A cross-continent chase leads to an unexpected foe from the past. Hermione learns Sylvestra's plan…
54. The Primrose Path
'Where the hell are we?' Harry asked, blinking tired eyes at a sun-beat, scrubby landscape, strewn with the charred ruins of a burnt-out building.
'Gilgad. Israel,' Draco replied. He looked drained by the effort of Apparating them three times in quick succession and cast a bleary glance at the ugly, blackened wreckage of the Gilgad facility, destroyed by Troyanda13 a month ago.
'Sorry, Harry. But it's probably you,' Hermione said, voicing the obvious. 'They've cast a tracking spell.' She quickly ran through every counter-spell she hoped could release him, but nothing worked. She sensed he'd been bound with something dark and complex. 'I need more time,' she said plaintively.
'Which we don't have,' Harry sighed, 'that bastard, Josep, will be along any minute…'
'We've got to go,' Draco said, pacing impatiently.
'Sorry, Draco. I don't know this area.'
'Lucky for you, I've had a misspent life... Hold on tight!' And Draco grabbed them...
The gut-churning tug and pull of Apparition surged through Hermione and she stumbled onto the floor of a bar beside a gleaming, blue swimming-pool. The water looked cool and inviting. A woman in a skimpy bikini was gawping at them from a recliner, a long glass of something alcoholic and refreshing paused halfway to her lips.
Hermione instantly felt Draco's hand tighten on her arm and they were whipped away in a head-swirling flash, landing with a bump on a clay tennis court. Their Alaydaa costumes were instantly coated in sticky orange dust.
Harry crawled on his hands and knees to the edge of the court and threw up.
Hermione looked around… Fortunately, no one was here. 'Do you think we've lost them?' she asked Draco. She was feeling bilious herself and the sound of Harry retching wasn't helping matters. 'We need to rest.'
Draco wiped a slurry of perspiration from his forehead with his arm. A thick smear of clay was now streaked across his face. 'No time for that...'
Harry was lying on his back gazing up at the sky. 'We need a safe space to fix whatever the fuck they've done to me,' he groaned. 'We can't run forever.' He inched himself off the ground, wincing uncomfortably. 'And I could really do with a toilet.'
'What's that?' Hermione asked Draco, nodding to a large, glass building a few hundred yards away.
'A hotel - not the five star it pretends to be but there's decent toilets in the lobby.' He scrambled to his feet. 'We're in Nicosia. Cyprus.'
'Rhodes is reasonably close.' Hermione recalled a family holiday to Lindos. An Acropolis overlooking a broad stretch of glistening sea sprang to mind… 'Maybe we Apparate there next, and then try and get back to the goblins in Athens?'
Draco's mouth tightened in irritation. 'I've lost that damned Gringott's letter Bill gave us … can't be sure those nasty little fuckers will give us a free ride.'
'It's still worth a try,' Hermione reasoned.
XXX
From the outside the hotel was a plain glass monolith, but inside it was a light-soaked atrium with an elaborate rockery and a gushing waterfall at its heart. The gun-toting security guard gave them a shifty side-glance as they limped past, bedraggled and soiled.
'We could all do with freshening up,' Hermione muttered, and she split off from Harry and Draco to take advantage of the floral-smelling restrooms, liberally splashing her face with warm soapy water and using a hand towel to mop the thick orange dirt from her skin-tight black costume. She ditched the Alaydaa metallic tunic into a bin and conjured a hair band to tie back her hair.
The first person she saw when she headed back into the atrium was Josep. He was staring intently at the Men's Lavatories, his hand jigging impatiently against his thigh.
She instinctively drew her wand – there was no time for niceties – and was about to zing a stunner in his direction when a powerful Expelliarmus sent her flying into the wall and her wand shot from her grasp. She screamed as loudly as she possibly could to alert Draco and Harry and flailed across the floor to grab her wand, twisting and rolling to avoid a puttering round of explosive spells from an advancing line of Alaydaa. The tiles on the wall behind her shattered, spraying shards of sharp porcelain through the air.
A couple of suited businessmen turned and ran and a receptionist ducked behind her desk. A piercing alarm resounded through the atrium.
The surly security guard strode into the building and fired his gun at her attackers but Josep spun around and a jet of lethal green levelled the guard in a single shot.
Hermione fired back a series of stunners at the Alaydaa, but one of them had raised his goggles and she could see he was smiling as he sauntered towards her with frustrating casualness. She targeted him with her wand but a red flash exploded inside of her… she writhed and gnashed her teeth, quaking at the searing pain that suddenly seemed to be scorching her from the inside out. It felt like a vast hot stone was being squeezed through her abdomen and her blood was on fire. She could barely think let alone react… She dragged her eyes to the source of the pain. Another Alaydaa, closing in…
A green flash felled him and the pain that had kept Hermione pinioned to the floor abruptly stopped amidst wild commotion: the sound of stampeding feet and screams and a continual barrage of spells, so bright, Hermione had to avert her eyes. The rockery suddenly exploded with a deafening crash. Huge chunks of rock smashed to the ground or hurtled with venomous velocity through the glass walls of the atrium.
The goggle-less Alaydaa was struck down by a rebounding boulder and was stretched out on the floor, eyes wide and glassy, blood convulsing from a messy gash in his head.
Scampering feet and a hand grabbed Hermione by the arm, roughly levering her off the floor. 'Come on!' Harry yelled, dragging her towards the exit.
'What about Draco?'
But Harry wasn't listening. He flourished his feathered wand and unleashed a powerful curse at an Alaydaa who was charging towards them, wand ahoy. The Alaydaa was flung off his feet, somersaulting backwards, his metallic tunic sundering into a tangled, bloodied mess, before he splattered onto the floor.
'What was THAT?' Hermione gasped.
Draco was trading bursts of ferocious, scalding colour-magic with Josep.
