The feeling he had prepared too early for the Second Task would not leave Ron alone as he walked to the meeting place. Parkinson, one of Malfoy's lackeys, had chosen the path to the train, on either side of the castle's wards as the location for the exchange, and it was easy to see why. As they had discussed, the Slytherins would at least want to look like they had no tricks in mind, so it made sense to choose a location with good light, yet it bothered him that it was close to the train, the place Hannah had floated as an alternate hideout. He had brought her with him, though Terry and Hermione were watching from a distance, having already warded the ground. In a possible lapse in judgement, he had allowed Dean to be the custodian of both of their captives, carrying them in shrunken chests. Even money they're already dead.
The red-haired wizard sighed, looking around and waiting for the others to appear. He did not, in any possible sense, think it would be good if Hogwarts closed, and it would the second a student died under any Headmaster. It was a narrow condition, and one the school had successfully skirted ever since he had been going there, but it was perfectly final. Snape might have a chance at deflecting blame, since he had only started this year, else the attention would have to be turned somewhere else entirely.
It appeared they would be dealing with Malfoy after all, though the Slytherin witch had said only Bulstrode and Bole would be there. Either she was lying or the plans changed. He approached from the direction of the castle, flanked by the Beater and Nott, one of the witnesses from the duel. It's only swapping a pair of thick wankers for clever wankers. To his surprise, he spotted the aforementioned wankers higher on the hill.
"Seems you've brought a few too many, you bloody ponce. Weren't you taught to count?" Five is clearly out of bounds. He can't see Hermione and Terry, and I reckon he's got someone we can't see.
"So it seems, yet it would also appear you thought we lacked the wands to sway the deal in our favor," Malfoy goaded. "You may challenge Evan to a duel at wandpoint and you may expect him to accept any given terms, and you may win a duel on even footing."
"You won't win if it's everyone and everyone," the Beater finished. "You should have stuck with the rest of the Hufflepuffs." He was indicating Hannah. It's what they want. They want a contest between them and the others, no other options.
"Did you even bring Parvati?" Ron asked, wondering if the field had been swept of its wards. They probably don't realize the full advantage of it; they think it's just a few quick shield charms.
"Of course," Bulstrode said, producing a shrunken box. How quickly is that damn charm getting around?
"You will find, however, that the trade may not go just as expected," Malfoy said. "Not only do we have a significant advantage, I believe I know a secret about your favorite Hufflepuff that she would prefer not to be released." Hannah gasped, throwing her hands up to her mouth as Bulstrode laughed cruelly. "I am sure you know just what it is, yet I can assure you none of my vassals know its exact nature." He smirked. "You have, of course, no reason to believe me other than my word."
"You literally just cheated in a duel," Hannah argued, her voice cracking slightly. "You broke an Unbreakable Vow."
"It was quite literally made to be broken, and its conditions stipulated that the requirement for me and Evan to kill those who intervene on our behalf lasts only the duration of the duel. I suppose I did not specify that my intention was to escape the battlefield, but you never told me you warded it. As I expected you would arrive here first, I decided to take precautions."
Ron heard nothing for a moment, but from the trail leading to the train he heard a shriek. Whipping his head around, he saw Hermione, Terry, Crabbe, and Goyle, the captives gagged and bound. The blonde witch next to him nearly burst his eardrums screaming. So that's who- I knew he'd have someone hiding-
"I hope you see our new situation, as it has developed," Malfoy said, his eyes darting between his henchmen momentarily. He's confused. He prob'ly only sent them out to keep us from bringing reinforcements.
All wands were drawn.
"I'll take your word for it, then," the Gryffindor decided, eyes unmoving as Dean shouted at him from behind.
"Are you mad?!"
"Right. I forgot to mention, he's got both of our hostages." One of the other Slytherins made a face. "Bit of a lapse in judgement, I suppose, but I can personally guarantee that if you attack us, attempt to trick us, or... I don't know, anything else, he will destroy both of them without hesitation, no matter what happens to us."
"Then the deal proceeds as planned," Malfoy concluded, waving a hand to the complexities introduced. He's okay with giving us Parvati if we're still hostages of his because we're outnumbered. There's also Hermione and Terry.
Dean walked slowly, and without letting his expression of cold anger fade, but he walked, staring straight at the opposing ringleader, to the point of discomfort. He knows he's outnumbered, but he wants a fight anyway. He wants everyone to know it'll be a mistake to leave him alive. Oppositely, Bulstrode approached him with the shrunken box. She appeared to have taken a cue on the smirk, sending one in the Hufflepuff's direction. Wonder who would win in a fight between the two of them.
Setting his own box on the ground as he remembered he knew not how to enlarge it, he left it for Dean. Across the impossible divide, Malfoy did much the same.
