A huge thank you goes out to my betas, RESimon and Jamethiel.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Malfoy's eyes narrowed as he stared at the vial of swirling crimson liquid. "How?"
Hermione scanned her notes again. "I've been working on modifying the tracking spell we've been using so that we" — she dipped the tip of her wand into the vial and watched the liquid start to glow red as the murmured the incantation — "can locate them." She held it over the map and watched it tremble before it hovered over a place she did not recognize in the top corner of the map.
Malfoy's eyes traveled between the place the map had indicated and the crimson glow of the blood, his expression unreadable. He gave her a short, sharp nod before he turned and headed to the door. His cloak billowed behind him with his swift movements, and it took her a moment to gather her bearings before she followed him.
He was already outside the wards by the time she caught up to him. "Do you know this place?"
Another short, sharp nod, and he reached out for her hand. She clutched his back, not missing the way his fingers tensed around hers. They Apparated into a densely packed forest. Its thick canopy blocked any moonlight, and she continued to clutch his hand tightly as he took small steps forward, feeling about in the darkness. His steps were still sure and it took only minutes for them to approach an area where the trees had started thinning enough to illuminate his figure before her.
She let go of his hand and immediately felt it twitch back toward him as she felt an uneasy chill settle in the air around them. "Where are we?" Her whisper was nearly carried away by the soft breeze that swayed through the trees surrounding them. "I felt—"
"The wards have been designed to let you in." His tone was low and curt.
Of course — a Malfoy family property. "Oh." She lapsed back into silence, still following him closely. His frame was more rigid with tension than usual, and she continued to watch him carefully as the moonlight continued to waft through the thinning trees and illuminate his form. It was only minutes before their destination became visible ahead of them. Despite the sense of urgency she felt pressing upon her in the air around them she could not help pausing.
It was stunning. A beautiful, sprawling cottage stood before them. It was nestled on the edge of a lake and surrounded by trees that appeared to have been charmed to maintain their canopy of blossoming leaves and flowers despite rapidly cooling temperatures. It appeared to have only two floors and was sizeable on the outside, but Hermione did not doubt that the inside had been charmed to reflect the Malfoys' taste for grandeur.
She would have taken longer to appreciate its beauty were it not for the Death Eaters milling about. Their dark clothing stuck out like blemishes against the beauty of the property. Each step they took seemed to stamp away the tranquil beauty of the place. At once, Hermione understood the tension that had settled in Malfoy's stature since they had arrived. She turned to him only to find him watching the scene before them with narrowed eyes. His hand was clenched hard around his wand.
"Wait." His eyes shot to hers when she folded a hand over his own. "There are at least a dozen of them, maybe mor—"
She cut off as a loud crack of apparition sounded before them.
It was Bellatrix Lestrange.
Her throat felt dry. She stood only a dozen feet away, so close that Hermione could see the manic gleam in her eye. Bellatrix held a bleeding man by his upper arm. Hermione watched in strangled silence as Bellatrix threw him to the ground in a heap and pressed her boot down on his throat.
"You are nothing," she hissed, grinding her boot deeper into the man's throat. His response was garbled as he grasped feebly at her boot. "You are nothing but a guard!"
The man's leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, and when Bellatrix dragged him up, he screamed as it twisted further. A beam of low moonlight illuminated the man's face. There was nothing but a blackened wound and dried blood in the place of where one of his ears should have been. It was the man whose ear she had cursed off earlier. His mangled body was a testament to the damage they had done to him.
"A pathetic little guard." Bellatrix shoved the tip of her wand against the man's throat. Her manic eyes glittered in the low light as she hissed a spell that made the man gurgle harder before he fell to the ground, motionless. Bellatrix's mouth curved into a smile before she turned and began sauntering off, humming a disjointed tune.
Hermione looked over to Malfoy. His body was nearly trembling with tension. He held his wand so tightly that his knuckles had gone white while his other hand gripped the tree beside him just as hard. He was coiled as tight as a snake, poised to spring forward. The sudden onslaught of fury that washed over her felt almost foreign. She barely felt anything from him, and the sudden wave of it was so overwhelming that she, too, nearly trembled under the boiling tension of it.
Her hand on his chest had him turning to her. His eyes were wide, his entire expression unhinged. Gone was his usual stoic, reserved self. It was as though every compartment he kept his emotions carefully folded away in had been thrown open, releasing a torrent of chaos.
"We can't—" She cut off as he tried to lunge forward regardless, stopped only by her throwing her weight against him. The grass they tumbled down onto cushioned most of the sound of their fall, yet her heart was still firmly lodged in her throat as she clamped down a hand over his mouth. The air was still around them, and she imagined Bellatrix paused mid-step, looking around as she tried to discern whether the noise had been that of a creature or not. She could hear little besides the pounding of her heart and the sharp breaths that Malfoy took through his flared nostrils.
"Please," she begged him silently, her mouth forming the word although no sound came out.
She tried to focus all of her energy on listening for even the whisper of a sound that would signal Bellatrix's approach, but Malfoy wrenched her arms off of him, sending her tumbling down beside him. He lunged up again, and she followed, wand at the ready as she imagined Bellatrix poised before the thick bush that blocked her view.
She spotted Bellatrix far ahead, still sauntering toward the cottage as she had been and appearing entirely unperturbed.
"Please," she grasped Malfoy's arm before he could tear through the bush after her. "We'll come back. I swear it—"
At that, he stopped to look at her. "No." The word was as chock-full of anger as the rest of him, undercut by a raw emotion that she hadn't the time to place.