The two wizards chased each other - swerving, leaping over furniture and bodies, dodging curses, throwing up luminous shields. Hermione watched in lurid fascination as they cast a succession of shimmering blasts, pounding the atrium to a dusty pulp. Scorching streaks of colour ricocheted across the room, tearing up the ground beneath their feet.
To her astonishment, Draco was bristling with vitality, electrified, eyes dark with focus.
He likes this, she thought sadly. He's a warrior… His colour-magic was designed to do this because it was expressing HIM, some part of himself he'd suppressed when using their usual magic, living their usual lives.
But he was gradually being pushed back and three surviving Alaydaa had stumbled to their feet and were snapping their wands into their hands with deadly intent.
Draco instantly Apparated to her side and she clutched both men and focused hard.
The glorious ruins of the Acropolis at Lindos stretched into the sky above them. There was an audible screech and the frantic scampering of feet, but Hermione didn't pause… no time for that. She gritted her teeth and maintained a firm grip on Draco and Harry and recalled the shabby hangar at Glyfada Airport. Was it too far? she worried, but instantly banished the thought – there could be no room for doubt. Not now… she couldn't risk Splinching them; the thought was unbearable, unthinkable.
'Fucking brilliant,' Draco said, encircling her in his arms. 'We made it.'
His heart was still racing from the showdown in the Nicosia hotel and his neck was slippery with sweat. But she didn't care and buried her face into his warmth, if only for a moment's respite.
'They don't look happy,' Harry grumbled.
Sure enough, a posse of disgruntled goblins were eyeing them with heavy-browed suspicion.
'Hopefully they'll remember us?' Draco said, slapping a toothy smile onto his face. He moved closer and waved at them. But an unseen force propelled him backwards and he cried out, stung by an invisible barrier that the goblins had hastily thrown into his path. 'This is going to be tricky,' he groused.
Harry tried to argue their cause with the goblins … but there was no point, Hermione thought. Goblins were notoriously intransigent bastards. She fumbled her phone out of her bra where she'd secreted it and immediately hunted for Gunter's number.
To her relief, he answered immediately.
'We've got a situation,' she gabbled, quickly telling him where they were and how Josep and his henchmen were chasing them down.
'Get to Geneva,' Gunter said curtly. 'I'll make sure someone's there to let you in-' She knew he meant the Troyanda13 headquarters. 'You'll be safe for long enough to kill off this tracker on Harry.'
'Where are you?'
'We've made it across the border.'
Hermione's relief was short-lived… a series of sharp cracks echoed around the building. 'Gotta go!' she yelped. She sprinted across the hangar, narrowly avoiding a surge of incendiary colour-magic that evaporated the air behind her, and grabbed Draco and Harry from behind, instantly Apparating to the first place she could think of in Greece… silently blessing her parents for their dedication to the ethos of family holidays.
The sand was hot beneath their feet and their black Alaydaa costumes were suddenly stifling.
'Aegina,' Hermione said, barely pausing for breath. 'There might be a Portkey Transit Station here. We're right by the main town.'
Draco shook his head. 'No. We need to keep moving.' He gave Hermione a concerned look. 'You look pale. Let me handle the next move.'
'Where's Aegina?' Harry asked, but Draco didn't answer because he'd shifted them in a spinning whirl away from the beach... and to Hermione's horror, a woman was screaming into her ear.
They'd landed somewhere soft and bouncy. Hermione was entangled in a sheet and a woman's naked breasts were bearing down on her.
Hermione squealed and shimmied to the end of the bed, falling against Draco, who was red-faced with embarrassment.
A naked man shouting in a foreign language, threw a punch at Harry, who ducked and fell off the bed, slamming onto the floor. The woman screamed and curled herself into a tight little ball against the pillows.
Hermione instinctively hit the woman with a memory charm and slapped her partner with a tickling hex. He squirmed and wriggled, spluttering with uncontrollable laughter.
Harry seized the bed-frame and dragged himself to a standing position. 'What the fuck were you thinking?' he bellowed at Draco, incensed.
'Corfu,' Draco explained sheepishly. 'Dirty weekend.'
Hermione swiftly Obliviated the man she'd hexed. He looked at them vacantly, as if waking from a perplexing dream.
'Where now?' she gasped. 'There has to be a Portkey station nearby. We can't keep Apparating! It's getting dangerous.' She cast an eye at the dazed couple. 'And we definitely don't want Josep to come HERE.'
'Look, let me help out,' Harry argued. 'I can handle a few bursts of side-Apparition! Particularly with this wand you made me, Hermione. It's fucking awesome.' He gaped at it in starry-eyed amazement.
He held their arms and whisked them to a bleak, stony hillside. The sun had faded to a pale primrose overladen with thick, grey cloud. There was nothing in sight, except a herd of goats, scurrying away, hooves kicking up soft, brown earth as they headed downhill.
Up ahead was a yawning, black cave set into a lumpish stone cliff.
'I was tracking a dark wizard some years back. He hived off here and I camped out on this very spot,' Harry said almost wistfully. 'That's what a lot of my job involves, actually… waiting.'
'I think we keep moving,' Draco said regretfully.
'We can't keep—'
'We have to,' he said firmly.
'I spoke to Gunter. He says get to Geneva. There'll be someone waiting for us at Les Treize Portes Fermées.'
'Well, that's the best thing I've heard for days,' Draco mumbled.
'They're here,' Harry said, clasping them close. Hermione didn't have time to think how he knew this because the all-too-familiar jerk of Apparition shuddered through her.
'Kotor,' Harry said, as they crumpled onto a grassy verge close to an ornate stone gate arching over a cobbled pathway. Luckily they'd landed behind a bush, as a seething mass of tourists thronged past them and through the gate heading towards a medieval town square.
'Fuck's sake,' Draco cursed, staring with hard eyes at Josep, who was already on the other side of the street grinning maniacally. A coach drove past, momentarily blocking them from view.
'My turn,' Hermione said… Kotor was a short trip from Dubrovnik.
