Chapter 1

Rescuing Hermione

Hermione felt like she had just fallen asleep when suddenly someone was gently shaking her.

"Hermione, wake up." A man's voice said urgently. "Come on you've got to get up, there are Death Eaters coming and we have to leave right now."

"What?" she exclaimed as she bolted up into a sitting position. Nothing seemed to want to make sense as she struggled into wakefulness. She shook her head as if trying to clear it so that she could properly process what was happening.

The voice belonged to Bill Weasley. He was standing in her bedroom trying to wake her up because Death Eaters were coming to her house.

"What?" she exclaimed again.

"Death Eaters are coming, they will be here any minute." he stated. "So I suggest you get up so we can get out of here."

"Death Eaters? Here? But my parents, they..."

"Remus and Tonks are port-keying them to safety as we speak. I have one here for me and you, but we have to leave now." Bill interrupted hurriedly.

Hermione blinked as the cob webs cleared from her sleep addled brain. She looked closely at Bill and his smooth face then she grabbed her wand off of her night stand, jumped to her feet pointing it at the redhead. "What happened to your scars? The Bill Weasley I know would have scars from the Battle at Hogwarts."

"I started using a glamor charm for my scars so that I wouldn't scare people and you know I'm Bill, because last summer at the Burrow you and I shared the last piece of coconut cake as a midnight snack, and never said a word when Ron got in trouble for it the next day," he said quickly. "Now if you are satisfied it's me we really need to go. Unless, of course, you would rather stay. I'm sure Rita Skeeter would love to get her hands on a picture of you trading wand fire with Lucius Malfoy while you were still in your flannel PJ's." he teased.

Hermione glared at Bill for a second then lowered her wand. "Do I have time to change."

"Make it quick." Bill said as he turned around to give her privacy.

"I thought Lucius was in Azkaban?" Hermione asked as she pulled a pair of jeans and a sweater out of her wardrobe.

"He is." Bill confirmed."He was just the first Death Eater I thought." of Bill said.

"Done." Hermione responded. Bill turned to find Hermione stuffing her feet into her muggle trainers. He reached into his pocket and produced a pocket watch with a cracked face.

"Where are we going?" Hermione asked as they heard a hissing noise, like cold water hitting something hot.

"No time to explain. That's the protective wards the Order put on your house." Bill told her in a whisper "The Death Eaters are here, and are trying to break them. We have got to go, now!" he said as he held out the watch. Hermione placed a finger on the watch as Bill drew his wand and pointed it at the cracked time piece then muttered "Portus". With a familiar jerk at the navel, they were both gone.

Hermione had only traveled by portkey once before and hadn't really liked it. She, along with half of the Weasley offspring had ended up landing hard on the ground, so when she landed on her backside, in the middle of the kitchen at the Burrow, she wasn't too surprised. But she was, however, surprised to find the Burrow empty.

Even at this time of night, or early morning as it was, Mrs. Weasley should have be in the kitchen like always, there to greet her new house guests with tea or soup and a comforting hug. But the house was strangely quiet. Almost too quiet. There was no sound at all. Hermione looked at Bill who seemed to be just as confused as she was. Then for the second time that night they heard the hissing of wards trying to be broken.

"Oh, shit!" was all Bill could manage to say before there was a loud explosion of the wards being broken. He grabbed Hermione's hand "Hold on tight."

She grabbed on as tight as she could as she felt him start to turn away from her, and in an instant she felt as if she was being pressed into nothingness. She, of course could apparate alone, she had gotten her apparition license before school ended, but she still wasn't used to the feeling of being squeezed through a tube. Just when she thought she would black out from the lack of oxygen, she was suddenly breathing in the cool night air.

Everything around her was pitch black. She couldn't see anything. She had no clue as to where they were. If it wasn't for the fact that she was still clutching Bills arm she would have been terrified. "Bill, where are we?" she whispered.

Bill whispered back "We are in the alley at Grimmauld Place, but something isn't right here. There should be more lights. It's normally dark, but not this dark."

