Vestibule of the Wayward Fayth - chapter 1
"Ready?" Harry hissed, standing to the left of Hermione with a death grip on his wand. If he applied even a single newton more it would likely snap.
Not that her own was faring any better. She swore if she ever worked for the Ministry it would not be in this Department. The air in here made the hair on her arms stand on end and there were already goosebumps emerging all over her skin. They had only been in here for five minutes having snuck in through a back door. Even so, her skin had started to go cold the moment they stepped over the threshold and into this place.
She could see why the Death Eaters prefered it for their own work. The atmosphere was perfect for it. Probably tainted by all the dark magic being cast down here.
The wall she was currently leaning against must have soaked some of it up as well. There was a tingling at her spine, like something was crawling up her back, again and again. Small thin legs, like that of a spider moving up and falling back to the bottom in a seamless cycle. Though she knew there was no spider there with her back firmly pressed up against the wall. There was no room for a sliver of air between her and the stone. Even when she shivered when those phantom spiders were crawling up the back of her neck.
Hermione shook her head firmly this time to get rid of that feeling and for a moment she swore one of those legs misplaced and the feeling went away as it fell back to the base of her spine.
She drew in a sharp breath of air. No. There was nothing there, she assured herself again. It was all just her imagination. It was this bloody place. The moment she was out of here she would be a happy camper. Anywhere was better than here.
"I'm good to go," Hermione whispered back. "Did everyone else make it?"
Harry paused, hand dipping into his pocket and drawing out a fake Galleon that had the letters, IP etched into it's surface. "Yeah, they're ready. Remember the plan?"
How could she forget? They were here to ambush the Death Eaters and take whatever they were working on. It was a hit and run sort of mission really. Take away the Death Eater's resources, put a damper on their efforts, maybe injure a few and then get the hell out of there. She wished they were already leaving.
"Take everything, what they're working on." Whatever that was. They didn't actually know because the Order didn't know. They simply got the message that this section of the Department of Mysteries had been taken over by the Death Eaters. She really wished they had picked a different section.
"Alright." From his shaky voice this place was unnerving Harry as well. "You haven't heard anything since we got here, have you?"
She blinked, a drop of sweat falling from her lashes to her cheek. "No." The place was quiet, unnaturally so. The floor was stone like the walls so they didn't creak and there were no windows this far down for fresh air to blow through. Usually she would find small sounds like that distracting in a mission like this where it was crucial that you heard everything going on around you but right now it just made her want to scream.
"Stick to the walls then, nice and easy."
She nodded before glancing around the corner of the wall and into the longer room. It was a mostly open space, except for the display cases dispersed at random in middle vicinity. Those were made of wood, the glass showing the numerous time turners that had been placed with great care into their slots. Each one of them was broken, leaking so much unused magic into the room that it was enough to make her head spin.
She looked over each of the display cases with care, checking the latches were still firmly in place like when they had first gotten here. That no one had come in with a muffliato spell on their bodies and messed around with the contents of the room. Just because the time turners were broken didn't make them any less dangerous. That's why they were here in this Department afterall. Always being checked that none had become active while the employees tried to figure out how to fix them and run tests to make sure they worked again. Personally she thought it was the most dangerous occupation she had ever heard of.
"Clear." She slid her foot around the corner, keeping her back firmly pressed to the wall as she moved to the next room, inching along with her eyes darting in all directions.
The fact that they hadn't heard a single noise yet did nothing to calm her nerves as she walked. Usually they would of heard something by now. She found herself hoping this was another false lead. They couldn't really afford another after the Death Eaters attack last week, but still.
She stopped next to a door and raised her hand slowly to push at the wood, holding in her breath when it swung open slowly, silently. The last thing they needed was the door creaking and giving them away if the Death Eaters were here. Hermione leaned over, poised on one foot as the other floated over the ground towards the edge of the door.