Moments later, the smooth, pale streets and sun-bleached stone walls of Dubrovnik's old town reared into view. They tried to weave their way through a teeming crowd of sightseers until Hermione took evasive action, tripping up a set of steps into an open doorway.
They entered a church, converted into an art exhibition. The walls were festooned with sumptuous paintings - a bewildering feast of colour for Hermione's exhausted eyes.
Draco grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back towards the open doorway. 'This is too confined a space. Let's get back outside.' But it was too late; a blizzard of colours crisscrossed Hermione's vision and Josep and the three Alaydaa were shooting the paintings into tattered shreds and a woman was slumped on the floor, mouth lolling open…
Hermione shrieked and grasped Draco and Harry, Apparating.
A busy waterfront and the chug-chug of boats and the trumpeting of a ferry's horn… Motorbikes charged past and a truck was belching out noxious, black smoke. They'd landed in a pop-up t-shirt shop ranged across a narrow, trafficked street from a long, greystone building with arched windows and blanched grey shutters. Stalls and shops occupied a string of archways that stretched along the length of the building.
Draco glanced beyond the stalls to the busy promenade, fringed by elegant palm trees, facing out to sea.
'Split,' he said. 'Okay, we're not too far from Venice… Damn! We've got company. They're getting quicker.'
They slunk through the lines of t-shirts, surprising a gangly youth who'd clearly not been expecting customers from their direction, and dashed across the road, heading into a darkened doorway…
'I thought you said not to go inside!' Hermione remonstrated.
But Draco grabbed her hand and pulled her past the harried-looking staff, ignoring their pleas for payment, deep into a shadowy labyrinth. Harry laboured behind them, looking worn-out. The Apparition had taken its toll.
Draco wound them further into the bowels of the building – the ancient Roman palace of Emperor Diocletian, Hermione recalled from that particular summer holiday. It was cool and smelled old and damp. A soft, glowing green light illuminated their route.
They arrived at a dead-end.
'Okay. Now,' Draco murmured, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. His hand tightened its grasp and they were spiralling and twisting and then holding onto an elaborate white railing gazing out at the sludge-green depths of a broad canal, plied by a long line of gondolas and vaporetti. Hermione lifted her eyes to the other side of the canal; a feast of decorous, coloured mansions… and to their left, across the water, an imposing domed church.
She swung around to check out where Draco had taken them. A verandah, bustling with the clink of cutlery on fine china and high fluting laughter. A flustered waiter in a smart black waistcoat with starched white shirt-sleeves and collar was advancing towards them, a puzzled expression on his face.
He spoke rapidly in Italian but Draco muttered under his breath and the man was smiling like they were old friends and ushering them towards a table, batting away an elderly couple trussed into fur and pearls who had just sat down.
'We haven't time to eat!' Harry said, his face crumpling with envy at the mouth-watering platters of food being carried from the restaurant to the neighbouring table.
'Just – sit down, Harry,' Draco commanded, pouring them all a glass of iced water. 'We need a minute. That bastard can't take out the Gritti Palace Hotel, for fuck's sake.'
'Too late,' Hermione said, almost choking on her water… Josep's face, alive with twinkling menace, had appeared at the top of a series of steps leading from the canalside to the terrace.
'Allow me,' Harry sighed, and he wearily slapped his hands on their arms and they were tumbled into a cold, wet slush that had Hermione screaming in shock and pain.
'SORRY!' Harry cried, but his voice was then muffled as he fell deeper into a snow-drift.
Hermione was trembling with fear. She was flat on her back, staring up at a dazzling white sky. A steep, precipitous rock-face loomed over her. Her limbs were frozen, buffeted by a harsh, chill wind that whistled across her body.
Draco rolled towards her and clasped her close. 'We're up a fucking mountain,' he shrilled, his voice almost carried away into the wild, windswept wastes.
Harry's hand reached out, pink, wet and frozen, and clutched them tightly… Hermione had never felt so relieved to fall into the nausea-inducing swirl of Apparition and the soft, rippling waters of a vast blue lake with lush, green foliage nestling at its shores was a welcome sight.
Another restaurant, another terrace…
'Blimey. I've lived such a soft life,' Draco said with a nostalgic sigh.
'it's lovely here,' Hermione whimpered, sad that they were about to leave.
'Lake Como. We'll come back. I promise.'
'We can make Geneva,' Harry asserted. 'I'm sure of it.'
'No, Harry, it's too far,' Hermione retorted. 'We need another stop in-between. There's an entire mountain range—'
But Harry had thrown his arms around both of them and they juddered to a halt moments later outside Les Treize Portes Fermées. He almost collapsed to the pavement, Draco catching him as his legs wobbled and gave way.
Hermione flung Harry's arm around her shoulder and they staggered through the bright, modern café and a passageway leading to a steel door. Hermione jabbed the doorbell repeatedly but there was no reply. She tried again and again… and then the door swung open and a man with a trimmed black beard but wild, scraggly hair was pulling them inside, slamming the door behind them and locking it with a complicated spell.
'Hi. I'm Yuri,' he said. 'We just got here. You made good time.'
'WE?'
The statuesque, handsome woman Hermione had briefly met at The Blue House was waiting at the entrance to Troyanda13's common-room. Leila, their healer… and she was already studying Harry with concern.
XXX
Hermione had never been so happy to shower and slip on fresh clothes – a spare black t-shirt and jeans that Leila rooted out for her from Troyanda13's supplies.
She made everyone a cup of herbal tea in the pokey kitchen tucked around the corner from the main common-room. It was the least she could do… Harry had already been subjected to a series of gruelling tests and investigations by Leila and was looking distinctly ashen. 'Looks like I'll just have to live here,' he said with a cheerless smile.
Leila had given Draco an envelope. He was puzzling over its contents, a sombre look on his face when Hermione returned to the common-room.
