Author's Note:

Thank you "Blue Flyhight" for your review, your thoughts are always insightful and helpful. Thank you "JessicaAmal" for your continual support and reviews ;) . Just a heads up, the monitor for the computer I was writing the next chapter on is not working at present. This may cause a slight delay in the posting of the next chapter.

~ThaniMag

Chapter 10: Grease

Albus stood with his wand at the ready as Blaise pulled himself off the table.

A slow grin spread across Blaise's face as he saw the teenage boy pointing his wand at him. "Albus Potter. How interesting. I'm not even going to bother asking you what you're doing in America, though my curiosity is indeed aroused."

"What is a Ministry of Magic official doing here, in America, while trying to get a magical object from someone and hurting innocents at the same time?" Albus asked forcefully.

"Some things are not for you to know, little Potter. If I was you, though, I'd not get in my way."

Albus forced a dead laugh from his throat, "No way. For all I know Rasputin is completely innocent."

"You don't know what you're getting into, Potter. Get out of my way." Blaise was getting rather angry.

"Not unless you show me your reasons for doing what you're doing, and I see that you have legitimate motives."

"Well there's no chance of that."

"Then I'm sorry, you're going to have go through me first."

Blaise sighed. "Well then, I've already fought one Potter in the past two days, and I won that fight, and I'm pretty sure I can win this one too."

Albus dropped his wand arm in surprise. Before he could do anything else, Blaise raised his wand and sent Albus blasting back into the wall.

Albus gasped in pain and dropped to his knees.

"You stupid, stupid boy. You have no clue what you're messing with," said Blaise, striding towards Albus.

"You have no idea what you're messing with." Suddenly Albus was gone.

Blaise took a step back in surprise, and ran into Albus. "Wha—?"

Albus hit Blaise hard in the side of the head. Blaise staggered to the side in pain. Albus shot a spell into Blaise's back, and Blaise went flying a good twenty feet into the air.

Suddenly Albus was in the air too, even higher than Blaise, and right above him.

Albus sent himself blasting down onto Blaise's back with amazing power. They plummeted towards the ground at a blazing speed. Blaise's face twisted in fear as Albus grinned.

They crashed into the ground with a deafening bang and a massive cloud of debris.

Hermione turned as she heard the noise, but not seeing anything but a large cloud of debris she turned back to the battle she was already in.

Scorpius gasped, losing his balance as he felt the tremor from the crash vibrate through the ground, and toppled to floor. He gasped in pain as the impact caused further pain to his injuries.

Zoë was staring in disbelief. Lily called out for her brother in terrible anxiety.

The debris slowly cleared, revealing the form of Albus standing over a small crater in the floor.

As soon as Scorpius saw that Albus was okay he turned to Zoë. "Zoë, Rasputin's wand!"

She snapped out of her reverie. She sprinted the short distance to them and handed Rasputin his wand.

Slowly he started moving his wand back and forth over his injuries, whispering incantations as he did. Zoë and Scorpius watched anxiously, but Lily's eyes were trained on her brother.

Albus stood looking into the crater with narrowed eyes. Slowly something started to move among the debris in the hole, and Albus' eyes opened wide in sheer disbelief.

Albus watched in surprise as Blaise started to pull himself from the crater made by his own body. He was completely uninjured. The only thing about his appearance that had changed from a few moments before was that his robes were ripped and his hair was dusty and gray from debris. He still held his wand in his hand.

"Not bad Albus. Are you surprised I'm still talking?"

Albus just goggled at him.

"I'll take that as a yes, and now it's my turn." Blaise grinned widely.

With a swish of his wand he sent Albus somersaulting over backwards and slammed him onto his back.

Albus gasped in pain as his wand went sliding from his hand and across the floor. He watched it go helplessly.

"You will really wish you had listened to me before." Blaise flicked his wrist nonchalantly. There was a sickening crack and Albus screamed in pain. Albus' foot was sticking at a weird angle under him and there was a bulge at the place where it joined his leg.

