Chapter Fourteen

The castle was in chaos.

The alarms had woken them from their position on the couch. There was a smell of smoke in the air even from the dungeons. Headmistress McGonagall's voice came roaring over the intercom:

"Get to the great hall! We are under attack!" The same two sentences booming on repeat. It was obvious a spell had been put in place for it to manage this.

Draco and Hermione got up quickly and retreated out of the common room and into the smoke filled hall. They had made it up two stair wells before a spell came whizzing passed Hermione's face and hit Draco square in his. With an unmanly shriek, he was flung into the opposite stone wall.

"Draco!" Hermione exclaimed loudly. Another spell shot in her direction, but it missed its target and instead bounced off the bottom most step. She began to fire back, bellowing all of the spells, charms and hexes she had learned from the training sessions. With the exception being the one that slit people's throats. It was too smokey to see far in front of her and she was doing her best to aim in the direction of the others spells.

She bent over, still muttering spells and pointing her wand out towards their attacker, and checked Draco's pulse. He was slumped on the floor in a heap. His pulse was steady and he appeared to be just knocked out. Hermione let out a sigh of relief before she heard the curse and felt the spasm of pain.

"Crucio!" The voice was familiar, but she had no time to dwell on it. Hermione's thoughts were filled with pain as her body writhed in agony. She let out loud yells as her head tossed back and forth. It was excruciating. And then, it stopped. A loud bang echoed through the halls and Hermione's left arm was grabbed by a foreign hand.

She attempted to fight with her attacker, only to be held down and hit again with another wave of the forbidden curse. Pain and exhaustion filled her as she flailed.

When the pain from the curse had finally subsided, a whole new amount took its place in her left arm. It felt as though it had been set on fire! Through all of the burning, she could feel something wet and sticky covering it.

Hermione lay on the stone floor in a cold sweat, trying her hardest to catch her breath and counting the moments until her arm stopped throbbing. Finally regaining some sort of strength, she sat up and looked at Draco. His face was still, but he was still breathing.

Using a charm she levitated his body in front of her and made her way as quickly as she could to the great hall. When she entered, she was surprised by how few faces she saw. There was less than a handful of them, and they all looked as tattered as Hermione supposed she did. McGonagall made her way immediately to Hermione and the unconscious blonde boy.

"Lay him down over her, Ms. Granger." McGonagall pointed to an open cot, one of the many set up in place of the four large tables that usually called the meal hall home.

Hermione did as instructed and Madam Pomfrey hurried over with a cart of different colored liquids. "What happened?" She asked hastily. Hermione recounted what they had just been through. "Did you hear what the spell was that was cast?" she was taking out a large syringe and filling it with a vile green looking liquid.

"No, but it slammed him back against the wall. I think it may have been a disarming hex of sorts." Madam Pomfrey nodded her head and glanced at Hermione for the first time. Her face fell as she looked upon Hermione's arm. "Minerva.." it was soft but the tone was there. Worry.

Before Hermione had a chance to inspect it herself, McGonagall had taken the girls arm into hers. "Oh my," she muttered, and then got the attention of a house elf who was putting a band aid on a Hufflepuff's hand. The small elf came over, his eyes as big as saucers.

"Take Ms. Granger to a cot and try and heal this. Quickly now, before she loses more blood." Hermione was confused but followed the elf's lead as he dashed to a cot adjacent Draco's. She was glad for this seeing as she was more worried about him than herself at the moment.

"Ow!" Her arm retracted with pain as the small creature dabbed a solution onto it.

"Sorry miss, but this isn't healing like it should be with this paste. I'll trys another one." The elf hopped off a step stool she hadn't seen it grab and go to the cart by Draco's bed.

What isn't healing with the paste?

She was finally given the chance to see her arm. The sleeve had been torn off above the elbow, and her forearm was drenched in dark blood. But the word was there. Bolder and shinier than it had ever been:

Mudblood.

The word brough shivers to her spine and memories flooding back to her. The way Bellatrix Lestrange had straddled her and carved the word into her arm five years ago, how her attacker must have done the same tonight.

The curse used to carve through her arm must have reacted with the one that was used the first time, thus all of the blood. Hermione started to feel weak, and it was clear all of the blood she had lost was finally catching up to her, and her adrenaline was fizzing out.

As her world started to fade, the elf was rushing back over to her. He laid her down on the cot and began to administer different magic to her wound. There was no way to no recognize the vicious word etched into her now.

And that was when she finally understood; this was no ordinary attack on the school. It wasn't some unknown group of dark sided witches and wizards. This attack was done by someone who had a vendetta against her and what she and her friends had accomplished in the last war.

This was personal.

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