Hermione was curled up under her warm down blanket drifting in and out of sleep contemplating how to proceed in their quest. For weeks she was working to assemble her two lightsabres, but each time she was nearly finished her focus slipped and everything clattered back to the ground forcing her to start anew. She had then tried to build each one separately but had soon realized that she would only been able to finish them together. She also had an uneasy feeling about the dark crystal. She had learned that each crystal was void of any colour until they were emitted for the first time. But the dark one seemed to be more volatile. What colour would this one create?
Her brother had left them after they had apparated to safety after the ending of the twenty-four hours. The snatchers had swarmed the hills and mountains around the temple, but it seemed that they had ben unable to detect the sacred place. He had left her with the address of one safe house in case they would need it but stressed that they should only use it if absolutely necessary. During their long wait on the temple stairs she had pestered him on what he was doing, and she had been astonished to learn that some people of the Force sensitive families were working underground to save and protect Muggle-borns, Squibs or other endangered people from the current administration. Galen had built up an entire spy network with wizards and witches from all over the world, which brought them out of the country. Several of his Durmstrang collegues including Krum were working for him. Victor's participation had surprised her as he was at the height of his career and he had officially taken a year off. And was according to Galen his second in command. They worked together with the Order, but only a few knew who the "Wrath" was. Just like Fulcrum's network the cells were working independently, but he coordinated them. Hermione was proud of her brother and was one of the reasons why the death rate among the muggle's or muggle-borns wasn't higher.
They were currently in the forest of Dean after Harry had survived a nervous breakdown after realizing that his idol Dumbledore wasn't as perfect as he had seemed to be and that he had not prepared him as best as he could have had. His constant dreams about Voldemort and Nagini, which caused him many sleepless nights had made his situation even worse. Hermione suspected that he was dealing with a mild form of PTSD, which was not unsurprising. Here too snow lay on the trees all around and it was bitterly cold, but they were at least protected from the wind. They spent most of the day inside the tent, huddled for warmth around a heater that Hermione had finally taken out from her bag and which was powered by one of the power cells that could only be find in the galaxy and not on Earth yet.
Suddenly something snapped in the air and Hermione bolted upright. Something had happened. Something monumental. Her drowsy tiredness was gone. Instead, it was replaced by a ready alertness. She pushed her hair out of her face and stood up quickly. Slightly wavering for a few seconds.
"Hermione." She heard Harry's call from outside. When she stretched out her senses she could detect his elation. He was happier and more opportunistic than a few hours ago. His depressed mood was gone.
"What's wrong? Harry. Are you alright?" she called back slipping into her boots. Suddenly her senses recognized another human being next to Harry. Every fibre in her body became alert and she gripped her wand tightly with her right hand and loosened her blaster strapped to her left leg with her hand.
"It's okay, everything's fine. More than fine. I'm great. There's someone here."
"What do you mean? Who —?" She could sense a familiar presence and stopped her questioning when a familiar face entered the tent after her dark-haired friend who backed into a shadowy corner.
Ron stood there holding the sword of Gryffindor, while dripping onto the threadbare carpet.
Hermione's mind was racing, and she mentally was preparing to move their location. She stepped like a sleepwalker towards Ron, whose hair had been turned into a dirty blonde. He was pale, and he seemed to have lost quite some weight. She stopped right in front of him scrutinized thoroughly. He smiled hopefully at her and raised his hands partly, but she didn't return it.
Suddenly she quickly launched forward grabbing his right hand, turned her back towards him and flipped him over her shoulder hearing a loud plop when he hit the floor with his back. The sword clattering to the floor with a loud metallic clunk.
He wanted to stand up, but she stopped him locking him onto the floor with her boot, while pointing her wand towards his terrified face. "Don't move." She growled deeply.
"Hermione!" Harry protested trying to pacify her: "Calm down."
"I will not calm down." She shouted. Why could he not understand that she needed to know how he found them. He could be a plant by the enemy. He could have been turned against them.
"How did you find us?!" she enquired with blazing eyes locking them with his wide ones. Her brother had used a tracker. Ron didn't have one. So, she must have overlooked something. Ron tried to wrestle himself out of her firm grip from under her boot, but it was useless and he moaned in pain.