"There are at least a dozen of them, not including her. We're only two people— we'll be killed. We need backup—"
"Fuck your bloody Order!" His voice raised, and she cut a panicked look back toward the cottage. Bellatrix was barking orders at the men and the sound of her voice that drifted to Hermione had chills settling in Hermione's spine. Malfoy's eyes continued to cut between her and Bellatrix. He was calculating, and she realized she was losing.
She snatched him by both arms. "We'll come back," she said, her voice ringing with finality.
Before he could protest, she disapparated them.
They landed in the sitting room. His rage was all the more prominent in the light, and Hermione realized that he looked almost as manic as Bellatrix herself.
"What the fuck, Granger!" His voice boomed in the confines of the cabin, and she fought the urge to shrink back. "You could have splinched me—"
"But I didn't!" she snapped. "You were about to risk both of our lives!"
He ground his teeth together, still snarling at her.
"I meant it when I said we can go back." She kept her voice even despite the way he loomed over her, a stormcloud of rage.
"You want to call in the bloody Order that'll use nothing but pathetic stunners to take them down!" His pale skin was flushed an angry red. "We have to end this— end them—"
"I know," Hermione answered. "I have a plan."
He stewed silently, but seemed to be giving her an opening for an explanation. "Trust me," she said, folding a hand over where he clenched his wand once again. She met his eyes and held them, not backing away from the pure rage she still caught in them. "Please."
His nod was short and nearly imperceptible, but she caught it nonetheless.
"That night— our last night at Hogwarts— when you-" she forced out the words, not missing the way his expression twitched at the mention. "When you guided them in. Do you still have—"
His eyes sharpened as they met hers. "Yes," he nodded in understanding. "I do."
X
Diagon Alley was shrouded in a silence that she knew could be attributed to something beyond the late hour. Many of its late-night haunts were shuttered, and nary a stray flicker of candlelight illuminating a window could be seen. It was an unsettling feeling that went beyond the ball of tension that near-constantly roiled in the pit of her stomach. This was the true cost of war — silence. Emptiness.
"Down here." She ducked down an alleyway and he followed her silently. When they emerged on the other end, their destination loomed in front of them.
When shrouded in darkness, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes appeared almost sinister. The large mounted mask of a grinning jester that hung over the storefront appeared to be twisted in a cruel smile, looming over them knowingly. The disillusionment spell she'd cast over them felt thin and inadequate in its eerie presence and her neck strained as she kept looking around them, trying to spot anyone looming in the shadows as they rushed to the door.
"I'm certain that they favored traps over complicated locking spells," she said as she analyzed the spells on the door. "We'll need to tread carefully." It took only moments for her to break through the spells and wards, and they were soon stepping into the darkened shop.
Inside was even more ominous than the store's facade. They were surrounded by darkness and the hums and whirs of various gadgets. For a moment, the sounds transported her back to the moment she'd stepped into Dumbledore's office on that fateful night that everything had changed. The noises haunted her with every step she took, a perverse soundtrack to their movements.
Whir. Hiss. Click. She reached out to grasp Malfoy's hand and pull him closer only to find him so close that she could nearly feel his breath.
She spotted him raising his wand and snatched it down. "We can't summon it — they're the type to have the items themselves hexed as well."
They continued to take careful steps forward. Hermione had risked only the dimmest light on her wand that illuminated only what was directly in front of them. The noise of the whirs and ticks felt as though they were dimly growing louder as they moved forward, matching the heavy thuds of her heartbeat. Cloaked in darkness, the store's contents were dark and menacing, looming over them as they passed by in a way that only hastened the chills that ran down Hermione's spine. They were slow in proceeding, and it felt as though a full hour had passed by the time she stopped in front of a display case. She lifted her wand to illuminate the neatly packed rows of pouches within. The pouches were the same inky black shade as the powder contained within them, shining softly in the light.
She cast a spell that revealed a number of hexes and wards surrounding them. Wordlessly, Malfoy helped her dismantle them. They were soon gathering pouches and dropping them into her small satchel. The case was nearly empty by the time they finished and were turning to leave. They took slow, careful steps back toward the exit. Every move Hermione made overly cautious, as if—
The whirring and buzzing stopped.
They both froze, turning to each other with wide, panicked eyes.
The shop burst into a sea of blinding color, the darkness ripped away abruptly. They charged toward the main doors as explosions of light and color shattered around them. The sparks stung her skin as they descended upon her, and a wet, slimy substance poured down upon them from an unidentifiable source. It clung thickly to her skin, and when it stuck to her face she could barely wipe it away from her eyes. She stumbled and nearly fell. She felt around for Malfoy, managing only a strangled noise as the liquid clung to her lips when she opened them. Chaos continued to ravage the shop, descending into ominous vibrations that made her tremble even more violently. Her hands slid and then stuck to what she touched, and she tripped and fell when she blindly tried to scramble forward. She tried to stand again, yelping when she felt an iron grip latch onto her arm and lurch her back to her feet.
"Come!" Malfoy shouted over the chaos.
She felt rather than saw when they stumbled outside, feeling the cool night air on her face. She managed only a few steps before something wrapped around her ankle and jerked her backward violently. She heard Malfoy curse as he wrestled with it while she desperately dug her fingers into the cobblestone and tried to spell away the substance in her eyes. When Malfoy finally slashed at it successfully, she saw a vine of sorts that had slimy and bulbous skin flop to the ground just as she managed to clear the substance from her eyes. The vine leaked a thick yellow substance onto the cobblestone that mingled with the slime that still seeped out of the shop.
There were several cracks of apparition nearby followed by an "Oi!"
Hermione saw only a flash of red hair before Malfoy snatched her arm and disapparated them.
19 will be up next week. Thank you all for your patience and support - every one of your reviews means the world to me.
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