Hello there dear fanfiction readers/writers. Here's the next installment, and a quick disclaimer, since I haven't bothered to type one for quite sometime, I don't own ANY of this work. Personalities, plot lines, characters all belong to JK Rowling. Imagine that. Please review, and I hope you enjoy!
Once Lee Jordan challenged she and Ron to a dance off, Hermione finally had to insist on sitting down. Her feet were screaming in agony, but it was still with reluctance that she left Ron to find butterbeers on his own. As she hobbled her way across the dance floor, she noticed Viktor storming away from Xenophilius Lovegood and frowned. However, she was even more nervous to see Harry, or Barny, sitting at a table with both a tiny, elderly wizard and none other than Ron's charming Auntie Muriel.
"Old bat," she sighed, and hesitantly drew up a chair as far away from the witch as possible.
"I simply cannot dance anymore," she told Harry breathlessly, for the sake of conversation. She pulled off her shoes with painful relief, and continued, "Ron's gone looking to find more butterbeers. It's a bit odd – I've just seen Viktor storming away from Luna's father – it looked like they'd been arguing…" she trailed off when she noticed Harry's agitated expression for the first time. It was eerily familiar, even if he did currently have the face of a freckly ginger.
"Harry, are you okay?" she eyed him carefully, then glanced up as a large, silvery creature – lynx – fell into the midst of the crowd of dancers. Hermione's eyes widened and the creature's mouth opened.
"The ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."
Kingsley's voice was one that she recognized immediately, and already her thought process began working too quickly, images and thoughts fighting their way for priority. As was her natural reaction to anxiety, her wand was already drawn. Moving past the chaos in her head, Hermione realized that the crowd around her had fallen silent.
Then, somebody screamed.
With a jolt she noticed the broken protective enchantments, and the wizards on all sides casting spells. Reality was breaking in waves on her consciousness – death eaters must be moments from arrival. Her heart constricted, and the only coherent thought she could form ripped its way from her throat with a vengeance.
"RON!" her voice hardly pierced the surrounding cacophony. "Ron, where are you?" She shoved her feet back into her heels, but this time ignored the burn. Harry was moving fast in front of her, and she had to keep up.
Not processing what anyone was yelling around her, she scanned the crowds, seeing familiar faces on all sides. None of them were the ones that she was looking for. "Ron! Ron!" she was crying, and gripped the hand of Harry's that had found its way into hers. He was dragging her along, spells were flying, and people – so many people.
A head suddenly appeared above the others.
Exhaling in a sort of triumphant shout of relief, she wildly extended an arm, which he groped for. Once she felt the grip of his fingers, she spun on the spot, picturing the first place that came to her mind, holding to it determinedly. It was the only real thing – that and the hands of Harry and Ron, which didn't disappear as they were sucked into the uncomfortable sensation of apparation.
When her eyes finally opened, it was to nearly the same mental picture that she had remembered. It was a wide street, and crowds of people were pushing their way down it.
When she felt a burning in her lungs, she remembered with a pang to let out the breath she had not realized she had been holding. Her feet were numb, and cold. She wondered for an instant if they were bleeding, and pictured severing them at the ankle. Instead, she bit her lip, got a firmer grip on the wrists on either side of her, and began to walk.
"Where are we?"
Hermione glanced to the side at Ron's question. "Tottenham Court Road. Walk. Just walk."
She didn't have the air to say anything else. Her words had come in short pants, but she continued, "We need to find somewhere for you to change."
The boys didn't argue anymore, unsurprisingly. Sirens in the distance were blaring, and onlookers ogled them with bizarre expressions. Hermione's lungs were bursting, her feet were bursting, her head was bursting.
Walk. Just keep walking.
The moment Hermione slid onto the bench at the shabby cafe, her shoes were off, and her attention was towards the door that was behind her back, something that she was painfully uncomfortable with.
"Let's get going, then, I don't want to drink that muck. Hermione, have you got muggle money to pay for that?" Ron needlessly tapped her hand gently to gain her attention.
