A.N Ok so this is my newest fanfic, I started it because I was having writers block with another of my stories, however I'm now beginning to enjoy this story...probably more than is considered healthy! Thanks to all who follow, favorite, and review, I am most grateful to you all! Enjoy ^_^
"He comes my Lord. The boy!" Bellatrix spoke excitedly bowing low as she approached her master.
"Are you sure, it was the boy?" Voldemort asked wearily, appearing from the shadows of a great dead Oak tree.
"Certain my Lord, he was there, clear as I see you now!" Bellatrix was elated and she ran over to her master like a puppy to its owner, before throwing herself at his feet.
"You've done well, Bellatrix." He said, uncaringly placing one of his pale hands on her head, signaling for her to rise to her feet. She smiled lovingly at his blank expression, as he eyed their darkened surroundings for signs of the boys approach.
She scrambled to her feet, as Voldemort walked slowly around her, his back to them all. Bellatrix looked at the remaining Deatheather's, all hiding amongst the shadows. She spotted Narcissa and Malfoy and began walking nonchalantly towards the pair.
As she drew nearer she could see that her family members looked much paler than normal, almost ill-looking. Dark rings hung under Malfoy's grey eyes, and he'd lost some weight off of his face making his jaw look withered and aged. While his usual blond hair had become several shades closer to white.
Next she spotted Narcissa, her younger sister often so vibrant and colourful was as pale as her husband's hair and her eyes were red and swollen. The look reminded Bellatrix of a time when Narcissa had been a young girl and had been scolded by their father, for stealing a peppermint fudge taffy off of the table. However now, Bellatrix could sense how worried her sister was, but not for own safety, now it was for the safety of her son, Draco.
"Bellatrix." Malfoy acknowledged, coldly. Bellatrix and Malfoy had never seen eye-to-eye. To Bellatrix he was weak, and disloyal. She wasn't wrong.
Bellatrix nodded her head towards him, but quickly turned to Narcissa who was biting her lower lip.
"I haven't heard from Draco." Narcissa half chocked the words from her mouth.
"He'll be fine." Malfoy didn't even take his eyes off the ground making Bellatrix hiss.
"Bella I…" Narcissa now turned to Bellatrix and grasped the raven haired witches hands for support. She was almost in tears. "I think…I think Draco may still be in the castle. Blaize said that he saw Draco leave the remaining Slytherin's with Crabbe and Goyal. I think he may have tried to find Potter!" She wept, flinging her arms around Bellatrix in a tight hug, while sobbing into Bellatrix's shoulder.
"Cissy!" Bellatrix snapped, pushing her sister away from her. This was not a time to appear weak. "Perhaps Draco never found him." Bellatrix doubted her words even as she said them.
"No, no. Bellatrix please," Narcissa begged, "please, please find my son. Go to the castle, please bring him back. I beg you!"
Bellatrix watched as tears flooded down her sisters cheeks, she couldn't bear to see her in such a state, but she dare not defy the Dark Lord and leave him when he may need her the very most.
As if Narcissa had read her mind the blonde pleaded one last time, "Bella please, he's my son." It was these words that had awoken Bellatrix to the full extent of how much her sister was in pain, and like an echo, Narcissa's pain bounced onto Bellatrix, and a surge of emotions opened up inside her. The desperate need to find Draco, her only nephew, became apparent.
Bellatrix nodded and hugged Narcissa close, before whispering into her ear, "I'll find him. I promise."
She released her sister and turned around to take one last look at Voldemort. She didn't have long before he would notice her disappearance, but just as she spiraled into her apparition she saw a glimpse of a figure walking slowly into the clearing. The boy who lived had come to die.
With a stomach churning twist, Bellatrix was gone.
Bellatrix searched the castle. She sprinted to every possible place she could think of as to where Draco could be. Yet the Hogwarts castle was near ruin in some places, which confused Bellatrix as she tried to remember its once familiar hallways.
She stuck close to the shadows, avoiding students and teachers as they went about collecting the dying and the dead.
She was now on the seventh floor, she didn't know how much longer she would have before Voldemort would notice her disappearance, and if he did, she would be in grave danger for disobeying. What if he already knew she was gone? Would Narcissa cover for her?
She didn't have long to ponder the thought, just a little way ahead of her, behind a pile of what was originally castle wall, Bellatrix heard what she was certain were stifled whimpers.
