Chapter 29 – Of Magic and Memory
"Someone's coming," Chelsea said. Harry and Draco both looked to the entrance door of the cellar. They heard approaching footsteps. Pansy Parkinson's face came into view in the light of her wand.
"All of you, upstairs," she said, pointing her wand at them.
Harry exchanged a dark look with Ron.
They all struggled to stand, but managed it in the end. Pansy stood back as she waited for them to cross the length of the cellar and walk upstairs. All the while she was behind them. They all felt the grip of the silver ropes binding their wrists ease a little. They were still firm enough to restrain sudden movement but not charmed to twist and choke them as they moved. Pansy must've lifted the spell somewhat, Harry thought.
As they walked into the light of the drawing room, Harry noticed there was fire in the hearth and Goyle was lounging in one of the upholstered chairs, legs spread, face in a sneer. The portrait that had been covering the safe from where Draco took the bottle with the memory dust was torn off the wall and tossed in the corner. It had a dark hole blown through it. Draco was staring at it from the corner of his eye.
"We're done looking, Draco. You've hidden it well. Where is the dust?"
Harry felt the weight of the bottle in his pocket and steeled himself not to betray any emotion. He hoped Draco would have the same sense, but his eyes were still fixed upon the ruined painting of his family on the floor.
The floor beneath them suddenly trembled as if the Manor itself took a deep rumbling breath. They all heard the faint sounds of clicking and wood creaking. Years of dust came off the walls with every shiver that rippled through the house.
"What is happening?" Goyle asked, pointing his wand at Draco.
Draco lifted his cold eyes to meet Goyle's as his lips curled into a thin smile.
"Malfoy Manor doesn't like being invaded," he said.
"Someone else is in," Blaise said darkly, eyes travelling all across the walls up to the ceiling. "The house is reacting to it."
George followed Hermione up through the garden. An echo of grandeur lingered at every glance. The Malfoys had a collection of marble statues and fountains lining the gravel path to the main entrance, but they were now overgrown and full of dead soggy leaves.
The building itself was a dark fairy tale castle come to life, built out of shadows and marble.
The grand entrance door swung open for them as they approached.
Hermione heard sounds coming from behind every dusty curtain and covered furniture. The Manor inside looked like a tomb of shapeless figurines clothed in white, dark gloom filling up the empty space.
"Where do you think they are?" George asked.
Hermione gulped. It was like swallowing ice cold water.
"The drawing room," she said hoarsely, not really knowing where it was and why they would be there. They walked through the entrance hall, their footsteps echoing. Hermione's instincts were pulling her to the left.
"What's that sound?" George asked as they approached large double winged doors. Hermione could hear it too – movement of old stone grinding, shifting of wood. There was a tremor underneath their feet and a lurching sound came from within the walls, as if the hidden structures of the manor were rearranging.
George looked at Hermione, but she shrugged and nodded her head as a sign for them to continue. He waved his wand to open the doors in front of them and they stepped in. They found themselves in a long cavernous corridor. It was unnaturally long, lined by many tall doors of the same design and criss crossed by other corridors.
"It seems to be under the labyrinthine charm," George said, staring down into the darkness of the endless hall. "Old magical houses do that when there's intruders, they morph inside to confuse whoever's inside. This may take us hours."
"This way," Hermione said quietly despite the sudden maze in front of them. Visions of her dreams guided her, some dormant muscle memories rising up and moving her legs forward. Her blood ran cold at the echo of her own scream ringing around in her head. This was a malicious place, but a place her body and soul recognized.
Hermione was gripping the wand in her hand so that her knuckles were white. In the dark that was only illuminated by George's wand, her bravery was threatening to leave her. She glanced at the scar on her arm again, reminding herself that if the memory of the fear of that night at Malfoy Manor still dreamt in her bones, the magic she once had was buried somewhere there as well.
She walked blindly but surely, turned left once and then walked straight, ignoring the many false doors grown into the walls by the house itself as defence.
As they walked through the door Hermione has chosen, they heard a rushing noise behind them. The house was folding back into place.
They could see firelight on the walls coming from the drawing room as they silently approached the entrance, creeping close to the walls.
Hermione took a resolute step forward.
"Wait," George breathed, holding her back with his arm. They heard muffled voices coming from the next room. "It seems dad still hasn't found his way in, probably still suck in the maze," he whispered. "We should wait perhaps," he added, looking at Hermione who was trembling.
"If we wait, it might be too late," she said in an urgent whisper, realizing that precious time, just like courage, was a thing that could slip away quickly.
