"This is your fault!" Harry shouted, turning on Cedric -- who appeared torn between fury and utter shock.
Harry's rage spurred Hermione to anger of her own. "How is it any more his than yours? You're the one who insisted on coming here!"
"If he hadn't -- "
"Hadn't what? Tried to stop you from running straight into a trap?"
"This isn't getting us anywhere." That was Scott. "Play your blame game later. Right now, we have a real hostage, not a hypothetical one."
And that brought them all back to the immediate crisis. Harry leapt around the older boys, headed for the golden gate and lifts beyond. "Right, let's go."
"Let's not," Scott replied, getting a fist in the back of Harry's robes and hauling him to a stop. "We need a plan first, don't you think?"
"They've got Ginny!"
"And barging off half-cocked will do her any good?"
"Well, standing around debating it sure won't!" Ron said, coming to stand beside Harry. "You plan. We're going after her."
Harry shot him a grateful look and yanked free of Scott's grip as they headed for the lift together, only to have Neville, of all people, scurry after. "I'm coming too."
"Idiots!" Scott said, and Hermione was torn. Scott was right, they did need a plan, but she knew Harry and Ron, and it was better to plan on the fly, because they didn't wait around. The Death Eaters did have a real hostage now.
"I have to go with them," she told Cedric, Peter and Scott.
"No -- " Cedric protested, reaching for her.
"I have to, I'm sorry. And you have stay here. Cedric, you have to stay here." She held his eyes, dark now as they got when he was angry. "Remember, it's the 21st of June." Turning, she hurried after Harry, Ron and Neville.
"Hermione!"
She didn't reply but heard feet hurrying after her as Scott's voice -- commanding -- said, "No, she's right -- you stay. You've gone as far as you can go. You're on crutches. You'll endanger the rest of us trying to protect you."
It was blunt and brutal and honest -- and perhaps the only thing that would have made Cedric stay behind. Hermione said, "Thank you," under her breath as Scott, along with Peter and Luna caught up to her, Harry, Ron and Neville at the lifts.
"Don't thank me," Scott replied, voice tight. "Just come up with a plan because we just left our strategist in the atrium."
"You didn't do too badly with that no confidence motion," Peter pointed out.
"Justin's idea mostly. Where is this Department of Mysteries anyway? And what's the Hall of Prophecy?"
"Ninth Floor for the former," Harry replied, voice tight. "No idea on the latter. But I think I'll know it when I see it."
A lift had arrived and they climbed in. Hermione was busy trying to come up with the desired plan. "Listen," she said. "They caught us by surprise because they can Apparate. Well, we have two people who can, too. I don't think we should all go in there at once. Then we can catch them by surprise if some of us Apparate in after."
"Good idea," Scott said, "except for the part where we haven't got a bleedin' clue where we're going. If we Apparate somewhere we've not seen, we could wind up in a wall, yeah?"
"Oh," Hermione felt stupid, but Scott squeezed her shoulder.
"It's all right," he said. "It is a good idea, just ..." His eyes narrowed. "The problem is that they have the advantage of knowledge. They know where they're going -- and what they want. Harry, there's obviously a reason they lured you here, right?" Harry nodded. "Any idea what that is?"
Harry shook his head. "Not exactly. There's something here that Voldemort wants." Scott and several of the rest winced at Harry's casual use of the name. "That's what I've seen in my dream. That's what he's torturing Sirius to get."
"Not Sirius," Hermione corrected softly.
Harry glanced at her, half-glaring. "All right, all right. So apparently they didn't have Sirius! Happy?"
"No, Harry. I'm not trying to . . . make fun of you, but it's important." Her eyes narrowed. "Tell us again everything you can remember from your dream about where we're going. Describe it in as much detail as you can; the smallest thing could be important. Scott's right. They have the advantage of knowing where they are. But we have you and your dreams. They expect us to go charging in there like the Light Brigade. So we don't do that, right?"
The lift had stopped at the Ninth Floor and the seven of them glanced out, but found no one. Cautiously, they exited, then stood there listening, as Harry described the rooms and corridors he'd passed down in his dreams. Hermione nodded over and over. "All right," she said, "the final room -- this hall -- it sounds quite large, but with only one entrance. They might be waiting for us as soon as we get in there, but I doubt it. I expect they'll be waiting down that aisle where you think you saw Sirius, where whatever 'it' is they want."
She glanced at Scott and Peter. "So once we're in the room, we split up. Harry, Ron and . . . Neville. You three go to the aisle. Peter, Scott, Luna and me, we'll go around the side. You two can Apparate us side-along?" Scott nodded and after a moment's hesitation, Peter did too. "All right then -- "
"But they'll want to know where the rest of you are," Harry pointed out.
"Tell them you made us -- the girls -- stay upstairs. And that the older boys wouldn't come because they were there to stop you anyway."
Harry appeared a bit dubious, then nodded once, sharply. "It'll have to do. What are you planning?"
"To surprise them like they surprised us. There were . . . I think I counted ten of them."