Upon hearing her brother's scream of pain, Lily leapt to her feet. She drew her wand and charged towards Blaise.

"Lily, NO!" Yelled Scorpius. He tried to lunge to his feet, but gasped in pain and collapsed back against the wall.

"Stupefy!" Lily screamed desperately.

Even though Blaise's back was to her he whipped around at a stunning speed and easily blocked the spell.

"Suffuco!" hissed Blaise as he jabbed his wand in her direction.

Lily rose slowly into the air. She made a choking sound and grabbed at her throat, gasping for air.

Scorpius dug into his pocket and pulled out his wand. "Protego!" he yelled. A shield appeared between Lily and Blaise as he cast the spell. Lily immediately dropped to the ground and collapsed, panting for breath.

Blaise made an annoyed sound and with a flick of his wand sent Scorpius smacking back into the wall, hard.

The air went out of Scorpius with a whooshing sound. Having no air in his lungs, he could only gasp as the pain shot through his already injured body.

Zoë rushed forwards. "Leave him alone!" she screamed.

Blaise made a choking noise. "How many of you runts are there? Stupefy!" Zoë fell prostrate on the floor. "Now back to where I let off," Blaise turned back to the pale and sweaty form of Albus.

Albus's eyes were wide and panicked. He was clearly in a severe amount of pain, though he no longer made any sound. He stared up as Blaise walked towards him. He set his lips in a hard line, as if he was determined to continue to make no sound no matter what Blaise did to him.

"You know, it's kind of a pity to kill you. You have talent, a lot of it. Maybe I'll let you go… after I make you experience a bit more pain, of course." Blaise raised his wand.

"Leave him alone Blaise."

Blaise turned slowly to see who was talking to him. "What now? How many idiots do I have to bring down? And who would call me by my first name?"

About twenty feet from Blaise, standing a few tiers up, stood Grease. His black hair was plastered to his pale face with sweat. His left forearm was covered in blood and he cradled it close to his body. In his right hand was his wand.

At first confusion flitted across Blaise's face, and then recognition. "John? Is that you?"

"I no longer go by the name of John, big brother, I'm known as Grease these days."

Blaise snorted. "What, were you too ashamed of anything that tied you back to us? Did you spit on the name of John, just like you spit on the name of Zabini, and spit on your family—your own flesh and blood?"

Grease stiffened. "I was driven out by our father, you know that."

"Just because you wouldn't obey him; just because you wouldn't listen to his rules."

"He was insane, you know that!"

Blaise growled in anger. "I'm not here to argue about this with you. Now turn around and leave, little brother—or things will get nasty."

"No, you want to hurt them. You're going to have to hurt me first."

Blaise hesitated; he looked reluctant to raise his wand. "Won't you just turn and walk away?"

Grease's answer was firm. "No, I don't know what you've gotten yourself into this time, but knowing you, it's nothing good."

"Know this little brother, I have no desire to hurt you, but you're forcing my hand." Both brothers raised their wands simultaneously.

"You're going to have to go through me as well," snarled Rasputin. He was standing shakily, his wand in hand. His wounds were sealed up, but he was weak from loss of blood.

"I'll take you both on," snarled Blaise.

Up near the top of the room, Hermione finally blasted away the last of her opponents. She turned and quickly helped finish off Draco and Bill's as well.

Hermione turned and scanned the room just in time to see Blaise engaging Rasputin and Grease. She gasped in panic as she saw Albus lying sprawled motionless in the middle of the floor.

"Merlin's beard, isn't that Blaise Zabini?" asked Draco in shock. "What is he doing here?"

Hermione didn't answer; she was already sprinting as fast as she could down the tiers towards Albus.

Draco lunged after her, followed by Bill.

Hermione completely ignored the roaring battle between the Zabini brothers and Rasputin. She rushed straight to Albus, dropping to her knees beside him.