"I asked you to stay, but you left us!" she accused him still pinning him to the ground.
"I know." Ron whimpered. "Hermione, I'm so sorry. Really, I'm." She could sense that he was sincere, and it dampened her fiery mood, but she still needed to know how he had found them.
"You come her after weeks and expect us to take you back as if nothing has happened." She growled applying pressure to Ron's shoulder again, who winced. "We could have been dead, for all we know. You could have died, and I wasn't able to protect you both." Hermione screamed. She could sense Ida hovering out of her bag, ready to strike. Galen had shaken his head after finding out that she had that droid with her. He didn't like that droid.
Ron's eyes filled with tears hearing the last part. She was angry because she had been worried about him.
"I knew you weren't dead!" bellowed Ron. "You two are all over the Prophet, all over the radio, they're looking for you everywhere, all these rumours and mental stories, I knew I'd hear straight off if you were dead.".
"Hermione, I wanted to come back." He cried with tears streaming down from his eyes, but I couldn't find you at all and I had several run ins with snatchers. They are everywhere, and…"
"We know." Hermione interrupted him coldly still training her wand on him.
"Bottom line I evaded them and splinched myself again. He showed her his hand which was missing two fingernails. When I came back to the Riverbank. You were already gone."
"Of course, we were. You can fill us in on the details later." Hermione interrupted him rolling her eyes.
"There is only one thing I want to know right now. How did you find us?"
His hands disappeared into his pocket and pulled out a small silvery object.
"The Deluminator?" Hermione asked with incredulity.
Yes. Ron explained hastily "It doesn't just turn the lights on and off," said Ron. "I don't now how it works or why it happened then and not any other time, because I've been wanting to come back ever since I left, but one day I was running from another group of snatchers and they nearly had me and I had nowhere else to go. I was out of options." He was snapping for air as he rushed the sentences out of his mouth. "Then I suddenly heard your voice calling out to me. I turned it on, it's light filled me and I apparated. Straight to where Harry was."
"And he saved my life." Her messy haired friend cut in. "When I found the Sword of Gryffindor, the horc… it fought me and wanted to drown me. He pulled me out of the water."
"And then we destroyed that thing, whatever that is, that he had around his neck." Ron continued their narration.
She took a step back, but still didn't fully trust the situation. On the one hand she felt elated that Ron had found their way back, the butterflies in her stomach certainly spoke volumes, but her worry persisted. She saw the destroyed locket and could feel that the darkness within it was gone, but there was still the question on how they had found Gryffindor's sword and 'the will of the force' would not cut it.
"Hermione, could you perhaps give him his memories back?" Harry asked her and snapped her out of her mind. "He's back.
"No." she stubbornly answered. "Until he can prove that he is under no influence than his own, I won't return his memories to him. There is too much at stake. You know that and you will not tell him what we are doing, besides that we are searching for something important." Hermione ordered Harry whose shoulders slumped in unison with Ron's.
"Now, we need to get moving."
"So, you're not going to tell me about the memories she has taken from me?" Ron asked sitting in one of the bunks, while Hermione was outside on guard duty. For some reason she had not allowed them to get everything out of her bag. Only some necessities. It almost felt as if she expected some attack.
"I really want to." Harry nodded apologetically. "But she's right. You know, I probably wouldn't be alive if it weren't for her. She saved my life on Christmas eve, when we sprung a trap. So, for now I agree with her. Doesn't mean I have to like it."
"Wait! You were in Gothric's hollow? Are you mental!" Ron asked in astonishment. "They say that you two killed Mrs. Bagshot."
"Yes, ahm, well we needed to rule it out and I thought that Bathilda Bagshot might have received something from Dumbledore that might help us against. Vol.. ouch…The Fisherking." Harry jumped and answered wringing his hands in remembrance.
"Hermione was categorically against it at first, but she came anyway. But, don't know how she does it, but she knew pretty soon that it wasn't Mrs. Bagshot we were talking to." He narrated some of what had happened in his former hometown.
"Blimey, who was it then?" Ron asked with raised eyebrows and Harry detailed exactly what he could remember from his confrontation with Nagini, which wasn't a lot.