"Twelve," Luna corrected almost absently.
Startled, Hermione glanced around. "All right, twelve then. Seven of us, twelve of them."
"Terrific odds," Ron muttered.
"We have the element of surprise this time," Hermione admonished. "And if we can free Ginny, then it's eight to twelve."
"Twelve Death Eaters and eight schoolkids," Peter said, sounding as pessimistic as Ron.
"Well, you can go back up and guard Cedric," Hermione told him. Sometimes she wasn't sure what to make of Peter.
He glared. "I'm not about to back down. I'm just pointing out that we're at a bit of a disadvantage."
"Can we go now?" Harry asked, fidgeting. "We've got a plan, or as good of one as we're likely to get. And they've got Ginny."
Hermione sighed. "Yes, I suppose we should go." She wasn't inclined to leave Ginny with Lucius Malfoy any more than Harry or Ron were. She looked at Harry. "Lead on."
With a nod, he set out for the door to the Department of Mysteries.
Upstairs, Cedric cast about for something to do that might be remotely useful. In that moment, he absolutely hated Scott Summers for pointing out the obvious.
He was a damn cripple.
They were all down there, risking their necks and he was sitting up here, unable to help, knowing nothing of what was transpiring. Hermione was down there. "Useless. Completely useless."
He settled down on the edge of the fountain, his wand out and gripped tightly. He had to trust that Susan -- and Ed -- would tell his mother, and that she'd know what to do next.
And indeed, he'd been sitting there perhaps twenty minutes when the fireplaces suddenly roared to life, green flame licking the forms that leaped out, wands extended. Kinsley Shacklebolt and Nymphadora Tonks, Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, Alastor Moody and --
"Mum!" he shouted, unable to stop himself at the sight of the sixth figure to step out of green flame. He was very lucky he wasn't hexed six ways at once.
"Hold!" Lucretia Diggory shouted.
And then all six were around him, asking questions at once.
"Yes, it was a trap. We guessed that. We came to stop Harry -- but the Death Eaters must have been watching somehow. They Apparated up here and took us by surprise, then abducted Ginny Weasley -- "
"Ginny!" Tonks said. "What's she doing here?"
"Harry wasn't alone," Cedric explained, and he detailed exactly who'd come, and what the Death Eaters had said. "I had to stay behind," he added bitterly, unable to meet any eyes.
"It's a good thing you did," Moody told him, voice gruff even as Sirius gripped his shoulder. If any of them could understand Cedric's sense of helplessness, it was probably Sirius.
Remus was nodding too. "We know where to go, thanks to you, Cedric. We had an idea anyway, but this helps tremendously."
"We've got to stop those kids," Shacklebolt was saying. "Moody and Lucretia together, Remus, you and I, and Sirius with Tonks. Let's go."
"And me?" Cedric asked, although he knew it futile.
"Dumbledore is on the way," Moody told him. "Let him know where we've gone."
Five of them turned away but his mother held his eyes a moment. "Do I need to tell you this was foolish?"
"I had to stop him, mum. I knew he'd listen to me. And he did listen to me. He was going to let me take him to Grimmauld Place." The Death Eaters had just interrupted it.
Her lips thinned, but she nodded. "All right, so he was. Now stay here." And in a swirl of purple robes, she was gone. Once again, he was left alone.
At least the cavalry had arrived. That had to count for something. Then again, it was six to twelve, and the Order would be trying to protect the others. They might have the likes of Moody, and Shacklebolt -- and his mother -- with Dumbledore on the way, but given the amount of time and care given to luring Harry to the ministry, Cedric sincerely doubted that Voldemort had sent his weakest followers. As much as Cedric detested his cousin, he knew Lucius to be a powerful wizard -- powerful enough to experiment with and modify curses.
What could one more do, especially one like him? He was no slouch -- he knew that without false modesty, or the Goblet wouldn't have picked him -- but hexes and curses were not his forte. And he couldn't run, nor even cast and walk at the same time. He would be in the way.
An idea suddenly came to him and he pushed himself to his feet abruptly, heading for the lifts beyond the golden gate. Dumbledore would surely know where to go when he arrived. Remus had as good as admitted the Order had known. Cedric didn't have to be there to tell him; Moody had just been trying to make him feel better.
He was going to go and get in the way.
Things went well at first -- not flawless, but well. It took them longer to find the great chamber than they'd expected. Getting into the Department of Mysteries wasn't a problem, but getting through it was. The central room rotated so that the door 'straight across' as Harry had seen in his dream was not predictable. They found all manner of curious places: a chamber full of tables of all possible shapes and sizes, the purpose of which Hermione couldn't begin to fathom; another stuffed with Egyptian marbles and gold-and-lapis sarcophagi; a library full of tattered ancient, codexes and scrolls in bronze cases that Hermione would have given almost anything to spend some time exploring -- or even reading their titles. And last, an amphitheater with, at the bottom, a whispering veil hanging in an ancient, crumbling archway attached to nothing else. That archway had given her serious shivers. After leaving each room, Hermione drew a glowing X on the door so they could keep track of where they'd been.
