Blood. He had cut her!
But it was a shallow cut, the blood wasn't pooling out. She was bleeding, but not dying. That realization made her numbness finally wear off enough for her to take a look around her. Crookshanks was nowhere to be seen, but Lucius and Ed were fighting viciously in the cramped space of her apartment, only a few feet away from her.
Clumsy from the fear-induced stiffness of her limbs, Hermione scooted off the table. He needed to get her wand, and hurried toward the kitchen. On the way, her eyes fell on something metal on the floor. The knife. Thank God. Quickly, she picked it up, feeling that dizziness again as she noticed the blood stains on its blade. She hid the knife in the microwave oven and picked up her wand, breathing a sigh of relief as she felt her magic channel through the dragon heartstring core hidden in the wood. Knowing that she was armed helped calm her down in the midst of the fear and chaos.
Dragons, Hermione, she thought to herself. Dragons are dangerous even when they are scared. Come on!
She heard thuds and grunts from the living room and quickly turned back to assess the situation. She suspected that the two men might be fairly evenly matched. Ed didn't look like he was in the best form, but on the other hand, Lucius hadn't eaten or moved for five months. Besides, she knew that Lucius was lethal with a wand, but she had no idea where he stood with regards to hand-to-hand combat.
Hermione re-entered the living room just in time to see Lucius land a blow on Ed's chin. Ed lost his balance, but clutched Lucius's shirt firmly enough to pull him with him in his fall. Lucius might have overpowered his opponent then, of not for the heavy chest-of-drawers that stood in the way as he fell to the floor. Hermione had no time to warn him, no time to intervene. With a sickening thud, Lucius head hit the massive wood. Moments later, Ed had pinned Lucius's unconscious form to the ground and put his hands around his throat.
Hermione had frozen when Ed had threatened and goaded her. But seeing Lucius laying nearly lifeless on the ground, that small flame of anger inside her suddenly exploded. She aimed her wand at Ed, and heard a steely voice – her own, apparently – order: "Let him go."
Ed looked up, almost as if he was surprised to see her. He relaxed his grip on Lucius's throat somewhat, warily looking at her wand. He seemed to realize there was power built into it – not least because of her change in demeanour. He wasn't nearly frightened enough, though. That angered her further. He had no idea what she had the power to do to him. No idea how close she was to doing things she had thought herself incapable of.
Hermione had been angry before, of course. She had felt something similar to wrath. But it was nothing against how she felt now. This man had no right to hurt Lucius. "Let him go", she repeated, willing him to disobey her or to make one single wrong move so she would have an excuse to use even one of the curses that rested on the tip of her tongue.
Ed slowly moved his hands so that he was no longer choking Lucius, but holding him down by the shoulders. His eyes flicked across the room, no doubt looking for his discarded knife, but kept returning to the object in her hand. "What's that?" he asked after another moment.
"A wand", Hermione answered, noticing with relief that Lucius was beginning to wake up. The relief, the terror, the anger – it all left her feeling slightly unhinged. While mentally going over an imaginary list of curses Ed ought to be subjected do – Cruco, Sectumsempra, Avada Kedavra – she continued to speak in an eerily calm voice, explaining that a wand was "what witches and wizards use to do magic."
"So you really are a witch?" Ed asked, gaping.
"I am", she said. "For the last time: get off him."
"What if I don't?" Ed challenged.
"Wingardium leviosa", she answered. Ed's frightened yell as he was suddenly lifted from the ground was a little satisfying, but not enough. She let him dangle in the air for a few moments, before she flicked her wand and unceremoniously dumped him on the floor across the room.
She looked down on Lucius. He was awake, and was beginning to sit up gingerly.
"Accio Lucius's wand!" Hermione called, and caught it in her hand when it came flying through the air.
She was just turning back to Lucius to ask him how he was doing, when she saw that Ed had risen and lunged toward her again. Hermione raised her wand, but before she could use it, Lucius had reached out to grab Ed's legs, sending him face down to the ground. With surprising agility, given he had been knocked out just a minute ago, Lucius got on top of Ed's back and restrained his arms in what looked like a rather uncomfortable position. Ed continued to struggle, however.
"You bastard – let me go. I'll do whatever I want to her!" he yelled.
Lucius pushed harder to keep him in his place, fixing him with an look of absolute loathing. "Give me my wand, Hermione", Lucius growled, straining to keep his hold of Ed.
Hermione hesitated. Now that she knew Lucius was fairly all right, her wrath had calmed to more manageable proportions. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered she had principles, that she didn't condone torture and murder. That tempting feeling was still within reach, however, and she couldn't help but to think that if she had been tempted to used dark arts – how much worse wouldn't it be for Lucius? Ed was just another Aquila.
"Hermione –" Lucius warned, apparently having some trouble holding the fighting Ed firmly to the floor.
"You're still upset, maybe you shouldn't –"
"Will you at least bind him?" Lucius ground out.
"Oh, sorry. Incarcerus!" Thin ropes appeared and wound around Ed's hands and feet.
