Chapter ten

Oh, they're in there

'Given their level of stupidity,' Draco said, hatred dripping from his voice, 'they will.'

This was probably the moment that she'd been waiting for; she still hadn't trusted him fully up until this moment. She now knew that it was as much his desire as hers to really catch those bastards, but secretly, she hoped that they would be stopped before they could actually get to this, so that they could just warn the Order, still active in catching Death Eaters, and the Ministry, to get them instead.

She still had no clue why Draco had been all mysterious about the list of Death Eaters that the Ministry had; perhaps he'd been looking for a little tension and thrill.

Well, she thought bitterly, he can eat his heart out, here.

They had reached the woods, not even considering Apparition for one second; both because there might be curses to detect Apparition, and because they were unprepared and not aware of what they were really doing.

But the last thing Hermione had gone along with impulsive decisions, Harry had defeated Voldemort, so that was a good thing, right?

At the slightest sound, she drew her wand from her coat in such a fast movement that it shot golden sparks around.

'Wow, good one to get us noticed,' Draco said, 'thanks!'

She sighed.

Trying to make as little sound as possible, they wandered on, through the dark forest where every twig snapping was like a tree falling.

The sun had now disappeared completely behind the horizon, but even if it hadn't, it did not matter; the trees were planted together so closely that there were no rays of sun shining into the forest. Hermione got the urge to walk a little closer to Draco.

Not that he was able to protect her; she'd probably be the one doing the important stuff, otherwise he wouldn't have brought her.

'Are we there yet?' she breathed, and he made a whisper as soft as she had, saying:

'Look in front of you, idiot.'

She did, catching herself on the fact that she'd been looking at him for the previous minute or so.

There was, as Draco had said, a huge fortress standing in front of them, black and dominating the scene; the air even felt cooler here.

'So, what do we do now?' Draco said, and she raised her eyebrows.

'Oh, right, I'm in control,' he muttered, walking forward and bouncing back like being held back by some invisible shield.

Hermione, taking his previous comment quite the wrong way, was giggling softly when she noticed it.

'Hmm… Hey, I recognize that, those enchantments were put around the safe houses from the Order, last year. You know, when your former buddies killed off Mad-Eye Moody.'

She couldn't help feeling a little resentment, then started muttering counter curses she'd once read in a spell book from the library when she had been in a fight with Ron. One amongst many…

'Whatchoo doin'?' Draco asked in a horrible accent, perhaps Scandinavian or something, and she wondered what it was with him doing accents these days.

'Er, granting us access, duh?' she spat.

'Oh, good one, I so could've done that…'

At once, she stopped waving her wand around and took a step back.

'Try it, then…'

He waved his wand in a silly movement and took a step forwards, breaking through the invisible shield with a look of triumph on his face.

'It worked!' he shrieked, and at once dropped his voice to below zero decibels.

'Erm, I mean… it worked,' he whispered in a spooky tone.

'I already did that, moron,' Hermione said, pushing him forward and following him feeling highly uncomfortable and unsure about what was going to happen next.

'I knew that. I was just… you know…'

'Faking you were boasting around?'

They fell silent when a window that had been as dark as the rest of the giant building was suddenly illuminated, no doubt by a human. Hermione looked at it and wondered how many of the Death Eaters were in there.

'Oh, holy spirits. They really are in there.'

'Can I hear a captain obvious here?' Draco asked in slight annoyance.

They walked up to the fortress, the entrance to which was given by a large drawbridge. They slowly set foot on it, but the bridge in front of it collapsed under their feet as they had even taken one step.

Hermione had been prepared for this; silencing the screaming Draco, she cast a Wingardium Leviosa spell to keep them up in the air.

'Jump,' she told Draco and she aimed for the ground in front of the fortress.

'They probably know there are intruders, so…'

She hid Draco by using a camouflage spell and used a Disillusionment spell on herself. She felt strangely excited, now.

'You're good,' a barely visible Draco mouthed, and she got the message, smiling.

'Whatever. Keep going and keep quiet.'

More windows showed lit rooms, now, and Hermione's stomach wrenched unpleasantly.

Staring at the big, wooden front door, she wondered if there were any anti-impostor spells on that, too.

'Alohomora!' she whispered, but as expected, it had no effect whatsoever.

'You do something, smart-ass, you said you knew the protection!'

She tried to poke Malfoy in the eye, but realized that he couldn't really do any spells, except for non-verbal ones, 'cause she had Silenced him.

His look confirmed this.

'I saved your ass doing that!' she said, her cheeks flushing a bit. Okay, so it was stupid. They knew they were trying to get in, anyway, but they didn't know that it was Malfoy.

Yet.

'Right,' Draco said when the Silencing Charm had worn off and they had stood in the cold for a little while, barely audible except for their irregular breathing.

'What's next?'

'Er, you had to solve this riddle or something,' he frowned, 'but – oh, yes, wait.'

He waved his wand, using quite complex moves, and Hermione watched, wondering he was just trying to show off or actually doing something useful.

The answer was the latter, because after he'd finished his silent incantations, a high, cold voice that sounded so loud that it was probably just to be heard inside their heads, said:

'Where do you, my follower, bear your mark?'

Hermione gave Draco a dry look. That was no riddle, that was just a question.

She thought: On my wrist, my Lord, followed by: Ha-ha, you're dead.

Apparently they had both given right answers, because the door swung open and Draco and Hermione jumped forwards, wands at the ready, looking around, as if expecting to be ambushed by Death Eaters any moment now.

They were in a large entrance hall, with big, marble stairs spiralling upwards and unicorn heads attached like trophies to the wall. Hermione retched.

Their footsteps were loud and she bit her lip, trying to convince herself they hadn't been heard. She didn't look forward to a confrontation at all, but in Malfoy's eyes, excitement was displayed. Oh, please.