Finally they found an oblong room full of clocks and time-turners and an hourglass that contained a hatching and unhatching bird. Department of mysteries indeed, objects that defied even the demands of time.
Harry hurried them through the room to the door at the other end. "This is it," he murmured. "This is the door in my dreams." And they all took out their wands without being told. "Ready?" he asked them as Scott and Peter stepped close to Hermione and Luna, prepared to Apparate, then Harry opened the door.
That's when things began to go wrong. There were Death Eaters waiting for them on the other side -- four of them -- but none had Ginny. They were taking no chances, it seemed, and their wands were out too. "How nice of you to join us, Potter," said the voice of Lucius Malfoy. "How delightfully predictable. You can put away the wands now."
But wands weren't necessary to Apparate, and Hermione felt herself grabbed from behind, then squeezed, and she and Scott weren't standing in the doorway anymore. Instead, they were somewhere amid the aisles and aisle of shelves holding the small, foggy glass orbs. "How dare you!" she squeaked.
"Shh," he hissed back in her ear.
Somewhere in the distance, Hermione heard Malfoy laugh. "It would seem that some of your little friends are less brave than you, Potter. Those were Hufflepuff boys, if I didn't misidentify the color of their ties. Courage never was their attribute."
Hermione could feel Scott stiffen behind her and she gripped his wrist. But at least from what Malfoy had said, Peter had followed Scott's lead and Apparated too, even if she wasn't sure where.
"Come along, we don't need them anyway. Just you."
"I want to see Ginny," Harry replied.
"Demands, demands . . . I don't believe you're in any position to demand anything. Come with me and you will be reunited, however."
And Hermione heard footsteps on the stone flooring. She and Scott hurried to the far end of their row, feet spelled to silence, then crouched down and watched. Her lower back was starting to ache, and she rubbed at it; too many hours on a thestral perhaps. A moment later, the robed Death Eaters appeared with Harry, Ron, Neville -- and it would seem Luna -- between them. She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked around. Scott was motioning down the outside aisle, then put a hand over his lips. She nodded and followed him as they shadowed the Death Eaters, who -- feeling confident -- were making no attempt at stealth. They stopped about halfway down the long hall, turning into an aisle that was opposite the side she and Scott occupied. There, the rest of the Death Eaters waited, Ginny immobile among them. Harry and Ron tore loose from Malfoy's grip to hurry down the aisle and embrace her. "How touching," Malfoy drawled. "Now, Potter, we'd like you to fetch what we came for. There -- right there on that shelf."
"It's got my name on it. What is it anyway?"
"Never you mind. Take it down slowly and hand it to me."
Hermione assumed Malfoy was pointing to one of the foggy glass orbs stacked in boxes on shelves all around them. Thousands and thousands of them, maybe millions in a room this size, each labeled with -- now that she looked more closely -- a name or names. She wondered what they were, but to be honest, didn't really care beyond one vital characteristic:
They were glass.
Trusting to distance and the noise the others were making, she leaned in to whisper to Scott, "Can you Apparate us just beyond their circle? Then we'll start smashing glass balls. It'll make a distraction so they can run."
He gave a short, sharp nod and gripped her by the waist. "Ready?"
She nodded back, then felt the familiar squeeze and pop of apparation as they reappeared just behind the back row of Death Eaters.
Aiming her wand at the left rack of shelves, she shouted, "Reducto!" Orbs shattered and rained sharp glass down on the Death Eaters. Scott was less elegant. He not only used his wand, he used his arm, rocking the entire tottering rack so that orbs and their boxes both fell inward. "Run!" Hermione heard Harry bellow.
And run they did, half-sliding on the age-slick stone in their haste to escape, Death Eaters howling in frustrated rage and pain behind them. They burst from either end of the row and sped down the outer and center aisles like startled cats. "Damn bastard better never call me a coward again," Scott huffed from where he was running beside her. Hermione had no breath to answer, and there was a growing stitch in her side. She felt as if someone had slid a knife into her abdomen.
The door that led out of the hall was shut, and would take precious seconds to open . . .
But just as they reached it, they found the missing Peter waiting there to throw it wide. He must have Apparated away and then back somehow. "Hurry!" They raced through, all eight of them -- Ginny pulled along by Ron -- and Peter slammed the door in the faces of the Death Eaters following, then put a Sticking charm on it.
"Clever," Harry said. Hermione noticed that he was carrying something -- one of the glass orbs -- but now wasn't the time to ask about it.
"They'll assume it's Sealed, not Stuck," Peter replied.
Hermione doubted it would actually stop them for long, but perhaps long enough they could get back through the room full of clocks out into the spinning black hall beyond. Unfortunately, Luna was limping, Neville had a bruise on his temple where something had hit him, and Ron and Harry both had cuts all over their faces and necks from flying glass. Of those who'd been standing inside the row when the orbs had broken, only Ginny had escaped unscathed, at least physically. Her eyes were haunted enough.
