Ok, here's the next installment! It's flying now, hope I have time to finish up within a few days.
Guest 1-love the matryoshka doll comment! Glad you like the layers!
Guest 2-Hermione was pretty bad-ass in that chapter, wasn't she?
tiachutis, I hope you've persevered.
viola, Hermione had to have her moment with Therese. Really required, I think!
Alesia G, wait until you see what happens now. Love the idea of Astoria as assistant to Hermione!
zeeksmom, you are too right about learning the lesson of never underestimate! Ouch...read on!
All right, I will try not to leave you hanging too long for the next installment. Busy day tomorrow so we shall see! Hope all who have a holiday weekend will enjoy it! And please, hit that review button! It's my birthday weekend so a lot of reviews would be an awesome present! Thank you!
Lucius was prepared for the lurch as they arrived at Bedell's refuge of choice, but he didn't have much time to study it as Bedell was throwing hexes at him left, right, and center. While the anxiety potion had made him quicker, he was less accurate, and that was an advantage that Lucius would not hesitate to press. Hermione's wand was a bit more flexible than his own, giving his spells a whipcrack at the end that he found he quite liked.
"Did you honestly think that we wouldn't find you out?" Lucius said as he exchanged hexes with his cousin. He blew off a burning curse, then deflected a nasty ulcerating hex as he sent his own darker spells toward his cousin, who parried them clumsily but nonetheless held his own.
"You've sold out the cause, Lucius," Bedell snapped, angry and cornered. "Let your old feelings slip away like snakeskin so you could regain your vaunted superiority. But I knew that regardless of the lies told, Muggles are still and will always be inferior, like cattle to be herded and harvested if necessary. Even the nasty Mudbloods, who don't belong and never will."
"Your distressing lack of vision and adaptability will be your end," Lucius replied, boxing Bedell in and preparing to end it.
"I doubt that," Bedell said as he blocked another curse, the sly grin on his mouth the only signal Lucius had that reinforcements had arrived. He stupefied Bedell and whirled to face the new opponent—Antonin Dolohov.
"Long time no see, Lucius," Dolohov said, his wand working as quickly as Lucius' own. "Don't worry, I won't make this long."
"Likewise," Lucius said with a sneer, aware that Bedell had thrown off the Stupefy, flicking another two behind him in quick succession, the thud telling him that he had hit his mark again.
There was nothing else said, just two rapidly working wands and a vast array of hexes and dark curses that each wizard avoided or blocked. Dolohov was always more interested in a quick in and out fight, and Lucius intended to tire him out, taking a second to incarcerate Bedell with thick ropes before focusing all of his attention again on Dolohov.
"Been practicing," Antonin commented evenly, the crack of apparition an unpleasant reminder of how Dolohov had summoned help in Hogsmeade many months ago.
"Necessity," Lucius said, easily expanding his casting. He could be in real trouble here, hoped that Bertrand wasn't faffing about. Suddenly he felt his signet ring heat up—fuck. The stunning spell slipped in from behind him, and he heard Cornelia Dextrose's cold voice, summoned his magic nonverbally and cast, throwing Hermione's wand to the side before the "Stupefy!" from Dolohov hit him full frontal.
"This doesn't look occupied," Hermione said suspiciously, the curly maple wand still pointed at Thérèse although they had to allow the older witch her own wand to bring them both here. It was an isolated glen near a fjord, the only visible dwelling a pathetic looking cottage.
"Idiotic Mudblood," Thérèse sniffed. "You're here, I'm leaving. I won't wish you well. You shouldn't be interfering."
Draco recognized the murderous look in Hermione's eyes and pushed her wand down. "Calm down, Granger. She's just a vicious bitch, ignore her."
Thérèse took the opportunity to disapparate, although the fact that she bothered to muffle the crack of her disappearance was something, at least. Probably hoped they would walk right into the trap she had set for them, Hermione thought angrily to herself.
"Stay still!" Draco hissed, the feeling of cold egg whites running over her as Draco disillusioned them both and cast a quick Muffliato, a witch soon illuminated in the doorway of what was really a hovel.
"I don't see anything," Cornelia Dextrose whined, and they heard a man's voice behind her.
"I heard someone disapparating, I'm telling you." It was Bedell. They both held stock still, Hermione's mind racing through possibilities. The worst one flared into life as they heard a wrenched scream, then Dolohov's cold voice—
"Never thought I'd be turning my knives on you, Lucius. Still, your blood is as pretty as you are."
Never in her life had Hermione felt so impotent. She wanted to charge in, to cast every Unforgivable and watch that pond scum writhe under her wand, make him pay for every single one of his evil acts. She felt Draco's body stiffen next to hers, his own mind cast back to the innumerable atrocities he'd witnessed during the war. It said something that neither of them visibly flinched, even when they heard the thrashing that inevitably comes from the Cruciatus, breaking crockery and glass.
"You don't have to break up everything," they heard Bedell hiss, and Dolohov snarled back sharply, "Just keep looking for his wand! He threw it somewhere!"
As Draco and Hermione stood there for what felt like an eternity, Cornelia's eyes scanning incessantly for any telltale shimmer, they heard a large crack, then a piece of the glacier sheared off into the water a few miles away, churning up the sea with a rush of waves.
"It was the damn glacier," Cornelia said with a snap, looking over her shoulder. She shut the door and Hermione finally trembled with rage, her magic threatening to dispel the disillusionment Draco had cast.
"We have to do something," Draco said, aware that Hermione was a 'charge first, think later' kind of witch at moments like this. "Something clever, that they won't expect, just to buy time."
