Of Doves and Dragons

Chapter Thirty-seven: The Pressure of Morals

PART FOUR

In which, she was the key to the redemption he didn't know he needed.

"And I know I may end up failing too. But I know you were just like me with someone disappointed in you."

-Linkin Park, Numb

It was strange the way facings one's demons could sort out their priorities.

The runaways sneaked into another hotel just outside Wels. Without avidly having Greyback on their trail, it might have even been considered fun. When the door had been closed and locked behind them, both fell to the bed with a long sigh. The decompressing was quiet, a thin line of tension remaining since dealing with Olivia Knight.

Ember had never spoken much about her family. She hadn't seemed concerned with them since they revealed that they had sold her to the Malfoy's. She hadn't even mentioned her mother since Blaine's murder. Draco knew that she thought of them often, she would have had to. But her disinclination to discuss her narcissistic parents in the first place caused him to be unsure of how to broach the subject; much less of what he had to offer in words.

For a moment there, in that exotically dressed cottage, Draco really thought that Ember was going to kill her mother, but he should have known better. Ember thought in motioned steps ahead of the immediate, and while murdering Olivia might have left them with the same result; taking her memories was the best solution. He had no doubt that any other option would have led to Olivia to divulge their whereabouts to the enemy.

For now, they were relatively safe, and he was left with an inscrutable Ember. He could see her mind turning, processing the closure she might have gotten, or the information they had received. Or perhaps she was just suffering in silence, perhaps she had always been suffering in silence. It wasn't something she liked to talk about and he respected that, but she was so indecipherable sometimes that it was hard to garner what she needed.

"So..." He started lamely, expecting her to either ignore him or express her feelings on the night.

"Yeah..." She breathed out with a defeated, haunted, voice. She turned her head to look at him and sucked in her bottom lip for a moment before gazing straight into his eyes, dark green meeting pale blue. "I think we need to find Harry."

What the fuck?

It had come so far out of nowhere that Draco practically chocked on his own spit and gave himself whiplash from sitting up too quickly. "Excuse me, what? It's funny for a second there I thought you said we need to find Potter."

"I did." She admitted with a crinkled nose. Which was incredibly frustrating because it made her adorable where all he wanted to do was scoop her up have a nice long bath and sleep an eternity, when he now needed to sneak into her brain and see precisely where her wires were crossed.

He pushed off the bed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Dammit Ember, speak plainly. Why would we need to find Potter?"

She slowly rose so that she was sitting in front of him, watching him as he began to pace. "Didn't you hear what she said about horcruxes?"

He rolled his eyes, silent reprimanding himself for even speaking. He was so much calmer a minute ago. "So what? That it's just that much harder to kill him? What concern of that is ours? Fuck, why does that concern Potter?"

She tilted her head, her face much more collected than it had been all night. "You-Know-Who is actively trying to kill Harry. Don't you think Harry should know what he's up against? I doubt anyone outside the most trusted of Death Eaters know about the horcruxes. Your father didn't know about them; I even doubt that Bellatrix or Dolohov are in on it. No one would listen to us. They'll assume we were trying to pull the wool over their eyes, but if we tell Harry..."