She walked silently up to the pile of rubble, taking care not to disturbed any pieces of shrapnel, hoping that it would be Draco and she could leave with him. She took a deep breath and held her wand firmly, readying herself encase her hunch was wrong.
Just as she peered over edge of rubble there was a sound of violent shuffling on the other side. Realizing her cover had been broken she leapt out to find Hermione Granger already to her feet, wand out and pointed directly to where she stood.
"Ahh, if it isn't the little Mudblood..." Bellatrix teased smiling at the witch. She had no intention of harming the girl, there was no point, if anything she could use her to her advantage.
"Stay where you are!" Hermione warned as Bellatrix took a step closer. She could see the girl's arm shaking and Bellatrix pouted her bottom lip playfully.
"Alone and frightened I see." The raven-haired witch cooed slyly, still grinning.
"I'm not alone!" Hermione spat back.
"No you're not are you, 'cause I'm here now." Bellatrix let out a quiet chuckle as Hermione took a step back and stumbled on a small piece of rubble. "Enough games Granger, I'm not going to hurt you."
"That's new then." Hermione said coldly, regaining her balance, with her wand still in hand.
Bellatrix tutted, "well, not yet anyway," she added sternly, "I need to find Draco, you're going to help me."
"Why should I help you!?"Bellatrix watched as Hermione's arm began to shake less and less, obviously becoming less intimidated by the witches presence, and Bellatrix could feel the anger bubbling inside her. Fear, she thought, was her greatest weapon over anyone.
"Either you help me by choice, or I make you help me. Understand?" Bellatrix threatened, raising her wand.
There was a pause as Hermione eyed the woman's wand and then dart to her nearest exists, which were too far away to reach, even if she did manage to successfully hex Bellatrix, which was even more unlikely. "I don't have all day you know!" Bellatrix said impatiently.
"Fine. I'll help you," Bellatrix felt a little douse of relief steady her already pounding heart. "But on one condition." The small flutter inside dissipated. Irritated, Bellatrix rocked on the spot but waved her hand for the brunette to continue.
"When we find Draco, you let me go." Hermione spoke sternly.
"Yes, yes fine. I'll find Draco and be gone before you can say Mudblood. Now if you don't mind, I am actually in a hurry here!" Bellatrix had already lowered her wand and turned away, hoping to continue looking for her nephew straight away.
"I want you to vow." Hermione called after her, making Bellatrix freeze, before spinning around on the spot to face the girl again. "I need your word." Hermione's voice didn't show any signs of relenting.
There was a sudden deafening crack coming from the distance that shook the castle grounds, and Bellatrix knew that it could only have come from the forest.
The urgency she felt to return that instance to Voldemort was heart breaking, yet so was her need to find Draco. She strode towards the young brunette and grabbed the girls hand firmly while uttering, "you're lucky I'm in a hurry Granger!"
Bellatrix ran her wand over their hands, leaving a thin white chain binding them together. "Do you, Granger, swear not to harm me, and protect me from harm during the battle?" Suddenly Bellatrix felt Hermione's hand begin to shake and her grip loosen, but Bellatrix held it firmly.
"That wasn't part of it!" Hermione gasped.
"Its fifty-fifty, you gotta give something to get something!" The woman spat back, already repulsed by having to hold on to the girl for longer than necessary.
"I ...I Swear." Hermione chocked, "Do you, Bellatrix Lestrange, swear to not harm me, and protect me from harm during the battle?"
"I swear!" Bellatrix said through gritted teeth, but never took her dark eyes off of the girls. Their hands released one another and the silver chain vanished, leaving a pale trace where it had been on their skin. "Where to first then?!" Bellatrix asked it more as an order than a question.
"He'll have gone to the Great Hall with Goyle, to tell them that Crabbe is dead." Hermione said in an unusual uncaring tone for her.
Slightly shocked by this news Bellatrix merely pondered how Draco was still alive, hoping that he still was. "We'll check there first then." Bellatrix said, "you lead the way, but stick to the shadows, I don't want to be seen, yet!"
"CAN YOU SEE HIM?!" Bellatrix hissed violently. She was crouched against a wall, while Hermione had leaned forward to check around the singed door to the Great Hall, its original gold leaf carved sides were blackened and broken, where they had been hit by near miss spells.
