Title: A Long Road Ahead
Author: Danii x2
Summary: After the kidnapping of Harry Potter, the clan at grimmald Place is frantically searching for him. Will they find him? If they do will he be able to recover and finally fight Voldemort?
Genres: Action/Adventure/Drama
Warnings: K+….nothing bad, references to torture and swear words
A/N: This is a seventh year summer fic. It's pre-HBP and it disregards the fact that Sirius died in OotP. So as far as you know Sirius was just stunned, he never fell into the veil (he's my favorite I couldn't let him die). Harry still learned about the prophecy and all that he just wasn't as angry, he was more panicking. As for Dumbledore he was killed when he was saving the school from Voldemort. I'm still piecing together what happened to him but in some of Harry's dementor attacks shows a little of his death.
Disclaimer- Nothing is ever mine...none of the books or those characters are mine…how depressing is that?
Chapter 1- Where'd you go?
A black haired, sixteen year old ducked as a blast of red sailed over his head. Harry Potter, the-boy-who-lived, was inwardly cursing Sirius for agreeing that they should be allowed to go to Hogsmeade.
His godfather, Remus and Mrs. Weasley had all agreed that going to Hogsmeade was safer than Diagon Alley and of course the Death Eaters just seemed to stalk his every move.
He ran quickly past Honeydukes as more spells were flung at his head. He skidded to a stop right behind the burning, Madame Puddifoot's. He ducked beneath a broken chair and hoped that Lucius Malfoy had not seen him.
Unfortunately, luck seemed to never be on his side. Harry sat quietly, praying that Lucius had not seen his quivering shadow. Harry wasn't afraid, but he was exhausted. He had been running for awhile, going from quidditch shop to where he was now and his lightning bolt shaped scar was searing painfully. Voldy was deliriously happy about something. Harry hadn't felt this much pain since the dementors left Azkaban and joined him.
"Crucio!!" a male voice cried. Harry felt intense pain rushing through his body. Each nerve and muscle was contracting with an unbelievable force. Harry screamed and wriggled trying to get out of way. Then the pain stopped and left Harry panting for breath. Lucius kicked him in the stomach and flipped him onto his back. Harry cringed and bit back a yelp. He had surely broken a few ribs.
"Diffindo," Lucius snarled. The curse hit him on the abdomen. It split his skin and Harry could feel his warm blood flowing over the sides. Lucius turned away from the sight and laughed. Harry knowing this was the only chance he had ducked out from the chair. Ignoring the pain he proceeded to sprint down the road to where he was to meet the others.
Suddenly, Harry stopped short, right at the end of the road. His friends were nowhere in sight, he hoped they were okay. Coldness swept over him and he felt the dizziness of approaching dementors. He felt light-headed as a wave of terrible memories were flooded into his mind.
He began to hear his mother screaming somewhere in his mind…the last few minutes of her life. His breath caught in his throat as he saw Cedric dying continuously. Then…he saw Dumbledore fall again onto the cold hard floor of the great Hall. His blue eyes with no light or twinkle. He felt tears prickling in the corners of his eyes. He was cornered near the shrieking shack. He squeezed his eyes shut trying to remember how he felt when he met Sirius for the first time.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!!" he shouted. A soft silvery vapor appeared. No! That wasn't going to work, instead of seeing his happily alive godfather, he saw him fall into the veil. Damn, the dementors were coming closer and Harry still couldn't produce a patronus. He scrunched up his face making himself think of nothing but Ginny. Her flowing red hair, her gorgeous brown eyes, her curvy figure, and their first kiss…
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!!" he yelled again. This time his silvery stag exited from his wand. He pranced to the herd of dementors.
"CRUCIO!!" Harry felt excruciating pain, racing all over his body. He screamed loudly, as he fell to the floor writhing and shrieking in pain.
"Hehe, I'm sorry Potter, but you're not going anywhere. Which do you want to keep up the dementors or the cruciatus curse? ANSWER ME." A woman had followed him as he ran from the dementors and death eater.
It was Bellatrix Lestrange, the evil bitch woman who tortured Neville's parents and made them be insane.
Harry didn't say anything. He was still dealing with the effects from the cruciatus curse and searching fro his wand. He couldn't find it anywhere, it wasn't in his hand or in his left pocket.
"Not going to say anything? Ooh. You're so bad, I guess we'll just have to keep both coming. CRUCIO!" She said waving her wand in the same motion. In her right hand she held her own wand but in her left she held Harry's. He could feel burning anger boiling over the surface as she twirled his wand in between his fingers.
