Title: Order Of The Dragon
Part: Chapter 1
Author: Svelte Rose
Fandom: Harry Potter
Couples: ???
Disclaimer: Characters belong to a lovely Miss Rowling.
12 Grimmauld Place, London – 1:30 am
Silence greeted his question and he looked back to Dumbledore.
"Harry," Sirius began.
"We haven't had time to question Tonks about the situation of the matter just yet." Remus supplied.
"Then start questioning," He urged while wringing his hands very much like Molly had done just a day earlier.
"Let us move down to the parlour room, it's far more comfortable there," Dumbledore suggested as he turned around and started making his way down the narrow stairs.
"Ron will want to hear about this-," Harry turned to open the door but found his hand had been snatched by Snape.
Glaring at the dark-haired boy, Snape pushed him toward the stairs, "It will not do anybody any favors if you tell that brainless idiot. We don't need to deal with two whimpering sods."
Remus sighed and took the glaring teenager by his back, "Come Harry, let them sleep. We'll tell them once they wake up tomorrow morning."
Harry nodded and followed the Order members down the stairs, the feeling of worry in his stomach never leaving.
Unknown – 1:50 am
Hermione shuddered and rubbed the goosebumps on her arms as she looked down the narrow passageways to the best of her abilities. While she had seen nor heard anything besides her own rustling and footsteps, it didn't help quell the fear. She had to remind herself several times that she was a Gryffindor – for Merlin's sake! – and it would not do to have a Gryffindor scared just because she was alone.
Quickly making her way, she only stopped to investigate when the carvings of various – was it snakes? – serpent-like creatures increased.
When she first arrived, it had been in a small dark room with only one passage. Not feeling very good about her chances, she had tried appariting but realized hat was out of the question. She definitely did not want to splinch herself and end up in another part of Death Eater territory missing various limbs.
Thankfully, the wound on her head had stopped bleeding earlier when she began her hunt for the exit but she didn't enjoy the pain that was still associated with it and the spell of dizziness she kept on getting. Leaning up against the wall, she stopped for a moment to re-gather her thoughts. Hermione rubbed the back of her neck and sighed. She had already looked for Tonks to no avail and hoped that at least the Auror had been able to make it back safely.
"Hermione!" Tonks called out in the dark before the door burst open, splinters of wood flying everywhere. The Auror fell down and quickly muttered a 'portus' spell on her shoe.
"That's right, she created a portkey," The bushy-haired witch grinned. Therefore…
"Stupid, why didn't I think of that earlier." She chided herself as she went to take off her shoe. Just as she bent down to grab the shoe, Hermione immediately stopped as her blood ran cold and a slight rustling could be heard.
"Nox!" She quickly whispered to her wand before she was plunged into darkness once more. Breathing lightly and bending low, she cast a gripping charm on her wand. The rustling was more audible now and just as she started moving away from the noise, light flared up all around her.
The only thing Hermione could hear now was her reverberating scream as she stared into a pair of blood-red eyes.
12 Grimmauld Place, London – 2:00am
"She disappeared before my very eyes. I assumed it must've been a portkey. Avery took the cloak from us when we were running from them." Tonks finished wearily as she accepted a cup of tea Remus offered to her.
"There's no other explanation for it," Sirius added rubbing his chin while he glanced at his tense god-son.
"I'm so sorry Harry, if I'd only been more-," Tonks began, her gaze imploring the young wizard to understand.
"It's not your fault," Harry quietly responded. "It's my fault for letting her go, for letting her get into this mess, I should've argued more, I should've made her stay, I should've-,"
"Should've, would've but we didn't. Now is not the time to act on a fashion of regrets." Snape rolled his eyes as he stood up.
Harry and Sirius both shot glares to the potions master.
"Where are you going?" Remus asked quietly as he watched Snape make his way to the doors.
"I'm going to wake Molly Weasley up. Since the locator spell doesn't work…" He began.