"Yes, I took out all my Building Society Savings before I came to the Burrow," she told him automatically, and resisted the urge to smirk at his blank look. She retrieved her bag from next to her. "I bet all the change is at the bottom."
Groping blindly at the inside of the enlarged purse, she shook it experimentally.
"Hmm," she murmured, and then gasped as Ron was suddenly flying forward at her, looking terrified. He smashed her onto the bench, crushing her beneath him, flattening her horizontally beneath him on the bench.
"Ron!" she yelped, but her muffled cry of alarm was drowned out by the crashing that a sudden jet of light made colliding against the wall above her.
"Stupefy!" she heard Harry shouting, and she immediately began fumbling for her wand. She could hardly breathe though, let alone access her crowded handbag, as Ron's chest was pressing heavily down on her own, and his hands were gripping her arms tightly.
When she finally had a firm hold, and was pulling her wand from the crack in the bench that it had fallen into, Ron was suddenly covered in thick, scratchy ropes. Their eyes met – he looked apologetic, but he needn't have. She had a feeling that had he not acted when he did, a curse would have caught her unawares the next moment.
She couldn't move much beneath him, but managed finally to shift her face to have a view of the legs of the two burly (what she guessed to be) death eaters. Watching helplessly, she whimpered when the waitress thumped to the ground behind them.
Her arm was finally free from beneath Ron's weight, and using all of the volume she could muster, she shrieked, "Expulso!" as shards of table flew everywhere. Instinctively, she recoiled, and buried her face in Ron's shoulder, holding him tightly against her as though her grip could protect him from the blast.
Eyes squeezed shut, she could only imagine what had happened to Harry when she heard the sickening thud of a body hitting the wall.
With new resolve and a gasp of effort, she squirmed free from Ron, and smacked onto the ground, jamming her finger into the leg of the table beside her. Ignoring the pain, she screamed, "Petrificus Totalus!" and watched with satisfaction as the victim of her spell crashed bodily to the tiled floor.
Her wrists and thighs were seizing up with the effort of propping herself up in the uncomfortable position. Seeing that the danger had ceased, she squeezed Ron's arm quickly to make sure he knew she hadn't forgotten him, and quaked her way out from under the table on all fours. Trembling, she used the table to push herself to a standing position, immediately focusing her attention on Ron – the boy who, in her hysterical state, looked like the most gallant of heroes.
"D-diffindo," she stammered, pointing her want at the ropes containing him. She jumped as he jerked and then howled, and covered her mouth when she saw the blood on his knee. "Oh I'm so sorry, Ron," she cried, and to her embarrassment she realized that two tears squeezed from her eyes. "My hand's shaking," she feebly tried to explain.
With determined precision, she tried again. "Diffindo." The ropes recoiled, but with a pang she noticed they had left angry red marks. Ron stood heavily to his feet, rubbing them, and Hermione moved over to support him, slipping her arm around his back timidly. His arm fell easily over her shoulders, and he leaned his weight further into her.
They moved to stand behind Harry, who was saying something about Dumbledore's death.
"That's Dolohov, I recognize him from the old wanted posters. I think the big one's Thorfinn Rowle," Ron was now saying, but Hermione's mind was going fuzzy with fear.
"Never mind what they're called! How did they find us? What are we going to do?"
Moving into their natural roles again, Harry jumped into action. "Lock the door. And Ron, turn out the lights."
As soon as they were enveloped by darkness, Hermione became acutely aware of the fact that she and Ron were still leaning into each other. His hand was squeezing her arm now, but he was whispering to Harry now. She tuned back in to hear the remainder of his words.
"…kill them? They'd kill us. They had a good go just now."
The thought of raising her wand with the purpose of permanently destroying human life made Hermione's chest tighten. She stepped back, pressing herself closer into the crook of Ron's arm, the same Ron who had suggested the very idea that was now making her ill.
"We just need to wipe their memories. It's better like that; it'll throw them off the sent. If we kill them, it'd be obvious we were here."