They might have made it out if not for Luna's limp, but the room's rear door flew open even as they reached the front. "Impedimenta!" two voices shouted together while a third -- Malfoy's -- roared, "Halt!"
One of the jinxes hit Neville, slamming him into the wall, but the other bounced harmlessly off a Shield spell that Scott had thrown up -- apparently silently. "Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted as Hermione screamed, "Stupefy!" while Ron and Peter hauled out a stunned Neville between them and Ginny helped Luna. Scott sent another silent spell at the door behind Malfoy. It slammed shut again in the face of the Death Eaters trying to crowd in behind the first three.
"Go!" Scott shouted, practically shoving Hermione and Harry through the door in front of him. It shut behind them and they were back in the black hall with the many doors. As soon as the door closed, the round hall began to spin again and -- to Hermione's horror -- none of her Xs remained.
"I have no idea which door leads out!" she said, aghast.
"Well pick one!" came Harry's response as he shoved past her to head for the closest.
Before they could all follow, however, the three Death Eaters who'd been in the clock room exploded out of the door. Hermione followed Harry, along with Ron -- and Peter. Ginny, Luna, Neville and Scott ran in the opposite direction.
Harry's group wound up back in the Egyptian room. It had no other doors and the four of them scattered amid the statues and sarcophagi. Hermione's skin felt hot with fear and -- annoyingly -- she really had to pee. In all the adventure stories she'd ever read, nobody talked about bodily functions. Maybe that was because boys -- or men -- wrote them and boys had bladders the size of pumpkins. Hagrid's pumpkins. But the last time she'd been to the toilet had been at least four hours before.
They spent several minutes crouched in hiding. She tried crossing her legs, and could hear Ron beside her muttering beneath his breath 'something Bill said . . . what was it Bill said . . . ?'
"Ronald!" she hissed to silence him, but he exclaimed, "That's it!" at the same time the door opened and two Death Eaters entered, wands out.
"Potter, Potter, ickle Potter!" one called in a sing-song woman's voice, almost laughing. "Come out, come out wherever you are!"
It wasn't Harry who stood then, but Ron . . . and he was -- Oh, good Lord! What did he have on his head? No, what had his head become? It looked like some kind of bird with a crescent moon above, and he spoke in a tongue she didn't recognize at all, pointing with one hand that held his wand. Brilliant light exploded from it, blasting both the woman and the unknown Death Eater backwards against the door. The unknown male slumped to the ground, clawing at his throat and tearing off his hood. His mouth opened only to reveal a curled bird's tongue. The woman fled back out again, and Hermione looked back at Ron.
He'd returned to his normal self, his wand arm shaking as Hermione and Harry hurried to his side. "That was brilliant," Harry was saying even as Hermione asked, "What was that?"
Ron looked from one to the other, then to Peter who stood a little beyond. "That was Thoth. His curse, Bill said, is to steal a man's wit and speech. He taught it to me a few years back. It didn't affect the woman, though."
"Bellatrix Lestrange," Harry snarled. "She doesn't have any wits left to steal -- she's mad."
Hermione put a hand over her mouth at the name of Sirius' cousin and the torturer of Neville's parents. "Harry, what have you got in your hand?" she asked finally.
He looked down at it. "Dunno -- but it's the thing Voldemort wanted. So we can't let him have it."
"Right," Ron said. "And this isn't the way out, so we need to move on."
Move on they did, peeking out the door. Nobody was in the hall beyond, so they emerged and Hermione scribed one of her flaming Xs on the door. She knew it was a clue for the Death Eaters, but they had to get out of here, and maybe it would help them find the others.
The next room they tried wasn't one they'd seen, and it brought them no closer. In fact, they wound up startling two Death Eaters searching it.
"Petrificus Totalus!" Harry shouted, taking down one Death Eater even as Peter sent a Stunning spell against the other . . . and missed. Instead, he hit a tank of water lit by a soft phosphorescent blue glow and full of something that looked like jellyfish. The tank exploded, water and glass and jellyfish flying everywhere. Being closer, most of the gray-pale globs wound up on the Death Eaters, tendrils wrapping around them while the men screamed.
And so did someone to their right. Hermione jerked her head about, horrified to see a grey blob stuck to Ron's upper chest, tentacles enfolding his shoulders, arms and torso. And now Hermione could see that was not a jellyfish.
It was a brain.
"Ron!" she shrieked, dashing towards him even as Peter reached him from the other side.
"Libero!" Peter shouted, wand out. But nothing happened. The brain was still attached to Ron's chest, its tentacles (nervous system?) wrapping ever more tightly. "LIBERO!" Peter tried again.
"Peter," Hermione begged. "Apparate him -- please." Why hadn't she thought of that before? He could have taken Harry and maybe the Death Eaters would have stopped chasing them. But she'd been too frightened to spot the obvious solution, and now it was Ron who needed help the most.
Harry was gripping Peter's forearm too. "Take him to St. Mungo's."
Peter looked between them, swallowed, then nodded. "Good luck," he said, lifting Ron in his arms. Then with a crack, he was gone.