She sat down opposite him and nudged a cup of steaming tea his way.
'You okay?'
He sighed. 'Arthur Weasley's a very kind man, isn't he?'
Hermione hadn't expected that. 'Yes… very.' Her eyes dropped to a small, silver rose-charm glinting in the fading spears of evening light shining through a glass skylight set high into the ceiling. 'Why do you say that?'
'He wrote to my mother and she's written back...' Draco pushed a note written on scented, sky-blue tissue paper towards her. Narcissa's hand was less assured, less bold than before; more a cramped scrawl – large, childish letters crashing into each other - and yet the ink was almost translucent, barely making an impression on the paper, as though she feared committing her thoughts to posterity.
'Dearest darling Draco,
Arthur Weasley has generously written to tell me how well you are and how you and Scorpius are moving on in your lives. Arthur says he's a fine boy.
I have nothing but happiness for you, darling.
I have an inkling, you know... I think I always did. A mother's instinct, perhaps? But then I have such strange and random thoughts these days. They descend on me. Like cloaked battalions. Often parading as memories, or queer morbid inflections – once buried deep inside.
So many thoughts and feelings… they weigh heavily. Sometimes they rob me of breathe and I can barely see. Though you must not worry. Milton is my guardian, a truly loyal servant – my dearest, dearest friend.
I ask for forgiveness, my darling, but you have escaped and I am assured that out of the darkness comes the light. May it shine on you all the days of your life, Draco. Live like you deserve it; and ensure that you do.
With much love,
Mother
PS: I enclose an envelope that arrived for you the day before Beltane.'
Hermione read the letter and wiped tears from her eyes, fearing they might fall and stain the paper.
'She's not well, is she?' Draco said low tones. He pressed the rose-charm into her hand. 'Keep this safe.'
She nodded mutely.
'She truly liked you… it wasn't just guilt,' Draco said. He gazed at her with clear, grey eyes. 'I think she was wise in her silly old way... She reeled you in and kept you close.'
'She's not GONE, Draco,' Hermione reprimanded, but she swallowed back tears. There was something of a valedictory tone in her letter that couldn't be ignored.
'Not yet.' His hand closed around hers.
'MERDE!' Leila exclaimed, startling them. 'I can't do this!' she said with a frustrated grimace as she tried yet another spell on Harry. 'This is very dark magic. We need a Rectificator!'
Harry closed his eyes and groaned. 'You haven't got one here I take it? Whatever that is...'
'They're very rare,' Yuri remarked.
Draco sprang to his feet. 'Actually, there might be a place—'
But at that same moment an almighty blast shook the door leading into the Common-Room, ripping it off its hinges. The door flew towards them, slicing into Yuri who keeled over, eyes bulging, gagging and choking.
Draco instantly pushed Hermione to the floor.
A further explosion threw the tables and chairs and various computers and random pieces of hardware strewn around the room high into the air before they crashed to the ground with a violent clatter.
'Accio wand!' Harry yelped and the fwoofer feathers flashed into view. He was about to return fire as a rally of screaming spells spun across the room, but Draco snatched his ankle pulling him over and out of shot, as a string of killing curses were unloaded by their invaders. Leila tumbled to the floor like a puppet shorn of its strings. Her face was petrified; a rigid mask of shock.
'Shit,' Hermione cried, horrorstruck.
'Take my hand!' Draco barked - and they were gone.
XXX
'Where are we?' Harry asked.
A tall canopy of trees blocked the dusky sky from sight but Hermione could see a sprinkling of early evening stars. An imposing manor house loomed across undulating lawns, shadowy blue in the fading light.
'The old holiday cottage,' Draco grimaced. He wearily rubbed his eyes … 'Hell. Those poor fucking bastards… How do we break the news to Troyanda13? They've lost Maurice, Ottiline. And Pyotr before that… We've ruined their bloody lives.'
'I shouldn't have called Gunter,' Hermione said, feeling hollow inside, feeling like she'd lured them to die…
'No, Hermione,' Harry said in firm tones. 'You had to make that call.'
'We were in trouble. We'd run out of road,' Draco said in support.
'And they'd have known the risks because everything they did was a fucking risk,' Harry added. ''They were raised to be heroes. That was Jeroboam's main contribution to parenthood as far as I can tell.'
'Gryffindors-on-speed,' Draco murmured. 'Well, we all have to be brave now. It's become our duty.'
'Leila was a fine healer,' Harry said soberly.
But unable to disarm Harry's tracker, Hermione remembered with a sudden pang of alarm. She quickly scanned their surroundings... Any moment now…
Draco clearly had the same thought. 'Come on,' he said brusquely, 'we've no time to lose.'
He stumbled into the trees, groping amongst thickets and gnarly tree-trunks.
'What you looking for?' Harry shouted after him.
'Need a hand!' Draco called back...
Despite a series of unlocking spells, they strained to lever open a large, wooden trapdoor - but it eventually swung back, slapping heavily onto the mossy ground.
A ladder led downwards, into the darkness.
'Let's hope the smuggling gang I gifted this to haven't totally trashed the place,' Draco said, illuminating his wand and leading them down the steps. 'I'm sure there was a Rectificator down here somewhere…'
Hermione was last to follow, pulling the heavy door back into place with a flick of her wand, muttering protection charms.
The air was bitter, acrid – foul-tasting.
Draco was plundering a pile of metallic objects. He shot her a warning look.
'Don't touch anything! Dark magic artefacts have a nasty habit of not liking Muggle-borns.'
'They've pretty much gutted the joint,' Harry said dismally, but Draco whooped victoriously, brandishing a long, cylindrical metal instrument, hollow at one end with a plunger at the other. It looked like a cast-off instrument from an outsized chemistry set.
Harry's face was pale with dread in the wand-light as he gazed at the instrument in Draco's hand. 'Great… what does it do?'
'It draws out any bad magic planted inside of you,' Draco explained. 'A versatile wee thing… we should keep hold of it.'