"Then the clock may give us a clue as to where Hermione might be." Dumbledore finished quietly.
Unknown – 2:40 am
She had no idea where she was. Instead of running away from the noise, she had ran even deeper into the tunnel and to her amazement, with every step, flames held up by some invisible force lit up. Her breathing was erratic; when she entered a large room, it grew even more erratic when she realized there was no other exit other than the one she came through.
Rows and rows of flames lip up, illuminating the serpent-like gargoyles whose jeweled eyes bore in her. All of the sudden, she was thrown violently into the wall where she stifled a cry. Groaning and without even looking, she screamed, "Reducto!" And noticed her spell took a rather large chunk from the wall. Scrambling up fearfully, she jerked around looking for any sign of her attacker before she was thrown roughly against the wall once more.
12 Grimmauld Place, London – 3:00am
The lot of them were mystified as they watched a single hand out of the many, on the clock, spin in a rapid circle. Whereas many of the Weasley offspring had their location pointed to 'sleeping', the hand that Mrs. Weasley had designated for Hermione was spinning clockwise, never once stopping.
"It isn't broken," Molly firmly stated. "There must be some powerful magic at work to confuse the clock."
Dumbledore watched silently with cold eyes as the clock hand inscribed, 'Hermione', spun like the devil was chasing it.
Unknown – 3:10 am
A bone jarring pain pulsated through her body as an audible crack could be heard. Hermione gagged from the pain and she surmised that at least one rib had to have broken under the duress her body was being placed under. Forcing her pounding head up, it didn't help that she had double vision or that the walls were moving.
Wait…what?
The serpent-creatures which were carved upon the wall were no longer inanimate, in fact, one glared at her with it's jeweled eyes and hissed while detaching itself from the wall.
The brave Gryffindor wasted no time and with a loud "reducto!" blasted at the nefarious creature. The serpent-creature hit the wall and landed on the stone ground with a thud. It shimmered a bit before disappearing completely. That was not what captivated Hermione's attention however, it was the other carvings that were quickly detaching themselves from the wall and with eyes glowing, made their way toward the witch.
One in particular lunged at Hermione and sank their fangs into her leg before she had a chance to get away.
Screaming in pain, Hermione grabbed the creature by the neck and pulled it off, tears falling freely down her cheek as the snake took some of her skin with it. Flinging it as far as she could, she screamed out, "Stupefy!" and quickly leapt out of the way from the next flying serpent-creature.
"Stay back!" She hollered in determination, fear evident in her eyes.
The serpents (there was about six coming at her, not counting the one she had blasted earlier) stopped and like their first fallen foe, shimmered before disappearing.
Hermione watched as paths were still being carved into the dust on the ground.
Bloody hell! They were invisible!
"Aguamenti!" She screamed. As she intended, the rivults of water shooting from the tip of her wand faintly outlined the slithering forms. "No wonder Snagov Monastery showed so many explosions of dark magic, they must be Voldemort's creatures." She whispered. The serpents were too large to be any sort of ordinary snakes and they possessed arms and legs which ruled out the possibility of another basilik. Noting the pain in her abdomen and her left leg, she backed up when the realization sinked in.
"You're dragons!" She screamed, horrified. While they weren't as large as the dragons Charlie tended to in Romania, they were certainly in possession of the physical attributes.
"And that is where you are wrong, child," One of them spoke gravely. She noticed that the faint outlines were slowing morphing into more human-like figures.
She hissed at them, "Is Voldemort running so low on support he had to call unregulated creatures to his cause?" It was rhetorical of course but the response couldn't have surprised her more.
"You wretched child, we don't work for that filthy monster!" One of them snarled, his green eyes glittering dangerously.
"We have another master," Another calmly answered. But the cold power emanating from his body was more than proof to the clever witch that he was probably one of the more powerful ones.
"She was delicious," One of them hissed, being only half-way in his transformation. Hermione deducted this was probably the one that had bit her in the leg.
