Disclaimer: (Insert sounds of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" here.) That has nothing to do with JK Rowling, but whatever.
A/N: Ugh, finally. I've really been trying to get this done, but between the holidays, getting distracted by another story, and this being a complicated chapter, I just haven't been able to get through it. I want to try to finish the next one this week, but no promises.
Chapter 11
1 November 2001
"Potter luck," Harry grumbled. "I'm telling you, it's my bloody Potter luck."
"How is it your bad luck, Harry?" Hermione said. "The dementor eradication is my project."
"Because I'm helping put out fires at the Ministry in the middle of the night and not in bed with Ginny right now."
"Oi! Too much information," George said half-seriously.
Hermione smacked him in the arm: "Get your mind out of the gutter, George. This isn't the time."
The major players in magical Britain were rapidly assembling in the Ministry Atrium, including quite a few of Hermione's friends and family. One young woman in hastily assembled robes stumbled out of the Floo and made a beeline for Hermione.
"Hermione!" Georgina said. "I got your Patronus. How bad is it?"
"Bad," she said. "From what I hear, five hundred dementors smashed through the wards and scattered in all directions."
"My God…"
"Granger!" an angry, accented voice called. An old wizard stomped over. George and Harry stepped closer to her and went for their wands, but she waved them back. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
She took a deep breath. "I should have considered the possibility that the dementors would break out of Azkaban to escape eradication. I assumed that because it had held them for three hundred years, there wouldn't be any problems, and I was wrong."
"I had to put my country's entire Auror force on high alert because of this breakout," the wizard growled. "Your dementors are already coming onto our shores. What is the British Ministry doing to contain this?"
"That's what we're here to figure out, Ambassador," she said. "Excuse me." She pushed past him on the pretext of speaking to one of the Ministry officials.
"Who was that?" Georgina whispered.
"The Dutch Ambassador, or so I presume," she whispered back. "And he won't be the only one. We'll have to deal with at least Belgium, Germany, and the Nordic Union, not to mention all the dementors that wander back to our own shores." Then, more loudly: "Georgina, I'm putting our regular arithmancy lessons on hold and skipping straight to the dementor-killing ritual. We'll go faster with two." Georgina nodded. "Mr. Robards, how bad is it?"
The Head of Magical Law Enforcement looked grim—though not directly angry with her. "How bad do you think, Granger?" he said. "Four guards Kissed. We're keeping their bodies in stasis until you can get their souls back. Practically all of them have frostbite from being overrun by the dementors, and two of them were clubbed to death with rocks."
"Rocks?" she gasped.
"Rocks! Have you ever seen a dementor do that before in your travels? Because I certainly haven't."
"No! …But I suppose if their powers were useless to protect them, it wouldn't take much thought to pick up a rock and even things out."
"Well, I've alerted the force. Aurors will be going in teams of three until further notice, which will stretch us thin even though I've called in everyone I could spare. Having to maintain a Patronus and repel physical attacks is going to be hard for two."
"Good," Harry said, falling back into his tactical role. "What about the public?"
"It'll be on the front page of the Prophet tomorrow, and the Minister's sending them hourly updates till press time. Now, the question is, what are you doing about it, Granger?"
"What can I do?" she said. "I mean, I can kill them, Mr. Robards, but I don't have any experience tracking dementors, and I don't know how much is possible over long distances."
"Well, the things leave a trail don't they?" Georgina interrupted. Everyone turned and looked at her. "You know, dark magic?" she said. "And I suppose frost."
Hermione's eyes widened. "Frost, of course. And poor weather. And maybe dark magic. I'd need some readings. But it's something we could potentially track if it's fresh enough." She sighed. "That only leaves about six hundred miles of shoreline to search in Great Britain alone."
"We can work with it, though," Robards said. "We have our own techniques to track dementors, and I'd wager you can improve on them. Though we've rarely had to deal with dementors so uncooperative."
"Right, so we have methods to track them," she said. "And we know where they'll go once they hit land: major population centres, especially where emotions are running high. Concentrations of magic. Although if they've changed their tactics with the rocks, we can't get too complacent, and if they're thinking strategically, they could—" She froze and changed gears instantly. "George, Ginny! Does the whole family know about this? Is anyone with my parents right now?"
"I'm on it," George said. "You'll be okay?" She nodded, and he hurried off.
That was the most immediate risk handled. Hermione and Georgina were just starting to discuss the possibilities for tracking dementors with Robards when the Nordic Ambassador came up and grabbed her roughly by the shoulder. "Granger!" he roared.
Hermione didn't like the Nordic Ministry in general. They were far too friendly with Durmstrang and its blood purism. She was sorry to say this was about the reaction she expected of him. She tried to twist out of his grip as he gave her a good shake. "What have you done?"
She drew herself up and answered, "I made a mistake, Ambassador, and I apologise. The dementors proved more capable than I expected. We're working now to solve the problem."
"And why should we trust you with that, mudblood?"
Silence fell on the Atrium. Everyone in earshot turned and stared at the Nordic Ambassador. The only sound was Georgina shouting, "Don't call her that, you bastard!" as she drew her wand on the wizard. She then added something very rude in Norse from Ancient Runes class that was probably more offensive in how badly it butchered any attempt at Swedish. Hermione held her back and hissed at her to calm down. Like it or not, the Ambassador had diplomatic immunity.
