There was something circling the air of the crumbled building. It tickled the nape of their necks, tracing all the way down their spine. The odd feeling settled there, making its presence known with all the panic and defeat racing in their blood as they began to be surrounded by the wrong side.

There were loud footsteps colliding with the old floor, people coming up the hall that led to the doorway where the battle had stopped, where the two raging sides had ceased to throw spells. Instead they held their wands at the ready, wand-tips pointed in every which way as the battle halted, but their need for protection still there in case anything set off the fight once again.

"Harry! Hermione!" And with loud noises of thud, thud, thud on the ground, sounding like galloping horses, Ron and a few other Aurors left behind raced into the room the others had disappeared into. "What's—" But he paused.

"Draco?" Teddy asked hesitantly  as he noticed his relative stand frozen. At the lack of response, he turned and raised his eyebrow in questioning, sharing a quick look with his father. "What's going on?"

Silence.

Ron frowned, taking further steps into the destroyed room as he headed away from Harry and to his other best friend. "Hermione, you okay?" he asked in the lowest voice, something inside of him setting off a warning signal at her tears. There was a look of glowing disgust, worry, and grief on her pale complexion.

"Ron, don't." In a movement  Harry Potter had not calculated, he raised his wand high as his feet followed Ron approaching the door where another fellow Auror stood. "Malfoy, stop him!"

Both sides of the battle moved at the Chosen One's sudden movement and command. Wands were pointed again in different directions like a muggle concept of cowboys during a showdown; no bullets yet fired, but the guns pointed at the enemy.

And just as he arrived at the doorway, looking past the shoulders of both Mrs. and Mister Malfoy, Ron was stumbled back a step when a terrible reality smacked into him. "Percy?" Ron breathed, his bright eyes shooting open as soon as he caught sight of what laid on the other side. He roared at the thought that in his lifetime he'd get to see another one of his brothers lay dead on the floor. "Percy! Percy - You?" And in his fight against Draco's restrain, as Harry came and tried helping in his collecting, Ron noticed that man from a past.

"Ron—"

"You did this?!" Ron ignored Harry as he pointed a finger past Malfoy's body, looking at the man that stood on the enemy line.

There was cackling in the background, the opposite side of the battle laughing mockingly from the pain and anger in Ron's voice. 

"Weasley, pull yourself together!" shouted Draco.

"Pull myself together?" Ron hissed, trying to shake off Harry's arms as the other Aurors started glancing through the other side of the door to see what was causing a turmoil in the Head Auror's second in command. "Of course you would say that, Malfoy!"

During the heated subdue they were trying to put Ron into, Harry and Draco shared a decisive look; an understanding between two powerful and easily composed wizards.Both were trying to find a common ground, something they could both agree to without having to speak and give anything away. Because they both knew what lay on the other side of that door—what sent Ron into a rage and Hermione into a frozen state—was worth more than the others might think. It was up to them, it was their moment. What happened next was going to be a move that was going to save all of their side or kill them all if the cards weren't dealt right.

"Don't," Hermione whispered to Draco, her eyes filled with more tears as she could see what the others couldn't, what her clever mind could calculate in less than a second as the Head Auror and one of his finest nodded in silent agreement. "Don't do it, Malfoy. Please."

Draco stared at her with a deep silence, almost like he was waiting for the venom he was bewitched to spit at her to come flowing out of his mouth. Two seconds passed, long and filled with anxiousness, but nothing came. He was free, but he just wasn't sure for how long.

His mind—his own mind—knew there had been damaged done to his wife, but he couldn't risk causing more. He couldn't make it better, not here anyway. There was danger all around her, around the people he knew that meant the world to her—and he needed to fix it. He needed to make up for some of the damage that he wasn't sure he was going to be able to explain later...Because he knew the end for him was somewhere right behind him, waiting to get him. Following like a shadow.

He took her hand, his fingers twitching a little from the contact he gave her. Something true inside of him lit up, but all he settled for was for a tiny squeeze. It was a little action that would hopefully give her something he couldn't express but always felt.

"Oh," she breathed, blinking away a few tears as she flicked her vision down to their slightly intertwined fingers.

Releasing his wife's hand and taking a step past the doorway to the attacking side, Malfoy kept his silver eyes in a blank state as everyone behind him grew with tension. His fellow Aurors were waiting for the tiniest movement to strike for him, to protect one of their own at any cost.