"Albus, where are you hurt?" she asked, her voice full of anxiety.

"Just my ankle. I'm pretty sure it's broken," Albus managed to gasp out. He was clearly still in a lot of pain.

Draco ran past her to his son. "Scorpius, are you okay?"

"I've seen better."

"Where are your injuries?"

"Everywhere,"

Draco bit his lip, thinking. "Then I probably can't heal all of them right now. We need to get out of here. I assume you can't walk?"

Scorpius shook his head. "Not fast anyways."

"Will it be too painful if I carry you?"

"There isn't really another option. I'll survive."

Draco picked him up as gently as he could, but there was an inevitable gasp of pain from Scorpius as Draco's arms hit his injuries.

"I'm going to get you out of here and then come back to help Zabini."

"No, dad. Zabini is the bad guy here."

"What do you mean?"

"He's the one who did this all to us."

Draco looked at his son in confusion but didn't argue back.

After seeing that Hermione was taking care of Albus, Bill rushed to Lily who had managed to drag herself over the side and was leaning against the wall. "Lily, are you hurt? Can you walk?"

"I'm okay, I can walk," she answered quickly.

"Then stay here, I'm going to get Zoë." Bill rushed over and scooped up the limp form of Zoë as if she weighed nothing, and hurried back to Lily. "Come on let's go."

Just then Hermione and Albus came running up.

"Albus is your ankle okay?" asked Lily.

"Yeah, Aunt Hermione fixed it in a jiffy."

"Let's get out of here," suggested Hermione.

"No, we need to help Grease and Rasputin; Zabini will kill them if we don't!" Albus said firmly.

Hermione looked at him, bewildered. "But I thought Zabini worked for the Ministry?"

"Well he's not here on their business; we need to stop him."

"Albus, I'm not sure…"

"Please, Aunt 'Mione, I know I haven't really given anyone a reason to trust me lately, but please, take my word on it."

Hermione looked at him for a moment, calculating. She made a mental decision to trust him. "Fine," Hermione turned around and shot a spell at Blaise without hesitating. Blaise was turned away from them, concentrating on Grease and Rasputin. He didn't see it coming. He was sent flying up and across the room, crashing into a wall at the very top near the entrance. "He's dealt with, let's go. No arguing Albus, if you want to leave later I'll let you, but for now, come with us."

Albus opened his mouth as if to protest, but closed it again without saying anything.

Hermione started toward the exit, followed by Albus, Lily, Bill, with the limp form of Zoë in his arms, and Draco carrying Scorpius.

"Wait, I have a better and safer way out." It was Grease who was talking.

Hermione stopped and turned. "Where is it?"

"It's a secret passageway that will take you a good two blocks from here, underground. The entrance is under a floor panel behind the bar. It shouldn't be hard to find."

"Can't you show it to us?"

"No. Look, Blaise is already starting to recover, and so are his minions. I'll hold them off while you go. Don't worry about me, just go."

Hermione hesitated, but then turned and started to run for the bar. Her cohort followed her, and Rasputin followed theml. He seemed to have recovered slightly, and was standing more firmly on his feet, those he was still looking pale.

They found the panel with ease, and one by one started dropping down into the passageway. The last two still standing above the passage were Rasputin and Hermione. Hermione looked questioningly at Rasputin, but didn't say anything.

She turned and watched the lone figure of Grease, standing in the center of the room as Blaise and his lackeys surged towards him.

"Shouldn't we help him?" asked Hermione of the air.

"No, he knows the power of his brother and he knows that there are too many for us. He also knows that with the injured we have they would catch us easily. Rather than risking all of us dying, he is sacrificing himself for us to escape."

Rasputin turned and lowered himself into the passage.

Reluctantly Hermione turned and followed. The last thing she saw before she lowered herself down was a blinding blue light that filled the room.

She slid the panel back into place and set a quick series of strong sealing charms. She then turned, and followed Rasputin into the darkness.