The silence didn't lift until Minister Cresswell strode grimly over to them. "Ambassador Nilsson," he said. "I don't appreciate your language. I hope you can understand that we don't hold with that kind of talk here after the ordeal we went through three years ago."
Nilsson's nostrils flared. He didn't like an upstart muggle-born Minister anymore than an upstart muggle-born dementor-slayer, but he held back this time. "I apologise, Minister," he said. "I allowed emotion to get the better of me. But my point stands. Why should we trust Britain to deal with this dementor problem when it was you who let them out in the first place?"
"Excuse me," Robards cut in. "Has anyone ever held back a physical assault by that many dementors before? My people were doing well to get the wards closed again behind the rest of them."
"Is that supposed to instill us with confidence?" he snapped.
"It's saying that I defy your people to do any better."
"How can we if we don't have all the tools we need?" He turned back to Hermione. "Granger, do you expect us to stand idly by while you solve the problem you yourself created?"
"No, I—"
"You guard your dementor-killing ritual jealously, and yet now they come to our shores, where our people are defenceless against such numbers. We demand you release the ritual to us so we can take care of them on our own!"
"Us too," said a witch she was pretty sure was the French Ambassador, even though France was probably out of the immediate firing line. "We cannot rely on your chosen few anymore."
"Yes, yes, I'll release the ritual!" she said. "There's no time to hold back. But I want people vetted by Tinworth and Rakepick. They know most of the best arithmancers on the Continent, and they understand how dangerous this magic could be in the wrong hands."
"You're worried about that now?" the Nordic Ambassador said.
"Yes, now, because it really is that dangerous. Imagine a dark lord who has the power of the dementors, can't be stopped by a Patronus, and is smarter than they are. That's the kind of thing they could do. Besides, I don't have time to interview people myself to figure out who understands the theory behind the ritual enough to do it right."
"But it's not that hard, is it?" Harry said. "I've done it plenty of times, and I barely understand it."
"But I've led you every time," she countered. "If something goes wrong…remember what happened when you made a mistake in Potions class?"
"Yeah?"
"Imagine that times ten, and you'll die if you don't know a way to fix it on the spot," she said, sobering him. She'd never explained or even fully quantified the consequences of a misfire—only emphasised to her friends that it would be very bad. "I'll share the ritual, but I at least need to make sure the people who use it don't get themselves killed."
Another witch came up—an older woman with a stern expression. "Minister Cressvell, Professor Granger," she said with a thick accent, "I am afraid Germany is out. Ve are not going to try to eradicate our dementors if dis is going to be de result."
"What? But you can't!" Hermione gasped.
"Can't ve?" she said sharply. "It's our business vhat ve do with de dementors dat reach our shores. You forfeited any right to dem vhen dis happened. Ve successfully contained de dementors for hundreds of years until you Brits started exterminating dem and drove dem to desperation."
"But—we finally have a way to be rid of the dementors!" Hermione protested. "To free all the souls they've consumed. Isn't that better? We can solve the problems that happened at Azkaban—"
"And vhat happens vit de next problem dat comes up, Professor Granger? Ve managed vitout killing dem before. Ve don't need to risk dat peace by provoking dem."
"My colleague makes a good point," Nilsson came back. "I'll have to talk to my Ministry about whether we want to continue."
Hermione felt more drained than when Arthur first brought word of the breakout. "This program will work," she said weakly.
"You seem strangely fixated on this, Professor Granger," Nilsson said. "Do you have some personal issue with the dementors?"
"What? They're dementors!" she protested.
"And? Do they truly mean nothing to you? I'm surprised. Did you not just a few months ago make a foray to the giants, Professor Granger? I believe you told a number of people that you have plans to save the entire giant race." Her eyebrows rose. She was surprised he'd heard about that. "Word does get around, you know," he said.
"Are you seriously trying to compare the dementors with the giants?" Hermione said.
"And why not? They're both magical races with their own needs and desires. Why should you want to save one and destroy the other? Especially with your personal history?"
Hermione trembled with anger. The man who called her "mudblood" just a few minutes ago using that against her? "If you'd ever seen how a dementor shows up under a Soul-Detection Charm, you wouldn't be asking that question, Ambassador," she said.
"A charm you invented. Convenient, isn't it? Even if you have shared it freely. How do we know that it shows truth?"
Some of the bystanders were nodding along with him, especially among the foreign delegations. Hermione felt like she'd been struck in the chest. Dementors were soulless monsters. She'd proved that. Almost everyone in Britain agreed they needed to be got rid of, and she didn't think she'd heard anyone defend them for the dementors' own sakes. But now, Nilsson was trying to undo all of that. He was swaying people to his side, and it felt like her entire plan was falling apart. She couldn't speak as the other dignitaries took their sides.
"France is provisionally still in, but we want an active role in zee process."
"Belgium and zee Nezerlands stand wiz France."
"As I said, I'll need to talk it over with my Ministry."
That was bad enough, but it was only getting worse. Not long after, Ron and another Auror Apparated into the Atrium, dragging an unconscious wizard with them. They both looked shaken.