She looked around, and saw three closed doors on either side of the hall. There was nearly no furniture; only two fragile-looking tables who stood unstable under the weight of the big collection of china on top of them.

'Shut up, I think I heard something,' they heard a raw voice say, and Malfoy mouthed his name, but Hermione didn't catch it; she held her breath and stared up at the ceiling.

'Care to take a look?'

The raw voice laughed a bitter laugh. 'Rather you than me, if you didn't notice; I'm taking a bath.'

Hermione and Draco heard footsteps on the staircase and looked at each other, breathing heavily; their wands seemed to float in mid-air, they would become visible immediately.

As a long, pale man that Hermione did not recognize but Malfoy clearly did, emerged from the top of the stairs, he stared straight through them, his brows shooting upwards. He paid Draco a full stare, and Draco was stupid enough to take a step backwards. Hermione held her breath now, her mouth open.

'Is…?' the man said in confusion, and he added: 'Homenum revelio!'

Malfoy looked puzzled, but Hermione, recognizing both the spell and the weird feeling, couldn't help muttering: 'Fuck!'

She Stunned the Death Eater and took Malfoy by the wrist. As she'd expected, they weren't able to Apparate. She only made things worse; loud alarm bells were sounding, not unlike the sound they'd heard in Hogsmeade last year, and she mimed: 'Run!'

Draco was very happy to take this advice, and together, they ran straight back through the door and again, floated over the bridge, which had rebuilt itself, but broke in two halves just as easily as they set foot on it again.

Their passing through the woods wasn't quite as silent as it had been the last time; they heard footsteps of many echoing behind them, and oblivious to the fact that they were holding hands the entire time, panting, fearing death; they finally took cover behind a tree.

'Can't… breathe…' Hermione choked, but she was able to control herself after half a minute or something.

'Who's there? SHOW YOURSELF, you filthy blood-traitors! Who are you?' someone called out, his voice low and threatening.

'Count to three, then start running,' Hermione whispered in Draco's ear, finally releasing his hand and lifting her wand. He whispered: 'One… two…'

His 'three' was never heard by her, she started screaming jinxes and shot them at the at least five hooded figures that followed them through the woods.

A Stunning spell missed her by inches. Only, it wasn't coming from any of the Death Eaters; Draco had Stunned one of them.

'Thanks!' she yelled, then crying: 'REDUCTO!' at two of the surrounding trees;

they crashed with unimaginable noise, crushing one of the Death Eaters.

Hermione swallowed but couldn't care right now. She yelled:

'Protego!' and when her shield hung between her and her attackers, she started running again, nearly tripping over fallen branches and a fox that came racing past them.

'Come on,' she heard Draco, keeping up pace right beside her, when they had both noticed her losing speed.

'S- sorry,' she panted, but finding new strength as they had reached the end of the wood. It had felt like hours and she let out a relieved sigh when she saw the unstable forest ground slowly changing into solid ground, and she headed straight for the barn.

'Isn't that where they'll look first?' Draco puffed, but she shook her head, not knowing and not caring whether he saw this or not.

'They'll think we either Apparate or had buddies with us; then they'll think we might've used a Portkey. They'll never expect us to be as stupid as to stay here.'

'Then why are we?'

'Because I don't know where to go,' she admitted, using 'Alohomora' on the locked door of the shack, pushing Draco inside, before following herself and locking it carefully again.

She didn't care about light and immediately took Draco's wand from him when he said 'Lumos', whispering: 'Nox, idiot!'

Draco pouted a little, but she took no notice of it; she saw a little gap between two boards of the wooden shanty.

She peered through it and felt Draco's breathing in her neck, watching over her shoulder, and for a moment, she had no idea where she was or what she was doing. Shaking her head (and hitting Draco's, who quickly drew back his own a little and went to stand next to her, instead) to get back her brain, she saw dark figures appear from out of the woods.

'WHERE DID THEY GO?' someone bellowed in outrage, and another one, shrugging in oblivion, answered:

'How should I know? They clearly Apparated right before we got here, I even thought I heard the pop!'

Chuckling softly, Hermione continued to watch.

'We should check the farm, anyway. See if them farmers know anything.'

'They don't speak English, worm,' the other one said, as others came running after them, panting and rubbing their foreheads.

'They won't need to.'

Hermione looked at Draco and pointed her wand through the gap.

'What are you doing?' he asked.

'Using imperius, of course! I can't have them torture those poor Spanish people; they won't have answers and they'll get killed.'

'Good plan,' he said, drawing his own wand again and sticking it out next to Hermione's.

Hermione aimed at the bigger of the two Death Eaters, murmured: 'Imperio!' and noticed his shoulders lowering a little. Draco took the smaller one.

'So we get to the farm?' a third Death Eater, now finally having his breath back, asked, and Hermione thought his voice sounded familiar.

'No,' Hermione's cursed Death Eater answered. 'No, I don't think they'll know anything. They were asleep all the time, I suppose. I don't think our visitors made much noise.'

'And what about you?' the third man asked in confusion.

He probably looked forward to some good old Muggle tormenting.

'I agree, they'll be nowhere to be found anyway, they could be anywhere by now! Let's get back to the headquarters and summon the others; they need to know they are not safe.'

There were some voices grunting in agreement.

Turning on the spot, the Death Eaters probably Disapparated to the front of the fortress, not planning on walking the entire way back as Draco and Hermione had done.

'Oh, that was close,' Hermione said, her wand shaking in her hand, and she withdrew it from the space she'd been watching through, mopping the sweat off her forehead with the sleeve of her wand, feeling genuinely relieved.

'You can say that about it,' Draco said, finally lighting his wand. 'Death Eaters suck.'