"Hermione fought Nagini on her own. Can't remember a lot, but when I close my eyes I sometimes see her spinning, jumping and evading her the snake's attacks as if she knew what that bloody snake would do next. Have you ever heard a snake wailing?" Harry asked Ron who shook his head.
"I had seen that the Fisherking was on his way to Gothric's hollow, but I could also hear Nagini scream in agony. That's a sound I can't get out of my head again. Whatever Hermione has done to her it worked."
"Blimey!" Ron exclaimed again. "When has she become so scary?"
. "I mean I really thoughts she was going to kill me back there." He laughed hesitantly, and Harry nodded solemnly at his admission. "I mean, it's as if the Hermione we know has been entirely replaced by a cold hearted warrior or something?"
"No, Ron. Think about it. Hermione always was quite headstrong and fierce." Harry argued. "She sees things much clearer and more focused than we do and she tries to be strong for both of us so that we don't have to be. I don't know if she realized it, but she says your name when she's asleep. Well, "he admitted "yours and others. But it basically sounds like an extensive list of people she wants to protect. But keep telling her your little story about the Deluminator and she'll come around"
Ron's grin widened happily. "But it's true and besides, when did you become so wise?"
"I'm not. Just had a lot to think about while we were hiding from Snatchers because Hermione broke the taboo."
"What in Merlin's name!" Ron jumped up. "Hermione broke the taboo? I thought that you would be more inclined to say his name." He nervously brushed his fingers through his hair.
"No." Harry brushed his sleeve away to show him a braided bracelet. "Hermione drilled me into saying Fisherking instead and should I accidently start saying it shocks me to stop me.
"Does it hurt?" his friend asked touching it with his index finger, and Harry shook his head again. "No, it's just irritating enough to stop me, but it doesn't hurt. It's better than Ida shocking me like she did with you."
"That bloody thing shocked me? Knew there was a reason I don't like that thing." He grumbled sitting back down. "So, how did you evade the snatchers?" Ron asked him. "They're a bit dim, aren't they?"
"Dunno." Harry shrugged his shoulders. "Never saw them face to face. We were in Sirius cave when the entrance closed by its own and Galen shifted the wall upwards to go further inside. Do you remember in fourth year, when the wall suddenly turned nearly transparent when Hermione touched it?"
"Yeah, sure." Ron remarked sitting back down. "How could I forget about that? Sirius was thought that she was a loon when she walked around that cave like that. I did too to be honest."
Harry chuckled in remembrance and nodded eagerly. "Yes. From what I could overhear that cave was the entrance to a hidden temple inside the mountain. Galen and Hermione went in there separately and came back with some sort of crystals."
"Hold on, her brother? When did you meet her brother?" Ron cut in.
"Well, he found us in the cave, because he has placed some sort of tracker into one of Hermione's things." Harry explained. "She destroyed it and gave him a piece of her mind. He was the one who warned us about the taboo."
"Well, he is truly scary." Ron stated. "Should have guessed that they were siblings in fourth year."
"Yes, right." Harry nodded. "Anyway, Hermione tries every free minute that she isn't trying to detect a clue in the books, assembling some scrap metal with these crystals from the cave, but she doesn't tell me why. It's just when I think that I know her, something else comes up that just shows how little we actually know about her. I mean we were in Hogwarts with her for years and didn't realize that she had a brother."
"That's actually part of her charm, I reckon." Ron commented. "It's probably something that will help us. Another weapon perhaps? You know like that thing that is strapped to her leg."
"Don't know much about weapons, but that thing is not a Muggle gun." Harry remarked. "At least I don't think it is. It has no bullets."
"Maybe it's a toy gun. You said that Dudley had one as a child too?" Ron suggested, and Harry shook his head. "Hermione has volatile explosives in her bag, somehow I doubt that it is a toy gun, Ron. And Galen was wearing one too."
Suddenly their cosy conversation was interrupted by a few plopps outside. Hermione quickly dashed through the parted entry. "Quickly, pack your things. We have company. They are searching the area."
She turned to the hovering droid who was opening and closing its pincers and ordered in Basic: "Activation Code. ZV-626. You have authority to engage, but we need one snatcher alive." It gave a few menacing chirps and disappeared through the entrance. Ron shudderd.