George watched her for a few moments. His lips were in some sort of half grin, but his eyes showed concern and doubt. Rushing into battle was great on a dose of adrenaline rush, but sometimes those battles would take everything away from you. And yet, he knew backing away now was not an option.
"Stay close and behind me," he said, squeezing her shoulders. "We only have a shred of a second for surprise. Ready?"
Hermione nodded.
"Now!" George hissed and rushed into the room. Hermione followed closely behind, wand raised at the ready. "Stupefy!"
George's curse missed its target - a man pointing his wand at Harry's face, but it was enough to plunge the room into chaos.
Everyone scattered, ducking before the sudden curses flying about.
A stray spell collided with Harry and threw him off his feet, but he recovered quickly on the ground and found his bonds were somehow cut. He scrambled across the floor where he spotted Ron's lost wand.
Hermione was momentarily blinded by flashes of light. Furniture was exploding all around her, plaster flying off the walls as the entire cavernous room was engulfed in a storm of splinters and sparkling light.
Hermione searched for Ron in the fray. She saw him, crouching down and shielding a young woman with his body.
Breaking glass flew past her face. She felt the sharp sting of her skin slicing open. The shards were tangling in her hair. Through the chaos she ran to where Ron was. She spotted Harry locked in a duel with a tall burly man. George was shouting curses but his voice was drowned out by two other voices duelling together against him. Draco Malfoy was crawling on the ground, covering his head, looking for any sort of weapon he could fight with.
Hermione sprinted through the room, narrowly avoiding the flashes of multicoloured light. She jumped to drag Ron and Chelsea behind an overturned table just in time to avoid a fireball ricocheting off the walls and the floor where they were sitting.
"What are you doing here?" Ron shouted angrily, but Hermione recognized the worry and panic underneath it.
"Let me help you get these off," she said. She pointed her wand at the ropes, a list of useful spells unravelling in her mind, but her voice got caught in her throat.
"I can't do it," she mumbled. "Take it, take my wand and say the spell. Try Relashio."
"Hermione, I can't get my hand out of this, you have to do it," Ron said through gritted teeth. Chelsea beside him groaned with pain. The ropes were tightening on their wrists, leaving behind angry red marks as the silver barbed wire dug deeper. "Listen to me," he said, "you can do it." He was barely forcing the words out. "Remember that night? Something worked, the magic came from within you. Don't hold back any more. You were always meant to do this, you are a witch!"
Hermione looked at him, and her mind, going a mile per second, came to a standstill. She found steadiness and faith in his warm blue eyes. She took a deep breath. Just as she raised her arm to utter the spell, she felt the wand slip from her fingers and fly away.
An iron grip descended on her shoulder as a sneering voice drawled in her ear, "Nice try, Granger, but I don't think it'd work anyway."
Hermione turned her head to look at who was dragging her up from her feet and to the centre of the room, away from Ron and Chelsea. She recognized his face as Gregory Goyle, but there was another familiarity to him – his smell, his leer, the way his giant knuckled hands were crushing the bones in her shoulders.
Her eyes scanned the room wildly, looking for Harry. She found him outnumbered by Pansy who was holding a wand to Draco Malfoy's throat while Blaise Zabini held George in check. Meanwhile Ron and Chelsea were writhing on the ground. Ron's face went redder and redder as the wire snaked its way around his chest, squeezing.
Dragging Hermione in front of him, her wand in his hands, Goyle was about to charge in Harry's direction.
"You might want to rethink that," Harry said, pulling the bottle with the memory dust. Pansy gasped, nearly allowing Draco to escape her grasp, but she twisted her wand at the last second and forced him down to his knees, body in a bind.
"One more bad move," Harry shouted, "and I'm smashing this against the floor, and it won't be just me left mad and without memories."
"It won't work on all of us," Goyle said, but there was a hint of uncertainty in his voice. He backed away in swift footsteps, pulling Hermione with him. "You're being desperate, Potter, it's over. You and your friends are done. We should've done this years ago!" Goyle said angrily.
"But you didn't! You were always more into just playing the bad guys, not really having the guts to go all the way! A coward will always stay a coward."
"It was the damn tracing of the Unforgivables! And Blaise and his poetic ideas," Goyle spat. He was so angry he was spitting while talking. Hermione recoiled at his touch. "We took away their essence. They were supposed to live forever lost, happiness and a sense of belonging forever out of reach…just like us. It was as simple as that."
"But something went wrong, didn't it?"
