Gotchya

Harry awoke without any knowledge of where he was, his head swam and someone must have taken off his glasses because he could not see. "Harry?" someone called from far away. "… Harry?"

Something hit him hard around the face, and things began to snap back into focus. He saw Hermione's face, crouched down above him, and beyond her, the murky stone walls, he tried to lift his head but his body felt weak, like he had not eaten for days and his head clunked heavily back against the hard floor. "Snap out of it Harry." Hermione swore loudly.

"You…Y-you spend too much time around Ron," his shivery voice croaked out.

"Harry? Harry how are you feeling? Are you ok?"

"C-Cold," he panted. Hermione helped him sit up, where he began to shiver uncontrollably.

"It's ok Harry. You'll be ok. Don't worry." Hermione knelt behind him and leant him against her. "Here," she said pointing her wand at him, "I'll warm you up."

"N-No!" He tried to shake his head. "No, it m-might set of the spells again."

"No it won't, I've already woken you up with magic... and a slap. The defences must only react if something within that dark circle of stones in the middle of the room is affected." Hermione warmed him with hot air but his shivering continued.

"Th-Thank you, I feel much better," Harry told her.

"You're still shivering."

"M-Must be an after effect of the sp-spells. But I f-feel much better."

Hermione pushed a hand against his forehead, and waved her wand over him but the more she tried to work out what was wrong, and the more she failed, the more anxious she got.

"I'm sorry Harry, I-I don't know what to do." She seemed close to tears.

"W-We get the Horcrux first… then-then we c-can worry about me." Harry tried to get to his feet. His glasses were on, but his vision was still blurry. He was warm but his shivering continued. He felt so weak; Hermione sagged under his weight as she helped him up.

"Sp-spells, ar-are the problem right?" Harry shook out. "S-So I'll walk to the cup casting shield charms, and if t-the shield is b-broken, you can levitate out my body. R-right?"

"Harry that's madness," he heard Ginny's voice from the mirror that was still propped up against the wall.

"And it probably wont work," said Hermione. "When you tried to use magic on the cup the spells shot at you. If I try to use magic on you I should think that spells will shoot at me."

"Then w-what do we d-do?"

Hermione chewed her lip. "Harry… What ever we do is going to be dangerous. But what if we walked there back to back? By shielding ourselves we shield each other. Once we get the cup away… well hopefully the spells will stop."

"Hermione," Ron said through the mirror, "that's even more stupid than what Harry said… this way you'll both be screwed."

Hermione did not look round. "It's our best bet, what do you think Harry?"

"L-Let's t-try it." Hermione stepped around Harry and pushed her back up to his. Harry walked forward with his wand up and ready. As he stepped with his right foot, Hermione stepped backwards with her left, so they matched.

"R-Ready?" Harry asked.

"When you are."

Harry took a step forward onto the dark circle of stones around the pedestal Spells shot at them and they both cried, "Protego."

"Don't stop," cautioned Hermione, "keep walking."

Harry stepped twice more, each time having to block more spells, before he felt a thud from behind him. He heard Ron shout Hermione's name, and saw her body hit the ground out of the corner of his eye. He made a snatch and grabbed the cup, he spun on the spot and cast the most powerful shield he could manage, there was a deluge of spells and he held them off, but he was weak, and as he took his next step the next lot of spells to crash down on his shield shattered it like a pane of glass and he slumped down over Hermione so that their bodies formed an X on the floor.

Nothing made sense… He was staring at something, but he had no idea what it was… He could hear a repetitious sound, but he could not make it out… His eyes were open, but they did not want to blink. Nothing made sense. He moved his head ever so slightly, his world shifted, but no meaning came from what he was seeing. He lay like that, dazed and confused, not knowing where he was, what day of the week it was, or even his name, for a long time. How long he did not know, but it came about that he realised he was looking into the open eyes of a girl equally as stunned as he was. The eyes blinked slowly.

"Harry…" he heard, the repetitious sound he could here began to take on some meaning, but it sounded as though it was coming from the other side of a wall, or from behind a pillow. It was muffled to the point were it was hardly recognisable. Was he Harry? It seemed right. Why not? He could be Harry.

"…Can't get through…"

The murmurs were becoming louder… It felt as though he was underwater, swimming to the surface, but the harder he kicked, the higher the surface seemed to be, and the farther away air was from his lungs.

"…Harry…"

He liked the sound of the voice talking to him; he wanted to hear it more.

"…Wake up…"

He concentrated on it, it seemed like he should know who it was… like the knowledge was there, in his brain, but that he could not reach it, and it was frustrating. The harder he clawed his way towards the knowledge that he knew he had, the less sure he was of whom the beautiful voice belonged to.

