“Oh god,” she groaned as she pushed herself up and struggled to breathe.
She felt Draco's hand on the small of her back as she squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to inhale slowly. Slowly. The rigidity in her abdomen gradually faded.
She could smell earth and bracken.
She opened her eyes and found that they were kneeling in a forest. “Are we there?”
There was a sliding sound and a crack as wood struck wood. Hermione looked over her shoulder. There was a large wooden house behind them.
Ginny stood in the doorway, staring at them, a wand gripped in her hand.
Chapter End Notes
Illustrations by Avendell, follow her on tumblr and instagram.
Additional Illustrations:
Escape on the granian by kassiesketches
Chapter 74
“Hermione!” Ginny gasped the name, and stumbled down several steps, dragging Hermione into her arms and hugging her ferociously. “Oh my god. Oh my god. Hermione.”
Ginny's hands were running over Hermione, touching her face and shoulders as though she couldn't believe Hermione was real.
Hermione felt almost disbelieving as she stared at Ginny.
Ginny looked the same. As though the last two years had forgotten her. Her startlingly red hair, her eyes, and familiar smile veiled in tears as she knelt, sobbing and hugging Hermione. The jagged scar still ran down the side of her face.
Hermione started to cry as her hands rose up and gripped Ginny's shoulders. “Ginny — Oh Ginny.”
They knelt on the ground, clinging to each other and sobbing for several minutes.
Ginny sat back, smearing away her tears as she studied Hermione. “I thought I was never going to see anyone again. Look at you. Oh god, you're so thin.”
Ginny's eyes ran down Hermione's body, stopping at her stomach, and she stared frozen for a moment.
The joyful relief vanished from Ginny's face. She looked as though she'd been gutted. She held Hermione's shoulders and stared down. “Oh, oh god, I'm so sorry. I'm so so — sorry.”
Ginny's head whipped up, and she stared at Draco with undisguised loathing. “Get away from her. You have no right to ever touch her—”
She lunged at Draco as though she intended to strangle him.
Hermione caught hold of Ginny's shoulders to stop her. “Ginny.”
“Let go of me!” Ginny tried to pull Hermione's hands off. “He said he cared about you! He kept coming here, saying it was all for you, and then”—Ginny's voice was shaking with devastated rage—“he raped you until you were pregnant!”
Hermione's throat tightened, and she inserted herself protectively in front of Draco. “Ginny — he didn't have any choice. Don't hurt him.”
Ginny glared past Hermione at Draco but stopped lunging. Her hand rose up, and she gripped Hermione's wrist.
Hermione heard Draco sigh. “It's fine, Granger. Go inside and rest. I need to check the wards.”
She felt him stand. Before Hermione could get up, Ginny shot to her feet and slapped Draco sharply across the face. Draco didn't flinch, and Ginny slapped him violently again.
“You should be dead,” Ginny said coldly. “You don't deserve to breathe near her. Nothing you ever do will make up for what you've done.”
“Ginny, stop it!” Hermione forced herself to her feet. “Shut up. Shut up. I'm the one who saved him. I brought him here. He never asked or expected to survive. If you want to be angry with someone about that, it should be me.”
She gripped Draco's wrist and stepped protectively closer to him. “Leave him alone. I mean it. If you ever lay a hand on him again—”
Ginny's expression rippled as she raised her hands in surrender. “Fine,” she said in a forced voice, her expression slowly becoming drawn as she looked at Hermione and Draco.
Hermione stared at Ginny for a moment longer before turning to Draco.
His expression was closed. There was a scarlet handprint across each of his cheeks. Hermione drew her wand and muttered a spell to heal it and stroked along his cheekbone as the markings slowly faded.
“It's fine, Granger,” he said. “You should go inside.”
Hermione edged closer to him. “I'll come with you. You can — show me where we are.”
He shook his head. “I need to apparate. Go inside. You should see the house,” his mouth curved into a faint smile. “I think you'll like it. I'll be back in half an hour.”
Hermione gave a reluctant nod but didn't let go of him.
“Come on.” Draco lead her out of the bracken they'd landed in and over to a stone-set footpath.
They were in a forest. There were towering trees overhead, and the house was a large, sleek, architecturally Asian-style building covered in latticed windows.
They ascended several large stone steps up to the house. There was an unrailed wooden veranda several feet above ground that seemed to wrap around the entire house. As they stepped onto the veranda, Ginny stepped past Draco and Hermione and slid a latticed wooden doorway open. The floor was smooth, polished wood, and they entered into a narrow hall. There was light filtering through the walls.
Hermione stepped inside, but Draco stopped at the doorway and pulled his wand out, inspecting and testing several wards set inside the walls of the building. After several minutes, he flicked his wand and looked up at Hermione and Ginny, who were both watching him in silence.
“Weasley, she's tired. Keep her calm, make sure she rests. I'll be back in half an hour.” His eyes locked on Hermione. “You'll be alright with Ginny?”
Hermione gave him a nervous smile and nodded.
He stared at her a moment longer and vanished without a sound.
Hermione studied the empty space for several seconds before hesitantly turning to look at Ginny.
The reunion felt more heavily-tinged with pain than she'd expected. Of course it wouldn't be simple, but somehow she hadn't expected it to be so immediately complicated. She hadn't thought she would feel obliged to legitimise something as intensely personal as her relationship with Draco.
“You shouldn't have hit him.”
Ginny stared at her, disappointed resignation written across her face. “You could do so much better than him, Hermione.”
Hermione scoffed, her stomach twisting. “I don't really care what you think. He saved your life. I would never have been able to save you on my own.”
Hermione could see a dozen objections in Ginny's expression, but she sighed and closed her eyes.
“Right.” Ginny slid the door shut. “If that's what you want, I won't say anything else. I just — Hermione—” her voice caught, and then she hesitated for a moment. “Never mind.”
There was a long, uncomfortable silence.
Hermione looked up and down the hallway slowly. “Where are we?”
Ginny looked around with her. “We're at the top of the house. Or — do you mean where is the house?” She shrugged a shoulder and tucked her hair behind her ear. “I don't actually know. Malfoy says we're somewhere in East Asia, but that could be a total lie. We're on an island — somewhere. It takes about half a day to walk across it. I've never left. I'm not even sure how to leave it. The elves go for supplies every few months, but they don't take orders from me.”
The light coming through the walls shifted, and Hermione realised she could see the shadows of the trees through the walls. She reached out and touched a latticed wall and found the lattice was set with paper.