One-by-one, they appeared before her, dressed in leather cloaks, stark white skin, blood red lips and glowing eyes.
"Reducto!" She spelled immediately, blasting away three of them. Biting her tongue hard, she willed the pain away and dashed towards the entrance she had come from.
Adrenaline was what kept her from realizing the amount of pain her body was with-standing and basic instincts kicked in giving her the focus she needed to perform what simple spells she could. Hermione knew she probably wasn't going to get out of here alive but damned if she wasn't going to try.
She had only made it half-way before she flew up in the air and was thrown backwards against the wall, much higher than the last couple of times she'd been flung.
Her skull smacked against the wall and both her arms flung out as a trickle of blood dribbled from the corner of her mouth. The gripping charm had come undone as in her right hand relaxed. Her left arm had hit something else though and in an act of self-preservation, she tried gripping whatever she could before plummeting painfully to the ground. Her hand DID get a hold of something but to her ire, it fell with her.
"No!" Several howls echoed on the empty walls.
It all happened in a fraction of a second with her legs hitting the ground first. She barely had time to register the snapping of a leg bone before her face and torso smacked the stone floor. Whatever she'd been holding hadn't been very sturdy because it shattered under her weight, sharp pieces piercing her body. A strange sticky fluid splattered from the impact of her body as blood mixed with whatever was in the jar pooled around her still form.
Blood mixed with saliva poured from her mouth as her brown-eyes stared wide-eyed at her wand which only lay a couple of feet away. Her dislocated shoulder and broken leg were the least of her worries. Not even pain of her stomach acids burning away at her organs could faze her.
No, what made her convulse terribly in pain was a surge of magical power, old magic that pulsated through her body while her own blood mixed with the sticky substance. She had a distinct want to vomit but her body was too wound up, too tight for it. Blood poured from the various wounds of her body and despite the desperate wish to reach her wand, Hermione knew she was fighting a lost battle. Even if she did get a hold of it, she was in no state to perform any spells, not even a simple lumos.
Her hand weakly reached out, brown eyes beseeching the wand to come to her. But she could not reach it and it did not come to her no matter how many moans poured forth from her mouth.
Hermione's nostrils were caked with dust and grime mixed with blood. Eardrums pounding and eyes bulging out, she choke viciously as her heart pounded furiously against her ribcage.
Then darkness.
Malfoy Manor, London – 3:33am
A pair of grey eyes snapped open as his mouth opened in a silent scream. Beads of sweat broke out on his face, fingers jerking and muscles twitching, he gurgled as another jolt of pain shot through his body. In a few seconds, he was on his stomach waiting for the acrid taste of bile to past.
"Oh god," Came the soft spoken whisper before his faithful wife muttered a quick cleaning spell. "Lucius, your teeth!"
The man in question lifted his fingers tenatively to his mouth and delicately rubbed at the new, sharp canines, wincing when they drew blood.
12 Grimmauld Place, London – 3:33am
"It's slowing down," Harry grinned happily as he leaned closer. But his happy countenance quickly turned into one of abject horror.
"What is it?" Mrs. Weasley cried as she pushed her way forward. Screaming in her palm, she alerted the other Order members who quickly moved to surround the clock.
"Merlin," Remus whispered.
On the grandfather clock, one lone hand pointed-
Mortal Peril.
Note: The stance Rowling had for the romantic aspects of her character's lives (until the sixth book anyway) is the stance I will be taking- not saying for certain who is to be with whom. This is a story that's centered around Hermione therefore there will be no certain pairing...yet. While this chapter came out fast enough and rather long considering my penchant for writing short chapters, I'm not sure if I'm satisfied with the turnout mainly because I can't wait to start revealing more important parts of this infernal plot. However, it served its purpose. This one author is rarely satisfied with her work and the silly child that she is, rather enjoys it when her readers take the time to comment! Also, a sugar cookie to anybody who can figure out what has happened to our lovely heroine.
