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Chapter Fourteen

The End of the Beginning

Abby waited until Spooky was leaning over her before making her move. As usual he had set the tray of food down on the bedside table and was now leaning over Abby to 'wake' her. As he reached down to shake her awake, Abby quickly twisted her body around so that she could brace her back against the wall. Just as quickly, she kicked out with all her strength. Her feet connected with Spooky's chest, sending him stumbling backwards.

Abby did not hesitate or give him a chance to regain his footing. She snatched up the candle-lamp that was lying next to her and launched herself off the bed. As she did, she brought the candle-lamp down upon Spooky's head, hard. For a terrifying, dizzying moment, Abby was afraid that she had not hit him hard enough. She brought the lamp up high again, intending to hit him one more time, but Spooky swayed and bent at the waist for only a second before tumbling to the floor face first.

He almost landed on top of Abby's feet. She leaped backwards, not wanting too get to close. Shock at succeeding rooted her to the spot for a full minute. She stared down at the unconscious form, her face full of amazement. Her plan had worked - not only that, it had worked much better then she had anticipated. She had not thought that Spooky would go down so easily, and now that he had, she was not at all prepared for the next step of her plan.

Another minute passed as Abby stood silently, unable to make any decisions. Gradually, her senses returned, and she spun away from Spooky and ran for the door which he had not bothered to shut behind him. Abby did not stop to try and get a sense of where she was. Instead, she let instinct guide her, and it led her to the only light that shone in the dimly lit hallway. The light was coming from a window which was at the top of a set of stairs. She did not pause to think, but ascended the stairs as fast as she could.

At the top, she still did not stop to take in her surroundings. She took note only of the fact that she was in a single room and that there was only one door. She sprinted for the door and, in her haste, forgot even to twist the knob, sobbing when the door refused to open. Only when she stopped to think did she realize that she had to turn the knob. With a cry of relief, she pulled the door open. With another shout of triumph, she rejoiced, letting the chilled air of the evening outside wash over in icy waves. She sucked it all in; the air, the sky, and the fact that she had won - finally!

As she took one step forward, a hand clamped down on her shoulder.

Abby screamed.

Hermione's entire body was consumed with fear. It controlled her and, without thinking, she reached out and touched the cool liquid in which her daughter was projected. As her fingers skimmed the surface, the spell Harry had cast broke and fell away, leaving the surface of the water dark and worse, blank. Hermione jerked her hand away with a cry of grief and horror, but it was too late.

The sound of Hermione's sorrowful exclamation smashed its way through Draco's shock, and he jumped forward just in time to stop Hermione from crashing to the floor. She tried to fight him off, but he held her firmly, crushing her to his chest as he offered what little comfort he could. He held her tightly; soothing her with senseless and meaningless words that he knew offered her no reassurance. Even so, he clung to her, hoping that what little he could do was enough.

Harry and Ginny came running into the kitchen, concern written on both their faces. Draco looked at Harry over the top of Hermione's head and shook his head firmly. Harry, thankfully, understood that Draco did not want to discuss what he and Hermione had seen just yet.

Harry turned to Ginny. "Take Hermione upstairs, do whatever you have to do to calm her, even if that means giving her Sleeping Potion."

Ginny did not offer any protest. Instead, she came quietly over to where Draco stood, still clutching Hermione to him, and took hold of Hermione by the shoulders. When Draco seemed reluctant to let her go, Ginny said compassionately, "I'll take good care of her, I promise."

Draco realized that he had a death grip on Hermione. He eased his hold on her and nodded to Ginny. "I know you will."

Just as Ginny was leading Hermione from the room, Neville rushed in. He waited until the two women were gone before asking, "Did I just hear Hermione scream?"

Draco raked a hand through his hair, making it as messy as Harry's was naturally. He sighed and said, "Yeah, you did."

"What happened?" Harry asked quietly. Draco could hear the worry in his voice.

"Abigail -" Draco started, only to have to pause so that he could recover a little of his composure. When he was sure that his voice was not going to crack, he said, "Abigail must have attempted an escape. Hermione and I saw her standing in a doorway leading outside. She looked…" Draco let a ghost of a smile touch his lips as he said, "…pleased with herself."