"As you possibly know, this ward barrier verifies the identities beyond any possible trick of any number of persons to pass through it. I am not illiterate in runes, and neither is Nott, my vassal. His ward intersects with the castle's ward barrier and can tell us exactly who passes through. I expect you had much the same arrangement with the mudblood, despite her current state." He wouldn't have just not brought Parvati, even if he intended to beat us with numbers the whole time.
On the other side, Evan surfaced from the regrown box, though he was somewhat dazed and confused. That's how you'd expect someone who'd been stiff for more'n twenty four hours would behave. Tracey seemed unwilling to stand up for the moment. On his own side of the invisible ward barrier, Parvati rose unsteadily and he nodded to Dean, who came back to their side quickly.
"I could not have thought of anything more foolish than performing the exchange as agreed, Weasley, and yet, this is exactly what I expected. Nott, I believe you owe me a hundred galleons or so, as you doubted anything other than the ultimate height of sentimental idiocy." The boy who lost the bet seemed none too displeased, laughing at the other Slytherin's meanness without taking his eyes off their targets. That one's a bit cleverer than the others. Reckon I'll have to watch him.
Dean was helping Parvati to steady herself, but she refused his assistance, bidding him watch the others.
"It appears we still have some hostages of yours, blood traitor," the wizard he had been watching obviated. "Perhaps a count of the total is in order- you now have four wands to your name, while we have nine, two of which are guarding your confederates. You should really come quietly, lest they all die. The Dark Lord will be pleased to find we have entirely captured the last vestige of resistance to the nature of the war."
"But- you can't just kill all of us!" Hannah pleaded. "You simply can't... spill this much magical blood."
"Pure though yours may be, your deaths would be a necessary sacrifice and an effective deterrent for noncompliance," Nott explained, still using the almost shrill, grating tone he seemed to love so much. "The choice we present to the magical population is a fortunate one for us, as the greater mass of them will side with us before seeing their world destroyed."
"They don't want a war! Why can't you just go through the proper-"
"The war is good," Nott declared, silencing the Hufflepuff. "The world of magic has been in sclerotic contentment, and we dark wizards shall have no more of it. Our only salvation from the mass of the muggles is their destruction, and only under our leadership will it take place."
Ron gave the order to run for the trees and Dean followed, though he could not think of why. Might be he just wants to kill me. Least I can count on Hannah and Parvati. Fortunately the treeline was close enough and their pursuers were inclined to give them a sporting chance, seeming to find the whole situation amusing. As Ron leaped behind cover, having thrown up shield wards behind him as he ran, he watched the taunting group of enemies saunter after.
"What the hell are you doing?" the other Gryffindor wizard hissed angrily, punching him on the shoulder as he deflected a nasty looking spell with his wand.
"Hell if I know," he muttered back. "Shut up, we need every advantage-"
"Ron it's not going to fucking matter, they have five wands on us and one of them-"
"Dean about a day ago, Hermione figured out Malfoy's using Legilimency," he started to explain, casting his own shields. "Hannah'd been wondering about what he was doing in the duel, started shooting some ideas off her- doesn't matter, we're like nine out of ten sure he can use some basic form of-"
"What does this-"
"His father can use it-" the red-haired wizard started again, as the others started raising shields, which only provoked further taunting from their pursuers, who seemed in no hurry at all. Tracey was inching to the back of the formation, but he refocused his eyes on Malfoy, physically rolling out of the way of some dark spell from Nott.
"I think one of them just hit the ground," Dean commented, confused as he shielded.
"Eyes on Malfoy." Ron muttered. "There's a reason we didn't tell you about-" Another pair of their enemies fell, and this he could not ignore. "Counter!" he shouted, pressing the advantages as the four wands in the treeline switched to the offensive, hitting them with a combination of stunners and body-binds, only marginally deterred by hastily cast shield charms. The battle ended quickly with all their enemies either unconscious, bound, or both. Numbers win every time, and we had seven on six in key positions.
"What the hell was that?!" Dean asked.
"Like I said, reason we didn't tell you about the plan-" he started as he walked over to the captives, waving to Tracey. They've got to be around here somewhere. "Was we needed someone who didn't know about it, and I reckon Malfoy respects you, so he'd think you're really the brains here. If you don't know the plan, then there isn't one."
"We needed you to be the one who stood out," Hannah continued, an equally confused Parvati catching up to them. "He'd pick you for mind-reading that way, or at least that was what we thought. Terry said it was pretty likely, or more likely than anything else." She waved at the pair of Ravenclaws, magically levitating the unconscious Crabbe and Goyle to the rest of the Slytherins, present and former.