'There's nothing WEE about it,' Harry said, gulping fearfully. 'Exactly how does it work?'
Draco studied the Rectificator, a quizzical look on his face. 'I'm not entirely sure.'
'I've got an idea… and I don't like it,' Harry said, pursing his lips tightly.
Hermione couldn't help but smile at Draco's appalled expression when he caught on to Harry's inference. 'Yeah… we can't do that!' He threw her a desperate look. 'Any thoughts?'
'Orally? But whatever you do… you need to act fast.'
'Right. Give it here,' Harry growled. He snatched the Recificator and threw back his head, mouth wide open.
'STOP!' Draco roared. 'What – what if it's been used before?'
'You mean...?' Harry turned a shade of green. 'Oh lord... Guess I'll have to bite the bullet then. Hermione... I'd - I'd rather you didn't watch this…'
'No, Harry. We're not sticking it up your arse! And that's that.' Draco's mouth twitched involuntarily with amusement.
'I'm not sure what else I can do?' Harry said desperately. The two men gazed at each other. 'How did we get to this? I should have finished you off in that fucking bathroom... Would have saved me a world of shame.'
Draco's eyes hardened momentarily – the briefest flash. 'Well, if it wasn't for the fact that Josep fucker could show up at any moment and smash us to smithereens, this could be a tale for the grandchildren, Potter.'
'I'd have to censor it,' Harry said disconsolately.
'There's got to be another way... Hey. How about your navel?'
Harry's lip curled in horror. 'Is that actually a hole?'
'No – more a scar, but we could make a small incision and—'
'Too complicated. There's muscles and nerves and lord knows what,' Hermione said tersely. 'Look, Harry. It's obvious. You need to insert this device SOMEWHERE and suck out this tracking magic with the plunger.' She examined the Rectificator. 'We can scourgify it if it helps and then leave you alone to do what you have to do in whatever way you choose to do it.'
Harry nodded emphatically. 'Whatever happens, it's not going to be pleasant. I'm already feeling sick as a dog.' He took hold of the Rectificator. 'I'll meet you up top in a jiffy.' He threw Hermione a soulful glance. 'Wish me luck.'
XXX
'What did Harry mean by the BATHROOM?' Hermione asked Draco. They were sitting on the damp moss in the dark… A light shower was peppering them with cool flecks of water, but after the dark chaos of Akhr Makan, the heat of the Egyptian desert, their frantic flight across Europe and the attack in Geneva it felt like gentle respite.
'He was referring to a fight we had when we were boys. He used Sectumsempra on me… hurt like fuck,' Draco said in a low, gravelly voice.
'Ah, yes… You tried to cast a Cruciatus Curse, if I remember rightly? He acted in self-defence.'
Hermione could feel Draco's cool, grey gaze roving her face.
'You know, Draco… there's probably a load of stuff Harry knows about… about what happened back then, that – that you should maybe talk about sometime,' Hermione said hesitantly.
Draco blinked rapidly. 'Why?'
'Because… some things probably need to be said.'
'Time's moved on,' Draco said with a nonchalant shrug, but there was tension in his face.
'Yes, it has,' she agreed. 'In fact… today's the fifteenth anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts.'
'Is it? Oh.'
'I always envisaged a grand day of celebration. But so many from that time have died or left the wizarding world altogether… and here we are, deep in the midst of another full-blown crisis and it feels like the past has been forgotten.'
Draco folded his arms and looked away, staring into the trees. 'Maybe it's best it stays that way.'
'What do you mean?'
'Well…' Draco shuffled uncomfortably. 'It'd be kind of like rubbing our noses in our own shit, wouldn't it? We weren't all fucking heroes, saving the wizarding world.'
'But it'd be a day of reconciliation.'
'For you maybe… But for someone like me, it'd be embarrassing as hell. The whole fucking world knows what an utter tool I was. Harry more than most...'
'He doesn't hold it against you. Not now.'
'Bollocks… it's always there... The total fucking humiliation of it all.'
'But you were a boy!'
'Yeah… the fucking golden boy, the crown fucking prince - or so I thought. Turned out I was a nothing, a nobody. Expendable… Voldemort certainly thought so!'
'But Dumbledore didn't…'
Draco snapped his head in her direction and there was a fathomless look in his eyes that shook her.
'…and neither did Snape,' she continued. 'He was even prepared to die for you. As for Harry…'
'Yes, yes, I know… and I'm eternally fucking grateful,' Draco said, his voice laced with bitterness - but this was immediately succeeded by a heavy sigh. 'I am, actually… which kind of makes it worse… this big bloody difference between us. I can't compete.'
Hermione laughed and shook her head. 'But you're not COMPETING over anything. In fact. You never were.'
Draco smiled thinly. 'Oh I realise the fucking irony of it, Hermione… and there's nothing more galling, believe me, than wasting your life desperately comparing yourself to someone who doesn't actually give a crap.'
'He had bigger things to worry about…'
'You're not helping!' Draco said with a fixed grin – although she wasn't fooled; she could see his whiteness visibly darkening as they spoke. 'It's just… well, old habits die hard I guess.'
'Seriously, though, Draco. You've nothing to compete over NOW. It's done. Finished.'
'Oh. I agree with you…' Draco said in an offhand manner. 'Because there's simply no competition! I mean - the man's so fucking effortlessly superior to me in every way… He's good and honourable and fucking ridiculously brave. If he'd been a snivelling shit like me – well, fuck knows what would have happened… It doesn't bear thinking about, does it?' Draco's face fell into darkness. 'I mean, it makes no fucking sense whatsoever how a wonderful woman like you is with someone like me; someone who abused you for fun. You should be with someone like him. Like Harry. Even Ron, actually. He was a fuck sight better and braver than I ever was.'
He held her gaze and a powerful sense of melancholy, hopelessness washed over her.