He paused for a second, the memory of seeing Abby alive and like herself after so long, stirring his emotions a little too much. Before Harry or Neville could ask anything more of him, though, he went on, "I think she was about to make a run for it when that bastard who took her caught up with her. She must have screamed, though we couldn't hear it, and then she started fighting with that…that…" Draco waved a hand eloquently, unable to come up with a suitable name for the man who had Abby. "Anyhow, right before Hermione touched the water, it looked as if the kidnapper was about to curse Abby with a spell.

"What happened then?" Neville questioned, concern written all over his face.

Draco shrugged, "I have no idea. It was then that Hermione touched the water, and everything went blank." He turned to Harry, "Please tell me that you remember, or, better yet, wrote down the spell you used to visualize Abigail."

"I did," Harry assured Draco. "I'll go get it now, and we'll make sure that she hasn't been harmed, but then we are going to work non-stop until we come up with a spell or something that allows us to get to her."

"You don't have to convince me," Neville agreed, his voice a little shaky.

Draco said nothing as Harry left the room to get the sheet he had written the spell on. He did not want to admit it, but he was terrified for Abby, and it was making him just as shaky as Neville had sounded. Without a word, Draco went over to the table he had been working at and started gathering all the bits and pieces of parchment he and the others had made notes on. Once he had them all, he went over to the kitchen counter, for more space and began laying them all out. His reasons were twofold - one, he could see all of the notes at a glance and, two, it was giving the notes a chance to dry.

Neville came over and silently started helping him. The two worked in silence until Harry returned a few moments later. Harry walked over to where the two other men stood and pulled the cauldron toward him. He took a deep breath produced a small vial of some clear substance from within his robes. He uncorked it and tipped it over, letting two drops hit the water. He looked at the others and explained somberly, " Spiritus Locus, better known as the Breath of Life."

Draco was impressed. The elixir of which Harry spoke was rare and very hard to come by. He fleetingly wondered how Harry had gotten a hold of it and made a mental note to ask him sometime. For now, though, he concentrated on Harry. Draco was always keen to learn new spells and new ways of doing magic, so he watched Harry closely as he performed the spell that he had created.

Draco was surprised to hear Harry chanting. It was low, so low that Draco discovered he was leaning slightly forward in order to hear what was being said, and even then, he did not understand a word. Harry was speaking in what Draco recognized as Old Latin -unfortunately it happened to be the one subject Draco had never excelled at. He sighed and decided he would just have Harry teach him the spell some other time. Of course, there was the part where the spell called for Spiritus Locus, which Draco was not sure he had. He would have to check his ingredients for it when he returned home.

Draco turned his attention to the watery surface, waiting to see Abby appear. When minutes passed and Harry had grown quiet, Draco demanded, "Why isn't it working?"

Harry did not look up from the cauldron when he replied, "Wait a moment more. I thought it had failed last time, just like you, but it actually takes a little longer to work."

Draco was losing what little patience he had when the surface of the water started swirling as if moved by invisible hands. He leaned over to look inside, as did Harry and Neville - the three of them were so close that their heads brushed against one another. The misty illusion slowly parted, and they saw that they were looking at Abby's kidnapper. None of them had ever seen the person's face, but, whoever it was, they were not happy. The person was quite literally throwing a temper tantrum.

As the three men watched, the person threw a lamp, closely followed by a vase, a flat-looking object that Draco assumed was some sort of dish, and a few smaller objects at the wall angrily. As he watched, a small smile lifted the corner of his lips. Draco looked up to see Harry looking back at him, the same smile plastered over his face.

Neville, who was still looking into the cauldron asked, clearly confused, "What is that person doing?"

Amused, Draco replied, "Throwing a temper tantrum, it seems."

Harry's grin widened as he concurred, "Yep, that's what he appears to be doing."

"Yes…" Neville allowed, vexed at their cryptic replies, "…I can see that for myself, but why is he so angry?"

"Abigail got away," Draco said, a little surprised that Abby had somehow managed to escape, after all.

This time, Neville looked up, surprise written all over his expression, "Escaped? How do you conclude that just because some guy is having a fit?"

Harry was the one to answer. "Because, when I performed the spell, I wanted to see Abby - but I made one little mistake." Before Neville could ask what that mistake had been, Harry told him, "The spell requires you to envision the person, but I envisioned the place and person since I had a general idea of what the room she had been held in looked like."

Neville was obviously still bemused, because he was frowning when he said, "I see, but that still doesn't explain -"

Draco interrupted to enlighten the poor man. "Don't you recognize the room the kidnapper is having his fit in? It's the same room that Abigail had been trapped in these past couple of weeks. What's, or rather, who's missing, though?"