"There's too many people!" Hermione whined, as she turned back to Bellatrix.
"Well then, I guess you're just going to have to go and get a better look then, aren't you!?" With that Bellatrix hoisted Hermione to her feet and thrust her backwards, so that the brunette fell on her back with a violent smack, perfectly in the centre of the opened doors.
"AH!...Are you insane.." Bellatrix rose to her full height as Hermione staggered back to her feet and made to quickly return to the dark woman's side.
"Hermione .There you are!" A voice echoed from the hall, causing Hermione to freeze where she stood. Bellatrix shrank back against the wall, while giving Hermione a violent toss of her head and mouthing the words, "Get Going!"
Hermione stood staring at Bellatrix for a second longer before she turned hesitantly around on the spot, to suddenly be swept up in a fierce hug from a well-built but scruffy, red-headed teen.
"Ron!" Bellatrix watched as the brunette before her, returned the friendly embrace, and the woman was certain she felt something inside her stir, but her thoughts were too concerned for the welfare of her nephew to linger on it too long.
"Hermione where have you been? I thought the worst might have happened to you." Once again he pulled her into another tight squeeze, so tight that Hermione had to bend her back into an awkward arch to support him. 'Great oaf!' Bellatrix thought as she watched the pair.
"I'm fine Ron." Hermione said breathlessly as he released her, "look at me, honestly, I just got… a bit confused."
"Confused?" He asked, taking hold of her hand, and gesturing for her to walk with him into the Hall.
"Well everything just looks, so different now." Bellatrix watched as Hermione stole another worried glance towards her, but this time the dark woman raised her wand in a threatening manner so that she understood to follow Weasley.
She sat crouched against the wall. Waiting. Seconds passed. Minutes passed. She waited.
Nothing.
Hermione moved as quickly as she could through the crowds of mourning and injured students, searching for that small glimpse of white blond hair.
She had managed to evade Ron and his family, using the excuse that she needed "a moment alone" to deal with the loss of Fred, Tonks and Lupin. No one had tried to stop her, Ron had simply given her hand a gentle squeeze and watched her vanish into the crowds for a moment longer.
She hated this. The panic inside her was growing with every passing moment. She had to find Malfoy, it was the only way to get rid of Bellatrix. To get her out of the Castle and as far away from her friends as possible. The closer she was to them, the more at risk they became. She saw Bellatrix like a ticking time bomb, the longer the woman was kept waiting, the more damage she would do in the end.
"Luna!..Luna!" She called.
The wispy haired girl turned away from Professor Trelawney as they covered a small third year Ravenclaw in a white drape.
"Have you seen Malfoy?" Hermione asked.
"Well, yes, he asked me for an anti-burn charm. Looked like he'd been through a barbeque." She said in a slightly more sinister tone than usual. "Are you aright Hermione, you look as if-"
"No time to explain Luna!" She snapped back, "did you see which way he went?"
Luna pointed a bloodied hand towards the top end of the hall, and Hermione instantly caught sight of a crouched figure with white blond hair, his head in his hands, sitting on the steps that once led to the teacher's dining table.
Instantly Hermione sped towards him, knocking professor Flitwick aside. She heard Luna call after her, but only caught glimpses of her words, something about, "being enchanted?" But she didn't turn back to find out, instead she reached Malfoy and rugby tackled him to the floor, holding him down by straddling him, and reached out her wand and held it to his neck.
For a split second, Hermione had a sudden flashback, of Bellatrix doing nearly exactly the same thing to her during her torture for information only weeks ago in the Malfoy Manor.
"ARHH!" Malfoy yelled, causing the surrounding students and teachers to turn their heads in their direction, but none seemed in the mood to intervene. "What the Hell, Granger!?"
"You're coming with me!" Hermione ordered, already beginning to get to her feet.
"You've lost the plot! I'm not going anywhere with you!" Malfoy retorted angrily.
Hermione grabbed him by the collar and began to hoist him up. She had no idea where her sudden strength had appeared from, all she knew was that the longer she waited the more danger everyone was in.
As Malfoy was dragged onto his knee's Hermione bent her head, so her mouth was close to his ear, "You're aunt is outside the Hall. You're needed!"
A:N, Another chapter, another moment where I feel like I'm just digging a deeper hole for Hermione...Oh well, I'm sure Draco will lend a helping hand? :D
