Sorry it took so long for me to post, busy with exams, summer, yay. And I wrote this chapter twice and lost both copies. Hope you enjoy. :) Obviously I don't own any of it.
" Mel." Hermione waited for the girl to get up. " What's wrong?"
" We don't have time." Mel pulled her to her feet, shockingly strong for her age. Then, when the wind blew Mel's hair away from her neck, she saw the gash, still fresh and red. New fear and alarm bubbled up inside her, something was going on and nobody had bothered to clue her in.
" Your hurt." Hermione touched the cut and Mel winced, her fingers were red and sticky with her blood when she pulled her hand away. " Who did this to you?"
She shook her head, locked her eyes on a path that led through the trees, one Hermione had barely ever paid attention to. " I'll explain, I swear I will. Not here."
And she took off, Hermione struggled to catch up. The snow was difficult to tread making the journey slow as they wandered off the path. Finally she caught up, at an abandoned shack. This was not to be confused with the shrieking shack, as she had never seen this one before.
Hermione followed Mel inside. She watched Mel stare at the lock, trying to think it through. " If someone's coming after you, a locked door might only give you three or four seconds, tops." She offered, that was assuming who ever it was was both human and a wizard.
With a slight nod, Mel walked around her and locked the door. " That's a few more seconds than we would have otherwise." She reasoned before turning back to Hermione. There was something different, something so adult in her face and her eyes were tired, tired of everything. " I was going to get Draco, but I must have turned down the wrong corridor, and I couldn't go back. So I went out, just out." She was slightly confused and very lost.
"Mel." Hermione spoke her name quietly, focusing her on the situation at hand. " What is going on?"
" I told her no, for the first time in my life I stood up to her and she got so angry. So, so, so very angry." Mel slid down to the floor, her face in her hands. " So terribly angry."
" Who got angry?" Hermione crouched in front of her, her eyes on the gash. " You need to tel me who hurt you now."
Mel lifted her face from her hands, her cheeks wet and glistening. " My mother." She spoke finally, her voice so frail. "My mother does this to me."
A wave of understanding flooded over her as things became slightly clearer. Mel's strange behavior seemed to make sense now, the mark of a child abused by a loved one. Everything fit, except... "Mel, what changed? Why did it get worse?"
Mel didn't look at her, embarrassed as to what she had to say. "My mom has a problem with muggleborns, she says they're nothing more than dirt. I didn't believe her, and I told her she was wrong.
"She hit you, because I'm your teacher." Hermione clarified, horrified at the thought.
She nodded. "I don't understand, why?" Mel's face crumbled as she buried her head in Hermione's shoulder. Hermione just folded her into her arms and waited. Absently, she pressed her lips to the girl's hair, not realizing that she was crying too. It was such an easy thing, she didn't even notice as she slid into the role of caregiver seamlessly. Neither of them realized that she was taking her mother's place in Mel's heart. Someone needed to love the child, and if her own mother couldn't do it, well, that was her loss. After a while, the sun had begun to set and Mel was completely still in Hermione's arms. She'd cried herself to sleep. Which was all well and good, except if her mother was really coming after her, then they needed to get help and fast. "Mel." She shook her gently, waited for the grogginess to begin to clear.
But it was too late. The door knob jiggled and Mel snapped to consciousness. They'd been found. Hermione looked around the room, looking for a place to hide away from the door. Quickly she pulled Mel with her, crouching behind the couch that seemed to be the center of the living room. Her wand was warm in her hand. All the windows were boarded up, but she'd seen the other door. The trick was getting there alive.
"Go through the kitchen." She told Mel. "I won't be far behind." Mel just shook her head, she should have known she'd be stubborn, nothing ever went easy. "We don't have time to argue, just get yourself out."
She wasn't sure if Mel had listened to her, or just changed her mind, but she was grateful when Mel crawled into the kitchen. Hermione heard the lock click and jumped to her feet as the door slammed open. And she stopped, terror froze her to that spot.
The woman's eyes looked just as wildly insane as they did in Hermione's mind. Bellatrix Lestrange stood directly in front of her, and she was trapped by her own fear. She could hear screaming, her own, and the twisted laughter. Every muscle in her body seemed to turn to stone, immobilizing her as her thoughts disappeared in a millisecond. Bellatrix smiled, demented and overjoyed as she raised her wand to Hermione. " I've wanted to do this for a very long time." She looked like she meant it, there was death in her eyes.
"Expelliarmus!" A young, steady voice broke through her paralysis as Bellatrix's wand flew from her hand.
Hermione reverted back to the only spell she could think of. One of the first she'd ever used against somebody, or maybe it was the first. She couldn't remember and it really didn't matter. "Petrificus Totalus."
And she watched as Bellatrix stiffened, then fell back in the doorway. She turned, stared at Mel. "I thought I told you to leave."
Mel hadn't yet taken her eyes off of her mother, her sight shifted and she rolled her eyes. "This is one of those exceptions where I really don't have to listen to you."
"Well, thank you." Hermione grabbed Mel's wrist as she started for the back door. "Now come on before that wears off."
They walked back the way they came until they were standing in the middle of the street again. "Where exactly are we going?" Mel asked her as she looked around the empty street.
"To a friend." Is all Hermione could answer. There was no easy way to explain what they were doing, only that it was nothing she could imagine. They stepped inside the Hog's Head where Aberforth was busy washing his counters.
"It's only mid-afternoon, Hermione, too early for a drink." He chuckled a little when he looked up. "Besides, I don't serve alcohol to minors."
"That's okay, Aberforth." She pushed Mel in front of her. "This is Mel. And we're kinda in a spot of trouble."
"What else is new?" He rolled his eyes and stopped what he was doing. "Well, what can I be doing for you?"
Hermione touched Mel's shoulder, urged her forward before clearing her throat to answer him. "We need to use the passage way, if you don't mind. It's kind of an emergency."
"When isn't it?" He shrugged and gestured to the large portrait.