With a sigh, Lucius relaxed a little. He was pale from the exertion and breathed heavily, but still had enough energy to eye the ropes disparagingly "Do you call those ropes?" he scoffed.
"Those are perfectly strong," Hermione defended, though she knew she could have done better if she hadn't been so frazzled.
"Just give me my wand, Hermione", he said crisply.
"What will you do?" she asked anxiously.
"You can't kill me!" Ed protested, apparently realising that things weren't looking good for him. "The police..."
"The police will never know", Hermione snapped, silencing Ed with a withering look. She held onto her anger, as it seemed to keep that disabling fear at bay - at least for the present. "If Lucius kills you, it will be with magic. And magic doesn't leave any traces." She stepped closer, feeling that dark part of her resurface for a moment. The part that enjoyed the fear in his eyes. "He's done it before, you know. And got away with it. We could throw your body into the alley and they wouldn't find a trace. No witnesses. No DNA on the ropes, no injury to explain your death. No footprints. The police would never figure it out."
Again, Hermione directed her wand at Ed, who almost whimpered with fear. "Incaricerus!" she intoned and saw with satisfaction that considerably thicker ropes wound themselves even tighter around Ed's wrists and ankles. She looked back at Lucius. "Happy now?"
He slowly got to his feet. "I still want my wand."
Again, she hesitated. "Can I trust you?"
"That is a question only you can answer", he replied, eyeing the man on the floor with disgust.
"Now isn't the time for philosophy," she complained.
"Why not?" he asked sarcastically as he looked up at her. "We could have another smoothie and talk it through." Lucius crossed his arms, waiting for her to make her decision, not letting her know what he felt or what he planned. She didn't even know if he had a plan.
The idea of Lucius killing Ed in cold blood made her sick with dread. She was fine threatening the guy, and perhaps even torturing him a little. But she had seen too many people die to want to experience that ever again. And she didn't want Lucius to be a murderer any more. But she also knew that she couldn't stop it from happening. All she could do was give him a choice and hope for the best.
Slowly, Hermione held out Lucius's wand for him to take. Ed started to struggle again. "No!" he yelled. "You can't do that! You can't trust him! He'll kill me!" Hermione ignored him, and instead watched Lucius. His fingers brushed against her palm as he took his wand with a look of relief. The first thing Lucius did was to direct it to her throat, muttering a spell to heal the wound on her thoat. The feelng of warmth from both the magic and his hand made Hermione want to cry. She just wanted this nightmare to end and for him to put his arms around her.
She jumped when she felt something soft against her legs. Looking down, she recognized her cat. "Crooks!" Hermione quickly picked him up, looking him over anxiously. He seemed fine - no injuries as far as she could tell. The cat met her gaze indifferently, as if he hadn't just saved her life. She engulfed the furry cat in one of those hugs that he seemed to find decidedly undignified, making him squirm and leap out of her arms. He turned his back to Hermione, shook out his fur and walked up to Lucius instead. She'd never seen Crookshanks seek Lucius's attention before, but now he pressed his head against his legs affectionately. Either the cat knew Lucius had helped save her, or it had just accepted him after all those months of guarding him.
Lucius looked down, acknowledging the cat with a raised eyebrow. Crookshanks straightened his tail, walked over to Ed, and jumped up on his back, where he sat down and proceeded to stare intently at Lucius. Hermione watched their exchange curiously. Lucius looked back at the cat, and after a few moments he nodded as if they had reached some sort of agreement. She remembered that Sirius had been able to talk to Crooks as an animagus, but as far as she knew, Lucius had no such skills. Did occlumency work on animals? Or where they just really in tune, somehow?
"Get that thing off me!" Ed started yelling again when Crookshanks proceeded to use him as a scratching post for his claws.
"Do not offend the cat", Lucius warned with a wicked gleam in his eyes. "Even I always knew to draw the line at that."
While Ed continued to spill out profanities, Lucius looked over at Hermione. She wished she could tell from the look in his eyes what he was planning, but of course he kept it hidden.
"I need to ask him something", she said.
Lucius nodded and then turned towards Ed with a look that would have scared Voldemort himelf. He pointed his wand at the bound man, making him stop shouting from pure terror, only wincing from time to time as Crookshanks'' claws dug into his skin. "Ask away", Lucius said calmly.
Hermione swallowed nervously, but turned towards Ed. He was still face down on the floor, with his arms behind his back, and had to turn his neck uncomfortably in order to see her face. "You said my magic pushed you away", she stated, trying to sound calmer than she felt. "What changed? How did you find me?"
Ed licked his lips nervously. There were now two wands pointing toward him, and apparently he had begun to appreciate what magic could do. He looked between Hermione and Lucius. "If I tell you, will you let me go?"
"Merlin, you are stupid", was Lucius's only answer.
"If you tell me, I might convince Lucius not to kill you", Hermione lied, deliberately not looking at Lucius for confirmation.
Ed looked between them again, seeming to realise that his options were limited. When he still didn't say anything, Lucius made an impatient movement, immediately frightening their captive into talking.