"Auror Weasley? Auror Savage? What's going on?" Robards called to them.
"Azkaban's locked down, sir," Ron said as they dragged the man over. "Double patrols and everything. The dementors are still restless, but we can hold them for now…Er, we didn't exactly tell them, but we let them think Hermione won't be there for a while because she'll be hunting down the escapees."
"Which is kind of true," Hermione admitted.
"Yeah, but that's not the important part, sir. We think we know how the dementors got out. Look at this. Minister, Hermione, you'll want to see this, too." He held out the unconscious man's arm and rolled up his sleeve. His arm was bare.
"There's nothing there," Robards said.
"Yeah, we know. He's smarter than Voldemort was." Auror Savage cast a revealing spell at the man's arm. Hermione wasn't sure what it was, but it seemed to be intended to draw something out. A tattoo appeared—the ink seemingly pulled up from deeper under the skin. Not a Dark Mark; this was an illustration of a snake coiled around a raven, but not killing it.
Robards frowned when he saw the image. "Weasley, is this what I think it is?" he said.
"I'm afraid so, sir," Ron said. "We almost didn't catch him, except we did more checks on the ward stones than procedure said and found him tampering. Finding the tattoo was sheer luck."
"Damn and blast," he growled.
"I don't understand," Hermione said. "What is it? Some kind of dementor emblem?"
Robards shook his head. "No, Granger. This is the symbol of the Lestrange Family."
Her head snapped up. "The Lestranges? But they're all dead! Every one of them accounted for!"
"Not if they had an adopted child," Ron said. "Not legally, I mean. We're still going through the possibilities, but we're thinking of someone who was like them in spirit—who was closely associated with them from the end of the first war and hated his blood family."
"Crouch," she hissed.
"With followers," Harry said gravely. "Three years, lying low almost the whole time, and this is why."
"Okay, this is officially a Death Eater attack!" Robards called. "Send word to all patrols. Weasley, get that bastard into interrogation. I want to know how they got through the wards. Savage, start revising the dossier on Crouch. Granger?"
"I was going to start dementor tracking, Director," she said. "Georgina, go warn your family, then meet me…hmm…Scarborough Castle. Do you know it?"
"Yeah."
"Good. Meet me there as soon as you can. We'll start searching."
"And be ready for a fight," Robards added. "Five hundred dementors are bad, but we know how to handle them. The dark wizard who let them out is far more dangerous."
She nodded. "Okay, let's get started." Georgina hurried out, and Hermione started on her own way, quickly sending a Patronus message to George. As she left, she whispered, "See, Harry? If Barty Crouch was involved, Halloween wasn't luck. It was clearly symbolism."
"Not the time, Hermione," he groaned.
16 November 2001
The trail led all across Europe. They even made some forays into Germany and Denmark hunting down the escaped dementors, though they mostly stuck to countries that remained friendly with Britain. True, Germany and the Nordic Union were doing their part in rounding them up, but they were only confining them, something Hermione considered an escape risk since the dementors weren't going out of their way to present themselves for sanctuary, and with no appreciable sustenance, they were sure to get restless sooner or later. It would just take longer.
The work meant long hours for her and Georgina, where their families couldn't always be there with them, following the subtle trails dementors left as they moved, all too often losing them, devising better methods of tracking, and teaching Georgina to run the dementor-killing ritual. It was tiring work. The dementors didn't sleep and could sense when they were getting close, and worse yet, Hermione had a growing inkling that some of the demons were following them.
Barty Crouch was lying low. A few attacks here and there, but the attackers always slipped back into the shadows. The good news was that the Aurors didn't think he had more than a fraction of the followers Voldemort had, even just counting his inner circle since Crouch hadn't started assembling them when he was still in school, and he had far less fertile ground. The bad news was that some of the dementor attacks appeared human-coordinated, and yet the man himself was proving elusive.
Hermione and Georgina were hiking through the Ardennes in Belgium at evening, trying to follow the trail of an estimated half dozen dementors that had been terrorising muggles and wizards alike for the past few days, probably drawn to the battlefield. This hunt had taken hours longer than they'd anticipated, and they were losing the light fast, but if it was between the risk of following at night and losing the trail entirely by dawn, Hermione was willing to go for it.
"So I've been thinking," Georgina said as they hurried through the frost-bitten brush. "What would happen if Harry or Ginny got Kissed? I mean, since they're—" She whispered. "—horcruxed to each other?"
Hermione hadn't taught Georgina much of soul magic yet beyond the dementor-killing ritual, but she had explained exactly what was done to Harry and Ginny. She owed her apprentice that much. "I have no idea, and I don't want to find out," she said. "And it's not really a horcrux, either. It wasn't a dark ritual that did it, much less the specific one."
"Isn't that what you said before, though?"
"No, I said it was 'something like a light horcrux.' We really need a better name for it. Here's an exercise for you, Georgina. Your Latin's better than mine. What do you call a light horcrux?"
"Me?" she said in surprise. "Well, I…" She sighed and tried to think. "Horcrux. Clearly derived from the Latin crux horribilis. Which is weird considering it was invented by a Greek wizard. So maybe a light horcrux could use an antonym of horribilis. Er, bonum, magna, magnifica, pulchra, beata—oh, mirabilis, duh. Crux mirabilis—um, miracrux?"