In the next few Minutes they hastily vanished and packed everything into Hermione's bag until the only thing left was the cold ground under their feet and Ida floating above them in the air. An eerie silence was slowly spreading through the woods. Nothing dared to move. It seemed as if nature itself was holding its breath. It was literally the calm before the storm. The only sound the trio could detect was the trotting and the commands murmured by the snatchers, who had not detected their wards yet. So, her wards were working, but they had appeared not three hours after Ron's appearance. So, chances were high that they had followed him somehow. She needed to find out how and eliminate the trace. She quickly took in the scene and counted the numbers, which Ida confirmed from above. Fifteen snatchers were slowly closing in to their location. She gathered the Force and summoned several grenades and smoke bombs from her utility belt.
"Ida, the small brunette staying out of range. We need her alive." She told the droid in Basic who confirmed that it had understood the order.
Never letting their enemies out of her eyes, she handed one grenade each to Ron and Harry, who took it carefully as they stood back on back to each other wands raised.
"Ok. Here is what we need to do." She calmly instructed them. "On my mark you click the button on the grenades and throw it as far away from us as possible, but as close into the snatchers' lines as you can. Can you do that?" Her two friends nodded hesitantly, but she needed confirmation and asked again, more firmly this time. "Can you do that?!"
"Yes." Harry answered, and Ron mimicked him.
"Good." Hermione said calmly. "Keep your wands ready. As soon as the explosions stop take out as many targets as possible. No hesitation and don't freeze." She reminded them, but mainly to herself.
"Get ready." They would run into their wards any second. Her heartbeat accelerated in anticipation as she drew on the Force to guide her. Ida was already halfway to its own target using its own black colour as camouflage through the cold mists.
" Ouch." One of the snatchers complained as he walked into the one in front of him. It looked as if he was poking the air. "Something's there." He called out playfully and the snatchers turned towards him and closed in.
"Now!" Hermione shouted activating two grenades and throwing it towards the line of nine snatchers in her visual field and rolled several smoke bombs after them.
Harry and Ron threw theirs and they could hear several explosions and devastated screams and her nostrils registered the smell of burnt flesh and freshly dug up earth. Hermione could feel the flickering of live through the force until their live forces disappeared. Two of the snatchers in her line were groaning in pain and she could feel the darkness still radiating from them. She quickly jumped out of her safe zone and towards the two survivors, who hurled weak curses at her which she blocked effortlessly with her wand and she reacted with drawing her blaster and …she froze. Setting traps without seeing the dead created by them was one thing but killing people eye to eye was something else. Shit! She couldn't do it!
One of them was hurling a green coloured curse at her and she quickly blocked it and retaliated with a blaster shot to his heart. Alright, she had done it. The second snatcher had died after he had sent his last curse towards her. She quickly turned and saw Ron and Harry duelling with two badly wrangled snatchers, while Ida had not only stunned their leader, but also taken care of the rest of the surviving snatchers according to her activation protocol. Hermione quickly spun around as she could spot one of the snatchers tricking him and sending a hex towards him. She quickly reacted and protected her friend with her wand and sent a plaster bolt through the man's chest, who crumbled to the ground. Ida did the same with the one Harry was fighting with.
While she let her two friends come to terms with the situation she quickly ran towards the stunned woman, snatched away her wand by splitting it into two pieces and put her in a partial body bind, while she tried to get her breathing under control again. She was panting. They had learned full body binds at Hogwarts, but Hermione remembered the partial body bind from one of her brother's books.
"Enervate." She murmured, and the woman's eyes opened, and she shrieked seeing Hermione calmly hovering over her face while she was unable to move a muscle.
"How did you find us?" Hermione prodded her calmly hearing the shuffling steps of her two friends on the frozen ground.
"I won't tell you anything. Mudblood." The woman spat when she realized that she could only move her face muscles.
"You are not in any position to refuse to tell me what I want to know." Hermione responded unfazed by the insult.
"It's bitter cold on the ground, your wand…" she dangled the two broken pieces of the woman's wand into her visual field, which caused the female to whimper. "is not functional any longer and you are in a full body bind. Your 'friends'…" Hermione let her gaze sweep over the battlefield to emphasize the threat. "won't be able to rescue you. So, you can remain stubborn and not tell me how you found us. In that case I will leave you lying in the cold with a full body bind and let you freeze to death. Of course, freezing to death will still be the better option for you as we are in the wild and there is a full moon tonight. Imagine that. A few werewolves on the loose. What could possibly happen?" The woman's whimpers became stronger and more fearful.