Hermione looked at Draco, who held up a familiar gold coin. "They are coming, Hermione. We just need minutes."
"He doesn't have minutes," Hermione snapped. "I'm going in there."
"You can't do that!" Draco hissed, and Hermione looked at him coldly.
"They want me alive. We need a distraction, and I'll give us one. You just focus on getting Lucius out."
"I can't let you do this, Hermione!" Draco's hand on her arm was the end for Hermione, a dreadful sound of ripping flesh reaching their ears from the open window.
"I either stun you now, or you do as I say," Hermione said, her tone absolutely glacial. Draco could feel her magic gathering itself, decided to take a chance on her plan rather than not be able to help at all.
"Fine, but I'm in as soon as they are distracted," Draco said, letting her go. He hoped it wasn't a mistake.
"THAT'S ENOUGH!"
Harry Potter's voice roared through the room at the French Auror headquarters, a Sonorous charm amplifying his voice. Bertrand ceased his arguing with a French Ministry official who was haranguing them about headstrong English wizards, cross-country boundary conditions, and other ridiculous rot.
"I know where they are, and we ARE going now," Harry thundered, holding up his glowing gold coin. "All Aurors, come here and get your portkeys! Now!"
"Finally, a wizard with some fucking sense," Bertrand hissed, grabbing a button from Harry. "It is the trahison des clercs, Mr. Potter." He paused and raised his wand. "Ventre à terre!"
Hermione felt preternaturally calm as she knocked on the door. She had Lucius' wand in hand, knew clinically they would take it the second the door was opened. She tried to prepare herself for the state her husband would be in, told herself in her mind that it could all be fixed. Still, nothing quite prepared her for the sight of him on the ground, his clothes shredded, swallowed up in ribbons of blood and what looked like clumps of flesh colored tissue paper. The smell of blood was strong, mixed with other scents she'd rather not think about. She focused on not heaving up the miniscule contents of her stomach as Dolohov eyed her speculatively and Cornelia Dextrose's eyes narrowed, her wand pointed at her. Bedell looked up from his knees on the floor in the far corner, a smug expression in his eyes.
"Well I do believe you have been useful after all Lucius," Bedell simpered, getting to his feet. Lucius bit his tongue so hard it bled, commanded his eyes to look up, where he saw his beautiful, pregnant wife. He had been afraid of this since his ring had heated, but hoped that Draco and others were there, or coming. His body was wracked again with another tremor from the Cruciatus, and Dolohov cursed him again, the jet of dark blue systematically breaking bones with sickening crunches in the arc he used to cast it.
"No one gave you permission to move," Dolohov said, his wand at ease in his hand as it finished its diagonal pass over Lucius' frame. "Disarm her."
Cornelia didn't need to summon the wand, as Hermione willing gave it over into the witch's palm. She would have it back soon enough.
"I believe it's time to discuss terms," Hermione said, as if she were in control of the situation entirely. Lucius' ribs felt on fire, and drawing breath had become agonizing, likely due to shards of bone puncturing at least one lung. Focus, he thought, trying to calm himself enough to work through the fiery pain that was intensifying like the burn of an inferno with each breath. The wand.
"There are no terms," Bedell said arrogantly, but Dolohov held up his hand.
"She wants to play, Malfaille. So let's play."
Hermione had expected the slicing hex, only partially blocked it wandlessly so he would have the satisfaction of hearing her gasp of pain and see her brought to her knees. They wanted her humbled, more than conciliatory. She'd play their game.
"You need me to help you with the data, the perfect application of your little breeding program," she said quietly, keeping her eyes down in what appeared to be a submissive manner, but she could still see through her lashes. Lucius' eyes had flown open at the sound she made, and she met his eyes for a split second, pleading with him to understand what she was doing. She thought he did, hoped he did.
"Ironic, isn't it? A little Mudblood, back to her muddy roots, helping enslave her fellow Muggles," Dolohov said cruelly, picking up a knife.
"Poetic justice," Bedell said with a sneer, just as Cornelia began to twitch.
"What's happening to me?" the witch shrieked, her hands convulsing, causing her to drop both wands as her eyes began to roll back in her head.
"You bitch," Antonin Dolohov snarled, casting a curse from the side as Lucius pushed up from the floor, wordlessly and wandlessly Accioing Hermione's invisible wand into his hand a second before Hermione Accio'ed Lucius' wand to her own hand.
"Not today," Lucius said, forcing his magic through the wand and ignoring the overbearing torment of missing flesh and bone fragments, casting the strongest Protego of his life to block Dolohov's curse as Draco cracked into the room, instantly apprising the situation.
"Crucio!" Draco said, and meant it as the spell hit Dolohov from behind and Lucius crumpled to the floor, his face completely white, blood streaming again from his back.
"Lucius!" Hermione cried, taking two steps toward him as Bedell's face twisted in anger and he brought his own wand to bear.
"Crucio partus!"
Hermione felt a searing agony unlike anything she'd ever felt before, all concentrated below her navel as her child and uterus writhed within her. She couldn't focus or think, dimly heard Draco end the curse on Dolohov, the crack of numerous Apparations. She felt a surge of magic from her neck, the torc glowing with energy, its magic reaching out and compelling her own. Her thoughts because crystal clear for a split second, allowing her to focus, reach out to Lucius' leg and grab hold firmly. Draco, who had dropped to his knees and was plying his wand over his father, had the good sense to grab hold as Hermione apparated them all directly to St. Mungo's, where she collapsed, non-breathing, in a heap on the floor.