"Miracrux…" Hermione tried the word. "Yes, that sounds good. 'Crux' would be the generic form—any soul fragment, neither light nor dark—I still can't believe I just said that. But it works in the sense of 'that which saves from death.' Wait…hm…yes. Crux Sancta could be used when the religious meaning is intended."
Georgina chuckled. "That sounds like something an alchemist would say."
"Yes, a lot of religious symbolism worked in there. But if you recall, I am a licensed alchemist, even if my work is barely alchemy."
"Heh, that's not what the other alchemists say if they rumours I've heard are true. Most of them are still trying to figure out how you make diamonds—or at least claim they are."
Hermione opened her mouth to retort when they heard a bloodcurdling scream. Both women turned and ran in the direction of the sound. It was closer than it should be considering they'd hardly seen anyone all day. They could feel the world growing colder as they ran. They must be getting close
A minute later, they came to a clearing, wands ready, but there were no dementors. Only a family and a small tent. They took in the scene: two adults, three children. One of the children lay unresponsive on the ground.
Only the one?
Hermione ran to them, kneeling down beside the boy and checking for a pulse. "My God, what happened? Que s'est-il passé?" There was a pulse. Good. She just had to find the dementor.
The mother spoke in French-accented English: "I don't know! Everyzing got cold and dark, and zen 'e just fainted!"
Muggles.
"Don't panic, Madame, I can help," Hermione said. "Georgina, why do you think they didn't go for all of them?"
"Better question: where are they?" Georgina said. "They were just here. I can feel them, but I can't see them."
The pieces fell into place. "It's a trap!" Hermione shouted.
Well over a dozen dementors came gliding out of the trees, far more than they expected, completely surrounding them. The Earth grew cold, and all hope seemed to fade. The muggles couldn't see the black robes, which was probably a blessing, but they could definitely feel them.
"What's happening?"
"Who are you?"
"How did it get so cold?"
"Expecto Patronum!"
"Expecto Patronum!"
Hermione and Georgina both cast their Patronuses, Hermione's a silvery otter, and Georgina's, oddly enough, a seal. They spread out and began circling the clearing, trying to keep the dementors at bay. The muggles screamed. They could see the Patronuses, but the impossibility of the sight overrode the comforting feeling they gave. Hermione cut them off: "Quiet! Pick up the boy and get ready to run."
"What are they?"
"Just do it!"
Several of the dementors charged from different directions. The strength of their dark aura suddenly increased, but Hermione and Georgina pushed back with all their might. Hermione divided her Patronus in two (Georgina was still working on that), and the three animals swam in a fast circle through the air around them, pushing the dementors back as fast as they advanced.
"We need an opening!" Georgina said.
"I know!" Hermione focused and made her Patronuses charge together at one side of the circle, pushing the dementors away from there, before circling back to a defensive position. She prayed the gap was enough. "Run! Now!" she shouted.
The muggles were reluctant to move, but between the two of them, they pushed them along and back into the trees. The dementors followed. They had an escape route, but the mass of them crowded together was no less daunting. And Hermione saw now that some of them were arms with sticks and rocks—dangerous even to a witch. Fighting dementors physically was a difficult prospect. Only the Patronuses could really hurt them, and more by repelling them than anything else, and they took a lot of concentration.
"We need shelter!" Hermione told the campers.
"Cabins back at the main campsite," the father pulled himself together.
"Take us there."
They ran. The campsite wasn't too far away, luckily, though it was uphill. They were panting by the time they reached the cabins with the dementors still hot on their tails. Hermione ran up to the nearest cabin, spelled the door open, and barged inside. A young couple screamed as she and Georgina entered, waving the family in with them, and slammed the door behind them.
"Who are you?"
"You can't do this!"
BANG! Two dementors slammed against the door. There was a sound of cracking wood, and frost formed on the doorknob.
"Wards!" Hermione ordered. They cast protective spells around the cabin that would keep the dementors from touching the walls. They wouldn't be much good long-term, but she hoped they would be enough. Only then did she relax. "Okay, we're safe for a little while now," she told the campers.
"What the hell?" the man who was renting the cabin said, but the family mostly ignored him.
"What was that?" the mother said, nearly frozen with horror. "What were those…I saw floating rocks, but I felt…"
"Like you'd never be happy again," Hermione said.
The woman turned ashen and nodded. "What are they?"
"Invisible demons. My apprentice and I are hunting them, but we didn't think there were that many."
"Demons? Are you mad?" the man from the cabin said. He was on his feet now and protecting his wife or girlfriend.
Georgina wasn't having it. "Sit down," she ordered. "Don't you feel the darkness in the air? We're surrounded, and if you want to live, you'll listen to us."
There was a dull thumping coming from all around them. The dementors were pounding on the wards. Hermione and Georgina could feel the shaking in the magical fields. That shut the residents up pretty well.
The mother was still clutching her youngest child in her arms. He was breathing, but gave no indication he was anything but in a deep coma. His lips were a telltale blue from the Kiss. "What happened to Martin?" she pleaded. "Why won't he wake up?"