"So you hit them in the back while they were focused on us?" the Gryffindor witch asked. "That doesn't explain how you got out-"
"Hermione's been looking into memory charms since the beginning of the year." Terry explained. "They're not entirely ethical, but a few minutes of blurriness can't hurt anyone. Did they sneak up on us, or did we detect them with the wards and sneak up on them? Well, it must be the former, if we're kneeling in front of them. Did they remember to take our wands? Well, why wouldn't they? What does it matter anyway, our hands were bound," Terry explained, easily removing what looked like rope from around his wrists. Hermione must've transfigured some parchment or something to look like conjured rope. "It's brilliant, really."
"You say everything I do is brilliant," she said, waving her wand to petrify some of the unconscious captives. Can't be too careful, I suppose. "I used it on Ron to eliminate some parts of the plan from his recent memory, then on Hannah. I find that if the target is willing to have some of his memories erased, it's actually much easier."
"Not that Crabbe and Goyle were a challenge for you," Terry joked. Hermione laughed for a moment, then stopped.
"How did you know they were back there?" Dean asked.
"Terry had the idea that Draco would try to swarm us when Crabbe, Goyle, and Bulstrode attacked him to keep him from catching Parvati."
"I should have thought of it before then, really. He essentially came up with the rules so he could get around them in an unexpected way, and it's exactly the kind of thing he would do." He sighed, his worries seeming to catch up with his excitement. "We're lucky he never tried to use Legilimency on either of us, since we actually knew the whole plan. No, that was unlikely upon deciding we were no threat. We're lucky he believed Crabbe and Goyle could actually catch us unawares."
"Prob'ly the weakest point in the plan, really," Ron decided, waving his wand to retrieve the box used to contain Parvati, and then the two used to contain Evan and Tracey. "It was the best we could do on short notice, but there were a lot of reasons it would work. With how many of them there were, they were expecting a fight, but one they would probably win. When they saw Hermione and Terry were hostages, they totally tossed the idea out."
"Well, what happened when we weren't looking?" Dean asked. "I thought I hit one of them-"
"You might have," the Ravenclaw witch supposed. She probably made him forget about the entire plan, including the bit about Tracey being pissed enough about being left behind that she'd be willing to help us for a bit of petty revenge against Malfoy. "After we froze Crabbe and Goyle, Terry hit one, the mole hit one, and I hit one, and that was the most we expected to get before they realized something was going on. That would leave them with three, and there were seven of us including the mole." We hit her anyway, and it's probably how she thinks the others aren't going to know she was a mole. Lucky for us, she's not the only Slytherin witch who hates Malfoy. She told us that the remaining Carrow girl would be all too happy to tell the teachers that these wankers are out muggle baiting.
Too bad for her, though, seeing as she's not going to get to keep some recent memories.
"What are we going to do with them?"
"We leave them in chests for now," Ron said, unaware of whether or not it was the plan originally. Hannah nodded and started levitating the unconscious or otherwise immobile while her friend hit them with memory charms. "I reckon my brothers have a portkey we could toss in there, take 'em someplace far off, take a while to get back. Might be we could ransom them to the Death Eaters, haven't really considered it that I recall."
"That's it?" the other Gryffindor wizard asked, disappointed. "That's the plan, we negotiate three kids for an adult or something?"
"If it is, I don't remember. If you- or anyone else- can come up with a better idea of what to do with them, be jolly good to mention it," he decided. He'd better not suggest killing them. 's not every day you get your girlfriend back, and more hostages than you had before.
"Well, you already know." Merlin-
"Most of them aren't Nott or Malfoy, you know that, right?" he asked, feeling his face flush. "You know most of them were practically born on the side they are now- and if they try to get out they die-"
"Exactly!" Dean argued. "Exactly! They can't be redeemed, they can't get out, they can't be imprisoned-"
"That's enough," Hermione interjected, performing a memory charm on an unconscious Millicent Bulstrode. Makes you wonder what she has in there to forget. "They can be removed from school, where they won't be a threat to any of the students, including the first-years they're supposed to be protecting." She huffed. "We found a Slytherin named Mafalda who was assaulted by someone they enlisted. We don't know who it was specifically."
"Snape's not going to expel them!" Parvati argued, earning an odd look from Dean.
"I suppose he'll continue against pressure from all the other teachers?" the Ravenclaw witch asked. "The Ministry would threaten to close Hogwarts if he refused to expel them after disappearing and not remembering where they went, with the only witness saying it was muggle baiting, which is a serious Statute violation." Carrow's technically a Beauxbatons student at this point, but she still has friends here. We have to hope they didn't tell anyone else where they were going.
"Right, and none of this is going to get back to you? You've thought it all out to where you can just throw them in a few boxes somewhere and forget about the whole thing?"
Hermione stared at Parvati a moment, looking back to Dean, then to Ron.
"Actually, that's exactly what I mean to do."