Authors note: Thanks everyone for reading and commenting, all the love and happy Christmas wishes to you. All comments, reviews and DMS are always apricated. Cheers!
The Muggleborn Rescue Project Pt. 1
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR THE MUGGLEBORN RESCUE PROJECT PT. 1
The next few days for Hermione pass both impossibly slow and incredibly fast. It feels she, along with the rest of the boys of twelve Grimaud Place spend too much time waiting for the plans for the mission to appear. They cook meals and go for runs but it is as if the wind has changed and they look upon the horizon expecting the darkness and waiting for the disaster that occurs when it appears. Their beds fell a little colder and the anticipation has them rising at the rise of dawn each morning.
Hermione aside from the exhausting runs she participates in with the others spends hours on end training with Moody, who despite Snape's assurances, is convinced she is hiding some severe deficit that is going to get them all killed.
Harry spends most of the time off with Dumbledore on a mission and one look at Sirius and Remus is enough for her to know they follow her sentiment, hoping that his mission is far from the same nature as hers have been. Harry is not privy to Fred's muggleborn rescue plan nor is he included in its execution. Hermione fights the dull ache at hiding yet another thing from him.
It is a quiet few days for her leading up to the mission. Dumbledore hasn't sent her a missive in a week and Hemione is both relieved and terrified, hoping that the task hasn't been passed over to someone else. That her reprieve is not another's pain.
When the day of Fred's mugglebourn student rescue arrives, there is a sense of anxiety and excitement that is palpable in the air as the order members leave Grimmauld Place after a final brief.
Hermione is part of the last group leaving and Sirius will have to enforce the house enchantments as he leaves the house. She is gazing at the sky that is covered in dusty pink and purple hues when Fred pulls her aside. He looks worn and from the purple rings under his eyes Hermione is certain he isn't getting much sleep. He looks distracted, looking scared despite his non-active role in the rescue part of this mission. She wants to ask if he's dreaming of George again, but knows that won't be received well. She isn't sure if they're still friends.
"Be careful tonight" he warns, and she wants to ask him elucidate. She wants to apologize again; she wants to hear his apology for outing her secret, but she remains silent. There isn't time for such thigs, and even if there were she isn't sure what she'd say. Instead, she looks at him questioningly as the last time she saw him he was the one trying to harm her, but he does not look at her with anger tonight, only with something that could be considered worry. He looks like he wants to say more, and he gives a look that makes her face heat, standing too close for comfort, too close for friends to stand. His breath blows the loose stands of her hair away from her forehead.
"Just please Hermione, don't be reckless. Don't get yourself killed. At the first sign of danger, you get out of there." he pleads, before nodding briefly to both Moody and Sirius and disappearing to his designated pickup station. Hermione's gaze lingers on him, how beautiful and terrible he could be.
"Okay Padfoot and Sparrow you enter first and I'll keep the rear" commands Mad-eye Moody and neither Hermione nor Sirius are in any mood to argue. Hermione does crinkle her nose in disgust the code name, but she supposes it could be worse.
"Eagle keeping the tail, and Padfoot and Sparrow at the head" he repeats, and Hermione gets the slight feeling he just likes saying the names, enjoys the secrecy of the code . Hermione is dressed in protective dragons hide boots and light robes tonight. Her favorite flannel covers her chest securely and she hopes nobody notices her silent prayer to Morgana before she leaves. A prayer asking for safety and for success.
It is almost dark when they arrive, the air cool and pulsing with life. Hermione is anxious something setting her nerves off. Something wasn't right. She has half the sense to warn the others, but one thought at describing the warning as a feeling to Moody has her saying silent and begrudgingly moving forward.
The house is large, one that looks like it could have been an incredible place at one point now half lay in ruins. But there was a student waiting to be rescued, a scared student so the three carried on.
The place is buzzing with this sort of electricity that Hermione places almost too late, grabbing Sirius' arm before he walks right into the ward. Hermione is almost sure that he doesn't hear the buzzing, he doesn't hear the magic, but she does.
"Melin's-" He curses as electrical current still manages to spark at his limbs. He nods at Hermione in appreciation, but her attention is elsewhere. Alarms bells ring blaring at all kinds of decibels, and bright lights flash, they had set off a big alarm. Hermione cannot help but question why a place that was supposed to be a hiding place was so heavily protected.
She makes quick work of the wards and alarms, but anyone set to be notified of their triggering was already aware. "Careful. Constant Vigilance!" Hisses Moody from behind them as he cautiously enters the place that is masked in newfound silence. They are alone in the disquiet for only seconds.
Three. A voice counts in her head as Hermione checks around a corner watching Sirius in her peripheral vision as he does the same perpendicular to her. Where was the girl.
Two. "Padfoot, Sparrow" Moody voice shouts out of warning looking more panicked then cautious.
One. Without warning Moody body slams into Hermione before she takes a step for the stairs and he falls through the ground the wooden paneling giving way to a hole that must be stories high. An explosion sounds beyond where Hermione can see, and Moody's screams stop. Perhaps it is a kind of kindness, thinks Hermione, not having to stuffer, not awaiting the end.