"The original plan was to keep feeding them the dust until madness would take them. In some parts of the world, people use it as a drug to forget. But after a while…they wouldn't stay sedated, they would fight back even when they were unconscious. Magic was exploding from them, from her especially," he growled, jabbing his wand into Hermione's throat more fiercely, "because of that weird...magic she pulled when we took them. Soon enough, we couldn't even touch them, it became too dangerous…they had a protection around them that kept drawing us off. So we decided to drop them, give them a false identity, which would make it less likely for them to be found."
"Why can't Hermione do any magic?" Harry asked.
"I don't know. That wasn't supposed to happen," he said, licking his lips. "Maybe the dust does even more damage than we knew of. Nice perk, if you ask me, which is why you want to lower that bottle, Potter."
Her rage building up at Goyle's words, Hermione's eyes locked with Harry's. Sweat ran down his temples and his hand holding the bottle was shaking. He was trying to buy time but realized smashing that bottle was not really an option. And Goyle was starting to realize it as well.
His wand was still at her throat, the tip growing hotter against her skin. She tried to struggle against him, but Goyle's monster grip was too firm.
Ron lay on the floor, writhing, scarlet in the face. Chelsea's eyes were bulging. Hermione's stomach rolled and she felt sick, scared and angry and desperate. To be in this situation again was maddening. As if some wars would never end.
Hermione looked to the ceiling, blinking away angry tears. In her dreams, there used to be a chandelier up there, the one that crushed her in a wreckage of glass and blood. The chandelier was there no more, and no Dobby the house elf would come and save them.
The past always catches up, twisted into a new reality. Here she was again, trapped, lost, facing death. And damaged as her memory was, she remembered. Through the knowledge that sprang from her dreams and soul both, Hermione remembered the naked fear and how powerless she had felt. She remembered how she had believed that that moment in this same place would truly be the end.
This was also not the first time she had remembered that.
The Hermione from before, the one lost under the weight of the Memory Dust, had been preparing. She would not be caught out again, helpless when without a wand, overpowered by brute force, held down and bleeding with dark magic.
The past Hermione, a survivor and a fighter, had been drawing on parchment, sketching possibilities. She had researched and written paragraphs upon paragraphs about how true power came from within and not from a wand.
Goyle suddenly threw her aside. To him, she was useless and harmless after all. She would make him regret that, and everything that he had done to her.
Ron let out a choking sound and Harry jumped toward him and Chelsea in desperation. His hands were fighting and bleeding with the barbed wire, trying to free them. Goyle raised his wand in his direction and opened his mouth in a snarl, his eyes ready to kill.
"NO!"
The walls of Malfoy Manor once again echoed Hermione's scream, but this one was a roar full of rage. She lunged forward, putting herself between Goyle and Harry and Ron, raising her arms.
Without really knowing what she was doing and not bothering to know, she let herself be guided by the fierce magic she felt within, fuelled by a wrath she didn't know she possessed. Swishing her wand arm in a graceful arc, she felt a fire inside and let it burn. From between her palms, an orb of light grew and expanded until it engulfed Ron, Harry, Chelsea and herself.
Her skin burned as all her suppressed power rushed on out. Broken glass and splinters all rose into the air, attracted by the force of the magic. Her protection charm kept expanding, enveloping them all in a circle of silver light.
Goyle stared at her with wide eyes that reflected fiery shadows of fear and anger. The sphere Hermione was creating pushed him away and knocked the wand out of his hands. She gritted her teeth and stood her ground, feeling how the magic in her hands was becoming unstable.
The exhilarating power was quickly turning into pain, and Hermione knew she couldn't keep it in check for much longer. With a sweep of her other hand, she sent a gust of wind toward George and Draco, flattening them to the floor.
Her hold snapped and she let go.
It seemed the world around them had exploded. Blaise was thrown like a rag doll all across the room until he hit the wall and crumpled to the floor. There was distant shrieking coming from Pansy as she was also flung aside. Hermione's hair seemed to stand up around her head like a halo. Magical energy vibrated through the air as the aftermath of the explosion pushed everyone onto the ground.
The last thing she saw before losing consciousness was Ron taking in a deep full breath, the cords of barbed silver wire crumpling to white dust at his feet.
Author's Note: Hi everyone, sorry for the wait, but this chapter was quite difficult to write for me and I'm still a little uncertain about it. All feedback and thoughts are very much welcome and appreciated.
Getting close to the end of the story, I'm getting a bit emotional thinking about it.
The magic Hermione performs is wandless magic. Besides children demonstrating magical ability, only extremely skilled wizards are capable of performing and controlling it at the same time. Hermione was attempting to learn this skill shortly before being kidnapped and losing her memory, which would give her the ability if triggered, but not necessarily the ability to control it, hence why it gets out of hand.
I would love a review if you got the time. Thank you as always for reading!