Love Is The Darkest Art

Part 19: Two Draco's

Scene 28

The doppelganger Draco sneered. "Unlike this little morsel, I am not afraid of you. I fear no one. Certainly not you, pathetic boy." He glanced at Hermione. "Ah, to have your hands on such beauty and never doing a thing about it..."

"Let her go. This is your last warning." To assert his meaning, Draco jabbed his double's cheek slightly with his wand. "You don't want to push me."

"Push you? Ha! I'll do more than that." His eyes locked on Hermione who was still being held to the wall by his strength. "Ditch this clown, girl. I'll show you a real man."

The silencio curse was starting to wear off. Hermione moved her lips, her jaw trying to work, but still she could produce no sound. This made the villian laugh and she looked away from him. He looked too much like her Draco. Exactly like him to be sure.

As if knowing what she was thinking, Draco leaned toward her captor, his mouth at the doppleganger's ear right next his wand. He whispered something she could not hear. It almost sounded like another language, and the resolute tone caused her to open her eyes.

The words were a charm and Hermione could see the effects working across the evil Draco's face. His cheekbones seemed to shift,  his chin dropping lower. His eyes, no longer silver grey slits, became blue tinged, bulbous orbs set in a head who's very shape was changing. The change didn't seem painful, for the face still leered at her, the lips pulling back and then resetting themselves against a set of teeth much larger than Draco's. What had been the beautiful visage of Malfoy now revealed a scarred face she recognized. It was the man who had been in The Hog's Head earlier, sitting across from the barman and laughing at an apparently baudy joke. Even then she'd found his gaze intrusive. Now it was downright invading.

The man, for the real version of him was clearly an adult, shifted on his feet so fast it caught both her and Draco off guard. In a series of twists, he was out from under Draco's wand and drawing a deadly gnarled wand of his own. "Expelliarmus!" he shouted, pointing it directly at Malfoy.

Draco's wand was pulled from his hand and it skidded across the cobblestones. The scarred man turned to Hermione who was reaching for her own wand. He uttered a command and jabbed his weapon in her direction. Before she could react, her feet were skidding across the alley carrying her towards him. Like a magnet pulling steel towards it, she was drawn to him and he wrapped an arm around her struggling form.
"No darling," he said. "You're coming with me. Someone wants to meet you..." He glared at Draco, who stood helpless with the villain's wand pointing at him. "...after I'm done with you, of course," he taunted.

Wrapping Hermione up in his cloak so hard she dropped her wand, he spun around and began to carry her off down the darkening alley. Draco cursed and reached down, picking up a loose cobblestone. He heaved the brick piece. It sailed through the air like a runaway snitch on a quidditch pitch, and found its target.

The scarred man grunted when the brick hit him in the back of his head. He released Hermione and spun angrily towards Draco. But the Slytherin was on him before he could raise his wand. Crack! A right hook across the bridge of his nose made it snap with a spray of blood, but he didnt go down. Even when Draco attempted to tackle him, it didn't knock him off his feet. It however did knock him into the wall, where Draco released him and landed three hard blows to his Solar Plexus.

Hermione scrambled away from them both, her hands reaching on the alley floor for her wand. To her surprise, and despite the scarred man's bulkier form, Draco was landing blow after blow to the man's face, rocking the villain's head back and forth. It was almost scary, the fury that exuded from Malfoy's clenched fists. "I told you... to get... your hands... off her," she heard him growl between blows.

She finally grasped her wand, raised it and took aim. Somebody grabbed it out of her hands and she screamed. A cloaked and hooded figure stood towering over her. He stood over six feet and out from under his dark cloak she saw the tattoo on his forearm.  A skull and snake. The Dark Mark of a Death Eater.

"Draco!"

Malfoy turned to her screams and lost his furious advantage. The scarred man clocked Draco across the side of his head. The man wore ornate rings which cut into Draco's skull and made his head swim with blackness. Before he hit the ground,  he saw a second hooded figure come out of the shadows and grab Hermione, lifting her off the ground in its inescapable grip.

Scarface kicked Draco in the ribs, leaning over him and pointing his wand into his face. Looking up, Draco saw the Death Eater mark on his arm. "She's mine now," the man said. "Don't bother trying to follow us."

"I'm going to kill you," Draco promised.

The Death Eater threw back his head and laughed. "On the contrary, boy," he snarled. "I'm going to kill you." He glanced over to Hermione, still struggling to escape the other Eater that held her. "Want to know what I'm going to do to her?..."

Draco whispered something so low it was unintelligible.

Instinctively,  the man leaned down. "What's that?"

Draco replied in a sinister hiss, "Nothing." Then he raised his head and bit the man's ear off. Blood splayed across the man's cheek and he howled, dropping his wand.

Hermione screamed again. The two Death Eaters were on the run, dragging her down the alley.

Pushing the injured man away, Draco bounded to his feet, recovered his own wand and was in pursuit. He didnt even look back to see if Scarface was going to hurl a curse his way. He had to get his girl from those goons.

They were ahead of him, getting ready to pass through a black door of an unmarked building. He hurled a bolt from his wand and it went by them, striking the stones at their feet. A shower of blinding sparks shot up and it made them stop. They spun around, with Hermione in front of them like a shield.

"This is for the other day," Draco shouted, and hurled another bolt. Right at Hermione. It struck her in the stomach knocking the wind out of her and effectively shoving her into the death eater that held her. They both fell, she on top of him, landing on the rough stones of the alleyway.

Draco was already hurling a charm at the second death eater, who couldn't believe a kid was attacking him. What kind of boy attacks one of Voldemort's own. He soon found out when the charm struck, a curse that spun him around several times and smashed his face into the wall. It was surprising move, as it was one known only to Death Eaters. How the hell does a kid know that one, the figure thought before losing consciousness.

Hermione found herself being hauled to her feet. Still coughing from the bolt blow, her eyes were watering up, but she could still Draco's determined face as he thrust her behind him and faced the Death Eater he'd liberated her from. The figure snarled underneath its hood and laughed.

"Enjoy your freedom for a few more seconds," he hissed.

Draco looked up to the sky with fear and then back at the death eater. "Too bad we won't be here to witness it."

He spun to shield Hermione in his own cloak and aimed his wand at their own feet. There were sparks against the pavement, a blinding light flashed, causing the death eater to shield his eyes. The alley collapsed beneath Draco and Hermione, dropping them into a newly formed hole in the street, down into the depths of the village sewers.