'And yet...' she breathed, edging closer and straddling his lap, 'I want you. Only you... How do you fathom that, Draco Malfoy?'
She could feel him trembling – whether it was emotion or cold, she couldn't be sure.
'I honestly don't know… it scares me sometimes.' His arms snaked around her, holding her tight against him. 'But your ability to continually forgive my total inept fucking twattitude is one of the many billion things I love about you, Hermione. It's why I'm terrified of it all going wrong, of fucking it up… You've fucking ruined me.'
She entwined her arms around his neck and laughed. 'I think we've ruined each other, actually.' She brushed her lips against his, unable to resist his closeness... not caring if Josep suddenly jumped out of the shadows and did his worst. 'And I love being ruined by you - and you ARE brave, Draco. Incredibly brave. And a fuck sight better than you think you are. Sure, you haven't been the best version of yourself for your entire bloody life, but you did one thing that was truly remarkable and rarely achieved. You changed.'
Draco stared at her, his eyes sparkling in the starlight… 'Come here,' he grunted, sinking his hand deep into her hair, urging her closer. His lips captured hers greedily, drawing her into a fierce, passionate kiss, making her moan with longing, making her forget where they were and why…
'For fuck's sake,' Harry muttered mulishly, 'I'm gone five minutes and you can't keep your hands off each other. It's like being with lovesick teenagers.'
Hermione reluctantly pulled away from Draco's grasp. 'Did – did it work?'
'Well. Have we been invaded by that black-eyed freak?' Harry rejoined.
Hermione and Draco quickly looked around. The WORST look-outs, Hermione thought dolefully… The trees stood tall and silent.
'Doesn't look like it,' Draco asserted. 'Whatever you did… it did the trick.'
Harry rolled his eyes. 'I didn't shove it where the sun don't shine, if that's what you're implying.'
'Nope. I wasn't. Not at all… So, what DID you do?'
'Actually… we're NOT alone,' Hermione interjected in a harsh whisper. She discerned a presence… Long and willowy. A thin grey shadow… hovering at the back of the trees on the edge of the lawn between this grove and the house.
Hermione could sense eyes staring fixedly out of the darkness; two black jewels.
'Is it Josep?' Harry asked, face contorted with deep loathing.
'No… a woman.' Hermione shivered involuntarily. 'Draco. Who did your family sell this house to?'
'Don't know. My father handled it all. I rarely came here … place gave me the creeps.' His eyes had followed Hermione's towards the thick crush of trees bordering the lawns, wreathed in a low-hanging, grey mist.
'Where did you say you could see someone?'
An eerie stillness descended on them… expectant.
Hermione saw that the dark figure was rapidly beating a retreat, back across the lawns, her long, dark hair fanning out behind her as she walked in long, loping strides…
'She's heading back to the house.'
They stood up and moved towards the trees. 'Maybe you mistook a tree for a person?'
'No, Draco… she was standing a few feet from where you are now,' Hermione said. 'Look! She's gone inside.'
The candle blowing in the downstairs window moved and was gone - plunging the place into darkness.
She spotted Draco and Harry exchange worried looks.
'I haven't gone mad you know!' Hermione complained, pushing beyond the trees to the starlit stretch of misty grass.
'Hermione. Come back here!' There was a steely urgency in Draco's voice.
'It was probably a nosy Muggle,' Hermione said, entering the soft, grey mist. It swirled around her, strangely warm and inviting. 'But if it wasn't, it's better we know, don't you think?'
The house was closer than she'd thought and she was soon climbing stone steps leading to a large wooden door – slightly ajar.
'We can cast Disillusionment Charms if you're worried,' she added. But they didn't reply... She spun around, her heart beating loudly… but the fog was too thick for her to see beyond the length of her own arm.
Should she head back towards the trees? Except she couldn't see the trees anymore. She was marooned on her own little island… A set of steps and a wedge of darkness between the open door and the door-frame, summoning her attention like a bold, black klaxon bellowing in her brain.
We have to know… she said to herself. Be brave.
She stepped forwards, catching a glimpse of her eyes in the window. Deep, black pools…
Would she be waiting for her?
One way to find out, Hermione thought. But she had to be sure Draco and Harry could find her. She thrust her hand into the pocket of her borrowed jeans, closing over the small, silver charm.
She gazed at it, nestling in her palm, then cast a doubling charm and slipped the original back into her pocket.
She needed lots… so she muttered the incantation over and over until her hands were overflowing with small, silver roses.
She moved into the darkness, dropping charms to the floor … a long line of silver roses leading from the open door to herself as she pressed through a kitchen into a long, thin living room lined with paintings of all shapes and sizes. Portraits, landscapes, abstracts, florid expressions of mood and mind…
There was a sound to her left. Footsteps mounting a staircase.
She cast a Disillusionment Charm and followed, ascending a wide, wooden staircase situated at the heart of the house. The darkness was closing in on her – a thick, granulated grey. She was close enough now to hear her breaths – long, drawn-out, urgent.
She arrived at a gallery… she knew she would. And the woman was waiting.
She was standing at the far end of the gallery and had her back to her. Or at least Hermione presumed that was the case, because all she could see was a woman wearing a long black dress with a flood of black hair stretching down to her waist – except... she was back to front, because her feet were pointing at Hermione. And her arms hung loose at her sides, hands slightly before her. And her head was bowed.
Hermione felt frozen… too scared to move either forwards or backwards. She prayed her Disillusionment Charm had been successful because she could now make out the pale contours of the woman's face beneath the hair. Her mouth was pulled into a deep, fretful frown, and her eyes were like gaping, black holes...
Dolores…
Dolores cocked her head rightwards and stared at the pictures on the wall.
Hermione instinctively slunk into the shadows and watched as Dolores laid her hands on a picture and leant forwards. Half her body tilted into the picture and then the rest of her shifted upwards and vanished. Her boot briefly lingered outside the picture-frame, before being swallowed into the darkness.
