A/N: Thank you:-D I live for reviews, so please, keep me alive! Review!
"Parvati! You scared me to death!" Padma trilled, shaking from fright and relief, and the rapid transition, rise and fall, of adrenaline coursing though her veins.
"Drowry is just around the corner, Padma!" Parvati chided her sister. "Hurry up!"
Padma made a quick decision, deciding that she didn't have time to explain to, nor convince, her sister, and shoved the spare wand back into the compartment, slamming it shut. "Emergency healing," she tossed to her sister, striding rapidly from the room.
She raced back to the room where she'd left Draco, slamming the door shut, blocking out the rest of the house, and their curious stares. She knelt beside Draco's bed, trembling in fear of what she would find, but was relieved to find him still alive, at least physically. He had vomited, and was still heaving air out onto the mattress in front of him, and she winced in pity.
She began to murmur a stream of spells under her breath, her voice songlike and soft, and watched as the burns and welts faded and his vomiting halted. She soon had him nearly back to health, cleaning the mess of blood and spilled semen and vomit away with a few choice spells; he still refused to acknowledge her presence.
Over the next few days, during which she continually hoped that he would come out of his trance, he seemed to decline steadily, growing thinner all the while, while he steadfastly refused to eat or acknowledge the existence of any living being.
Harry strode up the seemingly countless steps of the prison, his lips set in a firm line, the rest of his men fanning out to his sides, all cloaked in shadows of invisibility. He walked, a lone figure among the tide of destruction his men could and would wreak, the perfect figure of darkness and depth. His raven hair was covered in a deep jet hood which protruded to cover the entirety of his face, and continued on down his body in jet robes. With each step he took the robes billowed and abused the chill night air, whipping it and beating it, yet all the while remaining surprisingly quiet, as though well aware of the importance of the mission he was embarking on. He stalked up the steps like a lion descending on its prey, his lips quirking into a cruel grin when a woman appeared at the doorway as if summoned.
"Welcome!" She fairly purred, her wrinkled face contorting to what he was sure she thought was a sexy smirk but was really little more than a revolting grimace. "Welcome to the House of Serenity, where we…"
"Shut up, wench," he snarled in response, far too impatient to listen to her jingles or rhymes. "You know what I'm here for, now deliver."
She stuttered to a halt at his rude interruption, but kept her poise surprisingly well. "Yes, yes, of course, sir, now what would you like a blonde, a…"
"Are you Drowry?" he interrupted yet again, and she stuttered to a halt once more.
"Why, yes, yes I am, how may I be of assistance?"
"Is your House well-guarded, madam? I won't trust myself to just anyone, you know."
"Well, yes, for a small fee, we can have a guard posted to your room, he can be summoned immediately by floo…"
"But you don't have any guards on site?"
She smiled indulgently. "No, no, sir, I'm afraid we don't, they cost far too…"
Harry threw off the hood and advanced on her, wand raised, fairly growling. "Oh, it really is good that you're as cheap as Maxamno assured me you were. Now let us into the building, Drowry, or I'll kill you where you stand."
"You must be delusional, Harry Potter, there is no way I'll…" she broke off as others began to appear, sliding out of their spells and shadows, glaring and advancing menacingly. "On second thought," Drowry whimpered, reeling, "it wouldn't hurt to let you have a look around."
"Good girl," Harry purred, and followed her, wand still pointed directly at her heart, into the building.
"Expeliarmus!" he snapped, almost lazily, as she attempted to brandish her wand at him, and she squealed as her sole defense flew into a particularly burly-looking man's hand. "Now, now, Drowry, don't think that I would let you get away with that, now, old girl."
She whined and stomped her foot, but was spurred into movement by the continued presence of Harry's wand, which pointed unwaveringly at her heart.
"Drowry, the guy in room six…" the woman who'd exited room six froze in her tracks as she laid eyes on Drowry and her predator.
"Lavender! Lavender, darling, could you help me, here? These men seem to harbor some…"
"Harry!" Lavender breathed, her voice soft and disbelieving.
Harry offered her a gentle smile. "Lavender Brown."
"We've… we've waited so long… we thought… we thought you must have died!"
Harry winced and shook his head. "No, not died, just lost direction. I'm so sorry…"
But he wasn't given a chance to finish his thought, as his arms were suddenly full of a very happy Lavender Brown, so suddenly, in fact, that it knocked the breathe clear out of him. He coughed and wrapped his arms around her in return, and chuckled when she squealed in glee. "Oh, my word, they'll be so happy to hear you're alive!" she screeched, hopping on the spot.