Neville finally understood as he exhaled, "Abby."

"Right you are!" Draco agreed happily. He turned to Harry, "Can we re-work the spell to find Abby? She's got to be close by, wherever she was. Maybe if we can see her, we can determine where she is and rescue her before the kidnapper finds her."

Harry nodded, "Sure, let me just empty this out, and we'll get started."

With their moods considerably lightened, they got to work.

Abby did not remember how she got away. She had a few recollections of kicking Spooky, swinging her small fists and even biting him, but they were hazy. All she could recollect now was that, at some point during the struggle, Spooky had hollered in pain and released his hold on her. Abby had not waited to find out what had caused Spooky's pain; rather, she had turned and fled as fast as her little legs would take her.

She had not taken note of which direction she was headed, and that worried her, but definitely not as much as the idea of Spooky being right behind her. The cold fear of being caught again kept her feet pumping even as they burned with exhaustion. Every time she thought of slowing down, a vision of Spooky right on her heels made her keep up the hasty pace she had set. It was not until she found herself inside a tight cluster of trees that she was able to force herself to stop.

Abby collapsed against the nearest tree trunk. Her breathing was harsh and ragged. It felt as if every part of her ached from the energy that she had just spent. Every time she breathed, it felt as if she was breathing in fire. Her side stabbed her with a low throb and, her legs protested simply because she moved to sit down and her head felt woozy. Abby looked back at the way she had come, as she did, another shot of horror enveloped her. Spooky could find her by simply following her prints in the snow.

Ignoring the screaming objections of her body, Abby quickly got to her feet and started to frantically look around for a solution to the current problem. At long last, she came up with the idea of brushing her tracks away. She searched for something to do that with, and found a fallen tree branch with pine needles still attached. She walked for a full ten minutes before she decided she had gone far enough and then began using the branch of needles like an oversized broom. She swept it from side to side, erasing all traces of her run. For extra good measure, she swept the make shift broom in a few other directions so that, when she was done, it appeared (at least to her untrained eye) as if the soft strokes in the snow were natural and not made by a little girl.

Abby walked backwards to the thick grove of trees she had been in before, sweeping away her prints as she went. When she was back under the shaded trees, she tossed the branch aside, adding her arms to her list of aches. She did not want to sit back in the snow; she was already starting to feel the chill of the air, and getting wet would only make it worse. Abby looked around, her thoughts jumbled as she tried to decide what to do next.

She was not sure exactly where she was, but knew that she was at least a few miles from home. She knew the area well, since her mum had never restricted her from wandering. Over the years, she had trekked up and down the hills and valleys and thus knew them well. Knowing them as well as she did was a good thing, but it also allowed her to know that she would not make it very far in the fading daylight. She was thinking clearly enough to know all that, but could still not decide on what to do next.

The night air would bring colder temperatures, and all she had was her winter cloak. Abby stuck her hands in her pocket and touched something fuzzy. She pulled it out and discovered that is was her colorful hat, scarf and gloves. She almost yelled in glee but, since she did not know where Spooky was, she restrained herself with some difficulty. Instead, she slipped all three garments on and instantly felt better. Somehow, having her winter things made her feel as if she was going to be okay, and feeling that way allowed her brain to clear and be able to think.

Abby spotted a low-lying branch on a nearby pine tree (Was it a spruce? She could never tell the difference.) and walked over to it. She peered up into the branches, wondering if what she was thinking would work. She decided it would, and began to climb, but before she even got up onto the first branch, she happened to look down and saw that her tracks led right to the tree. She frowned, thinking hard again. If, by chance, Spooky did come this way, he would see her footprints and know that she was in the tree. She did not want to believe he would come this far, but she did not want to take the chance of doing nothing and leading Spooky right to her.

She jumped back to the ground and retrieved the broom-branch that she had used earlier. She started at one end of where she had been walking and cleared all evidence of her presence. Once she had reached the tree, she put the broken branch down and used that to step on to reach the higher limbs of the tree she was going to hide in.

Abby climbed until she found a nook in the limbs. She twisted around until her back was against the trunk of the tree, then tucked herself in, wedging her legs and upper torso between branches so that she would not fall. Once she was sure she was secure, Abby leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She was so tired that she felt as if she could sleep until next winter, just like a hibernating bear.

The thought was still floating around in her mind as she drifted off.