The dementors came closer, and the pain from the curse increased even worse. The images, and voices swam inside his mind making him incapable of thinking properly. As the voices became louder and the pain more evident, Harry fell into peaceful oblivion, not even noticing the tug behind his naval.
Ginny stumbled past a group of people crowding around the Three Broomsticks. She saw Sirius, Remus, and Ron sitting on the steps near the large shop, all looking worn, exhausted and bloodied.
Remus normally ragged robes were burned at the bottom and the entire left sleeve was gone, revealing an ugly recently healed wound. Ron had no noticeable cuts but he had a burn on his cheek about five centimetres below his eye and he had a strip of his robe tied around his palm. Sirius had a deep cut in his shoulder that was spouting fresh blood and was leaning against the stair handle like it was his lifeline. Remus and Sirius were so preoccupied with trying to stop the flow of blood that they didn't notice her approaching.
"Guys!" she cried as she walked past a trembling seven year old girl who clung to her mother's hand like it was a lifeline.
"Ginny, thank Merlin you're all right." Ron exclaimed. "Mom would have killed me if anything happened to you. Where's Harry? Have you seen Hermione?"
"What do you mean, isn't he with you guys?" Ginny asked, sounding lightly frantic. "Is she not here too?"
"We got separated," Ron said curtly, his tall figure peering over the mob of terrified townspeople.
"Let's not worry, he's probably being heroic and Hermione is probably trying to deflate his ego and drag him away from a fight," Remus said. After a few minutes of watching the number of people leave the area and worrying to themselves, they spotted three familiar faces. Tonks and Fred were leading George who was limping somewhat.
"Is everyone here?" Tonks asked, looking dishevelled, her sleek red hair was falling out of her bun, and her face was covered in black soot, her pale blue eyes reflected pain, yet she kept her collected, cool and calm auror/ investigator voice.
"No, Harry and Hermione aren't." Ginny whispered. She bent down and helped another family with their mess of packages that had fallen in the mad rush to get to an apparation or portkey point.
"Are we sure they're not with Moody?"
"Yes, Moody and Kingsley went to get the order. Load of luck that'll do, most of the death eaters are already gone. They came to bring fear and pain and then left within five minutes. I didn't even get to curse anyone." Sirius said. Remus snorted and exchanged glances with Tonks who rolled her eyes at her cousin's eagerness.
"'Mione!!" Ron shouted startling Ginny, who had nearly fallen as he jumped in the air and shouted.
"Ron!" Hermione said as Ron engulfed her in a hug and a kiss on her forehead. She winced and cradled her injured wrist.
Remus stepped around the sitting form of George and began to examine her cuts and tend to her wrist.
"Where's Harry?" Tonks asked.
"Huh? You mean he's not back here?" She asked her tone of voice clearing showing her worries. "How could he not be here?"
"Hermione calm down. And what happened. Please tell us slowly," Tonks said slightly impatient. It seemed that the severity of their situation was starting to get to her.
"The three of us ran out of the shop maybe about two seconds before it exploded." She said pointing to herself and Ron, "Harry and I ran in the direction of Honeydukes while Ron went toward the Post Office. We...erm...both ducked behind a fallen sign when about six death eaters appeared from thin air. Stupidly, we began firing. We sent a couple of stunners—I think we sent two of them down—but the others took cover and one shot two cutting curses—one caught my arm—and the other missed both of us." She touched her arm with the uninjured hand, "Then the other shot cruciatus and thank goodness it missed both of us." She gulped and Ron tightened his grip around her.
"We both ducked after that cause they bombarded us with all types of spells, most nonverbal and a few that exploded things close to us. I shot off another stunner, and in return half of the sign I was hiding behind was blown apart. Harry, as a distraction, sent off some of his own curses and I crouched down further. I began firing again and well I guess my arm got in the way, before I knew it I had cried out from the pain and they resumed attacking my sign."
"That bloody sucks. Was it a bone breaking curse?" Fred asked.
"It was," Remus answered as he prodded her wrist resulting a hiss of pain from Hermione.