Hermione and Harry shared a glance and Harry gripped the orb a bit tighter before they turned for the door together. "One, two . . . three!"
Harry opened the door and they emerged -- wands out -- into chaos. The first thing Hermione saw was a great golden eagle dive-bombing the Death Eater attacking Neville. The man was howling in rage and firing off random Stunning spells, one of which was likely to strike the eagle by accident as much as design.
"Cedric!" she shrieked. "You idiot!" How dare he put himself in the middle of a fight on June 21st? And whether it was fear for him or the fact she simply couldn't hold it any longer, she felt something warm slide down her leg. She'd just wet her knickers. Oh, how horribly, horribly embarrassing.
She didn't, however, have time to do more than pull her wand and aim it at the Death Eater Cedric was attacking before she felt something slam into her chest with the force of a heavy object. "Oh," was all she managed before darkness took her.
When Cedric had first opened the door to the Department of Ministries, he'd found nobody there at all, not Death Eaters, not Harry's group, and not Order members, which was probably fortunate as he couldn't move on crutches and cast spells at the same time. He wondered, yet again, what he thought he was doing here, but he just hadn't been able to stay above.
Almost immediately after he shut the door, the entire room began to rotate, giving him vertigo. When it stopped, his directional orientation was gone. He couldn't even be sure what door he'd just entered, but he did note that two of them had glowing Xs on them. Perhaps there were people in those rooms? But before he could check, a different door burst open, revealing Scott, a limping Luna Lovegood, and Neville Longbottom sporting a terrible bruise on the side of his face.
Racing out behind them came a quartet of Death Eaters; they overtook Luna almost immediately, grabbing her by the arm and flinging her off her feet against the side of the chamber. Cedric had already shifted his wand, taking aim to Stun one of them with a spell powerful enough to knock him backwards even as the room began to rotate again. One of the other Death Eaters turned on him, shouting, "Cruci--"
"Silencio!" bellowed Scott as Cedric Transformed into eagle form, darting upwards.
The room wasn't large enough for him to stretch his wings and truly fly, but he could act as a distraction; it was what he'd come for. The spinning slowed to a halt and more doors burst open to spit out hooded Death Eaters and, to Cedric's relief, Remus Lupin and Kingsley Shacklebolt chasing them, hexes flying. Another door opened and Harry and Hermione exited.
"Cedric, you idiot!" Hermione shouted upon seeing him, and he did a tight spin on his right wing just in time to witness one of the Death Eaters raise his wand and cast against her.
Cedric was too far away. He knew it even as he pulled in both wings to dive at the Death Eater hoping to throw off his aim. He hit the man's arm but too late; a blast of violet fire sliced across Hermione's chest. She stiffened, let out a soft noise of surprise and slid bonelessly to the floor.
Seeing her collapse, Cedric lost all rationality. With beak and talons he tore at the Death Eater, but his legs in this form were just as weak and -- talons or not -- couldn't do much damage beyond scratches. His beak was more effective, but the Death Eater swatted him aside and he tumbled head over wing, unable to flap or balance, and landed hard against the wall not far from Harry and Hermione. The shock sent him back into his normal form.
"Open the door!" Harry shouted, both his arms under Hermione's armpits, dragging her towards a door just to Cedric's right.
"Alohamora!" Cedric shouted and the door swung in. "Is she -- ?"
"She's unconscious." Harry dragged Hermione through, and Cedric -- relieved but unwilling to be separated from her -- pushed himself up on his crutches . . . only to be blasted straight through the door by a Stunning spell. For a moment, he could barely breathe, much less think, crumpled in a heap next to Harry and Hermione just inside the closing door.
"Collopor--!" Harry began, but six Death Eaters burst through before it could close, wands aimed at Harry. Cedric wanted to raise his own, but couldn't make his arms work. "Now," said the leading Death Eater -- Malfoy's voice -- "That orb if you please, Potter, and we might permit the three of you to leave this place alive." Behind Malfoy, the door clicked shut. They were stuck alone in the room: just Harry, a stunned Cedric, and an unconscious Hermione.
Face determined and strangely calm, Harry clutched the orb tighter against his chest and moved slowly backwards away from Hermione and Cedric, down a series of risers towards a strange archway at the bottom. "Somehow I doubt you'll let anybody leave alive," he was saying. "But I don't think you want me to break this, either, so you'd better stay away from me!"
Malfoy turned his wand from Harry to point it directly at Cedric. "I believe you saved this one once before, did you not? How terrible to waste such a noble act by stubbornness now. I will kill him," Malfoy warned.
"Don't give in!" Cedric tried to shout -- but it came out as a garbled grunt, his tongue unnaturally swollen in his mouth. He settled for trying to shake his head where Harry could see. He'd made a choice to come down here; he'd known the risk, known it was foolish in the extreme. He wasn't going to let Malfoy turn him into a bargaining chip for whatever it was Harry held -- clearly something Voldemort wanted.