 "Why?" Was the first thing that slipped from Malfoy's mouth, no tone of accusing or curiosity. Just plain and simple, his brain cells working together in a rapid speed as he could already feel the invisible strings in his body begin to tug and pull and command him to do something he didn't want to allow.

Inside the ballroom-type of area, standing on once French, historic marbled flooring, the unknown witches and wizards all pointed their wand-tips to the blonde man; sneers and crude remarks being thrown at him as he approached closer to them.

"Why what?" One of the men spat, looking indifferently at Malfoy.

Draco looked quickly at the body on the cracked ground, noticing the shiny badge on his vest. "Do you know what the penalty is for murdering a Ministry Official?" He looked back up, raising his eyebrow in that carefree manner that grinds on a lot of peoples gears. "Especially one in the French Embassy, for starters? They don't take it kindly when you murder their workers."

"...H-He got in the way," one of the women in the crowd spoke, trying to justify the reason why the body laid on the floor of the ballroom. Her hands shaking as she fought with herself to keep her wand raised high, trying not to let her self-fear get in the situation before her. "We w-were heading for Michael Corner and the French Minister—he just got in the way."

"Do not explain yourself, Wilkes!" A cloaked man hissed at the nervous girl. "We got what we headed for and one more." His eyes flickered up, shining a dark coal as they looked into Draco's for a second; then passing him to stare at the notable family standing on the other side of the door. "The Weasleys should start learning to stop meddling in others business before their entire lot is wiped out."

"I'll bloody get you!" Ron snarled from wherever it is that he stood. "I'll make sure you rot in Azkaban! All of you!"

The girl named Wilkes bottom lip began to tremble, her blue eyes widening in what Malfoy could tell was a great fear, what was a mixture of regret and force.  And for a moment as he watched her, he could see her invisible strings too. Ones not created by magic, but by threats and torture.

 "...He's not dead," Wilkes murmured ever so slowly, her lips barely moving as she looked at the body of Percy Weasley. "...He's not."

Right at the moment that Draco threw the scared-girl a puzzled look, cracks started to echo off the decaying walls of the building.

The tension in the air grew, and one of the cloaked men of the opposing side raised his wand, signaling the others to contain themselves as many familiar faces from the Ministry started apparating inside. Sending some relief into Draco's bones as he could feel his self-willed concern fade slightly, there was more protection and a higher chance to get Hermione out without a scratch.

"Hold your fire!"That cloaked man had shouted at his comrades, his twisted expression trying to stay powerful as if it would help the situation; as if it would give his comrades confidence that the newly-arrived Aurors had nothing against them. "It's your call," the unknown man muttered to the only person left unmasked on his side.

Turning for a quick second, Draco exchanged another solemn look with the Head Auror. Their method of ceasing the battle and regaining control passing through them without a word; leaving it all up to Malfoy as he turned back to face the man from years past. "You're surrounded, Goyle. Surrender yourself."

And with the same look of nothingness that Draco always saw on the man's face when they were children, Gregory Goyle remained unstirred on his feet. "I can see that," he replied, his voice sounding so strange to Draco's ears. (It had been so long, hadn't it? They had some sort of friendship, but it really had been years as they both made their lives so far and away from one another.) "The entire Auror Department is here."

There was a hushed snicker going around from Goyle's small army.

"What's your move, Malfoy?" Goyle spoke, some type of emotion flicking through his black eyes as he looked at his old friend without a care. (Something that Draco was fast enough to catch, but too slow to discover to find the meaning of.)

Taking a final glance at the motionless body of Percy Weasley, Draco knew that at the moment the first spell was shot out from either side, there was going to be a lot more names being added to the list of the dead. He knew that a certain redheaded man behind him would take the opportunity to avenge his brother's alleged death, and with no time spared to explain to him that Percy lived and halt him from something idiotic.

All hell was going to break lose, and as an Auror it was up to him to keep composure and to bring the bad wizards in. It was up to him, as a relative, to protect Teddy; as a friend to protect his once-nemeses. It was up to him to keep the situation sedated as a Malfoy to protect what was his.

"One way or another, Goyle, you're leaving this place dead," Malfoy said after a few calculating seconds. "Whether by the wand of one of the Aurors or of your own," he continued, eyeing the other culprits as they stiffened. "Surrender, Goyle."

