His expression tightened.
She looked up at him, her heart pounding rapidly in her chest. “Do you have it? Are they really Phoenix tears?”
Draco withdrew a vial of silvery liquid from his robes and handed it to her.
“There's an analytic spell, to confirm they're really tears,” she said, her voice tight and nervous as she turned it over in her hand. “They might not work. If they're really that old. There's no research on preserving tears more than a few years.”
Draco cast the spell.
Hermione's vision doubled, but she squinted through it and studied it carefully.
It was a vial of pure tears. The reading was perfect; the efficiency was still exact. They had been perfectly preserved.
There were enough. She could tell just by looking at the irregular size of the vial that there were at least fifteen tears.
She stared down at the vial in her hands for several seconds, trying to absorb the reality of what she held. Her stomach was fluttering, and she felt breathless.
She could do it. Draco was going to live.
She was going to save him.
“We'll need to do everything in the drawing room,” she finally said. “There's so much magic already there that new spell signatures will be lost. Is everything ready? Did you contact Ginny?”
Draco nodded slowly. “She's aware of what we're going to attempt. The elves have everything ready. My — my mother intends to stay. She doesn't want to leave my father.”
Hermione studied his face for a moment before standing and reaching out for him. The room swam. Draco caught her by the elbow.
She held his robes until she found her bearings again. She drew a deep breath before forcing a smile. “I never ate breakfast. I should probably take a few potions.”
Her stomach rebelled, but she forced herself to keep down a strengthening potion and a nutritional potion long enough for her body to absorb them. Her head stopped feeling cracked and hollow.
She stood up again and walked slowly around the room. Her calf was still sore, but her hand was fully healed. She bent and unfurled her fingers to check their dexterity. A Calming Draught would help manage her tremors once she needed to do spellwork.
Her vision slowly stopped doubling.
As long as the lights weren't too bright, she'd be alright.
Draco stood watching her. His expression was closed, but his eyes were pensive and worried. “Granger, you—”
“We're going to do this, Draco,” she said, cutting him off. “If it were me, would it even be a question?”
He reluctantly shook his head.
“I can do this. I'll be fine. Once we escape, I can recover for as long as I need to. After I save you.”
She went over to the doorway and walked through without hesitation.
Lucius was still in the cage in the drawing room.
Hermione's stomach curdled as she entered the room for the third time that day.
“Bobbin,” said Draco, his tone still vicious.
The elf appeared at the entrance of the drawing room.
“Bring everything here, and get the horse ready.”
Hermione chewed nervously on her lip. “Once my manacles are off, how long do you think we'll safely have until it's noticed?”
“I doubt you'll have more than half an hour,” Lucius said.
Hermione nodded. “That's about what I thought. So, twenty minutes to get the Dark Mark off, and then a few extra minutes to leave. It — it might take longer than twenty minutes, but that's the best time I've gotten in practice. We need to do as much as possible before my manacles are removed. We'll have to brew the potion beforehand.”
She looked at Lucius. “In order for this to work, everyone has to believe that Draco has died, that we all died. Can you do that?”
He glowered at her. “Easily. Assuming that my wand is returned.”
She nodded and turned away. The elves had brought in a large table that extended across nearly the length of the room. On one half, there were potion supplies laid out. On the other end, healing supplies: bandages, dozens of vials of Blood-Replenishing potion, Essence of Dittany, eye wateringly expensive pain relief, and several spools of acromantula silk. Hermione arranged it all carefully.
There was a smaller table nearby with a pile of wands and a satchel on it.
Her heart skipped a beat.
Her satchel. She reached out and opened it. It was still packed with all her alchemy and potion supplies, as well as a full assortment of healing potions and supplies.
“You kept it,” she said as her fingers ran across the waxed canvas.
“It was useful,” said Draco in a dry voice. He watched her intently as she inspected the contents.
There was a set of travel clothes, with riding breeches set with buttons to accommodate her stomach. Draco conjured a screen, and she nearly tore off her surrogate robes, leaving them in a pile on the floor as she pulled the new clothing on. There was a padded gambeson coat beside her cloak, and her boots were hung over the back of a chair, alongside a pair of buttery leather gloves. Draco's heavy black cloak hung beside it.
She laced up her boots and looked up at Draco. “You have everything? You're ready?”
He nodded and she stood.
“You're not going to be in any state to guide a horse. Not until some of the potions wear off. Where should I have the horse go until you're lucid?”
Draco's expression grew more tense than it already was. “It knows the way. Just tell her to go home. Her mate is at the safe house. She won't fly anywhere else.”
Hermione nodded, her fingers twitching nervously. She hadn't ridden a horse since she flew a Thestral to the Ministry of Magic in her fifth year of school.
She braced herself, she refused to have a panic attack.
She turned back to the table and placed the silver cauldron on the stand. “I'll need you to do the spellwork for me, Draco.”
Her heart raced, but brewing a potion felt as natural as breathing.
She started with white cedar oil, warming it gently as she added crushed valerian roots. When it grew aromatic, she poured honeywater slowly down the sides of the cauldron until it was halfway full.
“I need the most intense flame you can conjure now,” she told Draco as she turned to inspect the Dittany leaves that the house-elves had minced and placed under stasis.
She used a spoon to shift the minced leaves and verified every piece was surgically precise and uniform.
The cauldron was boiling almost violently as the base was reduced to a syrup.
She set to grinding the dried nettle and yarrow until they were a fine powder. Her ears were ringing slightly, and she blinked and shook her head as she focused on the mortar and pestle in her hands.
She ground a half-dozen fairy wings in another pestle until they shone like silver dust and then sifted all the powder together.
She dipped a copper stirring rod into the potion, and when she withdrew it, she counted to three before a thickened drop collected and fell back into the cauldron.
“Cool it to room temperature as rapidly as you can,” she said in a tight voice.
The instant the surface of the liquid was still, she poured the powders across the surface in a slow figure eight. Count to ten. She placed thirty rose petals across the surface over the powder which was beginning to crystallise. Draco removed the stasis, and she added an even layer of Dittany on top.
The potion sat still for several seconds before the entire surface turned translucent. Hermione immediately added crushed geranium and stirred rapidly with an ash stir rod, dropping pickled murtlap tentacles in with every fourth rotation. The potion turned a brilliant blue.