*AN*
YO! I wrote this while watching Captain Marvel, so Vers is a HUGE GIGANTIC inspo for this fic! Shout out to her for being a badass! Enjoy this chapter! Next one coming up soon!
Hermione was silent all through the trip to the unknown location.
They apparated to a dark forest somewhere in an unfamiliar mountain range, and followed a barely there trail to a cave.
She was silent the entire time because she was watching, listening, and memorizing everything she saw and heard. It may come to be helpful in the future; she was already planning her escape.
Yet the whole world stopped when they entered the cave and they were surrounded by five dragons cooped up in tiny cages.
Hermione stopped in her tracks and her jaw dropped. The dragons had no room to expand their wings, had sores all over their bodies, and were in terrible shape. Horns were removed, one was missing an eye, everything was awful and Hermione couldn't even identify their breeds.
Tears prickled at her eyes but she held them back and sniffled.
Her captors heard her sniffles and laughed.
"Awwww, is the mighty Hermione Granger scared?" One of them taunted.
Hermione turned her head and shot the hidden face a glare, "No, I'm angry. And you won't like me when I'm angry."
The captor laughed, but there was a sense of unease in the laugh.
Hermione returned to being silent and began to study the cages. They were maintained by simple locks as far as she could tell.
Stupid of them.
Hermione realized that this was no longer just going to be a daring escape for her, it would be a rescue mission on top of that.
Her captors led her further into the cave, passed all the dragons and some more of the poachers who were mingling around tables eating and laughing. Hermione was disgusted that they were able to continue on with daily life as if they weren't the dregs of society.
She was led to a tiny cage and thrown into it. One of her captors locked the door with a heavy iron key and left.
Hermione took notice that they put no charms on the lock. "Cocky, oh so cocky," she thought to herself.
Hermione's arms were still tied behind her back, but she gracefully sat down with her legs criss-cross. She looked around her, studying everything that she could see. About fifty yards away, her captors were congregating around a table and talking in hushed tones. They wore hoods so Hermione couldn't lip read and too quiet for her to make out what they were saying.
Instead, Hermione turned inward and closed her eyes. She took a few deep breaths and began to organize her thoughts.
A plan was needed.
Hermione had two goals, save the captive dragons, and rescue herself in the process. She came second to the majestic beasts. In her mind, they were more important than her own life.
She smiled to herself, so typical, always putting others before her own well being.
Hermione returned to her thinking.
From what she knew, all the locks were managed by iron keys, which was incredibly stupid, but there could be reasoning. The number of poachers in this area was too great to just be magic folk, unless every magical person in Romania and surrounding was involved in poaching. It was possible that some muggles were involved, which would make the need for standard keys to be necessary instead of magic.
You didn't need magic to tame a dragon, you just needed to break its will. And that could be accomplished without magic. The goblins broke Khione's will by beating her basically, what's to say that some muggles couldn't help destroy the will of these majestic beasts?
That was one puzzle piece in Hermione's head that came together, now to just figure out what to do with it.
Hermione was mediocre at wandless magic, but it would have to do until she could win a wand from someone. Winning a wand from someone in a duel without a wand would be difficult in of itself, if not impossible. But impossible would be theme of the next few hours. Hermione was sure of it.
She finished collecting her thoughts and opened her eyes back up to find a young woman, maybe seventeen, looking at her.
The woman cocked her head, studying Hermione.
"Can I help you?" Hermione asked.
The woman looked over to the group of poachers nervously and looked back at Hermione.
"If I help you, will you help me?" She asked in surprisingly good english. Her voice was shaky and she asked her question in a whisper so low, Hermione almost didn't hear her.
"What do you need help with?" Hermione whispered back.
"I don't like it here, I was promised good money to send back to my family, but I can't do this. I've heard of you, you're the dragon tamer they all fear. I want out of here, I want the dragons out of here, I want to help you. Let me help you." the woman said in a rushed whisper, "Please."
Hermione gave a slight nod, "I'm working on a plan. Are you muggle?"
"If by muggle you mean I don't have magic, then yes. I've never heard the term muggle before."
Hermione's nose twitched, she was satisfied that she had guessed correctly that some of these people were non-magical. Though it was disturbing since it broke the international statute of secrecy and jeopardized the entire magical community world wide.
Hermione's mind raced. She needed to act immediately before this young woman backed down and before anything bad happened.
Hermione pushed her feet directly onto the ground and rose gracefully.
Looked like she'd have to rescue the dragons, this young woman, and herself, with both hands literally tied behind her back. Completely unlikely to succeed, but not impossible.