"He's been cursed," Hermione improvised. The truth would be too much for them. "I'm sorry. The only way to lift the curse and wake him is to find the demon that cursed him and kill it."
"But how? They're invisible," the father said.
"We can see them. We've been fighting them for years…Do you ever watch horror movies, Monsieur?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, we're in a horror movie, now, and it's the same rule: we have to survive until sunrise."
"The…the things will go away at sunrise?" the woman from the cabin asked.
"No. At sunrise, we can kill them."
The group looked around at each other. No one spoke what they were all thinking: sunrise was hours away, and in most horror movies, there was only one monster, almost everyone still died.
The oldest of the three children was the one to work up the nerve to ask the other question they were all thinking: "Madame, who are you?"
Hermione looked from one frightened face to the next. She shouldn't, but she couldn't help it. "I'm the Doctor."
It was too bad they weren't British, but the kids' eyes grew wide.
"Seven muggles," Georgina said, taking stock and switching back to English. "We should just Apparate everyone back to Brussels. If we take turns, we can manage it.
"Maybe, but we can't go," Hermione said.
"Why not?"
"We have to stay on their trail."
Georgina opened her mouth to respond, but she stopped when she saw Hermione pointing to the unresponsive boy. She cursed under her breath. "Hermione, if I've ever said 'You should have been in Slytherin,' I take it back."
"We can take those two," she said, pointing at the residents of the cabin. "And the other two kids. If we take turns…No, it's too risky. We need a third. Dobby!"
Pop!
Dobby appeared in the middle of the room, eliciting more screams from the muggles, but the elf himself wailed and dropped to his knees as the dementors' aura hit him. Hermione hated doing that to him, ever since he fainted from the dementors back in her third year, but they didn't have a choice. Hermione directed her otter Patronus to cuddle up to him and help him to his feet.
"Missus Hermione! What is—?" he said shakily.
"Dobby, I'm sorry about this, but we're surrounded by dementors, and we've got a bunch of muggles with us," Hermione said. "One of them's been Kissed. We need you to take them to the Belgian Ministry and explain what happened. Call Sonya if you need help. Don't push yourself too hard." She turned back to the muggles. "Listen up. This is Dobby. He's an elf—you know, like Santa has. Actually, he's on loan from Santa Claus. Let's go with that. He's going to take you to a place in Brussels where you'll be safe, alright?"
"Yes…Doctor," the couple from the cabin said.
Dobby quickly popped the two of them away, and Hermione spoke to the parents. "He'll take your other two children next. They'll be safe; I promise. I'd trust the people there with my own godson. We'd prefer if you went, too. Either way, I can lift the curse at dawn. Martin doesn't have to be here."
The parents conferred with each other briefly. There was a whispered argument before the father took the boy who had been Kissed. "How can we contact you if there's a problem, Doctor."
"The people there will know how. They take these demons very seriously."
"Then we'll go," the mother said. "Please help my son, Doctor."
"I will," she promised. Soon, Dobby and Sonya both appeared and quickly took the family to safety in Brussels.
Hermione broken into a grin. "YES!" she cried. "I've been trying to get someone to call me that for three years!"
Georgina glared at her: "Hermione, is this really the time?"
Before she could answer, a grating, rasping noise came from outside. The dementors were speaking. Frost formed on the doorknob again, and it seemed to conduct the sound. "Angel of Death," one of them hissed—in English, but in a voice like death itself.
For her part, Hermione just said, "Yeah, that's me."
"Leave us. You cannot withstand all of us. Your powers are worthless at night."
That was true, but she wasn't telling it that. "I can't do that," she said. "Not after you Kissed that muggle boy."
"He is not important," the voice hissed.
"And that's why we hunt you," she said. "You can't escape from us."
"We will kill you."
"Others know the secret. Our numbers are growing. Sooner or later, we will find you."
The thumping on the outside of the cabin grew worse. There was a crack and a sound of smashing wood.
"Time to go!" Hermione said. "Georgina, stay on the trail."
Alone, they could safely Apparate around the forest and gain the mobility they desperately needed. Now, they and the dementors were hunting each other, which still wasn't great, but was better than simply being hunted. The Belgian Aurors evacuated the campground and set up a perimeter, but they refused to get close to the dementors themselves—not when they were physically arming themselves. That meant it was a long, hard night until dawn finally came.
17 November 2001
The Sun rose, and the tables turned. Hermione and Georgina, with the help of a few Belgian Aurors who were willing to help pull in the perimeter, managed to coral the dementors in a clearing in the forest in the morning light. Unfortunately, just like they could smash through wards with enough effort, dementors could break through just about any perimeter if they were hemmed in by Patronuses alone.
"You cannot hold all of us!" one of them hissed. Hermione suspected it was the "leader" who was speaking last night.
"You can't all escape, either," she said.
"We are legion. We cannot be defeated. You will die before you can end us."
"We'll see about that."
The dementors pushed harder, straining the perimeter. Hermione was starting to sweat, and the Aurors looked about ready to pull out. They were losing and knew it. "What will you do in the face of this power," the dementor said.
Hermione took a deep breath. She hadn't wanted to do this with the dementors that were confined in Azkaban. Not when they had them under control, and they could just brute force their way through the lot of them. But now, she was at a disadvantage, and she had to compromise.
