. Ginny's head spun; how could her friends be this prejudice? This was looking like her worst nightmares come true.

"I've had enough of this," Ron fumed and leveled his wand at Draco. He opened his mouth to say a spell, but Blaise was too quick and had his wand out so fast that Ginny wondered if she'd blinked.

"Expelliarmus!" he hissed, and Ron's wand leapt from his fingers into Blaise's outstretched hand. The next thing Ginny knew, it was far too late for Hermione to do anything. Ron tackled Blaise to the ground in an effort to get his wand back, and Harry immediately jumped forward to help him. The remaining Slytherins rushed into the fray at the defense of their fallen comrade and had the Gryffindors outnumbered before Miranda, not to be outdone, joined in as well. The other Gryffindors followed her lead and soon curses and punches were being thrown all along the hallway by girls and boys alike. Dazed, Ginny found herself being forcibly hauled away from Draco by Hermione and Ella.

"Stop," she muttered angrily, pulling viciously at her friend's encircling grip. "Hermione, let go." She whipped out her wand to help Draco who'd been inexorably drawn into the fight by Harry, but Ella seized her wrist and wrenched the wand away from her.

"Don't," she said calmly, looking Ginny in the eye as she would with a panicky horse, and speaking more seriously than Ginny was used to hearing her speak. "This is beyond any of us. We need to go get help." Hermione nodded in fierce agreement.

"But, Draco!" Ginny protested, her thoughts spinning insane circles as they tried to become something resembling their normal intelligence. She half-turned to watch as Draco and Harry squared off into a furious duel that had the air turning colors all around them. "I have to-"

"Help him by getting someone who can stop this madness," Hermione interjected. "We have to go, now."

Ginny found herself listening without hearing. Her brother had just managed to get his wand back from a snarling Blaise and he drew his arm back with a roar.

"EXPELLIARMUS!"

Blaise, hit full-on by the spell in close quarters, was jerked off his feet and slammed into the wall. There was a portentous cracking sound and he slumped to the ground, his limbs askew. Like magic, everyone froze where he or she was to stare at the spot where Blaise was lying on the ground. Ron's mouth fell open in disbelief. Ginny felt Ella drop her hand and heard her sprint down the hall at full speed, presumably to find a teacher.

Hermione was the first to make a move toward him - she rushed forward and dropped to her knees at Blaise's side, her wand hovering over his chest. Almost instantly, Grahm had pushed her out of the way and was checking his friend with his own wand. Draco left Harry behind without a second thought and stood over his cousin, looking down at Blaise with uncharacteristic anxiety. Grahm looked up at his cousin with astonishment showing in his dark eyes.

"He's dead, Draco. He must have broken his neck when..." He pointed ominously at Ron.

Everyone turned to stare at Ron, who was wide-eyed and visibly shaking, slowly backing away from where Blaise lay. Ginny, free to run back to Draco's side, stayed where she was and felt the world shrink away from her at this surreal announcement.

Draco heard Grahm's diagnosis clearly, but was somehow unable to fathom the meaning of the words.

"What? No, you're lying," he said, giving a short laugh and looking into his cousin's eyes. The certainty he saw there made him stumble backward. "No..." he repeated, his voice fading as his eyes fell back on Blaise's motionless body. He was distracted with a memory from Halloween night. He'd been trying to determine whether he loved anyone before realizing he was in love with Ginny. And then he was hit by the memory of a morning not so long ago when Blaise had kept a secret for him at his request and without explanation. Suddenly, a whole barrage of memories that included Blaise assaulted his mind, and he raised his hands as though trying to fend them off. Blaise had been his best friend for years. Blaise had been his friend before he ever knew what a friend was.

"I..." Ron's gulping words brought Draco out of his reverie. "I didn't mean to--I thought... thought I was just disarming him." He swallowed audibly. "It's not like I meant to do it..."

Draco faced Ron with an odd look on his face. Mechanically, he bent toward Grahm, as though to touch his shoulder in reassurance, but his vacant gaze never left Ron's bewildered face. His hand fumbled blindly for a moment, and Grahm watched him in bemusement, trying to figure out what was going on. Suddenly, Draco's fingers dug into Grahm's shoulder as his other hand triumphantly seized the hilt of Blaise's sword, the only remnant of the lifeless Slytherin's Lancelot costume.

Grahm realized what was about to happen now and grabbed for his older cousin's arm just as Draco shot forward with a wordless cry of rage and terror. Grahm's hands closed on empty air and the blade of Blaise's very-real sword went hurtling for Ron's middle as Draco charged blindly toward him.

Hermione screamed.

Draco felt the impact with strange satisfaction. Beneath the sword in his hands, Ron slid down the wall, his head falling at an odd angle against his shoulder as a pale trail of blood flowed past his lips. He tried to speak and couldn't.