Pulling off his mask, Malfoy glanced from Cedric to Harry while the five behind him kept wands trained on Harry. Several of them followed Malfoy's lead and removed their masks as well. Cedric didn't recognize all of them, or even most. But he did recognize one: Bellatrix Lestrange, her face wild-eyed and sunken. "Ickle Potter doesn't seem to believe we're serious," she hissed, grinning madly, her wand almost dancing in her hand as if she itched to curse Harry.
"No, I don't believe that he does," Malfoy commented in an offhanded way as he stepped towards Cedric who, still largely paralyzed, could do nothing. "I suppose I'll have to prove it." Cedric watched the wand rise, fully expecting the end and wishing he could at least know if Hermione would turn out all right --
He'd be a midsummer sacrifice after all.
"NO!" Harry bellowed even as Malfoy hissed, "Crucio!"
Absolute, breath-stealing agony shot all through Cedric's body, as bad as anything he experienced with Nervoccido. His back arched involuntarily and his jaw clenched, teeth grinding to keep from screaming. Yet the Torture Curse overrode the Stunning Spell, and pain -- even excruciating pain -- was no stranger to Cedric. So he did what virtually nobody experiencing it could do. He raised his own wand to whisper, "Expelliarmus!"
It wasn't strong, but strong enough. Malfoy's wand popped out of his hand, startling him, and Cedric's pain stopped instantly. The other five all still had wands trained on Harry, not Cedric, whose wand remained raised. He knew there was no way he could Disarm all of them and no shielding spell would protect himself, Hermione and Harry behind them.
"Expecto Patronum!"
He didn't think it would work; it never had before. But need drove him, and from the end of his wand something silvery exploded, charging towards the Death Eaters.
A silver-white buffalo. The sheer size of it bowled them over, and before they could recover their feet, two of the doors had been thrown open again -- this time revealing Order members, as well as Neville Longbottom and Scott Summers, hexes flying. His mother stood forefront among them, and to Cedric's dizzy sight, she appeared almost blazing with a mad wrath to match Bellatrix's.
"Lucius Augustus!"
He'd spun and seeing her, sneered. "Lucretia. Come to claim your errant mutt pup, I see."
She actually laughed. "Oh, no . . . no." She moved forward, wand trained on Lucius . . . who didn't have his. "No, I've come to exact revenge -- for my father, and for my son."
Malfoy lunged suddenly towards Cedric, probably seeking another hostage. But Cedric still had his wand, and a sudden rush of fury to match his mother's. "STUPEFY!"
Malfoy fell face-down at Cedric's crippled feet. "See how it feels to be stunned, you bastard," Cedric said, but then lost interest in Malfoy. Free finally, he scooted sideways to where Harry had been forced to leave Hermione, lifting her in his arms across his lap. She was breathing and only unconscious, as Harry had said, but he had no idea what curse she'd taken. He'd never seen anything like that purple flame. He stroked her hair. "Wake up, poppet. Please wake up." But her eyes remained closed, her skin pale and clammy to his touch.
The battle raged on around them. There were more than just the five Death Eaters who'd been with Malfoy; Cedric now counted eight. More must have arrived after the Order members. Scott and Kingsley Shacklebolt had squared off against a pair, Tonks fought Bellatrix, Sirius and Remus both stood against three he didn't know, Moody fought the Death Eater who'd cursed Hermione, while Neville had hurried down to guard Harry against the advance of the last. Cedric might have laughed at that, but Neville's expression defied ridicule.
"Mum," Cedric said, "Sirius and Remus . . . or Harry . . . "
"Can take care of themselves for the moment." With a lazy gesture, she undid the Stunning Spell Cedric had cast on Malfoy.
"Why'd -- "
"I want him able to talk." And she squatted down beside him, out of range of a quick grab, her wand trained on him. "Dear, dear cousin. It's been too long."
Malfoy levered himself up on his elbows. "Just kill me and get it over with."
Her smile was frightening. "Oh, no. No, I fully intend for you to suffer like you made my son suffer, Lucius. Your end won't be so easy as that."
She wasn't going to cast a Forbidden Curse, was she? "Mum, no -- "
"Be silent!" she snapped, pale eyes flicking to him momentarily. "I told you to stay upstairs -- "
That distraction was all Lucius needed. Shoving her over backwards, he leapt to his feet and jumped her prone form in one smooth move. "Accio wand!" Then he was racing down the risers towards Harry and Neville.
"Mum!" Cedric said, alarmed, but she'd rolled back to feet.
"Idiot!" she snarled and Cedric flinched, thinking she meant him, but she wasn't looking at him, and he suspected she might mean herself. Wand in hand, she darted away, down the risers after her cousin, leaving Cedric with Hermione.
He knew it would be incredibly foolish to draw attention to himself but the duels in the room were not all going in the Order's favor. Shacklebolt was holding his own with assistance from Scott, and Sirius had downed one Death Eater of the three. But Bellatrix Lestrange had felled Tonks, who was much younger, and Mad Eye Moody might have been great once, but he was old now, and wounded, and his reactions weren't what they'd once been. He'd gone down as well. Death Eaters were converging on Harry again, down near the odd black veil fluttering in its archway. And while his mother had run after Lucius, Cedric feared that she was more focused on catching her cousin than on saving Harry Potter and whatever it was he held.