Suddenly the warmth of the night air was replaced with extreme cold. As the puddle next to them slowly turned to ice, they looked at each other. Both knew that could only mean one thing. Dementors. Almost as soon as they felt the bone chilling cold, they heard the rattling breaths of a dementor at the end of the alley. It knew they were there and it was coming for them. Bill raised his wand and shouted "Expecto Patronum" and a large cat burst out of his wand. It charged down the alley with all the grace of a lion on the hunt. Hermione barely had time to register that the shimmering beauty of Bill's Patronus was actually Lion before she realized that the dementor wasn't alone. At the other end of the alley another dementor was coming at them. She had no sooner raised her wand and shouted the spell when her otter was out of her own wand and heading toward the second dementor.

"Hermione, we need to get out of here." Bill said, watching as the two patronus' held off the dementors. "Grab my arm." She did, and with another twist they were gone.

Even though it was still dark Hermione immediately noticed the change of environment when she and Bill reappeared. The air was warm and thick, and a light rain fell around them. Off in the distance she could hear what sounded like waves crashing onto the shore leading her to wonder where they were. The sliver of moon that should have been in the sky was hidden behind large groups of dark rain clouds making it almost impossible to see. Bill lit his wand and the light revealed that they were standing on a path with heavy foliage and trees on each side. Hermione noticed a group of small trees to their right had grown up twisting around each other. Hermione thought it was odd until Bill turned to look at them.

"Hermione, look right at these trees and think 'Pharaoh's Sanctuary.'" he whispered in her ear.

Hermione looked at the trees and thought the words Bill had just told her. The trees in front of her and Bill started to split apart about a foot off the ground and continued to split until there was large archlike opening.

"Follow me." Bill said grabbing her hand to lead her through the arch. Once she had stepped through, the trees closed up behind her. "Now, light your wand and stay close and be careful. This path is steep."

Hermione lit her wand and followed Bill down a narrow path that sharply descended downward to the left, around what appeared to be the naked flat side of a cliff. To their right, what started out as trees and foliage on rocky ground slowly turned into a jagged cliff face as well, though it was not as high as the one left.

As the path made a sharp turn to the left around a equally as sharp corner of the cliff, Bill warned her to be careful as the path gave way from solid ground to a steep set of rocky steps that had formed into the side of the cliff. The rain had made them slick and he didn't want her to fall. A waist high rock wall sat on the outer edge of the steps and from what Hermione could tell there was nothing but air on the other side of the wall leading her to believe that they were somewhere high up. Finally after what seemed like fifty long steps down, Hermione stepped onto a large, stone, circular ledge. The outside of the ledge, like the steps, was surrounded by the rock wall. The inside of the ledge was the rocky face of the cliff. In the middle of the cliff was an old wooden door. It seemed like an odd place for wooden door to be but the longer Hermione as around magic the less things like this surprised her.

"Let's get inside." Bill said as he muttered a couple of spells and opened the door.

Hermione was expecting the area behind the door to be some sort of cave, with the walls floors and ceilings being made from the same rocks as the cliff, but when Bill flicked his wand to light a sconce on the wall, Hermione realized she couldn't have been more wrong. Stained, rough hewed wooden planks banked the walls of the rectangle room that wasn't much bigger than the single garage where Hermione's parents parked their car. The ceiling had the same rough hewn planks as the walls, but large dark stained wooden beams separated the planks at even intervals. The floor was also made up of wooden planks, but instead of being rough, they had been sanded smooth. The small room looked more like a cabin than the cave that Hermione had imagined. But again,while she was a bit more surprised about this than she was about the odd door in the middle of a cliff, she had been inside magical tents so the cabin inside a cave wasn't wasn't as surprising as it could have been.

To the left of the door was a small kitchen sink sitting beside it on the adjacent wall was a small cooking stove. On the wall to right of the door was a small rock fireplace. A small wooden table with four chairs sat in front of the fireplace, and behind the table on the back wall was a bed. To the left of the bed was a door that led into what appeared to be a small second room.

After Hermione had taken in the room, Bill pulled out a chair at the table and motioned for Hermione to do the same. You didn't have to be the brightest witch of your age to figure out that the Death Eater attacks tonight had half of the Order on the run and that this small cabin was probably one of their safe houses.