"Give me the one who Kissed the boy, and you can go," she said darkly. "Otherwise, we'll just kill whoever we can get our hands on."
The dementors were silent for a moment. Maybe it was her imagination, but the leader seemed to radiate an air of indignation. The others, however, began to turn and look at either other. Suddenly, one of them bolted for the perimeter, pushing straight through one of the weaker Patronuses to get out. But before anyone could react, half a dozen more dementors chased the runner down grabbed it, and practically threw it at Hermione. It made a shrieking sound like nails on glass. No honour among soul-thieves, apparently.
"Quick! Hold it!" she ordered. They restrained the dementor as the others fled. "We have to do the ritual now, then check with that family. If it's the wrong one, we might still be able to get the others."
The looks on the Aurors' faces told her they weren't interested in chasing the others. Still, they performed the ritual, and after the dementor was destroyed, they soon learnt Little Martin woke up. One problem solved, but as they left the area, Hermione was subdued.
"Is something wrong, Hermione?" Georgina asked.
"I feel like I need a shower after making that deal," she muttered.
Georgina frowned. "I don't think there was much else we could do."
"I know. I still don't have to like it." She kept walking with her gaze turned down. "And that dementor was right about one thing. We don't have any way of handling them at night, and they're learning. We need to be able to counter them next time, or it's going to go worse."
23 November 2001
"So as you can see, Master Ficino, we need a way of preserving morning sunlight through the night or on cloudy days to use it in the dementor-killing ritual in case of emergency."
Hermione hoped this detour to Ferrara would pay off. After asking around, it seemed that the Head of the Order of Paracelsus had the best chance of being able to help them. The man was happy to meet her and hear their case, at least. Now, he stroked his beard thoughtfully.
"It's an interesting problem," Ficino said. "As a matter of fact, there is an obscure alchemical technique that is very close to what you are looking for." He rose from his seat and rummaged around his cabinets. When he found was he was looking for, he came back with a glass bottle that glowed with a bright white light. "Here we go. This is Bottled Sunlight," he said. "It stores sunlight for various ritual and alchemical purposes. It lasts a long time, although the glow drains it eventually, and it's not that difficult to make. I understand you have a certification in alchemy?" Hermione nodded. "The procedure adapts many of the techniques of fire alchemy. You should be able to learn it without much trouble."
"That sounds perfect, Master Ficino," Hermione said. "That's exactly the kind of thing I need."
"Well, yes, but there is one complication," he said. "How much sunlight does this ritual take?"
"Oh. A ten-foot diameter parabolic mirror for several minutes, concentrated to a point."
"Goodness! Then no, the glass bottles will never be able to withstand that kind of energy."
Hermione frowned. That would be a problem. But then again, she had done some original research in alchemy of her own. "Maybe we can adapt the procedure somehow," she said. "I have some ideas for metal casks that might serve."
"Oh?" Ficino said. "I suppose if you make them strong enough, that could work. Might I see your designs?"
And that got them started. With his expertise and her study of alchemically strong and neutral metals, she was pretty sure they could work something out. And better yet, because the sunlight was concentrated and stored in a small space, the casks should release a coherent beam that she wouldn't have to focus.
Bloody hell, with the size of her mirror, that was almost equivalent to a ten thousand watt laser! That was…actually pretty cool.
"Georgina, are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Hermione grinned.
"Um…not really," Georgina said. "What are you thinking?"
"Archimedes' Death Ray."
11 December 2001
Hermione swallowed a phial of Pepper-Up Potion and closed her eyes, taking deep breaths and steeling herself to face the dementors again.
"Pepper-Up Again?" George said with concern.
"I have a feeling it's gonna be another long night," she said.
"Still, you've been using a lot of it."
"Coffee gives me jitters this late at night, George. The spellwork is hard enough as it is."
She looked back at her husband, bundled up against the Highlands cold. He frowned. "This isn't good for you, Hermione. You know that. You haven't been sleeping enough. And its dangerous tracking dementors at night."
"The dementors are more active at night. And it's not so dangerous now that we have the Bottled Sunlight." She patted the titanium-tungsten cannister on her hip where she would normally wear her sword.
George shook his head. "It's still not good for you, fighting dementors day after day. I've seen your hands shaking. I'm about this close to cutting you off on the all-nighters. Besides, it's almost Christmas."
"They're not going to stop for Christmas," she said.
He sighed. "All right: I'm worried what will happen if you get Kissed. You're not on top of your game right now." He smirked a little. "And only I'm allowed to kiss you."
"I'm not going to get Kissed," she promised, though she privately hoped it was a promise she could keep. A good ten percent of the dementor hunters around Europe had been Kissed at some point or other in the past few weeks. Some more than once, though they didn't seem to suffer worse for it, thank God. Even Germany had called in a dementor-slayer to help some of their Aurors who had been Kissed—but not Hermione herself.
George looked to her apprentice in exasperation. "Georgina, help me out, here," he said.