She approached the cage door and looked at the young woman, "I am going to attempt to unlock the door. You're going to back away as fast as possible, because I might explode the door. You will run and hide and when at all possible, run as far as you can and don't look back. Get help. People are on their way to rescue me, no doubt, but they have no leads, and I cannot wait for them. Do you understand?"
The woman nodded.
"Get back now."
The woman complied and took multiple steps back, her eyes warily watching Hermione.
Hermione focused on the door handle. She imagined multiple things, it unlocking, melting, exploding, etc. Anything that might open it. Smoke started to rise from the lock, indicating that melting was going to work best.
Hermione focused her mind on melting the lock and a minute later, it melted completely, molten metal dripping to the floor and the door popped open.
The muggle woman sprinted in the opposite direction of Hermione as Hermione dashed towards the group of poachers at the table.
Hermione felt unbalanced as her arms were behind her back, but she had no time to be clumsy.
She took the first poacher by surprise when she rammed into them with her shoulder, knocking them clear to the ground. While the poacher was down and before they could recover, Hermione gave a very swift and hard kick to their head before turning to face the other about nine poachers.
When they realized what was happening, they all drew their wands and pointed them at Hermione.
Hermione smirked and told herself that she could do anything, including dodging spells from nine wizards at once.
And so she did.
Ducking and dodging, Hermione used her legs to kick out the legs of the poachers and perform high kicks that would score her a "10" at the muggle Olympics.
She swore to never miss another leg day after that.
The fighting had alerted the rest of the occupants of the cave to the situation and after Hermione had knocked down the initial group, muggles and magical folk were converging on her.
She chose flight over fight this time, and shouldered her way through the group of people.
Hermione found the young woman from earlier and motioned with her head for the young woman to follow her.
They were sprinting to the front of the cave and Hermione stopped at the first cage she came across.
She didn't even look at the poor beast inside, she just focused on the lock and imagined with all her might it exploding. After a few seconds, a large explosion knocked her back on her ass as the door exploded, and she had to quickly recover. There was no time to gain her bearings as the world spun a bit.
The dragon looked shocked at her, and Hermione started screaming at it.
"YOU'RE FREE!" She shouted in english, then changed to the minimal romanian that she knew.
It took the dragon a few seconds, but it peaked its head out of the cage looked around, then crawled out and gave a weak roar.
Hermione nodded, "That's right! You're free!"
She was frantic as the poachers closed in on her. Right as they raised their wands to hex her into oblivion, the dragon emerged from its cage and gave a hearty roar. It faced the poachers, standing between them, and Hermione plus the young woman.
The poachers faltered but raised their wands again, but the dragon had had a taste of freedom now, and it didn't want to go back to the cage.
It took a deep breath and let out a large column of white fire. The poachers screamed and turned around and ran back.
Hermione used the distraction to focus on the other cages. She imagined each door exploding one by one. She managed to stay on her feet each time this go around, instead of having to clumsily get off the floor every time.
The other dragons followed the lead of the first one. They had been watching the entire situation go down and they moved to attack the poachers when Hermione gave a piercing whistle and shouted in Romanian: "No time! Must go!"
Hermione turned around so her back was to the young woman, "Can you untie me?"
The young woman made quick work of the knot and Hermione's hands were free.
She gestured at the smallest dragon, the one with no eye. It stared at her, curious. Hermione approached it and bowed. The dragon bowed back.
Hermione grabbed the young woman's hand and took a risk she would never dream of taking. She and the young woman climbed up the back of the dragon, starting at the tail. Hermione spoke in broken Romanian, telling the dragon to run to the opening.
Somehow, communication barriers between magical and dragon kind broke down that night, and the dragon ran to the entrance, followed by the other four.
They burst out into the early morning sky and unfolded their wings. Hermione and the young woman held on tightly as the dragon took off into the air.
They screamed as the dragon took a nosedive down a cliff before catching the air and taking off.
The other four dragons followed the dragon that Hermione was on. Hermione had no idea where to go but screamed "UP!" in Romanian. She was hoping to catch a glimpse of civilization.
Low and behold, when they were up in the air, she saw a figure approaching them quickly on what appeared to be a broom.
Hermione had no clue if they were friend or foe, but decided to face them head on since she caught signs of smoke coming from the direction they were coming from.
*AN*
Y'all should thank Vers (Captain Marvel) for this chapter. I said to myself, if Vers can take down a bunch of people with her hands tied behind her back, SO CAN HERMIONE! Every time I watch this movie, I'm ready to single handly smash the patriarchy with my hands tied behind my back, like Hermione!
As always, review, favorite, and follow, though we are ALMOST done! Next one coming up soon!