"Anyway, Hermione if you could continue. I have the feeling that this story isn't much longer,"
Hermione nodded and continued,squeezing her eyes shut as Remus repaired the bone, " Since our signs were close together, Harry and I ran. Not a minute to soon, I suppose. Not long after we had both reached the forest we heard the sound of a crash and the loud swearing of the men. We both ran. I guess we never noticed we weren't running together and…erm…I didn't stop until I got to the edge and ended up maybe about thirty meters from the Shack. Now that I think about it, I don't know why I didn't use a spell. I knew the perfect spell for investigating the forest, I found it in one of my new books but I didn't use it…it really makes no sense, I wasn't under immense amount of fire, I was just running,"
"Adrenaline." Sirius said. Noticing several confused expressions, he rolled his eyes and continued, "You were running on adrenaline. You know the stuff that makes your blood pump really fast and has your mind make most of your decisions really rational and just based on survival?" He raked a hand through his hair, "Seriously, am I the only one that knows about human anatomy. Surely you know Moony?"
Remus chuckled and said, "Forget it. It's for later explanations. Hermione is that the last you remember?"
"Yes, I ran from the forest and past the post office. I was going to go to the apparation point and then go straight to the house but then I spotted you lot near the steps." Smiling slightly, she turned to Ron. "Actually I think he spotted me first,"
"Well that narrows it down just a bit," Fred said sarcastically, "Harry could be anywhere". He then winced and fell to the ground next to George when Tonks kicked the area behind his knee caps.
"Hermione helped a lot," Tonks said noticing the grateful look Hermione threw at her. She knew the Hermione wasn't in the mental state to deal with Fred's antics. "Now we know that Harry's not in this general area but he ould be in the forest hiding or injured—"
Suddenly, a loud shout pierced the air. Both Remus and Sirius shot up in the air, listening closely.
"Harry," they said in unison and facing west. Sirius jumped off steps and transformed into his big black dog. He sniffed the ground in search for a scent. His entire body stiffened and his nose pointed in the general northwest direction toward the shrieking shack. Remus bent down by the dog, as Sirius transformed back into his human self.
"I got his scent, but it's mixed with a vaguely familiar perfume," he said his face twisted in repulsion. Remus closed his eyes and gingerly letting the wolf take control for brief seconds he opened them, shocking the people that never saw the wolfish part of him, with the brilliant gold color. He sniffed the air. He sniffed again, and convulsed in disgust. He snarled at the familiar scent, his mouth curling over his surprisingly sharp teeth. Gearing himself for having to take control over once again he closed his eyes and tensed visibly. Then stopped suddenly. He shook his head and stretched his body to get out the kinks.
"I know who's that is. That's Bellatrix' perfume. She still uses the same one since Hogwarts," he said holding a hand over his mouth and shaking head, trying to clear it from the smell.
"I thought he was the dog?" Fred asked pointing toward Sirius. Everyone was staring at the two in amazement.
"He is but Moony sense of smell is really good too. Okay lets go. Sirius turn back into Padfoot." He said taking control of the situation. Sirius nodded and transformed once again. He set off at a fast pace making everyone jog to keep up and have to push through the thinning crowd. He made several odd turns until they came to a halt near the shrieking shack. In the clearing near it to be exact.
Padfoot whimpered and shook his long black hair out of his dog eyes. He then began frantically searching through the bushes around the area. Sirius transformed back into himself.
"This is where the trail ends," he said softly. He shivered wrapping an arm around himself. The group split up and began searching the area. Twenty minutes later they congregated around a huge tree in the middle of the semi-clearing.
"I was right here," Hermione whispered. "I was just in that clearing over there," she pointed a finger to the side. She stared at her finger in disgust. How could she have been that close to Harry yet far enough away that he didn't hear her cries?
"Tonks is there a spell to see if a portkey was just used?" Remus asked softly breaking the poignant silence that had previously graced the group.
"Yea, sure. It's a basic auror spell." Tonks waved her wand over the ground in front of her, while the others peered and examined the ground for any chance that nothing happened and Harry would turn up unharmed.
Suddenly, her wand emitted a high-pitched squeal. She looked up from the ground to meet seven pairs of eyes.
"Since you haven't said anything yet we're assuming a portkey was used. Was it?" Hermione asked..
"Yeah, but I can't track where they are. They cleaned this up expertly." She said tiredly. "Let's go back to headquarters and break the news to Molly."
The group, almost in unison, exhaled the breathe that they had unconsciously had held. They trudged wearily across the grass and with utter hopelessness held onto the old boot they used for a portkey.
Yay!! The first chapter is here for all of you folks to read. I hope you like it! Please review…. I know you see it…so move your mouse and click it…Its not that hard just type a few words…I'll even take nonsense words!!! Thanks for reading (and reviewing?)!