Bill cleared his throat and let out a deep breath. "I'm not going to belittle your intelligence by telling you that everything is alright. We both know that you know better. I'm not sure what happened tonight but I know that whatever it was it must have happened quick. Mum, Dad, and Ginny were all at the Burrow asleep whenever I left with Tonks and Remus to come get you. Neither them nor the Burrow was mentioned when we received the warning about the attacks."

"What warning? Why didn't the order let me know so I could be prepared." Hermione asked.

"We didn't get the warning until about ten minutes before I got to you." Bill explained. "A spy that we have working inside of You-Know-Who's camp sent McGonagall a patronus to let her know about the attacks. Tonks, Remus, Hagrid, Madeye, Charlie and myself was with her at the Burrow getting ready to discuss something that Professor Mcgonagall deemed important to come to the Burrow at four a.m. when she could talk with us all, when she got the information that Voldemort was giving his Death Eaters orders to attack two houses; yours, and the home of someone called, Patil, or something like that."

Hermione gasped.

"I assume you know the Patil family?" Bill asked softly.

"Parvati and Padma are both in my year at school. Parvati is in Gryffindor with me. Her twin sister is a Ravenclaw."

"Apparently, You-Know-Who was hoping to kidnap you and one of the Patil girls, in hopes that Harry would come after the two of you and rescue you. When we found out where they were attacking, Tonks, Remus and myself agreed that we should come and get you because your parents knew us and would trust us, while McGonagall, Madeye, Charlie and Hagrid went after the Patil's. Your parents were supposed to go with Remus and Tonks to a safe house I was supposed to take you to the Burrow."

"Is this the safe house my parents were supposed to come to?" Hermione asked.

"No. They were being taken to an Order safe house. This place is mine. No one else knows about it." Bill paused "I take that back, I told Fleur that I inherited this place, but she never wanted to come here, so she doesn't know it's exact location. Not that she needs to now." he said, adding the last part bitterly.

Hermione had been told by Ginny that Bill and Fleur and broken up shortly after the battle at Hogwarts. According to Ginny, Fleur had insisted on going back to France after she and Bill were married to get away from the violence and destruction of the Death Eaters and Voldemort so they could raise their kids away from the war, but Bill had wanted to stay and fight with his family. Ginny told Hermione that the fight that had ensued had been epic and resulted in Fluer throwing her ring at Bill and leaving the Burrow. Hermione also knew that no one at the Burrow had seen or heard from Fleur until yesterday when a picture of her draped around Victor Krum after his winning match against the Ugandans had been splashed across the front page of the Daily Prophet with the headline 'Krum Wins Match and French Beauty.' So Hermione could see why he was bitter.

"So what do we do now?" Hermione asked.

"We wait." Bill said with a sigh. "In an Order meeting last year, after the attack on the Burrow at Christmas, we decided as a group that if our homes were attacked that we should apparate to Grimmauld Place, and if Grimmauld Place was for some reason inaccessible then we should all apparate to a safe house. Each family in the Order has a safe house to go to. The general rule is to wait three days to let any attacks die down, then each member has a specfic place in Britain where they apparate to meet with other members to see if it's safe to return."

"Where do we apparate to?" Hermione asked curiously?

"When our three days is up, I will apparate to the spot and find out if it's safe to return and where we need to return to. Normally it would be the Burrow or Grimmauld Place, but after tonight, I don't know if the Burrow will still be standing. Bellatrix tried to burn it down at Christmas and I'm sure if she is given the chance she will try it again."

"Maybe we will get lucky and both of our houses will still be standing when we return." Hermione replied solemnly.

"Maybe." Bill replied.

"Do you think Charlie and my parents made it to their safe houses? " Hermione asked.

"I'm sure your parents did. Remus and Tonks were taking them straight to the safe house. As for Charlie we won't know for sure until we get back." Bill watched Hermione unconsciously bite her bottom lip in worry. He reached out and grabbed her hand. "It's going to be okay. If I know Charlie he is probably sitting in his own safe house wondering if we are okay."

"I hope so." Hermione said giving him a small smile.