Hermione was nodding before Harry had even finished his thoughts. Trust him to speak out against any sort of drastic violence – on that, she could relate to him wholeheartedly. Manipulating wands, memories or furniture was all fine, manipulating human life, on the other hand, was something that she was not ready for.
"You're the boss," Ron replied, and Hermione was glad at his tone of relief. "But I've never done a memory charm."
Hermione glanced at him. "Nor have I, but I know the theory." She needn't have said it – it had already been decided silently that she would be the one to perform the spells. She pointed her want at the smaller of the two death eaters. "Obliviate." His eyes lost focus, and she knew that he no longer had any idea of who he was. She hoped fervently that whatever new identity he came up with would be more pleasant than the last.
"Brilliant," Harry was congratulating her, and clapping her shoulder. "Take care of the other one and the waitress while Ron and I clear up."
Hermione scooted out from Ron's grasp and walked with trepidation towards the crumpled muggle woman. With a grimace, she took in the awkwardly bent elbow and pile of repeatedly dyed hair. Falling to her knees, she gingerly shifted the woman's face so that she could look at it clearly. The waitress's jaw had lolled open, and Hermione could see the electric green wad of gum nearly falling out in her pooling saliva.
Something about the repulsive image gave Hermione a strange desire to laugh, though she felt disgusted with herself for even thinking it.
"Obliviate," she finally bit out, and watched the subtle change that came over Luann's (Hermione only now noticed the woman's name tag) features.
As she was steeling to move to the remaining death eater, she noticed a passing boy just outside the door, gaping at the scene within. Hermione swore quickly under her breath, but luckily his mum pulled him distractedly away from the dark café. Still, now wary of passersby, she altered her course of action to first shifting Luann away from the prying eyes of the muggle street.
"It's no wonder I can't get it out, Hermione, you packed my old jeans, they're tight."
Hermione glanced up when she heard Ron saying her name, and narrowed her eyes at the complaint. "Oh I'm so sorry," she snapped shortly, rapidly losing her cool. After days of preparing more thoroughly than either of them had bothered to, hours of dealing with death traps of shoes, a stubbed finger, random people possibly looking in on them, wiping away memories of three people who were too cold and too still, worrying about what in Merlin's name they would do now, and now listening to the complaints of the one boy who had made the day bearable, even somewhat pleasant, the fit of Ron's trousers was the least of her concerns.
"You might try storing it up your arse from now on," she muttered, grasped Luann by the armpits, and with a giant heave, towed her away from the windows and door.
Returning to the other death eater, Rowle, according to Ron, she saw Harry repairing the blasted table shards.
"Obliviate," she said, ignoring the infuriating red-headed boy now standing by her side. Once Rowle's expression had taken on the familiar dream-like quality, she abruptly made her way over to the slumped body, but not before Ron began cheerfully,
"You know Hermione, I reckon we'd be two sorry blokes without you."
His eyes were sparkling knowingly, and she recognized immediately his attempts to make amends. At least he wasn't completely daft.
"Perhaps your clothes would fit then," she replied stiffly.
"Or we'd end up in the buck, since neither of us would have the presence of mind to bring clothes along."
Hermione's cheeks flushed at his reference to nudity, and she turned her head a little so that he couldn't see her smile.
"That would be a sight to see." She let some warmth seep into her tone, but followed hurriedly with, "Well lend a hand then, I can't support all this weight by myself."
Ron nodded, and through the semi-darkness she could tell that he was profoundly relieved. He had no doubt that he was already back in her good graces. Rather than "lending a hand," he walked over to the death eater and foisted him onto his own shoulder, carrying the weight by himself. Grunting quickly, he staggered to a standing position, then glanced at Hermione again.
"I know that we can be right prats sometimes," he told her quietly, "Just don't scarper off on us, all right?"
Without waiting for her reply, he shuffled away, lopsided with his burden. Harry moved over immediately to help support the dead weight, and looking between the two of them, Hermione murmured with a fond grin, "No chance of that."
Then she turned back around to continue cleaning the destroyed café.