Georgina rubbed her face tiredly and looked nervously at Hermione. "Normally, I might agree with you, George, but I'm getting worried about how close this group is getting to Hogwarts. If they attack Hogsmeade unawares…"
Ron was their Auror escort for the night. At least Britain was good about providing them. "Yeah, I think she's right, George," he agreed. "The dementors are more aggressive than they used to be. In the Department, they've been saying to always assume they're on the attack."
George sighed, but he agreed to keep going. Hermione suspected he'd force her to take a holiday sooner than later. They followed the trail through mountains and forests, taking it by broom when they could. Dementors were fast—fast enough to escape a chase if they knew they were being followed, but she hoped they had the element of surprise on their side.
It was around midnight when they caught up with them—sooner than a lot of these chases ended up, if they caught the demons at all. But there were only three of them—fewer than she was expecting. "Keep an eye out!" she called. "There might be more of them around."
The trio of dementors radiated anger amid their aura of despair, so thick she could feel it even with Patronuses about. "You hunt us at night," one of the three hissed. "You mock us. You cannot touch us now. Do you really think you can hold us till morning?"
Hermione turned to face the demon. "We don't have," she said. "We've learnt from our shortcomings, too." She moved her cannister of Bottled Sunlight into the firing position. It wasn't just a bare cannister. She'd rigged an iris with a spring-loaded rotary lever onto the neck so she could open it and close it quickly and a handle arrangement that let her shoot it from her hip like the Terminator, just because she thought it looked cool. "Mind your eyes!" She tilted the cannister up above the tree line and turned her head away as she flicked the trigger lever.
A brief, laser-like beam of blinding white light stabbed up into the sky for a split second with such power that she felt like there ought to be science fiction sound effects.
The dementors didn't move.
"Which…doesn't mean anything to you because you don't have eyes," she said. "Dammit. I was talking about this." She levelled the cannister at the dementor's chest and flicked the lever again. It certainly felt that. It jerked back and shrieked, then launched into a stream of blasphemous oaths that almost literally hurt her ears to listen to.
"Muffliato!"
"Thank you, Ron," she said. "Georgina, would you like to take point on this?"
"Me?" Georgina gasped.
"I think you're ready. And I need to handle the Death Ray to make sure nothing goes wrong with it. George, Ron, Patronuses?"
They laid out the runic circle and took their places, slightly different from before. The modification to allow the ritual to work with Bottled Sunlight conveniently also allowed the light to be fired from other points of the circle to avoid hitting the other casters. They had to cancel the Muffliato, and the dementor's angry threats were a bit distracting, but Georgina completed the ritual with flying colours. The Bottled Sunlight burned through it just like natural sunlight, and the dementor died just like all the others.
Georgina was grinning when she finished the ritual, releasing the trapped souls to their Destination. "That was amazing!" she said. "I could really feel the light magic from the ritual."
"I know," Hermione said. "Why you think I take point so often? How did it feel?"
She searched for the words. "Like…like everything was in alignment. Like I was cleansing the Earth of something that Shouldn't Be There—Ugh, the words don't get the feeling across."
"I understand, though. That's why I've been pushing this effort so hard. You understand how important it is when you're in the circle. Come on. Let's take care of the other two." She laid out a new circle on untouched earth and used her Patronus to corral the second dementor into it.
The second ritual seemed to be going as well as the first, until Georgina recited, "With the life of the Earth, we drain away the darkness," and stepped into the circle.
As the grass began to die underfoot, a shout rang out from the trees: "For the Dark Lord!"
The shout was answered with spellfire as close to a dozen wizards jumped out of the trees and blasted the circle. Hermione turned and saw the curses flying. One of the wizards was Barty Crouch. The spells struck, breaking the circle.
In a split second, the world seemed to fill with clashing colours that weren't seen, with a deafening cacophany that wasn't heard, a pressure that should have crushed them flat that wasn't felt. Hermione took it all in at once. The runic circle was damaged. The ritual had been interrupted! Calculations flew through her head at light-speed, but she didn't need to cipher them out.
"OUT! OUT! OUT!" she screamed. She ran. Acting on pure instinct, not thought, she banished George away and summoned Georgina, who was closer to the centre, at the same time. Hermione made no effort to slow her down, and she bowled her over and sent them both sprawling on the ground.
There was an explosion that wasn't. Hermione felt like she was being ripped apart even though there was no pain. Dizzy, she lay flat on the ground.
She had to get up. There were enemies about.
She sat up and nearly passed out and vomited at the same time, she was so disoriented from the magical backlash. The dementor was nowhere to be seen, and the ritual circle was blackened ash that seemed to burn cold. A dozen wizards lay groaning around her. She saw Barty Crouch. He lying on the ground and looked ill. She struggled to raise her wand. By the time she got a spell off at him, he had a Shield Charm up.
She put up a Shield Charm of her own against Crouch's curse. He looked too weak or dazed to cast a Killing Curse, which was good because she wouldn't have been able to dodge it. She looked around for her friends and family. Ron and George were both conscious. Outside the circle. Good. They were both on their hands and knees while they struggled to duel neo-Death Eaters who were equally incapacitated. Not good. Georgina was lying half on top of her and struggling to right herself.
"What…the hell…were you—ugh—thinking, Crouch," Hermione grunted.
Crouch hissed like a snake. "It worked, didn't it, mudblood? …Took you down."