"Or you could just answer me truthfully and I will modify your memory and let you go." She suggested.
"If I tell you you'll kill me anyway." The woman hissed, but Hermione could detect a slight wavering in her voice.
"No, I won't let that happen." Harry cut in and stepped into the woman's visual field, who snorted. "Harry Potter. So, my plan worked. The weasel brought us straight to you. It would have given me an advantage over Bellatrix. She wanted to capture him to lure you in. Was fun hunting him the last few days. Very creative for a pauper." She sneered haughtily, and Hermione spotted Ron balling his fists. So, he hadn't tricked the snatchers. They had tricked him. She should have known.
"Alright." Hermione took back the incentive. "Enough stalling. What's your answer? Are you going to tell us or not? Because if you are not then we will be on our way."
"Alright, Alright." The woman concurred hastily. "We replaced the trace back onto his wand after we tackled him. So, whenever he is doing magic, we can trace him.
"Anything else you might to divulge." Hermione asked standing up and reading her wand "No."
"Good. Next time we meet, I won't be so merciful." Hermione threatened pointing her wand at her and murmured "Obliviate."
Harry may have intervened on the woman's behalf, but she suspected that he had not thought about the possibility that the woman would die anyway by the hands of one of her own.
Hours later.
They were camping under an old bridge after Hermione had apparated with them and set new and stronger wards around them. Both her friends were strangely calm, and she could understand why. They hadn't seen death that close, except for Sirius. Neither had she. She had frozen although she had not wanted to. She had sensed the characteristic darkness radiating of the snatchers, but for some reason she had not been able to take a life. It shouldn't have been a problem, but it had been. It was harder doing that eye to eye and in a way, it did separate her from the death eaters. She did have a conscience.
It was a weakness that she needed to overcome, or they would fail. Her parents would probably tell her that it was good that she hesitated in taking a live. Jedi only had taken lives or killed when absolutely necessary. Korkie and the pacifistic part of the clan would agree with that. The Nite Owls, however would probably see it as a crippling weakness. She was right back in the mess. Going the Mandalorian way or the Jedi way. Her crystals seemed to reflect that. Had her mother struggled as strongly as she was now, after finding out about her heritage? She wouldn't have found out had her grandfather not stalked her on Coruscant. But she had been raised by the Jedi Order. She really longed for her mother's advice paired with that of her aunt. What if Galen was right and she would lose herself in this war? And this one was small compared to the one in the galaxy. And she had not searched the remaining bodies for any other clues that could have been useful. That was another oversight by her. But time had been pressing and she had not wanted her friends to be confronted with more traumatizing memories today.
She closed her eyes and yearned it to be all over. To have the possibility to sit in a cockpit again and just watch the stars shine as they were flying through hyperspace. They hardly made any progress. Ron had found his way back to them because of Dumbledore's Deluminator, but she still hadn't given him the memories back. He had destroyed the Horcrux because Harry had told him to. So technically he would be able to guess what they were doing, but she decided that she would still observe his behaviour for a few days and when she was entirely sure that he was himself, then she would return his memories to him.
She stood up and summoned another wand from her pocket and gave it to Ron.
"You can't use your wand anymore." She told him, and Ron nodded in understanding gripping it tightly with both hands. She could understand that he didn't want to be parted of it, but even she had banished her own wand into the depth of her bag as she could not be sure that they would also try to reinstall the trace on hers. She had heard that they could only do this if they physically could touch the wand, but who was to say that they hadn't another way of reinstalling it. That's why she also was using another wand now.
He reluctantly handed her his old wand and took the other one.
"It's 14", Willow, unicorn tail hair like yours, but made by Gregorovitch." Hermione told him.
"Thank you." He inspected the new one closely mesmerized that Hermione had apparently thought about everything.