A panicky whine chimed through Hermione's head. What should she do?
She felt certain she could follow Dolores if she wanted – but was it wise?
She gazed at the few remaining charms in her hand. If she made more and trailed them behind her would they act as an anchor ensuring she could come back?
She had to decide quickly…
XXX
The picture she entered was a blustery seascape. Grey sand, pitted with Dolores's footprints… Frothing waves surging across the sands towards her.
A sharp breeze whisked her hair into a tousled weave. She glanced left… a long line of dunes drifted into blank, creamy skies. In the far distance was a single, black figure… her flowing cape fluttering in the cold wind.
And then she was gone.
Hermione pushed forward; faster, a blur of motion… Except this was her own body, not just her mind - something she found both exhilarating and unsettling.
Dolores… she thought. And there she was... slipping effortlessly through a slick, green jungle; emerald, juicy tendrils dangling from twisted trees… Then a red, rutted field – a single, ramshackle hut set far in the distance… followed by a winding collection of dark, overhung lanes, a maze, writhing between wooden houses, their roofs almost touching, framing a rough, dusty path, strewn with clods of dirt and rubbish.
This isn't usual, Hermione thought. It wasn't a landscape.
She encountered a mountain path, curving round and round…
She paused to make more roses, careful to ensure the charms were distributed at regular intervals. She didn't dare break the chain.
Dolores entered a gate set into a black stone wall. Was it the entrance to a keep? Crenellated towers reared up ahead; vast flying buttresses…
Hermione followed, immediately encountering a grey, filmy haze. She'd arrived at the edge of a painting… the threshold from this world into reality.
She tiptoed forwards and a room came into view; large and stone-walled with dark wooden shutters hanging at the windows and a high-beamed ceiling. A black metal chandelier loomed over a long, oak dining-table, with an array of candles casting long, flickering shadows.
Hermione was shocked to see Sylvestra seated at the dining table, facing Dolores. Selwyn Haast loitered at a side-table pouring three glasses of red wine. His hand shook uncontrollably as he passed a glass to Dolores.
'I'm obviously disappointed…' Sylvestra was saying. 'I was looking forward to receiving him as my guest.'
'Oh. You still will!' Dolores assured her. 'But not tonight…'
Sylvestra's golden mane of hair shimmered with a reddish hue in the candlelight, and there was a peculiarly hawkish sharpness to her features, which seemed to absorb the wavering shadows. Her eyes were veiled, her mouth taut. 'I hope I haven't done anything to displease the Grandmaster.'
'Al contrario,' Dolores said in her thick, Spanish accent. 'He is eager to see you. You have proved most dutiful.' She gave Sylvestra a cautious smile.
Sylvestra seemed pleased to hear this. 'That's good to know.' She circled the rim of her wine-glass with her index finger, momentarily lost in thought, and then raised her eyes to Dolores. 'Actually – there's something I'd like to discuss with you, if I may? Something of deep personal interest to me…'
Dolores's dark eyes fired with curiosity, then alighted on Selwyn, whose plump features quavered under her scrutiny.
Sylvestra gave her a thin, reedy smile. 'Selwyn knows my thinking on this matter… It regards my sister.' Was it Hermione's imagination or did the shadows darken around her face as she spoke? 'I want her released from prison. Her incarceration is unjust. Undeserved.'
Dolores raised her goblet of wine to her lips and gazed at Sylvestra, a coolly contemplative expression on her face. 'Believe me, Sylvestra. I share your impatience. Your sister's become horribly dependent on me… Her constant whining and crying is unbearable!' Sylvestra couldn't withhold the smile that creased her face, but it soon fell. 'However… I am powerless to assist you. It is the Grandmaster who ordained the terms of Katya's arrangement. Any fresh proposals must be submitted to him – not me.'
'But you're The Keeper, Dolores,' Sylvestra said sourly. 'You're the only person who has access to her.'
Dolores looked astonished. 'I hope you're not asking me to release her WITHOUT Salvedra's permission?'
'No, not at all!' Sylvestra said hastily. 'That - that would be reckless.'
'It wouldn't be survived,' Dolores smirked, and her eyes glowed with ink-black lustre. 'Salvedra's wishes must be honoured.'
'But what if a substitute could be found?' Sylvestra's voice rang out, high-pitched and querulous - and was greeted with silence.
Selwyn shot Sylvestra an anxious frown but Dolores glared at him and tapped her wine-glass, demanding a top-up. He leapt from the table with eager alacrity to do her bidding.
'Explain,' Dolores commanded.
'I'm thinking someone else could take Katya's place in her prison,' Sylvestra said, with a petulant toss of her head. 'Perhaps someone my father cares for, loves even… or, possibly someone who shares his blood?'
Dolores emitted a loud, braying laugh. 'Dios mio! Are you suggesting yourself?!'
Sylvestra vehemently shook her head. 'There are other possibilities…'
Both women stared at each other wordlessly.
'I'm sorry, Sylvestra, but any new terms would have to be approved by Salvedra,' Dolores said crisply, accepting her freshly-refilled glass of wine from Selwyn. 'Remember he's been more than generous with your father's feelings regarding this matter. Katya's fate could have been much, much worse.'
'I'm perfectly aware of that,' Sylvestra said in cold, trenchant tones, drumming her finger-nails impatiently on the table. 'Maybe you – as her Keeper - could appeal to Salvedra on my behalf? Katya's absence has become hugely… inconvenient.'
Dolores sipped her wine pensively. 'As a related side-note, I have some interesting news. The Muggle Witch was at Akhr Makan today,' she announced. 'With Draco. Naturally.'
Sylvestra's face froze. 'Why?'
'Their interfering friend, Harry Potter, was captured in Egypt and taken to Akhr Makan - from where they rescued him.' Dolores smiled, enjoying Sylvestra's shocked reaction. 'Yes… quite the feat, I think you'd agree… Nobody has ever escaped that place! I must say, Draco's become really rather dangerous. He's certainly caught Salvedra's attention... As for the Muggle Witch, well, Salvedra has bold designs. So if you plan to exchange Katya for HER, I warn you now - he'll say no.'