"The feeling is mutual, believe me, Lavender. I thought that all of you had died…"
"No, we're all here. Well, all of the females. And I've heard a rumor that one of the males is here somewhere but I've never seen him. I don't know. But… oh! Right!"
She released him from the crushing hug she'd inflicted on him, only to let out the loudest, shrillest screech he'd ever heard. He winced and shook his head, but she seemed to know what she was doing, for all down the hallway doors began to open, and, further down, the sound was echoed. Soon the house had erupted into screeches and the sound of doors opening, and Harry realized that the girls had made a code to tell when help had arrived. Lavender vanished into the door opposite room six, and emerged with upwards of twenty wands, one of which she clasped in her right hand, the others which she levitated down the hall. Wands were snatched out of the air and put to good use, stupefying any males that may have attempted to thwart their long-awaited escape. Drowry was making a soft disbelieving noise in the back of her throat, shocked that the girls knew of her compartment, and shocked at their organization.
Harry wondered briefly why they'd never put the plan into motion without him. They were ridiculously well-organized, and they had the manpower to overthrow Drowry.
"Every time we thought we could try this," Lavender explained. "Drowry was close enough to summon her guards. We actually got as far the end of the stairs before they caught us, once, but since then, we haven't tried again. But now that you're here, we can get out of here!"
Harry smiled as the various familiar faces shook off the hands and oppression of the men of the house, striding confidently into the hallway in open and gleeful rebellion.
"Well, this is a lot easier that I expected," Harry chuckled, but he spoke too soon.
Drowry had somehow managed to snatch one of the levitating wands out of the air, and soon the house was flooded with her guards. The women launched into action, brandishing their wands like whips and swords, while the men bustled in further to assist. Harry slipped to the furthest reaches of the house, battling his way to the end of the hallway, impeding as many guards as he could along the way. He'd seen one girl who had been less enthusiastic about the rebellion, and was determined to find out why.
As he neared her, she shrank against the wall, terror in her every feature, as one of the guards closed in on her. Harry shot a curse at him, and he fell to the floor, unconscious.
He recognized the young girl, someone that had just entered her first year at Hogwarts when he was entering his seventh, but he couldn't place a name to her. She shuddered as he neared her, and he halted several feet from her. "My name is Harry Potter," he told her, his voice calm and reassuring. "I'm here to help you. I don't want you to get hurt, so if you follow me..?"
From out of the din of spells whirling through the air and screams of triumph from the women of his guard, he heard a decidedly male scream, and it was clearly a man in agony, but it was coming from the wrong direction. The fight was going on to his right, toward the front of the house, yet the scream had come from deeper in the house, to his left. A quick glance assured him that his side was winning the duel, and so he felt safe to investigate the scream.
"Dean!" he bellowed, and instantly his old schoolmate appeared at his side. "Watch her, take her outside and to the nearest safehouse. I'm putting you in control here, don't let me down, alright? Get these people out of here, I don't want that old bat summoning more of these bloody idiots."
"Yes, sir. Someone's taken the wand away, I doubt she'll be able to summon much of anything for a while," he smirked.
Harry tossed him a grin and turned back to the young girl before him. "This is my friend Dean. He's a good man. He'll take good care of you, alright? He won't let you get hurt. Go with him. He'll keep you safe."
She nodded, her eyes wide, and when Harry turned toward the source of the mysterious scream, Dean snatched at his wrist. "Where you going?"
"I heard something in the back," he replied coolly. "I'm going to go check it out."
"You need some backup?"
"Nah, I'll be alright, it may just be a mouse," Harry teased, and Dean nodded and turned his full attention to the young girl, flashing her a comforting smile.
"What's your name, hun?" he asked, and Harry wandered off before he could hear the answer.
He turned a few corners and traversed a pair of hallways before he came upon a most peculiar sight: two last unclaimed wands were levitating outside one of the doors, silently requesting entrance. He snatched them out of the air, raising a raven brow. One he recognized, but the other he didn't. Though he hardly knew any outside of his own personal guard, the wand did have a vaguely familiar appearance.
He stashed the wands in his pocket and clasped the knob is his left hand, preparing himself for the worst, whatever he could imagine.
He pictured clearly in his mind the spell to unlock doors, Alohamora, and swept the door open in a dramatically rushed display. He took in the sight that greeted him, and knew that he'd been wrong. He never could have imagined what he found, not in his worst nightmares.