The Gallows Chapter 2

Just let me die.

The words circled Hermione’s head, even as she floo’d back to the Ministry. As she picked apart the bagel Harry left on her desk until it was merely crumbs. As she stared at the lifts that went down to the courtrooms, shoulder to shoulder with Harry and Ron fresh from their patrols.

The three were silent as they filed into the courtrooms. Years had taught them to keep to themselves, to be mindful of words spoken aloud in a public place lest they become tomorrow’s headline. They were jostled, Harry reaching out to wrap a hand around Hermione’s elbow while Ron held her sleeve. It seemed the entirety of Wizarding Britain was attempting to fit themselves within the room, rows and rows of stands filled as if it were the Quidditch World Cup, not a trial.

And with each step, Malfoy’s voice whispered in her ear:

Just let me die.

It’s what they want.

Just let me die.

It’s what they want.

She caught the eye of two wizards making their way slowly up the stands. Theodore Nott was taller than she remembered, the close-cropped curls of his youth now skimming around his ears. Blaise Zabini was no different, his dark skin gleamed in the floating candles, though she thought he might have blanched when their eyes met. And then they turned, following a witch up the stairs to settle into the section traditionally reserved for the family of the accused.

Hermione tried instead to remember the arguments, the counter arguments, the timeline. He was only a boy. A boy with no choice. Would you have not done the same in his place? And yet with each breath, she heard him again.

Just let me die.

It’s what they want.

“Hermione!” Dean Thomas raised his hand from the first row, pointing to the empty space nestled between him and Seamus.

The three pushed through the crowd, muttering their thanks as they slid onto the bench. Ron leant forward, resting his elbows on the rail and staring down into the empty cage. 

“Blimey,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Who do they think he is? You-know-who-junior?”

A muscle ticked in her jaw. He was right — the usual chains for a prisoner’s wrists and ankles were doubled, maybe even tripled. Harry swore under his breath, removing his glasses to polish them on his robes as if the chains were merely a stain on his lenses.

“You didn’t hear?” Dean murmured beneath the crowd, leaning over Hermione to Ron.

“Hear what?” She snapped, pulse ticking higher.

Just let me die.

It’s what they want.

Dean shook his head, running a hand over his hair. “Kingsley’s been in a right state. Turns out this isn’t a trial after all.”

The three frowned at Dean, but it was Harry who spoke first. “What is it then?”

Silence fell around them before he could respond as the Wizengamot filed into the room, led by the Minister for Magic. Kingsley’s face was drawn, the hollows under his eyes rivaling that of Malfoy’s, and Hermione’s stomach twisted painfully.

“It’s a sentencing,” she breathed.

Metal groaned, an ominous clicking filling the room, and all eyes fell on the cage and the head of white-blonde hair ascending from the holding cell beneath. It was Hermione’s turn to lean forward, her eyes widening as Malfoy came into view.

He was the splitting image of his father with his shoulder length hair and almost unrecognizable from the wizard she’d seen that morning, years of dirt and grime scrubbed from his skin until he was as pale as the marble beneath their feet. They had dressed him in the fine robes of his father, down to the black ribbon holding back the majority of his hair.

And it was clear they had dressed him, the powers that be who served to make an example out of Malfoy. Those who allowed the blame of the war to rest upon innocent shoulders. Before them was not a wizard, not the accused, merely a doll they had dressed and positioned for their ruse.

The moment the plinth came to a halt, the chains snaked out to clamp over his wrists, his ankles. And they had their answer: the new chains clamped around his elbows, his waist, and his throat.

“Draco Lucius Malfoy.” Kingsley’s voice was slow, resonant, and in it she could hear the regret. “You stand before us a marked Death Eater, responsible for the death of Albus—”

“Fucking hell,” Harry muttered. “What are they playing at?”

Hermione shifted, pain pricking into her palms as she tightened her fists in her skirts. “He is a symbol, Harry, just as you are.”

Bright green eyes turned towards her, a vee forming between his brows. He was the spitting image of James, down to the scruff on his face, but she wondered if the fire in his eyes belonged to Lily.

“The Wizengamot has voted…” Kingsley continued.

“A symbol? What do you mean?”

Hermione shook her head, turning back towards Malfoy. His face was slack, expression fixed to a point on the floor a meter or so away, thumbs running over the tips of his fingers. This was not the boy she’d grown up hating, the boy who swaggered through the halls of Hogwarts with a group of cronies.

“…43 ayes and seven nays to execute by means of hanging from…”

“You were a symbol of hope. Malfoy is a symbol of the brutality the Wizarding World pretends to no longer have.”

“Does the accused have anything they would like to say?” Kingsley finished; attention fixed to the parchment in his hand.

Malfoy did not move, as if he had no awareness of his surroundings. A lock of hair fell from the ribbon at his nape, obscuring the side of his face, but he did not push it back.

Hermione’s heartbeat thrummed louder, magic sparking across her skin. They would execute him as a symbol of the Death Eater regime coming to an end. An innocent man who had been a mere child. It did not matter that Malfoy had lowered his wand when Dumbledore offered him aid, that he never cast the killing curse, that in the final battle he had only tried to protect himself and his friends.

And he had known. That was what he’d meant that morning. She wondered when Malfoy had given up hope of surviving. Had it been when he learned of their plans? Or had it been five years ago when aurors raided Malfoy Manor in the middle of the night… or perhaps even longer ago, the night Voldemort branded the dark mark on his skin.

Too much, it was too much to imagine. Her heart beat against her chest, shaking her ribs like the prison bars surrounding Malfoy until she thought she understood what it meant to have a broken heart. And, without thinking she rose to her feet, ignoring Harry and Ron as they tried to pull her back, shaking off Dean’s grip on her wrist when she shimmed in front of him to the aisle.

Her heels clicked against the shiny marble, echoing in her ears, drowning out the heavy panting breaths of her panic and the murmuring rumbling through the crowd. Each step was a punctuation to the words he’d spoken, to the truth he’d told, to the fate he’d accepted.

Except Hermione could not accept it. She rounded the dais to stand in front of Malfoy’s cage, resisting the urge to smooth her hair back or straighten her skirt. Later she would shake her head at her rash action, at the way her emotions allowed her to get carried away. At how logical Hermione Granger could find herself in such a mess. But that was later. That was after her voice rung out across the hall, her fingertips biting into her skin so hard blood welled beneath her nails.

“I, Hermione Jean Granger, invoke the Gallows Law.”