Malfoy Manor
He was sitting in his bed, shivering, the warm blanket drawn around him. A steaming tea cup on his nightstand. He didn't want to get out of his room. What was the point? His father was drinking himself into oblivion, his mother was a nervous wreck, who cared deeply about him and who tried to shield him from the unwanted guests in their home.
His bloodthirsty, volatile aunt was even more erratic since they had found out that one of snatchers had gone against their orders and "let" the Weasel escape because she had been convinced that he would lead them to the other two fugitives. And in retrospect she had been right, but he was staring at the result of that on the front page of the Daily Prophet: Fifteen snatchers had been found dead and only their leader who had lost a month worth of memories had been found alive. He knew that the poor woman had been tortured for hours because of her incompetence until his aunt had finally relieved her from her excruciating pain. Her screams tearing through the manor would be forever ingrained in his mind. Why couldn't this madness all be over? The Dark Lord gone. Peaceful. He missed the carefree days at Hogwarts, where he had only thought about how to get a raise out of the golden trio, getting good grades that only his arch enemy of Gryffindor had bested him at and playing Quidditch.
But even that had backfired during fourth year as the Durmstrang delegation had rallied around Granger after he had attacked her. The way one of the boys had reacted had terrified him. He had thought that he would be done for, hadn't Snape and Karkaroff protected him. He had seen them jogging and what had seemed like sparring, but he had not found any evidence about how close they really were. Only that they had been close and had been speaking in a language that he had been unable to identify. Krum had also disappeared from the radar a few months ago. It had lead to quite some speculation as to why he had interrupted his career seemingly out of nowhere, but Draco suspected that he might be somewhere in the fight. After all he had been at the Weasley wedding, when they had attacked. As had the other young man been.
He inspected the picture of the battlefield again and felt the bile rise again. It showed "ministry officials" walking through barely identifiable burned or torn bodies. Apparently, all but a few of them had died instantly. Two had been killed by some sort of unknown spell, according to the Daily Prophet. The bounty for the capture of the golden trio had been tripled, yet the article warned about engaging the trio on their own as they were dangerous terrorists.
Potterwatch, which he sometimes secretly listened to in his room had also informed the listeners of this event but explained that they believed that whoever had done this had defended himself. Given that everyone in the country wanted them to be found and stop them from doing whatever they were doing he believed it. If anybody in the house would find out that he was secretly listening in to Potterwatch, it would cost his head, but he couldn't help it. It seemed that they all were just as well organized as the Death Eaters were. And he hoped to hear some good news in this darkness. He doubted that the trio was just running. They surely were up to something. But nobody seemed to know anything. And the Dark Lord had come back from the dead somehow. Did he have a weakness that they tried to exploit? He hoped so.
There was a sharp knock on the door and he groaned. He wanted to be alone.
"Draco, are you alright?" His mother asked carefully peeking through the door.
"Yes, mother." He replied dully. "Just don't want to go downstairs." She must have decided that it was safe to enter and came into his room taking in the scene with a worried look. "You shouldn't read this so early in the morning." She admonished him seeing that he was staring at the front page.
"Is it wrong for me to wish them to succeed, mother?" he murmured barely audible. His mother was a good occlumens.
"Why would you want that?" she sharply asked. "Look at the picture. Closely. That's what will await us when they succeed."
"I don't think so." Draco shook his head. "I mean, yes. Granger probably wouldn't hesitate to murder me, but the other's in the Order do not thrive on killing."
"At best, we could hope for Askaban." His mother hissed, and Draco sadly nodded, and anger flashed over his face. "That's still better than hearing those screams of torture almost every day knowing that somebody is murdered in our basement. How many will come back as ghosts to haunt us, mother? I can't take this much longer."
"You have to stay strong, Draco." His mother told him sternly brushing her hand over his fine hair.
"How can I when someone, who went to Hogwarts with me is held in our dungeons. Luna Lovegood never did any harm to anybody. She is strange, a bit mental, but basically a really nice person."
"Don't worry about her, Draco. She's a pureblood. She won't be harmed." His mother tried to pacify him, but he brushed her off.
"That doesn't change the fact that she is held as our prisoner, just because she is brave enough to stand with Potter."
His mother took his face into her two hands and looked at him directly. "Listen to me Draco. One way or the other, we are going to survive this, but I need you to banish those traitorous thoughts from your mind."
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