A pair of fingers came into her vision and then a hand followed, shooting out from the gloom and she flung herself into the door so they passed her by. She could hear the wood bounce off the stone behind her just as the arm wrapped around her throat when the hand had missed it's mark, yanking her back into the dark room. Her feet skidded across the floor, the door closing with a bang in front of her eyes and she could no longer hold in that scream. "Harry!"
There were other spells going off in that room, she could hear them, but only just. It was the breathing next to her ear that was crystal clear and she slammed her head back into the person's jaw. She brought a foot up quickly afterwards, kicking back where she guessed the knee was. There was a groan behind her and she swung her elbow back, digging into the ribs and was rewarded with an angry shout, the arm dropping from her throat.
She stumbled from her attacker's grip, wheeling to the side and coughing as she fought to get air quickly back into her lungs. Her chest connected with something, a desk, some wood furnishing. She gripped at it with one hand, pointing her wand at the spot she had heard the Death Eater with the other and shouted, "Confringo!"
A flare of red burst from her wand, lighting up the room for a second so it glowed orange just before it crashed into a figure in dark robes. Spots of red and yellow entered her vision as those same robes went up in flames and whoever had attacked her was screaming, a blur of color in the otherwise dark room. A crash echoed in her ears and there was light spilling into the room, smoke dissipating from the open door with embers clinging to the wood.
She sucked in a breath of air before darting forward and out of that room to have her senses assaulted. There were spells being flung everywhere, blasting into the walls to tear out chunks of stone that landed with a loud thud and surely chipped away at the floor beneath it. A blue light at the corner of her vision made Hermione fling herself back into the wall as the spell shot past to hit the far end of the room. She turned, arm raised, wand pointed down, "Colloshoo!"
As the spell left her wand she was sliding across the wall, reaching out with her other hand to the display case that was now directly in front of her, waving her open empty hand at the object.
It slid over the ground and she dived forward as another spell shot past her. Her back met with the wood and she took in a deep breath of air as the world around her calmed for a second.
Now that she was facing the other way she could see Luna off to her right, a spell shooting forth from her wand into the direction she had just been facing and she wondered for a moment if it had hit the Death Eater who's shoes she had just glued to the floor. One could hope.
There was shouting filling the room as other members of the Order were engaged in combat, even if she couldn't see them clearly from her rather bad vantage point she could hear them; Ron was shouting but the words were lost in all the blasts, Fred and George casting spells one after the other, Neville screaming about a ceiling collapse, Ginny delivering a hex, and Harry, yelling, "Get back to the wall! Hermione!"
At the sound of her name she pushed up from the ground, turning as she whirled around to face the direction of the Death Eaters, "Duro!" she shouted, wand just above the case in front of her.
"Everte Statum!" She heard the spell just before it connected with her chest, sending her flying backwards.
The sound of glass shattering filled her ears just before her back felt like it had been set ablaze. Her vision swam for a moment, dots of black filtering across the blaze of lights beyond that. She glanced down to see specks of unmoving red on the ground, on her robes, her skin. Blood. She could feel it running down her back as well, could see shards of glass next to her with the sides tinged in red. The palms of her hands felt warm, wet.
When she pushed against the ground to get back up she let out a scream, slipping back so her head hit the wood edge of the case again. Her head was pounding and she closed her eyes for a second, trying to force it to stop.
It was silent for a moment, and then she heard a soft sort of whirring. Metal spinning.
With a gasp she opened her eyes, glancing down to see a time turner lying just a few inches beneath her collarbone hanging by a short chain that she could feel wrapped around her neck. The usual golden disk had slits along it, forming a symbol as it picked up speed.
"Have a nice trip, mudblood." Her head shot up to see a Death Eater standing in front of her, burn marks covering his robe and one side of his face an angry red. "Animus Necrosis."
A shadow fell from the tip of his wand, slowly making its way through the air toward her, like oil running along the ground. It slowed the closer it got to her and she found herself wishing for the time turner to work faster, hoping the spell wouldn't reach her. The dark sludge sprung forward when it was only an inch away, wrapping around her. The shadow spreading quickly. She could just see it dripping down her legs when her vision went black.