Glancing down at Hermione's slack face in his lap, he whispered, "I have to go, love," and laid her down gently. "I'll be back." Rising on the crutches, he Transformed once again. His greatest weakness was also, it seemed, his greatest possible service: to get in the way.
Seeing Harry grabbed by the Death Eater who'd felled both Hermione and then Moody, Cedric headed straight for him, using the strength of his dive to slash black talons across the man's face and rip off the mask he still wore. Anton Dolohov -- Cedric recognized him from a photo in The Daily Prophet. He'd been the one to kill Molly Weasley's brothers.
Blinded by blood and startled by his unmasking, Dolohov shouted in a rage and fired off one of those vicious purple flames, but it struck only one of the risers, which exploded, coating those fighting nearby in limestone dust. Before he could do more or Cedric could circle around for another attack, Sirius slammed into Dolohov from behind, forcing him to release Harry and engaging him in a furious exchange of hexes. Raising his wand, Harry Body-Bound him and he fell over sideways, rigid and helpless. Cedric would have liked to settle on his chest and peck out his eyes for hurting Hermione, but there was no time for that right now.
Somehow Lucius Malfoy had eluded Cedric's mother again and leapt for Harry, hand out to grab the glass orb. Sirius couldn't help; Bellatrix had descended on him. Remus was still battling his Death Eater, Kingsley had finished off another but was down, and Scott was standing over Tonks, protecting her from yet another. Cedric came around, talons extended, wing slapping Malfoy in the face while Harry, in desperation, tossed the glass orb towards Neville. Amazingly, Neville caught it as Harry Hindered Malfoy. But Impedimenta wasn't terribly strong and Malfoy was getting to his feet again --
-- but not before Cedric's mother was there to Stupefy him.
Quite abruptly, the Death Eater fighting Scott -- who was bleeding from his nose -- sprinted past Scott to leap four risers and grab Neville by the throat. Neville couldn't toss the orb back to Harry -- Cedric's mother was in the way -- so instead, he threw it wildly in the air. "Cedric -- catch!"
Torchlight caught it as it spun, glittering gold -- almost like a Snitch. And Cedric didn't think; he just dove for it, his talons closing around it even as the Death Eater released Neville to fire a Stunning spell at him. But in eagle form he was nimble, graceful, powerful in a way he could never be on his feet and he slipped sideways just slightly so the curse slid harmlessly past. Holding the glass orb was more difficult. Turning in midair near the vaulted ceiling, he came back around, headed for Harry to return it. Below him, the battle still raged, half the Death Eaters down and half the Order. Harry was helping Neville up the risers, Remus had engaged the man who'd been holding Neville, Sirius was still fighting Bellatrix, his mother had squared off against another and Kingsley was back on his feet, fighting a fourth.
That was when it happened, as he dipped to circle back around near Harry. His feet -- which had been struggling to hold the orb -- simply couldn't maintain their grip any longer. The orb dropped. He cried out in frustrated rage and Harry glanced around in time to see it fall.
A Seeker no less than Cedric, Harry dove, landing hard on his side, arm outstretched. His fingers closed around it. But it must have been too slick, and it slipped out of Harry's grip to bounce down the risers back towards the dais where it rolled until it hit the edge of the ancient stone archway. And shattered.
Cedric watched silvery smoke rise from it into a vaguely human shape, only a few inches high, which appeared to be talking. But up in the air as he was, he couldn't hear, even if he could see, and had no time to dwell on it as a door had opened below to reveal Albus Dumbledore. Cedric let out an eagle cry of relief, one matched by Harry and Neville both. Two of the remaining Death Eaters attempted to flee, but were quickly stunned by a white-faced, furious Dumbledore. The third had been dispatched by Cedric's mother, while the last, Bellatrix Lestrange, continued in berserk blindness against her cousin Sirius, who seemed equally oblivious to Dumbledore's arrival. He'd just ducked a shot of red light and was calling out, "Come on, you can do better than that!" Cedric dove for her, intending to get his talons in her long, wild hair, even as Harry leapt to grab her, and she aimed a second Stunner at Sirius -- which caught him full on.
And Sirius' expression was, indeed, stunned, his mouth open in shock. Then everything happened almost too quickly for Cedric to register. Harry and Cedric's mother both leapt for Sirius, but were too far away to reach him and he fell backwards straight through the fluttering black veil hanging in the archway.
And disappeared.
No Sirius came out the other side. "SIRIUS!" Harry shrieked, almost diving through the veil after. Cedric's mother caught him and held fast. "SIRIUS!" Harry shouted again, struggling in her grip. Neville stood behind, looking shocked and Remus was racing towards Harry or the archway -- or both -- his face a mask of horror. "Save him!" Harry begged Remus. "Get him back, he's only just fallen through."