At the mention of the chance for redemption, Wilkes lowered her wand an inch. Her bright blue eyes glittering with hope as her lip continued to tremble from her intense fear.

"We thought you would say that," Goyle let out a small chuckle, nodding his head as a lot passed through his head at the current moment; his thoughts organizing themselves to where they needed to be. "But, I think you may want to reconsider after you see our hold on this situation."

"There's no reconsidering, you ungrateful bastard!" Ron shouted again from his place, all his fury adding more strain to the atmosphere. "We will overpower you in a matter of seconds! You have no way out!"

Goyle nodded again, another chuckle escaping his mouth without humor. "In that case...We bargain our escape and freedom for the lives of others."

"That's it!" Auror Johnson hissed from the background, losing his patience with the entire thing. It was his duty, after all, to bring in the guilty, not to stand around and let his fellow Aurors consider a bargain with people from their past. (The law was just, no matter for friends or foes.) "No more bloody messing around, Malfoy! Let's finish this fight once and for all!"

And the wand-tips began illuminating themselves.

"—Wait!" Stepping past the doorway and into the ballroom, Harry Potter looked directly into the eyes of his old classmate. "Hold your fire!" He ordered his Aurors, raising his free palm into the air as he moved to Malfoy's side. "Whose lives exactly, Goyle? Ours?"

One of the men snickered louder, tapping his wand to his ear; signaling for Harry to listen to the things around him.

"—Let go of her, you bloody bint!" Just like the sounds of apparition that were heard bouncing off the walls, a few Aurors shot their eyes open at the familiar voice living inside the walls. "You're hurting her! Let her go! Stop it!"

"Rose!" Ron bellowed, his heart banging faster inside his chest as he could hear his daughter scream in the invisible. "Rose!"

And then, a spat was heard somewhere around them. "Why am I not surprised?" And then there was another voice. Another voice that made Hermione snap from whatever immobile state she was in, sending her into the full rage Ron had submerged himself into. "Of course it would be you all along, you demented woman."

"Where's my daughter?!" Hermione went charging forward, escaping Teddy's would-be grasp as she raced into the ballroom like a bullet out of a gun. "Give me my daughter, you bastard!"

And as soon as Harry stopped Hermione from attacking Goyle in a full speed, protecting her from the pointing wands that the other cloaked figures were giving her, Draco stared at his old friend with betrayed and insane eyes. "You took Ariana?" His body started shaking now. "You took my daughter?!"

With his hand up to stop the havoc among the family members of the hostages, Goyle waved his wand to the back of the ballroom."Finite Incantatem." And an enchantment was broken, showing what was meant to be hidden until the moment was perfect and precise.

"—Dad!"

"—Silencio!" Stepping away from the middle of two chairs, Tanya Rowle smirked as the redheaded girl was silenced immediately with a flick of her wand. "You two have annoyingly talkative daughters, did you know?" She glanced between her former boss and Mister Weasley. "But especially her. For Merlin sake, I want to cut her tongue out."

"Don't touch her!" Hermione screamed. Her blood was boiling as Tanya ran a finger down Ariana's face, spreading the streak of blood that stained her daughter's skin.

"Feisty." Tanya laughed, pointing her wand at Ariana's head as her mother squirmed in the arms of the Head Auror. "Now I know where she gets it from." And with another offhanded leer, the woman turned to her army up front. "Do it now!"

The command was shouted, and then spells started being thrown. Dozens of flashes of lights were being shot from every corner, the battle commencing once again.

And just as the Malfoys and Ron were headed towards their daughters, the girls disappeared as an eruption happened around them.

"Get Weasley's body, Potter!" Draco shouted at Harry, pushing his wife towards him as a hope that she would get away from the spells crossed him. "He's still alive! Get him before they kill him in this mess!"

Ducking shreds of plaster, Malfoy narrowed his eyes as he spotted his target just standing in his same place. Wand lowered, no threat of an attack exploding from him as his comrades raged with war. "Goyle!" He shouted, pointing his wand with a fury as the tip of it rattled with a spell.

"...Remember my letters, Draco," Goyle murmured, closing his eyes as a jet of bright light was sent his way and his body landed with a thud.

And in that second, after watching his childhood friend fall and Tanya Rowle disappear with his daughter, the strings that controlled him against his will were removed.

Draco was free.