"…Harry, please…"

He ignored the murky murmurs for a second and gazed down dreamily at the rest of him and the girl underneath him, he saw a cup clenched in his left hand. How silly he thought, to fall over while taking a drink. Then he remembered… That was Ginny's voice. Suddenly he crested the water and he floundered about to keep his head from descending back into the dingy depths of semi consciousness.

"Urgh…" he groaned. With encroaching awareness came an awe inspiring headache and he noticed from where his head was, on the floor, a large amount of blood pooled around his face. "Herm-i-nee," he croaked as he jabbed her with the cup in a particularly ticklish spot she had just under her arm. She gave a feeble jerk and her eyes blinked more rapidly while her eyes rolled in her head. He poked her again.

"…Harry… Harry are you ok?..."

"I'm ok," he tried to shout, but all he could manage was a mumbled "'m 'k." Hermione looked like she was trying to focus on his face, her eyes went wide, and then she blinked slowly and opened her eyes wide again. "Harry?"

"…Don't move… Set off spells…"

"Ginny… said, 'Don't… move'" he panted. "Stay… Still."

"You're bleeding," Hermione said.

"Got… headache too." He smiled.

"What do we do now?" asked Hermione, she rolled her head carefully to the side and gazed around the room with half open eyes.

"Dunno… Wait to be rescued?" said Harry, he let out a titter, but stopped and groaned when his head started spinning. There was no rescue from this place.

"Just don't move," Harry heard Ron through the two way mirror. "We'll think of something."

Harry did not know how long he and Hermione lay there. Harry's head throbbed in pain, and his weight across Hermione was cutting off circulation to her legs so that every twitch, stretch or flex from either of them sent shards of shocking pins and needles shooting down to her toes. But they could not move… They could not risk a big move lest they set off the safe guards again and be struck unconscious.

"How's you're head?" Hermione whispered.

"Hurts." Harry noticed that she seemed much more alert than he was… His vision still just did not want to stay still.

"Something tells me that their not going to figure out how to help us Harry."

"It'll be ok."

"Do you think you're strong enough to cast a shield charm yet?" she asked softly.

"Sure," he said, more confident than he felt.

"Ok then… I'll cast a shield charm, you roll off me, then you cast a shield charm while I roll over you, and we can leap frog like that to the edge of the dark stones. Do you think you could manage that?"

"Sounds good. Tell me when."

Hermione took a deep breath. "Now," she said. "Protego," she cried.

Harry shifted over Hermione and onto his back so that he lay next to her. The spells raining down on Hermione's protective dome would have been pretty had they not been so dangerous. All shades of colour struck it and fizzed away.

"Your turn." Harry raised his wand up in the air and on the count of three, cast a shield as Hermione rolled over him onto his other side. Two more rolls each and they lay on the lighter coloured stone panting in exhaustion.

They staggered to their feet and shuffled over to the wall that was littered with symbolic arrows. Hermione, wasting no time sunk to her knees and pushed on the first triangle at the bottom, it lit up. She ran her hand quickly from one shape to another while Harry stood watching and swaying on his feet.

His eyes narrowed when he saw something different to the wall. When they had entered the room, Harry had checked that the wall was the same, and then it had been; now it was not. The path that the arrows pointed out on the wall branched near the end requiring two people to push on the symbols at once… but now the fork did not break into two different routes… it broke into three.

"Hermione," he said feebly.

"What?" she asked not bothering to turn towards him.

"Look, Hermione." He pointed to where the trail forked.

Hermione stood and stared for a minute without moving.

"What is it?" Harry heard Ginny ask through the mirror that was still propped up against the wall.

Harry knelt down heavily next to the mirror and looked through at his girlfriends face. "There's a three way fork on this side."

"What? But…But…"

"And they're too far apart to stretch to while either of us are pushing the symbols on the other two paths," said Hermione groggily. Looking through blurry eyes, Harry thought she looked a little worse for wear… he did not suppose he looked any better.

"But how are you going to get back? We can't get through to you either… the shapes wont light up since you went through." Ginny pushed the triangle at the bottom to make her point. As soon as she had, the already lit up shapes on Harry's side of the wall flickered off like a candle being blown out in the wind. He heard Ginny gasp. "Harry our side has lit up… I'm coming through."

Ron and Ginny quickly pressed all of the symbols until they came to the last circle.

"Let me push this on my own," Harry heard Ron, through the mirror, say to Ginny. "Then there'll be three people on that side."

"And why shouldn't I be the one to go."