Cedric didn't hear all of Remus' answer. Instead, he came down and Transformed beside his mother, who looked equally struck. Harry was still resisting whatever Remus was telling him; Cedric could hear him bellowing, "HE -- IS -- NOT -- DEAD!" and then Remus was practically carrying him away, up the risers while Kingsley took on Bellatrix and Dumbledore saw to the secure binding of the Death Eaters who were down before checking the welfare of Moody. Scott was apparently looking after Tonks.
Cedric watched his mother's face. Her sorrow had transformed into stony rage. Cedric hadn't really known Sirius very well, but his mother had visited her cousin several times in the last year. Both rejected by their families for their choices, they must have understood one another better than most. "Is he really dead?" Cedric whispered.
"Yes," she said. "Nobody comes back through the veil."
There were sudden shouts from above and they both spun to look. Kingsley was down and Bellatrix was sprinting up the risers. Dumbledore had whipped around even as Harry tore out of Remus' grasp, "SHE KILLED SIRIUS. SHE KILLED HIM -- I'LL KILL HER."
And he was gone out one of the doors on Bellatrix's heels.
"That little fool!" Cedric's mother hissed, even as she reached out to grab Cedric's forearm, as if she feared he might follow.
And he might have, except Dumbledore was following instead, and Cedric didn't think he could add much to that. Besides, he had Hermione to see to. "Let me go, mum. I'm not following. But Sirius was the closest thing Harry had to parents."
Her eyes flashed. "His own rashness will get him killed just as it killed Sirius." Spinning on her heel, she stalked over to where Lucius Malfoy lay on the floor, still incapacitated. "You will pay," she said.
"Mum," Cedric said, shifting weight and gripping his wand just in case he had to stop her from doing something rash herself.
"Be silent," she told him. "I'm hardly going to get myself sent to Azkaban. Oh, no." She smiled down at Lucius. "No, I'll see this sack of putrefaction sent there instead." The smile widened. "Greet the dementors for me, Lucius. I wish you a long life under their care. A long, torturous life."
Satisfied that she wouldn't do anything more, Cedric turned away and looked back up to where Hermione lay on the top riser, not far from the door they'd come through. It was faster to fly than to climb, so Cedric Transformed a final time, feeling the exhaustion and weakness settling in as adrenaline flowed away. Swooping up the risers, he returned to his own form and settled down beside her, lifting her in his arms again. She still appeared unresponsive, and her skin remained pasty white. "Hermione?" he whispered, patting her cheek gently. "Hermione?"
"What happened to her?" asked a female voice above him and he looked up to find Scott and Tonks, each helping the other stay upright. Tonks appeared shaky and had tear tracks on her face. Scott was limping and blood still stained his upper lip and chin, half wiped away, although his nose had stopped bleeding and he had an arm around Tonks -- perhaps to comfort her as much as to steady himself.
"I don't know," Cedric said as Scott lowered himself beside him and Tonks knelt. "Anton Dolohov fired some sort of violet-flamed curse at her. Do you know what that might have been?" he asked Tonks.
Shaking her head and frowning, she reached out to check Hermione's pulse. Cedric lifted her a little more across his lap, thinking as he did so that she felt quite cool and clammy. And there was something very wet soaking his trouser leg and the hand beneath her. Pulling the hand free, he glanced down at it.
It was bright red. "What the -- !"
"Oh, my God!" Tonks breathed, pulling Hermione off Cedric's lap to lay her out flat, ripping her robes open and yanking up her top to expose her torso -- but there were no wounds to explain the blood. In fact, all the blood appeared to be on her jeans and pooling beneath her. Cedric's heart beat harder than at any point during the fight. He couldn't lose her.
"I think it's . . . um . . . I think it's coming out from between her legs," Scott said, sounding embarrassed.
Not even thinking about modesty, Tonks unbuttoned Hermione's jeans and began tugging them down. Cedric helped as best he could. Scott looked away, either queasy or discreet.
But he'd been right. Hermione's knickers and the crotch and thighs of her jeans were soaked with red. "What's happening?" Cedric asked, panicked. "What did Dolohov do to her?"
"I've no idea!" Tonks said, voice tense but firm. "We'll get her right to St. -- "
"I believe I know what it is," said a new voice above them.
Cedric looked up desperately at his mother. "What then?" He couldn't lose his Granger.
His mother knelt, covering Hermione's exposed pelvic region with the edge of her school robe. She didn't answer his question. "Tonks, see to Scott. Cedric, come with me. We'll Apparate her to St. Mungo's immediately." She looked at him and touched his upper arm. "She'll be all right, Cedric. She's not dying; but she does need to be taken to a healer immediately."
With her wand, she levitated Hermione's unconscious, prone form and waited for Cedric to climb back to his feet -- Tonks helping surreptitiously. Cedric couldn't seem to get enough air in his lungs and he was shaking all over. Tonks gripped his hands. "Good thoughts," she told him. "One loss is enough for this night."
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