"Something happened last autumn," he hurried out. "The push got weaker. I stopped feeling like I constantly had to keep moving. And then gradually it sort of wore off. By January got the feeling that I could come back home if I wanted to. That I could find you. "
"How did you find me?" she asked, hating how shaky her voice sounded. In the corner of her eye, she saw Lucius tighten his grip on his wand. Ed saw it too.
"I - I don't know!" Ed hurried out. "It was like we were connected. If I didn't think too hard on where I went, I'd keep ending up in the same place - in the middle of an industrial area. I thought I'd gone crazy. Couldn't exactly imagine you or anyone living there, you know. But now and then I would get the feeling that you were close. And it kept getting stronger, like there was something pulling me. It took this whole spring, but I found the exact place where I thought you must be. I started making experiments. Left little messages."
Ed was beginning to slip into that sickening, gloating tone of voice from before. "The stones, the rose. I guess you found them, because they vanished. And the picture, I was sure you were going to like that – "
Ed cut himself off and hissed. It seemed Crookshanks had sunk his claws particularly deep into his back. Hermione glanced at Lucius, who wasn't bothering to hide his enjoyment of the sight, but eventually cleared his throat as a signal for Ed to keep tolkning.
"Don't know why, but tonight I could actually sense the door", Ed muttered. "I couldn't see it but I figured it was now or never. So I knocked."
Hermione had to lower her wand for a moment, leaning against the back of her sofa as she thought things through. The approximate dates Ed had mentioned all made sense. He had felt the push weaken at just about the time when the memories had started coming back to her. January had been a turning point. That was when she had broken down and the memories had fully crashed down on her. And then, as she gradually accepted what had happened and began working with the trauma, he had started to feel a pull instead of a push.
But tonight - why was he able to get through tonight? Why not yesterday? It had to be connected to Lucius waking up, and Hermione began to realize how. The magic she had used against Ed had always been fuelled by fear. Fear had pushed him and the memories away. But even when she had thought she hated Lucius, she had acknowledged that he made her feel safe. Meeting him had unlocked something, and perhaps the physical connection between them had triggered something in her unconscious. He had made it possible for her to begin facing her memories. And today, when he had woken up, she had again been overwhelmed by that feeling of security. Perhaps that unlocked her final defense.
"Have you heard enough?" Lucius asked her after a moment's silence. Both he and Crookshanks were looking expectantly at her.
Hermione knew what he was asking. Could she trust him? In her mind's eye, she could play out all of his misdeeds from the past. His mean treatment of poor Dobby, his sneering shallow civility, his desperation to make Draco identify Harry at the manor, his cold indifferent eyes behind a Death Eater's mask, the cold fury as he raised his wand to kill Aquila. Still, she had made her decision. Hermione nodded shakily, and watched Lucius step forward.
Ed's eyes widened with fear as Lucius raised his wand, but for some reason Hermione wasn't as afraid as she'd expected. There was something about Lucius demeanor. To be true, under the surface, he was brimming with anger and loathing, impatient to have revenge. But at the same time, there was more of malicious humour than she'd have expected. Lucius nodded at Crookshanks, who gracefully lept off Ed's back and sat down next to Lucius's feet.
"No, please!" Ed yelled.
"No need to worry, Ed", Lucius said a mocking tone as he cast a spell that made the entire room echo with a series of cracks and the sound of doors and windows closing firmly. "I have thought of the perfect beginning to your punishment. Now do stay still. You wouldn't want me to lose my concentration." Lucius looked down on Crookshanks. "I trust you to keep him under control." The cat answered with a meow, his tail twitching.
Ed's eyes widened with fear but had no time for objections, because the same moment Lucius decisively turned his wand Ed began to shrink. Before Hermione's eyes, he became smaller and smaller until he almost disappeared under the mass of ropes that had bound him just a moment ago. Lucius vanished them with a flick of his wand, revealing a miniature version of Ed about the sixe of her hand. Crookshanks leaped forward eagerly.
"You're not going to let Crooks eat him, are you?" Hermione asked incredulously, as she watched miniature Ed scramble to his feet and back away from the comparatively enourmous cat stalking towards him. She was torn between so many conflicting emotions she couldn't begin to name them all.
"No", Lucius said, eyes alight with humour. "But I can't guarantee he won't try when we're not watching. Cats are predators, after all. And this one in particular is very protective of his owner", he added with a meaningful glare at Ed.
Perhaps Hermione ought to have felt sorry for him. After all, he was a muggle with no clue about what magic could or could not do. But she didn't feel sorry for him. On the contrary, she found it extremely satisfying to see the monster she had feared for so long be reduced to nothing more than a cat's toy. She was reminded of the glee she had felt when she'd trapped Rita Skeeter in a glass jar. This was better.
Crooks was herding Ed into a corner, and Hermione noted with amusement that his voice as he called for help sounded so small, so laughable. Lucius watched her with a knowing smirk, and she looked up and smiled a little in return. Soon, however, Lucius's expression grew serious. Tense, even.
"Now that Crookshanks has things under control", he said in a serious tone. "There is something I need do do."
Hermione watched curiously as Lucius closed his eyes in concentration, took a deep fortifying breath and raised his wand.