"And you too! …Idiot! You're supposed to be…a magical genius. Do you know what happens…if the Dementor-Killing Ritual is…interrupted?"
"Worth it to avenge the Dark Lord."
"He's lost his mind," Georgina said softly.
"And all the more dangerous," Hermione said.
"You've lost, Granger," Crouch said. "Avada Kedavra!"
Hermione couldn't move fast enough, but somehow, Georgina did, grabbing her around her waist and throwing with all her weight, rolling Hermione over on top of her. The Killing Curse passed just over both of them.
"Thanks."
The Death Eaters were starting to push to their feet. She had the feeling this wasn't what they'd signed up for, which was good because they could have overwhelmed them by numbers if they'd had their act together. Crouch and Hermione stood up at the same time, but any duel would be clumsy. One dodge would probably knock either of them over.
"You think you can beat me…when Bellatrix couldn't?" Hermione panted.
"Oh, yes, I think I can," Crouch sneered back.
Curses started flying, but most of them went wide. Crouch's superior numbers were a liability now because there were more of them to become collateral damage. Several ran for it.
As the duellers grew steadier, the duel got fiercer. Crouch and Hermione were the best duellers in this forest, and both sides started edging away from them even as they took potshots at each other. Despite her bravado, Hermione was concerned. Crouch probably could overpower her. Luckily, she had a trump card. She didn't have to beat him.
CRACK!
She just had to hold him off until reinforcements showed up. By the time everyone left in the clearing was steady enough to duel close to normally, Aurors had arrived, summoned by Ron. Unfortunately, there weren't enough to stop Crouch from cutting and running before they could get Anti-Apparition Wards up. In moments, he was gone.
Hermione fell to her knees. "Guerrilla tactics," she muttered. "Hit and run. A lot faster and more flexible than anything we did in the war."
George stumbled over to her and hugged her close to his chest. "Bloody hell, that was too close!" he said. "I was so worried."
"Yeah. I was scared for you too, George."
"Um…Hermione?" Georgina cut in.
"What?"
"What does happen if the Dementor-Killing Ritual is interrupted?" she asked nervously.
Hermione frowned deeply. "I…don't know," she said. "I think maybe I should…" She dug Ravenclaw's diadem out of her handbag (she'd been using it to help with the great dementor hunt). She put it on her head and considered the factors involved. "The backlash from the life-draining will have done the most damage to fast-dividing cells," she said shakily. "There are two—no, three outcomes I can think of. Option one, nothing happens. Option two, we're in for several very unpleasant weeks."
"What's option three?" Georgina asked.
"Option three, we're all dead in forty-eight hours."
"WHAT?!" everyone shouted.
Hermione ran her fingers through her hair. A handful of hair came with them, and she started to feel sick to her stomach. "Well, that's a no on option one," she said.
Georgina fainted.
12 December 2001
"Good news, Professor Granger," Healer Pye informed her at St. Mungo's. "Your bone marrow is damaged, but it's regenerating normally. You said it was a botched ritual that did it?"
"An interrupted ritual," she corrected. "I've done that ritual hundreds of times, and I've never botched it worse than singeing my feet."
"Then how weren't you fatally injured? This looks like bloody radiation poisoning—I mean, I've never seen a case myself, but I've read about it, and from a ritual, I'd expect even worse."
"The damage it causes is tied to the location, not to the targets. We got out fast enough; our bodies can repair themselves."
"If you say so," the Healer shook his head. "That's certainly what it looks like is happening, but I still don't understand how."
"Are you kidding me?" Georgina protested. "How are you so calm right now? My hair is falling out!" She ran her fingers through her hair and pulled away another clump. "That's not normal!"
"Yes, which is strange that the progression is that fast," Hermione said. "Probably because the damage was all-or-nothing rather than cumulative—"
"Hermione!"
"It'll grow back. If we're lucky, faster than it normally would from this kind of thing."
"Normally? This was a disrupted ritual that's literally never happened before." Georgina made a face and heaved up bile from her stomach.
"Yes, but I know the physiological effects caused by the ritual, and there are other things that do it that are well-documented in the muggle world. Radioactivity I've told you about. Some poisons as well. Heavy metals. The important thing is that there was no permanent damage."
"When you put it that way, I suppose," said Healer Pye. "However, your immune systems will need a few weeks to recover. We have potions to help with that, but I'm afraid you'll be out of the field until then."
Hermione groaned. "Just about the worst possible time. The dementors and Crouch are still out there."
"Hey, what about Barty Crouch?" Ron spoke up. "And the rest of his guys. They were hit by the ritual, too."
"It should slow them down, at least" Pye said. "If they don't get to a Healer, they should be too sick to get out of bed right now."
"Yeah. Maybe he's learnt his lesson," Ron said hopefully.
Hermione shook her head. "I saw the look in his eyes," she said. "His followers, maybe, but he's not going to learn from that. And I'll bet he'll manage a few more guerrilla attacks in the meantime. Ugh…" She broke off as her stomach heaved. "Well, nothing for it, I guess. At least there are others out helping right now."
George patted her shoulder weakly. "Look on the bright side, Hermione. You'll be able to stay home for Christmas. And maybe we can see that film you've been talking about."