"Because," snapped Ron, "I'd like to see Harry get you on his shoulders to reach the top symbols. He looks half dead at the moment, and there's no way you could lift him."

Harry did not hear a reply but could just see Ginny's scowl through the mirror. Something happened outside of Harry's view and Ginny suddenly looked very frightened. She moved suddenly and the mirror went black. Harry twitched his eyes up to the circle on his side of the wall and saw Ron and Ginny emerge from it as though they were being squashed through a ring.

Ginny knelt down to him and cradled his bleeding head to her shoulder. "Are you ok?" she asked kissing him.

"I'm fine," he replied although knew that he was looking anything but fine.

"Why did you both come through?" barked Hermione irritably.

"Soon as I touched that circle on my own it set off that snake trap again, so we both touched it together... we had to get away from them."

"How do we all get out?" asked Harry. He was not going to leave one of his friends behind.

Hermione huffed and shook her head as though to clear it. "Three of us go through… Two of us come back through, that leaves three people on this side and then we can all go back."

"Ok you three go through tha-"

"No you need to go through first Harry, you're the only one who can call off the snakes long enough to get them back into the roof ceiling," said Ginny. "I'll stay here and you three go through."

"I'll stay," said Hermione.

"You're hurt Hermione," argued Ginny still holding Harry to her.

"Exactly, which means that if something… goes wrong… and you can't get back through, you've got a better chance of all getting out."

Ron took Hermione's hand. "Hermione," he started softly.

"No, it makes sense… and even if nothing goes wrong and you can get straight back through Ginny'll have an easier time of it than I would, I can just sit here and rest."

Harry was starting to struggle to hear what was being said. He could feel the curses that had struck him clinging to his body, his head spun making him feel sick and his eye lids felt like lead. They began to close on their own. He tried to fight it, his eyes rolled upwards as though they were trying to push his lids back open but it was to no avail, just as he gave in and allowed himself to sink into a stupor and he felt his pains slipping away he felt a sharp smack to the side of his face. His head spun and his ears rung and pain ripped through him again. He half focused his eyes on Ginny and suddenly coughed into his hand, it came away red.

"Merlin… what…"

"Come on," he heard Ron say, "let's go. Hermione we'll be back for you, we'll only be a minute."

Harry was hoisted to his feet and Ron helped him over to where he was going to have to push on the wall, while Ginny already started to follow the symbols in their weaving trail. It seemed like hours before Harry was pushing on the little circle and being sucked through with Ron and Ginny.

"Stay back!" he had to hiss as soon as he arrived on the other side. Ron cast the best levitation charm he had ever pulled off and moved every one of the snakes back up and held them there while Ginny locked the trapdoor.

Harry eased down to the floor with Ron and Ginny's help and sat back against a slimy wall. His breathing was shallow and it was all he could do to remain conscious. The faint pink glow of the Aduron fairy that sat in the bottom of its cage, sulking, was drifting Harry off to sleep.

Time seemed to drift peculiarly, almost as though he was not really part of it, and darkness seeped down over his vision.

"We'll be back Harry," he heard as though from through a dense fog. "Just hold on."

He did not remember closing his eyes, but knew he must have when he was shaken awake. He saw Ginny's worried face in front of him and Ron behind her, supporting Hermione who was slumped against him, one arm around his shoulders; her eyes were rolling around half closed. What ever spell it was that Voldemort's trap had hit them with was lingering, and getting worse.

"Come on Harry. Come on. On your feet. Get up." Ginny tugged under one of his arms but he was too heavy for her. All he wanted was to close his eyes and go back to sleep, instead he forced himself to move. He managed to get to his hands and knees, but getting one foot underneath him to push up was too much for him, he just did not have the strength. He heard Ginny and Ron swap places and felt Ron's stronger arms seize him around his chest and lift him to his feet.

"Merlin you're heavy," he complained. Ron's arms felt like a vice around him, his breathing was already laboured and painful and he felt incredible relief when Ron threw one of Harry's arms over his shoulders and released his grip on his chest.

While Ron half carried him down the corridor Harry wondered whether this was what Dumbledore had felt like back in the summer, when Harry had been the one under his arm.

"Don't worry Harry," Ron tried to reassure him, the panic in his voice had the opposite effect though, "we'll get you back to Grimmauld place, and, and we'll find Madam Pomfrey, and, just don't worry, it'll be ok."

"Bill," Harry said coarsely, it felt like knives were scraping his throat as he spoke. "Need Bill."

"Well… ok Harry, we'll get Bill too, but-" whatever the but was, Harry never knew because no matter how hard he tried, he could not stop the darkness encroach on his world and send him to its inky depths.

A/N: So… What you think?