Staring down at him, Draco curled his lip in the first Malfoy sneer to grace his face in weeks. Ron's eyes rolled up, trying to see the sneering Slytherin prince. Those eyes were still bright; the same dark pools that Draco felt like drowning in every time he met Ginny's gaze.

Ginny!

Abruptly, Draco came back to himself. All bloodlust, rage, and passion had fled from him, and, horrified, he released his grip on the bloody sword and leapt back as though scalded. He caught Ginny's horrified expression over Hermione's shoulder. His whole world turned itself upside down and inside out in that moment and he ceased to exist. He had to watch helplessly as, aghast - tears of bewilderment springing to her eyes - Ginny whirled around and ran away from him as fast as she could.

After that, he felt nothing. He looked on numbly as Ron crumpled to the ground in front of him to lie facedown on the stone floor. Harry scrambled to Ron's side, turning him over and pressing his hands to Ron's neck. Hermione pressed her hands to her mouth, and looked at Draco with something beyond anger or fear in her eyes, before running off after Ginny. Grahm was yelling at Draco to leave. He saw that Jaclyn had collapsed into hysterical sobs as he sluggishly turned and saw her bent over Blaise's body. Ginny's roommates were clinging to each other and staring at him in terror. Pansy and Parvati stood on opposite sides of the hallway, wands still in their hands. Grahm was screaming at him now.

Suddenly hearing Grahm's words, Draco finally turned and bolted down the hallway, fleeing silently and deadened to the unspeakable thing he had just done.

-----

Grahm watched Draco run away feeling somewhat detached from the whole frightful affair. Running now was his cousin's only chance of escaping immediate conviction, and Grahm didn't begrudge him that, despite Draco's new status as a murderer. Still feeling slightly apathetic, he turned around.

"Fuck," he suddenly whispered under his breath, hit by the image of Blaise's lifeless form, his ears assaulted by the sound of Jaclyn's gasping sobs. This was wrong. The gaping hole in his chest was wrong. This sudden issue of life and death was wrong. This was wrong because... Because this was one of his best friends lying dead on the floor. And all because of some imbecile school rivalry? Oh, Merlin, it was too ironic to think of how much he had incited this, how he had done nothing to stop it, how he had only fed the flames of a foolish hatred.

Abruptly, he became aware of footsteps skidding to a halt by his side.

"Pritchard! What's...?" Professor McGonagall's voice dwindled into nothingness as her eyes took in the scene of misery before her. Grahm looked up to find his Transfiguration teacher and that little Gryffindor girl - Ella, he thought - standing close by. He wondered absently if either female had ever looked so pale in her life. He felt something akin to hilarity rising in him and tried to squash it, knowing that if he let it out he'd only end up in hysterics like Jaclyn.

"Where did they go, Pritchard?" Professor McGonagall said shortly, not looking at him. She bent next to Blaise, and touched the tip of her wand to his forehead. Ella merely looked terrified as her Gryffindor playmates came over and enfolded her in their embrace.

"They?" Grahm asked, raising his eyebrows and forcing down the feeling that he was going to be sick. He looked up at the ceiling as she actually put her hands on Blaise's chest. "What 'they', Professor?"

"The ones who did this, you silly boy," she snapped, grimacing at him. Her eyes betrayed her though. Shining with unshed tears, and looking old beyond belief, Grahm felt something snap within him to see them so, and quaked with suppressed laughter.

"You think that someone outside the school did this, don't you?" He chuckled darkly and wondered that he wasn't half-mad already. "It wasn't Deatheaters," he said viciously and Professor McGonagall froze where she was trying to push a distraught Harry out of the way in an effort to get at Ron. "It was Hogwarts students," Grahm related, indicating Ron and cracking a demented grin. "Your students, professor."

"Minerva, we came as soon as..." Grahm began to wonder if everyone's sentences were going to fade away. Professor Flitwick and Professor Sprout had entered the hallway and Professor McGonagall straightened, pushing back strands of hair from her face that weren't there.

"Get the headmaster," she ordered them faintly. "Potter, I think you and the others should go on to the infirmary."

Harry finally noticed Professor McGonagall's presence and looked up at her with strangely glittering eyes. "No," he said firmly. "I want to stay here with Ron." He was clutching one of Ron's limp hands in his own and was refusing to move. Grahm began to laugh harder as he lost control, and then found himself giving over to the tears that had been threatening ever since Draco left. Harry ignored him, and stared up at Professor McGonagall, steely-eyed.

"Very well, Potter," she said. She turned to her colleagues. Professor Sprout nodded, and then ran off at a very fast trot to get Professor Dumbledore. Professor Flitwick quaked and closed his eyes tightly.

"I will go see to Madam Pomfrey," he said softly, then left as well.

Grahm sat heavily on the ground, his eyes burning with salty tears. He only barely noticed when Professor McGonagall knelt and put comforting arms around him and not Harry Potter.