Sylvestra stared at her stormily.
But Dolores ignored her, switching attention to Selwyn. 'They also stole a young boy – one of your subjects, I believe. Salvedra intends to speak to you about this in person.'
Selwyn's eyes were round with trepidation.
'Is – is there anything I can do to earn your support for my proposal?' Sylvestra pleaded. 'I would hugely appreciate it.'
Dolores wrapped her fingers around the slender stem of her wine-goblet and studied Sylvestra, her large, dark eyes glinting in the candlelight... 'I promise I will reflect on it… I suppose a bit of quid pro quo isn't completely out of the question; not if it helps advance our cause.'
'It would, undoubtedly,' Sylvestra enthused.
Dolores heaved a dramatic sigh. 'In truth – and this is difficult for me to say - Grandmaster is increasingly displeased with the comportment of your father. He's made some serious miscalculations...'
'He's a fool,' Sylvestra sneered. Hermione was shocked by the dark malice in her voice.
But Dolores smiled.
XXX
Hermione retraced her steps using the silver charms – a long line leading away from the picture back, she hoped, to Draco and Harry.
She muttered a spell, vanquishing each rose as she passed.
However, as she tripped down the mountain path towards the painting with the cramped streets thronged with wooden houses, she was disturbed to notice that the colours in the picture were fading to a pallid grey… as though the colour was being leached out by a powerful force.
Sensing someone close behind, Hermione hastened to the first house in the townscape and crouched low in its doorway.
She was mesmerised as Sylvestra strode past and the colours seemed to spring away in her wake - sliding back once she'd passed – and the light seemed to shudder and recoil, bending around her.
But of course… Hermione thought. Sylvestra was devoid of colour. Blacker than black. Impervious to light.
Hermione crept behind her, ducking at regular intervals into doorways, praying Sylvestra wouldn't look back.
A hand suddenly reached out from a doorway and Draco spun her around to face him.
To Hermione's surprise, Harry was standing alongside him, looking astonished to be there at all.
'You followed the roses!' she whispered, relieved.
Draco smiled.
'I used them to anchor me… What are YOU using?' she asked.
Their silence spoke volumes… 'I think we just fuck off out of this place at the first available opportunity,' Harry said, clearly discomforted by the whole experience.
'I'm following Sylvestra. I want to see where she goes,' Hermione explained.
She peered around the doorway. Sylvestra was already fading out of this particular picture… 'Come on!' she said, 'we're losing her.'
Draco squinted into the distance. 'Sylvestra's here?'
'She passed you… Isn't that why you're hiding?'
'No. We heard someone coming - and that someone turned out to be you,' Draco said, a perplexed frown on his face.
'She's crossed into the next picture, come on!' Hermione said impatiently, tugging his hand to follow.
Sylvestra was slowly trudging across the rutted field – now dull grey and lifeless - moving towards a smudginess on the far horizon. She glanced behind her and paused, a stern look on her face. Her eyes studied the ground… the thin line of twinkling silver charms leading back towards the picture of the town.
'Bugger. She's seen them,' Hermione said, pulling Draco and Harry towards the ruined shack, away from the rose path.
Sylvestra quickly retraced her steps, her nose twitching as she gathered up the roses. She stopped to examine one and her face clouded. She twisted one way, then the next… clearly desperate to spot whoever had left this trail, then stomped furiously past, her feet pounding the thick, red earth.
'We need to move fast,' Hermione said to the others. 'Head for that grey mushy horizon!'
Harry gave her a pained look. 'This is just so fucking weird. You're the only one who can actually SEE her, Hermione.'
'It's this thing you can do that we can't,' Draco added, 'seeing through colour-magic. Maybe she's disguised herself?'
'How are you even HERE?' Hermione asked, rounding on Harry.
He shook his head in wonder. 'I've no idea! There was no stopping Draco and he just sort of grabbed me and I followed! I'm just hoping I can get out again… I'm worried it's only you lot who can.'
'Unless you've got colour-magic,' Hermione murmured glumly… brought on by whatever had happened to him at Akhr Makan; something so traumatic, she suspected she'd never know the truth of it.
'There's not much out here,' Draco said, gazing out at a bare room with a window looking onto a row of closed shops and an empty late-night bar – 'Le Vieux Fou.'
'That road – it's sort of familiar…' Hermione said.
'It's Foret-la-Folie!' Harry cried. 'We can get to Paris from here!'
And he joyously stepped out of the picture, Hermione and Draco behind.
'But surely this has to be a wizarding house?' Draco said.
Harry pondered a moment. 'Stay here a sec.' And he quickly slipped out of the empty room, returning a few moments later.
'It's not a house. It's a bakery. There's no one here. Let's Apparate... What are you doing?' he asked Hermione tetchily. She was fiddling with the painting, pulling it away from the wall to inspect the back of the canvas.
It was plain. Untouched. 'I think I know why you can physically pass through some pictures but not others,' she mused. 'The two we have at Folkvangr – their backs are painted black. I think that secures them – kind of like jamming up the Floo to prevent unwanted visitors.'
'Good to know,' Draco muttered. 'But we need to get out of here pronto, in case Sylvestra crawls out and joins us!'
Hermione agreed and they all held hands.
'Hotel de Crapville?' Draco suggested. 'For old time's sake…'
Moments later they were staring up at the sign for the Hotel Danemark in Paris.
For a fleeting moment, Hermione felt she'd come home.
XXX
CHAPTER TRACKS:
"HYMN 2.0" by SANDER VAN DOORN
"LARK" by ANGEL OLSEN
"CLEAN" by ADIA VICTORIA
"PAINT IT BLACK" by THE ROLLING STONES
Disclaimer: I own nothing except my original characters.