"AURROR MOODY IS DEAD" Screams the disembodied voice of Bellatrix Black and Hermione can feel Sirius tense up. Her voice is high pitched and grating, and Hermione presses her spine into Sirius' she couldn't see them, but she feel him, and she knew they would together.
"Do you see them" he hisses and the familiar popping sound of apparition echoes, but she negates this dejectedly. Her eyes scan frantically, they were missing something, something important.
"HELP ME" screams the sound of a young girl and Sirius and Hermione apparate two floors up to the sound. They get there just in time to see Rudolphus Lestrange press his wand a young girls head. She is pretty; green eyes and long blond hair, and if it hadn't been covered in blood she would have been beautiful. She is young, no more than a second year and Hermione catches her gaze for only a second. She hasn't ever seen raw fear, so exposed before.
"AVADA KADAVRA" A green flash exits Rudolphus' wand, and the familiar taste of death sits on Hermione's tongue. She retches and Bellatrix looks up for the now dead student laughing, screaming, Hermione has difficulty telling the difference.
"Ohh What do we have here?" She looks crookedly at Hermione and Sirius cocking her head like predator assessing its prey. Sirius looks wild eyed and moves in front of Hermione, protecting her. Useless but noble, with wands distance hardly mattered.
"My. Poor. Little. Blood. Traitor. Cousin. And. The. Famous. Mudblood" She spoke emphasizing each word and stalks across the room her heeled boots clicking against the wooden floor. It is vast but she approaches quickly wasting no time. She is pale in a gaunt sort of way, her cheekbones angular, and her hair is black and curled like smoke that could suffocate you in a second.
"SIRIUS BLACKS GOT A GIRLFRIEND" Bellatrix screams laughter echoing off the walls of the small house. The walls shake slightly and hermione spares a thought for moody who never had a chance. He had always been fairly kind to her and she wished she could have saved him
Hermione is pulled out of her thoughts by another peal of laughter. Hermione cannot see the witches feet, but she cannot think beyond the speed of her threat. A spell, she needed a spell, to distract, at least save one of them. Hermione goes through a mental catalogue of spells Snape had taught her, specific attention to the more volatile ones, this was not a time for morality.
The air thickens with magic and more and Hermione can almost cry in relief when, with a quick pop Tonks apparates into the room. They are saved. Yet, Tonks had arrived alone, and none follow her. Hermione looks at Sirius panicked but he pays her no mind, his jaw is clenched and his eyes are trained on his two cousins.
Tonks is for the first time Hermione has seen her, dressed head to toe in black. Short black curls spring from her head and the traditional dress robes she adorns are almost betwitching in the form they encapsulate.
"Tonks?" Hermione calls, hoping to be some kind of mistake from the pit in her stomach. Needing some kind of explination.
"icle hermione granger, mudblood, but got all the order around her baby finger" Tonks twirls her wand arimlessly and a whole appear in the wall, the witch just laughs.
"why now?" Hermione asks, needed some answer, she hadn't suspected her not in the slightest. She wondered if Snape knew, if snape with all his secrets had been hiding this.
"my dear ive been waiting for so long to get back in his good graces. This fools errand was just the perfect excuse, gone with crazy moody and you two will soon join in"
Tonks speaks void of emotion, shes not proud of having kept this secret, or having captured them, shes bored, and that, hermione had learned was a dangerous emotion.
It had been a trap. Tonks had checked this place; she had confirmed the girl was hiding here. And she had gone straight to Voldemort with the information. Hermione's blood boils at the dead girl and poor lupin who had held the metemorphasis on such a high pedestal.
Tonks' hair is silver now and curls like serpents down her back. "TRAITOR" calls out Sirius his wand oustreached and charging forward. He deoesnt make his target. Instead, it takes but a moment for Tonks to have him writhing in pain on his knees. "CRUCIO" she hisses again and again he screams a sound that Hermione swears shatters parts of her.
"Go" Hermione says as Tonks releases him for a moment. Sirius looks at her confused, he is disoriented swaying at his knees. Tonks sends a gleeful smile in their direction. She was having fun.
"you stupid sod, no sense in is both dying. When you get a chance run like hell"
He nods giving her an indecipherable look, one that heated her cheeks.
"Crucio" Tonks casts, and using all her strength Hermione pushes Sirius out of the way and herself into the spells range. She hears the pop of Sirius disapparation and she is greatful that he, at least, is safe. The spell is all rage, but Hermione can keep herself from calling out.
"No No No" Screaks Bellatrix, Rudolphus at her side as the two reach Hermione, who is now, all alone.
"Tonks dearest, you have to mean it, think about her tainted mudblood touching a black" She smiles with teeth twisted and colored "CURCIO" she curses, and Hermione feels alight, like every bone and nerve were on fire. She moved into her occlumency, separating the pain from her,
She was a live wire, she had to restrain her unique magic from bursting out. She would take the whole building with her. She had no idea what kind of limits she had.
She is proud of her silence; it is her strength but it only angers Bellatrix more. Hermione digs her nails into the ground, and she feels her body go slack.
"oh, my dear, were gonna have some fun" Hisses a voice in her ear as Hermione fades out of consciousness.